Time To Add Another Branch?

Former rodeo rider Logan Grainger had finally set down roots to care for his orphaned twin nephews. He’d allowed himself to consider a future with the boys’ pretty caretaker, Clementine Hurley. Then he’d discovered he was not truly a Grainger. His life in turmoil, Logan decided to break all ties with her before someone got hurt.

Clementine was not about to let Logan keep avoiding her. His nephews are in her Christmas pageant; she has plans to foster a girl who might well be Logan’s stepsister. He’s been hiding from their attraction for too long. The feisty waitress is gonna show that stubborn cowboy just how much room he has to add on to his family tree...starting with her!

“Thank you,” he said. “Being in the Christmas show means a lot to the boys.”

They mean a lot to me, she wanted to say. I miss them. I miss you. I miss what we had, what we started to have.

“Rehearsals start tomorrow,” she told him, forcing herself to be all business. “Three thirty to five thirty. Monday, Wednesday and Friday will be the regular schedule. I’m putting out the call for volunteers tomorrow, so the twins and other little ones will be in good hands.”

He nodded. “I’m sure they will be. I’ll make sure they’re there.” He was looking everywhere but at her. “Boys,” he called, “let’s get home for that ice cream I promised you.”

As they walked out, each holding one of Logan’s hands, that empty feeling came crawling back. What she would give to be with Logan and the boys in his living room, laughing over something silly and eating ice cream.

How was she going to handle seeing Logan Grainger six times a week for five seconds at a time?

* * *

Hurley’s Homestyle Kitchen:

There’s nothing more delicious

than falling in love…

The Cowboy’s Big Family Tree

Meg Maxwell

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MEG MAXWELL lives on the coast of Maine with her teenage son, their beagle and their black-and-white cat. When she’s not writing, Meg is either reading, at the movies or thinking up new story ideas on her favorite little beach (even in winter) just minutes from her house. Interesting fact: Meg Maxwell is a pseudonym for author Melissa Senate, whose women’s fiction titles have been published in over twenty-five countries.

For my beloved Max

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Epilogue

Extract

Copyright

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.

They ran over to Clementine and hugged her. She’d missed the feel of their sweet little arms around her so much. From last April to August, she’d spent just about every day with them between her lunch and dinner shifts, picking them up from their preschool program, taking them to the library, to the smoothie shop for their favorite concoctions, to Hurley’s for the kids’ mac and cheese that they loved so much. And she’d bring them home, so aware of their uncle Logan with every step in his house, his jackets and cowboy hats on pegs just inside the front door, the big brown leather couch he’d cuddle up on with the boys as he read to them. She’d give the twins a bath and bring them downstairs all ready for dinner, and sometimes he’d invite her to stay and she would—and she’d fantasize that he was her husband, these were her boys.

And then finally, the kiss. That amazing kiss. He is attracted to me, she’d thought. I’m not crazy. Something has been building here.

Until it crumbled along with her heart.

She could feel Logan watching her now and she snapped back to attention. The boys had run over to the play area, a big square with a colorful rubber mat set up with toys, blocks and books, and Logan was stepping close to her.

“Thank you,” he said. “Being in the show means a lot to them.”

They mean a lot to me, she wanted to say. I miss them. I miss you. I miss what we had, what we started to have.

“Rehearsals start tomorrow,” she told him, forcing herself to be all business. “3:30 to 5:30. Monday, Wednesday and Friday will be the regular schedule. Louisa is helping out, plus I’m putting out the call for volunteers tomorrow, so the twins and other little ones will be in good hands.”

He nodded. “I’ll make sure they’re there.” He was looking everywhere but at her. “Boys,” he called over, “let’s get home for that ice cream I promised you.”

As they walked out, each holding one of Logan’s hands, that empty feeling came crawling back. What she would give to be with Logan and the boys in his living room, laughing over something silly and eating ice cream.

How was she going to handle seeing Logan Grainger six times a week for five seconds a time?

By shutting him out yourself, she realized. She’d tried over the past three months and for the most part, she stopped thinking about him so much. That was possible only because he’d made himself so darn scarce. But now that he’d be around so often, even for just drop-off and pickup, she wasn’t sure her heart could take it.

She had to focus on all that was going on in her life and forget Logan Grainger. She had the play, her job, her family, her volunteer work, her side job and the call she was expecting any day now from the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services.

Logan Grainger, I am hereby quitting you. Quitting dreaming of you, thinking of you and hoping for something you’ve made clear will never be.

Thing was, it drove her insane not to know why he’d shut her out. And until she knew why, she would wonder and speculate what she’d done wrong, if she’d done something wrong. Something she did or said? Something in the letter he’d gotten that had made him fire her? What? What could possibly be the connection?

As she stood in the empty community center room, just her and a bunch of chairs, she made a decision about Logan Grainger, one she could live with.

She was going to find out why he’d fired her, why he’d dumped her the way he had. He owed her an explanation; yes, he did. She’d get her long overdue explanation and be able to put Logan Grainer to rest in her mind.

Not in her heart, not for a long time, but it was a start.

