The Maverick's Midnight Proposal

* * *

Luke’s first impression of Bella and Hudson’s home was that it looked like a million dollars. Of course, his sister’s husband was a multimillionaire so it was entirely possible the house they’d purchased from Clive Bickler was worth that much—or more. It was certainly a lot bigger and grander than the home the seven Stockton siblings had shared with their parents, and the newlyweds lived there alone.

He unlocked the door with the spare key, then punched in the code that Bella had given him to disarm the alarm system. A man with Hudson Jones’s wealth would want to protect what was his, and Luke appreciated that the protection extended to his sister.

Curious about the house and whatever insights it might give to the couple who lived there, Luke decided to wander around. The home was constructed with high-end materials and included all the latest conveniences, but it wasn’t ostentatious. As he made his way from room to room, he couldn’t deny that it had a warm and homey feel, and he was pleased to know that his sister had been lucky enough to fall in love with a man who could provide her with all the love and luxuries she deserved.

When he stepped into the family room, his gaze was immediately drawn to the river-rock fireplace and the assortment of photos displayed on the mantel. He crossed the glossy hardwood floor for a closer look. The first picture that caught his eye was of his youngest brother, Jamie, standing next to a woman he thought he recognized as Fallon O’Reilly, with three adorable toddlers at their feet. The next frame contained a wedding photo, and the groom looked enough like Hudson that Luke guessed the man was his brother, but the bride looked vaguely familiar to him, too. Beside that picture was one of Danny, cheek-to-cheek with his high school sweetheart, Annie; beside it was a photo of Dana, all grown-up and proud at her high school graduation.

The smile that tugged at his own lips faded when his gaze shifted to the next photo—an older picture of all the Stockton siblings together with their parents, Rob and Lauren. A reflection of the happy family they’d once been. Before he ruined everything.

Suddenly Luke couldn’t bear the thought of facing his sisters and brothers again. He couldn’t face the condemnation he was certain he would see in their eyes when they learned the truth about the events of twelve years ago. It would be better for him—for everyone—if he went back to Cheyenne and forgot any ideas about a happy reunion that could never happen.

He retraced his steps to the door, eager to escape the house, the whole town and especially the memories and regrets that assailed him. He yanked his coat off the hanger and was reaching for the door when the sound of the bell stopped him in his tracks.

What was he supposed to do now?

He felt weird answering the door at a house he was only visiting, so he peeked out the window instead.

Almost eight years had passed since he’d last seen his second youngest brother, and his heart gave a hard kick against his ribs when he recognized him on the doorstep now.

He opened the door. “Danny.”

“I almost didn’t believe Bella when she called to tell me that you were in town,” his brother said.

“So you stopped by to see for yourself?”

“Nah, I stopped by because Bella was afraid you might have been spooked by her emotional outburst and decide to take off again before she got home.” He looked pointedly at the jacket in Luke’s hand. “Was she right?”

“I guess I can’t blame her for thinking I’d run...again,” he admitted, sliding his jacket back onto the hanger. “There are a lot of memories in this town.”

“More good than bad,” Danny said.

“The bad are more powerful,” he argued.

“Maybe more recent,” his brother acknowledged. “Because you’ve been away for so long.”

Danny stepped across the threshold and pulled him in for a man hug. “It’s good to see you, Luke.”

Luke slapped him on the back as he attempted to swallow the lump in his throat. “You, too, Danny.”

His brother cleared his own as he stepped away and moved down the hall toward the kitchen, obviously familiar with the layout of their sister’s house. “Bella also said that there were snacks and drinks in the fridge, and to make sure that you didn’t go hungry.”

“No worries there,” Luke said. “I grabbed a bite at Daisy’s before I came here.”

“Well, I could use some coffee,” Danny announced. “You want a cup?”

“Sure.” Luke warily eyed the programmable machine that could brew individual cups or full carafes. “If you can figure out how to use that thing.”

“It’s not as complicated as it looks. The harder task might be finding the coffee.”

But it turned out that Bella kept the coffee pods conveniently located in the cupboard directly above the coffee maker. When the coffee was brewed, they took their mugs to the table where Danny told his brother about his reunion with Annie and finally meeting Janie—his daughter.

“And the surprises keep coming,” Luke murmured.

“How do you think I felt?” Danny asked. “When I first discovered that Annie had a child, I assumed her husband—ex-husband now—was the father.”

“A reasonable assumption,” he agreed.

“When we left... I never even considered the possibility that Annie could be pregnant,” Danny admitted.

“You were eighteen,” Luke reminded him. “Most guys that age are only thinking about sex—not the potential repercussions of it.”

“And then I ran away, and I missed the first eleven years of my daughter’s life.”

