Susan Fox - To Claim a Wife

The sparrows that had built a nest under the crude roof burst out and shot through the open space overhead into the sky. If any other animals had moved in, they’d already fled. Caitlin made a cursory check for snakes, then carefully checked the old fireplace chimney.

Because she hadn’t been there to light a fire in the past five years, at least one family of birds was nesting in the old adobe. She heard their flutters and chirps, but didn’t disturb them. She walked around the limited confines, then took up a place at the deep dip in the wall where a window had once been.

The magic of the place began to ease over her. Thoughts about her father, Reno and Beau began to crowd in, but they seemed manageable here.

Her father’s demand for a blood test explained his treatment of her over the years. Jess Bodine had been uncompromising on the subject of loyalty and fidelity—to him. He’d proved at the inquest how little loyalty he’d felt toward his daughter. Though Caitlin had been too young to know about such things when her mother was alive, it wouldn’t surprise her to discover that her father was the one who’d been unfaithful.

Had her mother been unfaithful? A man as proud as her father couldn’t have tolerated even the hint that his wife had cheated on him. Clearly, he’d never been able to separate his feelings for his daughter from his suspicion that she might not be his.

The fact that he’d treated her so poorly was inexcusable. A child—even if it had been her—shouldn’t have to bear the brunt of a man’s anger toward his wife.

Eventually, her thoughts turned to Beau. Beau had been a charmer and a daredevil. He’d also possessed a wide streak of cruelty that he’d often displayed with animals and with her. But he’d also been clever enough to conceal the cruel things he’d done from Jess and from Reno.

She doubted Reno had ever known about his brother’s dark side. Beau had idolized his older brother and had behaved well around Reno to impress him. Privately, Beau had reveled in the fact that his mother favored him over her older son. Sheila Duvall Bodine had a penchant for spoiling her youngest, giving him anything he wanted, laughing over his pranks and laying into anyone who might take exception to anything her favorite said or did.

Caitlin had never been impressed by Beau’s charm or his handsome looks. When he managed to skillfully play to her father’s desire for a son and completely dominated Jess’s time and attention, she’d hated Beau for upstaging her. Her father finally had the male child he’d resented not having, and he’d completely lost interest in his daughter.

It had been terrible to see her father bond so instantly and completely to his new wife and her ten-year-old son. The three of them became the close, devoted family Caitlin had hungered all her life to be a part of. It’d been agony to be excluded from that.

Reno was ten years older than Beau and he’d run his family’s ranch for years. Caitlin noticed right away that he’d also been excluded from the tight unit his mother and brother had formed with Jess. Nevertheless, Jess had treated Reno as an equal, and their relationship had been a good, solid one.

It had never seemed to trouble Reno that his mother and brother’s lives were bound so obsessively close to Jess’s. He’d had his own life and a strong self-image that seemed to make him impervious to the trials and heartaches of lesser mortals.

Caitlin had been instantly attracted to that. Reno seemed strong and tough and very nearly indestructible. He’d also paid attention to her.

Not a lot—he made sure he kept her at arm’s length. But when he was around he saw to it that she was included. He made it a point to draw her out in conversation or to make some kind remark to her or on her behalf. She’d noticed immediately how much better her father treated her when Reno was around, and she’d always looked forward to Reno’s visits.

By the time she’d turned seventeen, she’d had a crush on him. She must have been too obvious about it, because it was about that time that Reno’s attitude toward her began to cool. She’d suffered the loss of his attention, suffered the misery of knowing that the desperate flaw inside her had driven away another person who’d been important in her life. Reno’s heart had closed to her almost as completely as her father’s had, and it had devastated her to realize how alike he and her father were.

A year later when Beau was killed, Reno had stood solidly against her. He’d taken the lead in ostracizing her, refusing to let her speak to him, then having her barred from Beau’s funeral. She was certain he’d played a major part in her exile, though it had been his mother who’d demanded that.

If Sheriff Juno hadn’t stepped in on her behalf, she was certain she would have been arrested and jailed. The inquest had been traumatic enough to go through. The fact that the testimony of witnesses had absolved her of wrongdoing made no impression on Jess or his wife, and certainly hadn’t on Reno, who’d not been present for some of the most critical testimony. All of them, along with Maddie, had turned their backs on her. In the face of such blame, Caitlin couldn’t have stayed on in Coulter City.

She’d taken her inheritance from her grandmother, who’d died several weeks before Beau, and wandered for months like a lost soul. She’d ended up in Montana, working on a dude ranch that had recently been converted into a summer camp for troubled teens. Though she’d signed on as a horse wrangler and taught several of the kids to ride, emotionally she’d fit right in with the ones who’d been sent there by social workers or the courts.

Being around the kids who’d come through the SC Ranch helped her to come to terms with the emotional deprivation she’d grown up with. As painful and lonely as her childhood had been, the kids who came to the SC had lived through even tougher times. Her own emotional abuse and neglect seemed mild compared to the abuse several of the ranch kids had suffered. She understood their anger and she’d learned how to manage her own by watching many of them struggle to master theirs. The ones who’d failed left the ranch with only a remote chance of ever making a decent life for themselves. Those were the kids—the failures—who’d terrified her into getting a grip on herself.

Coming back to Coulter City and the Broken B had been the severe test that had jarred her into realizing how far she still had to go.

The peace of the old homestead eventually stilled her troubled thoughts. It was late afternoon before she saddled the gelding and led him out of the lean-to. She mounted and started back to the ranch headquarters at a sedate walk.

CHAPTER THREE

RENO watched Caitlin ride to the stable. She held herself erect, her eyes on the barn as if she didn’t notice the few ranch hands at work in the corrals.

Now he noted the horse she rode—Jess’s favorite—and that she’d used Jess’s saddle. He bit back his irritation. There hadn’t been many horses at the stable that day. Not many extra saddles in the tack room either. Caitlin was an excellent horsewoman and a good judge of horseflesh. The black gelding was one of the best horses still at the stable, so her choice might have been more a natural one than a symbolic one.

Why he suddenly wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt aggravated him.

But then, he also had mixed feelings about the outcome of the blood test. Now that he knew Jess had doubted his daughter’s paternity, he had to admit that Caitlin didn’t favor Jess much at all. He’d heard she was the image of her mother, and she must be because she resembled Jess so little.

It was a fresh surprise for him to realize that he didn’t want her to lose every claim to Jess’s estate. She’d been raised as Jess’s daughter, whatever the circumstances of her birth. Jess should never have made her inheritance conditional on something she’d been innocent of.