Sugar Springs
Also By Kim Law
Caught on Camera
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Text copyright © 2012 Kim Law
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Montlake Romance
P.O. Box 400818
Las Vegas, NV 89140
ISBN-13: 9781612186979
ISBN-10: 1612186971
This book is dedicated to Debra Hayes for always being willing to jump in and help when I need it most.
The idea for this one wouldn’t have sparked without you. Thanks for being the best kind of friend.
“He’s back.”
Chilly November air whipped over Lee Ann London as her mother hurried through the kitchen door and slammed it shut behind her, the action rattling the copper-bottomed pots hanging above Lee Ann’s head. Continuing her methodic motions with the rolling pin, she tucked her smile away and focused on the dough. “Hey, Mom. Who’s back?”
“I should have said
coming
back,” she bristled.
“Okay, who’s—”
The thud of a heavy coat hitting the floor cut Lee Ann off midquestion and pulled her attention from the kitchen island.
Reba London’s eyebrows puckered as she stood still in the middle of the room, concern etching her blue eyes and turning them a shade darker, erasing the natural twinkle normally found there. Agitation had her wringing her hands together. Over-the-top drama was one thing with her mother, but her stiff posture indicated this was actually serious.
Lee Ann pushed the rolling pin to the side and wiped her fingers on her apron. She propped her hands on her hips and studied the helpless expression on her mother’s face. Rarely
did anything cause Reba such distress these days. Nothing had in ages. Not since those first few years of the two of them figuring out how to make ends meet as they’d struggled to care for the twins.
At the thought of the girls Lee Ann had been raising since birth, she glanced at the clock. Five o’clock. They would be home soon. Candy from basketball practice and Kendra from cheerleading. And then another thought struck. She hadn’t seen her mother this agitated since the day her half sister had proclaimed the kids’ father was...
Lee Ann froze, an icy path slicing over the back of her neck.
No.
She blinked and shook her head once, determined to shove aside the face that had popped to mind. Just because her mom’s look reminded her of that day so long ago didn’t mean she was talking about
him
being the one who was coming back to town. He hadn’t stepped foot in Sugar Springs, Tennessee, in over thirteen years. It would make no sense for him to be there now.
But what if he was?
Her chest tightened. The thought was insane. Of course he wouldn’t have decided to come back after all this time. There was nothing more for him there today than there had been all those years ago. Certainly not the possibility of having anything to do with the girls he’d turned his back on.
Reba took a hesitant step toward Lee Ann but stopped. She twisted the large flower-petal ring around her finger, hitched her mouth in an unattractive twist, and slowly nodded her head.
After several long seconds of silence as Lee Ann gave her mother a hard stare, the anxiety on the woman’s face shifted and began to falter, allowing in a bit of her “everything will work out” look. She lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. She didn’t
seem exactly sold on the idea but more as if she was trying to convince both herself and Lee Ann that it had to be the case.
“Mom?” Lee Ann couldn’t control the tremor in her voice.
Reba squared her shoulders, going for brave, but her eyes were as worried as Lee Ann had ever seen them. Sharp prickles worked their way over Lee Ann’s scalp. She closed her eyes. She did not want to hear his name.
“Who, Mom?” she asked. “Who is coming back to town?”
A tiny pause, then words spoken so quietly they were almost indecipherable. “Cody Dalton.”
Pain jabbed the back of Lee Ann’s eyelids.
The bastard.
He had no business coming back there and disrupting their lives. She opened her eyes and moved with controlled motions until she sank into a kitchen chair, where she proceeded to stare straight ahead, focusing on the bare branches intertwined outside the kitchen window instead of the images of Cody currently daring to flit through her mind.
Okay, fine, she could deal with this. Nothing was insurmountable. The fact was she’d dealt with far worse before—those times being his fault, too, of course. She inhaled a breath into her lungs, deep enough to expand her chest as she continued to get herself under control, then she let it out slowly with the backward countdown from ten.
There was an easy solution. She simply had to keep him the heck out of their lives.
