Texas Hope: Sweetgrass Springs Stories (Texas Heroes Book 16) (9 page)

Jackson and Mackey and Rissa exchanged surprised glances, then all three looked at Michael.

“Sorry, man,” Mackey said. “I got you into this.”

“Not your fault.” Michael shook his head decisively. “I’m here. I want to help. Let me get my bag, then I’ll need a couple of hands to help hold the colt.”

Without a backward glance at the man who seemed determined to freeze him out, Michael turned away and followed Rissa into the barn.

The ride back was silent, and Ian was glad. He couldn’t figure out what the hell to feel or what to do. “If he’s hanging around, I have to tell my dad,” he muttered. “Man, that’s gonna suck.”

Jackson didn’t respond.

Ian looked over. “Aren’t you going to ask why I was such an asshole?”

“Don’t think that’s much of a mystery.” He cleared his throat. “We do need a vet around here, you know.”

“But not that one. We don’t know anything about him. He might not be any good.”

“Sure,” Jackson replied slowly, as if mollifying the crazy man. “He might be a quack. Or he might have malpractice suits to hell and back.”

Ian heaved a sigh. “He doesn’t.”

That garnered him a whip of Jackson’s head. “You know that for a fact?”

“Nope. Just my gut.”

“So…you like him?”

“Hell, no. I don’t know him. And he’s blown a hole in my life. Scarlett’s pregnant. We don’t need the drama.”

“Scarlett sounded fine when she called me. It’s you she’s worried about.”

“I don’t need a nursemaid.”

“Good. ’Cause not a one of us would be worth a damn at it.”

Ian exhaled. “Damn it. I don’t want to think about that woman. I don’t want to know anything about her.”
Keep telling yourself that
. He wanted to ask a thousand questions, all of them starting with
Why?

“Then tell him that. He doesn’t seem to want to make your life hard. He appears to be reasonable.”

“Screw reasonable. I want to clock him.” Ian caught a glimpse of Jackson’s raised eyebrows. “Oh, shut the hell up. I’m gonna go muck stalls.”

“That’ll really improve your mood.”

Ian slammed the side of his fist into the door. “Damn it, what am I going to tell my dad?”

“Want me to do it?” Jackson offered.

Some of his fury leaked right out of him. “No. I have to. But I need to know more before I do.”

“Bet Dev Marlowe could dig up something pretty quickly.”

Ian stared at his friend. Devlin Marlowe was married to one of Scarlett’s cousins, a private investigator who’d helped Maddie Gallagher reunite her husband with his long-lost brother and find the half-sister Maddie hadn’t known she possessed. “Bet you think you’re smart, suggesting that, Wiz.”

“You know it.” Jackson grinned. “Smart enough to whip your ass at poker tonight. You in?”

“That’ll be the day. Can’t tonight, though. Promised to take Dad to Ruby’s.” At the thought, his spirits sank. “The word will be all over town in a heartbeat.”

“Harley does live for gossip, but according to Scarlett, Harley and Arnie are planning to broadcast live from Ruby’s, so he needs her good will.”

“Broadcast?”

Jackson threw back his head and laughed. “Yeah. They’re starting a radio station, and the first program up is a trading post. So we can all buy and sell to each other.”

“We already manage that just fine by word of mouth.”

“I heard rumors that Big D offered to help them set up an internet station, too, in exchange for a talk show to be named later.”

“Harley and Big D?” Ian found he could still laugh. “That’s the craziest damn thing I’ve ever heard.”

Jackson smacked the heel of his hand on the steering wheel. “You gotta love this town.” Then he laughed so hard he was wiping his eyes, and Ian was laughing right along with him.

As soon as he got in his truck, Ian grabbed his phone and placed a call. Dev’s phone went to voicemail. Instead of leaving a message, he tried Dev’s wife Lacey instead. Normally he’d leave Dev a message and just wait, but this was urgent. He and Jackson might laugh, but the problem was dead serious. Sweetgrass was a hotbed of gossip. No matter what Ruby told Harley about keeping quiet, Harley was married to the biggest gossip in town, and if he let one single thing slip, the news would be all over town in hours.

And his dad would learn from someone else.

Ian had to go tell him. But he also needed better information as quickly as possible.

“Hello?”

“Lacey, it’s Ian McLaren.”

“Well, now, cousin Ian.” Her voice was rich and warm with pleasure. “How are you?”

“Fine,” he answered automatically. Then he paused. “Not so fine, really.”

“It’s not Scarlett or the baby, right? They’re okay?”

Hell. He had to quit leaping into things ham-fisted. “No. They’re good—well, Scarlett’s overdoing it, as usual, but otherwise…”

“Of course she is. She’s a one-woman army. You both must be getting so excited about this baby.”

The thought of their child spread a soothing balm on his soul. Whatever insanity had blown up this morning, he still had Scarlett in his life, and they were set to welcome a child they would love with everything in them.

A frown creased his brow. Unlike his mother, who’d abandoned him so easily.

“Ian?”

“Yeah.” He snapped himself back to the moment. “We’re very excited. Can’t wait, really—and in Scarlett’s case, that’s literally true. She’s chomping at the bit.”

Lacey laughed. “Such a shock. Not.” She knew her cousin well. “By the way, what do you think of a surprise baby shower?”

