Texas Hope: Sweetgrass Springs Stories (Texas Heroes Book 16) (8 page)

“You could stay here tonight.”

“I’d better not. I want a long-term relationship with Ian, and I already got off on the wrong foot. Once I treat your colt, I’d better make myself scarce.”

Mackey glanced over his shoulder. “Uh, about that. I think you’re too late.”

“Why?” Michael turned and followed the direction of his gaze.

“Because that’s Rissa’s brother Jackson’s Range Rover, and Ian’s in the front seat.”

“Oh, boy.” Then Michael chuckled.

Because, well…what else was there to do?

Sophia Cavanaugh stood near the foot of the wide staircase in her pristine white foyer and stared out of the beveled glass on the massive front doors.

This place that once been her refuge, had so soothed her soul, felt too close now, too cold, too…

She halted before the family portrait over the fireplace in the family room, taken when Michael was twelve.

He had Ian’s dimple.

“Oh, Ian…” His name came out a strangled, anguished whisper. She pressed a fist to her chest, just over her heart. She hadn’t let herself say his name in so very long, but he was always there in the space between thoughts, a ghost of memory. Of regret. Of a sadness so deep she could not live if she let it in.

I have a brother, and you hid him from me. Do you know how many times I would have sold my soul not to be alone? Not to carry the full weight of Dad’s expectation and yours? Just to have someone who understood me, who could—

Michael was so very angry with her. Her son had never looked at her like that, disgust laced with frustration, anger, fathoms-deep and rich with temper.

You lied to me. All. My. Life.

He was gone now, too, straight out this very front door, righteous anger his shield and his sword, all of the minutes and hours and days she’d spent trying to protect him from the past, from the young woman who’d been so weak. Who had run from a good man, from all that was missing inside her, from—

She doubled over from the pain of her loss. That sweet, bright boy who’d loved her with a child’s pure heart—

Until the day she’d left him. She covered her eyes with one hand, wrapped the other arm around her middle. All the memories she’d had to lock away to keep from screaming roared back now.

Gordon. Her cowboy. So at ease on his land, so perfectly suited to his life. Gordon had roots deep as the earth. He’d given them to Ian.

She’d been so restless. Tense and tired and…lost.
Can’t breathe
kind of lost. It wasn’t that she hadn’t loved them, both of them. She just couldn’t ever…belong. She had tried. For a long time, but…

And Gordon wouldn’t let her take her baby with her. The man who’d loved her so fiercely, who’d swept her off her feet…who’d promised that he’d give her whatever she needed to feel at home.

But when they’d married and gone to Texas, she realized that the vision she’d fallen in love with was a figment. She’d cast Gordon in the role of romantic hero, the cowboy who stood for right and justice, who protected his own.

Gordon McLaren was all those things. But ranch life was not. It was brutally hard work, an existence that required 24/7 attention. Cattle didn’t let you take off for weeks to cruise the Caribbean or jet to Rome. Gordon’s father had died soon after their marriage, and everything had rested on Gordon’s broad shoulders.

He hadn’t lied to her before bringing her to Texas, she saw that now. He’d told her exactly what to expect.

But she’d had stars in her eyes and no direction. She’d seized on her strong cowboy and made up a dream from whole cloth, what it would be like, how she would show him off to her friends, how they would sigh over him, too. She’d done that, and they had—but however much he’d been a true gentleman with those in her world, it had clearly been her world, not his. He was plain-spoken and wouldn’t play their games. He’d been himself, and the women had flocked to him. The men had liked him, a genuine man’s man.

But he’d never hidden that he’d been eager to get home, to set feet on his land again. Just like in the movies, the big, strong cowboy. She’d nearly swooned when she’d first seen him on horseback, so rugged and handsome.

He was up to the challenge of taking over after his father was gone—he’d never minded hard work or filthy weather. He’d drag in late at night, mud-caked and weary from rescuing a lost calf, and he’d fall into bed, only to be up with the chickens the next morning.

Chickens. The bane of her existence. She’d taken over the care of them, vicious little creatures that they were. She’d learned to garden and preserve the produce in the relentless heat of summer.

But she couldn’t fit. And she couldn’t breathe.

She’d never volunteered to turn into a farm wife. The women she met were solid souls, and she could admit from the vantage point of time and distance that they’d tried to teach her, to help her.

But her nails split, and she grew calluses and her skin suffered in the harsh sun.

The only bright spot was Ian. Her baby. Her sweet boy.

But Ian was a daddy’s boy, already tied to the land before he could walk. Up on a horse as soon as he could sit, tucked tight in the saddle in front of his big, handsome father.

She smiled. They’d been a sight.

But they’d been a pair.

And she’d been lonely beyond bearing.

Gordon had wanted a houseful of his babies. She’d thought she wanted that, too—but something inside her had known she’d be trapped forever if they did. She didn’t want out forever, she just needed a break now and then.

And not one soul she met in Sweetgrass understood that. Mary Gallagher tried to reach out, offering to take Ian to play with her own Jackson. The two were fast friends from toddlers. But kind as she was, Mary liked that life.

And Sophia hated it.

Long after she’d known the life would break her, she’d tried again to embrace it and quit taking her pills, got pregnant almost immediately.

Miscarriage broke her. And she was breaking Gordon, she could tell.

