by Rita Herron
Seconds later, grunts echoed from the front of the house. The gunman inside paused and jerked his head toward the sound, his gun raised. Dex wanted to burst through the window and tackle him, but that would be too dangerous. If the gun went off, someone could get hurt.
“One down,” Lucas said a minute later. “Unconscious, tied up by the porch. Now for the inside man.”
A shout echoed from the front. His father.
What the hell was he doing?”
“Dammit, Dad knocked on the door,” Lucas said.
He was going to distract the second gunman, draw him out. But what if he got shot and died this time?
“Gunman heading toward the door now,” Dex said. “Dammit, he has Mom with him.”
The next few minutes raced by in a blur of action. “He’s at the door with Dad,” Lucas said. “Everyone move in.”
Harrison and Brayden shouted they were storming the back, and Dex rushed in the side door through the hall to the den.
“He has Ava,” Honey cried.
“I know, Lucas is at the door with them now.”
Charlotte cried out in pain, and Mila stroked her hair away from her face. “She’s about to have this baby.”
Harrison burst in and raced to Honey and the baby while Brayden rushed to Mila. “Are you okay?”
“Yes, but I have a baby to deliver.” Mila gestured to the girls. “Get some blankets and clean towels. Hurry!”
A gunshot sounded from the front. Everyone froze. “Stay here,” Dex ordered.
Dex eased through the house to the front. The screened door stood open, a body on the floor of the porch. Lucas stood over it while his father stood by Lucas. “He’s dead,” Lucas said.
His mother was crouched against the wall inside by the door, shaking.
Dex put his arms around her. “It’s okay, Mom, it’s over. Everyone’s safe.”
She leaned against him, wiped her eyes and straightened. “Lucas, Charlotte’s in labor,” she shouted.
Panic flashed in Lucas’s eyes, and he raced past Dex to go to Charlotte.
His father had stepped into the entryway, emotions straining his face as he looked past Dex at his mother.
“Ava?” his father murmured.
His mother’s eyes flared with emotions. “Steven?”
He nodded, a tear slipping down his cheek.
His mother didn’t hesitate. She dove into Dex’s father’s arms, and they kissed and hugged and cried.
Emotions overcame Dex. His father was home. His family was back together and safe.
Except the woman he loved was in the car waiting, alone.
* * *
RELIEF FILLED MELISSA as Dex walked down the porch toward her. Another car screeched up in the drive, and a female and male in suits climbed out.
Dex strode toward them, and Melissa slid from the vehicle. The male identified himself and the female as FBI agents.
“Agent Hawk called for backup,” the female agent said.
Dex nodded, and Harrison hurried down the steps and crossed to them.
“We secured the scene and took two gunmen out,” Dex said.
“Agent Hawk is a little busy right now,” Harrison told the agents. “His wife is giving birth.”
Melissa gaped at Dex. Charlotte was having her baby now?
“An ambulance is on the way.” Harrison gestured toward the dead man on the porch and the unconscious man tied up on the ground. “So is the ME.”
Dex pointed toward the detective’s car. “Detective Lamar is inside the trunk, secure. He has a gunshot wound to the shoulder so will need medical aid.”
Harrison explained about Lamar’s involvement with the scam involving Baxter.
“Lucas filled us in when he called. We have agents at Baxter’s ranch now,” the male agent said. “We’ll take care of Detective Lamar and the two gunmen.”
Brayden rushed onto the front porch. “The baby’s here!”
“Come on, Melissa.” Dex tugged at her hand. “I want you to meet the family.”
Melissa resisted a step. “It’s family time, Dex. I’ll just get a ride home.”
“You’re not leaving right now. Everyone is going to want to thank you for bringing Dad back to us.” He pulled her hand, and she followed, nerves bunching in her belly as they stepped inside.
“Everyone’s in the den with Charlotte and the baby,” Brayden said.
Tears stung Melissa’s eyes at the tender way Steven and Dex’s mother were holding on to each other.
Steven was cradling a baby in a blue blanket, obviously Harrison and Honey’s baby boy whom they’d named after him. Lucas hovered on the couch by Charlotte, a beaming smile on his face.
“It’s a girl,” Lucas said.
Charlotte looked up, blankets covering her as she held the newborn to her chest. “We’re going to name her Christine and call her Chrissy.”
The Hawks cheered, and the young teens sang out the baby’s name from the corner of the room where one of them bounced a little girl about three on her hip. That must be Izzy, Mila’s daughter.
When the cheers settled down, Dex cleared his throat and introduced her. “This is Melissa Gentry. Without her, we wouldn’t have Dad back.”
“I didn’t do anything,” Melissa said. “He was looking for you all along, weren’t you, Jim—I mean, Steven?”
Steven wrapped one arm around his wife and rocked his grandson in his arms. “You believed in me, Melissa. All those years I couldn’t remember what had happened or who I was. I started to wonder if I was a bad guy. But you made me believe that I wasn’t.”
Melissa blinked back tears. For some reason, Jim—Steven—had felt like a father to her. Maybe that was why she couldn’t believe anything bad about him.
