Chapter Seventeen
C.J. looked up into Boone’s blue eyes as he pulled her against him. She forgot the falling snow, the cold and the worry and pain that had seeped into her bones over the past week. In his arms, she felt warm and safe.
All her instincts told her to pull away, but she didn’t move.
Her gaze locked with his and she felt her heart quicken. Slowly, he bent his head until his lips were only a breath away from her own. She couldn’t breathe. Didn’t dare. She thought she would die if he didn’t kiss her.
His lips brushed over hers. She let out a sigh of relief and joy and pleasure. He pulled her tighter against him, taking her mouth with his own. She melted into him and the kiss, heart pounding, desire sparking along her nerve endings like a string of lit dynamite.
The sound of the train whistle on the edge of town made them both jump, bringing them back to reality with a thud. As they stepped apart, C.J. braced herself as the light on the front of the locomotive came into view.
The train puffed into town through the falling, whirling snow. Boone stood next to her as the noisy train slowed and finally came to a stop after numerous cars had gone past. Boone hadn’t said a word after the kiss. Nor had she. But she did wonder if he regretted it.
She touched the tip of her tongue to her upper lip and smiled to herself. Not that it would ever happen again, she was sure. Neither of them was ready for...for whatever that had been.
A door opened on one of the coach cars. A conductor put out a yellow footstool and then began to help a passenger off. C.J. held her breath but let it out on a frosty puff as an elderly woman was helped off, followed by an elderly man. They walked toward their vehicle parked beside the depot where they’d apparently left it before their trip.
C.J. felt her heart drop. She shot Boone a look as the locomotive engine started up and the conductor picked up the stool and stepped back on to close the door as the train began to move again.
“Boone?”
The train began to slowly pull away. She wanted to scream. She wanted Boone to take her in his arms again. Tears blurred her eyes.
“It’s all right,” he said, touching her arm. “They still have to unload the sleeping car.”
She blinked. The train hadn’t left. She heard it grind to a stop again after going only a short way. This time a door opened on a sleeping compartment car next to the platform. Another conductor stepped off with a stool and reached back in to bring out a suitcase. He set the case on the cold concrete and then reached back in again—this time to help a young woman off the train.
C.J.’s hand went to her mouth as the dark-haired young woman from Hank’s thumb drive stepped off and looked in their direction.
Boone made a sound, as if equally startled by the intensity of the woman’s green eyes. She was beautiful, slender and graceful-looking in a way that C.J. feared she would never be. Her heart felt as if it might burst. She knew she was looking at Jesse Rose McGraw—and all that it meant.
Oh, Hank, what were you involved in?
She looked over at Boone, gripped by a wave of guilt for withholding the thumb drive. She could see him struggling, as if asking himself if this woman could be the sister he hadn’t laid eyes on since she was six months old.
C.J. felt her chest constrict as she touched his shoulder. He looked over at her and she nodded. The train pulled out and was gone as quickly as it had come, leaving the three of them standing in the falling snow.
It was Jesse Rose McGraw all grown up. C.J. stared at the woman through the falling snow, her heart hammering with both relief and fear. She couldn’t keep kidding herself. Hank had been involved in all this up to his ears.
“Excuse me,” Boone said as they approached the young woman. “Were you expecting to meet Hank Knight here?”
Tears filled the young woman’s eyes as she looked past them for a moment, before settling her gaze on C.J. “Hank...” Her voice broke. “He’s gone, isn’t he?”
C.J. nodded, not sure how the woman had heard about Hank’s death, but glad they weren’t going to have to give her the news. “I’m so sorry.”
“You must be Calamity Jane,” the young woman said through her tears as she stepped to C.J. and threw her arms around her. “Uncle Hank told me so much about you.”
Uncle Hank? C.J. shot a surprised look over Jesse Rose’s shoulder at Boone. He looked as shocked as she felt.
“But I’m surprised you’re here,” the young woman said as she pulled back to look at C.J. “He said it would either be him or...” Her gaze went to Boone. “Or someone from the McGraw family.”
