“He…ran away.”
Lucas frowned. She watched those eyes that looked so like her father’s. Had the sudden realization this thirteen-year-old boy had more steadfast courage than her father ever had. “He ran away when he wasn’t much older than you because he thought his parents—your grandparents—were too strict because they expected him to behave, go to school and learn, and be respectful.”
The frown deepened. “I don’t understand. Isn’t that what kids are supposed to do?”
Only when they’re raised by parents who wanted to be parents.
It was odd. She’d expected this entire thing to be a revelation for Lucas. She hadn’t expected it to be such a facing reality thing for herself. But she forged onward. She wouldn’t run, like her father had.
“I won’t lie to you, Lucas. Ever. Your uncle was—and is—irresponsible, thoughtless, and utterly selfish.”
The boy made a face. “Nice.” Then his expression changed. “Is? He’s still alive?” It was starting to register now.
“He is.” She took a deep breath and said it. “And the reason I know him so well is…he’s my father.”
Lucas blinked. He said nothing, but his brow furrowed and already she recognized the expression meant he was thinking. And once more the boy turned to look at Keller questioningly. He affirmed what she’d said as truth.
“Shane ran a DNA test, to be sure.”
“Chief Shane says so, too?”
Keller nodded.
“But…but why didn’t I know? Why did they tell me he died?”
“We think your father believed it himself for years,” Keller said gently.
“But then he found out it wasn’t true? That he was alive?”
“Yes.”
“But why didn’t he tell me? Why did they keep lying? They said never to lie. They always said not to lie. I always got in trouble if I did.” Lucas was on his feet now. He whirled back to Sydney. “No. It’s not true. They wouldn’t lie to me. They wouldn’t!”
“Maybe they were trying to protect you,” she said.
“No. No, no, no!” The boy whirled again, took two running steps toward his room. But Keller got there first, blocking the path. “No!” Lucas yelled again and tried to go around him. Keller stopped him by putting his arms around the boy’s thin, wiry shoulders.
Lucas yelled again, and again, squirming, trying to break free. Keller held him easily. The boy’s fists came up and he began to punch, to hammer on Keller’s chest as Sydney stood watching helplessly. Again and again the boy pounded at him, crying now.
With barely a wince Keller Rafferty, that amazing man, simply stood there and took it. And held on until Lucas sagged, exhausted, in his arms. Only then did Sydney feel the wetness on her cheeks and realize Lucas wasn’t the only one crying.
Realization flooded her, sweeping over her like a tidal wave. She nearly sagged herself under the weight of it. She wobbled a little as she turned away, unable to bear looking at the man and the boy any longer. She was fool, a selfish fool just like her parents. She couldn’t handle this, and she should have known it long ago.
She wasn’t even certain how she got there or how long it had been, but when she came out of it a little she was outside, collapsed on the porch swing. She wanted to run, but she had nowhere to go. Back to LA? London? No, maybe Australia. Maybe halfway around the world would do it.
She pulled her phone out of her pocket and pulled up the ride share app. Back to the inn, pack, then—
“Going to run?” She closed her eyes at the sound of his voice. “And at the first sign of difficulty?”
She shivered. Then she made herself look up at him. He was in the same place he’d been that first day, leaning against the porch railing.
“You were right,” she said, her voice shaky. “You were right all along.” She lowered her eyes to the glowing screen, but didn’t move to touch it. “I was stupid to even think I could deal with what needed to be done, when I don’t have the slightest clue about a normal life. You go ahead and adopt him, Keller. He’ll have the life he should. Better than he would with me. He deserves that.”
“Funny, I’ve thought many things about you, but coward was never one of them. Until now.”
She winced, drew back physically.
“So you go ahead and run, Sydney. And try not to think about how we’re going to explain why you dropped in, laid this bombshell on a thirteen-year-old kid, then vanished.”
She felt as if she’d been slapped. And deserved it. “Keller—”
“Maybe you really are your parents’ daughter,” he said, and the tone of his voice was like that slap again. “So leave, or stay. But if you stay, you’d damned well better mean it.”
She looked up at him then, heedless of the tears spilling down her cheeks. “Lucas is better off with you. I wouldn’t be helping him I’d be hurting him if I took him away from you, from your family. He already has the family I never did—”
“How long are you going to let those miserable excuses for parents ruin you? Because that’s the little girl they never wanted talking.”
She stared at him. “But you said yourself, I know nothing about this.”
“So you’re saying the CEO of a worldwide operation is incapable of learning?” He sounded almost like he wanted her to stay. And she knew if he said so she would, because she didn’t think she could say no to him. But he didn’t say it. All he said, very quietly, was, “Your call.”
And then he was gone, back inside, to deal with the debris she’d left behind. Because he was who and what he was, and that’s what Keller Rafferty did.
She’d never felt so humbled in her life. All the things she’d accomplished, the company she’d built, all the things she’d done to prove her worth to parents who’d thought her not just worthless but a burden, suddenly seemed empty, pointless.
Because in the end, she’d done what they would do: go after what they wanted, not what was right.
