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

Chapter Fourteen

O n Christmas Eve, Heather sat at the fifties-style dinette table in Kendall’s kitchen, a glass of red wine in front of her. Em was on her right, quiet and watchful. Brade sat at the head, with Lucas and Leila across from her. At the other end sat Mack, the detective Brade had hired to investigate the circumstances of their birth and adoptions. He was a middle-aged man with a newsboy hat, a van dyke beard and a courier bag from which he pulled a stack of file folders.

Heather’s stomach had been in knots ever since Brade called to say that Mack had arrived for their meeting, that yes, he knew what day it was and yes, what he had to say couldn’t wait.

He’d have more questions for her, questions she was tired of trying to answer. What more could she tell anyone? What more could he tell her? What difference did it make now, anyway? She and her children had been reunited. JP Malone—whoever he’d been—was gone and with him, finally, had gone the agony of her love. She’d built a sweet fantasy around him, but the love she’d believed in was nothing more than a wish unfulfilled, a prayer unanswered.

Plus, she was tired, physically, aching from the unaccustomed activity of climbing and bending and painting overhead. They’d spent the afternoon on repairs to the parlor, organizing twinkle lights and greenery for when the walls were ready for decorating. There was still much to be done, despite the simplicity of the wedding. She was beginning to think the room wouldn’t be ready in time.

Kendall stood in the doorway, leaning against the frame. She’d put out a tray of crackers and cheese but nobody seemed to have much appetite. They had a big dinner ahead of them at Diana’s tomorrow, anyway. On the opposite side of the room, in the shadows, hovered Colt, with his camera.

“Does anyone mind if I record the conversation?” he asked, looking around the table.

Heather had already cleared it with Mack, but twin vertical lines formed between Brade’s eyebrows. He scanned Colt up and down, as if unsure of how to respond. Finally, he said, “You understand this is deeply personal, right?”

Colt exhaled. “Of course I do.”

Heather lifted her hand. “Brade, I asked him to do this for me. We can trust him.”

Kendall swept long blonde hair off her shoulder and tilted her head at her fiancé. “Relax, Brade. If Heather doesn’t like it, she won’t use it. And this way, if Diana wants to know more, or Bayleigh or Sawyer for that matter, they can watch it. We’re all invested here.”

Mack shrugged. “Whatever works for you.”

“Fine,” Brade said, nodding to Colt. “Go ahead.”

Colt snapped a few photos, then set the phone on the table and hit the button to begin recording audio, while he ran video on his camera.

Mack tipped his bottle to his mouth and drank deeply. Then, from his bag, he withdrew several file folders and opened them, leaned forward and began speaking.

“According to these records,” he said, glancing at Brade, “your adoption was finalized less than a month after you left the hospital. Leila’s occurred within five weeks. Lucas was also adopted through a private adoption bureau but his was different from yours and Leila’s, and his wasn’t finalized until he’d been in his adoptive home for almost six months. He spent more time in hospital, and it was an out-of-state facility, which happens sometimes when babies require a level of care not available locally. At any rate, in all the years I’ve been looking at birth certificates, I’ve never seen the bureaucratic wheels turn this quickly and it definitely raises a red flag that all wasn’t copacetic.”

He shuffled a few pages and pushed them toward Brade.

Heather had the odd sensation of watching all this occur as if already in a movie. She was in the room, and all of the things Mack was discussing happened to her and because of her, yet it was as if she was waiting in the wings to be called on stage. If she couldn’t have kept them, she should at least have had a say in where her babies went.

“Not only that,” Mack added, “but normally, the amended birth certificate includes the adopting mother’s maiden name.”

“It’s there,” argued Brade. “Sloane. But my grandparents on both sides died before I came on the scene and both my parents were only children.”

The detective nodded sideways, indicating both yes and no. “According to her birth certificate, Sloane was her middle name, not her maiden name.”

Brade blinked. “What?”

“Your adoptive mother was a tough nut to crack, Dr. Oliver. Someone went to great lengths to conceal the fact that she was adopted, herself.”

“What?” Brade shook his head. “Did she know?”

