For Love of a Cowboy (14 page)

“What the hell just happened here?” he asked.

It was a testament to what they’d been discussing that his uncle didn’t admonish him for swearing in front of a lady.

“Sit down, Booth,” Emmie told him. “I suppose you know what that was about?”

“I know she had some idea that Uncle Kyle was her father. I tried to keep her away from here, from both of you.”

“Why’d you do that?” his uncle asked, a sharp look in his eye.

“I protect what’s mine. I’m not my father.”

His uncle nodded quietly in response.

“It didn’t matter, Kyle isn’t her father. He couldn’t be,” his aunt spoke firmly. “I know most folk around here think the reason we didn’t have babies was because of me, and I was okay with that. The truth is that your uncle is infertile. He had mumps as a teenager and that left him sterile. He couldn’t be Willow’s daddy.”

Booth looked from his aunt to his uncle, who looked uncomfortable with the truth being laid out there in front of them.

“It’s true,” he said gruffly. “Besides, I’ve never been unfaithful to your aunt, ever.”

“Then where did Willow’s mother get your name?” Booth demanded, his head whirling with the facts.

“We had a casual hand helping out on the ranch at the time,” Emmie said, moving around the desk and settling into the chair Willow had vacated. “We found out later that he’d used Kyle’s name all over the place, not just here in Marietta.”

“He took a damn stupid risk with that. Everyone here knows you,” Booth interjected.

“Willow’s mom didn’t,” she pointed out softly.

And that had left two victims to the guy’s dishonesty. No wonder Willow had looked so shattered. She’d suffered the loss of her mother and now the loss of her father too.

“D’you know what happened to him? Willow’s dad?”

His uncle answered him. “After I fired him he picked up and followed the circuit for a while. Stayed well clear of here though. He could be anywhere by now, even dead.”

“Did you tell her that?”

“Naw, just told her he was gone.”

“I need to go to her.”

“Give her a little time, Booth,” his aunt counseled. “She’s going to need it. She has a lot to process.”

Silence fell in the room until Booth heard the creak of his uncle’s chair as he got up and came to stand beside him.

“She told us that you’d kept her away from the KD. Away from us,” Kyle said slowly.

“Of course I did. I didn’t want her to hurt Aunt Emmie.”

His uncle nodded in acknowledgement. “I would never do anything to hurt your aunt, Booth. I hope you understand that now. I’ve loved her from the first moment I laid eyes on her and never even looked at another woman in all this time. And I never plan to.

“It’s too easy for a man to make the wrong choices—to follow a short skirt or to fall on the wrong side of the law. You found that out for yourself the hard way—thinking with your fists and your temper, like your daddy, instead of with your head while you were growing up. But you’ve changed from that angry man and I appreciate what you’ve done. I’m proud of you, son.” He rested a gnarled hand on Booth’s shoulder. “I know I’ve always been hard on you, but I had good reason. I need an heir I can rely on to take over the ranch when the time comes. I know you’re fixing to buy your own place one day but your aunt and I both hope you’ll change your mind and stay here. We want you to have the KD when the time comes. You earned the right to it these past years.”

Booth looked to his aunt for verification and she smiled sweetly. “Honey, you gave us a bushel-load of worry when you were a teenager and Kyle was hard on you. He knew the kind of man you could be. The kind of man you are now. We love you, both of us.”

Booth didn’t quite know what to say. The day had started like any other and had since taken twists and turns he would never have expected. All those years of thinking his uncle barely tolerated him, and now this? And suddenly, he had everything he’d ever dreamed of at his fingertips, whereas Willow had nothing. Hell, she barely even had a roadworthy vehicle. What would she do now, where would she go? He knew one thing for sure, before she had time to leave Marietta they had to clear the air between them. First, though, he had to respond to the undeniably generous offer that had been bestowed upon him.

He stood and offered his hand to his uncle. “I’d be honored, sir,” he said, his voice thick with emotion. “Thank you.”

