The Rancher's Reckoning
Author
Joanne Rock
Reads
15.1K
Chapters
15
One
Please respond. I think you might be the father of the late Arielle Martin’s six-month-old baby.
Seated at the oak desk in her room at a bed-and-breakfast in Royal, Texas, investigative journalist Sierra Morgan reread the text she’d just composed.
Blunt?
Absolutely. And considering the negative stereotypes of journalists as relentless sensationalists who would do anything for a story, Sierra hated that this text played a little too close to that depressing portrayal. But she couldn’t imagine any story more worthy of closure than that of a fatherless six-month-old.
Forcing herself to take an extra moment before clicking Send on the text, Sierra idly spun a yellowed globe from the early 1900s, her gaze moving over the stack of old leather-bound novels that served as a makeshift pedestal. She’d been staying at the Cimarron Rose for months to solve the mystery paternity of baby Micah, who’d been found abandoned in the parking lot of the Royal Memorial Hospital.
Sierra had just arrived in town to do a story for America magazine on the ten-year anniversary of the Texas Cattleman’s Club allowing women into their ranks. She’d filed her story after the gala celebrating the TCC milestone, and freelanced several articles for the local Royal Gazette, but she hadn’t been able to tear herself away from baby Micah’s story. Yes, she was dogged and relentless and all those other things that made up a good reporter.
Better people thought that than the truth—that baby Micah tugged at her heartstrings for far more personal reasons.
She’d figured out who the baby’s mother was soon enough once Micah’s aunt woke up in the hospital after an untimely collapse. But even then, Eve Martin hadn’t been able to shed any light on the mystery of Micah’s father, because Eve’s sister, Arielle, had died of a heart attack before naming the daddy. Since then, Sierra had been pursuing leads for five months with Arielle Martin’s diary as her guide.
Now, Sierra spun in the desk chair, the afternoon light slanting through a window overlooking the lawn. A vintage map of the world sprawled above the four-poster bed, and a huge repurposed suitcase served as a chest at the foot of it. While she cooled her heels in Texas, somewhere on the other side of the globe, rancher Colt Black was revamping a French winery, ignoring all her more subtly worded texts and voice mails.
She truly believed she’d finally cracked the mystery of Micah’s parentage. But she needed Colt Black to answer her in order to confirm it.
Grip tightening on her phone, she returned her gaze to the least tactful lines she’d ever composed.
Blunt and relentless? Color her guilty.
She jabbed the send button.
Because she knew how it felt to grow up with the knowledge that you’d been abandoned as a child. That was a lifelong wound she wouldn’t wish on anyone, and Sierra felt deeply protective of the sweet six-month-old she’d visited many, many times since his arrival in Royal.
One way or another, Colt Black would have to answer her now.
Had a homecoming ever felt so hollow?
Colt Black didn’t even look out the window of the luxury SUV he’d hired at the airport as they drove through downtown Royal. He’d been away from Texas for fifteen months. Just twenty-four hours ago he would have guessed he’d feel some gladness to return to the Lone Star state after being in the Occitanie region of southwest France for over a year.
Not now.
He withdrew his cell phone from the pocket of his sports jacket to re-read the series of texts from the journalist Sierra Morgan. He’d never heard of the woman until he’d researched her last night after that final, devastating message.
Please respond. I think you might be the father of the late Arielle Martin’s six-month old baby.
The words still made his chest seize up even on the hundredth read. Yes, he’d ignored all her other texts and voice mails leading up until that last bombshell. But that had been when he’d thought she was just a reporter sniffing out gossip for more articles for the local paper, the Royal Gazette.
Once Arielle Martin’s name came up, however, he’d dropped everything else. Literally. He’d been in the winery’s tasting room shortly before midnight, testing a competing vintage from a neighboring winemaker, when he’d read the words that gutted him.
Had he fathered a child without knowing?
Immediately, he’d gone back to read Sierra Morgan’s other texts more carefully, only to discover Arielle had died one month after giving birth. And that her child—quite possibly his child, even though he’d only been with Arielle for one night—had been without a parent ever since. That had been five months ago.
