His Secret Daughter

Duke Martin is a father! The former army medic is stunned when old love Oregon Jeffries tells him the news. Given his troubled past, the hardworking rancher and diner owner understands why Oregon kept his daughter a secret for twelve years. But now Duke desperately wants to make up for lost time. As he sets out to be a true father to Lilly, he soon realizes his feelings for Oregon are growing stronger. When Oregon’s health falters, he’s ready to care for her and prove that he’s worthy of her love. Could this be Duke’s second chance with the woman he never should have let get away?

“We’ll get through this,” Duke said.

Oregon glanced at him. “I know we will.”

She watched him stack boxes along the back of the truck. He turned, keeping his head ducked because the truck didn’t allow for his height. “You don’t sound convinced.”

“I’m trying,” she assured him.

He jumped down, landing next to her. He touched her cheek with a large, calloused hand, gently forcing her to look at him. That meant looking into blue eyes that were as clear as a summer sky. She could lose herself in his eyes, in the promises she saw in them. His mouth curved in an easy smile as he leaned a little toward her.

“You need to start believing.” He spoke softly. “Because I won’t let us fail as a family.”

Family. But they weren’t one, she thought to tell him, but she couldn’t form the words.

For a moment she was lost because she’d honestly thought he meant to kiss her when he leaned close. And she couldn’t let that happen.

BRENDA MINTON lives in the Ozarks with her husband, children, cats, dogs and strays. She is a pastor’s wife, Sunday school teacher, coffee addict and sleep deprived. Not in that order. Her dream to be an author for Mills & Boon started somewhere in the pages of a romance novel about a young American woman stranded in a Spanish castle. Her dreams came true and twenty-plus books later, she is an author hoping to inspire young girls to dream.

The Rancher

Takes a Bride

Brenda Minton

www.millsandboon.co.uk

The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints.

—Ephesians 1:18

In memory of my father-in-law, Jacob Minton. Real men read romance, and he read every book.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

About the Author

Title Page

Bible Verse

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Epilogue

Dear Reader

Extract

Copyright

Chapter One

Spring in Martin’s Crossing, Texas, meant one thing to Oregon Jeffries. It meant another year of working up the courage to do the right thing. As she pushed petunias into the soil of the planter outside her shop, Oregon’s All Things, she thought about taking that step to make things right.

“Mom, you’re going to kill it pushing it in like that.” Her daughter, Lilly, appeared next to her, peering in at the plant.

She had a point. The petunia looked a little droopy from the handling it had received. One stem even appeared to be broken. Oregon pushed hair back from her face and patted the soil more gently.

“You’re right. I should be more careful.”

“Do you want me to finish them later?” Lilly, at twelve, was willing to do almost anything to help. Except maybe laundry.

“No, I’ll do them. Don’t you have a job to get to?”

Lilly glanced across the street, her blue eyes focusing on Duke’s No Bar and Grill. It was a long, low building with wood siding and a covered front deck running the length of the restaurant.

“Yeah, Duke said I could sweep up and water flowers. But I know you don’t like me working for him.”

“I didn’t say...” Well, maybe she had said something about wishing her daughter would find other jobs. But Lilly wanted a horse, and they’d made a deal that she had to work and earn the money to pay for the horse and the upkeep. As a single mom, Oregon couldn’t handle the expense of a horse. Plus, she thought her daughter would appreciate it more if she helped pay for the animal.

The townspeople in Martin’s Crossing had pitched in and given Lilly odd jobs. Each time she got paid, Lilly put most of the money in the jar she kept hidden in her room. And she put a portion in the offering at church.

Duke Martin, owner of Duke’s No Bar and Grill, had been giving Lilly various jobs since he learned of her quest to buy a horse. He’d even offered to help her pick a good, well-broke horse when she had all the money saved.

“You can go to Duke’s. Just don’t be a nuisance,” she warned.

Lilly kissed her cheek, and Oregon nearly cried. Her daughter no longer had to stand on tiptoes; instead, Lilly leaned down a bit because she’d outgrown Oregon over the winter.

“Thanks, Mom.”

Oregon nodded and went back to her flowers.

As she reached for another petunia, tires screeched, followed by shouting and then a sickening thud. Oregon turned, screaming as she saw her daughter fall to the asphalt. Everything slowed. Except her heart, which beat rapidly in her chest as she stood frozen on the sidewalk.

The driver of the car jumped out. Duke ran down the steps of the restaurant. Oregon couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. She heard Duke yell at her, then everything returned to normal speed.

There were people everywhere. Where did they all come from? Oregon felt a hand on her arm, a voice comforting her. “She’s going to be okay. You need to go to her.”

It was Joe, the vagrant who had appeared in town last winter. He held her arm and walked with her to Lilly’s crumpled body. Duke knelt next to her daughter. His large body hovered, his fingers touching Lilly’s neck, then her wrist.

“Don’t move,” he whispered when she tried to sit up. And then he saw Oregon. “Your mom is here. Stay still, sweetheart. Stay still.”

Oregon knelt next to her baby girl, brushing dark hair back from her pale face, noticing the bruises on her temple and cheek. Lilly opened her eyes and whispered that it hurt. Tears were streaming down her cheeks. Duke stopped Oregon from scooping her up and holding her close.

“You can’t do that, Oregon.” He yelled for someone to bring a blanket.

Oregon saw that her daughter was trembling and pale.

“Oregon, hold it together.” Duke’s voice whispered in her ear. “Talk to her.”

She nodded and leaned in, unsure of what to say. Duke’s hand was on her back. Oregon wanted to sob. But she didn’t. Instead, she took Lilly’s hand and held it. “The ambulance is on the way, honey. We’ll get you help. You’ll be okay.”

A man shouted that he hadn’t seen her. That she’d come out of nowhere. Duke stood up and headed for the driver of the car. Six feet eight inches of Duke Martin had the man backing away, holding his hands up.

Oregon heard him tell the driver to sit and save his explanations. Right now they were going to take care of the child he’d hit. Her child. Oregon’s hand shook as she smoothed her daughter’s hair back from her face once more.

If Duke only knew, Oregon thought. She kissed her daughter’s cheek. “It’s going to be okay. I hear the ambulance.”

“Mommy, it hurts.”

“Can you tell me where it hurts, Lilly?” Duke once again took charge. He’d been an army medic in Afghanistan.

“Everywhere,” Lilly answered. “My leg. And my head. My stomach.”

“Do you remember where you were going?” he asked.

“To school,” she responded.

Though she had tried to fight it, the tears overtook Oregon. She felt strong hands on her shoulders. Joe pulled her to her feet and led her away. The ambulance pulled up, and Duke spoke with quiet authority as they assessed her daughter.

“I need to be with her.” Oregon tried to pull away from Joe.

“No, you need to stand here and let them do their job,” he insisted, his voice soft but firm. “Stay here with me and when they’re ready to leave, you can give her a kiss and tell her you’ll meet her at the hospital.”

“But I should go with her...”

“You can’t.” Joe led her toward the stretcher holding her daughter. Her baby. She tried to pull away from Joe, but he held tight. “Oregon, take a deep breath and tell our girl she’ll be okay.”

Our girl. The words registered faintly. Everyone in town considered Lilly their girl. People here loved them, cared about them. It was one of the reasons she’d stayed in Martin’s Crossing. Because for the first time in her life, she felt as if she truly belonged. Though she had wanted it more for her daughter than herself, that sense of belonging somewhere.

Joe led her back to Lilly and held her hand as she kissed her daughter on the forehead, said a quick prayer and told her they would meet her at the hospital.

“Mommy, I’ll be okay.” Lilly’s voice shook as she said the words.

“Of course you’ll be okay,” Oregon managed in a voice that remained steady. Because she was the mom. She would make sure her daughter was okay. God couldn’t take her baby. They needed each other too much.

