Spring at Saddle Run Read online

  “When I went through Royce’s emails, I found out he was adopted,” she explained, and Millie gave Joe a brief overview of what she knew about Harlan Guthrie.

  Joe stayed quiet, obviously trying to process that, and he finally took hold of her arm. “Let’s get out of the heat. Dara’s inside the house,” he added. And that explained why he led Millie into his man-shed. He probably didn’t want to spring any possibilities like this on his daughter until he had all the facts.

  “Here’s the report,” Millie said once they were in the shed. She set the laptop on the worktable, and brought it up on the screen. “And here’s the message from Royce’s aunt. No mention of Royce having siblings, and her email addy is no longer valid.”

  Joe scanned through the email and report, and then he used the laptop to do a search on Harlan Guthrie. There wasn’t as much info as Millie had expected, but then the man would have been convicted of murder over thirty years ago.

  Thirty-two to be exact when Royce would have been just a baby. She saw the date of Harlan’s confession on one of the pages. What she didn’t find was any mention of Harlan’s son or other children.

  “There are archived news articles that might have the info,” Joe said, scrolling through the pages. “We’ll have to subscribe to a service to get them, but let me make a call first. To Ella’s mom.”

  Of course. In her frustration over her conversation with Asher and her hurry to get here, Millie had forgotten about the one woman who could maybe give them an immediate answer. Then again, that answer wasn’t going to come easy.

  Joe took out his phone, and she could see him steeling himself. Still, he scrolled through his contacts and made the call. He didn’t put it on speaker, but Millie had no trouble hearing the woman’s voice when she answered.

  “Joe, is everything okay?” she asked, and Millie didn’t think she was wrong about the woman sounding surprised. Maybe Joe didn’t call her that often.

  “Some things have come up, and I have a question.” And he didn’t waste any time getting to that question, either. “Janice, was Ella adopted?”

  When Millie didn’t hear her response, she moved closer to the phone.

  “Janice?” Joe prompted. “Was Ella adopted?”

  Again, no response. Well, except for a sharp intake of breath right before Janice ended the call.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  JOE FINISHED BRUSHING down the horse he’d used to ride out and do fence repairs. Repairs that had taken hours. He was tired, hungry and wanted a shower. After that, he hoped he could just fall into bed and into a deep sleep. One with no dreams.

  And with no thoughts of Millie.

  He figured his chances of not thinking about her were nil. For the past four days since Millie had said that I love you, she’d been the main thing on his mind. And that was saying something, considering all the rest of the crap that had been keeping him from getting that deep, dreamless sleep.

  A lot of that crap involved Janice. She still hadn’t returned any of his calls, still hadn’t answered the question about Ella being adopted. If the woman kept up the silent treatment, he’d have to drive into San Antonio and confront her face-to-face. And what fun would that be?

  “Not much at all,” Joe grumbled under his breath as he started toward the house.

  But the truth had to come out, and since he hadn’t been able to find anything else on Ella’s DNA test, it meant Janice might end up being his sole source to confirm or debunk the theory that could explain why Royce and Ella had been together.

  He wondered if Millie was having any better luck with getting info about whether or not Harlan Guthrie had had more than one child. Probably not. If she had, she would have contacted him. Even the awkwardness between them wouldn’t have put her off from telling him something that important.

  And, of course, he was now thinking about Millie again.

  Cursing ten dollars’ worth that he’d owe his swear jar, he opened the kitchen door and came to a halt. Dara was standing on a chair and hanging something from the drop-down light fixture.

  A banner with Happy Birthday colored with rainbow glitter.

  Joe did a quick mental double take to make sure he hadn’t forgotten Dara’s birthday, or his own. He hadn’t. But there sure as heck was birthday stuff on the table. A cake complete with candles, paper plates, napkins and even little pointy party hats. Dara had even made some party food. Chex mix, little sandwiches and queso dip with tortilla chips.

  “What’s going on?” he asked, stepping inside. Then, he froze again when he saw the icing writing on the cake.

