“Whoa, there,” Wayne said when a full-fledged cry erupted from Jamie’s mouth.
“Sorry, Dad.” Sierra stood and took Jamie, snuggling him close to her chest in an attempt to quiet him. “When he cries like this, he’s reached the point of no return.”
“I can give him a bath if you want,” her father offered.
“What? And leave me with these two?” The look she sent her brothers said, Talk about something other than Clay.
They ignored her.
If she didn’t dread more fallout, she’d tell them she’d mostly made up her mind hours ago. She’d just needed that last little push and to be reminded of what was most important. Jamie.
Tomorrow morning, first thing, she’d call Roberto and inform him of her decision. He could tell Clay; she didn’t think she could handle it.
* * *
CLAY HESITATED JUST INSIDE the door. The noisy bar and grill was packed for a Thursday night. Then again, when wasn’t it? He didn’t frequent the Saddle Up Saloon for the very reason he’d come here tonight.
His father.
Bud Duvall could be found on his favorite bar stool most evenings from six to nine. Later on Fridays and Saturdays. He didn’t have a drinking problem, none that Clay knew about anyway. Bud typically nursed two draft beers for as long as he stayed, always leaving a generous tip in exchange for “rent” on the bar stool. He often joked about the Saddle Up being his second home.
An unfortunately true situation that was no one’s fault but his own.
Clay searched the large room, his gaze skimming a sea of cowboy hats and teased hairdos. He spotted his father in his usual place, center of the bar and, when the band wasn’t playing, center of attention. Flanked by his regular cronies, Bud acknowledged everyone who passed by with a howdy or a firm handshake or, in the case of the fairer sex, a wide grin and appreciative once-over.
Some things never changed.
Clay crossed to his father, weaving right and left to skirt tables. Bud didn’t see Clay until he was standing directly in the older man’s line of vision.
“Lookie here, fellows,” Bud boomed, his friendly voice a contrast to his wary eyes. “See what the cat drug in.”
His father’s friends greeted him warmly.
“Hey, Clay.”
“Been a while, hasn’t it?”
“Luke. Artie.” Clay nodded, smiled. “How you doing?”
They exchanged small talk for several minutes before Luke and Artie offered flimsily concocted excuses and left. They probably figured if Clay had sought out his father after years of sporadic contact, it was probably an important and private matter.
“Buy you a drink?” Bud offered when the bartender made a pass.
“Club soda.”
The bartender left to fill Clay’s order.
“Since when you quit drinking beer?” His father studied him curiously.
“I haven’t. Just not in the mood tonight.” He didn’t want any alcohol, even one beer’s worth, dulling his senses. “Can we talk?”
“Sure.”
“Some place less loud and less crowded?”
His father shrugged. He didn’t relish abandoning his bar stool for any reason, including talking to his estranged son. “I’m free tomorrow.”
Clay ignored the sarcasm. “This is important, Dad.”
“Whatever you say.” Bud drained the last of his beer and heaved himself off the stool. The same height as Clay, he carried an extra thirty pounds, most of it in the form of a spare tire hanging over his belt buckle.
Clay remembered when his father had been lean and muscled and strong enough to wrestle a full-grown steer to the ground one-handed. In those days, the Duvalls’ cattle operation had been in full swing, and Clay and his father toiled twenty-four hours straight if necessary.
Bud sold the cattle operation when Clay was twenty-two. Clay had used his share of the proceeds, a share he felt he’d rightfully earned, to purchase the land on which he eventually constructed his rodeo arena. When his father sold the Powells’ land two years later, Clay refused to take even one dime, though Bud had tried to convince him. They’d spoken rarely since then, Clay unable to get past what he considered his father’s betrayal of a sacred trust.
In the span of a single day, the Duvalls had gone from being the Powells’ dearest friends to being their hated enemies.
Was it any wonder Sierra had feared telling her family he was Jamie’s father?
