Читать книгу Rogue's Reform - Marilyn Pappano - Страница 8

As towns went, Heartbreak, Oklahoma, wasn’t much, Grace Prescott thought as she walked briskly along the sidewalk. The buildings in what they laughingly called the business district were old and shabby. The sidewalks were cracked, the streets needed repaving, and too many of the parking spaces downtown had been empty for far too long. The ranchers and farmers for whom the town existed had always been in a tough business, and it had become even more so in recent years. Economic prosperity wasn’t even a pipe dream for the stores in town. The reality for most of them, her own included, was mere survival.

But she couldn’t think of anyplace else she’d rather be, of any other neighbors she’d rather have. In the last few months, she’d found a satisfaction in Heartbreak that she’d thought she would never know. For the first time in her life, she fit in. She had friends. She belonged.

And all it had taken was getting pregnant by a stranger and, when her father found out, a punch to the jaw. One moment of pure pleasure leading to a moment of pain, and the end result was this—freedom. Happiness. A bright future, no matter how bleak it might sometimes look.

“Hi, Grace.” Trudie Hampton greeted her as she unlocked the insurance agency door. “It’s a bit chilly this morning for your usual walk, isn’t it?”

“I’m not cold,” Grace said, though it wasn’t true. This morning’s forecast had called for a wind chill of eighteen degrees, and she was pretty sure they’d reached it. In spite of all her cold-weather gear, her reflection in the plate-glass window showed that her cheeks were ruddy. Her nose was sniffly, and her breath puffed into the air like smoke from a signal fire.

“They’re saying we’ll have snow before evening.”

“Really? I didn’t hear that.”

“Not on the radio. The old hens at the café. Bill Taylor says the creaking in his bones means there’s a snowstorm headed our way.”

“I thought it meant rain.”

“Aw, it means whatever suits the old goat’s fancy. I imagine he took one look at that cold gray sky and decided the rest on his own.” Trudie peered inside to make out the clock high on the wall. “I’d best get this place opened up, and you need to get inside before you freeze that young’un’s little toes off—to say nothing of your own toes. Have a good one.”

“I will. You, too.” As Grace walked on, she considered the truth of her statement. Lately she’d had nothing but good days. Sure, she was living on a tight budget and working longer hours at the hardware store than the doctor wanted her to. And, yes, there were still people trying none too subtly to discover the identity of her baby’s father. She had no insurance to cover the prenatal care and delivery of the baby, and no family to turn to for help. Some days she was convinced that she couldn’t possibly be a good mother, others she mourned the fact that there was no father, and too much of the time she was just plain scared by it all.

But they were still good days. Living on a budget was a piece of cake when you’d never before had a dime to call your own. Long hours at work for her own benefit was a lot different from long hours for someone else’s benefit. She had no family—her mother had fled Jed Prescott thirteen years ago, leaving Grace and Heartbreak behind—but for the first time in her life she had friends.

Also for the first time she’d found peace. She was no longer suffocating under her father’s rigid control, no longer living in fear that her most innocent action might send him into a rage. She no longer felt like an inmate in the grimmest of prisons.

She was a person with opinions to express, with value beyond the long hours she could work for free, and she felt like it.

Prescott’s Hardware, her destination, was located in the middle of the next block. All the other buildings on the block were boarded up and empty, giving her store a rather lonesome air, she thought fancifully as she unlocked the glass double doors. Inside the place smelled of metal and chemicals, with the pleasant aroma of sawn lumber drifting in faintly from the back. A serious builder would have to go to the big lumberyards and home centers in Tulsa or Oklahoma City, but Prescott’s provided everything necessary for the small jobs.

She turned on the lights, flipped the Closed sign on the door to Open, then headed for the counter back in one corner. Conscious of her tight budget, she turned the heat on only high enough to take the edge off the chill, then turned on the radio that sat on the file cabinets. Music, in the store or anywhere else in her life, had been against her father’s policy, so now that he was gone, she defiantly kept the radio playing all day and into the night. She even sang along, though her voice was rusty and always a half note off-key.

