Czytaj książkę: «The Cowboy's Big Family Tree»

Chapter One

I don’t know if you were ever informed or not, Logan, but your biological father was not Haywood Grainger. I know this because I am your biological father. I cannot bear to leave this world without making sure you know the truth...

As much as Logan Grainger had tried to put the stranger’s letter out of his mind since receiving it three months ago, the deathbed confession crept into his head all the time. During early morning chores in the barn as he cleaned horse stalls and laid out fresh hay. When he woke up his three-year-old nephews for breakfast, their uncle Logan all they had in the world. As he rode acres of fence, wondering how much longer he could ignore the truth. The supposed truth. After all, Logan hadn’t tried to verify the man’s claims.

Because he couldn’t deal with it. And because everything pointed to it being true. Logan was six foot two. His father was five foot eight, his mother a petite four eleven. His parents were both blond. Logan’s hair was dark. At least he knew where his blue eye color came from: his mother, even if neither of his parents shared his Clint Eastwood squint.

When people used to marvel at how Logan looked so little like his parents or his younger brother, his mother would quickly say, Oh, he’s a Grainger through and through.

Except according to a letter from one Clyde T. Parsons, Logan was the result of a brief romance between him and Logan’s mother, before his mother married his dad. Clyde had gotten her in the family way, then freaked out and walked out on her, leaving her alone and pregnant in a small town. Had Haywood Grainger known his mother was pregnant when he married her? Had he known their firstborn son wasn’t his?

If he had, his father hadn’t shown it.

I am your father. I am your father. I am your father.

Those damned words from Parsons’s letter circled around his head all the time. He’d feel it hard in his gut about himself—who am I? Who the heck is Clyde Parsons? And then he’d look at his boys, the sweet, innocent orphaned nephews he was raising, and he’d feel it harder about them and what it meant.

Was he even their uncle? If Parsons was telling the truth and Logan wasn’t a Grainger, were Harry and Henry even really his? No matter what, you’re still your mother’s son, he reminded himself for the millionth time since getting that letter. So if Parsons is your biological father, you’re your brother’s half sibling. Which makes you the twins’ half uncle.

Screw that, he thought. There was nothing half about his relationship with his nephews.

“Watch, Uncle Logan!” Henry, the older twin by one minute, twelve seconds, called out, knocking Logan from his thoughts. The little boy raced across the barn and flung himself into a pile of hay.

Next to the small evergreen set up in a corner near the door, Harry was twirling himself in red tinsel meant for the tree, then followed his brother in a running leap for the haystack.

Logan closed his eyes for a moment—never a good idea with three-year-olds running amok—and put down the box of ornaments he’d found in the attic. They’re yours, he assured himself again, opening his eyes to see the boys pulling hay out of their thick blond hair. A whole bunch of legal paperwork said so. When Logan’s brother, Seth, and his wife, Mandy, died in a private plane crash last spring, Logan had been named legal guardian of his nephews. Mandy had no family and all Seth had was a wild older brother who lived and breathed for the rodeo circuit.

But when Logan had gotten the news about Seth’s death nine months ago, he’d quit the rodeo, quit the road, quit it all, and had come home to Blue Gulch. He’d picked up where Seth had left off, on the ranch his brother had fought so hard to hang on to. Logan had put a good chunk of his considerable savings into the place over the last nine months and he was proud of the strong, healthy herd, the new barn and the new roof on the farmhouse. The Grainger Ranch was the boys’ legacy and Logan would not only keep it going, but build it into something grand for them. In the meantime, though, he’d ensure the twins a good Christmas—their first without their parents. Today was the last day of November, the day he’d promised Harry and Henry they could finally decorate the barn tree for the horses.

“Uncle Logan, can I put a snowflake on Lulu’s door?” Harry asked, pulling a tattered, folded origami snowflake that he’d made in preschool that morning from his pocket. He pointed at the mare’s stall.

“Sure can,” Logan said.

Henry raced over, his little body covered in hay. He pulled out his own tattered snowflake and Logan helped them tape them up on the low wall of the stall.

“Do the horses know Christmas is coming?” Harry asked, his big pale brown eyes so like his father’s.

Logan scooped up one boy in each arm, balancing each against a hip. “Do you think so?”

“Yes,” Harry said.

“Me too,” Henry added, those same big brown eyes full of surety.

Logan smiled. “I think so too. Let’s go into the house and have that ice cream I promised you,” he added, giving each a kiss and setting them down. “We’ll finish decorating the barn tree tomorrow.”

