by Leigh Riker
“You’re not worried about this job, are you?”
As the stand-in manager, Elizabeth didn’t have the authority to fire anyone.
“Actually, without Olivia here, my stomach doesn’t even hurt.” Becca studied the ceiling. “But what do I know? I’m really no better at this than I was answering phones at the clinic or waiting tables at the café.” She gestured at the outer room. “I tried to sell that lady the old sofa, which has a totally outrageous price, but you stepped in and made her think she was getting a bargain.”
A few footsteps told Elizabeth the woman was still out there. “I don’t mean to pry, Becca, and we haven’t known each other long, but you’re obviously troubled. I know things could become awkward if you feel you’ve said too much when we have to work together, but I am a good listener. I wouldn’t repeat anything you say. If there’s some way I can help—”
“I’ve never been friends with an older woman.”
Elizabeth tried not to take offense. “Not that old,” she murmured, “but all right. I do respect your privacy.” Clearly, Becca didn’t intend to unburden herself. “I’ll get back to our customer then, see if I can sweet-talk her into the Chesterfield—”
She didn’t finish before Becca held up a hand. “I shouldn’t have said that, Elizabeth. It’s not even the job.” Tears welled in her eyes. “I lost my mom last year, and I miss her so much.”
Elizabeth reached for a tissue on the desk. “Here, sweetie. Oh, Becca. That’s hard.”
“I can’t even bear to think she’s not here.”
Elizabeth choked up too. “I think I know how you must feel. Last winter I had a miscarriage at four months. I wanted the baby so much, and I still miss it. I always will.”
“I’m sorry, Elizabeth. My dad misses Mom all the time too. He doesn’t have anything now except the farm and the roses, which were hers.” Becca managed a watery smile. “A while ago, I signed him up on a dating site, but he won’t respond to any of the women who liked his profile.”
“Which you must have written,” Elizabeth said, risking a weak smile of her own.
“I wanted to make him feel better, but I don’t ever seem to do the right thing!” Fresh tears welled again, then started to fall. “And I’m a total wreck today. Calvin and I kind of had a fight. I’m afraid we’re going to break up.” She began to sob.
Elizabeth hoped their customer couldn’t hear. She patted her shoulder. “Let’s try to find some perspective. Do you want to talk about Calvin?” She made a motion of zipping her lip.
A long silence followed. Elizabeth could hear the shop’s customer moving around the display room, probably examining similar pieces and other price tags. Her footsteps returned to the area where the Chesterfield sofa sat in the alcove staged to resemble a Victorian drawing room. Elizabeth really should check on the potential sale. Yet Becca was talking now. She couldn’t leave her.
“I love Calvin so much. I thought he loved me too. We were going to live together. We’ve sort of talked about getting married. Then we looked at this house to rent, and something went wrong. I thought we should look around more, and I worry about my dad being alone if I move out, but Calvin didn’t understand how I feel. He said he didn’t want me to make the wrong decision, but he sounded mad. I don’t know what to do.”
“I see. You’ve been under a lot of stress, Becca. Maybe you should talk to your doctor. You don’t want that tummyache to come back—”
“It’s not an ache, more like queasy, and I couldn’t work the other day. It wasn’t the first time. Honest, I was surprised Olivia didn’t fire me before she left.” She buried her face in her hands. “I’m such a mess—happy one minute, mixed up the next. I never used to cry.” She sobbed harder. “And I just want to sleep all the time.”
Elizabeth’s pulse lurched. Yes, she was an older woman, at least in Becca’s mind, but that gave her experience. She’d had three children and, only months ago, had lost another. Now Elizabeth was carrying the baby Dallas didn’t know about. Possibly she was off base here, but this didn’t sound like stress, grief or depression over a job Becca didn’t love. The same signs Elizabeth had ignored were there in Becca. In this brief conversation, they’d moved from being merely Olivia’s employees to mutual confidantes. The question had to be asked.
