His To Claim. Brenda Jackson
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the same thing now that he’d thought while growing up. His mother was a beautiful woman with eyes a unique shade of blue and ash-blond hair. His father had a dark chocolate complexion, which accounted for Mac and his younger sister’s skin tone being a combination of the two.
When his mother still hadn’t answered his question, he turned his eyes to his father, who had the same wary expression on his face that Mac’s mother wore. Releasing his arm from around his mother’s shoulder, Mac straightened to his full height of six feet three inches. “Okay, what’s going on?”
When his parents glanced at each other, that uneasy feeling from earlier crept over him again. Not liking it, he turned to go down the hall toward his bedroom when his father reached out to stop him.
“Teri isn’t here, Mac.”
Mac turned back to his father. His mother had moved to stand beside his dad. “It’s after two in the morning and tomorrow is a school day for the girls. So where is she?”
His mother reached out and touched his arm. “She needed to get away and she asked if we would come keep the girls.”
Mac frowned. He knew his wife. She would not have gone anywhere without their daughters. “What do you mean she needed to get away? Why?”
“She’s the one who has to tell you that, Thurston. It’s not for us to say.”
His mother looked up at him with an uncomfortable expression on her face. His gaze left his mother and moved over to his father, who was wearing the same look.
“What’s going on, Dad? Mom? Why can’t you tell me the reason Teri felt she had to get away?”
“Because it’s not our place to do so, son.”
Mac drew in a deep breath, not understanding any of this. Because his parents were acting so secretive, he felt his confusion and anger escalating. “Fine. Where is she?”
It was his father who spoke. “She left three days ago for the Torchlight Dude Ranch.”
Mac’s frown deepened. “The Torchlight Dude Ranch? In Wyoming?”
“Yes.”
“What the hell did she go there for?”
His father didn’t say anything for a minute and then gave Mac an answer. “She said she always wanted to go back there.”
Mac rubbed his hand across his face. Yes, Teri had always wanted to go back there, the place he’d taken her on their honeymoon a little over ten years ago. And he’d always promised to take her back. But between his covert missions and their growing family, there had never been enough time. Teri, who’d been raised on a ranch in Texas, was a cowgirl at heart and for a short while had competed on the rodeo circuit due to her roping and riding skills. She’d even represented the state of Texas as a rodeo queen before they’d met.
When they’d married, she had given it all up to travel around the world with her naval husband. She’d said she’d done so gladly. Why in the world would Teri leave their kids and go to a dude ranch by herself?
He knew the only person who could answer that question was Teri.
“I tried calling her twice from the airport and she’s not answering her phone,” he finally said, his tone truly filled with anger now.
“She probably couldn’t. We talk to her every day when she calls to check on the girls. The reception at the dude ranch is not good and she has to drive into town to call out. Teri usually phones us around five every evening. I’m sure she’ll be calling today as usual, so you’ll get a chance to talk to her,” his mother said, smiling.
He stared at his parents. Did they honestly think he intended to hang around and wait for Teri’s call?
“I want to see the girls. I won’t wake them, but I need to see them before I leave.”
“Leave?” his father asked, looking at him strangely.
“Yes, leave.”
“Where are you going?” his mother asked.
He met their gazes. “I’m going to the Torchlight Dude Ranch.”
“Now?”
“Yes. Now.”
Moments later, he slid open the door to his oldest daughter’s room. Tia was asleep but he needed to look at her for himself to see that she was all right. He smiled as he studied her in sleep. She had her mother’s mouth, but that was about it. Everything else was his. Her eyes didn’t need to be open for him to know they were the exact color of his. A color so rich they looked like dark chocolate.
He’d been the one who’d chosen the name Tia for their first child and it had been Teri’s decision to name all the other girls with the starting letter of T like his and Teri’s names. Tia was determined to follow in her mother’s footsteps and become a cowgirl, which was why she’d been taking horse-riding lessons since she turned five. He still didn’t like the idea of her competing, though, not even in her age group, which was another thing he and Teri couldn’t agree on.
Leaning down, he placed a kiss on Tia’s cheek before leaving the room to check on Tatum and Tempest. Both had honey-brown eyes like Teri and favored their mother a lot. There was barely a two-year difference in Tatum’s and Tempest’s ages and the two were extremely close. They looked out for each other. He liked that about them. He figured that unlike Tia, they would never grow up and ask for separate rooms. They would enjoy being in each other’s pockets for as long as they could. Placing kisses on their cheeks, as well, he moved to the room that was closest to his bedroom. The one where three-year-old Tasha slept.
Although he tiptoed into the room, he wasn’t surprised when Tasha’s eyes flew open and she stared at him a minute before a huge smile touched her lips. “Daddy!”
She threw himself into his arms and he held her. After three girls, he and Teri had been hoping for a boy, but when the nurse had placed Tasha in his arms, it hadn’t mattered that he had gotten a fourth girl. Tasha looked more like him than any of the others. She was his Mini-Me.
Picking her up into his arms, he went over to the rocking chair he’d gotten for Tia, the one that had been passed down from daughter to daughter. He gazed down at his daughter and saw dark brown eyes staring back up at him.
“Tasha loves Daddy.”
He smiled. “And Daddy loves Tasha.”
Cradling her against his chest, he began rocking her back to sleep. Having come back from such a dangerous mission, he needed peace in his life at that moment, but he knew true peace wouldn’t come until he went after Teri and found out what was going on with her. Why she’d called his parents to keep the girls so she could get away.
Other than him, his sister and his parents, Teri had no family. Her parents had died when she was young and her grandparents had raised her on their ranch in Terrell, Texas, which was a stone’s throw from Dallas. When Mac had met her, the grandparents she’d adored had died and at twenty-three Teri was trying to run the ranch alone. After their whirlwind romance she’d made the decision—one that he knew had been hard for her, even though she’d never complained about it—to sell the ranch and accept his marriage proposal. She’d turned in her spurs to become a SEAL wife.
It had been her suggestion that they go to a dude ranch for their honeymoon, which would be her last hurrah as a cowgirl. That had been two weeks he’d totally enjoyed, and he’d gotten to show her how well he could handle a horse, thanks to his mother’s family, who’d owned a horse ranch in Ocala, Florida.
The timing of their meeting had been perfect. He’d just graduated from the naval academy three years before and was enjoying being a SEAL. It had been his intention to remain a bachelor for quite a while, but all that had changed after he met Teri.
As he continued to rock his daughter back to sleep, Mac closed his eyes, recalling the day Teri Cantor walked into his life...