By the time she’d shed her winter garments and gotten a pot of coffee perking, the first customer had arrived. Actually, though he made regular purchases, he was more visitor than customer. Reese Barnett was the sheriff and, in some private little place deep inside, her hero. He’d been in the store the day her father had realized that she was pregnant. It was Reese who’d pulled Jed away after he’d hit her, who’d taken her to see Doc Hanson, then helped her settle in at the little house Shay Stephens had left when she’d married Easy Rafferty. It was Reese, with help from Heartbreak’s only lawyer, who had more or less intimidated her father into giving everything to her—the house and the store, though precious-little money—when he’d left town a few weeks later. He’d taken to looking in on her regularly ever since.

“I didn’t see your car in the parking lot,” he commented as he leaned one hip against the counter.

“I walked.” She watched as the last of the coffee dripped into the carafe, then poured a cup and handed it to him, her fingers brushing his, sending a tiny shiver down her spine. She could never admit it to anyone but herself, but she had a bit of a crush on Reese. It wasn’t just that he was incredibly handsome, capable and strong, though he was all three and then some. No, those weren’t necessarily qualities to admire. When her father had been Reese’s age, he’d been handsome, capable and strong, too, but none of that had stopped him from constantly abusing and tormenting his family.

She liked Reese because he was kind. Sympathetic. He genuinely cared about others. He was noble and honorable and decent. He had character, and she admired men with character.

Even though this man viewed her as a very young sister who needed looking after. Right now he was frowning in disapproval at the answer she’d given him. “You shouldn’t be walking that far.”

“It’s only one and a quarter miles each way, and Doc Hanson says walking is good exercise for pregnant women.”

“It’s too cold.”

“I dress warmly.”

“It’s supposed to snow late this afternoon. Then what will you do?”

“I’ll walk faster,” she retorted, then pointed out, “It’s not as if I’m the only one who travels that road. Someone always comes along.” That someone was often him—when it was raining or on the few other occasions this winter when it had snowed. If the snow materialized before closing time, he probably would, too.

He looked annoyed but dropped the subject. Leaning against the counter, he let his gaze slide across the room. “How’s business?”

“Steady. Up a bit over this time last year.”

“Because Jed’s not here,” he replied derisively, then belatedly glanced at her. “Sorry.”

“No need to be.” She’d been afraid of her father for as long as she could remember. Sometimes she’d felt sorry for him. Always she’d wanted to please him. But she couldn’t remember ever feeling what a daughter should feel for her father. She wasn’t sorry he’d left, or for the names he’d called her or the curses he’d heaped on her before going. She wasn’t the least bit sorry that she would probably never see him again, and she was downright grateful that her baby would never know him.

Reese drained the last of his coffee, then threw the foam cup in the trash. “I guess I’d better head to the office. Don’t walk home if it snows.”

“I won’t,” she replied, and they both knew she wouldn’t get the chance. If it was snowing, come six o’clock, he’d be parked out in the side lot. The knowledge brought her a sweet, warm feeling, along with a pang that his concern wasn’t likely to ever be anything but brotherly. She wondered idly as the door closed behind him if any man would ever feel anything but brotherly toward her.

There’d been nothing brotherly about Ethan James’s feelings.

Usually she kept the memories of that night locked away where they belonged. For weeks after her own personal Independence Day last July, she’d fantasized about her hours with him during the day and fallen asleep at night to the memory of his arms around her, his mouth on hers, his body inside hers. They’d been the sweetest dreams and had kept her going at times when she’d thought living with her father might drive her mad.

Then she’d discovered she was pregnant, a development definitely not in her plans. She hadn’t been able to take precautions herself, but she’d ensured that Ethan had each time. She’d thought she was safe, in every way, until the home pregnancy test her friend Ginger had sneaked to her had confirmed what her body had already told her.

Then Ginger had thought to mention the fact that no birth control was a hundred percent foolproof. Then, when the information couldn’t help Grace one bit.

