Chad was not sure what game the woman was playing. He was not certain he even wanted to find out. But he could not take his eyes off the girl that stood next to her. A miniature of the woman that he could never forget. His brain tried to make sense of it all.
She looked around the right age. Thirteen? Fourteen? Yeah, that would be about right. But how? They had been so careful to use protection that night, each and every time. Yeah, he knew that condoms weren't perfect. But ninety-nine-percent was damn near. Until you came face to face with that one in a hundred, and it was staring back at you with your eyes.
He heard the woman's question, her tone spoke louder than words, and her body language screamed her unease. Obviously, she was as surprised as he was to be confronted like this with her past.
He turned to the man instead, the ruthless bastard whose face filled the newspapers. "Afraid you made a wrong turn somewhere, fella," playing dumb seemed his best option, at least for now.
The man shook his head, "I don't think so. You are Buford Wilson, correct?"
He bristled at the name which, despite its long family history, had garnered him more than one black-eye until he learned to fight better than any of the other boys. "Chad. I prefer Chad. What can I help you with, Mister? We're not in the breeding business anymore, I'm afraid."
The man caught his wife's gaze, "This is about a mare you bred some time ago. Can we go inside and speak in private?" He turned the woman and spoke as if to a child or employee, "Cassandra, why don't you take Calypso for a walk? Look around the place. Do something; I don't know anything."
Chad's fists tightened at this side. Though why he should care how this man spoke to his wife was beyond him. One night. Fifteen years ago. It did not give him any rights. But looking at those green eyes, maybe it did.
He could see that the woman wanted to argue. Hell, so did he. Except that he wanted answers more than he wanted a fight. And it seemed that she wanted to protect her daughter, more than she wished to argue. At least at the moment.
"Horses are over in that field," he motioned with his head to the cleared grass next to the trees. "Just be careful of Inferno. He's the big red stallion and a mite territorial until he knows you."
She only nodded as she cast a look at her husband. Was it anger? Curiosity? Fear? He could not tell. It had been so long. And they had never really had the chance to get to know one another.
"Come on, Callie. Let's leave your father to his business. I'm sure he won't be long." Yeah, anger. No mistaking that in a woman's voice.
He frowned as he watched the woman and girl walk away. What did they want? And why now? It wasn't like he had the kinda money this man needed to buy his way out of trouble. If that was even possible. It wasn't as if his skills as a rancher, Marine, or bouncer would be much good to a man that could afford the best private detectives and security team there was.
"What do you want?" Time Mr. Nice was over. Best to cut to the chase now.
"The same thing you do. To protect them," replied the man, not moving from the bottom step.
"I don't see what that has to do with me."
"Don't you? I saw the way you looked at the girl. You saw it, too. You know exactly what this has to do with you," Chad heard the anger and betrayal in the man's voice, but there was something else there too.
The front porch was no place for this conversation. And as much as he did not want to taint his home, his grandparents', with the likes of this greedy and hubristic man, he did not want that little girl overhearing this conversation even more. "Come inside."
The man nodded. Was it his imagination, or did his shoulders slump as if in defeat or relief? He led the man into the house, through the living room and kitchen to the back porch as his grandmother called it. He had remodeled it into a study. He took his favorite seat.
The bay window looked out on to the back meadow. They could see Cassie and the girl standing by the old wooden fence. He studied them as he motioned for the man to take the old rocking chair next to him.
"What do you want?" he repeated his earlier question.
The man, too, stared out the bay window that he had installed to catch the sunrise each morning. The silence stretched out for a couple of minutes as if the man was no longer sure what to say. Chad waited. This was not his show. This man had come to him. Let him do the talking.
He could almost hear his grandfather's sage advice. But this was not a cattle sale. This was the life of the woman he had loved for nearly fifteen years. And unless he was mistaken, his daughter. But Chad knew in his heart that he wasn't. That girl out there was a Wilson. His child. The how did not matter. At least not to him.
"The prosecutors announce our plea bargain tomorrow."
Chad shrugged as if it did not matter to him and looked back out the window.
"I can't protect them."
"From what? And whom?"
The man shook his head. Chad noticed that he rubbed his hands together in his lap. "That does not matter. Let's just say neither my old business partners nor the government are getting what they want."
"And what do they want?"
"Money. The money, I don't have. But they don't believe that," he replied as he shifted in the chair. He turned and met Chad's gaze.
"I've lost one child to them. I don't want anything happening to them, too."
"Isn't that the government's responsibility? To put them in witness protection or something?" Chad did not want to examine too carefully why that idea did not appeal to him.
"I'm assuming you read the news. You know that my son was killed."
"Suicide, I think they said."
