We went to our lawyer the next morning to seek his advice, and by the end of the week, we had a plan in place. We hired a private investigator to find Piper in Boston and keep tabs on her, to alert us if and when she went to an adoption agency.
Again she jerked her head up to pin an incredulous look on Brady. “They were spying on me?”
He said nothing, his level gaze hard and unsympathetic. After a moment of exchanging silent glares, she continued reading, righteous indignation now part of the emotional soup that roiled inside her.
When we found her and the adoption agency she intended to use, we made sure that we got your son. We made sure no other potential parents saw Piper’s file. Yes, we are guilty of underhanded, probably illegal, things. We cheated, we circumvented rules, and we pulled so many strings I’m not sure why the adoption didn’t unravel. But we didn’t care. We still don’t. Because we got Connor. He is ours. And if you are now reading this, then it means we are gone...and now he’s yours to raise. Forgive us for keeping the truth from you, and don’t hold it against us. We love Connor with our whole hearts and know you do, too. He belongs with you.
I’ve enclosed information about our life insurance and Connor’s college funds. There should be enough to cover his care for several years.
Brady, Piper doesn’t know we adopted Connor. It is now your decision whether to tell her or not. I know you still love her. Maybe, just maybe, you two can find a way to be together and share the love of this precious boy you created. Thank you, Brady, for being the best brother a guy could ask for. For giving us Connor and for raising him now. I love you, little brother. You are up to the task of being Connor’s father. Don’t doubt that for a minute. Just love him and protect him, and the rest will fall into place. Just stay in the saddle,
Scott
A teardrop plopped onto the letter, blurring the ink, and Piper swiped at her face with the back of her hand. She sat motionless and numb to the core, while she reread the entire letter. Somehow, this had to be a mistake. The family that had adopted her baby lived in Massachusetts. She forced her paralyzed brain to recall the details of the adoption that for years she had worked to block out. The adoptive parents, whose names she’d never known, were from... Worcester, Massachusetts. Or were they? She worked to form enough spit to swallow. The law office handling the adoption for the parents was located in Worcester. She couldn’t really say where the parents were from.
Her head spun, and beneath her, the bench seemed to tilt and the ground to sway. She had to brace a hand on the seat to keep herself upright. “I...I don’t understand.”
“What’s unclear?” he asked, his tone bitter. “Maybe the part where you lied to me about what happened to our baby?”
She felt a viselike grip squeeze her chest, and she struggled for a breath. Air sawed from her throat in shallow gasps that only added to her dizziness. “Brady, I didn’t—”
“Did you not think I had a right to know your decision about our baby? God knows I gave you plenty of opportunity to tell the truth, but you ignored my calls for weeks! Then when you did answer a text, you lied and said the baby was dead.”
“That’s not true! I never said the baby died!” She swallowed, and guilt washed through her as she confessed. “I...I just...let you think that when you assumed...”
He pulled his cell phone from his back pocket and scrolled through screens before reading, “You don’t have to worry about the baby anymore. There’s no longer anything to decide or discuss. Please stop calling. We both have to move on with our lives now.”
She gaped at him, her heart thundering. “You saved the text?”
“I saved the text.” He huffed a sigh, laden with anger and frustration. “And do you blame me for thinking that meant you lost the baby? Whether you call it an outright lie or not, you deceived me. You didn’t give me a say in what happened to our baby. Then you brushed me aside like last week’s news.”
She squeezed her eyes shut, digging deep for the strength to face the giant she’d tried so many years to hide from. Over the years, she’d practiced what she might say to Brady if he ever found out, if she ever had the courage to tell him about the baby herself. But though she’d mentally rehearsed her responses a thousand times, words failed her now. Guilt and shame overwhelmed her, colored with anger for his brother’s deception.
Connor is your son...
Then the truth of those words finally penetrated the blanket of her compunction, confusion and shock. Connor. Is. Your. Son.
She whipped her head up to stare wide-eyed at Brady. “Connor is our son? Connor is our son!”
He scoffed and twisted his mouth in a humorless moue. “That’s kinda the point of this conversation.”
Like a primed well, new emotions surged up and overflowed, adding to the flood that muddied her thoughts and swamped her senses. She raised a hand to her mouth, laughing and crying at the same time. Joy filled her soul, so pure and true she ached with it. The sweet baby that she’d felt compelled to give up, the tiny boy she’d given away so that he could have a better life than she could provide was back in her life. Safe, loved and...living with his father.
Her brain yo-yoed back to the fact that Brady had discovered her secret, her deceit, her crime against him.
She lifted her eyes once more to meet Brady’s and met the accusation, fury and pain in his face. The seesaw of emotions left her winded, speechless. Her celebration over finding her child now became a sharp slice of regret that made her double over at the waist as guilt wrenched her gut in knots. “Oh, Brady, I’m so sorry.”
His mouth tightened, and he shook his head in disgust. “Sorry? You think sorry makes up for denying me the right to be a father to my own son?”
“I know you’re mad.”
“Ya think?”
“Brady, I was a kid. I was scared, and—”
“I was scared, too. But I knew we could handle it together. That’s why I offered to marry you.”
