by Wilde, Lori
Savannah’s heart broke all over again at the memory.
Ironically, she’d wound up a widow anyway. It seemed the men in her life were determined to leave her one way or the other.
Just like Pop.
After years of cheating on their mother, her father had abandoned the family when Savannah was seventeen. He’d disappeared a week after their mother’s breast cancer diagnosis. His leaving had been a relief, actually. A welcomed respite from her parents’ constant shouting matches.
Sitting here with him again, she was questioning her decisions. She’d made them in the heat of emotional tumult. But now? She had new decisions to make. Difficult decisions that would profoundly affect them both.
“You’re not eating, Vannah. Something wrong with the food?” Ginger asked.
“No.” Savannah stared at her untouched plate and forced herself to swallow a bite.
“It’s delicious,” Matt assured Ginger.
“Da!” Cody squealed and rubbed the drumstick across the top of his head as if agreeing with Matt.
“You are so adorable,” Ginger gushed.
Cody dropped his drumstick on the floor and promptly burst into tears.
Glad for the distraction, Savannah pushed back her chair and got to her feet. “It’s naptime,” she declared and eased Cody from his high chair.
She carried her son into the front bedroom, her heart aching, heavy with memories. She wished Matt would leave. His being here brought back the tough choices she faced. Unfortunately, she needed his help. If the Santa Gertrudis were not recovered, she’d be in big trouble.
Cody fussed as she cleaned his face and hands with a washcloth. She reached for a diaper to change him and caught movement from the corner of her eye.
Matt.
He lounged against the doorframe, his pose insouciant. His arms were clasped loosely across his chest, one knee cocked at an incidental angle. But Savannah knew beneath the casual facade, he was tense, wary. A cautious law enforcement officer.
“We need to talk,” he said.
She shrugged, and concentrated on changing Cody, but her pulse quickened. “So talk.”
“I see no reason for us to keep tiptoeing around the past.” He moved closer.
“I’m not tiptoeing,” she denied.
“We’re not confronting it either.”
She turned to face him. “Why should we? What does it matter? Things were over between us a long time ago.”
“I was hoping maybe we could be friends.”
“I don’t think that’s wise.” She picked Cody up, and clutched him to her chest. “After all, you’re investigating the theft of my cattle. Isn’t that a conflict of interest or something?”
“After the investigation is over, of course.” He edged another few steps in her direction.
“It wouldn’t work.” She gulped and stared at a bright-yellow wooden bunny painted on the nursery wall. It was time to change the nursery décor from infant to toddler. A firetruck theme? Or maybe horses. Matt would vote for the horses. Jeeze why was she thinking about what Matt would vote for?
Cody whimpered, squirming as if detecting her taut, stretched emotions.
Matt stood so near she could smell him. The familiar aroma stirred her. The scent of pure, masculine male—earthy, rich, delightful.
“I want you to know I’ve forgiven you,” he said.
“Forgiven me? I did nothing that needed forgiving.” Nothing he knew about anyway. But she wasn’t opening that can of worms. Not yet. She had to figure out if she was going to break her vow to Gary and tell Matt that Cody was his son, and if so, when and how.
Cody threw back his head and squalled, huge tears collecting at the corners of his eyes.
“Here.” Matt held out his hands. “Let me try to calm the little guy. I bet he misses his daddy.”
Daddy.
Savannah froze at the word. Did Matt suspect something? Fear tinged her voice with anger. “Don’t be ridiculous. He never even knew his father. Gary died when he was six weeks old.”
“Every boy needs a man around.”
“That’s the key word, Matt. Around. Not a man who spends his time traipsing across the state after criminals. Not a man who likes mixing it up with outlaws in gun battles. Not a man who could wind up dead at any minute.”
Matt gave her an odd look as if her reaction was totally over-the-top, which she supposed it was. “A man like Gary?”
“That’s a low blow. Gary didn’t go looking for cancer the way you court danger.”
Why was she clinging to her old excuse? Why? Because there was nothing else to cling to.
She’d used his job as a reason to end their relationship and hadn’t told him that she loved him too when he said the words to her.
Even though it was true that his dangerous job worried her, it wasn’t the real reason she’d broken up with him.
How did she begin to tell him that she’d learned the day after they’d made love, that she carried the BRCA1 gene, and unless she had a radical bilateral mastectomy and had her ovaries removed, she would most likely die young from either breast or ovarian cancer?
She refused to allow Matt to sign on for that. She knew firsthand what it was like to watch someone you love die too young from cancer.
So she’d sent him away, because if he knew the truth, Matt would never have left her side. And she refused to put him through that hell. Her rationale at the time? As much as it hurt her to let him go, he deserved a wife who could give him children. A wife who could grow old with him.
Then three weeks after Matt left town for advanced training in El Paso, during a consultation with her doctor about undergoing prophylactic surgery that would take her breasts and her ovaries, she’d discovered she was pregnant with Cody.
