The Cowboy's Secret Son

“That the father of my child didn’t want me, so he wouldn’t want a baby, either.” This time she didn’t bother keeping the bite out of her words.

Nathan didn’t respond, instead shifting his attention out across the pasture again. She didn’t say anything either, and the silence stretched for tense seconds.

“Everyone wondered where you went,” he finally said.

“I doubt everyone did.” She couldn’t help the bitter edge to her words, bits of the old hurt slipping out.

“I did.”

Those simple words were so unexpected that she looked at him before thinking. And for a moment, she was that young girl again looking into the striking green eyes of the boy she loved with all her heart. The one she’d thought might love her back when he’d taken her in his arms and kissed her.

It took more effort than it should, but she pulled her gaze away and refocused on the glint off a pond in the distance.

“We went to Maryland, where my grandparents lived, lots of other people who were as devout as my parents.” She hadn’t planned to tell him everything, especially not at first, but she found herself spilling the details of those days. “I…I basically became a prisoner in my own home. I was forced to finish school homebound. My mother had nothing to do with it though. My sister Sarah had to bring my lessons home from school, and I was on my own. I wasn’t allowed to go anywhere. My parents did not talk to me, but they constantly used me as an example to my younger brothers and sisters of what happens when one ‘descends into a life of sin.’”

Nathan made a sound of disgust, but Grace didn’t acknowledge it. She had to get through this story so she could file it away forever and never have to tell it again.

“I think after a while, I began to believe everything they said. I was sick, miserable…lonely.” And heartbroken.

“Why didn’t you call me?”

“You’d made it clear you didn’t want to talk to me.”

“But Grace, a baby would have made a difference.”

She turned toward him. “Would it? Would you have ‘done the right thing’ and married me?”

“Yes.”

A sadness crept over Grace’s heart. “How would it have helped me to go from one home where I wasn’t wanted, just a duty to fulfill, to another?”

“Damn it, it wouldn’t have been like that.”

“Did you love me?”

He opened his mouth, but no words came out.

“I didn’t think so. Plus, my parents had done a pretty good brainwashing job on me. You were nothing more than a rutting bull in their eyes.”

“And you believed them?”

“You hadn’t given me any reason not to. And when you’re cut off from the world, you begin to believe whatever you’re told.”

“God, Grace.” He paced a couple of steps away, ran his hand over his face.

She tried not to remember what that hand had felt like on her body, how her entire being had lit up like a million stars. She forced herself to remember how all those stars had gone black and cold the day after when he’d walked right by her as though she was a complete stranger. No expression, no eye contact, no recognition. She remembered stopping in the middle of the hallway, wondering if she’d simply dreamed it all. But a positive result on a home pregnancy test a few weeks later had convinced her their night together had been all too real.

“When it came time to have Evan, I had to deliver him at home just like my mother always had.” All twelve times. “It was a hard birth. I probably should have been in a hospital. By the time it was over, I was only about half conscious. My mother said it was best to give him up for adoption. I had no strength to fight her, and she made it sound like he would have a good home, a family who loved him. At the time, it sounded like the right thing to do. I didn’t want him growing up with my family.”

“You gave him away?”

Grace hated the horrified disbelief in his voice, how it echoed the feelings she’d had herself after she’d recovered from the birth.

“My parents had damaged enough of us. I thought it would give him a chance. But…” Grace’s voice broke, and it took her a few moments to bring her emotions back under control. “I thought I’d have the opportunity to say goodbye, but by the time I woke up he was gone. I never even got to hold him.”

“What? How is that possible?”

Grace squeezed her hands into fists at the memory, the betrayal. “There’s a law where newborns can be dropped off at hospitals or police stations, no questions asked. You just sign away the rights to the child, and my mother misrepresented him as hers. She just handed him over, turned her back and walked away from her first grandchild.”

She ventured a glance at Nathan, and he looked stunned to the point of numbness—a feeling with which she was intimately acquainted.