C.J. saw her wipe at her tears as she turned to Boone.
Her face lit as she smiled. “You must be one of my brothers?”
“Boone McGraw.” He sounded dumbstruck but at the same time overjoyed. “And you’re...”
The young woman held out her hand. “Jesse Rose Sanderson.”
“Jesse Rose?” he repeated in obvious astonishment as he took her gloved hand in his.
She smiled sadly. “Uncle Hank told me that he tried to talk my mother into changing my name, but I guess when she whispered the name to me the first time she held me, my eyes lit up. She didn’t have the heart to change it.”
Boone shook his head. “So you know... We definitely need to talk, but we don’t have to do it out here in the snowstorm.” He ushered them toward the large SUV that he and C.J. had brought into town from the ranch.
C.J. climbed in the back so Jesse Rose could be up front with her brother. As she did, Jesse Rose reached back to clasp her hand.
“Calamity Jane,” the young woman said with a laugh. “You’re exactly as Uncle Hank described you. But I know you prefer C.J. Sorry. I’ve always loved your name and wanted to meet the girl who’d stolen my uncle’s heart.” Jesse Rose’s hand was warm in hers. C.J. wondered if she could feel her trembling. Hank had told Jesse Rose all about her?
“I was so hoping Uncle Hank would be meeting the train, but he’d warned me that he might not be able to make it. Was he very sick at the end?”
C.J. shook her head, completely confused. Sick?
“I hope he didn’t suffer.”
“No,” she said quickly. Everyone who’d seen the accident said he’d been killed instantly. “He didn’t suffer.” She felt as if she’d fallen down a rabbit hole.
“Good,” Jesse Rose said. “He looked fine when he was out in Seattle but my mother said cancer can do that. She said then that he wouldn’t be with us long.”
Cancer? C.J. couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Was it true? And yet as she sat there staring at the falling snow outside, she knew it was. Hank’s sudden decision to retire. It had been so unlike him. He’d loved what he did. She’d tried to talk him out of it but he’d made all kinds of excuses. She’d finally stopped pushing him, seeing that he’d been determined. And yet, she’d also seen how sad he’d been about the decision. Now it made sense.
But why hadn’t he told her? She tried to remember if she’d ever seen him looking sick and realized there had been a couple of times when she’d stopped by his office and caught him unaware. She’d just thought he was tired, that the job had taken a toll on him. She’d never dreamed... Cancer.
It explained so much. Why he’d be so set on retiring and closing down his office. Why he’d flown to Seattle without telling her and why he’d warned Jesse Rose than he might not be meeting the train. That one of the McGraw brothers would meet the train. Clearly, he’d planned on going, otherwise he would have let someone at the McGraw ranch know. But then he hadn’t planned on getting run down in the street, had he?
Jesse Rose let go of C.J.’s hand as Boone climbed behind the wheel. “I’m just so glad that Uncle Hank told me about my family out here.”
“So how long have you known?” Boone asked as he started the SUV. C.J. could tell that he was hoping this wouldn’t be another case of a child who didn’t want to know her McGraw family like Tough Crandall.
But C.J. suspected the woman wouldn’t be here right now if she didn’t want to get to know her birth family.
“Known I was adopted? Or known that I had more family?” Jesse Rose asked.
Boone shifted into Reverse. “Both.”
“I found out I was adopted when I was seventeen. I was looking for my birth certificate...” She shrugged. “I found it and it said I was born to my parents, but I also found a letter from a woman named Pearl Cavanaugh. Did you know her?”
“I knew who she was,” Boone said.
“I only learned recently, though, about the circumstances of my adoption. Uncle Hank told me—over the protests of my mother. He said it was time I met my birth family.”
“What about your father?” C.J. had to ask.
“My father died when I was twelve. My mother was apparently the only one who knew that I’d been kidnapped, but according to Uncle Hank, she had wanted a child so much, she would have kidnapped one herself if she hadn’t gotten me.”
