by Tina Leonard
“Nah,” Pete said, “don’t think it would work.”
“Why? Tell Jack to start the New Year off right with a little family, a little—”
“Dane, dude. It’s not going to happen.” Pete shook his head.
“I guess there’s a reason,” Dane said, and his brother nodded.
“Yeah. Jack’s sworn to never set foot on the Morgan ranch again.”
Dane whistled. “No million dollars for him.”
“Jack wouldn’t give a da—”
“Hey, fellows!” Suzy poked her head into the barn. Both men straightened, surprised. “Cricket and I and the girls are going to walk around town.”
“Sounds like a party,” Dane said, realizing he sounded smart-alecky but not meaning it that way. Why did everything he said around Suzy seem to come out stupid?
“It is a party. Toddlers, a deacon and a single mom. Wild girls.”
“Yeah, well,” Dane said, “Pete and I were never much for wild women.”
Everyone in the barn stood still, the fib seeming to take a shape of its own. “I suppose you have underwater land you’d like to sell me, too,” Suzy said, “but what I was really wondering was if you want to accompany us.”
“Sure,” Pete said, dropping what he’d been doing, which was pretty much nothing, in Dane’s opinion. He glanced at Dane. “Nothing pressing around here, right, brother?”
He wanted to go, but at what price to his conscience? Dane knew what his father was up to. Wasn’t it best if he and Suzy stayed well away from each other? She was an innocent party—she really seemed to have no idea what Pop had intended. She claimed Pop was totally innocent.
Dane knew better. “I don’t know,” he said. “I’m not a going-out kind of guy.”
Pete thumped him on the back. “That’s cool. You stay in, and I’ll make sure the girls and dolls stay warm and cozy and safe. I haven’t seen Union Junction in a long time,” he told Suzy as he walked out of the barn with her. “I’m sure there’s tons of changes I need to catch up on while we give Cricket the grand tour.”
Alone in the barn, Dane grimaced. Pete was unusually friendly, and he couldn’t tell what was up with that. Was his brother flirting with the single mother or the deacon—and did he care? “I don’t care,” he muttered.
“Dane?” Suzy said, glancing in the barn again. “We’re going to get hot chocolate in town. Sure you don’t want to come along?”
What the hell. He did, and he was tired of acting like he didn’t. Hot chocolate was harmless, right? “As long as Pete’s paying,” he said, and went to join the party.
TWO HOURS LATER, DANE was pretty sure hot chocolate was going to be his undoing. Pete flirted outrageously with both women—he apparently saw no reason to acknowledge his brother—and Suzy and Cricket seemed to eat up the attention. Nor could Dane make any strides with the toddlers, Nicole and Sandra, because there was Pete, making suck-up points by helping them cool their hot cocoa, or carrying the girls on his shoulders so that they could better see into shop windows as the group walked down the main street of Union Junction.
Dane didn’t even know why he was out of sorts. Something suspiciously like jealousy ate at his insides, which felt uncomfortably like worms crawling around inside him, fat and cold and slithery.
He wanted to be mad at Pete, but he knew he was really mad at himself. Having gotten off on the wrong foot with Suzy in the very beginning, he didn’t appreciate further distance being made between them, and particularly by his older brother.
Competition had never been his downfall before. But he had to admit that his relationships with men were lacking in the trust area. He didn’t trust Pop, and he’d made the mistake of trusting his former partner, Kenny, and lost his shirt for that. Worst of all, Jack was nowhere to be seen. Maybe he needed a good example of how a man should act around a woman with two children, but to Dane’s mind, the chivalrous thing to do was to keep distance between them. They had no future because he was retiring young to Mexico where it was warm all year round, not like Union Junction. He was certain a bad example to follow was Pete’s, acting as if he was some kind of woman magnet, irresistible to the opposite sex.
What really dug at him was how much all four girls seemed to enjoy the attention. I’m sulking, he realized. An old habit of being the third son. No wonder I hate Texas. I really hate being third in a family of dysfunctional freaks.