“I was so messed up, Nathan. They’d twisted my mind, and I had bad postpartum. There were points when I just wanted to die. And then on my eighteenth birthday, my parents told me to leave, that I was no longer their responsibility. I was basically dead to them. They forced me out the front door with literally nothing other than the clothes I was wearing. They kept the rest to give to my sisters.”

She hazarded a glance at Nathan. He looked like he wanted to punch something. “What did you do?”

“The first thing I did was walk to the nearest police station and told them my mother had stolen my baby. It was like the moment I was free of that house, all the brain fuzziness went away. I can’t explain it. While the police checked out my story, I engaged in what I like to call creative living.” She smiled a little at that, felt a well of pride at the memory of how she’d taken over her life. “I slept and ate at shelters, got a job at a restaurant, added some more clothes from a church clothing bank. And I applied for college. Being as poor as a person can be, I got a full ride.”

“So you had food and a place to live.”

She gripped the top of the fence. “And I got Evan back.”

Nathan exhaled as if he’d been holding his breath, afraid of where her story was heading. “He hadn’t been adopted? I thought newborns went quickly.”

“There’s a lot of paperwork in that. It takes time. A child has to thrive in a potential adoptive home for at least six months before they’ll allow an adoption to go through. It was so close, Nathan.” She fought tears at the memory. “The first six months were almost up when the potential mom was diagnosed with MS. I mean, I’m so sorry it happened to her, it’s horrible, but they canceled the adoption, and the six months had to start over. I got him back two months into that. I’d missed the first eight months of his life, but I had him back. I was able to finally hold my son.”

“Our son.”

She met Nathan’s eyes, wondering how he was processing all this information, this crazy story that was her life after him. “Yes, our son.”

Those two words—our son—had a ring of intimacy, but it wasn’t one they shared anymore. Never really had.

Nathan was silent for several moments, ones in which Grace could hear the kids laughing and talking on the other side of the barn. She experienced a moment of panic when she wondered if Nathan had told any of the members of his family about Evan. Would they say something to Evan? She glanced through the barn, but he wasn’t visible.

“Why didn’t you tell me then?” Nathan asked, drawing her attention back to them and their conversation. His anger at being shut out was still evident in his tone, might always be there. Especially when he heard everything she had to say.

“I was young and afraid to let anyone in, afraid someone else would try to take Evan away from me.”

“By someone, you mean me.”

“And your family.”

“You must not think much of us.”

“It wasn’t that. I always liked your family, was really envious of you. But you have to understand. I’d just been through the equivalent of psychological torture, at least from my point of view. The way I was looking at things then, I thought that if you knew about Evan, you’d be able to take him from me because you had money, family support, all the things I didn’t have. I’m not saying it was right, but it’s how my brain was working then.”

“We wouldn’t have stolen him from you. We’re not like that. Family is the most important thing to us.”

“Yes, but I’m not family.”

The sound of the kids’ voices grew louder, coming closer. Nathan shifted, made to leave. She touched his arm, praying he wouldn’t think her cold and heartless for what she was about to ask of him but prepared to deal with it if he did.

“Nathan, I need you to not tell Evan you’re his father.”

His expression tightened. “What?”

“I didn’t come here to make any big changes. We have a good life in Little Rock, one we’re going back to soon.”

Nathan shook his head. “I don’t believe you. You come here, tell me I have a son, but that I can’t let him know that.”

Grace let her hand fall away after she realized she was still touching Nathan. “He’s too young to understand, and I don’t want him getting attached and then hurt when we leave.”

Nathan threw up his hands in frustration. “Then why tell me at all?”

“I told you why.”

“Oh, yeah, so you’ll have someone on the line to take care of him in case an asteroid falls on your head. Great to know you think so highly of me. I’m okay only if you’re dead and there’s no other choice.”

Grace flinched. She understood his anger, really she did, but she couldn’t bear the thought of Evan attaching himself to Nathan and having his little heart broken when she took him away from his father.

“It’s not like that.”

“Isn’t it?”

“No, Nathan. I just…please, I want him to have a good time here. He’s been looking forward to this so much.”

