LITMIR.BIZ

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said firmly. “And things might have been different if Dad hadn’t died. She can’t let go of his memory, which is probably why her other relationships haven’t worked. Anyway, don’t beat yourself up about it.”

      Elizabeth nodded. “Okay. No more agonizing over past mistakes. We concentrate on being a family from now on.”

      “That sounds good to me.” Kayla chuckled. “Alex calls the situation messy and he’s right, so we need each other to deal with it.”

      * * *

      JACKSON SADDLED HIS STALLION, his ranch foreman watching with raised eyebrows.

      “Going to ride fences again?” Greg asked as Jackson checked the tools in Thunder’s saddlebag. The black-and-white Appaloosa sidestepped lightly, eager to get moving. “You’ve got ranch hands to take care of that.”

      “Drop it. I’m not in the mood.”

      “Whatever you say, boss.”

      Jackson rode north, trying to let go of his tension. The way he saw it, time riding fence lines wasn’t wasted. Besides, he’d never enjoyed being indoors all the time, which was why giving up college hadn’t bothered him as much as it had bothered his parents. Since then he’d realized how much he had missed, but at least he’d supplemented his education with online and extension courses.

      While he hadn’t told Morgan she was expected to attend college, he’d raised her with the assumption she would do so. Lately her grades had been poor enough that no decent school would take her, but she still had time to get her act together...if she tried. With the new bombshell in her life, it was hard to say what would happen.

      It was ironic to learn he had a second child. Marcy had refused to consider having another. She’d been too busy reading fashion magazines and nagging him about wanting to move to the city.

      Jackson reined in Thunder and gazed at the horizon, unable to imagine living anywhere else.

      It was a beautiful time of year on the ranch. Everything was lush and green, the brilliant blue sky arching overhead, broken only by puffs of scattered white clouds. If he turned a certain direction, he didn’t even see fences, just miles of rolling grassland and trees, the way it must have looked when his ancestors had settled here.

      Morgan loved the ranch, too, or at least she’d loved it when she was smaller. It was difficult to tell how she felt now. Who would have guessed that her mother, who’d grown up on the ranch adjacent to his parents’ spread, would hate Montana so much? Then, not long before Marcy had taken off for New York, he’d discovered she was sneaking around with other guys.

      Thunder snorted, tossing his head, and Jackson realized his hands had gone tight on the reins.

      “Sorry, boy.” He patted the stallion on the neck and urged him back into a walk.

      In all honesty, he shouldn’t have let Marcy’s cheating bother him so much, but the one place they’d gotten along was in bed, so why had she gone looking for it somewhere else?

      At least she hadn’t fought him for custody of Morgan, which meant his marriage had ended with more of a whimper, than a bang. Of course, by then he’d basically seen the worst Marcy could dish out. The cheating had been the final knife thrust to end a long, miserable period that had seemed more of a prison sentence than anything else.

      “I can sure pick ’em, can’t I, Thunder?” he murmured, thinking about the woman he’d dated for a while after his divorce.

      Patti had been a paralegal for his divorce attorney. Very sympathetic. Supportive. Nice. At least that was what he’d thought. It turned out she’d seen the documents on his net worth and had decided it was her chance to catch a rich husband. She lived in a nearby town and he’d surprised her one evening with a pizza...and caught her longtime boyfriend hopping out a side window.

      Perhaps he ought to be grateful he’d learned his lesson about women. Since then he’d vowed to keep life uncomplicated, yet now he had a huge complication. And the complication wasn’t just Alex, it was also Kayla.

      She’d claimed that she didn’t need any money, but whether or not that was true, what about a college fund? Or sharing parental responsibility? The fact that another man had adopted Alex didn’t mean a damn thing. The guy might be all right, but it was Kayla, not her ex-husband, who’d driven to Schuyler looking for her runaway son.

      If their positions had been reversed, Jackson knew nothing could have kept him from searching for Alex, as well.

      Jackson spotted a slack wire on a fence and reined in Thunder again. He swung down from the saddle and took out his tools, thinking about the frosty expression in his former girlfriend’s eyes. He was quite certain she’d prefer to keep him away from Alex, so to have a relationship with his son he’d have to figure out how to get along with Kayla.

      Still, it wouldn’t hurt to call the Garrison household and make sure she hadn’t made a beeline for Seattle. For that matter, he had only Kayla’s word that she’d told Alex the identity of his birth father. If there was one thing he’d learned from Marcy and Patti, it was how many ways a woman could shade the truth.

CHAPTER FOUR

      SOONER OR LATER Alex figured his mom would tell her grandparents to stop spoiling him and DeeDee. They kept doing all sorts of nice things. Like today. The Garrisons had cable, but they didn’t get the Mariners games, so Grandma had called the cable company and ordered a sports package.

      That was okay. Alex didn’t mind being spoiled.

      Now he and DeeDee were watching the Mariners in the family room. His mother had gone for a drive with Grandpa and his great-grandmother was in the kitchen. She was such a terrific cook it made him wonder if he wanted to stay a vegetarian, even the kind of vegetarian who sometimes cheated with chicken or fish. He missed hamburgers and pepperoni pizza awful bad.

      “I like it here,” DeeDee said, lounging back on the cushions with the bowl of popcorn Grandma had made for them.

      “Me, too, but just for a visit.” Baseball on TV was okay, but it wasn’t the same as going to Safeco Field. Besides, Sandy was in Seattle. Not that he was worried Mom would move them to Schuyler. She could only leave her business for a while, and he knew how much she cared about her work. He sure didn’t want to leave Seattle for good.

      Another inning passed and the Mariners weren’t doing much better than in the first three. Then they pulled off two singles, a double and a home run in the sixth.

      “I knew that pitcher was losing his arm,” DeeDee said smugly as the opposing team’s starting pitcher left the mound. “Hit the road, Jack,” she called at the TV screen.

      “Mariner batting didn’t hurt,” Alex countered, getting up during the break. “I’m gonna make more popcorn.”

      In the kitchen he popped a batch and stood at the window for a few minutes, munching from the bowl. Montana backyards sure were different from anywhere in Seattle.

      The phone rang. It had been ringing a lot because Grandma and Grandpa’s friends kept calling to ask about him and DeeDee. Alex yawned, not much interested until his ears caught, “Hello, Jackson.” He crept to the connecting door between the kitchen and Grandma’s sewing room. It wasn’t nice to listen in, but he wanted to hear what she was saying to his birth father.

      The half of the conversation he could hear, broken by silences, was weird.

      “No...Kayla is still here...Well, of course she’s told him.” There was a longer silence. “I’m not interested in what’s fair to you, Jackson. It wasn’t fair to take a sixteen-year-old girl out for a date and return her home pregnant, even if Kayla says she takes responsibility, as well. You were older and I expected better.”

      Wow. Alex was proud of his grandmother. She was plenty tough when she needed to be.

      “You’ll

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