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  He didn’t respond, and she felt some satisfaction, knowing she was right.

  “So I did take care of it. Just not in the way you would have wanted me to. It was my way and my choice. I’d already offended God once, and I was not about to offend him again.” Her tone changed with the next words, which came more softly. “Besides, even when all was said and done, when you had broken my heart into so many pieces that I thought I’d never be whole again, even then I wanted our child.”

  He looked around in confusion. “I don’t know what to say. I need to think.”

  “What you need to do is to pack up and leave Wyoming.”

  “No, wait! Please, Mercedes. Please! You don’t understand.” He raked a hand through his hair. “Maybe you’re right about what I would have done if I’d known before I left. I don’t know. I was a different person then. But I’m sorry for what happened. I’ve asked myself a million times why I let things slip away. I guess . . . well, we seemed to have forever. But the one thing I do know is that I don’t want to make another mistake. You said you wanted our son. Well, now I want him, too.”

  Mercedes felt faint and had to remind herself to breathe. She took a few backward steps and sat in a chair, bringing one knee up to her chest in an instinctive urge to shield herself from the man who’d once torn her life apart and from all appearances had every intention of doing so again. The spade in her hand fell to the deck.

  Brandon took her action as an invitation and quickly came onto the deck and settled in another chair. They sat in silence for long minutes, staring at the huge log swing Wayne had built for the boys in the backyard. It was so tall and sturdy that Mercedes herself often swung on it when playing with the boys.

  Dear Lord, she prayed. But what could she ask? After all these years, she still felt somewhat less than worthy, though she knew she had made up for her mistakes.

  “It’s too late,” she said, forcing a calm she didn’t feel.

  “For us, maybe. But not for my son.”

  Her jaw clenched. Why would he have even included “us” in the equation? At the moment, she wanted nothing more than to see him as far away from her as possible. “There is no us,” she snapped. “And you can’t come in here and dump this on my son. He doesn’t know you exist. Wayne’s his father. He’s listed on the birth certificate.”

  “I don’t care what’s listed there.”

  “Then you’d better get a lawyer, because I will fight you with every bit of life in my body. Darrel is not your son, and he never was.”

  “That’s a lie.”

  She lifted her chin. “Prove it!”

  He jumped to his feet and began pacing. “Look, I’m not saying I want to come here and dump anything on Darrel. I just want to see him. Talk to him. I want to know . . . I want to know that he’s okay.”

  “Okay? Of course he’s okay! He’s okay because I made him that way. You didn’t even want him to exist. Look at you, Brandon. You’re here chasing something you had no desire to start in the first place. You have no part of him. Darrel is mine. He was mine and only mine the minute you walked out. You have no rights here.” She was forcing the words between her teeth, trying hard not to burst into tears. This man, the one she’d loved so desperately, the one she had wanted to spend the rest of her life with, the one who had made her feel so alive, was once again trying to break her heart.

  “If he’s my son, maybe he won’t be happy with this.” He swept his arm around to indicate the rolling fields.

  “He’s my son. And I love it here.” She said this, though both she and Wayne already knew Darrel wouldn’t be taking over the farm. No matter his love for the place, his mind was already searching far beyond Walker Farm, destined for something else. Perhaps not better or greater, just different.

  “You weren’t happy here when I knew you.”

  “Turns out you never knew me very well at all.”

  His lips tightened, masking the emotion she’d glimpsed there for an instant. “He’s my son.”

  “Please, Brandon, don’t do this.” Mercedes felt her control over her emotions slipping. She came to her feet. “I’ll make sure he knows later, when he’s older, but for now leave us alone. Please!” Tears began, falling fast, blinding her. “If you want a child, you can get married and have one. Don’t try to take mine. You didn’t want him or me then. It’s not fair to want him now.”

  In three steps he was standing directly before her. “Mercedes, it’s not like that. I’m not trying to take him. Well, maybe I thought I could—I don’t really know. But being here now . . . seeing you . . .”

  “Go away!” She pushed at him, but he grabbed her hands.

