A Rancher's Pride(60)

Sam looked off into the distance, where the horizon was broken by a series of tree-covered hills.

When he finally turned back to look at her, his eyes seemed nearly bottomless, darkened by an emotion she couldn’t read. He leaned toward her, held out one hand as if planning to touch her, then finally rested it on the door handle, his fingers brushing hers. She could tell he hadn’t noticed the contact.

He sighed. “You know I can’t be here for her every minute, Kayla. No one can. That’s an impossible thing to ask.” He climbed into the truck and tugged at the door.

Feeling the gap between them widen, she dropped her hand. Physically, they were inches away from each other. Emotionally, they had taken stances wider apart than the walls of one of the arroyos that left deep cracks in Sam’s land.

“I’m doing what I have to do.” After starting the engine, he pulled the door closed.

As he shifted into gear, Kayla backed a step, then another. He swung the truck in an arc and pulled out of the yard.

By the barn, Becky watched the truck disappear down the road. Then she looked over at Kayla and raised her brows. She gestured, touching all her fingertips together and dragging her hand through the air. “Go away?” Kayla nodded.

Becky moved that hand to her temple and brushed her fingers downward. “Why?” She wrinkled her forehead, puzzled.

No wonder, when Sam had been spending so much time with her lately. Becky wasn’t used to having him leave her behind.

Kayla sighed. She signed “Daddy,” then tapped her right fist on the back of her left one. “Work.”

But it wasn’t work, Kayla knew. Not completely.

He’d left so abruptly to get away from her. To keep from having to listen to what she had to say. She looked down the road at the billowing dust kicked up by his truck in his haste to put space between them.

She clenched her fists, and her temper flared.

For a man who worried so much about his daughter being able to communicate, he wasn’t so hot at conversation himself.

Abruptly, she relaxed her fingers. She couldn’t hide from herself any longer. Time to think about what had really gotten her so uptight. What had kept her awake those last few hours before dawn had started to break.

Sam claimed he was doing what he had to do. Doing the right thing for Becky.

Kayla thought of her conversation with Lianne the night before. Lianne had given her full support. She’d only briefly mentioned the benefit of finishing her schooling in a mainstream school. What she hadn’t said was one word about the countless benefits she’d had in her earlier years, growing up around kids who spoke the same language she did.

Exactly Sam’s argument.

And the root of Kayla’s newest fear.

She loved Becky more than anything in the world. But in her determination to win custody, had she lost sight of what was best for her niece?

Even with his inexperience and lack of knowledge of his daughter’s life, did Sam have the right idea all along?





Chapter Eighteen





Much as she believed Sam about Ronnie’s stories, Kayla now couldn’t doubt the ones Ronnie had told her about his obsessive hours spent on the ranch. Since the day of their argument a week before over sending Becky to school, he had disappeared before sunrise every morning and hadn’t come home again until dinner.

Through the kitchen window, Kayla watched Becky in the backyard, playing with Pirate. Sam would have a fit if he knew the dog still came to visit the ranch every day. But how could he know?

Besides, Becky missed her daddy, and the puppy made a good distraction.

Kayla wouldn’t admit that she missed Sam, too.

Yet, maybe it was better this way. The distance between them now would make the permanent separation easier—for all of them.

Tomorrow marked the end of their six weeks. They would go to the courtroom at Town Hall, where Judge Baylor would make his decision.

A short while later, when the cell phone she had left on the kitchen counter rang, Kayla had her hands filled with the vegetables she’d just taken out of the crisper. She dropped them into the sink and hurried across the room.

Seeing the Chicago exchange on the display, she grabbed at the phone and flipped it open. Had Matt finally found some information she could use to take to the judge?

“It’s a girl!” he said joyfully.

“Oh, Matt, that’s wonderful!” Even as she congratulated him, she had to fight the sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.