The Rancher's City Girl. Patricia Johns

old man turned his attention to Cory. “So, what exactly do you want?”

      “You’re my father.” Cory cleared his throat. “I wanted to—”

      “Why now?” the old man interrupted. “I’m dying, you know.”

      Cory didn’t answer.

      “But you seem to know that.” Mr. Bessler twisted in his chair to cast a scathing glare at Eloise, then shook his head slowly. “You called him, didn’t you, Red?”

      Mr. Bessler had called Eloise “Red” since her first day on the job. Lately, he’d consented to use her proper name, but the old nickname gave his words a deeper sense of betrayal.

      “Yes, sir, I did,” she admitted. “You’ve been lonely, and when you mentioned your son—” She swallowed the hot, rising anxiety. She’d crossed a line in calling her patient’s son without his permission. She was here to help keep the old man comfortable. Her job did not include manipulating her patient into confrontations he wanted to avoid, no matter her intentions. While she’d truly believed that Mr. Bessler wanted to reconnect with his only son, it appeared now that she had been wrong and for one fleeting moment she wished she could go back in time and undo that phone call to Cory Stone.

      “I see.” The old man turned around. He nodded several times, eyeing the big man before him. “You’re fired, Red,” he said, his gaze pinned to his son instead of the woman he was addressing. “I won’t require your services any longer.”

      * * *

      Fired? Cory’s gaze snapped between the hunched old man and his pretty nurse. Eloise blinked twice before she looked down, her long lashes veiling those deep green eyes from his scrutiny.

      “Fired?” Eloise’s tone registered little surprise. “Mr. Bessler, you fire me once a week. You don’t really mean that, do you?”

      “Why would I want a nurse who lies to me?” he barked.

      “I didn’t lie.”

      “You went behind my back,” he retorted.

      “Yes, sir, I did. And I’m sorry about that. It was an error in judgment. I really did think you would appreciate this last chance to know your son.”

      “Did you?” His voice dripped with sarcasm.

      “If I’m fired, then I’ll call the agency to find you another nurse.” She rose to her feet and started to walk from the room, but his father heaved a sigh.

      “You aren’t fired,” he muttered. “Come back.”

      She stopped, smiled and brushed a spiral curl away from her cheek. Cory didn’t know her at all, but he had a good instinct when it came to character, and Eloise seemed like a good person. His father, however, hadn’t exactly endeared himself yet.

      Cory had expected someone more impressive. His mother had always described his father as a strong, powerful man, but this quivery gentleman looked nothing like the father he’d imagined. Frail. Old. Ornery.

      I should be at the ranch, trying to find a medic to replace the guy who quit, he thought dismally. What am I doing here? I have a hundred better things I should be doing...

      Eloise moved over to the couch and sat down. She idly adjusted a doily across the arm of the couch. The same errant curl she’d just brushed from her face fell back against her creamy skin, and Cory found his attention fixed on her. Her composure surprised him.

      “So she’s still your nurse?” Cory clarified.

      “What is that to you?” his father asked. “I can fire her if I want to.”

      Eloise’s gaze flicked up at Cory, and she glanced quickly between both men but didn’t speak.

      “Do you feel like a big man when you cast women aside?” Cory couldn’t veil the chill in his tone.

      “Is that your way of asking about your mother?” the old man demanded. He coughed and slouched lower in his chair.

      “No,” Cory said. “My mother told me enough.”

      “What a horrible man I was?” his father asked with a bitter smile.

      “No, she thought more of you than that.”

      “Where is she now?”

      “She passed away a few years ago.” Images of his mother’s last days filled his mind. She’d died in a hospital, a gaunt figure, pain medication pumping into an IV that left a purple bruise over her bony hand. Her hair had begun to grow back in soft gray curls over her head—chemotherapy had been abandoned at that late stage of the illness. His mother had slipped away one afternoon, dying while he was out getting a breath of fresh air. He’d never fully forgiven himself for that.

      His father frowned and dropped his gaze. “I’m sorry.”

      “Me, too,” Cory said, but words could never encompass the feelings that welled up inside him when he remembered his mother’s passing.

      “What took her?”

      “Breast cancer.” Cory sat down on a chair and turned it to face his father. He hadn’t decided how much he wanted to tell this virtual stranger about his time with his mother, but he had some questions of his own that he’d been waiting a lifetime to ask. He cleared his throat. “I know you don’t want any kind of relationship with me, and that’s fine, but I had a few things I wanted to ask you.”

      “Fair enough,” his father replied.

      “When did you meet my mother?” Cory asked.

      “I don’t want to talk about her.”

      Irritation plucked at his practiced calm. “Why not?”

      He was met with a chilly silence. Eloise shifted in her seat, and Cory glanced toward her to find her green eyes full of compassion. Her pink lips parted, and he was struck anew by her unaffected beauty. Cory pulled his gaze away from her and tapped his hat against his thigh.

      A smile flickered at the corners of the old man’s lips. “Are you married, boy?”

      Cory shook his head.

      “Then I can’t expect you to understand.”

      “Were you married when you met my mother?”

      Another silence, but it seemed to answer his question.

      “And you chose your wife over my mother?”

      His father gave a weak shrug. “Someone had to be hurt, young man. Either your mother or my wife. I chose to protect my wife.”

      It explained a lot. Cory’s mother had never told him much about the relationship she shared with his father, only that it was a short fling and that it hadn’t lasted after she told him she was pregnant. He let his gaze move over the walls of the little sitting room, and he spotted a few faded pictures of a woman with a 1960s’ hairstyle at various ages. She had a bright smile and a slim figure.

      “Is that your wife?” he asked, nodding at the picture.

      “Never mind Ruth,” the old man snapped. “She isn’t your business.”

      That was true, Cory knew. He wasn’t even sure what to ask the old man now. He’d had a million questions over the years, but now as he faced his father, he couldn’t seem to pull them out of the tangle of his emotions. One thought shot through the murky mess in his mind: I’m the child of an affair.

      The thought had occurred to him in the past but had never been verified. Cory had preferred to believe that his mother had met a man and the relationship had simply gone sour, not that she’d been the other woman in someone else’s marriage.

      “I guess that’s it.” Cory shrugged, shoving away his disappointment. He’d driven for two hours, at the worst possible time to leave the ranch, just