A Cowboy in Shepherd's Crossing Page 16

  “Are we close?” she asked as he took a turnoff toward Bend.

  “Yes. Do you want to eat first? Or go straight to the inn where she’s been working?”

  “The inn,” she told him. “I’m not sure how this will all go down and I’m way too nervous to eat.”

  “And yet you’ve been working straight through.”

  “Nerves can’t stop production,” she told him as she closed the notebook. “My grandpa taught me that. He said there were many times when you did what you had to do, hating it all the while, but you just hunker down and do it. It made sense. And besides, this was the attic rooms and the second floor. Not much scope for the imagination there, but good clean lines to make the building inspector happy.”

  He spotted the inn’s name up ahead. His heart beat louder in his chest, as he pulled into the inn’s parking lot. “We’re here.”

  Lizzie hadn’t found an address for Valencia. Just a workplace. And he didn’t want to do anything to get her fired from her job. But the thought of little Ava, needing medical help and unable to get it, spurred him forward.

  He approached the front desk. The clerk looked up, met his gaze and smiled. But when he withdrew a picture of Valencia that Rosie had taken two months before, the smile disappeared and the clerk drew back slightly. “Sir, I’m sorry. I can’t answer questions of a personal nature about anyone.”

  Undeterred, he still proffered the photograph. “This is my sister. She’s not in any trouble, I just wanted to connect with her. We were told she works here.”

  The desk clerk stared him down and reiterated her statement. “I am not allowed to answer questions of a personal nature about anyone. Guest or employee.”

  Melonie moved forward. “I actually commend you on following the rules,” she said. When the woman still appeared suspicious, Melonie withdrew paper from her bag and began to write. “Too many people disregard rules.” She spoke as she scribbled a quick note. “They think they know better, but some rules exist to keep people safe.” She folded the paper in quarters. “We’re here on family business and I honestly don’t know how much she’d be comfortable sharing. The name we know her by is Valencia Garcia. Some folks call her Val or Valerie. If she’s here, please pass this on to her. We’re in town briefly and it’s important or we wouldn’t have made the six-hour drive. Do you have grandparents?” she asked.

  The clerk nodded.

  Melonie added a copy of Gilda’s note to the folded letter. “This is from the biological grandmother she never knew. She’s not in the best of health and we offered to make this trip on her behalf.”

  She turned and started walking away.

  Jace hesitated, torn. They’d come all this way to leave a couple of notes on a desk? Right now he figured the US Postal Service would have been a lot quicker and easier.

  He caught up with Melonie just outside the door. “We’re leaving?”

  “We’re going across the road to have coffee. And lunch. I’m starving, aren’t you?”

  “Now you’re hungry?”

  She leaned against the door. “For a patient man, you sure are impatient right now. Give her time to get the note. Read it. Think about it. Have you ever had to work a job like this? Tucked in a building all day, away from the sunshine and the breeze, cleaning rooms and scrubbing toilets?”

  Of course he hadn’t.

  “Let’s not cost her the job she’s found. Let’s wait and see what she says. If she comes over on her lunch break.”

  “You told her we’d be across the street?”

  “I did. What I didn’t tell her is that we’ve got rooms booked in this hotel for tonight.”

  He’d done that in case they couldn’t see her. Or if she wasn’t there. “She might not be here. I mean here, as in Bend. She might have moved on.”

  “Then we keep looking. But Lizzie seemed pretty sure of herself, and I’ve learned to never second-guess things with my sister.”

  They drove across the street, ordered coffee and lunch and twenty minutes later, Valencia Garcia walked in the door.

  She glanced around the room, puzzled.

  Jace got up and started toward her. “Valencia?”

  His appearance only deepened her look of question.

  He stopped shy of her and extended his hand. He’d come here, unsure what to say.

  When he met her eyes, his heart softened. He’d seen lost puppies look more trusting than this woman. “I’m your brother. Jason Middleton. I was adopted by one family and you were adopted by another.”

  She stared at him, then shot a glance to Melonie.

  Melonie put her hands up in surrender. “I’m just moral support. Although I am totally in love with your daughters. Who are both fine, by the way. Mostly.”

  “Mostly?” Valencia looked from her to Jace quickly. “Is something wrong with them? What is it?”

  “Do you have time to sit a minute? Have lunch with us?”

  “No, my break is short and I’m new here. I don’t want to mess this up, they’ve been very good to me. It probably doesn’t seem like much of a job to most, but I do it well. And that means something.”

  “Of course it does. Coffee?”

  “Yes, thanks.” She took a seat while Melonie ordered the coffee from the café side of the restaurant. Once she sat, she faced Jace. “Are they all right? The girls?”

  “Yes and no. Ava’s got a hearing problem from so many ear infections and they’re going to put tiny tubes in her ears. But the doctor told me they won’t let me sign off because I’m not a legal guardian.”

  Valencia put her head in her hands. “How are you involved in this? I thought that Rosie or maybe Heath would feel sorry for the girls and take them. They’re such good people, I knew they’d never let them go.”

