Boone didn’t precisely panic when he realized Hannah had gone missing. He did grow confused, then concerned, and then, when he read her text, a little pissed. What the heck had her running off that way?
Once the baby grew fussy, Katie Devlin indicated the time had come to put her to bed, and the three of them departed. Boone had looked around for Hannah and figured she’d gone to the ladies’ room. The confusion set in when she didn’t return, and her text had raised more questions than it answered. He’d been about to apologize to Sarah and cut the meeting short to Uber back to the hotel when Sarah had touched his arm.
“I saw where she went. I think you should join them. The cat is out of the bag.”
“What cat?”
“Boone, Rachel was here. She wanted to watch you meet the baby. Hannah noticed her and followed her. I saw them go across the street and into the Italian restaurant.”
“Rachel. Rachel is with Hannah.” He pinned Sarah with a narrow-eyed look. “So Rachel is this baby’s mother?”
“I’m not allowed to say. Go across the street, Boone. I’ll see you tomorrow at the office at ten.”
He nodded and left, crossing the street and entering the restaurant. He spied Hannah almost immediately and … Rachel.
Rachel. All grown up.
It was a kick to his gut. The promise of beauty she’d shown at twelve had bloomed. She was a lovely young woman. A lump of emotion lodged in his throat. Damn. Rachel.
What is this all about? Had she set him up? Thank God he hadn’t told his mother about the baby if this had been Rachel’s effort to serve her revenge cold.
So that little girl probably wasn’t going home with him to Colorado. Boone’s heart broke at the thought.
Well, he wasn’t one to put off bad news. Might as well face this and get it over with.
He started across the room and drew close enough to hear just as Hannah asked the million-dollar question. So here we go. “I’m anxious to hear that story too. Mind if I join you?”
Both women looked at him with surprise. Hannah’s expression softened with welcome. Rachel sat back in her chair and folded her arms defensively. All grown up, but still the same sadly damaged little girl whom he’d tried to rescue. She shrugged. “Feel free.”
She kept her head turned away, her gaze avoiding him. She obviously wasn’t going to answer Hannah’s question, so Boone searched for a place to begin. He was the smooth-talkin’, fast-thinking lawyer who never ran out of words and always had fifteen different ways to ask the same damned question. He knew how to build an argument and mine for a secret with subtlety and finesse.
Unfortunately, the words that came out of his mouth were an accusation. “Are you scamming me?”
Now, finally, she met his gaze. “What?”
“Is this your payback? I know I deserve one, and if this is it, you’ve outdone yourself.”
Rachel gave him that silent you’re-an-idiot smirk that teenagers perfected. “Get over yourself, McBride. I forgave you for screwing up my case before my thirteenth birthday.”
Stunned, Boone asked, “You did?”
“Okay, maybe it was my fourteenth, but yeah. I forgave you.”
Boone felt something tight loosen in his chest. He spared a glance toward Hannah, who watched him with a warm and sympathetic gaze. He cleared his throat. “Thank you. That means a lot to me.”
Rachel shrugged. “It happened the way it was meant to happen.”
Boone dragged his hand across his jaw. So many thoughts and questions spun through his head. Where to start? Pick a spot, dumbass. He cleared his throat a second time and said, “I’ve thought of you a lot, Rachel. Will you tell me about your world for the past five years?”
She set down her fork and said, “Dinner was good. Thank you. But if I’m going to talk, I need to walk.”
Boone reached for his wallet and threw a couple of twenties on the table. “Trinity Park is one block away. Want to go there?”
“Sure.”
Hannah glanced between the pair and suggested, “Why don’t I let you two have time to yourselves? I’ll go on back to the hotel.”
Boone questioned Rachel with a glance. She said, “You’ll be her caretaker. Nothing I’m going to tell him is a secret. Come with us.”
Hannah agreed and excused herself to visit the ladies’ room. While Boone watched her cross the restaurant, Rachel watched him. Then she observed, “You have a thing for her.”
Boone gave her a sidelong look. “It’s that obvious?”
“Definitely some starry sparkle in your eyes. She told me she’s just your travel nanny.”
