by Linda Warren
“You could have called me. You could—”
“Jude, please, let me finish.”
He leaned back in the chair, his body tense and his heart desperately close to exploding with so much anger at what had happened to two naive teenagers.
“About eight months later, I showed her the contract that I had still stuffed into my suitcase and she said she didn’t know Texas law all that well but she was positive that the adoption for my child was complete. It took about a month for me to accept that.”
Jude curled his hands into fists and he wanted to pound on the table until something made sense. All it would’ve taken was a phone call and Paige could have seen her baby son and rectified a horrible mistake. How was he going to tell her now? The words rushed to his throat and he yearned to let them spill out, but he listened as she continued.
“Her name was Althea Wexton and she got me a job in a hospital answering phones and she encouraged me to get my life back on track. She helped me to file an appeal to get my scholarship reinstated. It took a while, but I finally got some of it back. She also found me a home with an older friend of hers who rents rooms. Ms. Whitman was a sweetheart. She let me live there until I started making some money and was able to pay my rent. Between my job and going to school, I was busy, but at night I still held that teddy bear.”
She took a breath and it was an effort for Jude to remain quiet. For a man who didn’t speak much, he wanted to start shouting, but he waited as patiently as he could.
“I went to school during the day and worked at night. I had very little sleep, but I didn’t need much. Thea and Ms. Whitman were my cheerleaders. There truly are nice people in this world and I couldn’t have gotten through the past twelve years without them. Perfect strangers and they feel like my family. I have three job offers when I finish my residency and my dream is finally going to come true. But it feels like a hollow victory.”
“Did you call Staci during that time? Did you tell her about the baby?”
“No. I couldn’t tell anyone.”
“Why didn’t you just come home? I would’ve sent plane tickets or come and got you. All you had to do was call.”
She brushed a stray curl behind her ear. “Home to what? To listen to my mother say ‘I told you so.’ Home to the shame and humiliation. There was nothing for me here.”
“Not even me?”
Their eyes collided in a wave of remembered love, of all the good times and all of the regrets.
“I didn’t think there was any way for us to go back and be those two young people so much in love. We’d done the unforgivable and would always blame each other.” She swiped a tear from her cheek. “I got a little emotional this morning asking about our baby. I realize we can’t go searching for answers. That’s out of the question. It’s just coming back to Horseshoe has made me regret so many things.”
“I’ll never regret loving you.”
Her eyes filled with more tears. “How did we make such a bad decision?”
“We were too young to see other options, and there were other options.”
“Like what?”
“We could have gotten married and raised the baby like Falcon and Leah did, but I knew your heart was set on leaving and I never asked. That was my fault. I should’ve been more assertive and taken more responsibility for the child you carried.”
“Oh, Jude, don’t say any more.” She turned back toward the window. “This is just too hard. Could you please leave?”
“Do you still sleep with the teddy bear?”
She swung around, confusion on her face. “Why?”
“I’m just curious.”
“I could lie, but what’s the use? Yes, the teddy bear is at Staci’s apartment. I take it everywhere I go. It’s my security blanket. I’m a medical professional and I cling to a teddy bear just to get me through the night.”
Jude got to his feet, feeling stronger than he had in a very long time. “I know where our child is.”
Paige’s eyes opened wide and she took a step backward and reached for the counter for support. “How…how do you know that? Did Mrs. Carstairs tell you? Is the baby here in Texas? Oh!” She covered her mouth with shaky hands.
He took a couple steps toward her. “On the drive back to the ranch I kept thinking about my dad and what he told us about taking responsibility if we ever got a girl in trouble. How we should stand up and do the right thing and be a Rebel. A Rebel takes care of his own. I just felt I had let my father down and I had let my child down. I couldn’t live with that. I went home and I told my mother what we’d done.”
“You told your mother?”
He swallowed hard. “Yes, and it will forever be imprinted upon my brain. Something I thought would be extremely difficult was rather easy. She called her brother, Gabe, a lawyer, and we went back to the hospital.”
“What?”
Speaking became difficult and he had to take several deep breaths. “I told the administrator of the hospital I wanted my baby. I was so afraid the adoptive parents had already left with it, but the baby had a cough and the doctor was checking it out.”
“What?” Paige’s face turned a pasty white.
“Since it was a private adoption, the administrator called the adoptive parents’ attorney. I stuck to my guns. I wanted my kid. Gabe looked at the contract and it was my option to change my mind and I did. The attorney was ready to fight, saying I needed your consent to take the baby, but everything fell into place once we learned who the adoptive parents were.”
“Who?”
“Mrs. Carstairs and her husband.”
“What? No!” What little color was left on Paige’s face drained away.
“She wanted your baby. That’s why she gave you information that fed on your weaknesses and your fears. Once Gabe learned this, he threatened to file charges against her and her husband and to inform the Horseshoe school board of her actions concerning young girls in the school. They folded quickly. They brought the baby out and my mom and I took it home. Our baby has been with me ever since the day after the birth.”
Chapter Six
“What?”
