Page 49 of The Cowboy Takes a Nanny
She shut off the engine and raced up the front steps to knock on the old homestead door. Her pulse was fluttery as she listened to the footsteps approaching.
“Ella.” JD’s expression was blank.
“Is B-Benny here?”
“He sure is, both he and Mia are helping Evie with seating plans. No idea how that’s gonna work, but I decided my input was not required.”
Ella’s legs turned to jelly, and she started to sink; only JD’s quick reflexes stalled her downward trajectory.
“Ella? Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” She forcibly locked her knees. “Ah, can I come in?” She just needed to see Benny.
“Of course. Come on through.”
JD didn’t let go of her arm, instead he guided her along the hall, the sound of Benny chattering and Mia’s garbled imitation brought tears to her eyes.
Evie, Benny, and Mia all looked around at her.
“Mama,” Benny was the first to speak, his smile wide and totally normal. He was fine, Benny was fine.
“Mama,” Mia copied Benny, grinning first at Ella, then at Evie, obviously delighted with herself.
“JD, can you watch the kids for a bit?” Evie got up from her seat, and Ella absently took in the large sheet of paper on the table with a scattering of pink, purple, and mauve squares arranged in patterns. Patterns that Benny began distributing to his own liking.
“Sure can.” JD immediately took Evie’s vacated seat. “Right, Benny, what do you think, shall we put …”
Ella didn’t hear the rest as Evie guided her out of the room and into a cozy sitting room. “Sit, now can I get you a hot drink?” Evie’s eyes scanned her face, “You look like you’re in shock.”
Ella lowered herself down onto the settee. “I—I’m okay, I just woke up and everyone was gone. I sort of panicked.”
“Leo said you needed to sleep in. So, he dropped the kids off.”
Ella’s jaw ached as tempest of emotions threatened to erupt inside her. Relief, anger, resentment, fear, and doubt swirled in an ever-strengthening vortex that wanted to pull her under. Why hadn’t he left her a note? Not that she’d even thought to look for one, but couldn’t he have pinned one to Benny’s crib? Or Mia’s? Or the bathroom door for that matter.
“Ella?”
Ella sprung up, she had to find him, to explain. She might have to leave the Lazy H, but not before she laid everything out for Leo. Made him understand.
“Ella, what’s going on?”
“Can you look after the kids a little longer? I need to find Leo.”
“Yeah, sure, but Leo’s gone to his other property.”
The news of Leo having left the ranch deflated Ella, and she sunk back down, folding over until her forehead rested on her knees.
“I’ll make coffee.”
By the time Evie returned with two steaming mugs, Ella had decided she had to confide in someone, and level-headed, lawyer Evie was likely the best person for the job.
“Everything has fallen apart.” Even as she uttered the words, she heard the melodramatic tone and wasn’t surprised at Evie’s wide-eyed questioning gaze. “My life has been in turmoil for the last few years.”
“Dealing with the death of someone you love is never easy.” Evie’s words held a note of pain, and Ella remembered she’d been a friend of Hope, Mia’s mother.
“Oh, it went down the toilet before Emile died.” Ella couldn’t help her maudlin tone. No, she needed to stick to the facts. “Benny is not my biological son. I married Emile so he could meet the terms of his grandfather’s will. Any illegitimate offspring could not benefit under the terms of the estate. So we, Emile and I married, and I was to adopt Benny. His birth mother wanted no part of having a child. Emile and his half-brother, Alphonse both died in an accident, leaving Benny the beneficiary of the family fortune, and the adoption incomplete. At least that’s what I believed. My father turned up yesterday with the lawyer Emile engaged to handle the adoption, and it only needed my signature. So, I’m now officially Benny’s adoptive parent.” Ella stared down into the fast-cooling coffee as she spoke, but on the last, she looked up to see Evie digesting all the information she’d just dumped on her.
“I see, and you kept all this a secret because …”
