“I’ve got the boots on the ground lined up for when she’s in Cheyenne next week and we’re in Lincoln,” he went on. “But I want whoever’s behind this to think she’s going to be on her own. I want to draw them out.”
That had been the part of the plan Lacy had liked least. She didn’t exactly cotton to the idea of playing the poor, helpless damsel. But Ian had convinced her it was the best way to draw the real culprits out into the open.
“Got it,” Black Jack said, hopping down. “Hope like hell it works.”
“That makes at least three of us,” Ian said, dropping back down to the dirt.
“You going to spend the week working for your not-girlfriend again?”
Ian shot him a hard look as the rider up in the chute had to reset. The bull was a kicker. “Yeah. My dad’s going to drive me back to the rez Saturday night. I’ll pick up my truck and head for her place on Sunday. She needs the help,” he added before Jack could make any other cracks. “She’s selling off some of her cattle to pay for the carcass removal last weekend. And she’s not my girlfriend. I’d do this for any of my friends. I’d do this for you.”
That was the deal. They were friends with benefits, no-strings-attached. The line between where they were now and anything resembling a real relationship was clearly drawn. That’s all this could be.
Not that Jack bought it. “Whatever gets you through the night, man.”
The next two nights, to be specific—two nights of sleeping sitting up, with Lacy curled against his side. In a truck. Fully dressed. With no privacy to speak of.
The things he’d do for a friend.
* * *
THE STRAIGHT ARROW sat off in the distance, bathed in the low light of dusk. The Laramie mountains were washed in gold and red. Lacy’s house sat down in the shadows, looking small and dark.
Ian had a flash of—well, not fear. But worry. Everything was okay, right? Lacy had texted him before she went to sleep last night—but it’d been one of those quick, “Hey, wish you were here,” texts. She’d made it home and gotten her bulls unloaded—but what if something had happened today? What if Slim had come by and stirred up trouble?
Dang it, Ian should have left home after breakfast. But his father had wanted to talk about the rodeo and his chances of making it to the bigs and his plans for after the season. Was Ian going to come back to the Real Pride Ranch? Or did he have something else lined up?
He hadn’t particularly wanted to come up with an answer right then. He’d wanted to load his stuff up and get to Lacy. He’d thrown his duffel into his truck as his dad had said, “You know we’ll always be here for you. That’s what family is.”
“Yeah,” Ian had replied, climbing behind the wheel, desperate to get away, “I know.”
It’d been one of those times where he’d wished he could tell someone—anyone—about Eliot. Ian hadn’t been there for Eliot because he wasn’t Eliot’s family. And Ian couldn’t admit to his own father that he’d failed so badly at fatherhood. Hell, he hadn’t even failed because failure implied an attempt. Ian hadn’t tried.
He’d signed the paperwork and walked on.
He shook his head. He was tired. His head hadn’t hit a pillow until about two this morning and he’d been up at seven. Dad was a crack-of-dawn guy. Sleeping until seven was sleeping in for Dave Tall Chief.
As Ian got closer to Lacy’s house, he realized she was sitting on the front porch. Something unclenched his chest at the sight. What would it be like if this were how it was? Him coming home at the end of the day to a good woman? Or them coming home together?
He parked alongside the house and walked up to where she sat in a love seat glider. She held a glass of iced tea and her hair was wet from the shower. She looked like something out of a country song. “Hey, babe.”
He dropped his duffel and hauled her into his arms. She looped her arms around his neck and kissed him. It shouldn’t feel this good to come home to her. This wasn’t the sort of thing he should get used to.
Which did not explain why, when the kiss ended, he buried his face in her hair and said, “I missed you,” as if he hadn’t seen her for a month of Sundays instead of less than twenty-four measly hours.
Except that it’d felt longer than that. For three days, he’d had to act as if there was nothing between them. And this?
He kissed her again, tasting her tart sweetness as she sighed into his mouth.
This was something. Dammit all.
This time, she broke the kiss. And instead of that little smile she usually wore when he kissed her, he saw the worried look in her eyes. He went on high alert. Dammit, he should have left home this morning. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she said too quickly.
“Did Slim try something? I knew I should have—”
“No,” she cut him off. “Haven’t seen him.” But she didn’t look any less concerned.
He touched the small furrow on her forehead. “Something’s bothering you, babe.”
“I...” She swallowed and dropped her gaze. “There’s something I feel like I need to tell you.”
His heart picked up the pace. She wasn’t going to end this, was she? If she hadn’t wanted him to come, the decent thing would have been to have that conversation two nights ago, while they sat up in the cab of her pickup truck. “Okay...”
“It’s not bad,” she hurried to add. “I mean... I’m glad you’re here.” She exhaled heavily and took hold of his hand. “Come with me.”
Ian snagged his duffel and followed her into the house. He dropped his bag on the couch as she pulled him toward the hallway. At first, he thought she might be leading him back to her bedroom, but instead, she came to an abrupt stop in front of the office door.
It was still closed.
He waited for her to do something—open the door, explain what was going on—but instead she stood there, staring at it. Then Ian realized he could feel her shaking. “Babe?”