Luke stared into his mug. “You didn’t run away,” he denied. “I ran away—and you and Bailey came with me.” And the fact that Danny had missed those eleven years with his daughter was one more thing Luke was responsible for. One more wrong he could never make right.

“But now you’re home,” Danny said, sounding genuinely pleased. As if he’d already forgiven Luke for everything he’d done.

But Danny didn’t know the half of it.

Chapter Three

“This isn’t my home,” Luke said, regretting that it was true. “Not anymore.”

“Then why are you here?”

He lifted his cup to his lips as he considered his brother’s question. It was the same question he’d asked himself countless times since he’d tossed his duffel bag into his truck and turned it in the direction of Rust Creek Falls.

He still wasn’t sure he knew the answer, so he responded with a simple if incomplete truth. “I got a call from Hudson’s PI.”

“Good to know the guy’s finally earned some of the big bucks our brother-in-law is paying him.”

“It looks like Hudson has a few bucks to spare,” Luke noted, turning his head to encompass the whole room.

“That he does,” Danny agreed. “Although it was actually Jamie’s wife who started the search last year. Fallon tracked down Dana in Oregon, but she hit a lot of dead ends after that and Hudson offered to take the lead.”

It was obvious to both of them that Bella’s husband had a lot more resources to throw at the task—and more success as a result.

“Over the years, I’d given a lot of thought to reaching out to our siblings, but I’m not sure I ever would have found the courage to come back if Bradford hadn’t made contact.”

“We’ve all been carrying a lot of baggage for a lot of years,” Danny noted. “Maybe it’s time to let it go and make a fresh start.”

It sounded like a good idea to Luke, but he wasn’t sure it was possible. “Was it that easy for you?” he asked.

“It wasn’t easy at all,” his brother said. “But it was necessary.”

Luke swallowed another mouthful of coffee.

“So how long are you planning to stay?” Danny asked.

“I haven’t thought that far ahead,” he admitted.

“There’s no specific date that you’re expected back in Wyoming?”

He shook his head. “My boss told me to take as much time as I needed.”

“Then you can stay for my wedding.”

He recalled Bella mentioning plans for a Christmas Eve wedding. “December 24 is still two-and-a-half weeks away.”

“Two-and-a-half weeks isn’t a lot of time after so many years,” his brother pointed out.

But if he was there for Danny’s Christmas Eve wedding, Luke suspected that Bella would insist he stay for Christmas and he wasn’t accustomed to celebrating the holidays. In fact, he hadn’t celebrated anything in a very long time.

Sensing his hesitation, Danny said, “It would mean a lot to me to have you there.”

“Bella and Hudson might not want me hanging around that long,” he warned.

“In this house, Bella and Hudson won’t even know you’re here,” Danny said.

“I’ll think about it,” he decided.

“Or maybe there’s another reason you don’t want to stay,” his brother allowed. “Maybe it’s not just cattle and chores waiting for you back in Wyoming.”

Luke looked at him blankly.

“Maybe there’s a special lady anxiously awaiting your return?” Danny suggested.

He immediately shook his head. “No, there’s no one in Wyoming.”

But as soon as the words were out of his mouth, an image of the pretty blonde from the doughnut shop popped into his mind. Eva. As pretty and sweet and tempting as the biblical figure for which she was named.

“No one in Wyoming,” Danny echoed curiously. “Does that mean there’s someone waiting for you somewhere else?”

Luke shook his head again, attempting to shake the image loose. “No,” he denied. “There’s no one at all.”

“That’s too bad.”

“I like being on my own, with no one to depend on me but me.”

“And no one to rely on but you, too,” Danny pointed out as he pushed away from the table and went to the refrigerator.

“It works for me,” he insisted.

“I thought it worked for me, too, but I was only kidding myself.” He pulled out the tray of snacks Bella had prepared and set it in the middle of the table. “I missed a lot of years with Annie and Janie, but I’m determined to make up for that now.”

“I’m still trying to get my head around the fact that you’re a father—to an eleven-year-old.”

“It’s been an adjustment for everyone,” Danny admitted. “And as much as I want to hate Hank—Annie’s ex—because he got to be there when Janie was born, to hold her as a baby, soothe her when she was crying, witness her first steps and take her to school on her first day, I can’t. The truth is, I’m grateful that he was there for them, because I wasn’t.”

“You didn’t know,” Luke reminded him.

His brother nodded, though he didn’t seem reassured by the fact. “Anyway, I can’t wait for you to meet her,” he said, the pride in his voice unmistakable. “She’s smart and funny and absolutely beautiful.”

“She must look like her mom, then,” Luke teased.

“That she does,” Danny agreed. “But the shape of her eyes and the stubborn tilt of her chin are just like our mom.”

