How well Ty knew. He’d already tried every way he could think of to get her to see him, but she’d refused to acknowledge he even existed. He realized he needed to enlist some help. Not an easy thing when everyone treated him like a leper.
“I think I’ve got it covered. If I don’t, you can be the backup plan.”
Ty picked up his hat from its resting place on Brian’s desk and secured it on his head. If everything went as he hoped, maybe he could have it all.
*
Mandy turned into the sparsely graveled driveway and noted the house looked as tired as it had before, despite the money Ty had reportedly made available to Trace. But at least the barns looked repaired, and there were cattle in the nearby pasture and two cowboys on horses trailing behind a bunch being moved to another corral.
The place didn’t exactly look prosperous, but it did look like it was moving in that direction.
She’d been surprised to get Trace’s call asking her for help in interviewing a housekeeper and caregiver for Delanie. He wanted a woman’s perspective, and his neighbor, it seemed, was out of town. How could she say no? Or tell him she and Ty were no longer a couple, since Ty had obviously not spoken to his brother, yet.
In fact, if not in deed, she was still married. Mandy had been determined not to file the divorce papers until she knew for certain she was pregnant, and her pregnancy had only been confirmed that morning. And, then she would have to tell Ty first.
Not that she wanted to face Ty. If she could have kept it from him and still looked herself in the mirror, she would have. But her child deserved to know its father.
Something to deal with another day.
As she closed the car door, a little figure came running out of the house, letting the screen door slam behind her.
“Aunt Mandy,” the little girl called as she ran toward her, the child’s lissome legs, clad in denims, moving at the full throttle of four-year-old speed.
Mandy’s heart crumbled into little pieces like a dried leaf under a tire. How and when would she tell this special little girl she was no longer Aunt Mandy? At least Delanie would have a cousin. Mandy could give the little girl that.
Mandy scooped Delanie into her arms and gave her a hug, breathing in the sweet scent of baby shampoo as she nuzzled her. “What a wonderful greeting,” Mandy said as she kissed the little one’s cheek.
And so unlike their first encounter. That psychologist Trace had found through Ty’s connections was surely working wonders.
“The meeting is there.” Delanie pointed to the house. “Daddy’s going to take me riding while you talk.”
Odd, Mandy thought. She had expected to interview the applicants with Trace there.
“Where’s Daddy now?” she asked.
“Inside. They both are.”
Mandy looked around for another car, but there was none visible. Perhaps Trace had picked up the candidate in town and brought the woman out to the ranch house. And was there only to be one? Trace had made it sound like there would be several applicants lined up.
Mandy set the squirming child down on the ground and, holding Delanie’s sticky little hand, walked to the house. Delanie held the screen door open as Mandy stepped inside. She blinked as her eyes adjusted from the bright sunlight of a fall day to the relative darkness of the unlit kitchen.
It took her a moment to make out Trace.
Shifting her gaze, she found another figure sitting off to the side of the kitchen table, a single sheet of paper lying on the table before him.
Heat climbed up her throat. Moisture collected under her arms. Ty had some nerve. She didn’t lose sight, however, that Delanie was watching her, a smile on the little girl’s precious face.
Trace had moved to the screen door. To block it or exit quickly, she wasn’t sure. She swung her gaze toward him. He shrugged in a sheepish way. “You two need to talk.”
And then he was out the door, Delanie grabbing his hand. That psychologist had made progress.
The door slammed behind them.
Now what?
Mandy turned to study Ty. She hadn’t seen him since the meeting in the library. He looked a little haggard around the edges, dressed in a pair of wrinkled denims and flannel shirt. Soon he could go back to his suits and ties, content that he had once again made a lot of money and not at all bothered about the good people whose lives he had disrupted.
She could feel a vein pulse at her temple like a drum thumping out a funereal melody. She wanted to turn around and go home. But she had to tell him about the baby. And now was as good a time as any.
“You went to a lot of trouble to get me out here. Yet I can’t think of a single reason why. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, you can tell me that I want to hear. And if it is to announce that the papers to sell Prescott have been signed, believe me when I tell you, this is the worst way you could have communicated it to me.”