And when his uncle grasped his hand and pulled him in for a man hug it felt right. The first honest emotion he’d ever experienced between them. And with it, Booth realized he’d been lying to himself about his feeling for Willow Phillips. About the anger he’d projected toward her when all he’d wanted was to hold her in his arms and to make sweet love to her.

He needed to see her. Needed to tell her the truth of his feelings, to tell her that he’d fallen in love with her and to ask her for a second chance.

W
illow walked in
the back entrance of Superstitch’n’s.

“Good timing, I was just going to put the kettle on to boil,” Ness said, her voice trailing away as she caught sight of Willow. “Good Lord, are you all right? Here, you sit yourself down and I’ll make you a cup of hot tea.”

She shoved Willow into the nearest seat. A few minutes later a mug of hot tea, laced with milk, and about a pound of sugar from the smell of it, appeared in front of her.

“Drink,” Ness commanded.

Willow did as she was told, forcing the hot sweet drink down her throat. Her eyes burned, devoid now of tears. In fact, she wondered if she’d ever cry again. Right now she felt so empty, so adrift. For six months her sole purpose had been to find her father, specifically to find Kyle Donovan. Now she had, and nothing she’d thought was true was real anymore. Her father had been just another loser. A man symbolic of the type her mother had always gravitated to over the years.

It shouldn’t hurt this much, Willow told herself. It wasn’t as if she knew him, but she’d wanted him to be the man her mother had written about—yet the man was a lie in every way except for the fact that his union with her mother had produced her.

“You want to talk about it?” Ness said, settling on the chair on the opposite side of the small table. “I’ve closed the store.”

Willow looked up. She hadn’t even noticed Ness leaving the room, let alone turning the sign on the front door around and turning out the store’s lights.

“I don’t know where to start,” she said. Her throat was tight, as if it was constricted by the grief she’d forced back down inside her.

“How about at the beginning?” Ness prompted.

Willow started her story, haltingly at first, then with a little more strength as she spoke. It was almost as if she was recounting someone else’s story. As if the journey of the heart that she’d traveled these past six months had happened to a stranger. She skimmed over the encounters with Booth, left out entirely her own burgeoning feelings for the surly cowboy who alternately tried to get her to leave then enticed her to stay with his lovemaking. And she left out altogether the details of being tested for the BRCA gene and the envelope she carried with her daily that had arrived the morning before she’d left for America.

Her throat felt raw when she stopped talking and, as she looked up and saw the compassion in Ness’s eyes, eyes that were so much like Booth’s, Willow felt as if her heart cracked in two.

“Oh honey, I’m so sorry for all you’ve gone through. I wish I had known why you’d come here to Marietta. I’d have introduced you to Uncle Kyle and Aunt Emmie, maybe gotten this all over with so you wouldn’t have had your hopes built up so high, just to be dashed like they were.”

Ness looked pensive for a moment, then reached across the table and grasped Willow’s hands. “Having a father isn’t the be-all and end-all of our existence. You are a strong and beautiful woman. You have a spirit that brings light and love to everyone you meet. Be proud of that. Whether you know your father or not,
you
are the person you are.”

Willow gave Ness a weak smile. “Thanks. If you don’t mind, I think I’ll head upstairs and lie down for a bit. I’m really tired.”

“Of course you are. Don’t you worry about me, I’ll just be down here counting the register and then I’ll be off home. I really appreciate everything you’ve done for me, Willow. I guess you’ll be on your way now? Head back home to New Zealand? I wish you would stay on here in Marietta, but there’s nothing holding you here now, is there?”

Willow shook her head slowly. No, there was nothing. She might have stayed if things had worked out with Booth, but that dream had certainly crashed and burned. She was at a crossroads and she had no idea of which way to turn. The only thing that she was certain of at this moment was that she wanted distance between her and Marietta, and particularly distance between her and Booth Lange. If she stayed here any longer, their paths would continue to cross, one way or another, and that would be a torture she could not begin to bear.

