by Emily March
The girl stopped and whirled around. “What do you want? Who are you? How do you know my name?”
“My name is Hannah. I’m a friend of Boone’s. I’ll be helping with the baby during the trip back to Colorado. He’s told me about you.”
“What did he say about me?”
Uncertain whether Boone’s explanation to her had breached any professional privacy rules, Hannah chose her words carefully. “He told me he guessed that you were the baby’s mother.”
“Are you his girlfriend?” Rachel swiped the tear tracks from her cheeks.
“No. I’m his tenant. I’m renting a place to stay from him, and I have experience with children, so he asked for my help.” She paused a moment and added, “Can we talk?”
“Why? What is there to talk about? If I’d wanted to talk to Boone, I’d have been there.”
You were there. “So don’t talk to him. Talk to me. Tell me why you chose Boone to be your baby’s father.”
“The kid needed someone.” Shrugging, she glanced back over her shoulder toward the restaurant patio. “I knew Boone could afford a kid. Look, I gotta go. My bus will be here soon.”
Obviously, there was much more to this story than the fact that Boone had money. Hannah wanted to hear it. She knew Boone would too. “Tell you what.” She gestured toward the Italian restaurant across the street. “Why don’t we go inside where it’s cool, order something to drink—and eat if you haven’t had dinner—and when we’re done, I’ll order an Uber for you. My treat.”
When she saw the refusal forming on the teen’s face, she quickly added, “Boone should know. It will help him be a better father.”
Rachel pursed her lips and considered. When a moment later, she nodded, Hannah breathed a sigh of relief. A few minutes later, they were seated inside the welcome air-conditioning of the dining room. While Rachel perused the menu, Hannah sent Boone a text. Something came up. Will meet you back at the hotel later.
She ordered a dessert she didn’t want so that Rachel wouldn’t have to eat alone and waited until their drinks were served to say, “Rachel, here’s the deal. I would love to hear your story, as much as you feel comfortable sharing. I’ll also promise to keep your confidence. If there is something you don’t want Boone to know, I’ll keep my lips zipped. You have my word. I just, well, from one mother to another, I know that sometimes it really helps to have a sympathetic, nonjudgmental ear.”
The teen dumped the contents of a sugar packet into her iced tea and stirred it with her straw. In Hannah’s purse, her phone pinged with an incoming text. She ignored it.
“I don’t know where to start,” Rachel said.
“Well, you could start at the beginning. Want to tell me how you met Boone?”
She shrugged. “When I was a kid, I had this thing happen, and I met him ’cause of that. He was nice to me. I was in the hospital for a while, and he came to visit me. A lot. He’d come and sit and talk to me. No one had ever talked to me like that. He told me about his parents and his sisters and his ranch and his granddad’s lake house and his cousins. He told me when I got better, he would help me learn how to ride a horse and a wakeboard. It sounded like, well, heaven.”
“I imagine it did.”
“But the thing about Boone, he didn’t only talk about the good things. He talked about hard things too. He told me his wife had died. He told me they’d tried to adopt a baby three times, and it never happened. He told me how it had broken his heart and how badly he wanted to be a daddy. He talked to me about his dreams. He talked a lot.” She paused, sipped her drink through her straw, and asked, “Does he still talk a lot?”
Hannah considered the question and then nodded. “He does when he’s trying to be convincing.”
“He’s a lawyer,” Rachel said dismissively as the server placed an order of veal Parmesan in front of her.
From inside her purse, Hannah’s phone blew up with incoming texts. Rachel observed, “Is that him?”
“Probably.”
“Are you going to answer him?”
“Do you want me to?”
Rachel took a bite of her meal, swallowed, then shook her head. “No.”
“Okay, then.” Hannah took her phone from her purse, ignored the screen full of messages, and thumbed it off. She dropped the phone back into her bag, picked up her spoon, and took a small bite of vanilla ice cream.
