The Doctor's Texas Baby. Deb Kastner

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СКАЧАТЬ here at the boys ranch. That much was fairly evident.

      But why was he still in Haven?

      Carolina quivered from the adrenaline still coursing through her. It hadn’t even occurred to her that she might run into him. She had been so certain he would be long gone from town by now, or else she would never have even considered returning—letter or no letter.

      That was the whole point, wasn’t it? Why she’d left in the first place? To give Wyatt his freedom?

      Wyatt stood to his full height, and Carolina’s breath snagged in her throat. She’d hoped that if she ever saw him again she would feel nothing, that she would have moved beyond the long nights and emotions born of grief and loneliness.

      Instead, nothing had changed, except perhaps that her feelings had grown stronger over time. It was as if every nerve in her body was attuned to his.

      The brown-speckled goat Wyatt had been working on bleated and bolted away, but he didn’t appear to notice. His posture was stiff and intimidating as he stared back at her, tight jawed and frowning.

      “Carolina.” His usually rich baritone emerged low and gritty.

      “Mama?” Matty squeezed her hand.

      She’d been so shocked by Wyatt’s sudden appearance that she’d momentarily forgotten Matty was at her side.

      Wyatt’s gaze shifted to Matty and then back up to her again, his eyes widening in surprise.

      Now the electricity intensified, zapping back and forth like lightning between them. Her pulse ratcheted. Her heart hammered. Her worst fear, realized.

      Matty.

      Oh, precious Lord, please help me.

      Even as she prayed for relief, she knew there was no way out of this. It didn’t matter that she hadn’t intended to reveal this secret. Not to anyone, but most especially not to Wyatt.

      Ever.

      The whole reason she’d left Haven was to allow Wyatt to pursue the life he’d dreamed of. Ever since she’d known him, he’d spoken about his desire to help the poor and destitute in foreign countries learn how to raise animals. He wanted to provide them with a trade through which they could work themselves out of a poverty-stricken existence.

      It was a noble goal, the dream of his heart, and if she had stayed, she would have ruined it for him. His parents had been foreign diplomats who’d died in an explosion, and Wyatt had never quite gotten over the loss, even if it made him more determined than ever to help those less fortunate than him. She’d known him well enough to know there was no way he would ever consider bringing a wife and child with him to a third-world country where they might be in danger.

      Carolina had known and understood this, and she’d loved him enough to let him go. That was why she’d left Haven so suddenly when she’d discovered she was pregnant with Matty. Everything she’d been through since then—every struggle, every trial she’d endured, every night spent crying in her pillow, had been for Wyatt’s sake.

      Because if he’d known she was pregnant, he would have had no choice but to stay with her in Haven. He wasn’t the kind of man who would walk away from his responsibilities. He would have given up all of his personal hopes and dreams for the sake of his son. She had no doubt whatsoever that he was the guy who would do the right thing by her and by Matty. He would have asked her to marry him.

      But she’d been in love with him, and the right thing wasn’t good enough for her—or for Matty. Their lives couldn’t be built on one night’s mistake.

      If she’d believed Wyatt was in love with her, that would have been one thing. But before the night Matty was conceived they’d only been casually dating, and the night they’d shared had been born of sorrow, not joy. A marriage and family based only on a man’s sense of decency and not true love? Her heart couldn’t take it.

      So she’d left.

      And now she was back, only to discover Wyatt had never left at all. Why wasn’t he in Uganda or deep in the Amazon jungle somewhere?

      Had her sacrifice been for nothing?

      “Mama?” Matty said again, yanking her arm more intently this time. “Mama. Mama.”

      She scooped him into her arms and gently patted his back, reassuring herself as much as him. Her fight-or-flight instinct was working overtime, and it was all she could do to stand firm and not flee.

      But what good would it do her to turn away now? Wyatt had already caught sight of Matty. He was watching the toddler through narrowed eyes and pressed lips as the boy tangled his fingers into Carolina’s hair.

      “You’re a mama?” Wyatt asked, and for one confused moment, no longer than a blink of an eye, Carolina thought...hoped...prayed that he wouldn’t comprehend what that meant. That he wouldn’t realize the truth about those identical chocolate-brown eyes that were literally staring right back at him, among the many features that mirrored his own.

      “I—how could you?” he stammered, picking off his hat and threading his fingers through his hair.

      Carolina cringed, waiting for him to come loose at the seams. How could he not? She wouldn’t blame him. He had every right to be furious.

      She held her breath, waiting for the explosion she knew was coming.

      But when he spoke, it was deep, and hushed, and as hard and cold as steel.

      “Tell me the truth, Carolina, for once in your life. This boy—is he my son?”

      * * *

      Wyatt’s breath felt like icicles in his lungs, poking and puncturing his chest with each ragged gasp.

      That boy, the animated, dark-haired, dark-eyed child clinging to Carolina’s neck, was his son.

      For the very first few seconds after he’d realized Carolina wasn’t alone, that she had her toddler with her, there had been a flash of confusion—of anger, of envy—that she had been able to move on with her life so quickly after abandoning him. It had taken him months to recover enough to go on with his daily life without thinking of her with every heartbeat, and there were still days—and nights—he found difficulty putting the past behind him.

      And she already had a husband and a toddler? She must have met the guy right after—

      His gaze had dropped to her left hand, but her ring finger was bare. So she wasn’t married, then.

      Yet there was a child.

      And then, in an instant, it all came together.

      The moment he looked into the child’s eyes, Wyatt knew, with the same certainty that he recognized the wild, unsteady rhythm of his heart beating in his chest, that the little boy was his son.

      His child.

      He didn’t have to count back the months or measure the years. Anyone with eyes could see the resemblance.

      The boy could have stepped right out of a photograph of Wyatt at that age, from the stubborn cowlick in his black СКАЧАТЬ