Home on the Ranch--The Cowboy's Dilemma

by Pamela Britton

“Rough night?” he asked.

  Did she look that bad? “Didn’t sleep.”

  “I’m not surprised.”

  So, did he know? She wanted to ask. But at the same time, she didn’t want to ask.

  Maverick sat down next to her. “Charlotte said you seemed upset when you left last night, and that my aunt had to practically force Flynn to take you home.”

  He knew. Charlotte had made him pay his twenty dollars.

  “Not exactly,” she said, inhaling and hoping like hell her stupid hormones wouldn’t get in the way of her resolve. But she couldn’t help it. Having Maverick here made her want to bawl her eyes out and she had no idea why. Except...maybe she did. Maybe she was just really wishing Flynn had taken up Maverick’s offer to ride over to see her. Maybe the fact that he didn’t was all the proof she needed that it was over between her and Flynn.

  Over before it really even began.

  “He’s scared,” Maverick said.

  She didn’t need to ask who he was talking about. “Well, I am, too.”

  Damn it. She had to wipe at a renegade tear that made a run down her cheek.

  “Yeah, but Flynn is a single man. One who’s been living his life exactly according to plan for years. Then suddenly you come along and turn his whole life upside down.”

  “Me?” And despite her tears, she huffed out a laugh. “Gee, thanks.”

  “He’s just afraid. I mean, he’s the one who studies the pedigree of every single horse we bring onto the property, figuring out who will cross well on what stallion and who won’t, and patiently waiting for the foals to drop in the spring, and then studying them and working with them and deciding which ones are good enough to go on to compete. And he’s good at it. He’s turned the horse breeding operation into a huge success. Some of the best cutting horses in the world reside right here at Gillian Ranch because of my brother. He’s meticulous about everything he’s ever done, except where you’re concerned. With you he jumped in feetfirst without even thinking about it, and that’s not like him.”

  Tissue. She needed tissue. Frankly, she should just get in the habit of stuffing wads of them in her pocket for moments like these.

  “Give him time,” he said. “Time to accept the fact that his well-ordered universe is about to be knocked back on its you-know-what.”

  She didn’t have time, though. Every week her belly would get bigger and bigger and it would be an in-your-face reminder that she would one day give birth to another man’s child. And if he came back to her, that meant he’d have a child, too. He’d have to put up with milk-jug boobs and a flabby belly and goodness knew what else that would happen to her body postpregnancy. A hot mess—just as Maverick said.

  “Okay,” she said. “I’ll try not to go all Fatal Attraction on him.”

  Maverick stared at her in puzzlement.

  “It’s a movie.” She shook her head. “Never mind. I’ll give him some space.”

  Maverick slapped her on the knee. “Good. Because I like you, Amy. You have some crazy ideas about weddings, but you’re exactly what Flynn needs. Someone who’s just a little bit on the wacky side to counter his stick-in-the-mud attitude.”

  “Wacky?”

  “In a good way,” he said with a smile, standing. “I’ll tell him I saw you. And that you had some guy over here. That ought to get his goat.”

  “Don’t you dare.”

  “Oh, I will. I’ll get Jayden to play along, too. And Crystal. The whole family. Just leave it to me. Operation Freak Out Flynn is underway.”

  He started walking backward toward his horse. The whole family? Operation Freak Out Flynn?

  “Wait, I mean. Don’t lie to him or anything.”

  “I’m not going to lie. Come over to the house next week for dinner.”

  “I can’t. I have a wedding.”

  “Then the week after,” he said, still walking backward. “Friday. We’ll do dinner. I’ll arrange it with Charlotte. In the meantime, don’t you dare text Flynn. Don’t call him, either. Don’t do anything. Just let him sit and stew.”

  She wasn’t so sure that was a good idea. Then again, maybe that was what he wanted. Maybe that was why he hadn’t called her or sent her a text. Maybe he really did want to be left alone.

  Maybe she would just have to get used to a life without Flynn.