“Yeah. For now. We’ll see.”
“What’s it like? This little town where you live—Eternity Springs?”
Boone gazed through the restaurant’s west-facing windows where ripples of heat visibly radiated from the parking lot outside. “I imagine it’s about forty degrees cooler right this minute, for one thing. It’s early for the weather to be this hot. It doesn’t bode well for the next few months. I’d forgotten how brutal the heat could be here in the summer.”
“When was the last time you were home?”
“To Texas?”
“Fort Worth.”
He shook his head. “This is my first time back.”
“Whoa. You were serious about telling the lawyers and judge and social workers all to go blow, weren’t you?”
“Yep. I pretty much was.”
“Hmm.”
Hannah rejoined them. As they walked the block and a half toward the park, he responded to Rachel’s question about Eternity Springs. He included those aspects he found particularly appealing because they were important for both women to hear. Rachel needed to know it was an excellent place for her daughter, and relaying the good press continued his subtle campaign to convince Hannah to stay.
They reached the park and the shade provided by the full, spreading branches of hundreds of live oaks and elms. With a thick layer of grass rather than concrete beneath their feet, the temperature felt like it dropped at least ten degrees. The evening air rang with the laughter of a group of children playing hide-and-go-seek among the trees and with the fainter sound of an orchestra playing John Philip Sousa. It must be the Fort Worth Symphony’s Concert in the Park, Boone realized. He hadn’t thought of that program in years. Once upon a time, he and Mary had been regulars.
Then Rachel interrupted his trip down memory lane with a kick to the ’nads when she pinned him with a narrow-eyed stare and accused, “I know it was you. You hired Lisa to find me.”
Crap. Boone shoved his hands into his pockets. “Lisa Jackson is an excellent private detective. However, I thought she was more discreet.”
“She’s never said a word, but I knew it was you. Now you’ve just confirmed it.”
Boone’s lips lifted in a reluctant grin. “Bright girl.”
“Not a girl, Boone McBride. I’m a woman. Most definitely a woman.”
Chastised, he nodded. “You’re right. My apologies.” Then, because he thought it was important that she knew, he said, “I kept my word to you, Rachel. As much as it went against my grain, as much as it killed me to do it, I didn’t check up on you. I haven’t been funneling money to you. What I did do was hire Lisa to find you and put someone she trusted in touch to get services you needed. Lisa sent word that she had found you and that you were safe, but that’s the last I heard until Sarah Winston contacted me about the baby and your note.”
“That’s kind of what I figured,” Rachel said. “So you don’t know where I’ve been living? Or with who?”
“I don’t.”
“I’ve been with Lisa. She took me in, and I’ve lived with her ever since.”
Boone stopped in his tracks. “Seriously?”
“She’s cool. Like my big sister.”
“So you’ve been living in Fort Worth? Going to school?”
“Yep. I even made it to graduation. Waddled my way across the stage when I was nine months’ pregnant.”
There. The proverbial elephant in the park. Boone both wanted to ask and dreaded the answer. “Are you going to tell me about the baby’s father?”
Rachel didn’t respond right away but veered her path toward the sidewalk that ran alongside the riverbank. Boone caught Hannah’s gaze and, because he could use her support, held out his hand. She took it, and he squeezed a silent thank-you as they followed the teenager.
“We were both in the marching band,” Rachel eventually continued. “He played trumpet. I played the flute. He graduated last year and decided to get his basics out of the way at TCC.”
“The local junior college,” Boone explained to Hannah.
“He wanted to go to Texas Tech. His parents were alumni. We’d been dating almost a year when I found out I was pregnant. He was killed in a car wreck the same day. I never got the chance to tell him about the baby.”
“Ah, honey.” It was a stab to Boone’s heart. What horrific luck. So not fair. And while life wasn’t fair at all, this young woman had certainly been dealt a raw deal.
Rachel’s lips twisted with a sad smile. “He was a good guy. Kind and sweet. My first. My real first. I think he would have wanted to get married, but it wasn’t meant to be.”
