Laramie interrupted her thoughts. “This was my home until I was nearly sixteen.”
Stunned by this revelation, her footsteps halted, which in turn caused him to stop beside her.
She asked, “This is where you lived with Diego?”
“That’s right. This is where my mother left me.”
Suddenly the house, the land, everything around her took on even more importance. When Laramie had told her they were coming to his place, she’d simply assumed it was a piece of property he’d purchased. Instead, it was a legacy, a symbol of his childhood. The notion touched her deeply.
“Diego willed this homestead to you?”
“He had no one else. He’d never been married. And when he died, his two brothers had already passed on. He truly considered me his son.”
Curving his hand around her elbow, he urged her toward the front of the house. “Come on. I’ll show you the inside,” he said.
After guiding her to the door, she stood to one side while he opened the lock.
“I don’t go in the house very often,” he admitted. “So you’ll have to ignore the dust.”
“When you’re used to living in a house with a leaky roof and broken plumbing, a little dust is nothing,” she assured him.
With a hand at her back, he ushered her over the narrow threshold and into the very dark interior.
“Just wait here until I light a lamp. I don’t keep the electricity turned on. With no one staying here it’s not needed. And I don’t have to worry about the wiring shorting out and starting a fire.”
She heard the strike of a match and then a dim glow of light filled the room. Blinking her eyes to adjust to the semi-darkness, she glanced over to see Laramie standing next to a small table where he’d lit a kerosene lamp with a glass globe. She could see a dark green couch with sagging cushions behind him. Across from it sat a tall wooden rocker with a short footstool in front of it. It was the only furniture in the room.
Leyla stepped forward as she gazed curiously around her. “Is this the way things looked when you lived here?”
“No. There was a bit more furniture then. And things like newspapers and boots and ropes were always lying around. And a few beer cans, too. Diego liked his beer. But he never had one too many. He was a good man.”
“You didn’t have to tell me that. It’s plain to me.”
Curiosity arched one of his dark brows. “How did you come to that conclusion?”
“He raised you,” she answered simply.
Her compliment put a modest grin on his face. “Diego would thank you for that. And so do I.”
Something in his gaze reminded her that they were alone and that he was thinking about kissing her. Just as much as she was thinking about kissing him.
Doing her best to shake her mind from that temptation, she stepped away from him and forced her attention back to the bare, dusty room. “Was Diego originally from this area?” she asked.
“No. Fort Stockton. When he was about twenty-three or so he moved down here to Lincoln County to hunt for a job. He ended up going to work at the training barns at Ruidoso Downs. He’d done a bit of everything there. Mucking stalls, saddle valet, general gofer or whatever was needed. He stayed there for many years before he finally managed to gather enough money to buy this place. By then he was getting close to the age when most men retire. But to Diego he was just beginning. He never thought of himself as old. I guess that’s why he was willing to take on the task of raising a baby.”
Leyla couldn’t stop her thoughts from straying to her own father. The man had never put much effort into being a father, an employee or even a husband. If he had, Leyla’s life would have probably taken a different path. Not that she could blame George Chee for the mistakes she made with Heath. No, those had been her own. But a child, no matter what age, often needed a father’s support. And that was something she’d never received from George Chee.
Across from her, she saw Laramie pick up the lamp then motion for her to follow him. “Come along and I’ll show you the kitchen.”
They stepped into a tiny hallway with three separate doors leading off from it. Laramie gestured to their right. “That’s the bathroom and bedroom there. There’s only one of each. Diego and I shared both.”
She followed him through the open doorway to their left and into the kitchen, where plain, beige-colored cabinets filled one wall. Centered in the worn countertop was a single sink with a rusty water stain directly below the faucet. Along the adjoining wall was a small gas cook stove and an old refrigerator with the door propped open.
On the opposite side of the room there was a farm table with two worn chairs. Even with the furniture and appliances, the room looked bare and forgotten. To Leyla the notion was a sad one. The house had once been filled with life. A man and his son had dwelled here together. Now there was no one.
“Being in this house must bring up all sorts of memories of your father,” she murmured as she gazed around the room where Laramie had taken his meals as a child. “Does it bother you to come inside?”
His life had changed dramatically from those days, she thought. Maybe seeing all this made him count his blessings.
After carefully placing the lamp on the table, he answered. “For a long time I couldn’t walk into the house without it hurting. Right here.” He bumped his fist against the middle of his chest. “But now I mostly remember and wonder.”
The raw huskiness of his voice drew on her and as she moved closer, the warmth and scent of him added to the powerful pull of his presence. And suddenly she very much wanted to slip her arms around his lean waist and press her cheek against that spot on his chest that had once ached.
“Wonder?” she asked softly. “About what?”
Glancing at her, he shrugged. “Lots of things. Like where I really came from. And how Diego actually took guardianship over me.”
Frowning, she studied his face. “I don’t understand. I thought you knew how you came to live with Diego.”
His expression wry, he shook his head. “I only know what I was told by Diego.”
“And you doubt his word?”
