He crossed the porch in desperate need of some fresh air and some time alone to think. And Ellie needed wood for the fire.
Lowering his head against the icy bite of the wind, he started down the steps. Reaching up, he grasped the collar of his jacket and raised it, giving him some added protection from the elements as he ventured out into the swirling snow.
It had been a long time since he’d been back to the home he’d grown up in. After he and Anna married they turned the ranch over to Jarrett and moved into their own place, one they had built just a few miles away. Their house had been warm and welcoming with a huge yard for their future children to play in. And then Anna died. He couldn’t take the memories the house held for him. So he’d put it up for sale and left Wyoming, needing to get as far away from the pain as possible.
It hadn’t helped. The pain followed.
Anna. Lord, how he missed her. Missed the life he’d almost had. Life had been cruel taking her and the baby away from him, but time proved to be even crueler. It was slowly fading away the image of his wife in his mind’s eye.
Self-pity threatened to consume him. This was why he hadn’t come home. It reminded him too much of what he’d had and lost. And Jarrett’s dying had only added to his list of heartbreaking grievances.
He forced his thoughts to his brother and the way he would want to be remembered. Always grinning as if he was up to no good; which he usually was. A natural born prankster, his brother lived to make others laugh. He was also the smartest man Lucas knew, a computer whiz who made his money via the internet. And he was, without a doubt, the best brother a man could have ever asked for.
Lucas frowned as he trudged across the snow-covered ground. The only thing those good thoughts succeeded in doing was stir his anger. Jarrett had his whole life ahead of him. One that had included a woman he loved and the child they had created together. This isn’t how it should have been.
Lord how he wanted to lose control right now, to curse fate and all that it had taken from him - from his brother. Most of all he wanted an answer to the one question that never stopped running through his mind no matter where he was, no matter what he was doing – why?
But there would be no answer. He knew that. So he quickened his step, rounding the house. He made his way to the backyard where a woodpile sat near the edge of the woods.
Long shadows cast by the trees stretched across the deepening snow as evening settled in. He stopped, letting his gaze sweep across the glistening yard. The old tree swing, whipping to and fro in the wind, caught his attention. The same one his father used to push Jarrett and him on for hours on end when they were children. Lucas couldn’t help but wonder what it would have been like to share that same bit of childhood joy with his own child?
“Lucas?” a worried voice called out through the whirling snow.
He glanced back over his shoulder to find Ellie Sanders standing just a few feet away, watching him. Strands of long blonde hair whipped wildly about her face beneath the fur-trimmed hood of her coat.
How long had she been standing there? He’d been so caught up in his troubled thoughts that he’d never even heard her approach.
“You shouldn’t be out here,” he grumbled, looking away so she couldn’t see the emotion still raw in his eyes. “The storm’s picking up.”
“I woke up and you were gone. I thought you’d left.” The snow crunched under her boots - no, beneath his brother’s wet, too-big boots - as she closed the distance between them.
He stood motionless, his gaze pinned to the tarp-covered woodpile at the edge of the woods. “You need firewood, and, despite your earlier protests, you aren’t in any condition to be out here hauling logs around.”
“I–”
“Look,” he said with a tired sigh, cutting her off, “you’re exhausted. I figured I’d see to the task before the storm got any worse and let you rest.”
He’d also needed some time alone to think. Coming home to find a woman he never knew existed living in his brother’s house, a woman his brother had been engaged to, had been a total shock. But not as much as discovering she was pregnant with Jarrett’s child.
“Thank you.”
He didn’t want her gratitude. He didn’t deserve it. Ellie was half frozen and pushed to her physical limits because he hadn’t been there for Jarrett.
Lucas managed a slight nod. It tore at his gut to know that his brother would never have the chance to know the tiny being he and Ellie had created. Never get to hold his son or daughter in his arms. Never get to…
A small, gloved hand curled gently over his shoulder. Lucas closed his eyes, oblivious to the icy flakes coating his face. It had been so long since he’d felt the touch of a woman. Lord, how he missed that small token of tenderness.
“Are you all right?” she asked, her voice sliding over him like warm honey, soft and soothing.
“I’m fine,” he said gruffly.
Her hand fell away. “Are you sure?”
He hated feeling so emotionally exposed. Especially, in front of a woman who needed him to be strong. He turned to face her, his gaze dropping down to the small bulge beneath her winter jacket. A frown tugged at his mouth. “Just a lot of memories here.”
“I’m sure there are.”
He turned to her. “You shouldn’t be out here in your condition. You could slip and fall.”
“I’ll go back inside as soon as I help you gather up some firewood.”
“What you’re going to do is stay warm,” he said, slipping an arm around her expanded waist.
“W…what are you doing?” she sputtered as he guided her back the way she’d come.
“Making sure you get safely back to the house.”
“I’m perfectly capable of getting there on my own,” she said as they reached the side of the old ranch house, shielded from the full force of the blowing snow.
He stopped, letting his arm fall away. “Just watch you don’t…” His words trailed off as something in the distance caught his attention.
