let me say that fourteen years ago all I knew was that I’d had an unbelievable summer with an unbelievable girl—”
“And then lied about it and left me hanging out to dry with the consequences.”
“Honest to God, Kyla, I didn’t do either of those things. I didn’t even tell anybody about you because I was so wrecked trying to get over you, and I didn’t want to be teased about it by my brothers and cousins—I just let them think I was sorry to be home again.”
Kyla gazed up at him, but before she could accuse him of lying once more, he said, “We need to talk about it all. But right now isn’t the time. Just give me the benefit of the doubt when I tell you that, until a few hours ago, I had no idea you’d tried to contact me after the day we said goodbye in Northbridge.”
Kyla glared at him.
“Honest to God,” he repeated. “And while you certainly don’t owe me anything, not even answers, I just have to ask you one thing—do I...do we...”
He seemed to stand even straighter and stiffer than he had been—although she didn’t know how that was possible—and she thought he was steeling himself.
“Do we have a kid?” he finally asked quietly.
Kyla didn’t want to admit it to herself, but there was an unmistakable tone in his voice that made it sound as if the possibility of that was new to him. Stunningly new to him, shaking this man who appeared to be unshakable.
So she merely answered his question. “No. I...there was a miscarriage—I lost it.” And herself for a while.
His expression went blank and he didn’t seem to know how to respond.
Then he let out a breath that allowed those broad shoulders of his to relax almost imperceptibly and said, “Okay. Can we put a pin in that, then, and deal with it all later so I can just focus on helping you now?”
“Helping me?” she parroted sarcastically. “You’re going to help me now?” In a week of unfathomable things happening, this was the frosting on the cake. “I don’t even know how you got here or why or—”
“My grandmother saw a news report about the fire at your cousin’s house. When she heard your name it rang a bell with her because she’d only recently read some things that my great-grandfather wrote in his journal—along with the letter you sent me. The letter I never got.” He shook his head as if he’d veered off track and was redirecting himself. “Anyway, your name and the fact that the news said you were from Northbridge caused GiGi—my grandmother—to do some digging. She called my brother Seth—”
“Who runs your ranch in Northbridge now—I know,” Kyla said.
“I didn’t know you’d gone back there.”
Kyla shrugged. She didn’t owe him any explanations. He didn’t deserve any.
“Do you know my brother?” Beau asked.
“Only by name. We’ve never been introduced and if he knows who I am—”
“He doesn’t. I told you, I never said anything to anyone, so there’s no way—”
Kyla wasn’t up to arguing this now, so she merely cut him off to say, “No, we don’t know each other. But Northbridge is Northbridge—everybody at least knows of everyone else.” And the belief she’d had for as long as she’d been living in Northbridge that his brother was just pretending not to know who she was held fast.
“That’s what Seth said—that he knew of you. But after GiGi called him he asked around, talked to someone who I guess is your roommate—”
“Darla.”
“She confirmed that you came to Denver to visit family, that you were in a fire, and she said that the only survivors were you and a baby who’s—”
“My cousin’s daughter—Immy. My godchild.”
“Who’s now yours to raise?”
“Rachel and her husband, Eddie, named me as Immy’s guardian in their will.” They’d told her that. She’d taken it only as another honorary position, not thinking for even a minute that the need to actually become Immy’s guardian would ever come about.
“And there’s a business.” He glanced around them. “These truck stops that you’ll need to run until the child grows up and takes over?”
“Three of them, I’ve been told,” Kyla said.
“Your roommate said you don’t know anybody else in Denver.”
“Eddie’s secretary has done a few things for me and she contacted his attorney who came to the hospital, but no, I don’t really know anyone...”
“And you’re hurt...” He looked her up and down again.
“Not as badly as I could have been,” she said.
“But still...how are you taking care of a baby with that?” He nodded at her wrist. “Your fingers are sausages—that can’t feel good.”
It actually hurt tremendously whenever she had to use any part of her wrist, hand or fingers to do anything with Immy. But she didn’t need or want his sympathy, so all she said was, “I manage.”
“Here?” he asked, with another glance around that took in the motel and the rest of the truck stop. “On your own?”
He was stating the obvious, so she didn’t respond to it.
“Seth said you aren’t married, your roommate told him you aren’t involved with anyone and don’t have any family to come up here to lend a hand—”
“My parents died seven years ago.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. And I guess the school year just started in Northbridge, so your roommate has to be there and can’t come, either—”
“I teach kindergarten. Darla teaches fifth grade. They got a sub for me, but yes, classes started last Thursday and Darla can’t be gone, too.”
“So here I am,” he concluded. “And I want to help.”
He was not going to be her knight in shining armor, if that’s what he thought.
“I don’t know how you could,” she said flatly.
“For starters, this is no place for you and a baby to be staying, let alone recuperating. I have a house—a big house—that’s more comfortable, not to mention much quieter than this.” He nodded toward the sounds emanating from the bustling travel center. “You can have your own room with a private bathroom, and there’s another room that the baby can go into. I don’t know squat about taking care of a baby—”
“Join the club,” Kyla said under her breath.
“—but I’m more able-bodied than you are right now, so I can lend a hand
