A Cowgirl's Secret(61)
Luke perched on what little extra room was left at the foot. “It’s been a helluva day, huh?”
“That it has. Did you ever get around to calling your parents to let them know Kolt’s okay?”
“A while ago,” he said. “Mom wanted to come over, but thank goodness, Dad talked her out of it.”
“Which reminds me,” Daisy said, easing to her feet. While Kolt lightly snored, she gestured for Luke to follow her out of his room. “Your mom and I got into it after you left. She said incredibly hurtful things and I need to know if you agree.”
“What kinds of things?” he asked in Daisy’s room.
“That your whole family views me as a poison to you. That if it hadn’t been for my influence in your life, you’d now be married and happy with six kids and a perfect house and—”
“Stop,” he said, pulling her back when she tried escaping his embrace. “Not a single word of that is true. You and Kolt have come to mean everything to me. My intention in even being with you right now was to ask you to marry me, but the mood is kind of broken.”
“What?” She looked up at him with huge, tear-stained doe eyes. Why, when she’d first left all those years ago, hadn’t he moved heaven and earth to find her? How had he breathed with her gone? “Do you mean it? You really want to marry me?”
“Um, yeah.”
Her smile rocked his world.
“MOM, GIVE IT A REST,” Luke warned after Wednesday night’s supper. She’d wanted Kolt to come, but Daisy still felt uncomfortable letting him out of her sight and she sure wanted nothing to do with Peggy and her big mouth. Besides which, Luke needed to have this conversation in private. “I’m marrying Daisy and that’s that. If you don’t like my choice in brides, feel free to skip our wedding.”
“Son,” his dad warned. “Don’t you sass your mom. She means well.”
“Bull,” Luke grumbled. “What she means is to stick her gossipy nose where it doesn’t belong.”
“That’s enough.” Joe slapped his napkin on the dining-room table. “I will not have you talking to your mother like that in our home.”
“Do you know what she said to Daisy? She had the gall to call her a poison in my life. Did Mom confess to that?”
“I was standing beside her when she said it,” his dad admitted, “but in her defense, you’re not being logical where Daisy or your son is concerned. Daisy ran off once, hid Kolt from you for practically his whole life. What’s to say she won’t try it again? Right in our living room she declared in front of God and everyone that she wished she’d never returned to Weed Gulch. If she took off again with Kolt, running to Lord only knows where, what would you do? There’s nothing on paper anywhere to prove you’re Kolt’s father. You’d have to track down your son, force DNA tests, get hung up in court. It’s bound to be a big old donkey mess.” Pushing his chair back from the table, Joe rose to stare at the family portrait they’d had taken a good twenty years earlier. “Son, I know you love this woman, but what do you really know about her? All your mother and I are asking is that you take a few legal precautions before getting into a mess you can’t fight your way out of. After all, she is a lawyer, and you know how wily they can be.”
His entire life, Luke had looked up to his parents. He’d admired their lifestyle and sought them out for advice. On this matter, however, they were completely at odds.
“I’m sorry you feel this way,” Luke said, tossing his own napkin on the table. “Guess I’d better get going.”
“Thank your mother for dinner. She worked on it all afternoon.”
Ever the dutiful son, Luke did as his father requested on that one issue. As for the matter of marrying Daisy, his family needed to back off.
He didn’t have a clue what his legal rights were regarding Kolt, and considering how Luke felt about Daisy, he didn’t much care. Once they were married, and Kolt shared Luke’s last name, the whole world would know him as Luke’s son. That fact meant more than any legal document.
Luke wished he could believe that.
Chapter Fifteen
Saturday night, after having worked on her house all day, Daisy was excited about her date with Luke. It was almost Thanksgiving and this year, she had an extraordinary amount of blessings for which to be thankful.