“Ask yourself what you most want from life. Answer honestly and act upon it, and you will be in the right place at the right time. Ask, answer, act, and you will be happy with you.” The Law of Susan.
“I have.”
“And?”
“Family Secrets is what I most want,” she said, feeling a headache coming on. “My career, being my own boss, having the outlet for my creativity, making people’s dreams come true, just like you said.”
She’d been doing a lot of thinking over the past several weeks. Instead of sleeping.
“You sound sure.”
“I am sure.”
The pause at the other end of the line could have been purposeful. Whether it was or not, Natasha second-guessed herself. Asked herself again. Listened honestly to how she felt. “Family Secrets,” she said.
“So, how do you act upon that?”
“I don’t know.” She’d never felt so utterly alone. “The marriage, it helps Family Secrets. A lot. Our ratings have always been above average, but they’re skyrocketing with Spencer on the show. Viewers love our relationship. I see that carrying on, like so many family reality TV shows, far into the future. We’ll show the cooking, and America will also watch the rancher and the TV host meld their lives...”
She had it all worked out.
“Then there’s Spencer’s beef. He really knows what he’s doing, Mom. And he does it for the right reasons. Out of love for the ranch. For his family. For his heritage. He’ll be a show sponsor,” she said. “We’ll not only advertise his beef but also get proceeds from the sales.” She and Spencer had worked it all out.
In a few short weeks, he’d gone from a disbeliever to the driving force in their merger. He insisted on meetings. Pushing her for times when he could bring the kids to the city so that he was keeping up with his part of the agreement, in spite of the fact that she knew he really hated to be away from the ranch.
He’d already completed all of his prenuptial paperwork and was just waiting for her and her lawyer to do the same before setting up a meeting between the two attorneys to hash out the differences—if there were any.
He’d held her hand when they were in town together.
The only thing he hadn’t done was kiss her again...
“You’ve said the marriage is blocking you, Tasha.” Her mother’s tone held warning.
Because she didn’t have to marry Spencer to have him on the show. Yes, the wedding would inflate ratings. A bit of their ongoing family reality would add extra spice to the show. But the health of her show did not depend on a marriage. Spencer was already under contract for the rest of it—the continued shows, the continued hosting, the beef sponsorship.
“I know. It is.”
“And you’re sure about that?”
Unfortunately, she was. Absolutely. She’d asked herself so many times. And each time she thought about the marriage, she was besieged with unrest. Sometimes even nausea.
“So find what’s blocking you from acting,” Susan said. Her tone held sympathy. But warning, too.
And she knew. Spencer was blocking her. He’d become a good friend to her over the past weeks. She thought she’d become a friend to him, too. She didn’t want to disappoint him. More than that, his kids were blocking her. She wasn’t ready to dim the light they brought to her life.
But Susan was right. She had to act. Anything else was wrong. Selfish. Unfair. For everyone involved.
She’d loved becoming part of a family.
She’d been playing make-believe with herself. Asking, but not answering honestly. Lying to herself and living on quicksand.
She’d managed to kid herself until she’d made herself sick.
Her body was telling her the jig was up.
* * *
SHE WAS GOING to tell him the next time she talked to him. They’d reached an agreement to be in touch at least once a day. But the next morning, he called right after putting the kids on the bus to tell her he’d heard from Claire, who was planning to fly in the day after Thanksgiving and wanted to have the kids with her at her hotel in Palm Desert overnight. And Natasha held her tongue.
“I have to tell you, you were right.” He sounded...happy? Did guys like Spencer allow themselves that? “Announcing our engagement on Thanksgiving is perfect timing. We can make arrangements to stay in the city the whole weekend instead of just the couple of days we were going to take for the PR shots. Claire can see the kids, but they’ll have a home to sleep in at night—no need for them to stay in the hotel with her.”
Yes, it was all working so perfectly.
Except that, for her, it wasn’t.
But she couldn’t tell him yet. She had to come up with another plan to cover the Claire problem—some way to protect Tabitha and Justin from being lured away from their home on the ranch—before she could break their agreement.
And she’d best do it quickly or the whole thing was going to get messier than anyone wanted. To announce the engagement and then break it off would be...catastrophic.
On Tuesday she told herself she’d have something figured out before Friday, when she was going back to the ranch for the weekend and was supposed to be moving most of her personal files to her now-complete office in the new studio. She slept well for the first time in weeks.
Maybe they could stage the wedding. For the show. For his beef. For all of the publicity for both of them. For Claire.
But not really go through with it.
She tried on the solution. Thought it might fit. Wore it all day Wednesday. Slept okay Wednesday night. Made a note as soon as she got up the next day to call her PR firm and run the idea by them. Confidentially.
On Thursday morning, before she had a chance to get to anything on her list, her lawyer called.
