A Daddy for Dillon (24 page)

Suddenly aware of an arm tightening around the back of her waist, Leyla glanced over her shoulder to see her husband had joined her at a long table laden with an array of rich, delicious foods.

“Coming back for seconds?” he teased.

Tonight, a party was taking place in the big ranch house; however, this time the social gathering had nothing to do with Leyla and Laramie; the Cantrells and their friends had gathered to celebrate Abe and Reena’s upcoming nuptials.

The buffet-style dinner had been catered, and Sassy had kindly offered to babysit the children of the immediate family, including Dillon, Quint’s two sons and Alexa’s son and daughter. So far it had been a lovely party and Leyla was looking forward to dancing in her husband’s arms before the night was over.

Chuckling, Leyla patted her flat tummy. “I just had to have another dessert. You know I have a sweet tooth. Especially for a tall, dark cowboy,” she added slyly.

His hand moved to splay across her stomach. “Oh, I thought you were going to tell me you were eating for two.”

Carefully balancing a small plate loaded with cake in one hand, she turned to face him. “Not yet. So we’ll just have to keep trying,” she suggested in a low, seductive voice.

Groaning with pleasure, he bent and placed a kiss on her forehead. About that time, Quint’s sister, Alexa, strolled up to them.

“Sorry to interrupt,” she said. “But Quint sent me with the message that he wanted to see you two in the study.”

“Both of us?” Puzzled, Leyla looked to her husband and saw a look of concern stealing across his face.

“What the hell has happened now? Thankfully, we made it without incident through mine and Leyla’s reception. I was hoping we could get through this party for Abe and Reena without something bad happening.”

With a placating smile, Alexa shook her head. “It’s nothing like that. He has something for you. Let’s go see what it is,” she urged.

The study was situated on the front and western side of the house. When Laramie and Leyla entered the quiet, comfortably furnished room, Quint was already there standing behind a large, cherrywood desk. His mother, Frankie, was seated in a leather armchair. To one side of her, Abe and Reena stood with their arms wrapped around the other’s waist. Maura, now heavy with child, sat across the room on a long couch, and the gaze she’d settled on Quint depicted the same eternal love Laramie felt for Leyla.

As for Quint, he was holding up a manila envelope. “Laramie, this was intended for you to receive on your wedding day with all the family present. But because Mother was feeling under the weather at that time and couldn’t make it here, we had to wait until now to give it to you.”

Still holding tightly to Leyla’s hand, Laramie walked over to the desk. His mind was searching frantically to figure out why the whole Cantrell family was in the room.

“What is this?” Laramie asked jokingly. “An early Christmas bonus? You think I need help paying for the honeymoon that Leyla and I are going to take next month before haying season starts?”

Quint thrust the envelope at him. “I don’t have a clue what’s inside this thing. None of us do. For fifteen years it’s been in safekeeping with a Chaparral attorney.”

Dumbstruck now, Laramie glanced at the faces around him, but no one was breaking into laughs. In fact, no one was displaying any sort of amusement.

He gripped the envelope as uneasiness settled over him. “Fifteen years,” Laramie said with confusion. “I was only eighteen years old then. I don’t understand.”

“Open the envelope, darling,” Leyla urged, “and then we’ll all know.”

Deciding there was no point in keeping everyone waiting in suspense, Laramie tore into the manila packet. Inside was a legal-looking document consisting of several pages. Laramie didn’t bother trying to decipher it. Instead, he sifted through the papers searching for a more simple explanation to the legal jargon. He found it in a single sheet of paper full of handwritten words. As he read through them, he could feel the blood draining from his face, while a strange buzzing noise sounded in his ears.

“This is incredible!” he finally managed to say as the hand holding the letter fell to his side. “I can’t believe it.”

“What is it?” Maura asked quickly. “You look sick!”

“Read it, Quint!” Abe instructed his grandson. “Damn it, at this rate I’ll be dead before we get an answer.”

“Oh, Abe, don’t talk that way!” Reena scolded her fiancé. “Besides, can’t you see poor Laramie is in shock? Someone get him a chair.”