  Chapter 18

  He’d behaved like a total putz.

  Flynn rolled over in bed and immediately reached for his phone. He’d given it a day, a day during which it’d taken everything he had not to text her or call her. One day. That was all he lasted.

  He scanned his bedroom, tugging on jeans while he looked for his phone, and tapped out a quick message.

  I’m in.

  He drew in a deep breath. At that moment, the precise second he pressed Send, he realized how much the whole thing had been weighing on him. How much he’d missed her...and what a prize ass he’d been.

  He waited for a reply. When nothing happened, he finished dressing. Still nothing. He made himself some breakfast. Nothing.

  I’m in for the whole shebang, he texted next.

  She was probably doing something weddingish. Maybe in a meeting. No need to stress. So he went to work, checked the horses, made sure their automatic waterers were working, threw some of them extra food. Rode two, stepped into his office where he kept his phone when he rode the horses, and checked again. Still nothing.

  It wasn’t until later that night that he finally received a reply.

  I’ll call you later.

  She was mad at him; he could tell. She had a right to be, but the thing was, she didn’t strike him as the type to string him along or be vindictive. One of the things he admired about her was that she never held back. She always told the truth. Seemed to pride herself on speaking her mind.

  “Later” turned out to be not the same day, or even the next one. He ended up hearing from Maverick that she was out of town. Some big wedding she’d been planning. That was when he remembered the ornaments and the December wedding and he felt a little bit better, but only a little.

  He swung by her place. She wasn’t home. Her car was missing, too, so he knew his brother must be right. Out of town. Working a wedding. She’d call him when she returned home.

  Except...she didn’t. He went by her place again, but she wasn’t home and this time he heard from Jayden that she’d had a doctor’s appointment and that his own sister had taken her to it. Funny how upset that made him. And when Amy did finally call, he missed it, but the message she left worried him all the more. She’d talk to him later this weekend, she said. That was it.

  This weekend.

  He didn’t know what to think, called his brother to see if maybe he knew what was going on, and when he was told to stop in for dinner that same night because Amy would be there, he leaped at the chance. Maybe Amy had shared her feelings with Maverick and Charlotte. He sure hoped so because he’d never felt more at a loss in his whole life.

  There were cars in the driveway, one of them causing his grip to tighten on the steering wheel. Amy. The porchlight illuminating her beat-up little car. There were more cars than just Amy’s, though. And the sound of voices coming from inside the house made it sound as if they were having a party, not a little get-together. Laughter. A glass tinkling. Music.

  “Flynn,” his brother said, opening the door after he’d knocked.

  He stepped inside. Not a party, he realized. Just a little get-together. And a man sitting across from Amy, someone he didn’t recognize. He waited for Amy to turn and look at him, but she didn’t move.

  “This is Ryan,” Maverick said, guiding him forward. “He works with Charlotte. And, of course, you know Amy.”

  Ryan unfolded himself from his chair. He was tall and he wore tan slacks and a casual white button-down. Flynn hated him on sight.

&n
bsp; “Hi, Flynn. Nice to meet you.” He smiled and Flynn wondered if Ryan heard the way his teeth cricked together when they shook hands. “I’m actually one of Charlotte’s foster dads, so I don’t really work with her.”

  A foster dad? Wasn’t that unethical or something? To socialize with a CPS worker?

  “Where’s Olivia?” Flynn asked.

  “Up with Aunt Crystal,” Maverick answered. “She’s watching Ryan’s little girl, too. They’re having a blast playing together.”

  He had a little girl. And he was single. Flynn noticed the fact that he didn’t have a ring on his finger, and if ever Flynn had doubts about his feelings for Amy, they disappeared the moment he looked deep into the man’s eyes. He didn’t know him. For all he knew he could be the world’s best dad, but the stab of jealousy he felt as he smiled into Flynn’s eyes was undeniable.

