This Cowboy's Son. Mary Sullivan

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СКАЧАТЬ why she’d never told Matt about his son? Well enough that Angus wouldn’t hate her?

      She couldn’t stand to lose his respect.

      “I need to tell you something,” she said.

      “Okay,” he murmured, sitting forward and releasing his hands.

      “Matt is…” Oh, just spit it out and get it over with. “Matt is Jesse’s father.”

      “Matt?” Angus fell back against his chair as if someone had hit him. His eyebrows nearly met his hairline. “Jesse’s father?”

      “Yes,” she said. “Jesse is Matt’s son.”

      “I never invaded your privacy, never asked who the father was,” he whispered, “but why didn’t you ever tell me this?”

      Oh, Angus, don’t be disappointed in me. It hurts.

      “Angus, I spend most days trying to forget it, forget that I ever had the poor judgment to get involved with him.”

      Matt’s arrival on the Circle K changed so much for Jenny. Everything had been going along fine. She’d finally found the way to make her long-ago dreams of having a family and working the ranch she’d grown up on come true. She would finally have security for Jesse.

      Angus scratched his head, as though he was having trouble taking it in. “I can’t believe Matt moved to Wyoming. Why didn’t he stay here and raise his boy?” His lips tightened. “I thought better of him.”

      Angus stood and she reached a hand to stop him from leaving the room to hunt Matt down.

      “I didn’t tell him.”

      “What?”

      Jenny stared down at her fist on her thigh, at the knuckles turning white, and whispered, “I never told him.”

      Angus leaned forward to get a good look at her face. “Tell me I misheard you,” he said, his tone low and harsh.

      “You didn’t.” She couldn’t meet his eyes. Sure, she’d had her reasons for not telling Matt, good ones, but Angus might not agree.

      “You didn’t tell him he had a son and you don’t see what’s wrong with that?” The sharp edge of his voice grated on her skin. She’d never heard him so angry.

      She lifted her chin defiantly. “No, I didn’t. I’m not proud of it, but I had to protect my son. I didn’t need Matt to be Jesse’s father. I didn’t want him to be.”

      “Why not?”

      “I couldn’t let him hang around for a couple of months or years and then abandon Jesse.”

      “Matt is a better man than that.”

      “No, he isn’t. Remember what happened when he got Scotty’s daughter pregnant? How Matt took off for a month and only returned after Elsa’s miscarriage?”

      “That’s not a fair comparison. He was fifteen and running scared. He must have been twenty-five, twenty-six, when you got pregnant. He would have done the right thing.”

      Jenny slapped the arm of her chair. “He was still the kind of man to leave a young woman after a one-night stand, in the middle of that night, and never bother to find out if she was pregnant.” Her voice rose. “He knew we hadn’t used birth control.”

      “It was your responsibility to track him down and tell him.”

      “True, and I would have if he’d been a different person.”

      She’d heard him whisper that he loved her and it had set her heart soaring. She hadn’t asked, begged or cajoled. He’d offered it freely. She’d thought they were about to get their happy ending and had fallen asleep with a smile on her lips.

      What a fool she’d been.

      The following morning, Matt had left Montana. Why would he treat his son any better than he’d treated her? He was a man who raised hopes and then dashed them.

      “You remember what Matt was like back then—even in his twenties,” she said, “fooling around with any woman who showed an interest. Lots of drinking on Friday and Saturday nights. Traveling with the rodeo whenever he could.”

      “Jenny,” Angus said dryly, “you’re describing half the single men in the state.” He folded his arms across his chest and took his seat again, preparing to argue.

      “Yes, but Matt seemed worse. His childhood was so unstable. He ran out on Elsa. He ran out on me. How could I trust him not to run out on Jesse one day?” She needed Angus to understand but couldn’t tell him how that “I love you” had been the answer to fantasies she’d woven around Matt for as far back as she could remember, since the first time she’d found him lying under the cotoneaster bushes on the hill, spying on her family and the ranch, his heart full of envy. She knew he’d loved the house and this land us much as she had.

      She stood and spread her hands on the desk. “My son means more to me than anything on this earth. I would protect him with my life. I’m protecting him now.”

      Angus shook his head. “Matt has a real decent streak inside him.”

      “I know.” That was the part she’d fallen in love with as a girl. “But I don’t trust him. Jesse will fall for him and then Matt will leave. That’s always been his pattern. I know this in my bones, Angus.”

      Jenny felt a headache throbbing against the backs of her eyelids. The fight left her and she sat back down.

      Angus came around the desk and settled onto his haunches in front of her. He took her hands in his.

      “Your fingers are like icicles.” He chafed them. “You have to tell him, sweetheart. It’s the right thing to do.”

      She knew that and hated it.

      “Angus,” she whispered, “I’m so scared. What if Jesse gets hurt?”

      “I’ll be here. You’ll be here. We’ll make it all right for him.”

      “But—”

      “Talk to Matt,” he urged.

      It was a losing battle and she gave in. “I’ll go pick up Jesse.”

      “Where is he? At Hank’s?”

      She nodded. “Don’t tell Matt anything while I’m gone. Promise?”

      After Angus agreed, Jenny breathed a sigh and left the house.

      Neither Matt nor Masterpiece was in the yard. The truck and trailer stood along the side of the stable. Obviously, Matt thought he was here to stay for a while.

      Not if Jenny could help it.

      CHAPTER TWO

      JENNY JUMPED into her beater car and sped from the ranch.

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