She folded her arms across the breasts she’d had reconstructed following the mastectomies after she’d given birth to her son. It was all still new. The last surgery was only six months ago. If it hadn’t been for Ginger, she didn’t know how she would have gotten through the previous two years filled with so much sorrow and grief.
“I’m sorry, Savvy. I was way out of line with that comment,” Matt said, snapping her back to the moment, back to the room with the three of them.
“Huh?” She blinked.
“Here, let me hold him.” Matt clapped his hands, and Cody reached for him.
Savannah sucked in her breath.
Heartbroken, she watched Matt enfold their son to his chest. At that moment, the question she’d been debating for the past two years was answered. She had to tell him the baby was his. No matter what she’d promised Gary.
But how to break the news?
He walked across the room, settled into the rocking chair, and slowly began to rock. Savannah stared, incredulous. When they were dating, Matt had never expressed any interest in children. It surprised her to see him so at ease with Cody.
Seeing her son and his father together filled Savannah with a tumble of mixed emotions—awe, tenderness, regret, so much regret.
Her bottom lip quivered. This was ridiculous. Why would the sight of the big man cuddling the small boy make her want to cry? A sharp contrast between weak and strong. The protector nurturing the defenseless. Or was it because she was watching father and son bond for the first time?
Tell him. Tell him the baby is his.
Cody’s eyelids drooped. Matt looked so comfortable, so self-assured in the role of father. Savannah turned her back on them as a single tear slid down her cheek.
Only the creaking chair disturbed the silence. Savannah fisted her hands as misery seeped through her bones. She’d made a lot of mistakes in her life, but falling in love with Matt was not one of them.
“I think he’s asleep,” Matt whispered.
“He’s been up since six.”
With slow, deliberate movements designed not to jar, Matt stood, edged to the crib, and softly laid Cody down and then changed his diaper. Cody’s eyes opened but then drooped again,
sleep claiming. Matt hesitated a moment, leaning over the crib, his gaze transfixed on the boy.
What he was thinking? Did he feel the brunt of regrets as severely as she? Did he have any inkling that the child was his?
Matt straightened and took Savannah’s elbow. “Come on,” he whispered, guiding her out into the hallway.
His grip burned her skin. Waves of heat radiated up her arm.
She twisted away from him, unable to bear the intensity of her body’s reaction to his touch. Tossing her head, she rushed through the living room and into the kitchen. Found Ginger standing in front of the sink, washing dishes by hand. The dishwasher wasn’t working, and Savannah couldn’t afford a new one.
“Julio never showed up for lunch,” her sister said. “So I saved him some chicken.”
“I have a feeling you shouldn’t have bothered,” Matt said, following close behind Savannah.
“What do you mean?” Ginger asked.
“I think Mr. Diaz has some knowledge of what happened to your cattle. My guess is he’s left the ranch.”
“Julio?” Ginger raised her eyebrows in disbelief.
“He’s probably just busy moving the herd.” Savannah refused to believe Julio was involved. “I’ll have Clem go look for him.” Anxious to distance herself from Matt, she stepped outside and waved to Clem, who was wheeling the riding lawn mower around the front yard.
When he caught sight of her, the elderly man stopped the engine. “Need something, Miss Savannah?”
“Could you check the bunkhouse, see if Julio is washing up for lunch, Clem?”
“Sure thing.”
The back door opened, and Matt joined her on the porch. “I still need Gary’s records, if you can find them for me.”
“I told you, nothing’s missing besides the cattle.”
“That’s the kicker, Savannah.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, squinting against the bright spring sunshine. A mockingbird trilled in a nearby mesquite tree. In the flower bed along the sidewalk, a row of cannas danced in the slight breeze.
“Something else should be missing.”
Savannah lifted a hand to her throat. “And you suspect Julio?”
“I suspect everyone, Savvy. It’s the nature of my job.”
She caught his cold stare. “Do you suspect me, Matt?”
“Do I have a reason to?”
“You’ll never change, will you?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Your work will always be your first loyalty.”
“That’s right,” he said, “always.”
That’s what she was afraid of. No woman could ever compete with the sheriff’s department.
Butterflies chased around the milkweed. Bees hummed in the flowers. The luscious scent of honeysuckle wafted in the air. A beautiful afternoon. But Savannah couldn’t enjoy it. The secret she kept knotted her up inside.
“You going to have Ginger’s wedding here?” he asked.
“Yes,” she answered, relieved he’d changed the subject.
He shook his head. “I can’t believe it, our little Ginger getting married.”
Our.
As if they were still together, still a couple. It was a beautiful word that stoked Savannah’s regret. “She’s twenty-one. Old enough.”
“Would it disturb you if I came to the wedding?”
“Ginger invited you. It’s her wedding.”
“You didn’t invite me to yours,” he said lightly, resting an arm on the porch railing.
Savannah closed her eyes. How she’d wanted Matt to show up and stop the wedding. Save her. To rescue her from herself. When the minister had come to the part in the ceremony about anyone knowing why these two should not be married, Savannah had dreamed Matt would ride up on a white horse and exclaim, “She can’t marry Gary. I love her!”