“I don’t need a chair.” With a shake of his head, Laramie handed the documents back to Quint. “This can’t be possible. Look at it. Maybe I’m reading it wrong.”

Quint quickly scanned the handwritten page, then gave the legal document a thorough glance. By the time he was finished, everyone in the room had gathered in a tight circle around Laramie, Leyla and Quint.

Lifting his head, Quint looked straight at Laramie and grinned. “I don’t have to wonder anymore why you’ve always felt like my brother. You
are
my brother.”

Frankie gasped and Laramie quickly turned to Lewis’s widow. “I’m sorry, Frankie, I—”

Clearly annoyed with him, Quint interrupted, “Wait a minute, Laramie. You shouldn’t be apologizing to Mother for something you had no control over!”

Abe shouldered his way through the bunch until he was standing directly at Laramie’s side. “What does that damned letter say anyway? That Lewis fathered Laramie?”

Quint promptly handed the letter to his grandfather and Abe began to read aloud:

Dear Son, I’m writing this now because a person never knows what the future holds. And there are no guarantees I’ll be around by the time you grow into a man and take a wife. If I am present on your wedding day, then clearly I’ve already explained the circumstances of your birth to you and this letter won’t matter.

For now, you’ve been here on the ranch for nearly two years and with each passing day I’ve grown more and more proud of you. It’s already clear to me that you’re developing into a fine person and a good man. Diego, my old, old friend, was a wonderful father to you and I will go to my grave being ever grateful to him.

My relationship with Peggy Choney wasn’t planned. She was a lonely, needy girl and I got caught up in her plight. I regret that I upended her life and betrayed my family, but I have never regretted fathering you. I can only hope that whenever the truth is finally revealed to you and the rest of the family, you will all forgive me.

God knows I should’ve had the courage to bring you into the family as soon as you were born. It was clear that Peggy wasn’t emotionally capable of raising a baby and my dearest Frankie was, and is, such a good, loving mother. I like to think she would’ve taken you in her arms and called you her own. But I couldn’t bring myself to take the risk of hurting her or losing you.

Deception is an awful thing, my son, and I’ve already lived with it far too long. On the day of your wedding, I want you and your wife to begin your life with no secrets between you. Also, on this special day I am signing over one quarter share of the Cantrell ranch to you. I understand my gift will never compensate for the mistakes that I’ve made, but I do hope that the ranch will always be an important part of you and that it will always remain your home...with the rest of your family.

As Abe lowered the letter, Laramie heard the sniff of tears and realized that Leyla was one of several people in the room wiping tears from her eyes.

“Leyla, darling,” he said softly, “why are you crying?”

She gave him a brave but watery smile. “Because I’m so happy that you finally found out about your father. And that he loved you.”

Yes, Lewis had loved him. The realization stunned Laramie, and yet at the same time his letter made everything make sense. Diego raising him, then when he was dying making Laramie promise to go to the Chaparral. Lewis taking a special interest in making Laramie feel welcome, then later teaching him all about running the ranch. Except for Peggy Choney’s whereabouts, so much about his life had been explained

“You may not believe this, Laramie,” Frankie spoke up, “but I’m very happy, too. For a long time I’ve wondered and suspected that you were Lewis’s son. My husband clearly had a soft spot for you. And sometimes when I look in your eyes, I can see the same blue sparks that were in his.”

Still stunned by it all, Laramie looked to Frankie and was amazed by the acceptance he saw on her face.

“Then you’re not angry with him? Or me?”

To answer his question she stepped forward and drew him into a tight hug. Once she released him, she said, “I had my secrets. Just like Lewis had his. But in spite of that, we loved each other very much. And how can I be angry with him? He’s given me another wonderful son.”

Before Laramie could make any reply to Frankie’s gracious statements, Abe spoke up with a happy grin. “Hell, this ain’t gonna change anything. You’ve been like a grandson to me for years now. This just makes it official. And now that everything is out in the open, I’m gonna have our lawyers include you in ownership of the Golden Spur Mine. That’s nothin’ but right. I think I can speak for everybody in the family—it’s the way we all want it. The way Lewis would’ve wanted it.”

