Danny (Downton Cowboys Book 1)

by Miley Maine

  I shook my head. “I can’t.”

  “Sheila Downton. Danny’s mother.”

  “Excuse me? You knew Danny?”

  “Well, he was only a child, Honey. I knew his mom.”

  “So?”

  “We were very close. Close enough for her to come to me for money when the going got tough with her and her husband.”

  “Uh-huh?”

  “She never gave that money back, Gigi. She and her husband transformed after that. The minute I started asking for her to pay her debt, which I knew she could, she became a completely different person. Dodging my calls, pretending not to see me out at the market—”

  “Mom, that was like a million years ago. You’ve gotta put it behind you now.”

  “Well, he’s their son. The apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree, now, does it?”

  “It does,” I scoffed and nervously tittered. “He left that house ages ago. They’re no longer in touch. And just so you know, Danny is the most generous man I’ve ever met. It’s almost impossible to believe that they were even related.”

  “I know you trust your judgment of people, Honey. But I don’t think I can shake off this feeling.”

  “Well, try, Mom. I’m marrying him.”

  “You’re doing what?”

  “Danny Downton and I are engaged. I called to tell you and Dad that we’re getting married very soon.”

  “Oh my God, Sweetie, no.”

  “I’ve never asked you for anything in my life, Mom. Do me this one favor and get over your past with his family. He’s nothing like them.”

  “You know I never want to tell you what to do. But for the record? I’m not okay with this.”

  “Mom—”

  “I’ll come. I’ll bring your dad. We’ll act civil. But this is a horrible decision, and you’re going to regret it. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  I hung up and resolved that I wasn’t to repeat her ancient story to anyone. What a load of nonsense, I thought as I made my way to the room upstairs.

  There was so much to do. I had to make a list of the people to tell, who to invite, look at venues, check caterers and find a dress.

  Danny wanted us to get married soon since I was already pregnant and he wanted to invite the whole town.

  The days went by, and if anyone could be happier than I was, it was definitely Danny. Bless that man, he went out of his way and spared no expense to plan a huge party for us, inviting everyone he knew, and giving me the green light to tell whomever I wanted.

  To top it off, he had his ranch helpers prepare the guest house for my parents to stay in before the wedding and for as long as they pleased.

  He was truly a bighearted human, and every time I thought about my mother’s ridiculous story, I couldn’t connect the man to the family she spoke of.

  On the morning of the wedding, my mom insisted on being there with me in the room the whole time while I was getting ready. Half a dozen other women invaded the space—my three best friends, two of Danny’s friends from town, and Marsha, who made my gorgeous white dress herself.

  Her creation was reminiscent of something out of a fairy tale. And even though I had never imagined myself looking like that, I happily wore it, knowing that it was made with the motherly love Marsha had for my husband-to-be.

  Before the ceremony, I asked everyone to give me a minute with my mother alone. Everyone left the room, and I took her hand and sat her down in the chair by the window.

  Kneeling down, I stared into her eyes with pure determination.

  “Before I do this, I have something to tell you.”

  “Sweetie, you’ll wrinkle your dress.”

  I tittered, “Promise me that what I’m about to tell you is not to be repeated to anyone.”

  “You’re scaring me.”

  “Swear.” I insisted.

  “Fine.” She rolled her eyes. “I swear. Now, what is it?”

  “I’m pregnant. It’s Matt’s baby. He doesn’t know, and you can not tell him.”

  “Oh my God, Gigi.” She scowled at me with the aim of sparking shame.

  “Danny knows, and we agreed…he’s gonna raise him with me like we’re the parents.”

  “You can’t do that to Matt; it’s not fair. You know it’s not too late to go back.”

  “To Matt? Have you forgotten what I was like when we were together? I was miserable. Is that what you want for your only daughter?”

  She shook her head, her eyes wide, and her eyebrows raised. “But still, Gigi. This isn’t right.”

  “I only told you because I wanted you to know.” I spoke sternly. “But this is my body, my baby, and my decision.”

  Her eyes moved quickly from side to side as if she had just regretted promising me discretion. She eventually sighed in resignation. “Fine.” She shrugged with a heavy expression. “I won’t tell Matt. But once again, Gigi, you seem to have lost your mind since you met this Danny.”

  “This Danny is about to become my husband.”

  “Oh, are you telling me that you’ll be taking his name, too?”

  “I am. And so is the baby.”

  “Jesus Christ.” She violently stood up. “This is becoming too much.”

  “Mother.”

  “Okay.” She took a deep breath and shook her head in dismay as she walked toward the door. “Okay. God help me, I’ll shut up.”

  As she got out of the room and slammed the door behind her, I only had a moment to wonder if she was going to hold her peace with it before the ladies came back rushing in.

  The wedding was magical, with everyone from the town competing to show Danny their love and respect. The biggest local band played all the southern classics for free as a gift to Mr. Downton.

  Gifts and food came flooding in. It was as though everyone was waiting for this day to pay back the man who had apparently stood by each and every one of them in the past.

  I couldn’t help but feel proud of the man my heart had chosen to fall in love with since he was evidently even greater than I had initially thought.