“There’s an empty booth in the corner.” Bud walked ahead of Clay.
Not exactly quiet, but the location was marginally more private. At least Clay wouldn’t have to shout his personal business in order to be heard over the din. He and his father had already created quite a stir with the regulars.
They sat on opposite sides of the booth, the ancient cushioned seat beneath Clay giving in some places and lumpy in others.
“How’s your mother?”
Bud’s question didn’t come out of the blue. He always asked after Blythe whenever he and Clay talked.
“She’s good.”
“Still liking her job at the title company?”
“Very much.” Clay wasn’t in the mood for pleasantries. “Dad, I have some news. Good news.”
“You’re not moving again?”
“No.”
“Didn’t think so.” He scraped a knuckle along his neatly trimmed salt-and-pepper beard. “Heard you’re doing well with the rodeo arena.”
Clay almost asked his father to repeat himself. The remark was the closest Bud had come to praising Clay since the day he’d brought home the state bronc-riding championship. Not long after that, Clay had cursed Bud and told him he didn’t care if they ever crossed paths again.
He thought of Jamie. If someone had suggested to Clay ten days ago that he was the father of a toddler son, he’d have laughed in their face. Now, he was seeking custody and eager to turn his life upside down in order to have Jamie and Sierra included in it.
“I’m doing well enough. Being the only privately owned rodeo arena in Mustang Valley helps.” Clay took a sip of his club soda, his throat inexplicably dry. Why was he suddenly nervous to tell his father about Jamie? “Sierra Powell is back in Mustang Valley.”
“Been a while.” Bud flinched ever so slightly. Someone who didn’t know him might not have noticed.
Another time, he’d have tried to analyze that flinch. Tonight, he didn’t care. “She brought her son with her. Our son.”
Bud’s brows rose until they disappeared beneath the unruly hank of silver hair covering his forehead. “You and her have a son? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I just found out myself. His name is Jamie. He’s fifteen months old.”
Bud chuckled. “I can’t believe she let you within ten feet of her, much less into her bed.”
Delivered with a humorous tone and coming from a friend, the comment could have been taken as a joke. From Bud, it smacked of an insult, and Clay’s fingers involuntarily clenched.
“The Powells and I have made our peace,” he said.
“Not then, you hadn’t. When did you two hook up? Before or after Jessica?”
After? Did his father actually think Clay had violated his marriage vows? “Before. When Jessica and I were on the outs.”
He didn’t and wouldn’t tell his father how devastated he’d been over Jessica dumping him—again—and how good Sierra had made him feel.
“What are you going to do?” Bud asked.
“Take care of Jamie. Sierra, too. I’ve filed a custody suit.”
“What do you mean by ‘take care of’?”
Be the best father I can, like you used to be, he almost said. “Provide financially and emotionally. Share the parenting with Sierra.”
“Marry her?”
Clay thought carefully before answering. It wasn’t as if the idea hadn’t occurred to him. But having recently survived six months of a marriage made in hell, he wasn’t ready or willing to take the plunge so soon.
>
“No, we’re not getting married.” Frankly, he doubted she’d accept even if he proposed.
“What’s the matter with you?” Bud’s voice rose loud enough to generate stares from nearby tables. “Didn’t I raise you right?”
“You did,” Clay answered evenly. “And I promise you my son will never go without.”
“He deserves the Duvall name.”
“He’ll have it. My attorney is filing an amended birth certificate.”
“That girl deserves your name, too.”
“That girl?” Could his father not bring himself to say Sierra?
“Don’t get smart with me.”
A bar was hardly the place to engage his father in an argument, but Clay did it anyway. “How can you sit there and question whether you raised me right, when you stole six hundred acres out from under the Powells?”
“I did no such thing.” Bud leaned forward, bringing his face closer to Clay’s. “I gave them the money so Louise could have a heart transplant. A lot of money. It wasn’t my fault she died. Or that Wayne lost interest in the ranch.”