To Ginger the pregnancy had been no big deal. Get an abortion or give the baby up for adoption—or, hey, novel idea, have it, keep it and raise it. End of crisis. Of course, Ginger hadn’t lived twenty-five years under Jed’s iron rule. She hadn’t been treated to a lifetime of warnings on the dangers and consequences of becoming a tramp like her mother. She hadn’t watched her very life drain away under his oppression until there was nothing left but a sad little mouse, afraid of everyone and everything. A pathetic creature pitied by some, unnoticed by most.

Unnoticed by Ethan James for the sixteen years they’d lived in the same town, the ten years they’d gone to the same school. With the school’s mixed grade policy, she’d sat a few seats behind him in biology, across from him in Spanish and had waited on him a time or two in the store. Once, when she’d dropped her books between classes, he’d helped her pick them up, had handed them to her with a careless “There you go,” but he had never even looked at her. He’d had eyes for practically every girl in the school, but he’d never known she existed.

One stifling hot Saturday night last summer, he’d learned…sort of. For the first and only time in her life, her father had gone out of town, leaving her on her own for a full twenty-four hours. It had taken about two heart-stopping seconds to decide what to do with her unexpected gift of freedom.

Go out. Have a drink. Meet a man. Maybe get a kiss, maybe a whole lot more.

Pretend for one night that she was a perfectly normal twenty-five-year-old woman. Experience enough of life in those few hours to sustain her in her prison for the next fifty years.

For help, she’d turned to the friend she’d made behind her father’s back at the grocery store. Thanks to Ginger’s cosmetic expertise, when she’d left the house that night, she’d looked nothing like the real Grace. She’d had rinse-out red highlights in her mousy brown hair, and long heavy curls that had corkscrewed in every direction. Tucking her glasses into her bag, she’d sacrificed seeing for looking good, but Ginger had assured her that the makeup job was flawless, making the most of her lamentably plain features. As for the clothes…she’d never worn a skirt so short or a top so tight in her life, and probably never would again.

But once had been enough. It had gotten Ethan James’s attention, and he’d finally known she existed.

As a rather mysterious redhead from someplace else named Melissa.

She’d crept out of his bed the next morning while he slept, hurried home and showered to scrub away the makeup, the curls, the fake color. The scents of sex, of a man. She’d half feared her father would look at her and know, would sniff the air when she walked by and recognize the cologne she was forbidden to wear, the aftershave she would never wear. He hadn’t.

And she hadn’t seen Ethan since. She hadn’t tried to locate him—hadn’t asked his half brother, Guthrie Harris, where he was, hadn’t told his pregnant sister-in-law Olivia that their babies would be cousins. Frankly, she wasn’t sure they would believe her. For a time the father’s identity had been a popular topic of conversation. Everyone had had theories, ranging from the truth—someone she met in a bar—to the obscene observation that her father was the only man with whom she’d spent time. No one had ever guessed Ethan. No one ever would.

It was her own little secret. And since Ethan wasn’t likely to return to Heartbreak for another several years, and would neither recognize nor remember her when he did, no one else would ever know the truth.

Which was exactly the way she wanted it.

The sky was a dull, relentless gray when Ethan passed the sign marking Heartbreak’s town limits. It was hard to believe that, night before last, he’d been in sunny, warm Florida and now he was right back where he’d started from. Back where all his troubles had begun. Where they certainly weren’t going to end.

He hadn’t needed a map to find his way back to Oklahoma. In all the endless miles he’d traveled, all the big cities and dusty towns where he’d stayed until he wore out his welcome or an impending arrest sent him on his way, he’d always known how to get back home.

At the same time, he’d never known.

He’d started running away from Heartbreak when he was barely fifteen. He was just like his father, his mother had always said with exasperated affection. Gordon James had done more than his share of rambling. In fact, he had rambled so often and so far that one time, when Ethan was ten, he’d never come back.

