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“It’s become clear since I got to town and you didn’t recognize me.”
“Or my daughter?”
His words froze her heart. She trembled, and she didn’t want to be weak. Not today. Not when her daughter was somewhere in this hospital having tests done. Today she needed strength and the truth. Because some people thought the truth could set her free. She worried it would only mean losing her daughter to this man who had already made himself a hero to Lilly.
What if he wasn’t the man they needed him to be? Oregon wanted to stop the cycle of broken promises, broken relationships. She wanted Lilly to have a solid foundation that didn’t shift and move on the whim of an adult.
“She’s my daughter.” He repeated it again, his voice soft with wonder.
“Yes, she’s your daughter.” She whispered the words into the small room. A Gideon bible had been placed on the table between two chairs. A lamp in the corner offered soft light. In this room, lives changed. People were given the worst news. People received options.
In this room, Duke Martin learned he was a father.
“Why didn’t you try to contact me?” He sat down heavily, stretching his long legs in front of him. “Did you think I wouldn’t want to know?”
“I knew from friends that you had a problem with alcohol. And then I found out you joined the army. Duke, I was used to my mother dragging me along from relationship to relationship. She was with men who were abusive, who were alcoholics, and a few who were okay. I didn’t want that for my daughter.”
Oregon’s own father hadn’t stayed. He’d been a nameless man who walked out on them. And then there had been her mother’s countless marriages, with Oregon never being given a choice in the matter.
“You should have told me,” Duke stormed in a quiet voice, respectful of this place. She’d learned something about him in the past year. She’d learned that looks could be deceiving. He looked like Goliath. But beneath his large exterior, he was good and kind.
He kept his power carefully leashed, his temper controlled, his voice even in tone. He leaned forward in the chair, brushing his hand through his short hair.
“You’ve been in town over a year. You should have told me sooner,” he repeated.
“Maybe I should have, but I needed to know you, to be sure about you, before I put you in my daughter’s life.”
“Maybe?” He erupted in quiet anger. “Maybe you should have told me Lilly is mine? What if something had...”
She shook her head. “No, don’t go there.”
“You kept her from me,” he said in a quieter voice.
“You have to understand. I was eighteen and alone and making stupid decisions. And now I’m a mom who has to make sure her daughter isn’t going to be hurt. I have to make sure the man I bring into her life isn’t going to walk out on her.”
“I do not walk out.”
“I know. And I was going to tell you. I just didn’t know how.”
“You could have told me years ago. A letter, even a short note, would have been nice.”
“You left.” Another person in her life who had left. Not that she’d expected him to stay. He’d been a day, a smile, a moment. She’d been a kid who’d made bad choices in her search for love.
“You know for sure...” he started to ask, but his words trailed off.
“I know without a doubt. There are no other possibilities.”
He studied her for a few seconds. She met his gaze head-on because she had to be strong. “Why did you change your mind and decide to bring her to Martin’s Crossing?”
Of course he would want to know that. She would tell him why, but not today. She couldn’t tell him everything, not in one crazy, overly emotional day. “I knew she needed you.”
The simple answer was the truth. It was enough for now.
* * *
She wasn’t telling him everything but for Duke, it was enough for one day. He had a daughter. For the past year Lilly had bounced in and out of his diner. She’d swept his floors. She’d talked to him about the kind of horse she wanted. She’d looked up at him with those blue eyes that were so much like his, he should have seen himself in her. He should have seen it. He should have recognized Oregon.
He rubbed the top of his head and stared at the woman he’d let down, mother of the girl he’d let down. He’d become his mother. Man, he wanted to pound something. He needed to get on his bike and take a long ride through Texas. But unlike Sylvia Martin, his mother, he would come back. But he wouldn’t walk away from this hospital, from Lilly or Oregon.
He looked at her. Her dark hair framed a face that was delicate and shifted from cute to pretty with a smile. She shrugged slim shoulders. “Maybe you should have remembered but you said it yourself, there are a lot of holes in your memory.”
Yeah, a lot of holes. Blackouts. Days lost. He reached into his pocket and felt that coin he carried, a reminder of how long he’d been sober. Two years and counting.
