Brenda Minton - The Rancher's Secret Child

“Hey, Oliver, want to come back to the kitchen and help me make today’s dessert? You can even taste the pudding to make sure it’s good.” Essie, owner of the café and Marcus’s aunt, approached their table. She wiped her hands on her apron and appeared to be completely innocent of interfering.

“Can I?” Oliver looked from Essie to Lissa. And then his gaze drifted to Marcus, and for the first time the boy seemed confused and unsure of the situation. “Aunt Lissa, are you okay?”

“Of course I’m okay. And yes, you can go with Miss Essie. I think that would be fun. When you get back, we’ll leave.”

He gave her a quick hug, and the feel of his small arms wrapping around her neck was the sweetest thing ever. He wasn’t hers, but she loved him as if he were. Marcus Palermo could take him from her. She’d known that when she came here. She’d known for the past year that her time with Oliver might be limited. It had been a constant source of stress.

Essie gave them both a long look that held a lot of meaning, then she walked off with Oliver’s hand tucked in hers. The two were discussing chocolate pie and brownies. Oliver glanced back as he walked through the door to the kitchen.

“Surprise,” Marcus whispered as the doors to the kitchen closed. They weren’t alone. There were still people in the café sending them curious looks that they didn’t try to disguise.

“Yes. I didn’t expect to see you this morning.”

“Imagine how I felt when my aunt showed up at my place to inform me there was a woman in town and she had a little boy that looks a lot like me. Why are you still in town?”

He had a point. A good one. “I couldn’t leave. I wanted you to have a night to think about Oliver and being a father.”

“So you planned on giving me another chance?” He arched a brow at her, clearly questioning her honesty. Or her sanity.

Lissa didn’t quite know what to say.

She had wanted to go on, to forget Marcus and Bluebonnet Springs. But Oliver had been in the back seat of the car, his dark eyes intent on her face in the mirror, and he’d asked about Marcus and wondered if he’d been a friend of his mommy. Pushing aside her feelings of protectiveness, for Oliver’s sake she’d searched for a place to stay. For one night, she’d told herself. To give Marcus a chance.

She didn’t want to get ten years down the road and have Oliver ask her why she’d kept him from his father. She also didn’t want to settle into her life as Oliver’s mom and have Marcus show up out of the blue one day and take him.

“You could give a guy a chance to catch his breath. This did come out of nowhere,” Marcus said. The admission seemed pulled from deep inside. “It’s hard for me to imagine Sammy keeping this from me. I know we weren’t a good match. But he’s mine. That’s pretty obvious.”

“So, does a new day make things different for you?”

“His mercies are new every morning.” He spoke so softly she almost didn’t hear the words she hadn’t expected from this hardened cowboy. “Nothing is different. But everything has changed.”

“Meaning?”

“I don’t know how to be a father. I didn’t plan on getting married or bringing kids into the world.”

“You can’t undo what already is.” Her heart ached for the little boy who at that moment was eating pudding and didn’t know that his father was sitting there trying to figure out if he could be a part of his life.

He toyed with the spoon next to his coffee cup. “It isn’t that I don’t want him. But I don’t want to hurt him. He’s better off with you.”

“He’s your son.”

He sat there for a long minute looking at her. “Right. My son that Sammy didn’t tell me about. That speaks volumes.”

“She was afraid.”

“Of me.” One brow arched. She understood what he meant. Sammy had given birth to his son and then decided he wasn’t suitable to be in his child’s life. And later she’d regretted that decision.

Meeting him changed everything for Lissa. She hadn’t expected to like him. She hadn’t expected a lot of things about him. Like his thoughtfulness. Or the depth of emotion in his dark eyes.

“Time goes by and what seemed like a good decision starts to look like a bad one. Sammy regretted not telling you. And then she ran out of time.” She closed her eyes to regroup. It had been a year. She still missed her friend. Her sister. “And now you’re about to make the same mistake. What looks like a good idea today, five years down the road, might be the worst mistake of your life.”

“Valid point,” he said. “But if I allow you to tell him I’m his father, and I hurt him... Five years down the road, we can’t undo the damage. Speaking from experience, that kind of hurt can’t be undone.”

She wasn’t here to share stories, but she understood the damage an abusive parent could do to a child. She understood the scars, invisible and visible.

She understood how it affected relationships.

“You should at least get to know him.”

“How would that work, me getting to know him? How would you explain to him who I am and why he is spending time with me?”

“I’m not sure. We don’t have to tell him you’re his dad. Not until you’re ready. Or until we think he is ready.”

She glanced toward the window. The sky had darkened and, if possible, the rain came down harder.

“This rain is only getting worse.”

He was right. The rain was coming down in sheets. After the previous week of rain, she knew that the creeks would rise. The roads back to San Antonio would be a nightmare.

Before she left, she had to put all of her cards on the table. He deserved the whole truth, even if it meant losing Oliver. She reached into her purse and pulled out the letter.

“You should read this. Sammy left it with her will.”

He took the paper, but he didn’t open it. Instead, he slipped it into his pocket. “I’ll look at it some other time.”

“Sooner rather than later, Marcus.”

“Right.”

“Fine, here’s my number.” She wrote it on a napkin and handed it to him.

Thunder crashed and the windows rattled with the force of the wind. He glanced at her number and back to the storm raging outside. “You might ought to stay in town.”

“I’ll be fine. It’s just a little rain. And it might let up before I leave. I have to pack up and check out of our room at the B and B.”

She stood to retrieve Oliver from the kitchen, but Marcus pushed himself out of his chair first. “I’ll get him.”

It was a start, so she waited where she stood and watched as he headed for the kitchen.

He had stories. She didn’t want them. She didn’t want to be affected by a man her foster sister had deemed “too broken.” She’d always had a soft spot for broken things. It was her reason for becoming a nurse. Because as a nurse she had a reason to care, a reason to fix broken people. Fix them and send them home. Once she sent them home, they were out of her life. And then she had new people to care about, to help.

Lissa knew her own hang-ups. She had lived in a broken and abusive home with a mother who never put her child first. A mother she had tried to fix. And she’d failed. Time and again. Six months ago she had promised herself that she wouldn’t be used. Ever again. She wouldn’t enable. She wouldn’t give money. She would always care—she would pray for the woman who had given her life—but she wouldn’t give her the power to hurt her.

She and Sammy had been from similar backgrounds. As teens in the Simms home, they had made a pact to never be abused again, or tie themselves to broken men who would wound them the way their own mothers had been wounded. And they wouldn’t have children with men who would leave scars.