“No idea,” Mack said. “But if she did, she likely wouldn’t have let on.”

Colt got up and walked behind the men to capture them with their heads bent over the documents. The tension was palpable.

Brade reached out to cup her hand, briefly, and it brought Heather back to the room.

“Discovering my birth mother’s true identity was a shock,” he said. “Now you’re telling me that my adoptive mom wasn’t who she said she was, either? This is one hell of a coincidence.”

“Maybe.” The detective hesitated. “She’s the right age to have been adopted during what they called the Baby Scoop Era. Unless genetic testing turns up more relatives, you might never know more about her, but it’s safe to say that she was illegitimate.”

“My mother was the most proper, conservative, rule-following woman you could ever imagine.” Brade shook his head.

“Perhaps that’s why.” Mack sent Heather a sympathetic glance. “It was a hugely shameful thing, at that time. You’d be surprised how often I see falsified birth certificates in my line of work. Now that open adoption has become more the standard, hopefully mysteries like these will become a thing of the past. But with all the stigma attached to young single mothers back in the day, a lot of documents were falsified. The hope was, I believe, that the child not be burdened with the shame of being a bastard.”

Bastards. That’s what some people thought of her children. Funny, how language changes, how the casual insult of today had once carried cruel, life-altering connotations.

Leila pressed a hand to her chest. “It’s hard enough thinking about what you went through, Heather. I can’t imagine it being worse.”

“Believe it,” Mack said. “Your own births occurred well past the worst of the cultural stigma, but in many places, especially small conservative communities, that disgrace lingered. A generation earlier—when your adoptive mother was born, Brade—unwed mothers were often sent to maternity homes, many of which were run by the Catholic church. The nuns looked after them, usually with a good dose of judgment, and they were kept mostly out of sight until after their confinement. Birth mothers may or may not have been able to see their children after birth. They may or may not have had any say in what kind of homes their children went to. They may or may not have been allowed to leave a note or gift for their babies. The wishes of the mothers were the last to be considered. The mother’s parents, the adoptive parents, the community, the church, the maternity home, all of them had more say about what happened to the babies than the unmarried mothers who gave birth to them. The fathers of these infants weren’t even considered.” Mack shook his head. “I’ve heard so many stories. With the advent of genetic testing, many people are inquiring about their history, finding families they never knew they had, hearing stories that had been kept from them. Discovering their identities.”

Colt went to the side of the room for a wider angle. Heather watched him, but the rest seemed to have forgotten he was there, probably a good thing.

“That was a huge thing for me,” Brade admitted. “I felt like I didn’t know who I was.”

Heather took a sip of wine but it was hard to swallow. Her children had been raised well enough, fed, clothed, cared for, loved. But Brade at least had been left with a sense of something missing. How she wished she could go back in time and help him. And still, without JP Malone, she could only fill in half the pieces of the puzzle.

Mack shuffled his papers. “Parents believed that the only thing worse than being a bastard was giving birth to a bastard. Two lives, ruined, is how they saw it. How would the mother raise a child under such conditions? And, given that there was no social and often little family support available to the mother, she couldn’t.”

He paused, rubbed a hand over his beard and gave a little laugh. “Sorry, Heather. This must be hard for you to hear.”

She nodded. “It’s important. I appreciate the truth.”

“I know I come across like a crusader. There’s just so many tragic stories.” He glanced up suddenly, and Heather saw Colt capture the moment the detective’s expression changed. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying adoption is bad. Not at all. I’m saying the deceit is bad. Keeping someone from the truth of their identity is a betrayal. Making pariahs out of young women—who were often ignorant of the facts of life—is the epitome of hypocrisy.” He paused, took a deep breath and looked at Heather again. “You were nineteen, but even so, your father got involved. Younger women were entirely at the mercy of their parents’ wishes. On one hand, people want their children to stay innocent, so they don’t tell them about sex or birth control. Then, when someone gets pregnant, they tell them that if they’re old enough to have sex, they should be old enough to face the consequences. In fact, if they’re old enough to have sex, they’re old enough to know everything about this old, ugly world. But too many girls learn that far too late.”