He was just like his father, Guthrie had always agreed, and with no affection at all. It was common knowledge that Guthrie thought his stepfather was no good, lazy and worthless. It was one of Ethan’s greatest regrets that his brother thought the same of him, and one of his greatest shames that he’d done his best to live down to Guthrie’s opinion. In fact, he’d done his father one better. He’d added crook to his litany of sins. Liar, thief, gambler, con man.

And, coming soon, father-to-be.

His fingers clenched the steering wheel spasmodically as anxiety tightened his chest. He’d always sworn he’d never bring a child into the world. He was indisputable proof that some men had no right passing on their genes to innocent babies. His father had been a loser, and he was a loser, so the odds were good that any child of his would also be a loser. Even if that wasn’t the case, any kid deserved better than him for a dad. He knew nothing about fatherhood, about responsibility or maturity or setting a good example.

He wasn’t sure he could learn. Not if he had to do it in Heartbreak, where Guthrie would be watching and judging his every move.

But he had to do something. He’d learned from his own experience that even a father who made nothing but mistakes had to be better than a father who didn’t care enough to even come around. At least he would be trying. Surely that would count for something with his kid. With Guthrie. With pretty Melissa.

Flipping the visor down, he pulled the snapshot free of the rubber band that secured it. If he knew where to look for her, he would go straight there, but the photo gave no clues. After studying it a while, he’d recognized the parking lot as belonging to the grocery store. Since it was the only one for twenty miles, that told him nothing about who she was, where she lived, where he might find her.

In their long, sweet night together, she’d told him nothing, either. It had been the perfect one-night stand.

Except for the baby.

He’d used protection—had never had sex even once in his life without a condom. His dependability on the issue was the one thing about him that Guthrie had approved of. Well, that, plus the fact that every time he’d come back to Heartbreak, he’d always left again.

Not a bad run of luck. Too bad it hadn’t held.

As he slid the photo back under the strap, the road curved and the few blocks that made up Heartbreak proper came into view ahead. He turned onto the first side street and followed a meandering back route to the dirt road that led to the Harris ranch, where they wouldn’t be happy to hear he’d come home again. Where Guthrie would be seriously dismayed that this time he intended to stay.

Provided Melissa would let him.

He’d seen the ranch just seven months ago, but it looked different as he turned in the gate and drove across the cattle guard. The house had a fresh coat of paint, and a wreath of flowers and vines hung on the front door. The flower beds had been cleaned out and mulched for winter, and the yellowed yard looked as neat and trim as it ever had when his mother was alive.

They were Olivia’s changes, Ethan knew. Guthrie had neither the time nor the energy for purely cosmetic work. He had his hands full taking care of three hundred acres of land and a couple hundred head of cattle. There’d been a time, after their mother’s death, when he’d wanted Ethan to share the responsibility with him, and Ethan had tried, he truly had, but he’d only lasted a few months. He wasn’t cut out for ranching, for working from sunrise till sunset, for pinching a penny until it squealed, for dealing with cattle and horses, droughts and floods, fluctuating market prices, luck and bad luck.

He’d sneaked away in the middle of the night to avoid seeing that look on Guthrie’s face—that long-suffering, no-surprise, Ethan-never-could-do-anything-right look. He’d wanted to avoid hearing Guthrie say, “You are just like your father,” and know it was the worst insult his brother could give.

So instead he’d faced the look and heard the insult in his dreams every night for months.

He parked beside Guthrie’s pickup and simply sat there for a time. In spite of the cold, his palms were damp and sweat beaded his forehead. He was twenty-eight years old, he thought with disgust, and scared spitless by the idea of seeing his brother. Worse, he couldn’t remember the last time he hadn’t been scared of Guthrie, scared of disappointing him. Of letting him down yet again.

He drew a frigid breath, then opened the door. He wasn’t a lonely little boy anymore. Guthrie’s approval was no longer the most important thing in his life. Belonging someplace—to someone—didn’t matter, except with his baby.