If this child was his?
Colt wouldn’t ever forgive himself.
Glancing up from his phone, he pocketed the device again as he saw the bed-and-breakfast come into view. The unassuming Cimarron Rose had been a Royal fixture for years, long before Natalie Valentine took it over and turned the downstairs into a bridal shop. In one of the journalist’s messages, she had told him she had taken a room here, and she’d listed all her contact information for him to get in touch. Of course, he hadn’t. Last night he’d been too devastated to call her for more details. Instead, he’d booked the first flight out to discover the truth for himself.
So here he was, showing up at her door unannounced at—he checked his watch, too jet-lagged to remember the local hour after crossing so many time zones—ten o’clock in the morning.
The SUV rolled to a stop on the gravel drive that wound under a porte cochere. The bright red roof and ivory exterior of the main building had a hospitable air with a wide porch and hanging ferns between every column. After paying the driver, Colt approached the wide front entrance, where the door had been left ajar, perhaps to let the mild breeze inside.
“Hello?” he said through the screen, rapping his knuckles lightly on the wooden door frame.
The scent of coffee and cinnamon preceded the sound of muted footsteps and a feminine voice.
“Come in,” called a woman before she came into view. “Natalie’s out, but I’m—”
A petite blonde beauty stopped as she opened the door wider and met his gaze.
Wide, moss green eyes stared up at him. Tousled, flaxen hair spilled over the shoulders of her black T-shirt with a picture of a coffee cup and the words Caffeinated Writer in swirling script. She wore a pair of pink-striped pajama pants with the tee and a pair of gray flannel slippers on her feet.
“You must be Sierra,” he managed to say at last, suddenly aware of the moments that had passed while he took a far too detailed inventory of the woman. “I’m Colt Black.”
She blinked at him, seeming to awaken from her own perusal. No doubt she was surprised. “You’re here.”
She probably thought him the world’s biggest deadbeat for not replying to her messages before. Or were her reporter instincts too busy salivating over the possibility of a local scoop?
“And well overdue, at that,” he said dryly. Then, nodding at the screen door, he tugged it toward him, determined to keep his cool until he took her measure. “May I?”
Belatedly, she backed up a step to clear the way.
“Of course. Yes. I’ve been anxious to speak with you. Obviously. I just wasn’t expecting you so soon after—” Her green gaze stuck to him while he stepped onto the dark welcome mat and set his leather overnight bag on a wooden hall bench. She seemed to regroup, and he suspected she made an effort to restrain the questions plainly written in her gaze. Instead, she asked, “Would you like some coffee? Tea?”
Sierra gestured to a small breakfast bar laden with pastries, a coffee machine, a kettle and a basket of tea bags. She retrieved her own mug, positioning it like a barrier between them, then took a careful sip while eyeing him over the rim.
“No, thank you. I’m wound up enough as it is between not sleeping and your text.” He couldn’t help the bite in his tone.
One eyebrow arched. “The fate of an infant seemed too important to waste any more time mincing words.” Her green eyes blazed.
But was that defensiveness of the baby she felt? Or did that inner fire stem from a drive to nail down a story? If he didn’t want to be the subject of her next feature, he needed to be on guard.
“You certainly came right to the point.” He ground his teeth together as he peered around the front parlor room devoid of any guests save her. “Care to share what led you to me? And if I’m the subject of an article? I know you write for America magazine.”
“Not currently, I don’t.” She shook her head. Then, gaze narrowing, she continued. “And although I freelance for the local paper, I’m not writing any more about Micah out of respect for Eve Martin and her nephew.”
“There’ve already been stories about the baby.” He’d Googled his way across the Atlantic. “So excuse me if I find that hard to believe.”
“I wrote initially to drum up more leads to the father. But now I won’t write anything else until I can report a happy ending, and only then with the father’s permission. Today I’m interested in resolving a human drama because I was there when Micah was found.”
Was she personally invested? The hint of accusation made him defensive.
