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“He doesn’t live anywhere near here.” Thank God. Most of the locals hadn’t been brazen enough to ask outright who the father was, but the mystery had caused whispers behind her back. Some of the teachers in the district had begged Layla for information, but Arden—who’d shared only the vaguest details—had sworn her to secrecy. The first time Arden had encountered Hugh Connor in town after her pregnancy began to show, she’d held her breath, wondering if Garrett had ever mentioned their night together to his friend. But Hugh had merely asked for a business card because he planned to recommend her to a business colleague looking for a good photographer.
Meanwhile, Garrett lived in a different region of the state, on a ranch he’d told her had been in his family for generations. He had deep roots there. Maybe even a girlfriend by now. Arden didn’t plan to repay the kindness he’d done her by upending his existence. They’d used birth control during their night together, and the news that it had failed would most likely be an unwelcome shock.
It had taken her weeks to process the news that she was expecting, but she knew firsthand that life was precious. She chose to see conceiving this baby as a miracle. Her miracle.
* * *
GARRETT FROST HELD his parents in the highest regard. An only child, he worked alongside his father running the Double F Ranch and was impressed with the man’s drive and integrity. Garrett’s mother, the one who’d spent many afternoons giving him advice in their kitchen while she baked, had always been wise and articulate. So why, today, had Caroline Frost lost the ability to string together a coherent sentence? Ever since the restaurant hostess had seated Garrett and Caroline at a small booth, she’d been spluttering disjointed, half-finished thoughts.
“Breathe, Momma.” He took the breadbasket out of her hand. As jittery as she was, she was about to send the rolls flying to the floor. He gave her a cajoling smile. “You wanna tell me why you’re as nervous as a kitten in a dog pound?”
Her gray eyes clouded with worry. “You’ve always hated surprises,” she muttered. “Not that it’s your fault if you take this badly! Anyone would.... I don’t— Lord, I’ve messed this up before I even started. But I don’t know how to make it better. Easier to hear.”
Okay. Now he was nervous. Garrett waved away the approaching waitress. Something was very wrong. He doubted his mom wanted an audience for whatever she needed to explain. Although, if she had something personal and difficult to tell him, why had she suggested going to a restaurant?
They could have easily had a conversation in his parents’ main house or in the luxurious cabin Garrett had built on the back forty. The most logical explanation for her dragging him this far from home was so they could speak freely without any risk of his father overhearing. Was something wrong with him? Long, arduous days of ranch work could take a toll, and Brandon wasn’t getting any younger. But his father was direct to a fault. If there was bad news to be delivered, he would have told Garrett himself, not delegated the job to someone else.
“Momma, is everything all right with you?” he asked slowly. “Is there some irregular test result or something I should know about?”
“With me? I’m fit as a fiddle.” But she’d gone completely pale.
“Oh, God. Then it is Dad?”
Caroline did something he hadn’t witnessed since the day of his high school graduation. She burst into tears. “No. And y-yes. Your father’s quite ill. B-but it’s not wh-wh-what you think.” Taking deep gulping breaths, she clutched the edge of the table in a visible effort to regain her composure. “I’m so sorry. Brandon isn’t your father.”
* * *
GARRETT PUNCHED UP the volume on the music in his truck, but it was pointless. Not even the loudest rock and roll could drown out his tumultuous thoughts. He pounded his fist on the steering wheel, rage rising in him like a dark tide. Tangible enough to drown him.
For the first day after his mother’s avalanche of revelations, he’d been too numb to feel anything. Once emotion rushed in, he’d realized he had to get away from the ranch. Away from her. She’d had thirty years to tell the truth but had never said a word—not to him and not to the man he’d always believed was his father. Now she’d made Garrett an unwilling accomplice in keeping her adulterous secret. “I swear it was only the one time,” she’d sobbed. “A lifetime ago. Confessing my sins to Brandon might ease my conscience, but why wound him like that?”
Her single indiscretion had been with a longtime family friend, recently hospitalized Will Harlow. Complications from Will’s diabetes had irreparably damaged his kidneys. Though his condition was currently stable, renal failure was inevitable. Without a kidney transplant, his prognosis was grim. Caroline insisted they couldn’t tell Brandon now. “If Will died with animosity between them, your father would never forgive himself!”
How had Brandon remained oblivious to the truth for all these years? He was an intuitive man. Certainly perceptive enough that he would notice the awful tension between his wife and son. So Garrett impulsively announced that he was spending Labor Day weekend with Hugh Connor.
“I don’t know exactly when I’ll be back,” Garrett had warned his dad. “With calving season behind us and time before we need to make winter preparations, can you spare me?”
