“Are you seriously asking that question? Of course she’s beautiful.” Eve sighed as she held the baby close, sniffing hair that smelled of lavender.
She wanted one. She wouldn’t admit it, even to her best friend. Half the time she couldn’t even admit it to herself. She wanted what she couldn’t have. A husband, a family, a home of her own. Instead of admitting to those secret things, she smiled.
She shook her head slightly, dislodging the hint of melancholy. She was happy. She loved her life at Mercy Ranch. She loved her life. Period. She had a job translating documents and manuals to English. Four years ago she hadn’t dreamed she would be able to resume her life to this degree, so of course she was happy. The military had sent her to language school and she could still use those hard earned skills to support herself.
Her phone rang again. She held Cara in her right arm and reached for the phone with her left. The caller seemed to be getting smarter in their attempts to reach her. This time the number was blocked. She thought of friends she’d ultimately blocked from her life, lost contact with, pushed aside. All because she hadn’t wanted to face them from this chair. She hadn’t wanted to face their pity.
When she looked up, Kylie was watching, compassion in her eyes.
“Your parents again?” Kylie asked.
“No caller ID so I doubt it. Our last phone call didn’t end well and I told them I needed space but they’ve never blocked their number before.”
“Friend or therapist, I’m going to give you some advice.” Kylie moved her chair close. “You have to deal with your parents. They love you and you love them. Tell them what you need from them.”
“I know I’m going to have to talk to them, face-to-face. But somehow I have to make them see that I can’t come home. Mercy Ranch is my home now.” She focused on the baby in her arms. “They would chip away at my faith, my independence. I just can’t.”
The bell over the front door clanged. Eve glanced that way. Nothing unusual, a stranger walking through the doors of the café. It happened more frequently these days. Jack’s plan to bring tourists back to Hope had been successful. She started to glance away but the man walking through the door with a baby in his arms wasn’t a stranger. Suddenly she felt her skin go cold and her ears buzzed.
“Eve, are you okay?” Kylie swooped in to take her baby. “Breathe.”
“I can’t... I can’t breathe. I have to leave. I need to get out of here.”
Kylie followed her gaze toward the front of the café and the man standing just inside the door. He zeroed in on Eve with lightning precision. Eve reached for her glass of water, hands trembling as she lifted it to her lips.
“Who is he?” Kylie asked.
“Her worst nightmare,” he said as he approached their table.
Holly chose that moment to appear.
“Do I need to bring another menu?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said. At the same time Eve shook her head and said, “No.”
Holly looked to Eve. She didn’t know how to get the words out. She didn’t know what to say. Her past, present and future had just collided in one big messy pileup and her heart still couldn’t catch up.
Six years since they’d seen each other. Six years and he still had the ability to undo everything inside her. She couldn’t let him do that to her. She drew in a deep breath, ignored his dark auburn hair, the strength of his chin, the deep brown of his eyes. Okay, she didn’t really ignore anything about him. How could she when he was looming over her?
With a baby.
“Ethan, what are you doing here?” Her voice came out in a squeak.
“Obviously I’m finding out some things I didn’t know.” His voice changed from harsh to questioning, hurt maybe?
“Why don’t you have a seat?” Kylie offered, pulling up another chair. “Your baby is beautiful.”
He looked down at the bundle in his arms, as if he’d forgotten about the baby in the pink dress, all soft blond hair and big eyes.
Kylie looked from the baby to Eve. A baby. Eve shouldn’t be surprised. Four years of silence meant that any number of things could have happened in Ethan’s life. Including a wife and children. But what was he doing here? Why now?
She waited, knowing that whatever Ethan had to say, it would hurt. And it would change her life. She felt the devastation coming and couldn’t do a thing to stop it. Without thinking she grabbed Kylie’s hand, needing strength from her best friend as the man sitting at their table stared her down, accusations and pain shining in his dark eyes.
* * *
For several years Ethan Forester had run the scenarios through his mind, trying to decide which one best fit Eve’s defection from his life, from the life they’d planned together. In his mind the phone call ending their engagement had been made because she’d found someone else or possibly decided she wanted a military career over a marriage to a rancher from Texas. Her parents had never been in favor of their relationship so maybe she’d come around to their way of thinking. That’s what he’d told himself. It hadn’t made him feel any better but it had helped him to deal with the loss.
Even with the possible explanations, he’d struggled with how they’d gone from in love and engaged to separated and never seeing one another again. Over the phone they’d been planning the wedding because she would have been leaving the army and coming home. They’d picked the venue, the caterer, had even discussed bridesmaids and groomsmen. And then silence for several months.
Their next phone call had been her telling him their engagement was over and that she never wanted to see him again. Her parents had refused to tell him anything. No surprises there.
Now, face-to-face with her, he got it. And he was angry and hurt all over again. After years of being best friends, in love, engaged, she had kept this from him.
“You could have told me about...” The words came out, torn from somewhere deep inside. “You could have trusted me enough to tell me.”
“Not here,” she said. She turned away from him, not before he saw the flash of pain that flickered in her brown eyes.
He didn’t want to feel her pain. The moment sympathy tried to surface, he shoved it back down. Tori shifted in his arms and hugged his neck, a reminder that this wasn’t about him. It wasn’t about Eve. The six-month-old in his arms came first. This was about her life, her future.
He’d had the most difficult two weeks of his life. Tori had shared in the devastation. She was just too young to really understand how her life had changed on a rainy night two weeks ago.
The devastation he’d felt was about to be visited on the woman sitting in front of him, dark eyes warily studying the child in his arms.
“You’re right. Not here.” He didn’t know how to proceed. “Where can we talk?”
She backed away from the table, her gaze flicking briefly to the woman sitting across from her. She noticed his attention on that woman and she sighed.
“Ethan Forester, this is my friend Kylie West and her daughter Cara.” Her gaze shot to the child in his arms.
A child she might have known had she kept in contact with friends. He should give her a definition of the word, so she would understand what it meant to her family, to her friends, that she’d disappeared from their lives.
Kylie gave him an easy smile. “There’s a small, private room through the door at the back of the restaurant. I’ll let Holly know where you’ve gone. And if you want lunch, I’ll have her deliver it to you there.”
Eve shook her head. “I’ve lost my appetite.”
Rather