“I’m sorry,” he said as he made eye contact with the woman sitting across from him.
“I’m sorry, too. I know she needs you.”
There were so many ways he could react to that. He could be angry, but what would that get him? She had wanted to protect her daughter. He couldn’t blame her for that.
“So I guess I passed the test,” he finally said.
“Of course you do.” She stood, her eyes darting away from him to the door. “We should go. I don’t want her to be alone too long.”
“No, of course not.” She would never be alone again. He would see to that. “Does she know?”
“That you’re her dad? No.”
“We have to tell her.”
They walked out into the hall and headed back to the emergency room. “Yes, I know.”
“What does she know?”
“That I was young and made a mistake. But that she isn’t a mistake.”
“Man, Oregon, I should have been there. I should have been in her life.”
“I didn’t mean for this to happen.” Her voice faltered.
“You weren’t in this alone. And you aren’t alone now. We need to get married.” The words slipped out quickly, without giving them a lot of thought.
She stopped. He took a few more steps and then turned to face her. She was barely five feet tall. Her dark hair was long and soft. Her gray eyes had flecks of green in this light. Had he just proposed to her?
“No.” And with that simple answer, she kept walking.
He froze under the bright fluorescent lights, voices of people heading in their direction. Ahead of him Oregon kept walking. He was so tall that he only had to take a few steps and he was next to her.
“Why not?”
“Because this isn’t love. It was attraction once. Now we’re two strangers, and that isn’t enough for a marriage.”
“Our daughter deserves—”
She cut him off with an angry glare. “Don’t tell me what she deserves. She deserves a home and people who love her. People who stay.”
“Right, but we have to think about our daughter.”
“Mine,” she cried out, her eyes widening in fear. “She’s my daughter.”
“I’m not going to take her from you.” He said it as calmly as he could, in the voice he used to soothe startled horses.
“No, but you could take her heart. She already loves you.”
“Oregon, this isn’t a competition.”
They kept walking back to the ward with green walls, and rooms with glass doors, curtains for privacy and hushed voices. Oregon stopped, leaning against the wall a few short feet from the nurses’ station.
“Duke, she needs you. That’s why we’re here. Right now I’m emotional and not thinking straight. My main concern is for her, that she’s safe and she’s going to be okay. Marriage to you, though, is not in my plans.”
“We won’t discuss it today. You’re right. She needs us with her now.”
He could understand her reluctance to marry. He hadn’t seen too much about marriage that he admired. But his brother Jake, the last guy he thought would fall, seemed to be taken with the idea. Jake and Breezy had fallen in love with each other, with the twin nieces they all shared, and the rest had been history. In their current newlywed phase of soft looks, sweet smiles and easy embraces, it was impossible to be around them for long.
Duke avoided them as much as possible. He didn’t need to see their version of happily-ever-after.
He’d rather stay at his old house, working on the wiring that needed updating, the plumbing that sometimes groaned with the effort of pushing water to the faucets.
A house for a family, Jake had teased when Duke started the remodel. And now he had a family. True, Oregon didn’t want any part of making them one. But Duke would be a dad to Lilly. He wouldn’t let her argue him out of that.
They entered the room as a nurse was settling Lilly back in, covering her with heated blankets and tucking in the edges.
The nurse smiled at her patient. “Told you they’d be right back.”
Oregon leaned to kiss her daughter’s cheek.
Their daughter. Duke hung back, trying hard not to let this moment get the best of him. This shouldn’t be the first time he saw her as his daughter. There should have been a lifetime of moments. A newborn in a hospital, first steps, first words, first day of school. Yeah, he’d missed out on a lot.
He wanted to be angry with Oregon. He was angry, not just with her, with himself. He hadn’t been the kind of man a woman would turn to.
This girl could have pulled him back to where he needed to be.
She still could.
For the moment he stood on the sidelines and watched as the nurse checked IV lines, as Oregon spoke in soft whispers and then as Joe reentered the room with a cup of coffee. Why in the world did this drama include Joe?
How did a man adjust to suddenly being a dad?
The doctor walked through the sliding door. He looked at his chart, looked up and smiled at Lilly, then at Oregon. He didn’t look at Duke or Joe, because they were just the extras in this scene.