“Well, I’m here now,” he reminded her, needing to figure out if the child was his. “I’m ready to meet the boy. Talk to Arielle’s family. Put the wheels in motion for an expedited DNA test—”
He had a to-do list a mile long, but Sierra settled a hand on his forearm, startling him to silence with the unexpected touch.
“No one will be more supportive of moving quickly on this than me, but we should probably share what we know before you meet Micah.” She seemed to realize she’d left her hand on his arm because she yanked it away quickly. Then she nodded toward a back door visible through a bright yellow-and-white kitchen. “Can we talk outside? I could use some air.”
“Anywhere is fine,” he said more tersely than he’d intended. “I just need answers. The sooner the better.”
Bristling, she straightened her shoulders and set her coffee mug back on the buffet table.
“I have been trying to talk to you for weeks,” she informed him levelly, folding her arms. “Before that, I spent months following leads from Arielle Martin’s diary to locate Micah’s father. So believe me, I am ready for answers, too.”
It was on the tip of his tongue to say she should have tried harder to reach him. That if she’d sent that last text message two weeks ago, he would have been here that much sooner. But since he wouldn’t even know that Arielle had given birth to a child without the woman standing before him, Colt reined himself in.
“Of course, you’re right.” His heart slammed in his chest, the angst of the last twenty hours wrecking his head. “Excuse my lack of manners, Miss Morgan. I’m furious with myself at the possibility that I left Arielle with no support...”
There were no words that could adequately describe his regret if that turned out to be the case. Accountability and responsibility could have been the Black family motto, drilled into him from an early age. The only thing that came a close second in importance was family itself. And that might be another institution Colt had denigrated by leaving the States fifteen months ago.
“I imagine it’s a lot to process. Which is why I would have preferred to be less blunt in my text.” Her tone was softer as she pivoted on her heel and started toward the kitchen. “Come on. Let’s get some air. And please, call me Sierra.”
Colt followed her through the kitchen, a flyer for a local Wine and Roses Festival snagging his gaze for an instant and capturing his professional interest as a newly minted French vintner. But with any luck he’d be back overseas before the event anyhow. He kept pace with Sierra down the back steps of the bed-and-breakfast onto a shaded lawn where an oak tree spread thick boughs over much of the space. A wrought iron bench sat between pink and purple azalea bushes already in bloom.
Sierra’s slippers scuffed quietly against the flagstones as she moved toward the bench, her long blond hair blowing lightly against the middle of her back.
“Thank you.” He waited for her to sit and then took the opposite end of the bench for himself. In the light breeze, he thought he caught a hint of her scent vying with the green shoots of a fresh Texas spring. “And to spare you time, I will tell you that I read everything I could find online related to Arielle’s sudden death. I never met her sister, Eve, but it sounded like she was the guardian for her the baby?”
“Micah,” Sierra corrected him, sounding oddly protective. “And yes, that’s true. But Eve Martin was hospitalized with heart problems of her own until recently, and it was deemed best for Micah to remain in the care of Camilla Wentworth—Cammie—the woman who found him.”
Colt felt ill at the thought of a total stranger acting as stand-in parent to an infant that might share Colt’s blood.
“I need to see him.” His hand tightened into a fist where it lay on the wrought iron. “My God, the boy deserves a home—”
“And he will find his rightful one.” Sierra stabbed her finger against the bench to make the point. “But Cammie and Eve have trusted me to take on this search for Micah’s father, allowing me to use Arielle’s diary for any clues. So I would appreciate you sharing how you knew Arielle. I went out on a limb connecting the dots from her diary to suggest you could be the father.”
“You didn’t sound like you were making casual guesses in your text.” He sat back to look at her.
Her lips compressed into a line before she spoke. “I did what needed to be done to find answers. Yet even after flying all the way here, you don’t seem inclined to share how you knew Arielle.”
Colt pressed a thumb to his temple. He didn’t owe this woman the intimate details. He could simply walk away and find Cammie Wentworth on his own. Yet if there was anything to what Sierra said about her having the trust of the baby’s guardian, perhaps it would be wisest to hash through this here with her before he got distracted meeting a child that might be his heir.