Chapter Two

The first thing Logan had thought of when he woke up in the morning was Clementine Hurley. For the past three months he’d put her out of his head, easily done with the dulled anger that had taken over his waking moments since he’d gotten Parsons’s letter. Except when it came to Harry and Henry. From the time he got the boys up for breakfast and then ready for school, he was good Uncle Logan who put their needs first. But the second they were safely ensconced somewhere else, whether at school or with their sitter, the long-simmering burn would start churning in his stomach, thrumming in his head, questions with no answers.

This morning, though, his first waking thought had been Clementine and the questions he clearly saw in her eyes. She deserved better than how he’d treated her. But he didn’t want to explain anything. He didn’t want to talk. He just wanted to be left the hell alone.

Now, after dropping off the boys at school, Logan stood in the barn, grinding feed for the cattle, his own burning questions back full force. Was he this Clyde Parsons’s son or not? Why would the man make up a lie and send a deathbed confession? Why would he stuff a safe-deposit box full of money for eighteen years and send Logan the key if he wasn’t Logan’s biological father?

Maybe Clyde Parsons had a mental condition and didn’t know what he was doing. Maybe it was all one big mistake. His biological son was a different Logan Grainger. Once, someone had dropped off an unfamiliar wallet in Logan’s mailbox with a sticky note on it: Logan, found this by the steak house, but the driver’s license was for Logan Granger out in Grassville, a few towns over. Whoever had found it probably just quickly eyeballed the name, thought it was Logan Grainger’s and dropped it off without noticing the Grassville address.

Yes, Clyde Parsons was probably Logan Granger’s biological father. He’d just messed up the spelling of the last name. Sorry, Logan Granger, but you’ve got a biological father out there you never knew about. Believe me, I know how you’re going to feel when I straighten out this mess and discover it’s you Parsons meant to send his deathbed confession to.

Except Parsons had revealed some personal details in the letter. There was no way Logan Granger’s father’s name was also Haywood. Daniel, Peter, George, Tyler—sure, maybe. Haywood—no damned way.

For months Logan had been doing this, his mind wrapping around any slight idea that would make the letter not true. But then the “oh yeah” would hit him a second later. Something that would send shivers up his spine to make him realize Parsons was probably telling the truth.

Logan was holding on to probably instead of definitely as long as he could.

What the hell had happened back then—twenty-eight years ago? His parents’ wedding anniversary was eight months and three weeks before he was born. Logan never really thought about that much before, but the past three months, as logistics whirled around his head during barn chores or late at night in bed, he figured he’d come into the world a few weeks early. His brother had been five weeks premature and healthy as can be. So maybe Logan had been a couple of weeks premature too. If Parsons was Logan’s biological father, then his parents had gotten married immediately after his mother had discovered she was pregnant. His mom and dad had both grown up in Blue Gulch, had known each other the way everyone does in a small town, but they’d never dated in high school until they’d suddenly married the summer after. So they’d had a whirlwind romance and gotten married. Happened all the time.

If it was true, had Haywood Grainger known? It was clear from Parsons’s letter that his mother knew Clyde T. Parsons was the father of her baby. Had she told Haywood? Had his dad raised another man’s child thinking Logan was his own flesh and blood?

Logan stopped grinding the feed and the silence was too much. He needed distraction. He needed to find out the truth, have his questions answered, but he wanted the truth to be that Haywood Grainger was his biological dad, that Parsons was lying or suffering from dementia and lost in an old dream of the girl who’d gotten away.

It was possible.

Logan adjusted his Stetson and stalked over to the far pasture, zipping up his leather jacket as the December first wind snaked around him. He looked out at the herd grazing, just watched them standing there, calm and steady. As always, the land, the herd, the ranch worked their magic on his head and heart and he felt better. The letter receded from his thoughts as he decided to move the herd out farther tomorrow and tried to focus on whether he wanted to take on Wildman, another old rodeo bull who needed to be nursed back to health. Logan had done that once when he first quit the rodeo, but it was lot of work and took time and Logan had little room for either.

His cell phone buzzed with a text. He grabbed it, worried as always that it had to do with the twins, that something had happened.

But it was Clementine.

I’ll drop the boys off after the show rehearsal. I need to talk to you.—Clementine.

No question mark. Not “can” I drop off the boys. Not “can” we talk.

I will. I need. End of story.

Didn’t she know it was too hard on him to see her? That she was the first woman who’d interested him since The Liar? Plus, even more so, just the sight of Clementine reminded him of who he’d been before he’d gotten Parsons’s letter: a Grainger. His father’s son. Exactly who he thought he was. Albeit hardheaded and stubborn, fine. But his father’s son. Clementine had been there when he’d gotten the letter. Hell, she’d brought it in from the mailbox, not that that was her fault.

In her presence, his life had completely changed. Went from one thing to another.

Maybe. If. He closed his eyes and shook his head, driving himself crazy. Something had to give here. He had to look up the guy or ask someone or find out something, dammit.