Rachel abruptly resumed the conversation. “He kept his promise. He sent me to a summer camp where I learned to water-ski and wakeboard, and ride a horse. It was magic. He was magic. He was like my own personal Santa Claus and big brother. Everything was great until one day, it wasn’t.”
“What happened?”
“His”—she made air quotes with her fingers—“friend.”
Ashleigh. Had to be. Hannah knew it.
Rachel inspected the bread basket the server had left and chose a roll. “I didn’t know what happened at first. I didn’t know why he wigged out during my case for a long time. The ‘friend’ tracked me down and told me a couple of years ago because her therapist made her do it.”
“What happened?” Hannah repeated.
“Well, Ralph, my stepfather—” She broke off and frowned at Hannah. “Do you know about that part?”
“Boone told me you were a crime victim, and that he made a serious prosecutorial mistake that allowed your abuser to go free.”
“Yeah. Boone effed up. He was all in a rage because just as the trial started, he found out his dead wife’s best friend had intentionally torpedoed the adoption that made his wife kill herself. It screwed up his head. He didn’t do his job right, and Ralph got off on a technicality. That’s what they called it when they explained it to me.
“Boone was just as big a wreck as me at that point. He apologized to me, but I was pretty bitchy to him. I had some anger issues going on. I ran away from home after it all went down.”
“Oh, Rachel.” Hannah’s heart broke for her. It broke for Boone. This explained so much. “Where did you go?”
“I won’t say. Someone helped me. She tracked me down. I wasn’t that hard to find. But that person would get into trouble, so I swore I’d never tell. I’m pretty sure Boone was behind it, but I never saw him again. I told him I didn’t want to see him, and he took me at my word. He left town pretty soon after that.”
Hannah digested all the information as Rachel finished her veal. She waited until the server brought the teen tiramisu for dessert to say, “That’s the past. What about now? What events brought you to the patio across the street watching Boone McBride meet an infant girl whom he expected to be a boy?”
Hannah and Rachel’s heads whipped around when a deep, familiar voice drawled, “I’m anxious to hear that story too. Mind if I join you?”
Chapter Twelve
Boone didn’t precisely panic when he realized Hannah had gone missing. He did grow confused, then concerned, and then, when he read her text, a little pissed. What the heck had her running off that way?
Once the baby grew fussy, Katie Devlin indicated the time had come to put her to bed, and the three of them departed. Boone had looked around for Hannah and figured she’d gone to the ladies’ room. The confusion set in when she didn’t return, and her text had raised more questions than it answered. He’d been about to apologize to Sarah and cut the meeting short to Uber back to the hotel when Sarah had touched his arm.
“I saw where she went. I think you should join them. The cat is out of the bag.”
“What cat?”
“Boone, Rachel was here. She wanted to watch you meet the baby. Hannah noticed her and followed her. I saw them go across the street and into the Italian restaurant.”
“Rachel. Rachel is with Hannah.” He pinned Sarah with a narrow-eyed look. “So Rachel is this baby’s mother?”
“I’m not allowed to say. Go across the street, Boone. I’ll see you tomorrow at the office at ten.”
He nodded and left, crossing the street and entering the restaurant. He
spied Hannah almost immediately and … Rachel.
Rachel. All grown up.
It was a kick to his gut. The promise of beauty she’d shown at twelve had bloomed. She was a lovely young woman. A lump of emotion lodged in his throat. Damn. Rachel.
What is this all about? Had she set him up? Thank God he hadn’t told his mother about the baby if this had been Rachel’s effort to serve her revenge cold.
So that little girl probably wasn’t going home with him to Colorado. Boone’s heart broke at the thought.
Well, he wasn’t one to put off bad news. Might as well face this and get it over with.
He started across the room and drew close enough to hear just as Hannah asked the million-dollar question. So here we go. “I’m anxious to hear that story too. Mind if I join you?”
Both women looked at him with surprise. Hannah’s expression softened with welcome. Rachel sat back in her chair and folded her arms defensively. All grown up, but still the same sadly damaged little girl whom he’d tried to rescue. She shrugged. “Feel free.”
