Chapter Eleven
T he family surrounded Tara Howard who was holding Lolly in their living room at the Hard Eight. Gus and Ella had come, too, having a vested interest in all this. Cami was trying valiantly to keep it together, torn between relief that Tara had not only been found, but had come here on her own—and a kind of heartache she couldn’t even share with anyone at the thought of relinquishing this child she’d already fallen in love with so soon.
The crowded Christmas pageant had not been the place to question why or how she was there or what it meant, or the fact that her nephew apparently knew more about Tara than any of them. Cami had nothing but questions, but asked none of them at the church, where it had taken time to get through all the families thanking her for the pageant and laughing about how it was one they wouldn’t forget. Cami certainly wouldn’t either.
“I’m sorry,” Tara had managed to say when Cami approached her after the pageant. “I didn’t know what else to do.” Then she burst into tears.
“I know.” Cami had put an arm around her and promised they’d talk it out back at the ranch.
Tara had looked longingly at the baby Sarah was holding, but that, too, would have to wait until they were home.
Twenty minutes later, Shay pulled her newly licensed son aside after he and Tara arrived back in the pickup truck he’d driven her to town in. Sarah made some tea and a plate of actual food and offered it to Tara who seemed overcome with emotion. Maybe it was fear. Cami imagined how hard facing all of them must be after what she’d done. But, somehow, Ryan had become her advocate and rescuer.
“What in the world, Ryan?” Shay said, standing across the room from Tara with her son where she couldn’t hear. “Where did you find her?”
“In the loft,” he said. “In the small barn. I found her there a few days ago.”
“ What? ” Cami practically croaked. “She’s been here? While we’ve been trying to find her? The whole time?”
“Not the whole time. Just a couple of days. I heard somebody moving around up there so I went to check. She was up there hiding, trying to work up the courage to talk to you, figure out what to do, and I helped her. She asked me not to tell. She was scared. Because, let’s face it, in her shoes, I would be too. You all are a lot.”
Shay and Cami exchanged slightly offended looks. “Says the boy who just kept the biggest secret of his life from us.”
“You would’ve done the same,” he told Cami, puffing up his chest a little.
When had he become man-sized in body and heart?
She started to argue that of course she wouldn’t have done that but stopped. Maybe he was right. Maybe protecting the girl who’d had nothing but heartbreak in her life until she got brave enough to face it was what Cami would have done. The question was, what should she do now?
“And you’ve been feeding her up there?” Shay asked. “Hiding her?”
“Just with some extra stuff,” he said. “We can spare it.”
“Like cheese?” Sarah said dryly, leaning in. “And my missing loaf of bread?”
His cheeks reddened. “Yeah. But mostly from my own meals. I just saved some for her.”
Cami touched his arm. “That was very kind of you, Ryan. I’m proud of you for taking care of her. And I’m glad you finally convinced her to come out and meet us.” She glanced over at the girl, kissing the top of Lolly’s head.
The baby reached up and touched her mother’s face.
“I didn’t really convince her. I just told her she didn’t have to be afraid of you. That you’d figure things out. She decided on her own.”
“What has she told you?” Shay asked him. “About the baby? About what she did.”
“She better tell you all that.”
Cami nodded. He was right. She needed to hear this from Tara herself. Right then, Ella was telling Tara how Lolly liked watching Poppy and Pippa, and how she’d gotten to hold Lolly when Cami was there.
Gus intercepted Cami on her way back to Tara. “You okay?” he asked quietly.
No. I’m not. “I’m fine. Really. We just need to get to the bottom of this.”
“No,” he said, “I meant I know you’ve gotten… attached to her.”
“Attached. That sounds much more clinical than how I feel right now. But we’ve all wanted what was best for Lolly. She belongs with her mother. And if that’s what Tara wants, then we have to make sure that happens.” If was the big question. Maybe she’d only come back to explain herself.
“You’re right. But I know that doesn’t make it easy.”
She shook her head, emotions clogging her throat. “We’d better get this over with. Let’s find out her intentions.”
“Maybe Ella and I should go—” he began.
She grabbed his arm. “No. Stay. You’re part of this just like I am. Stay.”
“Okay.”
“But I’ll get Liam to take Ella out to see the horses. Shouldn’t be here for this.”