Elizabeth used her gentlest tone. “Becca, could you be pregnant?”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
ON THIS CLEAR, sun-bright summer day, under a cloudless blue sky, Becca drove home from Barren lost in a dense mental fog. She kept hearing Elizabeth’s words. Could you be pregnant? Becca hadn’t answered. Her heart in her throat, she’d gasped then rushed from the office through the store, nearly knocking over Elizabeth’s customer as she ran. She’d ignored Elizabeth’s calls to wait. Yet now she sensed the truth.
She was turning onto the driveway at the farm near Farrier when, instead, she pulled over. She couldn’t go home yet; she couldn’t face her father. He’d see the distress on her face, the tears that threatened to fall again. He’d know. Becca turned the car around and drove back through town toward Clara McMann’s ranch.
Trying to think what to say to Calvin, she parked beside the barn. She saw him coming from inside, a lead rope in his hand, but he didn’t see her at first. On his way to the corral, he had his back turned, and for a moment Becca simply watched as he opened the gate, his quick strides approaching the gray-brown horse that rested in the corner.
“Easy, bud, workday’s over,” she heard him say, one hand scratching behind the horse’s ears. “Until the farrier gets here to replace that shoe, you’re on vacation.” He led the gelding out of the paddock past Becca, who was standing by the fence. Was he ignoring her? Still angry about the rental house? What would happen when she told him?
“Calvin.”
He turned his head, and for an instant she saw his eyes warm. Was he glad to see her? Maybe he wasn’t mad, and this wouldn’t be that hard. “Hey, Becca. You get a chance to think about the house?” He thought that was why she’d come.
“I need to talk to you,” she said. “Not about that.”
His voice faded as he walked the horse into the barn. “I’m at work till five.”
Becca followed. “Can you spare a few minutes? Please. It’s important.”
He opened a stall door, stood back while the gelding sashayed inside, then slid the door shut. “We can talk while I refill his water.” He walked in front of her to the faucet, fetched a clean pail and turned on the tap. Over his shoulder he sent her a smile. “Now, what’s so important you left the antiques place and drove all the way out here on a workday?”
Words failed her. He had no idea how important this was. As she’d done with Elizabeth, Becca burst into tears, which ran down her cheeks like the water flowing into the bucket. She shook her head, kept shaking it.
Calvin shut off the tap, put an arm around her. “Hey,” he said again as Becca leaned into him, “you upset because we didn’t agree about the house? I don’t care where we live. You pick. If you’ve found another, better place—”
“No.” Like her tears, the words spilled over. “Calvin, we’re having a baby.”
“We... What?” All expression had been wiped from his handsome face, which had turned white under his summer tan.
“I’m pregnant.”
Calvin swore under his breath. He dropped his arm from her shoulders. “How do you know? Did you take one of those tests? See a doctor?”
“Not yet,” she admitted. “I should have waited, I guess, to tell you. But I’m sure, Calvin.” Her stomach had already begun to swell.
His eyes looked haunted. She could almost see his mind racing like a high-speed computer. “But we only...that one time...”
“Yes,” she said. She told him about her conversation with Elizabeth, then explained, “But I missed my last cycle and the one before...” She trailed off, not to disc
uss her symptoms. Her body’s changes embarrassed her, as if she had no control of herself. “I’m scared.”
“You should be. So am I. What would we do with a baby?”
“What will we do,” she said, starting to tremble.
“I don’t know, and I don’t know if I can take this on.”
“I wouldn’t have told you if I didn’t expect you to—” Was he about to break up with her, as she’d feared?
“Your dad won’t like this, but he’ll bend to protect you. He’ll expect us to get married. I don’t want to get married, Becca. You shouldn’t want to either. We’re not ready.” He hefted the water bucket, strode past her to the stall and hung it on the hook inside. The gray-brown horse stamped a foot, and Becca heard the water being slurped into its mouth. Calvin had his back to her again, but he couldn’t ignore this. “I wasn’t keen on our living together, you know that. You talked me into it. Then you chickened out at that rental, so don’t try to tell me you can’t wait now to have a ring on your finger. I barely make enough to support myself.”
