The Rancher's Christmas Princess

“Imagined it?” Belle was frowning.

He raised both big hands, palms up. “I don’t know. I know that when I woke up in the morning, there was no sign of her and I was alone. I pulled myself together and came home.”

Belle studied his face. She seemed to be looking for answers there.

He had no answers. And what in the hell was this all about anyway? It was time—well past time—she came out with it. “I think I’ve said enough, a damn sight more than enough. And you’ve told me nothing. What’s Anne Benton got to do with anything? Are you telling me you know her? Did she mention me or something?”

“Oh, Preston. Yes. Yes....”

“What? Yes, you know her? Yes, she mentioned me?”

“I...both. Anne has been my dearest friend in all the world. We met at Duke University. She was getting her undergraduate degree and I was studying nursing. She had no extended family, but her parents had been wealthy. They adored her. She was their only child and she never wanted for anything. Her father died when she was eight. And her mother raised her alone—and then died the year Anne graduated from high school. She was on her own in life by the time I met her. And I was far from home. She and I...we became like sisters.”

He still didn’t get it. What did any of this have to do with him? “What are you saying? Anne wants to talk to me, is that it?”

“I...oh, I really am trying to explain. I’m not doing a very good job and I realize that...”

He felt that need again, the one he seemed to have around her—to go to her, to hold her, soothe her, tell her that everything was going to be all right.

How could he tell her that? He didn’t know that. He was the one in the dark here. “Just go ahead, okay? Just...continue.”

“Oh, sweet Lord...” She pressed the back of her hand to her mouth, steadied herself, lowered it. “I’m sorry to tell you, so sorry. Not long ago, Anne was diagnosed with ALL—acute lymphocytic leukemia. I went to her, took care of her, but she didn’t make it.”

He tried to wrap his mind around that one. “You’re telling me that Anne is dead?”

She swallowed, convulsively. Her eyes brimmed. She shook her head, blinked the tears away. “Yes. She died ten days ago.”

“My God.” It seemed impossible. “She was such a great woman. So young, so full of life...”

“Yes. And she...had a little boy. His name is Benjamin. He’s eighteen months old.”

Pres remembered. “The boy folks in town say you brought with you to Elk Creek?” He watched her head bob with her swift nod. She swallowed hard again. And right then, as he stared into her wide, wounded eyes, he made the connection. He raised both hands, palms out, shook his head. “Wait a minute. I still don’t even know for certain if she...if we...”

“I know.” Belle’s voice had gained strength again. She spoke firmly now. “Anne would never claim you were Ben’s father if she didn’t know beyond a doubt that you were. She named me his legal guardian. She knew I would always take care of him and that I would give him all the love in my heart and an excellent start in life. She also knew she should have contacted you. She realized that both you and Ben deserve to know each other, that Ben needs his father and you have a right and a duty to be with your son. So she set me the task of making that happen.”

Pres was not keeping up with this flood of information. He was still stuck back there with the fact that, apparently, he actually did have sex with Anne Benton on the night that Lucy married Monty Polk. “Damn it to hell. If it happened, it was only one night.”

Beautiful Belle gave him a sad little smile. “Sometimes one night is all it takes.”

“Dear God.” He realized he was on his feet. And his knees didn’t want to hold him up. He sank to the chair again. “A boy. A little boy...Ben, you said? His name is Ben?”

“Yes. Ben.” Belle produced an envelope from the pocket of her skirt. Her hands were shaking. “She gave this to me two days before she died. It was tucked inside a note she wrote to me. She told me to...” The tears welled again. She pressed her lips together, forced herself to go on. “...to read the note addressed to me after she was gone. That note told me who you were and where to find you. Also in that note, she asked that I give you this.” She extended the envelope across the coffee table toward him.

He took it from her trembling fingers. Struck with a sense of complete unreality, he tapped the end on the table, tore off the other end and removed the single sheet of folded paper within. He unfolded the thing, stared down at the words on it, words written in a hand that didn’t appear to have been all that steady. Those words ran together at first, kind of wiggling, like a caravan of ants trudging without direction across the paper, refusing to take any recognizable form. With effort, he read it through once.

And then again.

And finally, on the third time through, the ragged writing made sense to him.

He dropped the letter onto the coffee table and tossed the envelope on top of it. And then he made himself speak, although his voice sounded rough, ill-used, raggedy as Anne Benton’s handwriting. “She says the boy is mine. She says she woke up in that motel by the roadhouse with me and...she didn’t know what she would say to me. So she just...left. She says when she found out she was having my baby, she didn’t know how to tell me. She kept meaning to do it, but she never managed to work up the courage.”

Belle was nodding again. “She told me she always intended to get in touch with you, to tell you...”

“But she didn’t.” How could she not? How could she keep the reality of his own child from him? It wasn’t right. For the first time since he’d met the princess across from him, he felt the heat of anger in his veins, the blood pumping in furious spurts. Wrong. All wrong, what Anne Benton had done. “By God, she didn’t come to me, didn’t tell me....”

Belle stood up. He stiffened in the chair and watched her warily as she came around the coffee table to his side. Gingerly, she touched his shoulder. “Preston, please... Try to understand...”

He jerked free of her hand and glared up at her dead on. “I want you to go.”

* * *

Belle longed to stay, to soothe him, to ease his confusion and frustration—and perhaps even to come to an agreement about how they would proceed from there. She had plans, detailed plans. She knew what to do and was prepared to move forward.

But she understood that she couldn’t force him. He would need time to process such momentous news.

Plus, there was the way she’d handled telling him the situation: badly. She should have told him sooner—and she should have done a better job of it. So far, she’d mucked everything up, taking forever to get to the point, finding endless excuses to put off the inevitable.

And kissing him. What had possessed her to think that it would be all right to kiss him? It wasn’t. It was wrong.

So very wrong. She’d...completely misled him. Indulged herself in an impossible romantic fantasy when she should have kept her focus on the important information Anne had trusted her to deliver with a certain delicacy and tact.

Of course he was angry. With Anne. And with her.

“Please go.” He wasn’t even looking at her. He had his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. “Go now.”

She thought again of all the things she still had to say to him. And then she reminded herself that none of those things had to be said that night. The least she could do after botching her first task here so completely was to leave the poor man alone to deal privately with the life-altering information she’d finally managed to deliver to him.

She turned for the foyer, where she took her coat off the hall tree and put it on. She pulled her gloves from the pocket and put them on, too. Then, quietly, she left through the front door, closing it gently behind her.

Out in the snow-dusted driveway, Marcus was waiting. He had the SUV’s engine idling, ready to go. He got out when he saw her emerge from the house and opened the door to the backseat for her.

She ran down the front steps, pausing only for one brief second to glance up at the star-thick indigo bowl of the sky, hoping to see a last echo of the northern lights.

But there was nothing and that made her sad, made her feel as though the magic had never been.

* * *

Pounding sounds invaded her dreams.

Belle struggled up through dragging layers of sleep, groaning. The room was dark. The time glowed at her from the bedside clock: 6:14 a.m.

More pounding—on the door that led out to the landing. What in the...

In the crib across the room, Ben woke with a startled cry. He began calling for Anne. “Mama! Mama!”

Belle flicked on the lamp, threw back the covers, pulled on her robe and went to him. The pounding continued.

“Mama!” Ben cried.