don’t think Tara tried all that hard to figure it out, frankly. She was happy letting Maria and her older brothers take charge of her baby’s welfare.”
“Lucky she had family to count on.”
Interesting comment. Didn’t she ever have family to count on?
“Yeah, I’ll say,” he agreed. “You see, her little girl was diagnosed with autism when she was only two years old. Not three weeks went by after that before Tara hooked up with a new fellow. They left on the back of his motorcycle in the middle of the night. A few months later, we were notified she’d been killed in a motorcycle accident.”
“Goodness. What happened to the baby?”
“That’s who we’ll be meeting. My niece, Sara. I’m her legal guardian. She’s a wonderful little girl but needs a lot of help. I give her as much time as I can, and we’ve hired a woman who works with her and lives in her quarters.”
A dark cloud crossed over Susannah’s eyes, and she got a glassy look. “I’m not … I don’t know if …”
Ah, hell. He hadn’t given any consideration to the idea that meeting a child with special needs might make her worry about her own daughter’s future. But he felt sure that was the fear he was seeing in her eyes.
What an idiot he was. He’d hoped to add to her trust by showing her how well loved and taken care of Sara was.
But how could he have hoped she would trust him about this when she obviously didn’t trust him enough to tell him the whole truth about her background? Trust took time. He got that. But saving her was too important to give up.
“Trust me, Susannah. It’ll be fine. You’ll see.”
“I want to trust you. Really, I do.” Her face was a mask of indecision. Then she said, “I’m glad you told me about your sister. I have something to tell you, too. I wasn’t completely honest when I said my ex-boyfriend, Melody’s biological father, was a traveling salesman.”
He felt his jaw tighten but he couldn’t help it.
“Uh, well, he did travel.” Susannah’s eyes grew large as she watched his reactions carefully. “And he was selling stuff. But the stuff he sold was drugs. He told me he was a wholesale dealer.”
Nathan took half a step back. He should’ve known there was more to her story. He’d been right not to trust her completely.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the whole story before,” she added quickly. “I just didn’t think we’d be staying on the ranch long enough for it to matter. And I never got involved in his business. Really. I never saw him take the drugs, either. He could’ve been selling anything for all the difference it made in our lives.”
It was easy to see how sorry she was about lying. And the longer he stayed silent, the more her eyes welled up again. Ah, hell.
“It’s okay,” he finally managed, and was surprised to find he meant it. “I believe you weren’t involved in his business. And that maybe your relationship had just been a bad choice. Let’s put it behind us and go on from here. I still want to help you, and I still want you to meet my niece. Okay?”
She nodded and blinked her eyes a couple of times. She looked so vulnerable and afraid that his gut turned over again. Apparently, she still hadn’t told him the whole truth. But whatever this new little untruth was would have to wait.
Jeez. Why he was so determined to help her was still a mystery. But, by heaven, he vowed she would be free of her cult programming before she and her child had to leave the ranch for good.
Maybe helping her would make a good start to easing his guilt over the death of his ex-wife. And a start, but by no means the end, of what he intended to do in the memory of all the women who’d been taken in by that slippery con man Samuel Grayson.
Chapter 4
Trembling, Susannah followed Nathan down a winding path ringed with rosebushes. Had she done the right thing by telling Nathan about Melody’s father? She’d almost confessed the whole ugly truth of her past. But the look on his face when she’d told him about the drugs made her hold back.
Luckily, he’d seemed to overcome his shock about her confession fairly quickly. The rest of the past would have to stay buried. It wasn’t that she thought he would force her to leave if she told him. She trusted him not to rub it in her face. Somehow she knew he wasn’t that kind of man.
Still, what good would it do to blurt out everything? She and Melody would not be staying on the ranch for good. It was impossible. So why take the chance of upsetting him for no reason?
He was a beautiful, honorable man. She had lots of feelings about him. Some just as honorable, some not so much. And she had no intention of ruining whatever temporary relationship they could have by shoving unnecessarily hurtful truths about her past in his face.
They were making their way to what appeared to be a new wing. Low slung and cozy, the construction made it look more like a cottage rather than part of the ranch house itself.
She set her shoulders, not at all sure she was ready to meet a special-needs child. But then, she didn’t know what to expect. All she knew was that the Devotees would not be happy knowing such a girl lived in close proximity to their perfect world.
The more she’d been thinking about the Devotees’ stance against any imperfections, the more uneasy she’d become. How dare the Devotees shun people who weren’t like them? Surely Samuel couldn’t know about this way of thinking.
And what about the rumor of their selling imperfect babies? To whom? And for what? The very idea gave her the chills.
“Here we are.” Nathan stood on the stoop with one hand on the doorknob. “Kathryn wants to meet you, too. She’s offered a few things for you to wear if the two of you are the same size. You’re not too tired?”
Before coming here they’d only gone a little ways past the yard and around the barns out to the nearest wooden fence. From there, in the distance she’d seen a field full of reddish-colored cattle, milling about in tall grasses and making soft noises. It’d been interesting, especially when Nathan told her how much work it took to raise a herd in Wyoming winters.
But now he was waiting for an answer to his question. “I’m okay.” She wanted to do this to please him.
In the sunshine, for the first time since she’d come to the ranch, she was able to breathe deep. With Nathan standing beside her, she’d felt really safe for the first time in weeks.
As he’d talked about the cattle, she’d casually glanced over at him. The sun had hit him just right, and glints of gold bounced along his body like spotlights. The sudden rush of sensual awareness caught her by surprise.
She had no business checking him out like that. Closing her mouth, she tried to concentrate on what he was saying.
But heaven knew he had a body that could make any woman weep. Tall and lanky, his arm muscles bunched under the long-sleeved shirt. Here was a man who worked hard outdoors and came by his muscles naturally. She’d never met anyone quite that rugged before. Her fingertips longed to run along the plains of his well-honed body.
Still, she fought the unwanted urges and chided herself for even thinking such things about a man who temporarily had control of both her and her child’s well-being. And in addition to that one very important fact, she was also a brand-new mother with an infant and not a woman on the prowl for a man.
Nathan’s only reason for being nice to her had to be Melody. She felt sure of it. He’d taken them in and agreed they could stay because he was a decent person who couldn’t turn away a sick newborn. Susannah had done nothing but give him trouble thus far.
So, if he wanted her to meet his niece, then she would do it despite her reservations.
He pulled off