into the small room. A Gideon bible had been placed on the table between two chairs. A lamp in the corner offered soft light. In this room, lives changed. People were given the worst news. People received options.
In this room, Duke Martin learned he was a father.
“Why didn’t you try to contact me?” He sat down heavily, stretching his long legs in front of him. “Did you think I wouldn’t want to know?”
“I knew from friends that you had a problem with alcohol. And then I found out you joined the army. Duke, I was used to my mother dragging me along from relationship to relationship. She was with men who were abusive, who were alcoholics, and a few who were okay. I didn’t want that for my daughter.”
Oregon’s own father hadn’t stayed. He’d been a nameless man who walked out on them. And then there had been her mother’s countless marriages, with Oregon never being given a choice in the matter.
“You should have told me,” Duke stormed in a quiet voice, respectful of this place. She’d learned something about him in the past year. She’d learned that looks could be deceiving. He looked like Goliath. But beneath his large exterior, he was good and kind.
He kept his power carefully leashed, his temper controlled, his voice even in tone. He leaned forward in the chair, brushing his hand through his short hair.
“You’ve been in town over a year. You should have told me sooner,” he repeated.
“Maybe I should have, but I needed to know you, to be sure about you, before I put you in my daughter’s life.”
“Maybe?” He erupted in quiet anger. “Maybe you should have told me Lilly is mine? What if something had...”
She shook her head. “No, don’t go there.”
“You kept her from me,” he said in a quieter voice.
“You have to understand. I was eighteen and alone and making stupid decisions. And now I’m a mom who has to make sure her daughter isn’t going to be hurt. I have to make sure the man I bring into her life isn’t going to walk out on her.”
“I do not walk out.”
“I know. And I was going to tell you. I just didn’t know how.”
“You could have told me years ago. A letter, even a short note, would have been nice.”
“You left.” Another person in her life who had left. Not that she’d expected him to stay. He’d been a day, a smile, a moment. She’d been a kid who’d made bad choices in her search for love.
“You know for sure...” he started to ask, but his words trailed off.
“I know without a doubt. There are no other possibilities.”
He studied her for a few seconds. She met his gaze head-on because she had to be strong. “Why did you change your mind and decide to bring her to Martin’s Crossing?”
Of course he would want to know that. She would tell him why, but not today. She couldn’t tell him everything, not in one crazy, overly emotional day. “I knew she needed you.”
The simple answer was the truth. It was enough for now.
* * *
She wasn’t telling him everything but for Duke, it was enough for one day. He had a daughter. For the past year Lilly had bounced in and out of his diner. She’d swept his floors. She’d talked to him about the kind of horse she wanted. She’d looked up at him with those blue eyes that were so much like his, he should have seen himself in her. He should have seen it. He should have recognized Oregon.
He rubbed the top of his head and stared at the woman he’d let down, mother of the girl he’d let down. He’d become his mother. Man, he wanted to pound something. He needed to get on his bike and take a long ride through Texas. But unlike Sylvia Martin, his mother, he would come back. But he wouldn’t walk away from this hospital, from Lilly or Oregon.
He looked at her. Her dark hair framed a face that was delicate and shifted from cute to pretty with a smile. She shrugged slim shoulders. “Maybe you should have remembered but you said it yourself, there are a lot of holes in your memory.”
Yeah, a lot of holes. Blackouts. Days lost. He reached into his pocket and felt that coin he carried, a reminder of how long he’d been sober. Two years and counting.
“I’m sorry,” he said as he made eye contact with the woman sitting across from him.
“I’m sorry, too. I know she needs you.”
There were so many ways he could react to that. He could be angry, but what would that get him? She had wanted to protect her daughter. He couldn’t blame her for that.
“So I guess I passed the test,” he finally said.
“Of course you do.” She stood, her eyes darting away from him to the door. “We should go. I don’t want her to be alone too long.”
“No, of course not.” She would never be alone again. He would see to that. “Does she know?”
“That you’re her dad? No.”
“We have to tell her.”
They walked out into the hall and headed back to the emergency room. “Yes, I know.”
“What does she know?”
“That I was young and made a mistake. But that she isn’t a mistake.”
“Man, Oregon, I should have been there. I should have been in her life.”
“I didn’t mean for this to happen.” Her voice faltered.
“You weren’t in this alone. And you aren’t alone now. We need to get married.” The words slipped out quickly, without giving them a lot of thought.
She stopped. He took a few more steps and then turned to face her. She was barely five feet tall. Her dark hair was long and soft. Her gray eyes had flecks of green in this light. Had he just proposed to her?
“No.” And with that simple answer, she kept walking.
He froze under the bright fluorescent lights, voices of people heading in their direction. Ahead of him Oregon kept walking. He was so tall that he only had to take a few steps and he was next to her.
“Why not?”
“Because this isn’t love. It was attraction once. Now we’re two strangers, and that isn’t enough for a marriage.”
“Our daughter deserves—”
She cut him off with an angry glare. “Don’t tell me what she deserves. She deserves a home and people who love her. People who stay.”
“Right, but we have to think about our daughter.”
“Mine,” she cried out, her eyes widening in fear. “She’s my daughter.”