“You promised to give the Powells first chance to buy back the land.”
“I did.”
“That’s a lie.”
His father’s face flushed a deep red. “I’ve done a lot of bad things that I’m not proud of, but lying isn’t one of them.”
“Wayne would have moved heaven and earth to keep his land.”
“Maybe you don’t know him as well as you think.”
“What are you saying exactly?”
Some of the fight went out of his father, and he toyed absently with the happy-hour menu. “Wayne couldn’t come up with the payment. Not even a partial payment. I extended the loan. Interest free. By then, he’d run their operation into the ground.”
Clay reeled. He hadn’t heard this version before. “Why are you only telling me now? Why hasn’t Wayne said anything?”
“The man lost his wife. His business was hanging on by a thread. He wasn’t about to admit he’d failed, and I wasn’t about to publicly shame him.”
“You should have gone to Gavin and Ethan. Given them the chance to repay the loan.”
“Wayne asked me not to.”
“Couldn’t you have waited one more year?”
For the first time, Bud Duvall looked beaten and a decade older than his fifty-eight years. “Shoot, I’d have waited twenty years. A hundred years. Wayne was the best friend I ever had.”
“So why ruin him?”
“You weren’t even twenty when your mom and I split. There are just some things a kid shouldn’t have to know about his parents.”
“I’m not a kid anymore, Dad.”
“You aren’t, that’s a fact.” Bud tossed the happy-hour menu aside as if it irritated him. “One day your mother told me she was unhappy. The next day, she packed up, moved out and filed for divorce.”
That was what Clay remembered, but he’d always assumed there was more to the story.
“Did you sell the Powells’ land to try to get her back?”
“She tell you that?”
“No, I’m making a leap.”
Bud chuckled mirthlessly. “Well, leap in another direction, pal. She forced me to sell the land because it was the only way I could raise enough revenue to meet her demands. She insisted on her half of our marital assets and refused to wait, even when I begged her.”
Chapter Seven
Clay aimed his truck in the direction of Scottsdale and his mother’s townhouse. Activating his Bluetooth, he pressed the speed dial. The call went right to voice mail, and he remembered her mentioning something about going to the theater with a friend. She held season tickets to ASU Gammage, had purchased them soon after she and his father divorced, the Director’s Club, with preferred seating, backstage tours and VIP-lounge access.
Had she bought the tickets with money from the divorce? The Powells’ money?
The possibility made Clay’s stomach churn. For years he’d believed his father to be the bad guy. A traitor. A betrayer. According to his father, those descriptors belonged to his mother.
How screwed-up could one family be?
He drove to Powell Ranch instead of his mother’s home. Ethan was probably in bed, or would be soon, which is where Clay should be. Like his friend, he had an early morning.
His mind, however, was racing too fast to let his body sleep. He needed to talk to someone, and Ethan, as his best friend, was that someone. He’d get Clay out of bed if circumstances were reversed.
Ethan’s truck wasn’t in sight when Clay rumbled slowly through the ranch and toward the converted apartment beside the stables. No lights came on in the main house, though the back-porch light shone for several seconds, then went off. Late-night visitors to the ranch weren’t uncommon. People boarding their horses often came by at odd hours to administer medicine or change wound dressings, check on pregnant mares and, on really cold nights, ensure their horses were properly blanketed.
Parking in front of Ethan’s apartment, Clay climbed the porch steps and knocked on the door. No one answered. He scanned the immediate area and noticed what he should have in the first place. Ethan’s truck wasn’t here. Clay was tempted to wait for Ethan. Naw, he was probably with Caitlin at her condo in Mustang Valley. That was where Clay would be staying if he was about to be married in a few days.
Married.
He could still hear his father asking him if he was going to do the right thing and give Sierra his name.
Clay tested the doorknob and found it locked. He couldn’t even hide out till morning. About to turn around and go…he had no clue where…he heard the crunch of footsteps on hard ground.
