LITMIR.BIZ

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the eyelash batting and actually slid her gaze toward Cassie, apparently noticing her for the first time.

      “Oh,” Wilhelmina remarked. “This must be about Dixie Mae. What’s going on anyway? Bernie wouldn’t get into it with me. Dixie Mae’s orders, he said. Dixie Mae thought I’d gossip about it. That’s what she said to Bernie—that I would gossip about it—so Bernie typed up the paperwork himself. Didn’t even know he could type.”

      Lucky gave her a flat look, and Cassie thought he might repeat his order to see Bernie. He didn’t. He stormed passed Wilhelmina, heading up the hall. There were several offices, but Lucky seemed to know exactly which one belonged to Bernie because he opened the door without knocking. Bernie was with someone all right.

      Cassie’s father.

      Mason-Dixon Weatherall.

      Cassie stumbled to a stop, her father’s and her gazes colliding like two unconnected burglars who’d broken into the same place at the same time. Instant guilt.

      Well, guilt on her part anyway.

      She’d distanced herself from him years ago because of the way he treated her, and he’d distanced himself from her because of the distancing. Cassie was betting, though, that her father felt no guilt whatsoever about that, what with his my-way-or-the-highway approach to life.

      It was the first time she’d seen him in nearly ten years, and her immediate thought—once she got past the question as to why he was there—was that he looked so old. He was still dyeing his hair the color of crude oil, still wearing clothes straight out of the sixties, but there were a lot more wrinkles on his face than there had been during their last meeting.

      Her father eased himself to his feet. “Cassie,” he greeted.

      “Dad,” Cassie greeted back with the same caution of those two theoretical burglars.

      Lucky volleyed some glances between them. “Does your dad have anything to do with this shit?”

      “Do you?” Cassie asked her father.

      “You’ll have to be more specific,” he snarled. “I deal with lots of different kinds of shit.”

      Bernie stood then, tugging off his glasses and dropping them onto the desk. He was about the same age as her father, but it was night and day in the apparel arena. Bernie was wearing conservative clothes similar to hers. Actually, the jacket was identical to hers.

      Something that made her frown.

      “Mason-Dixon doesn’t have anything to do with the letter Dixie Mae left the two of you,” Bernie clarified.

      “The old bat left you a letter, too?” But her father didn’t wait for them to confirm it. “She left me six fucking cats. Six! She arranged to have her driver drop them off at the club this morning. Them, and their litter boxes, which hadn’t been cleaned in days. They’re going to the pound as soon as I leave here.”

      “No,” Cassie practically shouted, and it got everyone’s attention. “Grandmother loved those cats.”

      Her father’s fisted hands went on his boney hips. “Then why the hell did she leave them to me?”

      Yet another of those questions that Cassie couldn’t answer. Maybe Dixie Mae had indeed gone insane.

      “I’ll take the cats,” Cassie volunteered. “Just give me a couple of days. I’ve got my own problems to work out.” A laundry list of them, and that list just kept growing.

      Her father looked at her. Then at Lucky. “Did you knock up Cassie or something?” he asked Lucky.

      While Lucky was howling out a loud “no,” Cassie fanned her hands toward her clothes. Then toward Lucky’s. “Does it look as if we could be lovers?” she asked.

      Her father did more glancing and shook his head. “Guess not.”

      It was yet something else that made her frown. Maybe she needed to start shopping at a different store.

      “So, you’ll take the cats?” her father clarified.

      Cassie nodded but didn’t have a blasted clue how she was going to make that happen. Her condo in LA didn’t allow pets. Still, the shelter here in Spring Hill probably wasn’t no-kill, and she couldn’t risk her grandmother’s precious cats being put down—even if it had been a lamebrain idea for Dixie Mae to leave her pets to a man who’d been on her bad side since she’d given birth to him.

      Her father moved closer and gave her the look. The one he’d been giving her since she was a kid. “Just know that I expect something other than cats from Dixie Mae’s estate. Whatever she had, I get half.”

      “I’m pretty sure you won’t,” Lucky spoke up. “Dixie Mae didn’t like you, and she always told me that she had no intention of giving you any money. She wanted her money to go to Cassie.”

      “Cassie will share,” her father insisted. The look intensified, and suddenly she was six years old again and getting sent to her room because she was acting too prissy.

      Lucky moved in front of her father, getting right in his face. “I’m thinking that’ll be Cassie’s decision.”

      “We’ll see about that.” Her father started out, then stopped when he was right beside her. “If those cats aren’t gone in two days, they’re going to the pound. The goddamn things are chewing the feathers in the girls’ costumes.”

      That seemed very minor compared to being given children, but as Cassie had always done with her father, she held her tongue. And took a few steps away from him. She’d spent her entire adult life trying not to get embroiled with him and his smutty lifestyle, and she didn’t want to start now.

      Cassie didn’t say goodbye to him. She merely shut the door once her father was gone and then whirled around to face Bernie. Now, here was someone she would confront. Except Lucky beat her to it.

      “Say it’s not true,” Lucky demanded. “Tell me that Dixie Mae didn’t give us custody of some kids.”

      Bernie sighed, causing his pudgy belly to jiggle. He pulled open his desk drawer, cracked open a bottle of Glenlivet and downed more than a couple of swigs. “She did indeed leave Cassie and you custody of two children,” Bernie confirmed.

      Of course, the lawyer had already told her that, but hearing it face-to-face gave Cassie a new wallop of panic. No. This couldn’t happen now. She couldn’t lose it in front of Lucky. In front of anybody.

      Lucky, however, didn’t seem to notice that she was cruising her way to a panic attack. He was apparently coping with the anxiety in his own way. By cursing a blue streak in an extremely loud voice.

      “How the hell could you let Dixie Mae do something like that?” Lucky yelled. “You should have stopped her.”

      “Really?” Bernie challenged. “You believe I could have stopped Dixie Mae? Were you ever able to stop her from doing something she insisted on doing?”

      “No, but that’s beside the point. Dixie Mae and I differed on rodeo stuff. Business. If she’d mentioned giving me custody of some kids, trust me, I would have stopped her.”

      Judging from the groan that followed, Lucky knew that was a partial lie. He would have indeed tried to stop her, but Dixie Mae would have just found a way around it.

      The same thing Cassie had to do in this situation.

      “Neither Lucky nor I knew that Dixie Mae had anything to do with any children,” Cassie started. “When did it happen? How did it happen?” she amended.

      “I’m not sure of all the details,” Bernie answered. “Until Dixie Mae showed up here, it’d been years since I’d seen her. She said she wanted me to do the paperwork because I was local.”

      Local? Cassie figured there was more to it than that. Maybe Dixie Mae’s usual lawyer didn’t handle situations like this.

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