  “Except that’s what they’d have to do, and what we’ll have to do if you don’t relinquish custody of them. No court is going to award their great-grandmother custody at her age, your mother has moved to Florida and I’m not technically part of the family. It’s a legal mess that can get cleared up easily with a few official papers.”

  She winced. Because she needed to let them go? Or because the girls were in danger of becoming wards of the state? He didn’t know.

  “Gilda approached me a few weeks ago. Right after you left.”

  “The woman who says she’s my grandmother.” She lifted Gilda’s note.

  “Her story checks out, and she asked for my help.”

  “You’re a cowboy. How’s a cowboy going to raise two little girls? This wasn’t what I wanted to happen. This is wrong. All wrong.”

  He gave her a minute to compose herself before he spoke. “Their great-grandmother asked me to raise them. She was the one who found my parents for me, my adoptive parents. She’s got a good eye for people who love children, but more importantly, she sees all the mistakes of the past and wants to help fix them.”

  “Is she the skinny old woman who wears her hair up all the time? Kind of frail and bossy?”

  He couldn’t have described her better. “That’s her.”

  “She came to Rosie’s a few times. I saw her there.”

  “She knew who you were. You didn’t know her.”

  “Why didn’t she help then? Why couldn’t she have coughed up some of that old money and given me a handout? Or a hand up? She couldn’t be bothered then, when I was on my last dime and my mother was trash-talking my name all over the place. Maybe then—” She ducked her chin. Eyes down, her hands clenched. She looked angry and lost and forgotten...

  But then she took a breath. A deep one. And her hand came up to a small silver cross hanging from a chain around her neck. And when she took another deep breath, she raised her gaze to his. “I’m sorry.”

  He waited, unsure what to say.

  “I know I’m not right for them.” She fingered the cross,
restive. “I’ve known it for a while. I get mad too easy. Frustrated with things, when they don’t go my way, and then I don’t think straight. I’m trying to do better, but I can’t seem to focus on keeping myself calm and taking care of two little girls who need constant attention. They shouldn’t be with someone who resents spending time with them. They should be with someone like Rosie, who dotes on children. Maybe motherhood’s not my deal—”

  “But you had them, Valencia.” Melonie interrupted her with that poignant fact. “You had other choices. It takes a woman of courage to make the choice you did.”

  “I didn’t feel all that brave,” she admitted. “Mostly sick. And tired. And when the clinic gave me options, I walked right out. I was the only chance the girls had. Babies get a one-shot deal, right?”

  Melonie and Jace both nodded.

  “So the old lady didn’t offer to help, and that was probably because she was right about me. About me not being best for the girls, but I already knew that. So why shouldn’t she be right about you?”

  Jace read the pain in her eyes.

  “She wants to help.” When Valencia frowned, he pressed on. “She sent along a check for you.” He set Gilda’s check on the table.

  “To buy me off?”

  He shook his head instantly. “No. To assuage the guilt of not acknowledging her family when she had the chance. She’s old and not in the greatest health and would love to hear from you. But I understand how that’s not the easiest thing to do right now.” He slid the check toward her and was glad when she slipped it into her pocket. “It’s up to you what you do with it, but she sends it with a sincere heart, Valencia.”

  “Val. Please. I like Val better.” She gazed down for long, drawn seconds as if the weight of the world hung on her shoulders. Then she raised her head and extended her hand. “Do you have the necessary papers with you?”

  He withdrew the legal forms from the side of Melonie’s computer satchel and handed them over. “A local lawyer drew them up.”

  She didn’t read them.

  She scanned them, then signed where indicated. And when she was done, she stood and faced them. “I’ve got to get back to work.”

  She turned to leave. Then she paused. Her hand was on the back of the chair. The knuckles strained white against the honey maple wood.

  Jace stood, too. “Do you want me to keep you updated, Val? Send you pictures? Keep you in the loop?”

  The tight hand said more than her short words. It said how hard it was to let go of something so wonderfully precious...even for their own good. “No.” She stood there, facing away, silent. Then she turned slightly and her words hit home with Jace. “Not because I don’t love them,” she said softly. “But because I do.”

  She left without a backward glance, and when she cleared the door, Melonie put in a call to cancel their hotel reservations.

  Five minutes later they were back in his car, heading east, with the signed papers tucked in her bag.

  The girls would be safe. Val would bear no legal problems because of her decision to leave them at Rosie’s.

  And he...

  He swallowed hard because up to this point it had all seemed a little surreal.

  He had just become a father.

  * * *

  While driving back to Shepherd’s Crossing, Jace called Mack to file for a court hearing to approve the change of guardianship legally and file adoption papers.

  Then he called Justine.

  Next was Gilda, letting her know how things went. Despite the slight quiver in her voice, she sounded strong, as if getting things done was having a positive effect.

  Melonie dozed off on the way back. He let her sleep, thinking how sweet she looked. How lovely. Wondering what it would be like to have her share this crazy new life with him. With those girls. Sure, she had big plans and dreams, but maybe he and the girls could become her plan. Her dream. She fit with him. Not just as a designer and a builder who would love to run a working ranch, like his grandfather before him. Both grandfathers, he realized.

