“In both cases, I go to the emergency room with you and forget about the bar bunnies,” he answered. “Here’s another scenario. We decide to get into a real relationship, not a false one, have three more kids, and then you leave me. Will you still let me be a part of my children’s lives?”
“After what you’ve done for me, I could never shut you out of our kids’ lives,” she told him. “But why would I leave you after we have four babies together?”
“Because you wake up one morning, take a look at me, and figure that you could have done so much better,” he answered. “We could play this game all day, darlin’, but why don’t you get dressed. Let’s go get some ice cream, or maybe even a burger and fries, and let this all soak in for an hour or so.”
Alana nodded, but she still had a lump the size of an orange in her throat. Knowing that she was pregnant changed everything. She couldn’t tell her dad about the lies, and she damn sure couldn’t call off the wedding. All she could think about when she stepped behind the curtain to get dressed was that she was going to have one helluva time writing vows.
“Hey, did you remember that Daisy Days is this weekend?” Pax asked from the other side of the curtain. “Memorial Day weekend is coming right up, and then our wedding party will all be here in the middle of the next week. Think we should invite them to come a little early so they can enjoy the festival?”
How could he talk about a dumb old Texas celebration when her whole world had spun completely out of control? “Let’s think about it tomorrow. I imagine that they’ll be doing good to get away from their ranches for the rehearsal dinner and wedding, though.”
“Fair enough,” Pax agreed. “We gave our hired hands the weekend off. What are y’all doing over at your place?”
“Same thing.” She pulled on her bikini underpants and splayed out the fingers of both hands on her stomach. If she had inherited enough of her mother’s genes, she’d go back into shape fairly soon after the baby came, but there would be stretch marks. Few women got through a whole pregnancy without those battle scars. Would Pax even be able to look at her with her belly button turned inside out and all those ugly purple marks on her belly?
“I guess we won’t be ridin’ the Ferris wheel at the carnival, will we?” he asked.
Was he trying to take her mind or his off the fact that they were expecting a baby? Alana wondered. Learning that the two of them were going to have a baby had to have been as much of a shock to Pax as it had been to her. That had to be why he was jumping from one topic to another.
“No, and we won’t be having a beer either, but we can eat funnel cakes and fried pickles,” she answered.
“And cotton candy, and I’ll even buy you a daisy to wear in your hair,” he offered.
“That’s right sweet.” She pushed the curtain back and stepped out into the room. His eyes started at the toes of her cowboy boots and traveled up to her eyes. “Man, you are one beautiful woman.”
“You won’t be saying that come Christmas when I’m only about six weeks from delivery. I’ll be looking like a baby elephant or maybe a beached whale, and I won’t even be able to bend down and tie my shoes,” she said.
Pax stood up and pulled her into his arms. “Darlin’, you’ll always be gorgeous in my eyes, and I’ll tie your shoes for you any day of the week.”
“I’ll be holdin’ you to that,” she said.
“It’s a promise,” he told her, “and I’ll even seal it with a kiss.”
* * *
When their lips met, Pax’s knees went more than a little bit weak and he could feel her heart thumping against his chest. He had kissed a lot of women and gone to bed with his fair share, but a kiss from any of them had never affected him like this—up until that moment not even Alana’s. Did that mean he was falling in love with her, in a real sense?
She took a short step back, ending the kiss, and smiled at him. “Okay, cowboy, you promised me food, so while we eat let’s go talk about how we’re going to tell Daddy this news.”
“Burgers, Mexican, or a plate dinner from Mama Jo’s?” he asked.
“The café,” she said. “The Monday special is meat loaf and mashed potatoes, and I love the hot rolls they make there.”
“Let’s take my truck, and then I’ll bring you back for yours when we’re done.” He laced his fingers with hers and led her out of the room. They stopped at the front desk, and Mary Beth handed them a card. “You will be back from your honeymoon by then, right?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Pax tucked the card into the pocket of his chambray work shirt.