“Can Clementine come help?” Henry asked.

“I miss her,” Harry said.

Clementine Hurley’s pretty face flashed into his mind, her long, silky dark hair always caught in a ponytail, her big hazel eyes with all those lashes, the way she filled out a white T-shirt and jeans.

He let her image linger for a second, then forced it away.

“No, guys,” he said gently, knowing how much they liked their former babysitter.

He’d never forget the last time she sat for the boys, back in August. He’d come into the house, done for the day, looking forward to seeing the twins and her, but the boys had fallen asleep on the couch as she’d read them a story so she’d been waiting for him to come in to bring them up to bed. He did, tucking them in, regretful that he hadn’t been able to say good-night. When he came back down, all Clementine had done was ask him how things had gone with the calf he’d been keeping an eye on, and all of a sudden he kissed her. Just tilted up her chin with his hand and leaned forward and kissed her. She’d kissed him back too. Hard.

He’d stepped back, unsure if he wanted to start something with Clementine after the debacle he’d been through on the rodeo circuit with Bethany, aka The Liar. Bethany Appleton had cost him his trust in himself, his reputation and his livelihood, though for a month he’d been a hot ticket, folks coming out in droves to see the Handcuff Cowboy in the ring. That bullcrud aside, the night he’d kissed Clementine, he’d only had the twins for a few months and wanted to focus on them and getting the ranch in order, not on romance.

She’d seemed to sense his unease and had said, “Oh, I ran into the mailman outside and he gave me your mail.” She’d scooped up the pile from the coffee table.

He wanted to stall so he’d glanced at the stack of mail, all bills he’d take care of. But one was from a name he didn’t recognize, a Tuckerville, Texas, return address.

“I should open this,” he’d said, needing a minute to think about the kiss. Did he really want to start down this road again? Pre-Bethany, he’d been open to love and marriage and all that warm and fuzzy stuff he observed from a distance at holidays and birthday celebrations with his brother’s family. Post-Bethany, he was cynical and wary about what ugliness might be hidden inside pretty packages. With Clementine eyeing him, he’d pretended great interest in opening the letter, fully expecting it to be nothing, junk mail even.

But it was from Clyde T. Parsons with a damned bombshell.

The color must have drained from his face and his expression must have been grim because Clementine had rushed over to him and asked if everything was okay.

“No,” he’d said. “It’s not. I need you to go.”

He was surprised, to this day, that her expression had registered. Hurt. Confusion. But it had. He’d just been too shocked to try to fix it, soften it. She’d nodded, then went to the door and looked back at him, his gaze on the letter, reading it again and a third time. He felt her eyes on him, but he hadn’t looked up; he’d just turned away and she’d left, the door clicking shut behind her.

And then all thought of Clementine Hurley, of anything, went out of his mind.

His entire life had been a lie. He wasn’t a Grainger. He wasn’t his father’s son. People he’d loved had lied to him.

And a stranger, a man claiming to be his biological father, had told him the damned truth.

If it was the truth, Logan thought now, holding out a hand to each nephew. But why would the man lie? Deathbed confessions didn’t work that way. People told the truth to settle stuff inside them, to make things right, to go in peace, to get into heaven.

As each little nephew slipped a tiny, trusting hand into his, Logan felt that same burn in his gut. Who the hell am I?

And was he going to ignore the letter as he’d done the past three months? Not follow up? Not confirm whether it was true? He thought about the little gold key that had been in the envelope and the next to last paragraph of Parsons’s letter.

I’ve never had much money, but every week since you were born until you turned eighteen I put money away for you, child support, I suppose, in a PO box at the post office in Tuckerville where I live. Eighteen years times fifty two weeks adds up, but I have no idea how much is in there. Some weeks I had five bucks to put in, some weeks fifty if there was overtime. But I never skipped a week, not once. I want you to know that.

Logan didn’t want to know that. He didn’t want to know any of it.

The next day, he’d told Clementine he wouldn’t be needing her to sit for him anymore. And then he’d shut her out. He’d shut out everyone, not that there were so many people in his life these days. His parents had been gone almost ten years and Logan had always been one to keep to himself.