In the meantime, he could text Clementine back a No, that won’t work for me, I’ll pick them up, no time to talk, bye. He’d done that the first month after he’d pushed her out of his life. She’d show up at the house, she’d call, she’d text, and he just cruelly shut her out. He released a deep breath, another gust of cool wind going straight to his bones. Maybe by “I need to talk” she meant she wanted to talk about the twins and how often he should work with Harry and Henry at home on the songs they had to learn for the Christmas show.

Right.

This was his mind wrapping around stupid maybes when Logan wasn’t a stupid man.

Clementine wanted to talk about them. About what happened last August. About why he’d closed the curtain on them before it had even gone up.

But he didn’t want to talk about it with anyone.

Thing was, Clementine Hurley knew what it was like to have a birth parent and be raised by someone else. Maybe talking to her would help him sort out some of the wild feelings that were making him crazy.

He shook his head. He’d talk to her, then he’d feel close to her again, then he’d be kissing her and suddenly he’d be losing his head again in a romance. He liked Clementine—truth be told, he more than liked her in a deep down way he never would allow himself to think too much about. But everything inside him felt like it was made of the same thing his hard head was made out of. Something had closed inside him, period. He was done with women, done with love and romance and thinking about marriage and the future. And as attracted as he was to Clementine, he wasn’t about to use her for sex. He’d hurt her enough.

But maybe if he finally said something, gave her an explanation without going into specifics, just some general: Got some strange news I don’t want to talk about and can’t deal with, so I’m laying low these days kind of thing. A person on the receiving end of that explanation would have to respect that, right? She’d back off. He could go on trying his damnedest to pretend she didn’t exist.

That settled, he texted back an Okay.—L and went back to the house to fill up a thermos with strong coffee, surprised to see his answering machine blinking on the house landline. Everyone who needed to get in touch with him had his cell phone number.

He pressed Play and headed to the refrigerator for the pitcher of iced tea the twins’ sitter had made yesterday.

“I’m calling for Logan Grainger,” a stranger’s voice said. “I’m from the Tuckerville Post Office. You have been noted on a form here as the emergency contact for the late Clyde Parsons. His PO box hasn’t been paid in two months and will need to be cleaned out by the end of the week or the contents will be turned over to the state.”

Logan froze. Emergency contact? How dare—

Logan counted to five in his head to calm himself down, then shoved the pitcher of iced tea back in the fridge, his mind on the key and the money Parsons had written about. Child support. Well, Logan didn’t want anything to do with Parsons’s money or his damned guilt. He hated the final paragraph of Parsons’s letter and had almost ripped the thing to shreds right after he’d read it.

You’ll also find some photographs in the PO box. There’s one of your mama. To this day I swear she’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. There’s one of us together too that always killed me to look at. I screwed up big. I failed her and you. I just want you to know, most of all, that I’m sorry. I tried not to think of you and did a damned good job of it too. But now that I’m dying, I’m thinking about you a lot.

—Yours, Clyde Parsons.

My father is Haywood Grainger, you stinking liar, Logan wanted to scream. His father had been a great dad. He practiced soccer with Logan and Seth for hours in the fields. He’d chaperoned overnights in the woods for Boy Scouts. He’d patiently tutored Logan in chemistry, having to study the textbook himself first to understand it. He’d taught Logan to be proud of the small bit of land they owned, how to raise and care for cattle, how to ride a horse. He’d been the best father and had always made Logan feel okay about himself.

Because he didn’t know he wasn’t Logan’s biological father? If he had known, would he have treated Logan differently? Or not? Had Haywood Grainger known or not?

More than anything else on earth at the moment, Logan wanted Parsons to be wrong. He wanted Parsons to have been mixed up. Or that the pregnancy and himself as a father was some fantasy he’d cooked up because his girlfriend, Logan’s mother, had dumped him for a better man—Logan’s father. Maybe Parsons really wasn’t his biological father at all. Logan liked that train of thought.

Except there were pictures in the PO box. Not that they’d prove anything, but Logan could see what Parsons looked like. If Logan looked nothing like him either, then maybe he could go on forgetting the whole thing. Pretend he’d never gotten the letter, force it from his mind.

But since the seed of doubt was there, that he wasn’t the son of Parsons, maybe seeing a photograph of Parsons would settle something for Logan either way. Or not. Now he was thinking in circles. Logan was surprised he hadn’t collapsed in a dizzy heap on the kitchen floor.

That’s it, he thought. Just do it. Get it over with. He grabbed the letter from where he’d stuck it between the side of the microwave and the wall, took out the little gold key and shoved it in his pocket. Then he put on his leather jacket and his Stetson, let his ranch hand know he’d be gone for a few hours, and headed for his pickup.

Tuckerville was just over an hour away. During the drive, he kept the radio loud to drown out his thoughts. When he pulled into the Tuckerville post office parking lot, he didn’t hesitate; he got out of the truck and went inside, ready to finally do this, to know something for sure.

He fished the old gold key from his pocket. 137 was imprinted at the top of the key. He found the right box on the last row, stuck in the key and felt his stomach twist with the lock.

