Blackbird Lake (18 page)

Mia surged in just as Lissie finally released Carly from the hug.

“We come bearing gifts,” she announced. Her fair hair glowed in the light of the living room lamp as Carly gaped at the three of them.

“There’s wine.” Mia held up a bottle of pinot grigio.

“And chocolate,” Sophie supplied, with a glance down at the white bakery box. “Dark chocolate cake with hazelnut buttercream frosting.”

“And French vanilla ice cream with pecans,” Lissie added. “How’s that for decadent? It’s the way we always celebrate the announcement of a new baby joining the family.”

“Well, with cake and ice cream, true—but usually the one who’s pregnant skips the wine,” Sophie pointed out.

“Except in this case,” Mia continued, “you’re not pregnant anymore, so you can join us in polishing off the entire bottle.”

“You’re not…angry?” Carly swallowed. “You do know that I didn’t tell Jake for all this time—”

“That’s between you and my brother,” Lissie interrupted. “We know you didn’t have any reason to think he’d be happy about the pregnancy—especially since he’s so fond of spouting his ‘no one’s ever going to lasso me and tie me down’ crap.” She rolled her eyes. “But what you
don’t
know is that beneath that rough-rider exterior he’s more of a softie than he’d ever let on. That cowboy absolutely loves kids, and now that he knows he has one of his own—”

“You’ll see for yourself,” Sophie finished for her, sinking down on the sofa. Setting the cake box on the coffee table, she lifted the lid. The delicious scent of chocolate wafted through the living room. “He’s going to be an awesome dad. And we’re aunts again, so we need to celebrate. How about some wineglasses?” she hinted as Carly continued to gape at all three of them. “Unless we want to just chug it and pass the bottle around?”

“A knife for cutting the cake would be helpful,” Mia suggested.

“Need a scooper for the ice cream, too. And plates.” Lissie glanced at the other three. “I suggest we take this party into the kitchen.”

“So,” Carly murmured a few moments later, after she’d sipped some wine and Lissie had served everyone huge gooey slices of cake and ice cream at the kitchen table, “you’re not planning to run me out of town.”

“We’ll tell Sheriff Hodge to set up a blockade if you even think about leaving,” Mia promised with a grin as she polished off the last of her only glass of wine, as she was the designated driver.

“We’ll take it slow, if you like, about other people finding out Jake is Emma’s dad, but—one word of warning—you may want to casually mention it to Emma herself pretty soon. This is Lonesome Way, after all, and people find out quickly about these things, don’t ask me how,” Sophie said with a mixture of ruefulness and gentleness.

“They find out about
everything
,” Lissie agreed emphatically. “It beats me how you’ve managed to keep something this big a secret for so long.”

Reaching across the table, Mia touched Carly’s hand. “My great-aunt Winny learned the hard way how damaging secrets—especially family secrets—can be. We don’t mean to rush you, and we know Emma won’t really understand just yet, but for her sake, the sooner she knows she has a caring father who wants to be there for her and in her life, the better.”

A shadowy image of her own father floated into Carly’s mind. The father who’d never been there for her. Never come for her. Never saved her all those hours when she was locked in a closet or hiding from Phil under the bed. Or when fear was her only companion during one of her uncle’s drinking binges.

She suddenly remembered the hope on Jake’s face when Emma had responded to the name of his dog. How happy he’d looked that he’d made even that small a start with his daughter.

A lump filled her throat, ached so deeply that for a moment she couldn’t speak.

“And here I expected you to be furious with me.” She gazed in wonder at all of their faces. These women had been her friends since the day she’d moved to town. She’d set up playdates for Emma with their children and had on more than several occasions gone out to the Double Cross Bar and Grill for drinks or dinner with one or all of them when Madison or Martha could babysit in the evening.

Now here they were, once again coming to her in friendship. Despite what she’d done, they were all watching her with kindness and acceptance in their eyes.

