Christmas Kisses with My Cowboy - Diana Palmer Page 0,36
to marry you. And if she does,” she added, glaring at Katy, “I’ll run away from home! I’d rather live at a shelter than have to live with you!” she cried, tears running down her face.
“Teddie, that’s enough,” Katy said quietly.
Teddie was sobbing. Parker pulled her close and held her. He stared at Katy with something akin to contempt.
She flushed.
“It’s going to be a hard case to prove in court,” Ron said breezily. “You have to call witnesses, it will tie you up in court, make you enemies in the community. The man is rich and he has powerful friends,” he added. “You won’t find a local attorney who’ll even consider the case.”
Katy turned to look at him, undecided.
“And it will cost an arm and a leg in legal fees,” Ron added. “You’ll face censure, your daughter will face it, and for what? An old, beat-up horse with hardly any time left to live anyway. It might be a mercy to just let the vet put him down. That’s the course the owner favors, anyway. I spoke to him. He said he’ll let the whole thing go, if you’ll agree to let the vet do what’s necessary.”
“Nobody is putting Bartholomew down,” Teddie said fiercely.
“You’re just a kid,” Ron said with faint contempt. “You don’t have a say about this.”
“She doesn’t. I do,” Parker replied.
“And you’re a nobody around here, horse wrangler. You work for wages,” Ron said with obvious distaste. “You’re Indian, too, aren’t you?” He smiled sarcastically. “That won’t go over big with the locals, will it?”
“Oh, I’ve never been one to curry favor,” Parker replied.
“Are you going to let them kill my horse?” Teddie asked her mother, with a dignity that sat oddly on such a young face.
Katy was torn. Ron sounded very logical. The horse was old. But that look on her daughter’s face wounded her.
“It’s painless,” Ron said. “The horse won’t even feel it.”
“Why don’t we get the vet to put you down first, and you can tell us if you feel it?” Parker drawled.
Ron looked outraged. “You have no right to even be here,” he began.
“Parker is my friend,” Teddie said. “The nicest thing you ever said to me was that it was a shame that my mother had a child.”
Ron didn’t deny it. He just shrugged. “I guess the local attitudes are corrupting your daughter, Katy,” he said. “Another good reason to come back to Maryland where you belong.”
Katy was feeling sicker by the minute, torn between logic and her daughter’s pain.
“I have a simple solution,” Parker told the child. “Give the horse to me.” He looked up at Ron with a cold smile. “And I’ll take on his former owner in court, with pleasure.”
“I don’t think a public defender will take the case,” Ron commented smartly.
“Mr. Denton employs a firm of attorneys out of L.A.,” he replied. “I’ve already spoken to him about the case.”
“A rancher with attorneys in L.A.” Ron laughed.
“His wife is the lead writer for Warriors and Warlocks,” Parker replied quietly. “Mr. Denton owns Drayco Properties.”
Even Ron had heard of those. It was one of the biggest conglomerates of oil and gas property in the country.
“He also likes horses,” Parker added. He looked down at Teddie. “You get your mother to sign Bart over to me, and I’ll do the rest.” He glanced at Ron. “I don’t mind a good fight.”
He was insinuating that Ron would run from one. And Ron knew it. His face flushed. “I could win the case if I wanted to,” he said.
“We all need to calm down,” Katy said, glancing from one heated expression to the next. “Let’s sleep on it and talk again tomorrow.”
Parker bent and dropped a kiss on Teddie’s hair. “Don’t worry. We’ll save Bart. One way or another,” he added, with a cool glance at Ron and an even cooler one at Katy. He went out, with Teddie right behind him.
“You need to keep that man away from your daughter,” Ron told Katy firmly. “He’s using her to get to you.”
But it didn’t look that way to Katy. Parker had barely glanced at her on his way out, the sort of impassive expression you might expect from a total stranger. It had hurt. She’d felt guilty about her closeness to Parker and he’d backed off. Asking Ron out here had been the last straw, and she could see it. Parker thought she was serious about Ron, especially after he’d witnessed that impassioned kiss.