She fell silent, and after a moment, Hannah gently asked, “What was his name?”
“Ryan. Ryan Walton. I didn’t tell his parents. They were so devastated, and it wasn’t the right time. Ryan was their only child. They were older when he was born, and they thought he hung the moon—and so did I. He was a good guy. Knew everything about me. Ralph, all of it. His parents were good people too. They were kind to me, but when his mother saw me, she’d cry, so we didn’t stay in touch after the funeral. It took me a little while to decide what I wanted to do about the baby. Once I made up my mind about adoption, I thought it was cleaner this way. Lisa said I’m not legally obligated to tell them. That’s right?”
“Yes,” Boone replied. The pain in her big Bambi eyes broke his heart.
Rachel stopped walking, picked up a rock, and threw it into the river. “I spent a lot of time thinking about my options and deciding what would be best. I figured out that I do want to be a mother someday, but it’s better for me and for this baby that I am not her mom. I’m going to go to college. I’m going to study nursing. I’m good at science and math. I got accepted to TCU, and I’m going to use that scholarship you set up for me all those years ago.”
Boone drew a deep breath, then exhaled in a rush. “Rachel. I am so glad to hear that. You will make a great nurse.”
“I think so too. But going to college and being a single mom is just too much to tackle. She deserves better. So I decided on adoption, and once I got that far, well, I wanted to give you first choice.”
“But why?”
For the first time in minutes, she looked at him. Boone read truth and confidence in her gaze. “I know what kind of a father you’ll be.”
It floored him. “How can you say that?”
Rather than reply to him, she turned to Hannah. “He visited me every single night that I was in the hospital. I’m sure he doesn’t remember all the things he talked about, but they made a huge impression on me. He told me his family had dinner together every night. They had a big extended-family reunion every year. He and his sisters all played youth sports, and his parents went to all of their games. They went to church and did volunteer work.”
Rachel’s eyes grew misty and her voice thick as she added, “I remember lying in that hospital bed thinking that if someday he had children, they would be the luckiest kids on earth.”
Boone had a lump in his throat, and damn if he wasn’t fighting back the tears. Rachel looked like she was about to cry. Hannah, bless her heart, saved them by lightening the mood. “I met his family last weekend when his cousin Jackson got married. I liked them very much.”
“I heard about that wedding,” the teen replied. She looked at Boone. “It’s why you didn’t come to Fort Worth as soon as they called you about the baby.” Then, turning back to Hannah, she asked, “Is Jackson McBride as hot in person as he is in his pictures?”
Hannah’s lips twitched. “Honestly, he’s hotter.”
“Whoa!” Rachel said.
A teasing glint entering her eyes, Hannah added, “And Jackson doesn’t have anything on his cousin Tucker.” She fanned her face with her hand. Both women’s eyes turned toward Boone.
“I am not begging for compliments.” He folded his arms and scowled. “Tucker wears his hair too short, and I swear Jackson’s hairline is receding.”
“It is not,” Hannah objected, giving her eyes an exaggerated roll.
The McBride cousin discussion succeeded in breaking up the overly emotional moment. Rachel continued her story with a steadier voice. “I googled you. Found out you’d moved to Colorado, that you didn’t already have a houseful of kids. Found out you hadn’t remarried. So I figured I’d explore the possibility of giving you the baby, but I wanted to do it on the down low. I wanted to be sure about you. So we came up with a plan.”
“We?”
“Better for everyone if I don’t go there.”
If Boone had to guess, she had help from Lisa and likely Sarah Winston too. Probably an attorney also, someone that he knew. But Rachel was right. No sense rattling a cage and mucking up the deal she’d gone to extraordinary effort to pull off. “So the Safe Haven story—I take it you didn’t surrender her at a fire station?”
“Technically yes, but it was all part of the plan. I wanted—I needed—to be sure that you really truly wanted her. I needed you to jump through a few hoops.”
“You figured out some good ones. I’ll give you that.” Boone spied an acorn on the ground. He bent, scooped it up, and threw it. “One thing I can’t figure out. Why did you have them tell me she was a boy?”