“And you think if you tell him I’m his daddy that it’ll ruin his camping experience?” Such bitterness laced his every word.

“No. I don’t know. Can we please just give it a few days, let him get settled?” And maybe by then Nathan would have calmed down enough to see her side of things, that stability was the best thing for Evan as he grew up.

Wouldn’t having a father be the best thing?

She told the voice in her head to shut up, that she knew what she was doing.

Nathan stared at the kids emerging from the barn, Evan among them.

“Nathan?” Grace held her breath as Evan got closer, as he broke away from the others and ran toward her and Nathan.

“Mom, guess what!”

Grace hesitated in responding. She couldn’t tear her gaze away from Nathan, silently pleading with him to keep their secret, at least for now.

“I’ll see you two at dinner,” Nathan said, then stalked away.

Grace let out a sigh of relief. She didn’t know how long he’d keep quiet, but for now she could breathe again. At least as much as she was able to watching the best-looking man she’d ever seen walk away from her. If she’d known the grown-up Nathan could make her heart somersault the way the teenage Nathan had, she wasn’t sure if she would have had the willpower to come back to Blue Falls.

She felt the first chink in the armor around her heart fall away.

NATHAN TRIED NOT TO stare. Not at Grace, with whom he was equal parts angry and, damn it, fascinated. She was so different from the girl he’d known.

And not at Evan, his son. Every time he thought about it, his knees grew weak.

He kept glancing over to where they sat at one of the picnic tables, talking to another of the mothers and the little girl in the pink cowgirl getup. When he noticed Grace laughing at something, he couldn’t look away. How could she laugh after what she’d kept from him? After all she’d been through?

That same rush of hot anger he’d felt when she’d told him about how her mother had given away Evan surged through him again. He might be furious at Grace for stealing the first years of his son’s life from him, but at least she hadn’t tossed Evan away like garbage. His hands clenched into fists. He’d known her parents were strict, odd even, but he’d never imagined they were capable of such cruelty.

Part of him understood why Grace had made the decisions she had, but part of him couldn’t get past that she hadn’t even tried to tell him about Evan. She’d lost eight months with Evan, but he’d been cheated out of six years with his son. He didn’t know if he could forgive her for that.

He noticed his mother making her way through the crowd, stopping to chat with their guests for the week as well as Trudy, the ranch’s longtime cook. Grudgingly willing to keep Grace’s secret for the time being, until he could figure out how to change her mind and make sure she didn’t flee with Evan, he shifted his attention away from her and began filling a plate for himself. Not that he was going to be able to even taste the barbecue, baked beans or potato salad. He doubted even the apple pie would make an impression today.

He knew he should mingle, go and sit with the guests, but he just couldn’t handle that right now. Truth be told, he wished he could send them all home and concentrate on more important matters, like convincing Grace that Evan deserved to know his father. That she couldn’t parade his son in front of his nose and expect him not to say anything. He just had to convince her that he wasn’t going to take Evan away from her.

His mom, now with a full plate of her own, sat beside him. He forced himself to concentrate on his food.

“Pretty nice group of folks,” his mom said as she scooped up a forkful of potato salad.

“Yeah, seem to be.”

“Was a surprise to see Grace.”

Man, don’t go down this road. “Yeah. Said her boy likes cowboys a lot.” He forced himself not to look their direction.

They were silent for a few moments while they both ate, but he gradually became aware of something in the air, an awareness akin to the stillness before a storm.

“I have a grandson, don’t I?”

Nathan let his fork drop the short distance to his plate, and he pushed it all away. He couldn’t meet his mother’s eyes, wasn’t sure he wanted to know what she thought of him and this situation.

“Yes, but don’t say anything. Grace wants to…keep it quiet for now.”

“Not tell him?”

He still didn’t agree with Grace and part of him wanted to scream at her, but he found himself hiding those feelings from his mother. “She’s afraid he’s too young.”

“I don’t understand. Why bring him here then?”

He lost the fight and let his eyes drift toward Grace and Evan again. “She wants to make sure Evan has somewhere to go if anything ever happens to her. And she doesn’t want him going to her family.”