“We know you were doing what you felt was best for Emma,” Sophie said softly. “There’s no question about that. Everything else…everything between you and Jake…all we hope is that you two will work it out in the best way you can.”

“As of today,” Lissie told her firmly, “we consider you and Emma part of the family. We’re here for you, all of us.”

Carly fought back tears as a flood of emotions welled in her throat. She managed a weak laugh. “I…I’ve never had so many people there for me. It feels a bit…strange. But nice!” she added, color rushing into her cheeks.

“Well, you had Annie and then Martha,” Sophie pointed out. “Now there’s just a few more of us. All the Tanners are here for you. And that means Rafe and Travis as well.”

“By the way,” Lissie interrupted, lifting a forkful of cake toward her mouth. “Have you told Martha yet? About Jake?”

Carly nodded. In her mind she saw again Martha’s not-all-that-stunned expression the night before when she’d explained why she’d needed her to bring Emma home right away.

“I told her yesterday when I brought Emma back to her apartment, but I’m fairly sure that after she saw Jake here, she somehow guessed. Martha’s pretty sharp. She actually seemed pleased when I told her Jake is Emma’s father. I mean, she was grinning from ear to ear.”

“Well, he
is
a catch, if I do say so. All of the Tanner men are,” Mia said calmly, but there was a warm sparkle in her eyes.

“I’m not trying to catch him. That’s not going to happen. And Jake definitely doesn’t want to be caught,” she added, spooning out one more scoop of ice cream onto her plate.

“What man does?” Sophie laughed. “Rafe used to be the bad boy of Lonesome Way. In high school, he changed girlfriends the way some men change shirts. But he grew up eventually and became the man he is today.”

“Travis dumped me in high school. I was so hurt I never wanted to speak to him again. I never in a million years thought we’d get back together,” Mia told her. “It just goes to show—you never know.”

Oh, I
know, Carly thought.
Because Jake and I were never in love. It wasn’t like that between us. It was…one night. One scorching hot but very random night. I only wanted him to make me forget about Kevin. And he only wanted to pass the time in Houston. Not very romantic, and definitely not a basis for marriage. Child or no child.

But something inside her whispered that it wasn’t quite that cut-and-dried. The way he’d kissed her and touched her…

She still remembered how he’d made her feel that night, what he’d awakened inside her. The rush of want and need, the pleasure so deep her blood burned with it.

It hadn’t just been raw sex between them. Jake was an incredible lover. He’d taken his time. Kissed her until she was going out of her mind. Brushed her body all over with his lips and his strong, clever fingers, until lightning seemed to quiver and singe everywhere he touched.

He stroked her everywhere until she nearly went mad and then he grinned and ruthlessly tormented her a little bit more.

Jake’s lovemaking was an adventure in sensation and pleasure. No, they weren’t in love, but it hadn’t been merely lust that had sizzled between them that night.

There’d been tenderness and heat, and give and take. Jake
had made her feel something again. She remembered the texture of his thumbs on her nipples, the brush of his five-o’clock stubble across her belly. She remembered how he’d made her shiver and gasp…and later, when they were recuperated enough to lunge at each other for round three, how he’d made her laugh….

But there was no point in remembering all that, she told herself hastily as she grabbed her wineglass and gulped the few remaining drops. It wasn’t as if it would ever happen again. In fact, she had no choice but to make sure it didn’t.

“To Emma.” Lissie splashed the last drops from the bottle into each of their glasses. Everyone clinked.

“To family,” Mia and Sophie said at the exact same time and then burst out laughing.

To family.
As the wine slid down her throat and Sophie carried the glasses to the kitchen sink and Lissie gathered up the plates and Mia dug for her car keys, Carly thought:
So this is what it feels like to be part of a family.

By the time she’d cleaned up the kitchen and checked on Emma, then slid between cool cotton sheets and an eiderdown quilt in her own bedroom, she’d come to one conclusion. It was all well and good and very welcome to be part of the Tanner family, but she still had Emma to protect.

