Page 12 of A Surprise Wedding for the Cowboy

“Good.” Grandfather shook Tate’s hand. “There’s a coffee bar if you’d like a cup. Some doughnuts from a café in town.”

From the diner Stephanie had spoken of? Ack, he needed to forget about her for the next hour or two.

“Thank you, sir.” He turned for the coffee urn, nearly bumping into a twenty-something cowboy he’d never seen before. Odd that a stranger would be in the room for their family business session. Maybe he was working the coffee station and would leave once the meeting began.

Wasn’t Tate’s problem. He excused himself around the guy, poured himself a coffee, picked up a doughnut, and found a place at the table.

“Glad to see you made it.” His cousin, Graham, elbowed him lightly.

“Hey, yeah, you, too.”

Tate looked around more closely. A middle-aged woman he didn’t know sat at the opposite end, quietly watching. Also, there were three chairs on each side of the table.

He narrowed his gaze. Why six? There had been five grandsons before Wally’s death. Now there were four. Not six.

The cowboy he’d nearly run into smirked at him and took the seat across from him.

Okay, something weird was going on. Tate’s youngest brother, Maxwell, poured himself a coffee. Another cowboy came in, closed the door behind him, and crossed his arms as he surveyed the room, almost like he was assessing the competition.

Tate glanced at Grandfather, but the old man was bent over his iPad. Or maybe he was praying. By the looks of the strange assembly around this table as everyone found a seat, prayer was not simply a rote thing. It looked like it might be very necessary.

And Tate was grateful Stephanie was upstairs with Jamie, because he needed no distractions during this meeting. It appeared he would need every one of his wits about him.

Grandfather rose at the head of the table, still a commanding man at his age. “I’m glad you all could make it.”

As though they had a choice. Well, of course, they’d had one. Jump at the old man’s beckoning, or find a job elsewhere. No surprise all four of them had trekked to Montana from wherever they’d been.

He looked from one to another all the way around the table, his gaze lingering a moment on each face. Everything felt off kilter, and Grandfather was taking his jolly sweet time explaining himself. Tate might crawl out of his skin, waiting.

“I’m sure all of you would like explanations and introductions, but before I do that, I have a little story for you.” Grandfather looked at the woman seated at the other end. He cleared his throat. “It’s a true story, although, like any good tale, it begins with ‘once upon a time.’”

Tate willed himself not to squirm as his grandsire paused, looked down at his iPad, took another deep breath, and began again.

“I was twenty-two years old and working in the family business for my own father, your great-grandfather. This was not long before I met Gladys, your grandmother. I was pleased at a recent promotion, which allowed me to hire my own personal secretary. Her name was Eleanor.”

Grandfather’s gaze lingered on the woman, but she was much too young to be the one in the story. But… Tate’s gut tightened. Maybe he could guess where this story was going.

“I have told you boys over and over to walk with the Lord and keep your relationships pure. I spoke those words out of personal regret. I was indiscrete. I’ll leave out the details. A few months after she came, Eleanor left the company with no forwarding address. Her resignation letter simply said she was leaving for personal reasons.”

Tate was beginning to guess what those reasons might have been. Even in the early seventies, this scenario would not have been okay. Not from the little Tate remembered of his stern great-grandfather, who’d passed away when he was about ten.

“I regretted my actions, of course. I repented of them before God, met Gladys, and married her. We had two sons. James Walter, the father of Walter, Tate, Bryce, and Maxwell. And Theodore John, who became the father of Graham.”

Sounded like the begats of the Bible. They must be for the benefit of the three strangers in the room.

But Grandfather wasn’t done. “I regret that after a brief search, I forgot all about Eleanor. I threw myself into the company, hired a woman much older than myself as a secretary, and carried on. Gladys and I did well together. She passed away about eight years ago now, and I miss her every day. But…”

The word hung in the conference room. There wasn’t a sound to be heard, not even the ticking of a clock. Not even a breath. It seemed they were all collectively holding theirs.

“But Eleanor, as you may have guessed, returned to her hometown in Montana because she was pregnant. She gave birth to a daughter I never knew I had until recently. Tate, Graham, Bryce, Maxwell… I’d like you to meet your aunt Nadine and her sons — your cousins — Weston and Jude.”

The cowboy across the table smirked at Tate, his eyebrows lifting. “Hey, everyone. I’m Weston. That there is my brother, Jude.”

Silence.

Tate glanced at the woman and the other cowboy, who both looked pensive. Finally, he cleared his throat. “I’m pleased to meet you all. I’m Tate.” He wanted to say he was the eldest, but was that even true anymore? Did it matter? Because his entire world had tilted on his axis, and he felt like he was going to be tipped right off of it and into the void.

“Nadine has always wondered about her heritage, and Eleanor refused to tell the tale. But with DNA tests and genealogies so prevalent these days, she was able to figure out who we were.” Grandfather looked pointedly at Graham. “Thanks to your mother’s bright idea to give everyone DNA tests for Christmas last year. I never dreamed it would lead to this, but I can’t honestly say I regret it. I have a daughter! And you boys have cousins.”

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