“Our child is with me, safe, loved and cared for. You don’t have to wonder anymore.”
The room swayed with an inky darkness and Paige reached out to grab the counter to keep from crumpling to the floor. Her body trembled.
She grappled with what Jude was saying and was vaguely aware that he had taken her shoulders and guided her to a chair.
“You…you went back. You went back. You went back.” She couldn’t stop saying the words, over and over, as if by doing so, they would be completely true and she could hold her child in her arms. She could see its face. She could…
Jude gently shook her. “Paige, stop it!”
She was on the brink of sinking into a hole so deep she could never find her way out. But then she heard his voice. The voice that had always soothed and comforted her. She looked into his concerned eyes. “You have our child?”
He pulled a chair closer and sat facing her, within touching distance. “Yes.”
So many questions rumbled around in her head like thunder, piercing and jarring, but one thing she had to know was at the forefront of her mind. “Your son is our…”
“Yes. His name is Zane.”
“Zane.” She said the word lovingly, rolling it around on her tongue, testing it, loving it. It was a strong name. A Rebel name. Her son. She began to tremble again and Jude reached out and clasped her hands.
“He’s a bright, funny and happy kid. He’s easygoing and it takes a lot to get him down. He gets frustrated with school because his IQ is the highest ever recorded in the school system, right above his mother’s.”
Tears slipped from her eyes and she didn’t bother to brush them away. They were happy tears. Tears that warmed all the emotions churning through her like waves of glory.
“He loves horses, outer space, technology. He created the ranch’s website and keeps it up-to-da
te. He has all kinds of videos on there and things that go over everyone else’s heads. Once he learns something, he’s learned it forever. His memory is phenomenal and sometimes it’s frightening, the knowledge that he picks up. But inside, he’s still a little boy.”
“How…how did you manage with a baby?”
“It wasn’t easy, but I figured if Falcon could do it, so could I. Of course, I couldn’t have done it without my mother’s help. She showed me how to change diapers, how to make formula, how to soothe him when he cried. After I got the hang of it, everything else became natural. Luckily, he didn’t cry like Eden had. He was a happy baby and started sleeping through the night when he was two months old. I had his crib in my room and sometimes at night I’d touch him just to make sure he was still there and to make sure he was breathing.”
“Oh.” Without her even realizing it, a moan escaped her throat. She closed her eyes tight and then opened them quickly to see if she was dreaming. She had to be. This couldn’t be true. Jude had their son. A son. She had a son.
“When he was a baby, Mom kept him in the office while I worked. We took turns working and looking after Zane. He was about four months old when I bought one of those carriers that strapped around my body and I started taking him with me on the ranch. I changed diapers under shade trees and he took naps on a blanket while we ate lunch. If he grew fussy or something, Grandpa would entertain him. He’s the only person in the family who loves Grandpa’s stories. He grew up on the rhythm of a horse. I guess that’s why he loves horses so much.”
“That must have been difficult, though.”
“Yes, but my family helped and that’s what made it easier. If it was really hot or really cold, one of us would stay behind with Zane at the house or the office. Quincy was a big help, too. He’s Zane’s second father and Zane confides a lot of stuff to Quincy that he won’t tell me. I’m glad my brother is there for him.”
“Sounds like he didn’t even need a mother.”
“But he missed having one.”
Through all the wonderful things Jude was saying, one thing kept piercing her happiness. She drew a quivery breath. “What have you told him about his mother?”
Jude pulled back and she missed the warmth of his hands on hers. She desperately needed it and wanted to snatch his hands back, but she remained still.
“The truth.”
“The truth?” The trembling became intense and she struggled to catch her breath. “You told him we gave him away?”
“Yes.”
“And that you went back to get him?”
“Yes.”
“So…so he knows…he knows I gave him away.” Each word struck her heart like a hammer and she fought to control her emotions, but she was losing the battle.
“He was about five when he started asking about his mother. He almost thought it was normal since Eden didn’t have a mother, either, but he noticed kids in school had mothers, so he wanted to know where his was. I told him that you went away to school to become a doctor and I raised him.”
“That’s all you told him?”
“Until he was about nine. Then he wanted to know more and I told him the truth because I didn’t want him to grow up and learn that I had lied to him. I was always honest and tried to answer his questions honestly.”
She sank her teeth into her lower lip to keep from crying out. “He knows. He knows his mother gave him away. He knows…” Hard sobs shook her body. Uncontrollable sobs. After a moment, she gave up and just cried for everything that she had lost. Everything that she could never get back. Her son. Those precious years that she’d been holding a teddy bear, she should have been holding her son. It wasn’t Mrs. Carstairs’s fault. It was Paige’s for being so gullible. No one was to blame but herself. Yet a part of her wanted to blame Jude. A part of her needed to blame Jude.
“Paige, come on. Stop this.”
She lifted her head, choking back sobs. “How could you do that to me? How could you tell our son I gave him away? He’ll never forgive me and I’ll never forgive myself. How could you do that?”
