The Cowboy's Secret Son. Trish Milburn

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 on her body, how her entire being had lit up like a million stars. She forced herself to remember how all those stars had gone black and cold the day after when he’d walked right by her as though she was a complete stranger. No expression, no eye contact, no recognition. She remembered stopping in the middle of the hallway, wondering if she’d simply dreamed it all. But a positive result on a home pregnancy test a few weeks later had convinced her their night together had been all too real.

       “When it came time to have Evan, I had to deliver him at home just like my mother always had.” All twelve times. “It was a hard birth. I probably should have been in a hospital. By the time it was over, I was only about half conscious. My mother said it was best to give him up for adoption. I had no strength to fight her, and she made it sound like he would have a good home, a family who loved him. At the time, it sounded like the right thing to do. I didn’t want him growing up with my family.”

       “You gave him away?”

       Grace hated the horrified disbelief in his voice, how it echoed the feelings she’d had herself after she’d recovered from the birth.

       “My parents had damaged enough of us. I thought it would give him a chance. But…” Grace’s voice broke, and it took her a few moments to bring her emotions back under control. “I thought I’d have the opportunity to say goodbye, but by the time I woke up he was gone. I never even got to hold him.”

       “What? How is that possible?”

       Grace squeezed her hands into fists at the memory, the betrayal. “There’s a law where newborns can be dropped off at hospitals or police stations, no questions asked. You just sign away the rights to the child, and my mother misrepresented him as hers. She just handed him over, turned her back and walked away from her first grandchild.”

       She ventured a glance at Nathan, and he looked stunned to the point of numbness—a feeling with which she was intimately acquainted.

       “I was so messed up, Nathan. They’d twisted my mind, and I had bad postpartum. There were points when I just wanted to die. And then on my eighteenth birthday, my parents told me to leave, that I was no longer their responsibility. I was basically dead to them. They forced me out the front door with literally nothing other than the clothes I was wearing. They kept the rest to give to my sisters.”

       She hazarded a glance at Nathan. He looked like he wanted to punch something. “What did you do?”

       “The first thing I did was walk to the nearest police station and told them my mother had stolen my baby. It was like the moment I was free of that house, all the brain fuzziness went away. I can’t explain it. While the police checked out my story, I engaged in what I like to call creative living.” She smiled a little at that, felt a well of pride at the memory of how she’d taken over her life. “I slept and ate at shelters, got a job at a restaurant, added some more clothes from a church clothing bank. And I applied for college. Being as poor as a person can be, I got a full ride.”

       “So you had food and a place to live.”

       She gripped the top of the fence. “And I got Evan back.”

       Nathan exhaled as if he’d been holding his breath, afraid of where her story was heading. “He hadn’t been adopted? I thought newborns went quickly.”

       “There’s a lot of paperwork in that. It takes time. A child has to thrive in a potential adoptive home for at least six months before they’ll allow an adoption to go through. It was so close, Nathan.” She fought tears at the memory. “The first six months were almost up when the potential mom was diagnosed with MS. I mean, I’m so sorry it happened to her, it’s horrible, but they canceled the adoption, and the six months had to start over. I got him back two months into that. I’d missed the first eight months of his life, but I had him back. I was able to finally hold my son.”

       “Our son.”

       She met Nathan’s eyes, wondering how he was processing all this information, this crazy story that was her life after him. “Yes, our son.”

       Those two words—our son—had a ring of intimacy, but it wasn’t one they shared anymore. Never really had.

       Nathan was silent for several moments, ones in which Grace could hear the kids laughing and talking on the other side of the barn. She experienced a moment of panic when she wondered if Nathan had told any of the members of his family about Evan. Would they say something to Evan? She glanced through the barn, but he wasn’t visible.

       “Why didn’t you tell me then?” Nathan asked, drawing her attention back to them and their conversation. His anger at being shut out was still evident in his tone, might always be there. Especially when he heard everything she had to say.

       “I was young and afraid to let anyone in, afraid someone else would try to take Evan away from me.”

       “By someone, you mean me.”

       “And your family.”

       “You must not think much of us.”

       “It wasn’t that. I always liked your family, was really envious of you. But you have to understand. I’d just been through the equivalent of psychological torture, at least from my point of view. The way I was looking at things then, I thought that if you knew about Evan, you’d be able to take him from me because you had money, family support, all the things I didn’t have. I’m not saying it was right, but it’s how my brain was working then.”

       “We wouldn’t have stolen him from you. We’re not like that. Family is the most important thing to us.”

       “Yes, but I’m not family.”

       The sound of the kids’ voices grew louder, coming closer. Nathan shifted, made to leave. She touched his arm, praying he wouldn’t think her cold and heartless for what she was about to ask of him but prepared to deal with it if he did.

       “Nathan, I need you to not tell Evan you’re his father.”

       His expression tightened. “What?”

       “I didn’t come here to make any big changes. We have a good life in Little Rock, one we’re going back to soon.”

       Nathan shook his head. “I don’t believe you. You come here, tell me I have a son, but that I can’t let him know that.”

       Grace let her hand fall away after she realized she was still touching Nathan. “He’s too young to understand, and I don’t want him getting attached and then hurt when we leave.”

       Nathan threw up his hands in frustration. “Then why tell me at all?”

       “I told you why.”

       “Oh, yeah, so you’ll have someone on the line to take care of him in case an asteroid falls on your head. Great to know you think so highly of me. I’m okay only if you’re dead and there’s no other choice.”

       Grace flinched. She understood his anger, really she did, but she couldn’t bear the thought of Evan attaching himself to Nathan and having his little heart broken when she took him away from his father.

       “It’s not like that.”