The Cowboy Meets His Match (Fatherhood) Read online

  Hearing a noise, he turned around and saw Ada squirting whipped cream on top of a stack of pancakes. “How’d you know?”

  “That’s the way she always liked them,” she said, spooning strawberries on top of the cream. “And you kind of remind me of her.”

  His interest kicked up. “How’s that?”

  “Jake told me about how you showed up one day, all eager and full of yourself, and—”

  “Full of myself?” he asked. He’d been scared to death, especially not knowing if he’d found the right place. But he’d learned then that determination made people do things they wouldn’t usually do.

  “No, I don’t mean what you’re thinkin’,” Ada replied. “You were confident, I guess you’d say. That’s the way I remember Erin when she was a girl. Nothing kept her down, not even when things took a bad turn.”

  He wanted to know more. “Bad turn?”

  She put the plate down in front of him. “When her folks died. They were the world to her, and she was like a lost lamb, but she didn’t stay that way for long. She stepped right up and did what needed to be done. She took care of those boys, just like her mama had, until Luke finished school. Then she took off for the rodeo and made her own life.”

  He learned something new about Erin every day and didn’t think he could’ve done the same. Cutting off the first bite of pancake, he lifted the fork to his mouth, and then realized he’d done something similar. He’d done what he wanted and left home, made it to Desperation and found the person he’d come looking for. How many guys his age, not yet out of high school, would have done it? In spite of their parents telling them to leave it alone.

  The first bite of pancake was fantastic, and he let Ada know how good it was and how much he appreciated it. Good manners had been something that had been drilled into him. Shoot, even his teachers mentioned how good his were.

  When he finished his breakfast, he stood and rinsed his plate in the sink. “Thanks, Ada. Those were some dee-licious pancakes. Better than what you can get in a restaurant, that’s for sure.”

  “Glad you enjoyed them, Jonah,” she answered.

  The door opened and Erin walked in. “Hey, Jonah,” she greeted him. “Jake’s looking for you. The others just arrived, so we’d better get to work. Jake’s cracking the whip to get us all moving before it gets really hot.”

  He walked to the door and grinned at her. “We sure don’t want to disappoint the boss.”

  Jake kept them all busy. With a chance of a storm later in the day, there were things to do before it hit. Jonah did the job Jake gave him, cleaning out stalls and putting in fresh hay and feed. When he finished that, Gary took him out to one of the far pastures, and they brought some of the cattle up closer to the house.

  “We don’t need to slog through mud, if this storm is as bad as they say it might be,” Gary told him. “Jake likes to keep his livestock close at times like these. Electric fences have a tendency to short out in a windstorm if something blows up against them. Worse if the power goes out.”

  Jonah, getting impatient for the day to be over and everyone gone, tried to keep his mind on his work, instead of what he had to do later. The day went faster that way, so when the other wranglers said their goodbyes and left, he was ready.

  He almost missed his chance, but he caught Erin as she started walking for home. Jake, as usual, stood near the corral, watching her start for the Walker ranch.

  “Hey, Erin,” Jonah called to her. “Do you have a minute?”

  She stopped and turned around. “I don’t want to get caught in the storm,” she said, pointing at the dark clouds that were rolling in.

  “It won’t take long,” he promised. Besides, if the storm came in when they were talking, he knew Jake would take her home.

  “What’s up?” Jake asked him while Erin retraced her steps.

  “Just something for Erin,” he answered. “You, too.”

  “Okay,” Jake replied. “But make it quick. That storm is moving in fast.”

  They waited until Erin joined them, then Jonah took a deep breath, before speaking. “First, I want to thank both of you for giving me this job and letting me stay here. It’s been an experience I never thought would happen.”

  Erin looked at Jake, who shrugged. “You’ve been a good addition to the group, Jonah,” Jake said. “Eager to learn, doing whatever needs to be done. Nobody can ask much more than that.”

  “A stroke of luck for all of us,” Erin said.

  Jonah saw worry in her eyes. Something like he saw in his mom’s when he asked to go do something she wasn’t sure would be a good idea. His dad got the same look, too, when they’d talked about how much he wanted to get a job on a ranch. The only way he’d known his dad wasn’t mad was that look in his eyes. Concern, people called it. Concern for others. But it hadn’t been there when he’d shown them what he’d found and told them that he knew they’d lied to him. Not just for a while, but forever. That’s why he’d left without telling them. He’d lied, too, but only because that was what they deserved.

  Ready to do what he’d dreamed of doing for almost a year, he reached into his back pocket and pulled out the folded letter, then handed it to Erin.

  “What’s this?” she asked, looking at it, then at him.

  “Something I thought you’d want to see. Both of you.”

  She glanced at Jake as if asking what he thought. He answered with a shrug. “Go ahead,” he said. “Let’s see what it is.”

  Jonah realized he was holding his breath, so he did his best to breathe and tried to relax. He’d imagined this moment a hundred times, even down to how surprised they would be. Watching her, he saw Erin’s hands tremble a little, and he wondered what she thought it might be. Not bad news, he wanted to say.

