The Cowboy's Secret Son

“I beg your pardon?”

“Another shock. Not more bad news,” he clarified quickly. “Violet’s death was enough, I know.”

“What kind of shock?” Jillian asked carefully.

“Mrs. Mitchum remembered you in her will.”

Remembered you in her will. Which could mean almost anything. Violet had a lot of money, of course. Jillian had always known that. Not that it was evident in her person or in her treatment of others. It was simply that Violet loved to tell the story of her beloved Charlie’s strike. And considering how well-known Mitchum Oil was in Texas…

“She left me something?” Jillian asked.

“A couple of things, actually.”

Mementos then, Jillian thought, relieved. For the first time in years her financial situation was stable and promising, and much of that was due to Violet’s past generosity. She didn’t really want her to do more.

“What are they?”

“One I couldn’t bring with me,” Dylan Garrett said, smiling at her for the first time.

Again Jillian shook her head. “I’m not sure—”

“Violet left you her piano.”

Memories she had been fighting flooded Jillian’s brain. How many afternoons had she taken refuge in Violet’s huge Victorian house rather than go back to that dreary apartment over the antique store. It was all she could afford, and she was grateful for the owner’s generosity in making it available to her, but her loneliness for adult companionship had been almost unbearable.

At Violet’s, there had always been a welcome. Jillian remembered the long, happy evenings she’d spent there, her heart filling again with the warmth of the unconditional love she had felt emanating from the old woman for both her and her son. She would play the piano and Violet would hold Drew until he fell asleep. It had been idyllic. And a balm for the rejection Jillian had felt in every other aspect of her life.

“I can have it delivered whenever and wherever you want it.”

He meant the piano, Jillian realized. “I—I don’t know what to say,” she said softly.

“I’ll leave you my card, and you can think about it. Just give me a call when you’ve decided.”

“I used to play that piano for her.”

Even as she said it, Jillian realized this man couldn’t possibly care about that. Dylan Garrett was simply acting at the request of Violet’s lawyers. He had told her that at the beginning.

“She left me a horse,” he said.

Surprised, she looked up into his blue eyes, which were almost amused—maybe at Violet’s choice of mementos. And yet, at the same time, they exuded a sympathy that made Jillian feel as if perhaps he did understand what she was feeling.

“And she also left me one of these,” he added.

He laid something down on the desk in front of her. It took her a few seconds to break the strange connection that had grown between them to look down at whatever it was.

“My God,” she whispered when she did. And then she added truthfully, “I don’t want this.”

She didn’t. She would have given every penny this check represented to have had the opportunity to clear up the disagreement that had marred her last visit with Violet, the one where she had taken Jake Tyler with her.

That had been her mistake. It wasn’t that Violet hadn’t liked Jake. She had said as much herself. But she had also warned Jillian that there was too much “unfinished business” in her past. Too many things she had never put behind her. Violet had warned her that she must clear those up before she could hope to start a new life for her and Drew. A life with someone else.

“I’m afraid giving it back isn’t an option,” Dylan said, his voice amused. “The money’s yours to do whatever you want.”

“What I want is to see Violet again,” Jillian protested, knowing how childish that probably sounded.

“I know,” Dylan replied, and the way he said it somehow made Jillian feel that he didn’t think her plea was childish at all. “I felt the same way when I found out she was gone. I’d lost touch with Violet, and I’ll always regret that. She told me something very meaningful, something that made an incredible difference in my life, and…I never got the chance to tell her that. Or a chance to thank her.”

Something very meaningful… The words seemed to echo in Jillian’s heart. She had tried to ignore what Violet had told her. She had tried to dismiss the old woman’s wisdom as something that wasn’t feasible or realistic. But none of the advice Violet had given her through the years had been wrong. Jillian had known that, even as she had stubbornly denied the sagacity of what Violet had said to her the last time they’d met.

“She told me something, too,” she said in a low voice.

Dylan tilted his head a little, as if he were trying to read her tone. “And…?”

“And…I didn’t listen because I didn’t want to hear what she was saying. I didn’t want to believe it.”

“I certainly wouldn’t presume to try to tell you—”

“Violet would,” Jillian assured him.

Dylan laughed.

“I don’t know if she was right about what she said,” Jillian went on. Despite her grief over the way she had left things the last time she’d visited Pinto, she managed to smile at him. “But…she was right about most of the things she told me through the years. Maybe I owe it to her to try to find out if she was right about this one, too.”

Again her eyes fell to the check lying in the center of her desk. She wondered if Violet had intended her to use this money to do what she had suggested. Of course, it had come with no strings attached. No demands made. And what Violet had said had only been a suggestion. Still…

“I’ll let you know where to send the piano,” she said.

It was intended as a dismissal. Now that she had made the decision, Jillian found she was eager to get started. Maybe it was an eagerness to do exactly what Violet had said, and then put it all behind her. Or maybe… Maybe Violet had been right about the unfinished business of her life, she acknowledged.

There were too many things that Drew would have questions about as he grew older. Too many things, Jillian realized with a sense of surprise, that she herself still had questions about. And there was only one way to answer them. And really, only one place to start.

* * *

“YOU’VE LOST your mind,” Jake Tyler said.

“I know it must sound like that,” Jillian admitted.

His gaze held hers a long moment before he turned and paced to the other end of his enormous penthouse office, his fury apparent in every step. When he reached the wall of glass that looked down into the heart of Dallas’s financial district, he turned, meeting her eyes again.

His lips were compressed, and Jillian understood, because she knew him so well, that he was trying to gather control before he said anything else. His hands had been thrust into the pockets of the charcoal-gray suit he wore so that she wouldn’t see that they were clenched angrily into fists.

“I thought everything was set,” he said finally, the fury tamped down enough to allow him to speak almost naturally.

“I’m sorry, Jake, but this is something I have to do.”

“Because that crazy old woman told you to do it.”

Jillian suppressed her own anger at his characterization of Violet. Her grief was too new to shrug off Jake’s disparagement, although she recognized it was his disappointment speaking. And she couldn’t blame him for being annoyed. Any man would be.