LOVING ELLIE (9 page)

Fool he was, he wanted to go to her.  Wanted to take her in his arms and comfort her.  Instead, he remained rooted in one spot, slowly digesting her words.

“You could have told me what was going on,” he rasped out. “Instead of shutting me out the way you did.”

“I let you go the only way I could at the time,” she admitted.  “I was young and scared and thought it would hurt you less to think I hadn’t cared for you as much as I did than have to tell you that I was marrying some other man.  A man whose child I carried inside me.” 

“You didn’t have to marry him,” he said with a frustrated growl.  

“I know that now.”  Her emerald gaze searched his.  “You never got married?”

“Never wanted to.”  The lies were piling up.  What was he doing?  He was a man of the law.  A man of integrity.  But none of his untruths could be as bad as what she hadn’t said that summer.  He’d been ready to share a lifetime with Victoria when all along she had been carrying another man’s child.  He found it hard to believe she hadn’t known? 

She looked at him, a hint of confusion in her eyes.  “But that summer...”

He managed a tight chortle.  “Was as real for me as it apparently was for you.”   

Her soft gasp didn’t have the effect he’d hoped for.  He’d wanted to hurt her back.  Make her think he hadn’t cared.  Just as she hadn’t despite her profession of love that summer.  But wanting and doing were two different things and his hurting anyone, even Victoria, didn’t sit well with Blaine.

Her gaze fell to a spot on the floor at her feet while her perfect, white teeth nipped fretfully at her bottom lip.

“Victoria...”

She raised her chin slowly, tears shimmering in her eyes.  “I’ve said what I came to say.  I only hope you won’t take your hatred for me out on my son.  He’s paid enough for my past mistakes as it is.”  Before he could respond, she was gone.

CHAPTER
SEVEN

Ellie glanced at the clock by her bed with an anxious frown.  She had stalled leaving her room that morning for as long as she could.  Any longer and she was quite certain Lucas would be coming in to check on her.

She’d heard him milling about in his room earlier that morning before he went out to see to the animals, and then briefly when he’d returned.  Since then, silence.  It was Sunday.  Maybe Lucas had gone into town to attend church.  She hoped that was the case.  His going into town would give her a bit more of a reprieve. 

Lucas had been back in Eagle Ridge for nearly a week and by some miracle she’d managed to skirt the issue of giving up her baby for adoption.  She’d been busy with work and he’d been busy seeing to things around the ranch.  But she knew without a doubt the ‘talk’ was coming.  Lucas himself had stated the night before that he was looking forward to spending her day off with her and getting to know his nephew’s mother better.  Only she wasn’t going to be his nephew’s mother.  Some other woman would.  When was he going to get that through his thick skull?

A yawn escaped her, the result of yet another restless night.  Not surprising she supposed with so many things weighing on her mind.  She was about to make the most selfless decision she would ever have to make in her life – finding the perfect family for her son.

She couldn’t afford to wait much longer.  She had to meet with the lawyer she’d called to handle the private adoption and set things in motion.  Then there would be all the files of couples hoping to adopt she would need to read through thoroughly.  And then she would insist on meeting with the couples she felt were a possible fit for her son.

Another contributor to her lack of sleep was Lucas.  He had done everything he could to make her feel comfortable living at the ranch.  And she was that.  Too comfortable actually.  That was the problem.

She wanted to hate his constant fussing over her, his determination to take care of everything no matter how small the task, even his having come back.  But she didn’t.  She liked having him there. It gave her a temporary reprieve from the loneliness that had returned to her life.

Opening her bedroom door, Ellie sighed.  Any hope that Lucas had gone into town slid away as the mouthwatering aroma of fried eggs and bacon and freshly brewed coffee drifted past her.  She tried to fight the temptation, to delay the inevitable, but hunger won out.  She made her way to the kitchen, her stomach growling in anticipation. 

Lucas glanced up at her over the wisps of steam rising from his coffee cup.  A slow smile moved across his face.  “Morning.”

“Morning,” she replied, avoiding his gaze as she moved past him to the refrigerator.

“Juice is on the table,” he tossed back over his shoulder as she scanned the shelves on the door for the carton.

She closed the door with a frown.  Did he know all of her habits? 

“There’s bacon and eggs on the stove,” he added.  “And a cup of decaf tea in the microwave.  You might need to warm it up a bit.”

