just as baffled by his reaction to their old neighbor as her sister was. “It was a long time ago, and Dad always liked Ty. I guess he figures it’s best to let bygones be bygones.”
She didn’t add the detail that Ty had apologized to her in town earlier. She wasn’t sure why, but she wasn’t quite ready to share that information just yet. Maybe she didn’t believe him, or maybe it was the stubborn cowgirl in her, she mused, wanting to prolong his suffering awhile longer. Yeah, that was it.
“Well, I can hardly stand to look at him,” Jessie announced, angling her head for a peek out the front window that looked onto the corner of the porch where Ty was sitting. Her gaze lingered there for several moments, and Morgan laughed.
“Right. There’s not a woman alive who can resist that arrogant piece of work.” She was living proof of that, she added silently.
“Handsome on the outside doesn’t mean much when you’ve got a mean heart.”
It was so simple for her, Morgan thought while she opened the closet in the back hall and pulled her leather barn gloves from the organizer. When you were twenty-four like Jessie, the world was still painted in black and white, and things were either right or wrong. When you got older, those extra years taught you that there was a lot of gray out there.
“Anyway, I’ve got work to do outside. If you’re leaving before I get back, have a good night.”
“I’m doing laundry, so I’ll be here awhile. Dinner will be in the oven keeping warm, just like always,” Jessie said, as if she hadn’t heard a word Morgan had said. “If you’re out past seven, Dad and I will get the girls ready for bed and you can tuck them in when you come back.”
Stopping by the back door, Morgan looked back and smiled. “Thanks, Jess. I don’t know how I’d manage all this without you.”
“Like Wonder Woman, of course.” Her delighted expression made it clear that she appreciated the praise, and she blew Morgan a kiss before picking up one of her overstuffed laundry bags and heading down into the basement.
On the back porch, Morgan heard the sound of a truck’s engine starting and glanced over to see Ty driving toward the road. Encountering him again had been more of a shock than she’d like to admit, but she forced her mind away from that prickly topic as she climbed into her 4x4 and went in the other direction. The front stock barn was her destination, and once she got there, a solid hour of unloading supplies and mucking stalls gave her a chance to settle her nerves and forget she’d seen the wayward rodeo star.
Almost.
Good-looking as ever, he still had the same quick smile that had gotten her attention when he was the new kid in class. A simple trick of the alphabet seated him behind her, and she’d endured chair kicking, braid pulling and outright aggravation for two weeks until she’d finally had enough and slugged him on the playground.
The incident had landed her in the principal’s office, but it had earned her Ty’s respect. From then on, she and their neighbor’s youngest son had been thick as thieves. Sweethearts from high school to the rodeo circuit, they’d seemed on the road to a lifetime of good-natured arguments and the kind of love she’d always longed for.
And then, something happened. She still wasn’t sure what had driven him to run away, and after many sleepless nights, she’d accepted the fact that she might never know. Well, mostly.
That thought had just floated through her mind when she heard the sound of spitting gravel outside, followed by the slamming of a vehicle’s door. Glancing out, she saw the object of her musings stalking toward her, looking fit to be tied.
“Something you wanna tell me, MJ?”
She hadn’t heard the shorthand version of her full name in so long, it caught her by surprise. Recovering a bit, she narrowed her eyes and glared back at him. “I thought goodbye pretty much covered it.”
“They’re mine, aren’t they?”
Morgan’s heart stopped.
Realizing that the pitchfork she held was shaking in her hands, she carefully set it aside to give herself time to think. After drawing in a deep breath to settle her runaway blood pressure, she turned to him and summoned her best blank expression. “What are yours?”
“Allie and Hannah,” he clarified, in a tone that told her in no uncertain terms that he knew she was stalling. “They’re my daughters, aren’t they?”
How could he possibly have figured that out? she wondered in a panic. They looked just like her, so she’d never confessed their father’s identity to anyone. Not even her family.
“No, Ty, they’re my daughters.” Tapping her chest for emphasis, she went on. “They’re Whittakers, end of story.”
Folding his arms, he scowled down at her but didn’t say anything more. Then, in a matter of a few seconds, his demeanor shifted, and he grimaced as if she’d sucker punched him.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked in a quiet voice laced with regret. “I know we weren’t in touch after I left, but you knew enough people who could’ve told you where I was.”
“I didn’t think you’d be interested,” she shot back, clinging to her anger like a shield. “And while we’re on it, you walked out on me with no explanation, no forwarding address. Once you pulled that stunt, I didn’t think you were exactly father material.”
He absorbed that in silence, a woeful look settling into an expression she’d never noticed on him in all the years they’d known each other. They’d been through hard stuff together, but he’d always been the lighthearted one, shrugging off things that would have caused a lesser man to stumble. Until the day he took off, she’d always believed that he could handle anything life threw at him without even breaking stride.
Gazing out the door toward the house, he came back to her with the firm jaw she recalled so well. “I would’ve found a way to make it work for us, you know that. You never even gave me a chance.”
She had to acknowledge that he was right, and the twinge of guilt she felt grew more insistent even as she tried to reason it away. “I made the best choice I could at the time.”
“I know you did.” Compassion softened his features, and she braced herself for the question she’d known he’d ask her at some point. “I don’t understand how Hannah’s so bright and Allie has autism. How does that kinda thing happen?”
“It’s not anything I did while I was pregnant,” Morgan informed him sternly, her back going up instantly. She’d told herself that over and over. But the nagging fear that she’d somehow caused her daughter’s condition still haunted her, although she insisted otherwise. “As soon as I found out I was pregnant, I quit riding and came home. I was on bed rest for the last four months, doing absolutely nothing except making sure my babies had the best chance of being born healthy.”
“Of course you did,” he said gently, regret flooding his eyes. “I didn’t mean to suggest you did anything wrong. I’m just wondering how one twin is totally normal and the other is left fighting such a huge challenge.”
Morgan noticed that he didn’t refer to Allie by her disability. It was something they’d all learned to do, because autism was a condition, not an identity. It was a subtle distinction to make,
