Raising Kane (Rough Riders #9)(59)

“You should go in and see Doc instead of self-medicating.”


“I will. If I’m not better by the time I’m done with this cycle of antibiotics.” She stood and started clearing supper plates. “Who wants a brownie?”


“Me!”


She looked at her dad. “How about you?”


“No thanks.”


Odd. Brownies were his favorite dessert.


Hayden stuffed his entire brownie in his mouth and raced away from the table.


“Something on your mind, Dad?”


“Is it me?”


“Is what you?”


“The reason that you don’t feel comfortable having McKay in the house overnight while I’m here?”


Her face flamed. “It’s not that. Kane wouldn’t have been here if I hadn’t been sick. I didn’t call him.


Hayden did.” She pointed at him. “And you don’t get to act pissy about Kane showing up to help out, because if I recall, you called him and insisted he check up on me at my office.”


He sighed. “True. It’s just…it seems…”


“What?”


“Forget it.”


“No, Dad, tell me.”


His voice dropped. “I don’t care that you’re sleeping with him, Gigi. You’re a grown woman. You’ve sacrificed your personal life for both Hayden and me the last few years. While I appreciate it, I don’t want to be an excuse for you.”


Confused, she said, “An excuse for what?”


“For you to act like you don’t need the happiness that only comes from an intimate relationship.


While your mother and I were mismatched from the start, when I met Linda, it was like the clouds had lifted and I was finally standing in the sun.”


Ginger reached for his hand. Her dad rarely talked about the woman he’d married after moving to Wyoming. Ginger had only met Linda once, but she’d made her father happy. She knew it wasn’t a coincidence that his arthritis had taken a turn for the worse the year following Linda’s death from cancer.


That’d also been around the same time Ginger had given birth to Hayden. Her father had reached out to her and she’d grabbed for him with both hands and hadn’t looked back. She couldn’t imagine her dad not being in her life.


“What I’m saying is I’ve had my happiness. I’d never stand in the way of yours.”


He pushed away from the table and left her staring after him, wondering if that was his stamp of approval as far as Kane McKay went.


Chapter Fifteen


An unexpected winter storm blew in. Ginger paced, watching the snow pile up outside her office window. At one-thirty she sent Rissa home before the Wyoming Highway Patrol closed the roads. At three she called the Sundance retirement home, making sure they had room to keep her dad overnight. The change in accommodations didn’t bother him; he’d dealt with unpredictable Wyoming weather much longer than she had.


Hayden’s school field trip to Casper caused her the most concern. The potential for fifty kids and four teachers stranded in an old school bus out in the middle of the prairie? Not good.


When she heard on the radio that I-25 had been closed from Casper to Wheatland, she knew Hayden wouldn’t be coming home, which alleviated her safety worries. She just hoped he wouldn’t eat dairy, or shellfish, or strawberries. She hoped he wouldn’t run around like a madman and need to use his inhaler. If she could just talk to him, tell him she loved him, tell him to be careful, maybe she could stop wearing a hole in the carpet in her office.


At four o’clock the principal called and assured her the kids were fine, tucked away in a hotel in Casper. Here she was freaking out and Hayden was probably having the time of his life, hanging out with his buddies with no parents around.


Still, she worried because Kane hadn’t texted her back. So much of his time was spent out in the elements, in places where no one could get in touch with him. Hopefully he was hunkered down in his trailer with his dog, riding the storm out.


Ginger had no choice but to outwait the blizzard in her office. She checked the food situation. Four packages of instant oatmeal, six packages of Cup o’ Noodles, half a package of Fig Newtons, two protein bars and a Snickers. She ripped open the candy bar wrapper. Her first course would be chocolate.


And truthfully, it wouldn’t be bad being snowed in. She had a couch and a blanket. She could work as late as she wanted without guilt about neglecting her family. If she got bored, she could watch TV shows on Hulu. If she got lonely…no cure for that. She spent so little time by herself in recent years she really didn’t know what to do.


She’d just tossed the empty Snickers wrapper when a loud bang sounded at the front of the building.


The strong gusts had probably blown the door open. She left her office and started down the stairs only to see a large hooded figure lurking in the foyer. She screamed.


The head whipped around and the hood fell back. Kane snapped, “Jesus, Ginger. You scared the hell out of me.”


“You? What about me? I’m here alone and then I see the abominable snowman lurking in my foyer!”