Okay, that was harsh. The Morgans weren’t freaks; they just had more than their share of cautionary tales. So what? A man bucked up and took it.
He could take it. Couldn’t he?
And besides, it was all none of his business. Pete could do what he liked, and so could Suzy. He sighed to himself, deciding he was as much fun as a holey sock. Pete, with his older, hard-won maturity, would seem more impressive to a woman who craved some sort of adventure in her life.
Of course, if Suzy wanted adventure, then he was Mr. Adventure in the amazing flesh. “Before I went into law enforcement,” he said, “I thought I’d probably have to stay in the military forever to stay out of trouble.”
Suzy and Cricket paused in their walking to look at him. Pete frowned, not liking the limelight being off him all of a sudden.
“We were an indulgent group of boys,” Dane said. “I wanted to be just like Jack when I grew up. I couldn’t, so I did crazy stuff like canoeing through Mexico and parachuting out in California until I realized I had to grow up. The military changed me, and then being a Ranger gave me purpose in life.”
Suzy smiled at him. “No wonder you seem so ready to settle down.”
Dane felt his bravado slip. “Settle down?”
Cricket nodded. “Suzy and I have decided we’ve never seen a man so ready to marry and start a family.”
Pete was grinning like mad. Dane perked up under the women’s admiring eyes, though his courage wanted to take a major hike. “I plan on settling down in Mexico next year, as a matter of fact.”
“Oh. Mexico?” Suzy said, sounding surprised, and maybe unpleasantly so.
“Cost of living’s great,” he explained. “I figure if Pop can live in France and all over the world, I should at least be able to park my boots in a border country.”
“I guess so,” Suzy said.
Cricket nodded. “It makes sense.”
They turned their attention back to Pete, who was grinning at him like a stupid hyena. The three of them, along with the tiny toddlers, one of which was held by Pete and one by Cricket, continued walking along the sidewalk. There wasn’t enough room for him, unless he wanted to walk in the street, which he didn’t, because that would feel as if he wasn’t part of the group—a mere hanger-on pedestrian. Didn’t Pete have some secret agent-spy stuff he needed to attend to? Dane wondered sourly.
Some chaperone Cricket was turning out to be—more like the fairy matchmaker. Suzy was supposed to be his responsibility, according to Pop’s instructions—those very same instructions he’d cursorily read last June and then shuffled onto an intermediate, he recalled. And then he’d headed off for six months, keeping himself well away from the mother and her twins. Thwarting Pop was great, but he didn’t like Pete weaseling in on his assignment.
He let himself think up the most impressive thing he could possibly hope to say to a group like this.
“Let’s go to the rodeo tomorrow,” he suggested, and with Pete gesturing No to him, it was like a comet he could latch on to with joy. “Anybody up for watching cowboys get thrown in Lonely Hearts Station?”
“That sounds like so much fun!” Suzy exclaimed. Cricket nodded enthusiastically, but Pete’s lips turned down in a tight frown.
Dane clapped him on the back. “Remember when you wanted to grow up to be a rodeo clown?”
“At least one of us has achieved clown status,” Pete said.
“We’d best get back,” Suzy said, “the girls are starting to get a little fussy. And we want to be well rested for the rodeo tomorrow.”
“What’s the problem?” Dane
asked Pete under his breath. “It’s just harmless fun.” Of course, that’s what he’d thought about tonight’s outing, and look where it had gotten him: showboating into another outing with Suzy.
Not with Suzy—with the group, he told the mocking voice chiding him.
“If you’re smart,” Pete said as the ladies walked ahead of them, “you’ll figure out what you’re going to do to cure the case of hots scorching your brain.”
“What do you mean?” Dane demanded, but Pete just shook his head.
“Knucklehead,” Dane said as Pete galloped off with Sandra on his shoulders, “you just want every woman for yourself.”
He understood himself well enough to know that the family closeness and brotherly harmony his father dreamed of wasn’t going to happen if he and Pete hit a rough patch because of a woman.