She frowned. “You only proposed because of the baby.”
“Hell, yeah! I’d have done the right thing if you’d given me a chance! You know that.”
She exhaled a deep breath and said softly. “That’s why I turned you down.”
Brady cocked his head, his expression contorting in confusion. “Come again?”
“I said, that’s why I turned you down. I didn’t want a husband who only married me because we were reckless enough to forget birth control.”
He gaped at her, his mouth working, but only strangled sounds came from his throat.
“We were too young to be thinking about marriage, Brady! We both had plans for college. You had dreams of veterinary school, and I couldn’t take that from you.”
He moved closer to her, sticking his face in hers. “What I had was the kind of mediocre grades that colleges find easy to turn down and a dazzling future as a ranch hand, shoveling horse crap for the rest of my life. Vet school was unrealistic. You were the real dream.” He took a slow breath, and his eyes and voice softened even though his jaw remained taut with tension. “You were the only good thing in my life, Piper. And you left me. You left me, and then you lied to me.”
A searing ache stabbed her chest, and moisture stung in her eyes again. She surged off the bench, knocking his shoulder aside, and marched away from him. She needed space to catch her breath, distance to collect her thoughts. After a moment, she pressed a hand to her swirling stomach and pivoted to face him. “Brady...a baby is the wrong reason to get married.”
He threw his hands up. “Seriously? Sounds like a pretty good reason to me.”
“Not if that’s the only reason!” She raked her hair back from her face and sniffled as her tears made her nose run. “What about compatibility? What about love? Marriage is hard work under the best circumstances, and if you enter into it for the wrong reasons, you’re setting yourself up for failure.”<
br />
His eyebrows dipped. “Are you saying you didn’t love me? Because I loved you with all my heart. I wanted to spend my life with you, Piper.”
The fist of pain squeezing her chest clamped tighter, suffocating her. Her legs grew wobbly, and she wrapped her arms around her middle as she struggled to keep her knees locked and steady. “Brady, please. Rehashing the past doesn’t help anything. It only hurts. What we have to deal with is now. What happens now?”
“No, don’t change the subject.” He strode over to her, taking her by the elbows and drilling a piercing green stare straight to her soul. “Answer me. I deserve to know. Did you love me?”
* * *
Brady felt the shudder that raced through Piper. Her cheeks drained of color, and if he hadn’t been supporting her arms, he felt sure she’d have collapsed. And just how was he supposed to interpret that reaction?
She moistened her trembling lips, and he tracked the path of her tongue, fighting the desire to kiss her dewy, sweet mouth. If she’d had any doubts how he’d felt about her then, how he still felt about her, even after years of trying to cure himself of his addiction to her, he could end her speculation with one blow-your-boots-off, memory-making kiss. But he roped his desire and restrained it as he waited for her answer.
“I did love you. Of course I loved you, Brady.”
He choked out a wry laugh. “Of course? Of course implies it should be obvious. But what was obvious to me was your disregard for my feelings when you said See ya, pal and up and left for Boston. You refused to answer my calls and then told me to move on with my life.” After a short pause he added, “Without giving me a say in what happened to our child!”
Piper stiffened then, drawing herself up to her full height, even as tears streaked her cheeks. “I did what I thought was best at the time! Yes, I was wrong in so many ways. I know that in hindsight. But I never wanted to hurt you. It was because we’d dreamed together about our futures that I knew marriage at eighteen and starting a family so soon was not what you wanted. I wanted you to go to college, to become a veterinarian. You had dreams for yourself, and I would not be responsible for killing those dreams. I didn’t want you to resent me or our baby, and I didn’t want to give up the opportunity I had to go to Boston College on scholarship.”
“Oh, now we get to the truth.”
She aimed a finger at him. “Don’t twist this around and make it what it isn’t. Was it selfish of me to not tell you about putting the baby up for adoption? Yes. I’ve admitted that. Do I regret hurting you? Definitely. But my giving the baby up for—”
“Connor. That baby has a name. Connor.”
She shook her head slowly. “Actually, in my heart, I named him after you. I always thought of him as Brady Jeremiah Jr.” She twitched a sad smile. “BJ for short.”
Her revelation punched him in the gut, and he staggered back a step, dropping his hands from her arms. He sucked in a ragged breath.
“And, most importantly, I gave our baby up for adoption because I wanted what was best for him. I believed he’d have a better life with adoptive parents. I’d squandered my chance to be with you, and I didn’t want to blow my best chance to give BJ...to give Connor a good life.” She puffed out a shallow breath. “I made a really bad decision by letting you believe he’d died, but I swear I had good motives, ill-conceived though they were. I know you must hate me for what I did. I can’t blame you for hating me.”
He scoffed. “Hate you? I only wish I could have hated you.”
She pulled a sad, wounded half grin. “Ouch.”
“It would have been so much easier to get over you. I was furious with you, hurt by you, but...” He huffed his disappointment and stared at the ground near his feet. “I never quit caring. Even though you’ve made it clear in the years since that you’ve moved on, I’ve had a hard time accepting it. I still think about having all that we once talked about, the life we dreamed about sharing together.”
“Brady...” she rasped.