She got up and left the porch. She’d never felt so alone and lost, even in all her travels to strange places.
And she’d never been so certain that what she did now would determine the course of the rest of her life.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Keller heard her go down the porch steps. He glanced out the window and saw her walking, not up toward the gate but the other way, down the track they’d ridden along. He watched until she was out of sight behind the main barn.
“Is she leaving?”
He turned around to look at his mother. “I don’t know. I’m not even sure what set her off.”
“I get the feeling deep down, under all the success, there’s still that unwanted little girl.”
He nodded. And wordlessly put his arm around the woman who’d made sure none of her children had ever felt that way. Then she left to see if Lucas would talk to her; he was now holed up in his room.
Keller tried to decide how long to give Sydney before he needed to go looking for her. It was daylight, yes, but she wasn’t that familiar with the ranch. She could get lost. She had her phone, but there were spots out there where there was no reception at all. Then he remembered he was worrying about a woman who had trekked through deserts and jungles, who had gone to the backside of nowhere more times than he’d ever left his hometown.
Maybe he’d been too hard on her. Had some part of him wanted her to go, because she so unsettled him? Because she had him wanting things he’d given up on? Was he as big a coward as he’d accused her of being?
He didn’t know anymore.
Nearly three hours later, he had taken his hat off the rack, ready to go saddle up Blue and go searching, when he saw her in the distance. When she’d left she’d been walking head down, shoulders slumped. Now she was straight, every stride determined. And he found himself almost smiling as he watched. He’d known she wouldn’t quit. He’d just known it.
When he opened the door to her he had the sudden thought he was seeing a different woman than he had that firs
t time, and not just in the absence of the two-toned hair. She met his gaze evenly. Her eyes were reddened, but her expression resolute. She didn’t bother with small talk; the moment they were back inside she turned to face him head-on.
“I was being as selfish as my parents. I had this silly vision, of Lucas and I building the kind of family I never had. But that was for me. Because he’s already had that and lost it. And found it again.”
“There’s nothing silly about wanting that.”
“But it was still selfish. This has to be about Lucas, and Lucas only. And now it is, I swear to you, Keller.”
He met those golden eyes, saw the absolute certainty and determination there. She’d gone through her dark night of the soul in the middle of a sunny Texas afternoon, and come out the other side.
“I believe you,” he said simply.
“Did Lucas hurt you?” she asked, surprising him. “He was punching you pretty hard.”
“Might be a bruise or two. Doesn’t matter.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“He’ll come around.” He hoped he wasn’t wrong about that. “It was just a shock.”
“I hope so.”
She looked up at him again. And she was so close, her eyes so wide, her body so curved, her mouth so…so…
She reached out touch his chest, featherlight, as if to be sure no real damage had been done. The contact sparked something hot and lightning-fast that rocketed through him. He breathed in that scent as sweet as that yellow rose of Texas. Then, somehow, she was in his arms and no matter how much he told himself it was for comfort, his body thought differently.
He bent his head, drawn by those sweet lips, seemingly unable to resist. Had she exhibited the slightest resistance, even hesitation, he would have stopped—he swore to himself he would. But she didn’t. And he couldn’t stop, not until he tasted that mouth of hers.
At the first touch of their lips he forgot what was going on, forgot even where he was. All he knew for sure was that he’d never tasted anything so sweet, so hot, anything that made having more, and then more, seem imperative. And when she made a small, low sound that was undeniably of pleasure, his entire body kicked to life so fiercely he nearly gasped with the force of it.
He deepened the kiss, and she opened for him, tasting him back in a way that only added fuel to what they were kindling together. Damn, she was making him crazy, his head was practically swimming with the sensations, and—
“Well. I can’t decide if this will make things easier or more difficult.”
The amused words snapped Keller back to his senses. Sydney let out a startled little sound and let go of him. Keller released her, but didn’t turn around to look at his mother. He didn’t dare, not given his body’s fierce demand that the lovely, delicious contact continue.
Sydney had gone very still, watching him. For his reaction to them being discovered like this, and by his mother of all people? Better than Cody, probably. And the only thing worse would have been Lucas.
“How about complicated?” he muttered.
“That, too,” his mother said, sounding inordinately cheerful. “But right now, we’ve other things to deal with.”
“Is…” Sydney stopped, swallowed, then tried again. “Is Lucas all right?”
“He’s a little stunned, as you can imagine. He has, however, put it together that you are his cousin. And he is a bit…intrigued by the idea. So I think, if handled carefully and slowly, you might just be able to build what you want with him.” She added with a grin, “And I must say Lucas wasn’t at all averse to the idea of having tomorrow off school.”
“Thank you,” Sydney whispered. “So much.” Tears again, streaking down her cheeks, making him once more feel utterly inadequate at dealing with all this. Even as he thought it, she swiped at her eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m not usually such a…a…”
“Leaky water bucket?” Keller suggested rather dryly.
“You hush,” his mother said. “This is the kind of situation that deserves strong emotion. Just because you men think you need to hide what you feel doesn’t mean we have to. Now, we need to plan from here.”