“What time?” Alana asked when they were outside.
“Nine in the morning,” he answered. “But you’ve got enough on your mind, so it will be my job to remember this. When we get to the café, I’ll put it on the calendar on my phone.”
“Thank you.” She butted him with her hip. “What else have you got on that calendar?”
“Well, there’s our wedding, of course, the honeymoon information, and the…” He paused and wondered if he would be saying too much, but then he plowed right on, “The day that six weeks is up. That’s June seventeenth.”
“So it could be over by the time I come back to the doctor for my next visit.” She sighed.
“Possibly, but miracles do still happen,” he said as he helped her into his truck.
“I’d consider it a miracle if he made it to July Fourth,” she said.
Pax wasn’t about to tell her that he just hoped Matt was able to walk her down the aisle for her wedding. That seemed to have come to mean so much to her as well as to her father, but Matt was moving slower and shuffling more with each passing day. Would he still have the strength left to pick up his feet and walk Alana down the aisle on their wedding day?
He got behind the wheel and headed toward the three-block section of downtown and the little local café where they’d all had Sunday dinner the day before. “We could call your dad and have him meet us at the café and tell him there. I’d feel a lot better in a public place.”
“Why’s that?” she asked.
“He won’t have access to a shotgun,” Pax told her. “He and Mam have both teased us about starting a family, but I’m the cowboy that got your daddy’s baby girl pregnant. He might not be too happy about that.”
“I need some more time to wrap my mind around it,” Alana said. “You sure are taking this calmly.”
He parked in front of the café and went around to open the door for her. He offered a hand to help her out, and she took it. Then he put his hand on her back and guided her across the sidewalk and to the old-fashioned screen door. “I hope they never replace these old wood doors,” he said. “It gives the place more character than the ones that are made of aluminum and glass that open automatically.”
“Yep,” Alana agreed but her tone was curt.
“Did I say or do something wrong?” he asked.
She took his hand and pulled him toward an empty booth at the back of the café. She slid all the way to the far end of one side and patted the seat beside her. “Sit beside me, not across from me.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “Now, would you please answer my question?”
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” she said. “My brain is whirling around like one of those whirligigs we used to get when we were kids. We’d hang them out the back window of the truck, and they’d go so fast that they were a blur. Well, that’s the way my thought patterns are right now. I want to grab something and hang on to it, to prove I’m sane, but everything’s going at warp speed.”
“Grab on to this.” He leaned over and kissed her on the lips.
When he pulled back, her eyes looked different. Ever since he’d barged into the doctor’s office, she’d had the look of a lone crippled prairie chicken at a coyote convention.
“That grounded me right quick.” She picked up the menu from the table. “Thank you, Pax.”
“Let’s forget about the wedding, what we’re enduring with your
dad, and concentrate on baby names for the next hour. You really want to name our daughter Something?”
“What?” She frowned.
“I’m not too fond of these newfangled names folks are using, like Stormy or Rain. But, honey, Something, is sure way out there as far as weird goes.” He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and kissed the lobe. “I was thinkin’ maybe we’d name her Anything instead of Something or maybe even Everything.”
“What in the hell are you talking about?” She frowned. “Have you finally realized that you’re going to be a daddy, and it’s affecting your thinking?”
“You said yesterday that you wanted to name our baby girl Something Joy,” he reminded her.
She slapped him on the thigh. “You know what I meant, but thanks for making me think about something—” Her sentence ended abruptly, and she stared at him with a blank look. “I forgot what I was saying.”
“Are you talking about our daughter, Something?” he butted in with a chuckle.
“No, but every time I say that word from now on, I’ll think of a cute little blond-haired girl,” Alana said.
“Or maybe a little dark-haired one with your brown eyes.” He laid a hand on her knee and squeezed gently.
The waitress brought over two glasses of water and set them on the table. “Can I get y’all some appetizers or something to drink other than water?”
