The Wrangler’s Christmas Gift (The Malones of Grand, Montana #4)

Chapter Nine

C olt looked between Hetty and her daughter, then to where Em was pacing back and forth in front of her car.

“Go to her,” Hetty said softly. “I’m fine.”

Diana looked ready to panic, her shoulders hunched and tight. “This was a bad idea,” she said. “I should get home.”

“Oh, please don’t, Diana.” Hetty gripped Colt’s arm, her gaze desperate. “Take Em to Kendall’s house. I’m sure they can use your help. I’ll talk to you later, okay? Please?”

The tension between the two women was palpable but he sensed that they needed privacy for whatever had to begin between them.

“If you need me—”

“I won’t,” Hetty promised. “But Em does.”

Did she really though? He turned and made his way back to the orange Subaru. Halfway across the green, he turned, lifted his camera and took a few pictures. The gazebo, against the sky, the light reflected off the river, the two forms silhouetted, their posture mirroring one another despite their clear antagonism, it was a starkly beautiful moment.

“What are you doing?” Em bumped his shoulder. “How dare you invade their privacy.”

“Look at them.” He stepped out of her reach, readjusted his stance and shot a few more.

“Yes, I see,” Em snapped. “Diana hates her. You think Hetty will want to see that immortalized on film?”

“Diana doesn’t hate her.”

The light had caught her eye at just the right moment, revealing hurt and yearning for which there were no words. It might not be something Hetty would enjoy seeing, but it was part of the story, part of the journey and he sensed she would value it as such.

“Why do you care, Colt?”

He glanced back. They were standing side by side, facing the river now, away from him and Em, their expressions hidden, but their postures aligned. He snapped another few shots.

“They’re talking. They’re trying. Whatever they’re saying has been waiting decades to be said. They will both be different after this.”

He turned to Em, who was shaking her head in disbelief at him. “Come on. Let’s go help with the wedding prep.”

“Patriarchal bullshit,” Em muttered glumly.

He laughed and slung an arm over her shoulder. “That’s right, little sparrow, let’s go spread some sunshine.”

But he knew where Em was coming from and he couldn’t argue with her.

*

“Please don’t go, Diana,” Heather said, after Colt had hauled Em away. There would be work to do to repair things between her and Em, but honestly, if Em had just waited, like she’d asked, most of this could have been avoided. She just needed a chance to explain everything.

Diana stepped down the stairs onto the sidewalk. Her shoulders were hunched, her hands stuffed into her pockets, but the hood of her coat was down.

She glanced at Heather. “I’ll give you ten minutes. Let’s walk.”

Heather hurried to follow her, grateful for the reprieve but a little panicky about how best to use it. Ten minutes to encapsulate all the years between them.

She opened and closed her mouth several times, unsure about where to start. The tension coming off Diana was palpable and a few times, she heard the younger woman sniff.

Was she crying?

“I’m so sorry, Diana,” she said softly.

It seemed like she was saying this all the time, these days. But what else was there, really? What else could she do to make up for the lost time? The lies?

“I almost died of eclampsia when the triplets were born,” she said, finally. “I was fine with you, though. How were your pregnancies? I always worried that you might suffer like I did, if you ever had children.”

Diana threw her a cautious look. “Fine.” She walked a few more steps. “Had some trouble with Reese. Stress-related.”

Heather nodded, ridiculously grateful for the tidbit of information. “You have a beautiful family. Your father did a good job with you. I knew he would.”

“You don’t know anything about us. You left.” She threw a hard look at Heather. “Isn’t that right?”

Heather nodded.

“Marriage is hard work, you know,” Diana went on. “You think Rand and I don’t struggle? But we promised to stay together through better and worse, through sickness and health. Didn’t you make the same promise to Dad?”

“I did.” She inhaled. “I shouldn’t have, though.”

The marriage had been a mistake, another event imposed on her because she wasn’t strong enough to stand up for what she knew was right. Her father needed her married off. Weldon wanted her and was willing to overlook her past. It was his insistence on ignoring it, however, that had ruined them.

“Your father deserved better than me,” she said. “You both did.”

Weldon knew that some itinerant cowboy had gotten her pregnant and then disappeared. He knew she’d given birth and nearly died. But when she tried to explain that she never agreed to surrender her child, that two of her triplets had died, that she’d been lied to, that her baby had been stolen, he refused to listen to her. He agreed with his father-in-law: Heather needed to move forward with her life, not backward. The mistakes she’d made didn’t have to define her, or them, but she had to let them go. The child she’d lost—he also refused to countenance her confused ramblings about how maybe there’d been more than one baby—was of no interest to him and had no place in their marriage.

“We did fine without you,” Diana said.

Heather bowed her head. “I see that and it makes me so happy.”

Tears sprang to her eyes but she swallowed them away. Weldon’s solution to her malaise had been for them to have a child of their own. This, he believed, would satisfy the longing of her heart. He wanted a son, someone to inherit Running River, someone to carry on the family line. “Weldon was a good father and I’m grateful he raised you so well.”

Weldon had fallen into the kind of parental love that Heather couldn’t risk and couldn’t explain.

