Rogue's Reform

For help, she’d turned to the friend she’d made behind her father’s back at the grocery store. Thanks to Ginger’s cosmetic expertise, when she’d left the house that night, she’d looked nothing like the real Grace. She’d had rinse-out red highlights in her mousy brown hair, and long heavy curls that had corkscrewed in every direction. Tucking her glasses into her bag, she’d sacrificed seeing for looking good, but Ginger had assured her that the makeup job was flawless, making the most of her lamentably plain features. As for the clothes…she’d never worn a skirt so short or a top so tight in her life, and probably never would again.

But once had been enough. It had gotten Ethan James’s attention, and he’d finally known she existed.

As a rather mysterious redhead from someplace else named Melissa.

She’d crept out of his bed the next morning while he slept, hurried home and showered to scrub away the makeup, the curls, the fake color. The scents of sex, of a man. She’d half feared her father would look at her and know, would sniff the air when she walked by and recognize the cologne she was forbidden to wear, the aftershave she would never wear. He hadn’t.

And she hadn’t seen Ethan since. She hadn’t tried to locate him—hadn’t asked his half brother, Guthrie Harris, where he was, hadn’t told his pregnant sister-in-law Olivia that their babies would be cousins. Frankly, she wasn’t sure they would believe her. For a time the father’s identity had been a popular topic of conversation. Everyone had had theories, ranging from the truth—someone she met in a bar—to the obscene observation that her father was the only man with whom she’d spent time. No one had ever guessed Ethan. No one ever would.

It was her own little secret. And since Ethan wasn’t likely to return to Heartbreak for another several years, and would neither recognize nor remember her when he did, no one else would ever know the truth.

Which was exactly the way she wanted it.

The sky was a dull, relentless gray when Ethan passed the sign marking Heartbreak’s town limits. It was hard to believe that, night before last, he’d been in sunny, warm Florida and now he was right back where he’d started from. Back where all his troubles had begun. Where they certainly weren’t going to end.

He hadn’t needed a map to find his way back to Oklahoma. In all the endless miles he’d traveled, all the big cities and dusty towns where he’d stayed until he wore out his welcome or an impending arrest sent him on his way, he’d always known how to get back home.

At the same time, he’d never known.

He’d started running away from Heartbreak when he was barely fifteen. He was just like his father, his mother had always said with exasperated affection. Gordon James had done more than his share of rambling. In fact, he had rambled so often and so far that one time, when Ethan was ten, he’d never come back.

He was just like his father, Guthrie had always agreed, and with no affection at all. It was common knowledge that Guthrie thought his stepfather was no good, lazy and worthless. It was one of Ethan’s greatest regrets that his brother thought the same of him, and one of his greatest shames that he’d done his best to live down to Guthrie’s opinion. In fact, he’d done his father one better. He’d added crook to his litany of sins. Liar, thief, gambler, con man.

And, coming soon, father-to-be.

His fingers clenched the steering wheel spasmodically as anxiety tightened his chest. He’d always sworn he’d never bring a child into the world. He was indisputable proof that some men had no right passing on their genes to innocent babies. His father had been a loser, and he was a loser, so the odds were good that any child of his would also be a loser. Even if that wasn’t the case, any kid deserved better than him for a dad. He knew nothing about fatherhood, about responsibility or maturity or setting a good example.

He wasn’t sure he could learn. Not if he had to do it in Heartbreak, where Guthrie would be watching and judging his every move.

But he had to do something. He’d learned from his own experience that even a father who made nothing but mistakes had to be better than a father who didn’t care enough to even come around. At least he would be trying. Surely that would count for something with his kid. With Guthrie. With pretty Melissa.

Flipping the visor down, he pulled the snapshot free of the rubber band that secured it. If he knew where to look for her, he would go straight there, but the photo gave no clues. After studying it a while, he’d recognized the parking lot as belonging to the grocery store. Since it was the only one for twenty miles, that told him nothing about who she was, where she lived, where he might find her.

In their long, sweet night together, she’d told him nothing, either. It had been the perfect one-night stand.

Except for the baby.

He’d used protection—had never had sex even once in his life without a condom. His dependability on the issue was the one thing about him that Guthrie had approved of. Well, that, plus the fact that every time he’d come back to Heartbreak, he’d always left again.

Not a bad run of luck. Too bad it hadn’t held.

As he slid the photo back under the strap, the road curved and the few blocks that made up Heartbreak proper came into view ahead. He turned onto the first side street and followed a meandering back route to the dirt road that led to the Harris ranch, where they wouldn’t be happy to hear he’d come home again. Where Guthrie would be seriously dismayed that this time he intended to stay.

Provided Melissa would let him.

He’d seen the ranch just seven months ago, but it looked different as he turned in the gate and drove across the cattle guard. The house had a fresh coat of paint, and a wreath of flowers and vines hung on the front door. The flower beds had been cleaned out and mulched for winter, and the yellowed yard looked as neat and trim as it ever had when his mother was alive.

