The Maverick's Midnight Proposal. Brenda Harlen
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think about it,” he decided.
“Or maybe there’s another reason you don’t want to stay,” his brother allowed. “Maybe it’s not just cattle and chores waiting for you back in Wyoming.”
Luke looked at him blankly.
“Maybe there’s a special lady anxiously awaiting your return?” Danny suggested.
He immediately shook his head. “No, there’s no one in Wyoming.”
But as soon as the words were out of his mouth, an image of the pretty blonde from the doughnut shop popped into his mind. Eva. As pretty and sweet and tempting as the biblical figure for which she was named.
“No one in Wyoming,” Danny echoed curiously. “Does that mean there’s someone waiting for you somewhere else?”
Luke shook his head again, attempting to shake the image loose. “No,” he denied. “There’s no one at all.”
“That’s too bad.”
“I like being on my own, with no one to depend on me but me.”
“And no one to rely on but you, too,” Danny pointed out as he pushed away from the table and went to the refrigerator.
“It works for me,” he insisted.
“I thought it worked for me, too, but I was only kidding myself.” He pulled out the tray of snacks Bella had prepared and set it in the middle of the table. “I missed a lot of years with Annie and Janie, but I’m determined to make up for that now.”
“I’m still trying to get my head around the fact that you’re a father—to an eleven-year-old.”
“It’s been an adjustment for everyone,” Danny admitted. “And as much as I want to hate Hank—Annie’s ex—because he got to be there when Janie was born, to hold her as a baby, soothe her when she was crying, witness her first steps and take her to school on her first day, I can’t. The truth is, I’m grateful that he was there for them, because I wasn’t.”
“You didn’t know,” Luke reminded him.
His brother nodded, though he didn’t seem reassured by the fact. “Anyway, I can’t wait for you to meet her,” he said, the pride in his voice unmistakable. “She’s smart and funny and absolutely beautiful.”
“She must look like her mom, then,” Luke teased.
“That she does,” Danny agreed. “But the shape of her eyes and the stubborn tilt of her chin are just like our mom.”
Luke reached for a cube of cheese.
“Mom and Dad’s first grandchild.”
His brother nodded. “When I found out that Janie was my daughter, when I got over the shock, I couldn’t help but think of Mom and Dad—how they would have responded to the news that they were grandparents.”
“They would have been thrilled,” he said and popped the cheese into his mouth.
“Yeah,” Danny said. “But only after Dad kicked my ass into next week for getting Annie pregnant.”
“He would have done exactly that,” Bella said from the doorway.
Both Luke and Danny turned. “We didn’t hear you come in.”
“You were preoccupied with your journey down memory lane—without me,” she said, sounding just a little piqued.
“It’s a long road,” Danny pointed out. “And we only just got started.”
“I don’t really mind.” She settled into the empty chair between them. “I’m just so glad that you’re both finally home again.”
Luke felt something inside twist painfully. “Rust Creek Falls isn’t my home, Bella. Not anymore.”
She tipped her chin up and met his gaze squarely. “Of course it is,” she insisted. “And after you’ve spent some time here, you’ll realize it’s true.”
“Bella.” He touched a hand to her arm, hoping the contact might ease the harshness of the truth she needed to hear. “I’ve been living in Wyoming for twelve years—that’s my home now.”
“But you’ve never stayed in any one place for more than two years,” she pointed out.
He frowned. “How do you know that?”
“It’s one of the reasons it took Hudson’s PI so long to track you down. The other reason—” she pinned him with a look “—is that Luke Stockton somehow became Lee Stanton.”
He picked up a cherry tomato and popped it into his mouth, but his sister wasn’t letting him off the hook.
“Why?” she demanded.
Before he could respond, Danny’s cell phone buzzed. “That’s my cue to run,” he said. “Annie went to Kalispell this afternoon for a dress fitting, so I have to pick Janie up from her study group at school.”
Luke pushed away from the table and stood up, offering his hand to his brother. Danny shook his hand, then pulled him in for another hug.
“Stop by anytime,” he urged his brother. “I know Annie will be happy to see you, and I’m eager for you to meet my daughter.”
“I will,” Luke promised.
Then Danny gave Bella a quick hug, too, before he disappeared down the hall.
“Now,” Bella said, turning her focus back to Luke, “answer my question.”
“What question was that?” he hedged, selecting a broccoli spear from the plate.
She snatched it out of his hand before he could lift it to his mouth and held it away from him. “Why were you living in Wyoming as Lee Stanton?”
“It wasn’t intentional,” Luke told her. “At least, not at first. The bookkeeper at the ranch we were working put me on the payroll as ‘Stanton’ by mistake and it just seemed like too much effort to try to correct it. When I moved on, I continued to use Stanton so that I could reference my work history under that name. And, in some ways, it was easier to start a new life with a new name.”
“But why did you want a new life?” she pressed. “Why did you leave?”
He heard the confusion in her question—and the hurt. “It wasn’t an easy decision to make,” he admitted, wanting to explain the past and soothe his sister. “But what choice did we have? The ranch was going to be taken by the bank, and the grandparents didn’t have room to take us all in—and no interest in doing so. As Gramps said, we were legal adults and they had no obligation to provide us with food or shelter.”
Bella’s dark brown eyes filled with tears. “I always suspected that they made you leave.”
“They didn’t make us leave, but they didn’t give us any reason to stay, either. And we thought Jamie, you, Liza and Dana would all be together.”
“After they sent Liza and Dana away—” she swiped at a tear that spilled onto her cheek “—there were times I wish they’d sent me and Jamie away, too.”
“Was it really so bad?” Luke asked.
“Probably not. We had a roof over our heads and meals on the table. But there was no affection. There was rarely even any warmth or kindness.”
“I’m so sorry, Bella.”
She shrugged. “It’s water under the bridge now. Or mostly, anyway. Because it turns out that you were wrong about the ranch.”
“What do you mean?”
“Sunshine Farm doesn’t belong to the bank—it belongs to us.”
“To you and Hudson?” he guessed, because it seemed a