Jodi O'Donnell - The Come-Back Cowboy

Whatever the reaction showing on her face, at least it stopped him ten feet from her and her son. Addie seized the advantage and pressed it home while she could.

“All right, hon.” She brushed back Jace’s thick, burnished-bronze hair. “You don’t have to go with us to Houston if you don’t want, but then you need to go help Granddad in the office.”

“Why?” Jace stalled, pulling away from her, his questioning gaze trained on her face.

Her own eyes remained on Deke. She almost expected from him a lightning move or sleight of hand that would snatch away some precious belonging, leaving her feeling dispossessed and bewildered by what had happened and how.

But that had already occurred, hadn’t it?

And, by God, it wouldn’t happen again.

“Do as I say, please, Jace,” Addie said more sternly, giving the boy a helping push in the right direction.

“I’m not leavin’.” He planted his booted feet in front of her.

Exasperated, she glanced down. Her son had sure picked a fine time to go from running away from conflict to hanging tough. She wondered whether to kill him or kiss him, but she knew that her first order of business must be to protect him.

“Please, hon,” Addie said, trying for a reassuring smile. “I’ll be all right.”

“But you know him, don’tcha, Mama?”

“Yes,” she said, praying he’d take the rest of her answer on trust. Yet how could you convey such a feeling if you’d given it up a long, long time ago?

“Then, who is he, Mama?” Jace asked. “Who’s that man?”

The boy’s question was like a wake-up call, breaking the spell he’d been under.

Deke found his feet moving from the spot where Addie’s warning look had riveted him. He started toward her again, still not knowing what he would say, how he would say it, if he should say anything at all. Regardless, any explanation Addie chose to make shouldn’t have to be made alone.

He stopped in front of her, trying hard not to put a label on the nature of the emotion radiating from her. Trying not to anticipate his own reaction.

Yet the sight and sound and smell of her filled his senses to the brink. Her eyes were even bluer than he remembered, the shade of blue that could bolt a man to the wall or drown him in desire. That flaming red hair spilled over her shoulders in a thick flow, like lava over a mountainside, as it swirled and waved with a life of its own. She wore a form-fitting skirt and short jacket in yellow, making her look as out of place as a daffodil sprung from the winterscape—and yet fitting as much as she ever did the definition of Texas ranch royalty.

Of course. He’d been the one who hadn’t fit in here. Sons of alcoholic cowboys who were surviving only by the grace of such royalty weren’t included in that class. Especially after his father had repaid the Gentrys’ kindness by letting a hundred-thousand-dollar ranch building burn to the ground around him, too drunk to save it or even himself—although, in truth, he’d already been dead inside for years….

At the thought, Deke felt his heart speed up, like a time bomb inside him just waiting to explode.

No! He must remember: Sure, he was D.K. Larrabie’s son. And yes, they bore the same name. But he was not his father. This D.K. Larrabie had set his every fiber to taking charge of his future, just as he’d set his mind to becoming the best damn ranch manager in Montana.

“Might be best to do as your mother says,” Deke said, trying to help Addie out.

“Yeah?” The youngster stared up at him with a mixture of youthful hope and distrust that again spoke to Deke of his own boyhood. “Who are you to tell me what to do?”

“Jace!” Addie clutched him to her almost frantically.

Deke heard the outright panic in her voice and realized she hadn’t answered the boy’s question because she didn’t want their son to know who he was. She looked not the least inclined to respond to either question put to her—this one, and Who’s that man?

So what had she told their son about his father? For the first time, it struck Deke that for six years he’d had a son. And although he had taken off for parts unknown, why hadn’t Addie or Jud tracked him down and let him know?

For that matter, why hadn’t Jud seen fit to tell him when Deke had called? And from the looks of it, it seemed Addie was as surprised to see him as he was her.

What the hell was going on here, anyway?

Deke didn’t want to jump to conclusions without having all the facts, but still he couldn’t resist asking, “Why not answer the boy, Addie? Or have you forgotten exactly who I am?”

She leveled a look at him with eyes of glacial blue.

“Go on along now, Jace,” Addie said, her gaze still on Deke. “If Granddad doesn’t need you, I’m sure the boys can use your help dosing calves out in the west pasture.”

“But what’s going on?” the boy protested. He’d turned back to his mother. “Mama?”

She soothed her palm over his hair in a loving gesture that made Deke’s own hands tingle with the remembered warmth of touching his son. “I’ll explain things to you later, when there’s time. I promise.”

Seeing she’d have no more words on the matter, he turned back to Deke, who knew this time that keeping his mouth shut was going to be the winning ticket. For now.

When he realized that neither adult would give up anything while he remained, the boy muttered a resigned “Yes, ma’am.” He marched over to his hat, dusted if off with a whap against his thigh, then screwed it down on his head in a gesture of pure disgruntlement before heading in the direction of ranch HQ.

The ensuing silence fell like a deadweight between them.

Addie shifted on her feet, one long bare leg thrust forward, hand planted upon her hip, looking cool as cubed ice and just as frosty.

It took him aback for a moment, after the way he’d seen her with her son. That had been the Addie he remembered: passionately unreserved and loyal to a fault with those she cared for deeply.

And therein lay the danger.

“Didn’t mean to intrude on your conversation with… Did you call him Jace?” And Deke spoke his son’s name for the first time, even in his mind.

“Yes, it’s Jace,” Addie replied, lifting her chin. “Short for J.C.—Judson Charles Gentry.”

Deke absorbed the fact. So Jace had been named after his grandfather and not his father. But Jace also went by a shortened version of his initials, just as Deke was short for D.K.

It was a meager concession, but he’d take it.

“Well, he seems like a real fine kid,” he commented.

“Normally, he is,” she replied, fist still on her hip. “But you’d have to be blind not to see just now that he’s a confused boy who’s struggling to make sense of some of the changes in his life and comin’ up short all around. Which is why I’ll thank you to let me handle it myself—just as I’ve handled everything for six years now.”

Abruptly, she turned and climbed the steps to the old gazebo that had been her mother’s pride and joy. Not that Deke had known Addie’s mother, who’d died, as had his own, when Addie was just a girl. But the structure had become a kind of memorial to the woman—one, he knew, to which Addie had often come to connect with her mother.

Of its own volition, his gaze went to the gentle rise at the far edge of the ranch yard, where grew an ancient cottonwood tree, its contour lopsided as if a giant mouth had taken a bite from its branches. Standing to one side was a crumbling chimney.

At the sight, Deke’s heart gave another of those warning thumps. Fine, he’d let her have her space, but he wasn’t going to be put off so easily. He waited until she sat on the wood bench seat to say purposefully, “It sure didn’t have to be that way, Addie—you takin’ care of Jace’s needs by yourself.”