As she stepped back, Joe touched Lilly’s brow. He smiled at her and whispered that she’d be home soon, and they’d talk more about that horse. Oregon wanted to tell him not to make promises. Oregon knew how easily they were broken.

Duke stood next to the ambulance as Lilly was loaded on. He spoke to the paramedics. Then he nodded and said something to Lilly. And Oregon stood there, letting him take charge because she couldn’t move. Couldn’t think.

Her body began to shake as the ambulance pulled away. “I have to go.” Oregon headed for her shop and apartment. She had to find her purse, her keys...

“Oregon, wait.”

She turned to see Duke striding across the street toward her. Joe came with him. She looked from Joe with his weathered face, gray hair and easy smile to Duke, a giant of a man with sandy-brown hair starting to grow out from the buzz cut he’d had, unshaved face and piercing blue eyes.

“What?” Her voice trembled, and for a scary moment everything faded. She took a deep breath and her vision cleared.

Duke’s features softened as he looked at her.

“I’m driving.” He had his truck keys out. “Lock up your shop and let’s go.”

“I can drive. You really don’t have to.”

He let out a long sigh. “Oregon, don’t argue with me. You’re in no condition to drive. I’m taking you.”

She nodded and hurried inside, finding her purse and her keys, leaving the petunias on the stoop to be planted later. As she walked out the front door, locking it behind her, Joe was telling Duke he’d like to ride along. Duke looked to Oregon, and she nodded.

Joe was little more than a stranger, a homeless man who had worked for Duke and moved into a small house down the street. But he was a good man, and Lilly adored him.

Today she needed these two men. And she needed for Lilly to be okay. She needed to know that God heard her prayers.

She needed the strength of Duke’s arms as he walked her to his waiting truck. Those big arms made her rethink everything. It was time to tell the truth. Her heart ached, worrying about her daughter, about their future and Duke’s reaction to the news she would tell him.

* * *

Duke risked a cautious look at Oregon to make sure she was holding it together. She’d been unusually quiet on the ride to Austin. Joe, who sat next to her, was also quiet. He saw that Oregon’s eyes were closed, and her lips were moving as she prayed.

He didn’t know much about her, but he did know she attended Martin’s Crossing Community Church. He’d seen her there the few times he’d darkened the door. Now he knew she was a praying woman. He also knew that she had a mom who liked to stir up trouble and who wasn’t too fond of Oregon’s religion.

He’d like to reclaim his own faith, but he and God were having some issues about prayers he’d said for kids in Afghanistan. He shook his head, not wanting to focus on that, not right now with Lilly on her way to the hospital.

He reached for Oregon’s hand and squeezed it. “She’s going to be okay.”

“I know. I know.” Oregon wiped away the tears that streamed down her cheeks. “She was talking. That’s a good sign. Isn’t it?”

“Yes, always a good sign.”

Anger suddenly flashed in her eyes. Funny, he’d thought they were hazel; now he realized they were the warmest shade of gray possible. “Don’t tell me what you think I want to hear, Duke. You were a medic. I want your opinion.”

“A medic, not a doctor. And kids aren’t exactly my area of expertise.”

“Duke, please.”

He slowed for a stoplight. “Only a mile to the hospital.”

“What are you trying to hide?”

“I’m not hiding anything. I’m just trying to decide the best answer because I don’t want to say the wrong thing.”

“Tell me she’s going to be okay,” she sobbed.

Yeah, that’s exactly what he was avoiding. “I think she had broken bones and possibly some internal injuries. I’m going by my own assessment and the paramedics’ conversation as they loaded her in the ambulance.”

Oregon nodded, the conversation ending in nervous silence. Joe patted Oregon’s leg and said that he knew one thing with certainty; that God would take care of Lilly. Duke didn’t say that he’d seen a lot of prayers go unanswered during his time in Afghanistan.

“Here we are.” He pulled his truck into the hospital parking lot and found a space close to the emergency room. He exited and then waited for Oregon.

Something happened in that moment as he watched and waited for her to get out. It was like the past crashing into the future, and he didn’t know what it meant. It was a flashback of laughing with a dark-haired girl who had just won her first cash prize on a barrel horse she’d trained herself. With a shake of his head he cleared the memory.

Sitting in his truck, Oregon visibly pulled herself together before she stepped out. The wind whipped her hair and wrapped her prairie skirt around her legs. Joe waited for them on the other side. The three of them walked toward the emergency room entrance. As they got closer, Oregon’s steps slowed, faltering. Duke took her hand and looked down at her. Her eyes met his and it seemed familiar.

He shook it off. The memory wasn’t real.

But the pain in her eyes was. He squeezed her hand. “She’ll be okay.”

“I’m taking your word for that.” Her voice trembled on the words.

Duke led her through the automatic doors to a desk, where a receptionist smiled up at them. Joe stood on her other side, his hand on her back.

“We’re here with Lilly Jeffries, brought in by ambulance from Martin’s Crossing,” Duke told the woman who had already started searching her computer.

“Are you parents or legal guardians?” the receptionist asked, barely looking up at them.

“I’m her mother,” Oregon replied.

“She’s being examined right now.” The woman behind the desk pushed paperwork on a clipboard across the counter. “If you could fill this out.”

“I want to see my daughter.” Oregon’s voice didn’t shake. She looked at the woman, her eyes fierce, the way a mother’s eyes should be.

Not that Duke had any real experience with mothers. His own had skipped out on them right before his tenth birthday. They hadn’t seen her since the day she hopped in her car and took off.

Oregon wasn’t that kind of mom.

The receptionist nodded, and her features softened. “Green ward, room C. Take the paperwork with you.”

“Thank you.”

Duke reached for her hand, a strangely familiar gesture. He’d ignored this woman for the past year. He’d been busy with his diner. She’d been busy getting her own business off the ground. She hadn’t seemed to want more from him than an occasional take-out meal. Come to think of it, she’d rarely stepped foot in the diner. She’d always sent Lilly to get their food.

Why was he thinking about this now, as she walked next to him, her hand tightly gripping his? Joe walked on her other side, quiet, staid. The older man had settled in a few months back and seemed content to stay awhile in Martin’s Crossing.

They reached the room with the open glass door. Inside, a doctor stood next to Lilly, his smile easy, his gestures not those of a man in the middle of an emergency. He waved them inside.

“You must be Mom. We’ve been asking for you. After we settled on the fact that it isn’t Saturday, and she wasn’t on her way to school when the bus hit her.” The doctor smiled down at his patient. “We’re going to do a CT scan of that head, and then we’ll do some X-rays.”

The doctor motioned Oregon out of the room and followed close behind her. Duke went with her. Joe stayed with Lilly, who grimaced in pain as she told him something they couldn’t hear after the doctor slid that glass door closed.

“You’re her dad?” the doctor asked. Duke shook his head.

“No. I just drove her mom up here.” He glanced down at the woman next to him, her lower lip between her teeth, her worried gaze on the girl inside that room.

“You can stay,” she whispered, still not looking at him.

The doctor looked from Oregon to Duke, gave a curt nod and continued. “We’re going to run some tests. She has some abdominal tenderness. I’m sure we’ve got a fracture in her left leg. We’ll know more after X-rays.”

“She’ll be okay?” Oregon finally looked away from her daughter and made eye contact with the doctor.

“She’ll be fine. She’s not going to be happy when she realizes what a cast will do to her summer activities, but hopefully we can have her back on two good legs very soon.”

“Can I go back in now?”

Sliding the door back open, the doctor said, “You have a few minutes, then you can wait in here for us while we run the tests.”

She nodded as she walked away, leaving Duke with the strangest feeling in the pit of his stomach as he watched the less than animated form of Lilly on that hospital bed. Joe stepped out of the room to join him.

“She’ll be okay.” Joe said it like he was comforting Duke.

“Of course she will. Her mom is here now.”

Joe gave him a puzzled look and shook his head. “You going in there?”

