The Come-Back Cowboy by Jodi O'Donnell

Author:Jodi O'Donnell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Silhouette
Published: 2002-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

To Deke, it felt like the earth had stopped turning on its axis right then and there.

Damn Mick Brody to hell and back! He truly didn’t consider himself a vengeful man, but at that moment Deke would have sold his soul to the devil, cash on the barrelhead, to have the satisfaction of being able to take swift and immediate retaliation against this man.

For when he dropped his gaze, it was to find Jace staring at him in complete and utter disbelief—and betrayal.

He should never have come here today, Deke thought wildly, should have left as soon as he saw the mood Mick was in, should have whisked Jace—and Addie, for that matter—away from here himself.

All the should-haves in the world weren’t going to change things, though. How could they, when he seemed doomed to be endlessly caught in one of these impossible situations after another, with impossible choices?

It tore the heart right out of him.

“You’re my dad?” the boy asked, incredulous.

Deke swallowed, painfully aware that every eye and ear in the place was trained upon him and his son.

“Jace, let’s go find someplace where I can explain—”

“No, tell me!” He stumbled forward, taking a solid stance before him. “Are you my dad?”

There was no way to get around it. None in the world. Addie stood behind Jace, her palm pressed to her mouth, her face stricken.

“I am,” Deke answered.

Tears filled the boy’s eyes, so much like his own. So much.

He whirled on his mother. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why?”

“Oh, Jace!” She bent to enfold him in her arms, but he fought her off.

“No! I gotta know!” He turned back to Deke. “Why’d you tell me he was dead? Didn’t you want to be my daddy?” he cried.

Deke wondered if it were possible to develop a spontaneous ulcer, he was so angry with Mick, so torn by the gut-wrenching abandonment he heard in Jace’s voice.

But he had to come through here.

Without a thought for himself, Deke dropped to his knees in front of the boy and grasped him gently by the shoulders. Jace struggled against the restraint for a moment, but Deke held on, refusing to be thrown off or shoved away.

“Jace,” he said, once the boy had quieted and stood before him in the same rebel stance as he had that first day in the stable. And as he’d been then, the boy was searching for answers.

Aren’t we all? Deke asked himself ruefully. Yet, he’d left here seven years ago without pursuing any answers. Had left before he could provide them to those who deserved better.

“Jace,” Deke repeated more strongly. “Of course I want to be your dad. From the moment I first knew about you, I wanted to,” he said in complete honesty, glad he could be so. “And if I didn’t tell you who I was, it was because I made a promise that I wouldn’t—a promise I intended to keep.”

Jace blinked. “A promise? Like, who to? And why wouldja make a promise like that, anyway? Why?”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Addie pale.

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