The next few minutes were chaotic as the family hugged and congratulated Charlotte and Lucas. They also hugged and thanked her.
Still, she felt like an outsider with this close-knit family. They needed and deserved time alone to celebrate Steven’s homecoming.
She told Dex that she needed to go the shelter and meet April so they could reopen.
“I’ll drive you,” Dex offered.
She shook her head. “No, you need to be with your family. You all have a lot of time to make up for.”
Emotions brimmed in Dex’s eyes. “I don’t know how to thank you, Melissa. You saved our family and brought Dad back to us.”
She blinked back tears. She didn’t want his thanks. She wanted his love.
But she bit her tongue to keep from admitting that, and asked to borrow his car instead. Dex handed her the keys, and their fingers brushed.
A tingle rippled through her, and she tried to memorize his touch. It would probably be the last time she’d feel it.
Tears blurred her eyes as she climbed in his vehicle and started out for home. Her heart was breaking.
This was the very reason she didn’t get involved. The reason she’d moved so much. The reason she shouldn’t have fallen in love with Dex again.
He belonged here with the Hawks. They had eighteen years to make up for.
She wasn’t part of this family and never would be.
Time for her to pack that suitcase and move on.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Dex didn’t want Melissa to leave, but the ambulance arrived for Charlotte and the baby, and Harrison was dealing with the agents. Inside, his family was still reeling from the fact that Steven Hawk was alive.
And home.
Lucas and Steven hugged in an emotional moment as the medics loaded Charlotte and baby Chrissy to transport to the hospital. Mila assured them everything was fine with mother and daughter, but still wanted routine tests run on the baby.
“Dad, you should get checked out, too,” Dex said.
“I’m fine.” Ste
ven waved off his concern. “My memories are back. And I’m home.”
“I hate to leave right now,” Lucas said to Steven. “We’ve missed you, Dad. And I want to hear everything that happened to you.”
“We have time,” their father said. “I’m proud of you and your brothers, son. Thank you for taking care of your mother all these years.” Their father wiped at his eyes. “Now, go with your wife and my granddaughter. This time, I’ll be here when you return.” He glanced toward the house. “As long as your mama still wants me.”
“She does,” Dex assured him.
Lucas hugged Steven again and hurried to join Charlotte and the baby while the medic examined Lamar. The agents kept him handcuffed and would escort him to the hospital to have the bullet removed, then a trial and prison were waiting.
Bitterness tasted ugly in Dex’s mouth. Just what Lamar deserved.
When the agents and ambulances left, he and Harrison joined the family inside. His mother opened her arms and welcomed their father home as if their love had never died.
Dex wanted that kind of love. He thought he had it with Melissa.
Only she’d seemed anxious to leave.
Emotions warred inside him, but their mother wanted answers, so he and his father explained the events that had torn their father from the family all these years.
Then he and his brothers and mother spent the next few hours filling their father in on everything that had happened on the ranch, how the foster girls had come to live with them, how Harrison, Lucas and Brayden had met their wives. How they’d begun to develop the ranch into a working business again.
“We’ve only just begun,” Brayden said.
Their father looked down at their mother, another tear slipping down his scarred face “I missed so much, so many years with you. And the boys growing up. I...don’t want to miss any more time with you guys.”
“Hawk’s Landing is your ranch,” Dex said. “Dad, we need you around here.”
Their mother pressed a kiss to her husband’s cheek. “Yes, we do, Steven. I’ve been lost without you. Tell me you’re home for good.”
“I am if you’ll have me, if you’ll forgive me...” his voice broke, emotions overtaking him.
Ava drew him into an embrace. “There’s nothing to forgive.” She placed her hand over her heart. “I never thought you abandoned us. Your place is right here.”
More laughter and chatter followed, and drinks were poured to toast. But as they toasted the family, Dex felt an ache deep in his soul.
Someone was missing. Melissa. She belonged here with him.
His father cornered him by the bar. “I owe Melissa so much, Dex. If it wasn’t for her generous heart, I might have never remembered and come home.”
“I know,” Dex said. “She stole a part of my heart, too.”
“Then where is she?” his father asked. “Because take a lesson from your old man. Time is precious. Love can be taken away in a heartbeat.” He glanced lovingly at his wife. “Some of us get second chances, though. If you love Melissa, go after her, son. Don’t waste a minute.”
Dex hugged his father, then pounded him on the back. “You’re right. She belongs here with me.” He gestured around the room. “With all of us. But I hate to leave you when you just got here, Dad.” Guilt nagged at him. “I’m sorry for not trusting you. For believing Lamar over you.”
Forgiveness blended with love in his father’s eyes. “Don’t waste time on regrets, either. You thought I was dead. And you had every reason to believe him. You were just a kid when Chrissy disappeared, and when I did, too. You don’t deserve to feel guilty.”
But he had. And that guilt had hindered him from allowing anyone to get close.
Only Melissa had wormed her way into his heart anyway.
His father was right. He couldn’t waste any time on the past. Judging from the way his parents kept looking at one another, they needed some time alone tonight anyway.
He gave his mother a kiss and told her where he was going. She took his hand and ushered him to her bedroom.
