Shameless

by Joan Johnston

  “Hello, Pippa. How are you?” It had been hard to get the words past the horrible constriction in his throat.

  “I’m fine. How are you?”

  “I’m doing okay.” I’m in agony, but thanks for asking.

  “How are Sultan and Wulf?”

  “Sultan misses you. Wulf, too.” I miss you most of all. I wish we could be together to see the baby grow. “Are you feeling all right?”

  “I’m feeling fine, Devon.”

  “And the baby?” You aren’t having any more complications? You’re healthy and the baby’s healthy?

  “The baby’s fine. Growing and moving a lot.”

  “It’s good to hear your voice.”

  “It’s good to hear your voice, too.”

  He kept waiting for her to say something about the life she’d left behind in Wyoming. That she missed the smell of the evergreens and the sight of trumpeter swans gliding on the pond. That she missed Wulf’s eerie howl or Sultan’s dark eyes and darker soul. That she missed him.

  She remained reticent, answering the questions he’d asked but not posing any of her own. He’d finally ended the torture for both of them by saying goodbye. He’d listened long enough to hear a forlorn “Hooroo” before dropping the phone in the cradle and his head in his hands.

  He thought maybe that had been his lowest moment.

  Lately, he’d realized that if he didn’t do something soon it was going to be too late. It was bad enough that he’d waited six weeks. If he wanted Pippa in his life, he was going to have to take the risk of telling her how he felt.

  He even had an excuse to go to Texas. His biological father had a ranch not far from where Pippa was staying. He tried to imagine what it would be like to hug her now. She was five and a half months pregnant, and her body would have changed to reflect the child growing inside her. When Connor’s late wife Molly was carrying their first child, he’d watched enthralled as the impression of a tiny foot moved across her abdomen. He wanted to be around when that happened to Pippa.

  Devon made a frustrated sound in his throat. He should never have let her leave the house when she’d come to get her things. She’d given him plenty of opportunities to tell her not to go.

  She’d said, “I’ll miss you.”

  How much more of an opening did a man in love need?

  It was past time he did something about getting her back.

  He began throwing clothes into a suitcase, his heart pounding in his chest. He was going to Texas to get Pippa and bring her back, and he wasn’t going to take no for an answer.

  He stood up abruptly and stared at himself in the mirror. He had a stop to make first at a ranch in South Texas. Maybe he should find out who his father was before he became a father himself.

  Chapter 32

  WITHIN A MATTER of hours after making the decision to go after Pippa—and to meet his biological father along the way—Devon found himself standing on the back porch of a ramshackle ranch in South Texas. He’d entered the property through a sagging metal gate marked with a large K—for “Kidd,” he supposed—the last name of his biological father. It was a long drive from the front gate to the back door, and he saw a few—very few—red Santa Gertrudis cattle on rugged grassland dotted with mesquite and sagebrush.

  The ranch house was a disaster. The roof of the back porch was canted like a horse on three legs, and he’d stumbled and nearly fallen trying to avoid a broken step. A rusted-out pickup sat in the backyard, which was filled with weeds a foot high.

  What kind of people lived here? He couldn’t imagine his mother having anything to do with anybody who lived in such a hovel. Yet, if he had the address right, these were his relations.

  He took a deep breath and let it out, then knocked on a door with a torn and curling screen. When no one answered, he called out, “Hello! Anybody home?”

  A cheerful female voice called back, “We’re in the dining room. Come on in!”

  Devon followed the voice through a small kitchen strewn with clothes and books and cluttered with tack that should have been in the barn. He lived in an all-male household, but his father had insisted they pick up after themselves and had hired enough help to keep the house clean and straightened. As he looked around at the mess, he was having trouble imagining the sort of people who could live like this.

  He turned a corner to find a crowd of young people standing around an older man seated at a dining table with a birthday cake sitting in front of him. The cake was covered with burning candles, and he was just about to blow them out.

  He looked up at Devon, and the smile froze on his face.

  The laughing group around him had equally broad smiles on their faces as they called out to the man in front of the cake.

