The Bronc Rider's Twin Surprise by Lisa Childs

Author:Lisa Childs
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2022-03-30T13:23:05+00:00

CHAPTER ELEVEN

HIS WIFE WAS GONE. AGAIN.

By the time Dusty had finished cleaning out Midnight’s stall and gone up to the house, Melanie had left.

“She’s gone?” Dusty repeated what Taye had shared with him the minute he’d stepped into the kitchen.

She nodded. “Everybody thought you were too,” she said as she waved him to a stool at the long kitchen island. She set a plate of biscuits and gravy in front of him, steam rising from it.

He narrowed his eyes at the plate. “You must not have.” Or she wouldn’t have had food waiting for him.

“I saw your truck outside,” she said. “Melanie probably saw it when she left too.”

Melanie wasn’t the only person missing. Taye seemed to be the only one in the house since it was eerily quiet.

“Where did she go?” he asked, his heart pounding fast and hard at the thought that she might have taken off again, that he might have to figure out where to look for her next. This was why he worried about trying too hard to win her back—because he would never know for certain if he really had, or if she was going to take off at the first sign of trouble. Even though he knew the truth now, he couldn’t forget how abandoned he’d felt when his mother had left, just as things got tough, how devastated he’d been. Like when he hadn’t been able to find Melanie. He wasn’t certain he could survive another desertion.

“Her mother flew into Sheridan, and she’s going to pick her up,” Taye explained, her voice a little raspy, as if she’d gotten emotional. But then she focused on him again and arched a dark blond brow. “She didn’t tell you?”

He shook his head. “No.” But she hadn’t told him anything for more than two months; she hadn’t even talked to him at all until yesterday.

“I’m sorry,” Taye offered sympathetically.

He sighed. “It’s my fault,” he said, owning his mistake. “I...”

“Screwed up!” Sadie said as she joined them in the kitchen.

He glared at his grandmother, not that she was wrong. He’d been about to admit as much himself. But he wasn’t the only one who’d messed up, and Dusty wanted to call her out on her hypocrisy. Baker had left that morning before Dusty had had a chance to ask him just how precarious Sadie’s health actually was. As irritated as he was with her, he didn’t want to hurt her...even though she’d hurt him.

“I screwed up too,” the older woman admitted with a humility Dusty hadn’t thought she possessed.

He expelled a shaky breath, releasing some of his resentment of her along with it.

“I’m sorry,” she said now. “I should have told you where she was, and I should have told her that I knew who she was.”

Dusty nodded in wholehearted agreement. “Yes, you should have.”

“I was afraid that she would leave if I did,” Sadie explained.

That, he could understand, especially now, with Melanie leaving the morning after his arrival. Had her mother really flown into Sheridan?

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