The Maverick's Return

Left her without saying anything.

After everything they had meant to one another...

No, Anne upbraided herself, she had only thought that they had meant so much to one another. Obviously, she hadn’t meant to Danny nearly as much as he had meant to her.

She knew all the facts by now, having ferreted them out over the years. She knew that Danny’s grandparents had refused to be responsible for him and his older brothers. Knew that they had all but told him and his brothers to leave. But if she had meant something to him, if Danny had loved her the way she loved him, he would have found a way to stay.

And if he couldn’t abide staying in Rust Creek Falls, if he wanted to go somewhere else, she would have gone anywhere in the world with him. All he would have had to do was say that he wanted her to come with him and she would have left in a heartbeat. Left town, left her family, left her dreams of going to college. Left it all for Danny.

All he would have had to do was ask.

But he didn’t ask.

Instead, he just disappeared without a trace, like some magician’s big trick.

Even so, her pride badly wounded, she’d still tried to find him. But no one knew where Danny and his two brothers had gone. It was like they had vanished into thin air. Eventually, she gave up trying to find him, decided to go on with her life and went off to college.

And then Hank Harlow had happened in her life. It wasn’t long after they met that Hank, clearly smitten, asked her to marry him. Ten years her senior, Hank wouldn’t allow the age difference to get in the way. He told her that all he wanted to do was to make her happy.

Anne turned him down as gently as possible.

But Hank wouldn’t be deterred. He kept after her, always the well-mannered gentleman, but at the same time, completely determined.

Eventually, he wore her down.

Or more to the point, Anne’s circumstances had worn her down. She found out that she was pregnant.

Alarmed and yet thrilled about the baby, she tried to find Dan again. She wasn’t any more successful this time around than she had been with her first attempt.

Growing progressively more afraid and feeling completely alone, despite the fact that she did have family back in Rust Creek Falls, she’d accepted Hank’s proposal.

But she couldn’t marry him until she had told him everything. Summoning all her courage, she’d confessed to Hank that she thought he was a very good man, but that she couldn’t love him the way that he loved her. She’d also told him that she was pregnant.

Hank had listened to her very quietly. When she was finished, he told Anne that none of it made any difference to him. He’d still wanted to marry her. Very much.

Moreover, because it was important to her, he’d wanted her to finish college and get her degree. He’d told her that he was financially comfortable, which meant they could hire someone to look after the baby once he or she was born and she could attend her classes.

They were married shortly after that and Hank was true to his word, hiring a nanny when Janie was born. He wouldn’t let anything interfere with Anne finishing college. When she graduated, they came back to Rust Creek Falls. Hank bought a ranch and she found a job as a receptionist at the vet clinic.

For five years, everything seemed to be going well. Hank was good to her and he doted on Janie. He was definitely a good husband and a wonderful father, no one could dispute that, least of all her.

But eventually, Hank came to terms that he was never going to win her over, never get her to love him the way that he had hoped. Because she was in love and would always be in love with Daniel Stockton.

Their divorce was amicable and while Hank agreed to give her custody of Janie, he reserved the right to see the little girl and to have her over at his ranch whenever he wanted.

His only stipulation for the divorce was that their secret would remain a secret. As far as Janie and everyone else in Rust Creek Falls knew, he was Janie’s father. Anne agreed and Hank continued to cherish the role of father.

As for the divorce, though it was sudden, no one really questioned it. Their friends and family all just assumed that she had been too young to get married and that, most important of all, she had married Hank while still on the rebound from Danny.

Anne never told anyone otherwise, thinking it was best for Janie if everyone just went on believing that. That way, they wouldn’t go digging any further.

And her secret would remain just that, a secret. There was no reason for it to be otherwise.

Anne sighed as she pushed the memories aside. Instead, she rummaged through her pantry for dinner ingredients, not really sure what it was that she was looking for.

“What’s the matter, Mom?” Janie asked.

Anne blinked, realizing that she’d allowed herself to really drift off. She hadn’t even heard her daughter come into the kitchen. Facing her now, she quickly offered Janie a smile.

“What makes you ask that? There’s nothing the matter, honey,” she told her daughter a bit too quickly.

“Yes, there is,” Janie insisted. “You’ve got that funny look on your face, that look you get when something’s wrong.”

At eleven, Janie looked younger because of her size. She was a shade under four foot ten and weighed seventy-five pounds, making the blue-eyed blonde smaller than average. Despite that, Janie acted older. Sometimes, Anne had the feeling that her daughter was the adult and she was still that young girl who had fallen head over heels for Danny Stockton.

But this was not the time to indulge herself or wallow in old memories that belonged locked away in the past.

She knew that Janie was waiting for her to say something. She said the first thing that came to her mind. “I’m just trying to figure out what to make for dinner,” she told her daughter. It wasn’t exactly the most creative excuse, but for now, it was all she had. “Any suggestions?”

“How about hamburgers?” Janie asked brightly.

Anne shook her head. “Hamburgers are for when I don’t really have time to make dinner. The whole point of my coming home early is that I could make you something special.”

Far more intuitive than most girls her age, Janie was immediately alert. She looked at her mother suspiciously. “Are you going away, Mom?”

Caught completely off guard, her daughter’s question surprised her. Why would Janie think something like that? “No—”

“Am I going away?” Janie wanted to know.

Not for the first time, she couldn’t help thinking that her daughter was exceptionally bright. Janie could always pick up on her moods and seemed to instinctively know if something was bothering her—sometimes even before she knew it.

“No, of course not,” Anne denied, making certain that she sounded calm. “Can’t a mom come home early and make something special for her best daughter?”

Janie gave her a look as she said, “I’m your only daughter.”

“There’s that, too,” Anne said with a fond laugh as she gave her daughter a one-armed hug. “My best and only daughter.”

“I like hamburgers, Mom,” Janie reminded her pointedly.

Anne surrendered, secretly relieved that she was getting out of this so easily. Janie would normally grill her a lot longer.

“Okay, hamburgers it is,” she told her daughter. “But later on, when you’re staring down at your plate and you decide that you would have wanted to have something a little fancier, just remember, the hamburgers were your idea.”

“I’ll remember,” Janie promised.

Anne opened the refrigerator to make sure she had the necessary main ingredient for this particular “feast.” She did.

“Okay,” she said to Janie, closing the refrigerator door again. “Now go do your homework.”