  “Would you like a beer?” Maverick asked as Ryan returned to his chair. Amy had yet to look at him.

  “No, thanks.”

  “Hey, Flynn,” Charlotte said, offering her cheek for him to kiss. “Glad you could make it.”

  “Take a seat,” Maverick said.

  “No, thanks. I’m actually only here to talk to Amy.”

  She finally looked into his eyes and for the first time since he’d met her, he couldn’t tell what she was thinking. She just stared up at him, and he hated that he’d stolen the smile from her eyes.

  “Can I talk to you outside?” he asked.

  Her lashes lowered for a second, but she held his gaze. “Sure.”

  He headed toward the back porch and as he passed by his brother he saw his raised eyebrows, but there was also something else in the blue depths of his gaze, a mischievousness that he instantly recognized from their childhood. He’d set the whole thing up. The invitation. The dinner. The other man.

  Bastard.

  Or maybe not. Maybe he should thank him because something told him Amy might have gone on avoiding him for a while longer if he hadn’t caught her here tonight. He wondered if Maverick had told her he was coming over. Probably not. Or maybe. His insides were so turned upside down that he had no idea what to think anymore.

  “It’s chilly out,” she said.

  He paused midstep. “Do you need me to go inside and get you a jacket?”

  She shook her head and he took her to the back porch, pointing to the wooden chairs his brother Carson had built, their seats covered by cushions. He took one. She took the other, the two of them staring out at a backyard softly lit by moonlight. This time of year, the cilantro-like scent of hedge parsley filled the air. In the summer those plants would dry and the resulting burrs would get caught in Sadie’s fur.

  “You want to go or shall I?” she asked.

  He kept his gaze focused on the wooded area off the back of his brother’s house. They’d yet to landscape, but a swing had been added in recent weeks.

  “I don’t know what to say,” he said, shaking his head. “Except I’m sorry. I’m not ashamed of you, if that’s what you’re thinking. Ashamed of us,” he quickly amended. “I think I was just afraid. It suddenly hit me what dating you meant. A commitment, not just to you, but to your baby. I didn’t know how I’d fit into it all. If we’d go back to being friends or what. But then you said you were falling in love with me and it scared me even more because I’m falling in love with you, too.”

  He expected a reaction from her, but she didn’t move, and he thought at first it was out of shock, but then realized that wasn’t it at all. His eyes had adjusted to the darkness, and the ambient glow emanating from inside the house provided just enough light for him to read the look on her face.

  Sadness.

  She shook her head as if answering his silent question of what the heck was going on, then turned and stared out at the backyard. He spotted something else, too. A tear that left a silver streak on her cheek, and his heartbeat took off running again.

  “Two weeks ago, hearing you say those words... Whew.” She took a deep breath. “They would have rocked my world.”

  “But now?”

  “Now they rob me of breath for a different reason.” She finally met his gaze. He could see pain in the depths of her eyes, and sorrow, and a grim determination that he’d never seen before.

  “I can’t do this, Flynn.” She let him absorb the words for a moment before saying, “I can’t keep running into the arms of men.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I haven’t exactly been the patron saint of abstinence,” she said.

  He still didn’t understand. His look must have said as much.

  “Trent wasn’t the first guy to dump me.”

  “So? I’ve been dumped before, too.”

  “I doubt that,” she said. “You’re too good-looking. Too kind. Too perfect in every way to be a man someone would walk away from. Heck. You have women who haven’t seen you in years still lusting after you. I had to ask for a new ob-gyn because of you.”

  He wanted to deny it, but as he thought back on his past relationships, he realized she was right. He was usually the one who did the leaving. Funny. He’d never thought about that before.

  “Then why are you dumping me?”

  She shook her head. “You don’t understand.”

  No, he didn’t. “Help me.”

  She took a deep breath. “I have to stop doing this. I have to stop jumping into things. I can’t keep doing what I’m doing, not when I have a baby girl to think of now.”

  “But you said you were falling in love with me.”

