sorry. After all these years...to see you again. I guess I’m comparing the photos Casey showed me to the real thing.”
Missy rolled her eyes. “Her and that mobile. I think she must have five hundred pictures on it.”
“Many of them are of the two of you. Some going back years.”
She nodded, a soft smile on her face, and then her gaze met his again. “You look just like your photo, too.”
It took him a moment to figure out where she might have seen a picture of him. Online. Thanks to their office manager’s insistence, the company’s site had been updated this summer with new pictures, including formal portraits of the management team.
Liam liked that she had done a Google search on him. “You visited the Murphy Mountain Log Homes website.”
“Very corporate looking.” Her gaze traveled over him. “You look good in Hugo Boss.”
“They cut a good suit.”
Silence stretched between them as they studied each other in the fading light of the sunset. Was she looking for the cowboy he’d been back then? Wild and reckless and so full of himself he couldn’t see beyond his own wants and needs? His own dreams?
She looked exactly the same. Older, yes, but still the same ethereal beauty as when he’d last seen her. It was easy to see the features she shared with her daughter.
Their daughter.
His throat suddenly dry, Liam rose and went to the antique dresser that held pitchers of tea, water, an ice bucket and glasses, all thanks to his mother. “I’m sorry, I should’ve asked. Would you like something to drink?”
Missy let loose with a delicate humph from behind him. “Do you have anything a wee bit stronger? I think you’re going to need it.”
He shot her a look over his shoulder, and then opened the door below and pulled out a bottle of wine and his drink of choice, whiskey. She gestured for the wine and he poured her a glass, then whiskey for himself.
“You know, Casey tried to explain how she’d only found out a few weeks ago about me being her...” His voice trailed off as he returned to his seat, handing Missy her wine. “The more she talked, the more upset she became. I gather from your shock at her announcing she’d traveled to Destiny and found me that you hadn’t shared this news with her yet?”
Missy placed her cell phone on the table and took the glass. “No, I didn’t have the chance before my job had me flying to Los Angeles. I’ve barely had time to absorb everything myself. After all these years...to think, it never occurred to me to question the test results—”
It was at that moment his cell phone chirped from inside his pants pocket, cutting her off. Damn, now was not the time for business. He ignored the phone and it went silent for a moment, but came back to life again right away.
“You can get that,” she said. “If you need to.”
He probably should. A typical day for him ran long past five o’clock, especially for a select few clients who had his direct line. Or was it someone from the rodeo committee looking for him, despite his hasty explanation about a business emergency?
“It might be Casey,” he said, the thought just coming to him.
Missy flipped over her phone, checking it. “I tried to ring her when I landed. All I got was voice mail.”
He pulled the now silent phone out and looked. Two missed calls, both from the same client, who wouldn’t hesitate to move on to his brother Nolan if he couldn’t reach Liam. A press of a button and the phone would stay quiet.
“It was work, but it can wait,” he said. “Now, you were saying something about test results? Casey mentioned overhearing a fight between you and her grandmother, but like I said, she was pretty distraught. I told her we’d get everything straightened out when you got here. After that, she seemed to relax and enjoy the rodeo.”
“And you introduced her to your family?” Missy sipped her wine. “Just like that?”
“I wasn’t about to leave her on her own to wander around the fairgrounds. I told them she was the daughter of an old friend from high school.” He took a swallow from his own glass, the familiar warmth sliding easily down his throat. “As soon as I said your name my folks remembered you. So did my younger brother Bryant. It was my mom who...well, who put it all together, especially when I said you were on your way to Destiny.”
“And here I am.”
“Yes, here you are.” And here he was waiting for his first love to explain how he—they—had a child he’d never known about until today. “After all this time, not hearing from you, I can honestly say I never expected something like...this.”
“I can understand. Please, let me start at the beginning. Well, the most recent beginning.” She sighed, her gaze lowered. “My father passed away suddenly from a heart attack on August first.”
“I’m sorry,” Liam said automatically, surprised at how little emotion was in her voice considering that was just three weeks ago. “Was he ill?”
“Thank you, and technically he wasn’t, but it was his third attack in the last ten years. Not completely unexpected, especially as he refused to give up his cigars and brandy.” She paused and pulled in a deep breath. “I was going through his desk after the services, clearing out paperwork and whatnot, when I came across a file that contained the DNA test we had done just after Casey was born.”
“April twelfth, a week after your birthday.”
She looked up when he said that. “Yes.”
“She told me. That was nine months after we’d last—after you returned home.”
“Yes.”
“Almost nine months to the day, if memory serves.”
“Yes.”
“Missy, why didn’t you tell me?” Tired of her one-word answers, Liam leaned forward, bracing his forearms against his knees, his fingers laced tight around the glass. “I know things ended badly, but as soon as you knew you were pregnant you should’ve gotten in touch with me.”
“I wanted to, but I didn’t... I didn’t know if I had the right to.”
“The right?” Now he was really confused. “What does that mean?”
“Oh, Liam, I was such a mess when I left Destiny all those years ago.” She set her glass on the table, stood and then walked to the porch railing, keeping her back to him. “You and I had that terrible row. All my plans and dreams were gone. I was angry and lonely and...”
“And?” He prompted when her voice faded.
Her shoulders rose and fell as she pulled in another deep breath before turning to face him, her arms tight across her middle. “And I spent the night with my old boyfriend. The lad I was seeing before I came to America. Before you.”
The fine Kentucky whiskey now burned in his gut. “Stanley.” The name popped out of his mouth before