  The celebrations lasted until the crack of dawn, and as Danny and I stood at the threshold of our home, his strong arms picked me up, and his leg kicked the door open.

  “I’m a man of tradition,” he chuckled as he carried me inside.

  “And I love that,” I giggled, tired from a long night of dancing and socializing.

  I floated all the way upstairs, and as he gently laid me down on the bed, he bent over me and whispered, “Did your parents enjoy the wedding?”

  “Very much, Mr. Downton.” My eyes flirted with his face as my fingertips touched his chin.

  “I think I like them, too. We should ask them to move in with us.”

  “What?” I pushed myself to sit up straight, slightly laughing.

  “Seriously,” he shrugged, casually unbuttoning his shirt. “You could use the help when the baby comes. Of course, we can hire someone, but they wouldn’t be as good as your own family.”

  Oh, Danny, what a good heart you have. I gazed at him lovingly. He spoke so sweetly of the woman who was just telling me to leave him a few hours before.

  I forgot all about that as we made sweet love for the first time as husband and wife.

  The next morning, at breakfast, Danny winked at me to tell my mother what he had said earlier.

  “Oh, I don’t think we could.” My mother’s reserved tone was accompanied by a fake laugh. “We don’t have anyone to house-sit. Besides, you’re newlyweds and need your space.”

  Danny didn’t know my mother as well as I did, which was fortunate because that was why he missed the bitterness in her eyes. I inhaled deeply to calm myself as I thanked the universe that she turned down the offer.

  “Please think about it, Mrs. Mans,” he insisted, and I held my breath. “We’d love to have you here.”

  She turned to look at me, her expression unreadable. “We’ll think about it.” She then turned to my dad, who was mostly quiet. “What do you
think, Dear?”

  “Thank you, Danny.” He nodded. “We will think about it, I promise.”

  By the end of the evening, my mother was already fidgeting to leave. It was as though she couldn’t be with a Downton in the same house for too long.

  “Gigi, Honey,” she whispered as I was making tea in the kitchen. “You know it’s not too late to get an annulment and come home with us.”

  In utter disbelief, I spun to face her. “Are you listening only to yourself?” I strained from between my teeth.

  “I’m giving you an out. You can still leave him.” Her hands firmly gripped my arms.

  “Are you even listening to me?” I shook my head in frustration. “I told you I love him.”

  “Love isn’t everything in a marriage, Gigi. You’re far too young to understand.”

  “Why did you tell him you’ll think about moving in with us if this is still how you feel about him?”

  She shrugged. “I was being polite.”

  “Well, now you’re being toxic. I am happy, isn’t this what you want for me?”

  “It’s what’s coming next that worries me.” She ran her fingers through her hair. “I think we’d better leave tomorrow, your dad and I.”

  My heart was breaking, and I tilted my head, silently begging her to congratulate me instead of torture me the way she did.

  “Maybe it’ll be easier when you settle in for a few months,” she concluded before turning around and walking out of the kitchen.

  The moment she disappeared upstairs, Danny came back inside from the front porch where he was sitting with my father.

  “Everything okay?” He approached with a smile.

  “Yes.” I forced a grin. “Mom insists on giving us a proper honeymoon alone on the ranch, and she wants to leave tomorrow.”

  “Oh, that would be a shame.” He faked a frown. “But, you know…” Lowering his head, his nose touched mine. “I wouldn’t mind some alone time with my gorgeous bride,” he whispered.

  “Hmm,” I tittered against his chin. “Before I get too fat?”

  “You’ll get even more beautiful, I know it.” He pulled his head back an inch. “Do they know they’re about to become grandparents?”

  “Do you know you smell delicious, and you’re about to get lucky right now?”

  He gently kissed the corner of my lips. “Your dad might see us through the window.”

  “Then you’d better take me upstairs, now.”

  As soon as we made it to the bedroom, I shoved him in and closed the door behind me. I marched ahead, letting him step backward until he hit the bed and let himself fall back onto the mattress.

  Without thought, I lowered myself onto him, quickly undressing before tossing my top on the floor.

  “Woah,” he breathed loudly before groaning, “Mrs. Downton.”

  “Is it strange that this name turns me on?” From under hooded eyelids, I gazed into his dark eyes, dipping lower as my teeth clutched the elastic band of his bottoms.

  After my parents left and I got reacquainted with the estate, our days began to take character, and we settled into a routine.

  I had gotten used to waking up at first light with Danny, even though he always begged me to sleep in. I loved having breakfast with him, and as he drank his coffee, I drank my herbal tea while we enjoyed the beautiful colors of the early morning sky.

  The clean breeze of the first hours gave me a much-needed boost since I would go back inside and start working on my book as soon as Danny headed for the rounds.

  When the baby bump started showing, my husband began to offer me more help around the house.

  My husband. I liked the sound of that.

  He even proposed we should hire a live-in maid to accompany me during the hours where he was away. I refused. I wasn’t a spoiled brat, and I wasn’t about to become one, not when he was offering me everything I needed and more.