With a rueful groan, he walked over to a door that led to the backyard. He opened it wide and Leyla wondered if he needed to see the cheery sunlight and hear the happy twittering of birds to push away the dark thoughts in his head.
“Like I said before, Diego was a good man. I never once knew of him lying to me about anything—until a few years ago when I got the idea to search for the whereabouts of my parents. It was then I learned that some of his story about my birth didn’t ring true.”
Surprised, she said, “If I remember right, you told me you didn’t know your parents or where they might be.”
Walking back to where she stood by the table, he said, “I still don’t. I asked several old-timers in the area about Peggy Choney and if they remembered her. Some did. And they remember her being pregnant. But they had no idea where she’d gone to. And all the public records I could find have no trace of her.”
Frowning thoughtfully, she asked, “Do you know how Peggy came to be acquainted with Diego?”
He nodded. “She worked as a waitress over in a little café in Alto. It was a place Diego frequented during his many trips to Ruidoso. Apparently they became friends and he helped her rent a little house that was situated about a mile from this one. That’s how they ended up being neighbors.”
“Is the house still standing? Does anyone live there now?”
He shook his head. “No. It’s been torn down. When we drive back out, I’ll show you where it used to be. It sat just off the road.”
“Oh, so no clues there,” she mused aloud. “But if Peggy and Diego were that close of friends, then he surely must have known the identity of your father.”
“He always told me my father was a man named Calvin Jones. And that Peggy had met him while she’d been in Texas visiting family. The way he’d told it, she’d gotten pregnant by the man after a one-night stand.�
�� Releasing a heavy sigh, he lifted his hat and ran a hand through his dark hair. “But the story doesn’t stand up.”
“How do you know? Do you have proof that it happened differently?”
“Partly.”
“What does that mean?
He shook his head with misgivings and Leyla wondered why he’d decided to tell her all of this now. It was clear that the whole matter tore deeply at him. Is that what he wanted her to see? That she wasn’t the only one who’d been hurt by family?
“While Diego was still alive I didn’t question his story. I didn’t want to insult the man who’d been such a good father to me by calling him a liar. And back then I had no means to search for Peggy or Calvin through computer or any other way. Later, after Diego passed away, I was too focused on making a home for myself at the Chaparral to worry about my long-lost parents. But a few years ago, Quint urged me to make an effort to search for information.”
“And you found something.” She stated the obvious.
“Hmm. I guess you could say it was what I didn’t find that shed a different light on Diego’s facts of the story.”
“What does that mean?”
“Calvin was supposed to have been in the Army, stationed at Fort Bliss. And shortly after I was born Peggy decided to let Calvin know he had a son. That’s when she’d learned he’d been killed in a training accident on the fort. The incident involved a helicopter, and Calvin had been badly burned. But I discovered all of that turned out to be false. The Army had no records of Calvin Jones being stationed at Fort Bliss at that time, much less one who had been killed in a helicopter crash.”
Stunned by this revelation, Leyla’s fingertips crept to her lips. “Oh, my. Calvin Jones didn’t exist. At least, not Calvin the soldier in Texas. Did you discover any sort of clues to tell you who your father really was?”
Laramie said bleakly, “It’s pretty obvious that without Peggy Choney, I’ll never know.”
Another idea suddenly struck her and she turned a hopeful look on him. “What about your birth certificate, Laramie? Maybe some of the information on it might give you clues. Ones that you never thought of before.”
His lips spread to a thin line. “As far as I know the document is legitimate. But hell, enough money in the right place can buy anything. And there’s no reason I can figure why a fake would be needed. Peggy had the right to list any name as my father.”
“That’s true,” Leyla told him, then added, “I didn’t have to produce Heath when the hospital made out Dillon’s birth certificate. But something else about all of this puzzles me even more, Laramie. Why did Peggy go off and leave you with Diego?”
Shrugging, he turned slightly away from her but not before Leyla saw the flat, empty look on his face. “I’m not sure I’ll ever know the real truth of that, either. Diego says she was so distraught when she found out about Calvin’s death that she went out of her head. She asked him to watch her baby while she went off to try to gather herself together. She told him she’d come back as soon as she could, but she never returned.”
There was no anger or bitterness in his voice. Just a fatal resignation that tore at her. “Oh, Laramie,” she said in a half-whisper. “There was no Calvin. So what could have been going on with her?”
“There’s no way of knowing now,” he said lowly. “But it’s clear she left me with Diego for some reason instead of putting me up for adoption.”
Moving closer, Leyla curled her hand around his forearm. “Laramie, that makes me think—well, maybe Diego was your real father and the two of them wanted to keep the fact hidden for some reason?”
“I suppose that could be possible. But I’d say it’s doubtful. Peggy was very young. Only twenty-one or so whenever she gave birth to me. At that time Diego was in his sixties. He liked to consider himself young and fit—but not in that way. He wouldn’t have gotten involved with a woman that young. It just wasn’t his nature at all. In fact, the people around who still remember Peggy say that Diego treated her more like a daughter than anything.”
