The Cowboy's Secret Son

by Trish Milburn

  As Grace pulled up in front of their cabin, she realized she’d never been inside one of them. She’d come to the ranch several times while tutoring Nathan, but they’d been confined to the dining room in the main house where Merline could watch them. That had been one of her parents’ conditions of her employment—that she and Nathan never be left alone. As if the two of them would suddenly go off and do all manner of sinful, indecent things. Little did they know their tight leash contributed to her doing the thing they most feared.

  “Mom? Are you getting out?”

  Grace shook off the dust of the past and realized Evan had already unbuckled himself and gotten out of the car. He stared at her through the open passenger window.

  “Yeah, sweetie.” She needed to pull herself together, regroup. She’d stumbled through her initial meeting with Nathan and the big reveal, but there was no going back for a do-over.

  With Evan’s help, she got their bags inside. When she dropped their biggest suitcase on the bed, she noticed Evan had climbed into a chair to look at some framed photos on the wall. She walked up behind him and immediately spotted Nathan in one of the photos, sitting astride a horse in early-morning light. His face wasn’t fully visible, probably wouldn’t even be recognizable to the casual observer, but she knew it instantly. Despite that one night together, they’d never been a couple. But that didn’t mean she hadn’t memorized every contour of his face. It’d been all she could do to not stare at him in class and when they sat across from each other during the tutoring sessions.

  But that was a long time ago. A lifetime. Evan’s lifetime.

  “Come on, cowboy. Let’s get unpacked so we can get back for the tour.” Yes, this trip was about ensuring Evan’s future, but for him it was supposed to be a dream vacation. And she planned to let him have exactly that. She wouldn’t allow her own issues to ruin her son’s big adventure.

  “When will I be able to ride a horse?” Evan asked as he placed his clothes in one of the lower drawers.

  “Probably not today.”

  “Aww, man. Why not?”

  “There are lots of things the cowboys have to show you first.” Like how to stay safe around those horses.

  Grace shoved her instinctual worry about Evan’s safety down. There was a delicate balance between protecting him and smothering him the way Bob and Ruth Cameron had her and her siblings. And she refused to follow in their footsteps.

  “You just have to take it one thing at a time, squirt,” she said. “I guarantee, you’ll like all of it.”

  As they finally finished unpacking, Evan was on the verge of hopping with excitement and anticipation to get back to the main part of the ranch. Grace wondered if she’d ever possessed that sort of giddy energy. It was infectious though, and by the time they returned to the area with the barn and corrals, she was looking forward to the afternoon, too.

  That anticipation faltered a bit when she spotted Nathan striding out of the barn straight toward them. Her heart thumped wildly in her chest. Surely he wouldn’t reveal his paternity to Evan right here in front of everyone. She started to step forward, to force him inside the barn so they could talk, but he stopped abruptly.

  “Good afternoon, folks,” he said to the entire gathering. “Welcome to our first ever Cowboy Camp for Kids. If you’ve had a chance to look at your schedules, you’ll see we’ve got a lot lined up for you this week. Unless anyone has any questions, we’re going to start with a little tour.” Nathan turned without even making eye contact with Grace or glancing at Evan. “If you’ll follow me.”

  Grace couldn’t help the bite of concern. Would Nathan reject Evan? She didn’t think she could bear that.

  “Don’t borrow trouble,” Laney said low beside her. “Just go with the flow for now, see what happens.”

  With a deep breath, Grace followed along with all the other kids and parents, hoping to make it through the afternoon’s activities. Maybe she’d find a chance to talk to Nathan more, force him to agree to her request for silence on the subject of Evan’s paternity. She refused to think about how he might react to that request. Not well if his actions so far were any indication. But she could only handle one big change at a time, and just seeing Nathan and Evan so close to each other was making her pulse jittery. Every time Nathan opened his mouth to talk about stalls or daily chores on a ranch or veterinary care for the horses, she had the unreasonable fear that he was going to reveal all to Evan.

  Laney pointed her smooth, manicured hand toward where Evan and Cheyenne hung on Nathan’s every word. “Kindred spirits.”

  “Yeah. Even though I don’t think Evan would admit it now.”

  “At the ‘eww, girls’ stage?”

  “So he says, and I’d like to keep him there for at least two decades.”

  Laney shook her head, causing her pretty brunette bob to sway. “Hard to believe they once shared a playpen.”

  They paused and listened as Cheyenne asked if Nathan had ever ridden in the rodeo. Grace could have answered this for him, that he’d done a few local things for fun but never seriously. At least that was the answer when she’d still lived here.

  Laney shook her head. “I wondered how long it would be before she got to a rodeo question.”

  “Still likes rodeo?” Grace asked as they moved out of the barn and into one of the corrals where Dolly and another horse stood saddled.

  “So much so you’d swear she was raised on a ranch instead of in downtown Chicago.”

  Grace nodded toward Evan. “I blame reruns of Westerns on the Hallmark Channel.”