Brandon had readily agreed that he and their hired hands could cover everything, adding that Garrett didn’t seem himself and maybe a week of R & R was just what the doctor ordered. Garrett’s sole motivation had been escape; he hadn’t consciously chosen Cielo Peak as his destination. Had he named the town because he knew it wouldn’t sound suspicious, his visiting an old friend?
Or was he lured by the heated memories of a glorious night spent with Arden Cade?
Their encounter had left such an impression it was haunting. She appeared in his dreams at random intervals. He’d developed a fondness for brunettes and had caught himself unintentionally comparing a date to her. Over the summer, while packing for an annual weekend with some cousins, he’d discovered Arden’s note stuck to the lining of his suitcase. I’ll never forget you. Was that sentiment invitation enough to look her up while he was in town?
She was a beautiful woman, and over six months had passed. Even if she still resided in Cielo Peak, there was likely a man in her life. Unless, like Garrett, she was between relationships? Maybe he could casually broach the subject with Hugh.
When Garrett had phoned his friend, it had been to ask for suggestions of a not-too-touristy rental cabin that wouldn’t already be booked for the holiday weekend. He hadn’t actually planned to stay with Hugh and Darcy, who were practically newlyweds. Learning of his mom’s infidelity had soured Garrett’s opinion of wedded bliss, and he doubted he’d be great company. But Hugh was stubborn. Besides, Garrett secretly questioned whether too much time alone with his thoughts was healthy. After all, he was having trouble surviving just the drive, battered by emotional debris from Caroline’s bombshell.
He fiddled with the radio dials again, trading his MP3 playlist for a radio station. A twangy singer with a guitar droned on about his misfortunes. You think you have problems, pal?
Garrett faced not only bitter disillusionment about the woman who raised him and unwilling participation in her long-term deception, but also a monumental medical decision.
Despite Caroline’s emphatic vows that her fling with Will was an isolated event, that they didn’t harbor any romantic feelings for each other, the man had never fallen in love with anyone else. He’d remained a bachelor with no children. Garrett was his best hope for a close match and voluntary organ donation, which would drastically shorten the wait.
“I know you need to think about this,” his mother had told him. “No one wants you to rush a decision.” But they both knew Will didn’t have forever.
If Garrett agreed, would he feel as if he were betraying his father? If he said no, was it the same as sentencing a man to die?
He was mired in anger and pain and confusion. Little wonder, then, that his mind kept turning to that night he’d shared with Arden, the perfect satisfaction he’d experienced. Right now, it was difficult to imagine he’d ever feel that purely happy again.
Chapter Three
Arden sighed wistfully at the seafood counter. “I miss shrimp.”
“Throw some in.” Justin indicated the grocery cart he was pushing for her. “How about this? I’ll pay if you’ll cook.” Even with the holiday sales price, it was a generous offer. Since ski season hadn’t started, he was scraping by on a reduced off-season salary working for a local ambulance service.
After a moment of letting herself be tempted, she shook her head. “Nah, I’ve read warnings that pregnant women should avoid shellfish. Skipping them completely might be overreacting, but I really want to do this right, you know?”
She rarely missed her mom, having been so young when Rebecca Cade died, but she sure could use a woman who’d experienced the wonder and worry of impending motherhood. Her only living aunt who’d had children was well over sixty, her memories of pregnancy and childbirth hazy and outdated. Arden hesitated to take advice from a woman who’d chain-smoked and enjoyed cocktail hour through all three trimesters. Cousin Rick never had seemed quite right in the head.
Arden changed the subject, eyeing her brother curiously. “You know, you’ve been hanging around an awful lot lately. Does this sudden fascination with helping me have anything to do with missing Elisabeth?” Though Justin’s relationships never lasted long, Arden thought she’d sensed genuine regret after his most recent breakup—and not only because he missed the job as hiking guide and first-aid administrator at the lodge Elisabeth’s family owned.
“What? No. I barely think about her. You’re the one who keeps bringing her up!”
I am? Arden wracked her brain, trying to recall the last time she’d mentioned Elisabeth Donnelly.
“I’m giving up my Sunday afternoon because you shouldn’t be lifting things,” he added virtuously. “What would you have done if I hadn’t been here to grab the pallet of bottled water?”
“Um, asked any one of the numerous stock boys for assistance?”
He shoved a hand through his dark brown hair. “Humor me, okay? I have two siblings I care the world about, and one of them, I don’t have a clue how to help.”
So he was overcompensating by lending a hand with her menial errands? That she could believe.
“Besides,” Justin drawled, “being such a good brother makes me look all sensitive and whatever to any single ladies we encounter. Major attraction points.”
