A Baby on the Ranch

by Stella Bagwell

  Reaching for the paper first, she opened it and read:

  Dearest Katherine,

  You said the Ketchums aren’t important to you now. But that’s because you haven’t met them yet. You don’t know what a wonderful family you’re turning your back on. They want you to be a part of their lives. Maybe when you’re able to understand that, you’ll also understand how much I love you.

  Lonnie

  Tears rolled from her eyes and she had to wipe them away before she could examine the two envelopes. With shaky hands, she turned each one of them over until the address was facing her. Both of them had been mailed to Amelia Tucker from Celia. Katherine recognized the old return address as being the one where they used to live here in Hereford when she’d been a small child.

  Taking a deep, bracing breath, she pulled the small, handwritten pages from the envelope with the oldest postage date. As she began to read, the words were warm and loving and written as though Celia was speaking to someone she was very close to. Snippets of local news were relayed and brief details of the recent weather.

  Katherine quickly scanned through the small talk until she reached a paragraph that stunned her.

  Gripping the paper, her heart began to thud with heavy anticipation as she read on:

  Noah came by yesterday to see his daughter. He said that Tucker had sent him to pick up a horse down at Clovis, but he went far off his route and missed a lot of sleep to drive over here to Hereford. There’s no doubt that he adores Katherine. I can see it on his face every time he holds her in his arms. And the way he talks about you—well, it just breaks my heart that the two of you can’t be together. Especially when I know how much you love him.

  I can’t understand your reasoning for staying with Tucker. He’s a hard-nosed bastard in my book, but I guess when you have four children with someone, there’s a tie there that can’t be broken. I promise he’ll never hear anything from me about you and Noah, or the baby you had together. As far as he knows, you came down here to Hereford to help nurse me through chemotherapy treatments. He’ll never know that you had a baby while you were here or that you gave the little one to me to rear as my own. That’ll be our secret, sis, always.

  It’s clear that you can’t bring yourself to give up your other four children to go and live with Noah and Katherine. But as far as I’m concerned, a woman shouldn’t have to make such a hard choice. When I think about you, sis, it isn’t hard for me to swear off men. I don’t want any of the heartache or pain you’ve been going through.

  Katherine read a little more, but the letter turned to other, more mundane things, so she laid it aside and picked up the next envelope. This one was postmarked a few years later. By now Katherine was in elementary school. Noah had quit his job as foreman for the T Bar K, yet from Celia’s words, he was still keeping up with Katherine’s life. As for Amelia, her health was becoming a problem and she was finding it harder and harder to make the trips down to Hereford to see her daughter.

  Trips to see her daughter? Katherine thought back to when she was eight, ten and twelve. There had been a woman who’d come to visit from time to time, she remembered. Celia had called her what, Laura? No, Lia. She’d been a quiet, dark-headed woman with a sad air about her. Katherine had always looked forward to her visits because she often took Celia and her shopping for shoes and clothing. And when the two women had cooked meals in the kitchen, Lia always invited Katherine to help with whatever she was doing.

  Allowing the yellowed pages to drop to her lap, Katherine closed her eyes against the myriad of emotions parading through her. Strangely, she felt loved and yet abandoned at the same time. She felt deceived and cheated and very, very sad. There was no way she could doubt that she was Amelia Ketchum and Noah Rider’s child. She was the product of an illicit affair, and the woman who’d mothered Katherine for all those years had not really been her mother at all.

  Her hands shaking, Katherine shoved the letters back into the envelopes and started to push the snapshot in after them, but curiosity caused her to pause just long enough to glimpse a group gathered somewhere out-of-doors beneath the shade of a cottonwood tree.

  Slowly she righted the photo in her hands and stared at the people behind the smiling faces. They all appeared older than she was now, somewhere in their thirties. There were two men and one woman, all with hair a different shade of brunette, and all impressively handsome. Although the woman was slender, she was obviously pregnant. The camera had snapped the man to the left of her in the act of rubbing her barely protruding belly. The whole scene was happy and loving, and Katherine felt a pang of loss just looking at it.