  “I’m not falling, Flynn, I am in love with you. I know it. You’re the most amazingly perfect man I’ve ever met in my life, but I can’t afford to make a mistake this time. I have more than myself to think of this time around. What if I’m wrong? What if my feelings are the by-product of hormones or something? I can’t... I won’t—”

  He got up from his chair, knelt in front of her, clasped her hands and looked into her eyes. “And what if this is it?” he countered. “What if this is the real deal?”

  She stared down at him, another tear in her eye. “Then I’m making the biggest mistake of my life, but I’ll have made it for the right reasons.”

  He stood up, turned and faced the backyard again, more frustrated than he could ever remember feeling in his life. What was going on? Why was she pushing him away? Was it a game? Was this some kind of revenge?

  But when he turned and looked at her again, as he stared down into her tearstained face, he realized she was absolutely and utterly serious. She was in love with him, but for some crazy, asinine reason, she felt it was better to call things off before they’d ever had a chance to really begin.

  “Don’t do this,” he begged.

  “I have to, Flynn. Don’t you see? I have to think of the baby. What’s better for her? A mom who’s so codependent on men she’s never spent more than a couple weeks without one in her bed? Or a mom who’s learned to stand on her own two feet? I need to learn who that woman is, Flynn. I need to see the person motherhood will make me become because the woman I am now may be completely different after the baby comes.”

  Her words left him speechless and heartbroken and a whole host of other emotions he couldn’t put a name to. “Don’t do this,” he begged.

  “I have to,” she said. “I have to start being enough...enough for me and the baby.”

  Chapter 19

  She didn’t leave the party. She refused to run away. Instead she sat and watched as he walked inside, nodding to his brother and telling him he’d talk to them later, before exiting the house. And Ryan, poor Ryan, stared at them all as if trying to understand the punchline of a joke. Maverick and Charlotte exchanged glances before looking at her with confusion and surprise in their eyes.

  She had no idea how she made it through the rest of the night. Somehow she held herself toget
her, even though she crumbled inside because every single part of her, every little atom, wanted to run after him, to tell him that she was wrong. That she needed him. But that was the problem. She’d made so many mistakes in her life. So many poor choices. This time, for her baby’s sake, she couldn’t afford to be wrong.

  So she let him go. And later that night, as she drove home, she pulled into her place and bawled her eyes out, and that made zero sense because she was the one to tell him goodbye. So why was she crying? And why did it feel as if she couldn’t catch her breath?

  “So that’s it?” Jayden asked when they met for her baby shower two weeks later. “You’re really done?”

  No one else had arrived yet, which was good, because she’d already talked things over with Charlotte at least half a dozen times and she didn’t want to go over everything yet again. Charlotte claimed Flynn was completely brokenhearted, but he hadn’t exactly broken down her door to see her again, not that she blamed him. She’d been the one to give him the cold shoulder first, and then the one to call things off, so what did she expect?

  But a part of her—a tiny little corner of her heart—wondered why, if he loved her, truly loved her, he wouldn’t at least stop by or text her or leave her a voice mail message.

  “We haven’t spoken since that night.”

  The whole family knew about her and Flynn now. Even Aunt Crystal had mentioned it when they’d met to discuss the carriage she’d bought just for Maverick and Charlotte’s wedding because, just as Charlotte had thought, the rental agencies were happy to rent them a carriage...as long as the Gillians used the rental agency’s horses, which Crystal didn’t want to do. So Crystal had purchased her own. To hell with them, she’d said. Amy had also learned to call it a coach and not a carriage because the two were completely different.

  “Maverick says he’s been moping around,” Jayden said, tying off a balloon she’d just filled with helium. Pink for the little girl Amy carried.

  Amy had been moping around, too, even though it was all her doing. She missed Flynn more than she would have thought possible, had to stop herself from picking up the phone and calling him at least a dozen times a day. She’d gotten used to him always being around, but more than that, she missed her best friend.