He hadn’t wanted to be there before, so there was no reason she should open the door and let him come strolling in today. As she worked through the ins and outs of living in a town with less than six hundred people, she knew there was no way they could keep completely out of each other’s path, but she would do everything possible to limit the run-ins. Her mom
perched on the seat beside her and reached out a hand to pat Lee Ann on the back as if she were a child.
“Why is he back?” Lee Ann asked. “And why now?”
Had he experienced some lightbulb moment that made him suddenly develop the urge to be the father he’d never wanted to be before? She gritted her teeth at the thought. His children were only a few weeks shy of becoming teenagers. It wasn’t as if missing the first thirteen years of their lives was going to endear him to them.
The fingers resting on her back slid away. “He’s the new vet, hon, filling in for Dr. Wright for six weeks so she can be home for a spell after the baby comes.”
“Veterinarian?” Shock weighted her body down as the cheerful colors of the room blended together to form a depressing blue, green, and yellow haze. Like a three-day-old bruise. “He’s a vet?”
Unimaginable.
Yet strangely comforting. Warmth poked through a tiny spot deep in her belly. He’d actually done it. Then coldness slammed back into place as Lee Ann registered the other words her mother had spoken.
Six weeks?
In Sugar Springs?
Lee Ann rubbed her temples. How was she going to handle this? There was no way he wouldn’t at least ask about the girls. Heck, half the population would tell him all about them, none the wiser that they were talking to the kids’ actual father. Thankfully, only her mother and best friend knew that he’d even been with Stephanie that way.
The big question, though, was would he want anything to do with them? Or would he merely be curious?
And honestly, she didn’t know which answer she wanted to be correct.
Reba used her thumb to wipe flour off Lee Ann’s cheek, veiled hope leaking out of her now. “It’ll be okay, sweetheart. Maybe he’s finally grown up. The girls will get the dad they’ve always needed.”
“No!” Lee Ann stood, dumping her chair over. She backed away until her head cracked against the cuckoo clock hanging on the wall. She righted the heirloom, then rubbed the sore spot on the back of her head as she eyed her mother. The woman may have still harbored resentment over the mess Cody had left their family in years ago, but she also managed to always hold on to that ridiculous thread of optimism that had once gotten her nothing but two kids—one not even hers—to raise on her own, and not one dollar of child support anywhere to be found. If anyone should know better, it was her.
No, they weren’t going to do this. They would not hunt him down and beg him to finally be a father. As far as Lee Ann was concerned, Cody Dalton had already walked out on his responsibilities once, and he wouldn’t get a second opportunity.
“Don’t you dare tell him a word about them, Mother.” She made it clear this was not a subject open for discussion. She’d made all decisions for Candy and Kendra since their births, just as she’d taken the lead so many times with her mother and sister as she’d been growing up. She’d had to, otherwise her mother—whose head seemed to stay in the happy clouds more often than not—would forget to make sure they had clean clothes for school or, worse, forget to pay the electric bill. It hadn’t been lack of money, simply lack of concern to remember the silly details. “It will all work out” had always been her motto.
No, Lee Ann wouldn’t stand for her mother closing her eyes to reality now and getting in the way of her kids’ stability.
“He walked out on them, Mom. He doesn’t deserve to know them. Plus, he’ll be gone soon.” She shook her head at the argument she could see forming. “We’ll simply keep our distance while he’s in town, and the kids will remain as happy and well adjusted as they’ve always been. I will not let him walk in here and hurt them.”
She ignored the voice in the back of her head that asked if she wasn’t also afraid he would walk in and hurt her. That wasn’t a valid question. Doing it again wasn’t possible.
“No matter what he did, sweetheart, he is their father,” her mother said quietly as she bent over and righted the fallen chair. “He deserves to know them if he wants to.” Reba had always believed the best in people and it galled Lee Ann every time her gullibility rose to the surface. Did she never learn from her mistakes? Then her mother’s words made Lee Ann realize that even after her father had walked away when she was four, Reba would have let him back in their lives if he’d shown so much as an ounce of interest. Thank goodness for small blessings. After he’d walked out the door, he’d never glanced back.