Rancher's Son

by Leigh Duncan

  “I’ve reserved his place at Genesis House.” The group home was in the same district as Tony’s school, making it possible for the high school senior to graduate with his friends. “All the paperwork is in his file. Look in the top drawer of my file cabinet.”

  “These kids have been aging out of the system at eighteen for as long as I’ve been with the DCF. He could have managed on his own.”

  Sarah bristled at Connie’s brusque tone, but she didn’t say a word. She didn’t have to. She and Connie had clashed more than once about the state’s policy of putting teenagers on the street with little more than the clothes on their backs and best wishes for a happy life. Few made the transition successfully, and no wonder. Even kids from homes where there were two loving parents had problems staying in school and out of trouble. How was anyone supposed to do it on their own?

  At last, Connie sighed into the silence. “I guess we’ll go ahead with your plans.”

  Sarah barely had time to be grateful before her boss switched subjects. “And how are things going with the Parker boy and his father?”

  “Better than I expected, actually.” Sarah cast a glance over her shoulder. Ty and Jimmy stood with their backs to her, the little boy’s hand firmly in the tall rancher’s grip.

  “Good. Then you’ll be leaving the child with him when you return?”

  Yes, she agreed before ending the call. She’d leave Jimmy with Ty. But only for a short while. Just long enough to check on her plants and fill a suitcase with something other than jeans and T-shirts for her stay at the ranch.

  Sarah had nearly put the phone away when a cheery ping alerted her to an incoming email. She thumbed the screen and hit the delete key. Another spam message landed in her trash folder.

  There were other, more important messages to deal with, though, and she quickly scrolled through them. Her finger paused over an official-looking notification from the DCF lab where Jimmy and Ty had had their blood drawn. A pleasant thrill raced through Sarah’s midsection. Eager to put any lingering doubts about Jimmy’s parentage to rest before she and Ty started their new life together, she stabbed at the email.

  At the words “Tyrone Parker is excluded,” black spots danced before her eyes. She blinked them away and stared in disbelief at the message. Ty was not Jimmy’s father. Her vision swam. She couldn’t catch her breath. Struggling for tiny sips of air, she cupped a hand over the moan that threatened to escape her lips.

  Unable to resist, she stole another glimpse of Ty and Jimmy. Sure, the boy didn’t have Ty’s broad shoulders, but in every other aspect he was a miniature version of the rancher, right down to the color of his hair. How was it possible the two weren’t father and son?

  And how would Ty react when he learned the truth?

  There was only one way to find out and, straightening her shoulders, Sarah headed toward the fence rail where the two people she loved most watched the milling cattle.

  “Ty?” The word barely whispered through her suddenly parched lips. She licked them and tried again. “Ty, I need to tell you some—”

  But it was Jimmy who first swung to face her. “Miss Sarah! Did you know we’re going to Mr. Ty’s ranch? And we’re bringing Lacy? She’s going to be my very own cow. I get to feed her and brush her. All by myself.”

  Ty settled his long fingers across the youngster’s shoulders. “Not till you’re a bit bigger, pardner. You need to eat lots of Ms. Doris’s cooking and grow another couple of inches. Meantime, we’ll do things together. Want to go for another ride on Ranger tonight?”

  “Yes, please, Mr. Ty!” Pure, unadulterated hero worship glistened in Jimmy’s gaze.

  “Blood will tell. Blood always tells,” Ty had said on more than one occasion.

  Sarah bit down hard on her bottom lip, her thoughts racing. For her sake, Ty had resigned himself to the fact that she and the boy were a package deal, but no one could expect the rancher to raise his wife’s love child. Even if he was the bravest, most compassionate man Sarah had ever known.

  Her plan to share the results of the DNA test stuttered and she gulped. How could she ruin this moment for the little boy who had wormed his way into her heart? Or rob him of his only chance to visit the Circle P? She couldn’t. Not now.

