Ellen James - My Montana Home

He turned away without answering. Cassie had to admit that maybe Jolie was right. Not so very long ago, Bobby had asked Megan to marry him. She’d flatly refused. He’d asked her again—she’d turned him down again. She’d told him that she didn’t believe one word of his love, his declaration that he was ready to be a husband and a father. “Grow up, Bobby Maxwell,” she’d said witheringly. “Grow up, but just leave me out of it.” And today, if Bobby had actually proposed again…fact was, Megan already had too much practice saying no to him.

“Bobby,” Thea said, her voice still gentle, “you know what’s really still eating at Megan, don’t you? The way you reacted that day—the day you learned she was going to have a baby. So what you really need to do is convince her somehow that, well, that you really are ecstatic about the whole thing.”

“It’s more complicated than that,” Jolie said thoughtfully. “It’s Bobby’s entire history that has Megan running scared. Somehow we have to convince her that he really has changed—”

“Don’t you think,” Cassie said, “that this is between Bobby and Megan, and there’s not a whole lot we can do about it?”

“That,” said Jolie, “is a cop-out.”

Cassie gave a sigh. So maybe Jolie was right about that, too. But their kid brother’s “entire history” really was a complex snarl. His teenage years of drinking and rebelling against every possible sign of authority, especially if the sign happened to come from their father. It didn’t seem likely that three sisters, no matter how well meaning, could sort out Bobby’s problems.

Driven by that unaccountable restlessness, Cassie pushed open the gate to the little graveyard. She was drawn almost against her will to the granite headstones at the far end. They were just a bit bigger and grander than the ones surrounding them. Even in death, the Maxwell clan had always needed to proclaim its preeminence. Cassie stopped before one of these Maxwell monuments. Helen, beloved wife and mother… How inadequate the words seemed. They didn’t capture any of Cassie’s memories: Helen’s liveliness and irreverence, her ability to stand up to her dogmatic husband without ever giving a doubt of her adoration for him.

Cassie’s fingers curled against her palms as the old emotions raced through her, among them the grief and anger first experienced by a sixteen-year-old girl who’d lost her mother. Why did you leave us? If only you’d stayed here, alive and well…surely then Bobby wouldn’t have made such a mess of his life. Surely then I wouldn’t be so confused, wondering all the time about my own life…

Cassie took a deep breath. Impossible, of course, to expect that her mother would have been able to soothe every hurt, calm every fear. Now that Cassie was a mother herself, she knew that much for certain. But still the protests and the longings rose within her.

She’d hardly noticed that her sisters had come to join her.

“Will you look at that,” Thea murmured.

“Sometimes Dad shows a soft spot,” Jolie said, “in spite of himself. He was carrying those flowers earlier this morning, trying to hide them from us.”

Cassie gazed at the flowers that had been laid fresh on her mother’s grave. Daisies and violets with a few sprigs of sweet william. They had been Helen’s favorites. She’d always liked to say that the Maxwells had gotten too far above themselves, with their taste for roses and orchids. She would stick with the simple blooms…violets and daisies. It seemed that her husband, Robert Maxwell Sr., had not forgotten.

“Sometimes,” Cassie said in a low voice, “he can really get to you.”

“Talking about me behind my back?” came Robert’s gruff tone.

Cassie gave a start. Robert Sr. had appeared at her elbow, young Zak in tow. That would teach her not to get lost in her own thoughts.

“Hello, Dad,” Jolie said, apparently unperturbed. “Now and then we do admire your better nature.”

“Surprised you even think I have one,” Robert grumbled. “I know Cassandra doubts it.”

Cassie was starting to get that claustrophobic feeling, the one she got around her family.

“Dad, this is hardly the place for Zak,” she muttered. She took her son’s hand. “We’re going back to the ranch—”

“Running away,” Robert said disapprovingly. “Just as always, Cassandra. And this is a fine place for my grandson.” He took Zak’s other hand. The little boy went willingly with him, slipping away from Cassie. “It’s too bad,” Robert said to Zak, “that you never knew your grandma. She would have thought you were the best thing since glazed doughnuts.”

“Doughnuts,” Zak echoed with a quick, shy grin. “Really?”

Something twisted inside Cassie—a love for her son so boundless that it hurt. But there were other, less admirable emotions, too: jealousy and resentment. Worry that she could all too easily lose Zak to her father’s power and charm. Sadness at the fact that her father had never lavished on her the love and approval he gave to Zak. She glanced back at the gate, automatically judging the distance of her escape. A few strides, and she could be out of here, away from everything. Away from her father…

But then she saw Bobby. Her brother had stepped just inside the gate. He, too, was watching Robert and Zak. The expression on his face was shuttered, as if he was doing everything he could not to feel—not to care. Cassie could guess what he was thinking. Once upon a time, he had been the much-indulged Maxwell heir. In their father’s eyes, he had been unable to do any wrong. All expectations had been high. Until, of course, Bobby had started rebelling against the expectations. After that, his fall from grace had been swift, indeed.

Now Cassie gazed at her brother, and could imagine his own jealousy and pain. Robert Sr. had a new heir in whom to place his hopes, it seemed: William Zachary Warren, a Maxwell in everything but name…

“Zak,” Cassie said more sharply than she’d intended. “Come along. We’re leaving.”

“I don’t want to go,” Zak answered solemnly.

That earned him a glimmer of a smile from Robert. Cassie’s fingers clenched again.

“We’re not going back to the ranch, after all,” she said as calmly as possible. “We’ll head straight back to Billings.”

“I thought you were going to stay all day,” Thea said, drawing her eyebrows together. “I’ve planned a big family dinner for us.”

“That’s wonderful of you, but—”

“I was counting on it myself,” Jolie said. “Seems like we never get the chance to be together.”

“Next time,” Cassie said in a light tone. “We’ll plan on it then.”

“You’re always telling me that,” Thea said, the slightest hint of exasperation in her voice. “We’ll plan on it…we’ll do it later. Dad’s right, Cassie. You’re always running away. But I wish you wouldn’t anymore. I want…I’d like it if we could be a real family for once.”

Cassie stared at her younger sister. “A real family,” she echoed, not as steadily as she would have liked. “Oh, we’re that, all right. We have all the requirements—wounds that won’t heal, pain that won’t be forgiven…”

Thea gazed back, her own expression tight. “Are you implying, Cassie, that I haven’t forgiven?”

“You’d have every right to be angry at me still. Because you’re right, aren’t you? I did run away all those years ago. I left you with…with everything.” Cassie made a wide gesture. Only then did she collect herself, stopping before she could say too much. Her son was glancing with far too much interest from one sister to the other.

“Come on, Zak,” she said, holding out her hand.

“Wait,” said Jolie. “Just stay, Cassie. We need time together—all of us. Isn’t that true, Dad?”