She kept her head turned away, her gaze avoiding him. She obviously wasn’t going to answer Hannah’s question, so Boone searched for a place to begin. He was the smooth-talkin’, fast-thinking lawyer who never ran out of words and always had fifteen different ways to ask the same damned question. He knew how to build an argument and mine for a secret with subtlety and finesse.
Unfortunately, the words that came out of his mouth were an accusation. “Are you scamming me?”
Now, finally, she met his gaze. “What?”
“Is this your payback? I know I deserve one, and if this is it, you’ve outdone yourself.”
Rachel gave him that silent you’re-an-idiot smirk that teenagers perfected. “Get over yourself, McBride. I forgave you for screwing up my case before my thirteenth birthday.”
Stunned, Boone asked, “You did?”
“Okay, maybe it was my fourteenth, but yeah. I forgave you.”
Boone felt something tight loosen in his chest. He spared a glance toward Hannah, who watched him with a warm and sympathetic gaze. He cleared his throat. “Thank you. That means a lot to me.”
Rachel shrugged. “It happened the way it was meant to happen.”
Boone dragged his hand across his jaw. So many thoughts and questions spun through his head. Where to start? Pick a spot, dumbass. He cleared his throat a second time and said, “I’ve thought of you a lot, Rachel. Will you tell me about your world for the past five years?”
She set down her fork and said, “Dinner was good. Thank you. But if I’m going to talk, I need to walk.”
Boone reached for his wallet and threw a couple of twenties on the table. “Trinity Park is one block away. Want to go there?”
“Sure.”
Hannah glanced between the pair and suggested, “Why don’t I let you two have time to yourselves? I’ll go on back to the hotel.”
Boone questioned Rachel with a glance. She said, “You’ll be her caretaker. Nothing I’m going to tell him is a secret. Come with us.”
Hannah agreed and excused herself to visit the ladies’ room. While Boone watched her cross the restaurant, Rachel watched him. Then she observed, “You have a thing for her.”
Boone gave her a sidelong look. “It’s that obvious?”
“Definitely some starry sparkle in your eyes. She told me she’s just your travel nanny.”
“Yeah. For now. We’ll see.”
“What’s it like? This little town where you live—Eternity Springs?”
Boone gazed through the restaurant’s west-facing windows where ripples of heat visibly radiated from the parking lot outside. “I imagine it’s about forty degrees cooler right this minute, for one thing. It’s early for the weather to be this hot. It doesn’t bode well for the next few months. I’d forgotten how brutal the heat could be here in the summer.”
“When was the last time you were home?”
“To Texas?”
“Fort Worth.”
He shook his head. “This is my first time back.”
“Whoa. You were serious about telling the lawyers and judge and social workers all to go blow, weren’t you?”
“Yep. I pretty much was.”
“Hmm.”
Hannah rejoined them. As they walked the block and a half toward the park, he responded to Rachel’s question about Eternity Springs. He included those aspects he found particularly appealing because they were important for both women to hear. Rachel needed to know it was an excellent place for her daughter, and relaying the good press continued his subtle campaign to convince Hannah to stay.
They reached the park and the shade provided by the full, spreading branches of hundreds of live oaks and elms. With a thick layer of grass rather than concrete beneath their feet, the temperature felt like it dropped at least ten degrees. The evening air rang with the laughter of a group of children playing hide-and-go-seek among the trees and with the fainter sound of an orchestra playing John Philip Sousa. It must be the Fort Worth Symphony’s Concert in the Park, Boone realized. He hadn’t thought of that program in years. Once upon a time, he and Mary had been regulars.
Then Rachel interrupted his trip down memory lane with a kick to the ’nads when she pinned him with a narrow-eyed stare and accused, “I know it was you. You hired Lisa to find me.”
Crap. Boone shoved his hands into his pockets. “Lisa Jackson is an excellent private detective. However, I thought she was more discreet.”
“She’s never said a word, but I knew it was you. Now you’ve just confirmed it.”