Jolene Garcia and Crystal Boone had both become mothers young, too, with no men to support them. Is that why Heather had felt such empathy for them? Was she, as a foster mother and Jolene and Crystal just different versions of the same story, three images shot from different perspectives, different settings?

How similar we all are, under it all.

“Given that both your parents have passed away,” Mack continued to Brade, “we may never know your mother’s true identity.”

“Adoptive mother,” Colt corrected.

Mack’s head jerked, as if he’d forgotten Colt’s presence. “Yes, right, thanks.”

“My father never intended to let me know any of this,” Brade said. “Only on his deathbed did he have a change of heart.”

Mack lifted another folder from his stack and turned to Heather. “Let’s talk about this JP Malone.”

“Oh.” Heather cleared her throat. “I’ve already told you everything I know.”

It was embarrassing, how few facts she had about him. She hated the pity her sad little love story elicited.

“You told us,” Brade said. “Now tell him.”

She was tired of remembering. She hated talking about the girl she’d been back then. For three decades, she’d been grasping for the holy grail of closure and what she felt now was the fatigue of the marathoner nearing the end of the race, but she recognized the importance of relaying what information she had, as accurately as she could. Controlling the narrative, as Colt said.

She glanced at the detective. “Surely they told you everything already?”

Mack nodded. “I’d still like to hear it in your words, from your memory. You never know what tiny piece of information will be the one that breaks open a case.”

“Go ahead, Heather,” Brade said.

She could see the determination that had likely helped him through the rigors of medical school and residency and probably with accepting not just the loss of his father, but the startling deathbed confession that had set the life-changing events of the past year in motion.

She sighed again. “Fine.”

She retraced, in sentences that now felt scripted, the summer she’d met her handsome cowboy at a rodeo, how they’d exchanged letters over the winter—no cell phones at that time—how he was here and there, how they met again the following summer, how they continued writing letters. Eventually, they slept together. She was in love, believed he’d loved her too. His letters seemed to indicate that, at least.

Then he stopped writing back.

She wasn’t concerned at first. He could be living rough for weeks at a time, bringing herds in from the high mountain meadows. The animals were fat and feral after a summer of grazing, and the brutal work of branding and castration left little time or energy for writing.

“I wasn’t worried,” she said. “Not until I realized I was pregnant.”

From the shadows, she felt Colt’s eyes on her, felt her cheeks heat. All the shame she’d felt back then returned, but she lifted her face and looked at her children, one after another. Shame had been imposed on her, but she did not regret her choices or where they had taken her. Her journey had not been easy, but what was life but a series of decisions and the consequences that followed? What was living but taking the steps as they came, bearing the burdens they brought and cherishing whatever joy appeared along the way?

“I asked everyone,” she said. “I contacted the rodeo organizers, the professional association. I called people in Big Timber, Helena, Chinook, everywhere. But nobody knew him. Remember, this was before digital paper trails, and real paper trails could end on a single desk of a single person. People dealt more in cash then, too, fees and purses, and lots of competitors rode under nicknames. He came from back east, so the local guys didn’t know him. I asked the ranchers I knew he’d worked for, but same thing. An envelope of cash for JP Malone before he left for the next job down the road, and that was it.”

Someone else may have been able to find him at the time, she realized now, but she’d kept her search efforts to herself, using the phone while her father was outside and going to the public library when she was in town getting groceries. Enlisting her father’s help would have meant admitting to the pregnancy and she couldn’t do that until she had JP at her side.

“Your father should have helped you,” Leila said. She looked near tears. “There’s nothing I could ever do that would make my dad stop loving me.”

“Oh, Leila,” Heather said, reaching for her again. “My father loved me. I had a good childhood. I spent hours on his lap, listening to him read stories. That’s how I learned to read. We played catch, we went fishing, I tried to beat him at Monopoly. He let me bring my favorite barn cat inside the house to have her kittens.”

But the ease of their relationship faded as she budded toward womanhood. Her father knew what to do with a little girl. A young woman, not so much.