“Sweet tea,” Pax said.
“Lemonade, and maybe an order of fried green tomatoes. I’m ready to order now too,” Alana said. “I’ll have the meat loaf special with green beans, mashed potatoes, and brown gravy, and a side salad with ranch dressing.”
“The same,” Pax said.
“Have those drinks and tomatoes right out,” the waitress said and hurried back toward the kitchen.
“Okay, now that we’ve discussed a girl’s name, let’s talk about the divorce issue,” Pax said. “Can we stay married until the baby is born at least? I can’t stand the thought of not being there with you. What if you fell or you wanted watermelon at two in the morning?”
“The longer we put it off, the harder it will get,” she cautioned.
“Maybe,” Pax agreed, “or maybe we’ll both be ready to call it quits by then. I’ll even sleep in a different room if that’s what you want, so that at least you won’t be in that big house all alone.”
“That does scare me a little,” she admitted. “Not that I haven’t ever stayed alone, but to actually be there by myself if something were to happen where either you or the baby’s concerned, spooks me a little. I can’t believe we’re talking about this, Pax. When I asked you to help me make Daddy happy with a fake engagement and wedding, I never intended for us to have sex, much less to do it without protection.”
“I know sweetheart,” he said. “But like our folks have told us for years, everything happens for a reason.”
Chapter Nineteen
Is there such a thing as a lie not being a lie?
That’s what Alana typed into the search engine on her phone as she and Pax drove back to the parking lot at the doctor’s office so she could get her truck. The answer she got was exactly what she needed to hear, and it came from an educated psychiatrist: Lying is not harmful or deceptive if someone lies in order to refrain from hurting another’s feelings or to help them over a difficult situation.
“I didn’t have a malicious bone in my body when I set this little ball in motion,” she muttered.
Pax turned down the volume on the radio “What did you say?”
“I just read this”—she read the exact quote from her phone—“and I said that I didn’t tell Daddy that first lie with anything mean in my heart.”
“Of course, you didn’t.” Pax took her hand in his. “I’m a little worried about how we’re goin’ to tell him about the baby. We’ll be together, but which one of us will actually say the words?”
“I’ll do it,” Alana said. “At least, it’s the solid truth, and I’ve got the pictures to prove it.”
He parked right beside her truck, and she kissed him on the cheek before she got out. “Thanks, again, for being there for me.”
“Whoa, let’s talk a minute,” he said before she could slam the door shut.
“What about?” she asked.
“Are we telling him as soon as we get to the ranch, or tonight after supper, or when?”
“The sooner the better,” she answered. “If he’s in the house, we’ll tell him right then. If he doesn’t come in until supper, I’ll give you a call, and you can come over and we’ll tell him then. We’ll have to play it by ear.”
“Okay, then,” he said with a smile.
The ranch was five miles from town, and Pax didn’t seem to be in a bit of a hurry to get there. Alana was following him, and he drove slowly, probably so that the dust wouldn’t boil up from the back of his truck and settle all over hers. But the recent rain had left the roads still a little wet, so when Pax turned down the dirt road leading to the ranch there was nothing to fly back. “The rain was kind of like today, and cleared up my mind,” she said out loud. “I keep our deception to myself, and Daddy goes to his grave with peace in his heart, not turmoil over the lies I told in his final weeks.”
She was singing along with the radio when she turned down the tree-lined lane to the Bar C ranch and smiled when she parked her truck. Pax hadn’t gotten out of his yet, and she knew the reason. He thought it was bad luck to ever not finish listening to a song. He’d sit there until it ended, and from the way his head was bobbing, she figured he was listening to the same station she was. Travis Tritt was singing, “Best of Intentions,” and although most of the lyrics didn’t apply to their situation, the idea kind of did.
When the last piano note played, Pax got out of his truck and hurried around to open her door. “Had to hear the song to the end,” he explained.