  Laney laughed. “And I blame all those rodeos they run on country music channels.” Just then Cheyenne looked back at them, smiled wide and waved. They returned both the smile and the wave. “But I can’t really complain. They got us through some tough times.”

  Grace knew Laney was referring to how Chey had been a sick little girl for about a year. She’d had a heart condition that, thankfully, doctors had been able to fix once she got old enough. But the months of waiting for her to get to an age where the procedure would be safer to perform had been agonizing.

  The memory made Grace’s own heart squeeze. She couldn’t fathom having something threaten Evan’s life. “She’s still doing okay?”

  “Oh, yes. Totally healthy.” Laney found a spot on a bench next to the fence and sat down.

  Still tired, Grace joined her as Nathan continued telling the kids about the parts of a saddle.

  “It still seems so weird to me that watching rodeos was the only thing that would keep her calm when she was sick. Not cartoons, not soothing music. Rodeo. Of all the things. But there she was, glued to the TV anytime it was on. I still have some of the ones I recorded back then.” Laney shook her head. “I don’t know where she gets it. Certainly not from her father or me.”

  “No hidden rodeoing in your past, huh?”

  Laney laughed. “Not even a stint as rodeo queen.”

  Grace made the mistake of looking at Nathan at the moment he pushed up the front brim of his hat. The motion was so like Evan’s it took her breath away.

  “Grace?”

  “Huh?”

  “You okay?”

  “Uh, yeah. Just tired.”

  Worry descended on Laney’s features. “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine.” For now. She shifted her gaze away from her friend’s concern, not wanting to think about why it was there. Once you’d battled the cancer monster, it was hard to get past the idea that it might jump out at you again.

  Nathan stepped aside as Merline walked to the front of the group. “I hope everyone is hungry because we’re putting on a big Texas-style barbecue for you all tonight. We’ll get started in about an hour, so that gives you time to go and freshen up. Just come on up behind the house, and you’ll
get to mix and mingle, meet the rest of the family and the hands.”

  Grace’s nerves fired. The rest of the Teagues. As in Evan’s grandparents and uncles. “Excuse me.”

  “Sure,” Laney said. “See you at dinner?”

  Grace nodded, but her attention was tracking Nathan as he headed back through the barn. She hurried after him, but his long legs had carried him almost halfway through before she caught him.

  “Nathan, I need to talk to you.”

  “Not now, Grace,” he said, his voice clipped and without any hint of warmth. He didn’t slow or look at her.

  She grabbed his wrist and stopped, forcing him to do the same. When his eyes met hers, she didn’t waver. “Yes, now.”

  Chapter Three

  Grace held her breath until Nathan finally let out a slow sigh and nodded. He motioned for her to follow him. After a quick glance back to see that Evan was busy talking to some of the other kids, she accompanied Nathan as they walked out of the front of the barn and down the driveway a short distance. When they were out of earshot of the other guests, he propped one booted foot and his forearms up on the fence and gazed out into the distance. The rigidity of his stance told her he was struggling to contain his anger.

  “I believe you,” he said.

  “What?”

  “I believe he’s mine. You never seemed like the type of person to lie. Not outright anyway.”

  The half compliment was unexpected, but she didn’t assign too much weight to it. He probably didn’t even mean it as a compliment if his tone was any indication, rather just a truth. Better she think of it that way. Nathan Teague was from another part of her life, and was in her present life only for a brief time out of necessity, nothing more.

  “It’s been seven years. I could have changed.”

  He glanced at her, all of her, and it made her skin flush. She hoped he couldn’t see it, or attributed it to her being fair and out in the Texas sun.

  “Yes, you’ve changed on the surface, but I don’t believe people change at their core. Even if they do make bad decisions.”

  Grace did her best to ignore how his words stung. No matter how he felt, she’d never think of Evan as a mistake. She moved closer to the wooden fence and propped her arms on the top slat, as well. “You barely knew me.”

  “True. But I tend to pay attention to my gut instincts.”

  “What’s it telling you about me now?” Out of the corner of her eye she saw him watching her, but she didn’t face him.

  “That something changed in your life, some reason you finally decided to tell me I have a son.”

  Grace winced at the harsh edge to his words, but she also acknowledged he was entitled to it. No matter what had transpired between the two of them in the past, it was a big thing to have a child and not know about it. She pushed away those old feelings of hurt and abandonment that had deluged her after that night with Nathan, when he’d avoided her eyes in the school hallways as if he didn’t know her. She was a different person now, an adult, so maybe he was, too.

  “I guess I grew up, realized that I have responsibilities. And one of those is ensuring my son’s future in case something happens to me.” She sensed his next question, so she continued before he could speak. “You know, I could die in a car wreck tomorrow.”

  He was quiet for a moment, and she wondered if he could tell she was hiding something. She just wasn’t ready to reveal everything, afraid she’d start crying if she thought too much about the cancer returning. She wanted Nathan to agree to care for Evan should the need arise because he felt a kinship to his son, not because of pity for her. She never wanted Evan to feel like a charity case.