Dex frowned, confused. Then she removed a ring box from inside the drawer of her jewelry box and handed it to him. “This was the promise ring your father first gave me when he proposed.” She gestured toward the wedding ring she’d never removed. “Later he bought me a bigger diamond. You can do the same for Melissa later if you want, but for now, maybe she’d accept this.”
Emotions clogged his throat. The fact that she was giving him her ring meant more to him than words. It meant she accepted Melissa into the family.
And why wouldn’t she? Melissa was the most loving woman he’d ever known. She’d seen something in a stranger’s eyes and trusted it when Dex had been too blind to believe. He’d lost faith...but Melissa had restored it and given him so much more.
Too emotional to speak, he thanked his mother with a kiss, then went through the kitchen and snagged a set of keys for one of the ranch work trucks from the hook by the door. Adrenaline pumping through him, he jogged outside and drove to the shelter.
Disappointment hit him when he realized Melissa wasn’t there.
Maybe she’d gone home first. He spun the truck around and sped toward her house.
Time to tell her how he felt.
He just hoped she loved him in return.
* * *
TEARS BURNED THE backs of Melissa’s eyelids as she tossed clothes into her suitcase. It was better this way. Better to move on and start somewhere fresh where she could forget about Dex and his family and how much she loved the darn man.
Grateful she didn’t have any sentimental mementos sitting around that needed boxing up, she snatched the picture of her and her father and jammed it in her bag. Her clothes were rumpled and messy, but who cared?
She hated to leave Lend-A-Hand, but there were dozens of other shelters where she could work. Sure, she’d exhausted a few of them in Texas, but it was a big state. Maybe she’d move to the southern end. There were always people in need.
Helping others would enable her to forget about herself.
She hated needing Dex. But she did.
Tears overflowed, and she swiped at them. She’d have to be satisfied knowing she’d helped him piece his family back together again. Maybe he could finally forgive himself for his sister’s death and find peace now that his father was home.
She rushed to the bathroom and tossed her makeup bag and toiletries into her toiletry case, then hurried to set it by her suitcase at the door. She was just carrying it out to her car when the sound of an engine rumbled.
She froze, one hand on the handle of her luggage as a pickup rolled into her drive. For a second, fear caught in her throat. Had Baxter sent someone after her?
But the truck engine died, and Dex slid from the truck. He looked so handsome and tall and masculine and wonderful that she almost threw herself into his arms.
But he took one look at the suitcase in her hand, and his jaw hardened. “Going somewhere?”
Her stomach clenched. “I figured it was time for me to move on.”
“Why?”
Her hand was sweating so badly she dropped the suitcase with a thud against the pavement.
“Why are you leaving?” he asked.
She shrugged. “That’s what I do. I help at a shelter, then after a while move to where I’m needed more.”
He stared at her, emotions warring in his eyes. “What if you’re needed here?”
She exhaled. “April can handle the shelter.”
He stepped forward, so close she inhaled his masculine scent. Lord help her, she wanted him. “I’m not referring to the shelter.”
She swallowed.
“You’re running,” he said boldly. “And I want to know why.”
Pain knifed through her chest. “I can’t stay where I don’t belong,” she said. “P
eople move on.”
“Not when they have people who care about them. Not when they have family.”
“The people at the shelters are my family.”
“It doesn’t have to be that way,” he said. “The Hawks care about you, Melissa. My father thinks of you like a daughter. The rest of the family is so damn grateful to you for being kind to him and bringing him back that they want you to stay, too.”
She jutted her chin in the air, her chest about to explode. “I don’t want your gratitude, Dex. I did what I did because that’s who I am. I believed in Jim, I mean Steven, and I’m glad I did. No one needs to feel indebted for that.”
“I know, you did it because you have an incredibly generous heart.” He inched closer. His breath was shaky, and his lips parted, his hand trembling as he reached for hers. “And this is not about gratitude.”
Hope budded in her chest. But hope was dangerous. “Then what is it about, Dex?”
He pressed a kiss to her hand, a kiss so tender that her knees nearly buckled.
“I think you’re leaving because you’re scared. I understand that more than you know.” His breath rushed out. “I understand what it’s like to feel abandoned. To shut down and close yourself off from others because you’re afraid of getting hurt.”
She blinked back the tears, her pulse throbbing.
“But I promise you I will never abandon you.” His gaze met hers, then he dropped to his knees in front of her, removed a ring box from his pocket and held it out.
“I love you, Melissa. I want you.” His voice cracked as he opened the box. A thin silver band holding an oval shaped diamond glinted back at her. “I want you to be my wife.”
“Dex—”
“The ring was my mother’s,” he said as he removed it from the velvet interior. “It was her promise ring, and she wanted you to have it.” He swallowed. “I want you to have it as a promise that I’ll always love you, that I’ll never leave you.” His voice wavered. “Later, I’ll buy you a bigger ring if you want. You can pick it out—”
“I don’t want a big ring,” she said in a raw whisper. “I don’t need fancy things, Dex. All I’ve ever wanted was a family. And...someone to love.”