LITMIR.BIZ

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than a kid needed in the short term. The crib and playpen thingy were up and ready—not that any of the women put Noelle down long enough for the baby to use them. They’d also set up a baby monitor. As tired as he was, that was a good thing.

      Noelle took thirty minutes to calm down. He’d put her in the crib then sat next to it, stroking her gently and singing to her until she fell asleep. Deke had fond memories of singing Dillon to sleep and he sometimes wondered if that was why they both ended up in the music business. In the end, Noelle had been clutching his finger as her eyes drifted shut and her breathing turned into little puffs. He was in desperate need of at least a couple of hours of sleep. Then he’d deal with the curveball life had thrown him—and the intriguing Highway Patrol trooper he’d left in the Thunder River Casino parking lot as she attempted to placate the DHS caseworker.

      * * *

      Bacon. Deacon inhaled deeply. That was bacon he was smelling. And biscuits. What the...? He jumped out of bed and stumbled toward the kitchen. He was halfway down the hallway when his brain caught up with his body. The baby-monitor receiver on his bedside table had been turned off. He backtracked to the baby’s room and looked in. Noelle was sleeping soundly.

      By the time he reached the kitchen, he’d corralled the panic and was mostly coherent. Until he recognized the woman standing at his stove. He should have known she’d come as soon as word leaked out.

      “Mom, why are you in my kitchen?”

      She leveled him with a look insinuating he was both not too bright and maybe not her son as a result of that fact.

      “Beyond the obvious, Mom.”

      She poured him a cup of coffee and placed it on the island. He hitched his butt onto one of the bar stools and gratefully accepted her peace offering.

      “Your brothers and cousins are in quite the tizzy, son.”

      Okay. Son was better than his full name, but not by much. “It was a crazy night, Mom.”

      “Uh-huh.” She flipped the strips of bacon in the cast-iron frying pan.

      “It was late, Mom. Or early, depending on which side of dawn you went to bed.”

      “Uh-huh.”

      “Cut me some slack here.”

      “Don’t get snippy, Deacon. Is she yours?”

      He studied the steam rising from his mug. “You’ve seen her.”

      “Yes.”

      “What do you think?”

      “I think she’s a darlin’ little girl that somebody—preferably her parents—should love beyond all things.”

      “We’re doing the swabs for the test this afternoon. Chance says it’ll take about three weeks. While it’s possible, I’m not sure she’s mine.”

      “I figured, sugar. She could be, but I don’t think she is, either. As disappointing as that is.”

      “Mo-o-o-o-m,” he warned by stretching out the word.

      “None of you are married, Deke, so I am not advocating any of you rush out and find...what’s the term you young people use? Baby momma? No baby mommas. Your daddy and I raised you boys to be honorable men, to do the right thing. You’ll find the right girl, marry her and then have babies. Until we get the paternity-test results, the baby needs looking after. We’ll hope her momma decides to come back. ’Course, if she’s yours, she’s ours. But that’s a whole different situation. On the chance she is yours, we’ll look after her.”

      Deke slid off the stool, walked around the island to his mom and kissed her on the cheek. “Yeah, we will. So...is that why you decided to come over and fix breakfast for me?” He noted the pile of bacon and sausage patties, the cartons of eggs and the huge pan of homemade biscuits baking in the oven.

      “I suspect the locusts will descend soon enough. You know how crazy the family went over Cord’s little CJ. Noelle is a baby. That just trips switches like you wouldn’t believe.”

      Except he would, because seeing the baby, hearing her cry and holding her? Yup, every last one of his switches had been tripped. “She might not be mine, Mom.”

      “If she isn’t, what happens if her momma doesn’t come back?”

      And that was the elephant in the room, wasn’t it? “I truly don’t know.”

      “What’s your gut say?”

      “I brought her home, Mom. No way was I letting her go into the system. But to make a commitment lasting the rest of my life?” He stared out the window over the sink. The note claimed he was Noelle’s father. Why didn’t the mother confront him? Ask for support? Why hadn’t she contacted him before the baby was born? So many questions and no answers. At least not until the DNA test. If the baby wasn’t his and they didn’t locate her mother, he had no clue what he’d do. “I just don’t know, Mom.”

      “You were always my homebody, Deke. At least until you picked up a guitar. If you weren’t out there singin’ for your supper every night, you’d be right here with a sweet woman making babies for me to spoil.”

      He splorted coffee through his nose. She clapped him on the back, pounding a little harder than necessary, and passed him a dish towel to wipe up the mess he’d made.

      “Mom, you do remember that I’m the one who took three different girls to prom. The same prom.”

      She scowled at him. “I’m not likely to forget. You were a sophomore and they were seniors.”

      Deacon coughed behind the towel. He’d also escorted two seniors his junior year, and another three his senior year. Going steady was a foreign concept to him. Heck, the likelihood of his dating a woman more than a couple of times in a row ranked right up there with the Cubs winning the World Series. He’d had one relationship with another country singer that was sort of exclusive and it had ended amicably with both parties going their separate ways. One gossip columnist had labeled him a serial dater. He enjoyed all sorts of women and sex was just gravy.

      His mom pointed her finger at him. If there was one deadly thing about Katherine Barron Tate, it was when she brought her “mother finger” to bear on her unruly sons.

      Luckily, her lecture was interrupted by a perfunctory knock on the front door followed by the entrance of his older brother, Cooper.

      “I smell food!” His brother paused at the door to kick off his muddy boots. “Sorry I missed the concert, little bro. We had a situation on one of the wells last night.” Cooper worked with Cord Barron at BarEx, the oil-and-gas exploration-and-energy corporation controlled by the Barrons.

      Coop padded into the kitchen and kissed their mother on the cheek. “Mornin’, Momma. Sure could use a cup of coffee.”

      “Is your arm broken? You know where the mugs are kept and the pot is right there staring you in the face.”

      Laughing, Cooper made himself at home. This was the way of the Tates. There were times Deke wished for boundaries but his big, boisterous family refused to acknowledge them. Before his mother finished the bacon and started a batch of scrambled eggs with onions and peppers, along with home fries, his younger brothers, Bridger and Dillon, had tromped in. The rest of his brothers were likely out of town—Hunter and Boone working with Senator Clay Barron in Washington, DC, and Tucker out in Las Vegas with Chase Barron.

      Dillon set the big farm-style table without being asked while Bridger stirred the gravy. Cooper had ducked out to grab a shower, seeing as he was covered in dirt and grease. When he returned, he was wearing a pair of Deacon’s jeans and a Sons of Nashville concert sweatshirt.

      Noelle’s whimper echoed from the baby monitor on the counter, and Deke led the charge. Halfway down the hallway, he turned to glower, noting how his mother and Dillon hadn’t followed. He grinned evilly. “Coop, you and Bridge go grab her. I’ll get her bottle ready.” At

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