Daddy's Little Cowgirl

by Charlotte Maclay

  “People who haven’t done anything wrong shouldn’t have to pay.” He took a big bite of his sandwich, then picked up a fry.

  She wasn’t very hungry but tried a nibble of her sandwich. “That’s a noble sentiment but perhaps it’s past time for being noble.”

  “Let’s give Hutch a few more days to figure out what’s going on.”

  “And run up an even bigger bill in attorney fees? Without me working, how are we ever going to pay him?”

  “We’ll manage.”

  A burst of laughter came from a nearby table, and Ann leaned forward. “I don’t want you to sell any more cattle. Or your land.”

  His lips twitched ever so slightly. “Look who’s being bossy. You went and got a loan on your house when I said no.”

  “That was different. You needed the money. A hundred dollars would cover—”

  “We’ll wait”

  “And if your adoption petition is turned down because your wife has a criminal record?”

  His eyes narrowed. “It won’t be.”

  Ann suspected his confidence was misplaced but her heart warmed at the way he was being so supportive of her. Most men who had arranged a marriage of convenience of this sort would surely walk away now. An annulment would be easy at this early stage—so easy she couldn’t bring herself to voice the thought.

  Apparently he had a thought he wasn’t afraid to voice. “This mess started when you married me and your father saw to it my loan was called. Do you think there’s a possibility that your father—”

  “No! My father wouldn’t do anything that would send me to jail.” In spite of her denial, she wondered just how angry her father still was. She hadn’t seen him since she’d announced her marriage to Reed, and she’d been afraid to ask her mother too many questions. But he was a man who had never liked being crossed. “He wouldn’t,” she reiterated, but less vehemently this time.

  Back at the ranch, Arnold rounded the corner of the house as soon as he heard the truck approaching. His whole back end wagged its welcome as he escorted them the last hundred feet home.

  Ann’s mother was playing with Bets on the front porch. She had the baby in a new stroller and Bets was contentedly gazing at the fascinating world around her. The promise of an early summer was in the warmth of the air along with the lingering scent of spring wildflowers.

  “Hello, children,” Eleanor called, waving as they got out of the truck. “I hope everything went well with the attorney.”

  Ann shrugged. “Not exactly.”

  Taking the steps two at a time, Reed reached the porch and knelt in front of his daughter. “Hey, sweet pea, how’s daddy’s little cowgirl? Miss your old man?”

  In response, the baby waved her arms and happily gurgled her recognition. A bubble of milk formed on her lips, then popped, startling Bets.

  Reed laughed, a low, masculine sound filled with love and caring.

  Ann met her mother’s gaze, and she saw the depth of tenderness in her eyes that matched her own. How could a woman not love a man like Reed?

  “Where’d the stroller come from?” he asked.

  “Oh, I was visiting with Mavis Caldwell last evening. She and I are in the same bridge club, you know. Have been for years. She keeps this stroller around for when her grandchildren visit and said I could borrow it for Bets.”

  He eyed her suspiciously. “You’re doing too much for Bets, Mrs. Forrester. I don’t want you to spoil her.”

  “Pshaw, young man. What’s a grandmother for? And it’s only borrowed.”

  He didn’t look entirely satisfied with the answer. “I’ll get her the stuff she needs. It’ll just take a little time,” he said, his pride and need for independence showing. Or maybe it was a reminder to Ann that she and her mother had no part of his long—term plans for either himself or his child.

  “I know that, dear.” Eleanor fussed with fringe around the stroller’s sunshade. Her usually pristine blouse was streaked with a line of baby spit—up, which seemed not to concern her at all. “Oh, a certified letter came a bit ago. The mail carrier had me sign for it. It’s from the county.”

  Reed’s head snapped up. “From adoptions?”

  “Well, now, I don’t really know. It was for Ann…”

  “For me?”

  “I put it on the kitchen table, dear.”

  Curious, Ann went inside. She tossed her purse on the table and picked up the envelope. The address read Ann Forrester Drummond, a.k.a. Jodie Sutherland.

