Page 16 of Wilder Heart

“Sorry, kiddo,” he rasped. “I’m not your daddy.”

“Oh!” She giggled. “You look so much like him. You’re his brother, right?” There was no fear or judgment in her eyes when she looked up at him, squinting in the early morning light. There was a dimple on one of her cheeks. They probably hadn’t told her much about him.

“That’s right.”

“How come I’ve never met you before?”

Wilder opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

“Wilder was away for a long time,” Cash said kindly. “But he’s back now because he justhadto meet his little niece and nephews.”

Those words almost took Wilder out at the knees, and he reached out blindly to grab onto something, planting a hand on the sun-warmed hood of the truck.Nephews? Mary-Beth was having twins? There were going to be two more Blackwood boys running around this ranch? Was history doomed to repeat itself again?

A strong hand landed on his shoulder, pulling him from his thoughts, and his spine stiffened.

“We better get going, little lady,” Cash said, giving Wilder a little shake as though to ground him in the present. “I think I saw your dad going into his office. Why don’t you go check there?”

“Oh, okay. Thanks Mister Cash!” And like a shot, Annalise was off, her gangly legs pumping.

Neither of them spoke as they got in the truck, nor when Cash drove it around the back of the bunkhouse to attach the flatbed trailer to the hitch. It was only when they were rumbling down a narrow trail that traveled between the fields that Cash finally broke the silence.

“I suppose Lain left that part out when he met up with you that first night.”

Wilder didn’t want to talk about this. “Yeah,” he said curtly.

“They’re both healthy, as far as I know. Hopefully it’ll be an uneventful birth, and… Lain is a good father.”

Wilder’s hand tightened into a fist on his thigh. That was good. Maybe the cycle wouldn’t repeat itself after all. Maybe this time the Blackwood boys would grow up to be good men. Both of them. He didn’t want some innocent kid to share the same fate as him.

“That’s good,” he finally said. “Good for them. They deserve it.”

He could feel Cash’s eyes on the side of his face, burning like a brand.

CHAPTER 7

CASH

Cash didn’t know what to say. He knew things were contentious between Wilder and Lain, and he had a vague idea about the type of parent their father was. This didn’t seem like a good opportunity to ask questions, though, and an even worse time to make assumptions. Wilder looked like he’d rather pull a tooth than talk about this any longer, so Cash did the only thing he could think of.

He changed the subject.

“You got any work gloves?”

Wilder blinked at him. “No. Should I?”

Cash bobbed his head from side to side. “Probably, yeah. We’ll get you some. For now, I’ve got a spare set in the glove compartment there. You’ll need it when we start picking up the hay bales. That twine will tear your hands up without gloves.”

“Picking up the hay bales?” Wilder repeated. “With our hands?”

“Yeah, they’re the square bales, not the big round ones.”

“Ah, I see.”

“Some of the other boys are already out there this morning gathering them. They’ll help us load up, so it won’t be just the two of us filling up the whole trailer.”

“Oh. That’s good.” But he looked away as he said it, and Cash wondered if that was for a reason.

“And about Billy?—”

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