There had been a warm outpouring of support for him in those early months after he’d come home to raise the boys. Clementine, who he’d known only as the startlingly pretty waitress at Hurley’s Homestyle Kitchen, where he’d liked to have lunch as often as possible, had come by the house to pay her respects with a heap of food in containers with reheating instructions and enough homemade pies to last him a year. He’d ignored his attraction to Clementine and took her up on her offer to babysit whenever he needed. And there she’d been, in his house, and they’d gotten to know each other some, Logan leaving out all that had happened that final month on the rodeo circuit. Clementine Hurley had been through quite a bit herself, and he’d been so drawn to her that keeping himself from kissing her had taken restraint he didn’t know he had. Until he’d been unable to stop himself and kissed her.

That was finished now. Logan’s universe was his nephews, the land, the livestock and anyone connected to the twins, like their preschool teacher and pediatrician, the nice children’s librarian at the public library and Miss Karen, the grandmotherly sitter he’d hired to replace Clementine. Some small talk with those people, and Logan could go back to necessary isolation, to finding a space he could exist between trying to make sense of the letter and forgetting it entirely. After Bethany, then losing his brother and then the letter, Logan was done, just plain done. He wanted as much distance between himself and the rest of the world as possible.

And the rest of the world at this point was really just one person: Clementine Hurley. She made him want things he was trying so hard not to want, not to think about or care about. He thought people couldn’t be trusted before he’d gotten Parsons’s letter? Logan had had no idea that the truth of your existence, how you came about in the world, who shared your blood, your DNA, could be just wiped clean. That your own parents, your good, kind, hardworking parents, could withhold something so vital, so fundamental.

That you weren’t who you always thought you were. Sometimes late at night, when Logan would try to wrap his mind around what burned him most, that seemed to be it.

“I wish Clementine could come help us decorate the tree,” Henry said. “I like Miss Karen, but I like Clementine better.”

“Me too,” Harry said.

Logan sighed inwardly, hating that he was depriving the boys of someone who meant so much to them. And with so much loss in their young lives, he’d taken her away from them and it wasn’t fair. The twins hadn’t seen Clementine since a few days after he’d fired her when Henry had gotten lost in the woods for a very scary half hour and Clementine had been part of the search party. They’d lit up at the sight of her and asked about her often.

Wait a minute. He stopped in his tracks and pulled a folded-up flyer from his back pocket. He’d almost forgotten.

Children of Blue Gulch, ages 2–17! Come try out for the Children’s Christmas Spectacular. Blue Gulch Town Hall. 3:30–5:30. Auditions held Wednesday and Thursday. Director: Clementine Hurley...

He glanced at his watch. It was Thursday and 5:25. If he hurried, he might just make it. His boys could be in the show and have their time with Clementine off Logan’s turf.

“Hey, guys,” Logan said on the way out of the barn. “Remember when I asked last week if you two want to be in the town Christmas show? Would you like to audition tonight? You have to sing ‘Jingle Bells.’”

He’d taught them the song the past week, ever since the flyers had gone up. But they couldn’t remember anything past “Jingle Bells” and sometimes the words way and sleigh. Heck, they were only three.

“Jingle bells, jingle—” Henry started, then scrunched up his face.

“Uncle Logan, what comes after jingle the second time?” Harry asked.

Logan smiled. Clementine had her work cut out for her. But he wouldn’t have to deal with her in his house, in his living room, in his kitchen or fantasize about her being in his bedroom. Three times a week for a few weeks, he’d drop off the twins at the Blue Gulch town hall, pick them up and that would be that. The kiss was a thing of the past.

When you didn’t know who the hell you were, when your trust in the people who’d been closest to you had been obliterated, how could you open up your life to someone? You couldn’t.

* * *

Clementine Hurley listened to the little girl sing the first stanza of “Jingle Bells,” her heart about to burst. Emma was just five years old and she’d stumbled over the words bob tails ring as almost every kid Clementine “auditioned” had.

Emma hung her head, her eyes filling with tears and she stopped singing.

Clementine rushed up to the stage in the community room of the town hall. “Hey,” she soothed. “You were doing great! Bob tails ring doesn’t exactly flow off the tongue.”

“But I don’t get to be in the show, right?” Emma said, her blue eyes teary. “I messed up.”

“You do get to be in the show,” Clementine assured her. “Every kid who tries out for the Blue Gulch Children’s Christmas Spectacular gets a part. Every single one,” she added, touching a finger to Emma’s nose.

Emma’s face brightened. “Can I try the song again?”

“Sure can,” Clementine said, smiling. She headed back to her seat, a folding chair a few feet from the stage.

