Blackbird Lake (4 page)

He’d told her so himself that night over dinner—and in the hotel room in Houston. Laid it all out for her, nicely, lightly, but clearly before he allowed her to tug him toward that sumptuously made-up king-sized bed.

Oh, she’d known what she was getting into before she’d tumbled onto those one-thousand-thread-count sheets with the hottest man she’d ever met.

And she’d also known when she’d backed away from telling him she was pregnant that she
didn’t
want a reluctant, unhappy, rodeo-following father anywhere near her baby’s life.

Let Jake do his thing, you do yours. Or you’ll all be miserable,
she’d told herself when she was six weeks along, alone and throwing up at least twice a day.

She didn’t need him in any way, shape, or form. She would take care of her baby just fine all by herself. Thanks
to Annie, her foster mother, the first person in Carly’s life to recognize her math aptitude and intelligence, she’d earned an MBA and had been working for several years as a senior financial consultant for Marjorie Moore’s Home and Hearth—one of the largest home goods and lifestyle companies in the country.

She had the financial means to raise a child alone.

And more than enough love for two parents.

So much love.

But still, her stomach churned as she left the town behind and hung a right on Coyote Road, heading toward her own small neighborhood. By the time she finally turned onto Blue Bell Drive she was barely keeping panic at bay. She needed desperately to hold Emma. To think this through before she ran into Jake or even Lissie or Sophie or Mia, his sister and sisters-in-law, who, along with Karla McDonald and Laureen, were her closest friends in Lonesome Way.

As she drove past Karla and Denny’s house, two doors down from hers, she saw their son, seven-year-old Austin, shooting baskets in the backyard—and through an open window caught a glimpse of almost four-year-old Ashley toddling around in dress-up clothes in the living room.

At least everything was normal over there. Blissfully normal. The way it should be. Carly suddenly yearned for normal. For yesterday.

For Jake not to be here.

There was a knot in her stomach as she turned into her own tree-lined driveway where her rambling Victorian house sat amid the row of other rambling Victorian houses. Parking at the top of the driveway, she sat for a moment with her fingers still gripping the steering wheel, staring at her beautiful wraparound porch, at her apple tree, at her neat little flower garden tidied up for fall.

Through the window, she saw Madison in sweatpants and a tee and heard the girl playing her guitar and singing “Old McDonald Had a Farm” for Emma, who stood swaying and clapping, her stuffed dog, Bug, at her feet.

It was all Carly could do not to burst into tears. She felt
like everything she had, everything she loved and cherished, was at risk.

Sitting in the Jeep, her throat thickened with unshed tears. She needed to hold Emma in her arms, to hear her soft baby laughter. She needed to feed her daughter supper and read to her. To rock her to sleep tonight as the Montana sky slid from peacock blue to deep, cool purple. While a million stars popped out and the peaceful quiet of home enfolded the two of them like a thick, safe cocoon.

She could only have dreamed of a life like this one when she was a young girl, trying to make herself invisible in corners while the relatives she lived with after her mother’s death argued and screamed, while TVs blared, her roughneck cousin Phil’s feet pounded up and down hallways, and doors slammed all through the night.

She couldn’t lose this.
Lonesome Way
. She couldn’t lose any of it.

Stepping down from her Jeep to the sound of a lone bird chirping in her apple tree, Carly prayed for nothing to change as she swallowed the lump in her throat and hurried up the steps of her home.

The big dog lifted his head and peered mournfully at Jake as he parked his truck in the Sage Ranch driveway.

It was a look that said,
Is this where you push me out and leave?

“Yep, I’m leaving you, pardner, but in good hands,” Jake said gently. “No fear. Look, you’ve got friends here.”

He grinned as his brother Rafe’s two dogs, big galloping Starbucks and the tiny, desperate-to-keep-up Tidbit, raced from the corral behind the ranch house, both of them barking their heads off.