The best thing he could do was to forget about Suzy and her twins altogether.
“At least I still have Mexico,” he muttered, and then wondered why the idea of palm trees in January didn’t seem quite as exciting as it once had.
Chapter Five
That evening, after tucking the little girls in bed, Suzy and Cricket sat sharing a pot of hot tea in the Morgan ranch kitchen. Suzy stirred sugar into her cup. “Any regrets for coming out here?”
Cricket grinned. “It’s been a productive day. You could have warned me what handsome rascals the Morgan brothers are.”
Suzy shook her head. “I had a handsome rascal. He turned out to be a weasel.”
Cricket nodded. “Pete and Dane don’t seem all that steadfast, either. But they have some good points.”
“Fortunately, I’m not in the market, so it doesn’t matter.” Suzy glanced around, glad that the men had gone out to the barn. Heaven only knew what they were doing there, in the darkness of one of the coldest January nights on record. “Neither of them strikes me as father material, anyway.”
“You never talk to your old fiancé?”
“No. It’s not like I shut the door on Frank to deliberately keep him away from Nicole and Sandra. But he made it clear he wasn’t interested in being a father.” Suzy was sad for her children, but his desertion was really no different from her parents’ feelings. She’d chosen to go into parenthood alone. It wasn’t a decision she regretted for even a fraction of a second. “The girls have a wonderful godmother in you, though,” Suzy said, smiling so that Cricket wouldn’t know how sad she felt about her girls’ father and grandparents.
“It must be hard for you, Suzy,” Cricket murmured.
“My life is so much better since the girls were born. They make me laugh, they make me smile, they give me focus. There’s nothing I want more than to see them grow up to be happy and loved.”
“I want children,” Cricket admitted, “but not necessarily a husband. Does that sound awful?”
“Not to me,” Suzy said, “but the church might be concerned.”
Cricket smiled. “What I meant was, I believe I could handle the responsibilities that go along with children better than I could handle a man. Your girls are such angels.”
Suzy felt surrounded by a warm glow over the mention of her babies. “Don’t let the Morgan men hear you say you want children.” Suzy thought about how far away from her girls Dane managed to stay. Pete, on the other hand, seemed more than happy to play stand-in uncle. “Supposedly there’s a Grandchildren Conspiracy, to hear Dane tell it.”
“Oh. No worries on that score.” Cricket smiled. “Your kids are enough for me for now. But what about you? What do you dream of?”
Suzy hesitated. Her family was cold, aloof from each other. She’d spent hours watching family TV shows where the characters were happy being close-knit, supportive and affectionate. “I’d love more children.”
Cricket lifted her teacup in a cheers motion. “My hat is off to you.”
Suzy shook her head. “Put your hat back on. I said I’d love them, not that I plan to have more.”
“Suzy, why don’t you take the girls by to see your parents?” Cricket asked, her voice soft.
Suzy shook her head. “My folks are the complete opposite of Mr. Morgan. Children born out of wedlock are not welcome.”
Cricket hesitated, then sighed. “Don’t you think that if your parents just saw the girls, saw how adorable and sweet they are—”
“The girls and I are a family, and that’s enough.” Suzy didn’t mean to be rude by cutting off Cricket’s encouragement, but her friend couldn’t possibly understand how impossible some bridges were to cross.
JOSIAH MORGAN KNEW SOMETHING about being alone. It was why he wanted his boys to have loving marriages and children to comfort them in their old age. When his wife left him and the boys behind all those years ago, he’d tasted the bitter, galling taste of rejection. When his boys left him, he’d been shattered by the knowledge that he was an utter failure.
Was that too simple? Hell, no. Josiah knew it deep in his bones. He’d lost a good wife, he’d made his own children hate him. There was nothing painless about that.
It took a very hard-hearted man to realize he was an unlikable human being.
When his wife left, he’d accepted it without complaint. A woman was a free-willed creature. In spite of his best efforts to make Giselle happy, it had taken him many years to realize his best efforts were not pointed in the right direction. His passion had been to make himself happy as he built worlds outside of his home. She had responded by returning to France.