He wouldn’t let her take Ian with her. Truth be known, Ian wouldn’t have wanted to go, not for long. He was heir to that land, those hundreds of acres in which Gordon’s roots were so deeply planted. As were Ian’s, himself. Young yet, still he’d walked the acres beside his father and crumbled the dirt between his fingers with unmistakable belonging and pride.

But he hadn’t wanted to be left, either.

Her last memory of him was his beautiful brown eyes swimming with pain.
Why do you have to go, Mommy? Please don’t go.

She pulled back, and there were tears in her eyes.
I tried, Ian, I promise I tried hard. I just…I have to. I’m dying here.

You’re upsetting the boy,
Gordon had said.
You have no right. You’re the one doing this to us.

How could such young eyes look so old as Ian watched her turn away?

She’d wanted desperately to promise she’d see him soon. She’d had hope that once she found her place, Gordon would listen to reason and let her see him, let her bring him out of the prison of Sweetgrass and into the light of the larger world.

But before she could speak, Ian had gone into his father’s arms and Gordon had watched her go, his eyes promising the hellfire of retribution for what she was doing to an innocent boy.

Who had Ian grown up to be? Was Sweetgrass his home, his foundation…or his prison, too?

She didn’t know. She couldn’t.

Because, for many reasons that meant everything and nothing…she’d never returned. Never spoken to her firstborn again. The loss of him had nearly killed her, but Gordon was right: though Sweetgrass had never been home to her, it was a good place, a strong base. She had refused to let her father fight him for Ian, but it had taken what little strength she possessed.

The only way she’d survived walking away was to try as hard as she could to forget. She’d gotten as far away as possible, and she’d foundered there, too.

But a kind older man had rescued her. Allan Cavanaugh had swept into her life and transformed it. He’d loved her for a long time before she’d been able to love him.

Not the way she’d loved Gordon, no. She’d never love like that again. Her marriage to Allan had been a polite affair, a very civilized friendship, and she’d had the life she’d been raised to live, full of travel and culture and people, a mad, colorful swirl of an existence.

She’d had Michael, and she’d loved him with everything in her aching, lonely heart.

Now she was alone again, bound up in silence born of her own secrets she’d never shared.

I love you, but I am ashamed of you
, Michael had said.
And I am going to meet my brother, like it or not
.

She didn’t know who to implore the heavens to protect, the man who was furious over the secret she’d kept—

Or the man who had grown from a small boy who’d once begged for a mother to stay.

And then there was Gordon…strong, silent Gordon McLaren, the rugged cowboy who’d taken her breath away.

I couldn’t have hurt them more if I tried, could I?

She couldn’t think how she could have fixed any of it, and regrets filled her to her marrow.

But a universe full of sorrys couldn’t fix anything at all.

“I can come back,” Michael said as he, Mackey and Rissa watched the driver’s door open.

The driver emerged with a smile. “Hey, Sis. We’ve come to spring your lesser half.”

Her laughter was strained as she glanced over at Michael.

“Oh, sorry. I didn’t realize you had company. I’m Jackson Gallagher.” He extended a hand.

Michael stepped forward to clasp it. “Glad to meet you. I’m—”

“Not wanted here,” growled Jackson’s passenger as he approached. “I thought I told you to go.” His tone was granite hard.

Rissa gasped. “Ian!”

“It’s my fault. I asked him to help me out,” said Mackey from beside Michael.

Jackson was busy glancing back and forth between them. “Wow. There’s definitely a resemblance.”

But Ian didn’t respond to his friends. He simply stared Michael down. “I want you to leave,” he repeated quietly. Decisively.

All of a sudden, Michael got mad. “Look, I get that you’re shocked. That you might need some time to adjust, but—”

“Go. Now.” Ian’s jaw flexed as he spoke between clenched teeth.

“Ian, he’s a vet. He’s helping me out. Blaze’s incision isn’t healing.” Mackey stepped forward. “You know we need a vet around here. Come on, man.”

Ian’s glance could have felled a lesser man. “Not him.”

Rissa intervened, stepping right into the middle of the testosterone. “Okay, guys, back it down here. Ian—” She gripped his bicep, and for a second, Ian softened. But all too quickly he was back to stone. “Stay out of this, Rissa.”

Michael noticed that all of Ian’s friends seemed stunned and uncomfortable.
He’s a great guy. Ian? Ian was rude?
others had said earlier.

He was the problem. He shouldn’t have yielded to temptation simply because he had longed for a brother all his life. “Look, I get that you don’t want me here. I understand why.”

A muscle jumped in Ian’s jaw. “You couldn’t possibly.”

Michael looked at the ground. Shook his head. “You’re right.” He glanced up. “I can’t begin to understand how a mother could behave that way. Especially not the mother who raised me.” At his words, Ian’s face only went harder, his eyes more savage. He was visibly wrestling to control the urge to violence. “But this is on me. I should have written you a letter or something. I didn’t expect to actually meet you when I first hit town.” He grimaced. “Though I’ll tell you that I wanted it badly. It’s felt like a hundred years, waiting to find you.”

“So you found me. Now go.” Ian turned away.

Everyone else shifted uncomfortably. “Listen, Ian—” Jackson reached for Ian, and Ian shook him off.

Before he got out of hearing, Michael spoke up. “I will go, but not until I do what I can for this animal. I won’t leave an animal hurting, not even for you. Not even with all I owe you.”

Ian halted. Lifted his shoulders, then exhaled hard. “Do what you have to do,” he said. “Jackson, I need to get back to the ranch. Take me back to my truck, will you?” But it was not a request.