Of course, that stupid, girlish fantasy had been just that, a fantasy. She’d faced the hard facts. She married Gary because she’d been in trouble, and he was dying and needed someone as badly as she needed him.
Although everyone in Rascal knew Gary, she hadn’t officially met him until she’d joined a cancer support group with her mother during her last few weeks of Mom’s life. When Gary invited her out for coffee, he’d been so kind and understanding, and she’d found herself telling him about her pregnancy, and that’s when he’d offered the solution.
Marry him, and he’d give her baby a name and a heritage. The Circle B would be Cody’s one day. In exchange, Gary would get someone to nurse him through his final days. Although she’d had to promise that she would never reveal the truth that Cody wasn’t Gary’s baby. Ginger was the only one who knew.
She’d been desperate. What choice had she had?
Um, you could have told Matt the truth?
She’d almost told him. She’d found out where he was living, drove to El Paso and waited anxiously outside his apartment, trying to gather her courage. Then she’d seen him come home with a Jackie Spencer. The bartender from Kelly’s that he’d gotten shot over. He’d led Jackie into his apartment and closed the door solidly behind them. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what was going on behind closed doors.
That night, she’d gathered her resolve, vowed to keep her secret forever, and drove home to accept Gary’s proposal.
“Savannah.” His voice was low, husky. She opened her eyes and looked at him. Pure electricity surged in his gaze.
“Yes?”
“I’m so sorry.”
“It doesn’t matter.” Not now. She’d set her heart against romantic love, had settled for comfort and convenience, had gone forward with her life.
“Look.” Matt pointed at Clem.
The old ranch hand came loping across the field. “Miss Savannah! Miss Savannah!”
Savannah and Matt left the porch and met him in the middle of the yard. “What’s the matter, Clem?” she asked, but she already knew the answer.
“It’s Julio,” Clem rasped, hitching in ragged breaths. He clasped a hand to his side.
“What?” Matt demanded.
“He’s gone. Cleared out. Even took the sheets off his bunk.”
5
Matt mentally kicked himself for wasting time arguing with Savannah when he should have been tracking Julio Diaz. Why couldn’t he just forget her? There were plenty of other females eager to be with him. Why was he mooning over someone who apprently wanted nothing to do with him?
“Because you’re a sentimental fool, Forrester,” he growled and frowned at himself in the rearview mirror.
He couldn’t forget how wonderful it had felt rocking Savannah’s baby in his arms, pretending it was their child.
He had to get a grip. These daydreams would only bring heartache. Too much unresolved conflict existed between him and Savannah for them to ever have a future together.
Savannah was right about one thing, though. Being a sheriff’s detective wasn’t a career for a family man. It required too much time on the road and involved too much danger.
Yet, he loved his job. Had known it was his calling from the tender age of twelve when his family had lost their farm. The old memory floated through his mind like a whiff of acrid wood smoke. Like most peanut farmers in West Texas, his dad had mortgaged the homestead to the hilt, banking on a bumper crop of peanuts to rescue them from debt.
But that year, Matt’s grandmother died, and the whole family departed on a week-long trip to California.
They’d returned home to discover their fields stripped bare. The peanut crop had been harvested by thieves. The bank ended up foreclosed on the farm, Matt’s family ended up living with his uncle and aunt, and the crooks went free. From that day on, Matt swore revenge, if not on those particular thieves then on any others who dared to prey on the innocent, hardworking folks of Texas. And so began his journey in law enforcement, doing what he loved best—bringing the wicked to justice.
That was something Savvy just didn’t understand.
&nbs
p; Women. Once they got tangled up in a guy’s mind, they could distract the most dedicated lawman.
Still, it was no excuse.
He knew better than to let anything interfere with an investigation. He wheeled his Jeep down the highway, heading for the border and Mexico if necessary. He’d lifted Julio’s prints from the bunkhouse, run them through the computer, and discovered that Diaz was an undocumented worker from Nuevo Laredo.
And quite possibly a cattle thief.
From now on, he’d keep his head focused on his job where it belonged. The past was dead. Buried with his youthful fantasies of a wife, kids, and a loyal dog to return home to at the end of each day.
Satisfied he’d made the right decision despite the hurt ricocheting inside him, Matt trod heavily on the accelerator and sped away into the dark West Texas night.
* * *
Savannah worried.
It had been a week since Matt had left the ranch to go looking for Julio Diaz.
Where was he?
She fretted. Had something happened? Had he found Julio? A dozen possible scenarios floated through her mind, each more alarming than the one before. Why hadn’t he let her know something by now? Had he been hurt?
Or worse?
She tried texting his old phone number, but it was no longer in service, and he hadn’t given her his new one. Finally, too anxious to stand the suspense any longer, she gathered her courage and called the sheriff. The dispatcher who answered listened sympathetically but hadn’t been able to give her much information. The woman had, however, told Savannah that Matt wasn’t in Rascal.