to say goodbye.”
Guilt lay heavily on Julia’s heart, but the strong sense of protectiveness she’d developed since the birth of her daughter won out. Protecting her daughter was more important to her than anything. For Lily’s sake, she would take whatever harsh words this man chose to throw at her. Besides, she knew she deserved them. Sneaking out of the hotel room, running off with no explanation and ending their marriage long-distance, without laying eyes on the man again… It had been a weak, cowardly thing to do. She knew that. But now she had no choice but to be brave—for her baby’s sake, if not for her own.
With a deep, indrawn breath, Julia laid the gun on the television console and, grasping the corner of the shawl, lifted it up over her head, dropping it to the floor.
For several seconds, Tuck studied her, his brow furrowing. He didn’t move, didn’t speak, just stared at her middle.
Then Lily moved, a tiny hand peeking out from the fabric of the sling, waving in the air.
“Tuck Thunder Horse, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner, but meet Lily.” Julia swallowed hard and continued, “Your baby girl.”
Chapter Three
All the air left Tuck’s lungs in a whoosh, and the image of the baby wavered like a mirage on hot desert terrain.
As quickly as his vision blurred, anger raged, red-hot and fiery, erupting through his body. “How dare you threaten me—with a gun or a baby. Do you really expect me to believe that this baby is mine?” He poked a finger at the woman’s chest. “Even if you’re telling the truth about your twin and you really are Julia, why should that make me trust you? You weren’t all that trustworthy when you married me and then walked out on me less than a day later. Do you think I’m stupid enough to believe anything you have to say to me?”
She hugged the child to her chest and then loosened her hold, titling her forward so that Tuck could see her face.
Nestled in a pink fluffy blanket, the infant’s mouth moved in a soft sucking motion, her shock of thick black hair stealing Tuck’s anger, sucking the fire right out of his veins.
“She looks like you,” Julia whispered. “She has your hair, your dark skin…your eyes.” Just as she said the words, the baby blinked up at him with dark orbs, already losing their baby blue for the ink-black so typical of the Thunder Horse family’s Lakota heritage.
Tuck’s chest squeezed so tightly, he could barely draw in air. The baby did look like him. “So, she has black hair.” He fought the urge to reach out and touch the baby’s rosy cheek. “That doesn’t mean she’s mine.”
“She’s four months old.” Julia stared across the baby at him. “You do the math.” His ex-wife reached around her neck with one hand and fumbled with the knot holding the sling, while balancing the baby in her other arm. When she had the sling loose, she handed the child across to Tuck.
He hesitated and drew back, his hands dropping to his sides.
“Hold her. She won’t bite.” Julia shoved the baby at him, giving him no choice but to take the squirming bundle.
He grasped the baby, holding her out like an alien being. Then Tuck stared at the infant girl, who stared back at him, her dark hair and dark eyes so very much like his own.
Then she smiled, the mere quirk of those tiny lips and cherubic cheeks nearly bringing Tuck to his knees.
His hands shook. Rather than drop the baby, he brought her close to his body and cradled her against his chest. “Are you sure?” Tuck glanced up at the woman standing across from him.
Julia’s lips trembled, her eyes glistening with tears. “Never more certain.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
She sighed. “I didn’t know I was pregnant until two months after we met…and then it snowballed, all happening so quickly.” She gulped, her head dipping low. “One minute I was a single woman with no cares in the world, the next I was scrambling to find a place big enough for a baby. The school semester started. I was working teaching kids. A lot of things were happening at once.”
“And it just slipped your mind? You never thought for a moment that I had a right to know?”
“Yes, you did.” Her belly twisted with her guilt. “I didn’t know whether or not you’d want to be a part of her life.” It was just an excuse, but it was the one she’d clung to, so that she wouldn’t have to get back in touch with the man she’d married and then run away from. So she’d made the choice for him.
“And you made the decision not to tell me.” He shook his head.
“After what happened between us, I thought it would be unfair to saddle you with a child you might not want.” She sighed. “I was wrong.”
She’d been wrong about so many things.
Marrying Tuck in the first place had been a mistake. Even now, she could hardly believe she’d done it. It was so unlike her to get carried away, swept off her feet. Jillian had always been the spontaneous one—not Julia. Julia was the thinker, the planner, the one who calculated cost and consequence for every decision she made.
If she’d taken the time to stop and think, she never would have gone to that little wedding chapel. She’d have taken the time to get to know her husband first—at least well enough to know what he did for a living. If she’d been aware before saying her vows that he was an FBI agent, then she would have realized that a relationship between them could never work.
Julia knew all too well what being an agent meant. Her father had spent most of her formative years away from home as a member of the bureau. She recalled how her mother had waited by the telephone every time he was on assignment, expecting the call that her husband had been injured or killed in the line of duty. Sadly, she’d gotten that call when Julia and Jillian were twelve years old.
Jillian had followed their father into the FBI.
Julia still couldn’t understand why her sister would do such a thing, knowing the dangers. Hadn’t losing a parent shown her how dangerous it was?
Julia had never considered joining the FBI or having anything to do with it. The job hadn’t just taken her father away from her—it had ruined her mother’s life, as well. Julia had seen the way the stress and anxiety of being an agent’s wife had weighed on her mother. It was a strain Julia refused to bear. Bad enough that she had to worry about her sister on the job. She refused to worry about a husband, too.
When she’d found Tuck’s badge in the hotel room, she’d lost it. Images of her mother trying not to cry as she sat by the phone had flooded her memories, bringing her to her knees on the bedroom floor of the hotel. She couldn’t get away from Tuck fast enough. She refused to be one of those wives who waited night and day for “the call.”
All Julia had wanted was a safe home with someone who would be there to love her. A father who put his family ahead of his work. A man who wasn’t destined to die of gunshot wounds earned in the line of duty.
Just a glimpse of that all-too-familiar badge had been enough to make Julia run. She’d departed the hotel, leaving a note that she was sorry and that their marriage had been a mistake. Annulment papers had