He opened the little square door. Inside the long, narrow box was stacks of money, small bills haphazardly bundled in rubber bands and a bunch of envelopes, some large manila ones, some letter size.

Logan pulled out the large envelope and reached in. He could feel several photographs.

He pulled one out. Ellie McCall Grainger sat on the bank of a river in one, grinning in the sunshine. She wore a yellow T-shirt and jeans rolled up to the knees, her bare feet in the water. God, he missed her. His mother was kind and patient.

He didn’t have to wonder who had taken the picture.

He turned the picture over. Beauty at the River. With a date, November, twenty-eight years ago.

Logan was born almost exactly nine months later.

The next three photographs were also of his mother alone, smiling, looking very happy, either at the riverbank or in two of the photos at a farm stand, pointing at the display of Christmas wreaths.

He pulled out the final photograph and gasped, the picture slipping out of his hands. Logan stepped back, his hands shaking. No. No way.

Get ahold of yourself, he ordered.

He steeled himself and picked up the photograph, forcing himself to look at the man pictured, his arm around Logan’s mother.

Clyde Parsons was a dead ringer for Logan. The height. The dark hair. The Clint Eastwood squint. The shape of his face, his features, the expression.

His stomach felt like someone had just socked him hard, and his head felt so woozy he had to grip the side of the box unit to steady himself.

Clyde Parsons had been telling the damned truth. Logan wasn’t a Grainger.

* * *

Well, it was a good thing Clementine had gotten bold and insisted on bringing the boys home since Logan had arranged for her replacement, the twins’ sitter, to drop them off at the rehearsal after school today. She had no doubt the woman would have come to pick them up too. Anything so that Logan could avoid her. Well, no more.

He didn’t have to want to date her. But he couldn’t just fire her without a reason. Dump her from his life with no cause. And she wasn’t leaving tonight until she had that reason. She was tired of racking her brain at night, tired of wondering if she’d done something wrong. Tired of trying to figure out what in the heck was in that letter that seemed to change everything. And if she was going to spend the next few weeks with the Grainger twins at rehearsal, she had to know what had caused Logan to push her away.

She pulled up to the sprawling white farmhouse, the front porch festooned with white lights, a three-foot tall painted wood nutcracker soldier standing aside the door next to two sorry-looking carved jack-o’-lanterns that Logan probably couldn’t bear to get rid of. Clementine loved how he tried so hard to make a sweet life for his nephews. Decorating for the holidays and carving pumpkins hadn’t been part of his world before he’d taken them in. Last summer, he’d told her stories about his life on the rodeo circuit, and though it sounded lonely to Clementine, he’d said he loved it. He’d muttered under his breath about something, a bad incident, but he wouldn’t talk about it. Then, Clementine had just been starting to understand Logan Grainger somewhat—he didn’t like to talk about what upset him, same as her, same as probably lots of people, except her two sisters. Now she wished he was more like Annabel and Georgia and said outright what was digging at him.

Clementine turned around and glanced at the twins in the back in their car seats. Both of them were fast asleep, Henry’s head hanging down, Harry’s to the side, his little pink mouth open. Both clutched the little stuffed reindeers she’d bought for them from a sidewalk fund raiser in town. She couldn’t bear to wake them.

Clementine walked up the three steps to the porch and smiled at the jack-o’-lantern, took a deep breath and knocked. Logan opened the door, eyebrow raised since his nephews weren’t at her side. “The boys fell asleep in their car seats. I think the rehearsal tuckered them out. My gram brought turkey po’boys and a few side dishes as a surprise for everyone for the first rehearsal, so they did eat.”

He looked past her at the car. “That was nice of her. Tell her thank you from me. I’ll carry them up to bed.”

She stood on the porch while he carried in Harry. When he went back out for Henry, she headed into the kitchen. She didn’t work for Logan anymore and had no business going into his kitchen and making a pot of coffee the way she used to, but too bad. The man needed coffee and so did she. And she wasn’t leaving without knowing what had him so tied up in knots.

He hadn’t opened up to her in three months. Why would he now?

She heard him walking upstairs, then a door being slowly closed. Then his footsteps on the stairs again.

He came into the kitchen, glancing briefly at her. “Is that coffee I smell?”

“I took the liberty. You looked like you could use some.” She bit her lip. Well, go ahead, Clem. He’s not going to bring it up. “Logan, I—I know you’ve made it crystal clear that you don’t want anything to do with me. I don’t know what happened back in August. You kissed me, and I thought something was happening between us. Then a minute later, you read a letter and that was it. All of a sudden, the next day you fired me and wouldn’t talk to me.”

He turned away for a moment, then leaned against the counter, crossing his arms over his chest. “I’m sorry, Clementine. I was a real jerk to you.”

But why? she wanted to scream. Why, why, why?

She waited for him to elaborate. Maybe if she stopped trying to fill the silence, he’d go on.

She could hear the coffee dripping into the pot. The second hand on the big analog clock on the wall ticking away. Her own beating heart.

He looked at her for a long few seconds, then said, “Can I ask you a personal question?”

Please do, she thought.

“Sure,” she said, practically holding her breath.

