His for the Taking - By Ann Major Page 0,29

and had begun to ruminate on the various ongoing challenges in his life, he’d replayed in his mind Juan’s message concerning the driller who’d failed to show after cashing the advance check. Since Cole couldn’t do anything about the driller until morning, he’d decided to come down to his office to see what could be done.

Now he remembered thinking there had been something furtive in Maddie’s manner after his mother had left. He remembered that she’d insisted on waiting in his office even when he’d tried to talk her out of it.

More suspicious than ever, Cole knelt and touched the keys. Then he yanked the drawer open wider. He’d intended to read the letters the first chance he had after Maddie had mentioned them. They’d been on his mind when he’d gotten home with Raider, but Juan had called. After that, Joe had wanted to discuss what the vet had to say about a sick bull. Then the roofer who hadn’t shown up to reroof the barn had called with a litany of excuses. Cole had hung up from that call furious. One thing had led to another, and he hadn’t thought of the letters again until he’d been driving back to Miss Jennie’s to pick up Maddie.

Had Maddie chosen to wait in his office so she could search for her letters?

What the hell was in those damn letters anyway?

Curious now, he grabbed the piles of deeds and mortgages he stored in the fireproof lower drawer and tossed them carelessly onto the floor. Then he riffled through the remaining documents until he got to the bottom, where he found the two yellowed envelopes exactly where he’d placed them five years ago. Exactly where Lizzie must have dutifully replaced them.

Whistling, he sank back into his chair and held them up so he could study the postmarks. Then he grabbed his bronze letter opener and ripped into the first letter. After the first sentence, he sat forward, his heart thudding with a vengeance.

When I left Yella, I was pregnant.

Pregnant. He whistled again. He knew the kid was Vernon’s. Why should the word slam him? It was the way she put it somehow, right in the beginning of a letter she’d addressed to him.

Her mother had a reputation for getting her lovers to pay for stuff. Had Maddie been trying to stick him with Vernon’s kid?

Not that I realized I was pregnant that final day in Yella. And later, I admit I thought the baby had to be Vernon’s since you were always so careful to protect me.

Anger ate through him like acid at her admission that she’d slept with Vernon. Which was ridiculous, since her mother had told everybody Maddie had run off with Turner years ago.

But Noah has your dark hair and green eyes and your widow’s peak…. And he is like you, Cole. He collects arrowheads just like you did as a little boy. He is just so bone-deep good, in all the ways a person, even a little, mischievous person, can be good. He’s so good, Cole, that I know now he’s yours. You’re welcome to do a DNA screening of course.

Noah? His? Good?

Through his shock, Cole felt her gladness in that final word. Obviously, she’d seen through Turner even back then. But she’d slept with the nasty creep anyway; she’d thought she was pregnant by him. For more than a year of Noah’s life, she’d believed Vernon to be the father, so she hadn’t told Cole when he’d been free and able to claim his son.

Cole thought he’d forgiven her for leaving with Turner, but there was a roar in his ears. Tonight, when Cole had made her his again, he’d wanted to erase their past, to erase Turner, to forgive all. But the letter made the past and all its pain feel fresh again, made him hot at the thought of her ever having been with that man, even for one night.

Unable to forget her sweetness and her total surrender in his bed a few hours earlier, Cole clenched his fist, seething as he fought for control.

What did his anger matter, if she was right about Noah being his son?

Cole thought of all her struggles and achievements. No matter what she’d done, if she was right about Noah being his, she was the mother of his son.

Cole’s big hands shook as he slashed into her second letter.

I know you received my first letter because you signed for it, and if I don’t hear from you after this