  “Blow out the candles, Dad!”

  “Quick, before they melt!”

  “We’re going to be eating wax instead of cake, if you don’t hurry.”

  “Need some help, old man?”

  That last comment caused the man seated at the table to respond, “Who are you calling an old man?” before he turned back and, with a single whooshing breath, blew out the conflagration on the cake.

  Devon counted and realized there were five people standing behind the man he believed was his father. Not a single one looked a bit like Devon. Or like the man sitting at the table, for that matter. He would have thought he’d come to the wrong place, except there was one person in the room who bore a striking resemblance to him.

  The man sitting at the table was getting up.

  One of the boys—he was in his early twenties, Devon guessed—said, “Hey, Dad, you need to cut the cake.”

  “You cut it,” the old man said. “I need to speak with our visitor.”

  Shiloh Kidd hadn’t taken his eyes—his intense gray-green eyes—off Devon.

  Devon felt as though all the air had been sucked out of the room. What he saw coming toward him was himself in thirty years. He hadn’t seen a trace of himself—or his father—in the five kids still circled around the cake. But the man walking toward him had Devon’s lean torso, the same height, and even his sun-streaked chestnut hair, something Devon had always believed came from his mother.

  “Hello,” Kidd said. “Do I know you?”

  Devon had to clear his throat to speak. “I believe you’re my father. My biological father, that is.”

  A deep frown furrowed Shiloh Kidd’s brow before he said, “Come with me.” He turned and headed down a dark, narrow hallway that ended in a bright, sunlit room full of bookcases and containing a battered desk. Instead of sitting behind it, Kidd turned and leaned his hips back against the front of it. He crossed his arms and said, “What makes you think you’re my son?”

  “My mother was Fiona Flynn.”

  Kidd’s weather-beaten face paled. He rose to his feet, his arms dropping to his sides, his fists bunched. “Fiona? How is she?”

  “She died when I was born,” Devon said bluntly.

  He was surprised by the sudden tears that rose in Kidd’s eyes before he said, “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “So you admit you knew my mother.”

  “We were childhood sweethearts,” Kidd admitted.

  “And lovers sometime after that,” Devon said in a harsh voice.

  Kidd nodded. “Your mother never told me about you.”

  “What happened?” Two words asking the questions that had gone unanswered all of Devon’s life.

  Shiloh Kidd sighed and gestured toward two tall-backed armchairs covered in cracked brown leather. “Have a seat.”

  Devon hesitated, then realized he wasn’t going to get his answers any faster standing up. He took the chair closer to the blackened fireplace and left the other for his father.

  “Does Angus know?” Kidd asked.

  Devon nodded.

  Kidd closed his eyes in acknowledgment of the pain he’d caused Devon and his father before opening them again. “I wanted to marry Fiona, but her father needed money. She married your father to sa
ve her father’s ranch.”

  “That’s ridiculous!” Devon said. “That sort of thing only happens in novels.”

  Kidd lifted a sardonic brow. “Where do you think writers get those sorts of ideas? She married him, and her father got a settlement.” He rubbed his temples. “It didn’t do much good, though. Grady Garrett gambled away the money, and it was only by the grace of God and a lot of hard work that Fiona’s brothers held on to the ranch. But by then it was too late for me to get her back. She was already pregnant with her first child.”

  Devon was remembering what his father had said to him—that there were reasons he couldn’t marry Darcie and reasons he needed to marry Devon’s mother. “I can understand why she might marry my father. Why would my father want to marry her?”

  “She was beautiful enough to take your breath away,” Kidd murmured. “But that wasn’t the reason.”

  “Why, then?”

  “You won’t believe me when I tell you. It’s something else out of a book.”

  “I’m listening. Why did he marry her?”

  “To acquire a world champion Santa Gertrudis bull.”

  Devon frowned. “What does a bull have to do with anything?”

  “That bull was her dowry. Fiona’s dad figured that if he married Fiona off to a rich man, he’d have an endless supply of money. Angus’s father wanted that bull—and Fiona’s dad wasn’t selling. The only man who was getting that bull was Fiona Garrett’s husband.”

