LITMIR.BIZ

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      She picked up her butter knife and made swirls in the bottom of her oatmeal bowl. Brett held his breath, watching her.

      “I accept the job and the housing, even though ‘Pregnant with the Boss’s Baby’ sounds like a bad soap opera plot.” A conciliatory smile graced her lips.

      Relief swept through his system with the force of last week’s flash flood. “I don’t know, I think it has a nice ring to it.” Even as he said that, the truth in her jest hit him with a fresh dose of clarity. He was going to be a father. His future was going to include diaper changes, first steps, scraped knees and sleepless nights. Everything in his life was about to change, and he and Hannah would forever be linked by the life they’d created together.

      His attention raked over the mother of his child, who was worrying the edge of her napkin. “What’s bothering you now?”

      “What about your family?” she said. “You took all this so well, but what if they hate me? Or worse, what if they think I got pregnant on purpose to get at your money?”

      As much as he wished that her worry had no merit, she’d brought up an excellent point, because his family had no shortage of closed-minded judgmental attitudes, too. He’d been fighting for months to get them to see him in a new light, to prove to his brothers and father that he had turned over a new, more responsible leaf, so that they’d finally support the big plans he had for the family business. The last thing Brett needed was to add fuel to his brothers’ and father’s belief that he wasn’t fit to help run the Lucky C, and nothing said screwed-up, irresponsible rich boy better than getting a girl pregnant during a one-night stand.

      But facing the consequences of his misspent years and terrible choices was his problem, not Hannah’s, so he squelched the grimace he felt coming on at the thought of breaking the news to his father and siblings. “Leave them to me.”

Chapter 3

      Brett stood at the edge of Vulture Ridge, at the very place where he’d watched the cow get swept away in the flash flood, his gaze absorbing the land that he loved, despite Mother Nature’s occasional cruelty. Today the sky was clear, but they’d had afternoon thundershowers every day lately, and this afternoon’s forecast was no different. Even now, at a few minutes to noon, the clouds were stacking up on the horizon.

      His eyeballs ached from a sleepless night of self-torment, with his conscience replaying every mistake he’d ever made. Every whiskey-soaked night, every morning of work he’d slept through—his past was littered with so much waste of money, time and opportunity that he could hardly believe that he kept being given more chances to get it right. That same life-changing bender of a weekend that had resulted in his car accident was now changing his life all over again. From this point forward and for the rest of his days, he would be beholden to a woman and, soon, a child. Somehow, he was going to become a man worthy of the charge—that he knew with absolute certainty.

      Before dawn, he’d walked out of his house determined to stop looking back, ready to face his future with eyes wide-open. With a straight spine and determination coursing through his veins, he’d saddled Outlaw and had taken off to the backcountry, long before Jack and the ranch hands had arrived for their workdays.

      He’d watched the sun rise over the prairie with an appreciation that reminded him of how he’d felt returning to the ranch after being released from the hospital after his accident—full of gratitude and hope. The longer he soaked in the views and scents of the backcountry, the land he adored, the more at peace he became with the new direction his life was going. Becoming a father was going to change a lot, but it wasn’t going to change everything. He would always have this land, this Colton legacy. And now he had someone to pass it to. The realization brought a smile to his lips.

      The irony wasn’t lost on him that the very reason he couldn’t give up fighting for his rightful place in the Colton legacy was the very reason he was about to be back to square one with his family on that very topic. When his dad and brothers learned about Brett’s impending fatherhood resulting from a one-night stand, he was going to lose their trust all over again, along with whatever leverage he’d fought for over the past four months.

      When the alarm on his phone chimed, alerting him that it was almost time for the family meeting that his older brother Ryan, a detective with the Tulsa PD, had called in order to share the latest developments in their mother’s assault case, Brett’s resolve faltered for a split second. Nerves settled in his gut like stones. Ryan wasn’t the only one with news to share.

      A click of his tongue and a slight wiggle of a rein was all the direction Outlaw needed to turn away from the ridge and trot in the direction of the ranch buildings. Brett urged him faster, relishing the feel of unadulterated power in Outlaw’s muscles and stride. Brett knew that Outlaw loved this part, too, the wind in their faces and the open range at their feet as they shot across the plains, the sensations of speed and freedom potent enough for Brett to almost imagine it possible to outrun his past and his reputation.

      The circular driveway in front of Brett’s family home—the Big House, as it’d been called since long before Brett’s birth, and where now only he and his dad lived, and his mom before her attack—was crowded with vehicles, including his half brother Daniel’s truck and the farm truck that Jack’s fiancée, Tracy, liked to drive around the place. Even his brother Eric had deigned to make a rare appearance, by the looks of it. Greta, they’d already been informed, couldn’t break away from her job until the next day, when she planned to swing through the Big House for a short stay.

      Brett walked around to the back of the house, then climbed the four steps up to the wraparound porch. The stones in his stomach that had been sitting there since seeing Hannah yesterday seemed to double in size with every step. He swallowed hard, then opened the door and entered through the mudroom attached to the kitchen.

      The aroma of onions and garlic and roasting beef wafted past his nose as he removed his hat and boots. Maria, the chef, must be slow-cooking a roast for supper, if he had to hazard a guess. For Hannah’s first meal there, he’d requested something hearty and homey that showcased the ranch’s prized steer, and judging by the mouthwatering smells, Maria was going to knock it out of the park.

      A smile worked its way onto his lips at the sudden vision of the look on Hannah’s face when she’d crunched into that first slice of bacon the previous morning. Oh, man, he couldn’t wait to watch her reaction to Maria’s cooking. The anticipation of it was almost enough to quell his nerves over coming clean to his family about the many ways his life was about to get turned upside down.

      From the kitchen, he crossed the foyer to the living room on the east side of the house, where a collection of male voices could be heard. As opposed to the kitchen, the foyer invariably smelled of fresh flowers from the arrangement that graced the circular marble table at the center of the grand entrance, which his mother insisted on having delivered weekly. To her warped way of thinking, the flowers were a display of power and wealth, but since Brett’s brush with death, he’d come to think of the arrangements as reminders of how beautiful and fragile life was.

      Even after his mom’s attack, Edith had maintained the fresh flowers in the house. The only change was that the smaller arrangements that used to grace his mom’s room got sent to her room at Tulsa General Hospital.

      He’d taken no more than three steps through the foyer when a blond ball of little-boy energy bounded toward him, squealing his name. Despite Brett’s nerves, he felt another grin coming on. Nobody made Brett feel like a rock star more than his five-year-old nephew, Seth, Jack’s only son. The two were fast friends, and had been since the day Brett first held Seth in his arms when he was nothing more than a red-faced potato head wrapped in a hospital blanket. He opened his arms as Seth launched himself into them.

      “Hey, cowpoke.”

      “Hiya, Uncle Brett!”

      “Wait, what’s this in your armpit?” With that, Brett dug his thumbs into Seth’s prime tickle spot under his armpits. Seth

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