Delores Fossen - Lone Star Nights

“So am I,” Lucky agreed. “Fix this.”

Bernie looked around, clearly hesitating. “I guess if you refuse, I can have Child Protective Services step in.”

All right, they were getting somewhere.

Or maybe not.

“Of course, that’s not ideal,” Bernie went on. “The children could end up being placed in separate homes, and foster care can be dicey.” He scratched his head. “Dixie Mae was so sure you two would agree to this since it was her last wish.”

Her grandmother had no doubt told Bernie to make sure he reminded them of that a time or two. Especially after what Dixie Mae had said to Lucky: A man wouldn’t be much of a man to deny an old dying woman her last wish.

“I smell a rat,” Lucky mumbled.

So did Cassie. Dixie Mae had practically duped Lucky into saying yes, and the old gal had figured Cassie wouldn’t just walk away, leaving him to hold the bag.

Damn it.

Cassie couldn’t just walk away. But that didn’t mean she was giving up without a fight. She wasn’t in any position to raise children. Especially not with Lucky.

Heck, who was she kidding?

He’d probably be a lot better at it than she would be. At least he wasn’t an emotional mess right now and hadn’t just checked out of a glorified loony bin. As a therapist she probably should have considered a better term for it, but loony bin fit. Too bad she hadn’t had her grandmother there with her so she could have had the chance of talking Dixie Mae into making other arrangements for the children.

“How do we get around this?” Cassie asked Bernie at the same moment Lucky said to him, “Fix this shit. And I don’t mean fix it by putting some innocent kids in foster care. Fix it the right way. Find their next of kin. I want them in a home with loving people who know the right way to take care of them.”

Good idea. Except Bernie shook his head again. “I started the search right after Dixie Mae came in. No luck so far, but I’ll keep looking. In the meantime, Cassie and you can take temporary custody, and if I can’t find any relatives, I’ll ask around and see if someone else will take them.”

That wasn’t ideal, far from it, because “asking around” didn’t seem to have a deadline attached to it. “How long would we have them?” she asked.

“A couple of days at most,” Bernie said.

Perhaps that was BS, but Cassie latched on to it and looked at Lucky. “Maybe we can figure out something to do with them just for a day or two?”

Oh, he so wanted to say no. She could see it in his eyes. Probably because he didn’t want to stay anywhere near Spring Hill. It was no secret that Lucky had a serious case of wanderlust. Along with the regular kind of lust.

“Two days is too long,” Lucky said, obviously still mulling this over and perhaps looking for an escape route.

Two days, the exact amount of time she had to do something about those feather-chasing cats at the strip club. Cassie tried very hard not to think bad thoughts about her grandmother, but she wished the woman had gone over all these details before she’d passed away.

“You’ll need to work out something faster than two days,” Lucky insisted. “I’ve got to be at a rodeo day after tomorrow.”

Yes, she had things to do, as well. Things she didn’t want to do, but she wouldn’t be able to wiggle out of them the way that Lucky was trying to wiggle out of this.

“I can try,” Bernie said, not sounding especially hopeful. Too bad, because Cassie needed him to be hopeful. More than that, she needed him to succeed.

“I’ll call the Bluebonnet Inn,” Bernie added, “and get the girls a room there.”

Lucky seemed to approve of that, but Cassie wasn’t so sure. She, too, had planned to stay at the Bluebonnet Inn, mainly because it was the only hotel in Spring Hill. That meant Lucky would likely expect her to be with the children 24/7.

But Cassie wasn’t having this all put on her shoulders. Nope. She was packing enough baggage and problems as it was so she’d also get Lucky a room at the inn.

“Where are the children?” Cassie asked.

Bernie checked his watch. “They should be here any minute now.” He pushed a button on an old-fashioned intercom system. “Wilhelmina, when the Compton kids arrive—”

“They’re already here,” Wilhelmina interrupted. “Want me to send them back?”

“Sure.” Bernie took his finger off the intercom button and drew in a long breath, as if he might need some extra air.

A moment later, Cassie saw why.

The air sort of vanished when the door opened and Cassie saw one of the children in question. And this time, she wasn’t the one to say that one all-encompassing word. It was Lucky.

Shit.

They had apparently inherited custody of a call girl.

CHAPTER FOUR

THERE WERE ONLY a handful of times in Lucky’s life when he’d been rendered speechless, and this was one of them.

The “girl” walking up the hall toward him was indeed a girl. Technically. She was female, nearly as tall as Cassie, and she was wearing a black skirt and top. Or perhaps that was paint. Hard to tell. The skirt was short and skintight, more suited for, well, someone older.

“This is Mackenzie Compton,” Bernie said.

Cassie blew out a breath that sounded like one of relief. Lucky had no idea what she was relieved about so he just stared at her.

“This isn’t a child,” Cassie explained, relief in her voice, too. “So obviously there’s no need for us to take custody.”

Right. “What Cassie just said,” Lucky told Bernie.

However, Bernie burst that bubble of hope right off. “Mackenzie just turned thirteen.”

Maybe ten years ago, she had. But she wasn’t thirteen now. “Can she prove that?” Lucky blurted out.

Mackenzie didn’t say a word. Didn’t have any reaction to that whatsoever. She just stood there looking like a both-arms-down Statue of Liberty who’d been vandalized with black spray paint. She had black hair, black nails, black lipstick and stared at them as if they were beings from another planet. Beings that she didn’t want to get to know.

Good. The feeling was mutual.

But thirteen?

“I can prove her age,” Bernie supplied. “I have her birth certificate and school records.” Bernie handed him a folder. “Her sister, Mia, is four.”

Four. Well, hell. Now, that was a child, though he still wasn’t convinced Mackenzie was a teenager. Maybe if she scrubbed off that half inch of makeup, there’d be some trace of a girl, but right now he wasn’t seeing it.

However, he was seeing something. An extra set of legs. Either Mackenzie had four of them, a pair significantly shorter than the ones wearing that black skirt, or her little sister was hiding behind her.

Mackenzie took one step to the side, and there she was. A child. A real one. No goth clothes for her. She was wearing a pink dress with flowers and butterflies on it, and her blond hair had been braided into pigtails. She had a ragged pink stuffed pig in the crook of her arm.

If there had been a definition of “scared kid” in the dictionary, this kid’s photo would have been next to it. Mia was clinging to her sister’s skirt, her big blue eyes shiny with tears that looked ready to spill right down her cheeks.

Lucky took a big mental step back at the same time that he took an actual step forward. He didn’t have any paternal instincts, none, but he knew a genuinely sad girl when he saw one, and it cut him to the core. He went down on one knee so he could be at her eye level.

“I’m Lucky McCord,” he said, hoping to put her at ease. It didn’t work. Mia clung even tighter, though there wasn’t much fabric in Mackenzie’s skirt to cling to.

Mia. Such a little name for such a little girl.