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“Ellie is your family, Ty. She’s carrying your baby.”
Ty sank onto the log next to his brother. “Tell me about it.”
“So, I ask you again,” Harry said with that calm bigbrother voice of reason of his. “What are you going to do? You need a game plan, bro. Because we both know that when Dad finds out you’ve gotten a Northern girl pregnant out of wedlock, he’s going to hit the roof.”
“Of all the stupid, irresponsible stunts that boy has pulled, this one tops them all!”
Ty winced. Yep, Harry had been right. His father was hitting the roof. Ty had barely stepped back into the house from his ride with his brother and didn’t really have his game plan formed. He’d wanted to talk to Ellie prior to doing that. To tell her his thoughts and how he felt about her, to ask what her thoughts were, what she was feeling.
Unfortunately, he doubted he was going to get the opportunity. At least, not before a confrontation with his father.
His mother replied in her usual steady voice, encouraging her husband to calm down, that having another grandchild wa
s a good thing.
Good ole mom, always coming to his defense.
“The boy is living in New York City. What kind of place is that to even consider raising a family? Too many people, too much pollution, no grass to grow beneath one’s feet.”
Ty felt his father’s shudder as much as he heard it.
“And rather than have a real man’s job, he takes care of babies for a living.” Another shudder, this one much more pronounced. “What kind of example is that going to be for my grandchild?”
A new jab poked into an old wound. Hadn’t this been exactly the argument that had led him into leaving Swallow Creek? Into swearing he wouldn’t return? He didn’t have to be a rancher to be a real man.
Except in his father’s eyes, that was.
Ty took a deep breath and prepared to go into the kitchen where his parents were talking. Might as well get this over with rather than leave his mother to take all the flak.
No doubt she’d taken enough of that over the years since he had moved away.
“A good one.”
Pausing in midstep on his way into the room, Ty’s ears perked up at the steady voice that responded to his father’s question.
Not his mother’s voice, as he’d expected, but Ellie’s.
“What did you say?” His father’s voice boomed, obviously shocked and awed that someone dared speak up.
Ellie’s voice didn’t waver, neither did it stutter. God bless her. “I said Ty would be a good example for our child.”
His father harrumphed. “A good example would be for that boy to get his act together and get his butt home so he can help take care of family responsibilities.”
Without so much as a pause, he heard Ellie’s sweet voice continue to defend him.
“He has new family responsibilities now. To me and our baby.”
“To you? Hell, woman, he’s not even got a ring on your finger and you’re knocked up. I don’t think he can be accused of facing his family responsibilities or doing right by you.”
Ty cringed, wondered why he was still standing just outside the room, yet he wanted to hear what Ellie would say. He needed to hear what she would say.
“Ty is a man of honor.”
His heart swelled at her confident words. God, he would do his best to do right by her. Somehow. Some way. He would do right by Ellie and their baby.
“A man of honor doesn’t abandon his family to move out of state to take care of babies.”
“A man I admire and respect,” she continued as if his father hadn’t spoken. “A man who works hard and gives all he has to help those around him, a man who will be a good father and not judge our child based upon outdated, chauvinistic ideas that a man has to live off the land to be a real man.”