“It’s not a big deal,” she said—except the shaking was getting stronger. “It’s just—I haven’t told anyone, and since, you know, we’re sleeping together, I thought I owed you the truth.”
How was he supposed to take that? She’d told him about her parents, how they died. He remembered the first morning she’d woken up in his arms—the way the nightmares had eaten at her. There was something else—and that something else was no longer off-limits. “And the truth—it’s in the office?”
She nodded. But she didn’t make any move to open the door.
So Ian reached around her and turned the knob. The door swung open and revealed what some Realtor might have called a den—heart-of-pine paneling on the walls, wooden duck decoys and a few stuffed deer heads on the walls. But the massive oak desk in the middle of the floor and the dull gray metal filing cabinets along one wall gave it away. This was a ranch office.
The desk was piled high with stacks of paper that defied gravity. Maybe the collection of photos in frames was somehow holding everything up? In the center sat an old metal ammunition box. The lid was open. He had no idea if it had ammo or not. He looked around—ah. There was the rifle, over the filing cabinets.
“Your dad’s office, huh?”
He’d hoped she’d make some witty comment about what gave it away—the dead animals? But she didn’t. She barely managed to nod.
He put his hand on the small of her back—a simple touch to let her know he was right there for her. “Those are some nice ducks,” he said, trying to figure out what could have paralyzed her this badly.
She took a ragged breath. “I made that one in art,” she said, managing to point to a thing that was almost duck-like. “Sixth grade.”
“It’s nice.” That got a sarcastic smile out of her. “What? It’s probably a duck, right?”
He could see her visibly re
lax. The smile reached her eyes and her shoulders moved down. “Right. If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck...” Then her smile faded.
“Must be a duck,” he finished, trying to sound encouraging. “What else is in here?” Because surely ducks weren’t what was inspiring this level of anxiety.
She looked around the room. “Memories, I guess.” She stepped into the room and picked a framed photo off the filing cabinet and held it close. “I... I never saw it, you know? I can’t believe I didn’t see it. It was right there the whole time...”
“What was?” He lifted the photo. It was one of Lacy as a kid, maybe eight or nine years old, sitting on the back of a paint pony. Her parents stood on either side of her. Snow blanketed the ground and everyone had huge grins on their faces. It was the perfect picture of a happy family. “Was the pony a Christmas present?”
She nodded. “Do you see it?”
All he saw was a happy family. “No, babe. What am I missing?”
She reached over and touched the picture of herself. “The hair.”
True, her hair was a sight to behold. It was supercurly and was shaped into some bad mullet cut from the late eighties. “You know I love your hair, Lacy. And I’ve got some great pictures of when I had long hair.”
“No,” she said with more force, pointing to her parents. “I mean, I can see why I never noticed the skin. We were all outside so much and my mom wasn’t one of those sunscreen people. I don’t ever remember putting any on. But the hair—why didn’t I ever notice the hair?”
Ian looked again. Lacy’s dark brown borderline ’fro—and her mom’s stick-straight hair that, in this faded photo, looked as if it was probably light brown. And her dad’s hair was darker—but even cut to his shirt collar, Ian could tell the man’s hair was straight.
“What are you saying?” But he knew. He realized what she’d said—she’d never noticed her skin, never noticed it was darker than her parents’.
Darker skin. Curly hair.
“I was going through their things,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. “Trying to pay the bills, trying to find the contracts. And I found the box...”
As if he were on autopilot, Ian turned and looked at the ammo box on the desk. He asked, “What’s in it?” as if he couldn’t guess.
“I didn’t know,” Lacy whispered.
Ian walked over to the cluttered desk and looked down into the ammo box. There, on top, was an official-looking document from the state of Illinois. An adoption record. Lacy Evans was officially the daughter of Dale and Linda Evans.
Underneath that was a medical record, he guessed. At the top were two columns. The first read “Mother,” and underneath that was “Race: Puerto Rican.” The second column said “Father” and underneath that was “Unknown.”
Ian blinked at the two documents, but the type stayed the same.
Just because he hadn’t seen Eliot’s versions of this paperwork didn’t mean that he didn’t recognize it for what it was.
“Why didn’t I see it?” Lacy whispered. He looked up at her. She was as pale as he’d ever seen her, and that included when he’d broken her rib.
“You’re adopted.” He didn’t bother to phrase it as a question, not with the evidence in his hands.
She couldn’t even nod.
“You’re part Puerto Rican,” he went on. Okay, so she was obviously deeply upset about this news. And he got that, he really did. Being Lakota was such a central part of his identity—he couldn’t imagine waking up one day and finding out he wasn’t, that he wasn’t even an Indian.
But a secondary emotion built underneath the worry he felt for Lacy—hope. He could tell her about Eliot and she’d get it. She’d understand. He could share the weight and take some of hers from her.
“The hair, I guess.” She made an odd noise, something that was part laugh, part scream. She looked as if she was swaying. “I should have known.”
“Babe,” he said, dropping the documents back into the box and rushing to pull her into his arms. “It’s okay.”