“She’s broken away from them?”

“More like they tossed her out on her butt.”

“That’s sad.”

He watched Grace and tried to put himself in her teenage shoes. Imagined how frightened she’d been that day, standing on her parents’ porch, knowing she was totally on her own with nothing. “It’s more than sad. She’s been through a lot.”

“And yet you’re mad at her.”

“Yes.”

“Understandable, on both sides.”

He glanced at his mother then, and she met his gaze.

“Her family was a real piece of work,” she said. “I hate that she was hurt in the process, but I’m glad she’s free of them.”

“She said it felt like they’d brainwashed her.”

“Of that I have no doubt.”

“They made her afraid to tell me.” Of course, his actions hadn’t helped matters any, but he couldn’t tell his mother how big of an ass he’d been in the days after he’d gotten a bit too tipsy at Blake Chester’s party and taken Grace to bed.

“Then you’ll just have to convince her there’s nothing to be afraid of.”

“Easier said than done.”

“Things worth having are rarely easy.”

A few more silent moments passed as he tried to figure out how to approach Grace, Evan, the entire situation.

“How did you know?” he asked his mother.

“Because he looks just like you at that age.”

Nathan eyed Evan, tried to see himself in the boy. And there it was—the shape of the chin, the dark blond hair so unlike Grace’s bright blond waves, the way he talked to anyone who would listen. If he and his mom could see it, how long before his dad and brothers came to the same conclusion? How long before Grace’s secret was out, even if he stayed quiet?

He just hoped she wouldn’t blame him and take Evan away before he even got a chance to know him. He couldn’t let that happen no matter what Grace wanted or what she’d been through.

He wouldn’t.

Chapter Four

“Don’t look now, but I think Mr. Hunky Cowboy is checking you out,” Laney said as she slid back into her spot next to Grace, two slices of apple pie in hand.

Grace’s skin warmed at the thought that Nathan was watching her, but then common sense took over. If he was staring at her, it likely wasn’t with romantic interest. He was probably stewing in his anger or trying to figure out a way to change her mind about telling Evan about his father’s identity.

“You do remember you’re on my side, right?”

“I’m not talking about Nathan.”

Grace glanced at Laney as her friend placed a slice of pie in front of her. And then she noticed a man at the next table looking her way. When their gazes met, he smiled at her from below his straw cowboy hat. She managed a quick but noncommittal smile back before averting her gaze.

Laney cut off a piece of her pie. “While Evan’s having fun this week, who says you can’t, too?” Laney waggled her eyebrows.

Grace shook her head. “Me, that’s who.”

“Might be a good way to make Nathan jealous.”

“I’m not here for that, either. Plus, I don’t want to do anything else he can hold against me.”

Laney shrugged. “Whatever. You don’t have to be pure as the driven snow to be a good mother.” Having said her piece, as she always managed to do, Laney took her first bite of Merline’s signature apple pie. Grace hadn’t tasted her own yet, but it wasn’t necessary to remember the taste. Like so many things from those months when she was tutoring Nathan, slices of scrumptious apple pie stood out in her memory as if days and not years had passed.

“Oh, this is good,” Laney said.

Before she slipped up and admitted a part of her actually did like the idea of Nathan being jealous, Grace took a bite of her pie and made appreciative noises.

Laney made a slight nod toward the man at the other table. “You have to admit he’s nice-looking.”

“He is, but the last things I need in my life right now are more complications.”

“Party pooper.”

Grace stared at Laney. “I should have brought Emily instead.”

Laney wiped her mouth with a napkin. “I can’t help it. I’m an incurable matchmaker. How many times did I try to set you up in college?”

“I’m sorry, but you’re still out of luck with me. I’m firmly single and like it that way.”

Most of the time. Except when she looked into Nathan’s eyes and her heart performed some fancy Fred Astaire dance steps in her chest.

Laney pouted. “But I think all the other women here are married. Hot cowboys with no one to pair them with, that’s a crime.”

Grace laughed. “Sorry to spoil your fun.”

“Hey, the week isn’t over yet.”