The doctor pulled back the blanket, touched Lilly’s toes on her left foot, rested a hand on the splinted leg. “Well, we have a minor concussion, and she’s very fortunate it wasn’t worse. No internal bleeding, for which we’re thankful. And then this broken leg that we’re going to set. She’ll be down for about six weeks, then back to work earning money for that horse.”
“Oh, she told you.” Oregon smiled down at her daughter.
“Yes, she did. She also told me you have stairs. She’s not going to have an easy time on stairs with the cast and crutches.”
“We’ll figure something out,” Duke cut in. Oregon shot him a look that clearly told him to stay out of her business.
Thing is, her business had become his. He gave her a look that he hoped told her he wasn’t going to back down and pretend this didn’t matter. He ignored the daggers Oregon shot at him from eyes damp with unshed tears and smiled at Lilly. She smiled back with a smile he should have recognized.
Yeah, this mattered.
* * *
After it was decided Lilly would spend the night in the hospital, Duke took Joe home, then headed for the ranch. Or his section of the nearly twelve hundred acres that made up the Circle M.
He bypassed Jake’s place and drove down the dirt road to his house. The two-story home had a pillared front porch and a veranda that ran across the second floor. It had been a showplace years ago when his grandfather had been alive. And then it had been abandoned and had started to fall apart. Posts on the porch had needed to be replaced, along with the roof, siding and many of the windows.
Beyond this house was a caretaker’s cottage, with two bedrooms and a sunny living room. He’d lived in the cottage for six months, since he’d begun the initial repairs to the main house. Today he’d had an idea.
The cottage was one story, no steps and no porches. Just a nice little rock house with a front door, a back patio and a few flower gardens. Perfect for Oregon and Lilly. Not that he thought it would be that easy. He could already hear Oregon’s objections in his head.
A truck pulled up the drive as he sat there looking at the cottage. He groaned as he took a quick look in his rearview mirror. The last thing he needed was big brother time. But sooner or later it would have to take place.
He got out of his truck as Jake parked. Jake stepped out of his own vehicle with an easy smile on his face. Jake had always been the one taking charge of their family, making the hard decisions. Duke guessed it hadn’t been all Jake’s fault. Duke hadn’t been that much younger; he’d just found other ways to deal with life. He’d been out partying, team roping and running from the pain their mother had caused them all.
Jake had grown more and more resentful, taking the burden of raising the Martins and keeping the ranch in the black.
“Saw you drive by,” Jake said as he shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his jeans and rocked on the heels of his boots. He looked from the house to Duke. “Is Lilly okay?”
Duke stared at the cottage and avoided looking at his brother. He guessed that Jake really wanted to ask if he was sober. He’d passed seven bars and three liquor stores on his way home. He hadn’t stopped at one of them. Hadn’t even been tempted. That said something.
“Yeah, she’ll be okay. Broken leg, concussion, a bruised spleen.”
“Where are they?”
“Still at the hospital. I thought they might be able to stay here. More room and no stairs.”
“Right.” Silence stretched on, and finally Jake smiled a little. “She’s yours, isn’t she?”
Duke nodded. “Yeah, she’s mine.”
“Do we need a DNA test?”
That made him mad. “She isn’t here to get anything from me. The last thing she wanted to do was tell me I had a daughter. But today seemed to be the day.”
He had a daughter. The idea settled inside him, making him angry and glad and hurt, all at the same time. Jake’s grinning wasn’t going to help. He shot his brother a warning look and stomped off. Jake gave him a few minutes to cool his heels before following him inside the cottage.
“This isn’t something you keep from a man,” he told Jake as he rummaged through the kitchen cabinets.
“No, I reckon it isn’t.” Jake opened the fridge and pulled out a package of moldy lunch meat. “Wouldn’t hurt you to get a wife.”
“I proposed. She isn’t interested.”
Jake laughed. “Proposed? What did you say, ‘Gee, I guess we should get married’? You’re the ladies’ man. I expect better from you.”
Duke laughed, and it loosened something inside him, something that had been tight as a clock and ready to spring loose. “I expect better from myself. I guess if a guy was going to have a kid, he’d expect to remember that he had her.”