“I don’t know who I am,” she said, collapsing against him. “I thought... I thought I was this girl, you know? I was always odd, always different. I didn’t look like anyone else. I didn’t act like anyone else. But I was me. I was Lacy. And now...”
“You’re still you.” He tilted her head back. “This doesn’t change that. You’re still the toughest woman I know—you’re still smart and stubborn and beautiful and sweet all at the same time. You’re still the same woman I’m falling for.”
Now, he thought. He had to tell her about Eliot. Show her he trusted her with his secrets, that he could hold hers close. “Lacy, I have something to—”
She cut him off. She wasn’t listening. “How could she?” she demanded in a burst of anger so powerful it knocked Ian back a step.
“What?”
“How could she give me up?” Lacy demanded. “My real mom.”
“Babe,” he said in what he hoped was a soothing tone. “Your mom—” he said, pointing to the woman in the picture with the horse. “Linda Evans—she was your real mom.”
“No. No! Don’t you understand? That woman—” she shot a hard look at the box on the desk “—she was my real mom. Everything else was a lie. She didn’t want me. She gave me away like I was nothing. How could anyone give their child away like that?” As quickly as it had come on, her rage left and her eyes filled with tears. “Why didn’t she want me?”
I have a son. I gave him up.
What hope he’d felt died away. There was no way in hell he could say those words to her, not now. Not while she was like this. Not when she would think he was some careless, heartless man who hated his son.
So he didn’t. Instead, he focused on calming her down. “Babe,” he said with more force. “You don’t know she didn’t want you. Maybe she wanted you so much—but couldn’t keep you. Maybe she had a hard life or she was young and scared and knew she couldn’t give you a good home.”
“You think?” she sniffed.
“I’d bet money, Lacy. I know...” But the words simply wouldn’t come. He couldn’t bear the thought of her looking at him and seeing a heartless bastard who hated his son. “I know,” he said again, this time more sure of himself. “She didn’t give you away because she hated you. She gave you up because she loved you.”
“You can’t know that,” she sobbed. “You can’t.”
“I do.” Wasn’t that why he’d signed away his paternal rights? Yeah, he’d been young, and sure, he’d been selfish. He hadn’t wanted to quit school and give up his dreams of being a pro football player to be a father to a son he hadn’t even known existed before the papers arrived. And Leasha hadn’t wanted to depend on a man who cheated on her while they were dating to provide child support. They weren’t ready to be parents—certainly not together.
How could Ian make Lacy see how much better it was this way? She’d had the love of two parents who’d taken care of her, who’d left her a huge ranch with a cattle business. She’d had a roof over her head and things like ponies for Christmas.
“Now they’re dead,” Lacy sobbed. “They’re gone and she didn’t want me. No one wants me.”
“I want you,” he said, both because it was the truth and because she needed to hear it.
She looked up at him. Her eyes were bloodshot and teary and her nose was red. “You do?”
He kissed her—kissed the woman she’d thought she’d been and the woman she still was. “I want you,” he told her as he bent over and swept her legs out from under her. Cradling her to his chest, he carried her out of the office, pausing only to pull the door shut with his foot. “I want you so much it scares me, Lacy.”
“I don’t know who I am,” she wept as he carried her down the hall of her childhood home to her bedroom, the one with bo
oks and toy horses and all the other signs that people had loved her—that her birth mother had loved her enough to give her up and that her parents had loved her so much they’d made little pillows so she’d never forget.
“You’re Lacy,” he told her as he stripped her clothes off and then his. “You’re Lacy and I want you.”
He repeated those two truths as he laid her out on the bed and joined his body to hers. He kissed away her tears as he buried himself in her again and again until she wasn’t weeping anymore, until she was crying out his name, until she came in his arms.
And afterward, with her body curled up against his, she slept as he stroked her hair. He knew he needed to sleep, too, but he couldn’t. She had trusted him with her deepest, most painful secret. She’d depended on him being there for her.
Trustworthy. Dependable.
All of the things he hadn’t been when he’d fathered a child. A child that would turn six in a few short days.
How was he going to tell her about Eliot?
CHAPTER NINETEEN
ALTHOUGH SHE DIDN’T expect to, Lacy slept soundly. She and Ian got up at five the next morning and worked cattle. Then they came home, showered together and ate dinner. There wasn’t a lot of talking, but that wasn’t a bad thing.
She felt okay. The day was okay. She was okay. How weird was that?
It didn’t last. That night, Ian said, “We should go through the rest of the box.”
The thought of going back into that box took everything that had been okay about the day and blew it to smithereens. “Why?” she asked suspiciously.
Ian gave her a look. “There might be something important in there. Something about your birth mother or something from your parents—it’s a pretty big box and there was more in there besides two pieces of paper.”
“I don’t...” She managed not to finish the childish statement. She didn’t want to. But she wasn’t a child. “Okay.”
So Ian went into the office and brought the box out to the dining room table and started unpacking it. It didn’t take long before he unearthed an envelope with her name on it in her mother’s handwriting.
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