*
Sarah fed Tara a thick sandwich before she settled her down to explain herself. She was hungry and exhausted, her young face drawn with despair, but she held Lolly tight against her. Gus didn’t sit with Cami, but leaned against a wall, watching Tara. Will and Izzy had left, not wanting to overwhelm her with so many Hardestys ganging up on her. But Cooper was there with Shay and Ray was sitting with Sarah, who took the baby and rocked her against her shoulder, leaving Tara free to talk. She looked rough, as one would after sleeping in a barn for days, and she plucked at her straggly hair in apology as she began to talk.
“First, please don’t be mad at Ryan for helping me for the last few days. He didn’t have to, but I’m grateful to him.”
Ryan, who seemed suddenly older than he had a week ago, just smiled at her.
“I’m sorry for hiding in your barn. I had nowhere else to go. And I first just came to make sure you had her. Not that that’s an excuse, but—”
“Let’s put that all aside for now, Tara,” Sarah said. “There’re worse things than taking shelter in a barn when you have nowhere else to go. What we want to know is what you were thinking. What you want to do now.”
Tara stared down at her hands. She looked young. Younger than nineteen and so very alone.
“I don’t expect you to forgive me for what I did—with Lolly. I know what I did was wrong. But I just… couldn’t ruin her. I couldn’t handle having her end up like me. And before you say it, I know I could have turned her over to an adoption agency. But I didn’t trust any adoption agency to do right by her. And I… somehow, I knew you would—all of you—watch over her. I’m sorry. This wasn’t even your problem. It was mine.”
“Why don’t you start at the beginning, Tara. How did you end up alone, without anyone?” Cami said.
She swallowed hard. “I… made a mistake. A lot of mistakes, actually. I trusted someone I shouldn’t have. I was living with the Simons and seeing this older boy they didn’t like. Then I aged out. Eighteen. And when that happens, you’re just… on your own. Cut off from any support or money or help from anywhere. It’s like they just don’t care what happens to you after that. It was… understood that I would move out the day I turned too old for their foster care support. They said they would try to help me after, but they had a houseful of kids and not enough money, and my foster dad got a new job up north.”
“Go on,” Cami said when she faltered in the story.
“Anyway… I knew I wasn’t family to them. No matter what they said. Joey, my boyfriend at the time, he told me he wanted us to get married and I thought, maybe finally, I’d… belong somewhere, to someone. And he had a place. So, I moved in with him.
“I had just enough money saved up to buy a used car and I got a job working as a Lyft driver, but he didn’t like me doing it. He wanted me to quit and promised to take care of me. But then, he sold my car and kept that money for himself. Said he didn’t trust me with it. And when I found out I was pregnant he acted like that was all my fault, too. We fought all the time. He left me for good when I was six months pregnant. I don’t even know where he went. Somewhere out of town. After that, I just lost the apartment and was sleeping on friends’ couches until Lolly was born. I had her in a friend’s house.
“I knew she deserved better than me. A better life than I could give her.” Tara dropped her face in her hands. “I love her already so much, but I can’t keep her.”
Gus spoke from behind Cami. “I spoke to Nick at the bus station. He said he gave you a bus ticket to Boise. But that you didn’t get on that bus.”
She looked surprised that he knew about that.
She nodded. “It was kind of him to do that. I figured it was best for everyone if I left. Disappeared. But in the end, I couldn’t… couldn’t do it. I couldn’t get on that bus. I needed to make sure you all got her and were going to help her. Especially you, Ms. Hardesty,” she said to Cami. “My foster sister used to talk about you all the time. How you always took time for her. Cared about her. Not like other teachers. And she always said if she could ever have a different mom, it would be you.”
Cami’s cheeks got hot and she looked at Gus, who was watching her, too. “I know what you did was hard,” she said. “I can’t imagine how hard. And of course we’ve got her. We would never let anything bad happen to her. But the whole reason you did what you did wasn’t because you didn’t want her. It was because you loved your daughter.”
Tara nodded, trying not to cry and failing.
Cami looked around the room at her family who were all watching her, sitting in their comfortable home, surrounded by Christmas decorations and, most of all, love. Something Tara had possibly never known. “It seems what you need most is support. Help. A way to keep her yourself, but to not be alone.”
Tara blinked up at her as if this thought had not even occurred to her. “But—how?”
“What if you work here?” Sarah said. “We have a family business here on the ranch that we’re building right now. A working guest ranch. If you wanted to, you could work here for us.”
“We even have an actual apartment,” Shay said. “Right off the barn. You could stay there. You and Lolly.”
Sarah’s boyfriend, Ray Cooper, spoke up. “I’ve stayed in that apartment for a while and it’s nice. You’d do well there. These are good people, Tara. You can trust them.”
“You’d give me a job? And a place to stay?”