“You said we’d have enough if we put our money together.”
“If what you’re saying is true, this makes everything different. See? It wouldn’t be just you and me. There’d be three of us.” He turned to her. “What would we be getting ourselves into?”
“We’re already in—I was shocked too when Elizabeth guessed about the baby, but we’ll be fine, Calvin,” she said. “We would have gotten married in time anyway.”
“Would we?” Again, he had doubts far worse than hers. “Why are you so into this?”
The day they’d seen the rental house, she’d worried about her father, about sharing her belongings, her life, with Calvin. Now her decision seemed simple. “This baby is a product of our love, a happy change in our lives...”
“Happy for you.” He strode past her toward the barn doors.
“I can’t believe you’re acting like this.” She followed him outside and nearly ran into Hadley Smith.
Hadley stepped back. “Pardon, miss. Didn’t see you there.” His gaze fell on Calvin, whose face was set, his mouth a straight line. “I’m moving cattle from the south pasture. When you’re done here, join me.”
“Trouble threw a shoe. Dallas took the new horse. There’s nothing to ride.”
Hadley glanced again at Becca, probably sensing the tension in the air. “Guess I won’t need you, then. When you’re finished, find something to do. If you can’t find anything, ask Clara. She might need help at the house till I get back.” He tipped his hat to Becca then disappeared into the barn, where she could hear him saddling and talking to his horse.
“You heard him. I gotta get to work.” Calvin took a step before she stopped him.
He looked pointedly at her hand on his forearm. His skin felt warm, almost too warm, but his eyes were cold. “You want me to lose my job?”
He waited until she released his arm, then took a few more steps toward the barn. Hadley was leading his horse out. As one hoof clipped another, the iron shoes rang like bells. Warning bells when she’d expected, hoped, even prayed that Calvin would shelter her, wrap his strong arms around her again and tell her everything would be fine. He loved her and they’d be a family. Instead, he seemed to be rejecting her and their baby. His voice was so quiet she barely heard him.
“I gave you time to make your decision, Becca. Now I need time to make mine.”
* * *
PASSING BY OLIVIA MCCORD ANTIQUES, Dallas saw the lights were still on. The closed sign wasn’t on the door yet. He had good news to share, but couldn’t wait until he and Lizzie got home. He was also still riding high on her agreement to stick with the rodeo. You need me more than I imagined. Their quasi friendship had changed. He’d change it more if he could, but, remembering their talk in her backyard, he shouldn’t. She knew his plans to leave Barren for the circuit, to postpone any thought of a serious relationship. Dallas pulled into a parking space then walked into the store. He didn’t bother with preliminaries.
“Guess what?”
Lizzie glanced up from the front desk. For a second he saw the same dismay in her eyes he’d glimpsed the other night. “What are you doing here?”
“Hello to you too,” he said, undeterred. Nothing would spoil his mood. “Go on, guess.”
“I don’t know. You’ve won the lottery? You looked at your bank balance this morning and, what do you know, you’re a gazillionaire? You just mowed your lawn, noticed a hump in the backyard grass and dug up a cache of sapphires and emeralds? Pirate gold in the middle of Kansas?”
He smiled. “No, but I wanted to tell you this in person.” He crossed the room. “Some of my buddies are on for the rodeo. They’re going to contact more guys. Everybody loves our charity aspect. Grey Wilson said he’d lend us some Angus calves for the kids’ event, some horses for the adult rodeo. And Fred Miller’s lending us a bull from the herd he’s gradually liquidating. Hadley’s going to buy it afterward.”
“Slow down,” she said, coming out from behind the counter. “I was just closing up.” She flipped the sign around on the door. “Honest, I can’t keep up with you.”
