“How long were you planning on keeping this secret from me?” he snapped, jamming his hands into the pockets of his fleece-lined jeans jacket to keep from punching the air in frustration. “I can’t believe you kept my own son from me, Carolina. How could you?”
“I never meant to hurt you.”
The fire in his chest burned even hotter. How could she even consider suggesting that her motives were altruistic? Did she really think that leaving him without sharing the knowledge that she was carrying his baby wouldn’t wound him?
He scoffed. “Of course not. You somehow thought I’d be better off not knowing that I have a son.”
“W-W-Wyatt?”
Wyatt turned. He’d somehow forgotten—again—that Johnny was still at his side.
The boy pushed his hair off his forehead. Wyatt could see how agitated Johnny was, clenching and unclenching his fists in a silent, steady rhythm. The poor kid looked like he was about to jump out of his skin.
It struck Wyatt suddenly that he was the cause. Johnny was ultrasensitive and was picking up on the tension between him and Carolina. Wyatt took a deep breath and let it out slowly. No sense upsetting the young man. There was enough anger and grief in this scenario without involving the boy.
He clapped a hand on Johnny’s shoulder. “Don’t worry. It’s all good. Carolina and I just have a few...issues to work out between us.”
He pointed to the herd of goats, who were now grazing their way through another field. “Do you think you could finish vaccinating the goats?”
Wyatt nodded toward the clipboard, which contained the list of the names of all the goats. He’d dropped the clipboard in the grass earlier, when he’d had his hands full teaching the group of boys how to give a goat a subcutaneous vaccine.
“I think there are four or five of them we haven’t vaccinated yet. Do you remember how to do it?”
“Y-y-yes, sir,” replied Johnny, looking relieved to have a reason to avoid being around the strained reunion between Wyatt and Carolina.
Wyatt returned his attention to Carolina and Matty, who was now wiggling and squirming in his mother’s arms, pumping his chunky arms and legs in an awkward rhythm. He clearly wanted to get down, but Carolina refused, clutching the child like a lifeline.
Wyatt clenched his fists. Had his heated response affected Matty as it had Johnny?
With every ounce of his self-control, Wyatt pressed his anger—along with all of his other barely containable and ignitable emotions—to the back of his mind and heart and firmly boarded them in.
He had to get past the fact that Carolina had abruptly sprung fatherhood on him. All that mattered was taking care of Matty. His needs would always come first, no matter what.
Wyatt was going to be there for his son, and that started right now.
“Can I—” he fumbled, but his voice was husky. He cleared his throat. “May I hold him?”
“Of course.” Carolina sounded surprised that he would ask—as if she hadn’t expected him to step up to the plate.
What was she thinking? That he would deny the truth that was right in front of his eyes? Or maybe it was the opposite—that she feared he was going to step in and take over.
Now that was a thought.
He held out his arms to Matty, feeling suddenly large and ungainly. Abruptly shy, Matty tucked his head into his mother’s shoulder and curled closer to her.
Wyatt’s heart plummeted and he dropped his hands to his sides, wiping his sweaty palms against the denim of his blue jeans.
Strike one.
“Wyatt, wait.” Carolina held up her hand to him, gesturing for him to come closer. Then to Matty, she said, “Son, this is—” She stopped abruptly, her eyes widening in dismay as it met Wyatt’s. “Um—this is Mr. Wyatt. He’s a very nice man. Don’t you want to say hello to him?”
Mr. Wyatt. Not Father. Not Daddy.
Talk about disheartening. But then, what did he expect from his first encounter with his son? That the years apart didn’t matter? That Matty didn’t know him from a stranger?
He was a stranger to his son.
He stuffed the anger down as quickly as it rose, afraid Matty would be able to sense it.
At least this time, when Wyatt reached for him, Matty stretched out his little arms and wrapped them tightly around Wyatt’s neck.
Wyatt struggled to swallow, and not because Matty was cutting off his air. It just felt so new. So strange.
And yet somehow, so right.
Matty still sported the chunky arms and legs and chubby cheeks of toddlerhood, so Wyatt was surprised by how light the boy was. Wasn’t he getting enough to eat?
“Where are you staying?” he asked as he mentally adjusted to the feel of Matty in his arms. He wasn’t accustomed to holding children of any age. He was much more comfortable around the animals he vetted. He was only just getting used to teaching the kids at the boys ranch, and there wasn’t much physical contact between them, other than the occasional encouraging pat on the back.
And all of the sudden he had a two-year-old son?
“We’re lodging at my great-uncle’s cabin for now,” Carolina answered. An emotion Wyatt couldn’t interpret flashed across her face.
For now.
What did that mean? That she wasn’t planning to stick around?
Surely not. She couldn’t be so coldhearted as to just waltz into town, inform Wyatt that he had a son and then disappear again.
Could she?
He didn’t have the opportunity to clarify, because at that moment Bea Brewster approached, saying she’d managed to round up Gabe Everett, who was the president of the local chapter of the Lone Star Cowboy League, and attorney Harold Haverman, who was representing the Culpepper estate. They were awaiting Carolina’s presence in Bea’s office.