  “Mercedes, listen! I can’t have more children. I had cancer. For a while there I didn’t think I was going to make it, and now even if I do find a woman who will love me, I will never be able to father another child.”

  “They have ways to plan for that!” She ripped her hands from his. “You should have prepared for the future.”

  “I tried, but everything went wrong at the lab. And frankly, I was too sick to care. For a long time I told myself it didn’t matter. But when I overheard your brother telling my boss that he had a nephew who was twelve, I—I felt . . . I don’t know. Hope, I guess. I knew I had to find out. I jumped at the chance to present at this medical seminar for that reason. Look, I don’t want to take your son away from you, I just want the chance to be a father to my son.”

  “No,” she moaned. “No.” This was far worse than she expected. If Darrel was the only child Brandon would ever have, he wouldn’t give up easily. “You could still marry and adopt.”

  “Maybe someday. But that doesn’t change the fact that Darrel is my son.”

  Mercedes couldn’t take any more. Sobs shook her shoulders and vibrated through her entire body. She was dying. He was killing her all over again.

  “Don’t, Mercedes.”

  He reached for her hands again, and she didn’t stop him from taking them. She felt hopeless. Darrel, her son, her firstborn. Her golden child. What would Brandon’s appearance do to him?

  There was a movement in the fields beyond the garden. Wayne, she saw, coming at a run. It was early for him to miss her yet, but she wasn’t surprised to see him. Wayne had always shown an uncanny awareness of what was going on at the farm, as though the lifeblood that pumped through the earth also brought him news of anything amiss.

  She pulled away from Brandon, and with only the slightest resistance, he let her hands drop. She met Wayne on the lawn, and he enveloped her in the hug that made her feel safe. She was still shaking, but the sobs subsided almost immediately. Wayne would know what to do. He’d keep his head, if nothing else.

  After her shaking stopped, he guided Mercedes back to the deck where Brandon waited, looking both nervous and defiant. “What are you doing here?” Wayne asked in a voice that wasn’t ugly yet demanded an answer. He looked much older than Brandon, but stronger, and Mercedes took comfort in that strength.

  “It wasn’t what it looked like.”

  Wayne chuckled, and Mercedes felt distinctly sorry for Brandon. He had no knowledge of Wayne or what Wayne might think. As far as she knew, Wayne didn’t have a jealous bone in his body. He trusted her completely, as she did him. In all their years of marriage he had never second-guessed her actions, and the fact that Brandon had hold of her hands would never seem a betrayal. Wayne would know there was a reason.

  Or would he feel differently because it was Brandon?

  “It looked to me like you were trying to comfort my wife after you told her you were here because of Darrel,” Wayne said.

  Brandon swallowed with apparent difficulty. “You know?”

  “She told me yesterday you were in town. We both suspected why.”

  Mercedes bit her lip hard. She was clinging so tightly to Wayne that her fingers ached.

  “Look, can’t I just meet him?” Brandon asked. “I—I need to see him.”

  “To see that he’s okay,” M
ercedes muttered bitterly.

  “I know this is hard on you. On all of us. But seeing him isn’t an unreasonable request.”

  The pleading way Brandon was looking at her made her feel uncomfortable, though with Wayne present, Mercedes had regained her strength. Still, Brandon wasn’t backing down. What should she do? Maybe she could stall for time. “Later this week.”

  “Why not today? It’s just a look. Please. I’ve been waiting more than twelve years.”

  Mercedes’ thoughts raced. Wayne was gently urging her to a seat, but until she sank down, she hadn’t realized her knees had been trembling. “He’s a smart kid,” she said. “It has to seem normal.”

  “That’s not going to be easy, seeing as we don’t exactly let strangers wander around our land.” Wayne came around behind her chair, resting his large hands on her shoulders.

  “I’m not a stranger,” Brandon said. “I’m—” He stopped talking, and Mercedes was glad. If he’d said he was Darrel’s father one more time, she’d scream! “We knew each other for a year, Mercedes,” he said instead. “How would we be acting if things were different?”

  “They aren’t different.” She didn’t want to hear any of this. She wanted him to leave.