“See, plenty of company,” Jake assured the mutt. He stroked a big hand along the animal’s matted fur, scratched behind the drooping, golden brown ears. “You like horses, fella? Rafe and Sophie have plenty of those, too. Not to mention a couple of kids. You’ll love it here, I promise.”

He spotted Rafe heading over from the barn. There was a look of pleased astonishment on his face, and Jake’s grin widened. His brother hadn’t known he was coming but he looked plenty glad to see him. Springing out of the truck, he clasped his arms around his brother’s
shoulders in a bear hug. Seeing as he hadn’t been home in a year, he’d been bracing himself for his family to be good and mad at him.

“What are you doing here?” Rafe demanded, thumping him on the back. “I thought you were competing at that rodeo in Devil’s Lake this weekend—and then doing the Bighorn Bull Rodeo over in Wyoming. And wasn’t there something about filming some new commercial outside Salt Lake City?”

“That was the plan, bro, but the shoot got rescheduled for a few weeks from now, and I canceled on the rodeo in Devil’s Lake. Travis called me and—hell, didn’t he tell you?”

“No. But let me guess.” Rafe tipped his Stetson back on his head. “He reamed you a good one for not planning to come home for Zoey’s birthday party.”

“Bingo.” Jake couldn’t hide a smile as his broad shoulders lifted in a shrug. Birthdays, weddings, anniversaries—all happy occasions were huge with the Tanners, and Jake loved being with his family as much as the rest of them did. But his schedule had become even tighter than usual this past year. Ever since he’d signed on five months before as the spokesperson for a charity that was raising awareness about bullying, and had also agreed to an endorsement deal for a new shaving cream in a national advertising campaign, his life had been one revolving hotel room door after another.

He hadn’t had a chance to get home. Until now.

“How long are you staying? And who’s this pitiful guy?” Rafe looked over at the dog in the front seat.

Jake glanced at the dog, too. The poor thing
was
pitiful. A big, sad-looking mutt. Probably part yellow Lab, part golden retriever, with something undetermined mixed in. Not a puppy, not a senior citizen. He was thin and weak looking—probably hadn’t been eating much lately—not until Jake scooped him up from the side of the highway and fed him his own take-out burger and a couple of French fries.

“Don’t have a name for him yet. He’s been checked out by a vet in Billings—doesn’t have fleas, worms, or a chip. So I thought I’d leave his name up to you, seeing as he’s a present.”

Opening the door, Jake watched the dog clamber out,
landing on the driveway with a clunky thud. “I figured the kids might want to come up with a handle for him.”

He watched as Starbucks and Tidbit rushed up, and all three mutts began sniffing and wagging their tails, checking each other out.

“Well, we’ve always got room for one more,” Rafe said as they headed toward the ranch house. “But it looks like he’d rather stick by you, bro.”

It was true. After about thirty seconds of sniffing, the dog was ignoring Starbucks and Tidbit and trotting right at Jake’s heels, as close as he could get. The other two were scampering after him like he was the Pied Piper.

Jake laughed. “He’ll forget about me once we get some more food and water in him and he gets to playing with your two.”

The aroma of fresh-baked cinnamon buns greeted him the moment he stepped in the door of the ranch. Inhaling the sweet scent, he managed to avoid stepping on the three dogs clambering around him as he followed Rafe to the kitchen.

“Man, it smells good in here. Sophie and the kids home?”

“Sophie and Aiden are over at Travis’s place. Sophie volunteered to help Mia decorate the house for the party. Ivy’s on a date.”

“A date? Ivy?” Jake stared at him. Hard to believe his little niece was old enough to go on a date. She was only fifteen. He remembered when she was born, a tiny helpless and beautiful little bundle who grabbed onto his thumb and didn’t let go. He didn’t like the sound of her going on a date. Probably because he remembered the kind of stuff
he’d
done on dates when he was fifteen.

“You think that’s a good idea, letting her go on a date so young? If you remember when we were that age—”

“Hey, I remember.” Rafe sighed as he poured water and then kibble into a couple of spare bowls for Jake’s stray and set them on the floor near Starbucks’s and Tidbit’s food dishes. “But this isn’t like that. It’s a study date. At the library. Sophie said it was okay. And you know, I trust Ivy. According to Sophie, I guess I have to.”