No, he wasn’t. He had done his part. He’d been shaken to his core when he’d seen that car speeding down the street, seen her freeze in her tracks as the sedan screeched to a stop too late. It could have been worse, he’d told himself. Much worse.

He shook his head, not wanting to replay it in his mind again. What he needed was...a cup of coffee. He made his excuses and headed down the hall. Joe started to follow.

Duke put his hand out to stop the older man from tagging along, giving advice he didn’t want or need. “Give me a minute alone.”

“She’s okay, Duke.”

“I know that.”

He knew she was okay. He didn’t know if he was, though. He’d nearly put the nightmares to rest in the last year or so. He’d been almost back to normal. But now faces were flashing through his memory. Names he’d almost forgotten were surfacing. A man didn’t forget those young men, their names, their stories.

He put his dollar in the vending machine and raised his hand, ready to pound his fist against the glass front, but then he stopped himself. His chest ached, and each breath had to work its way from lungs that seemed to be closing up.

A hand touched his back, small and gentle. He didn’t turn. He knew that it was Oregon. He inhaled her presence, the soft scent of wildflowers.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

He nodded, slowing his breaths, feeling his heart return to normal. Yeah, he was fine.

“We have to talk,” she said so softly he almost didn’t hear.

But he’d known this moment was coming.

Chapter Two

Oregon stood in front of Duke, his features chiseled in stone but somehow beautiful with his bright blue eyes, wide, smiling mouth and golden skin. He’d been just as beautiful thirteen years ago. She’d been eighteen. He’d been barely twenty. It had been the year her mom married a Texas rancher who raised quarter horses and didn’t mind Oregon trying to be a cowgirl.

Now she had to tell him what she’d come here to tell him. It’d been a year since she’d first arrived in Martin’s Crossing. At first she hadn’t told him, because she needed time. Needed to make sure he was a person she wanted in her daughter’s life. She wanted to know that Lilly would have someone she could depend on. Someone who wouldn’t walk away, who wouldn’t let her down.

“Oregon?” His voice was cold. His tone hard.

He knew.

“It’s about Lilly.”

“What about Lilly?”

“Lilly is...” She looked past him, down the empty hall. Where were all the people who would interrupt, keeping her from having this difficult conversation?

He took her hand and led her to a consultation room that was empty. She balked at the door. “We can’t just walk in there.”

“We can and will.” He pulled her inside.

Once the door was closed, he pointed to a yellow vinyl chair. She sat and he stood in front of the door like a bouncer at a club. Blocking her from running? No. He stood because he had too much energy to sit. Sometimes in the early-morning hours she saw him running through the streets of Martin’s Crossing. Sometimes she saw him at night. Outrunning his nightmares, she thought.

These were some of the many things she’d learned about him since moving to town. Thirteen years ago, she hadn’t known much. She’d known he was a young man with a lot of anger who partied too hard. He’d team roped with his brother, Jake. He’d bought her a cheeseburger, and she’d laughed when he wiped ketchup off her chin, right before he kissed her.

“So, Oregon Jeffries. Tell me everything.”

“I think you know.”

“Enlighten me.”

“We met in a small town outside Stephenville, Texas, when I was eighteen. Nine months later, I had Lilly. When I first came to Martin’s Crossing, I thought you’d recognize me. But you didn’t. I was just the mother of the girl who swept the porch of your diner. You didn’t remember me. Not a flicker of recognition or a question about who we were.” She shrugged, waiting for him to say something.

He brushed a hand across his face and shook his head. “I’m afraid to admit I have a few blank spots in my memory. Bad choices in my youth. You probably know that already.”

“It’s become clear since I got to town and you didn’t recognize me.”

“Or my daughter?”

His words froze her heart. She trembled, and she didn’t want to be weak. Not today. Not when her daughter was somewhere in this hospital having tests done. Today she needed strength and the truth. Because some people thought the truth could set her free. She worried it would only mean losing her daughter to this man who had already made himself a hero to Lilly.

What if he wasn’t the man they needed him to be? Oregon wanted to stop the cycle of broken promises, broken relationships. She wanted Lilly to have a solid foundation that didn’t shift and move on the whim of an adult.

“She’s my daughter.” He repeated it again, his voice soft with wonder.

“Yes, she’s your daughter.” She whispered the words into the small room. A Gideon bible had been placed on the table between two chairs. A lamp in the corner offered soft light. In this room, lives changed. People were given the worst news. People received options.

In this room, Duke Martin learned he was a father.

“Why didn’t you try to contact me?” He sat down heavily, stretching his long legs in front of him. “Did you think I wouldn’t want to know?”

“I knew from friends that you had a problem with alcohol. And then I found out you joined the army. Duke, I was used to my mother dragging me along from relationship to relationship. She was with men who were abusive, who were alcoholics, and a few who were okay. I didn’t want that for my daughter.”

Oregon’s own father hadn’t stayed. He’d been a nameless man who walked out on them. And then there had been her mother’s countless marriages, with Oregon never being given a choice in the matter.

“You should have told me,” Duke stormed in a quiet voice, respectful of this place. She’d learned something about him in the past year. She’d learned that looks could be deceiving. He looked like Goliath. But beneath his large exterior, he was good and kind.

He kept his power carefully leashed, his temper controlled, his voice even in tone. He leaned forward in the chair, brushing his hand through his short hair.

“You’ve been in town over a year. You should have told me sooner,” he repeated.

“Maybe I should have, but I needed to know you, to be sure about you, before I put you in my daughter’s life.”

“Maybe?” He erupted in quiet anger. “Maybe you should have told me Lilly is mine? What if something had...”

She shook her head. “No, don’t go there.”

“You kept her from me,” he said in a quieter voice.

“You have to understand. I was eighteen and alone and making stupid decisions. And now I’m a mom who has to make sure her daughter isn’t going to be hurt. I have to make sure the man I bring into her life isn’t going to walk out on her.”

“I do not walk out.”

“I know. And I was going to tell you. I just didn’t know how.”

“You could have told me years ago. A letter, even a short note, would have been nice.”

“You left.” Another person in her life who had left. Not that she’d expected him to stay. He’d been a day, a smile, a moment. She’d been a kid who’d made bad choices in her search for love.

“You know for sure...” he started to ask, but his words trailed off.

“I know without a doubt. There are no other possibilities.”

He studied her for a few seconds. She met his gaze head-on because she had to be strong. “Why did you change your mind and decide to bring her to Martin’s Crossing?”

Of course he would want to know that. She would tell him why, but not today. She couldn’t tell him everything, not in one crazy, overly emotional day. “I knew she needed you.”

The simple answer was the truth. It was enough for now.

* * *

She wasn’t telling him everything but for Duke, it was enough for one day. He had a daughter. For the past year Lilly had bounced in and out of his diner. She’d swept his floors. She’d talked to him about the kind of horse she wanted. She’d looked up at him with those blue eyes that were so much like his, he should have seen himself in her. He should have seen it. He should have recognized Oregon.

He rubbed the top of his head and stared at the woman he’d let down, mother of the girl he’d let down. He’d become his mother. Man, he wanted to pound something. He needed to get on his bike and take a long ride through Texas. But unlike Sylvia Martin, his mother, he would come back. But he wouldn’t walk away from this hospital, from Lilly or Oregon.

He looked at her. Her dark hair framed a face that was delicate and shifted from cute to pretty with a smile. She shrugged slim shoulders. “Maybe you should have remembered but you said it yourself, there are a lot of holes in your memory.”

Yeah, a lot of holes. Blackouts. Days lost. He reached into his pocket and felt that coin he carried, a reminder of how long he’d been sober. Two years and counting.

“I’m sorry,” he said as he made eye contact with the woman sitting across from him.

“I’m sorry, too. I know she needs you.”

There were so many ways he could react to that. He could be angry, but what would that get him? She had wanted to protect her daughter. He couldn’t blame her for that.

“So I guess I passed the test,” he finally said.

