Their Child?. Karen Rose Smith

her, yeah. But love? Hell. We were kids. She wanted a life right here, in town. She wanted for us to have that big wedding she’s going to have now and settle down here at the ranch house, where she was going to pop out two or three babies and do her best to help me spend Granddaddy’s money.”

      “You’re still carrying a grudge against her.”

      “No,” he said again, even more strongly than before. “I’m carrying no grudges. I’m telling you how it was, that’s all. Lena wanted a nice life, here in town. And I wanted out. Bad. We broke up—which made it possible for both of us to get what we wanted. It would have been a disaster, Lena and me. She knows it. I know it. End of story.”

      Well, except for that one night…

      Tucker had come home from college—where he was flunking just about every course and soon to drop out—to take Lena to her prom. The night before the dance, she’d told him it was over between them, that they wanted different things and it just wasn’t working.

      He’d agreed with her. He’d been thinking it was time to move on for a while by then, but he hadn’t known how to tell her. Even now, he could remember the feeling of sweet relief that had flowed through him when she said she didn’t want to be his girl anymore.

      And then she’d told him she couldn’t see any way out of the two of them going to the prom together. Tucker, figuring it was the least he could do to pay her back for handing him the freedom he’d been yearning for, had promised to take her.

      That night, which he’d dreaded, ended up being pure magic.

      They were breaking up and still…she wove a spell around him. He found himself long-gone in love with her, more than ever before. She knocked him out. She bowled him right over.

      But now?

      No. All that was over. All that was long ago. When he saw Lena now, he felt a vague sort of fondness. He liked her now. She was always smiling, a cheerful woman, all wrapped up in herself—but in a charming way. They were friends, though not close friends. When he saw her now, he found it impossible to think of her as the girl he’d held in his arms on that beautiful, unforgettable night.

      Tucker leaned across the table toward his sister-in-law. “So what’s the story about Brody? Lori’s husband couldn’t have been his father—right?”

      Molly sighed—and finally started talking. “No. The boy isn’t her husband’s. She married the husband—a dentist, an older guy—six or seven years ago, when Brody was two or three. Word is that nobody but Lori knows who Brody’s real father is.”

      “Except for the father himself, right?”

      Molly frowned. “Maybe not.”

      “The kid’s father doesn’t even know that he’s a dad?”

      “Tucker, how would I know? All I know is what people say.”

      “And that’s what I want from you. What people say…”

      Molly looked down into her teacup, and then back up at him. “Rumor has it some stranger came through town at the end of Lori’s senior year. Lori disappeared one night in May, in one of Heck’s cars. It wasn’t like her, to take off like that. You know how she was. The shy, quiet, one. Hardly dated. Heck got worried she’d been kidnapped or something. He had the police out looking for her. They found her way up at the North Fork of Cook Creek, parked right on the bank, staring out over the water, crying her little heart out. She claimed that she’d done nothing wrong—and that nothing had happened to her. She’d just driven around, that was all.

      “But then, a couple of months later, when she turned up in the family way, everyone in town naturally assumed it must have happened that night she disappeared. They all figured she must have met someone, that he got her pregnant and then headed out, never to be seen or heard from again.”

      “And when Heck found out she was pregnant, he packed her off to San Antonio.”

      “That’s right. And she’s made herself a good life there, from what I’ve heard. She hardly ever comes home.”

      Tucker got up and poured himself another cup of coffee. As he sipped, he turned and leaned on the long jut of counter that divided the breakfast room from the kitchen.

      Molly said, in that way she had that cut right through the crap, “So. You got you a yen for your old girlfriend’s twin sister, Tucker? You thinkin’ you might like to try convincing her to come home a little more often—even to stay home?”

      Tucker didn’t answer. There was no need. He could see in Molly’s eyes that she knew he did.

      And he was.

      “Daddy makes you crazy, huh?” Lena lay sprawled face-up on the bed in the upstairs room that had been Lori’s when they were growing up.

      It was after dinner. Everyone else was downstairs watching Sunday night TV. Lena had hung around before going home to her cute little apartment on Oak Street. She’d wanted some one-on-one time with Lori.

      Lori dropped to the side of the bed. “Yeah. Daddy does get to me. Sometimes. Like when he tries to override me with Brody.”

      Lena kicked off her shoes and scooted farther up onto the mattress, grabbing a pillow and tucking it under her head. “You just never did accept the fact that you have to use your feminine wiles on Daddy.”

      “Feminine wiles?” Lori made a gagging sound.

      Lena giggled and slapped her lightly on the knee. “Stop that. There’s nothin’ the least wrong with a woman using what the good Lord gave her to smooth the way with the men in her life.”

      “I am going to wisely withhold comment on that one.”

      Lena rolled to her side and studied her sister. “I still can’t believe you went red—red.”

      Lori smoothed a hand over her own hair. “Yeah. I kind of like it.”

      Lena nodded. “Me, too. It looks real good.”

      Lori made a threatening face. “Don’t you dare even consider going red, too.”

      “But if it looks that good on you, just think how incredible it’s going to look on me.”

      They both laughed at that one. And then Lori said, “Hey. Go for it.”

      “I might. I just might…” Lena let out a long sigh, rolled to her back again and gazed up at the light fixture overhead. “Tucker was givin’ you looks today at the diner.” She rolled her head to face Lori again. “Don’t even try to tell me you didn’t notice.”

      Lori had no idea what to say—and her pulse was racing, her stomach drawing into knots, the way it had been doing since she first ran into Tucker yesterday at the Gas’n Go…

      Lena said, “Amazing.”

      “What is?”

      “Oh, just the way life can go sometimes.” She lifted her right hand and studied her manicure. “Tucker’s interested. Really interested. In you. I could tell.”

      Lori tried a little teasing, hoping that would lead the subject elsewhere. “I’m surprised you noticed. You’ve got eyes only for Dirk.”

      “It’s true.” Lena raised both arms in a lazy stretch. “Dirk is the center of my world and I couldn’t be happier about that.” She let her arms flutter down and folded her hands on her stomach. “But at the same time, true love has made me more observant. And since Tucker moved back to town, I’ve made it a point, I truly have, to make amends for the tacky way I treated him—you know, back when. Last winter, when Dirk decided to change his will to leave everything to me, I took him to Hogan and Bravo and had Tucker do the work. Tucker is Dirk’s and my own personal family attorney now and I like to think that he and I have become friends.”

      “Good for you,” Lori said, for lack