“Paige…”
She jumped up and ran to the bathroom and slammed the door. She had to get away to sort out all the tumultuous emotions chugging through her. Outside the door she heard Staci’s voice and knew she was back. Then she heard Luke’s and Jude’s and Jude was telling them about Zane. Her son.
Sitting on the edge of the bathtub, she cried as if there were no tomorrow. And for her, there wasn’t. At least not one where she could live with herself and the mistakes that she’d made. She’d heard it said that life was about making mistakes and learning from them and moving on, but how would she get from point A to point B without having her heart ripped out once again?
Totally spent, she got up and rinsed her face with cool water. There were no towels, so she pulled up the bottom of her T-shirt and wiped her face. As she did, she took in the drab yellow bathroom that had once been bright yellow. The Southwestern yellow-and-orange-colored tile was atrocious and the years hadn’t improved it.
When Paige was pregnant, she would sit in the bathtub and read stories to her baby. She’d had books in her backpack, and no one, not even Jude, had ever known that she read to their son every day. That should have given her a clue about her unstable emotions. Instead she’d told the baby how much she loved it and how she was going to give it a better life than she’d had. What a crock! How could a smart girl have been so dumb?
Taking a long steadying breath, she knew she had to face her past and do something she hadn’t been able to do before. She had to face her son.
There was a tap at the door and she considered ignoring it, but that was no way to start the next phase of her life. She unlocked it and Jude came in. His handsome face was lined with worry, much as it had been when she’d told him she was pregnant.
“Are you okay?”
She pushed her hands up her face and drew a cool breath. “No. I’m never going to be okay.”
“Paige…”
She stuck out her hand. “I don’t want to hear any more. I want to meet my son.”
“That’s going to take time.”
She narrowed her eyes. “What do you mean?”
“I have to prepare Zane and I need time for that.”
That sounded reasonable. “Okay. Tomorrow will be fine.”
Jude shook his head. “No. Zane is entered in a horse race on Saturday and I’m not going to tell him until after that. This race is important to him and if I tell him now, I don’t know what he’ll do or say. This is my call and you have to accept it.”
“So you’re only honest when it suits you.”
His tanned skin paled. “As I said, this is my call. I’m doing what’s best for my kid.”
“He’s my kid, too.”
“I have full custody of Zane. You signed away your parental rights.”
The statement was a blow to her chest. “How dare you say that to me.”
The strong, stern lines of his face didn’t flinch. “I’ll let you know when I tell him. It’s his decision whether to see you or not.”
“How can you do this?”
“I’m doing what’s best for my kid, as I have for the past twelve years. I put my life on hold for him and I’d do it over again in a heartbeat. That boy is my life and I will protect him with every breath I have. I’m not saying this to hurt you, only to protect Zane. This is going to be a blow and he needs time to adjust.”
“I would never hurt him.”
“Just seeing you is going to hurt him.”
“So, what, Jude? You want me to go away?”
“I don’t know.” He swiped a hand through his hair in frustration. “You say you have two weeks before you have to go back to California. I’m just trying to figure out how Zane fits into your schedule.”
She leaned back against the sink as reality intruded upon the wonderful news of her son. Once again she was faced with a monumental choice, but this time she was more mature and mor
e able to handle it. This time she would not leave her son and Jude was not going to lay any kind of a guilt trip on her. Even though she might have deserved one.
She pushed away from the sink. “I’m not leaving until I see my son. Not until I can talk to him and beg his forgiveness. And not until I have some sort of peace of mind that he is happy. That’s what’s most important to me.”
Jude sighed, as if he’d reached the end of his patience. “Zane is focused on the race right now. That’s all he thinks about and it’s all he talks about. If I tell him now, it will shatter all his plans and I’m not doing that to him. After Saturday, I will tell him you want to see him and, as I said, it’s his decision, not yours.”
She looked into his dark eyes, the ones that used to be warm and encouraging and loving. Today they were not. They were cold and unforgiving and layered with something she’d never seen in them before. Anger.
“You blame me, don’t you?”
“We can’t go back and—”
“How many times did I ask you what we should do? What was your response, Jude? Every time?”
He looked down at his boots.
“You never said a word, Jude. You never said we had options or anything else. You never said a word.”
His gaze crashed into hers. “You had your whole life planned, and how was I supposed to shatter that? You wouldn’t have listened to anything I had to say anyway. You listened to that stupid counselor more than you ever listened to me. So, yes, maybe I am laying some of the blame at your feet, but I also know a lot of it was my fault, too. I’m quiet by nature, but believe me, I’ve learned to speak up and I’ve learned to protect my son and I will do just that now.”
“You…you…you…” She made a dive for him, and with her fists, she pummeled his chest, over and over. “How could you? How could you? I hate you. I hate you!”
He stood there taking the blows, not saying a word, and that made her even angrier.
Staci squeezed past Jude into the small bathroom and grabbed Paige’s arms and pulled her away. “Stop it!” She looked at Jude. “You better go. This is getting out of control.”