  “What about your family?”

  “I haven’t talked to them since I turned eighteen.”

  “You’ve been alone this whole time?”

  “I’ve had Evan, and friends once I went to college. My friend Emily and I started a business together, interior design. So I have a good life.” Evan and the fact that she’d made her life what she wanted it to be were what had gotten her through bad doctor reports and body-draining chemo. Only in her darkest moments, when she’d succumbed to the fear that the disease might win, had she yearned for more. For a man to love and be loved by. Someone to offer her support, hold her hand during those endless hours lying in a hospital bed or curled into her own after a chemo session.

  Nathan sighed and shook his head as if he couldn’t believe any of this was happening. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner? I had a right to know.”

  She’d anticipated this question, considered so many different ways to answer it. Finally, she’d settled on the truth.

  “I was scared.”

  “Of me?”

  “No, and yes.”

  Nathan slipped his foot off the fence and turned toward her. “I wasn’t that bad, Grace.”

  She wanted to say, “Yes, you really hurt me,” but that wasn’t what was important anymore. She didn’t shift to face him, not sure if she could get through the next few minutes if she had to look him in the eye and see anger and accusations there.

  “I was hurt, yes, but that’s not why I made the choices I did.” She picked at a splinter on the fence, gathering her courage to delve into a part of her life steeped in a lot of pain. “I had lost Evan once, and I couldn’t bear the thought of it happening again.”

  “Lost him?”

  “When I told my parents I was pregnant, well, I’ve never seen them so mad. They were ashamed I was their daughter, and I know if I’d been of legal age, they would have kicked me out then. Instead, they packed us up in the middle of the night and left town.”

  “You knew before you left Blue Falls? And you didn’t tell me then? God, Grace. What were you thinking?”

  “That the father of my child didn’t want me, so he wouldn’t want a baby, either.” This time she didn’t bother keeping the bite out of her words.

  Nathan didn’t respond, instead shifting his attention out across the pasture again. She didn’t say anything either, and the silence stretched for tense seconds.

  “Everyone wondered where you went,” he finally said.

  “I doubt everyone did.” She couldn’t help the bitter edge to her words, bits of the old hurt slipping out.

  “I did.”

  Those simple words were so unexpected that she looked at him before thinking. And for a moment, she was that young girl again looking into the striking green eyes of the boy she loved with all her heart. The one she’d thought might love her back when he’d taken her in his arms and kissed her.

  It took more effort than it should, but she pulled her gaze away and refocused on the glint off a pond in the distance.

  “We went to Maryland, where my grandparents lived, lots of other people who were as devout as my parents.” She hadn’t planned to tell him everything, especially not at first, but she found herself spilling the details of those days. “I…I basically became a prisoner in my own home. I was forced to finish school homebound. My mother had nothing to do with it though. My sister Sarah had to bring my lessons home from school, and I was on my own. I wasn’t allowed to go anywhere. My parents did not talk to me, but they constantly used me as an example to my younger brothers and sisters of what happens when one ‘descends into a life of sin.’”

  Nathan made a sound of disgust, but Grace didn’t acknowledge it. She had to get through this story so she could file it away forever and never have to tell it again.

  “I think after a while, I began to believe everything they said. I was sick, miserable…lonely.” And heartbroken.

  “Why didn’t you call me?”

  “You’d made it clear you didn’t want to talk to me.”

  “But Grace, a baby would have made a difference.”

&
nbsp; She turned toward him. “Would it? Would you have ‘done the right thing’ and married me?”

  “Yes.”

  A sadness crept over Grace’s heart. “How would it have helped me to go from one home where I wasn’t wanted, just a duty to fulfill, to another?”

  “Damn it, it wouldn’t have been like that.”

  “Did you love me?”

  He opened his mouth, but no words came out.

  “I didn’t think so. Plus, my parents had done a pretty good brainwashing job on me. You were nothing more than a rutting bull in their eyes.”

  “And you believed them?”

  “You hadn’t given me any reason not to. And when you’re cut off from the world, you begin to believe whatever you’re told.”

  “God, Grace.” He paced a couple of steps away, ran his hand over his face.

  She tried not to remember what that hand had felt like on her body, how her entire being had lit up like a million stars. She forced herself to remember how all those stars had gone black and cold the day after when he’d walked right by her as though she was a complete stranger. No expression, no eye contact, no recognition. She remembered stopping in the middle of the hallway, wondering if she’d simply dreamed it all. But a positive result on a home pregnancy test a few weeks later had convinced her their night together had been all too real.

  “When it came time to have Evan, I had to deliver him at home just like my mother always had.” All twelve times. “It was a hard birth. I probably should have been in a hospital. By the time it was over, I was only about half conscious. My mother said it was best to give him up for adoption. I had no strength to fight her, and she made it sound like he would have a good home, a family who loved him. At the time, it sounded like the right thing to do. I didn’t want him growing up with my family.”