He looked at her, his blue eyes intense, then he glanced away. “Did you feel, deep down, that the Hurleys were your parents, that you were their child? Or did you feel...adopted?”

What the heck? Where was this coming from? Was he worried about how the twins would feel being raised by their uncle?

She stared at him, having no idea where he was going with this or what this had to do with her question. But clearly, it did. “To be honest, both,” she said. “But the Hurleys took me in when I was eight. From that point on, I did feel they were my parents and I loved them and I believed they loved me. Annabel and Georgia felt like my sisters from the start because they were so loving to me. They made me feel like I was one of them. But maybe because I was eight when they adopted me, I was very aware that for the years prior, I was in limbo. Foster care. I had a birth mother, but she couldn’t take care of me.”

He nodded. “Couldn’t or wouldn’t?”

Again, what the hell? Hadn’t she and Logan talked about this a bit when he’d first hired her as the boys’ after-school sitter? He knew Clementine’s story. It had come up because when she’d first starting babysitting for him last spring, not long after he’d come home to raise the boys, he once asked aloud if the twins would accept Logan as a father figure. She’d talked a lot about love and commitment and being there as what mattered.

“My mother was a drug addict,” she said. “She had me at eighteen and managed to be clean during her pregnancy for my sake. That tells me a lot about her. She tried hard. But she couldn’t stay clean and she was in and out of rehab for years. So I say couldn’t.”

“Well, sometimes it’s about wouldn’t.”

She walked over to him and put her hand on his arm. He stiffened. “Logan, what is this about?”

He reached over to the counter to a few manila envelopes with a letter lying on top. He handed her the letter, which was from a Clyde T. Parsons in Tuckerville. “Read it,” he said.

She gasped at the first sentence. Then about three more times. Oh, Logan, she thought. What a thing to find out at age twenty-eight—and when everyone involved was gone.

“This is about wouldn’t,” he said. He opened a cabinet and pulled out two mugs, then filled them with coffee and got out the cream and sugar.

She put the letter down on the counter and reached for her mug. “Not necessarily.”

“Not necessarily?” he repeated, frowning. “He walked out on a pregnant woman. Walked out on his responsibilities to her and to me. Then he needs to die in peace so he flings a grenade at me as a parting gift? Wouldn’t, Clementine.”

Her heart constricted. This was complicated and messy and was tearing him apart, rightfully so.

She wrapped her hands around the steaming mug. “I’m just saying that there’s a fine line between can’t and won’t. Sometimes people can’t step up. They don’t have it in them.”

“Bull. I stepped up. My brother and his wife died leaving two little boys confused about why their parents weren’t here anymore.”

“You had it in you, Logan. You’re strong. You care. Some people just can’t handle things. So they walk away.”

He shook his head. “You mean they won’t, so they walk away. Anyone can step up.”

Clementine felt lead weights on her shoulders. “I don’t know.” She really didn’t. Her birth mother hadn’t been able to, even thought she’d claimed quite a few times over the years that she wanted to. Sometimes, to keep your heart intact, you had to believe what you needed to believe. Clementine needed to believe in couldn’t, not wouldn’t.

Logan’s jaw was set hard. “So you condone what Parsons did.”

“No. Of course not. I’m just saying he very likely didn’t have it in him to do anything else.”

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore.” He turned away and took a long drink of his coffee.

She hadn’t meant to shut him down. Maybe she was supposed to listen more, talk less?

If she didn’t believe in her heart that her birth mother was a couldn’t and not a wouldn’t, Clementine was sure her heart would break in a thousand pieces. Sometimes, when she thought about Lacey Woolen, it was the only thing that kept Clementine okay.

“I can only talk about my particular situation and how I feel about it,” she said. “I completely understand how you feel, Logan. The parting gift, the walking away, the grenade, I get it. God, what a bombshell.”

“Why didn’t my parents tell me?” he asked quietly. “How could they let me live a lie?”

“Probably because deep down and no matter what, you were Haywood Grainger’s son, and that was no lie. It was their truth, Logan.”

“But not the truth,” he said, shaking his head again.

She wanted to go over and wrap her arms around him, but she didn’t dare. “It’s complicated.”

He took another sip of his coffee. “Let’s change the subject. How’d the boys do tonight?”

She smiled. “Great. They now can sing the first line of ‘Jingle Bells’ without a hitch. And that’s only after one night of rehearsal.”

“Isn’t the first line just ‘Jingle Bells’ twice?”

She laughed. “Yes. But they’re only three years old.”

“They’ve missed you. I’m glad they can spend time with you.”

She was quiet for a moment, then said, “At least I know now why you fired me, why you pushed me away. You were all torn up.”

He nodded. “I’m sorry, Clementine. You deserved better than that.”

So come over here. Kiss me again. Take me in your arms. Let me in now that I know. Maybe I can help.

He did none of the above. “I don’t know who the hell I am,” he added grimly. Am I even Harry’s and Henry’s uncle if I’m not a Grainger?” He shook his head. “That’s dumb. Even if I’m just half, I’m still their uncle.”

She put down her mug. “You are, no matter what.”

