Her Cowboy Inheritance
Page 20
“Carly, I was sorry to hear about your husband.”
She spun around. “How did you know about that?”
“Your dad told me.”
“How did he know? I never told him.”
A deep frown creased Mack’s forehead. “Why wouldn’t you tell your father that your husband died?”
“A better question might be why would he care?”
“What? Carly, how can you—”
She hurried down the stairs and made her way quickly to the backyard. The fragrant spring air filled her lungs with the familiar scent of water and earth and pine. Giggles floating on the air from the swing set made her smile. It was so good to hear her daughter laugh again. She knew how hard and unfeeling her words sounded to others, but they didn’t understand. Her father was the one who’d destroyed everything. She swallowed the old hurt, and smiled at Ella and Lucy on the swing.
“Hello, girls. Are you having fun?”
Ella grinned and dragged her toes on the ground to slow the swing. “This is the best swing ever. It goes really high.”
“Mr. Wade built it a long time ago.” Lucy made the announcement with a very serious tone.
“I know. He built it for me when I was your age.”
“Who’s Mr. Wade?”
Ella’s question nearly brought Carly to her knees. In her animosity toward her father, she had totally forgotten that he was Ella’s grandpa, too. “Mr. Wade was my daddy.” She had some explaining to do. Coming back here was going to be much harder than she’d ever dreamed. “Ella, why don’t you come inside for a moment and I’ll show you which room we’re in. Then you can come back out and play with Lucy.”
“Okay.”
Lucy followed them inside.
“Mommy, can we stay here for a long time? I like it.”
Even her own daughter was falling under the spell of the lodge. Carly’s heart wrenched. “We’ll see, honey. I don’t know yet how long we’ll be here.”
“I hope it’s a whole week because I want to play more with Lucy.”
She’d never felt so outnumbered. Everyone but her wanted her to stay at Longleaf. Why couldn’t they understand that the memories were too painful, the betrayal too deep.
This place had torn her family apart.
She could never live here again.
Copyright © 2019 by Lorraine Beatty
ISBN-13: 9781488042652
Her Cowboy Inheritance
Copyright © 2019 by Danica Favorite
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