She glanced at the short line of kids still waiting to audition. Between yesterday and today, Clementine had listened to over thirty kids sing the first two stanzas of “Jingle Bells.” Five kids left and then she could start organizing the holiday show into parts. The woman who usually directed the kids’ show had become a full-time caregiver for her ailing mother and had no time for extras. She’d asked Clementine, known around town for being an ace babysitter and great with kids of all ages, to step in and she had, without hesitation. Clementine had accepted for a few reasons. Now twenty-five years old, Clementine herself had been in the town’s children’s Christmas show since she was old enough to remember, so not only was she familiar with how the show worked, it was a nice way for her to give back to the community. And anything that would keep her mind off Logan Grainger was a good thing. The holiday show would keep her very, very busy.

Too busy to think of a very handsome rancher with thick dark hair, blue eyes that made her forget what day it was and a kindness with the young nephews he was raising that had once made her cry. She’d fallen hard for Logan Grainger, so hard and so deeply, and when he’d finally, finally, finally kissed her, she’d almost melted in a puddle on the floor. She’d felt a joy inside her in that moment that she’d never before felt. And then fifteen seconds later, it was all over. All over. The kiss. The hope. The maybe. Her job as his sitter.

All she knew was that he’d gotten a letter that had changed something. He’d gone from the usual Logan, albeit one who finally kissed her after a few months of very clear chemistry between them, to closed off. She’d tried many times to talk to him, to get him to talk to her, to tell her what was going on, to let her back in. But he wouldn’t. That was three months ago.

“With a bellbell bell and a—” Emma sang, the tears starting again.

Aww. The first two stanzas of “Jingle Bells” were a lot to remember for little kids. “I have an idea,” Clementine said, standing up and going back over to the stage. “Let’s sing it together, then you’ll try it one more time.”

Clementine knelt down and took Emma’s hand. “And a one and a two and a... Dashing through the snow, in a one-horse open sleigh, o’er the fields we go, laughing all the way, bells on bob tails ring, making spirits bright, what fun it is to ride and sing, a sleighing song tonight. Oh, jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way, oh what fun it is to ride in a one-horse open sleigh.”

Clementine held up her hand, palm out. “High five, kiddo. You did it! Now you try again, just you.”

Emma sang the bob tails ring part just right that time, then ran over to Clementine’s assistant for the show, Louisa Perkins, who also happened to be the foster mother at the group home where Emma lived. All six foster children had auditioned. Just as Clementine had when she was a foster kid in Blue Gulch before Charlaine and Clinton Hurley had taken her in and then adopted her. Clementine admired Louisa, amazed the woman gave so much of her time. Clementine had been in a few foster homes, one decent, two not so good, and it warmed her heart to know Louisa and her husband were wonderful parents to kids who needed them.

Clementine sat back down in her chair and called up the next child to audition.

“...bells on bob tails ring...” the ten-year-old sang without a hitch.

Clementine breathed a sigh of relief. The holiday show would have ten songs and a short play, an original about the founding of Blue Gulch on Christmas Eve back in 1885. The town’s residents loved the annual show, even if everyone had seen it a thousand times over the past twenty-five years, ever since a beloved drama teacher from the high school had written the play and started the town tradition. Clementine had a few big parts to fill for some of the speaking roles and she’d just found her Lila-Mae.

“Bells on bobcats ring,” the next boy sang, and Clementine had to smile. It had been long day and it was going to be a long night, but she adored kids and come the show on Christmas Eve, these kids would be singing bob tails ring just right. Or not, she knew. Perfect lyrics didn’t matter to Clementine. It was all about trying, about effort, about showing up and wanting to be part of something special. That was what Clementine wanted to teach these kids.

As the boy continued to bungle the song, Clementine’s heart went out to him.

“Jingle bells, Batman smells, Robin laid an egg,” the boy sang, then burst into anxious giggles.

“Sillybones,” Clementine said, tsking a finger at him. But she laughed too. “From the top, young man.”

He smiled and nodded and sang it again, even getting bob tails ring right.

Three more auditions later, and Clementine was finished. She had the dinner shift at Hurley’s Homestyle Kitchen ahead of her, then needed to work on the Creole sauce that she was perfecting and afterward she could look forward to an hour-long soak in a hot bath. It was Thursday, and every day this week she’d spent an hour at the foster home working with the kids to learn the song, then had done her waitressing shifts at Hurley’s, then babysat all over town for infants and toddlers and small and big kids. Clementine had a twofold reason for all the babysitting. She was on her way to fulfilling a dream she’d had since she was a teenager, since the Hurley family had taken her in from that not-so-great foster care situation. Clementine was working toward becoming a foster mother herself. She’d gone to the many meetings, done the thirty-five hours and then some of training, gotten additional training in medicines and CPR and first aid, and completed the home study with her supportive grandmother at her side.

