Free Can't Buy Me Love by Molly O'Keefe Page A

to celebrate, we’ve got something special tonight.”
    “Porterhouse?”
    “Better. Pudding.”
    Lyle’s gasping laughter brought sharp, hot tears toTara’s eyes. She blinked them away as fast as she could and made a big show of stirring the applesauce.
    “Let’s start with an appetizer, shall we? The chef has prepared a surprise.” She turned to Lyle only to find his eyes, clear and focused, right on her.
    “You’re beautiful,” he said, and she smiled.
    “Flattery will not get you a steak.”
    “Tara.” Trembling, his hand hovered over the covers, reaching for her. She put down the sauce and curled her hand over his.
    Please
, she thought,
please don’t go. Not yet. I’m not ready for you to be gone from this earth
.
    “You’re more beautiful … than you know.”
    “I don’t know about that.” She straightened the edge of his blankets with her free hand, looking everywhere but at Lyle. “I’m pretty aware of my charms.”
    He squeezed her hand and she caught his crooked smile. “I’m so lucky you stumbled into my hospital room when you did.”
    “I’m the lucky one,” she whispered. “You saved my life. Dennis—” The name stuck in her throat. Four years since she’d said that name, but not a minute had gone by without her wondering when he’d find her.
    “He’s behind you. All of that is behind you.”
    No wonder I can’t stop looking over my shoulder
.
    “You saved the business. Those boots …”
    “That makes us even?” she asked, knowing it was so far from the truth it could only be a joke.
    “More than even. You brought my kids here. My grandson—”
    “You paid me, Lyle,” she whispered, the shame of it, the necessity of it making her sick to her stomach.
    “Doesn’t matter. It worked. They’re here.” Joy changed him, lifted the pallor of death and made him luminous.
    That’s what children do
, she thought, glad at least thatthey brought Lyle some pleasure, that they illuminated the dark places.
    “Did you see my boy?” Lyle asked, as if Luc were ten instead of three years shy of forty.
    Oh, I saw him
. But she just nodded, not wanting to tinge Lyle’s fantasy with reality.
    “He hates me,” Lyle said. Apparently, reality didn’t bother him. “Proud and stubborn.”
    “And that’s good?”
    “He’s …” he tapped his chest with a hand covered in liver spots, “just like me.”
    She shook her head, unable to agree. “Maybe on the outside. But on the inside he’s a different kind of animal. He doesn’t have your heart.”
    Any heart, really.
    “Oh, don’t be fooled. He’s always been a crybaby. Gets it from his mom.”
    “What about your daughter?”
    He shrugged, and the face he made said so much about how little his daughter was worth in his eyes that Tara felt bad for the woman. She truly did. That kind of damage handed out by your daddy could cripple you for life.
    “She brought my grandson,” he said, as if she were a chauffeur rather than his only daughter. His heart monitor beeped, and Tara glanced at the readout before stroking his hand, trying to calm him down.
    He would never forgive Victoria for keeping his grandson from him. Tara didn’t know much, but she knew that.
    “What was the point of all this?” she asked, hurting for the people he’d hurt. “Nothing’s changed. Luc still hates you. Victoria hates you so much she hid her son from you.”
    “Getting them back here was the point.” For a moment he seemed drained; the light, the fire, all that wasLyle Baker dimmed and she clutched his hand, her eyes on the monitor. “I’m dying, Tara.”
    “Don’t—”
    He rolled his eyes at her. “And they may hate me, but they’re mine. My children. Flesh of my flesh.”
    It was an ugly sentiment, proving what she knew too well to be true—that Lyle was far from perfect. “This ranch, the Angus, Baker Leather, Victoria and Luc. They belong together.”
    “I don’t think they agree with you.”
    “I was too hard on them