LITMIR.BIZ

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come and meet my brother,” Jade called out to him.

      The boy set the broom aside and approached them with a friendly smile on his face. “This is my brother Knox,” Jade said. She placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “And this is Cody, the best nine-year-old helper and horse lover I’ve ever met.”

      “It’s nice to meet you, sir.” The boy stuck out a hand to shake.

      Knox took the small hand and studied the boy’s face. Bright blue eyes, oddly familiar, gazed up at him. Cody’s light brown hair was neatly cut and his smile was broad enough to illuminate an entire room.

      “It’s nice to meet you, Cody, and you can call me Knox.”

      “Do you like horses, Knox?” the boy asked him.

      “I love them,” Knox replied.

      “Knox is a Texas Ranger,” Jade said.

      “Wow.” Cody’s eyes widened. “That’s awesome.”

      Those eyes...the shape and the bright blue color...what about them felt so familiar to Knox? “Thanks. So you sweep up around here?”

      “I do whatever Miss Jade wants me to and then she lets me ride the horses,” he replied.

      “Sounds like a lot of responsibility,” Knox replied.

      Cody nodded. “I can handle it.” He looked at the wristwatch he wore. “Now I need to finish up sweeping because my mom is going to be here any minute.”

      “And who is your mom?” Knox asked, wondering if he knew the woman.

      “Her name is Allison Rafferty,” Cody replied.

      Allison Rafferty? Knox’s brain exploded with a flash of sweet memories. Allison was the woman he’d once loved, the woman who had betrayed him and the one he’d never quite been able to forget.

      He stared at Cody. Those eyes...no wonder they looked so familiar to Knox. Each morning when he looked into a mirror, he saw those same ones staring back at him.

      Shock waves shuddered through him and he was vaguely aware of Jade telling Cody to go ahead outside and wait for his mother. The complicated memories he had of Allison disappeared beneath a veil of pure white anger.

      Knox turned to his sister, his heart beating hard and fast. He felt gut-punched. Cody was nine years old and had his eyes. Almost ten years ago, he’d contacted Allison when he’d heard she’d had a baby that she’d insisted belonged to an old boyfriend. She had to have gotten pregnant by another man during the time they’d been dating. He’d been utterly destroyed by her cheating and that had been the end of any relationship he had with her.

      She’d lied.

      Knox knew with a gut instinct that Cody was his son. He stared at Jade. “Did you know?”

      Jade didn’t pretend not to know what he was talking about. “I’ve always suspected, but Allison has never said anything to me, and I haven’t asked her.”

      A son. Emotion welled up to press tight against his chest. He had a son, and he’d already lost nine years because Allison had lied to him. He’d always known that she was just another woman who’d betrayed him, and this only confirmed it.

      “I think I’ll step outside and wait for Cody’s mother to arrive,” he said.

      “Knox, you aren’t going to do anything crazy, are you?” Jade asked worriedly.

      He smiled grimly as an icy cold shell wrapped around his heart. “Don’t worry. I’m not crazy.” His fellow Rangers and several news agencies had nicknamed him Fort Knox because he was the unbreakable Ranger who had no heart. He was always in control of his emotions.

      The sound of a car approaching from the distance tensed all of his muscles. He drew several deep, long breaths and then prepared himself to face the woman who had kept the secret of his son from him for nine long years.

      * * *

      Allison Rafferty couldn’t help the smile that curved her lips as she saw Cody and Jade standing just outside the stables. The sight of her son always made her heart expand with pride and joy.

      It was impossible to hold on to the worries of running the construction company when she was with her son. On Monday she was going to have to fire a man, never a pleasant thing, but in this case necessary. But for this afternoon and evening all she had to think about was making homemade pizza and watching a movie with the little man in her life.

      She parked and turned off the car engine, then got out of the car. At the same time a tall, broad-shouldered man wearing a black cowboy hat stepped out of the stables and into her view.

      Knox.

      Her breath hitched in her throat and she froze in her tracks. For a long moment her brain refused to function as she stared at him, and then a million questions fired off in her head.

      Knox Colton... What on earth was he doing there? Oh, God, she didn’t want him there. Why wasn’t he in El Paso doing whatever he did as a Texas Ranger?

      “Hello, Allison.” His eyes beneath the rim of his hat were icy blue.

      He knows.

      The two dreadful words echoed in her head as her heart began to beat an unsteady rhythm. “Knox, what a surprise,” she said and took several slow steps forward.

      “It’s been a day full of surprises,” he replied with a pointed glance at Cody.

      “Cody, why don’t you come inside with me and let Knox and your mother visit for a few minutes,” Jade said. “I think I’ve got some of those chocolate cookies that you like in the pantry.”

      Cody looked at Allison for permission and she nodded her head, still stunned by Knox’s presence. She watched as Jade and Cody headed to the house and a million old memories fluttered through her mind.

      Knox, dressed in a navy tuxedo to take her to the high school prom... Knox, naked and beautiful as he made love to her in the pool house at La Bonne Vie, his family home.

      He had been her first love, her only love and the man she believed would be her forever love. They’d dated all through high school and after that whenever she could get back to Shadow Creek from the college she’d attended in Massachusetts.

      They’d drifted apart during the last of those days, but when she’d had to quit college and return to Shadow Creek to take over her father’s construction company, she and Knox had resumed their love affair. The memories of loving and being loved by him warmed her.

      She watched until Jade and Cody disappeared into the house and then she turned her gaze back to Knox. Any warmth her memories had generated instantly cooled beneath the chill of his arctic gaze. She raised her chin and waited for him to speak, her heart beating even more frantically.

      “You’ve kept him from me for nine years.”

      She wanted to protest. She wanted to reiterate the falsehood she’d told him years ago when she’d been pregnant and he’d called to see if the baby was his. But it was one thing to utter a lie over a phone line, quite another to stare into somebody’s eyes and lie.

      “You left town,” she replied. He’d left her utterly brokenhearted and not knowing if she would ever have a future with him. That had been one of the reasons she’d lied to him, because he’d distanced himself from her, indicating that he didn’t want to be with her anymore. There had also been the fact that she hadn’t wanted her newborn son in any way associated with the Coltons, considering that Livia had just gone to jail for her heinous crimes.

      “And then you had your new life with the Rangers. I didn’t think you’d care,” she said.

      “You thought wrong. I had a right to know that he is my son, and he has a right to know that I’m his father.” His words were short...clipped, and he took a step toward her.

      Anger and fear leaped

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