He turned to look at her. “You’re happy here.” It was a statement, not a question.
She smiled. “I am.” The smile faded away and her eyes darkened. “And I’ll feel a lot happier when our mother is once again behind bars. I worry that she knows I helped put her there in the first place.”
Knox pulled her into an embrace. “Don’t worry, Jade. It would be stupid for her to show up here, and we both know that she isn’t a stupid woman.”
No, Livia definitely wasn’t stupid. She was a cunning, manipulative sociopath who had seen her children only as tools to be used to gain her wealth and power. She trotted them out for photo ops when it served her purpose and then handed them off to a nanny and forgot about them until the next time they could be useful to her. And that had been the very least of her crimes.
“You’re right,” Jade replied as he released her. She stared out into the distance for a moment and then laughed. “You remember her lacy handkerchiefs?”
“How could I forget? She thought carrying one made her look all high society, and God forbid if she couldn’t find a particular one in her drawer. She’d have all of us searching high and low for a pink-or lilac-colored hankie. But enough about her, let’s go see your stables.”
As they walked toward the stables, Jade told him about the racehorses that came to her, many of whom might otherwise have been headed to the glue factory, or sadly sold for meat.
“The first thing I have to do is make sure they’re healthy,” she explained. “And then they have to be socialized with both people and the rest of the herd.”
They entered the stables and Knox immediately spied a young boy sweeping up. “Cody, come and meet my brother,” Jade called out to him.
The boy set the broom aside and approached them with a friendly smile on his face. “This is my brother Knox,” Jade said. She placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “And this is Cody, the best nine-year-old helper and horse lover I’ve ever met.”
“It’s nice to meet you, sir.” The boy stuck out a hand to shake.
Knox took the small hand and studied the boy’s face. Bright blue eyes, oddly familiar, gazed up at him. Cody’s light brown hair was neatly cut and his smile was broad enough to illuminate an entire room.
“It’s nice to meet you, Cody, and you can call me Knox.”
“Do you like horses, Knox?” the boy asked him.
“I love them,” Knox replied.
“Knox is a Texas Ranger,” Jade said.
“Wow.” Cody’s eyes widened. “That’s awesome.”
Those eyes...the shape and the bright blue color...what about them felt so familiar to Knox? “Thanks. So you sweep up around here?”
“I do whatever Miss Jade wants me to and then she lets me ride the horses,” he replied.
“Sounds like a lot of responsibility,” Knox replied.
Cody nodded. “I can handle it.” He looked at the wristwatch he wore. “Now I need to finish up sweeping because my mom is going to be here any minute.”
“And who is your mom?” Knox asked, wondering if he knew the woman.
“Her name is Allison Rafferty,” Cody replied.
Allison Rafferty? Knox’s brain exploded with a flash of sweet memories. Allison was the woman he’d once loved, the woman who had betrayed him and the one he’d never quite been able to forget.
He stared at Cody. Those eyes...no wonder they looked so familiar to Knox. Each morning when he looked into a mirror, he saw those same ones staring back at him.
Shock waves shuddered through him and he was vaguely aware of Jade telling Cody to go ahead outside and wait for his mother. The complicated memories he had of Allison disappeared beneath a veil of pure white anger.
Knox turned to his sister, his heart beating hard and fast. He felt gut-punched. Cody was nine years old and had his eyes. Almost ten years ago, he’d contacted Allison when he’d heard she’d had a baby that she’d insisted belonged to an old boyfriend. She had to have gotten pregnant by another man during the time they’d been dating. He’d been utterly destroyed by her cheating and that had been the end of any relationship he had with her.
She’d lied.
Knox knew with a gut instinct that Cody was his son. He stared at Jade. “Did you know?”
Jade didn’t pretend not to know what he was talking about. “I’ve always suspected, but Allison has never said anything to me, and I haven’t asked her.”
A son. Emotion welled up to press tight against his chest. He had a son, and he’d already lost nine years because Allison had lied to him. He’d always known that she was just another woman who’d betrayed him, and this only confirmed it.
“I think I’ll step outside and wait for Cody’s mother to arrive,” he said.
“Knox, you aren’t going to do anything crazy, are you?” Jade asked worriedly.
He smiled grimly as an icy cold shell wrapped around his heart. “Don’t worry. I’m not crazy.” His fellow Rangers and several news agencies had nicknamed him Fort Knox because he was the unbreakable Ranger who had no heart. He was always in control of his emotions.
The sound of a car approaching from the distance tensed all of his muscles. He drew several deep, long breaths and then prepared himself to face the woman who had kept the secret of his son from him for nine long years.
* * *
Allison Rafferty couldn’t help the smile that curved her lips as she saw Cody and Jade standing just outside the stables. The sight of her son always made her heart expand with pride and joy.
It was impossible to hold on to the worries of running the construction company when she was with her son. On Monday she was going to have to fire a man, never a pleasant thing, but in this case necessary. But for this afternoon and evening all she had to think about was making homemade pizza and watching a movie with the little man in her life.
She parked and turned off the car engine, then got out of the car. At the same time a tall, broad-shouldered man wearing a black cowboy hat stepped out of the stables and into her view.
Knox.
Her breath hitched in her throat and she froze in her tracks. For a long moment her brain refused to function as she stared at him, and then a million questions fired off in her head.
Knox Colton... What on earth was he doing there? Oh, God, she didn’t want him there. Why wasn’t he in El Paso doing whatever he did as a Texas Ranger?
“Hello, Allison.” His eyes beneath the rim of his hat were icy blue.
He knows.
The two dreadful words echoed in her head as her heart began to beat an unsteady rhythm. “Knox, what a surprise,”