The death of her mother had flattened them both, but in different directions, neither able to comfort the other. As Heather moved further into her teens, Ernst Hudson’s parenting took on a pinpoint focus that reflected his discomfort with her burgeoning sexuality. He chastised her for clothing he considered too tight or low-cut, wouldn’t allow her to wear makeup, cautioned her on the rare occasions she laughed too loudly or smiled too much. The rare conversations that went beyond the day-to-day talk of meals or schedules usually included vague cautionary tales, lectures on morality delivered without eye contact.

Years of therapy combined with education had given her a fuller picture of the time and culture that had contributed to her father’s attitude. He’d grown up in an era when, if sex was discussed at all, it was mother to daughter and father to son, and the main message was “don’t do it until you’re married.” Premarital pregnancies usually resulted in a quick trip to the altar and a “premature” baby. Without a man to claim the baby, the best choice for an unwed expectant mother—the only choice, if she truly loved her child—was to allow a married couple to raise it as their own. To forget the whole thing and move on.

“He should have supported you,” Leila insisted. “He should have been there for you.”

Em crossed her arms and shook her head. “Women have always been punished for challenging the status quo. Patriarchal structures rely on fear to keep people in line. Supporting you would have had huge negative consequences for him, so he chose himself over you.”

“I wish I could say it’s the first time I’ve heard this story.” Mack cleared his throat. “As you say, the culture at the time pretty much demanded that unwed mothers be punished. Adoption, while great for the adopting couple, was usually part of the punishment for the natural mother. Keeping her baby meant she would be dependent on a community that saw such assistance as condoning bad behavior.” He gave Heather a little smile. “According to the thinking at the time, allowing one girl to live blatantly and unrepentantly with the evidence of her sins, might encourage other girls to do the same.”

“Oh, yeah,” Em said drily. “They’d be lining up for the scarlet letter, wouldn’t they?”

Heather didn’t like the direction of the conversation. It was one thing for her to express her feelings about her father; that was her right. Criticism from others, even in her defense, was out of place.

“It was a different time,” she said. “Conformity was prized above all else, but in spite of that, I learned to think for myself. My parents deserve credit for that.”

“You’re very generous,” Leila said quietly.

Heather turned to her and spoke carefully. “Your grandfather was much a victim of the times as anyone and I won’t have him painted as the villain. He was truly trying to do what he thought was best for me. In some ways, he was more trapped than I was.”

She understood now that Ernst had loved her as much as he’d been able but in his mind, her pregnancy meant he’d failed as a father. He’d been remiss, somewhere, in teaching her how to live. He saw only one way forward for her, one way to salvage what was left of her future and by God, he’d fix what he could.

“Mack,” she said suddenly, “I lost touch with my father when I left Weldon. I assume he died, but I’d like to know. Can you find out?”

Mack’s steady gaze sent a wave of ice through her core.

“You already know?” she whispered.

He nodded. “He died five years ago. He was in a memory care facility.”

Five years ago.

“How did he die?”

“A stroke. It was quick. I’m sorry.”

She pressed her fingers to her lips and shook her head. “We lost each other long before that.” She heard the slight whir of Colt’s camera as if it was a bullhorn in her face.

Lucas glanced at Colt and cleared his throat. “Are you sure we need pictures of all this? It’s so personal.”

Colt lowered his camera. “That’s Hetty’s choice, Lucas.”

“Surely you have enough, already,” Em said. “Hetty’s tired. Can we finish this another day?”

“It’s okay,” Heather managed. “Let’s get this over with.”

She took a sip of her wine, dabbed her lips and continued. Control the narrative. It’s my life. My story to tell, my way.

“My…my dad found a place to send me so nobody would find out about the pregnancy. He said I could come home after I gave the baby up for adoption. There was no discussion of my keeping it, of course.” She swallowed, her throat dry and tight as the heated words came back to her. “I still believed I’d find JP. I wanted our baby and I knew he would too. So, I ran away.”

Nobody spoke. She tugged her sweater tighter around herself and took another sip. She’d run away, lonely, afraid for her future, worried about how she would support herself and her baby, desperate to find a place where they would be safe, and where JP could find them when he came back.

