Laura scowled at him as he hung up. “You didn’t have to be rude.”
“Jules gets it. You—”
“I just wanted to meet her.” The pout turned into a whine that set Wyatt’s teeth on edge.
“That is not in the contract.” Another thought slammed into him. “Grace doesn’t know you’re here.”
If she had, she would have warned him when he’d talked to her this morning.
Laura ducked her head, a flush staining her translucent skin. “It was a last-minute trip.”
“You’re required to give Grace twenty-four hours’ notice.”
So she could decide whether to brace herself for a visit…or leave town. If she’d stumbled across Julianne and Maddie unexpectedly…
Wyatt cursed again.
“I just wanted to meet Melanie,” Laura repeated obstinately. “It’s only a matter of time before you chase her off. Although, since you apparently spent the night together…”
Wyatt fisted his hand and ground it into his forehead, which had begun to throb in counterpoint to his ankle. Laura was the sweetest, kindest, and most impossible person on the continent. Honest to God, there were times he was convinced her brain had an off switch. And Melanie thought he didn’t understand what it was like with her and Hank.
He let out a low, hard laugh. There was some irony for you.
Laura frowned at him, then at the hallway to the garage. “I don’t understand why she ran off like that.”
“The way you were looking at her—” He threw up his hands, pushed beyond anger. What if Melanie somehow suspected… “I’ve told you, she is the most intuitive, observant person I’ve ever met.”
And Melanie had instantly recognized that Laura’s interest in her was way out of proportion.
“I know. But I didn’t think—”
“No. Kidding.” The story of her life. Once upon a time he’d thought it was cute. Hell, he’d thrived on it. With Laura, there was always an opportunity to come racing to the rescue, only one of many reasons their relationship had been out of whack from the beginning. And now she was giving him those wide, wounded eyes that made him feel like he’d plucked the wings off a butterfly.
“I’m going to change my clothes.” He swung past her to his room, where he peeled off the sweat-dank T-shirt and tossed it in the general direction of the hamper. A shower would have to wait, along with popping a couple of pain pills, crawling into bed, and dragging the covers over his head. First, he had to get two women and a child bundled up and safely out of town—and follow them clear to the county line to be sure they didn’t turn back.
He blew out a long, harsh breath. Stand down. The imminent danger had passed, and he could trust Julianne. Like a younger Wyatt, she was occasionally too blinded by love to say no to one of Laura’s ridiculous schemes, but now that she’d come to her senses, she would take charge. Laura might be stubborn, but she was no match for her wife’s iron will.
Most of the time. It was that potential other that kept a slight, wary distance between Wyatt and Julianne. They were both all too aware that if the going got tough in Laura’s marriage, she might not hesitate to use Wyatt as an escape hatch.
And he might not be able to resist letting her.
He brushed his teeth, popped another couple of antacids, then dug out clean cargo shorts, socks, T-shirt, and his ever-handy ankle brace. As he tightened the last strap on the Aircast, the doorbell chimed. His heart shot straight into his esophagus. What if Melanie had come back—
Then he heard the unmistakable sound of a little girl’s giggle.
A reluctant smile was already tugging at his mouth when he came out of his room, leaving the crutches behind. He’d be needing both hands. Julianne straightened, as graceful and lovely as the statues she’d brought back for him from one of her trips to Ghana, her skin and hair as dark as Laura’s was light. She offered Wyatt an apologetic grimace. He just shook his head. Lord knew, he understood better than anyone.
Then the child clinging to her leg spotted him and shrieked in delight. She threw out her arms and began to topple forward. With two long strides, he caught and scooped her up, the pain in his ankle a distant second to the aching joy of her weight in his arms, the sweet baby-girl smell of her filling him up and emptying him out at the same time.
“Hey, beautiful,” he said, unable to help a smile even if it threatened to crack at the edges.