“Because one time, you told me how much you wanted a son. I thought you’d find it easier to say no to a girl. Plus, I heard what you said to the social worker after you read my note about what Ralph did to me.”
“I don’t remember. What did I say?”
“That you hoped you’d never have a daughter, that you’d be too afraid to have a daughter.”
He didn’t remember saying that, but her claim didn’t surprise him. The thought of being a father to a daughter did terrify him. His own father always said the same thing about being a dad to the twins.
“I did what I did because I needed to be sure that you wanted my little girl.” Rachel gave Boone a warm and wistful smile. “You didn’t hesitate, so I knew that I was doing the right thing.”
Boone was overwhelmed. So much had happened in a short amount of time, and he was having trouble processing everything. He was glad when Hannah asked a question he hadn’t thought to ask. She said, “Tonight after you watched him meet your daughter, you left. You didn’t plan on telling him all this?”
“No. I didn’t. Not now. I thought maybe I’d write you a letter someday. I’ve signed all the paperwork already. The lawyer assured me you’ll be able to take the baby home to Colorado within the week.”
“Man.” Boone rubbed the back of his neck and grimaced. “I’ll be honest, Rachel. My mind is spinning, and I’m not sure that doing it this way is right for you.”
Rachel’s spine snapped straight, and she fired an accusatory question. “You don’t want her now?”
“Of course I want her. It would break my heart to give her up. I’m talking about you. We could do this like an open adoption and—”
“No!” Rachel cut in. “I can’t do that, Boone. I thought it through. I thought about it a lot. It’s too hard. I need this to be a clean break.”
He accepted her decision with a nod. “I get it. But if you ever change your mind, the door is always open.”
“Thank you.” Rachel shoved her hands in her back pant pockets and rocked on her heels. “Look, I need to be going. I have to be at the airport early tomorrow. Lisa and I are going on a girls’ trip. It’s my graduation gift.”
“That’s nice,” Hannah said. “Somewhere cooler than this, I hope?”
“Definitely. We are going to Scotland. After binge-watching Outlander, we decided we wanted to see if we can’t find some legit guys wearing kilts.”
“What is it about those things? Men in skirts, that’s all it is.” Boone’s scowl was mostly put on. Mostly. He faced his old friend. “Rach, before you go, I need to tell you that you always were and still are one of the strongest people I have ever met. This gift you are giving me, I want you to know, I will treasure her. I will protect her. I will love her with all my heart from now until the day I die. I give you my word, and I won’t let you down.” His voice tight, he added, “Not again. Never again.”
At that, Rachel threw herself into his arms and hugged him tightly. “I know. That’s why she’s yours now. I know you’ll love her, and you’ll love her for me too.”
She went up on her toes and kissed him on the cheek, then released him and turned away, walking off quickly. But there was something Boone still needed to know. “Rach? Is there something, in particular, you want me to give her?”
The girl stopped. “A family. Give her a family. A mother and a brother and a sister.”
“Okay. I’ll do my best to do that.”
“And maybe a puppy too.”
“Consider that done.”
“Good.” She gave him a wave and started off again. Boone knew then that he had one last question. “Rachel, what is her name?”
She went still. Boone held his breath. The moment drew out, and he thought she wasn’t going to answer. Finally, in a thin voice, she said, “You’re her father. You get to name her.”
“What is her name, Rachel? What is our baby’s name?”
She started running. “Damn it,” Boone muttered, tears filling his eyes. Hannah rose and stood beside him. She slipped her hand into his.
Just before Rachel topped a hill and disappeared, she turned around. “Bree,” she called. “Brianna Claire.”
Then she was gone.
Boone rubbed the back of his neck. Hannah murmured, “Brianna Claire McBride. A beautiful name for a beautiful little girl.”
The tears overflowed but damn if Boone cared. “I’ll do it, Hannah,” he swore. “I’ll be the best daddy in the universe. I won’t let Rachel down again. I won’t let Bree down.”
“I have no doubt.” Hannah opened her handbag and removed a clean tissue. Handing to Boone, she said, “You are going to be that little girl’s light.”