When Grace finished her pie, she gathered Laney’s and her trash and headed for the large garbage can at the edge of the picnic area. After tossing the trash inside, she turned to find the unnamed cowboy standing behind her. “Oh, excuse me.”

He touched the brim of his hat. “No problem.” He lifted his empty plate. “Good dinner, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.”

The man reached around her and deposited his own trash in the can. “Name’s Barrett Farnsley, from Oklahoma City.” He paused until it registered that he wanted to know her name.

“Grace Cameron.” She deliberately left off where she was from.

“A very pretty name, for a very pretty lady.”

Grace blushed despite herself. She’d had interest from men before, but something about being back here in this place where she’d fallen in love for the first and only time had her emotions heightened. “Thank you.” She didn’t know what else to say. Barrett was indeed handsome with short, dark hair just visible at the edges of his hat, and light blue eyes.

But he wasn’t Nathan.

And maybe that was a good thing.

It couldn’t hurt to just be friendly, could it? They’d all be gone in a week anyway.

“I assume one of these wild children is yours.” She pointed toward where all the kids were playing fetch with a couple of large Labradors, one chocolate, one yellow.

“Two, actually. The twins.”

“A handful?”

“To say the least.”

Grace smiled. Evan was a handful all on his own. She couldn’t imagine having to wrangle two boys the same age.

Barrett shoved his hands into his back pockets. “Are you here with anyone?”

Subtle. “Just my son. He’s the one who looks like he’s determined to ride the dog.”

Barrett laughed, and she had to admit it was a nice laugh. Big, full, uninhibited. If she weren’t so tied in emotional knots right now, if all her focus wasn’t on Evan’s future, she might actually be tempted to see where things went with Barrett. If anywhere. She was so bad at reading men’s signals that she could have what she thought was Barrett’s interest totally wrong. After all, she’d once thought that Nathan cared about her.

He’d just been like every other teenage boy, interested only about getting in a girl’s pants.

She made the mistake of looking toward where she’d seen him sitting next to his mother earlier. He was watching her, and he didn’t look happy. For the tiniest of moments, she did hope he wore that look because he was jealous.

Grace reminded herself she wasn’t at the ranch to rekindle things with Nathan. Bad idea, very bad idea. She was simply falling victim to some old wishful thinking. Nathan no doubt wore that unfriendly expression because he was still angry with her and this situation she’d thrust upon him.

A squeal of panic jerked her attention toward the kids. One of the dogs had a little girl down on her back. Parents vacated their tables and conversations and hurried toward the children. Grace got there first and grabbed the dog by the collar. “Choco, no!” She tugged the dog off the little girl.

The child’s mother scooped her up and turned angry eyes toward the Teagues. “How could you let an animal like this near our children?”

Grace touched the woman’s arm, spoke to her in a soothing, mother-to-mother tone. “She’s okay. See, no injuries. Choco was just kissing her, being friendly.”

The woman examined her daughter to see for herself, then pulled her close and headed out of the picnic area without another word.

“Why is that lady mad?” Evan asked from beside Grace.

She wrapped her arm around his waist. “She was just scared, afraid her daughter was hurt.”

“How did you know Choco’s name?”

She hadn’t even thought about it, just identified the dog because she’d known it from when he was a puppy. “I heard someone call him earlier.” She hated lying to her son, but the truth might lead to too many questions she wasn’t ready to answer.

She stood and dusted off her hands. “I think it’s time we called it a night, squirt.”

“Not yet.”

“Yes. If you don’t get enough sleep, you won’t get up in time for all the fun stuff tomorrow. You don’t want to miss anything, do you?”

“No.” He said it reluctantly, enough to make her smile.

She looked up from tousling his hair to find herself facing Nathan. Her heart thumped hard, part fear, part an ill-advised thrill at being near him.

“Thanks for that,” he said.

“What?”

“Jumping into the dog fray.”

She shrugged. “No problem. I could tell what Choco was doing.” She glanced down at Evan, hoping he didn’t pick up on anything too familiar between her and Nathan.