She should have tried harder, been more patient with herself. Another mistake, but she still hadn’t found her strength.

The thought that Heather might be terrified to get pregnant again made no sense to him. To his way of thinking, if she wanted a baby so much, he’d give her one, one she’d be allowed to keep this time. The first time, she’d been in no situation to care for a child. Her ill health alone meant that the child would have spent time in foster care until she was sufficiently recovered.

“When I had the triplets, I was told I was an unfit mother,” she said softly. “That’s why they were adopted. I wanted them. They didn’t let me keep them.”

“Who?”

Heather shrugged helplessly. “My father. The nurses and doctors in the hospital. There was a social worker and a lawyer, I think. I was so sick, and on a lot of medication, though. My memories aren’t clear.”

Diana’s step faltered slightly. “And were you? Unfit?”

“Who knows? They didn’t give me a chance to try.”

“That can’t be right.” She sounded uncertain. “You make it sound like you were sent to an Irish laundry. This was the eighties, not the fifties.”

“Oh,” Heather said, “trust me. It took a long time for attitudes toward unwed mothers to change. Even when the old maternity homes were shut down, people still felt that a child was better off in a two-parent adoptive home than a one-parent home they were born into.”

“Okay, fine. But that doesn’t explain why you decided to abandon me, does it?”

There was that word again. And yes, it was the right one. But oh, it was so much more complicated than that. How could she make Diana understand that mother love colored everything she’d done, with the triplets, with Weldon, with Diana herself? It had shaped her life, from the moment she’d first known she was pregnant. It had elated her, terrified her, filled her with hope, and almost destroyed her.

“When you were born,” she said, “I was so afraid of everything. I thought I would die. I thought you would die. I thought they wouldn’t let me hold you or keep you. But everything was different this time. Nurses were gentle with me. They smiled at me, congratulated me, encouraged me.”

Diana looked at her, a frown on her face. “How were they the first time?”

Heather’s chest tightened as the splintered memories flickered around her. Hands grabbing, pulling, voices snapping with judgment, cold sheets, lights in her face, mouths tight, conversations over her head, eyes averted.

“They were disgusted with me.”

“Disgusted?” Diana stopped walking and looked at her. “What do you mean?”

“No prenatal care. No insurance. But most importantly,” she said, “no ring on my finger.”

Diana shook her head. “But they were professionals. Heather, this can’t be right. I can’t imagine this happening in Grand.”

“It was thirty years ago, Diana.” The records Mack—the private detective—had found gave weight to her flimsy memory. “They flew me to a bigger critical care hospital the first time. The babies needed intensive care. None of us were expected to make it.” She took a breath, watched it puff white and frosty in the air. “When Weldon wheeled me into the maternity ward, I expected the same treatment. I was the same person, after all. If I wasn’t a fit mother then, how would I be a fit mother now?”

“You were older,” Diana said. Her voice was softer now, the challenging tone gone.

“I was,” Heather conceded. “I was healthy. We knew you were healthy. But mostly, I was married.”

“That’s so ridiculous. Bayleigh and Lucas aren’t married and they’re having their baby any day now. I bet nobody treats them badly.”

“But that first time, I didn’t have anyone,” Heather reminded her. “JP Malone was gone. My father had all but disowned me. My mother was dead. I’d left my friends behind.”

She led them to a bench overlooking the river. Black rock showed through the snowy banks where moving water and ice met. They brushed off the snowflakes and sat.

“All right,” Diana said. “I get that it was a horrible experience and I’m sorry that it happened to you. But what I still don’t understand is…”

She looked away and Heather realized she was struggling to maintain her composure. This was as difficult for daughter as it was for mother.

“When they handed you to me,” Heather said, “I unwrapped you. I counted all your fingers and toes. I looked at that beautiful dark head of hair, your rosebud mouth, that chin that’s so like your father’s.”

Diana smiled but her eyes sparkled with tears.

“You were perfect,” Heather whispered. “My perfect, healthy little girl.”

How could she explain the juxtaposition of joy and sorrow that had warred within her? From the moment Ernst Hudson had learned of her first pregnancy, she had lived in fear that her baby would be taken away from her. This fear had been realized in the worst way possible.

Now she had another child, and while the threat was gone, the fear remained.

“I reminded you,” Diana said, “of everything you lost.”

Heather squeezed her daughter’s hand. “I never meant for it to be permanent. I’m not sure what I intended, only that I had to get my head straight.”

Diana sighed. “Dad didn’t understand, did he?”

“He’s not a man to tolerate indecision.”

The humiliation of having his wife abandon him with a young child was not to be borne. And so, Heather Hudson Scott died in a car crash, the details of which changed and grew depending on who was telling them.

Her stomach churned as the memories kept coming but she forced herself to continue.

“When Weldon explained the terms of our divorce, he gave me no choice but to accept. And how could I argue?” she said softly. “My behavior only confirmed my worst fear: that I was not fit to raise you, that my beautiful baby would be happier if she grew up with no memories of a mother.” She cleared her throat. “No memories would be better than knowing that your mother was so selfish she’d rather leave than face her responsibilities, than learn to love her baby.”