Her Baby and Her Beau

Chapter Two (#ulink_ef594d8c-3caa-5ee7-9146-284981dd1e41)

Beau spent the remainder of Tuesday evening on the phone from home causing trouble for several Camden Superstore departments and employees. When he was done, he’d arranged to have his currently unfurnished guest room and a nursery fully outfitted by the time he transported his new charges to his house.

He’d decided it all needed to get underway at zero-five-hundred and to be finished by zero-eight-hundred tomorrow morning.

“Yes, that means the first truck is to be here at five a.m. and the whole job has to be done by eight a.m.,” he’d had to explain to more than one person who had acted as if he was out of his mind to believe what he wanted was possible.

But he hadn’t brought his men and himself through three deployments to the Middle East by leaving room for error and he wasn’t going to start now. This time, unlike the way it had been since he’d been discharged, the civilian world was going to have to adjust to him rather than the other way around.

Since going to the den with GiGi that afternoon and learning what he’d learned, he’d been on Marine autopilot. Show no emotion. Stoic composure at all costs. Do whatever it took to get the job done and make sure everyone under his command knew the same thing applied to them.

As one of the ten owners and board members of Camden Incorporated, everyone who worked for Camden Superstores was basically under his command. It was something he’d verified with Cade before taking action.

By then word had already circulated within the family about what was going on with him, so he hadn’t had to explain anything. Instead Cade had reminded him that everything the family owned and everyone they employed were at his disposal. Cade had told him to do whatever was required, and had given him the names and numbers of the people to contact.

“Anything you need, however many people you need to get it done,” he’d been told. “We’re all still spinning over this one involving you...I’m sorry, man...”

“Yeah, me, too,” Beau had said emotionlessly before going on to take charge.

He doubted his inflexibility had made him any friends among Camden Superstores employees tonight. Because tonight he’d pulled rank and his orders weren’t going to be easy to follow.

Not that he cared. This was top priority, even if decorators didn’t ordinarily arrive at their offices until nine or work so fast, even if items weren’t usually delivered and set up before ten. Tomorrow it all would be. At least here it would.

But as Tuesday ticked into Wednesday there was no more he could do. He was finally off duty. At home. Alone.

He’d poured himself a short Scotch when he’d returned from that truck stop tonight and come into the den to get busy. Most of the drink was still left in the glass on the desk he was sitting behind. He reached for it and finished it in one gulp.

The next thing he knew he’d thrown that glass against the wall, shattering it into a million pieces.

Then he took the first deep breath he’d taken since reading the entry in H.J.’s journal and exhaled until it felt as if his lungs had collapsed.

Yes, the military had trained him well not to show emotions during the course of a mission.

But nothing could keep him from having them.

Especially not these.

And now that he was off duty, they rose to the surface.

To Beau the wrongs that were done in the name of building Camden Incorporated were disgraceful. It was still a struggle to resolve the fact that those actions had been taken by men he’d loved and respected. Men he’d known were strong-willed and determined—like any good marine—but men he’d believed were honest and decent, too.

But the knowledge of what they’d done to other people was bad enough. He didn’t know how to process that his own life had been screwed with by one of H.J.’s conspiracies.

Or what to do with the emotions that knowledge had let loose in him.

He’d thought there was nothing worse than learning that the men in his own family had, in reality, no honor to them. And he’d fully supported the family’s plan to make amends.

In fact, wanting to do that had contributed to his decision to come out of the service now.

He’d told GiGi that she could give all of the projects to him from here on, that he was volunteering for that duty. That he was willing to make it his own personal undertaking to atone on behalf of the family.

His grandmother’s response had been odd. She’d gone too quiet and very pale. She hadn’t seemed to be able to make eye contact with him. But he’d taken her excuse that he needed time to get his land legs back at face value.

Now he knew what had really been going through her mind. She’d already read the part of the journals that revealed what had been done to him and was just waiting for him to settle in before she broke the news to him. She’d already known what was unimaginable to Beau—that he was one of the people H.J. had wronged.

Along with Kyla.

And potentially their baby.

Because if Kyla had lost that baby out of stress, or by doing something dangerous or foolhardy in hopes of ending what she didn’t want to deal with on her own, that made that loss H.J.’s fault, too, as far as Beau was concerned.

No, he definitely didn’t know what to do with how it all made him feel...

He’d brought Kyla’s letter with him into the den and it was in front of him. He read it for about the tenth time since his grandmother had given it to him today.

Kyla had written it only weeks after he’d left the ranch that summer.

When he was home again, starting his senior year of high school. Being patted on the back and congratulated on his official candidacy for admission to the naval academy at Annapolis.

Not everyone had known because he’d received the news in June, after school was out. The news had been the reason he’d opted to spend the summer in Northbridge. Once he knew for sure Annapolis was where he was headed, he’d wanted to start toughening up for the military by doing ranch work.

He’d accomplished that—gaining some muscle mass and stamina.

But he’d also met Kyla Gibson...

Today was the first time he’d seen the letter. The first time he had any knowledge whatsoever that Kyla had changed her mind about the end of that summer being the end of any contact they had with each other.

In the letter—the letter addressed to him—she told him that she was pregnant. That she’d just found out. She said she didn’t know what to do. She said she hadn’t told her parents yet. She said she hoped that Beau would have some idea of where to go from there. That he’d get hold of her, maybe come back to Northbridge for a weekend so they could figure something out.

Holding that letter in his hands, staring at the words written on the page, Beau could see the hope she’d had that he would offer some solution, some help, some support, anything that would tell her that she wasn’t in it alone.

And again emotions rose that he could hardly stand.

H.J. had written in his journal that he’d intercepted the letter. He’d visited the ranch a few times that summer. He’d seen Beau with the daughter of one of that summer’s hired hands. He’d seen how unhappy Beau was when he’d come home and had put two and two together, figuring that Beau was in the throes of his first love.

But that summer was over and—according to H.J.—the romance needed to be, too, so that Beau wouldn’t endanger his future.

H.J. wrote that when he’d seen the Northbridge postmark and the return address with Kyla’s name on it, he’d decided it couldn’t contain anything that would do Beau any good. Better a clean cut with the girl—that was what H.J. had written at the time.

He hadn’t even opened the letter. He’d just tucked it away.

He’d only learned about the pregnancy when Kyla’s father had shown up on the doorstep two weeks later.

Which was when H.J. took the second step in keeping Beau from knowing about Kyla’s situation.

“It’s a good thing you’re not here now, old man,” he threatened from between clenched teeth.

Yes, going to Annapolis had been what Beau wanted from the day his great-grandfather had explained to him that that was the best course into the Marines. And, yes, a teenage pregnancy, a child, would have canceled his candidacy and the full acceptance that was contingent only on his graduation.