  Happy Birthday, Millie.

  Dara beamed out a big smile as if there was something to beam and smile about, and she got down from the chair. She eyed the banner, stepped a few inches back and did more eyeing. “I know Millie’s birthday isn’t for a few more days, but I figured she’d have plans on the actual day so I’m throwing her a surprise party tonight. I had Aunt Frankie pick up some of the things, and she dropped them off while you were working.”

  Joe had some vague recollection of Millie soon turning thirty, but this was the first he was hearing of a surprise party. “I don’t think this is a good idea,” he grumbled.

  Dara shifted her attention from the banner to him. And she stopped beaming. “I get it. Things aren’t good between Millie and you right now.”

  He scowled. “How do you know that?”

  She made an “it’s obvious” eye roll. “You’re grouchy and moody so I figured you’ve started to feel bad about seeing her. Because of Mom and all. I’m staying out of that, but Millie is still my friend, and I wanted to throw her a party.”

  Dara checked the clock on the stove. “Frankie, Tanner and Little T will be here soon so you might want to go ahead and get your shower. As soon as Aunt Frankie’s done with work, she’ll pick up Little T from the sitter and head over. They’re going to park behind the barn so Millie won’t know they’re here.”

  Joe’s mind was stuck on the “grouchy and moody” comment so it took a couple of seconds for the rest of it to sink in. The party was bad enough, but now there’d be guests? Of course, those guests were family, with the exception of Tanner, but still...

  “You should have asked me before you did all of this.” And yeah, he grumbled that, too.

  “When I asked you this morning if you were going out tonight, you said no, that you’d be home,” she reminded him.

  Yeah, he had said that, but that didn’t mean he’d wanted to attend a party for anyone, especially Millie. He couldn’t imagine Millie being particularly thrilled with it, either.

  “How’d you convince Millie to come here?” he asked.

  “I told her I had a few more research notes to give her about Mom. She’s trying to finish up the report, but I fibbed and said it was stuff I knew she’d want to include.” Dara checked the clock again. “She’ll be here in like forty-five minutes.”

  Hell. He couldn’t demand that Dara cancel, but he could regret that Millie had apparently become such an important part of her life that she’d throw her a surprise party.

  No way would Millie have turned Dara down, either, because he suspected that Dara had become an important part of Millie’s life, too. He knew they’d met for lunch at O’Riley’s with Frankie and Little T. There was also another shopping trip in the works to celebrate Dara getting all As on her end-of-school-year report card. That’s why Joe had given her a gift certificate to the mall. Dara would probably use it to hit that silk underwear place again and buy makeup with names that made him think of sex with Millie.

  Then again, a lot of things made him think of sex with Millie.

  Joe started stripping the moment he was in his bedroom, and he cursed enough that he’d have to write a check to his swear jar. There were probably enough funds in there now to sustain a small country.

  He showered as if he’
d declared war on life and worked out some of his mad. Not mad at Dara. Hell, not even at Millie. But at himself. He’d known if he got involved with Millie that somebody would get hurt. She had. He had no doubts about that. But he hadn’t expected his own heart to get stomped on. Of course, he was responsible for the stomping since he’d been the one to back away from her, but that didn’t make it hurt any less.

  After he dried off, he stood in front of his closet, wondering if he should put on an actual shirt instead of a T. But then he realized the only reason for that would be to look halfway decent for Millie. Something he’d want if they were still seeing each other. Since they weren’t—or they possibly weren’t—he grabbed one of his everyday T-shirts, a gray one, and pulled on a pair of clean jeans. By the time he finished dressing and came out of his bedroom, he heard the unmistakable chatter from Little T.

  “Can we yell ‘boo’ instead of ‘surprise’?” the boy asked.

  “No,” Dara answered. “You yell out surprise for a surprise party. But remember when you’re supposed to do that?”