“Sure, trust her.” Jake nodded. “Trust her all you want. But don’t trust any fifteen-year-old boy.”

“I can’t—not if they’re anything like you were,” his brother retorted as he took down a couple of dark blue mugs and poured freshly brewed coffee into them.

“Look who’s talking,” Jake shot back as Rafe handed him a steaming mug. He strode to the counter, snagged one of his sister-in-law’s famous cinnamon buns from a white bakery box, then glanced fondly around the kitchen as he took a seat in the same chair he used to sit in as a kid, and stretched his long legs out beneath the table.

The hungry dog he’d found finished the entire bowlful of food, took a long, lapping drink, then came to lie beside Jake’s boots. In fact, his chin was resting on top of Jake’s left boot, he noticed idly. Couldn’t go a step without the dog knowing all about it.

The Sage Ranch kitchen still looked pretty much as he remembered from when he was growing up. New granite countertops, backsplash, and windows, but the same layout, the same cherrywood table where he’d sat with his parents, Rafe, Travis, and Lissie every day for meals.

Man, this room, this house had been noisy back then. Noisy in a good way…the best possible way, with everyone talking, arguing, laughing at once.

Good times. A close family. Homework and chores, roughhousing and rules. Hot cocoa and Scrabble tournaments and lots of shouting and racing up and down the stairs whenever he and his brothers or sister forgot their homework or their books before school.

He remembered his mother, and that no matter how annoyed she was after someone spilled milk across the floor, or if Jake and one of his brothers wouldn’t stop hitting each other while she wasn’t looking, she still always kissed each of her children before they headed off to the bus. And how his father would reach under the table and hold his wife’s hand as all around them circled the chattering voices of their children.

But not everyone came from a home like that. Which reminded him of the other reason he was here.

His best high school friend, Cord Farraday. Cord had followed the call of the rodeo, too, and had been killed in a bull-riding accident just over two months before. Jake had taken it hard, but Cord’s twenty-two-year-old brother Brady had taken it even harder.

Brady had always been a good kid, solid as they come. He was low-key, hardworking, reliable. But now, from what Jake had heard and seen for himself, he was veering toward trouble.

Setting his coffee cup down on the table, Jake’s midnight blue eyes lasered in on his brother.

“The truth is, I didn’t come to town only for Zoey’s party. Or because Travis might take it into his fool head to
try
to kick my butt.” The flash of a good-natured smile faded as he began to speak again. “Ever since Cord’s funeral, I’ve been worried about Brady. I’ve tried to get in touch with him, but no luck. You seen him lately?”

“You mean before or after he got out of jail?”

“Jail?” Jake’s heart dropped. So it was as bad as that. “What did he do?”

“You mean, what
didn’t
he do? Take your pick.” Sighing, Rafe leaned his shoulders back in the chair. “Drunk and disorderly. Fighting. Assaulting an officer. You name it.”

“Brady hit Sheriff Hodge?”

“Not Hodge. Hodge’s deputy, Zeke Mueller. Which is just about as bad.”

Jake groaned.

“Luckily for Brady,” his brother continued, “he didn’t hurt Zeke too bad, but whoa, Jake. That kid’s pretty messed up. Did you know he quit his construction job with Sam and Denny McDonald a month after Cord died? Just up and walked out one day while they were in the middle of this big remodeling project. He really left them in the lurch. Far as I know, no one’s seen much of him since.”

A frown tightened Jake’s face. Brady Farraday was a dozen years younger than Jake and Cord. He’d always been a dependable kid, the star defenseman of his high school football team, a whiz with tools and fix-up projects. When
he was eighteen, he’d saved a little boy’s life. A family had gone camping in the Crazy Mountains, and one of the three young sons had wandered off.

A seven-year-old boy, Alex Dursky.