* * *
BOONE GLANCED IN the rearview mirror at C.J. as he drove through the underpass and down a block before pulling in front of the Whitehorse Café. He couldn’t imagine what was going through her head right now. His was still swimming. But he was more worried about her. This had to have caught her flatfooted.
He’d pictured meeting the train and Jesse Rose stepping off, but he’d never really believed it was going to happen. And then for her to already know about not only Hank’s death but her own kidnapping and illegal adoption... It blew his mind. At least Hank had taken care of that.
Why, though, had he kept it all from not only the rest of the world, including the McGraws, but he’d kept it from C.J.? Didn’t he realize how much this was going to hurt her? Not to mention Jesse Rose knew all about C.J. but C.J. knew nothing about Jesse Rose all these years? Clearly Hank was involved in this. How much, though?
As he parked in front of the café, Boone said, “I thought we could have something warm to drink before we go out to the ranch.”
Inside, they took at table at the back. Because of the hour, the café was empty. Fortunately, Abby, his brother Ledger’s fiancée, wasn’t working. The waitress who took their order said hello to Boone and merely smiled at the two women he was with.
“I feel as if I’ve always known you,” Jesse Rose said to C.J. “I’ve heard so much about you from Uncle Hank for years. He said that he just knew the two of us would hit it off because we are so much alike. He promised that one day we would meet.”
“I’m sorry to seem so surprised but Hank never told me anything about you,” C.J. said.
Jesse Rose frowned. “I guess I understand under the circumstances. I always wondered why Uncle Hank wouldn’t let me come out and visit. I thought it was just my mother’s doing. She and Uncle Hank...well, they didn’t get along. But I adored him and he... I don’t have to tell you how special he was.” Tears filled her green eyes. “I’m so sorry he’s gone.”
“He had cancer,” C.J. said as if seeing Boone’s confusion. “He’d told her that he might not be able to meet the train. Apparently, he knew he didn’t have long.”
“Oh, wow, I’m so sorry,” Boone said to C.J. Just another thing Hank had kept from her.
“You never suspected you were adopted until you found the letter?” C.J. asked.
Jesse Rose hesitated before she said, “Not really. Don’t most kids think they must have been adopted if they aren’t that much like their parents or siblings? I didn’t have siblings.” She shrugged.
“So you aren’t like your parents?” Boone asked.
Jesse laughed. “My father was blond and blue-eyed and so is my mother. She always told me that my dark hair came from my father’s side of the family.” She sobered. “Do you think there is any chance that there’s a mistake and I’m not Jesse Rose McGraw?”
“We won’t know for sure until we do a DNA test, if you’re agreeable, but you look just like our mother when she was your age,” Boone said.
Jesse Rose brightened. “How strange and yet wonderful to find out that I might have siblings. I used to dream of having a brother or sister. I was so anxious on the train. That was the longest twenty hours of my life, but I’m like Uncle Hank. I hate to fly. Not that there was any way to fly into Whitehorse except by private plane.”
“I’m sure Hank told you, but it isn’t just siblings you have, but a twin,” Boone said.
She nodded excitedly. “I can’t wait to meet him. It’s so strange. I’ve always felt like I was missing a part of myself. I know that sounds crazy.”
“Not at all. I’ve heard that about twins, even fraternal twins.”
“Will he be at the ranch when we get there?” When Jesse Rose saw them exchange a look, she asked, “What?”
“No, but he lives around here. His name is Tough Crandall. He ranches in the next county. It’s just that he’s known he was Oakley McGraw for years but he wants nothing to do with the notoriety that might come from it,” Boone said.
“The kidnapping case was fairly well-known,” C.J. added. “I hope you aren’t worried about that part.” Boone couldn’t bear for Travers not to at least get to meet his only daughter.
Jesse Rose shook her head. “But if I was kidnapped and my mother knew...” She looked up, those green eyes bright with worry. “My mother wouldn’t go to jail, would she?”
“We would do everything possible to keep that from happening. We don’t know what your mother was told. Oakley’s mother believed she was saving him. Your mother might have, as well.”
“Still, I don’t understand how my mother could take someone’s child,” Jesse Rose said.