Unexpected Hope (Book 2 in the Red Valley series)

Chapter 1

                                                                              Chapter 1

Levi sat at his kitchen table taking deep breaths in an attempt to stay calm. Getting upset and losing his temper wasn't going to do him any good. Siting back in his chair, he tilted his head up to the ceiling; Ellie, his daughter was up in her room sound asleep. His thoughts drifted back five and a half years ago when she'd been conceived. At the time he'd thought his life was over, but now - now he would do anything give anything to keep her. That included getting married again.

Alicia had only been dead for three months and life around the house was so much better without her constant screaming and complaining. He almost felt a twinge of guilt about her death, almost. When she'd trapped him into marrying her, he'd told her then that he would NEVER touch her again. That there would not be any more children and if there were he would divorce her.

It had taken longer than he thought but eventually she'd gotten pregnant again. He'd been faithful to his vows and had expected her to do the same. After all, she had been a virgin when they'd slept together although she had not been innocent. It had taken a couple of months for the ranch to sell so they could move and the people of Bankston knew all about what had happened. It seemed that Alicia had done everything but give her virginity to half the men in town and had been for a year or more. How he'd never heard the stories before was a mystery to him.

He'd suspected she was pregnant for about a month or so before she finally confirmed her situation. She'd been so pathetic trying to say that they'd had sex one night when he woke up one morning with her naked in bed beside him. Levi told her that after she had given birth he was taking the baby, filing for divorce, and throwing her out. Alicia had been a terrible mother, never touching Ellie. Hell, he'd even bought a goat so that his daughter wouldn't starve because her own mother wouldn't feed her. HE had done EVERYTHING for Ellie; which is what made him even angrier about this entire situation. Harold had gotten a lawyer and was trying to take Ellie away from him. His argument was that a single father could not take care of a small child, especially a girl. He'd talked to his lawyer, Will in town and his only recourse was to get married again so that Ellie could have a mother. It was a sacrifice he was willing to make for his precious little girl.

He decided he loved being a father so he was going to keep the new baby and raise it on his own but Alicia had an extremely long and hard labor. So long in fact that the baby was stillborn then his mother bled to death. Doc Baker said there was nothing he could have done. The baby had been big and Alicia had hemorrhaged. She'd asked to hold the baby and the last thing she said before she died was that he looked just like his father, William.

Levi waited until after they'd both been buried then he'd gone straight to his foreman and fired him. The man had tried to deny it at first but finally admitted to being the baby's father. They came to physical blows before the man was finally thrown off the Triple L. William had spewed every curse known and finally threatened Ellie's life. That threat had been the last straw for Levi; no one was going to hurt his little girl. Levi told the man that he'd called a friend for four years that if he ever saw him again, he'd kill him. The man had been escorted off his property and he tried hard every day to forget he had ever known William and Alicia.

He'd worked hard over the years to not argue in front of Ellie and to never say anything bad about the little girl's mother. Just because he didn't like the woman let alone love her, didn't mean that he didn't want Ellie to love her mother. The poor child didn't even shed one single tear over her mother's death. In fact, she almost seemed relieved; making him wonder if Alicia hadn't done something to hurt the child.