The Rancher Takes a Bride. Brenda Minton
Duke didn’t know. I waited too long and by the time I had found him, he’d joined the army and was on his way to Afghanistan.”
“But you came here to tell him, and you didn’t. Right?” Lilly swiped at angry tears chasing a trail down her cheeks. Duke brushed dampness from his own cheeks.
He hated that she was crying and that he didn’t know how to fix this for her. He loved this kid and had from the first moment she bounded up the steps of the diner, asking for odd jobs to raise money for a horse. He’d given her a bridle for Christmas. She’d made him a card with a horse she drew. She’d signed it “with love, Lilly.”
They’d had an immediate connection, he guessed. And he hadn’t been smart enough to figure it out, to see the smile, the blue eyes, for what they were. His eyes. His sister’s smile. Yeah, he saw it now. Lilly looked like his little sister, Samantha, but with Oregon’s dark hair.
“I took too long,” Oregon admitted. “For that I owe you both an apology, and I hope you’ll forgive me. I just wanted to know for sure...”
She looked up, meeting his gaze. He saw tears gather in her eyes and escape down the slopes of her cheeks. “I messed up,” she whispered.
“Yeah, you did.” Lilly wasn’t all about forgiveness at the moment. Duke knew she’d get past it. She was that kind of kid.
“Lilly, your mom wanted to know that I was a person she’d want in your life. And I can tell you, a few years back, I wasn’t. I’ve made a lot of mistakes.”
She shot him a look. “Yeah, you did.”
“No. You’re not a mistake,” he countered.
“Not a mistake, just...” She grabbed her crutches and stood. “What am I?”
“Our daughter,” Duke said, wishing he could take back twelve years and redo everything. But he couldn’t.
“I’m taking a walk.” Lilly hobbled off.
Duke started to go after her. Oregon stopped him, a hand on his arm. “Let her have a few minutes alone.”
He sat back down in the chair next to Oregon. He watched his daughter walk away, Daisy at her heels but keeping a careful distance. He knew where she was going. She was going to the horses.
“What are we going to do?” he asked Oregon. She was watching Lilly walk away.
“We’re going to be parents together. We’ll figure it out.”
“Right. Of course we will.” But Oregon had already figured it out. He was the one who had a lot to learn.
He’d spent most of his life not planning to marry, not planning on kids. And now he had one. A girl named Lilly. And where did that leave Oregon, the mother of his child?
Since yesterday he’d been forcing himself to remember, trying to recall that summer. Man, he’d been out of control that year. He’d watched his dad drinking his life away, Jake trying to be the man of the house and his younger siblings, Samantha and Brody, lost and alone. Duke had run wild, trying to make it all go away. But he remembered bits and pieces of a girl who thought she was having an adventure barrel racing.
Yeah, he remembered. She’d flirted, riding past him, taking his hat. He’d forgotten. He shouldn’t have forgotten.
He looked at the woman sitting across from him, worry over their daughter furrowing her brow. She was no longer that young girl. Duke saw her now as a mom, a woman with strength and faith.
And the mother of his child.
Oregon started packing the next morning. By noon she had already made a dent in the process. Not that she had a lot. She’d always known how to let go of possessions, to keep only what really mattered.
An hour in, she’d sent Lilly across the street to talk to Duke. Since she’d been gone, Oregon had managed to go through twice as much, packing a lot and putting other things in boxes to be given away. She taped the top of a box she’d just filled and reached for another.
She hated moving. It brought back too many memories. Of leaving towns she would have liked to remain in and people she wanted to know better. By the time she’d reached her teens, she had stopped getting attached. It made it easier to let go if she shrugged it all off and pretended it didn’t matter. A new home, a new life, a new opportunity, her mother had always said, as she had happily packed them off in some aging car she’d bought when the last aging car quit.
Oregon had moved here with the intention of putting down roots.
“Do you always talk to yourself?”
Oregon smiled at the woman standing outside the screen door of the apartment she and Lilly had called home since moving to Martin’s Crossing. Apartment was a generous word for the small space, which was really just a living area with a bedroom in the loft.
“It stops me from saying things to the wrong people if I say them to myself.” She motioned Breezy Martin in. “Want a cup of tea?”
“No, I’m good. I stopped by to see if I could help.”
“I’m almost packed.” She looked around her at the growing stacks of packed boxes. She didn’t want to leave this cramped, tiny space that had been her home, a place where she and her daughter had been happy.
“I didn’t mean help with packing.” Breezy picked up a snow globe from the shelf and wrapped it in paper. “Although I will help pack. I meant, do you need a friend?”
Friends. Yes, she and Breezy had become friends since the other woman arrived in Martin’s Crossing six months ago. And now Breezy would be Lilly’s aunt. Because Breezy was married to Duke’s brother, Jake Martin.
“Duke is in the clouds over this situation, Oregon,” Breezy said.
Oregon held a carved horse in her hands and stared at the wall. She ached inside, wishing away this situation and how it was changing all of their lives. “I know he is.”
“How is Lilly doing?”
Oregon shrugged and placed the horse in a box. “She’s doing better physically. Getting used to the crutches and the fact that she won’t spend her summer vacation swimming.” She drew in a breath. “She’s angry. At me. At Duke. At the world. But she’s with him at the diner, because she’s still trying to save up money for a horse, and he offered to let her work the cash register today.”
“He wants to buy her a horse,” Breezy offered. “He’d buy her the moon if he could.”
“She doesn’t need that. Buying her everything she wants won’t solve the heartache.”
“No, it won’t.” Breezy reached for another dust collector to wrap in paper.
“I have too many snow globes and knickknacks.” Oregon looked around the tiny living space. “Why do I collect things?”
Breezy smiled at that. “Now that is something I have an answer for. Because we moved so much as children. Things mean stability, having a home. If you collect something, you take it with you so that every new place feels a little familiar. Like home.”
Oregon agreed as she looked at the shelves filled with things she’d collected. She had moved often as a girl because her mom couldn’t stay in a relationship. Breezy, on the other hand, had spent much of her life drifting and homeless. Oregon wanted more for her daughter. She wanted a place where Lilly could have roots, family, a real home.
“I’m happy for my daughter. She loves Duke. She’s loved him since the day we got to town. I just don’t want him to let her down. I don’t want to lose her, either.”
“You won’t lose her. And if ever there was a