  No, she wouldn’t lie to Ty, wouldn’t withhold the truth from him. At least, not for long. But her news could wait for a day or two. Until she had a chance to put another plan into motion. One that didn’t include a future on the Circle P. Or tall, handsome ranchers.

  Stunned, Sarah stood for a moment. She scanned the cows in their pens, the ranch hands loading equipment into trucks, the people she’d spent time with, the man she’d fallen in love with despite their short time together. In a world that no longer made sense, there was only one choice open to her. As much as it killed her to do it, she tugged her hat down low and pushed her sunglasses firmly into place.

  “Change of plans,” she announced loud enough to muffle her breaking heart. “Something’s come up. Would you mind taking Jimmy back to the Circle P alone?”

  Behind her dark glasses, Sarah swallowed tears at the disappointment that flitted across Ty’s face. Her resolve wavered. One look at the excited little boy at his side, though, and she forced herself to stay strong. She built a dam around the tears that sprang from her breaking heart while she explained that an emergency required her immediate return to Fort Pierce.

  “Everything okay?” Concern puckered Ty’s brow.

  “Yes. No. A work thing.” Her fingers crossed, she waved her phone. “I’ll be gone a day, two at the most.”

  Though she nearly faltered beneath Ty’s questioning gaze, she stuck to her story and made sure he knew how to reach her if need be. As the social worker assigned to Jimmy’s case, she couldn’t adopt the boy. Her involvement was too much a conflict of interest. But there was nothing on the books to prevent a former DCF worker from fostering a child. She’d turn in her resignation and apply for guardianship in one fell swoop. It wouldn’t take long, just a couple of days. Two days would give her enough time to work out the details of her new life before she returned to the Circle P to claim the boy and tell Ty the truth.

  At last the rancher nodded, and she turned her back. Her eyes blurred with tears that were far different from the ones she’d cried earlier. She swept them away and checked her watch. If she caught the first ride back to the Circle P, she could pick up her car and make the two-hour drive to Fort Pierce before dark. Once she put her plan to adopt Jimmy in motion and checked on her plants which, Matt and Elliott’s advice to the contrary, would be her only source of income for the foreseeable future, she’d return to tell Ty he was off the hook. She took a steadying breath and turned to look one last time at the life she was leaving behind.

  As though they’d rehearsed the move, Ty and Jimmy swung to face her. They doffed their hats. At Ty’s beckoning wave, Sarah squared her shoulders and straightened her spine. Ten minutes later, she slid onto the seat beside Doris while she pondered the things she hadn’t told the man she loved.

  He’d been right about that blood thing all along. Blood told. And this time, it spelled the end of their future together. Turning to stare out the window, Sarah made no effort to staunch the silent tears that slid down her cheeks.

  * * *

  THE WESTERN SKY GLOWED pink and gold by the time Sarah pulled onto the driveway beside a modest cement-block home in an older Fort Pierce neighborhood. She squinted at her lawn. An unnatural pall colored
the blades of grass. Her throat tightened. If the hardy St. Augustine had died, temperatures must have plunged lower than she’d anticipated. Her heart in her throat, she focused on the front porch where the orchid she’d babied for ten years hung, browned and ugly, from the planter near the door.

  “No. Oh, no,” she whispered. She wrenched open the car door and stumbled up the walk. A darkened leaf crumbled at her touch. Flakes drifted down. They landed atop a soggy pile of ruined blossoms.

  Feeling sick to her stomach, Sarah fumbled in her purse. Her fingers shook so badly, it took three tries before she rammed the key home. The door sprang open.

  Along the windowsill, stalks of the plumeria she’d been rooting in glass jars slumped like wilted celery. She rushed onto the back porch. Stacks of blankets and towels proved the sitter had at least tried to save her plants. But everywhere Sarah looked, absolute devastation stared back at her.