“What are you doing here?”
He spun at the sound of Sierra’s voice. She stood half in the shadows, half in the glow of a silver moon hanging high in the sky.
“Hey.” Guilt ate at him—for what both his parents had done to her family. He swallowed before continuing. “I wanted to talk to Ethan.”
“He’s not here.”
“So I see. What you are doing out so late?”
“One of us is having trouble sleeping.” She stepped out of the shadows, and Clay saw that she was balancing Jamie on her hip. He had one fat fist shoved in his mouth and was making whiny, snuffling sounds.
“What’s wrong?” Clay came off the porch, his worried glance taking in his son from ski-cap-bundled head to footed-pajama toe.
“He’s teething. I was talking to an old friend from work earlier, and she suggested taking him outside. She said sometimes a change in scenery helps.”
“With the pain?”
“It’s more of a distraction tactic.”
Clay could use one of those. Maybe he should stroll around the ranch, too. He liked that idea, but only if Sierra went with him.
“Hey, you okay?”
He caught her studying him. “Me? Yeah.”
“You look upset.”
He shoved his hands in his jacket pockets. “I am. A little. Had a talk with my dad tonight. Told him about Jamie.”
“Is he mad?”
He heard the accusation in her voice. “Not at all.”
Clay was the one who was mad. Even now, as he recalled the conversation at the Saddle Up, he realized his father hadn’t asked one thing about his grandson or—this hurt the worst—if he could see Jamie.
Then again, Clay and his father had gotten off track. Way off track. And Clay had abruptly stormed out.
Damn it, none of this made any sense. His mother wouldn’t have forced his father to sell off the Powells’ land. She loved them.
Jamie whimpered.
“Can I hold him?” Clay asked.
“Um, sure.”
He’d anticipated an argument.
Jamie went willingly into Clay’s arms and quieted almost immediately. “Got a sore tooth, pal?” He tucked Jamie’s head into the crook of his neck and closed his eyes. Not everything in life had come easy. Love for his so
n did. Very easy. “I know how painful that is. Had some bum teeth myself a few years back.”
“Wisdom teeth?” Sierra asked.
“Impacted wisdom teeth. They pulled all four, which explains why I’m not very wise.”
She smiled at his lame joke, the most relaxed he’d seen her since she’d arrived home. With moonlight turning her hair the color of quicksilver, she looked prettier than ever.
The pull of attraction he’d felt earlier when they were touring the casita didn’t just return with a vengeance. It hit him like a sledgehammer to the gut.
“I’m sorry you argued with your dad.”
“It wasn’t an argument as much as a heated discussion.”
“About Jamie?” Her tone became defensive again.
“My mom. Their divorce. The sale of your land.” Without thinking about it, Clay had started swaying slowly, and Jamie’s eyes drifted closed. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.” Sierra reached out and stroked Jamie’s back.
Clay stared at her hand, recalling when she’d similarly stoked his back, offering comfort when he’d been heartsick over losing Jessica. It was the first time he’d noticed Sierra as someone other than his best friend’s little sister.
His body stirred, reacting to the memory.
They’d made a baby together. But they’d also shared more than simple physical intimacy. He’d opened his heart to her, and she to him. If only he’d been smarter, seen that he and Jessica weren’t cut out for each other.
He probably shouldn’t have had those wisdom teeth removed, impacted or not.
“What did your dad tell you when mine sold off your land?”
The corners of her mouth turned down. “Why do you ask?”
“Did he mention my dad giving him an opportunity to buy back the land before he sold it?”
Her gaze clouded in confusion, then darkened. “I’m sure your father didn’t give him any opportunity whatsoever.”
Clay took that as a no.
If, as his father claimed, Wayne Powell had the chance to repay the loan and keep his land, why not tell his children?
Would Clay? Honestly, no. He’d have too much pride to admit to his children he couldn’t come up with the money.
Baby's First Homecoming Page 8