He’d had no choice but to accept it.
But his boys’ desertion—that had forced a mirror of self-reflection on him that he could not escape, an image that was harsh and destined to be lonely.
Still, he knew no other way to be. The boys had done wrong, scaring him by sneaking out to watch Jack at the rodeo. They could have been killed in that car accident.
They couldn’t understand the deep fear fathers suffered—particularly single fathers. They would never know the bone-deep terror a man could feel at the prospect of losing his children when he had nothing else in life he loved.
It was true. Josiah Morgan was a man who saw his real riches in terms of his four boys, but it had taken them leaving for him to realize it.
Now it was too late. Life’s clock ticked by inexorably, stealing the bits of time he had left to be a father. He’d probably burn in hell for being such an earthly failure. Certainly he’d not be awarded angel’s wings.
So he’d added to his sins by meddling. Could meddling be considered a sin? He thought it would be by his sons. Yet Gabriel seemed happy in the end with his father’s matchmaking. Would they ever understand he only wanted them to have the one thing money couldn’t buy—love?
Now he had to work on Dane and Pete. They’d be harder than Gabriel to fall in with his plans, because they weren’t the type to settle down at all. He didn’t even allow himself to consider his wildest card, Jack. His own personal one-eyed Jack, wild as a March hare and bent on self-destruction.
There was nothing he could do about it now. The wheels of destiny had been put into motion long ago.
He wondered what his boys would think if they knew he was in France, in this damned Knights Templar’s house—a beautiful structure, really, a history buff’s timepiece—solely because their mother wasn’t far from here, just a couple hours away, hidden away in a valley in France.
He knew where she was, and he’d laid eyes on her briefly. Though older, she looked the same to him, somehow more beautiful. He excused his spying, telling himself that it was normal to make certain the only woman he’d ever loved was happy. That she was well taken care of.
It was no sin to want the mother of his fine boys to be happy and to have everything she needed.
He wished she needed him, but he’d flattened that out of her long ago. He simply yearned for the time to tell his boys that life was short, that men by nature were selfish creatures who would be happier if they took the time to learn the secrets of the female heart, but he doubted it was a lesson they�
�d take kindly coming from him.
He couldn’t solve Dane’s issue, though he’d given it a shot, because his third son was the proverbial rolling stone. He understood now that the weight of a moving stone overruled everything in its path—it was not easily halted. So he bent his head to thinking about Pete’s, his second son’s, bachelor status. Surely there was a good woman out there, a lady just right for a man who believed he had nothing valuable to lose in life.
For just a brief moment, Josiah wondered if maybe he should just be content. He had Gabriel settled with a good wife and children. A man couldn’t make decisions for his children, after all. His life was a study in decisions that had gone wrong.
But he was a father. That was all he had left to call himself. When he stood at the pearly gates, he wanted to at least be able to say, “Until my very last breath, I tried to be a good father.”
Whether or not his sons would agree with that, he couldn’t answer. But he did know that a father went out fighting for his family.
And who could know? They didn’t hand out redemption at the pearly gates.
Maybe, just maybe, there was a reward for effort.
DANE WAS WELL AWARE OF HIS father’s plan. What he failed to understand was what was on his brother’s mind. Why did Pete have such a problem with the form of entertainment Dane had selected for tomorrow? “So what’s your beef with a rodeo? Some of the world’s greatest fun?”
“Because it won’t be fun,” Pete said. He sat on a small stool and diligently polished some tack. “I hate bad ideas. I dislike poor planning.”
Dane frowned. “It was no more spur-of-the-moment than us all running out for hot chocolate and a walk around town.”
Pete set the tack down, glaring at his brother. “Well, we’ll know tomorrow, won’t we?”
“I don’t know. Will we?” Dane hated his brother’s mysterious issue. “Look, if you don’t want to come with us, stay home.”
“I could, but…three’s a crowd.”