He followed her around the shop as she tidied the displays and tallied the cash register receipts. “It’s going to happen,” he said. “And yeah, there were times I wondered if it would. I hope that didn’t show.” He caught her upper arms, drew her to him. “Confidence, huh?”
She laughed a little. “Your confidence makes me dizzy.”
“Guess what else.”
“Hmm.” One finger to her chin, she pretended to think. “Let’s see. You’ve won Cowboy of the Year.”
She was teasing, a good sign. Maybe he hadn’t said too much about his birth family in her yard. “National Finals aren’t till December. Next year will be my year.”
Her answering smile died. “I hope so, but that only reminds me you won’t be here then. Which, of course, has nothing to do with me.”
Obviously he’d said way too much about his career, though.
She lifted a hand to her forehead. “Actually, this hasn’t been my best day. I already had a headache when you came in, and earlier I had a...difficult discussion with a coworker.”
With Olivia out of the country, there was only one other person here. “You must mean Becca Carter.”
Her eyes widened. “You know Becca?”
“I work with her boyfriend. Apparently, their relationship isn’t all smooth sailing. He doesn’t know how to deal with her.”
“And you know how I feel about gossip. Becca confided in me and I can’t tell you any more than that.”
“It’s about him, though, isn’t it?” Dallas guessed.
“And does not involve his job.” She began to pull away. “Thus, not your concern.” She stopped and gazed up at him. “I’m happy about the stock you’ve found and your friends riding, but today has been hard for another reason besides Becca.” Her mouth turned down. “I had a visit this morning from Bernice. She heard us talking outdoors and assumed the worst.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I wish I were.” Elizabeth replayed that conversation. “I sent her packing, and I felt pretty proud of myself, but I’d hoped you and I had kept a low profile. It’s one thing to help with your rodeo, another to cause speculation about you and me.”
“If people want to talk, they’ll talk. You can’t keep them from it. Why let that throw you off base?”
“Because I have my children to think of. Maybe you can’t understand that—”
“Because I don’t want to get tied down before I’m ready? With anyone?” They were back now to last night, and whatever she hadn’t shared after he’d set her straight. “I’m glad you stood up to Bernice, but you really think she should dictate how you live? Looking over your shoulder all the time? Slinking around in your own backyard?”
�
�Dallas, you knew how I am when you asked me to help with the rodeo. If I can’t do it on my terms, maybe it really would be better for me to drop out.”
“Uh-uh,” he said. “You promised, and I’m holding you to it because I do need you,” he added. “Forget Bernice.” He took a chance and massaged her shoulders, warming her skin through her blouse. She felt cool, like the look in her eyes that bothered him all over again. “Working together, we’re bound to get noticed. That doesn’t mean we’re doing anything we shouldn’t. But I can’t help feeling there’s something else going on here.”
She held his gaze for a long moment, then hers dropped away. “No,” she said.
He could tell that wasn’t all. “What is it, Lizzie?”
She only shook her head.
Whatever it was, she wasn’t ready to delve into the subject. “If it’s about your kids, with them away they won’t be harmed by anything we do. For the rodeo...or otherwise.”
“You’re way too convincing. That’s how I ended up here in the first place.”
“Right here?” With her still in his arms, he tried a lighter tone, daring her rejection. “Tell me you’re glad about my news. It won’t kill you.”
She deadpanned him. “I’m glad about your news.”
He raised his eyebrows, teasing her now. “Tell me like you really mean it.”
Her eyes met his again. “I do, but Dallas, after the night in the yard and, um, that day you came over to console me—”
“I realize you wish that didn’t happen, but it did.”
She gently pushed at his chest. “And I know the friendship you asked for is all we can have. I agreed to help you, but that doesn’t come with benefits. I’d have to be far more daring than I am to let y—”
“Let me what?” In the dim light of the closed shop, he cradled her face in his hands.