The Cowboy's Texas Heart (The Dixons of Legacy Ranch 3)

“Merde,” she replied as if this was a tired argument already. Always so self-absorbed. Tyler shook his head. “What does Seth have to do with this?”

Tyler furrowed his brow. What did she mean, what did Seth have to do with it? “Didn’t you get his email?” he rumbled.

Don’t, man. Don’t argue.He willed himself to shake off how personal this felt, to think like a lawyer and not a jilted husband.

“His email?”

Tyler frowned further. Why did she say that like she didn’t know? He kept listening. Didn’t speak. People always grew uncomfortable with the silence and had to fill it in, which had been a useful tactic as an up-and-coming attorney.

“I received correspondence about the breach, oui. My lawyers”—code for her father, who headed her legal team in France and was the one who really called the shots, because he’d never liked Tyler—“advised me to take action.”

“You didn’t even read the email?” He couldn’t mask his incredulity.

“No. My schedule has been hell. I’ve been in Milan for a week on two shoots and meetings with my photography team and the execs from Cosmopolitan, and tomorrow I fly to Crete. What did he write?”

Not that Tyler wanted to read it, either, but he didn’t know. Hadn’t seen the words. It was probably an accusatory letter about him. Seth had built up an angelic vision of his mother and cast Tyler as the devil, but if it had been him in Isabella’s place, he would have been too curious not to read it. He would have wanted to know what his son, eight years estranged, wanted to say.

“He thinks I kept him and Stevie from you,” was the only answer he could give, and it roiled like bile. “He doesn’t know the truth. Because I couldn’t tell him. He just wants a momma. Wants to know why he doesn’t have one.”

Isabella exhaled. Noise in the background, a faint male voice, either part of her crew or her newest lover, went quiet as a door closed somewhere on her end of the phone. When she spoke again, it was far less acerbic.

“The family thing was what you wanted.” She exhaled wearily. “I wish I would have handled everything differently from the beginning, but I was so young and swept up in your charm, a handsome, wealthy law student…” Code for she’d wished she’d never told him about her pregnancy, wished she hadn’t married him, tried to make a go of it with him over and over again. At least she wasn’t shouting at him anymore. “We made a legal agreement. It was easiest this way.”

Easy? Fuck. That.

“But the boys didn’t agree to squat. That NDA was between you and me, and I’ve kept my end of it. Gone to great lengths to help you protect it. But your secret’s finally out.” And regardless of this debacle, he realized that he was…relieved. Like a Mack truck had been sitting on his diaphragm, and he could finally expand it. “They know. Seth found you all on his own. He’s smart and determined. He wanted answers.”

“He’s like his père, non?” Like me. Tyler wasn’t sure that was a compliment, but it wasn’t spoken in anger, either. Perhaps the years had softened Isabella’s edge.

“Did you ever stop to think what the boys would do when they got older? Or did you just hope to wash your hands of your history with me and never look back? Did you ever think they’d have questions? Did you ever consider how your decision would make them feel? The pressure it would put on me?”

Clicking on a computer sounded through the phone. Was she checking her emails?

“If I hadn’t been so ready for things to end back then, I never would have signed the papers. I would have seen it for how cruel it was. You can’t erase that you had kids, Izzy, even if they’re not yours anymore.” He chewed his cheek. Felt her silence weigh down on him. “This legal action? It’s the first I’ve heard about him trying to contact you.” He willed himself to calm down. “You’re telling me that there’s no part of you that’s happy to get his email? Not one single part of you that’s been curious how they’ve been all these years? What they look like?” He thought on what Heart had said about kids. The kindness and love she’d shown them in so short a time, and in spite of everything his chest expanded with calm. He loved Heart. She seemed to care for him as deeply. She was more of a mother than Isabella had ever been. “Some people would do anything to have what you gave up. And now you’re gonna try to take me to the cleaners? Who do you think that hurts the most? Me? Naw, Izzy. It hurts your kids.”

His throat thickened with emotion. He hadn’t spoken to her since their divorce, and yet, if she acted like it wasn’t her problem, he was going to lose it.

“That was my père’s doing. With the new charity campaign, he’s worried anything about this will look bad for my brand. I’ll talk to him.”

“I swear,” Tyler continued, picking up the scattered pages and stacking them. “You can hate me all you want. I’ve let Seth hate me over this, too. I can take it.” He really couldn’t, though, not anymore. He couldn’t handle being hated, didn’t want to shoulder Isabella’s responsibility any longer. “But don’t you dare start messing with my kids’ hearts or their livelihoods. They’re the best thing to ever happen to me and I’ll fight like hell to protect them.”

Silence.

“I can’t believe he found me,” she whispered. She must have just read Seth’s email. A hard exhale came through the phone and her tone became solemn. “I wasn’t able to be a mother, Tyler. I was self-destructing. After the car accident…I realized how much danger I’d put them in. I worried I’d hurt them again. They were better off without me. So were you. I know you weren’t happy. We were both dying, trying to live up to everyone else’s expectations. I just wanted to put them, and you, behind me—”

The sound of a click on the phone line was soft in Tyler’s ear. Like someone hanging up. Had she just hung up on him?

“Izzy?”

“Oui, what?” she replied.

His eyes shot toward his office door, as if he could see through it, as footsteps hammered and the front door slammed shut. Shit…his snooping son had just been eavesdropping. Yet as he and Isabella went back and forth, as Isabella learned the full scope of what had happened, remorse seemed to edge into her voice more and more. Agreements to rescind the action were made—deep down, she would never be a mother, but she wasn’t heartless, either—when a knock tapped on his door.

Heart poked her head in, distress paling her face. Was she rethinking this? Was she rethinking him and all his baggage? “Tyler.” She never just said Tyler when she could call him Hercules or Ty. “Seth took off a while ago. T.R. just told me that he took a quad bike out toward the back ninety. You should probably come.”

Her eyes sliced to the phone in his hand, to the woman whose call she was interrupting, right before he dropped it to the desk.