The Cowboy's Secret Son

by Trish Milburn

  Someone caught her, keeping her from collapsing as she watched her son grow tinier by the moment.

  “Come on, sit down before you fall.”

  She looked at her rescuer and was surprised to see Hank. He guided her to the picnic table where she’d kissed Nathan.

  “No, I have to get Evan.”

  Hank pressed gently but firmly on her shoulder until she sat. “He’s going no farther than that barn. And it’s my experience that when the boys get like this, it’s better to just give them time to cool off before you try to talk to them.”

  “You don’t understand. Evan doesn’t act like this.”

  “Maybe he hasn’t before, but he is now.” Hank sank onto the bench beside her.

  She pushed her palm back over the top of her head. “This was a bad idea.”

  “No, it wasn’t.”

  Hank Teague was a man of few words, but in that moment Grace felt as if he saw and understood everything.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because a boy needs both parents.”

  She shook her head. “It’s not that simple.”

  “And sometimes the parents need each other, whether they realize it or not.”

  Grace took a slow, deep breath, trying to stop the spinning in her head, her erratic pulse. The stabbing pain she’d felt when she’d seen Nathan with that attorney. All her fears that he’d been using her to get to Evan came roaring back. Still, she couldn’t say all that. Couldn’t risk Hank calling Nathan before she could get Evan and leave the ranch. She needed distance and time to sort everything out, to consult her own attorney. To possibly tell Evan the truth on her own terms before Nathan decided to do it for her. She only hoped that Hank hadn’t noticed her packing the car and already given Nathan a heads-up.

  “I appreciate how you all have treated Evan while we’ve been here and how you’ve honored my request to not tell him about his paternity.”

  Hank was quiet for a moment and didn’t make eye contact with her. “My boy loves you, you know?”

  He couldn’t have shocked her more if he’d announced he was the King of England. “No, I don’t know.”

  “He’s a lot like me. It took almost losing Merline to another man for me to say the words. I’d loved her for months, but I’d never told her. After I told her, she said she’d known all along. She just wasn’t going to let me off easy without saying the words.”

  Grace stared down the hillside, desperate to escape before Nathan returned to the ranch. She didn’t want to fall apart in front of him and couldn’t stand the thought of Evan making a scene, casting her in a bad light in comparison to his new hero. She stood and started to leave.

  “Sometimes actions speak louder than words,” Hank said.

  She stopped and looked at Evan’s grandfather. Would Nathan look like that when he aged? Would Evan?

  “And sometimes the words are more important than anything else.”

  NATHAN DIDN’T GO back to the ranch immediately after talking with Adrian Stone. Instead, he got a cup of takeout coffee from the Primrose and went to sit by the lake. The final hours of Grace and Evan’s extended stay were ticking away, and he couldn’t tell if she was any closer to changing her mind about telling Evan the truth. He’d chosen the tactic of not pushing her, but he needed an answer tonight. He couldn’t have them leaving with how things stood.

  The fact was he didn’t want them leaving at all. After being with Grace, he’d developed a need for her every bit as strong as that to get to know his son. The thought of her a day’s drive away, where he couldn’t kiss her or make love to her, didn’t sit well.

  Was he falling in love with her? Had he already fallen and was just too dumb to realize it? And if he told her that, would she believe him? What she’d endured in her past had left her with significant trust issues, and he couldn’t honestly say he blamed her. But if what they’d shared the past few days hadn’t begun to change her mind about him and that he wanted more than Evan, what would?

  Maybe he should just ask her.

  He chucked the empty coffee cup in the nearest trash can, walked back to his truck and made the drive back to the ranch determined not to take no for an answer. Before the sun rose again, he was determined that Evan would know who his father was and Grace Cameron would trust him enough to give life in Blue Falls another try.

  He didn’t drive up to the cabins first thing but rather to his own house to take a shower and change. Once he cleaned up, he headed for her cabin to find her car gone. Thinking she might be down at the main part of the ranch, he went there. No luck there, either. He should have checked at the gallery before leaving town but hadn’t thought about it.

  When he walked into the kitchen of his parents’ house, he found his parents sitting at the dining room table with a couple of cups of coffee.

  “Have you all see Grace?”

  A meaningful look passed between his mom and dad, one that caused his gut to knot. His mom stood slowly and faced him.

  “They’re gone.”

  “Gone to town?” Please let it just be into Blue Falls.

  Sadness tugged at his mother’s face as she clutched the back of the dining room chair. “Back home.”

  “When? How long ago?”

  “Couple of hours.”

  Nathan headed for the door, determined to break every speed limit to catch her.

  “Don’t.”

  The single word from his father was so surprising that Nathan hesitated and turned to face him. “What?”

  “You need to let her go.”

  “Why would I do that? She has my son and he doesn’t even know it. She ran out of here like a thief.”

  “Because you care about her.”

  “I thought I did.” Nathan retraced his steps and gripped the edge of the kitchen island so hard he thought he might crush the granite. “Why would she leave like that? I thought things were going well.”