  The vibrant greens of once-healthy plants had given way to browned and blackened leaves. Colorless blossoms littered the floor beneath hanging plants that were now nothing more than bare, lifeless twigs. Not a single orchid had survived the cold. Sarah closed her eyes. She swung toward the beds that had been filled with gorgeous yellow, red and pink blossoms less than two weeks earlier. When she squinted a look, a single green twig stood among the blackened branches, the only survivor from her prize-winning flowers. She leaned down and pressed it gently only to feel the husk collapse at her touch.

  The discovery robbed her of breath and coherent thought. Sarah sank to the floor. She sifted black dirt through her fingers and sighed.

  She should have listened to Matt and Elliott. They’d tried to warn her that supporting herself with a plant nursery was ludicrous. Only Ty had believed in the concept—and in her—enough to help make her plans a reality.

  Not that it mattered.

  Her plants were as dead as any hope of a future with Ty. He’d made how he felt about raising another man’s son perfectly clear. And the proof that Millie had been unfaithful would develop into hurt and frustration. Sarah knew that Ty wouldn’t have to lift a finger or say one unkind word to make the boy feel unwanted, unloved. She’d seen it happen too many times. She wouldn’t, she couldn’t let Jimmy grow up in an environment where his very existence was resented.

  Sarah took a steadying breath. Okay, so she’d suffered a blow. Two of them, actually. She still had work to do, still had Jimmy’s future to secure. Tomorrow, she’d resign her position with the DCF and start the ball rolling to adopt the boy. It wasn’t as if she didn’t have resources. She had savings. It might not be much, but it’d see them through until she found a new job.

  Now, if only she could envision a future without a certain broad-shouldered rancher, Sarah knew she’d be okay. Trouble was, she couldn’t.

  * * *

  TY RAN A HAND OVER HIS FACE. Acid burned in the pit of his stomach as he leaned on the top rail of Lacy’s stall and stared down at the cow’s prone form. The wide gray sides had stopped heaving an hour earlier, minutes after she’d given birth to a tawny Brahma/Andalusia mix.

  Kneeling on a fresh bed of straw, Seth finished giving the tiny calf a vigorous rubdown and patted it gently on its rump. “If you’re gonna keep her, we need to get a couple ’a bottles of colostrum into this little gal soon’s we can.” Ordinarily, the newborn would get much-needed nutrients and antibodies from its mother. Not an option for this orphan.

  Ty saw the questions in Seth’s tired eyes, met them and nodded. Lacy’s death would hit Jimmy hard enough. To lose the calf, too… Well, he couldn’t do that to the boy.

  “We’ll keep her. I’ll call the vet first thing in the morning. Meantime, are the boys on the lookout for a surrogate? I’d hate to have to bottle-raise her.” Bottle feeding was a labor-intensive proposition, one reserved only for calves that were worth the effort.

  “Already taken care of.” Seth wiped his hands on the towel and stood. “Josh found a heifer moonin’ over her dead calf in the back pasture. He’s bringing her in now. We’ll see if we can’t trick her into believing this young’un’s hers.”

  “You gonna try the talc?” Cows identified their calves by smell. A liberal dusting of talcum powder often disguised the orphan’s odor long enough to fool the surrogate into nursing it. Once the mother bonded with its new baby, the talc went back on the shelf, ready for the next time.

  “Yep.” Seth slugged coffee from the cup Ty had brought him. “It’ll be light soon. That boy’ll be up. What you gonna tell him?”

  Ty hitched his mouth to one side and forced air through his nose. For the umpteenth time in twenty-four hours, he wished Sarah hadn’t been called back to Fort Pierce. If anyone would know how to handle the situation, she would. He sure didn’t. The best he could do was hope that Sarah returned before he had to have a heart-to-heart chat with the boy.

  “I’ll keep him busy this morning while you and the boys clean up this mess.” A sigh escaped his lips while he gestured to the stall with one hand. “No need to let him see the—” thinking of Jimmy’s forlorn little face, carcass seemed too harsh “—body. Later I’ll introduce him to the calf and hope he doesn’t think to ask about…” He paused. There were good reasons they didn’t name the cows on the ranch. This was one of them. “About Lacy,” he finished.

