Nora arrived at The Vanilla Bean coffee shop and parked in the angled parking out front. She could feel the pressure leaking out of her. She needed a break, and she still wasn’t sure if that made her a bad mother. All she knew was that she felt lighter already for having driven by herself without three infants in the back of her truck.
“Kaitlyn!” Nora wrapped her arms around her friend and gave her a squeeze. “It’s so good to see you!”
The Vanilla Bean hadn’t changed a bit over the years. It still sported the same framed photos from decades past—Main Street before the murals had been painted, the old grain elevator in use, a grinning bull rider having won a ribbon in the 1957 county fair. There was also a bookshelf with a sign above that read “Lending Library—take a book, leave a book.” Nora had read her first romance novel from that shelf—a scandalous secret that she hid from her parents and read out by the barn. This place held the town’s history as well as their own, and no matter how long she stayed away, there was a part of her that counted on places like the Vanilla Bean to stay exactly the same.
Kaitlyn had put on a little weight since Nora had seen her last, but it suited her—adding some roundness to her figure. And she wore her hair in a bob now. Kaitlyn’s eyes crinkled as she smiled. She motioned toward the table by the window where two coffees were already waiting. “I hope you aren’t dieting, because I got you a mochaccino—for old time’s sake.”
They felt oh so grown up when they’d come here as teens. The last time they’d been here was just before Kaitlyn’s Christmas wedding a couple of years earlier. Nora slid into the seat and pried the lid off the cup. This felt good to be out, away from it all for a little while. She watched as two pickup trucks going in opposite directions down the street stopped so that the drivers could talk through open windows.
“It’s perfect,” Nora said. “So how are you?”
“I’m good.” She sipped her drink and licked her lips. “I’m not pregnant—that’s what everyone asks. I swear, you gain a pound and everyone wants to be the first one to call it.”
“They don’t.” Nora grimaced.
“They do.” Kaitlyn nodded. “But it’s okay. I survive it. Everyone is doing it to Nina, too, so I feel better.”
“How is Nina?” Nora asked. Kaitlyn’s sister had a bit of a scandalous past, having cheated on her fiancée who was fighting in Afghanistan and marrying his best friend while he was away.
“Their son is two now—smart as a whip, that kid. He already knows his alphabet. She’s exhausted, but happy...but exhausted. So Brody and I wanted some time alone before we threw ourselves into that.”
“I don’t blame you,” Nora agreed. Kaitlyn’s husband came back to Hope when he was wounded in the war, and he was still recovering emotionally. “I’m exhausted, too, and it’s only been a few days with the babies. It’s harder than I thought.”
“So what’s going on?” Kaitlyn asked. “I heard a few rumors, but...”
Nora gave as brief an explanation as possible, and as the words came out, she felt relief. She’d been taking this one step at a time from discovering her half sister’s existence to becoming the mother of three newborns overnight, and Kaitlyn’s expression of sympathy and disbelief was comforting. Her life had turned upside down in a matter of weeks, and some sympathy helped.
“How are you and your mom dealing with all this?” Kaitlyn asked.
“We’re—” Nora paused. Were they even dealing with it? They were stumbling through it, not exactly handling anything besides putting one foot in front of the other. “We’re in shock still, I think,” she concluded. “Thank God Mackenzie thought of us and sent a triplet stroller. I didn’t even know where to start.”
“Mackenzie is great,” Kaitlyn agreed.
“The funny thing is, I keep seeing married couples having babies everywhere I go,” Nora confessed. “Mack and Chet have three now, right? And here I am with three babies and no husband...or boyfriend. And the explanation is just so freaking complicated.”
“Look, you’ll feel like you have to explain yourself no matter what. I’m married, and everyone is anxious for me to have a baby. If you’re not married, everyone is anxious to find you someone. There’s no point in worrying about public opinion, because you’ll always be lacking in something. Those babies are lucky to have you.”
“Are they?” Nora sighed. “The truth is, I can’t afford them. Not alone. That’s why I came home. I was hoping that I could sort something out with my mom so we could take care of them together. I could quit my job in the city and come back to Hope and find something part time in bookkeeping and put the rest of my time into the girls. But that’s not really an option.”
“And there’s no help?” Kaitlyn asked.
