Authors: Kate Welsh
E
van heard the babies whimper, and tossed back his covers as he glanced at the clock. Eight o’clock! The babies had done well, sleeping since two. He nearly stepped into the hall half-dressed, but at the last moment he remembered the presence of Meg Taggert in the house. Martha’s house. He shook his head as he stepped into his jeans. It was Jackson’s house. Jackson and Beth’s house now.
His daughter, Crystal, had moved to Pennsylvania to marry a state police detective. She’d embraced the East every bit as much as his daughter-in-law had embraced Colorado’s high plains. Over Jackson’s objections, Cris had insisted Jackson take ownership of the ranch and house, agreeing to take a higher percentage of the profits each year as payment.
It hadn’t really surprised Evan. His daughter had
been restless for some time before her trip east. And her love for the big blond Pennsylvania State Police detective was obvious. Still, though he was happy for her, he missed Crystal and regretted not being able to get to know his grandchildren when they came along.
“Good morning, darlings,” he heard the Taggert woman saying to the twins as he stepped into the hall. For some reason her alto voice soothed them once again, and the usual morning caterwauling stopped immediately. “Let’s see which of you I should take care of first. Eenie meanie minie moe…”
Evan grinned when both twins started squalling. So much for her magical effect. He guessed he’d be magnanimous and ride to the rescue. After all, once Beth was on the mend, Meg Taggert would hop her broom and ride off into the sunset. And Evan would be right there on the Circle A with his grandchildren—hers, too.
“What are you two going on about?” he said, breezing into the nursery. “Did your grandmother pinch you? Or are you just figuring out she’s in on the conspiracy to keep you from getting to the food?”
“Evan! Good morning,” she said in an all-too-sunny voice. He might have known she’d be one of those morning people. “I thought I’d take care of Wade this time. I’m not going to get to know my
grandson if you’re always the one doing things for him.”
Evan thought about not warning her about the effect the cool air had on little Wade, but his conscience got the better of him. He hated mornings too much to ruin someone else’s day. “Fine,” he agreed, “but have the diaper ready or you’ll get your morning shower early.”
Meg actually blushed. “Oh. Well. Uh…thank you for mentioning that.”
For the first time Evan understood the late Wade Jackson’s attraction to Meg Taggert. But only if you overlooked her grating personality, her superior attitude and her high-society ways. She was quite pretty with her cheeks all aglow. Really, he had to admit she was a beautiful woman. Her hair, while white, didn’t make her look old at all but exotically attractive. Maybe it was its youthfully shaggy cut or just the personality it reflected. And that vibrant, exotic quality was only enhanced by her sapphire eyes. All in all it was a startling combination.
More startling, though, was the simple fact that he’d even noticed. He frowned as he realized Meg had said something while his thoughts had drifted into an uncomfortable zone. “’Scuse me, ma’am?” he said.
Meg, he noticed, worked quickly and efficiently, removing Wade’s diaper and wiping the baby down.
“I asked if you usually bathe the children before breakfast. They didn’t get a bath at bedtime.”
“Beth likes to do it before their morning nap. It relaxes them.”
She shrugged and went to work rapidly taping on a new diaper. “I’d have thought a bath would wake them up.”
“Me, too, but they’re Beth’s babies, so I do things as close to how she did them as possible. I’m holding on to the belief that she’ll be back here to raise them.”
Those blue, blue eyes of Meg’s filled with tears and she bit her full bottom lip. “Oh, I pray you’re right, Evan. In these last several years Beth has become the daughter I never had. Poor Jack looked so discouraged and frightened when I saw him earlier this morning. He’s terrified to leave her side at all. That’s why he decided to take a motel room and stay in Greeley. So he can be near her and give her all his energy.”
Evan frowned. “What are you talking about?”
She nodded. “I heard him in here talking to the babies in the middle of the night. He’d been taking their picture to hang in Beth’s room. It’s so hard to watch him go through this when all I can do is stand on the sidelines and pray.”
“He’s not coming home? And he didn’t see fit to tell me?”
“Really, Evan. I just told you how nervous he is
about leaving Beth. He must have gone back to the hospital while we were still asleep. I’m sure he meant no slight to you.”
Hurt that Jackson had spoken to her about his decision and not him, Evan retaliated. “What about the Circle A? I turned the ranch over to him and now he just dumps it back in my lap without so much as a word?”
As soon as Meg’s eyes lit like twin blue flames, Evan realized that in his pain he’d said the wrong thing. When would he ever break that awful habit?
“He didn’t dump anything on you,” she retorted sharply. “He said Seth knows how to get in touch with him if there’s a problem. He thought we would take care of the twins together, with Seth handling the ranch. Through some miracle you managed to raise Jack with some good solid values. You should be thankful. At least Jack chose to ‘abandon’ a piece of real estate for a loved one in need. You abandoned two helpless children who needed you in favor of building an empire. A mighty sorry trade-off, if you ask me, Evan.” She picked up Wade, all diapered and fresh smelling, and floated from the room.