  Flipping the photo over, she saw that someone had printed names and a date on the back. Ross, Victoria and Seth. September 2003.

  Her half brothers. Her half sister. Oh, what would it be like to be a part of their lives and their love?

  Shaking her head, she pushed the photo back into the manila envelope and out of her sight. She didn’t want to know the answers to those questions. Not ever having something was far better than having it and then losing it. Maybe Lonnie would understand that, once she was gone and he’d had plenty of time to think about things.

  Leaning forward, she placed the manila envelope back onto the coffee table and started to rise to her feet. As she did, she spotted the folded newspaper clipping lying on the couch next to her thigh. For a brief moment she considered slipping the paper back into the envelope without ever looking at it. But curiosity got the better of her and she settled back onto the couch and opened the piece of newsprint.

  Most of the page had been left intact. At the top she could see it was the front page from the Aztec Gazette in New Mexico. The headline was printed in big black type:

  DAWSON ARRESTED FOR T BAR K MURDER.

  Gripping the paper, Katherine scooted to the edge of the seat and quickly began to read:

  Late yesterday evening, San Juan county resident and longtime rancher Rube Dawson was arrested for the murder of Noah Rider. For the past four months the San Juan County Sheriff’s department has been working to uncover who had killed the one-time foreman of the T Bar K ranch.

  The body of Noah Rider, sixty-seven and a Hereford, Texas, resident, was discovered on T Bar K property back in late spring. Later, it was discovered Rider had been shot in the head by a small-caliber weapon. Although Sheriff Perez hasn’t released any statements yet as to the motive of the crime, the Gazette has learned from a trusted source that Dawson shot and killed Rider over blackmail payments.

  The words began to rush up at Katherine as she continued to read how Dawson had somehow known about Noah and Amelia’s affair and about the child that had resulted from it. For years Dawson had demanded payments from Noah to keep the secret from reaching the Ketchums. But once Tucker and Amelia were both dead, Noah decided he wasn’t going to allow Dawson to extort another penny from him. He’d met with Dawson to tell him the payments were ending. Instead, his life had ended at the hands of his blackmailer.

  Oh God, Katherine silently cried. Noah—her father had been killed because he’d loved a married woman, because he’d had a child with her. And Katherine was that child!

  Tears sprang to her eyes, and for long minutes she couldn’t stop the hot flow from streaking down her face. Nor could she stem the quaking that had started deep inside her and worked outward to her hands.

  Why had Lonnie left this information for her to find? Did he think the tragic evidence would make her change her mind and stay here on the ranch with him, she wondered incredulously. As far as she was concerned, it only proved that love rarely worked. It not only caused people pain, it caused them to be killed!

  With grim determination, Katherine went to find a pen and paper to write Lonnie a goodbye note.

  Three weeks later, Lonnie stared pensively out the window of his office at the sight of the town’s Christmas lights and decorated trees. He’d always loved the holidays and, as sheriff, each year he enjoyed helping his deputies hand out toys to th
e needy children of the area.

  So far this year the department had received a fat amount of donations for the cause, and yesterday he’d sent Scarlett and Mitch on a toy-buying mission. Scarlett had invited Lonnie to join them, but he’d quickly declined, using the excuse that he had too much paperwork to catch up on, which had been partly true. He was always behind on his paperwork. Yet the real truth of the matter was that he didn’t want to walk through the children’s aisles and be reminded of little David. He missed the baby something awful, and having Katherine gone had left a giant hole in him that just wouldn’t heal.

  With a heavy sigh he wearily rubbed a hand over his face. Somewhere deep in his heart he’d always known that Katherine would leave him. After all, anybody he’d ever cared for had bade him a final adios. Katherine was no different. Yet the day he’d gone home and found her things gone and her note, lying next to the Ketchum letters on the coffee table, he’d felt as though two hands were shoving against his chest, pushing the very air from his lungs.