“I’m a bookkeeper, Kate.” Nora shook her head. “I work hard. I have a one-bedroom apartment in Billings. I can’t afford day care, a bigger place in a decent part of town, clothes, formula, diapers... It’s overwhelming. And if I can’t sort something out—”
She didn’t want to finish the thought out loud, because she hadn’t actually admitted it to herself until now. She’d have to give the babies up to another family that could give them the life she couldn’t provide herself.
The thought caught her heart in a stranglehold, and for a moment, she felt like she couldn’t inhale. Give them up. That was the obvious solution that she’d been avoiding looking at all this time. She’d been hoping that something would present itself—some solution that would make it all come together.
“Would you give them up?” Kaitlyn asked quietly.
Nora shook her head. “I really don’t want to, but I have to wonder what’s best for them. My mom can’t be a grandmother to them...they remind her of what my dad did to her. How do you explain that to your kids—this is my mother, but don’t call her Grandma. It’s not right. The girls would be the ones to suffer.”
“I can understand that, though,” Kaitlyn said. “If I found out that Brody had cheated on me—even that many years ago—and I was supposed to just accept his child by another woman, or his grandchild... That’s a lot to ask.”
“I know.” It all felt so impossible. “I don’t know what to do. Eventually, I’ll have to figure something out.”
“Maybe give it time?” Kaitlyn suggested.
Did time make it better or worse? That depended on whether her mom changed her mind about this. If she didn’t, then Nora would have taken even more time to fall in love with the babies before she had to let them go.
“I’m not sure,” she confessed. “But that’s okay. I was hoping to hear all the news today, not wallow in my own self-pity. How are Dakota and Andy?”
Dakota had married Andy Granger just before Kaitlyn and Brody got married. Andy sold his half of the ranch he and his brother inherited and then left town. Everyone hated him at that point, because he’d sold out to some big city yahoos. But then he came back to help run a cattle drive for his brother, and Dakota had been hired onto the team. She’d hated him, but something happened on that drive that changed it all, because when they got back, they got engaged.
Tears misted Kaitlyn’s eyes, and Nora felt a flash of alarm. What had she said? She reached out and took her hand. Kaitlyn swallowed a couple of times and blinked back tears. Something was wrong. Here she’d been so focused on her own life that she’d completely missed that something was deeply wrong in her friend’s.
“What’s going on, Kate?” Nora asked, leaning forward.
“Dakota’s pregnant. Andy is over the moon—you’ve never seen a happier guy. He keeps trying to do things for her, and Dakota is all hormonal and wants to kill him.” Kaitlyn forced a smile, although it didn’t reach her eyes. “It’s cute. If he survives this pregnancy, they’ll make great parents.”
“And yet you’re crying,” Nora said. Those hadn’t been sympathetically happy tears.
Kaitlyn was silent for a moment, then she licked her lips. “I can’t seem to get pregnant. Everyone else around me is either pregnant or a new mom... You aren’t the only one noticing it. We’ve been trying since the honeymoon. I told you that we’re just taking some time to be a couple, but that’s not even true.”
“Oh, Kate...”
“I was never the baby fever type. I just assumed that since we were...doing all the things it takes to make a baby...that it would just happen. Like with Nina. Like with Dakota. Like with every woman I seem to come across! This is supposed to be natural.”
“It’ll happen...” Nora said, but she knew she couldn’t promise that any more than Kaitlyn could assure her that she’d find the man of her dreams. Sometimes life didn’t pan out the way you wanted it to. Sometimes deeply devoted couples remained childless. Sometimes good women didn’t find their guy.
“It’ll happen when it happens,” Kaitlyn agreed. “We’re doing all the right things—on a daily basis.” A smile flickered across her face. “I shouldn’t complain, should I?”
Nora laughed softly. Considering that Kaitlyn had a gorgeous husband to “do all the right things” with on a daily basis... She felt some heat in her cheeks. “They say the trying is the fun part, don’t they?”
“They do say that.” Kaitlyn smiled and wiped her eyes. “Sorry, I honestly didn’t want to talk about this. I was supposed to be your supportive friend. So where are you staying? With your mom?”
“No, in the old farmhouse,” Nora said. “With Easton, actually.”