He’d made her tea?  Yet another gesture of kindness from a man she had thought so badly of in the past.  One of the many things he’d done to ‘lessen her load’ since arriving at the ranch. 

Ellie reached for the fork and clean plate he’d left on the counter by the stove.  “You didn’t have to make me anything.  I could have-”

“Made your own,” he finished for her.  “I know.  But I figured since I was cooking myself some I’d go ahead and make a little extra.”

She filled her plate, grabbed the cup of tea he’d fixed her from the microwave, and then walked over to take a seat at the table across from him.  “Thank you.”

“Still warm?” he said, nodding at her cup.

“Warm enough.”

He sat for a long moment studying her.  “Sleep well last night?”

She looked up from her plate, meeting his gaze.  “Like a log.”

One dark brow lifted.

“As well as can be expected,” she confessed with a tired sigh.  She knew the dark circles under her eyes were a dead giveaway to the sleep she hadn’t gotten.  “I’ve got a lot on my mind.”

“Speaking of which,” he said, his teasing expression growing serious, “we need to talk.”

“Now?”

“Now.”

She pushed the eggs around her plate with her fork.  “I suppose I should be grateful you waited this long.”

“You were completely exhausted when I first arrived.  Definitely not in any condition to deal with more added stress.  But it’s time you and I discuss this crazy notion you have of giving the baby up.”

“It’s not crazy,” she said, her appetite quickly waning.  “And it’s my decision to make.  Not yours.”

“That baby you’re carrying is my flesh and blood.  I think that gives me some say so.”

“Not legally,” she pointed out. Lowering her fork to her plate, she peered up at him.  “Look, I don’t know what you want me to say.”

He leaned forward, resting his arms on the table.  “What I want to hear is that you didn’t mean it.  That you weren’t thinking straight,” Lucas muttered with a frown.  “Anything but that you’re actually considering giving up your baby.”

“Not considering,” she calmly corrected, despite the turmoil going on inside her.  “Am going to.”

His expression grew hard.  “Then give him to me.”

“What?” she gasped as his angry gaze met hers.

“Let me adopt your son.”

“You?”

“I’m his uncle.  The last connection to his father he has.  If you aren’t willing to raise him, then let me do it.”

She pushed away from the table and walked over to the window to look out.  To look at anything but the condemnation she saw in Lucas’s eyes when he looked at her.

“My son is going to have two parents who love him.  A complete family.”  She turned to face him.  “Can you give him that?”  A pained expression came over his face that instantly made her regret asking, remembering that he had lost his wife a few years before.  But she had to make him understand.

“No one could love him any more than I will,” he finally replied, his voice thick. 

“And you’re going to have time to raise a baby while you’re off herding horses or whatever it is you do down there in Brazil?”

“Damn it, Ellie, that’s not fair.”

“Life’s not fair, Lucas.”  She knew that better than anyone.  “Sometimes we have to do things we don’t want to because it’s for the best.”

“Giving up your son is for the best?  How?” he demanded.  “That evening on the way to Mrs. Mulrooney’s you said you were genetically predisposed to fail at motherhood.  Since then, I’ve been trying to figure out what would make you feel that way.  I’ve watched you this week with the animals and you have such a bond with them.  I’ve watched you interact with your customers those days I arrived early at the coffee shop to pick you up.  They love you.  And the compassion and tenderness you show the older folks here in town isn’t something forced. It’s very real.”

“It’s not the same,” she said, hating the burn of unshed tears that threatened to spill down her cheeks with his kind words.

“How do you figure?”

“Because I can’t ruin
their
lives.”

He seemed surprised by her reply.  Almost speechless as he sat back in his chair, studying her.  The silence that fell between them seemed to stretch on forever before he asked, “Have you given up a child before?”

She gasped at his assumption.  “What I’ve done or haven’t done in my past is none of your business.”

“If it affects my unborn nephew than I’d say it is my business.”  He dragged a hand down over his face, muttering, “I can’t believe my brother allowed himself to get tangled up with a woman like you.”

A woman like her.
  Those words hurt.  He didn’t know anything about her.  She turned away, clutching at the sink for support.  How was it that Lucas Tanner could break through her barriers so easily?  When she had spent her entire life learning how to bury her emotions, how to pretend indifference to other people’s unfair judgment of her.  