They spent the rest of the afternoon doing just that, with his mother and Sydney sitting at the table deciding while he paced, trying to fight off being engulfed by memories of that kiss. And even telling himself he should be paying attention didn’t help much.
“We’re agreed, then? You stay for dinner tonight, no pressure on Lucas to even talk, and starting tomorrow you come back every day and simply be available.”
“Yes,” Sydney said, and the eager anticipation in her voice was undeniable.
Keller blinked. Every day? He barely stopped himself from gaping and letting out a strangled “What?”
As if she’d sensed his reaction—she was very good at that, he had to admit—she looked up at him. “I won’t be a nuisance, I promise. Maybe I can even help out a little.”
Help out. Right. “I don’t have time to train a new ranch hand,” he said tightly.
“Were you listening at all?” his mother asked in that tone that told him she knew perfectly well he hadn’t been. But there was something different in her gaze, a sort of gleam in those familiar blue eyes that he hadn’t seen before. “It will only be until Lucas gets home, and then we’ll have him do the ‘training’ as you call it.”
He realized he really hadn’t heard them at all, and that was unsettling. “You mean force them together.”
“Yet in a way that Lucas can dismiss as just another chore,” Sydney said.
She was seemingly unconcerned at being labeled a chore. While he was very concerned at the idea of having to see her in close quarters every day. That kiss seemed to have tilted his world on its axis, and he was having trouble righting it again.
Since Mom called in the troops, dinner was different, disconcerting with an undertone of tension. Cody was unerringly polite if not friendly. Keller suspected because of a private conversation he and Mom had had just before they sat down. Sydney talked easily with Ry about his work, seriously with Chance about his, and his reticent middle brother unbent enough to even answer occasionally. The tension came, unsurprisingly, from Lucas, who said nothing but watched every exchange she had with an intense combination of wariness, worry, and fascination. Fascination especially when she spoke of the places she’d been, the people she’d met there, and the different traditions she’d seen. She even got a laugh out of the boy a couple of times with some of the odder—to them, anyway—customs she described. In short, she was simply charming.
It took Keller a moment to realize he was seeing the professional Sydney, the one who had built a world-sourced company by being, he suspected, exactly what she was right now.
It was Cody’s night to clean up, and he declined Sydney’s offer to help with the same politeness he’d exhibited all evening. And he also politely said good-night before heading back to his part of the house.
Good manners can be a way to open a door, or keep it closed. Let people in, or keep them at arm’s length. So they’re a good skill to have.
Their father’s wise words echoed in Keller’s mind. Obviously Cody remembered them, too, although he’d only been nine when they’d lost him. But then Cody’s agile mind remembered darn near everything he’d ever seen, heard, or read. Keller only wished he knew if that had been a door opening, or slamming shut.
“Your cousin’s coming back tomorrow,” Mom said to Lucas, and Keller knew she’d used the relationship term purposefully. “You can show her the ranch, and what you’ve been doing.”
“But I’m supposed to help Chance with that dog!” the boy protested.
“I’ll go with you,” Sydney suggested.
“You want to come spend a couple of hours with a dog trained to attack?” Chance drawled.
“I’m trusting his savior to make clear to me what not to do to bring on an attack,” she said coolly.
Whether it was her unruffled tone or the word savior Keller
didn’t know, but Chance blinked and drew back. “Your funeral,” he said, just as coolly. But an almost-smile made the corners of his mouth twitch.
After he’d gone, Keller looked at Sydney. “He’s more bark than bite,” he said, feeling the need to reassure her.
“Unless it needs to be the other way around, I suspect,” she said.
“Yes,” he admitted.
“He’s a warrior,” Sydney said simply. “It’s only his cause that has changed.”
He stared at her for a moment. She never ceased to amaze him. Which reminded him of how she had called his mother an amazing woman. And he realized he’d never encountered the same kind of innate wisdom his mother had in anyone else before. He’d been asked before, if that was what he was looking for, a woman like his mother.
If he was, he had the feeling he’d found one, in all the ways that mattered.
It was only later, after Sydney’s transport had arrived and she had departed—and Lucas, much calmer than he had been, had gone to bed, while Ry had decamped back to his quarters—that Keller interrupted his mother’s nightly reading—the new volume on Sam Houston she’d just bought he guessed—and asked what she’d said to Cody to get him to behave.
“Simple,” she said, looking up from her e-reader as he sat on the ottoman near her reading chair. “I just put it in tech terms, like a new operating system for his computers. That change was going to happen no matter what, and if he resisted it, he’d just get left behind.”
Keller blinked. “What does that have to do with him hating Sydney at first sight?”
She gave him a smile that was somehow both wistful and satisfied at the same time. “Because he knew, the moment he met Sydney after hearing about her from you.”
Keller frowned. “Knew what?”
“That everything was going to change. Not with Lucas,” she added, reading his expression with her usual skill, “but…with you.”
He blinked. “Me?”
“You and Sydney, I should say.” That casual linking rattled him into speechlessness. “I’ve waited a long time for this,” she went on.
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