Kaitlyn’s eyebrows rose, and she paused in the wiping of her eyes. “With Easton? How is that?”
“You know my father left him the homestead in his will, right?”
“I’d heard.” Kaitlyn winced. “I’m sorry about that.”
“Well, he has a guest bedroom so I’m using that with the babies. My mom can’t deal with three newborns right now, and it’s all so complicated, so this is a way to give her some breathing space. There isn’t a huge amount of room in the homestead, but we’re squeezing in.”
“I’m not asking about sleeping arrangements,” Kaitlyn replied with a quirky smile. “Unless I should be?”
“No!” Nora leaned back in her chair. “I haven’t changed that much.”
“But how is it with Easton?” Kaitlyn pressed. “I remember how crazy he was about you.”
That was an exaggeration. Kaitlyn had always thought that Easton was in love with her, but Nora never believed it. They were friends, that was all. They talked about her boyfriends and sometimes went riding together. Easton had a bit of a crush for a while, but they’d moved past that.
“It wasn’t as exciting as you think,” Nora replied.
“You’re wrong there.” Her friend finished wiping her eyes. “What he felt for you was significantly more than friendship.”
Had Easton really felt more for Nora? She’d thought that Easton got a lot from their friendship...like friendship. But maybe she’d been the naive one.
“I didn’t think it was anything more than me hitting puberty first,” she admitted.
“Do you remember that one birthday—I think you turned fifteen—when the girls snubbed you, and I was the only one to show up at your party?” Kaitlyn asked. “I think Easton had just started working at your place, and he brought you those wildflowers from the far pasture.”
“That was sweet,” Nora agreed. Easton had always been thoughtful that way, and she’d often thought that whatever girl he settled down with would be lucky to have him. He’d be a good boyfriend—to someone else. She just hadn’t been attracted to him. And it wasn’t because of his acne—that wasn’t his fault, and she wasn’t that shallow. He was a good friend, but she couldn’t make the leap to something more.
“And when you broke up with whatever guy you were dating, who was there to talk you through it?”
“I get it, I get it.” Nora shrugged weakly. “He was a decent guy—more than decent. I just wasn’t interested back then.”
“And now?” Kaitlyn asked.
“Now?” Nora shook head. “He isn’t interested anymore, either. That’s all in the past.”
“Oh. That’s too bad, because he most certainly grew up.” She shot Nora a meaningful look.
Nora wasn’t oblivious to how ruggedly good-looking Easton had turned out to be, but she chuckled. “He’s not the same guy willing to do anything to make me happy anymore. So you can rest easy on that. He’s willing to tell me what he really thinks of me now, and frankly...it’s better this way.”
Spoiled. That had been his descriptor. She’d been rather shocked to have Easton talk to her like that, but it was better than leading him on. The last thing she needed was to be pussyfooting around Easton’s feelings. She had enough to worry about with the babies, with her mom...
“That would be better,” Kaitlyn agreed. “For him, at least.”
“Besides,” Nora said. “He came out on top. He’s walked away with three acres and my family’s history.”
“Did he know your father was changing his will?” Kaitlyn took a sip of her latte. “He was getting a lot of job offers at bigger ranches. He’s good, you know. Your dad must have kept him around by putting him into the will.”
That would actually make sense. Maybe her father hadn’t signed it over because of tender feelings—it was possible he’d been negotiating with his ranch manager. That would make everything different...including her view of Easton. Her father had kept secrets—why not one more? Could it really come down to something as common as holding on to a skilled employee?
If that were the case, then Easton would be a whole lot less innocent than he appeared. Could he have actually been angling for that land? He’d said he wasn’t, but he wouldn’t be the first man to lie to her, either.
“You might be onto something,” Nora said. “I’ve been going over this in my head repeatedly, trying to figure out why my dad would do that... It’s like I never knew him.”
“You know as well as I do that a good ranch manager is worth his weight in gold,” Kaitlyn replied. “Easton is honest. He works like a horse. He’s smart, too. My dad has said more than once that if he could afford Easton, he’d try to lure him over to our ranch.”
“He wouldn’t.” Nora frowned.
“My dad?” Kaitlyn shrugged. “Maybe.”