“No, to answer your question,” she said almost woodenly.  “I’ve never been pregnant before.  And I never intended to get pregnant – ever.  This baby was-”

“Don’t say it,” he warned behind her.  “I won’t have you refer to my nephew as a mistake.”

She lifted her head, taking in the glistening snow outside.  “I was going to say unexpected.”

The tension in the room grew, becoming almost suffocating.  Ellie stiffened at the sound of a chair scraping across the kitchen floor.  Was he leaving?

His booted feet crossed the room and her breath caught as he moved to stand next to her, taking in the same wintry scene she was trying so hard to focus on.  Nearly impossible with him standing so close.

“You might not have planned on having a baby right now, but life doesn’t always stick with the game plan.  That doesn’t mean you won’t make a good mother.”  The edge of anger in his voice had lessened considerably.

Ellie wrapped her arms around herself, remembering.  “I don’t have it in me.”

“You were willing to give it a try with my brother.”

“Then he died and reality set in.” Something Jarrett’s undying support had managed to keep at bay for a short while.

“What reality?”

“That there are no real happily-ever-afters.  I know that firsthand.  My parents married because of me, but my father couldn’t bring himself to love the family he was forced into committing to.  He walked out on us.”  But it wasn’t her father’s betrayal she remembered most.  It was her mother’s.  “A few years later, my mother left me in the care of my grandmother and went off to find her own happiness.  Happiness I couldn’t bring her.”

A hand caught her shoulder, gently turning her. 

She looked up at Lucas through tear-blurred eyes, unable to stop the words from pouring out.  “She passed me off to my aunt who decided she’d rather hang out at the bars with a different man every night than raise me.  Eventually, she turned me over to the state where I was sent from foster home to foster home – never belonging anywhere.”  Never loved.

“Ellie,” he breathed, his hand coming to rest lightly on her cheek.  The anger had left his eyes.  In its place...

She pushed his hand away, tears streaming down her cheeks.  “I don’t want your pity, Lucas.  I just need you to understand.  The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.  My family is incapable of any real or lasting love.  My son deserves more than I can ever give him.”  That said she ran out.

Lucas watched her go, too stunned by her painful revelation to react.  What she must have gone through growing up, passed around like that, never feeling safe and secure – loved.

Suddenly, so many things made sense.  Her fear of committing to Jarrett.  Her need to do things without anyone’s help.  Her fear of becoming a mother, of raising a child when she had no real knowledge of where to even begin.  Ellie was convinced she would follow in her dysfunctional family’s footsteps.  A fear so deeply ingrained in her that she would choose to give her child up to guarantee the past didn’t repeat itself.

Not that he believed it ever would.  Not through her.  Ellie didn’t give herself enough credit.  And now that he understood what was driving her emotionally, he had every intention of convincing her that she wasn’t anything like her family.  That she could give her son the life he deserved.  The love he deserved.  A child who, without a doubt in Lucas’s mind, would love his mother back in return. 

The sound of a car engine roaring to life stopped him dead in his tracks.  Muttering a curse, Lucas broke into a run through the house and out the front door, but he was too late.  Ellie’s car was halfway down the lane.

The last thing he’d meant to do was send her running from the house.  They’d needed to talk, but he’d never dreamt it would dredge up such painful memories for Ellie.  Or stir up so many emotions in him.

Until the news of Jarrett’s death had sent him reeling, Lucas was certain he would never feel again.  And that response was to be expected.  Jarrett was his brother.  How could it not affect him?  But wanting to go after Ellie, wanting to pull her into his arms and tell her everything would be all right, wanting to kiss away her pain, shook him to the core.

While the urge to comfort Ellie was only human, wanting to kiss her was wrong.  Very wrong.  A betrayal, if only in thought, to his brother who had loved her.

                                                        *              *              *

Blaine frowned as he drove to the second call in just over a week from Myra Winters.  He’d rather be going anywhere but there.  In fact, he’d done his best to avoid Victoria now that she was back.  He’d succeeded in doing so physically, but emotionally she was always there, tormenting his thoughts with the memory of her warm smile and soft laughter.  Only it was no longer the Victoria of his past taunting him, but the beautiful, all grown up version she had grown into. 

He forced his thoughts back to the call he was going on, wondering what he would find this time.  Chickens in the house?  A tractor in the back pond?  The same pond they’d spent hours swimming in that summer.  Hidden beyond the trees, a good distance from her aunt and uncles’ house, the secluded spot had become theirs and theirs alone that summer.