A car came up the driveway, swirling dust that would settle if they got more than a drop of rain. It was dry for May. Too dry.
“Someone you know?” Jackson stepped down from the fence to watch the car that pulled in next to Blake’s truck.
“Doesn’t look familiar.” Blake adjusted his cowboy hat to block the sun and get a better look. “New York plates. Must be a rental car. Did you say someone was coming to look at that mare we bought from Wyatt Johnson?”
“Not until next week.”
“Maybe just lost?” Blake offered, then he started toward the barn. He needed to take care of a few things, then head to his place.
Behind him, Jackson whistled low. “Blake, I think you might want to take a deep breath.”
“Why?” Blake looked back to see what would cause him to need a deep breath. He would tell Jackson later that a deep breath wouldn’t have done him a bit of good. He wasn’t even sure his heart knew how to keep beating. The woman, petite, blonde and rightfully hesitant, walked toward them. She didn’t smile. Blake didn’t feel much like smiling, either.
“Blake, I...” She shook her head and shrugged.
Jackson’s hand settled on Blake’s shoulder. “Don’t go crazy.”
“I’m not going crazy.” He shifted his hat and glanced away from the woman standing there looking up at him with a million questions in her blue eyes. For a long moment he looked away, letting his gaze settle on the field, on cattle grazing, on all of the things he knew and he could handle.
“We need to talk.” Her words were shaky and spoken with the softest English accent, the same accent that used to slay him.
“Talk? I don’t know, Jana, maybe we needed to talk ten, almost eleven years ago.” Blake looked at her, trying hard not to see her as the woman he’d loved, that he’d married. He needed to see her as the woman who had left him and taken their daughter with her. “What are you doing here?”
He needed to focus, to get his thoughts under control. It wasn’t an easy thing to do. She was still beautiful. That was the last thing he wanted to think about her, not the first. Next to him, Jackson cleared his throat a little. Blake drew in a deep breath and focused on his ex-wife.
She shifted from one sandaled foot to the other, forcing him to stare at her pink toenails. He didn’t want to notice anything about her. He didn’t want to notice that she still looked a lot like the girl he’d met years ago in college. He didn’t want to notice that her eyes were still as blue as the Oklahoma sky in March.
He wanted nothing from her but the daughter she’d left the country with all those years ago. He glanced past Jana, at the car she’d driven up in. He didn’t see any sign of Lindsey. If he focused on his daughter, maybe he wouldn’t get tangled up in Jana.
At that moment, Jana’s gaze connected with his, pushing him off balance like an emotional avalanche.
“I’m here because I made a mistake, and it’s time to right that wrong.” Her eyes shimmered with unshed tears.
“Where’s my daughter? Where’s Lindsey?”
Jana bit down on her bottom lip, and the tears started to fall.
“Jana, tell me where she is.” The longer Jana stood there, the more worry settled in his gut. None of this felt right.
“Blake, take a step back.” Jackson edged close to him. “Give her a minute.”
“I’ve given her ten and a half years of my daughter’s life. Years I didn’t have.”
“Lindsey’s sick.” The words tumbled out quickly as she took another step toward him. “We need you.”
The words hit him hard. He didn’t know what to say, but he knew he needed a minute to process. He looked down at the hand that rested on his arm, the look in her eyes pleading for his mercy. He’d loved her. He remembered back to the woman he’d thought he’d spend his life with. She’d been a college student from England spending a year in America. He’d fallen in love with her soft gestures, her sweet innocence and the accent.
He took off his hat and brushed a hand through his hair. She was watching him, waiting. Jackson stood nearby. Blake returned to what she’d just said. They needed him.
“Blake, please.” Her words were soft. His daughter was sick.
“Where is she?”
“Don’t take her from me.”
“Of all the...” He had to walk away. When he turned, she was still standing where he left her, tears rolling down her cheeks. Real tears. He knew that. He knew she was hurting. That didn’t undo the way his insides were tied up in knots. “You took her from me.”
“I know,” she whispered, her gaze lifting to meet his.
Every emotion he’d felt in the past ten years rushed through his mind. The woman he’d promised to love “until death do us part” was standing in front of him. It was hard to look at her and not think about the past. She’d gotten tired of country life. She’d left him and taken their two-year-old daughter away from him, hiding her in Europe and then in Africa. He knew this because he’d been on her trail for several years. Yet she’d always managed to disappear just before he caught up with her.
The only thing she’d left him was a note telling him she couldn’t be a Cooper anymore, and she didn’t think he’d understand. Almost four years into their marriage, she should have known him better than that. He would have understood.
“Does any of this matter right now?” Jackson asked, jumping into the conversation, the voice of reason. “Jana, where’s Lindsey?”
“Tulsa.” Jana brushed the hair back from her face as she stood facing him, a lot braver than he would have been, Blake thought. “I brought her to Tulsa. She’s in a hospital there. Blake, she needs a kidney transplant.”
Blake was already pulling his keys from his pocket. He nodded toward the rental car. “You can park here. You’ll ride with me.”
“I can drive myself.”
Blake laughed a little. “I don’t think so, Jana.”
“I’m not going to leave.”
“I’m afraid I can’t take your word on that. I seem to remember telling you that I had to make that meeting in Oklahoma City but we’d work things out when I got back. Problem was, I got back and you were gone.”
Jackson interfered again. Blake needed to tell his younger brother that he could do without the kid gloves and worried looks. “Let me call Madeline and tell her what’s going on. I’ll drive the two of you to Tulsa.”
“I can drive.” Blake reached for Jana. She walked next to him, looking down, not up. He relaxed his hold on her arm.
“Let me go with you.” Jackson stayed close.
“We’ll take this.” Blake opened the passenger door of the rental car for Jana. “Get in.”
Jana got in. She looked up at him, her big blue eyes swimming in tears. “Blake, I’m sorry.”
“I know.” He closed the car door and turned to face Jackson. “Let the family know what’s going on. I’ll call you when I know more.”
Jackson’s mouth stayed in a firm line, unsmiling. “Blake, let me go with you.”
“Not this time, little brother.”
“Don’t hurt her,” Jackson warned.
“Hurt her? You mean like the way she ripped my heart out? Don’t