Mr. Harp was a jovial guy—but he was also a shrewd rancher. There was a strange balance with the Hope ranches—they were neighbors who supported each other and helped each other out, but they were also in competition for the best employees. The ranch would one day be hers, and it affected the way she’d looked at their land—including the three acres her father had left to Easton.
Easton could take another job if he wanted to. But another possibility made her stomach sink: maybe Easton was less of a nice guy than she’d always assumed. Just because he’d had a rough childhood didn’t make him some kind of saint. Easton had some negotiation room, and he may have taken advantage of that.
“Who was trying to get Easton?” she asked.
“Not us,” Kaitlyn said with a shake of her head. “But rumor around town was that some larger ranches out of state were putting their feelers out for experienced managers. A lot of people were mad. It’s not nice to poach someone’s manager after they’ve spent years grooming him.”
Nora had no idea. Was it possible that she’d been duped by more than just her father?
Easton sat in the easy chair in the living room, listening to the sounds of Nora putting the babies to bed. Her voice was soft, the gentle tones carrying through the floorboards, but the words were muffled. It didn’t matter what she was saying, of course. It was the comforting lilt that the babies would respond to.
His mom had never been that way—not that he could remember, and certainly not according to the stories his father had told him.
The stairs creaked as Nora made her way down and Easton looked away. He liked having her here, but he was getting increasingly aware of her presence. She was his guest and in his home, yet he still felt like he shouldn’t be listening to the soft rustle of her moving around his home—like that was overstepping somehow. He certainly shouldn’t be enjoying it.
“They’re almost asleep,” Nora said, emerging into the living room. She tapped her watch. “Three hours and counting.”
She’d been distant all evening—polite, but closed off.
“You tired?” he asked.
“Always.” She smiled wryly.
He’d been debating how much he should tell Nora, if anything, all afternoon. Was it his place? What would Cliff have wanted? And how could he possibly know? He shouldn’t be in the middle of all this family drama—but maybe he should have seen complications coming.
“I went through the attic today,” he said.
Nora sank into the recliner kitty corner to the couch and stifled a yawn. “Was there anything up there?”
He couldn’t shoulder Cliff’s secrets alone. He wasn’t even sure it was fair of him to keep the letters to himself. Cliff wasn’t his father, and Nora was the one who would live with a lifetime of questions.
“Your dad had put a box of personal effects up there,” Easton said. “I saw it when I moved in but then forgot about it. I remembered it today, and I thought I’d take a look through it.”
“My dad did?” She shot him a sharp look. “Why would he do that?”
Easton pushed himself to his feet and retrieved the box from the other side of the sofa. The contents would answer her questions better than he could.
“I don’t know, exactly,” he said. “But he did.”
“That isn’t true, though, is it?” She put a hand on top of the box but didn’t look at it. Her gaze was fixed icily on him.
“What do you want from me?” he demanded. “Nora, this is awkward. I’m not supposed to be in the middle of your family issues. I found a box with your dad’s things in it, and I’m handing it over.”
“I had coffee with Kaitlyn Mason today.”
That was supposed to mean something to him? Kaitlyn and Nora had been friends since school days. “Great. Glad you got out.”
He was frustrated. He was a private man who had been sharing his personal space for a week now with a woman he used to love, and having her here with him, sleeping in the next room and sharing his living space... He was liable to start feeling things he shouldn’t all over again if he let down his guard.
“She told me that you had job offers from bigger ranches,” Nora went on. “And she suspected that you negotiated for this land in exchange for staying.”
Easton blinked. She made it sound sordid, somehow, but it wasn’t. “Why is it so surprising that I’d be in demand?” he asked. “I run a tight ship. I had offers, that’s true. But I didn’t strong-arm your dad into changing his will in exchange for sticking around.”
“It didn’t factor in at all?” Her tone made it clear she wasn’t buying that.
“I was offered a position in Idaho for almost twice what I was making here,” he said. “I mentioned it to your dad, but I hadn’t even decided if the extra money would be worth it. But that had nothing to do with this house. He said that the house should be lived in, not just sitting there like a relic to days gone by.”
“A relic. This is my great-grandparents’ house!”
“I wasn’t supposed to own it,” he retorted. “He wanted me to live in it. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.”
“And he decided to just leave it to you in the will?” She shook her head. “These three acres are more precious than the other five hundred ninety-seven. This is where it all started.”