  Wayne squeezed her shoulders. “Generally when our friends come to town, we have dinner together.” Usually at the farm, though Mercedes noticed he didn’t add that information, leaving it for her to choose where to meet with Brandon—on her own land or in a neutral setting.

  Her heart rebelled. Brandon wasn’t an old friend, and she certainly didn’t want to cook for him. Or to eat anywhere with him, for that matter. She’d put a stop to the idea this instant.

  “Would that be okay?” Brandon asked her. “I’ll pay.”

  His expression was her undoing. In that instant he reminded her so much of the man she’d loved. “I guess we could try,” she said, hating herself for not finding some way out.

  “Today? There’s a nice restaurant or two in Riverton. But I know that’s an hour’s drive for you. Don’t know if there’s anything closer.”

  Suddenly Mercedes didn’t want to be in a situation where she had so little control, nor did she want to disrupt her family on a school night. “It would be better here,” she said stiffly. “The kids have school tomorrow.” She glanced at Wayne, who nodded, though his reluctance showed he liked this as little as she did. She went on. “You’re an old friend visiting. If you try to bring up anything else, I’ll have Wayne throw you out.”

  Brandon’s mouth twisted in a forced half smile. “I assure you. That won’t be necessary. I promise not to say anything to him for the time being.” He nodded at both of them and started down the deck stairs.

  “At six, sharp,” Mercedes added.

  “I’ll be here.”

  “And I’ll thank you not to come again when I’m not here,” Wayne called to his retreating back. “Unless Mercedes asks you to.”

  Brandon stopped, turned, and met her eyes. His looked so green against the blue of his sweater. He didn’t seem like an enemy. “Fair enough. Thank you both for the invitation.”

  Mercedes held herself erect until Brandon was out of sight, and then she slumped against Wayne, letting him help her to a chair.

  “Thanks for coming.” Her eyes were teary again. “I really lost it there for a minute. I needed you.”

  “I know,” he said simply, sitting next to her and taking her hand. His felt warm against her cold flesh.

  “What are we going to do?”

  “We’re going to put in some wheat, and then we’re going to have dinner with the boys and our guest.”

  “He came to try to take Darrel. I could see it in his eyes. He backed down when I got upset. But what on earth made him think I’d just hand over my son?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Darrel doesn’t deserve to have things change like this. It’s not his fault!” Guilt oozed from the words. If only she’d understood all those years ago how her choices would affect her children, her family. She would give her life now to have Darrel be Wayne’s son.

  “You cared about him once,” Wayne said. “You thought he was a good man. Maybe we ought to wait and see.”

  “I won’t let him take Darrel.”

  “If it comes to that, we’ll fight.”

  His quiet words strengthened her. “I love you, Wayne.” She felt it perhaps more than she had felt it since she’d agreed to marry him.

  “I love you, too, Mercedes. I always have.” He kissed her and arose, taking the few steps to the kitchen door. “I’ll get my lunch and take it to the fields. You don’t need to come out today. I can manage on my own. You have enough to deal with here. Just send Darrel out when he gets home.”

  “But—”

  “It’s okay. Really.” He smiled, one side of his full mouth rising higher than the other, forming the crooked smile she loved. Moments later, he returned with the lunch bag she’d already packed, filled with roast beef between thick slices of homemade bread, fresh milk from the cow, carrot slices, and his favorite apple pie.

  He nodded, and she watched him go, experiencing a distinct sadness. She loved Wayne, but she had always felt that she didn’t love him as much as she should, that perhaps something inside her had broken after Brandon left, so she couldn’t love fully. Or perhaps because too much of her heart was still in the past, no matter how she yearned for it to be otherwise. Wayne deserved so much more.

  She sat in the chair on the deck and watched until Wayne became a small dot that soon disappeared. Then she pushed herself awkwardly to her feet, still shaky from the encounter with Brandon. Inside her bedroom, she went to the closet where she kept her most private possessions in several large boxes. In one of these was the baby quilt she’d made for Darrel. Each square was intricate, the stitches perfect. But it had been created from the darkest, ugliest material she had owned, though she hadn’t realized it at the time. Now she understood that doing so had been a way of putting her grief from her, her way of exorcising her anger at Brandon and at the world in general. Even at Wayne for not being Brandon.

