The broken engagement had changed her life in so many ways…most not very flattering. She’d remained in Dallas but had withdrawn from her classes, which had put her a semester behind in graduating. For months she’d refused to come home, unable to bear the thought of possibly bumping into Wade and his new wife. She’d let that fear control her actions for years, making only brief visits home to see her parents and, while there, refusing to step so much as a foot outside their house.
And she’d allowed the breakup to affect more than just her family life. For more than a year she had refused to go out on any of the dates her friends set up for her. And when she had finally begun dating again, she’d kept a firm grip on her emotions, her feelings, determined to never let a man hurt her again.
But the most regrettable fallout from their breakup was holding on to her anger with Wade and never forgiving him for hurting her. In the days immediately following their breakup she’d refused to see him or talk to him. It was easy enough to do. She’d simply monitored her phone calls and deleted the messages he’d left on her answering machine without listening to them, tore up the letters he’d sent without ever opening them.
She dropped her chin in shame as she realized the domino effect her stubbornness and bitterness had had on the people she loved most—as well as many whose lives she’d touched only briefly. By stubbornly refusing to visit her parents more often, she had foolishly robbed herself of precious time she could have spent with them. And by not granting Wade her forgiveness, she’d thought she could punish him, and all but reveled in the guilt she knew he carried.
She didn’t deserve his love, she told herself miserably. He’d tried so many times to tell her he was sorry, begged her repeatedly for her forgiveness. Yet in spite of her spitefulness, when he’d found her crying over her father’s letters, he’d comforted her. Offered her his ear, as well as his shoulder to cry on, when he’d insisted upon being with her when she read the letters that remained.
And what had she given him in return? she asked herself. Had she given him her forgiveness when he’d admitted making a mistake? Offered him her understanding when he’d shared with her his past? Her acceptance when he’d asked her to share his life with him and his daughter?
No, she thought, shaking her head sadly. She’d used his mistake like a battering ram to beat him with. Remained silent, horrified even, as he’d confessed to a past that still shamed him. And she’d refused his proposal to share his life with him, insisting that she needed time to come to grips with her resentment toward his daughter.
She’d promised she’d be his friend, told him that she loved him. But how could a woman who professed those things turn her back on a man when he most needed her understanding and her love?
She rose, the letter she’d been reading falling to the floor, forgotten. She had to talk to him, she told herself and hurried for the door. See him. Tell him that his past didn’t matter. Grant him the full forgiveness that she’d selfishly withheld. And she would deal with her conflicting feelings for his daughter, she told herself as she climbed into her car. Perhaps even help him see that Meghan needed his discipline as much as she needed his love.
It didn’t occur to Stephanie that Wade’s ex-wife might still be at his house until she pulled to a stop and saw the strange car parked on the drive. For a moment she was tempted to turn around and return home. She didn’t want to meet his ex, doubted she could look the woman in the face without wanting to claw her eyes out.
But she couldn’t let another moment pass without sharing her heart with Wade. Stiffening her resolve, she climbed out.
In spite of the lateness of the hour, a light burned in the kitchen window. Hoping not to disturb the entire household, she walked around back. At the door she hesitated a moment, then squared her shoulders and knocked.
She jumped, startled, when the door was immediately snatched open and a woman appeared in the space. Backlit by the overhead light in the kitchen, the woman’s face was shadowed, but Stephanie had a feeling she was confronting Wade’s ex-wife for the first time.
Gulping, she asked uneasily, “Is Wade here?”
“Who wants to know?”
Stephanie set her jaw at the woman’s hostile tone. “Stephanie Calloway. I’m a neighbor.”
The woman gave her a slow look up and down, then stepped back and shouted, “Wade! That snotty little bitch from next door is here to see you.”
Stephanie stared, while shock and anger fought for dominance of her emotions. Managing to push both back, she jutted her chin and strode inside.