Carolina reached for Matty, and Wyatt reluctantly handed him back to her. Right when he was starting to adjust to the feel of Matty’s chubby little body in his arms, the boy had been taken from him. Wyatt desperately craved more time. Much more.
He started to follow Carolina to Bea’s office but then paused. If Gabe and a lawyer were involved in the meeting, it wasn’t exactly his business to invite himself. Though he didn’t know any of the details, he assumed the gathering had something to do with the terms of Cyrus Culpepper’s will and the town’s ability to retain the new boys ranch facility.
Before Carolina went anywhere, though, Wyatt intended to tell her where he stood in regard to fatherhood—in regard to Matty. He wanted to make sure his feelings on the matter were perfectly clear.
He just needed the opportunity, which would be difficult when Carolina was deep in conversation with Bea.
“You are welcome to join us, Wyatt,” Bea offered, casting a grin at him.
Wyatt agreed right away, partially because he volunteered at the boys ranch and thus had some vested interest in the legal matters that would be presented, but mostly because he was determined to find the opportunity to speak to Carolina once the meeting was adjourned.
As they walked back toward Bea’s office, Wyatt gave Bea an apologetic smile and snagged Carolina’s elbow, urging her aside for a moment. He bent his head to whisper close to her ear so the others wouldn’t hear.
Her eyes met his, large and unblinking. He’d forgotten the way those pretty golden-brown eyes, rimmed with thick, dark lashes, used to do a number on him.
Well, not this time. He ignored the tightening of his throat and the way his gut flipped over.
“We’re not finished here,” he warned.
“No. I didn’t think we were.” Her gaze broke away from his and she sighed deeply.
“Just so I know we’re on the same page.” His voice was low and huskier than usual.
The same page?
They weren’t even
in the same bookstore. The three previous years spanned behind them like a dilapidated rope bridge, and an enormous, gaping breach lay before them. From his vantage point, it seemed like an impossible chasm to cross.
But he had to try.
For his son.
For Matty.
* * *
Carolina felt very much like she’d just escaped a firing squad, if only temporarily.
How had she not planned for this contingency? Why had it not occurred to her that, free from the burden she and Matty would have been for him, Wyatt would not have taken the very first plane out of the country?
But she hadn’t, and Wyatt was here in Haven, and she didn’t know what she was going to do about it.
She didn’t even know what her options were.
Maybe she should just take care of this legal matter and leave Haven behind her, this time for good.
Except, she reminded herself, she had nowhere else to go. No family. No friends outside Haven other than her ex-roommate and work acquaintances. Nothing.
She’d been living in Colorado since she’d left Haven, working as a nurse at a senior center and hospice. She was surviving, if not thriving, as a single mother. She’d found the Lord, and God was faithfully seeing her through, one deliberate step at a time.
But then, in a matter of weeks, her life had completely upended and fallen apart. She’d taken a bad turn on a ski slope and trashed her knee, which had required major surgery and months of physical therapy. And then her great-uncle Mort had passed away.
Between her hospital stay and recovery, combined with her doctor permanently banning her from lifting more than fifty pounds, her entire life had quickly fallen apart at the seams. Lifting fifty pounds—sometimes much more when patients slipped and fell—was required for a first responder in a nursing home, and the senior center had simply let her go, which was a nice, polite way of saying she was fired.
And then, to top it all off, her roommate, who had been Matty’s primary caretaker while Carolina was in the hospital, had eloped with her boyfriend, leaving Carolina on her own without the means to cover her month-to-month rent on her apartment and nobody available to watch her son while she looked for work.
It was a catch-22 to put all others to shame.
It had frightened her beyond measure that there was a very real possibility that she and Matty might end up living in a homeless shelter. She might have grown up in the country with a single mother, where there was sometimes little left over, but there had always been a roof over her head and enough food to go around.
Now it was her responsibility to make sure Matty had the same security.
Somehow.
As devastated as she’d been about Uncle Mort’s passing, when she discovered he had willed her his cabin in Haven, it had been an answer to her prayer. Owning his cabin free and clear, she would be able to live rent-free—at least until she got back on her feet and was more financially stable. Then she could make more permanent decisions about their future.
The letter from Haven’s Lone Star Cowboy League arrived soon after, when she was packing up her apartment to make the move, and she felt as if the Lord was validating and confirming her plans. After the frightening time when it had felt like her whole life was going down the drain, life suddenly appeared to be on an uptick. She thought maybe everything might be turning around, falling into place for her and Matty.
And they had been.
Until she’d run smack-dab into Wyatt. Now she was wondering if her life had just taken the biggest downturn of all.
“Carolina,” Bea said, her voice breaking sharply into Carolina’s thoughts. With effort, she turned her attention to Bea. “First, we would all like to express our appreciation for your rapid response to our letter.” Bea took a seat behind her desk and clasped her hands in front of her, her expression unusually grim. “And we appreciate the fact that you’ve taken the time out of your busy schedule to come see us.”
Carolina bit the inside of her lip. If only Bea knew. Her schedule was, unfortunately, wide-open.