“Of course you do.” She stood, her eyes darting away from him to the door. “We should go. I don’t want her to be alone too long.”

“No, of course not.” She would never be alone again. He would see to that. “Does she know?”

“That you’re her dad? No.”

“We have to tell her.”

They walked out into the hall and headed back to the emergency room. “Yes, I know.”

“What does she know?”

“That I was young and made a mistake. But that she isn’t a mistake.”

“Man, Oregon, I should have been there. I should have been in her life.”

“I didn’t mean for this to happen.” Her voice faltered.

“You weren’t in this alone. And you aren’t alone now. We need to get married.” The words slipped out quickly, without giving them a lot of thought.

She stopped. He took a few more steps and then turned to face her. She was barely five feet tall. Her dark hair was long and soft. Her gray eyes had flecks of green in this light. Had he just proposed to her?

“No.” And with that simple answer, she kept walking.

He froze under the bright fluorescent lights, voices of people heading in their direction. Ahead of him Oregon kept walking. He was so tall that he only had to take a few steps and he was next to her.

“Why not?”

“Because this isn’t love. It was attraction once. Now we’re two strangers, and that isn’t enough for a marriage.”

“Our daughter deserves—”

She cut him off with an angry glare. “Don’t tell me what she deserves. She deserves a home and people who love her. People who stay.”

“Right, but we have to think about our daughter.”

“Mine,” she cried out, her eyes widening in fear. “She’s my daughter.”

“I’m not going to take her from you.” He said it as calmly as he could, in the voice he used to soothe startled horses.

“No, but you could take her heart. She already loves you.”

“Oregon, this isn’t a competition.”

They kept walking back to the ward with green walls, and rooms with glass doors, curtains for privacy and hushed voices. Oregon stopped, leaning against the wall a few short feet from the nurses’ station.

“Duke, she needs you. That’s why we’re here. Right now I’m emotional and not thinking straight. My main concern is for her, that she’s safe and she’s going to be okay. Marriage to you, though, is not in my plans.”

“We won’t discuss it today. You’re right. She needs us with her now.”

He could understand her reluctance to marry. He hadn’t seen too much about marriage that he admired. But his brother Jake, the last guy he thought would fall, seemed to be taken with the idea. Jake and Breezy had fallen in love with each other, with the twin nieces they all shared, and the rest had been history. In their current newlywed phase of soft looks, sweet smiles and easy embraces, it was impossible to be around them for long.

Duke avoided them as much as possible. He didn’t need to see their version of happily-ever-after.

He’d rather stay at his old house, working on the wiring that needed updating, the plumbing that sometimes groaned with the effort of pushing water to the faucets.

A house for a family, Jake had teased when Duke started the remodel. And now he had a family. True, Oregon didn’t want any part of making them one. But Duke would be a dad to Lilly. He wouldn’t let her argue him out of that.

They entered the room as a nurse was settling Lilly back in, covering her with heated blankets and tucking in the edges.

The nurse smiled at her patient. “Told you they’d be right back.”

Oregon leaned to kiss her daughter’s cheek.

Their daughter. Duke hung back, trying hard not to let this moment get the best of him. This shouldn’t be the first time he saw her as his daughter. There should have been a lifetime of moments. A newborn in a hospital, first steps, first words, first day of school. Yeah, he’d missed out on a lot.

He wanted to be angry with Oregon. He was angry, not just with her, with himself. He hadn’t been the kind of man a woman would turn to.

This girl could have pulled him back to where he needed to be.

She still could.

For the moment he stood on the sidelines and watched as the nurse checked IV lines, as Oregon spoke in soft whispers and then as Joe reentered the room with a cup of coffee. Why in the world did this drama include Joe?

How did a man adjust to suddenly being a dad?

The doctor walked through the sliding door. He looked at his chart, looked up and smiled at Lilly, then at Oregon. He didn’t look at Duke or Joe, because they were just the extras in this scene.

The doctor pulled back the blanket, touched Lilly’s toes on her left foot, rested a hand on the splinted leg. “Well, we have a minor concussion, and she’s very fortunate it wasn’t worse. No internal bleeding, for which we’re thankful. And then this broken leg that we’re going to set. She’ll be down for about six weeks, then back to work earning money for that horse.”

“Oh, she told you.” Oregon smiled down at her daughter.

“Yes, she did. She also told me you have stairs. She’s not going to have an easy time on stairs with the cast and crutches.”

“We’ll figure something out,” Duke cut in. Oregon shot him a look that clearly told him to stay out of her business.

Thing is, her business had become his. He gave her a look that he hoped told her he wasn’t going to back down and pretend this didn’t matter. He ignored the daggers Oregon shot at him from eyes damp with unshed tears and smiled at Lilly. She smiled back with a smile he should have recognized.

Yeah, this mattered.

* * *

After it was decided Lilly would spend the night in the hospital, Duke took Joe home, then headed for the ranch. Or his section of the nearly twelve hundred acres that made up the Circle M.

He bypassed Jake’s place and drove down the dirt road to his house. The two-story home had a pillared front porch and a veranda that ran across the second floor. It had been a showplace years ago when his grandfather had been alive. And then it had been abandoned and had started to fall apart. Posts on the porch had needed to be replaced, along with the roof, siding and many of the windows.

Beyond this house was a caretaker’s cottage, with two bedrooms and a sunny living room. He’d lived in the cottage for six months, since he’d begun the initial repairs to the main house. Today he’d had an idea.

The cottage was one story, no steps and no porches. Just a nice little rock house with a front door, a back patio and a few flower gardens. Perfect for Oregon and Lilly. Not that he thought it would be that easy. He could already hear Oregon’s objections in his head.

A truck pulled up the drive as he sat there looking at the cottage. He groaned as he took a quick look in his rearview mirror. The last thing he needed was big brother time. But sooner or later it would have to take place.

He got out of his truck as Jake parked. Jake stepped out of his own vehicle with an easy smile on his face. Jake had always been the one taking charge of their family, making the hard decisions. Duke guessed it hadn’t been all Jake’s fault. Duke hadn’t been that much younger; he’d just found other ways to deal with life. He’d been out partying, team roping and running from the pain their mother had caused them all.

Jake had grown more and more resentful, taking the burden of raising the Martins and keeping the ranch in the black.

“Saw you drive by,” Jake said as he shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his jeans and rocked on the heels of his boots. He looked from the house to Duke. “Is Lilly okay?”

Duke stared at the cottage and avoided looking at his brother. He guessed that Jake really wanted to ask if he was sober. He’d passed seven bars and three liquor stores on his way home. He hadn’t stopped at one of them. Hadn’t even been tempted. That said something.

“Yeah, she’ll be okay. Broken leg, concussion, a bruised spleen.”

“Where are they?”

“Still at the hospital. I thought they might be able to stay here. More room and no stairs.”

“Right.” Silence stretched on, and finally Jake smiled a little. “She’s yours, isn’t she?”

Duke nodded. “Yeah, she’s mine.”

“Do we need a DNA test?”

That made him mad. “She isn’t here to get anything from me. The last thing she wanted to do was tell me I had a daughter. But today seemed to be the day.”

He had a daughter. The idea settled inside him, making him angry and glad and hurt, all at the same time. Jake’s grinning wasn’t going to help. He shot his brother a warning look and stomped off. Jake gave him a few minutes to cool his heels before following him inside the cottage.

“This isn’t something you keep from a man,” he told Jake as he rummaged through the kitchen cabinets.

“No, I reckon it isn’t.” Jake opened the fridge and pulled out a package of moldy lunch meat. “Wouldn’t hurt you to get a wife.”

“I proposed. She isn’t interested.”

Jake laughed. “Proposed? What did you say, ‘Gee, I guess we should get married’? You’re the ladies’ man. I expect better from you.”

Duke laughed, and it loosened something inside him, something that had been tight as a clock and ready to spring loose. “I expect better from myself. I guess if a guy was going to have a kid, he’d expect to remember that he had her.”

