The Cowboy's Secret Son. Trish Milburn

seemed like the type of person to lie. Not outright anyway.”

       The half compliment was unexpected, but she didn’t assign too much weight to it. He probably didn’t even mean it as a compliment if his tone was any indication, rather just a truth. Better she think of it that way. Nathan Teague was from another part of her life, and was in her present life only for a brief time out of necessity, nothing more.

       “It’s been seven years. I could have changed.”

       He glanced at her, all of her, and it made her skin flush. She hoped he couldn’t see it, or attributed it to her being fair and out in the Texas sun.

       “Yes, you’ve changed on the surface, but I don’t believe people change at their core. Even if they do make bad decisions.”

       Grace did her best to ignore how his words stung. No matter how he felt, she’d never think of Evan as a mistake. She moved closer to the wooden fence and propped her arms on the top slat, as well. “You barely knew me.”

       “True. But I tend to pay attention to my gut instincts.”

       “What’s it telling you about me now?” Out of the corner of her eye she saw him watching her, but she didn’t face him.

       “That something changed in your life, some reason you finally decided to tell me I have a son.”

       Grace winced at the harsh edge to his words, but she also acknowledged he was entitled to it. No matter what had transpired between the two of them in the past, it was a big thing to have a child and not know about it. She pushed away those old feelings of hurt and abandonment that had deluged her after that night with Nathan, when he’d avoided her eyes in the school hallways as if he didn’t know her. She was a different person now, an adult, so maybe he was, too.

       “I guess I grew up, realized that I have responsibilities. And one of those is ensuring my son’s future in case something happens to me.” She sensed his next question, so she continued before he could speak. “You know, I could die in a car wreck tomorrow.”

       He was quiet for a moment, and she wondered if he could tell she was hiding something. She just wasn’t ready to reveal everything, afraid she’d start crying if she thought too much about the cancer returning. She wanted Nathan to agree to care for Evan should the need arise because he felt a kinship to his son, not because of pity for her. She never wanted Evan to feel like a charity case.

       “What about your family?”

       “I haven’t talked to them since I turned eighteen.”

       “You’ve been alone this whole time?”

       “I’ve had Evan, and friends once I went to college. My friend Emily and I started a business together, interior design. So I have a good life.” Evan and the fact that she’d made her life what she wanted it to be were what had gotten her through bad doctor reports and body-draining chemo. Only in her darkest moments, when she’d succumbed to the fear that the disease might win, had she yearned for more. For a man to love and be loved by. Someone to offer her support, hold her hand during those endless hours lying in a hospital bed or curled into her own after a chemo session.

       Nathan sighed and shook his head as if he couldn’t believe any of this was happening. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner? I had a right to know.”

       She’d anticipated this question, considered so many different ways to answer it. Finally, she’d settled on the truth.

       “I was scared.”

       “Of me?”

       “No, and yes.”

       Nathan slipped his foot off the fence and turned toward her. “I wasn’t that bad, Grace.”

       She wanted to say, “Yes, you really hurt me,” but that wasn’t what was important anymore. She didn’t shift to face him, not sure if she could get through the next few minutes if she had to look him in the eye and see anger and accusations there.

       “I was hurt, yes, but that’s not why I made the choices I did.” She picked at a splinter on the fence, gathering her courage to delve into a part of her life steeped in a lot of pain. “I had lost Evan once, and I couldn’t bear the thought of it happening again.”

       “Lost him?”

       “When I told my parents I was pregnant, well, I’ve never seen them so mad. They were ashamed I was their daughter, and I know if I’d been of legal age, they would have kicked me out then. Instead, they packed us up in the middle of the night and left town.”

       “You knew before you left Blue Falls? And you didn’t tell me then? God, Grace. What were you thinking?”

       “That the father of my child didn’t want me, so he wouldn’t want a baby, either.” This time she didn’t bother keeping the bite out of her words.

       Nathan didn’t respond, instead shifting his attention out across the pasture again. She didn’t say anything either, and the silence stretched for tense seconds.

       “Everyone wondered where you went,” he finally said.

       “I doubt everyone did.” She couldn’t help the bitter edge to her words, bits of the old hurt slipping out.

       “I did.”

       Those simple words were so unexpected that she looked at him before thinking. And for a moment, she was that young girl again looking into the striking green eyes of the boy she loved with all her heart. The one she’d thought might love her back when he’d taken her in his arms and kissed her.

       It took more effort than it should, but she pulled her gaze away and refocused on the glint off a pond in the distance.

       “We went to Maryland, where my grandparents lived, lots of other people who were as devout as my parents.” She hadn’t planned to tell him everything, especially not at first, but she found herself spilling the details of those days. “I…I basically became a prisoner in my own home. I was forced to finish school homebound. My mother had nothing to do with it though. My sister Sarah had to bring my lessons home from school, and I was on my own. I wasn’t allowed to go anywhere. My parents did not talk to me, but they constantly used me as an example to my younger brothers and sisters of what happens when one ‘descends into a life of sin.’”

       Nathan made a sound of disgust, but Grace didn’t acknowledge it. She had to get through this story so she could file it away forever and never have to tell it again.

       “I think after a while, I began to believe everything they said. I was sick, miserable…lonely.” And heartbroken.

       “Why didn’t you call me?”

       “You’d made it clear you didn’t want to talk to me.”

       “But Grace, a baby would have made a difference.”

       She turned toward him. “Would it? Would you have ‘done the right thing’ and married me?”

       “Yes.”

       A sadness crept over Grace’s heart. “How would it have helped me to go from one home where I wasn’t wanted, just a duty to fulfill, to another?”

       “Damn it, it wouldn’t have been like that.”

       “Did you love me?”

       He opened his mouth, but no words came out.

       “I didn’t think so. Plus, my parents had done a pretty good brainwashing job on me. You were nothing more than a rutting bull in their eyes.”

       “And you believed them?”

       “You hadn’t given me any reason not to. And when you’re cut off from the world, you begin to believe whatever you’re told.”

       “God, Grace.” He paced a couple of steps away, ran his hand over his face.

       She tried not to remember what that hand had felt like