He brushed a hand across the top of his head. Jake watched, hip against the counter, cowboy hat pulled low.
“Well, now you know. Guess what you gotta do is decide how to go forward from here.”
“I go forward as a dad. End of story.”
Jake shrugged, looking comfortable in his own skin. Duke had always thought of himself as the comfortable one. Today cool and unflustered belonged to Jake.
“Might call Charlie and get advice.”
“I don’t need your attorney.”
“Fine, you’ll figure it out.” Jake gave the easy answer as he stepped away from the cabinet.
Yes, he would find a way to be Lilly’s dad. He guessed he’d start by getting her that horse she wanted.
And he’d have to figure out his relationship with Oregon.
Chapter Three
“Where are we going?” Lilly asked as they got closer to Martin’s Crossing. She was in Duke’s truck, leaning against Oregon. Her leg in the bright pink knee-to-foot cast was stretched out, nearly touching Duke’s leg as he drove.
He’d showed up at the hospital that morning with the news that he would be driving them home. Oregon had allowed it because she didn’t have a car there and because he was Lilly’s dad.
She’d spent a lot of sleepless nights thinking about how everything would change when she told him. It was no longer the Lilly and Oregon show. Duke was now a part of their lives. They couldn’t go back. In some strange way they were now a family unit. They would have to figure out how it changed things, what it meant for the future. She knew he deserved this, to be in Lilly’s life.
Oregon knew it would hurt in ways she hadn’t expected. Because the young cowboy she’d met thirteen years ago had been a force to be reckoned with. He’d had a charming smile, too much confidence and a way with words. He’d melted her resistance. She’d wanted love. She’d wanted forever. All from a man she’d known for a weekend.
Looking back, she knew how wrong that had been.
But present-day Duke was more of a concern. This man now had shadows in blue eyes that once had been carefree, full of laughter. This man now knew how to be a friend. How to be there for the people he cared about.
It didn’t take a genius to know her heart could be broken all over again if she wasn’t careful. Lilly moved, repositioning herself, bringing Oregon out of her own thoughts.
“Yes, Duke, where are we going?” She repeated her daughter’s question.
He’d been pretty mysterious since he showed up in the hospital room carrying a bouquet of flowers with a half-dozen balloons attached. It took up the entire backseat of his truck.
“We’re going to the ranch. I want to show you all something,” he answered. Once again mysterious, but this time with a hint of a smile.
“We should go back to our place so Lilly can rest.” Oregon hooked an arm around her daughter and Lilly snuggled close, probably drifting back to sleep again.
“Yes, rest is a good idea,” Duke answered vaguely and kept on driving.
They turned onto the road to the Circle M. The paved road ended at Jake’s house and became dirt. Fences lined both sides of the road. They drove past Duke’s house and then past a barn. In the field cattle grazed, and near the barn a few horses raised their heads and watched the truck drive by.
“This is pretty,” Lilly mumbled, lifting her head to look around.
“Yes, it is.” Duke pulled up to a stone cottage.
“Duke, what is this?” Oregon felt a twinge of uncertainty bordering on fear.
She’d been in Martin’s Crossing long enough to know he wasn’t going to let her call all of the shots now that he knew about Lilly. A part of her wanted to tell him to back off. Another part of her wanted him to pretend nothing had changed.
“Let’s get out,” he said. He opened the truck door and reached in the backseat for pink crutches, handing them to Lilly. “Come on, kiddo.”
Lilly, suddenly wide awake, grabbed the crutches and allowed him to help her out. No, it wouldn’t take Oregon’s daughter long to adjust to this new situation. Lilly smiled up at him and he leaned, giving her a loose hug. He was everything that any little girl would dream of in a dad. Especially Oregon’s little girl, who had watched with envy when other little girls sat on their daddy’s shoulders or rode bikes down the street together. Oregon knew that type of envy because she’d felt it often growing up.
“Coming?” Duke glanced back inside the truck, and Oregon nodded. Did she have a choice? Duke wasn’t smiling. His mouth was a straight, unforgiving line. His jaw was set. No, he wasn’t giving in.