“Who asked you?” Evan growled under his breath, drawing a cute little-baby scowl from Maggie. “Oh, not you, too, angel. Has the Wicked Witch of the East got you under her spell already?”
Maggie made an adorable little cooing sound, startling him. Saddening him. A first, and both Jackson
and Beth had missed it. His greatest fear was that Beth was destined to miss them all. Not wanting to project his gloomy mood onto Maggie, he started a one-way conversation with his granddaughter. “Well, fine. I’ll give you that she’s pretty, but pretty is as pretty does.” He sighed and undid the tapes on Maggie’s diaper. “For crying out loud. What does that mean, anyway?” he asked the now silent angel on the dressing table staring up at him with her navy blue eyes wide and interested. “Look how old your granddad is starting to sound. I’m using expressions that always drove me crazy.” He glanced out the hall door, then looked back at the baby to say in a singsong voice that didn’t reflect his current rancor, “But then again, maybe that woman’s already driven me around the bend. I guess I should consider that, huh, baby girl?”
When he joined Meg in the kitchen, he found she had heated Maggie’s bottle along with Wade’s. It was nice to see she hadn’t taken her pique out on the children, but then to be honest he couldn’t imagine her doing such a thing. She seemed to have goodwill toward everyone—but him.
“Till Anna’s up and about, we’ll have to fend for ourselves,” he said as he tested the bottle. “I’m not much of a cook. How about you? Oh, forget I asked. Laurel Glen has a cook, right?”
Meg looked up at him, and again he was struck by her beauty. He wondered why she’d never married.
Why she didn’t color her hair. If she did, Meg Taggert wouldn’t look a day over forty. There were no lines around her eyes or her mouth. Her figure was downright girlish. Her hair was absolutely the only feature she had that put her in the middle-aged category.
“I haven’t always eaten at Laurel House. In fact, I live in the trainer’s cottage and fend for myself most nights now.”
“How come you don’t color your hair?” he blurted out, and then wasn’t sure who was more shocked by the question.
Thoroughly surprised by the question, Meg blinked. No one had ever asked why she left her hair white. They just accepted her as she was. “Why? Are you saying I look old?”
“Do you always take offense this easily?” Evan demanded. “I asked because if you colored it, you’d look more than ten years younger than you are. I thought that’s what most women wanted.”
Now, that was annoying! He was right. Looking younger was probably something most women wanted. So why didn’t she care? She stared at him, searching for an answer. It wasn’t as if she dressed like some outmoded matron. Her clothes were classic and timeless. And she was certainly as active as, if not more than, most forty-year-olds.
“Was that a compliment?” she asked, pushing aside troubling questions. “I’m sorry. I must admit
I’ve never thought about it. Maybe I will, though I’m just not sure I care all that much.”
Evan shrugged. “No need to think too much on it. It just struck me, so I mentioned it. Guess that’s what happens when you live with men.”
Now, wasn’t that typical of Evan Alton! “Crystal wasn’t a man. Not in the least.”
Evan grimaced. “You just love pointing out all my mistakes, don’t you? For the record, I know I made mistakes. I’ve told my children I’m sorry and have tried to make up for it. They’ve forgiven me. And I don’t care if you do, because the past is between me and my kids.”
Oh, he had an answer for everything, didn’t he? Well, let him try to wiggle out of this one! “But the promises you made to me didn’t count? Is that it? I gave you my child to raise.”
“
Gave
being the operative word. You tried to take him back, but it didn’t work. Instead Beth lives here now, too, which must get your goat.”
His look said he hoped it did. She was about to retaliate when little Wade let out a wail. He didn’t seem to be in pain. Just upset. She had to think he’d picked up on her mood. Meg stood. “I’m taking him to the nursery. Then I’ll give him his bath.” She looked at the clock. “I’ll meet you here at ten. And we’ll settle this out of the twins’ presence. This can’t go on, Evan, or these children will be absolutely ruined before Beth comes home. Don’t try to put it off
by hiding from me, either. Because, mister, I have some things to say to you and I’ll hunt you down to say them. And I’m sure you have things to say to me, considering all the little darts you keep throwing. Maybe if we just get it all out in the open, we can work together to care for these children as they deserve. They don’t need an atmosphere of anger and hostility any more than my son deserved the childhood you gave him.”
She left it at that, and only realized when she left the room that she was crying and had been since he’d implied that she’d abandoned Jack. When she found it difficult to see the stairs as she climbed to the second level she sat on a step and just held Wade as she’d never had the chance to hold his father.
She didn’t need this on top of worry over Beth. She really didn’t.