He brushed a hand across the top of his head. Jake watched, hip against the counter, cowboy hat pulled low.

“Well, now you know. Guess what you gotta do is decide how to go forward from here.”

“I go forward as a dad. End of story.”

Jake shrugged, looking comfortable in his own skin. Duke had always thought of himself as the comfortable one. Today cool and unflustered belonged to Jake.

“Might call Charlie and get advice.”

“I don’t need your attorney.”

“Fine, you’ll figure it out.” Jake gave the easy answer as he stepped away from the cabinet.

Yes, he would find a way to be Lilly’s dad. He guessed he’d start by getting her that horse she wanted.

And he’d have to figure out his relationship with Oregon.

Chapter Three

“Where are we going?” Lilly asked as they got closer to Martin’s Crossing. She was in Duke’s truck, leaning against Oregon. Her leg in the bright pink knee-to-foot cast was stretched out, nearly touching Duke’s leg as he drove.

He’d showed up at the hospital that morning with the news that he would be driving them home. Oregon had allowed it because she didn’t have a car there and because he was Lilly’s dad.

She’d spent a lot of sleepless nights thinking about how everything would change when she told him. It was no longer the Lilly and Oregon show. Duke was now a part of their lives. They couldn’t go back. In some strange way they were now a family unit. They would have to figure out how it changed things, what it meant for the future. She knew he deserved this, to be in Lilly’s life.

Oregon knew it would hurt in ways she hadn’t expected. Because the young cowboy she’d met thirteen years ago had been a force to be reckoned with. He’d had a charming smile, too much confidence and a way with words. He’d melted her resistance. She’d wanted love. She’d wanted forever. All from a man she’d known for a weekend.

Looking back, she knew how wrong that had been.

But present-day Duke was more of a concern. This man now had shadows in blue eyes that once had been carefree, full of laughter. This man now knew how to be a friend. How to be there for the people he cared about.

It didn’t take a genius to know her heart could be broken all over again if she wasn’t careful. Lilly moved, repositioning herself, bringing Oregon out of her own thoughts.

“Yes, Duke, where are we going?” She repeated her daughter’s question.

He’d been pretty mysterious since he showed up in the hospital room carrying a bouquet of flowers with a half-dozen balloons attached. It took up the entire backseat of his truck.

“We’re going to the ranch. I want to show you all something,” he answered. Once again mysterious, but this time with a hint of a smile.

“We should go back to our place so Lilly can rest.” Oregon hooked an arm around her daughter and Lilly snuggled close, probably drifting back to sleep again.

“Yes, rest is a good idea,” Duke answered vaguely and kept on driving.

They turned onto the road to the Circle M. The paved road ended at Jake’s house and became dirt. Fences lined both sides of the road. They drove past Duke’s house and then past a barn. In the field cattle grazed, and near the barn a few horses raised their heads and watched the truck drive by.

“This is pretty,” Lilly mumbled, lifting her head to look around.

“Yes, it is.” Duke pulled up to a stone cottage.

“Duke, what is this?” Oregon felt a twinge of uncertainty bordering on fear.

She’d been in Martin’s Crossing long enough to know he wasn’t going to let her call all of the shots now that he knew about Lilly. A part of her wanted to tell him to back off. Another part of her wanted him to pretend nothing had changed.

“Let’s get out,” he said. He opened the truck door and reached in the backseat for pink crutches, handing them to Lilly. “Come on, kiddo.”

Lilly, suddenly wide awake, grabbed the crutches and allowed him to help her out. No, it wouldn’t take Oregon’s daughter long to adjust to this new situation. Lilly smiled up at him and he leaned, giving her a loose hug. He was everything that any little girl would dream of in a dad. Especially Oregon’s little girl, who had watched with envy when other little girls sat on their daddy’s shoulders or rode bikes down the street together. Oregon knew that type of envy because she’d felt it often growing up.

“Coming?” Duke glanced back inside the truck, and Oregon nodded. Did she have a choice? Duke wasn’t smiling. His mouth was a straight, unforgiving line. His jaw was set. No, he wasn’t giving in.

She climbed out of the truck and met her daughter and Duke on the lawn, standing in front of the little stone house. “It’s nice. This is where you’ve been staying while you remodeled the old house?”

“Yes, and it’s where you’re going to stay now. It doesn’t have any steps. Even the porch is ground level. And the doors are wide.”

Oregon stood there on the freshly mowed lawn, speechless. A black-and-white dog came down the drive. Of course it went right to Lilly, circling her, sniffing, brushy black tail wagging. “Lilly, be careful. Don’t let him knock you down.”

“She isn’t going to knock me down, Mom.” Lilly dropped one crutch and leaned down to pet the Border collie.

“But you can’t fall. You have to be careful.”

“She’s careful.” Duke spoke in a quiet voice of reason. She didn’t want reasonable. Not right now. She picked up the crutch her daughter had dropped, and handed it to her. Lilly took it with a grimace and shoved it back under her arm.

When Oregon faced Duke, he nodded in Lilly’s direction, stopping her from saying anything she’d regret. Oh, that didn’t help. Reasonable, thoughtful, considerate male. How dare he?

“Oregon, I’m moving into the main house. I’ve been remodeling and it’s close to finished. That means this cottage will be empty. It’s quiet. It has room, and it doesn’t have steps.”

She left Lilly and Duke in the yard, Lilly sitting on a lawn chair, the dog practically climbing into her lap. Duke was answering a question about the horses he owned. Lilly had always been horse crazy. And dog crazy. They already had a dog at home. Joe had been taking care of it for them.

Oregon walked through the front door of the house, and her heart ached to claim this place as her own. It had windows that let in the breeze, freshly polished hardwood floors, a kitchen with white-painted cabinets and out the back door, a stone patio with a pretty teakwood table and a gas grill.

She strode out the back door. Alone, she stood on the stone patio and stared out at the grasslands of Texas. In the distance there were the hills that made Hill Country a destination for many travelers. It was late May, and the grass was green; wildflowers bloomed.

Footsteps told her she was no longer alone. Duke touched her back, his hand resting lightly. She had a sudden, overwhelming urge to lean into his embrace, to welcome the comfort he was offering. She wanted to soak up his scent, his strength. She turned to tell him this was too much, that she couldn’t accept it, but when she turned, his arms went around her, and he pulled her close, bending to drop a kiss on the top of her head. It was what she’d dreamed of, and the last thing she wanted.

No, she didn’t want to need him. But she couldn’t make herself pull free from the embrace and all it offered.

“It’s just a house, Oregon. It isn’t a commitment. It isn’t a ridiculous proposal offered on the spur of the moment. It’s a place to live.”

“It’s too much,” she tried to insist.

“You’ve raised my daughter alone for twelve years. I think I owe you a home to live in and more. Let me do this.”

She nodded. “Thank you.”

“Thank you. For bringing her here...and for telling me.”

Behind them they heard the sound of crutches on the tile floor of the kitchen, then the squeak of the screen door. Oregon wiped her eyes and moved away from him to face her daughter. Lilly looked from Duke to Oregon, her eyes wide, suspicious.

“What’s going on?” Lilly asked.

“Let’s sit down out here and we’ll talk,” Oregon said with a lightness she was far from feeling.

“I’ll get us a glass of tea,” Duke offered.

Oregon nodded, accepting the offer as she held out a chair for Lilly. Her daughter sat and was immediately joined by the dog.

“What’s your dog’s name, Duke?” Lilly asked.

“Daisy.”

“Very manly,” Lilly teased. Her smile was back, but she wouldn’t offer it to Oregon.

Duke returned with three glasses of tea on a tray. “I stocked the fridge and cabinets.”

“You didn’t have to do that.” Oregon didn’t want him taking over, feeling as if he suddenly had to provide for them. Her shop, selling handmade creations of her own design, was doing quite well. She hadn’t come here for support, for money. She just wanted her daughter to have what she’d never had. A real dad. A place to call home.