Cami glanced around the room, and everyone seemed in agreement. “Do you want to keep Lolly, Tara?”
“Oh, yes,” she said on a sob. “Yes, I do.”
“Then Lolly could do a lot worse than to be here with her mom and the rest of us looking out for her,” Cami told her. “And I’ve kind of fallen in love with her, too. So, you’d be doing me a favor if you stayed.”
“There is the small matter of the sheriff,” Cooper reminded them.
“The sheriff knows?” Tara asked, her eyes full of fear now. “No, of course he does.”
“But I think we can straighten that out,” he said. “Especially since I think we can claim you never technically abandoned her. Will’s fiancé, Izzy, has experience in family court advocating for people like you and Lolly. If anyone can straighten this out, she can.”
“Try not to worry about that now,” Cami said. “Let’s take all this one step at a time.”
For the first time since she’d met Tara, she saw a glimmer of hope in her eyes.
Sarah took Tara upstairs for a shower and showed her a spare bed she could use tonight. Every decision that had to be made could wait at least until tomorrow. Until then, Tara needed a good night’s sleep and a place to recover. At least as much as Lolly would allow her to sleep, because she asked for the baby and of course they couldn’t refuse her.
Though they’d all made the offer in good faith, none of them really knew Tara or exactly what to do about her. But giving her a chance seemed fair considering her past, and fair to Lolly, as well. It felt like the right thing to do. But with the wedding coming and Christmas and… everything, Cami felt suddenly exhausted herself.
“I should go,” Gus said to her as the meeting with Tara broke up. “I’d better go find Ella.”
“Liam took her out to the barn. I’ll go with you.” She grabbed a coat by the door and slipped it on.
“By the way, did I mention what a great job you did with the pageant?” he said.
She groaned as they walked out onto the porch. “The pageant was a disaster. And one day, soon, I’ll appreciate the hilarity of the disaster. But Tara showing up there was a perfect ending to a perfectly crazy night.”
“Not one parent there would call it a disaster. Probably more on a scale with an adorable memory they’d chalk up to the wonder of six, seven and eight-year-olds’ ability to create chaos.” He looked at her sideways. “Hey. Are you really okay?”
“Why do you keep asking me that?” she said, focusing on the light on the barn to fend off the sudden rush of dizziness she felt. “I’m fine. Really. I’m just tired and… I think I… forgot to eat today…”
Except now, he was watching her with an annoying frown as a clammy sensation and a flush of heat poured through her. He grabbed her by the arm just as her world began to inexplicably turn dark around the edges. Then, astonishingly, blinked out altogether.
*
Cami’s eyes fluttered open at the feel of something cool and wet on her forehead. At the sight of Gus leaning over her, looking all… dreamy and weirdly worried. “ Guuuss … hi.” Then she blinked and took in her surroundings. What was she doing on the couch? “Oh! Gus!!”
“Take it easy,” he said, pushing her back down. “Just lie still a minute.”
“What… happened? Why am I—”
“You fainted. Outside.”
She gasped. “I did not. Faint. I have never fainted in my life.”
“Oh yes, you did,” Shay said. “Gus carried you back inside. Good thing we have a doctor on the ranch tonight. A strong doctor at that.”
A grin replaced the worry on his face. “Nah. You don’t weigh that much.”
“Thanks?” she said, uncertain whether to be horrified or disappointed that he’d picked her up and cradled her in his arms and she had zero memory of it.
Ohnnnhhh. Her head felt muzzy.
“Now, you lie still,” Shay said, being her usual mother-hen self. “I’m going to get you some orange juice.”
Cami pressed a palm against her face, encountering a cool, wet towel someone had placed there. “Ugh. How embarrassing.” She sat up insistently, still a little dizzy.
“Okay. Now you’re just being stubborn,” he said, but allowed her to stay sitting.
“No. I feel dumb. I’m… really sorry you had to—”
“Nothing to be sorry about,” he said, holding her hand. His fingers curled around hers. “Your flame just sputtered out in the yard, that’s all. You’ve had a week. Everybody’s got their breaking point. Probably Lolly, school ending, all the rehearsals and the pageant. Not to mention all the prep you’ve been doing for the upcoming wedding.”
“The wedding!” She groaned at the mention and flopped dramatically back down on the cushions. “There’s still so much to do!”
“Not tonight, there’s not,” he told her. “Here. Drink some juice.” He took the glass from Shay’s hands and forced her to drink.
She obliged.
