I’m not sure she’s mine.”
“I figured, sugar. She could be, but I don’t think she is, either. As disappointing as that is.”
“Mo-o-o-o-m,” he warned by stretching out the word.
“None of you are married, Deke, so I am not advocating any of you rush out and find...what’s the term you young people use? Baby momma? No baby mommas. Your daddy and I raised you boys to be honorable men, to do the right thing. You’ll find the right girl, marry her and then have babies. Until we get the paternity-test results, the baby needs looking after. We’ll hope her momma decides to come back. ’Course, if she’s yours, she’s ours. But that’s a whole different situation. On the chance she is yours, we’ll look after her.”
Deke slid off the stool, walked around the island to his mom and kissed her on the cheek. “Yeah, we will. So...is that why you decided to come over and fix breakfast for me?” He noted the pile of bacon and sausage patties, the cartons of eggs and the huge pan of homemade biscuits baking in the oven.
“I suspect the locusts will descend soon enough. You know how crazy the family went over Cord’s little CJ. Noelle is a baby. That just trips switches like you wouldn’t believe.”
Except he would, because seeing the baby, hearing her cry and holding her? Yup, every last one of his switches had been tripped. “She might not be mine, Mom.”
“If she isn’t, what happens if her momma doesn’t come back?”
And that was the elephant in the room, wasn’t it? “I truly don’t know.”
“What’s your gut say?”
“I brought her home, Mom. No way was I letting her go into the system. But to make a commitment lasting the rest of my life?” He stared out the window over the sink. The note claimed he was Noelle’s father. Why didn’t the mother confront him? Ask for support? Why hadn’t she contacted him before the baby was born? So many questions and no answers. At least not until the DNA test. If the baby wasn’t his and they didn’t locate her mother, he had no clue what he’d do. “I just don’t know, Mom.”
“You were always my homebody, Deke. At least until you picked up a guitar. If you weren’t out there singin’ for your supper every night, you’d be right here with a sweet woman making babies for me to spoil.”
He splorted coffee through his nose. She clapped him on the back, pounding a little harder than necessary, and passed him a dish towel to wipe up the mess he’d made.
“Mom, you do remember that I’m the one who took three different girls to prom. The same prom.”
She scowled at him. “I’m not likely to forget. You were a sophomore and they were seniors.”
Deacon coughed behind the towel. He’d also escorted two seniors his junior year, and another three his senior year. Going steady was a foreign concept to him. Heck, the likelihood of his dating a woman more than a couple of times in a row ranked right up there with the Cubs winning the World Series. He’d had one relationship with another country singer that was sort of exclusive and it had ended amicably with both parties going their separate ways. One gossip columnist had labeled him a serial dater. He enjoyed all sorts of women and sex was just gravy.
His mom pointed her finger at him. If there was one deadly thing about Katherine Barron Tate, it was when she brought her “mother finger” to bear on her unruly sons.
Luckily, her lecture was interrupted by a perfunctory knock on the front door followed by the entrance of his older brother, Cooper.
“I smell food!” His brother paused at the door to kick off his muddy boots. “Sorry I missed the concert, little bro. We had a situation on one of the wells last night.” Cooper worked with Cord Barron at BarEx, the oil-and-gas exploration-and-energy corporation controlled by the Barrons.
Coop padded into the kitchen and kissed their mother on the cheek. “Mornin’, Momma. Sure could use a cup of coffee.”
“Is your arm broken? You know where the mugs are kept and the pot is right there staring you in the face.”
Laughing, Cooper made himself at home. This was the way of the Tates. There were times Deke wished for boundaries but his big, boisterous family refused to acknowledge them. Before his mother finished the bacon and started a batch of scrambled eggs with onions and peppers, along with home fries, his younger brothers, Bridger and Dillon, had tromped in. The rest of his brothers were likely out of town—Hunter and Boone working with Senator Clay Barron in Washington, DC, and Tucker out in Las Vegas with Chase Barron.
Dillon set the big farm-style table without being asked while Bridger stirred the gravy. Cooper had ducked out to grab a shower, seeing as he was covered in dirt and grease. When he returned, he was wearing a pair of Deacon’s jeans and a Sons of Nashville concert sweatshirt.
Noelle’s whimper echoed from the baby monitor on the counter, and Deke led the charge. Halfway down the hallway, he turned to glower, noting how his mother and Dillon hadn’t followed. He grinned evilly. “Coop, you and Bridge go grab her. I’ll get her bottle ready.” At their eager nods of agreement, he began to head back to the kitchen, then added, “Oh, she’ll need a fresh diaper.”
Then he ran, laughing. But between the two of them, they got Noelle sorted out and appeared with her several minutes later in the kitchen. His mother took over the care and feeding of the baby while her “boys” ate their breakfast.
* * *
Quin was supposed to be starting her days off. She’d hit Troop A’s headquarters building an hour after her shift change. She’d spent another hour filling out her report and filing it so the information would go up the chain. Whatever was to be done about baby Noelle “Doe” and Deacon Tate was above her pay grade.
Sneaking out the back door after stuffing the report in her supervisor’s in-box, she wanted only home, a hot shower, a protein shake and bed. In that order. And when she woke up, she’d have shopping to do. Housecleaning. Laundry. All the mundane things that normal people did on their days off.
Two hours after she’d arrived home, her supervisor called, jerking her from a sound sleep. She was to report for duty as soon as she could get to Troop A headquarters.
So...
Here she was, rapping her knuckles on the lieutenant’s office door and peeking in through the glass window. He was on the phone but he crooked two fingers and gestured for her to enter. Quin slipped inside and sank onto a chair.
Lieutenant Charles had one of the best poker faces in the Department of Public Safety. As hard as she tried, Quin couldn’t get a read on the conversation or who he was talking to, until he ended the call. “Of course, Governor. Whatever we can do to assist.”
Her brain went down all sorts of rabbit holes. The governor had lots of reasons to be calling the Oklahoma Highway Patrol, but direct contact with her supervisor at Troop A? It wasn’t like he was in the chain of command at the state level. Not that she was paranoid or anything, but after last night, the idea of a political target located between her shoulder blades didn’t seem all that far-fetched.
The lieutenant’s opening salvo just confirmed her suspicions. “So, you had quite the Friday night.”
“You have my report, sir.”
“Ease