She pressed pudgy hands to his cheeks, fascinated by the day-old stubble. He kissed a nose that would probably someday be sprinkled with Grace’s freckles. Smoothed a hand over hair as dark and straight as Melanie’s. Maddie flashed him a carbon copy of her daddy’s grin.
The spitting damn image of Hank.
Chapter 24
Wyatt was totally, irrevocably screwed. He had been from the moment Gil Sanchez had cornered him during a visit to Earnest and uttered those six fateful words.
“Grace is pregnant with Hank’s kid.”
The timeline had been simple enough to reconstruct. After Hank had been fired by Jacobs Livestock, he’d sworn he’d show them all they’d made a huge mistake. For the first couple of months, it had looked like he might. According to Wyatt’s sources, Hank hadn’t been his normal, happy-go-lucky self, but everyone he’d worked with had been impressed by his skill in the arena. Unfortunately, distance and time had not improved his attitude toward the folks back home.
He’d blown into Earnest the weekend before Thanksgiving, pissed off at the world. He hadn’t been in town ten minutes before butting heads with his father in the middle of Corral Café, and turning right around and leaving again. According to Violet, he hadn’t stopped to see his sister, or answered any of her calls or texts.
But at some point during that visit he had connected with Grace. Wyatt had never asked for details, and she’d never offered them.
Predictably, Hank’s visit at Christmas had been a disaster, topped off by the scene at the Lone Steer on New Year’s Eve. Hank’s version of partying had always been dancing and flirting, shooting pool and shooting the bull, not stumbling into the bar already shit-faced and truly mean for the first time in his life. No one could have imagined that, even drunk, he would sneer at Grace, mocking her in a voice loud enough to carry over the roar of conversation during the band break.
“Sorry, Gracie. You’ve already had the only piece a’ me you’re gonna get.”
That weekend, Gil had walked in unexpectedly and found her crying in the office at Sanchez Trucking, where she worked a few hours on Sundays helping with filing. After prying the truth out of her, the bastard had immediately turned to Wyatt.
And any slim chance Wyatt might have had with Melanie had crumbled into dust. He couldn’t un-know that Hank had fathered a child. For Grace’s sake, he couldn’t tell anyone. He was trapped in a continuous lie of omission.
If he was already beyond the point of no return, why not give Laura what she wanted more than anything else?
And now he sat on his couch, cuddling Melanie’s niece, torn between strangling Gil and thanking him.
Pointing out that Wyatt wasn’t exactly a neutral party, Gil had provided his own attorney to look out for Grace’s interests when she’d agreed to the open adoption. The lawyer had done an excellent job, inserting the clause that gave her complete control of when or even if she would have contact with Maddie or her parents.
And insisting on a confidentiality clause. Unless Grace decided to inform Hank, her parents, or anyone else before then, Maddie’s existence—and parentage—would remain a secret until her tenth birthday, sentencing Wyatt to a decade of piling lie upon lie. Somehow, though, he had continued to cling to a miniscule grain of hope. He, of all people, should be able to worm his way out…
The moment Laura and Melanie came face-to-face, reality had crashed down on him like the proverbial ton of bricks. There was no finessing this situation. Eve
n if he could tell Melanie tomorrow, if she could set aside her anger long enough to appreciate the impossible position he’d been in, Hank would still be planted firmly between them, and she wouldn’t push her brother aside for Wyatt’s sake.
He would never ask her to.
But Laura was finally a mother—and Wyatt was a godfather. He had given himself the unexpected gift of Maddie, a piercing joy that he couldn’t regret even as it threatened every other relationship in his life—creating an invisible wedge between Wyatt and Joe that neither of them had yet acknowledged.
“Where were you and Melanie all night?” Laura asked.
“We went for a hike.” Maddie squirmed, and he set her down on the couch beside him. “I fell and twisted my ankle, and we had to wait until this morning to hike out again.”
“That’s it?” Laura looked disappointed.
No, that wasn’t even close to it, but it was all he intended to share.
“Have you had any breakfast?” Julianne asked, always the practical one.
“No.”