  These past weeks since she’d been gone, a part of him had hoped, prayed that once she got used to the idea of belonging to a family, she would see that the three of them belonged together. But so far that hadn’t happened, and he wondered wretchedly if the tax assessor was already working to change Katherine’s mind about the two of them having a relationship.

  Damn it, maybe she would be better off with the guy, Lonnie thought, as he folded his arms across his chest and leaned a shoulder into the window facing. The man probably had plenty of money to buy her things, to give her a nice house and car. Most likely, he even had enough to put away for David’s college. Nope, there wouldn’t be any scraping for their children’s futures. The guy was almost certainly set up for a family. And being in politics, he more than likely belonged to an elite social circle. As his wife, Katherine would be invited to the nicer events of Fort Worth. And the tax man sure couldn’t go wrong showing off a wife like Katherine. She was already a knockout. Duded up in fancy clothes, she would be breathtaking. But would all of that make Katherine happy? Was that the kind of life she wanted?

  God, he prayed not. From what he could see, she was not a material person. In fact, she was driven by her emotions almost too much. Otherwise she would already have let go of all those fears she was carrying around inside of her.

  “Sheriff? You got a minute?”

  The sound of Mitch’s voice turned Lonnie’s head just in time to see the young deputy entering his office.

  “Sure, Mitch. You need something?”

  Mitch waved a single paper in his hand. “Just a John Hancock on this request for a search warrant. The one about the stolen four-wheelers.”

  Moving away from the window, Lonnie motioned for the deputy to join him at the wide desk. As Lonnie sat down and reached for a pen, Mitch leaned his hip on the corner of the desktop.

  “Me and Scarlett had a good time buying all those toys yesterday,” he said. “You should have gone with us. Maybe it would have put a smile on your face.”

  Lonnie didn’t look up as he scratched his name and the date at the bottom of the page, but once he was finished, he shoved the paper toward Mitch and looked up at him.

  “You think I need to be smiling?” Lonnie asked.

  A sheepish expression crossed Mitch’s face and he shrugged one shoulder. “It would be a damn sight better than that glower you’ve been going around with.”

  Lonnie hadn’t realized he’d been glowering. Had anyone else in the department noticed his mood besides Mitch?

  “Sorry. I’ll practice in the mirror tonight. Maybe I’ll look better to you tomorrow.”

  Picking up the paper from Lonnie’s desk, Mitch muttered an oath under his breath. “I don’t get it, Sheriff. If you were that crazy about the woman, why did you let her leave?”

  Mitch had never been bashful about speaking his mind, even to his superiors. So it hardly surprised Lonnie now. What did surprise Lonnie was the fact that the young man didn’t have to ask what his problem was. He’d already concluded it was Katherine.

  He arched one brow at the deputy. “I didn’t let her go, Mitch. If you remember, you and Lester found my old Ford parked down at the bus station. Damn it, I should have hidden the keys,” he muttered more to himself than to Mitch.

  “Well,” Mitch said in an attempt to make his boss feel better. “I guess if the woman wanted to leave that bad, she would have found some way to do it, whether she had the truck keys or not.”

  A wincing pain hit Lonnie’s heart. He couldn’t believe Katherine had wanted to get away from him that badly. Especially after the way she’d kissed him and touched him as though she loved him.

  Hell, Ginger had done a lot of touching, too. But she hadn’t felt one iota of love for him. Maybe Katherine was the same. Maybe he’d been duped again.

  “Yeah, you’re probably right,” Lonnie said. Releasing a heavy breath, he rose from the desk and plucked his hat from its resting place on the wall. “If nothing else is going on, I think I’ll head home. I’ve got a lot of feeding to do.”

  Mitch didn’t make a move to leave the corner of the desk. Instead, he eyed Lonnie with quiet concern. “You know, Sheriff, I really like women.”

  The offhand remark caused Lonnie to bark out a mocking laugh. “That’s hardly a news alert.”

  Mitch absently tapped the warrant request against his thigh as he watched Lonnie lever his Stetson down on his head.

  “No. Don’t guess it is,” Mitch agreed. “What I’m trying to say is that I like being with them. Really like it. But I’ve never been in love with one. If it feels anything like I think it might, I don’t believe I’d want to lose her. I think I’d fight to get her back. Come hell or high water.”