She followed his gaze to the edge of the snow-coated woods. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” he said, shaking his head. “Just an old tree fort I’d forgotten about.”
“The one you and Jarrett built when you were kids?”
He nodded, grateful that his brother had shared even the smallest details of his past with Ellie. Things she could share with her child when he or she was older, to help them feel connected to the father they had lost. Somehow that thought comforted him.
“We spent a lot of summer nights up there when we were boys.”
“Talking about girls?” she asked with a teasing smile.
“Bears actually.”
“Bears?”
“When Jarrett was eleven, he happened upon a pair of bear cubs playing in the woods. An instant later their mother came charging after him. Luckily, I was close by and had my shotgun with me at the time.”
She gasped, her eyes going wide. “You shot her?”
He arched a dark brow. “No. I shot the gun and sent momma bear and her little ones scampering off. After that, my brother spent less time in the woods and more time on the computer. Probably why he was so good at what he did.”
She nodded her hood enshrouded head. “I’m surprised he would even consider climbing up into that tree house after what happened, knowing bears can climb too.”
“Yeah, well, the only reason my brother wasn’t afraid to camp out in the tree fort with me was because he knew there wasn’t a bear around that could fit through the ladder hole in the floor of the tree house to get to us.”
She laughed softly. “I’m not sure I could fit through that opening right now.”
“It looked a lot bigger when we were kids.”
“I’m sure it did,” she replied with an unmistakable shudder.
Lucas mentally cursed himself. While he’d been standing there reminiscing about his past, Ellie had been growing chilled again.
“I need to go get
that wood,” he told her. “You get yourself back inside that house and out of this cold.”
She crossed her arms and lifted her chin in that same stubborn tilt he’d seen from her earlier. “Have you always been this bossy?”
Arching a brow, he looked down at her. “Have you always been this stubborn?”
“Your brother used to think so,” she answered with a wistful smile. “In fact, he threatened to name his next mule after me.”
For the first time in years, Lucas allowed himself to smile. Really smile.
“That’s Jarrett,” he said with a nod. “I recall him saying the same thing to me a time or two. Only in my case it was going to be his next mule he was going to name after me.”
She pushed the hair from her face and held the blowing strands away from her eyes with a gloved hand. “Well, it appears you and I have something in common.”
“You mean other than the baby?” he stated bluntly.
The change in Ellie’s mood was immediate. She wrapped her arms around herself, almost protectively and fell silent as she stared off into the distance.
“I’m sorry,” he said, his own smile fading. “I…well, I just assumed it was Jarrett’s.” Why hadn’t the possibility the child wasn’t his brother’s crossed his mind? It would certainly explain why Jarrett had never contacted him with the news of his engagement and the upcoming birth of his child.
Her gaze shifted back to lock with his, the warmth he’d seen in those big green eyes just moments before all but gone. “I suppose this was bound to come up sooner or later,” she said, glancing down at the bulge beneath her snow-covered coat.
If it wasn’t his brother’s child, then he wouldn’t have any real obligation to Ellie and the baby she carried. Her reaction to his comment pretty much told him all he needed to know. He should have felt relief, but what he felt was more loss. It would have been something left of his only sibling.
She lifted her gaze to his. “You assumed correctly.”
He nodded. At least she was honest.
“Did my brother know?”
“That the child I’m carrying was his?” Her gloved hand moved in a gentle caress over the front of her coat, beneath which her child grew. “Yes. He knew.”
His gaze snapped up to meet hers. “What? But I thought you said…” His words trailed off. She hadn’t ever said that the baby wasn’t his brother’s. Only that she knew the question would come up.
“Just so you know,” she added, “Jarrett was very happy about this baby.”
How many times could a man make a fool out of himself within a few short minutes? “I didn’t mean to imply…” What had he meant?
“Don’t apologize,” she said, cutting off any explanation he might offer. “You’re not the first person in my life to make assumptions about me.”
Who else in Eagle Ridge had questioned the paternity of her child? He of all people knew how quickly rumors could fly in a small town.
“I really am sorry about that. And I have no doubt my brother was thrilled when he learned about the baby.”
“He was,” she said, bringing him back to the present.
“Knowing my brother, I can’t believe he didn’t sweep you off to some church, at the very least a Justice of the Peace, the second he found out the woman he loved was going to have his baby.”
Snow clung to her long lashes as she looked up at him. “He tried.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Like you,” she said, her teeth chattering from the cold, “I had my reasons for not allowing myself to be swept away.”
It wasn’t the time or place to get into this with her, he thought as she stood shivering in front of him. She’d already been out in the cold longer than she ought to have been.
“Ellie,” he said, his tone softening, “please go back inside. We can talk once I get the fire going again.”
She tilted her chin proudly. “I can take-”
“Care of yourself,” he finished for her. “But at what cost? You’re exhausted and it’s freezing out here. You’ve got the baby to think about now.”
She opened her mouth as if to argue, then closed it, her snow-coated shoulders sagging tiredly. “I’ll go put on a pot of coffee.”