  “Something had her pretty spooked.”

  Nathan eyed his father. “You saw her? Why didn’t you stop her?”

  “I didn’t know she was leaving at the time. Evan was upset, she was upset. So we talked a little bit, hoping the boy would calm down.” His dad paused, fiddled with the handle of his cup. “And it wasn’t my place to change her mind even if I had known.”

  Nathan pushed away from the island and threw his hands up. “Then you all don’t care that your only grandchild has no idea you’re his grandparents? That he’ll go on living in the dark, in another state, if Grace has her way?”

  His mom came to stand beside him. “Of course we care. We want Grace and Evan here as much as you do.”

  “Then why didn’t you call me as soon as you discovered she’d left?”

  “What are you going to do, Nathan? Pull her over and have an argument on the side of the highway?”

  “If I have to.”

  “How likely do you think she’ll be to change her mind if you accost her like that?”

  “Well, being nice certainly didn’t do the trick.”

  His mom tried to move closer, but he backed away.

  “What did you want her to do? Leave her entire life behind, everything she’s built for herself and Evan?”

  “They could have a good life here, too. Evan likes the ranch, and he’s young enough to start over making new friends.”

  “But what about Grace?”

  “People have houses here that probably need decorating.”

  “I don’t think that’s the top thing on her mind.”

  “Then what the hell is, because for the life of me I don’t know what that woman wants.” He met his mother’s eyes and saw knowledge there, that ability she had to read people so well.

  “S
he wants you, Nathan. And I think, deep down, you know that she loves you. The question is, do you love her?”

  All his fight fell away as the truth finally slid home in his heart. “Yes, I love her.”

  His mom smiled. “Then that’s what you need to tell her.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Despite being back home and back to work, surrounded by all the things that were normal, Grace couldn’t find any peace. Evan only spoke to her when he had to, remaining upset longer than she had anticipated. Even though she was happy that she and Emily had landed the lodge deal, she found it hard to concentrate. Ever since they’d left the ranch three weeks before, she’d slept terribly and was sick to her stomach more often than not. The truth was, she missed Nathan. And even though she’d been the one to run away, her heart ached that he hadn’t called her. How crazy was that?

  She’d lost count of how many times she’d wondered how differently things might have turned out if she’d just taken a leap of faith and told Evan the truth. Maybe Nathan wouldn’t have gone to that attorney and turned her life upside down again. And maybe she wouldn’t have fled Blue Falls for a second time because of the hurt he’d caused.

  But had he caused it, really? For several days, the idea that maybe he’d been there for another reason had been gnawing at her. She hadn’t even asked, hadn’t waited to find out. She’d done what she’d been prepared to do from the moment she’d stepped foot back on that ranch—run. And she didn’t like herself much because of it.

  Sometimes she wondered why, if Nathan supposedly cared so much about Evan, he hadn’t tried to contact her. With each passing day with no word, she expected to hear from that attorney. But it was as if she and Evan had never gone to Texas. Except, of course, for how Evan avoided her now.

  And the hole that had reopened in her heart after leaving Nathan behind again.

  She’d been a fool, in so many ways.

  “How long is this going to go on?”

  Grace looked up to see Emily standing in the doorway to her office, leaning against the door frame with her arms crossed. That’s when she realized she’d drifted off into her thoughts again, leaving the sketch in front of her half-drawn.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You don’t have to be sorry. I’m just worried about you.”

  She started to instinctually say she was fine, but she couldn’t force out those words anymore. “I feel lost, Em, like all of my insides have been ripped out and only part of them returned. And the problem is, I don’t know how to fix it. It might be too late to fix it.”

  “He still hasn’t called?”

  “No. And at this point I think it’s safe to say he’s not going to.”

  Emily came fully into the room and sank into the chair opposite Grace’s drawing table. “Then maybe you should call him. I think it’s the only thing that’s going to let you move on, to find out what his plans are, how he feels about you.”

  “Honestly, do you think he could have any affection for me after what I did? Again. From his point of view, I’ve screwed him over twice. And he’s right.”

  “You know I’ll support you whatever you decide, but you’ve got to do something. You can’t keep going on the way you have been. I think I’ve seen you eat exactly three crackers and an apple since you’ve been back, you look like you haven’t slept in a month, and your concentration got left somewhere not here.”

  Grace doodled at the edge of the paper in front of her. “I’ve got to tell Evan the truth and hope he doesn’t hate me for not telling him sooner. I can’t stand how things are between us now. It’s like I’ve already lost him.”

  “Maybe if you let Nathan be a part of his life, things will actually be better.”

  Grace wasn’t so sure, but then she wasn’t sure about anything anymore.

  The front door opened, and Grace started to slide from her chair.

  “I’ll handle it,” Emily said as she stood and headed toward the reception area.

  Grace was looking at the sketch, trying to focus on the right kind of window treatments for the lodge’s guest rooms, when Emily reappeared in the doorway, a stunned expression on her face.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nathan’s here.”

