Rancher's Perfect Baby Rescue. Linda Conrad

that who we’re going to meet? The rest of your family?”

      “Sort of. My father is still out of town on a buying trip, and my brother may or may not turn up for supper tonight. He has his own interests. And my little sister …”

      Nathan tried to find a way to phrase this properly. “Well, Tara never did care much for the ranch. She was always a little wild. And she became lots worse after Mama died. When she was nineteen, she had a baby and didn’t know who out of her many lovers should be named the father.”

      “Oh.” Susannah’s expression seemed to say she might be sympathizing with the woman she’d never meet.

      “I don’t think Tara tried all that hard to figure it out, frankly. She was happy letting Maria and her older brothers take charge of her baby’s welfare.”

      “Lucky she had family to count on.”

      Interesting comment. Didn’t she ever have family to count on?

      “Yeah, I’ll say,” he agreed. “You see, her little girl was diagnosed with autism when she was only two years old. Not three weeks went by after that before Tara hooked up with a new fellow. They left on the back of his motorcycle in the middle of the night. A few months later, we were notified she’d been killed in a motorcycle accident.”

      “Goodness. What happened to the baby?”

      “That’s who we’ll be meeting. My niece, Sara. I’m her legal guardian. She’s a wonderful little girl but needs a lot of help. I give her as much time as I can, and we’ve hired a woman who works with her and lives in her quarters.”

      A dark cloud crossed over Susannah’s eyes, and she got a glassy look. “I’m not … I don’t know if …”

      Ah, hell. He hadn’t given any consideration to the idea that meeting a child with special needs might make her worry about her own daughter’s future. But he felt sure that was the fear he was seeing in her eyes.

      What an idiot he was. He’d hoped to add to her trust by showing her how well loved and taken care of Sara was.

      But how could he have hoped she would trust him about this when she obviously didn’t trust him enough to tell him the whole truth about her background? Trust took time. He got that. But saving her was too important to give up.

      “Trust me, Susannah. It’ll be fine. You’ll see.”

      “I want to trust you. Really, I do.” Her face was a mask of indecision. Then she said, “I’m glad you told me about your sister. I have something to tell you, too. I wasn’t completely honest when I said my ex-boyfriend, Melody’s biological father, was a traveling salesman.”

      He felt his jaw tighten but he couldn’t help it.

      “Uh, well, he did travel.” Susannah’s eyes grew large as she watched his reactions carefully. “And he was selling stuff. But the stuff he sold was drugs. He told me he was a wholesale dealer.”

      Nathan took half a step back. He should’ve known there was more to her story. He’d been right not to trust her completely.

      “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the whole story before,” she added quickly. “I just didn’t think we’d be staying on the ranch long enough for it to matter. And I never got involved in his business. Really. I never saw him take the drugs, either. He could’ve been selling anything for all the difference it made in our lives.”

      It was easy to see how sorry she was about lying. And the longer he stayed silent, the more her eyes welled up again. Ah, hell.

      “It’s okay,” he finally managed, and was surprised to find he meant it. “I believe you weren’t involved in his business. And that maybe your relationship had just been a bad choice. Let’s put it behind us and go on from here. I still want to help you, and I still want you to meet my niece. Okay?”

      She nodded and blinked her eyes a couple of times. She looked so vulnerable and afraid that his gut turned over again. Apparently, she still hadn’t told him the whole truth. But whatever this new little untruth was would have to wait.

      Jeez. Why he was so determined to help her was still a mystery. But, by heaven, he vowed she would be free of her cult programming before she and her child had to leave the ranch for good.

      Maybe helping her would make a good start to easing his guilt over the death of his ex-wife. And a start, but by no means the end, of what he intended to do in the memory of all the women who’d been taken in by that slippery con man Samuel Grayson.