Wade’s ex had moved to the sink and was standing with her hips braced against its edge, her lips pursed in a smirk. Bone-thin, she wore a shockingly short denim skirt and a low-cut tank top. Her breasts—obviously silicone-enhanced—were as large as grapefruits and looked totally out of proportion to her emaciated frame.
“Didn’t your mother teach you any manners?” the woman snapped, making Stephanie jump. “It’s rude to stare.”
Her cheeks flaming, Stephanie tore her gaze away. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
“Steph?”
She spun to find Wade standing in the doorway that opened from the kitchen to the den. She sagged her shoulders, almost weak with relief at seeing him. “I’m sorry to barge in like this. I had no idea you had—”
The woman quickly shifted in front of Stephanie, blocking her view of Wade.
“Well, well, well,” she said as she folded her arms across her chest and gave Stephanie another slow look up and down. “Looks like I’ve screwed up your plans.” She lifted a brow plucked pencil-thin and added pointedly, “Again.”
“That’s enough, Angela,” Wade warned.
She kept her gaze on Stephanie and smiled. “Oh, I don’t think so. In fact, I haven’t even gotten started good yet. I’ve wanted to give this lady a piece of mind for years.”
“Angela,” he warned again and took a step toward her.
“What’s wrong, sugar?” Though her eyes were fixed on Stephanie, her question was directed at Wade. “Afraid I’ll say something you don’t want Miss Goody Two-shoes to hear?”
Wade lunged and caught Angela’s elbow, whirled her around. “I said enough, Angela,” he said, then released her and pointed a stiff finger at the hall and the stairs beyond. “Now go upstairs before you make me do something we’ll both regret.”
She shoved her face within inches of his. “You can’t tell me what to do. Not anymore. I followed your orders for six long years, while you tried to shape me into what you considered the perfect wife. Well, guess what, Wade?” She opened her arms wide. “I’m not perfect and I never was. Not even while I was pretending to be the Stepford wife you wanted me to be. While you were off working, I’d drop Meghan off at day care and drive to Austin and have me a good ol’ time. Those college boys really know how to party. All the booze and drugs I wanted, and all they expected from me in return was a piece of my ass.”
He grabbed for her again, but she ducked to the side, managing to dodge him. “I like drugs and the way they make me feel,” she said, then smiled and dragged a fingernail down between her breasts. “And I like sleeping with a different man every night, especially one who isn’t grieving over some old flame.”
“I’m warning you, Angela,” Wade said, his face red with rage, “either you shut up or I’ll fix it so you’ll never see our daughter again.”
“Our daughter?” she repeated, then dropped her head back and laughed, the sound so evil it sent a shiver chasing down Stephanie’s spine.
“Meghan isn’t your daughter,” she said. “I just told you that so you’d have to marry me. You thought you could just up and leave me in Houston, taking all your money with you.” She snorted a laugh. “Well, I showed you, didn’t I? You and Miss Goody Two-shoes here had your future all planned out, but I messed things up for you good, didn’t I, when I showed up in town pregnant out to here.”
Wade grabbed her again, and this time Angela was too slow
to dodge him. He all but dragged her from the room and to the stairs, with her kicking and cursing him every step of the way.
Stephanie stood as if her feet had rooted to the floor, sickened by the ugly scene she’d just witnessed, the infidelities Angela had confessed to. She remained there, a hand pressed to her stomach, forcing herself to take slow, deep breaths until the nausea slowly faded and only one statement remained to circle in her mind.
Meghan isn’t your daughter.
She closed her eyes, hearing again the vindictiveness in Angela’s voice, envisioning the hate it had carved into her features as she’d hurled the confession like a knife to pierce Wade’s heart.
Wade, she thought, and her gaze went instinctively to the stairs, wondering if it was true that he wasn’t Meghan’s father. Angela might only have said that to hurt him. To punish him for the injustices she felt she’d suffered at his hand.