  “What on earth?” Until today she’d never heard of Jodie Sutherland, and with each passing moment she was less and less thrilled that their paths had ever crossed.

  She ripped the envelope open. With increasing shock and dismay, she read the contents. Dear God! The world had gone totally crazy!

  Letter in hand, she marched back out onto the porch. “Reed!”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m being sued by the county welfare department for fraudulently accepting benefits for myself and my dependent son.”

  Both Reed and her mother stared at Ann.

  “I don’t get it,” he said.

  “What son?” her mother asked.

  “Apparently they have me confused with this Jodie Sutherland woman.” Seething, she handed Reed the letter. “According to the welfare department, since I, Ann Forrester Drummond, am gainfully employed producing more than a poverty—level income, I’m not eligible for aid to dependent children, even though they think I have a nonexistent minor child, whom I’ve never heard of. My filing a claim under an assumed name is fraud and they’re threatening to file charges if I don’t reimburse the county four thousand dollars.”

  She slammed her fist against the porch railing. “Damn that woman! If I ever get my hands on her, I swear, I’m going to kill her.”

  “I don’t understand, dear. What are you saying?”

  Reed jammed the letter back in the envelope. “She’s saying her life has turned into a mess unless she was adopted as a baby and has an identical twin floating around out there somewhere, with practically identical fingerprints.”

  Eleanor Forrester gasped and went deathly pale.

  “Mother?” Ann went to her.

  “I’m all right.” Eleanor waved her away.

  “Mrs. Forrester, if you know something about this mess your daughter is in, you’ve got to tell her. She could go to jail if you don’t.”

  “Oh, my…” Her hand flew to her throat, and she looked around frantically and her complexion went from pale to bright red.

  “Sit down, Mother.” Ann helped her to the wooden bench that was on the porch. “Reed, get her a glass of water. Please.”

  “She knows something.”

  “Go.” Ann settled down next to her mother, holding her hand and soothing her, but on the inside Ann’s emotions were churning. She couldn’t imagine why her mother had reacted so strongly to the suggestion that she’d been adopted. Or that there might be a twin.

  Reed returned with a glass of water.

  Eleanor drank half of it and handed it to Ann. “You’re my daughter, you know.”

  “Yes, Mom, I know.”

  “And Richard’s, too. I know he can be demanding and overbearing sometimes, but he has always loved you so much. You know that, don’t you, dear?”

  “Of course I do.” As a child, she’d been Daddy’s little angel. Never once had she doubted or questioned her parents’ love. And only once had she rebelled at the restrictions they’d imposed.

  Her mother sobbed a tiny sound. “We kept putting off telling you…”

  “Telling me what?”

  “And then it seemed, well, too late.”

  “It’s not too late now, Mother.”

  Eleanor reached up to stroke her daughter’s cheek. “You were such a pretty baby and I loved you so much. I still do. I couldn’t have loved you any more if you had come from my own body.”

  Ann’s world, a world that had so recently begun to spin out of control, took another wild revolu
tion. The mental gyration made Ann feel sick to her stomach. “Are you saying I’m adopted?”

  Reed’s hand gently closed over her shoulder in a touch that was meant to reassure. Ann was too stunned by her mother’s revelation to respond to anything beyond the startling news that she might not be her parents’ biological child.

  Eleanor, tears in her eyes, nodded. “After a while, it didn’t seem like we’d have to tell you. You were our little baby. Nobody else’s. Can you understand that?”

  Ann could barely accept she’d been lied to all of her life, much less understand it. It was as if she’d been standing on a trapdoor all these years and finally someone had released the latch. She was falling, she couldn’t catch her breath, and she hadn’t hit bottom yet.

  “Mrs. Forrester, do you know if Ann was a twin?”

  Eleanor blinked up at him. “Oh, dear, no. If she had been, we would have happily taken both babies. I’d always wanted a big family and so had Richard. We never would have separated her from a sister or brother.”