“Learning the truth about Connor was bittersweet. I’d lost my brother, but...” he glanced up to meet her watery gaze, and the misery in her eyes slashed through him “...I got a little piece of you back, a little bit of the future we’d planned.”
A tiny mewl of distress sounded in her throat, and a visible tremor shook her. The instinct to protect and possess her stirred deep inside him. He eased closer to her, his gaze roving over her face, reading every tic and shadow to gauge her heart. When one of the tears that had puddled in her gray eyes rolled down her cheek, the anger that had coalesced over the years into a hard ball in his soul cracked. The bitterness drained away, and he was left with a hollow space that clamored to be filled. With Piper. With new hope.
“My God, Piper, I’ve missed you,” he whispered, reaching for her. Thumbing away the moisture on her cheek, he stroked her soft skin and cradled her face in his palm.
She sucked in a hiss of breath as if his touch burned. Brady’s gut clenched, fully expecting her to pull away, to make excuses, to distance herself again. Instead, she angled her chin into his touch, releasing the breath she held with a sigh as soft as the autumn breeze. “I’ve missed you, too.”
If he hadn’t been standing inches away from her, his every fiber tuned into the minutest hints of her mood, he would have missed her whispered confession. But he did hear her, and the barely audible words were all the invitation he needed.
Sliding his hand to the nape of her neck, Brady coaxed her closer. His other arm circled her waist, anchoring her against him, and he dipped his head to take what he’d been waiting for. He poured seven years of suppressed desire, fruitless longing and painful patience into his kiss. He didn’t bother with a polite kiss that eased into the embrace or with subtle nibbles along her cheek that teased her passion. No, he wanted her to know how serious he was about his feelings for her, the time they’d wasted, the need that clawed at him. He angled his mouth on hers, an urgent kiss that demanded a response from her. A deep kiss that claimed her as his.
After the initial surprise bowed her back, and she gasped at the crush of his lips against hers, her posture eased. She melted against him, bunching his shirt in her fingers as she clung to him.
As he grew more confident that she wouldn’t bolt, that she was as swept up in the passion of the moment as he, and that maybe, just maybe, she still had feelings for him, one thought filtered through his brain—At last.
* * *
Ken watched the meeting between Piper and the cowboy with his jaw tight and his fingers gripping the high-powered binoculars so hard his knuckles were white. He was galled to know he’d been ignorant of a relationship that was obviously so key to her past.
The bark of the tree he’d climbed to have a better vantage point scraped his back, and the stench of cow pies and rancid mud permeated the air. How did Piper stand the filth and stink? She was better than this dirty ranch and the sweaty cowboys that worked it. No wonder she only returned for a few days each year.
Knowing how rarely she visited her family, how little she saw of this particular cowboy, should have eased his mind. But the discussion Piper was having with the ranch hand clearly had her upset. For her to be so moved by what he was saying, whatever was in the paper he’d shown her, meant she was emotionally invested. Their body language screamed of a deeply personal exchange. Which meant the cowboy was important to her.
Ken lowered the binoculars and stewed. He needed to find a way to break the bond she had with this Stetson-wearing John Wayne wannabe. The most obvious solution was to deal with him the way he’d dealt with Ron Sandburg. Eliminating the competition was the surest way to clear the path to his future with Piper. But knocking off the cowboy would be tricky.
He pulled out his pack of cinnamon gum and unwrapped a stick. Shoving the gum in his mouth, he let the wrapper flutter to the ground like one of the dead leaves dropping from the branches around him.
How would he get to the cowboy? The ranch was crawling with people from first light until well after dark. He’d stand out as an interloper here in Hickville, unlike the high-rise where Ron Sandburg had lived.
Expelling a frustrated sigh, Ken raised the binoculars again to monitor the exchange between Piper and—
Ken flinched at the sight that greeted him with such violence that he nearly fell from his perch. The cowboy had Piper in a lip-lock, his hands groping her like a randy octopus. And she did nothing, nothing, to fight him off. Ken saw red. Rage boiled in him, and his pulse pounded in his ears.
Piper belonged to him. Something had to be done about the cowboy. Nobody took what belonged to Ken without consequences. Yes, the cowboy would pay for his trespass, and Piper...well, he’d have to teach her a lesson, too.
* * *
Piper lost herself in Brady’s kiss for long moments of bliss before sanity reared its head. She drew back from him with a sigh of dismay, averting her head from his kisses.
Brady stilled and released her slowly, obviously reading the returned distance in her expression. “What?”
“We can’t do this.” She pulled away from his embrace and stalked back toward the bench, raking fingers through her hair.
“Can’t what? Kiss?”
“No. I mean, yes. I... We can’t let sex muddle our heads while we figure things out.”
“Figure things out...” Brady parroted, his voice confused.
She faced him, tipping her head in query. “Isn’t that why you showed me the letter? So we can decide how to move forward? What we’re going to do about Connor?”
Brady gave a harsh laugh and rubbed the scruff on his chin. Piper’s own chin stung a bit from the abrasion of his stubble against her skin when they’d kissed. Her fingers twitched, wanting to touch the places where she still felt his mark on her, but she stifled the impulse.
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