Family Tree

by Carol Grace

  “Do you like him?” little Dylan asked his mom

  “Who?” Laura asked, startled.

  “Brandon Marsh.”

  “Yes, of course,” she said quickly. What else could she say? How could she not like the handsome, brooding man who, in spite of himself, was being so good to her son?

  “He likes you.”

  She flushed. She wanted to ask how Dylan knew that, but she didn’t.

  “He hasn’t got a wife or a kid,” Dylan continued. “We haven’t got a dad.” He paused and looked her in the eye.

  Oh, Lord, Laura worried. How long would it take for her fatherless little boy to put two and two together…and start dreaming some impossible dream?

  Dear Reader,

  Welcome to another joy-filled month of heart, home and happiness from Harlequin American Romance! We’re pleased to bring you four new stories filled with people you’ll always remember and romance you’ll never forget.

  We’ve got more excitement for you this month as MAITLAND MATERNITY continues with Jacqueline Diamond’s I Do! I Do! An elusive bachelor marries a lovely nurse for the sake of his twin nieces—will love turn their house into a home? Watch for twelve new books in this heartwarming series, starting next month from Harlequin Books!

  How does a proper preacher’s daughter tame the wildest man in the county? With a little help from a few Montana matchmakers determined to repopulate their town! Sparks are sure to fly in The Playboy’s Own Miss Prim, the latest BACHELORS OF SHOTGUN RIDGE story by Mindy Neff!

  An expectant mother, blinded from an accident, learns that the heart recognizes what the eye cannot see in Lisa Bingham’s touching novel Man Behind the Voice. And when a little boy refuses to leave his ranch home, his mother must make a deal with the brooding, sexy new owner. Don’t miss Carol Grace’s delightful Family Tree.

  Spice up your summer days with the best of Harlequin American Romance!

  Warm wishes,

  Melissa Jeglinski

  Associate Senior Editor

  Family Tree

  CAROL GRACE

  To my father, Roy Krueger (1907-1999). The world’s best dad.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Carol Grace has always been interested in travel and living abroad. She spent her junior year of college in France and toured the world, working on the hospital ship HOPE. She and her husband spent the first year and a half of their marriage in Iran, where they both taught English. Then, with their toddler daughter, they lived in Algeria for two years. For Carol, writing is another way of making her life exciting. Her office is her mountaintop home, which overlooks the Pacific Ocean. She lives there with her inventor husband, their daughter, who just graduated from college, and their teenage son. Carol has written over fifteen romances for Silhouette Books. This is her first Harlequin American Romance novel.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Epilogue

  Chapter One

  “Don’t look back,” Laura warned her son as he craned his neck around for a last look at the ranch where he’d spent all eight years of his life.

  Easy to say, but so difficult to do. Laura swallowed hard and followed her own advice. She didn’t allow herself a last look in the rearview mirror at the thousand-acre spread where she’d spent the past twenty-nine years of her life, which had been in her family for four generations. She didn’t even glance back at the rambling lodge, the weathered barn or the outbuildings. Nor take a last-minute look at the dry riverbed that once became an angry torrent that threatened to inundate the ranch. But that was many years ago, before the river was dammed and the reservoir built. She averted her eyes from her herb garden and her son’s tree house. Instead she forced herself to keep her eyes on the two-lane road bordered on both sides by the fallow fields of Bar B Ranch land.

  “Imagine if we were Pony Express riders,” she said with determined cheerfulness to the boy next to her who was hunched down in his seat, his baseball cap pulled low over his eyes. “Galloping across the country, carrying the mail to Diamond Springs, Dry Wells and Reese River and finally…”

  “We’re not,” Dylan said glumly.

  “Yes, but what if we were?” she continued, resolutely putting the best face on things by pointing out how much worse off they could be. “Our horses would be getting tired and there’d be robbers and hostile Indians after us. And if it was raining…”

  “It doesn’t rain here,” he said.

  “Not very often. But sometimes it does. Sometimes we’ve even had flash floods in the past, according to Grandpa. But we don’t care. We keep our horses going right through the water and wind and rain, because our job is to deliver the mail, and the mail must go through,” she said brightly.

  She reached for him, to pat his shoulder, or tug affectionately at his cap, but he shifted away from her, and his rejection was like an arrow piercing her heart. Her son leaned against the door and turned his head away. But not before she saw a tear slide down his sun-tanned cheek. Her heart turned over and she swallowed over a lump in her throat. She couldn’t cry in front of him. She couldn’t cry at all. He mustn’t know how much it hurt her to take him away from the only home he’d ever known. Crying was a sign of weakness and she had to be strong. For her son and for herself.

  “Look, Dylan, it’s not going to be so bad. In some ways it’s going to be better, living in town. It’s close to work, so I can come home for lunch. Check up on you. And it’s closer to your school, and it’s…”

  “School’s out. It’s summer,” he muttered, his face pressed against the window.