“If you don’t mind, I’ll be on my way in the morning. I’m really sorry to leave you in the lurch like this but I can’t stay. I just can’t, not any longer.”

“No, it’s okay. I understand.” Ness patted her on the hand, her face suddenly becoming more serious. “Our mother was a bit like you. A free spirit, even in the face of our daddy’s violence. She was light and love and fun, crazy superstitions and all the things that leave happy memories behind—well, they did for me at least. After our daddy died, even though God knows he was no great catch, it left a hole in her that nothing else could fill. She got sick not long after that and we moved in with Uncle Kyle and Aunt Emmie.

“Living there, knowing that was our future, well, it changed Booth. He was only ten. It made him tuck away that part of himself that had been sweet and loving and he built a shell around himself. It didn’t help that Uncle Kyle was so hard on him, saying our mother had made him soft. After she died, Booth lashed out with bad behavior and worse choices more than once. Then, of course, Aunt Emmie developed her heart problems and he had to face maybe losing a mother all over again. It brought out a fierce protective streak in him.”

Ness sighed heavily. “He has a lot to answer for, for the way he’s treated you. I know you haven’t told me everything, but I can read between the lines and I’m sorry. Sorry things didn’t work out better for the two of you. I think you’re the light to his darkness—the gentleness he needs—and I think he’s the strength you need, too.”

Willow wanted to deny Ness’s words out loud, but she knew they would only hurt this lovely woman who had become her friend. Instead, she simply shook her head. There was nothing left to say. Willow dragged herself out of her chair and walked with heavy steps up to the small apartment that had so swiftly become home. Her pack was on her bed, its contents scattered over the faded handmade quilt. She picked up the crumpled envelope that held the answer to her future, if she had one, and stared at her name on the front. She should open it but what was the point? Whatever the results, she was on her own. Again.

Would knowing whether she carried the gene that had caused the cancer that had killed her mother, and her mother before her, make any difference, or would it just put her at a new crossroads where she’d have to make more decisions. Whether to have preventative surgery, or not? Whether to give up any chance to have a family of her own, or not?

A headache thumped behind her eyes at the thought of facing those choices on her own. She shoved the envelope deep in the pocket of her jeans and walked to the window that overlooked the street. She thought about when she’d arrived here in Marietta. So full of hope. Now, that hope was lost.

It didn’t take long to pack. She had her few outfits, which fit inside her pack, along with her case of knitting needles. All her yarns had been sold at the fair and she had a small stash of cash with which to pay Booth back for the repairs on Daisy—she’d leave that with Ness to give to him. When she got to L.A. she’d sell the van and be on her way. Where? Well, she’d decide when she got there. The idea of returning home to the Coromandel Peninsula didn’t hold any appeal, laced as it was with sad memories.

Part of her knew she should open that darn envelope, go back to New Zealand and face the music, but another part of her wanted to start running and keep going until there was nowhere else left to go. And wasn’t that what she’d been doing from the moment she’d been forced to consider her own mortality? She was only twenty-six and thought she’d had a future stretched out before her. She wanted to grab it, keep it safe. Live it on her own, if she had to, but to
live
every single day.

Maybe she wouldn’t sell Daisy, after all. Maybe she’d hit the road and keep traveling. Keep running from the truth.

*

Booth had spent
the night facing a lot of things, examining them from every angle he could imagine. They’d started with the almost unreal offer from his uncle to leave him the ranch. He and his uncle had spent several hours discussing a succession plan for the future and even though they’d shaken hands on their agreement, Booth still found it hard to believe. He shook his head. He’d never imagined Kyle Donovan ever letting his grip on the KD Ranch go, but it seemed that Aunt Emmie’s declining health had been a trigger for him. Making Uncle Kyle realize that they should enjoy the years they had left together to their fullest, and that it was time to begin to pass on the reins of responsibility to someone else—to him.