On behalf of women everywhere, she socked him in the shoulder. “You go to the freezer section and get us an enormous tub of vanilla ice cream. I’ll grab caramel and chocolate syrup.”
“And some straw—”
“Of course strawberry syrup for you,” she added. There was no accounting for taste. “Then we’ll need bananas. Meet me in produce, okay? I’ll make chef salads for dinner and sundaes for dessert.”
He turned to go, then hesitated. “Should we invite Colin to join us? Granted, he’s not exactly Mr. Fun these days, but...”
“I’ll call him,” Arden promised. “But you know he’ll probably decline. Again.”
“If the situation were reversed, he wouldn’t give up on either of us. Maybe it would help if you pick up some of those minimarshmallows for the sundaes. He’s a sucker for those.”
“Minimarshmallows?” she echoed skeptically. “That’s our plan?”
Justin shrugged. “Hey, we all have our weaknesses.”
* * *
GARRETT WHEELED THE shopping cart into the produce section, absently navigating as he consulted Darcy’s grocery list. He’d asked her to let him do the supermarket run as a way to pay the Connors back for room and board. It was more diplomatic than saying he needed a break from the doting couple.
Conversation between Garrett and Hugh had been uncharacteristically stilted. Garrett wanted to confide in his friend but hadn’t quite worked up the courage. It felt disloyal to tell anyone what Caroline had done, and it rocked Garrett’s sense of identity to admit Brandon wasn’t his father. He’d never said the words aloud, and they were harder than he’d expected.
The other potential topic of discussion Garrett wrestled with was Arden Cade. He’d started to ask about her half a dozen times, but stopped himself. After their intimate night together, she’d left without saying goodbye. That seemed like a strong indicator that she wasn’t expecting to see him again.
Blinking, Garrett whipped his head around in a double take. A dark-haired woman in his peripheral vision had triggered his notice. You’re pitiful. Just because he’d been thinking of Arden, now random shoppers looked like her?
Or, maybe... Could it actually be Arden? The long fall of shiny brown hair was familiar. He could recall its silky texture between his fingers. Given the crappy week he was having, had fate decided it owed him a favor? He hadn’t figured out a casual way to look her up, but he couldn’t be blamed for a chance encounter.
Steering toward her, he asked hopefully, “Arden?”
“Yes?” She smiled over her shoulder but froze in recognition, his name on her lips so soft he saw it rather than heard it. “Garrett.”
He couldn’t believe she was here—and even more beautiful than he remembered. Her cheeks were rosy, her aquamarine eyes bright and lively. He couldn’t recall noticing a woman’s skin before, but Arden’s creamy complexion beckoned him to touch her.
Garrett realized two things at once: he was staring, and she didn’t look happy to see him. Then he came up alongside her, getting his first real look at her profile, and had a startling third revelation. Arden Cade was pregnant.
It wasn’t immediately obvious until one saw her stomach. She seemed to be carrying the baby completely in front. From behind, other than the curve of her hips, there hadn’t been— Good Lord. He was ogling a pregnant woman.
He swallowed. “So. How’ve you been?” He punctuated his question with a wry glance at her abdomen. He knew nothing about pregnancy. His understanding was that women didn’t show for a few weeks, although Arden was slim enough that perhaps it was more obvious on her than it would have been on someone else. He had no real sense of whether she was four months along or eight.
That was a sobering thought. Was there a chance she’d already been carrying when they’d made love? The possibility upset him beyond any rational justification.
“I, uh...” Her eyes cut to the side, as if she were seeking help. Or scoping exit routes. “It’s good to see you.”
Wow, are you a bad liar, sweetheart. “You’re obviously busy.” He gestured to the bananas she’d been perusing. “I won’t keep you. I’m staying in town with the Connors for a few days, and when I saw you there, I thought I’d say hi.”
The tension in her shoulders eased fractionally. “Hi.” She managed a smile, but it didn’t reach her eyes.
“Arden? Is there a problem here?” A broad-shouldered man approached, his tone possessive as he practically rammed his cart between Arden and Garrett. He was a tall son of a gun, even had an inch or two of height on Garrett.
“No problem, Justin. Except that I’m...feeling sick.” Her progressively ashen color backed up her claim. She dropped the produce bag she’d been holding into the cart. “Get me home. I can come back later for anything we missed.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I’ll come back.” When he glanced at her, Justin’s features softened. But the glare he aimed at Garrett was flinty with suspicion.
Garrett’s stomach dropped. He’d known there was a good chance Arden would be involved with someone. So why was his disappointment at being right so keenly bitter?