They were Olivia’s changes, Ethan knew. Guthrie had neither the time nor the energy for purely cosmetic work. He had his hands full taking care of three hundred acres of land and a couple hundred head of cattle. There’d been a time, after their mother’s death, when he’d wanted Ethan to share the responsibility with him, and Ethan had tried, he truly had, but he’d only lasted a few months. He wasn’t cut out for ranching, for working from sunrise till sunset, for pinching a penny until it squealed, for dealing with cattle and horses, droughts and floods, fluctuating market prices, luck and bad luck.

He’d sneaked away in the middle of the night to avoid seeing that look on Guthrie’s face—that long-suffering, no-surprise, Ethan-never-could-do-anything-right look. He’d wanted to avoid hearing Guthrie say, “You are just like your father,” and know it was the worst insult his brother could give.

So instead he’d faced the look and heard the insult in his dreams every night for months.

He parked beside Guthrie’s pickup and simply sat there for a time. In spite of the cold, his palms were damp and sweat beaded his forehead. He was twenty-eight years old, he thought with disgust, and scared spitless by the idea of seeing his brother. Worse, he couldn’t remember the last time he hadn’t been scared of Guthrie, scared of disappointing him. Of letting him down yet again.

He drew a frigid breath, then opened the door. He wasn’t a lonely little boy anymore. Guthrie’s approval was no longer the most important thing in his life. Belonging someplace—to someone—didn’t matter, except with his baby.

He crossed the frozen ground to the porch, then rapped on the door. He could wait until the count of ten, or maybe five, then assume that no one was home, and he could leave while telling himself that at least he’d tried—

The lock clicked, then the door swung open and his heavily pregnant sister-in-law was greeting him with a surprised smile. “Ethan! Oh, my gosh, you came! I was hoping you would, but…it’s so good to see you! Come on in. Let me get you some coffee to warm up.”

It was a warm welcome from a woman whose husband he had once ripped off. Come to think of it, in that one scam, he’d cheated both her husbands—the one who’d died and left her penniless, and the one who’d taken her in last summer and given her a place to live before falling in love with her. She had good reason to hate him. He wasn’t sure he trusted the fact that apparently she didn’t.

The welcome got warmer as soon as he closed the door behind him, when she caught him in an unexpected embrace. He held himself stiffly, well aware of what Guthrie would think if he saw his precious Olivia in his brother’s arms. When she stepped back, with relief he put some distance between them, then nervously glanced down the hall and up the stairs. “Is…he around?”

“Guthrie? No, he’s out checking the herd. We’re supposed to have snow tonight. He’s getting ready for it.” She started toward the kitchen, then turned back when she realized he wasn’t following. “I have coffee left over from breakfast, or the fixings for hot cocoa, or there’s iced tea and cold pop. Take your coat off and come on back. We’ll talk.”

He didn’t want to obey her, didn’t want to walk through the house he remembered so well but rarely with fondness. He’d lived in it for the better part of eighteen years, but it had never truly been home.

From the time he was a little kid, he’d understood without being told that the house belonged to the Harrises, not the Jameses, just as he’d understood that Vernon Harris had been twice the man Gordon James could ever hope to be. A better rancher, better neighbor, better husband, better father, and he’d turned out a son who would be all those things, too.

Better. Leaving Ethan to be not good enough.

When he finally forced himself down the hall and through the double doors into the kitchen, Olivia was bent inside the refrigerator. She came out with a carton of whipped cream and a pecan pie, then flashed him a smile. “What would you like to drink?”

“Coffee’ll be fine.”

“Sit down. Take your coat off.”

He slid out of his denim jacket and hung it on the back of a chair, then cautiously sat down. He wouldn’t get very comfortable, wasn’t sure that was even possible when Guthrie could come through the door at any minute.

She dished up two slices of pie, poured coffee and milk, then took the seat opposite him. “When did you get in?”

“This morning. I came straight here.”

She buried her pie in whipped cream, then took an extra spoonful for good measure, licking it clean with slow, savoring gestures. When she realized he was watching her, she smiled without embarrassment. “I’ve had terrible cravings lately for whipped cream. Since the rest of the family thinks my eating it on bread is yucky and gross—” she said the last words in a fair imitation of her six-year-old twins “—Mary’s been bringing over freshly baked pies every couple of days.”

“When…” He thought of the photo in the truck, of Melissa, with her stomach almost as distended as Olivia’s, and swallowed hard. “When is the baby due?”

“Next month. Elly says I’ll be as big as a heifer carrying twins before I drop this young’un.”

Elly, he remembered from the few hours he’d spent here last summer, was the older of her daughters—the tomboy, sassy and too smart for her own good. The younger daughter was Emma, sweet, quiet, demure. As different as day and night. As Guthrie and Ethan.

“What does Guthrie say?” he asked, his voice thick and hoarse.

“He says I’ve never looked more beautiful.” Her smile was broad, a bit wicked and full of womanly satisfaction. “My husband’s no fool. He knows better than to get on the wrong side of a woman who hasn’t seen her own feet in months.”

He wondered if there was anyone around to tell Melissa that she looked beautiful. He’d wondered a lot about her since getting the photograph—whether she wanted him to take responsibility for his part in creating their child. Whether she had simply wanted him to know that he was about to become a father. Whether she wanted money, or if she hoped to gain a real live, equal-partners, here-and-now father for her baby.