Her father had done this. And now he was gone.

“My bus ticket took me as far as Grand. I found someone willing to rent me the room over their garage.”

The older woman ignored her belly, took her cash and asked no questions. She also left fresh baked goods at her doorstep from time to time.

“You worked at a diner in town?” Mack asked.

She shook her head. “It was out on the highway. It’s gone now.”

He pulled out another sheaf of papers. “You continued your search for JP?”

She nodded. “Until I went to the hospital. After that, my memories are a bit jumbled.”

Mack pushed a folder across the table to her. “I found your medical records. For what it’s worth.”

She marveled at the thin stack of papers, that the data points contained inside marked the event that had changed the course of her life. She handed it to Brade. What did it matter now?

He opened it and glanced over the scribbled notations, his expression grim. Then he closed it and set it aside. “You’re lucky to be alive, Heather. There’s nothing in there about the babies beyond the fact that you delivered them.” He cleared his throat. “Us.”

They’d apparently been whisked away to neonatal intensive care facilities in other hospitals and from there, it was as if they’d disappeared. Mack explained that a fire at the county office ten years ago had destroyed many records that may have been helpful in learning who had cared for and ultimately arranged the adoption of her babies.

He looked uncomfortable.

“What is it, Mack?” Heather asked.

“Your JP Malone,” he admitted. “Without a name to go on, or geographic area, it’s been a challenge. You might want to ask yourself what you hope to get out of it.”

“What do you mean?”

“He obviously didn’t want to be found,” Brade said softly. “I think you’ve built him up to be something that he’s not. We don’t need him, Heather. We’ve found you. That’s enough for me.” He looked at Leila and Lucas. “You guys?”

Leila nodded.

“You’re just running the risk of hurting yourself more, Heather,” Lucas said. “He could have been dead for years. Maybe he’s in prison. Maybe he’s got a whole other family out there and won’t want anything to do with us. Let’s focus on rebuilding what we have.”

She looked down at her lap. Yes, there’d been much about his past that he’d been escaping. A sister he’d been sending money back home to. He was raised by his aunt and uncle, not his own parents, if she recalled correctly. Nothing about prison, but maybe he wouldn’t have admitted that to a girl he was trying to impress.

Even if they found her JP, even if he hadn’t meant to leave her, even if he wasn’t in prison or married to someone else, how could he possibly live up to the fantasy man she’d created in her mind? She’d loved—and hated—him for so many years now. And no matter how hard she’d tried, she’d never completely been able to forget him.

After all this time, the love and the hate had both softened. He’d been a part of her life, a good part, a thrilling, vibrant part that was now threaded through her life, a line of silver in a tapestry. He’d fallen out of her life, by choice or by circumstances and it was time to make peace with that. She hoped his life had been good.

She forced herself to face what everyone was too kind to mention: the more likely scenario was that JP had lost interest in her once the thrill of the chase was gone. He’d probably stopped answering her letters because he was embarrassed at the things he’d written to her. She’d been a fantasy to him, too, perhaps. Someone to listen to, in a manner of speaking, on those lonely nights under the stars, surrounded by rough work and rougher men, when he was craving something soft and tender.

Yes, they’d been young and dumb and revisiting those past selves isn’t always pleasant, once age and wisdom arrive.

Yet, we are all an amalgam of the things we’ve gone through and the people we’ve been at various times. Whether we like them or not, they are part of us and they’ve shaped us into the people we become. Temporary, every phase, every stage, temporary.

“I’ve made peace with so much,” she said, looking at the faces watching her so carefully. “Now it’s time to make peace with the fact that I’ll never get answers, much less a happy ending with JP Malone, whoever he was. I’ve already received my Christmas miracle in finding you.”

Mack cleared his throat. “I said it was a challenge.”

Heather looked up. “What?”

“I didn’t say that it was unsuccessful,” Mack continued. “I found him, Heather. Your JP Malone is alive and well and living right here in Grand. His real name is Father Joseph Patrick Keane.”