  “I know that. But what about your friends, and…and…” Even she, the original Pollyanna, was running out of advantages of living in Silverado, population 670, one of Nevada’s oldest mining towns, as opposed to the Silver Springs Ranch—the place where she’d carved her initials in an old oak tree like generations of McIntyres before her, where her father had taught her to ride a horse when she could barely walk, and her mother had taught her to quilt and put up preserves for the winter. All the things she thought she and Dylan’s father would teach him. Who would have thought it would end like this—her and her son in a rattletrap truck packed high with their most precious possessions, their backs to the land they loved?

  In the distant heat, waves rose from the blacktop and the sun glittered on a distant field making it shimmer like a lake. But this was high desert, and the image of a lake was only a mirage. Was her hope of a bright future for her and her son a mirage, as well? She had to make it work. She had to.

  “When my daddy comes back we’re gonna move back home, aren’t we?” he said.

  Laura gripped the steering wheel so tightly, her fingers hurt. Dylan had gone almost an hour today without mentioning his father. Which was some kind of record. It was better than yesterday and the day before. But not good enough. She’d finally told him the truth. As painful as it was. He had to hear it from her before he heard it from someone else. That his daddy wasn’t coming back. But he didn’t believe her. Wouldn’t believe her. Even though she’d signed the final divorce papers and had them in her purse at that very moment.

  “When my daddy comes back,” Dylan continued, “he’s gonna bring me a remote-controlled airplane and a new saddle and a ten-speed bike. When he comes down the road in his new sports car, I’m gonna be waiting in my tree house.”

  “Dylan…” she cautioned. “It’s not your tree house anymore. It’s not our ranch. It’s not our home.” The effort it took to say the wor
ds made her throat hurt.

  “How’s my dad gonna find me if I’m not in my tree house?” he demanded. “We gotta go back. We can’t sell the ranch.”

  “We have sold the ranch,” she explained patiently for the hundredth time. “But Silverado is a small town. All he’d have to do is ask where we are. He could find you. But…” But he doesn’t want to find you. Doesn’t care enough about you or me…

  “He is coming.” Dylan glared at her, his hands clenched into small fists. “Don’t you say he isn’t.”

  She pressed her lips together. She wouldn’t say it. Not again. Because she couldn’t bear to repeat the words that would break his heart. Your daddy isn’t coming back.

  THE HOUSE WAS EXACTLY the way it looked in the pictures. Adirondack-style, built of natural pine logs, hauled from a faraway forest over one hundred years ago and nestled in a valley with a view of the surrounding bare mountains from every room. When he arrived an hour ago, Brandon Marsh had set his suitcases and his notebook computer in the middle of the living room and gone to look around, satisfied with the simple but comfortable chairs covered in geometric design, the matching couch along the wall and the braid rug. He’d insisted the furnishings come with the house, and the owner had agreed. As well she should, at the price he’d paid.

  He wanted nothing of his past life in this house—not a picture, not a stick of furniture. Nothing to remind him of what he’d lost. The best part was the acres of land separating him from the rest of the world. Except for an occasional trip to town for supplies, he didn’t need to see anyone. Like the woman and child and man who used to live in this house, whose photo he’d found forgotten on the mantel. At least he assumed that’s who they were.

  In any case he quickly turned the picture facedown and would pack it up along with a book on herbs from the kitchen counter and mail it to their forwarding address. That way he’d never have to meet them. Never have to see them in person. The picture was bad enough. A woman with a mass of dark curly hair, her arm around a boy with two front teeth missing and a man standing behind them staring at the camera. The sight of them caused a pain in his chest. A pain where his heart used to be before the accident. He had a picture like that. Three people bound together by love and by blood. That picture which had also once graced a mantel, was now at the bottom of a cardboard box he had no intention of unpacking. Not for a long, long time.

  He’d timed his arrival just right. Because although he was anxious to move in, he certainly didn’t want to run into the former owners and be forced to engage in small talk. In fact, he’d driven by the ranch once to make sure there was no vehicle in the driveway before he drove in. He didn’t want to hear any stories they had to tell about the good times spent in that house, where they put their Christmas tree, how they raised their cows and horses and about the generations who’d grown up there, and so on and so on.

  But he hadn’t missed the McIntyres by much, not if the warm ashes in the massive stone fireplace were any indication. And the lingering aroma of fresh bread baking that emanated from the kitchen. He threw open the front door and then shoved the windows open to air the place out. No warm hearths for him. No homey scents. Just the wide-open spaces, thank you, and peace and quiet, and most important—solitude.

  Just then the peace and quiet were shattered by the clatter of a poorly tuned truck with a bad muffler. Before he could shut the front door and hang out a Do Not Disturb sign, a small boy in faded jeans walked in the front door and tiptoed up the stairs without noticing the new owner.

  “Hold it,” Brandon said. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “Forgot my Legos,” the boy said, his head whipping around at the sound of a strange voice. Still, the kid was cool. He scarcely missed a beat. As if he wasn’t at all surprised to find a strange man in his house. He looked down from the landing from under a Colorado Rockies baseball cap and surveyed Brandon with almost casual curiosity.