  “Yeah, after you bring her in here. It’ll be dark ’cause you’re going to turn off the lights, and we’re gonna hide. When you bring her in the kitchen, we’ll jump up and yell ‘surprise.’ Then, we can have cake. Can we have cake now?”

  Dara was explaining why they had to wait—candles, wishes, etc.—as Joe walked in. One look at Tanner and Frankie, and he knew they’d had a fairly recent booty call. No doubt while Little T had still been with the sitter. Joe spotted the fresh hickey on his sister’s neck, and Tanner was looking laid-back and satisfied.

  “If you break her heart again, I’m getting out the axe,” Joe muttered to him while Frankie, Dara and Little T were putting on their party hats.

  “I’ll try very hard not to do that. We haven’t worked out everything,” Tanner quickly added. “And we’ve decided to take things slow.”

  “Not so slow that you didn’t have time to give her a hickey,” Joe pointed out.

  Tanner shrugged, with a smile that was still mostly cocky/bad boy. But there was also a bad boy version of a blush, too.

  “Millie’s here,” Dara said when there was the sound of an approaching car. “Aunt Frankie, go ahead and light the candles.” She slapped off the kitchen lights. “And, Dad, put on a party hat before you hide.” She practically shoved one in his hand before she ran out of the kitchen.

  Joe didn’t put on the hat—he added it to Little T’s instead—but he did hunker down by the fridge, mainly because that’s where Little T dragged him. “Shhh. We gotta stay real quiet,” the boy said in a loud voice that could possibly have been heard one county over.

  He heard Dara turn on the TV, probably to drown out anything else the boy had to say. Then, moments later, Joe heard Dara open the front door and greet Millie. There was some chatter, followed by footsteps approaching the kitchen, followed by Dara switching on the lights.

  “Surprise!” Dara shouted.

  Tanner, Frankie and especially Little T echoed that shout, but Joe couldn’t seem to get the single word out of his mouth. That’s because his gaze locked on to Millie’s face, and he saw the worry there. She was still pretty enough to take away his breath, but it appeared she hadn’t been sleeping any better than he had.

  For just a split second, he imagined being in bed with her. Falling into that much-needed deep sleep after having some much-wanted sex. But Joe shoved that image aside when Millie broke the eye contact because of the rush of hugs she was getting from Frankie and Little T.

  “I can’t believe you did this,” Millie murmured, glancing first at Joe before hugging Dara. “Thank you.”

  “It was all Dara’s doing,” Joe volunteered, but he wished he’d kept his mouth shut. Because it sounded as if he’d wanted to make sure that Millie knew he’d had no part in it.

  “And Frankie’s,” Dara supplied. “She did the grocery run for me.”

  Millie thanked them both again, and she teared up when she looked at the table. “I haven’t had a birthday party since I was sixteen. This is very nice.” That spurred more hugs, but Joe stayed back.

  “You’d better blow out the candles before they catch the place on fire,” Tanner joked, earning him a required elbow poke from his sister.

  There was somewhat of a blaze going on. Frankie had lit all thirty candles, and some of them were flickering pretty high.

  “Make a wish,” Little T shouted, and out of excitement or perhaps because he believed they’d all become hard of hearing, he repeated it three more times.

  Setting her purse on the counter, Millie nodded, closed her eyes a moment and then blew and blew and blew. She was a little winded when she finished, but she managed a laugh. The sound of it caused the tension in his chest to fade. Caused a flood of thoughts and memories about her, too, that he didn’t want, but mercy, it felt good to see her happy.

  “What’d you wish for?” Little T asked in the same breath as, “Can we eat cake now?”

  Millie kissed the boy on the nose. “The wish is a secret.”

  Joe wondered if it had anything to do with him. Or sex with him. Oh, yeah. He was losing this battle over trying to stifle thinking about her.

  “Presents first,” Dara said, handing Millie a small wrapped box she took from the seat of one of the chairs.

  Frankie whipped out one, too, from her purse, and so did Tanner. It wasn’t wrapped, but he pulled a little envelope from his pocket. Then, Little T produced something from his pocket, but he kept his hand clamped around it.