“Nothing’s going to fall apart because you’re not handling everything,” Shay told her in no uncertain terms. “ We’ve got the wedding. All of us. And, Cami, it’s Will and Izzy. Family. ”
“I know,” she said. “But after Izzy’s last disaster of a wedding, it has to be perfect for them.”
“And it will be. Seriously, stop worrying. That’s your trouble, Cami. Always taking care of everyone but yourself.”
Cami clucked her tongue at her sister, but really, she couldn’t argue with that diagnosis. It was a fatal flaw. Youngest-child syndrome. Her wanting to make everyone happy.
Or it was just missing lunch and dinner. And a certain baby she was about to lose.
Cooper, who’d been standing worriedly nearby wrapped an arm around Shay’s shoulder and kissed her on the cheek. “You feeling better, Cams?”
She nodded. “I’m fine now. Thanks. Really. Stop worrying, everyone.”
The two of them moved back to the kitchen, giving her a little space.
“I did forget to eat today,” she admitted to Gus.
“And you’re probably exhausted. Most likely dehydrated. Blood pressure drops and down you go.”
“Ugh. Did I say anything embarrassing?”
“ Nah. Well…” He glanced over to find Shay and Cooper talking quietly together. “You did mention something about kissing me again, but…” Her eyes widened at his contained grin. “Kidding. You didn’t say that.”
She rubbed her forehead on a laugh. “Maybe I was just thinking it.”
Their eyes met for a long beat, and she thought about just doing it. Never mind Shay and Cooper. Never mind she’d just made a complete fool of herself with him.
But he broke the moment. “You okay now?” His hand was on her arm, not checking her pulse, but instead holding her.
“I’m fine. Really. Please try to delete this moment from your memory.”
“I wouldn’t even if I could. You’ll be fine by morning. Drink some water. Eat something solid. Then get some rest. Doctor’s orders.”
She thought better of blurting out a lame getting-treated-by-a-veterinarian joke.
He started to take away his hand, but she grabbed his arm. “Thank you, Gus. Thanks for… catching me. And… for not letting me crash and burn.”
He squeezed her arm, kissed her on the forehead and stood, leaving her alone on the couch feeling vulnerable and small. “We’ll talk tomorrow. I’m going to go get Ella and get home if you’re sure you’re okay.”
Sitting up again, she proved she was. “Just a little glitch in the matrix. Go. Good night, Gus. See you Saturday, at Will and Izzy’s wedding? You promised me a dance, remember? And I’m gonna hold you to it.”
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you about the toes.”
She drew an imaginary zipper across her mouth, tossed the imaginary key, and watched him walk out the door.
Before she could make sense of all the feelings the last few minutes had wrought, Sarah hurried down the stairs and rushed over to Cami. “Cami! Ray said you fainted. Honey, are you all right? What happened?”
“I’m okay. I… just”— Fainted —“fell,” she said simply. And unfortunately, for the absolute wrong guy.
“You’re not… you couldn’t be”—she leaned in and whispered the word—“pregnant, could you?”
“God, no. No. Now, that would be a Christmas miracle.”
Sarah tilted a commiserating look at her. “Maybe all the late nights with Lolly?”
“Right. My temporary child.” She rubbed her head. “I was just beginning to think it might be possible to…” She didn’t finish the sentence, because she might just cry.
“I know. Someday you’ll have your very own, my dear.”
“Yeah. Maybe. If I don’t hit menopause first or keep falling for the wrong guys.”
Her mom took her hand. “He seems kinda right to me.”
“That’s only because he’s here now, but in a week or two, he’ll be gone.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“So he says. Besides, he’s been running from involvement since his wife died years ago. And I think he’s still in love with her.”
“You don’t stop loving someone after they die. But eventually that person takes another seat at the table and makes room for someone new. For more love. At least, I believe that’s true.”
Maybe it was true that Sarah still somehow loved Cami’s difficult father before he died. But Ray Cooper—her mother’s love—had taken that seat at her table long ago and never left.
“Well, Gus is leaving after Christmas with Eloise and Luke. So, that table feels pretty booked up. It’s okay, Mom. I’m a big girl. I can handle it.”
Big words. Or big lies.
Since the day he’d mentioned, oh, so casually, that he intended to leave after Christmas to move to Denver, a little red warning light had been flashing in her brain. A little red, common-sense light that said Protect yourself. This won’t end well. And ignoring that little light was like driving down a road in the dark without headlights, knowing that somewhere up ahead—it could be far ahead or only a few hundred feet—there was a deep sinkhole and if she wasn’t careful, she would plunge right in.