THERANCHER’SUNEXPECTEDFAMILY
MAISEY YATES
CHAPTER1
Ellie Parks had been living in fear of the midnight phone call since high school.Ever since Melanie had first started running around with Ty Porter and had begun her walk off the good girl path and into destruction.
She’d been waiting to hear the worst.
And while this wasn’t the worst, it was shocking in a way that left her cold.
She grabbed her purse off her nightstand, along with her phone, which was never in do-not-disturb mode, all because of her sister.Then she walked downstairs, and toward the front door.And heard the sound of her roommate’s door opening.To be accurate, Ellie was Angelica’s roommate, rather than the other way around.It was Angelica’s house, and Ellie helped pay the mortgage by renting a room.It wasn’t impossible to buy a house on a teacher’s salary, but it was difficult.And while Ellie was saving up for a down payment, her colleague had been generous enough to let her stay.
It was a little bit weird living with her former teacher.Butthen, Angelica was now a coworker at the high school Ellie had once attended.
It had taken her a while to start calling her colleagues by their first names.
She had taught at a private school for a while, about forty-five minutes away, and then had taught at a high school in Portland before coming back to Caldwell, all the way in the desolate eastern part of the state of Oregon, where she’d decided to take a job as an English teacher at her alma mater.
Coming back to town had been …
Well, it was loaded.And not just because of her sister.
“Is everything all right?”
Angelica was at the top of the stairs, holding her bathrobe closed.
If she had been told in ninth grade that she would one day see her biology teacher in a bathrobe, she would’ve died.
“Not really.Melanie.”She couldn’t even bring herself to say it out loud.But she didn’t want Angelica to think Melanie was dead.Which was, of course, the first thingshehad thought when she’d seen an unfamiliar number on the phone coming through at this late hour.“I’ve got to go to the hospital.She … she had a baby.”
“Oh, honey.Do you need somebody to go with you?”
“No.I just have to …” She closed her eyes.“I have to go.”
She walked out the front door to the curb where she’d parked her little sedan.She got inside and took a deep breath as she gripped the steering wheel.She didn’t know what she was going to do.At least the school year had ended last week.A bubble of laughter escaped her lips.Hysteria, really.
But she still had no idea what she was going to do, and the words of the social worker who had called her were echoing in her head.
Temporary placement.Emergency care.
A baby girl.
The hospital was fifteen minutes away, and she was just barelyholding it together.What if this had happened somewhere else?Melanie and Ty weren’t always in town.Ellie was a little surprised she hadn’t known Melanie was pregnant.Of course, her parents wouldn’t know.They’d given up on Melanie a long time ago.There was a reason the hospital had contacted Ellie.
She could freak out later.She needed to get there.She needed to figure out exactly what was going on.She needed …
She would cry later.Later, Ellie was going to sob her heart out.
But not now.She just needed to get through the next couple of hours.
She pulled up to the maternity ward at the hospital and parked before heading into the facility.
She paused at the front desk.
“Who are you here to see?”
She did not answer that question.Melanie Parks wasn’t the person who’d called her.She was here to see the baby.She was here to see a social worker.Someone from Child Protective Services.