  It took a bit of the old soft shoe, but over breakfast, Ty danced around Jimmy’s questions about the pregnant cow. “We’ll go out to the barn later,” he said as they took their places at the kitchen table. “For now, I thought we could start cleaning out the old greenhouse so Ms. Sarah can use it for her flowers. I want to surprise her by having it all done when she gets back. What do you think?”

  “She likes flowers. She has lots of pretty ones at her house.” Jimmy chewed thoughtfully on the biscuit he’d all but crammed in his mouth. “I think she’d like that.” He pushed away from the table. “I’ll get my boots.”

  “Whoa, pardner,” Ty cautioned. “Let’s slow down and finish our breakfast. We’ll let our food settle a bit before we go rushing out the door.” While they ate, several of the ranch hands were rolling new, heavy-duty plastic over the frame of the greenhouse. Ty wanted every hammer and nail safely secured before Jimmy took one step into the place.

  The little boy shrugged and slid his feet back under the table. “Sure, Mr. Ty.” He reached for a second biscuit. “Could I have the jelly, please?”

  An hour later, Jimmy and Doris made short work of pulling dried vines from the trellises and yanking the brown skeletons of long-dead plants from the potting trays in a greenhouse that smelled like fresh plastic. While Ty checked out the plumbing and sprinkler systems, his helpers scooped dirt from flower beds and swept the floor clean. By late morning, the greenhouse had started to take shape.

  Ty whistled as he installed the latches on a new door. He’d oiled the hinges and replaced the lock when footsteps sounded on the bare concrete behind him. “Hey, there. Where you going with all those?” he asked, holding the door wide to let Jimmy pass.

  The boy tottered out of the greenhouse carrying a stack of clay pots nearly as high as he was tall. “They was all on the table. You said we had to take everything outside. I’m helpin’.”

  The stack of pots tilted precariously. One fell from the top, hit the dirt and rolled out of sight.

  “Oops!”

  “I see that you’re helpin’, pardner.” Knowing he sported a goofy grin, Ty hurried to the boy’s aid. “Best let me help, too, or every one of those pots
will get smashed to smithereens.”

  Jimmy peered up at him while Ty took the stack from his hands. “Smithereens,” he said rolling the sounds around in his mouth. “I like that word. Tonight, I’m gonna mash my vegetables to smithereens.”

  Ty’s grin deepened. He still couldn’t believe he’d been lucky enough to find the love of his life and a son in a matter of weeks. No, the child wasn’t his blood, but every boy needed a father figure. He wanted to be that man for Jimmy. After gently placing the pots on the ground, he ran a hand through the kid’s hair. “Good job,” he said.

  Turning, he studied all they’d accomplished in the short while since breakfast. Beside him, Jimmy turned, too, and folded his arms across his chest the same way Ty had.

  “Ms. Sarah will like this,” the boy announced.

  “I think so,” Ty agreed. But now that they’d removed all the dirt and trash, the plant trays looked a little bare. He dusted his hands on his jeans. There was plenty of time to visit the nursery down the road where he could buy potting soil and such. He was reaching for the keys to the truck when he spotted Seth across the yard. The manager waved an all-clear signal, letting him know everything in the barn had been squared away.

  Ty turned toward Jimmy. “You want to see Lacy’s new calf?”

  Jimmy’s eyes widened. Wonder filled his little boy voice. “She had a baby?”

  “Sure did. A little heifer. She’s in the barn.”

  Before Ty had a chance to say another word, Jimmy took off. He ran straight as an arrow, his boots pounding the hard-packed dirt of the yard between the main house and the stables. Ty caught up with him at the doorway, which was easily wide enough to accommodate a tractor.

  “Hey, now,” he said. “Let’s be quiet inside.” He was probably taking the coward’s way out, but he couldn’t bring himself to tell the boy the whole story. He placed a hand on the child’s shoulder and guided him to the stall.