  Brandon ran his hand through his hair. It was the kid in the picture. Who’d forgotten his Legos. Damn, damn, damn. How could Brandon have missed the Legos? Because he hadn’t gone into the boy’s room. He didn’t want to see a stray baseball trading card or a small action figure or a wall with pictures of football players on it or any evidence of the boy who used to live there. But now he was face-to-face with the boy himself. Complete with freckles and missing teeth. He clenched his jaw and steeled himself for a brief exchange. The briefer the better.

  But the boy was in no hurry. “Who’re you?” he asked, resting his chin on the banister and peering down at him.

  “I’m the new owner of the house,” he said. The boy’s mouth turned down at the corners and he scowled. Maybe he shouldn’t have said it so bluntly, Brandon thought. Maybe the kid didn’t want to face the fact that there was a new owner. Probably not. But that wasn’t his problem. He just wished the kid wouldn’t look at him like that. Both mad and sad at the same time. As if he’d stolen his house from him. When he’d actually bought it at a fair price from the woman who, according to the real estate agent, was “extremely motivated to sell.”

  “You got any kids?” the boy asked.

  “No.” He didn’t mean to spit out the word so harshly, but he didn’t want to be reminded of his loss. As if he could ever forget.

  The boy was undaunted. The questioning continued. “What do you want to live in a big house for if you got no kids?” he asked, scratching his ear.

  Brandon took a deep breath. This was just the kind of conversation he didn’t want to have. With anyone. But especially not with a little boy who used to live here. “I like the house,” he said. Then he glanced out the front window at the spectacular view of the vast valley ringed with jagged mountains, the most beautiful valley in the West, according to the Realtor. But the view meant nothing to Brandon, only what it stood for—isolation. Isolation from pitying looks, well-meaning friends and memories. Memories too painful to bear. “And I like the land.”

  “I like my tree house,” the boy said.

  “Tree house? You have a tree house? Aren’t you taking it with you?” Brandon certainly didn’t want a tree house on his property.

  “Can’t. We’re movin’ to town.” The boy frowned and pulled his cap down over his forehead. “But when my daddy comes back we’re movin’ back.”

  “I see,” Brandon said. There was no point in arguing with an eight-year-old or thereabouts. But he wondered if the boy’s mother encouraged these fantasies or even knew about them. He thought he’d understood from the Realtor that the parents were divorced and that her dwindling finances were the cause of the sale of the property.

  Speaking of which, he could hear the sound of a truck’s engine idling in the driveway. If that was the boy’s mother waiting for him, how long would it be before she came in to see what was taking so long? He had no desire to meet her, now or later.

  “I’ll come up with you,” Brandon said. “See what else you forgot.”

  The boy shrugged and led the way down the hall to his room. It was worse than he’d thought. There were bunk beds, stripped of sheets and blankets, the kind of beds he’d imagined buying for his own son when he’d outgrown his crib. A bookshelf meant for books to be read at night before bed, as he’d planned to read to his son. And there were Legos, too, but they were just a blur as Brandon turned around swiftly, unable to take in another detail of the boy’s room without losing it completely.

  He had to get out of there. Fortunately the kid didn’t notice. Didn’t notice that Brandon had bolted, gone downstairs and out onto the veranda to take a breath of air. From there he could see the woman waiting in the truck with the engine running, her forehead resting against the steering wheel, her dark hair tumbled over her shoulders. The whole image was such a picture of dejection he was jerked out of his own despair for just a moment. It occurred to him she might have problems beyond just leaving her home.

  All the more reason to avoid her. But for some reason he found himself stepping off the porch and wal
king up to her side window. He felt compelled to say something reassuring, but he knew firsthand how empty words can be when your world falls apart. Besides, what did he know about her problems? Instead, what he should do was to speak to her about not coming back to retrieve lost objects whenever she felt like it. She had to understand it was his house now and that visitors were not welcome. Especially the kind of visitor who reminded him of the family he once had.

  She must’ve heard his shoes crunch on the gravel, because she sat up, her spine rigid against the bucket seat. She turned and surveyed him through huge, sad hazel eyes. She tried to smile, but her lips trembled, and he felt a pang of sympathy for her.

  Sympathy—what good did that do anybody? With an effort he hardened his heart. So she was sad to leave her homestead. There were worse things in this world. She should have figured out a way to save it. Was it his fault that he needed a house in the country and she needed the money?

  “I’m sorry about intruding on you like this,” she said in a tremulous voice. “But my son forgot his—”

  “His Legos, I know. I hope it won’t happen again.”

  She paled under the smattering of freckles on her cheekbones. Maybe people in small towns in Nevada didn’t talk that way to their neighbors. But he’d moved to a ranch so he wouldn’t have any neighbors. If he’d wanted neighbors he could have stayed in San Francisco. He wouldn’t have people dropping in on him like this.

  “It won’t. I mean, it can’t,” the woman said. “He only has one set of Legos and he left them under his bed. If we hadn’t been in such a hurry to get out before you got here…”

  “I appreciate your closing on the house sale and moving out so promptly, but…”

  “But you want us to leave. I understand.” The woman leaned on her horn. The harsh noise shattered the quiet country air, but it had the desired effect. The boy came running out of the house with a large plastic box under his arm and jumped in the truck.