“Thank you, Devon. My father already called.”
“Oh.” He hung on to the phone, unwilling to end the call and lose contact with her again.
“Do you have any news about them?”
“No. I’m headed to Yellowstone now.”
“Is that singing I hear? Whose birthday is it?”
Devon realized the five kids in the other room were singing “Happy Birthday” to his father. “My father’s.”
“You’re celebrating Angus’s birthday? Now?”
“It’s my biological father’s birthday. I’m at his ranch in Texas.”
“You’re in Texas, and you didn’t come to see me?”
A long silence ensued while Devon tried to figure out how to turn a conversation that had begun by conveying information about the uncertain fates of his brother and her aunt into the call he should have made to Pippa a long time ago.
Her voice sounded anxious as she said, “Is there something you’re not telling me?”
There were a lot of things he hadn’t said to her. Things he would have preferred to say in person. But it seemed he wasn’t going to get the perfect opportunity to open his heart to her. Would she believe that he’d been planning see her after he left Shiloh Kidd’s ranch? Or would she think he’d intended to go right back home again? The time had come to fish or cut bait.
He took a deep breath and said, “I love you, Pippa. Think about that while I go hunt for Brian and Taylor.”
He didn’t say goodbye. He just hung up the phone.
Now she knew. The next step was up to her. If she loved him…Devon refused to speculate on what she might do. Once he and Aiden and Connor found Brian—and they would find him—he would go see Pippa and ask if she was willing to spend the rest of her life with him.
Then he realized he hadn’t said a word about the baby.
Chapter 33
PIPPA’S MOUTH WAS still agape when she realized the phone was dead. When she’d heard Devon’s voice, she’d been afraid something might have happened to her father, who’d been headed to Yellowstone to help fight the fire. Devon’s announcement that he loved her was shocking—and wonderful. She just wished he’d said how he felt about becoming an instant parent to another man’s child. But he must know that she and the child were inseparable.
The baby moved inside her, and Pippa put a protective hand over her belly. It was time to go meet her future instead of waiting for it to come to her.
She turned to her mother, who was working at a desk in the kitchen, and said, “I need to go back to Wyoming.”
“Have they found the missing plane?” her mother asked, removing a pair of reading glasses.
“Not yet. But I want to be there when they do.”
“Who was that on the phone?”
“Devon. He said he loves me.” Pippa still felt a little dazed.
Her mother rose and crossed the room, folding her arms around Pippa. “Oh, darling. I knew that boy would figure out how he felt sooner or later. I’m glad it was sooner.”
“Sooner?” Pippa said. “It’s been six weeks.”
“Believe me, that’s no time at all.”
Pippa was reminded of the sorrowful months her mother and father had been separated. Her mum had waited twenty years to see her lost love again. So maybe six weeks wasn’t so long after all.
“You’re lucky to be able to share these final months of your pregnancy with Devon,” her mother said, tucking a curl behind Pippa’s ear. She laid her other hand tenderly on Pippa’s belly. At that moment, the baby kicked.
Pippa looked at her mother’s startled face and laughed.
“Devon can experience fun moments like that,” her mother said, laughing along with her. “And he can be there when your baby’s born. That is, if you want him there. You’ve told me how Devon feels about you. You haven’t said how you feel about him.”
Her mother put an arm around Pippa’s waist and led her toward the living room, where the two of them settled onto a comfortable couch. A cool evening breeze was blowing through the open windows, and Pippa grabbed a blanket to cover her bare feet. There had been too many poisonous spiders and snakes in Australia to run around barefoot, but it turned out her mother rarely wore shoes in the house, and Pippa had picked up the habit.
Pippa had sat on this couch and discussed her life growing up in the Australian Outback, her stepmother, Irene, her brother, Nathan, her work whispering brumbies, her ill-fated romance with Tim Brandon, and her experiences with Beowulf and Sultan. She’d never spoken about Devon.
“I made such a fool of myself with Tim,” she began, “that I kept Devon at arm’s length so I wouldn’t get hurt again. I kept telling myself—and Devon—that I only wanted a friend. I’m not sure when my feelings changed, but they did. I thought about saying something to Devon when I went to his cabin to pick up my things, but he looked so forbidding, I didn’t.”
“So you know he loves you, but he has no idea how you feel?”
“Too right.” Pippa wondered where Devon had found the courage to lay his heart before her like that, when she’d never been brave enough to be equally vulnerable. Even now she quaked when she thought of telling him she loved him. Especially since Devon hadn’t said a word about the baby.
He knew she planned to keep it, which meant he must have thought about becoming the father of Tim’s child. Saying he loved her likely meant he was willing to take the baby along with her. But accepting the presence of another man’s child in your home and actually being a good father to it were two different things.
What if Devon said he would cherish her baby and love it as his own…and then didn’t? What if he honestly believed he could accept another man’s child…and then couldn’t? If she had to leave Devon someday in the future for the sake of her child, she would be leaving her shattered heart behind.
“When do you want to go?” her mother asked.
“I should call Daddy and see if he can send King’s jet to pick me up.”
