Chapter 11

Crumpled napkins, paper plates, and an empty pizza box lay strewn across the kitchen table. The sun had long set behind the old apple orchard and only a splash of scarlet shone through the kitchen window. A few minutes had passed since she’d dropped the bombshell, and Lizzie hadn’t spoken a word. Allison knotted her hands together as she peered at her daughter’s face. “Do you understand what I just told you?”

The small bow lips screwed up, and she wiggled in her chair. “I think I do. You said my daddy wasn’t my real daddy. Is that right?”

Allison nodded then glanced to Shane for some idea of what to say next, but he didn’t seem to have a clue, either. Well, she really couldn’t blame him. He was still coming to terms with the truth himself. “I know this is hard for you to accept, and if you have any questions, you may certainly ask them.” Silence. Was it better to let it sink in? Encourage her to talk? It nearly broke her heart to see the confusion clouding her baby girl’s eyes. “So, do you? Have any questions?”

Averting her gaze, Lizzie stared out the kitchen window. “Why did he pretend?”

“Pretend?”

“That he was my daddy, if he really wasn’t.” She turned back, and her deep blue eyes begged for an honest answer. “Why would he do that?”

She weighed her words. “Because he loved you, very much, and because your real father couldn’t be here to help take care of you.”

“Who is my real father?”

The question that would change everything. Allison flicked her gaze to Shane. This was his to answer. His place to tell his daughter the truth. He had wanted this, but would he do it, or would he once again leave them to their own devices? Run back west where he’d made his life?

Much like Lizzie, he shifted uncomfortably in his chair as he fidgeted with a napkin. Then his shoulders squared, and he drew himself up to face the music. “I am, Lizzie. I’m your real father.”

Her brows drew together in a frown, and she studied the man who was suddenly more than just the new doc who took care of the horses. Allison supposed if they’d told her the moon really was made of green cheese she could have more easily believed it.

“But…didn’t you know about me?”

“Not ‘til I came back here, to Michigan.”

A moment of silence passed. “If you had…would you have loved me?”

He passed a hand over his eyes, but Allison saw the glimmer in them.

“Very much, Shortstuff, very much.” His voice held a slight tremor.

It was a lot for a child of nine to digest, even one as astute as Lizzie. Allison was proud of how she was handling herself as she seemed to roll all of this around in her mind.

Her brave daughter stood. “I’d like to go to my room now, if it’s okay. I’m so tired.”

Allison stood and hugged her close for a moment, stroking her hand over her baby girl’s dark braids. Lizzie didn’t resist, but her little body remained stiff.

Does she hate me?

In a low voice she said, “Sure, honey. Get ready for bed, and I’ll come up in a little while to tuck you in.”

After Lizzie left the kitchen, Allison sagged into a chair and put her head down on the table, exhausted and wondering about the next step in this hard left turn her life had taken.

When Shane placed his hand on her back, making a pattern of warm circles between her shoulders, the last strength she’d mustered today slipped away, and a wealth of tears welled up and spilled over. She tried to cover them, but she’d never been any good at hiding her emotions from this man. Why should now be any different?

“Hey, it’s okay. Lizzie’s a strong kid. I think she’ll be fine with all this. It’ll just take some time.”

“But how can you be so sure?” She swiped at her eyes and jumped up to find a box of tissue. “This is a life-changing event! Everything she’s ever known has suddenly been turned on its head. Don’t you think she’s confused? Don’t you think—”

“What I think is that Lizzie is resilient. She’s our child, how could she not be? Sure she’s confused, but she’ll figure it out. Let’s give her some credit.”

Allison clutched a handful of tissues from the counter. “You always were the confident one in this equation. I’ve always had a hard time being certain…of anything.”

The bruises on her leg started to throb, and any confidence she’d mustered in order to tell Lizzie the truth drained away. She squeezed her eyes shut to hold back the emotions.

She knew when he came closer, because every nerve ending in her body went on high alert, tingling like tiny shocks. In the next moment, his strong arms drew her to him, and she didn’t resist, needing comfort and support and knowing there was no one else to give it. Even after all this time, Shane still knew her best.

“Do you think she hates me?” she asked against his shoulder. “Do you think things will ever be okay again?”

He tucked her head beneath his chin. “How could she hate you? You’re the world’s best mom. Now me she might hate. I’m the one who left. I’m the one who hasn’t been a parent.” He sighed deeply. “How do I explain that to her?”

She couldn’t stop from leaning into him or from feeling the way she had ten years ago, before life handed them problems they’d been too young to handle. Problems they still didn’t know how to handle.

“Like you said, it will take time, and we’ll just have to figure it out…as we go along. That is…” She hesitated, afraid to assume too much.

“That is if I’m around, to be a father?” he supplied.

Keeping her hands splayed against his chest, Allison pushed herself away and forced herself to meet his gaze. “I can’t imagine you haven’t made a life somewhere…in Wyoming. After all these years, there must be someone…else.”

His eyes darkened to a stormy hue. “There isn’t. There was, for a time, but it didn’t work out.”

The thought of Shane with someone else suddenly slid a poker through her heart, and a thousand questions popped into her mind. Who was she? Was she pretty? Smart? And why didn’t it work out?

She tried to step back from him, but his arms tightened, and he wouldn’t let her go.

“I won’t pretend I didn’t try to get over you. I had to after I heard you married Jason, but no one else ever meant what you did to me. What you still mean to me. I guess the question is, do I still mean anything to you? Other than as Lizzie’s father.”