  Happy as I was with our home and our life together, I grew worried as my pregnancy became more and more obvious. One day, sitting out on the porch as we enjoyed his day off with my occasional glass of wine, I decided to voice my fears.

  “Funny how we’re going French with this wine,” I tittered.

  “You earned it, Babe.”

  “Y’know, I think Michael figured it out the other day at Billy’s. When I wouldn’t drink?”

  “Well, they’re bound to find out anyway.”

  “Does it bother you?”

  “What, that they’ll say our baby’s premature?” Shrugging, he shook his head. It was genuinely casual and carefree. “No.”

  “Don’t put yourself under so much pressure to make me comfortable.”

  Shifting in his seat, he moved closer as he leaned forward to hold my hand. “I’d do anything for you, Babe. But I really am not under any pressure.”

  I deliberately blinked and tilted my head.

  “Premature births are pretty common,” he continued. “And even if the dates don’t add up, you’ve seen how everyone treats us.”

  “Treats you,” I giggled.

  “You and I are one now.”

  His statement sent a wave of warmth through me.

  “They all love me.” His fingers gently pressed on my hand. “And they love you. We have that kind of relationship with these people; you need to believe this. Even if it doesn’t make sense to them, nobody would think of saying a word about us.”

  “Your trust in them is impressive.”

  “These are good folk, Gigi. They’re generous and kind, and they’ll overlook it. Especially that I have never, and will never do anything to hurt any of ‘em. They, too, respect our life.”

  Danny Downton. Always managing to make me feel safe and in my element. I wondered how I’d lived a day without him. It was as though my whole life before him was only a prelude to our real life together.

  As I resumed sipping my precious glass of wine, my mind took me back to my parents and what my mother must have been thinking at that moment.

  While Danny’s goodness provided him with the love and faith of a hundred people…I was scared of my own mother’s intentions.

  It was painfully ironic how I trusted a man I hadn’t known a full year, while my own mother posed a threat to my peace of mind.

  Even if she eventually decided to move in with us and help with the baby, a part of me knew that she would only be doing it to poison what Danny and I had.

  My mother wasn’t a bad person, but she tended to hold on to grudges. Her history with Sheila Downton was one thing she had hid from me all those years. Not because it was just an insignificant story from the past.

  On the contrary.

  It was because she clearly hadn’t managed to forgive the woman whose misfortune had led her to take something that wasn’t rightfully hers.

  My mother didn’t know Danny the way I did, and there was no way for her to fathom the amount of torment he had to endure in his life.

  I looked at him as he peacefully gazed into the distance.

  I believed that the universe brought us together to hold each other and never let go.

  I knew I could never let him go.

  Chapter Nine

  Danny

  From a lonesome cowboy to a happily married man starting a family with his gorgeous wife—I prayed thanks to God and the universe and everything in between, every single night.

  Gigi had given my life a whole new meaning, giving me a beautiful reason to get out of bed every morning.

  Before her, I would do my job and go back home, a lonely man with no one to share it all with. I would waste hours upon hours, drunk in a daze of lighthearted banter. My nights were spent with people—all good people—but none I could call my own family in the real sense.

  The memories of women I had been with before paled next to the love and affection she showered me with, every waking hour. From the hot breakfast that awaited me every morning to the sweet gestures of bringing me lunch at the office when I got too busy to leave.

>   Her adoring embrace at night sent me straight to peaceful slumber, abandoning my worries at the gates of our bedroom that was now a shrine for our love.

  I couldn’t have asked for more.

  It was as though life were apologizing for the horrid past I had suffered, and the countless lonely nights I had endured.

  She gave me everything, and for that, I was willing to do anything.

  As she entered the twenty-fourth week of pregnancy, Gigi began to get restless. I had repeatedly offered to hire someone from town to help, yet she insisted on keeping our blissful life as private as possible.

  I knew a part of it was her respecting my stance on privacy before, but the other side of the coin was her secret wish that her mother would still change her mind and join us.

  I could see it in her eyes, every time she spoke to her on the phone.

  Gigi needed her mother, and there was nothing I could do to change that.

  Instead of a phone conversation, she decided to write her folks a letter, renewing our invitation for them to move in with us. Or at least visit.

  “Did you mail the envelope?” she calmly asked me as we ate dinner.

  “Of course. First thing I did when I got to town.”

  “Thank you.” The dimple on her cheek greeted me, and I smiled.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “I’m okay.” She shrugged with one shoulder before taking a bite. “Do you think I can handle it?” Her tone was pensive.

  “I think you can handle anything.”

  She tittered briefly. “I’m serious.”

  “So am I. You’re the strongest woman I know, you know that.”

  “But this is different. What if I suck?”

  I chuckled. “You can’t suck, even if you wanted to. You’re thoughtful and smart and resilient, and very, very resourceful.”

  “I’ve never done this before.” She raised her gaze to meet my eyes. “I don’t wanna do it alone.”

  Alone?

  I would never leave you alone.

  Pulling my chair closer, I shrunk the distance between us as I took both of her hands in mine. “Is this supposed to insult me?” My tone joked, yet my eyes were dead serious.

  “You know what I mean.”