He crossed the frozen ground to the porch, then rapped on the door. He could wait until the count of ten, or maybe five, then assume that no one was home, and he could leave while telling himself that at least he’d tried—

The lock clicked, then the door swung open and his heavily pregnant sister-in-law was greeting him with a surprised smile. “Ethan! Oh, my gosh, you came! I was hoping you would, but…it’s so good to see you! Come on in. Let me get you some coffee to warm up.”

It was a warm welcome from a woman whose husband he had once ripped off. Come to think of it, in that one scam, he’d cheated both her husbands—the one who’d died and left her penniless, and the one who’d taken her in last summer and given her a place to live before falling in love with her. She had good reason to hate him. He wasn’t sure he trusted the fact that apparently she didn’t.

The welcome got warmer as soon as he closed the door behind him, when she caught him in an unexpected embrace. He held himself stiffly, well aware of what Guthrie would think if he saw his precious Olivia in his brother’s arms. When she stepped back, with relief he put some distance between them, then nervously glanced down the hall and up the stairs. “Is…he around?”

“Guthrie? No, he’s out checking the herd. We’re supposed to have snow tonight. He’s getting ready for it.” She started toward the kitchen, then turned back when she realized he wasn’t following. “I have coffee left over from breakfast, or the fixings for hot cocoa, or there’s iced tea and cold pop. Take your coat off and come on back. We’ll talk.”

He didn’t want to obey her, didn’t want to walk through the house he remembered so well but rarely with fondness. He’d lived in it for the better part of eighteen years, but it had never truly been home.

From the time he was a little kid, he’d understood without being told that the house belonged to the Harrises, not the Jameses, just as he’d understood that Vernon Harris had been twice the man Gordon James could ever hope to be. A better rancher, better neighbor, better husband, better father, and he’d turned out a son who would be all those things, too.

Better. Leaving Ethan to be not good enough.

When he finally forced himself down the hall and through the double doors into the kitchen, Olivia was bent inside the refrigerator. She came out with a carton of whipped cream and a pecan pie, then flashed him a smile. “What would you like to drink?”

“Coffee’ll be fine.”

“Sit down. Take your coat off.”

He slid out of his denim jacket and hung it on the back of a chair, then cautiously sat down. He wouldn’t get very comfortable, wasn’t sure that was even possible when Guthrie could come through the door at any minute.

She dished up two slices of pie, poured coffee and milk, then took the seat opposite him. “When did you get in?”

“This morning. I came straight here.”

She buried her pie in whipped cream, then took an extra spoonful for good measure, licking it clean with slow, savoring gestures. When she realized he was watching her, she smiled without embarrassment. “I’ve had terrible cravings lately for whipped cream. Since the rest of the family thinks my eating it on bread is yucky and gross—” she said the last words in a fair imitation of her six-year-old twins “—Mary’s been bringing over freshly baked pies every couple of days.”

“When…” He thought of the photo in the truck, of Melissa, with her stomach almost as distended as Olivia’s, and swallowed hard. “When is the baby due?”

“Next month. Elly says I’ll be as big as a heifer carrying twins before I drop this young’un.”

Elly, he remembered from the few hours he’d spent here last summer, was the older of her daughters—the tomboy, sassy and too smart for her own good. The younger daughter was Emma, sweet, quiet, demure. As different as day and night. As Guthrie and Ethan.

“What does Guthrie say?” he asked, his voice thick and hoarse.

“He says I’ve never looked more beautiful.” Her smile was broad, a bit wicked and full of womanly satisfaction. “My husband’s no fool. He knows better than to get on the wrong side of a woman who hasn’t seen her own feet in months.”

He wondered if there was anyone around to tell Melissa that she looked beautiful. He’d wondered a lot about her since getting the photograph—whether she wanted him to take responsibility for his part in creating their child. Whether she had simply wanted him to know that he was about to become a father. Whether she wanted money, or if she hoped to gain a real live, equal-partners, here-and-now father for her baby.

He wondered if she had a father just waiting for the chance to make the scoundrel who’d taken advantage of his little girl pay. If her family was helping out or if they’d been disappointed enough to turn their backs. He wondered if she even had a family, or if she was as alone in the world as he felt.