  Giving Ann’s shoulder another reassuring squeeze, Reed thought the more likely possibility was a sister—an identical twin. Ann’s current problems would make a kind of twisted sense if that was the case. He was a logical man and that would provide a logical explanation, if he could prove there was a twin. Better yet, if he could find her.

  “Mrs. Forrester, did you adopt Ann through a state agency, or was it a private adoption?”

  “We used an attorney in San Luis Obispo. The mother was a local girl, I’m sure. Though we didn’t meet her, you understand. She was young, you see, and had gotten herself into trouble with a boy who ran with a wild crowd. From a good family, the attorney assured us.”

  “Yes, I’m sure.” As Reed tried to learn the facts of Ann’s adoption, he noted Ann had gone mute. She was barely breathing. He could only imagine the shock she’d experienced and wondered how she’d deal with the news.

  What he needed to do now was get as much information as he could from Eleanor Forrester about Ann’s adoption, and then figure out how to track down Jodie Sutherland, who had to be Ann’s twin, assuming that was her real name. Meanwhile, he had to help Ann come to terms with the blow she’d received. He suspected the latter task might, in the long run, be the most difficult. Children could handle almost anything except their parents lying to them.

  Grimly, he swore he would never lie to Betsabout anything.

  “JASON’S HERE,” Ann announced, her voice devoid of emotion. She was standing at the window gazing outside, her arms wrapped around herself. She’d barely spoken at all since her mother had left a half hour ago after putting Bets down for a nap. Reed didn’t know what to say, how to help. Or even how to get through to her.

  “I’ll send him home,” he said.

  “No. He needs you.”

  “What about you?”

  She gave a weary shake of her head. “I think right now I need to be alone.”

  He reached up to stroke her hair, to lift the golden—brown strands behind her shoulder, but then withdrew his hand. “We’ll talk later, okay?”

  She shrugged. “There isn’t much to say.”

  Feeling helpless, he jammed his hands into his pockets. “Nothing’s really changed, you know.”

  Looking up at him, she said, “Not changed? How can you say that? I don’t even know who I am anymore.”

  “You’re still the same person—”

  “Please, Reed.” There was a desperate plea in the depths of her emerald eyes, and a lot of pain. “Go do whatever you need to with Jason. I’ll listen for Bets.”

  He didn’t want to argue with her. He also didn’t want to leave her when she looked on the verge of losing it. Indecisive, he glanced toward where the kid had dropped his bike and was looking for him in the barn.

  “Go,” she whispered, ordering him out. “I’ll be fine.”

  Snatching up his hat from the coffee table, he said, “I’ll fix sandwiches for dinner. You just…take it easy, okay?”

  She didn’t acknowledge his suggestion as he went out the front door. The way she was acting, she probably didn’t care if she ate at all. Reed guessed he could understand that. But it made him feel damn impotent that he couldn’t do anything to help her.

  “Come on, let’s get some shingles up onto the roof,” he said to Jason.

  The boy tipped his head back to look at the roof and swallowed hard. “Five bucks an hour, right?”

  “You have to earn it, not just talk about it.”

  With grudging enthusiasm, the kid helped Reed secure a bundle of shingles to a rope, which Reed hauled up to the roof. When they’d finished the second bundle, Reed said, “You want to muck out Fiero’s stall or help me nail these suckers in place?”

  “Some choice,” the boy muttered.

  But he followed Reed up the ladder, as Reed knew he would, and hunkered down beside him. It looked like he had some idea how to handle a hammer so Reed showed him how to lay the shingles by overlapping them.

  “Is what they say about Ms. Forrester true?” Jason asked after a while.

  “What are they saying?”

  “That she’s gonna go to jail.”

  “Nope. She hasn’t done anything wrong.”

  The boy hit his thumb with the hammer and swore. “I told ‘em they were full of it. I had to knock Buddy Jenkins in the teeth to get him to shut up.”

  Edging down the roof line, Reed swallowed a smile. The kid was probably half in love with Ann himself. “You’re not supposed to fight. You’ll get in trouble with Dunlap.”

  “It don’t matter.”