“I have a jet available that can take you back to Jackson.”
“Thank you, Mum,” Pippa said.
“Where are you planning to stay when you get there?”
Pippa realized Devon was on his way to Yellowstone and was likely to remain there until Brian and Taylor were found. She would rather not stay at his cabin alone. “At Kingdom Come, I guess.” She hesitated, then said, “There’s plenty of room at the ranch. Why don’t you come with me?”
Her mother looked startled. “I couldn’t do that!”
“Why not? I’m sure Daddy would be glad to see you. Maybe you’ll fall in love again.”
“I have a life—and responsibilities—here in Texas, and your father’s tied to Kingdom Come, at least for the next year. What would be the point?”
“Your love story with Daddy seems so sad. I wish there were some way for it to have a happy ending.”
Her mother’s mouth curved in a smile, but her gray eyes remained somber. “Not all fairy tales end happily ever after. I’m so glad we’ve gotten to know each other, that I’ve had a chance to be your mother and for you to be my daughter.”
Pippa felt her throat swelling closed. It sounded almost as if she were saying goodbye forever.
“I’m only going to Wyoming,” she said. “It’s not the end of the world.”
Her mother reached out, and a moment later they were hugging each other tight.
“You’ll always have a home here if you ever need one,” her mother whispered in her ear. She leaned back and brushed the tears from Pippa’s cheeks. “And I hope you’ll invite me to visit now and then to get to know my grandchild.”
“I will,” Pippa promised.
As they hugged again, Pippa realized that she’d just met her mother, and here she was walking out of her life. It didn’t seem fair for them to have found each other and then be separated again so soon. But Devon’s life was in Wyoming. And her life was with Devon.
She cocked her head and asked, “Do you rea
lly want to run for the Senate? I mean, if you weren’t doing that, you wouldn’t have to stay here in Texas. You could come to Wyoming and live close to me and Daddy and your brand-new grandchild.”
“There are things that Jonathan began that I want to finish.”
“Couldn’t someone else do it? Now that I’ve found you, I don’t want to lose you.”
Her mother laughed. “You won’t. I’ll visit and you’ll visit and we’ll stay as close as we are now.”
Pippa conceded that she wasn’t going to change her mother’s mind. At least not today. That didn’t mean she couldn’t do her best to figure out a way to get her mother and father back together. She knew that part of what had brought her father back to the States was the chance to reunite with his lost love. Now that her mother knew the worst of what her father had done, they could begin to build a new relationship as adults. She just needed to get her mother back to Wyoming.
The baby would solve that problem in the short term. With any luck, her mother wouldn’t win that Senate seat. And then, well, anything was possible.
Chapter 34
“SHE’S WONDERFUL, DADDY. I can see why you loved Mum so much.”
Pippa’s description of her time with Jennie made Matt want to drop everything and go to Texas to see his former love. But he couldn’t leave until Taylor was found—one way or the other. He’d come home from Yellowstone long enough to make sure Pippa was settled at the ranch, but he was heading back this afternoon.
The charred wreckage of the smoke-jumping aircraft had been found in a burned-out area of the forest, but no bodies had been recovered. Apparently, Taylor and Brian had escaped before the plane hit the ground, or at least before it burned. The forest fire was still raging too fiercely, and the winds were whipping the fire into a frenzy that was too unpredictable, for a wider search to be safely launched.
The discovery of the plane in a large burned-out area had led the authorities to conclude that they were looking for remains, rather than living souls. Collective wisdom said there was no way Brian and Taylor could have moved faster than the wildfire, especially since it was likely one or both of them had been injured in the crash.
The fact that none of Brian’s communication gear was working also lent weight to the conclusion that Brian, along with his equipment, had been consumed by the fire. Since he was presumed to have Taylor with him, she must have been burned to death as well. It was just a matter of time, the authorities had announced to the news media, before their charred bodies would be found.
Aiden had taken violent exception to that announcement, and Connor and Devon had been vocal in agreeing with him. But there was nothing any of them could do about a further search until the fire was under control, and it was still burning ferociously.
Pippa interrupted Matt’s grim thoughts when she asked, “Have you seen Devon?”
“Last time I saw him, he and Aiden and your aunt Leah were clearing brush to create a firebreak.”
“Was he close to the fire?” Pippa asked.
Matt saw the fear in her eyes and said, “This is not like the bushfires in Australia.”
“It’s not?”
Bushfires were one of the great dangers in Australia, especially when pushed by the wind, dashing across the dry grassland, torching everything in their path at speeds up to twenty-two kilometers per hour. Matt and Pippa had barely outraced a bushfire when Pippa was eight. Dark clouds of smoke had caused tears to stream down her sooty face, and her hair and eyebrows had gotten badly singed by flying embers before they’d finally made it to the river and safety.
Matt wasn’t sure whether the forest fire in Yellowstone was more or less dangerous than an Australian bushfire. But since Devon was a long way from the flames, he wasn’t going to put visions of Devon getting burned to death in Pippa’s head.
“How long before the fire is out?” Pippa asked.