He let his head drop back against the couch cushions and closed his eyes as Maddie poked inquisitive fingers into the thigh pocket of his shorts. The refrigerator door opened and closed and pans clattered, Julianne making herself at home in his kitchen.
The couch cushions barely moved when Laura sat down. “We’ve been talking…”
Wyatt opened one eye a slit, caught the quick glance that ricocheted between the two women, and felt the familiar twist of dread in his gut. “No,” he said flatly.
“Couldn’t you at least talk to Grace? See if she’d be willing to consider—”
“No.”
Startled, Maddie flinched away from him, her eyes going wide with alarm. Laura gathered her up and snuggled her close, stroking her back. “It’s okay, sweetie. Uncle Wyatt isn’t mad at you.”
Her tone was designed to inflict guilt, but damned if he would let them wind him up that easily. He focused on Julianne. “You agreed to her terms.”
And today, of all days, he couldn’t deal with this. His mind insisted on weaving an alternate version of what the previous night could have been, and where that kiss could have led. But that could never happen in this reality, and piled on top of his pain and exhaustion, the overwhelming shittiness of it made him want to howl.
He clamped his hands around his head and dug his fingers into his scalp. “Even if Grace was willing—which I guarantee she is not—we don’t even know where Hank is, or what kind of mess he might be in when we find him.”
“Are you sure you will?” Laura asked.
Wyatt nailed her with a loaded stare. “I’ve got my inside man working on it.”
“You asked my father to find Hank?” Her eyes went wide with distress. “Does he know Maddie is Hank’s daughter?”
“Of course not. I said I needed to find someone. He didn’t ask for details. I didn’t offer an explanation.”
“He’s very good at ignoring inconvenient details.” Laura’s soft lips twisted as she pried Maddie’s fingers from around the pendant of her silver necklace. Her father might not have been directly involved in what had been done to her, but all the signs had been right under his nose, if he’d chosen to look. He also couldn’t quite come to grips with his daughter’s sexual orientation, compounded by her choice of life mate. People in their cloistered world didn’t marry outside their lily-white circles.
Laura shrugged off her rare display of bitterness, her voice going airy. “Well, if Hank has so much as cashed a check, my dearest daddy will be able to track him down.”
And then he and Wyatt would never speak of it again. Laura’s father had fingers in so many financial pies that there was almost no limit to his reach. Wyatt had no desire to know what arms were being twisted on his behalf, but anyone who earned money, filed taxes, or accumulated debt left a trail.
At least, that was Wyatt was banking on. Pun intended.
Julianne dished up scrambled eggs beside a toasted bagel and brought the plate to Wyatt, along with a glass of apple juice for him and a sippy cup for Maddie. She swept the little girl up into her arms and tweaked her chin. “You’re right. We made a deal, and we have to stick to it. Maddie will be fine. Won’t you, baby girl? You’ve got two mommies and Uncle Wyatt who love you enough to make up for all the rest.”
The perfectly cooked eggs congealed into lumps in his stomach. Yes, Maddie would be more than fine. Laura and Julianne had the means to give her every advantage, and the home full of light and love they all deserved. And Wyatt…
He would be to them what he had become to Joe and Violet—an outer planet in their cozy little solar system, swinging by now and then to soak up a little reflected warmth.
Chapter 25
Melanie woke in the middle of the afternoon, stiff, groggy, and starving.
She turned up her nose at the leftover scone from her stop at the coffee shop that morning. She needed real food, and she might as well buy some groceries and make herself officially at home.
She pulled on shorts and a tank top and grabbed her phone, which advised her that the nearest grocery store was ten blocks straight west. The weather couldn’t have been more perfect—the sky a bright, cloudless blue with a warm, dry breeze rustling the leaves of the tree at the end of the block as she strolled around to the parking lot behind the bar. At least a dozen cars passed before she could turn onto the one-way running west, a lot of traffic for a…
Huh. What day was it? Melanie counted it out with her fingers on the steering wheel. She’d arrived on Tuesday. Wednesday she’d made her uninvited guest appearance at the bullfighting clinic. She’d spent most of Thursday polishing her résumé and working on that stupid questionnaire before traipsing off to the mountains with Wyatt. Which made this Friday. And the first time in…well, hell, she couldn’t remember when she’d last lost track of the day of the week.