  “Are you telling me Angus Flynn married my mother so my grandfather could own a world champion bull?” Devon said incredulously.

  “Yep.”

  “We don’t have any Santa Gertrudis cattle on the Lucky 7. We raise Black Angus.”

  “The bull died in transit from Texas to Wyoming.”

  “I’m confused. So why bother getting married.”

  “The bull wasn’t shipped until your mom delivered her first child. Old man Garrett wasn’t taking any chances that Angus would back out of the marriage before he had a reason to support Fiona forever after.”

  Devon couldn’t believe Angus would have kowtowed to his father that way. Then he remembered something else Angus had said. I loved both women. Somewhere along the line, his father must have fallen in love with his mother.

  “Do you know if she ever loved Angus?” Devon asked.

  “From the moment she laid eyes on him,” Kidd said sadly. “I didn’t stand a chance.”

  “Then why—”

  “Why did we end up creating you?”

  Devon’s throat ached. He settled for nodding.

  “She was hurt by what your father did—cheating on her with another woman. I was in town for a cattlemen’s association meeting in Jackson. She found out and invited me to the house. I think she just wanted a friend to talk to. But all that pain came spilling out.”

  Kidd’s eyes had turned very green and looked as sharp as cut glass. “I wanted to kill him for hurting her like that. But she was still very much in love with him. I only meant to comfort her. We never intended for what happened to happen.” His shoulders rose and fell with resignation. “The timing was bad. Fiona regretted what she’d done. And I knew she was never going to come back to me, so I had to let her go. If I’d gotten out of there a few moments sooner, Angus would never have been the wiser.”

  “Except I got born.”

  “Even then he might not have suspected.” Kidd lifted a sardonic brow. “A lot of men are raising kids that aren’t their own blood without knowing it.”

  “Like you?” Devon said.

  Instead of being insulted, Kidd smiled. “Absolutely. I’ve got five great kids. Not a drop of my blood in any one of them.”

  “They’re all adopted?” Devon said.

  “Wife couldn’t have kids, and we wanted a family,” Kidd said. “Found every one of them a different way, but love them all the same.”

  “They seem happy,” Devon said.

  “They are. We are. Don’t have much.” Kidd’s smile became a grin, and he spread an arm wide. “As you can see. But we’re happy as larks. Got me a champion bull-riding son and a champion calf roper, a daughter who’s a champion barrel racer and another who bakes first-place pies, and a son who can make you cry when he plays the fiddle. We’ve got enough cattle to get by and everybody gets along. What more could you ask?”

  Here was more proof, if Devon needed it, that families weren’t born, they were made. It was up to him to be a good father to Pippa’s child and help make their home as happy as this one seemed to be.

  “Would you like to meet my family and have a little birthday cake?”

  “Sure.”

  Kidd rose and took two steps toward the door, before he turned back and said, “Would you mind if I give you a hug?”

  Devon felt tears sting his nose and fill his eyes. “I wouldn’t mind at all.”

  His father opened his arms and Devon stepped into them, fighting tears as he hugged his father tightly and was hugged back. A few moments later the older man let go, swiped at a tear that had fallen on his cheek, and said gruffly, “It’s nice as hell to finally meet you. Welcome to the family.”

  “Thanks,” Devon choked out. He tried to imagine what life would have been like growing up in this poor—but apparently happy—mix-and-match family. Very, very different.

  At that inopportune moment, his phone rang. Every single time it had rung over the past six weeks he’d hoped it was Pippa, but it never was. He considered letting it ring without answering, but what if she’d finally called? “I have to take this,” he said.

  “I’ll leave you to it,” the older man replied as he left the room. “See you in the dining room when you’re done.”

  Devon pulled the phone from his pocket and saw it wasn’t Pippa on the line. It was Aiden.

  “Where the hell are you?”

  “Texas,” Devon replied.

  “How soon can you get back here?”

  “What’s the rush?”

  “Brian was smoke jumping in Yellowstone, and his plane went down.”