Matt shook his head. “No idea. It was still leaping firebreaks when I left. They’re asking for more volunteer firefighters, so I guess it must be pretty bad.”
“I tried calling Devon, but I couldn’t reach him,” she said, chewing anxiously on a fingernail.
“Most likely he’s too busy to answer his phone or check his messages. I’ll hunt him down and have him give you a call. By the way, does he know you’re here?”
“I didn’t tell him I was coming. I wanted to surprise him.”
Matt smiled. “You certainly surprised me. What made you decide to come back?”
“Devon told me he loves me.”
Matt’s smile disappeared. “And the baby?”
Pippa stuck out her chin pugnaciously. “He knows I’m pregnant. And he loves me.”
Matt’s first instinct was to protect his daughter. Then he remembered how Jennie’s parents had made all the decisions for them. And how badly that had turned out. Pippa had been telling him all along—by running away, for a start—that she was determined to make her own choices and live with the pain if she was wrong. It was time to step back and let his daughter decide what she wanted to do with her life.
“He’s a good man,” he said at last. “If you ever need me, Pippa, I’m here.”
He saw the moment when she realized he wasn’t going to fight her anymore. Tears filled her eyes, and she threw her arms around his neck. “Thank you, Daddy. I love you so much!”
Matt would have answered, but his throat was too swollen to speak.
Chapter 35
DEVON, HIS TWO older brothers, and Leah were taking a break, faces covered with soot, bodies streaked with sweat, clothes singed, gloved hands blistered, muscles protesting sixteen hours straight of extreme physical labor. Leah had gone with Connor to retrieve food and drink for the four of them. Devon had been impressed at her resilience. She’d worked as hard as any of them.
As Devon watched, a batch of fire retardant was dropped from a low-flying plane in the final moments before official nightfall, which was 10:03 p.m. Steam and white smoke rose into the air. A moose clambered up a slope to his left, and a badger waddled along a dirt track where firefighting machinery was parked as though he owned it.
His visit to his biological father seemed like a dream that he still hadn’t woken up from. When he’d explained the situation in Wyoming to Shiloh Kidd, his biological father had urged him to go help. Devon had promised to return someday soon to spend more time with him, but he’d seen from the look in Kidd’s eyes that he didn’t believe him. Devon planned to prove him wrong.
“So the fire is finally under control?” he said to Aiden.
“That’s what I was told.”
“How soon can we start searching?”
“I’ve had helicopters looking all day while we’ve been working,” Aiden replied, “overflying a search grid in each section of the forest as the fire was controlled, leading out from where the plane went down.”
“Nothing?” Devon already knew the answer to his question, because Aiden would have said something if any sign of his brother and Leah’s sister had been reported. But he kept his gaze focused on Aiden, hoping against hope.
“They spotted most of Brian’s firefighting gear piled up as though he’d dumped it there in a hurry.”
“But no bodies?” Devon persisted.
“No bodies,” Aiden said in a hoarse voice. “We’ll need to get in on the ground to make sure…”
Devon swallowed over the ache in his throat. He could never remember seeing his older brother so choked up. He might only share a mother with his brothers, but he’d grown up loving them, and that hadn’t changed. Devon refused to believe that Brian’s body was lying burned beneath his gear. He knew Brian had survived. He just couldn’t imagine how he’d done it. “What happened to them?” Devon asked. “It’s like they disappeared into thin air.”
Aiden focused his gaze on the thousands of acres of blackened, barren landscape—and the two million acres of thick green forest beyond that. “They’re out there somewhere.”
“Now what?” De
von asked.
“We eat. We sleep. We search again tomorrow.”
Devon felt a hand on his shoulder and turned to find Matt looking as filthy and exhausted as he felt himself. “Hi, Matt. You look like shit.”
“You don’t look much better. I’ve been hunting for you half the day.”
Devon felt his stomach clench. Something’s happened to Pippa. Then he realized that was ridiculous. Matt would be with his daughter if something was wrong, not here fighting a fire. But he could imagine no other reason why Matt would have been looking for him. “What’s up?”
“Do you have a minute?”
Devon realized he must want to talk about Pippa after all; otherwise, he would have said whatever he had to say in front of Aiden. “Sure.” He turned to his brother and said, “Don’t eat my sandwich. I’ll be right back.” Then he walked aside with Matt, nearly getting run down by a panicked coyote with a patch of fur burned off its back that was darting across the road.
“Pippa’s at Kingdom Come,” Matt announced.
“What?”
“You heard me. She seems to think you love her.”
“I do love her.” It was easier to say the words to Pippa’s father than he’d expected.
“What about the baby?”
Devon shrugged.
Before he could say that he knew the baby came along with Pippa, Matt had grabbed handfuls of his shirt with both fists, and Devon felt Matt’s spittle on his face.
“You sonofabitch. How can you say you love Pippa and dismiss her child with a shrug?”
Aiden shouted, “Hey! What the hell’s going on over there?”
“Butt out!” Matt snarled.
Devon realized the mistake he’d made, gripped both of Matt’s wrists, and said, “I’ll love the baby, too—because it’s Pippa’s.”
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