“I know I don’t have to, Oregon. I wanted to make things easier for you.”

“What if I’d said no?” she countered as she lifted the glass, condensation making the outside damp and cold.

“Okay, could we not start some kind of family disagreement,” Lilly said. And then she looked at the two of them. “We’re not a family.”

Oregon bit down on her bottom lip and let her gaze slide to Duke. He was looking at her daughter, at their daughter. Oregon nodded when he looked to her for direction.

She had to do this.

* * *

“Lilly, we need to talk.” Oregon began with those words, and Duke couldn’t disagree. He didn’t know any better way to start. But now that the words were said, he wondered if they should have given it more time. Maybe they should have prepared Lilly in some way. This was big news for a kid.

It had been pretty big news for him.

“Okay.” Lilly sank her fingers into Daisy’s black-and-white coat, and she looked at Duke as if he could make this any easier. He gave her what he hoped was an encouraging, hang-in-there smile.

“Duke and I knew each other a long time ago. We met at a rodeo when I was eighteen.”

The words hung between them, and he felt like an acrobat on a tightrope, hanging precariously above this situation. Lilly continued to pet Daisy. She dropped her gaze to the dog with its tongue hanging out, a dog smile on her face. Daisy whined and moved in closer to Lilly, as if sensing that this wasn’t good.

“How many years ago?” Lilly raised those blue eyes and looked from her mom to him.

“Almost thirteen years.” Oregon spoke in a quiet voice, her gaze shifting from her daughter to him.

“Thirteen,” Lilly whispered, her face pale, her hands clasping the dog, pulling her close. She buried her face against Daisy, and he had the sneaking suspicion she was hiding tears. His kid would do that. She’d hide it when she cried, and she’d fight anyone who said those were tears on her cheeks.

Duke sat there watching the girl who was his daughter. He didn’t know what to say. He definitely didn’t know what a dad would do in this situation.

He did know he’d knock down mountains for her. “Lilly, I’m sorry. If I’d known...”

She glared, eyes narrowed. “Sorry?” She shook her head, one tear sliding down her cheek. She brushed it away. “For what? For not telling me? For acting like my friend?”

Oregon opened her mouth; he was sure she meant to reprimand Lilly. He put a hand up, stopping the words. “She has a right to be angry.”

He didn’t have a manual on parenting, but he knew all about being an angry kid.

“Yeah, angry.” Lilly said it like she was trying to find the emotion that fit. He guessed there was a lot of hurt. How much did they tell her? How much did they keep from her?

He looked to Oregon because she had the experience he was lacking. She moved her chair closer to her daughter. No, retract that, his daughter. Their daughter. He studied her face.

“Lilly, Duke didn’t know. I waited too long and by the time I had found him, he’d joined the army and was on his way to Afghanistan.”

“But you came here to tell him, and you didn’t. Right?” Lilly swiped at angry tears chasing a trail down her cheeks. Duke brushed dampness from his own cheeks.

He hated that she was crying and that he didn’t know how to fix this for her. He loved this kid and had from the first moment she bounded up the steps of the diner, asking for odd jobs to raise money for a horse. He’d given her a bridle for Christmas. She’d made him a card with a horse she drew. She’d signed it “with love, Lilly.”

They’d had an immediate connection, he guessed. And he hadn’t been smart enough to figure it out, to see the smile, the blue eyes, for what they were. His eyes. His sister’s smile. Yeah, he saw it now. Lilly looked like his little sister, Samantha, but with Oregon’s dark hair.

“I took too long,” Oregon admitted. “For that I owe you both an apology, and I hope you’ll forgive me. I just wanted to know for sure...”

She looked up, meeting his gaze. He saw tears gather in her eyes and escape down the slopes of her cheeks. “I messed up,” she whispered.

“Yeah, you did.” Lilly wasn’t all about forgiveness at the moment. Duke knew she’d get past it. She was that kind of kid.

“Lilly, your mom wanted to know that I was a person she’d want in your life. And I can tell you, a few years back, I wasn’t. I’ve made a lot of mistakes.”

She shot him a look. “Yeah, you did.”

“No. You’re not a mistake,” he countered.

“Not a mistake, just...” She grabbed her crutches and stood. “What am I?”

“Our daughter,” Duke said, wishing he could take back twelve years and redo everything. But he couldn’t.

“I’m taking a walk.” Lilly hobbled off.

Duke started to go after her. Oregon stopped him, a hand on his arm. “Let her have a few minutes alone.”

He sat back down in the chair next to Oregon. He watched his daughter walk away, Daisy at her heels but keeping a careful distance. He knew where she was going. She was going to the horses.

“What are we going to do?” he asked Oregon. She was watching Lilly walk away.

“We’re going to be parents together. We’ll figure it out.”

“Right. Of course we will.” But Oregon had already figured it out. He was the one who had a lot to learn.

He’d spent most of his life not planning to marry, not planning on kids. And now he had one. A girl named Lilly. And where did that leave Oregon, the mother of his child?

Since yesterday he’d been forcing himself to remember, trying to recall that summer. Man, he’d been out of control that year. He’d watched his dad drinking his life away, Jake trying to be the man of the house and his younger siblings, Samantha and Brody, lost and alone. Duke had run wild, trying to make it all go away. But he remembered bits and pieces of a girl who thought she was having an adventure barrel racing.

Yeah, he remembered. She’d flirted, riding past him, taking his hat. He’d forgotten. He shouldn’t have forgotten.

He looked at the woman sitting across from him, worry over their daughter furrowing her brow. She was no longer that young girl. Duke saw her now as a mom, a woman with strength and faith.

And the mother of his child.

Chapter Four

Oregon started packing the next morning. By noon she had already made a dent in the process. Not that she had a lot. She’d always known how to let go of possessions, to keep only what really mattered.

An hour in, she’d sent Lilly across the street to talk to Duke. Since she’d been gone, Oregon had managed to go through twice as much, packing a lot and putting other things in boxes to be given away. She taped the top of a box she’d just filled and reached for another.

She hated moving. It brought back too many memories. Of leaving towns she would have liked to remain in and people she wanted to know better. By the time she’d reached her teens, she had stopped getting attached. It made it easier to let go if she shrugged it all off and pretended it didn’t matter. A new home, a new life, a new opportunity, her mother had always said, as she had happily packed them off in some aging car she’d bought when the last aging car quit.

Oregon had moved here with the intention of putting down roots.

“Do you always talk to yourself?”

Oregon smiled at the woman standing outside the screen door of the apartment she and Lilly had called home since moving to Martin’s Crossing. Apartment was a generous word for the small space, which was really just a living area with a bedroom in the loft.

“It stops me from saying things to the wrong people if I say them to myself.” She motioned Breezy Martin in. “Want a cup of tea?”

“No, I’m good. I stopped by to see if I could help.”

“I’m almost packed.” She looked around her at the growing stacks of packed boxes. She didn’t want to leave this cramped, tiny space that had been her home, a place where she and her daughter had been happy.

“I didn’t mean help with packing.” Breezy picked up a snow globe from the shelf and wrapped it in paper. “Although I will help pack. I meant, do you need a friend?”

Friends. Yes, she and Breezy had become friends since the other woman arrived in Martin’s Crossing six months ago. And now Breezy would be Lilly’s aunt. Because Breezy was married to Duke’s brother, Jake Martin.

“Duke is in the clouds over this situation, Oregon,” Breezy said.

Oregon held a carved horse in her hands and stared at the wall. She ached inside, wishing away this situation and how it was changing all of their lives. “I know he is.”

“How is Lilly doing?”

Oregon shrugged and placed the horse in a box. “She’s doing better physically. Getting used to the crutches and the fact that she won’t spend her summer vacation swimming.” She drew in a breath. “She’s angry. At me. At Duke. At the world. But she’s with him at the diner, because she’s still trying to save up money for a horse, and he offered to let her work the cash register today.”