Soon, a child—whether an infant, a toddler, a little kid, a tween or teen—would come to live with Clementine in the home she shared with her grandmother, the apricot Victorian on Blue Gulch Street that also housed their fifty-year-old restaurant, Hurley’s Homestyle Kitchen. She’d shower that child with the love and care she’d been provided when her parents had taken her in. She was hoping that her final paperwork would be signed off very soon so that she could be matched with a girl or boy before Christmas. Oh, did she want to give her foster child a very special Christmas.

The other reason Clementine babysat so much was because she was trying to earn extra money to surprise her grandmother with a Christmas present—an outdoor dining section in her beloved garden. And she had just enough to ask her friend, a female contractor, to start work on the project right after the busy holidays. Hurley’s was doing a lot better than it had been just six months ago, especially thanks to her sister Annabel’s generous husband, West. But Essie Hurley, who’d opened the restaurant in her home as a newlywed fifty years ago, refused to take any more of West’s money now that Hurley’s was making a small profit. All Essie wanted was to stay open, pay her bills, make payroll and have some left over for an emergency fund. Clementine couldn’t wait till she could tell Essie about her present. When Clementine’s parents had died in a car crash when Clementine was thirteen, Essie had taken in her three orphaned granddaughters, and as always, she’d made Clementine feel like an equal part of the family as she had from the moment she’d met Clementine at age eight. Clementine wanted to do something special for her gram.

Finally, the community room was empty and Clementine packed up her folder of lyric sheets and slid it in her tote bag. She glanced around the room, suddenly feeling very much alone. Last summer, when Logan had broken her heart by shutting her out, her sisters, both older and wiser than Clementine, had advised her to fill her life with what she loved doing. So she had, volunteering at the foster home, working toward the foster parent requirements, babysitting, helping her family in the kitchen between her shifts and now directing the town’s children’s play. But still, when she was alone, like right now, she still felt a strange emptiness, something inside her was still raw. Heartbreak? Longing?

“Uh-oh, boys, I think we’re too late.”

There was no mistaking the voice that came from outside the door to the community room. Logan Grainger. He’d been avoiding her for three months, keeping his head down in town, and he hadn’t come into Hurley’s for takeout once since he’d fired her. The man loved Hurley’s po’boys and barbecue burgers and had a weakness for spicy sweet potato fries. That he hadn’t stepped foot in Hurley’s Homestyle Kitchen in three months was a clunk over the head of reality: he really wanted nothing to do with her anymore. He was here for the boys, she knew. Whether because they missed her or because he knew they’d love being in the holiday show or both.

He appeared in the doorway, all six feet plus of him, his handsome face showing no emotion. He tipped his dark brown Stetson at her. “Looks like you’re packing up,” he said. “We’re too late?”

“We can’t dishen?” Henry said, poking his blond head in and looking up at his uncle. He turned his attention to Clementine. “Hi, Clementine!”

Clementine smiled at the twins. “Hi, Henry. It’s so nice to see you. Hi, Harry. And of course you can both audition.”

“You’re one of the only people who can tell the boys apart,” Logan said. “And thank you. I’d hate if they missed out because of me. We got so busy decorating the tree in the barn and when I remembered the audition, I drove them into town as fast as I could without speeding.”

What happened back in August? she wanted to shout. Why did you shut me out? She tried not to look at Logan, but his blue eyes drew her, as did the way his thick dark hair brushed the collar of his brown leather jacket. How could she still be so in love with a man who wanted nothing to do with her?

“No problem,” she said, turning her attention to the twins. “Do you boys know the song ‘Jingle Bells’?” Kids under five only had to sing the chorus for their audition since the tryout was really just to see who could take on the speaking roles.

“Jingle bells,” Henry sang.

“Jingle all the way,” Harry added.

“Oh fun one a sleigh,” Henry sang.

“A!” Harry ended with flourish.

Clementine suppressed her laugh. She wanted to scoop up those adorable Grainger twins and smother them with hugs and kisses. She hated the boundary Logan’s very presence demanded. She glanced at the cowboy, moved by the utter love she saw in his expression for his nephews. He adored the boys and that was the most important thing. Not whether she was in their lives.

“You know what, guys?” she said to them. “You did great. You are both in the holiday show!” No matter how the littlest kids did on their “dishens,” they were in the show, even if they couldn’t get through the word jingle.