head, then left the room.
HONEY STOOD IN THE LARGE front hall, her back against the living room door. What had she wished? That those seven years had never happened, that she’d never met Matt Logan, that he could have been around for all those wonderful years of Danny growing up, that a bitter old man had reached out and opened the door for her? That Matt had loved her as much as she’d loved him?
She shook her thoughts away. She had no more power to alter the past than she’d had to make Matt stay all those years ago. The past had to remain as it was—unchanged. Right now, she had more important things to worry about. How would she tell Amanda that her beloved grandson was not really her grandson? Amanda had centered her world around Danny after Stan died. How would she take the news?
Honey had been right to dread Matt’s homecoming. Life had been so simple before his reappearance. He’d been here for less than a day and nothing was the same anymore.
She sighed, pushed herself away from the door, then started for the kitchen. The soft whirr of Amanda’s chair-lift stopped her. Waiting until the elderly woman reached the bottom of the stairs, Honey hurried to pull the wheelchair from its nook, then position it for her mother-in-law.
“Amanda, you should have called me to help you dress.”
“Why? So you could avoid the unavoidable?” Amanda levered herself out of the chair-lift and into the wheelchair. As she adjusted the throw over her legs, she studied Honey with a knowing look. “Come into the dining room and have a cup of coffee while I eat breakfast.”
Amanda’s wheelchair moved smoothly over the polished, wide pine boards. With a skill born of spending the last five years in the chair, Amanda maneuvered it through the double dining room doors to the spot left vacant at the table. Silently, Honey went about filling a plate for her mother-in-law from the chafing dishes on the sideboard. When she returned to Amanda’s side with her usual breakfast of fruit and toast, the older woman’s fingers closed around Honey’s free hand.
“Did you tell him?”
“Tell him what?”
“About Danny.”
Honey sighed. “I told him Danny’s stutter—”
“No, not that. Did you tell him Danny is his son?”
Only with concentrated effort did Honey manage to set the plate on the table and not drop it on the floor. Shock waves ebbed through her. She sat heavily in the chair that was, thank goodness, right behind her, and stared at Amanda. “How…”
Amanda chuckled, released Honey’s hand, then spread a napkin over her lap. “My dear, I’ve suspected for some time. The older the child got, the more he looked like Matt as a boy. I knew you’d been seeing Matt before he left town, and the rest was just a simple matter of deduction as to why my son had gone from best friend to groom in a very short period of time.”
Honey couldn’t believe her ears. She’d spent the last six years walking on eggs to make sure no one, especially Amanda, knew that Matt was Danny’s father. She’d been holding on to a secret that hadn’t been a secret at all.
“How many other people know?”
Amanda spread orange marmalade on her toast. “I’m sure no one but me and maybe Tess, although she hasn’t said anything one way or the other. As for anyone else, you can bet if they’d guessed, it would be all over town by now, and it isn’t. So it’s safe to say none of them picked up on the resemblance as being anything more than family genes. After all, I used to have black hair myself when I was younger.”
Honey was relieved that she hadn’t become the talk of the town and that the likelihood of anyone pointing out Danny’s heritage to him was slim. But it didn’t assuage the guilt she harbored because she hadn’t told Amanda. Not that she hadn’t wanted to tell her from the start. Stan had insisted that they keep it a secret from his mother. It had taken a few years for Honey to realize that his request had little do with concern for his mother’s feelings and a lot to do with his male ego.
“Why didn’t you tell Matt?” Honey asked.
Amanda sighed the sigh of a mother who had done everything she could to make her son happy, including turning a blind eye to a little boy’s true father. “Selfish reasons. Besides, it wasn’t my place to tell him about something I only suspected was true, even if I had known where to contact him. Was it?”
“I guess not. I’m so sorry we didn’t tell you, though. Stan never wanted you to know, and after he died, I didn’t see the point in telling you. You’d already gone through enough pain, and I didn’t want to have to tell you that you’d lost a grandson as well as a son.”
Laying her fork down, Amanda turned squarely to face Honey. “I will never lose my grandson. That child has his own special place in my heart. He’s as close to me as if Stan had fathered him.” Tears welled in her eyes.
Honey’s heart swelled. “That’s the one thing I can safely say that I think Matt and I would agree on. Danny will be your grandson as long as both of you want it that way.” She kissed Amanda’s cheek. “Thank you.”
“Posh!” Amanda waved her off. “Go see if Tess has made fresh coffee.”
Knowing Amanda hated sappy scenes, Honey headed for the kitchen, but not without wondering what she’d done to deserve such a wonderful woman in her life.
MATT RAN THE CLOTH over the shiny black fender of his motorcycle. Other than a sizable bank account, a game leg and this bike, he had little to show for his years on the rodeo circuit. But then, that seemed to be the pattern of his life—he’d had nothing to show for anything until today. Now he had Danny.
He stopped rubbing the fender and allowed his fantasies to take over. He pictured himself patiently teaching Danny to ride a horse, to pitch a baseball, to handle this bike. All the things that every father had ever dreamed of teaching his son—except Kevin Logan. Matt’s father had dreamed of nothing except the woman he’d lost to breast cancer, the son he’d lost in a plane crash, and how he could turn Matt into his brother, Jamie.
But Matt’s perfect visions of life as Danny’s dad contained a flaw he couldn’t seem to erase. In the background of every fantasy, Honey appeared, smiling, laughing, her love for both of them shining in her eyes.
He shook away the disquieting family pictures. Neither Honey nor any other woman could ever be a part of his life. Hadn’t he decided that when he left here? A woman in his life would mean he’d have to love her, and he would never surrender to that weakness again—for anyone. Never. Nor would he ever try to live up to someone else’s expectations, or leave himself open to the disappointment that would inevitably come to both of them.
He just wished he didn’t have to wait to hear Danny call him Dad. But he understood why Honey had asked him not to tell his son just yet. Matt knew all about stuttering. He’d stuttered himself after his mother died.
Thanks to a very special speech teacher, he’d managed to overcome it. Danny would, too. And Matt would help him all he could, whether Honey liked it or not.
FROM HER WHEELCHAIR, Amanda held Matt’s big hands and smiled up into his face. “Lord, how I’ve missed you, Matthew.”
He reminded her in many ways of Stan, with his large, broad-shouldered frame, in his strong hands and gentle grip. But in