Luke reached for a cube of cheese.

“Mom and Dad’s first grandchild.”

His brother nodded. “When I found out that Janie was my daughter, when I got over the shock, I couldn’t help but think of Mom and Dad—how they would have responded to the news that they were grandparents.”

“They would have been thrilled,” he said and popped the cheese into his mouth.

“Yeah,” Danny said. “But only after Dad kicked my ass into next week for getting Annie pregnant.”

“He would have done exactly that,” Bella said from the doorway.

Both Luke and Danny turned. “We didn’t hear you come in.”

“You were preoccupied with your journey down memory lane—without me,” she said, sounding just a little piqued.

“It’s a long road,” Danny pointed out. “And we only just got started.”

“I don’t really mind.” She settled into the empty chair between them. “I’m just so glad that you’re both finally home again.”

Luke felt something inside twist painfully. “Rust Creek Falls isn’t my home, Bella. Not anymore.”

She tipped her chin up and met his gaze squarely. “Of course it is,” she insisted. “And after you’ve spent some time here, you’ll realize it’s true.”

“Bella.” He touched a hand to her arm, hoping the contact might ease the harshness of the truth she needed to hear. “I’ve been living in Wyoming for twelve years—that’s my home now.”

“But you’ve never stayed in any one place for more than two years,” she pointed out.

He frowned. “How do you know that?”

“It’s one of the reasons it took Hudson’s PI so long to track you down. The other reason—” she pinned him with a look “—is that Luke Stockton somehow became Lee Stanton.”

He picked up a cherry tomato and popped it into his mouth, but his sister wasn’t letting him off the hook.

“Why?” she demanded.

Before he could respond, Danny’s cell phone buzzed. “That’s my cue to run,” he said. “Annie went to Kalispell this afternoon for a dress fitting, so I have to pick Janie up from her study group at school.”

Luke pushed away from the table and stood up, offering his hand to his brother. Danny shook his hand, then pulled him in for another hug.

“Stop by anytime,” he urged his brother. “I know Annie will be happy to see you, and I’m eager for you to meet my daughter.”

“I will,” Luke promised.

Then Danny gave Bella a quick hug, too, before he disappeared down the hall.

“Now,” Bella said, turning her focus back to Luke, “answer my question.”

“What question was that?” he hedged, selecting a broccoli spear from the plate.

She snatched it out of his hand before he could lift it to his mouth and held it away from him. “Why were you living in Wyoming as Lee Stanton?”

“It wasn’t intentional,” Luke told her. “At least, not at first. The bookkeeper at the ranch we were working put me on the payroll as ‘Stanton’ by mistake and it just seemed like too much effort to try to correct it. When I moved on, I continued to use Stanton so that I could reference my work history under that name. And, in some ways, it was easier to start a new life with a new name.”

“But why did you want a new life?” she pressed. “Why did you leave?”

He heard the confusion in her question—and the hurt. “It wasn’t an easy decision to make,” he admitted, wanting to explain the past and soothe his sister. “But what choice did we have? The ranch was going to be taken by the bank, and the grandparents didn’t have room to take us all in—and no interest in doing so. As Gramps said, we were legal adults and they had no obligation to provide us with food or shelter.”

Bella’s dark brown eyes filled with tears. “I always suspected that they made you leave.”

“They didn’t make us leave, but they didn’t give us any reason to stay, either. And we thought Jamie, you, Liza and Dana would all be together.”

“After they sent Liza and Dana away—” she swiped at a tear that spilled onto her cheek “—there were times I wish they’d sent me and Jamie away, too.”

“Was it really so bad?” Luke asked.

“Probably not. We had a roof over our heads and meals on the table. But there was no affection. There was rarely even any warmth or kindness.”

“I’m so sorry, Bella.”

She shrugged. “It’s water under the bridge now. Or mostly, anyway. Because it turns out that you were wrong about the ranch.”

“What do you mean?”

“Sunshine Farm doesn’t belong to the bank—it belongs to us.”

“To you and Hudson?” he guessed, because it seemed a reasonable assumption. Bella’s husband obviously had a ton of money, and it was just as obvious he would spend it all to make his wife happy. If the property had been for sale, Luke could imagine Hudson buying it for her without blinking an eye.

But she shook her head. “To you, Bailey, Danny, Jamie, me, Liza and Dana.”

He stared at her, uncomprehending. “But...how?”

“When Dad remortgaged the property to fix the barn and buy the new equipment, he also bought mortgage insurance.”