“I hate this,” he said. “I hate it all.”

She bit her lip and let out a breath. “Have you verified that this Clyde T. Parsons is telling the truth? Have you seen the photographs he mentions in the letter?”

He explained about the call this afternoon, about the picture of Clyde Parsons being a dead ringer for him. He picked up one of the manila envelopes, reached in and pulled out a photograph of a man without looking at it, then handed it to her.

She took the photograph and stared at it. Oh wow. Clyde Parsons looked very much like Logan Grainger. They had the same features—except Clyde’s eyes were hazel—the same hair, and there was something so similar in their expressions.

Her heart went out to Logan. How hard this must be. So much to take in, so many questions, no answers.

“Maybe Parsons has family,” she said softly.

He shot a glance at her. “His family has nothing to do with me.”

She wasn’t so sure she agreed, but now wasn’t the time to talk about that anyway. “I just mean that maybe you can find out who Clyde Parsons was, what he was like. You could do some poking around about him.”

“Don’t I know everything by his actions? He walked out on his pregnant girlfriend. He let another man take responsibility.” He set his mug down hard in the sink. “You know what? I’m done talking about this. Done thinking about it. Haywood Grainger was my father—he raised me. That’s all I need to know.”

Except the whole thing was tearing Logan apart. So it wasn’t all he needed to know. It was what he wanted to know, but for closure, for peace, he’d have to do more than ignore the truth.

Clementine glanced at her watch. “Oh no, I’m late. My shift starts at six and you know how crazy busy Hurley’s Homestyle Kitchen gets on a Friday night. “By the way, my sister Annabel told me that tomorrow’s special is Gram’s famed macaroni and cheese. Maybe you can bring the boys in for lunch. Oh and practice ‘Jingle Bells’ over breakfast.”

He nodded. “Will do. And maybe we will come in for lunch tomorrow. I’d like to thank your grandmother for the po’boys. The twins love Hurley’s po’boys.”

And hadn’t had them for the three months he’d been avoiding her, hung in the air between them.

“Logan, if you need to talk about this, you can call me or come see me anytime. You know that, right?”

“I’m done talking about it,” he said, his blue eyes stony. “But...thanks,” he added, his expression softening just a little.

She headed toward the door, wishing she could stay, wishing she could rush over to him and hug him tight. It took everything in her to walk to the door and leave him alone with his thoughts.

Chapter Three

Hurley’s Homestyle Kitchen was open from 11:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. every day but Monday, and since Clementine was the head waitress, managed the waitstaff and helped in the kitchen between her shifts, she had little time to work on the Creole sauce she’d been trying to perfect for Hurley’s special Christmas dinner menu. Hurley’s wouldn’t be open for usual business on December 24. Every Christmas Eve, Gram created a free buffet for those who might be alone for the holiday or unable to afford dinner.

Clementine loved her grandmother so much. The woman was always thinking about others, those who didn’t have much money or family. At holiday time especially, she wanted Hurley’s to be a place where people could come, alone or just hungry, and share in a special meal. Every year, Clementine invited her birth mother, who she knew lived alone in a one-bedroom apartment above the library down Blue Gulch Street and kept very much to herself. Every year, Lacey Woolen was noncommittal. Twice she’d shown up. Once, she peeked her head in, then quickly left, clearly uncomfortable. The other time, three years ago, she’d gotten as far as sitting down at a table with others but hadn’t filled her plate and left after ten minutes.

Now, in the big country kitchen, Clementine yawned as she added chopped onions and garlic to the big pot for her Creole sauce. She’d spent a fitful night thinking of everything Logan had told her about the letter he’d received, the contents of the PO box and everything they’d talked about, including her birth mother. She’d thought Logan was a wouldn’t all these heartbreaking months. But it turned out that he was a couldn’t. Right now, Logan was dealing with the reality of having an answer to a question that had been tormenting him for three months. A man other than his beloved dad was his biological father.

Yes, right now, Logan was a couldn’t.

As Clementine stirred her sauce, she wondered if Lacey would ever swing from couldn’t to could and come to the Christmas buffet, if she’d finally give Clementine the one thing she wanted from Lacey: just the slightest, barest, most tenuous start of a relationship of some sort. They were two people with a fundamental connection, and since Clementine was a twenty-five-year-old adult, it seemed perfectly reasonable to Clementine that Lacey finally acknowledge that connection, open up in the slightest, share something about herself, anything, something. But she never had. It used to hurt Clementine terribly, in her bones. Now, it just drove her insane. Come on, already, lady.

“Um, Clementine? You’re stirring your sauce kind of hard.”

Clementine’s hand stilled on the wooden spoon and she glanced up. Dylan Patterson, the eighteen-year-old line cook, was smiling gently at her.

“Don’t all the best cooks, you included, Dylan, say you should put your emotion into your cooking?” Clementine asked.

“Not anxiety,” her sister Annabel whispered with compassion in her voice as she passed by Clementine en route to the walk-in refrigerator. “Instead, you’re supposed to tell your sister everything that’s bugging you,” she added with a commiserating smile.