She wanted to see Natasha as soon as possible.
Not liking the sound of that, Natasha, dressed in her power purple blouse with the black slim line suit she’d had on when she’d signed her largest sponsorship a few weeks before, left the studio before Angela had even arrived, driving straight to Sharon Divers’s office. The middle-aged attorney met her in the parking lot, but they didn’t exchange anything other than pleasantries until the two of them were seated in her office.
On a leather couch, not at the desk.
Sharon pulled a folder out of the satchel she’d carried in. Handed it to Natasha and said, “You asked me to do a thorough background check.”
With an instant headache traveling up through the cords in her neck, Natasha held the folder closed.
“You found something.” That much was clear.
Sharon, dressed in a gray suit with a pale pink blouse, looked so nonthreatening as she nodded her head full of short, dark hair.
“What?” She preferred to be told. As though whatever was coming would be less painful if she heard it rather than read it herself.
Was this why she’d been feeling sick lately at the thought of marrying Spencer Longfellow? Because some part of her had known something wasn’t right? Had she sensed that he was hiding something from her?
“What if you found out, somewhere down the road, that I have some dirty little secret...?” He’d asked the question.
And she’d hidden from it. Or hidden it away so that it could rob her of sleep and her appetite.
“He’s not a Longfellow.”
Whatever she’d been expecting...some kind of criminal record, maybe...it hadn’t been that.
She’d have preferred the record. People made mistakes. They made reckless choices and spent the rest of their lives being responsible to them.
But to lie about who you were?
The blood drained from her face as the next thought occurred to her. If he wasn’t a Longfellow, who was he? And why was he pretending to own a ranch that wasn’t
his?
“Who is he?”
“He was born Spencer Justin Barber.”
“When?”
She named the date. Natasha did the math. He was thirty, just like he’d said he was. She took a deep breath, as though the fact that he hadn’t lied about his age made it all a little better.
It didn’t.
How could he think he’d get away with this? Entering into contracts with her?
Saying he was going to marry her?
Like she wouldn’t have known when they got the license that he wasn’t who he said he was?
Family Secrets. She’d made him a cohost of her show. This news was going to put a blemish on a show that had been fair and true reality since its inception...
Panic started to set in. She focused on her attorney. Took a deep breath. It had taken her several thoughts down the path to get to Family Secrets.
This whole knowing-Spencer-Longfellow thing—or rather, Spencer Justin Barber—had been putting her off her game since the beginning.
“Tell me the rest,” she said.
And wasn’t happy when Sharon shook her head. “I don’t know much more yet. I wanted to show you what I’ve got and discuss the possibility of hiring a private detective to dig deeper.”
She didn’t have to think about that one. She stood. Clasped the folder against her chest. Walked calmly to the door.
Turned back and said, “Dig.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
IF THE SUV coming up his drive Thursday midmorning hadn’t alerted him to the fact that something was wrong, the look on Natasha’s face as she exited the vehicle and headed straight toward him would have done so.
He’d been standing outside the horse barn, talking to Will, his local groom and horse trainer, about the addition of a small horse to their stables just before Christmas, when she’d turned at the T just beyond the house.
Turned away from the studio. Like she’d been looking specifically for him.
“We need to talk,” she said, barely managing a polite smile in the direction of the young man from town whom she’d met during her initial tour of the ranch.
With the calm that had come over him since Natasha had convinced him that her harebrained idea was the answer to his prayers, Spencer led her down to the creek. The woman he’d called his mother had had a bench installed there years before because she liked to listen to the water while she read.
What made Spencer choose the location now, he didn’t know. He just wanted Natasha away from anyone who might overhear them.
“What’s up?” he asked when he sat and she didn’t.
Facing him, standing over him, she dropped a folder in his lap. She’d pulled it out of the satchel on her shoulder.
He was noticing every little detail all of a sudden.
Opening the folder, he closed it again almost immediately. He didn’t need to read what the pages bore.
He also didn’t need to be a mind reader to know that, despite her earlier assurances, his dirty little secret wasn’t his alone.
She was taking ownership of it inasmuch as she was going to use it against him.
He should have known she, like Kaylee, was too good to be true.
“Who is Spencer Justin Barber?” Her voice was calm. He detected no accusation.
No hint of the friend he’d thought she’d been, either.
“Obviously you know the answer to that.”
“I might have doubted,” she said, a hint of...something...in her voice. “But the Justin gave it away. You pretend you’re someone you’re not, but you name your son after the person you were.”
“Something like that.”
“I think I deserve an explanation.”
She really didn’t. He’d told her he had a secret before they’d finalized their business arrangement. That had been her chance to pursue the matter.
But there was no point in being a jerk about it. And he was going to need her cooperation.