Everyone loudly and happily agreed while Laramie shook his head with stunned amazement. “I don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t need to say anything,” Abe assured him. “We love you just as much now as we did before.”

Somewhere in the group, Alexa clapped her hands together with excited glee. “I have another brother! I’ve got to go tell Jonas! What a time for him to go check on the kids.”

She raced out of the study to find her husband, and the rest of the family continued to heap hugs and well-wishes on Laramie. He drank it all in, thinking he’d never expected that opening his heart to Leyla would also open his life to so much happiness.

Finally, Abe reminded everyone that guests were still partying out in the living room. All of them filed out of the study, but once the group started down the hall, Leyla caught Laramie by the arm to hold him back from the others.

“What is it?” he asked. “From that smile on your face, I can’t imagine anything is wrong.”

“I just wanted to tell you how glad I am that we didn’t know about any of this before we got married.”

Confused by his wife’s remark, he asked, “Why would you be glad?”

“Because you’re an heir. You would’ve thought I was marrying you for your wealth. I made such an issue of you having a place of your own and you—”

His laughter caused the rest of her words to trail away. “Oh, my precious wife,” he said. “I know exactly why you married me.”

“You do?” she asked slyly.

Bending his head, he brought his lips against hers. “Sure. You married me because you love me. Just as much as I love you. And like it or not, Mrs. Jones, you’re part of the Cantrell family now.”

Her eyes grew wide as another thought struck her. “Laramie—your name—my name. It’s not really Jones. It’s Cantrell. Are we going to change it?”

Unconcerned, he said, “I’ll talk to the rest of the family about it. Why? Does it matter to you?”

Slipping her arms around his waist, she murmured, “Not one bit.”

He was about to kiss her when from the opposite end of the long hallway, Quint shouted, “Laramie! Outside, quick! There’s a fire!”

The last word sent both Laramie and Leyla flying down the hallway and through the house. Out in the backyard the family and guests had gathered to gaze at the eerie orange glow spreading across the skyline to the north of the ranch.

“Oh, God, Laramie, it looks so close!” Leyla whispered fearfully.

Grim-faced, Laramie said, “It looks like it’s not far from the Pine Ridge ranch.”

A few steps away, Quint was on his cell phone calling the sheriff’s office in Carrizozo. At the same time one of the ranch’s work trucks skidded to a halt outside the fence and Seth, the calf manager, leaped to the ground.

The tall cowboy loped up to Laramie. “Some of the hands are up there now,” he said, laboring to get his breath. “They just phoned and said it looks like a hell of a fire. It’s burning Chaparral and Pickens’s land.”

Cursing under his breath, Laramie turned to Leyla. “We’ll have to go push the cattle out of there.”

She nodded that she understood just as Quint ended the call and turned to Laramie.

“Brady is sending out the Forestry Division to fight the fire,” Quint quickly informed him. “With everything that’s been happening around here, he’s already thinking arson. He’s assigning Hank and Rosalinda to investigate the case.”

“Good. Maybe the bastard causing all of this will finally get caught,” Laramie said, then slapped his brother on the shoulder. “Let’s go. We probably can’t fight the fire, but we can save cattle.”

“Right. I’ll meet you at the horse barn.”

Laramie turned back to Leyla, and the anxious expression on her face had him pulling her into the tight circle of his arms. “Leyla, darling, don’t be afraid. I’ll be back in no time.”

Cradling his face with both hands, she gave him a brave smile. “Of course you will be. You’re a Cantrell now. You have a whole new family to consider.”

Dropping his head, he brought his lips close to her ear. “It’s nice to be a Cantrell, Leyla. But you and Dillon are my family, my hopes and dreams. And that’s the way it will always be.”

She guided his mouth around to hers. “And that’s the way it will always be with me, my darling.”

He kissed her deeply, then hurried toward the barn to meet Quint and the rest of the cowboys.

* * * * *

Come back next month to find out what’s happening
on the Pine Ridge ranch in

THE DEPUTY GETS HER MAN!

Keep reading for an excerpt from
Her New Year’s Fortune
by Allison Leigh