As she continued to stare at the spot where she’d last seen him, Wade appeared on the stairway, his steps slow, his shoulders stooped as if he was burdened beneath the weight of the world. She started toward him, then stopped and wrung her hands at her waist, unsure what to say to him, what to do.
“Wade?” she said hesitantly.
He glanced her way, held her gaze a moment, then continued down the stairs.
She watched, her breath burning a hole in her chest as he reached the end and turned toward her.
“I’m sorry you had to listen to all that. You didn’t deserve to hear any of what she said.”
She shook her head, unable to push a word past the emotion that clotted her throat. Catching his hands, desperate for that contact, she gave them a reassuring squeeze. “It’s not your fault. I should’ve called first. It never even occurred to me that she might still be here. I was so anxious to see you, talk to you, I didn’t think about anything else. When you didn’t come by at noon, I went outside and found the box of letters on the porch. When I saw it, I knew it meant you didn’t want to see me, that you probably wouldn’t be coming by anymore.”
Tears filled her eyes, and she stubbornly blinked them back.
“But it wasn’t until earlier this evening, after I’d read one of my dad’s letters, that I realized it was all my fault. I let you leave last night without telling you how I feel. I should have told you then that your past doesn’t matter to me, that I love you with all my heart and that I want to marry you.”
Throughout her speech, he had listened quietly, his gaze steady on hers. And now that she was done, had said everything that was in her heart, and he still said nothing, she felt a moment’s unease.
“Wade?” she asked hesitantly. “Is something wrong?”
“You didn’t mention Meghan. When I asked you to marry me, you said you needed time, that you didn’t think you could live in my house with her there as a constant reminder of the past.”
“Yes, I did say that, but that’s not a problem anymore.”
“Why? Because Angela said that Meghan isn’t mine?”
Numbed by the chill in his voice, the steely gleam in his eye, she shook her head. “Well, no. Of course not. I—”
Pulling his hands from hers, he took a step back. “What Angela said was true…to a point. Until the day Meghan was born, I did think she was mine. But when the nurse told me that Meghan weighed only four pounds and was considered a preemie, I knew that Angela had lied and was trying to stick me with another man’s child.
“But here’s a news flash for you, Steph,” he continued. “It didn’t matter. Not to me. Not then, and it sure as hell doesn’t now. From the moment that doctor put Meghan in my arms she was mine. There was no way I was going to walk away from that baby and leave her with Angela to raise. I knew what kind of person Angela was, how she lived. And I knew that was the kind of life Meghan would have if I walked out on her. That’s why when I divorced Angela I fought so hard for custody of Meghan.”
Shaking his head, he took another step back, putting even more distance between him and Stephanie. “But it was more than Angela’s lifestyle that made me want to keep Meghan with me. I love that girl as if she were my own. And because I love her, I would never marry a woman who didn’t love her as much I do, who wasn’t willing to put Meghan’s happiness above her own. That’s what parents do, Steph. They love their children unconditionally. Even when that child is not their own flesh and blood.”
He turned and walked away.
Stephanie made the short drive home, her eyes fixed on the road ahead, her hands gripped tightly around the steering wheel. The tears were there in her throat, behind her eyes, yet she couldn’t cry. She needed to. Oh, God, how she needed to.
She’d lost him. She’d allowed her resentment and bitterness to cost her a second chance to be with the one man she’d ever loved.
She didn’t deserve to cry, she told herself. Didn’t deserve the release it offered, the emptying of all emotion. She’d let him down. The man who had freely and generously offered to share everything he cherished most in the world—his heart, his daughter, his home—she’d let him down when he’d needed her most.
She understood now why he’d become so angry with her for referring to Bud by his given name rather than her usual “Dad,” and for what he considered her careless disregard of Bud’s favorite possessions. He was bound to have seen himself in Bud, as they’d both raised daughters that weren’t their own, and he’d probably feared that someday Meghan might find her real father and transfer her affection and allegiance to him, as Wade had thought Stephanie had transferred hers to her biological father.