  Lonnie grimaced. “And how would you do that, Romeo? The woman made it pretty clear how she felt about me by going back to Fort Worth. I’d be a fool to believe she might come back here to Hereford just for me.”

  “Maybe not. But you talked her into coming here before.”

  Reaching for his coat, Lonnie shrugged the fleece-lined garment over his shoulders. “Yeah. But I had a persuasive reason then. The Ketchums. But she’s not interested in them. Not any more than she’s interested in me.”

  With long, determined strides, Lonnie left the office and the worried deputy staring after him. Once he reached the ranch house, he went straight to the barn and fed the livestock, then loaded a truck bed full of hay and hauled it out to a herd of cattle that were pastured a long distance from the ranch house.

  By the time he returned, it was well after dark and the temperature was nosediving. A hot shower helped to warm him and then he went to the kitchen and made himself a small supper.

  A sandwich of cold cuts and a pile of tortilla chips sure couldn’t compare to eating Katherine’s cooking. But then nothing about the ranch was the same since she and the baby had left. He’d asked himself over and over if the place had always been this quiet and lonely. Had he just not noticed before? Or had Katherine and baby David made him see this home of his in a different light?

  Hell, what a question, Corteen, he mentally cursed as he carried the boring meal to the living room. Of course they’d made him see things in a different light! They’d changed his whole world by bringing the place alive with sights and scents and sounds that had filled him with joy. At the end of the day, coming home to the two of them was all he’d thought about. And now with them gone, it was still all he thought about.

  With a glum sigh, he switched on the television set and settled back to eat his sandwich. But after a couple of minutes, his concentration left the food and the television screen and his gaze settled on the armchair where he and Katherine had made love.

  Maybe it hadn’t been love in the technical sense, but it had been love to Lonnie. And he sure as hell didn’t want to think of any other man sharing such an intimate experience with her. Not even that damn tax man.

  Placing his uneaten meal on the coffee table, he bent his head and sc
rubbed his face with both hands.

  What was he going to do? What could he do to change Katherine’s mind? If he’d been a ladies’ man like Mitch he might have several ideas of what to say to make her see they belonged together. But he wasn’t a charmer or a ladies’ man. He was just a nice guy. And he knew better than anyone that nice guys always finished last.

  You’ve always been a real nice guy, Lonnie. But sometimes you have to take a different approach with women.

  Funny how Ethan Hamilton’s advice had stuck with him all these years. Lonnie had been Ethan’s young deputy when the Lincoln County sheriff had been going through a love affair with the local judge of the same county. His friend had gone through hell trying to convince the woman to marry him. But eventually she’d come around to Ethan’s way of thinking and in due time she’d born him a set of twins right at Christmas.

  Perhaps he should call Ethan and ask his advice. Maybe the other man could tell him he should go to Fort Worth, throw Katherine over his shoulder and bring her back home. Or he might simply tell Lonnie to forget her. If she’d already left him once, she wasn’t worth the effort of going after her a second time.

  Lonnie reached for the phone, then just as quickly let his arm drop back to his side. Ethan was a smart guy, but he couldn’t tell Lonnie what to do. No more than Mitch could. Only Lonnie’s heart could do that, and right now it was telling him he needed to give Katherine a little Christmas surprise.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The next afternoon in Fort Worth, Katherine agreed to meet Althea at the courthouse. Her friend had arranged to have her lunch hour expanded to two hours so the two women could grab a quick meal and do a bit of shopping at a nearby mall. Julie was going to be in a Christmas play at school, and Althea needed to find something at the craft store to make a pair of silver wings for an angel costume. Katherine was hardly a seamstress, but since she’d returned to Fort Worth, she’d not had the chance to visit with Althea for more than fifteen minutes at a time and most of those chats had taken place over the phone. She needed to get out of the apartment. And an hour spent with her friend might help lift her spirits. God only knew how low they’d been since she’d left the Rafter C.