Summer vacation, before their senior year of college? Nope, that couldn’t be it. She and Shawnee had hit the regional rodeos and team ropings hard that year, so she’d known exactly when to load up and where they were due to rope next. She’d roll back into the ranch days later, at Lord only knew what time on a Sunday night, already craving the moment when she’d crawl behind the wheel to head for the next one.
In the beginning, she’d felt almost the same rush when she walked into her office on Monday morning, but no honeymoon lasted forever. Even on the rodeo trail there had been days, even weeks, that had been more like living the nightmare than the dream. Bad draws. Lousy loops. Flat tires and one blown transmission.
She wouldn’t trade a minute of it.
She’d always accepted that roping wouldn’t be her career. Unlike Shawnee, she wasn’t willing to scrape by training horses. The payoffs weren’t big enough to make a living on the regional circuit, and women’s roping events weren’t included in the pro rodeos, where the real money could be made.
Melanie’s first full-time job—assistant to the events coordinator at the fairgrounds in Amarillo—had seemed ideal until she discovered—duh!—that those events were primarily held on evenings and weekends, the same time as rodeos and practice sessions. Every step up the ladder—first to head events coordinator, then the jump to marketing director at Westwind—had meant more responsibility, longer hours, until she had to let something go.
Giving up her roping was one thing. Sacrificing her friendships, though? Losing track of her own brother? How had she become a person who couldn’t make the time to watch Hank fight bulls at his first major rodeo in Fort Worth? Who hadn’t made it to a single one of Beni’s Little League games this spring?
For what?
The question was wiped away by the sight of a huge bronze statue of a bronc rider on her right, in front of a set of wrought-iron gates and a towering, unmistakable grandstand.
The world-famous Pendleton Roundup grounds.
She hit the brakes. The car behind her honked, so she whipped into a driveway that circled the tree-shaded park adjacent to the rodeo arena and stopped her car at the curb to get out and gape. It was right here. Literally steps from the freaking grocery store.
Slamming the car door, she walked past the statue to the gates to wrap her hands around the iron bars and press her forehead between them, frustrated by her limited view. Through the gap beside the grandstand, she glimpsed a slice of the inside of the massive arena, but not the legendary grass surface.
There must be some way to get inside…
The distinctive rumble of the Camaro didn’t register until it was too late. She dropped her hands and spun around, but Wyatt had already pulled in behind her SUV, aviator glasses firmly in place and one tanned arm dangling out the open window.
He lowered the phone that had been pressed to his ear. “Paying your respects?”
“It is one of the sacred temples of my people.”
He nodded in acknowledgment and pushed open his door. The hum of a motor caught Melanie’s attention, and she turned to see a golf cart whizzing toward her on the broad, paved path that curved around the end of the arena, inside the fence. It lurched to stop at the gate, and the driver jumped out. He had the scrawny butt and toed-out gait of a bull rider, probably retired, since Melanie judged him to be near her age. His cap and T-shirt were splattered with water, his jeans soaked from the knees down.
He produced a set of keys, unlocked the gate, and opened it with a flourish and a smile. “Welcome to the Pendleton Roundup.”
Melanie goggled at him. Did they have some kind of electronic sensor on the front gate to detect tourists? “Uh, thanks?”
“I appreciate it, Rowdy.” Wyatt’s voice was once again so close behind her that she jumped. Even on the crutches, he’d managed to sneak up on her. And, duh. Of course the man hadn’t magically appeared. Wyatt had summoned him.
“No problem.” Rowdy eyed Wyatt, obviously unaccustomed to seeing him anything less than perfectly groomed.
Fearless in Texas Page 18