Boone’s lips lifted in a reluctant grin. “Bright girl.”
“Not a girl, Boone McBride. I’m a woman. Most definitely a woman.”
Chastised, he nodded. “You’re right. My apologies.” Then, because he thought it was important that she knew, he said, “I kept my word to you, Rachel. As much as it went against my grain, as much as it killed me to do it, I didn’t check up on you. I haven’t been funneling money to you. What I did do was hire Lisa to find you and put someone she trusted in touch to get services you needed. Lisa sent word that she had found you and that you were safe, but that’s the last I heard until Sarah Winston contacted me about the baby and your note.”
“That’s kind of what I figured,” Rachel said. “So you don’t know where I’ve been living? Or with who?”
“I don’t.”
“I’ve been with Lisa. She took me in, and I’ve lived with her ever since.”
Boone stopped in his tracks. “Seriously?”
“She’s cool. Like my big sister.”
“So you’ve been living in Fort Worth? Going to school?”
“Yep. I even made it to graduation. Waddled my way across the stage when I was nine months’ pregnant.”
There. The proverbial elephant in the park. Boone both wanted to ask and dreaded the answer. “Are you going to tell me about the baby’s father?”
Rachel didn’t respond right away but veered her path toward the sidewalk that ran alongside the riverbank. Boone caught Hannah’s gaze and, because he could use her support, held out his hand. She took it, and he squeezed a silent thank-you as they followed the teenager.
“We were both in the marching band,” Rachel eventually continued. “He played trumpet. I played the flute. He graduated last year and decided to get his basics out of the way at TCC.”
“The local junior college,” Boone explained to Hannah.
“He wanted to go to Texas Tech. His parents were alumni. We’d been dating almost a year when I found out I was pregnant. He was killed in a car wreck the same day. I never got the chance to tell him about the baby.”
“Ah, honey.” It was a stab to Boone’s heart. What horrific luck. So not fair. And while life wasn’t fair at all, this young woman had certainly been dealt a raw deal.
Rachel’s lips twisted with a sad smile. “He was a good guy. Kind and sweet. My first. My real first. I think he would have wanted to get married
, but it wasn’t meant to be.”
She fell silent, and after a moment, Hannah gently asked, “What was his name?”
“Ryan. Ryan Walton. I didn’t tell his parents. They were so devastated, and it wasn’t the right time. Ryan was their only child. They were older when he was born, and they thought he hung the moon—and so did I. He was a good guy. Knew everything about me. Ralph, all of it. His parents were good people too. They were kind to me, but when his mother saw me, she’d cry, so we didn’t stay in touch after the funeral. It took me a little while to decide what I wanted to do about the baby. Once I made up my mind about adoption, I thought it was cleaner this way. Lisa said I’m not legally obligated to tell them. That’s right?”
“Yes,” Boone replied. The pain in her big Bambi eyes broke his heart.
Rachel stopped walking, picked up a rock, and threw it into the river. “I spent a lot of time thinking about my options and deciding what would be best. I figured out that I do want to be a mother someday, but it’s better for me and for this baby that I am not her mom. I’m going to go to college. I’m going to study nursing. I’m good at science and math. I got accepted to TCU, and I’m going to use that scholarship you set up for me all those years ago.”
Boone drew a deep breath, then exhaled in a rush. “Rachel. I am so glad to hear that. You will make a great nurse.”
“I think so too. But going to college and being a single mom is just too much to tackle. She deserves better. So I decided on adoption, and once I got that far, well, I wanted to give you first choice.”
“But why?”
For the first time in minutes, she looked at him. Boone read truth and confidence in her gaze. “I know what kind of a father you’ll be.”
It floored him. “How can you say that?”
Rather than reply to him, she turned to Hannah. “He visited me every single night that I was in the hospital. I’m sure he doesn’t remember all the things he talked about, but they made a huge impression on me. He told me his family had dinner together every night. They had a big extended-family reunion every year. He and his sisters all played youth sports, and his parents went to all of their games. They went to church and did volunteer work.”