M
eg returned to the kitchen precisely at ten o’clock. Evan was standing at the back door gazing out. “Jackson called,” he said, still looking out. “Beth’s no better on the new medication. He said he couldn’t sleep for worry, so he left to head on back to Greeley and the hospital. Did he tell you she tried to get him to promise to marry again?”
Meg sat against the big, scarred trestle table and crossed her arms. “I hope you didn’t unload on him about not seeing you first before he left.”
He whirled. “What kind of person do you take me for?”
“The unfeeling kind. The kind who can’t understand that an eighteen-year-old girl could love her child so much that she’d give him up for his own good!”
Evan crossed his arms, his expression more belligerent than before. “Oh, and a career on Broadway had nothing to do with it?”
She felt like stamping her foot, but refused to give up her dignity for this…this cowboy. “No, Evan. Wanting to get back to my career was
not
why I put him up for adoption. Ask yourself if I’d have given up my own child for a career, only to leave it years later. By then I was completely established, but I left it to help my brother raise his children. Have you even talked to Jack about this?”
“I…no.” Evan leaned against the open doorway. “Jackson hasn’t shared a bit of it with me. And I guess that’s partly my fault. In the beginning, when he first found you, I didn’t want to discuss it. I know Wade Jackson was a helicopter pilot in Vietnam. He died leaving you pregnant. And I suppose I know you were engaged to him, since you left that ring for Jackson. I figured if you could hand over both the baby and the ring, you didn’t care much about either of them.”
“Well, you couldn’t have been more wrong!” She stood and paced to the opposite end of the big country kitchen. She needed to get away from him. Something about him put her on edge even when he wasn’t being aggravating.
Staring into the fire in the oversize stone fireplace, she explained in a measured tone, not wanting her reaction to him to color the conversation. “I had no
where to turn. My father had disowned me because I wanted to dance.”
“Can’t say as I blame him. I wouldn’t want my daughter parading half-naked on stage.”
Meg turned around and shook her head. She’d tried. She really had. “You would have gotten along wonderfully with my father. Both pigheaded cowboys jumping to judgment over something you know nothing about. I was never half-naked! You kept the
Hello, Dolly!
playbill I left for Jack. I was dressed for the gay nineties! Did you never get out of this podunk little town long enough to see it or any play from that era. I wasn’t in
Hair!
I was in
Fiddler on the Roof.
We wore turn-of-the-century Russian peasant costumes! And my last show on Broadway before I went on the road with a touring company was
Shenandoah.
I was covered neck to ankle in antebellum gowns.”
Evan pursed his lips and stood straighter. “You still gave him away instead of keeping him.”
Meg took a deep breath, searching for calm. It slipped out of reach. “It isn’t called giving
away.
It’s called giving
up
for adoption for a reason. I gave Jack up even though I wanted to keep him because I wanted him to have the kind of life Wade and I would have given him. Wade was raised on a ranch, and even though he’d been orphaned, the ranch was waiting for him after Vietnam, but I had no claim on
it. I grew up on a horse farm surrounded by family, but I couldn’t go home.”
“So you’re saying you did it for him?”
He sounded so skeptical. She threw up her hands. “What kind of life would Jack have had with a single mother? I didn’t want my baby raised with no family and a mother too exhausted to give him her all. I didn’t want him to suffer the stigma of illegitimacy. I’d accepted the Lord by then, and I was sure I was supposed to give him up.”
She dashed away angry tears. “I loved him enough to find what I thought was a good Christian family for him. And then I walked away. But that doesn’t mean I did it without a backward glance. Not a day went by that I didn’t think of him. Not a day.
“You don’t know the depth of my regret after my father died within two years of Jack’s birth. My brother contacted me wanting to share Laurel Glen, even though I’d been written out of the will. If I’d known, I’d have held on to my baby—Wade’s baby—for all I was worth. I might have found some way to survive those two years and gone home pretending I’d been married to Wade.”
“Fine. You regretted your decision, but why take it out on me?”
“I came to the realization long ago that it was the Lord’s will that Jack be raised here in Colorado, but that doesn’t mean my anger at you isn’t justified. You had the chance to do all the things for him and
with
him that I didn’t. That Wade didn’t. And you wasted it!”
“You think I don’t regret the way things were? That I don’t wish I could have those years back? I’ve accepted that I can’t go back. I did my best. I’m sorry you feel my best wasn’t good enough, but all we can do is our best. I never had what you did. Family. Constancy. Martha was the light of my life. When she died, my heart just went with her. I told you before that I’ve made peace with the kids. What right do you have to come here with your feathers ruffled as if I did it to you?”