A hard question to answer, one that twisted the poker in her heart ‘til it jabbed all the tender places in her body. How to answer? How did she explain all the tumultuous emotions spilling through her mind? The conflict that still kept her from giving up to the way her body reacted to Shane’s. He was right, of course. They still had to mean something to each other. Staying together just for Lizzie’s sake wouldn’t be enough, and yet the truth was probably the best. Even if the truth cost her his staying here. “I don’t know, but I’d like to find out.” Her voice faltered. “And not only for Lizzie’s sake, but for both of ours.”

With his thumb, he wiped the leftover tears from her cheek. “It will take some learning, but I want to find out, too. I want to be Lizzie’s dad, in more than just name, and maybe for us to be…a family.”

She rested her cheek against his hand and a powerful sense of awareness thrummed between them.

There was a time in her life when Shane’s kiss could work magic, heal a hurt, soften a loss, and take her away from whatever troubled her. Could it do that now? Erase the emptiness that had filled her when she’d found out he left? Fill her now with hope for a future together?

When he leaned down, she automatically lifted her face to meet him. She gave herself up to the fire that had always flared between them, and relished the feel of his mouth on hers and the ease with which her body remembered. While he explored the curve of her back, she slid her hands up the hard muscles of his arms and then wrapped them around his neck. With a sigh, she leaned into the length of his body.

“How I’ve missed you, Allie,” he murmured against her lips. “How I’ve missed this.”

Just as he pulled her up closer and her bones began to melt, a noise from outside the house broke through and pulled her back from the brink.

A slam of hooves against a stall, a loud whinny, and then another. Followed by Lizzie’s footsteps overhead as she clattered down the stairs, Gypsy close on her heels.

“Mom! Mom, there’s something wrong! I hear the horses! What’s after them?”

Before the two burst into the kitchen, Allison broke away from Shane’s embrace and flew to the window. He followed her, resting his hands on her shoulders as she strained to see what was happening outside. Summer darkness had fallen, and the shadows of the trees loomed across the yard. She could see nothing, but something was out there, something determined to frighten the horses and make her crazy. Gypsy ran around the kitchen barking, while Shane tried to quiet the frantic dog. In two seconds, Lizzie stood beside her, and small fingers clutched her arm. “What’s wrong with them, Mommy? We need to go out there! We need to go now!”

Still drained from the close encounter with Shane, Allison gathered her wits and tried to calm not only herself but her totally frazzled daughter. “Yes, I know, but I need to go out there, not you.” She held her back from rushing to the door.

“You always say that!” Lizzie pulled away and ran to put on her boots. “What if my pony is in trouble? He might need me!”

“Listen to your mom, Lizzie.” Shane stepped in and put his hand on their daughter’s shoulder. “How about you both stay here, and I’ll go out to the barn.”

Her blue eyes flashed, and in a way totally unlike her, she stamped her foot. “No! Just because you say you’re my father doesn’t mean you can tell me what to do now. I want to see my pony!”

“Lizzie!” Allison sharpened her tone. “Doc McBride’s right. You need to stay here.” She pushed her to sit at the table and then, not listening to Shane either, yanked open the kitchen door, shoving the dog back with her knee. “Keep Gypsy with you and lock the door after us. Don’t come out and don’t open it for anyone but me. Understand?”

Lizzie appeared to listen but it didn’t mean she would obey, especially if it concerned the horses. Shane must have figured that out, because when she made to get up again, he pointed one finger toward her and the chair. “Sit down and stay here, Shortstuff. I’m not kidding.”

Another loud whinny echoed in the night, and Allison bolted across the porch, leaving him to shut the door tight. Halfway to the barn, he caught up with her. Before either of them could speak again, the sound of an engine starting caught their attention, and she got a glimpse of a vehicle pulling away from the far end of the pasture, the same place where they’d seen the tire tracks a few days ago.

Shane sprinted down to the end of the drive while she slid the door of the barn open. When he joined her a few minutes later, she was checking every horse in its stall.

“It got too far away to get the license number.” He walked down one side of the aisle to help make sure none of the horses had been harmed.

She paused at Starlight’s stall. The filly was agitated, tossing her head and pawing her bedding. Allison lifted the latch and went inside, hoping to calm her. Speaking softly, she reached out to stroke the satiny neck. “Shhh, it’s okay. Nothing will hurt you.” She ran her hands over the filly’s back and then glanced down at her slender legs. Thank goodness there didn’t appear to be any injuries that had escaped her, like with Pride, but something definitely had Starlight spooked.

“Is she okay?” Shane stood outside the stall and peered in. “The others seem all right, just nervous.”

After a few moments of massaging the filly’s withers, Allison slipped back out and set the latch firmly. “I think these two were making the most noise. When Starlight first came here last year, with her sister Stardust, they were both a wreck. Scared, starved, and wild. They’d had little handling. They still frighten easily.” She moved over to Stardust’s stall and went inside to check her. She was the older and quieter of the two, but even her eyes were wide and fearful. Allison calmed her with the same gentle massage, and after a few moments, the filly whickered and nuzzled her pocket for a treat.

“Nothing for you tonight,” she murmured as the velvet nose tickled her hand. Satisfied the filly was all right, Allison joined Shane. Sighing, she latched the stall and leaned against the knotty pine boards.

He moved closer to her. “Who do you think it was in the car, and why are they frightening the horses?”

Do I dare tell him? About what happened here last winter? Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, she steeled herself and said, “The Potter brothers.”