Darlene Graham - Born Under The Lone Star

“Hello?” Even in that one word, a west Texas drawl, the quality of Justin’s voice echoed. It was the same resonant public speaking voice that had made Brandon’s grandfather stand out in the halls of Congress.

She swallowed, then started again. “May I speak to Brandon Smith, please?”

“This is Brandon.”

Markie closed her eyes. She was talking to her very own son again. Just like the first time, it was scary, but also strangely intoxicating. It took all her will to suppress tears as her mind flashed back to the pages of her journal where she had made those promises to him so long ago. Would she keep them now? Or would she injure her child? Would she hold him back?

Or let him go?

Dear Reader,

People often ask me where I get my story ideas. THE BABY DIARIES were first “conceived” when I was reminiscing with a friend about the birth of my middle daughter, who was born when my husband was a candidate in a statewide political race. It occurred to me then that babies seldom arrive when it is convenient.

THE BABY DIARIES are three stories of three sisters, each having a baby under most inconvenient circumstances, each falling in love under equally inconvenient circumstances.

For these stories I returned to my beloved Texas Hill Country. My brother and sister-in-law, her mother, Jean, and Jean’s longtime friend Helen were perfect traveling companions as we hit the trail in the minivan and explored the colorful towns and rural areas that eventually melded into the setting I have named Five Points.

One final note: authors are also often asked if their work is autobiographical. Yes and no. While my own impressions and experiences are always unconsciously woven into any story, this town and these characters are pure fiction. For example, unlike the conniving Marynell McBride, my own mother was honest to a fault and would never, ever have touched someone else’s diary!

As always, my best to you,

Darlene Graham

P.S. I love to hear from you! Drop me a line at

P.O. Box 720224, Norman, OK 73070 or visit

www.darlenegraham.com. While you’re there, take a peek at the next book in THE BABY DIARIES series, Lone Star Rising.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

This first book in my new Texas series is dedicated to

Rick and Jody, my precious brother and dear sister-in-law.

Despite six-shooters, snakes and donkeys that bite,

I will go back to the Hill Country with you two anytime!

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

If you are reading this diary without my permission, stop right now. I mean it. I want you to put this diary down. Immediately. For your information, this means you, Mother.

I’m warning you, if you keep going you’ll find out things you don’t want to know.

Okay, I know you’re still reading, you snoopy old thing, so you asked for it. Don’t blame me if you have a horse heart attack.

I am pregnant.

There.

And Justin Kilgore is the father. How do you like that? Me and Justin. We’re in love. And don’t you dare try to interfere with that. Don’t you dare go and ruin the one beautiful thing—

“WHAT ARE YOU reading there, Sissy?”

Markie McBride jumped at the sound of her middle sister’s words, even though Robbie always spoke with the soothing lilt of a low violin. Not even the antics of her three little boys could make Robbie McBride Tellchick raise her voice.

“Nothing.” Markie closed the cover and tried to stuff the book back down in the dusty old cardboard box where she’d found it moments ago. It had been a physical shock to look down and see, wedged in between her yellowed first communion dress and her high school letter jacket, next to a flank of musty yearbooks, the faded mauve cover that was her Baby Diary, as she had come to call it many years ago. Eighteen years ago, to be exact. Her son would be eighteen by now. Correction. Her son was eighteen now—a bright, exceptional, eighteen-year-old young man. Only a few days ago, she had talked to him herself, in a phone conversation that had haunted her ever since.

As her hand struggled in the tangle of dry-cleaner bags encasing the cloth items in the box, she realized, not for the first time, that her mother was a totally conflicted human being.

Hot and cold. Love and hate. That was Marynell McBride. Mostly cold and mostly hate, Markie decided sadly, as her mind absorbed this latest in a long line of betrayals. Where was the photograph? Markie couldn’t risk looking for it now.

The box had been tightly packed and the diary refused to fit back into its appointed slot. Markie pushed harder. So weird. So, so weird that she’d stumbled on the thing now, when she’d been compelled to return to Five Points to attend her brother-in-law’s funeral. Now, at the very time that her son, Justin’s son, was actually preparing to come here, as well. It was almost like some kind of…eerie convergence. Like fate or something.

“It looked,” Robbie said as she leaned back with a grin and planted a palm on the saggy mattress of the twin bed where she’d been sorting old photographs, “like one of our old diaries.” She craned her neck in Markie’s direction. “Whose is it? Yours? Frankie’s?”

With their father’s encouragement, the three sisters had each faithfully kept journals in their teens.

“It’s in your blood,” P. J. McBride had explained quietly one Christmas as he passed each girl a ribbon-bound stack of blank journals, “like your pioneer grandmother and her mother before her.” Daddy had kept those old leather-bound journals, hardly legible now, but precious as ancient Egyptian scrolls to P.J.

The girls had decorated their plain cloth-bound versions so each could immediately recognize her own elaborate designs. Ever-sensible Robbie had likely disposed of her own foolish ramblings long ago.

Markie had gotten rid of her journals, too. All but this one. She could never bring herself to part with the record of her seventeenth year. The Baby Diary.

The last time she’d moved, the diary hadn’t shown up at her new town house with the rest of her stuff. Its disappearance had distressed her terribly. And, even more distressing was the loss of the photo. Her one picture. That broke her heart more than anything. She’d grieved, alone and in secret, over that loss especially. She should have had copies made instead of sticking it inside the diary cover. Where, she had fretted during many lonely evenings of unpacking, could her precious diary have disappeared to?

Now she knew.

She stared at the back of Marynell McBride’s graying head as her mother’s skinny arm furiously scrubbed at the panes of one of the high dormer windows as if it were the Queen Mother who was coming to stay instead of Marynell’s own three rambunctious grandsons.

She took my diary, Markie thought with a familiar sickness of heart. For heaven’s sake, Mother, what were you going to do? Blackmail me?

“Fess up.” Again, Robbie’s voice made Markie jump. “Whose is it?” Robbie was smiling pleasantly.

“Nobody’s. I mean, it’s nothing. Really.” Markie knew she sounded guilty, probably looked it, too.

Markie could see Marynell’s thin back stiffen high up on the ladder. The woman slowly turned her head and squinted down at her youngest daughter with an expression that was equal parts hostility and suspicion. “Margaret,” she demanded, “where did you get that box?”