Jake might never intentionally hurt his daughter, but his reputation as a man who never lit long in one place—that would bear remembering.

She’d allow Emma to get to know him, but only up to a point. That would be the tricky part. Keeping her daughter from getting
too
attached.

Not that Carly knew exactly how to accomplish that. But surely Jake would take off for some rodeo soon, or to film a TV commercial, and he’d be gone before he became anything close to a fixture in Emma’s life.

She couldn’t let him become someone like Madison or Martha, someone Emma saw almost every day—or someone like Annie, whom Carly had quickly learned to count on when she was a ten-year-old girl finding herself living with the best foster mother in the world.

It would be a tricky balancing act, letting Emma get to know Jake without starting to rely on him being around regularly.

But she’d find a balance. She had to—for Emma’s sake.

And for her own.

Jake Tanner was the kind of man most women would love to have stick around. She couldn’t afford to think like one of those women. She had to go into this with her eyes wide open—or she and Emma could both be hurt again.

“Here’s where I want the fourth cabin. Right here.”

Jake planted his feet in an open spot of the valley, surrounded by views of aspens and the rocky shoulders of the Crazy Mountains. If he were to walk a few miles west, he’d be able to catch a glimpse in the distance of his grandparents’ original cabin, set near the blue waters of Blackbird Lake.

Beside him, Denny McDonald scribbled notes on a pad of paper as wind ruffled the brilliant gold leaves still clinging to the trees.

“I’m picturing this cabin two thousand square feet larger than the older three. Four medium-sized bedrooms, two and a half baths, wraparound deck.” Jake squinted against the sun. “Big enough for a family, with room to breathe.”

Denny nodded, then scanned the valley with slow appreciation. He let out a long whistle.

Jake could understand why. It was a stunningly beautiful spot. Long, deep meadows. Massive blue sky. The colors of autumn slashing across the distant hillside.

A meadowlark flittered through the trees. Jake caught sight of a white-tailed deer drinking from a stream.
Peace-fulness seemed to shimmer like sunbeams in the pine-laced air.

“Gonna be a big slice of heaven, isn’t it?” Denny said. “Perfect for hunters, fishermen, vacationers. Plus all those bullied kids and their families. You want the other new cabins walking distance from this one?”

“Three-quarters of a mile apart. Two of ’em will go there, off to the east.” Jake pointed. “The last one a mile west of here, closer to Blackbird Lake.”

“You’ve given this a lot of thought,” Denny remarked.

“I want the kids who stay in these cabins—and the fishermen or tourists who rent them out—to feel like they’ve really gotten away from it all. Whether they come back at night to sleep, or simply stay put all day, they should feel like this is their own private chunk of the world. No troubles allowed.”

Behind Denny, Brady listened in silence as Denny assured Jake he’d begin drawing up the plans that very evening. Brady wasn’t sure why he’d been invited along this morning to scout locations for the new cabins, but he knew enough not to question his inclusion. He was relieved beyond words he had a job again—a job he was good at.

Building, construction, those were things he loved. He always had. Cord had been drawn to horses, ranching, rodeo, to action and excitement.

But Brady liked building something where before there had been nothing.

“What do you think, Brady?”

“Uh, about what?” Damn, he felt like a fool. He’d been following his own thoughts and hadn’t even heard the question, so how the hell could he answer it?

Denny frowned. “What’s your estimate on the timetable for this project? Rehabbing Jake’s other three cabins, building the new ones. And how big a crew do you think we need to get it done?”

Brady quickly cast his thoughts back over everything Jake had said about this project from the minute they climbed in his truck until now.

“Seven months with a six-man crew, five months with a dozen. Not counting weather delays,” he blurted.

Denny looked at Jake, then nodded. “Not bad. We’re going with a dozen. Ralph’s gonna be foreman of this job and you’re going to be second in command. You report directly to him. You don’t miss a day, not even an hour. Don’t make me sorry I hired you back, you hear? Whatever Ralph tells you to do, you do it. No guff, no complaints.”