“We were concerned when we never heard directly from Morton,” Bea continued politely.
Bea was a tall middle-aged woman with bobbed brown hair and dark eyes set off by horn-rimmed glasses. She definitely looked the part of the capable boys ranch director—which was the position she’d maintained for approximately the last twenty years. Her sensible jeans and well-worn boots attested to her proficiency.
Carolina was acquainted with Gabe, a muscular, dark-haired man with friendly blue eyes. He’d been a couple of years ahead of her in school. She assumed that the imposing silver-haired man who popped his leather briefcase open on the corner of Bea’s desk was Harold Haverman, the lawyer representing the Culpepper estate.
Even though Wyatt hung back, leaning his broad shoulder against the door frame instead of fully entering the office, Carolina felt his presence so deeply that it filled the entire room.
Or maybe it was her own tension burdening her. Sadly, she did not come bearing good news.
Wyatt moved out of the doorway in order for Katie to enter.
“Did you want me to take care of Matty while y’all are talking?” she asked with a friendly smile.
“I would appreciate that,” said Carolina, relieved not to have to worry about her loud, wiggly toddler while she worked out some of her other issues. It was going to be hard enough to get through these next few minutes without having a curious little boy trying to get into everything that wasn’t tied down. “Thank you so much.”
Katie held out her hand to Matty and he took it without a fuss.
“Not a problem,” Katie replied brightly before turning her attention to Matty. “As I recall, we never quite made it to the stable earlier. What do you say, Matty? Do you want to come with me and see some real live horsies?”
Matty squealed in delight and everyone chuckled along with him, even Carolina. The little boy’s laughter was definitely contagious.
But as soon as Katie and Matty left the room, the heaviness Carolina had earlier felt in the air reappeared. Everyone instantly became serious as all attention turned to the legal matter at hand.
Carolina let out a deep, shaky breath. No matter how many times she had rehearsed it in her head, she still couldn’t say the words without trembling.
“I’m sorry I don’t have better news for you. The reason you never heard from my uncle Mort is that—that is—” She cleared her throat and hiccuped a breath, struggling to finish her statement. “Unfortunately, my great-uncle passed away a month ago.”
A widower, Morton had remarried at the age of seventy-five and moved in with his new wife’s family in Amarillo, leaving his cabin in Haven unoccupied for a couple of years.
Compassion filled Bea’s eyes. “Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that, my dear. We didn’t know. My deepest condolences.”
Carolina’s throat grew tight and tears burned the backs of her eyes. She’d known coming into the meeting that this was going to be difficult for her to talk about, with her own grief still so fresh, but with all the added emotions brought on by encountering Wyatt, her sorrow was almost more than she could bear.
“Thank you,” she scraped out, tears making a slow line down her cheeks. “He died in his sleep. His wife said it was peaceful. I—m-miss him,” she stammered.
“Of course you do,” said Bea. “Poor darling.”
The office suddenly felt twenty degrees warmer and all the oxygen seemed to have been sucked out of the room. Her head spun and she clutched her throat, wavering.
Carolina blinked rapidly, trying to regain her equilibrium, but it felt as if she were in a narrow tunnel and darkness was edging out the light.
She gasped for breath and held out her arm, grateful when she felt a stabilizing hand at the small of her back. It was only when he pres
sed a handkerchief into her hand that she realized it was Wyatt by her side, silently urging her into the only other chair in the room.
She couldn’t speak or even compose a smile, but she nodded her appreciation.
His eyes widened and his worried frown hardened to rigid planes, his dark eyebrows dropping low and his lips pressing into a firm, straight line. His eyes appeared almost as black as his hair.
Her heart took a wild ride, leaping into her throat and then plunging back down again to lodge uncomfortably in her sour stomach.
Three years hadn’t changed Wyatt. Not where it really counted. He was ever the gentleman, even when it went against his own better judgment. He’d taken care of her even when he was beyond furious with her, which he had every right to be. After all that had been said and done, no matter what had happened between them, he hadn’t let her fall.
The attorney cleared his throat. “I don’t want to sound insensitive here, but we need to address the issue of the will and Morton’s part in it. Cyrus specifically indicated that all four original members of the boys ranch had to be present at the seventieth-anniversary party or the land will be forfeited.”
Gabe frowned and tapped his Stetson against his thigh. “This new development certainly throws another wrench in our plans.”
Another wrench? Carolina wondered what other complications they’d already encountered, but she was still too shaken up to be able to formulate any questions.
Bea steepled her fingers under her chin, clearly deep in thought. “So what do we do now, Harold? Can you tell us if Cyrus considered any such contingencies, or should we just call a halt to this whole investigation? We’ve already put so much effort into finding the original men that it would be a real shame if we have to end it so abruptly. Frankly, I’m terrified that we may have jumped the gun in taking on twelve extra boys, no matter how desperate the need may have been. I don’t know what we’re going to do if we have to give up this ranch after all we’ve done to expand the program. It just breaks my heart to even think about it.”
Harold riffled through the files in his briefcase, at length removing one that contained several manila envelopes. He flipped through them and withdrew one near the bottom.
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