  “Yeah, it does. I’ll cut your wages.”

  “Hey, man! That’s not fair.”

  “Then don’t get yourself into a fight.”

  Jason didn’t seem happy with the threat, but Reed suspected the kid would think twice before using his fists the next time. That seemed like a step in the right direction. He figured Ann knew what she was talking about. The kid needed the firm hand of a decent father to keep him on track. Too bad he didn’t have one.

  “You remember your ol’ man?” Reed asked, duckwalking to lay down the next shingle.

  “Naw. He took off before I was born. Mom said he was a real loser.”

  “So why’d she hook up with him?”

  The kid shrugged. “She always did that, pick losers, I mean. There was always some guy around.”

  “It must have been hard, living like that.”

  “Some of ‘em were okay.”

  From the words Jason left out, Reed suspected some of them beat the hell out of the kid. Not an unusual situation, he supposed. But Jason deserved better—deserved better than a temporary foster home, too. But Reed couldn’t change that.

  They worked their way along the roof, Reed doubling back so his line of shingles didn’t get too far ahead of Jason’s.

  “So how come you married Ms. Forrester?”

  Reed cut the boy a look. His questions were getting a little too personal. “Why do you think?”

  The adolescent grin he got in return deserved to be wiped off with Reed’s fist. But that wouldn’t exactly set a good example for the boy, particularly after the lecture he’d just given him about not fighting.

  And in truth, Reed was no longer entirely sure why he’d married Ann. He’d told himself it had been to ensure he’d get to adopt Betina. That Ann was the sexiest woman he’d ever known—and more than willing to sleep with him—was a bonus.

  But with all of this business of her arrest, and now learning that she’d been adopted, he’d been feeling protective of her. Possessive. Entirely too much so.

  Their arrangement was a temporary one. That’s all she’d agreed to. He couldn’t count on more than that. If he had any sense, he wouldn’t even want to. That way he wasn’t likely to care when she walked out the door.

  Everyone else he’d cared about had done just that.

  AS HE’D EXPECTED, Ann barely touched her sandwich. Not that bologna was her favo
rite gourmet meal, he supposed. But she hadn’t shown any interest in feeding Bets, either, or playing with her. The shock of her mother’s revelations had turned Ann into a zombie, and Reed didn’t know what to do.

  By the time he cleaned up the kitchen and got Bets settled for the night, Ann had already gone to bed. He showered and got into bed beside her, pulling her over to spoon against him. With a force of will, he kept his libido in check. It wasn’t easy. Whenever he touched sweet sugar—Annie, he wanted her. Those few nights when he’d denied himself the pleasure of her body had been a purgatory he wouldn’t like to repeat. At the same time he knew that not having her would be his eventual fate.

  Tonight, though, he needed to make her talk. Shocking her out of her lethargy seemed a reasonable way to start. Not that he’d read many books on psychology. This time he’d simply have to wing it.

  “So I guess you’re going to sue your folks, huh?”

  Chapter Eleven

  Ann’s eyes flew open. She’d been playing possum, not wanting to deal with Reed or even think about what an unbelievable day this had been.

  “Why on earth would I want to do that?” she asked.

  “Well, they lied to you, didn’t they?”

  “Not because they wanted to hurt me.”

  “You mean they love you?”

  “Of course. I’ve never once doubted—” Twisting around, she glared at him. He’d left the light on in the bathroom and it sliced across the bed, leaving his features in dark silhouette. What little control she’d maintained all afternoon threatened to shatter when she realized what he was trying to do. “You don’t have to try to make me feel better.”

  “I wouldn’t think of it. Just commenting, is all.”

  The hell he was. He was trying to get her to look at things objectively. She couldn’t do that. Not yet. The ache in her chest was too painful, the weight of what her parents had done too heavy. “I feel so betrayed,” she cried. “Why didn’t they tell me?”

  “Because they love you.” He echoed her earlier words, and in whatever context, she knew they were true. But that didn’t seem to ease the ache.

  “What would have been so awful if they’d told me the truth?”