She pounced like a cat. “What fish? You have another project cooking, don’t you, son? I knew it. You’ve been avoiding me all weekend. What is it this time? A new business in Redemption? That’s it, isn’t it? Have you come up with the idea that will bring you home to Texas? You know if you settle in Redemption along with Tucker and Jackson and you all marry and start families, your father and I might need to buy a vacation home down there. It would be so lovely to have family around us once again. Why I wouldn’t be surprised if your sisters moved—”
“Mom. Whoa.” Boone held up his hands, palms out. “Slow down. You’ve leaped in a seriously wrong direction. I don’t have any more plans for businesses in Enchanted Canyon.”
“Seriously?” Her smile drooped. “Not even anything with Ruin?”
Boone hesitated. Ruin was the ghost town at the far end of Enchanted Canyon, an outlaw conclave occupied in the latter part of the nineteenth century and part of the McBride family’s recent inheritance from a distant relative. Boone sincerely believed it was a gold mine waiting to be worked. Tackling that project had been next on his to-do list after helping to launch Tucker’s Enchanted Canyon Wilderness School.
All that changed with a phone call from Fort Worth.
The phone call he couldn’t mention to his mother. Yet. “Ruin is on my list, but I’m going to have my hands full in Eternity Springs this summer.”
“So you do have a project,” she stated.
He said the first thing that popped into his mind. “Maternity Springs.”
“Excuse me?”
Well, he’d jumped into this pool. He might as well start swimming. “It’s a new retail business. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we’ve had a serious population boom here in town. Our residents have nowhere to shop. Plus, we have tons of grandparents who are in the market for those NANA WENT TO ETERNITY SPRINGS, AND ALL I GOT WAS A LOUSY T-SHIRT shirts. Stock some stuffed bears and elk and raccoons I think we can sell a bundle of souvenirs during tourist season. Then the rest of the year, we can sell to residents. People prefer to shop locally, if at all possible.”
Despite being an off-the-cuff idea, he floated it with enough detail that his mother obviously bought it. Warming to his subject, he elaborated, “I picture something about the size of Claire Lancaster’s Christmas shop. Have rooms set up like nurseries. What do you think?”
She pursed her lips, tilted her head to one side, and considered his idea. “I like it. Cute name, but I think you should add something to it. Like, Children’s Shop. Maternity Springs Children’s Shop. That way, people will know you sell more than just maternity clothes.”
“Great suggestion,” he replied, meaning it. And seeing his opportunity, he followed up by asking, “So what sort of things would you suggest we stock in our children’s store?”
She set down her tongs, folded her arms, and accused him in a snippy tone. “You mean the grandparent gifts? Now, how would I possibly know?”
“Moth-er,” he whined like a ten-year-old.
Her expression softened. She reached out and up to cup Boone’s chin, and they shared a smile. The fact that she felt she could tease him about the subject of grandchildren demonstrated how far they’d come in recent years. At that moment, he was tempted—oh, so tempted—to tell her about Trace. However, the memory of her devastation in the wake of his failed adoption attempts stilled his tongue. He had good reasons for his silence. He couldn’t forget that.
That said, he didn’t need to miss this chance. “Not grandparent gifts. Basic stuff for babies. Like clothes. What are the basic clothes you need when you bring a baby home?”
“Why? You won’t run this business yourself. You’ll have a manager in charge of buying, won’t you?”
“Sure. It’s just food for thought.”
She shrugged and added more bacon to the skillet. As she placed the plate of bacon into the oven and returned to the stove, she spoke about swaddles and onesies and sleepers. Boone resisted taking his phone from his pocket to make notes. The conversation moved on to the summer tourist season in both Redemption and Eternity Springs. When she made a move to bring the discussion back around to Hannah Dupree, he wasn’t nimble enough to ward her off.
“What does she do for a living?”
Well, he wasn’t sure, but she was living on life insurance proceeds if he had to make a guess. That’s nothing he wanted to share with his mother. “I don’t know. She hasn’t volunteered, and I haven’t wanted to ask.”
“She told me she graduated from Brown.”
“An Ivy Leaguer, hmm? Well, that’s an interesting tidbit. Good job, Mom.” He paused a moment, then asked, “So what else did you weasel out of her?”
“I didn’t weasel. I politely inquired during a social conversation. And I didn’t learn much of anything else, I’m afraid. She’s sharp. She deflected most of my questions with ease and experience and grace. She impressed me. You should keep seeing her, Boone.”
He was saved from replying when his father entered the kitchen along with one of the twins. The opportunity for a private conversation with his mother ended. Boone made biscuits, Frankie scrambled eggs, and his dad went to pouring orange juice. They all gave Lara a hard time when she arrived just in time to sit down to eat. It was a talent of hers. Of course, family rules meant that she always had to take point on cleanup. It was an ordinary, everyday family interaction, and it gave Boone a bittersweet sense of regret for days gone by. He hated to see them leave. When would they next share a moment like this with the whole family together for breakfast?
And of course, next time, there’d be another face at the table.
Excitement and anticipation replaced the regret roiling inside Boone as he rose to help his sister with the cleanup. He was itching to get this day going. He loved his extended family, but he was ready to enjoy his nuclear family. Trace. Time to get this daddy show on the road. “This goes against tradition, but Lara, I have this. Y’all go on and finish packing.”
“Are you sure, son?” Parker McBride said. “We’re just a tad behind schedule.”
“I’m sure.” He made a shooing motion with his hand. “Y’all get.” He winked at his mother and added, “I think I’ll try to set up a dinner date.”
Not with Hannah, but with Sarah Winston. The plan was for Boone to fly down to Texas later today, meet Trace tomorrow, and set the legalities into motion. He, his son, and his son’s nanny would return to Colorado as soon as the State of Texas checked off on it. Hopefully by early next week.
However, now that tomorrow was almost here, he had the notion of moving tomorrow up to today. With any luck, before he went to bed tonight, he’d be able to meet his new son.
Boone was wiping the table with a damp paper towel when his cell phone rang. It was early for anyone to be calling, so he checked the number. Sarah Winston.
Immediately, his stomach made a slow, sick roll. He didn’t believe that he’d conjured Sarah up by thinking about her a few minutes ago. Something was wrong. Why else would she be calling this early if something weren’t wrong? Even the hour’s time difference wouldn’t justify a simple looking-forward-to-seeing-you phone call.