  Well, hell. Joe certainly hadn’t gotten her anything. He hadn’t even known there’d be a party until less than an hour ago. But maybe that was for the best. If he had known, he would have gotten her something.

  Correction—he would have agonized over what to get her.

  Something too trivial could have perhaps made her think she meant nothing to him. Something too big could cause her to believe they could go full speed ahead with that I love you, Joe. This way, there’d be no wrong choice of gift, only the crappy feeling that he was the only one who hadn’t gotten her anything.

  Obviously a little overwhelmed, Millie stood there for several moments just looking at the gifts, and Little T’s hand. And she teared up again. One of those tears actually spilled when she opened the box Dara had given her and took out the necklace. It was a small etched silver heart on a silver chain.

  “It’s a locket, and you can put your picture in it.” Dara opened it to show her. “I know you don’t wear much jewelry—”

  “I’ll wear this one,” Millie interrupted, pulling her into a hug. “Thank you,” she murmured.

  When she eased back from Dara, she immediately put it on. Or rather she tried. After fumbling for a couple of seconds, she turned around for help. Just as Dara went to the sink. Maybe to get something. But Joe suspected it was a ploy since he was the only one not holding anything. Silently cursing his daughter, he went to Millie.

  Touched her.

  No way to avoid that. The clasp was the size of a flea nostril so he ended up doing plenty of touching, some adjusting, even some bumping of her butt before he finally got the darn thing on her.

  “Thank you,” she said in that same warm murmured tone that she had to Dara.

  “Mine next,” Little T insisted. He waited until he had Millie’s attention before he opened his hand to reveal the nickel. “It’s a lucky one,” he explained. “It’s five times luckier than a penny ’cause I found it and picked it up.”

  Joe held his breath, waiting for the boy to blurt out that he’d picked it up by Ella’s grave. That would certainly put a damper on this party, but the boy didn’t add that little detail. He just handed over the coin, the very one that awed and excited him. Maybe some of that awe and excitement had worn off, but Joe was betting it was still valuable to Little T. And he’d given it to Millie.

  “Th
ank you.” She kissed the top of his head. “I’ll keep it with me all the time. For luck,” she added with a wink. “And because it’s from you.” Millie opened the locket and slipped the nickel inside.

  “Me next,” Frankie said, holding out the gift.

  This time, Millie hugged and thanked her before she even opened it. Then, she laughed when she saw what was inside. A tiny gold fairy dangling from a loop. It took Joe a moment to realize it was a navel ring.

  Frankie nudged Joe and winked at him. “Want to put this one on Millie, too?”

  Tanner and Frankie had a good laugh about that, and Millie let him off the hook by putting the fairy back in the box and into her purse. “I’ll try it on later.”

  Well, shit. That put more images in his head. More memories, too, of tongue kissing the navel ring she already wore.

  Tanner handed her the little envelope, which held a gift card from O’Riley’s. Not as imaginative as the ones from Little T and Frankie, but it earned him a hug.

  “Sorry,” Joe mumbled when the others looked at him.

  “I didn’t tell Dad about the party in time for him to get you a gift,” Dara jumped in to explain. “Plus, I figured he’d want to wait until your actual birthday to get you something.”

  His daughter had just thrown down a gauntlet, one that she probably hoped would fix his bad mood by getting Millie a gift that would in turn get them back together.

  “Cake now?” Little T asked, jumping up and down and clapping his hands.

  Dara nodded and went to the counter to get a knife. While she was doing that, Millie stepped closer to Joe. “Nothing from Janice?” she whispered.

  He shook his head. “Nothing more about Harlan Guthrie?”

  She opened her mouth to answer, but Dara came back with the knife and positioned herself next to Joe. Millie clammed up while Dara cut and served the cake. There was some idle chatter as they chowed down, but the moment Millie had finished eating her piece, Joe took hold of her hand.