“Sisters,” Georgia said, nodding at Clementine from where she stood at the baking station. Even over the aroma of onions and peppers sautéing, Clementine could smell the first batch of biscuits baking. Georgia reached a floury hand to her belly. Her almost eight-months-pregnant belly. “That was some kick,” she said laughing.

“I expect that little kicker to be one of my lead marchers in the holiday show in two years,” Clementine said, hoping to keep the subject off herself and her mad stirring.

Georgia was due in late January. When Clementine thought her life was complicated she’d think back to what Georgia had gone through last spring and summer, first with an obsessed boyfriend who turned stalker then with a secret pregnancy—Detective Nick Slater’s child. A good man who was now her husband. Georgia and Nick were responsible for bringing Dylan, their young cook, into Hurley’s. Last summer they’d taken care of the then seventeen-year-old’s newborn son for a week since he was afraid social services would come take his baby away. Clementine tried to remember that opening up was key, that keeping your troubles to yourself would make for stomachaches and awful sauces. But she had finally opened up to her sisters about Logan last summer and though talking about it had helped, nothing made her heart feel better. And now, how could she talk about her and Logan’s conversation last night? That was his private business.

“Mine too,” Annabel said, patting her own pregnant belly. Annabel was due in early March. The Hurleys were all beside themselves that another generation of Hurleys was on the way. “And Lucy is so excited to be in the show,” Annabel added, carrying a carton of eggs back to her station where she was working on one of the Saturday lunch specials, ham and cheese frittatas. Annabel’s stepdaughter, Lucy, was adorable and one of Clementine’s most energetic singers.

Essie Hurley came into the kitchen and tied on her yellow apron. “Madelyn Parker just called. She’s wants to hold her book club luncheon here at 12 noon. Better get another two cartons of eggs out, Annabel.”

Saturday lunch at Hurley’s Homestyle Kitchen was always busy. Clementine tasted her Creole sauce, declared it a B-and asked her Gram to try it.

“Clementine, it’s delicious. Tiny bit more garlic next time, but absolutely great.”

“Good to hear because my aunt is coming in for lunch today and she loves her spicy gumbo with Creole sauce,” Dylan said as he dredged steak in flour for his amazing chicken-fried steak.

“So let’s get to work!” Essie said.

With her sauce ready for the cooks, Clementine headed out into the dining room to check on the table settings and make sure the salt and pepper shakers and hot sauce jars were full. Despite working in this room since was a teenager, Clementine loved it. The wide-planked wood floors, the lemon yellow beadball walls with black-and-white photographs of Blue Gulch through the years and family photographs lining the doorway to the kitchen. The tables, some round, some square, were glass and each was decorated with an orange vase of wildflowers that Clementine picked every morning from the field beyond the backyard.

Clementine felt eyes on her and glanced out the window toward Blue Gulch Street. Lacey Woolen, her birth mother, stood there, foam cup of coffee in her hand. She wore her usual long skirt and cowboy boots, her long, graying dark hair in a braid down one shoulder. Lacey looked away when Clementine waved.

She wanted to march out there and shout, What? What, what, what? Why do you come here practically every day to stare at me through the window, something you’ve been doing since I was eight years old? Why not say something? Why not come in and ask me to take a walk with you? Have lunch. Dinner. Anything. Something. Lacey Woolen was so frustrating that Clementine wanted to scream.

“Maybe she’ll come to Christmas dinner this year,” Essie said from behind Clementine, her warm hands on Clementine’s shoulders.

Clementine sighed. “I’ve given up on having expectations.”

Her gram patted her shoulders and headed back into the kitchen.

Problem was, Clementine hadn’t given up. She still had expectations. Hopes. She watched as Lacey turned to walk away, glancing at Clementine. They held each other’s gazes for just a moment before Lacey continued walking.

The next time someone asked Clementine what she wanted for Christmas, she was going to say: the ability to read minds. Oh and not care so much what was on those minds.

* * *

At just after noon, Logan stood in the barn, tilting his head at the horses’ Christmas tree. A laugh bubbled up inside him, but he squelched it back. He was surprised the tree, laden with every possible piece of tinsel and ornament, was still standing and hadn’t toppled over from the weight.

“We’re done!” Harry said, bits of tinsel in his blond hair. “Will the horses like it?”

Logan nodded and knelt down between the boys who stood admiring their tree. “I think they’ll love it. In fact, why don’t we lead Winnie out and see what she thinks.” Winnie was a pony, a gift from West Montgomery, Clementine’s brother-in-law and a fellow rancher. West had given Logan the pony last spring after his brother’s and Mandy’s funeral, and the twins adored the sweet speckled little horse meant to comfort them.

Logan opened Winnie’s stall, the boys excited at his side.

“Come on, Winnie. Look at your tree!” Harry said.

Logan led the brown-and-white pony out of the stall and stopped a few feet from the tree. He smiled at the homemade star both boys had worked on together. The glitter on the coffee table was proof of their handiwork.

“What if she eats it?” Henry asked, looking up at Logan. “What if she thinks the red stuff is apples?”