  Yet when her baby was born, the darkness in her soul was gone, and she’d seen the quilt for what it was. She hadn’t wrapped her precious boy in it but instead used the one her neighbor had made for her. She rarely looked at this one now. Every time she held it, she was pulled into that faraway world of sadness. Her fingers traced the black square with the fractured heart, made the first month of her engagement to Wayne when she was more than four months pregnant. The purple triangles looked like shark’s teeth, and the plaid design now called to mind a person being tortured. All the ugly feelings in her heart had gone into this quilt, a repository for her suffering and remorse. But Wayne’s love and Darrel’s miraculous birth had made it all go away. She kept it now only to remind her of how good her life had become compared to then. Besides, it was hard to throw away emotions.

  Underneath this quilt was the one she’d been making for Brandon. Dark blues intermingled with the occasional yellow, bordered with a blue patterned piece. The top was finished, but she’d never done the stitching that would have taken days to do by hand. Her friend Geraldine now had a quilting machine, and sometimes Mercedes used that, but it wasn’t as satisfying as making each individual stitch herself. After Brandon had left, there was no reason to finish the quilt. She couldn’t even bear to look at it. The truth was, the rare moments when she was brave enough to admit it to herself, she wondered how her life would have been different if she had told Brandon about the baby. If she had followed him when he’d left Wyoming. Or even if she’d stayed here and sent pictures. It might have taken a year or more, but was it possible there would have been a happy ending? He did marry eventually, and she believed that once he had honestly loved her. Could she have been the one who gave up on them too early? She would never know.

  “Why did you have to come back?” Mercedes whispered to the empty room. She sat on the bed clutching Darrel’s baby blanket, despair sw
irling around her.

  Chapter 4

  Diary of Mercedes Walker

  June 11, 1994

  I took Brandon out to the swimming hole at the farm and showed him the swing. He got a real kick out of it, and we ended up in the water. We were kissing when Wayne found us there. I think he’d come to cool off in the water himself. He looks tired. I know he’s working too hard without Daddy here to help, but I’m not sure what to do about that. Though the crops were good last year, there is so much debt from other years that there isn’t any money to hire anyone else. Maybe after I get an education, I could pay someone. Really it’s my father who should be helping, but who knows where he is. Texas, last I heard. I wonder if he thinks about Momma.

  Sometimes I wonder why Wayne doesn’t leave. Surely he can’t feel loyal to my father after all he’s done. And with Momma gone, what’s the point? I have to admit, though, that I’m glad he stays. As much as I hate this farm, something inside me stirs when I look out over the fields of wheat and alfalfa. It’s as though the childhood I’d always dreamed of lurks there somewhere, if I can only find it.

  Wayne went through the motions of planting without experiencing any of the joy and satisfaction his work usually gave him. His mind worried at the problem of Brandon and Darrel. And Mercedes. He had the distinct feeling that Brandon hadn’t come just for Darrel. Oh, perhaps he’d started out that way, but the way he looked at Mercedes, with his heart in his eyes, boded ill for their family.

  He’d never had a reason to mistrust Mercedes. She was an honest, upright woman who kept her promises. He had known when she married him that her heart had been given to another man, but he’d loved her so much that he believed he could change her feelings by simply being there for her. And he had. He’d given her back her smile, her laughter, and her will to live. His entire life was dedicated to making her happy, and he knew he’d succeeded. She had come to love him as he’d hoped and prayed she would.

  Yet always there was the unspoken “he” between them. The tragic, romantic figure of a girlish past that remained locked onto a piece of her heart. That didn’t usually matter because the rest was enough, but now that Brandon had returned, Wayne experienced a fear too terrible to contemplate. The time had finally come. He would now lose Mercedes or win her forever. His job would be to let her make the choice, because if it wasn’t hers, it wouldn’t be real. He had never doubted her with any other man, but Brandon wasn’t just anyone.