Wait a minute. His eyes narrowed, and he met Justin’s unblinking stare. Those blue-green eyes were a lot like Arden’s. And the thick brown hair they both shared? Arden’s was streaked with honey and gold, while the man’s was more like coffee grounds, but the resemblance was unmistakable.
A broad grin stretched across Garrett’s face. “Is this your brother?”
“Damn right.” The man took a step forward. “And you are...?”
“Justin, please.” Arden’s voice trembled. “I have to get out of here.”
“Right. Sorry. Let’s go.”
With a hasty, departing wave from Arden, they were gone. Garrett stood there, bemused.
Had she truly been unhappy to see him, or did her not feeling well explain her behavior and the grimace she’d tried to cover? At first, he’d thought her skittish demeanor was due to the awkwardness of running into a fling while her significant other was nearby, but that wasn’t the case. Maybe he’d misread the situation entirely.
But as he began piling groceries into the buggy, he conjured her face again. He could have sworn the emotion he’d seen in her eyes was...fear. Why on earth would Arden be scared of him?
* * *
“GREAT DINNER,” GARRETT complimented his hostess. Personally, he’d been too preoccupied to taste a bite of the meal, but Hugh had wolfed down his roast beef with gusto, so Garrett felt reasonably sure of his statement.
Darcy Connor, Hugh’s pretty blonde wife, beamed from across the kitchen table. Her gregarious nature seemed at odds with the cliché image of a part-time librarian. “Lavish praise, doing the shopping for me—when word gets out about you, my single girlfriends are going to be lining up at the front door.”
“Since you cooked, we can do the dishes,” Hugh volunteered.
“Another time.” She shooed them out of the kitchen. “Garrett just got here yesterday. You still have lots of catching up to do.”
“Isn’t she terrific?” Hugh asked adoringly as they relocated to the living room. He grabbed a television remote from the side pocket in his recliner, flipping through channels until he found a college football game. “If you’d told me when I was a freckled, fifteen-year-old comic book collector that I could get a woman like that to marry me...”
Garrett snorted. “You were also six feet tall and the team quarterback.” His auburn-haired friend might well have freckles and an interest in superheroes, but he hadn’t spent his teenage years lonely. “As I recall, you went to senior proms at three separate high schools.”
Hugh grinned. “Did I? Before Darcy, it’s all a blur. What about you, man? You had a pretty active social life, too. I was surprised you didn’t bring anyone to the wedding.”
Boy, would that night have ended differently. A month prior to the wedding, he’d been dating a woman he’d planned to take to the ceremony, but they’d ended things when she got a job offer that took her to the east coast.
“Speaking of your wedding,” Garrett said with studied nonchalance, “I never got to see how the photos turned out. Isn’t there an album or something?”
“Darcy,” he called to his wife, “you have a willing victim here. Garrett asked to see wedding pictures.” Turning back to Garrett, he added, “Narrating our photos is one of her favorite hobbies, up there with bird-watching and snowboarding. I warn you, the collection is massive. There’s the professional album our photographer put together, then the one Darcy crammed full of everything from wedding shower pics to the honeymoon.”
“I remember the photographer,” Garrett said. Understatement of the year—she was seared into his memory like a brand. “Arden, right?”
Hugh smirked. “Why, you looking for a photographer? Maybe planning to have some of those glamorized portraits done? You’d look pretty spiffy in a sequined cowboy hat.”
“I think I ran into her at the grocery store earlier. The woman I saw was pregnant?”
“That’s her, Arden Cade.” Hugh clucked his tongue. “Poor kid. Being a single mom can’t be easy under the best of circumstances, much less with gossips buzzing about the dad.”
Garrett leaned forward on the couch. “Why? Who’s the dad?”
“It’s a big mystery. Far as anyone knew, she wasn’t seeing anyone. Maybe it was a long-distance relationship with an out-of-town guy. People were shocked when she turned up pregnant and even more shocked those two brothers of hers didn’t march the dude responsible into a shotgun wedding.”
The fear he’d seen on Arden’s face today flashed through his mind, and a completely insane thought struck him. He was an out-of-town guy. They’d used condoms, but those weren’t effective one hundred percent of the time, were they? He’d heard stories.
“Out of...” His throat was so dry he had to try again. “Out of curiosity, do you know how far along she is?”
Hugh regarded him suspiciously but didn’t challenge the bizarre question. “Hey, Darce? You have any idea how far along Arden is in her pregnancy?”
Darcy appeared in the doorway between rooms, drying her hands on a green-and-yellow-checkered towel. “Around six months, maybe? She said she’s due the week of Thanksgiving.”