“He wants to buy her a horse,” Breezy offered. “He’d buy her the moon if he could.”

“She doesn’t need that. Buying her everything she wants won’t solve the heartache.”

“No, it won’t.” Breezy reached for another dust collector to wrap in paper.

“I have too many snow globes and knickknacks.” Oregon looked around the tiny living space. “Why do I collect things?”

Breezy smiled at that. “Now that is something I have an answer for. Because we moved so much as children. Things mean stability, having a home. If you collect something, you take it with you so that every new place feels a little familiar. Like home.”

Oregon agreed as she looked at the shelves filled with things she’d collected. She had moved often as a girl because her mom couldn’t stay in a relationship. Breezy, on the other hand, had spent much of her life drifting and homeless. Oregon wanted more for her daughter. She wanted a place where Lilly could have roots, family, a real home.

“I’m happy for my daughter. She loves Duke. She’s loved him since the day we got to town. I just don’t want him to let her down. I don’t want to lose her, either.”

“You won’t lose her. And if ever there was a guy who wouldn’t let a kid down, it’s Duke Martin.”

“In my heart I know that.” But old hurts were hard to let go of. So many men had let her down. Starting with her own father, a man whose name she didn’t even know, and ending with Duke, who should have remembered her. It was hard to put her trust in him now.

She taped the box and gave herself a lecture about trusting. Because she knew that she could trust God. She knew that He wouldn’t let her down. He wouldn’t go away. He wouldn’t change His mind. Whatever happened with Duke, with Lilly, she knew they would get through this.

“I’m going to bring a casserole to the new place this evening so you don’t have to worry about cooking.” Breezy reached for an empty box.

“Thank you.”

Breezy set the box down on the table and reached for a stack of books. “Why did you come here after so many years? I guess we all wondered what changed.”

Fair questions. Duke had also asked, pushing to know more about her sudden appearance after so many years. He had wanted to know about the years in between, when she hadn’t thought it was a good idea to tell him about Lilly.

Life changes and so do people, she had told him the previous day. But she hadn’t told him that sometimes things happen and a mother realizes her little girl might someday need a safety net, another parent if one has to go away.

Her heart ached at the thought of ever having to leave her little girl alone. She wanted to be in her daughter’s life for decades, not years. She wanted to watch Lilly grow up. See her get married, have children and grow older.

“Oregon, are you okay?”

She nodded, somehow looking at her friend with eyes free of tears. “Of course. I’m just emotional. I love this silly apartment.”

Breezy shot her a look and shook her head. “I do not believe you are that attached to this place. And when you change your mind about talking, I’m here.”

“I know you are.” She managed to keep her hands from trembling. “What are people in town going to say? How will they treat her now that they know?”

Breezy put down the cup she’d been about to wrap and hugged Oregon tight. And Oregon didn’t back away. She closed her eyes to fend off tears but held on to her friend.

“People love you, and they love your daughter. That isn’t going to change.”

“But life is going to change.”

“Yeah, that’s something we can’t avoid.” Breezy released her. Oregon listened to the brush of crutches on the sidewalk. Lilly was home.

Oregon hurried to open the door for her daughter, and Lilly gave her an “I can do it myself” look.

“Are you done working for the day?” Oregon asked as Lilly looked around the room at boxes nearly packed and empty walls and shelves.

Her daughter nodded. “I’m finished.”

“Did you have fun?” Oregon winced at the question. Lilly shot her a look of disbelief.

“Of course I had fun. Just... I’m not sure what to call Duke. He used to be my friend. Now he’s my dad.”

Oregon didn’t know how to respond, to the question or to the not-so-well-disguised anger. “Call him whatever feels right.”

“Yeah, okay. Anyway, he said to tell you to come over and eat lunch.”

“Thanks, honey.”

Lilly shrugged and looked at the boxes, her back to Oregon and Breezy.

Oregon hadn’t known what to expect when Lilly learned the truth about Duke. In her mind she’d played through several scenarios. In one, Lilly had been thrilled, loving both of them, accepting that they would both love her, even if they couldn’t be a family. In another, Lilly had rejected Duke and in the third, she had rejected Oregon.

They paled in comparison to the truth. The truth was a child who watched both parents, wary and unsure of the future. Reality was a flash of pain in blue eyes, accusing and angry.

Oregon had done this to her daughter. With her choices, first not to tell Duke and then to wait until now, when it felt too late.

Breezy slid a knowing gaze from Lilly to Oregon and offered a sympathetic look. “I should go. The twins are due for a nap, and Jake said something about cattle he has to work. Marty is off today.”

The door closed softly behind her, followed by retreating steps. Oregon watched Lilly as she eased around boxes, her eyes focusing on trinkets that had been wrapped and packed to go.

“I’m sorry. I know I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again until you believe me. Or forgive me.”

Lilly didn’t look at her, but there was a shudder to her indrawn breath that hinted at tears. “I know. You were young and afraid. Duke was no good. He wasn’t responsible. He forgot you, and then he left.”

Lilly’s voice trembled as she repeated every word Oregon had said, tossing the words back at her, letting her hear the flimsiness of the explanations. She ached inside. She wanted to reach for her daughter but knew that Lilly would reject the comfort, and she didn’t think she could handle the rejection right now.

“I made a lot of mistakes.”

“Yeah, I know,” Lilly said.

Oregon chilled on the inside. “No, you don’t know. You weren’t a mistake.”

“No?”

“No, you weren’t.”

Lilly shrugged, and her eyes narrowed a bit. “But the Bible says...”

And there it was. How to tell a child she wasn’t a mistake when the Bible clearly said it was. She’d given herself to a man who wasn’t her husband. She’d had a child out of wedlock. The lesson had been taught at church, and Oregon had reinforced it at home. A young woman should cherish her purity.

“You weren’t a mistake. I was young and unhappy, and I made a mistake. But I have never regretted having you. You kept me sane. You kept me focused. I’m not sure where I would be without you, Lilly. I think I’d be lost. Physically and spiritually, probably emotionally. So you were not a mistake. I’m not sure how to connect something I did that I shouldn’t have and the gift you have been, but God is merciful, and somehow He knew that through my mistake something beautiful would happen.”

Lilly edged around her to the door. “We should go.”

Oregon closed her eyes, fighting tears that stung and the tight ache in her throat. “I love you.”

“Mom, I know you love me. And I love you. But I’m still mad.”

Oregon sobbed, the tears rolling down her cheeks. She closed the distance between herself and Lilly, wrapping the girl in the embrace they both needed. Lilly tried to break away, but Oregon held her tight.

“Please, forgive me.”

“I forgive you, Mom.”

But the tense set of young shoulders told Oregon more than words. She was forgiven, but the anger wasn’t going away. Not today.

* * *

From the kitchen of Duke’s No Bar and Grill, Duke heard Oregon’s voice, soft and vulnerable. He stirred the big pot of spaghetti sauce that would be the evening special, then headed for the dining room of the restaurant. He’d owned Duke’s for a couple of years. He had needed this place when he first got back from Afghanistan. Cooking had given him a way to focus on something other than the pain of memories.

Ned, short for Nedine, had seated Lilly and Oregon at a booth by the window. He smiled at the waitress, a big woman with a heart of gold. She winked as she walked past him. He thought she had probably guessed the situation with himself, Oregon and Lilly. He hadn’t really made it public knowledge, but nothing got past Ned.

His brothers knew. Jake and Brody were both supportive. Jake in his typical older-brother, serious and a little self-righteous way. Brody had halfheartedly teased. But Brody hadn’t been the same since he came back to Martin’s Crossing, saying he was done with riding bulls and with his best friend and traveling buddy. Something had shifted in their little brother. He was a little bit angry and too determined to find the mother who had walked out on them twenty years ago.

