by Diana Palmer
“I’m having a baby.” She put her hands protectively on her belly. “And I want this child more than anything in the world.”
“Mom told me you won’t say who the father is.” With his hands on his hips and looking all serious at her, Gabe looked a lot like their father.
It had been a long, emotional day, and Erica was just about at her limit. “Don’t you start on me. I left for Colorado to go to college. I stayed to have a career. Every time I make a decision, I’m being judged in a bad way. And you all wonder why I don’t come home more often.”
“It’s not judgment. It’s just that—” he dragged his hand through his spiky dirty blond hair “we miss you. Me. Mom. Dad. Grandpa Alexander. Gramps.”
Guilt zinged her hard. Gramps—her great-grandfather, Josiah Abernathy—was in his midnineties and had been diagnosed with dementia. The subtext of her brother’s words was that no one knew how much time he had left and she’d been focused on career which didn’t leave a lot of free time.
She pushed the guilt away. “I was entitled to a life that I chose. Not Mom and Dad. They wouldn’t have been happy with anything but me marrying a local rancher. I wanted more. To travel. Broaden my horizons.”
“And you did.” Again he glanced at her belly. “But you’ve lost time with Gramps. Precious time. And he doesn’t say much at all anymore.”
“I’ll go see him soon—” A lump in her throat cut off more words. She did love Gramps and felt badly that he was declining. There was no good excuse except that life happened. One day turned into the next and before she’d realized it, twelve years had gone by.
Erica didn’t want to fight with her brother. She’d come here to get away from the tension at the big house. That thought pulled her up short. Wasn’t that what they called prison? It was time to change the subject.
“So, tell me how you and Melanie met,” she said enthusiastically.
“Mel moved to Bronco from Rust Creek Falls for a job. She ended up looking into the Abernathy family history. Gramps’s history.”
So much for a subject change, Erica thought. But Gabe was smiling lovingly at his fiancée. And this was the happiest she’d ever seen him look.
“How did that happen, Melanie?”
“It’s Mel,” she corrected, then her expression turned from tender to concerned. “I have a good friend in Rust Creek Falls named Winona Cobbs. It came to my attention that she and Josiah Abernathy were secretly in love when they were very young. She got pregnant. When she gave birth, she thought the little girl was stillborn and had a breakdown. But that’s not what happened. The baby was alive.”
Gabe jumped into the story. “It turned out that Gramps’s parents forced him to leave town and put the baby up for adoption. We think somewhere in or around Bronco.”
“Oh my God.” Erica couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “How did you find all this out?”
“When the Ambling A Ranch in Rust Creek Falls was sold, the new people found Josiah’s journal in the house. There was a letter inside to Winona. Somehow he found out who adopted their daughter, Beatrix, and promised he’d find a way to bring her back to Winona.”
Erica was holding her breath. Waiting for the happy reunion part of the story. When it didn’t come, she said, “And?”
“Because of the dementia, he can’t give us any information. A friend of mine who’s really good with social media did an internet search with what information we have and got a hit.” Melanie looked up at Gabe, and disappointment was all over their faces. “It turned out that was just someone looking for money.”
“People like that make me so angry.” Not only that, Erica was feeling even more guilty about neglecting her great-grandfather. “What now?”
“Good question,” Mel said. “So far we’ve only turned up frauds and weirdos.”
Erica looked at her and saw concern. “There’s more, isn’t there?”
“Winona was hospitalized recently. She’s ninety-three and frail. I’m worried that if something doesn’t break soon, we’ll lose her before we can reunite her with her daughter.”
“That would be awful. What are we going to do?” Erica demanded.
“What’s this ‘we’ stuff?” he asked.
“I want to help.”
“Really?” Gabe looked surprised.
“Yes, me. I’ll do whatever I can.”
“Why?”
“He’s my great-grandfather.” And that wasn’t her only reason.
Erica was definitely shocked that Josiah had a daughter out of wedlock that the family never knew about. But she felt a parallel to his story. Her own secret. She was having a baby, and no one was going to know how this child came to be.
“I love him,” she said simply.
“I know that.” But his tone and expression were skeptical, as if he didn’t expect her to stick around.
And why would he? She didn’t come home enough when her life was going great. Until it fell apart, she’d acted as if she didn’t need any of them.
“I know I should have made more of an effort to visit. But I’m here now and I want to do whatever I can to help. I’ve certainly got time—”
Gabe’s expression turned sympathetic. “Mom told me about Peter and his father.”
Erica saw the blaze of fury in his eyes but knew that it wasn’t directed at her. She loved him so much for that.
She let out a sigh. “It’s been an emotional and eventful couple of weeks.”
Mel put her arm around Erica. “You’ve been through a lot recently. Everyone needs a minute to get used to the new normal. It’s all going to be fine.”
“Listen to her, baby sister. She’s a smart lady.” He smiled tenderly at the woman he was going to marry. “And I’m taking her out to dinner tonight.”
“Why don’t you come with us?” Mel asked her.
“I don’t want to intrude.”
“You won’t be. Right, Gabe?” She turned her big blue eyes on him.
He nodded. “Definitely, you should come. There’s a new restaurant in town. Barbecue but better. DJ’s Deluxe.”
“I’m the CFO now and have connections,” Mel said. “Come with us. A change of scene will be good for you. We could all use a distraction.”
“I could sure use one.”
“It’s settled then,” Mel declared.
Erica watched her brother hold his fiancée’s jacket for her to slip on. He put his arm around her for a quick hug, then took her hand and laced their fingers together.
Oh man, he’s got it bad, Erica thought. The bigger they are, the harder they fall.
She didn’t for a moment regret that she was pregnant, but seeing Mel and Gabe together, loving each other, made her a little envious. On the upside, her baby was going to have the best aunt and uncle in the world.
Copyright © 2020 by Harlequin Books S.A.
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ISBN-13: 9781488070099
Texas Proud
Copyright © 2020 by Diana Palmer
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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