Meg could see his point. So why couldn’t he see hers? “Okay, maybe emotionally you were a mess, but I had a right to expect you to live up to your end of the bargain. I didn’t come after him to challenge the adoption when I had other options, did I? If I had, I’d have gotten him—because you broke the contract right off the bat. You didn’t name him Wade Jackson Alton. He was supposed to grow up knowing about Laurel Glen. About how Wade died. About how much I loved him. He could have found me years ago.”
“The name just felt wrong for him. Jackson suited him. He had the name you wanted, just in a different order. He was supposed to be
our
son, but you wouldn’t even let us name him. Even Martha agreed to switch his name. As for the rest, you also didn’t
want me to give him Martha’s heritage. He had to know yours.”
The man was thick as a brick. “He could have had both! You did none of the things you promised. He only found out about the adoption by accident.”
“There was never a good time to tell him about the adoption. We began to grow apart and I was afraid of his reactions. Besides, I didn’t believe all that stuff about you loving him all that much. I thought all the stuff you left behind was for show, to impress that cousin of yours from our church that you were staying with.”
“Why? Why would you think that?”
Evan’s blue-gray eyes went cold as chips of ice. “Because my parents took me to a hospital when I was about six or seven. I was so sick I don’t even remember getting there. Then they disappeared. I couldn’t be adopted at all because they couldn’t even bother signing me over to the state. It wasn’t great before, but after that I spent the next nine years practically living as a slave to one farmer or rancher after another. Those people didn’t want to be parents to me any more than my own parents did.”
Did he realize how much he’d allowed his parents’ actions to direct his attitude toward her? she wondered. “How did you end up here, then?”
“I ran away from the last place. After that I drifted across the state for about six months doing menial work. I didn’t earn much, but at least I was getting
paid. Then I came to this place looking for work. I was fifteen or sixteen.”
A terribly sad thought occurred to Meg. “You don’t know exactly how old you are, do you?”
Evan shook his head. “I always went by the older age approximation the doctors made at the hospital when I was abandoned. My kids don’t know that, and I’d appreciate it if you didn’t repeat it. It’s only a year.”
“No. It’s much more. It means your parents never celebrated your birthday. My goodness! It means you made up a birthday.”
“The day I left the last foster home. What’s the saying? ‘Today is the first day of the rest of your life.’”
“So you and Martha were practically children together. True childhood sweethearts. Losing her must have been like losing half of yourself.”
Evan stared at Meg. How was it the one person on the planet he resented most turned out to be the one person who understood how much of his life had been wrapped up in Martha?
“I can’t explain how much losing her changed my world,” he said finally, knowing he had to break the silence. “I’d spent more of my life with her than with any other person, including my parents, I think. She was a constant. The voice of my conscience. She led me to the Lord. She taught me what she was learning in school as she went, so I got the education that had
been denied to me. She never judged. Never laughed at my lack of manners or table etiquette. She just shot me a look that said, watch me. She had such a gentle heart.”
“Her father didn’t mind you two marrying so young?”
“It was his idea. He knew he was dying. I was eighteen when he came to me asking my intentions.” Evan smiled, remembering that he hadn’t had a clue what Frank Waring had been driving at. “I said I thought I’d stay on till he didn’t want me there anymore. Happy as I was here, I still wasn’t taking anything for granted. I assumed I’d be let go sooner or later. Martha’s father just chuckled and said, ‘No, knucklehead. I mean are you going to marry my Martha and take over for me when I’m gone?’ I was floored. I said something about not thinking I was good enough for her. He handed me a ring that had been in his family and told me to get up to the house and make myself a part of the ranch’s future. I handed it back and said if I made myself a part of anything it would be Martha’s future.”
Evan shook his head, chuckling at the memory, then he remembered what had followed. “He gave me back the ring and told me he was dying. He didn’t have long. Frank said there was no one he trusted with his wife and daughter more than me. He said he knew I loved Martha. I admitted I did, and I made him a promise that day that the ranch would be here
for his grandchildren bigger and better than it was then.”
“And I understand you kept that promise.” Meg frowned. “Evan, why didn’t Jack tell you about me after we met and he heard my reasons for giving him up? Why didn’t you ever tell him your reasons for resenting me as a biological parent? You two have to talk to each other. Jack’s forgiven you, yes. But I know it was a decision he made while he was at Laurel Glen. Deciding to forgive someone doesn’t exactly build a relationship. I, for one, think maybe there’s a whole lot less to forgive than either of us thought. Take that chance for you two to become as close as you should be. Tell him all of this. Please.”
Evan sank into the chair at the end of the long table and laced his fingers, resting them on the table-top. He stared at them. Once again, Meg was right. And she wasn’t being the least bit arrogant about it. She was giving him advice that could only strengthen his relationship with Jackson. Which meant she didn’t want to come between them. Now, there was a surprising truth he’d never even considered. No wonder Jackson still seemed to walk on eggshells around him. Evan was so afraid to lose what he had that he continued to drive it away.