  She unfolded the two pages and looked at them. Her head came up, and she stared at him, her face white and her eyes wide. “Where did you get this?” she whispered.

  “In a box of my stuff that my mom put up in the attic.”

  “When?”

  He shrugged but had a feeling this wasn’t going to go the way he’d hoped it would. “About a year ago.”

  Jake peered over her shoulder. “What is it?”

  “Nothing,” she said, and pressed the letter to her chest. “I’ll tell you later. Jonah and I...we need to talk.”

  Jake glanced at Jonah and moved to stand beside Erin, holding out his hand. “He said it was for both of us.”

  She pressed the papers closer. “Jake, wait. I—” She let go when he started to pull them from her, and she looked at Jonah with tears in her eyes, but he could tell she was trying to smile.

  Jake started reading. His face got pale in what little was left of the sunshine, hiding behind the clouds, and then it slowly started to get red. He looked at Erin, his eyes narrowed. “What does this mean?” he asked, pointing at the letter.

  “It means—”

  “It means I’m your son,” Jonah said. “Both of yours.”

  Erin reached for the letter. “I can explain, Jake.”

  Her hand froze inches from the letter as he looked at her, his eyes angry and cold. “Damn right you will.” When she didn’t answer, he added, “Right now.”

  Jonah suddenly realized he hadn’t done it the right way. But now that the truth was out, he wouldn’t take it back.

  Chapter Seven

  “Go on up to the house, Erin,” Jake ordered, checking the sky. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

  Erin couldn’t move. She’d never thought this would happen. Never thought she would ever see the son she gave up. Never dreamed Jake would find out. And she didn’t know what to do or say. Not until she heard what Jake had to say, and she didn’t look forward to that.

  “Come on, Erin,” Jonah said, sounding as unsure as she felt.

 
Jake whipped around. “No, just Erin. I’ll talk to you later.”

  Jonah’s chin went up. “I have every right to be there, too. You can’t stop me.”

  She realized how much he sounded like her. “Let him come, too, Jake. I want to know how he found my letter.”

  “So you did write it,” he said.

  “I never said I didn’t.”

  He hesitated, watching both of them. “Okay, go with Erin. I want to see how bad this storm might get, and then the three of us will have a talk.”

  Jonah nodded and started walking toward the house, but Erin still couldn’t seem to move. Scared. She’d only been scared twice. The first when she’d realized she was pregnant, and the second when the sheriff had come to tell her that her parents had been in an accident.

  “Erin?”

  She knew she had to start moving, do something. They had to get this done and over with. The time of reckoning had come. Walking silently next to the boy who she now knew was hers, she couldn’t think of anything to say. Numb with shock and fear, it was as if she’d lost the power to think. She’d considered denying she’d written the letter, but she’d been so blindsided by it that she couldn’t speak. What could she say to make things right?

  Nothing.

  Forcing herself to move, she followed Jonah inside. “Living room is that way,” he said.

  She shook her head. She’d never been farther than the kitchen to talk to Ada, and the thought of going anywhere else made her feel out of place. “We’ll wait for Jake.”

  They stood in silence for what seemed like forever. Her nerves were stretched as far as possible, and she found breathing a problem. Finally, when she thought she would pass out, she took a deep breath.

  Jonah cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, Erin. I thought he knew.”

  Swallowing and hoping words would come, she shook her head. “No, and I never planned to tell him.”

  “Why not?”

  “Yeah, why not?”

  She spun around to see Jake standing in the open doorway. “Because I never expected to see you again.”

  His face hardened. “Not good enough, Erin. And why should I believe he’s mine?”

  She gasped at his insinuation. He knew she’d been a virgin. He’d wanted to wait, but she hadn’t.

  “I’m not eighteen,” Jonah said, before Erin could think of an answer to Jake’s question. “I’m sixteen, almost seventeen. Next month.”

  Erin could see the quick calculation in Jake’s eyes and the moment he accepted it. “Don’t blame Jonah for this,” she told him. “He’s only the product of—”

  “Don’t say it,” Jake snapped. He turned to Jonah. “What about your parents? Do they know you’re here?”

  Jonah’s eyes narrowed, and he clenched his fists at his side. “They know I’m at a ranch in Oklahoma. That’s all they need to know.”

  “Jonah!” Erin cried, thinking of how his parents must feel.

  Jake gave her a warning glance. “Why’s that, boy?”

  “They never told me I was adopted. When I found the letter, they tried to deny it. My dad, mostly. I could tell my mom wanted to tell me. I think she tried to a few times but never did.”

  “I’m sure they had their reasons,” Erin said, wondering what she would have done in the same situation. But she knew she would have told the child the moment she held him. Still, she couldn’t blame them, but she’d never expected he would come looking for her. She’d only hoped the couple who had adopted him had loved him. And she felt sure they had.

  “So you got mad at them?” Jake asked.

  Jonah faced him. “Wouldn’t you have?”

  Jake opened his mouth to answer, and then shut it to frown at both of them. “It doesn’t matter what I would have done. It’s what Erin did—and didn’t do—that concerns me.”

  “You don’t care?” Jonah asked, his voice rising. “You don’t care if the people I thought were my parents have lied to me all my life?”

