Second Chance Cowboy

Actually, this was just like her daughter. Charlotte had been cranky yesterday and late for her doctor’s appointment. Arlene had tried to talk to her again about putting the baby up for adoption. Charlotte hadn’t come home just to punish her.

Arlene told herself she wasn’t going to rise to Charlotte’s bait. Not this time. But she worried about the baby. That poor, innocent baby was going to need a mother—and soon.

The phone rang. “Hello.” She just assumed it would be Charlotte making ultimatums before she came home.

“Arlene?”

Just the sound of Hank Monroe’s deep voice buoyed her spirits instantly. “Hank,” she said a little breathlessly.

“Is everything all right?”

“Fine,” she said too cheerfully, hoping he didn’t hear the slight catch in her throat.

“Arlene, you can be honest with me. What’s wrong?”

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He was going to find out sooner or later anyway. Wouldn’t it be better if it came from her? “It’s my daughter. My youngest daughter. She’s pregnant. Not married. And she didn’t come home last night.”

“Maybe she’s with her boyfriend.”

“I don’t think there is a boyfriend. At least not one who’s free.”

“I see,” he said. “How about her friends? Have you tried them?”

“She doesn’t have a lot in common with her old friends anymore.” Arlene felt her throat close and fought back the tears. Most of the time she could stand what her life had become. But revealing the truth to Hank made it more real, more sad and tragic.

“I was just getting ready to call the doctor’s office and see if anything unusual happened during her visit yesterday.”

“All right. Let me know what you find out.”

She promised she would and called the doctor’s office, only to get a recording. It was too early. She’d have to wait. And the one thing she really wasn’t good at was waiting. Grabbing her purse, she headed for the door.

THE MOMENT SHE walked into the sheriff’s office Arlene knew it was a mistake.

“Arlene,” Sheriff Carter Jackson said as he got to his feet. He didn’t look happy to see her. But then, who could blame him given the other times she’d come in raging in defense of her children over whatever trouble they’d gotten into?

“It’s Charlotte,” she said, hating that her voice broke. She always tried so hard to be strong, believing a woman alone had to be strong or the world would crush her in an instant. “She’s missing.”

“Missing,” he repeated, then motioned to the chair opposite his desk as he dropped back into his. “When was the last time you saw her?”

Arlene took the chair but teetered on the edge, too nervous to relax. She hated being forced to come here.

“Yesterday afternoon, when she left for her doctor’s appointment. She didn’t come home last night and she never made her doctor’s appointment. I just stopped by the doctor’s house. No one has seen her.”

He leaned back in his chair and rubbed his jaw as he studied her. “Is it possible she’s run away?”

“No. I mean, I can’t imagine. She’s eight months pregnant.”

He nodded. “Maybe she left with the baby’s father.”

Arlene felt sick. “I think he’s married.”

The sheriff picked up his pen and tapped it on a stack of papers on his desk. “You realize I can’t file a missing-persons report until she’s been gone for at least twenty-four hours, but I’ll tell the deputies to keep an eye out for her.”

“I’m afraid something has happened to her.”

“I can understand your concern.”

“Can you?” She hated the edge to her voice.

“I’ll admit, Arlene, that I can’t help but be skeptical. It isn’t like we haven’t been here before.”

She rose. “Well, thank you for your time,” she said, turning and stiffening her back, head high, as she headed for the door.

“Keep me apprised of the situation,” he called after her. “I’m sure you’ll hear from her soon.”

As she left, fighting tears of frustration, she passed Eve Bailey coming in. She hadn’t seen her neighbor for a while and was surprised how happy Eve looked, then recalled that Eve and the sheriff were to be married in the coming week.

Arlene nodded at Eve as they passed, not trusting her voice. She’d always wanted that for her daughters. A handsome, eligible man. A wedding where everyone in the county came to celebrate. A white wedding dress and the mother-daughter talk.

She’d wanted that desperately because she’d never had it.

She fought the tears all the way to her pickup. What had she done wrong? At the rate things were going, she’d never have to worry about buying a mother-of-the-bride dress or fussing over last-minute details with the caterer.

EVE BAILEY WASN’T getting cold feet. She was marrying the man she loved—had loved since she was a girl.

But now that the Fourth of July was coming up so quickly, she was anxious. She wanted this wedding to be perfect.

Her mother, with her new husband Loren Jackson, would be flying in. Her father, Chester Bailey, would be giving her away. He would be attending the wedding with his girlfriend Susie.

How did other families handle all this extended-family stuff? She just hoped there wouldn’t be any trouble. But that wasn’t what bothered her. Here she was with all this extra family and she wasn’t related by blood to any of them except for her twin, Bridger Duvall.

She had hoped by the time she married Sheriff Carter Jackson that she would know who she was. For years she’d yearned for someone who looked like her. Bridger had her coloring, but it wasn’t like being able to look at your mother and father and see yourself.

She had tried to accept that she would never have that because of the circumstances of her adoption. But still she wondered what her birth mother was like. Was she even still alive? On her wedding day, Eve would have loved to have her “other” family in the pews as well as her adopted family.

Unfortunately she and her adoptive mother had never been close. Eve blamed herself. She knew she had been a difficult child. From early on she’d known Lila wasn’t her “real” mother even though Lila had sworn differently. It didn’t seem to matter that Lila loved her and considered Eve her own.

Eve hoped to make up for that somehow. But looking for her birth mother had only made the chasm between her and Lila grow wider—and brought light to the illegal adoption ring.

“Is everything all right?” Carter asked as she stopped in his office doorway, hands on her slim hips, dressed in Western attire with a straw hat pulled low over her long dark hair.

“Yes. No. I think so.”

He laughed and came around his desk to take her in his arms. “Just a little longer,” he whispered against her ear.

She nodded, sick of thinking about nothing but the wedding. “Was that Arlene Evans I just saw leaving? She looked different somehow.”

“Charlotte seems to be missing,” he said as he motioned Eve into a chair and took one opposite her.