He managed a grateful smile. “Thank you. I could use a cup or two of java right about now.”
Her expression changed.
“Ellie?” Was she going to pass out again? He prepared himself for the possibility, ready to catch her if she did. “You all right?”
“I’m fine,” she said, waving away his concern. “It’s just that you sound so much like your brother. And then to hear you say little things he used to say like java…”
A frown tugged at his mouth. Those similarities had to be a painful reminder to Ellie of what she’d lost. “I’d imagine we said and did a lot of things the same without even realizing it. Comes with growing up together. You know, one of those siblings mirror each other sorta thing.”
“No, I wouldn’t know,” she replied then started for the front porch, her coat whipping about her legs as she went.
Oblivious to the cold, Lucas watched her go until she had disappeared around the front porch.
Jarrett used to tell him that he’d come back to Eagle Ridge again someday. Though he argued the possibility, Lucas knew his brother had been right. He would have come home, if just to visit, once he was emotionally strong enough to do so. But that ‘someday’ Jarrett had spoken of had come far too soon and for all the wrong reasons.
Instead of a joyful reunion he’d hoped to have someday, he’d been forced to come home to handle matters that shouldn’t need handling. Not when his brother hadn’t even reached the prime of his life. And with himself being the only family Jarrett had left, his brother’s unborn child not included, he was the one responsible for going through Jarrett’s things and putting the ranch up for sale. But life had thrown yet another emotional wrench into his plans in the form of Ellie Sanders and her unborn child. Selling the ranch was no longer an option. It should be theirs.
If Ellie could just rein in that stubborn streak of hers, he’d feel better about leaving Eagle Ridge once the terms of the will were settled. But as it was, she seemed determined to push herself regardless of the consequences. Like he had done after Anna’s death, never stopping. Because to stop meant having time to think. To remember.
While he of all people understood going into self-preservation mode, her grief-driven actions were risking the life of his brother’s unborn child. And that was something Lucas refused to stand by and allow to happen, even if it meant sticking around longer than he had originally planned to. Even if in doing so it meant he would be finally have to face the demons of his past.
CHAPTER THREE
Ellie’s thoughts were in turmoil as she walked back to the house through the deepening drifts of blowing snow. Despite the circumstances surrounding her pregnancy, she’d never once tried to hide it from anyone. She wasn’t ashamed of the child that grew in her womb. In fact, she loved the tiny little miracle she and Jarrett had created the one and only time they had been together. And it was because of that love she was going to do everything in her power to see to it her child was surrounded by everything good in his life.
But Lucas’s reaction to the news of her pregnancy scared her and she found herself wishing that he didn’t know about the baby. She was already worried about how the people who knew Jarrett were going to accept her decision to give her child up for adoption. Lucas Tanner had never come into the equation. Now he was here and already taking on the role of overprotective uncle-to-be.
Her hand flattened over the swell beneath her coat as she stepped up onto the porch. All her life things had been taken away from her. Her family. Her home. That feeling of security. Then Jarrett came into her life. He was her friend. Her confidante. A strong shoulder to lean on. And lean on him she had one emotionally heart-wrenching night. She had just found out her mother had passed away. Despite never having had a rel
ationship with her mother, it still pained her to know she was gone. Any hope of ever mending fences with her was gone.
There had only been that one night with Jarrett, but that had been all it had taken. She’d barely gotten over the shock of finding herself pregnant, had only just allowed herself to think that maybe they could make a marriage work for the sake of their child, had accepted that maybe true love could grow from their friendship, when Jarrett was taken from her, too.
Ellie reached for the door, tightening her grip on the handle as she pulled it open. The gusting wind threatened to tear it from her grasp and slam it into the wall, but she held tight.
Having spent most of her life in southern California, she still hadn’t gotten used to the Wyoming winters. But good weather or bad, Eagle Ridge was her home now and she wouldn’t trade it for the world.
She stepped into the house and hurried to close the door behind her, shutting out the storm. Her coat and boots were once again covered in a thick, clinging snow that weighted them down.
Bracing one hand on the wall to balance herself, she removed Jarrett’s boots and placed them on the rubber mat beside the front door. Her own boots, more fashionable than practical, were still drying off in the kitchen from when she had gone out earlier that morning.
For the past four months, she’d been living at the ranch with Jarrett. Although it had taken a great deal of convincing on his part to get her to move in, she was glad she had. She had her own room and they had settled in like the good friends they were. Other than wanting her to marry him, he never pushed her for more.
The ranch was the first place she’d ever allowed herself to think of as home. Now Lucas was back and things would go back to the way they used to be. Her living over the coffee shop – alone. No more seeing to the animals. Despite the work it entailed, she would miss it. Flo most of all. She’d shared her deepest, darkest secrets with that silly old milk cow over the past few weeks.
Shrugging out of her coat, she hung it up to dry. Then, reaching up, she brushed the glistening snowflakes from her hair with her fingertips. If she was chilled to the bone after just a few minutes out in the blustery storm, she could only imagine how cold Jarrett’s brother must be out there.
LOVING ELLIE Page 3