And this was the problem—family versus staff. She felt a connection to this land through blood, but for some reason that didn’t evolve into actually doing anything. He was an employee here, and he could stay as long as he did his job. Family belonged in a whole different way, but ranches didn’t run on sentimental feelings or rightful inheritances—they ran on hard work.
“If you cared about it so much, why didn’t you tell him?” Easton retorted. “It isn’t my fault you weren’t helping out around here. If you showed the least bit of interest in your family’s land—and this house—your dad might have done something differently.”
“And you’re just some innocent bystander who accidentally got some land.” Her sarcasm was thick, and his patience was spent.
“All of a sudden I’m some thug, waiting to rob your family of three acres?” he demanded. “I’m the same guy I always was, Nora! You knew me! Have I ever been the kind of guy who would manipulate and lie? Cut me some slack!”
“I thought I knew my dad, too!” Her voice quivered and she shook her head, looking away. So that was it—she didn’t know what to trust anymore, who was telling her truth. And he couldn’t help her. Those were personal issues she’d have to sort out on her own.
“That’s the box,” he said instead. “I’m not hiding things from you, Nora.”
A kind gesture from his boss had turned ugly fast. Her guess was as good as his when it came to why Cliff had done what he did, but he wasn’t accepting the blame.
Nora sighed and pulled at the flaps. The boots were on top, and she put them on the floor.
“My mom kept trying to throw these out. They were worn through, and they had no more ankle support...”
She looked at the jacket and put it aside then pulled out the envelope. He knew this was the difficult part. She removed the letters one by one, fanned out the pictures on the floor in front of her. She opened the first letter, read it through, then the second. Easton just watched her.
“He knew about Mia,” she said, looking up at Easton.
“Yeah.” He wasn’t sure what to say to that. This version of his boss—the secretive cheater—didn’t sit right with him.
“It doesn’t look like Dad and Angela were involved for long.”
“That’s good news, isn’t it?”
“I think so.” She pulled a hand through her hair. “I’m taking what I can get at this point. This is not the dad I remember.”
“You’d know better than I would,” he replied. He might have worked with Cliff, but the man had doted on his daughter. If anyone would have known that softer side of him, it would be Nora.
“He lied to me, too,” she said woodenly.
He understood her anger at being lied to, but she didn’t understand what utter honesty could get you. His mother had walked out and never once tried to contact him again—that had been honest. His dad had drunk himself into a stupor—that had been a pretty honest reaction, too. He’d have settled for some insincere security from his own parents any day, if it had meant that they’d actually stuck around and been there for him.
“Whatever the fallout,” Easton said, “he made his choice—and you won.”
Nora was silent for a couple of beats, then she sighed and began to gather the letters and photos back together into one stack.
“You’re going to be okay,” he said after a moment.
“Do you know that you’re the first person to tell me that?” Her expression didn’t look convinced. How could anyone comfort Nora in this? She’d lost her dad twice over, and nothing anyone said could make it better.
“And you can’t forgive him?” Easton asked.
“I believed in him, Easton.”
That seemed to be the part that cut her the deepest—she’d been fooled. And now she thought Easton had fooled her, too. But Easton knew he was the one man who hadn’t been lying to her. He never had.
Nora pushed herself to her feet and stood there in the lamplight, her eyes clouded with sadness. He wished he could do something, say something, hold her, even, and make this hurt less. He could have been the teenage Easton again, looking at the girl he longed to comfort, knowing that she didn’t really want what he had to offer. She wouldn’t accept platitudes: You deserve better.
And she did deserve better—she always had. She deserved more than a sullied memory of the father she’d adored. She deserved more than the broken, scarred, albeit loyal heart of a man whose own mother hadn’t wanted him.
“I’m going to go up to bed,” she said after a moment of silence. “I have a doctor’s appointment for the babies in the morning, so I’d better get some rest.”
“Okay, sure.”
She turned and left the room, and he watched her go. The scent of her perfume still hung in the air, as subtle as a memory. The creak of the stairs dissipated overhead. He had some evening chores to check up on, and he was grateful for the excuse to get out, plunge into the fresh air and get away from all of this for a little while. Work—it was cheaper than therapy.