  Grace’s heartbeat stumbled and she dropped the pencil she was holding. Nathan, here? All the ways she’d imagined starting another conversation with him crashed into each other like a fifty-car pileup in her head. Her legs shook as she stood, and for a moment she thought they were going to dump her on the floor. Her head swam but she managed to blink a few times to focus and steady herself. But before she could walk toward the door, there he was, standing behind Emily.

  “You okay?” Emily asked her even though she had to know Nathan was right there.

  Grace nodded and Emily reluctantly moved away with a final glance between her and Nathan. Guilt and shame swamped Grace, but she forced herself to maintain eye contact with Nathan as he stepped into her office, his hat in his hands.

  “Hello, Nathan.”

  “Grace.”

  She could have offered him a seat, a drink, and they could have danced around what he’d no doubt come here to discuss, but she didn’t think she could take it.

  “I’m going to tell him, tonight.”

  Nathan looked startled by her direct approach, but she didn’t give him a chance to speak. She had to get this out before she chickened out.

  “I’d already decided before I saw you. I’m going to risk having him hate me because I can’t stand the thought of going through a custody battle. He doesn’t deserve to be used as a rope in a tug of war.”

  “Grace—”

  She held up a hand. “No, let me finish. I’m sorry I left without telling you why. I just hope you won’t hold it against me. If it makes you feel any better, Evan didn’t want to leave and he barely talks to me now.”

  “How could that possibly make me feel better?” he asked, ignoring her plea to let her speak uninterrupted.

  “Maybe you think that it’s my due for how I’ve treated you.”

  “I hope you don’t really think I’m that cruel.”

  “I…” Words refused to come. It was as if her brain had fizzled, and she couldn’t grasp a single coherent thought. She sank back onto her chair before she collapsed.

  “Why did you leave like that?”

  She lowered her gaze, ashamed of how she’d acted on impulse instead of solid facts. “I saw you talking with that attorney in town, and all my old fears came roaring back to life. I just knew you were going to try to take Evan away from me.” She shook her head. “I know I sound crazy when I say it out loud. Maybe I am a little crazy.”

  “You’re not crazy. I did go see him to find out what my rights as a father are.”

  “Oh.” Her nerves stretched to near the breaking point.

  “I had to, Grace. I wasn’t sure if you’d ever tell Evan, but he’s my son. I have a right to see him.”

  “I know.” Grace’s voice came out weak, mirroring how she felt.

  “But that’s not the only reason I was there. I also asked Adrian what I needed to do to leave my share of the ranch to Evan in my will.”

  She looked up so fast that her head swam again.

  “When you came to the ranch, you were looking out for Evan’s future. It was my turn.”

  “Oh, Nathan.” Tears pooled in her eyes. “I’m so sorry. I…I thought when I didn’t hear anything from you or the attorney that maybe…” She couldn’t finish, and he must have sensed it because he stepped forward and lifted her hands in his.

  “It took me this long to cool off and see things clearly. I know it’s hard for you to trust people, but I’m asking you to trust me.”

  She forced herself to meet
his gaze. “Where do we go now?”

  “We tell Evan, together, then go from there.”

  She nodded though her insides were roiling like a hurricane. A glance at the clock told her it was later than she expected. “He should be here any minute. He rides the bus here after school.”

  The light of anticipation in Nathan’s eyes told her all she needed to know about how he felt toward his son. If something happened to her, Evan would be okay.

  When she heard the front door open followed by the sound of Evan’s small footfalls, Grace stood. “That’s him.” She made her way shakily to the reception area where she noticed Emily hadn’t retreated all the way to her office.

  She offered Emily a small smile then turned toward her son. “Evan, someone is here to see you.”

  He looked up slowly from a handheld gaming system, like the Farnsley boys had had—a guilt gift she’d given him in hopes he’d start speaking to her again. It hadn’t worked. Instead, he used it to avoid her even more, and she’d not had the strength or heart to take that from him, too. She knew what a broken heart felt like and how long it took to get over one and move on.

  She knew the moment Nathan stepped out of her office because Evan’s face transformed to sheer joy. As he raced past her toward Nathan, she closed her eyes and prayed for the strength to get through what was to come.

  HAVING EVAN STICK close by his side, asking to ride with him back to Grace’s house and hanging on his every word, felt so good, as if Nathan was some sort of conquering hero. Wasn’t that the way little boys were supposed to look at their fathers? He knew he had at Evan’s age.

  But as they arrived at Grace’s and went inside, as she set about cooking an early dinner, he saw how much their son’s reaction cost her. That more than anything else was what told him how bad things had been since she’d left the ranch.

  “Kiddo, what do you say we help your mom fix dinner?”

  Grace glanced over her shoulder where she stood at the kitchen counter cutting up vegetables. “I’m fine, thanks.” Her voice sounded exhausted, the same as how she looked. As soon as they finished the big conversation with Evan, he was getting her alone and making sure she was okay. He didn’t like the look of those dark circles under her eyes and the way she moved as if she was barely staying upright.