“Hmm. Well, that would go along with the fact that he helped her rent a house rather than have her move in with him. But what reason does a woman have for leaving her child? Fear? Insecurity? I’m a mother and I can’t think of any reason I’d ever leave Dillon.”
The anguish on his face tore at Leyla and as she ached for him, she realized that Laramie had become much more to her than a sexy, desirable man who was kind to her and her son. She wanted him to be happy, to feel loved and wanted and worthwhile. She wanted that for him as much as she wanted it for herself and Dillon.
Oh, God, had she already fallen in love with him and was just now realizing it? The answer to that left her shaking inside.
Moving closer, she rested her palms against his chest. “Laramie, I don’t understand. Did you bring me here just to tell me all of this? If you did, you wasted your time. This stuff about your parents—yes, I wish that you knew the truth. Just so it would ease your mind. But the man you are now is what matters the most to me.”
The grateful look in his eyes filled her with relief. She didn’t want this man to suffer for any reason. Certainly not because of his past.
“I’m glad you feel that way. But I actually brought you here for a different reason. I mean—yes, you needed to know about Peggy and the story Diego told me. Otherwise, you wouldn’t understand why I keep this place. Why it will always be a part of me. But it’s not my home.”
“Laramie, I—”
Her words halted as his hands quickly lifted to frame the sides of her face.
“Leyla, just wait. Let me finish before you say anything. You need to understand that for years this was my home. We had food in the cupboards, clothes on our backs and a bit of livestock but not much more. After Diego died, I was lost—just a big kid with no one to guide me. You see, this place was empty without him.”
With his hands on her face and the front of his body pressed against hers, she could hardly focus on his words. She wanted to tell him that they’d talked enough. That all she wanted was his mouth on hers, his arms drawing her closer and his embrace making her forget the sorrows they’d both been through.
Battling the risky thoughts in her head, she stated the obvious, “You went to the Chaparral. But why there?”
“While Diego was drawing his last breaths, he made me promise that I would go to the Chaparral and ask Lewis for a job. He’d said that Lewis was an old friend of his and that he would do right by me. I didn’t question him about the matter. And I sure wasn’t about to break the promise I’d made to Diego. A few days after Diego’s funeral, I went.”
“Had you met any of the Cantrells before?”
He paused and shook his head. “Quint and I went to the same high school and I’d vaguely remembered his sister, Alexa, graduating a few years before. But I didn’t know either of them personally. Hell, when I went to the big ranch I was just a scared kid with two years of high school to finish. I’ll never understand why, but Lewis took me under his wing and helped me become a part of the ranch and a part of his family.”
“And after that the Chaparral became your home. I understand that,” she said softly.
His gaze caught hers and held it. “I guess what I’m trying to say is—well, this place legally belongs to me. I could pour money into it and build it up into a nice little ranch, but it wouldn’t be home to me. Can you understand how I feel?”
Her throat tight with emotions, she turned her back to him. Tears rarely ever filled Leyla’s eyes. She’d decided crying couldn’t fix things. But now she found herself fighting back a wall of tears.
“I understand that you’ll never leave the Chaparral,” she said huskily. “Not for any reason.”
She heard his groan of frustration, then felt his hands settle on her shoulders and it was all Leyla could do to keep from turning and flinging her arms around him. A part of her was aching to tell him she didn’t care where she lived or what she did so long as he was at her side.
But she bit down on the words and refused to let them roll from her tongue. Because she knew that once she ever said them, the dreams she’d held on to for so long would all be shattered.
“Leyla, I realize you want a home of your own and—”
Squeezing her eyes shut, she said, “Laramie, that’s not your concern. Dillon and I will soon be gone and eventually we’ll get that place of our own.”
His hands tightened on her shoulders. “That’s just it, Leyla. I don’t want you to leave.” Slowly, he turned her so that she was facing him and her heart jerked as she spotted the smoldering light in his eyes. “Surely you can tell that I care about you—that you can feel how much I want you.”
Care. It wasn’t the same as love, but he was sincere. Somehow she knew that and his honesty was more than she’d ever had from any man. It was enough to give her the courage to slip her arms around his waist and tilt her head back so that she could look him squarely in the eyes.
“After Heath I swore I’d never let another man touch me. But I—” The soft sigh that passed her lips was clearly a sound of surrender. “I want you, too, Laramie.”
His eyes searched hers as his hands slipped from her shoulders and slid down her bare arms. Behind the trail of his fingertips, goose bumps covered her skin.
“The other night you talked about being afraid when I kissed you. I—”
She interrupted, “I was scared then. Because you made me feel so much. And I knew if I let myself I— We’d get carried away.”
One hand lifted and as he stroked her hair gently away from her face, a wave of desire swept through her. It burned her cheeks and sent her heart on a drunken gallop.
“Oh, Leyla,” he murmured, “would that be so bad?”
“I’ve been telling myself I’d be stupid to let you make love to me. But right now everything about being here with you like this feels good—special.”
A Daddy for Dillon Page 13