Wade was wrong, though. Stephanie’s determination to get to know her real father in no way changed how she felt about Bud. He was the only father she had ever known. He’d raised her, cared for her, loved her, and she would always love him. He was her father in every way but blood, and nothing would ever change that.
But she’d never have the chance to tell Wade that. She’d let him down, and now he was gone from her life forever.
For two days Stephanie packed like a wild woman, managing to accomplish more in that short space of time than she had in the entire previous week. Twice she saw Wade drive by the house on his way to check on the cattle, and though she watched from the window, praying with all her heart that he would stop, he passed by without so much as glancing toward the house. Each time, her heart would sink a little lower in her chest, and she would resume her packing, more determined than ever to finish the job and return to Dallas, putting as much distance as possible between her and the memories that haunted her.
On the third day, with most of the packing complete, she placed a call to Bud’s attorney and scheduled an appointment for that afternoon, then phoned a moving company and made arrangements to have the items she planned to save picked up on Friday and hauled to a storage facility in Dallas.
As she walked through the house on her way to her bedroom to shower and dress for her appointment with the attorney, an indescribable sadness slipped over her. The walls she passed were blank, save for the occasional rectangle of brighter paint where a picture had once hung. Boxes and furniture lined the walls and segmented the rooms, creating walkways that led from one room to the other. By Friday afternoon the house would be completely empty, listed for sale, and within a few short months, according to the Realtor she’d spoken to, a new owner would be moving in.
At the doorway to her bedroom she stopped and looked back down the hall, her heart breaking a little at the thought of another family living in the house she’d considered home for most of her life. Closing her eyes, she could almost hear the sounds that had once filled the house. The slam of the back door and Bud’s voice as he called his standard greeting of, “When’s dinner? I’m starving.” The bark of the dog that always followed him in. Her mother fussing, “Wipe your feet, Bud Calloway! I just mopped that floor.” The whir of the box fan that Bud kept aimed at his recliner in the summer months to keep him cool. The steady ticktock, ticktock of the clock that had sat on the fireplac
e mantel for more years than Stephanie could remember. Bud’s soft call of, “’Night, Stephie,” as he passed by her door on the way to his room.
Dragging an arm across the moisture that filled her eyes, she turned into her bedroom.
Stephanie settled in the chair opposite the lawyer’s desk and offered Mr. Banks, Bud’s attorney, a smile. “I appreciate you making time for me on such short notice.”
He waved away her thanks. “No problem. I know you’re anxious to get back to your own home and your work.”
Stephanie released a long breath. “Yes, I am.”
Getting down to business, Banks shuffled through the papers on his desk, then passed Stephanie a sheaf of papers he pulled from the stack. “A copy of Bud’s will,” he explained, then settled back in his chair, holding his own copy before him. “Most of this is standard language and the bequeaths what you’d expect, so I’ll only bring to your attention the things I think might overly concern you or that you might question the validity of.”
Stephanie looked at him curiously. “Why would I question anything? I’m familiar with Bud’s wishes. He gave me a copy of his will shortly after Mom passed away.”
Mr. Banks averted his gaze. “Well, uh—” He cleared his throat. “Well, you see, uh, Bud made a few changes.”
A chill of premonition chased down Stephanie’s spine. “What kind of changes?”
He flapped a hand, indicating the papers she held. “If you’ll turn to page six, paragraph three.” While she flipped pages, looking for the spot mentioned, he went on to explain, “As Bud’s only child, you inherit everything. All stocks, bonds, insurance policies, the house and all its contents.” He paused to clear his throat, then added, “But Bud left the land to Wade Parker.”
Stunned, Stephanie could only stare. “He left the ranch to Wade?”
His expression grim, Banks nodded. “I know you must be shocked to learn this and I regret that it’s my duty to deliver the news. I tried to get Bud to talk to you about it before he made the change, but he refused. Said he couldn’t.”
A Piece of Texas Trilogy Page 12