Luke was stunned. Even at twenty-one, he’d had a pretty good picture of the tight financial situation at Sunshine Farm. He’d heard his parents talking about it in hushed and worried tones when they thought their children were asleep. He’d recognized the strain in his father’s voice, seen it in the lines that furrowed his mother’s brow. He’d listened to them argue about the purchase of secondhand equipment that they couldn’t afford but desperately needed to keep the ranch operating, and he knew that they’d had to remortgage the property. He hadn’t known they’d also arranged for insurance on that mortgage.

He and Bailey and Danny had left because they hadn’t believed that there was any other option. For the past twelve years, they’d worked for other people when they could have been working at Sunshine Farm. Or maybe it was naive to think that they might have been able to keep the ranch going—a difficult enough task when Rob Stockton had been around to oversee the operation. More likely, Luke and his brothers would have run the ranch into the ground and been forced to sell anyway.

“We just discovered that the property had been transferred into all of our names, pursuant to the terms of Mom and Dad’s will, a few months ago when Zach Dalton approached Jamie to see if we were interested in selling,” Bella explained.

“Are you going to sell?” he asked.

“That’s a decision we have to make together,” she said. “All of us.”

“I guess that explains why you’re so eager for a family reunion,” he noted.

“We only found out about the property a few months ago,” she said again. “We’ve been looking for you a lot longer than that.” She smiled again. “And now you’re finally here.”

“Are you sure Hudson doesn’t mind me crashing here? Because I can call Melba Strickland to—”

“No,” Bella interjected firmly. “Hudson doesn’t mind, and no, you’re not staying at Strickland’s Boarding House when you’ve got family here.”

He turned his hand over and linked his fingers with hers. “I missed you,” he confessed, his voice quiet. “All of you.”

“Then why didn’t you ever come home?”

He could understand her confusion. She had no way of knowing that his leaving had been prompted not just by grief over the loss of their parents but by guilt—because he was responsible for their being out on the road that night. In addition to all the other factors, that truth was what had compelled him to leave Rust Creek Falls—a futile effort to escape the daily reminders of the mistakes he’d made.

He owed Bella the truth. After all this time, she deserved to know the real reason he went away. But she seemed so happy to see him, and it felt so good to be welcome. The happy light in her eyes warmed the deepest, darkest places in his soul, and Luke didn’t want to dim that light.

Not yet.

“You know what? It doesn’t matter,” she decided when he remained silent. “It only matters that you’re here now. And—fingers crossed—Bailey and Liza will soon be, too.”

“I don’t know if this helps at all, but the last time I saw Bailey, he was heading to New Mexico with his fiancée,” Luke said.

“Then Hudson’s PI will be heading to New Mexico next,” she decided.

“What’s in New Mexico?” her husband asked, walking in with a couple of flat boxes in hand.

“Not what but who,” Bella said, lifting her face for his kiss. “And, fingers crossed, the who is Bailey.”

“New Mexico is a pretty big state,” Hudson noted, glancing at Luke. “Any chance you can help narrow down the search?”

Luke shook his head. “Sorry. At the time, I was so baffled by his decision that I didn’t ask many questions.”

“No worries,” Hudson said. “If he’s still there, Bradford will find him.”

He set the boxes on the table.

Luke sniffed. “Is that...pizza?”

“And wings,” Bella told him.

“There’s a pizza and wings place in Rust Creek Falls?”

“Wings To Go recently expanded their menu to include pizza.” She pushed away from the table and moved to the cupboard to retrieve plates.

“And Daisy’s Donut Shop is more than doughnuts now, too,” he noted.

“You’ve been to Daisy’s?” She grabbed a handful of napkins and set them on top of the plates.

“Twice,” he admitted. “For coffee on my way to the day care this morning, then for lunch afterward.”

“Did you have dessert?”

He shook his head. “The huge roast beef sandwich and mountain of fries filled me up.”

“You should have had dessert,” Bella said, setting the plates and napkins on the table.

“The woman behind the counter did say that the coconut cream pie was popular,” he told her.

“All of the pies, cakes, cookies and pastries are popular,” his sister said. “Especially if Eva did the baking.”

“Eva?” he echoed, surprised. “The waitress?”

“She sometimes serves customers,” Bella confirmed. “But she does most of the baking at Daisy’s. I don’t know if she has any formal training, but no one who’s tasted any of her creations would question her qualifications as a baker.”

“Now I’m sorry I skipped the pie.”

“But you got to meet Eva,” she noted.

“I guess I did,” he agreed.

“She’s very pretty, don’t you think?”

“I think you need to work on your subtlety,” Hudson said to his wife, opening the lid of the pizza box.

“I wasn’t trying to be subtle. I was trying to ensure Luke appreciates everything that Rust Creek Falls has to offer.”

“I’m not looking for any kind of romantic entanglements while I’m in town,” Luke said firmly.

Hudson grinned. “That’s what I thought, too, when I first came to Rust Creek Falls.”

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