The Calamity Janes: Cassie & Karen. Sherryl Woods

the feeling he didn’t tell you before he hitchhiked out here.”

      “He what?”

      “Pete gave him a ride on his way back from Stella’s,” Cole explained. Then he assured her, “He’s okay, Cassie.”

      “That’s not the point. I’m going to wring his scrawny little neck. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

      “Take your time and cool off a little. Keep reminding yourself that there’s been no harm done.”

      “Don’t tell me what to do where my son’s concerned,” she snapped, and slammed down the phone.

      “He’s with Cole?” her mother asked.

      “Oh, yes.”

      “Should I come with you?”

      She shook her head. “No. Cole was right about one thing. I do need to calm down before I get out there. No telling what I might say.”

      Cassie made it to the Double D in less than the twenty minutes it usually took. The front door was standing open as if she were expected, so she went straight in. Oblivious to the grandeur of the antiques that generations of Davises had collected over the years, she went in search of her son.

      When she finally found the two of them in Cole’s office, heads bent over the computer keyboard, her blood ran cold. Jake looked happier than she’d seen him in ages. Just thinking about the bond the two of them were obviously forming made her knees go weak. She had to lean against the doorjamb for support.

      “Look right natural together, don’t they?” Frank Davis remarked, slipping up quietly to stand at her shoulder in the doorway.

      Something in his voice alerted her. She stepped away from the room and turned to study the man who had probably come between her and Cole.

      Frank Davis had a powerful build. His shock of dark-brown hair was streaked with gray now, but there was still plenty of spark in his blue eyes, and he wore that same arrogant, superior expression that had intimidated her as a girl. Oddly she discovered that he didn’t scare her now. She met his gaze without flinching.

      “What are you saying?” she asked in a cool, deliberate tone.

      Her reaction seemed to amuse him. “I’m saying I know.”

      “Know what?”

      He smirked. “One look is all it takes to know that boy is my grandson. Even if your mama hadn’t told me the truth years ago, I would have seen it right off.”

      Despite her determination not to let the man get to her, Cassie felt faint for the second time in just a few minutes. This time she had to will herself not to lean against the wall for support.

      “My mother told you?” Her mother had never said a single word to Cassie about her suspicions, but she had discussed them with Cole’s father? What had she been thinking?

      “She thought I had a right to know.”

      More likely her mother had been desperate for advice from the one person she’d assumed had as big a stake in keeping the secret as she did. Oh, Mom, what have you done? Cassie thought as she stared into that confident gaze. And why didn’t you warn me?

      “Does Cole know?”

      “Not unless he’s figured it out in the last half hour.”

      “Why haven’t you told him?” Understanding dawned. “You haven’t hold him because even now you don’t think I’m good enough for him, because you don’t want him to know that I had his child. You’re afraid he’ll insist on marrying me. That’s why you came between us years ago, sending him back to school, then getting someone to write him a note saying I was breaking it off for good. That was you, wasn’t it?”

      Color rose in Frank’s cheeks, but he didn’t deny the accusation. “You two were way too young to get involved. Your mother and I did what we thought was best.”

      His words delivered yet another blow. The two of them had conspired, even before they had known about the pregnancy? She felt as if she were standing on a slippery slope and beginning to skid. Nothing seemed certain anymore.

      “My mother?” she repeated, needing to understand, praying she was mistaken. “What did she have to do with it?”

      “Who do you think wrote the note that Cole got? And who kept his note from you? No way I could keep Berta Smith from delivering it. She takes her duties at the post office real serious. But your mama got it out of the box and ripped it up.”

      “Oh, my God,” she whispered, brokenhearted at the thought of the betrayal that had changed not just her life and Cole’s but their son’s, as well. Maybe they wouldn’t have married if Cole had known about the pregnancy, but they’d never had a chance to decide things for themselves. Each had been convinced of the other’s betrayal. As a result the choices had been taken out of their hands.

      “Well, the lies are over now,” Frank said, a complacent expression settling on his face. “Cole will know about his son soon enough, and if I know my boy, he’ll be furious that you kept such a secret from him. He’ll fight you for custody.”

      Cassie felt sick to her stomach as she realized that even now the man was scheming against her. “That’s what you’re counting on, isn’t it? That he’ll reject me but claim Jake?”

      His eyes glittered with satisfaction. “That’s exactly right. You won’t stand a chance of keeping the boy, not in this state.”

      If she hadn’t been filled with such white-hot fury, Cassie might have been chilled by his threat or by the triumphant expression on his face. Instead, poking him in the chest, she backed him up against the opposite wall, oblivious to the difference in their sizes, oblivious to anything beyond the outrage that his smug remark had stirred.

      “You will never take my boy from me,” she said in a low tone, praying it wouldn’t carry down the hall. “Never. Not if I have to see you in hell first.”

      She must not have gotten the right note of warning in her voice, because she could still hear Frank’s chuckle echoing after her as she stormed into Cole’s office to claim her son.