Texas Woman by Joan Johnston

Author:Joan Johnston
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780440334651
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2003-09-30T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

SLOAN SENSED SOMEONE IN HER BEDROOM WITH her and rolled over in the large feather bed. As she slowly sat up she saw Rip standing at the foot of her bed, silhouetted against the last rays of the sun.

She had only meant to rest for a moment, but she must have fallen asleep. She realized that the bed was no place from which to conduct the arguments she had formulated, but Rip didn't give her a chance to get up before he began speaking.

“Well, well, well. The prodigal daughter has returned.”

Sloan bristled at his smug tone. She rose from the bed and stood beside it, tucking her gingham shirt into her trousers.

“It's about time someone showed some common sense around here,” he said.

She leaned down and tugged on a Wellington, then had to search before she found the other boot under the bed. While she was pulling it on she asked, “Where's Luke?”

“Don't know. Don't care.”

Sloan's eyes narrowed in speculation. “That's a new tune you're singing. I must say I like the sound of it, though.”

Rip chuckled. “Don't get your hopes up. He'll be back.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“That boy hates my guts.” Rip took his time getting to the ladder-back chair in the corner of Sloan's room. After he had settled himself in it, he leaned his hands on the handle of his cane and said, “Don't look so surprised. Surely you guessed everything wasn't honey and roses between me and my son.”

“No. No, I hadn't . . . exactly.” Sloan hopped up on the foot of the bed and let her heels dangle over the bedstead. “Why does he hate you?”

“It's a long story, and not a very pleasant one. I'd as soon not repeat it. Suffice it to say, there are things that happened that I'm not proud of. Things that hurt Luke's mother.”

“Is there anything you can do to mend fences?”

“No. Luke's mother Charity died a few years ago.”

A look of such great longing, mixed with pain, came across Rip's face that Sloan nearly got up to go to him. In another instant, the strained look was gone and he was in control again.

“There's nothing I can do to help her now,” he said with a sigh of regret. “And Luke isn't going to let me forget it.”

“But there's something you can do to help him. Is that it?” Sloan said. “Is that why you want to give him Three Oaks?”

“Something like that,” Rip admitted. “It isn't that I wouldn't have wanted to help him anyway. After all, he is my son.”

“How do you know he's actually your son?”

To her surprise Rip grinned. “Charity made sure he knew about my birthmark. Luke has the same one.”

“I never knew—”

“It isn't in a place that shows.”

Sloan had never thought of her father as an ordinary person with ordinary flaws. He had always been someone larger than life, the bedrock of Three Oaks, the stubborn, opinionated head of the household.

Now she realized he was only a man, one who had made a terrible mistake once upon a time.

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