Duke hadn’t yet got around to telling Samantha, their little sister, about Lilly. She was in college and doing better than she had been a few years ago. She’d finally forgiven them for sending her away. Maybe she was actually starting to see that they’d done her a favor.

As he walked toward the booth, Lilly looked up at him, her blue eyes issuing a challenge. Claim me or else, those eyes said. He had no problem claiming her. What he wanted more than anything was to wipe away the anger and hurt. From her expression and from Oregon’s. How did he do that?

How did he go from bachelor to father? With only twenty-four hours behind them, he was still struggling with that. His first instinct was to give his kid a pony. Oregon had made it clear Lilly had to earn the money. Instead, he’d given them a house to live in.

He needed to make them a family. It wasn’t a comfortable thought. He hadn’t ever imagined himself married. Not even close. He definitely hadn’t imagined kids. He loved his twin nieces, Violet and Rose, but he hadn’t imagined having any of his own. For a lot of reasons. How would he know how to be a dad when his own parents had checked out? Why would he want to give up a pretty easy life as a bachelor?

He now had an answer to that last question. When a man faced a kid like Lilly, it became easy to think of giving up the single life.

“How about some lunch?” he offered, because it seemed to him that Oregon would be more likely to take lunch from him than a marriage proposal. What had he been thinking, proposing to her in a hospital hallway? He might be a bachelor, but he did know a thing or two about romance.

“Cheeseburger and fries, and a strawberry shake.” Lilly ordered with the slightest hint of a smile.

Oregon stared at the menu blankly.

Duke grabbed a chair from a nearby table, turned it backward and sat with his arms rested on the chair back. Oregon glanced his way, her gray eyes wary. She refocused on the menu she still held in hands that trembled just the slightest bit. He waited, giving her time. He knew this game. It was like breaking a horse. Slow and gentle, giving them time to trust, to accept.

Trust. He had a feeling neither of them were really big on trusting. He’d watched her for the past year, easing into the community, keeping to herself for the most part, then eventually letting a few people in.

He’d been abandoned by his own mother. He understood what it meant to have trust issues. He also knew he couldn’t fix everything. As a medic in the army, he’d tried. And he’d walked away, disillusioned with his own abilities and with God, because he knew God had to hear him screaming for help saving those kids.

He cleared his throat, coming back to the present, away from dark memories that he usually kept at bay until night. Oregon watched him closely with eyes that seemed to see too much.

“So what about you?” he asked as he studied her face. He shifted his gaze to Lilly. Not for the first time he wondered how he’d been so blind. Breezy had told him she noticed the first time she met Lilly. Jake had nodded, as if everyone had seen the resemblance.

“I’ll take a chef salad,” Oregon answered.

He started to stand but Ned was there, round face smiling big and her graying auburn hair in a long ponytail. Nedine, fifty and happily single, was half hippy and half rancher, and when she settled her hand on his shoulder, he didn’t argue. He stayed put.

“I’ve got this, boss.” She winked and held up her order pad. “How about I fix you some lunch and you can join the ladies?”

“I’ll take the same as Lilly. And thank you.”

She winked and walked away. He stood, moving his chair back to the neighboring table. Lilly scooted, making room for him in the booth. He slid in next to her, their shoulders bumping. He looked down, and she looked up at him, her teeth biting into her bottom lip as she studied his face.

Was she seeing the resemblance? he wondered. He guessed she was because she frowned, first at him and then at her mom.

Oregon’s cheeks turned pink, and she focused on the napkin in her hands. He had to get control of the situation. That was the first step in this new life of his. Staying in control.

“I’ve got Ned and Joe working tonight.” At the mention of Joe, Oregon looked up. Suspicion settled in her eyes, because that’s the reaction everyone in town had to the drifter who had shown up before Christmas.

Oregon thanked Ned, who set a glass of sweet tea in front of her and the shakes in front of Lilly and himself. The waitress scurried away, fast for a woman so large.

“I thought I’d take the night off and help you move.”

“Oh, I see.”

Did she have another plan? Someone else who would help?

“Is that okay?” He leaned forward, folding his large frame a little so that he didn’t tower over Oregon and his daughter. Even sitting, he knew he towered. A man who was six foot eight knew he could be intimidating.

“Yes, of course,” Lilly answered, sounding way too grown-up. That gave him pause. She was twelve, but she would soon grow up.

He got a little itchy thinking about that. She’d be a teenager. She’d date. There would be boys knocking on the door, and she would get in a car and go out with them. He swallowed a lump of fear that got tangled up with premature anger. If the boys were anything like him, they weren’t coming near Lilly.

A foot connected with his shin, and he managed not to squawk at the sharp pain. He glanced at the woman sitting across from him as she gave him a warning look.

“What?” he fairly snarled.

“That’s my cue to take a walk.” Lilly pushed his shoulder. “Grown-up talk time. And I don’t even know why. I get a family and suddenly we can’t sit down to a meal without the adults acting like they’re at war.”

He moved from the booth and watched as she situated her crutches and scurried away. She glanced back over her shoulder. “I’m going to the kitchen. Let me know when you’re done talking about me.”

Duke folded himself back into the booth and felt like a ten-year-old kid that had been sent to the principal’s office. He glanced at the woman sitting across from him. She didn’t openly smile, but he saw her lips start to curve, the flicker of amusement in her eyes.

“Did we say something that made her think we needed time to talk?” he asked.

Her grin became the real deal. He loved that gesture, the way it shifted her face, and the sweetness settled in her eyes. That smile made him regret the past, making him not so sorry about the present or the future. But nervous. Yeah, still nervous.

“You looked like a thundercloud,” Oregon responded, and he blinked.

“What does that mean?”

“You were sitting there all calm and gentle giant-like, and suddenly you became a rumbling mountain about to erupt.”

“I didn’t realize.”

“No, I’m sure you didn’t. You rumble. It almost sounds like a growl. And I’m sure Lilly is wondering why.”

He leaned back in the seat, the vinyl cushion lumpy from overuse, ripped a bit in one spot. He’d have to fix that. Oregon kicked him again, this time without the power of that first time. He opened his eyes and looked at her.

“I was thinking about the fact that I just got this kid, and in the next few years she’s going to become a young lady,” he admitted, feeling all kinds of insecurity that a grown man shouldn’t feel. “And she’ll, well, she’ll date. Boys. I’ll have to hurt them.”

Oregon laughed, the sound so easy and warm that it slid over him like summer rain. He soaked it up, like a man dying of thirst who hadn’t even known he was thirsty.

“Yes, she’ll date. And you won’t hurt them.”

“What if she brings home a guy like me, the way I was at sixteen or seventeen?” He grimaced at none-too-pleasant memories. “At twenty.”

“She’s not me, and she isn’t going to date anyone like you. She is loved and secure, and I hope she’ll make better choices. And I’m not going to let her randomly date every boy that knocks on the door or calls. Or texts.”

“Gotcha. But I can be there.”

“And intimidate them?”

She glanced at his interlocked fingers, and he made an effort to relax his hands.

“Never.” He grinned as he said it. Something inside him loosened a bit. At least Oregon had time on the job, as a parent, as a mom.

He wondered if she would resent his participation. Maybe now was the time to talk. They hadn’t talked much since he’d taken them home yesterday. No, yesterday had been more about telling Lilly, and then watching her shut down and wondering how to fix everything.

“I want to be a part of her life, Oregon. I want to be more than the neighbor, the guy who watches her grow up. I want to be a father to her.”

“I assumed you would.” Her voice was easy, only a hint of tension. “That’s why I came here, Duke. I know I should have told you sooner, but it wasn’t that easy. Once I got here, I realized that bringing you into her life meant bringing you into mine. It just wasn’t as simple as I had convinced myself it would be.”

“Eventually we have to talk about why you made the decision now, after twelve years of parenting alone.” Because he knew there had been something that pushed her to come here, something to change her mind.

“It’s a long story.”

“That’s just your way of saying none of your business, right?”

“No, not really. It’s just a long story.”