  “I think you need to sit down and have a talk with your parents,” Jake said. “And I think you should have said something that first day you walked up here, looking for a job. Basically, you lied to me.” He glanced at Erin. “To both of us.”

  Jonah shook his head. “I couldn’t tell you. I didn’t know for sure. Look at the letter again. All I had were the initials E.W. No name, no place, no nothing. I might have been wrong, and then look at the mess it would have made.”

  “It’s a mess now,” Jake pointed out. He closed his eyes, sighed and then opened them. “Look, I know what it’s like to be angry at someone who wants to keep you from what you want, but running away doesn’t help. It only makes things worse.”

  “They wouldn’t tell me anything,” Jonah said in a belligerent tone.

  Erin felt she needed to explain. “Maybe they didn’t know anything they could tell you.” He gave her a puzzled look. “Jonah, there’s no information given to either the adoptive parents about the mother or to the mother about them. Not unless that’s the way the adoption is set up from the beginning. Yours wasn’t one of those.”

  He stared at her. “You’re saying you never wanted to know me?”

  She shook her head. “No, that’s not what I’m saying. I was too young to raise a baby. I couldn’t do it on my own. I had school to finish and a dream to chase.” She dropped her gaze. “Maybe that’s selfish—”

  “I’m not blaming you. Just them.”

  “But they did what they thought was right, the same as I did.”

  “Well, it wasn’t.”

  His mulish expression reminded her of herself at his age. She hoped she could change the way he felt about his parents not being open with him. “How did you find us, Jonah? With only two initials and nothing more, I can’t think of how it happened.”

  He gave a jerky shrug. “It just happened.”

  “I can’t accept that.”

  Jake took a step toward them. “Maybe I should call your parents and—”

  “Don’t!” Jonah closed his eyes and shook his head. “Please. I’ll tell you. But the thing is...I don’t want to get my friend in trouble.”

  “Friend?” Erin asked. Who would have known? Only her parents, and they’d been gone for fifteen years. Her brothers knew nothing. She’d made sure of that. Ada knew. She’d helped her get through it, but she never would have told anyone. “You don’t have to mention any names. No one will be in trouble.”

  He seemed to consider it, and then nodded slowly. “One of my friends knows your aunt.”

  Erin gasped. “Aunt Janelle told you?”

  He shook his head. “No, but she mentioned you to one of her good friends, my friend’s grandmother. My friend was there when she said that her niece from Oklahoma had stayed with her one summer and had a baby she gave up. The dates fit.” He shrugged again, more easily this time. “When I showed the letter to my friend, she told me what she overheard.”

  “But you didn’t have any names, so how could you know who to look for?”

  “Search for,” he said. “That’s what it’s called. Searching. And I did have something. I had the name of the town. Desperation. My friend remembered it because it was, well, different.”

  Erin didn’t know whether to be angry with her aunt or thank her. “Still, no name.”

  “It’s a small town, and your aunt had said you lived outside of town on a ranch.” His eyes brightened. “I knew then why I’d always wanted to learn to ride.”

  Jake grunted. “That’s hard to believe. Too easy.” Both of them looked at him, and he lifted one shoulder.

  “It wasn’t easy,” Jonah argued. “It took a long time. Almost a year.”

  “So you came to Desperation looking for Erin?”

  “I came looking for a girl with the initials E
.W., but I didn’t know her name. I did a lot of research,” Jonah admitted. “I have my own computer, and my friend and I spent hours looking through everything we could find about Desperation and the ranches in the area. I still didn’t have a name. There are several people with a last name that starts with a W. But I decided to come and find out whatever I could. A friend—a different one—was on his way to visit family in Texas, and he agreed to drop me off in Desperation.”

  “How did you find this ranch,” Jake asked, “or know who to look for?”

  Jonah smiled. “I saw an ad in a ranching magazine. The first place I stopped was the Chick-a-Lick Café, and I saw the flyer there, too. I asked a few questions and figured that I might be able to find out something by stopping by. It was luck that you asked if I’d come about the job.”

  “And then you lied about your age.”

  “It seemed like the smart thing to do, until I could find Erin. Not that I thought I would. I couldn’t believe it when you introduced her. Erin Walker. E.W.”

  Erin shook her head, amazed how everything had fallen together. “And then you asked me a lot of questions.”

  “I had to know to make sure you were the one I was looking for.” He looked at Jake. “It took me longer to figure out that you’re my—”

  “That has yet to be determined.”

  Erin stared at Jake, unable to believe that he couldn’t accept that they had a son. She could understand that he’d been surprised—no, shocked. But did he really need to deny that he might have fathered a son?

  Too angry and confused, she turned and started for the kitchen. “I’m going home.”

  As if on cue, a loud crack of thunder shook the windows. “Go on to the bunkhouse, Jonah,” Jake said. “Erin and I have some things to discuss. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “But—”

  “Go on.”

  Even Erin could tell he wouldn’t back down on it. But she didn’t want to have the conversation she knew was coming if she stayed. “It’s about to rain. I need to get home before it starts.”