Not that it had ended completely. Legally, they were still husband and wife, something he’d made no attempt to rectify. One failed marriage was enough for him. As long as he and Summer were still legally wed, he could never make the same mistake again. Giving his heart away to a woman and risking the possibility of it being trampled all over again was something he was determined to avoid at all cost. Only now Summer is gone, he thought with a pang of sorrow. And that made him a widower.
His attention shifted back to Autumn Myers’s retreating form, noting with some confusion that instead of settling herself behind the wheel of her bright yellow Mustang GT she circled around to the rear passenger side. A soft, somewhat sad smile moved across her face as she reached out to open the back door.
He lost sight of her for a moment as she leaned into the back of the brightly colored sports car. A second later, she took a step back from the vehicle and motioned to someone in the back seat. A tiny head with a mass of long curls hopped out to join her.
With the little girl’s hand tucked securely in her own, a now unsmiling Autumn held his gaze as she walked back to the porch. She has a daughter, he thought to himself. One she must have brought along to meet her uncle by marriage.
The fading rays of the afternoon sun glinted off the mass of curls that hung over the child’s downturned face as they crossed the yard. Chestnut curls. An unsettling sensation moved through him. Why that was, he had no idea. He looked questioningly to Autumn as she guided her young daughter up onto the porch.
“Tucker Wade,” she said before looking down at the little girl who now had her tiny face pressed into her mother’s skirt, “this is my niece, Blue Belle Wade. That’s Bell with an e,” she clarified.
Tucker’s thoughts scrambled to process the words she’d just spoken. Her niece.
“Blue,” she continued, “this is—”
“My daddy?” the little girl mumbled as she dared an inquisitive peek up at him through the protective barricade of her reddish-brown curls that served to hide most of her face.
“Her what?” he gasped as her name filtered through his mind. Blue Belle. Summer’s favorite flower. The same ones he’d given her a bouquet of when he’d asked her to marry him.
“Yes, sweetie,” she answered, her tone tender. “This is your daddy.” Autumn’s gaze lifted to meet his. “Tucker Wade, meet your daughter.”
His daughter. How was that possible? But her hair was the same reddish-brown shade as his own.
“Blue,” Autumn said, gently nudging her niece, “say hello to your daddy.”
His daughter’s little face turned slightly as she peeked up at him. “Hello,” she said timidly, burying her face once again in the soft fabric of her aunt’s skirt.
Autumn ran a soothing hand down over her niece’s curls. “Sweetie, we came all this way to meet your daddy. I think he deserves a chance to see that pretty smile of yours.”
His little girl pulled away ever so slightly and tipped her chin upward. And then she smiled. The long spiraling strands of her hair fell away to reveal a heart-shaped face very similar to Summer’s and Autumn’s. But it was Blue’s wide green eyes and the lone dimple that appeared when she smiled that caused his heart to lurch. Those were his eyes. And that was undeniably the Wade family dimple that dipped into one side of his daughter’s baby-soft cheeks.
His daughter. A barrage of emotions swept over Tucker as he stood looking down at her. He was a father. That revelation had his world tilting. He struggled to steady himself as spots danced around in his vision.
“Tucker?” he heard Autumn say, concern lacing her voice. “Are you all right? You look mighty pale.”
He gave a forced laughed. “I’m better than all right. I’m a daddy.” Yet, even as he spoke his words of reassurance, darkness began to fringe his vision.
“How’s come he’s swaying like a tree in the wind?” he heard his daughter ask.
“Tucker?” Autumn said, the concern-filled utterance bringing him back to full awareness.
He blinked hard and then cleared his throat. “Sorry,” he said. “This is a lot to take in.”
“Would you like to call someone?” she suggested, looking as if she expected him to drop into a dead faint any minute. “One of your brothers perhaps?”
The only time he’d ever come close to passing out had been when he’d gotten bucked off Little Cyclone during the Pioneer Days Rodeo up in Lander several years back. Landing on your head in a rodeo was cause for a little head spinning, yet he hadn’t gone down. He was made of sturdier stock than that. However, the little bombshell Autumn Myers had dropped on him just moments before had nearly managed to do what Little Cyclone hadn’t been able to—bring this Montana-bred cowboy to his knees. Nearly.
Tucker shook his head. “No need.”
“You’re really tall,” Blue announced, craning her neck as she stood peering up at him.
He chuckled at Blue’s observation, thankful that some of her shyness seemed to be easing up around him. “Not as tall as my brothers. Your uncles,” he clarified. “They both top six foot. I’m only five foot eleven.
“I have uncles?” his daughter said excitedly.
It was hard not to let the injustice of what his wife had done, shutting him out of their child’s life, seep into his tone. Summer had denied his parents the chance to get to know their only grandchild, and his brothers the opportunity to spoil their niece. “Two of them,” he said with surprising calm, as the anger he’d once felt toward Summer after she’d walked out on their marriage returned to simmer just below the surface of his lighthearted demeanor.
“Do they live here, too?” asked Blue, looking around.
“No,” he said. “This is my place. Your uncles have homes of their own that they live in on the ranch.”
His daughter looked out over the land surrounding them. “I don’t see them.”
“That’s because they’re spread out across our family’s nine-thousand-plus-acre ranch.”
“What’s an acre?”
“It’s a measurement of land,” Autumn explained.
“Do we have acres?”
“We do,” she answered, glancing around. “But your daddy’s property is a whole lot bigger than ours back in Cheyenne. We only have forty acres there and far fewer trees.”
Blue swung her curious gaze back in his direction. “Do you have a swing set behind your house?”
“I’m afraid not,” he said. “Never had the need for one.”
She turned to her aunt. “Can I bring mine here if my daddy wants me to live with him?”
Autumn’s eyes shot up to lock with his, a frown pulling at her glossy pink lips. “My sister’s last request,” she explained. “One I’m struggling to honor.”
He hadn’t even given that any thought. Tucker knelt in front of his daughter and took her tiny hand in his. “Of course,