“Our time together was brief,” he explained finally. “We met right before I left for France. I was devastated over the death of my grandfather and eager to begin work on a dream that was dear to him—opening a winery. I realize my grief is a poor excuse for being so careless as not to contact her afterward.” He studied Sierra in the patchy sunlight that filtered through the tree overhead. “Do you know if anyone else made a claim for the—for Micah?”
“No one has,” she admitted, sliding out of her slippers to tuck her feet under her. “But since Arielle’s diary never mentioned you, I was basing my sleuthing work on really limited evidence.”
Colt considered this. The ache of regret in his chest had expanded to a throbbing of urgency in his temples, blotting out the resentment he felt for Sierra’s blunt insertion of herself into the drama. He needed to find out for certain if Micah was his son, and if Sierra could help him do that, so be it.
The news still staggered him.
His life would have to change drastically, starting immediately. Yet one thing was clear.
“In that case, I owe you a great debt for finding me, Sierra.” He could set his personal feelings aside long enough to acknowledge that. “One I don’t know how I’ll ever repay.”
Sierra stared into Colt Black’s serious blue eyes, trying to get a feel for him.
Could she trust his account of meeting Arielle? DNA tests wouldn’t lie, of course. And if he were the father, she’d obviously back off to allow the baby to reunite with his daddy. But until that was proven, Sierra felt obligated to run interference so that Cammie wasn’t wasting her time playing host to a local rancher who might not be connected to Micah at all. And Eve had basically given up, thinking the father would never be found. She’d been working extra hard on her physical therapy, assuming she’d be raising Micah.
For now, Sierra planned to stick to Colt. Find out if he was a good person. A trustworthy person. The kind of man who would give Micah a good home.
Because it wasn’t enough to be attractive. And she couldn’t deny Colt was that. Her awareness of the fact came as a surprise, considering she had thought she’d successfully shut down that part of herself to focus on her career and forget about...other things.
Sure, Colt was tall and muscular. Imposing, almost, but that had more to do with his serious, intense demeanor. She understood logically that he was a very good-looking man. His tailored blue jacket and gray flannel pants broadcast his wealth as clearly as the vintage silver watch on his wrist. But the shadows under his eyes and the slight rumple of his freshly trimmed dark hair gave away how little he’d slept since learning the news. Those hints of his distress pulled at her more than his outward appearance since they might suggest he cared.
And then, Sierra found herself drawn to the determination in his expression. The need to make things right.
After the months of worrying about Micah’s future, she found Colt’s concern appealing.
The thought reminded her of his remark. That he felt indebted to her.
“You don’t owe me anything.” She swiped away a dried leaf from the bench. “It will be reward enough if I can see Micah returned to family.”
Although then she’d need to dig into her other mission in Royal. To write a book about the history of the Texas Cattleman’s Club. Professionally, the project appealed to her. Personally, she couldn’t help but take a deeper interest in Baby Micah. As much as she wanted to bring Micah together with his father, Sierra would miss her frequent visits to the child who’d found a spot in her heart.
“If Arielle never mentioned me in the diary, how did you end up finding out about me?” Colt swiped a hand through his hair.
“Arielle had jotted the name of the Colt Room in the margins of the diary,” she explained, referencing the luxe bar inside the Texas Cattleman’s Club that one of Colt’s ancestors had founded and Colt himself had recently paid to renovate. “One of the references had a heart next to the name, so at first I thought she met the father of her child there.”
Colt frowned, a line between his heavy, dark eyebrows. “That’s not much to go on.”
“But there was more. Micah’s middle initial is C. No name, just a C. I thought all along it could be a nod to his father.” Sierra had gone over and over that diary searching for clues, the mystery obsessing her for days on end.
“It’s amazing you found me at all,” he muttered darkly, rubbing a hand over his face. “I was so absorbed with the winery, needing to make it a success for my grandfather. And all the while I should have been here, making sure Arielle had everything she needed.”