“I remember that from high school.” She slid out of the seat. “Why do you think you always have to listen to the whole song?”
He picked up her hand and looped it through his arm. “Grandpa was superstitious about that, so I adopted it from him. When I was a little boy we’d be out in the barn or in the field, and he’d be listenin’ to music. Depending on where we were, it might be the old red radio from the 1950s he kept in the tack room, or it might be the one in his truck. It didn’t matter if Mam rang the dinner bell to call us in, or whatever was going on, he finished listenin’ to the song. I always hoped that he didn’t die in the middle of a tune. We found him with the radio blaring out an old George Jones tune called ‘Who’s Gonna Fill Their Shoes’ the day he died.”
“Hey, where y’all been?” Matt asked from the porch swing. “Had your dinner? There’s a pot of chili keepin’ warm on the back of the stove if you’re hungry.”
“We ate in town,” Alana answered.
“Thanks, anyway.” Pax dragged a couple of rocking chairs across the porch so that he and Alana could sit beside each other facing Matt.
“I’m worried, baby girl. Someone called me to say that your truck was parked at the doctor’s office for hours this morning. You know that you can’t hide anything from the gossips in Daisy, Texas.”
When had her father’s face gotten so wrinkled? Alana wondered. He wasn’t even sixty years old, for God’s sake. In their Christmas picture, he sure hadn’t looked so old. She plopped down in one of the rockers.
“I’m pregnant,” Alana blurted out. “Pax and I went to the doctor to be sure this morning. I’m only two weeks along. The baby is due sometime around Valentine’s Day.”
“Thank God!” Matt wiped a hand down over his face. “I was scared to death that maybe something was really wrong and you didn’t want to tell me.” Suddenly, he smiled and looked ten years younger. “This is the best news ever. We never told you, but your mother and I had to go through a fertility process to get you, and your mama could never have more children. I’ve been so worried that you might have inherited something like she had and wouldn’t be able to have c
hildren. This is the best news ever. I can’t wait to get to heaven and tell Joy that she’s going to be a grandmother.”
“Don’t be in too big of a rush,” Pax said. “We want you to stick around as long as possible, Matt.”
Alana pushed up out of her chair and went to hug her father. “Daddy, I’m so sorry I worried you. I’ve kind of suspected all weekend, but I wanted to be sure before I said anything.” No way would she tell him that she’d been scared out of her mind that she also had cancer. “Want to see the pictures?”
Huge tears rolled down Matt’s cheeks when she pulled back and reached for her purse. “Of course. Even if it’s a little peanut right now, at least I get to see my grandchild before I go to be with your mama.”
“It’s barely the size of a pea,” Pax said, “and, Matt, we promise that we’ll do our best to be the kind of parents that you and Mam have been to us.”
“I don’t have a single doubt.” Matt dragged a hanky out of his pocket and wiped his eyes. “Can’t have the baby see her grandpa cryin’ the first time he sees her.”
“It might be a boy, Daddy,” Alana said.
He shook his head slowly. “I want y’all to have a daughter first time around. God owes me that much for not letting me stick around to help raise her.”
“And we’ll name her Something Joy,” Pax teased.
“Hush, right now!” Alana pointed a finger at him. “He’s been teasing me all day.”
“Your mama would be honored to have you keep the name Joy. That goes back about six generations in her family.” Matt inhaled and let it out slowly. “I’m so blessed to have this bit of news.”
“We feel the same way,” Pax said. “And thank you for not dragging out the shotgun and forcing us to the church right now. We’re kind of lookin’ forward to the big wedding here at the Bar C.”
Matt chuckled. “I might have done that if y’all were still in high school, but time and circumstances have changed a lot. Let’s go have a beer to celebrate.”
“Y’all can have a beer.” Alana stood up and put her hand in Pax’s. “I’ll have lemonade.”
Cowboy Strong - Includes a bonus novella Page 20