How he was going to get it, he didn’t know. That depended on what she was planning to do with the information she had.
“How much do you know?” he asked.
“I know that you’re Spencer Justin Barber.” She said the name like it was dirty, too. He waited for her to say more.
Looked up at her when she didn’t.
“That’s it?”
“Yes.”
He could lie to her. Or rather, tell her some of the truth but not all of it. For several long seconds, he considered his options.
He’d been lying since he was six years old. It came naturally to him. He’d long since known he’d do anything for his kids...
“Where are the Longfellows?” Her question led him into an explanation—the part he’d been planning to give her anyway.
“Sadie Longfellow was the last of them. She died shortly before I married Kaylee.”
“So...did you work here? You said you lived here when you were in college.” She was frowning. Not quite meeting his eyes.
He wanted to haul her down beside him and shut her up with a kiss that would make her forget that anything else mattered.
But knew, even if they were a real couple, he’d never do that.
“I’ve lived here my entire life,” he told her. “I was born on this ranch.”
Her gaze was piercing, and she pinned him like a fly to a board. He didn’t flinch. Or feel the stabs, either.
At least, he didn’t want to. Told himself he wouldn’t for long. He’d been through the pain of loss before. Survived. Every time.
Her sigh told him she was losing patience. And he remembered that he might need her help. Would definitely need her help. Claire Williamson couldn’t know what she knew. Not unless Natasha was still going to marry him.
A circumstance he was strongly doubting.
Doubting, too, whether he even wanted her to—aside from the Claire Williamson threat. He didn’t mind marrying a woman he didn’t love—one who didn’t love him. But he did care about tying himself to someone who didn’t see in him the man that he was.
Yes, he’d withheld information. But he’d offered it.
“Sadie and Gerald Longfellow were not happy together. They both loved the ranch. They loved each other. But when Sadie found out they were unable to have children, she was never the same. I didn’t know all that much about it when I was a kid.”
He’d found out in pieces. Mostly from Sadie herself. When she’d begged him to be who he wanted to be...
“My mother died giving birth to me,” he continued. “My parents had been living in one of the smaller cabins, and that’s where I lived with my father until I was six.”
“Then what happened?”
“A couple of weeks before I was due to start school, my father and Gerald Longfellow died in a crop dusting accident.”
All true.
“Sadie inherited the ranch. She had no close family. Wasn’t able to have children, and suddenly, she’s got this little boy without parents...”
“She took you in.”
“Yes.”
It was a fairy tale. Not dirt.
“She adopted you?”
“No.” To do that she’d have had to present his original birth certificate. Along with his parents’ death certificates. There’d likely have been other things involved—not the home checks of the modern day, but certainly she’d have had to petition the court.
She’d never researched it.
“She enrolled me in school as Spencer Longfellow. I don’t know how. Maybe back then her word was good enough. Maybe she lied about documents or had some made up. I have no idea about that part. She told everyone that I was her son. The town you know today didn’t exist back then. We were all bused over an hour to a first-
through-twelfth-grade school when I first started. For many of us, it was the first time we’d ever met each other. You think life on the ranch is secluded now. It was its own little world back then...”
“I don’t think it’s secluded now.” She sounded defensive. “And I’m sorry that I jumped to the wrong conclusions.”
He had a feeling Natasha Stevens didn’t apologize very often.
She sat down. Close to him.
And that was when he knew he had to tell her the whole truth.
* * *
“SADIE LONGFELLOW GREW up in the foster-care system.”
Natasha had been waiting for an acceptance of her apology. Hoping that all would be well between her and Spencer. Which made no sense since she knew she couldn’t marry him. She didn’t have an alternative plan for the Williamson threat yet.
When he finally started talking after several minutes of silence, she had no idea where this was going. She waited to find out.
If he thought he owed her...he didn’t.
“From what I understand, it was something of a fairy tale the way Gerald fell in love with her. He not only married her but also made her the matriarch of what was one of the biggest ranches in the area back then. For the first time in her life, she had a home of her own. She was going to have Gerald’s children, be the mother of a real family and...find what she’d been missing her entire life. A sense of identity. Belonging. Emotional security.”
His voice was soft. Kind. She liked listening to it.
And liked that he was sharing this part of his past with her. Liked knowing him better.
“When she found out she couldn’t have children, everything changed. She changed. She had an emotional breakdown, and though she recovered enough to keep up appearances, to be completely self-sufficient, she’d grown...hard. She never laughed. Or showed compassion. That’s the only way I ever knew her, but I was told by an old groom that she used to laugh all the time. That everyone loved her and she loved them back. I was about ten at the time. He’d found me crying in the barn.”
She looked over at him—this big, strong cowboy.
He was leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, looking at her. As though waiting for her judgment.
The Cowboy's Twins Page 19