Sierra heard the despair and self-recrimination in his words. She wished she had a way to distract him since neither of those things would help the situation.
“You’re here now though. And I have to admit, you moved quickly once I put my cards on the table.” She slumped more deeply against the bench, drawing her knees to her chest to hug them to her. And maybe to add a barrier between her and the compelling man sitting beside her. “Once I researched more about the Colt Room and your involvement, combined with the fact that you left the country soon after Arielle became pregnant, I thought you could be the father.”
“Your earlier messages were full of questions without coming right out and asking. Or conjecturing.” He shook his head at the memory. “I glanced at a few, but after I looked you up online, I figured you were just digging for an inside track on the Texas Cattleman’s Club for one of your stories.”
That stung.
“And ignored me accordingly.” She felt a self-deprecating smile twitch her lips. “I see you subscribe to the view that reporters are vultures.”
“What was I supposed to think? It sure as hell never crossed my mind you were writing to tell me I was—that I might be—a father.” He shoved to his feet. “I should go. See the child for myself. Find out how to get tested.”
She rose as well, feeling more off-kilter than she should have now that a potential daddy candidate for baby Micah was in town and seemed ready to take responsibility for the boy. The possible end of her involvement with the drama made her anxious. “Wait.” She scrambled to stand, shoving her feet back into her worn slippers. “You can get DNA tests at Royal Memorial, although to expedite them is extremely expensive. But first, I should go with you to see Micah.”
Colt studied her with those serious blue eyes. She felt weighed and measured, somehow, as if he were sizing up every last thing he knew about her. As a reporter, she should be used to the scrutiny. Instead, she felt suddenly aware that she wore only a thin pair of pajama pants and a sleep shirt.
“I’m definitely paying for the expedited tests. I’ll stop by the hospital after I see Micah. And while it’s generous of you to offer to go with me, Sierra, I can’t ask you to do any more.” He had a clipped way of speaking, articulating each word clearly. She wondered if it came from his time abroad. “I’m already deeply in your debt no matter how you view it.”
“I haven’t even told Cammie I was contacting you,” she hedged, feeling in her bones that she needed to be a part of the meeting. To see Micah’s journey through to the end. “And we should let Micah’s aunt, Eve, know that you’re in town, too.” There were so many people in Royal who’d rallied around Micah these last few months, people who’d helped piece together the mystery baby’s story. “But if you want to meet Micah today, I’d prefer to be there with you. Cammie and Micah are staying with her fiancé, Drake Rhodes, a local rancher who has a house in town.”
While he seemed to weigh this, she found herself wondering how he would do with the transition to caring for a six-month-old if he proved to be the father. Would it bring him any happiness, or only worry? Anxiety for Micah stirred again, her concern for the baby very real whether or not it made sense.
Finally, Colt nodded. “In that case, thank you.”
“Great.” She hurried toward the house. “It’ll take me ten minutes to change and call Cammie. I’ll fill her in and let her know we’re coming. Then we’ll go. I can drive.”
She was halfway through the kitchen when Colt’s voice behind her made her pause.
“Sierra. Can I ask you one more thing?”
She glanced back at him as he stood silhouetted in the doorway, his broad shoulders filling the entryway.
“Sure. Shoot.” Leaning a hip on the stove, she tried to picture him cradling a baby. The answering image that splashed across her mind made her mourn her missing ovaries.
Reminding her sharply why she’d avoided relationships.
“Does he look like me at all?” Colt asked in that intense way of his, blue eyes boring right through her.
With that one simple question, she was toast. It was all she could do not to clutch her midsection where her reproductive organs should have been, her every maternal instinct touched.
And yet tormented.
She had to swallow back a hurt she hadn’t allowed herself to indulge in years to consider the question.
“Actually, I think he does,” she answered softly before spinning away. She beat a swift retreat to her room upstairs to regroup.
Get a grip.
Because she needed to keep an eye on Colt Black until she could be certain he was Micah’s father. And even then, who was to say Colt could take good care of a baby? She would stick like glue to him through the transition until she knew for sure.
