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.Or what anybody did to try to stop him, including his own unwise attraction to the one woman who might destroy them all.Chapter 8Zach awakened with a start, tangled in his sweat-soaked sheets and telling himself that it was over.He was over, when it came to flying, stripped of all his military duties for failing to report that Lieutenant Hernandez was a danger, failing to see beyond friendship and loyalty.For the past month, Zach had been restless, his sleep fractured night after night by the harrowing moments he’d spent floating helpless above Kabul, where he’d been forced to watch while his protégé’s jet incinerated buildings and lives.It was the phone calls that were responsible for the nightmares, the calls he’d made to Jessie Layton that were tearing him up inside.Though he had nothing to report, he’d first phoned her to find out how she was doing after surgery and how Henry’s family was dealing with their grief.But the longer he listened, the more he’d found himself caring and—worse yet—wanting more.Not only to get to know her better, but to give her and her mother the answers that they needed.Answers he feared would destroy the people who he loved.Realizing the situation was hopeless, he forced himself to go cold turkey.No more calls, no contact, and he deleted all her messages unread, reminding himself of his responsibility, not to his fellow marine corps pilots, his nation or the people they protected any longer, but to his ailing mother and a tiny girl.A little girl who he feared Jessie would soon return to discover, maybe even wrest away.He’d asked, over and over, for more details about Eden’s mother, Lila Germaine.He was troubled to imagine that his mother might have made up the whole story about Ian’s alleged former girlfriend, who, after four years of raising the child on her own, had suddenly grown overwhelmed enough to dump the little girl—along with a signed form giving up all her parental rights.“Oh, Zach, I don’t know why you’d want to dwell on that,” his mama had said dismissively, hands fluttering pale and mothlike to her bony neck.“There’s been pain enough around here.Why worry a miracle half to death? Just thank God that Lila brought her here to live with us instead of to some awful foster home.”Each time he pressed her further, fatigue set in, or one of the headaches.Her face going gray, she would shake and cover her blue eyes against the pain light brought her.Tears came next, and then vomiting, if she didn’t take her medication and lie in the quiet darkness fast enough.As if that weren’t enough to deal with, the holidays were soon upon them—her first Christmas without her husband, her first knowing that Ian was dead.Zach tiptoed around her grief, burying his own sadness deep, along with the endless, maddening questions still running through his brain, no matter how hard he fought to push them out of his mind.When was Jessie coming back? Would she shatter their peace—and his mother’s health—before the year ended? Or had something happened to her? Maybe the hand surgery had gone wrong.Or perhaps her mother had taken a turn for the worse, never guessing that her missing daughter might have given her a granddaughter of her own to cherish.Just as his mother clearly cherished Eden in the weeks that followed, desperately grasping onto the little girl’s wide-eyed excitement for all the joy and anticipation the season had to offer.Though he tried to resist, reminding himself it could all come crashing down at any moment, he ended up swept up in the spirit, too, especially on the day he came home with the biggest tree he could find.Once he and ranch foreman, Virgil Straughn, a grandfatherly type who’d do anything to make a child smile, finally had the thing set up, they’d grabbed a couple of ladders and spent an evening trimming it in Eden’s favorite hot-pink as she directed from below.They laughed that night, each one of them.The first laughter that had rung through the Rayford mansion in heaven only knew how many years.But by January second, the spell had ended, the gifts and decorations packed away.As Zach fed the horses and started on his daily chore list, his brain burned with every worry he’d managed to suppress—and the necessity on getting the truth out of his mother before it blew up in their faces.Before he could think of a way to finally pin her down, Eden came bubbling outside with her puppies, pleading for him to take her with him as he drove to drop off supplemental feed cakes for the cattle.It was a chore she often begged to “help” with, laughing whenever the cows and yearlings came running at the sight of his truck.“How’d you figure out that’s where I was going?” he asked, as if he couldn’t guess.“One of the cowboys came in to help Miss Althea test out the cinnamon rolls.To see if they were really good enough to eat.”“And were they?” Zach asked.“Oh, yes.I got to be a taster, too, and we gave Miss Althea an A-plus with extra sparkles!” Eden nodded happily before wiping her mouth with the back of her hot-pink jacket’s sleeve.“You and those sparkles,” Zach muttered, thinking that the inventors of glitter ought to be roped and dragged buck naked through a patch of prickly pear.But when Eden remembered the crumpled bag in her hand and said, “I brought you one, too!” he smiled and took it from her, devil’s fairy dust and all.“Thanks,” he said, finishing the slightly squashed but still delicious offering in three bites.“Miss Althea gets a gold star.And since you’ve been such a good delivery girl, we’ll go ahead and take that ride, but first we have to tell your grandma where we’re off to, and the puppies have to stay at home and guard the house.”With the wear and tear of daily ranch chores, the truck he’d bought might not long stay shiny, but that new-car smell would last a whole lot better if no one piddled in the cab.As they headed out a few minutes later, Eden chattered away behind him, sitting like a princess in her booster seat.“Can I go cowboyin’ with you later, Uncle Zach? I’ll ride Mr.Butters and help you and the cowboys.”“Sorry, honey, no,” he said, knowing the work was far too dangerous and dirty to risk having her in tow.“I’m afraid Mr.Butters couldn’t keep up with Ace’s long legs, and that would make your pony feel sad
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