Feeling Olivia’s gaze on him, he looked up to find her watching him. “Have you seen Grace?” she asked in a quiet, just-between-us sort of tone.

“Grace?”

“Grace Prescott.” Seeing the blankness in his expression, she impatiently added, “You remember—short, slim, brown hair, thick glasses. The mother of your child. The reason you’re here.”

Melissa. So she’d lied about her name. And why shouldn’t she? New hair color, new style, new clothes and new behavior all deserved a new name, something prettier, less old-ladyish than Grace. Melissa was a hot redhead offering to fulfill wild fantasies in a bar. Grace was an old maid, waiting in vain for that first second look from a man on the prowl.

Olivia’s expression bordered on scandalized. “You didn’t even know her name?”

He didn’t offer a response. What could he say that wouldn’t reflect as badly on Melis—Grace as on him? “Grace Prescott…should I know that name, other than the obvious?”

“She’s lived here forever. You must have gone to school with her. For years her father had owned the hardware store on Main.”

The clues didn’t help him remember Grace, but Jed Prescott… Oh, hell, yeah, she had a father just waiting to make him pay, but there’d be no talk of a shotgun wedding or accepting responsibility. With a well-documented reputation of being the meanest bastard in the county, ol’ Jed would be more likely to take him out and shoot him than to allow him within a mile of his daughter again. Better to have an illegitimate grandchild than to have that worthless James boy for a son-in-law.

But once the shock passed, Olivia’s words sank in. Jed had owned the hardware store, she’d said, as if he didn’t own it now. “So…” His voice was the slightest bit unsteady. “What does old Jed think of becoming a grandfather?”

Olivia took her dishes to the sink and rinsed them before turning back. “I don’t imagine he thinks too highly of it, since he left town as soon as he found out and hasn’t been heard from since.” She folded her arms, resting her hands on her stomach. “Don’t you have any questions to ask about her?”

Only about a thousand, but he’d rather get the answers to most of them from Grace herself. “Why did she ask you to tell me? Why didn’t you just give her my address and let her write?”

She looked as if she wanted to fidget, but she didn’t. “She didn’t exactly ask me to tell you.”

The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end, and his palms got sweaty again. “What exactly did she ask you to do?”

“Exactly? Um…nothing. You see, she hasn’t told anyone who the father of her baby is, but—but she always gets this guilty little look whenever your name comes up, and Shay noticed it, too, and we got to counting, and…it seemed likely, so…”

“So you brought me halfway across the country on the off chance that I could be the father of her baby.”

“We figured if there wasn’t a chance, if that photograph of her meant nothing, then you wouldn’t come. But you did come, because it is possible, isn’t it?”

Oh, it was more than possible. It was damn near guaranteed…for whatever it was worth. He’d come back thinking that Melissa wanted him here when the truth was that Grace didn’t have a clue that he was even in the state. She’d known for seven months that if she wanted to find him, Guthrie and Olivia were the place to start, but she’d never told them anything. She’d kept her involvement with him a deep, dark secret. Because she was ashamed of it? Because she didn’t want him around? Or because she didn’t want her child to bear the burden of having him for a father?

Probably all of the above. And he couldn’t even blame her. If he had a bad reputation, he had no one to blame but himself. When his name was a burden that even he didn’t want, how could he blame her for not wanting it for her baby?

It would be better all around if he just climbed back into his truck and left the state again. He could head out west, or maybe go south into Mexico, and this time he could stay gone long enough that no one would ever connect his name to Grace’s, not even remotely.

But he knew without considering it that he couldn’t do it, not without seeing Grace first. If she didn’t want him around, if she truly thought that the best thing he could do for his kid was disappear, then he would do so. He would feel like a bastard, but he’d do it.

And if she thought the best thing he could do was stay here, make a respectable name for himself and pass it on to the kid? He’d do that, too. At least, he would try.

And he would ignore the fact that almost everything he tried failed. He’d give himself maybe thirty-seventy odds of succeeding.

If he was a gambling man.