She climbed out of the truck and met her daughter and Duke on the lawn, standing in front of the little stone house. “It’s nice. This is where you’ve been staying while you remodeled the old house?”
“Yes, and it’s where you’re going to stay now. It doesn’t have any steps. Even the porch is ground level. And the doors are wide.”
Oregon stood there on the freshly mowed lawn, speechless. A black-and-white dog came down the drive. Of course it went right to Lilly, circling her, sniffing, brushy black tail wagging. “Lilly, be careful. Don’t let him knock you down.”
“She isn’t going to knock me down, Mom.” Lilly dropped one crutch and leaned down to pet the Border collie.
“But you can’t fall. You have to be careful.”
“She’s careful.” Duke spoke in a quiet voice of reason. She didn’t want reasonable. Not right now. She picked up the crutch her daughter had dropped, and handed it to her. Lilly took it with a grimace and shoved it back under her arm.
When Oregon faced Duke, he nodded in Lilly’s direction, stopping her from saying anything she’d regret. Oh, that didn’t help. Reasonable, thoughtful, considerate male. How dare he?
“Oregon, I’m moving into the main house. I’ve been remodeling and it’s close to finished. That means this cottage will be empty. It’s quiet. It has room, and it doesn’t have steps.”
She left Lilly and Duke in the yard, Lilly sitting on a lawn chair, the dog practically climbing into her lap. Duke was answering a question about the horses he owned. Lilly had always been horse crazy. And dog crazy. They already had a dog at home. Joe had been taking care of it for them.
Oregon walked through the front door of the house, and her heart ached to claim this place as her own. It had windows that let in the breeze, freshly polished hardwood floors, a kitchen with white-painted cabinets and out the back door, a stone patio with a pretty teakwood table and a gas grill.
She strode out the back door. Alone, she stood on the stone patio and stared out at the grasslands of Texas. In the distance there were the hills that made Hill Country a destination for many travelers. It was late May, and the grass was green; wildflowers bloomed.
Footsteps told her she was no longer alone. Duke touched her back, his hand resting lightly. She had a sudden, overwhelming urge to lean into his embrace, to welcome the comfort he was offering. She wanted to soak up his scent, his strength. She turned to tell him this was too much, that she couldn’t accept it, but when she turned, his arms went around her, and he pulled her close, bending to drop a kiss on the top of her head. It was what she’d dreamed of, and the last thing she wanted.
No, she didn’t want to need him. But she couldn’t make herself pull free from the embrace and all it offered.
“It’s just a house, Oregon. It isn’t a commitment. It isn’t a ridiculous proposal offered on the spur of the moment. It’s a place to live.”
“It’s too much,” she tried to insist.
“You’ve raised my daughter alone for twelve years. I think I owe you a home to live in and more. Let me do this.”
She nodded. “Thank you.”
“Thank you. For bringing her here...and for telling me.”
Behind them they heard the sound of crutches on the tile floor of the kitchen, then the squeak of the screen door. Oregon wiped her eyes and moved away from him to face her daughter. Lilly looked from Duke to Oregon, her eyes wide, suspicious.
“What’s going on?” Lilly asked.
“Let’s sit down out here and we’ll talk,” Oregon said with a lightness she was far from feeling.
“I’ll get us a glass of tea,” Duke offered.
Oregon nodded, accepting the offer as she held out a chair for Lilly. Her daughter sat and was immediately joined by the dog.
“What’s your dog’s name, Duke?” Lilly asked.
“Daisy.”
“Very manly,” Lilly teased. Her smile was back, but she wouldn’t offer it to Oregon.
Duke returned with three glasses of tea on a tray. “I stocked the fridge and cabinets.”
“You didn’t have to do that.” Oregon didn’t want him taking over, feeling as if he suddenly had to provide for them. Her shop, selling handmade creations of her own design, was doing quite well. She hadn’t come here for support, for money. She just wanted her daughter to have what she’d never had. A real dad. A place to call home.
“I know I don’t have to, Oregon. I wanted to make things easier for you.”
“What if I’d said no?” she countered as she lifted the glass, condensation making the outside damp and cold.
“Okay, could we not start some kind of family disagreement,” Lilly said. And then she looked at the two of them. “We’re not a family.”