  Devon’s heart shot right to his throat. “Is he all right?”

  “He’s missing.”

  Devon’s knees buckled, and he dropped onto the nearest chair. “What happened?”

  “The rest of the smoke jumpers got out fine,” Aiden continued, “but a wall of fire engulfed the plane before Brian jumped. The other jumpers said it simply disappeared in the flames.”

  “Are you saying Brian’s plane went down in the middle of the goddamn fire?”

  “We don’t know that for sure. Right now the fire is burning too hot for anyone to get close enough to tell exactly where it crashed.”

  Devon shuddered at the thought of his brother being consumed by fire. It was a danger Brian had lived with all of his professional life, but it didn’t make it any easier for Devon to accept.

  Brian had once explained to him that, after the horrific firestorm in Yellowstone in 1988 that had destroyed nearly a million acres of forest, very few fires in the park were allowed to burn themselves out, which had been previous park policy. Now every fire was fought. But that meant underbrush had been collecting for nearly thirty years, creating a lot of kindling for the next time lightning—or some human with a match—started a blaze.

  “How long has this fire been burning?” What Devon really wanted to know was how big the fire was—whether it had been growing for days…or weeks…or perhaps been out of control for a month or more.

  “Two weeks. It’s big, Devon. It involves a part of the park that wasn’t affected by the disaster in ’88.” He huffed out a breath and added, “This monster has been growing, leaping over firebreaks faster than firefighters can carve them out. Brian was jumping with a hotshot crew out of Idaho, trying to head off the fire before it moved into another section of the forest. The plane took a dive, and he was just…gone.”

  “Doesn’t Brian have a two-way radio? Or a plain old cellphone? Isn’t he wearing some kind of equipment he ca
n be tracked with?” Devon asked.

  “Yeah. All of the above, I think. But none of it seems to be working.”

  Devon’s heart sank at the most logical reason for Brian’s lack of communication. His gear isn’t working because it got burned up in the fire. Along with Brian.

  “Connor and I are heading to Yellowstone to help in the search,” Aiden said. “Do you want to come along?”

  “Hell, yes! Don’t wait for me. I’ll find you when I get there.”

  “One more thing. Taylor Grayhawk was piloting the plane, so Leah’s coming with us.”

  He hissed in a breath at the depth of this disaster, which had apparently struck both Grayhawks and Flynns. It was difficult to wrap his head around the fact that Taylor and Brian might both be dead.

  Devon forced himself not to think the worst. Taylor was an experienced pilot who’d been dropping smoke jumpers for as long as he could remember. Maybe she’d maneuvered the plane beyond the fire before it went down. And Brian was an exceptional firefighter. He knew a lot about surviving against all odds in a fiery inferno.

  It surprised him that Leah was coming with them instead of going to Yellowstone on her own or with her sisters. It certainly wasn’t typical Grayhawk-Flynn behavior to join forces. Then he remembered that Leah and Aiden had once dated. She must have asked him for a ride, and under the circumstances, it made sense.

  “Do you think anyone’s told Pippa what’s going on?” he asked.

  “I assume Matt called her, but you might want to contact her yourself.”

  “I think I will.”

  Devon needed to get back to Jackson as quickly as possible, which meant postponing his visit to Pippa. There were things he needed to say to her in person, he didn’t dare broach on the phone. But he welcomed the excuse to talk to her, even if it was about a Grayhawk with whom she hadn’t been on the best of terms and a Flynn she’d only met once.

  As soon as he disconnected the call with Aiden, he dialed Pippa’s number, not allowing himself a chance to have second thoughts.

  “Fairchild Ranch.”

  “Pippa?”

  “Devon, is that you?”

  She sounded glad to hear his voice. He bit back all the things he’d practiced to say in person—how he loved her and wanted her back and knew he could love her baby as though it were his own. Instead, he said, “Taylor was dropping a bunch of smoke jumpers on a fire in Yellowstone and her plane crashed. She’s missing, along with my brother Brian. He was smoke jumping and didn’t get out before the plane went down. I just thought you should know.”