There was so much red tinsel wrapped around the small tree that it was entirely possible Winnie would mistake the tree for a giant apple and take a bite. But she didn’t. She stood there looking at.

“She likes it,” Harry said. “I can tell.”

“Me too,” Henry agreed.

God, he loved these boys. Harry wore his Batman cape, and Henry had some kind of big spy goggles atop his head. Logan knelt back down and hugged them both against them, keeping a hand on Winnie’s lead. They’d changed his life and kept him busier on all fronts than he’d ever been in his life, but he loved them like crazy and was grateful that they had each other. The twins might be only three, but they’d taught him about a thing or two about holding on and staying the course in the face of grief and fear. He’d needed to be strong for them instead of falling apart at the losses in his life, the changes. Because of them, he’d stayed grounded.

He’d better start dealing with this thing about Parsons or it would eat him up inside. He had no room in his life for that. He had to be here and present for his nephews, especially now at Christmastime. At Thanksgiving dinner last week, just the three of them this year, they’d gone around the table saying what they were grateful for, and Harry had said he was grateful for his uncle Logan and the ponies, and Henry had said “me too.” Logan had had to squeeze his eyes shut at the tears that had pricked.

“And I’m grateful for you wonderful boys, my Harry and my Henry,” Logan had said.

“And for Crazy Joe?” Harry had asked, swiping a bite of turkey in gravy.

“And for Crazy Joe,” Logan had said, glancing out the window and able to just make out Crazy Joe, an old rodeo bull, grazing in the far pasture.

He’d thought about that fifteen second conversation for days. Him. The twins. The ponies. Crazy Joe. It was so easy to be grateful for what was good and special in your life, what mattered most to you. He had to remember that, hold on to it. Three-year-olds magically kept his head level. He needed to keep that Thanksgiving conversation looping around his mind to stay with the here and now and stop letting this damned thing with Parsons take over his life and thoughts. He was the same person he was three months and a day ago.

Except, dammit, he wasn’t. But he still had to figure out how to live with it, how not to let it consume him.

“Let’s go wash up for lunch at Hurley’s,” he said, putting that train of circular thought out of his mind as he led the pony back to her stall. “I hear one of today’s specials is the mac and cheese.”

The boys zoomed out of the barn toward the house, Harry’s Batman cape flying in Henry’s face, which made him trip into Harry’s path. Both ended up falling. Harry kicked at Henry; Henry kicked back at Harry.

“Dummy!” Harry shouted.

“Bigger dummy!” Henry yelled.

“Guys,” Logan said. “How we’d go from being excited about going to Hurley’s for mac and cheese to calling each other names?”

They shouted at each other for another ten seconds.

“Well, what are you going to do about this problem?” Logan asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Let’s make up so we can have mac and cheese,” Henry said to his brother.

“I’m getting lemonade with mine,” Harry responded.

“I’m getting chocolate milk,” Henry said as they both flew into the house.

Resolution. If only his own problems could be taken care of so simply and easily.

He followed the twins inside the house. “We have about a half hour before it’s time to head over, so why don’t you play a bit?”

The boys ran over to their blocks area and started stacking. Stacking and then running full speed into their block-walls was among their favorite pastimes.

Solution. Having a problem. Doing something about it. Right now his problem was that he was driving himself crazy and needed to know something more about Clyde Parsons than he did. Over the past few months he’d thought about people his mother might have confided in, but Ellie Grainger had always been so private that he couldn’t imagine her telling such a personal thing to the few friends she’d had, such as their nearest neighbor at the ranch he’d grown up on, Delia Cooper, who was very chatty and social. His mother didn’t have any siblings to open up to, either. She’d probably kept the information to herself.

Go over to the computer and type in Clyde T. Parsons and Tuckerville and see what comes up, he told himself.

Maybe he has family, he recalled Clementine saying.

That’s of no concern to me, he recalled himself snapping back.

And it wasn’t, he reminded himself. But he did have low-level basic curiosity about the man who’d fathered him. Did Parsons have siblings? Parents? Other children?

Not that they were any kin of his. Just because you shared DNA didn’t make you family. Being there made you family. Giving a damn made you family. Taking responsibility made you family. But that DNA meant something in and of itself. Unfortunately. He shook his head at how danged complicated the whole thing was. Was, wasn’t, wouldn’t, couldn’t, should, shouldn’t, is, isn’t. What the hell had happened to things being black or white? Gray areas were murky. Logan hated murky.

He forced himself over to the laptop computer on the living room desk and sat down. In the search bar, he typed in Clyde T. Parsons and Tuckerville, Texas, and hit Enter.

An obituary came up. A short obituary.

Clyde T. Parsons, Tuckerville: Clyde Turnbull Parsons was born on September 3, 1966 in Austin, Texas, to Dotty and Delmont Parsons, who predeceased him. A traveling man who supported himself as a ranch hand, Clyde lived all over the state of Texas and spent the last two years in Tuckerville. A funeral is scheduled for Sunday, August 27 at three o’clock in the afternoon at the Tuckerville Funeral Home.

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