  Melonie inspired him to reach higher. Try harder. Go the distance.

  To be a better man.

  She touched his heart and soul in a way that had never happened before. So maybe...

  He pulled into the Pine Ridge Ranch driveway as he made plans.

  Melonie stirred and stretched, then she saw the house and the time and her eyes went wide. “I slept for two hours?”

  “You did. And you didn’t snore once.”

  She smiled at him and that smile set his heart tripping over itself to beat harder. Faster. “Good to know. I—” She paused as a figure stepped down the house steps. Then she laughed, undid her seat belt and was out of the car like a shot. “Ezra!”

  The man—a little older than Jace, and square-built—grabbed her in a hug and spun her around. “We got it!” he said, over and over. “I knew we would if we found the right people, Mel, and I wasn’t going to stop trying, because you deserve this. All that hard work, all that effort, I wasn’t about to let that fall apart for a little thing like geography. You are now the soon-to-be star of Shoestring Charm. Just what you always wanted. And I was glad to be the guy who delivered it to you!”

  Melonie gave this Ezra guy a kiss on the cheek, and almost squealed for joy. “I can’t believe you managed to pull this off.” Then she hugged the guy—really hugged him—and the happiness in her face when she turned Jace’s way shined the light of truth.

  He had no right to steal her hopes. Her dreams. Whoever this guy was, he’d gone the distance for her. He’d done whatever it took to give her the shot she wanted.

  Jace didn’t have that ability.

  He didn’t care about renovation shows or fame or fortune. Simple country cowboy was his claim to fame, meager as that was.

  He faked a smile, shook the guy’s hand, then went inside to tuck the girls into bed. He’d already been away from them too long.

  He settled the twins with Corrie and Justine’s help, and when they were sound asleep, Corrie poured tall glasses of sweet tea for both Middletons. In a motherly fashion, she shooed them onto the porch. “I’ll clean up the toys in here. You two, go. Talk. Figure things out.” And when he and Justine settled onto one of the porch swings, he could make out the faint outline of Melonie and her friend, walking and talking in the fading light.

  His family was here and that’s where he belonged. He knew it. And he was pretty sure Melonie knew it, too.

  And it didn’t seem to matter nearly as much to her as it did to him.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “I thought I’d be in time to help get the girls ready for church, but you guys are a step ahead of me,” Melonie said as she smiled at Justine and Jace the next morning. “They look wonderful. Do you want me to ride with you? Help with them?” She turned toward Jace.

  He didn’t look up. Didn’t acknowledge her presence at all, actually. He shook his head. “We’ve got it, thanks. And thanks for the ride-along yesterday, Mel. I really appreciated it.”

  He said it like you’d thank anyone, not someone you’d kissed several times in the past week.

  He said it like she was a casual friend. Worth a nod. Nothing more.

  Ava turned her way, arms up, imploring Melonie to cuddle her.

  Jace intercepted her smoothly. “Gotta go, little one.” He strode through the living room, through the door and down the steps without a backward glance.

  Justine reached for Annie and she went willingly, babbling baby sounds. So sweet. So dear.

  They settled the twins into the car, then Jace drove off, toward town. The little church had no pastor right now, so area folks took turns leading services. It was a sweet thing to do in a bind.

  But Jace’s attitude, seeing him drive off without even a backward glance, put her back up. She was done with not being good enough. Done tryin
g to impress the men in her life and falling short.

  Standing there, she realized that she wasn’t the one falling short.

  It was them. And between Uncle Sean’s generosity and Ezra’s industry, she didn’t have to impress anyone anymore, because Ezra’s good news proved she already had.

  In church, she sat with her family. Prayed with them. And when folks were exclaiming to Jace and Justine about the girls after the service, she quietly left the church and headed back to the ranch.

  No one got to brush her off. Not now. Not ever again.

  She buried herself in the stable apartment, working on the first-floor plans for Gilda’s house, and when Ezra came by midday, she took him to the Hardaway house so he could meet Gilda and ask permission to film there.

  If Gilda refused, it would be a blow, but not a crushing blow because Shepherd’s Crossing was ripe with makeover opportunities. She’d had one crushing blow already that day, when Jace shrugged her off as unimportant.

  Anything else would be easy, compared to that.

  * * *

  Jace didn’t have to worry about how to keep his distance from Melonie.

  She did it for him, and that was an unexpected burr beneath his saddle for the following week. Justine had gone back to the West Coast and he felt more assured about his guardian status since the trip to Bend, but his personal status had crashed and burned. That’s what he needed, right? To create distance from a woman bound for cable TV glory?

  He might need it, but he hated every single minute of the estrangement.

  The painters dolled up the first floor of his house on Monday. By Tuesday, he was ready to furnish the first-floor rooms. When boxes and crates arrived on schedule, he wanted Melonie there with him. Opening things, laughing over this and that.