His eyebrows flew nearly to his hairline. “After throwing us a surprise wedding? Hasn’t Maddie had her fill of that? Does that new baby not slow her down one iota?”

“You know better than that. My sister is a force of nature. Four kids and a thriving diner and she’s still got the energy to, um—”

“Meddle? Interfere? Wreak havoc?” Ian teased.

Lacey laughed again. “She just loves all of us so much. Thus I’m not using those words, Ian.”

“But you want to.”

Another giggle. “She’s our Maddie…what can I say?”

He had a thought. “What was it like for you? When Dev showed up and dropped the bombshell that you have family you had no idea existed?”

A slight hesitation before she answered. “It was…cataclysmic. I completely lost my footing. My parents had never even told me I was adopted, you know.” Her voice went quiet. “And I wasn’t in the best of shape at the time. Plus I felt so betrayed by Dev.”

“Why was that? You two are so crazy about each other.”

“Oh, we are. He’s my world. But…we had a past. A very challenging one. Each of us had been lied to, and each of us believed ourselves abandoned by the other. Then here he shows up in my life again, and I’m falling right back in love…then he tells me I’m not who I thought I was.”

Ian whistled. “And I thought my situation was complicated.”

“You have a situation?”

“Yeah. I tried to contact Dev to help me. Is there any way to get in touch right away? His phone went to voicemail.”

“He’s with Connor.” Her voice was heavy with dread.

Ian knew that Dev’s younger brother had returned from Afghanistan with problems, but that’s all he knew. “Oh. Never mind, then. I’ll deal with it myself.”

“Would you want to talk?” She halted. “I don’t want to pry, but it sounds as if we might have something in common.”

“Yeah. You might say that. I had a brother—or a guy who says he’s my half-brother—show up in Sweetgrass today.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah.”

“I thought…”

“That my mother was dead? So did I. My dad thought so, too. I haven’t seen her since I was not quite five.”

“Oh, Ian…” Her voice was rich with sympathy. “You know Dev will want to help you. I’ll text him right now and get him to call you.”

“No, don’t do that. His brother is more important. I’ll deal.”

“What do you think of him, this new brother?”

Wish to hell I knew
. “He’s got some nerve, just showing up.” He exhaled heavily. “In truth, he comes across as reasonable.”

“But you don’t want to know him?”

“I don’t know. I mean, I always wished for more family, but…”

“But what?”

“I don’t want him upsetting my father. Dad really loved her. Instead, she left and he got stuck raising me alone. He never gave another woman a chance, best I can tell.”

“Do you want to see her?”

“No. I want nothing to do with her. She walked out on us when I was a little kid. Who does that?”

“I can’t imagine it.”

I cried every night for weeks
, he wanted to say but never would. “I don’t want this. Not now, just when my dad had that stroke, and he doesn’t need more stress and—” He slammed a fist against the dashboard. “I’m sorry. This is not your problem.”

“Ian, we love you, all of us. You do have more family—maybe too many of us.” There was a smile in her voice.

It summoned a small one from him. “Thanks, Lacey. You all are the best. Even Maddie,” he added.

“Maddie’s possibly the best of all of us, except you.”

“Me?”

“Everyone sees how you carry that whole town around on your shoulders. Sweetgrass would have dried up and blown away long ago, if not for you and Ruby.”

He squirmed at the praise. “Not buying that—but I’ll tell you, there’s no chance of it dying now. Hell, yesterday Spike asked me if I’d try edamame. Then I figure out it’s just soybeans like you can find in a field.”

Lacey’s warm laughter soothed him. “You do know that Maddie is why Spike is in Sweetgrass, right?”

“What I know is that between the Goth girl pastry chef and Jackson’s geeks, this town will never be the same.”

“Did you want it to be?”

He sighed. “I guess not. But I am not trying sushi.”

She smothered her laughter. “You’re not nearly the rube you pretend to be, cowboy.”

“You ask me, the geek-to-rube ratio is getting out of hand around here.”

“Sounds like it’s time for a trip to Sweetgrass.”

“Not for a surprise shower. ’Cause the next thing you’re gonna tell me is it’s a couples’ shower.”

“How did you know?” she teased.

“Lacey…I’m begging you. Call off your sister.”

“Scarlett needs a baby shower.”

Ian sighed. “And she’d probably love a surprise. Me, I’ve had enough for a while.”

“We’ll make it girls only, and you guys can eat your hearts out. Spike’s already planning some kickass cupcakes.”

“I don’t wanna know.” But he chuckled. “Just tell me when so we can plan something manly to counteract all the estrogen that will be fogging the air.”

“You’re such a guy, Ian.”

He smiled. “But Scarlett seems to like that about me.”

“She’s crazy about you.” Then she sobered. “Dev will get in touch as soon as he can, and I’ll pass along your message. And Ian…just remember, my surprise made my life incredibly rich. I don’t know if it’s possible to have too much family.”

“I already have a half-million Gallaghers.”

“That you do. And we love you and your dad, too. He’ll be okay, Ian. We will all be there for both of you, you know that.”

“I do. Thanks, Lacey.”

“Love to Scarlett.”

“I’ll tell her. Hope to see you soon—just not at a couples’ shower.”

“Duly noted.”