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L eo strode toward the stables, his head reeling with everything that had happened in the last few hours. The last few months! Ever since he’d heard about Hope and Mia, and now there was Ella and Benny, and enough feelings pressing in on him to start an avalanche.

Not sure his shoulder could take much more punishment, he decided to check on Boomer and maybe give him another rub down. He’d ridden his horse pretty hard.

The truth wasn’t something he wanted to examine too closely, but how else could he get to the bottom of his feelings for Ella?

Sure, he was hurt, and he wished she’d trusted him, and at the same time, he wondered what he’d have done in similar circumstances.

But another annoying part of his brain insisted on pointing out that she wasn’t who he thought she was.

That the woman he was falling for wasn’t the woman he’d thought he’d thought her to be.

Falling for? Boomer sensed his mood and shifted restlessly.

“You in here, brother?” Jack called from the stable door.

“Yeah.” Leo really didn’t want to talk with Jack right then, but he figured there wasn’t much choice. “What are you doing here at this hour?”

“Just taking a minute to escape the wedding preparations. Those women!” Jack shook his head, but his brother was grinning. “What’s up? You’ve got a face as long as a wet week.”

“Nothing.” He sure wasn’t going to talk to his brother about this. Not this brother. Maybe he could talk to JD. Giving up on grooming the fidgety horse, he left the stall and put the brush back where he’d found it.

“Yeah, right.” Jack paused and peered at him. “Is everything alright with Mia? Ella and Benny?”

“Yeah, everyone is fine. Too fine.”

Jack’s smile expanded into a knowing grin. “So, you’re finally willing to admit that Miss Ella has gotten under your skin.”

Before he knew it, he found himself confessing. “Yeah, but it will never work. She’s from a rich English family. She’s a Lady .”

“So what? If you’re into her, and she’s into you…” Jack paused, “And I’ve never seen anyone take to a kid as if it were her own like Ella has with Mia.”

“You don’t know the half of it.”

Jack frowned at Leo’s muttered words. “Sounds like there’s more to that story.”

“Yeah, there is, but it isn’t my story to tell.” Leo let out a long sigh, “Let’s just say she’s way out of my league.”

“Oh, and Liberty isn’t out of mine?”

Leo stared at his brother. His confident devil-may-care brother whose fiancée was an A-List actor. “Does it bother you?’

“What, that my intended is a movie star?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Not anymore.” Jack sighed, “It did at first. Then it didn’t. And now it definitely doesn’t.”

Deep down Leo was hurt and not sure he was ready to just forgive, or maybe it was he didn’t know if he could forget .

He didn’t even know if she’d shared all the puzzle pieces.

His swirling thoughts were driving him mad, and he really didn’t want to talk about it.

Leo thrust past his brother, “Gotta get back.” Leo left Jack standing in the walkway of the stables and headed back toward the house and his empty bed.

*

Ella felt like she’d not had a wink of sleep, but as the sun was shining in through the window she realized she must have dozed off at some point. Jarred out of her exhaustion, she jack-knifed up to peer into the crib.

“Benny?” She was out of the room and racing down the stairs before she’d uttered the last syllable of his name. The house was utterly empty, and panic had Ella’s throat in a vice-like grip.

“Oh my god, please, please.” She raced back up the stairs and straight into Mia’s room.

Bent double Ella sucked in air, trying to get hold of herself.

How could this happen? Spinning, she ran, barely registering her state of undress and lack of footwear as she raced back down the stairs and out into the freshly fallen snow until she reached the spot where her car was parked.

And Leo’s was not. Chest aching, she forced herself to stop.

Of course, Leo had the kids.

It was fine.

From the corner of her eye, she spotted one of the ranch hands leaving the stables. She waved him down and called out. “Is Leo over there?”

Even from a distance she could see the shocked look on his face, and she recalled she was dressed only in sleep shorts and a tee. “Ah no, I think he’s over at JD’s. I saw his truck there earlier.”

“Thanks,” Ella called even as she turned and made her way barefoot through the thin layer of snow covering the path, shivering with both cold and reaction.

She spent next to no time on her morning bathroom routine, and reached for yesterday’s clothes, dragging them on over her shivering body. Back at the front door, she shoved her freezing feet into socks and boots before snatching up her keys and running out to her car.

Thankfully the snowfall wasn’t enough to make driving dangerous, but she resisted the urgency racing through her and drove carefully to Evie and JD’s.

Her erratic heart beat plummeted when she saw no sign of Leo’s vehicle.

Hopefully Evie or JD would know where he was, and where the children were. Where Benny was.

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…”

“Because there are people who wanted to control the money, and I dared not give them any opportunity to get Benny. Emile’s lawyers were working on finding a way forward, and I brought Benny to America while they did so.

Unbeknown to us all, Emile had used a different law firm for the adoption, and they couldn’t find me.

Everyone suspected everyone else of underhanded behavior and no one trusted anyone else. I only wanted to keep Benny safe.”

Evie shook her head slowly. “And Leo?”