The Littlest Cowgirls--A Clean Romance

by Melinda Curtis

  “You leave that to me and Laurel.” Mitch walked around the bed and moved toward the door. At the last minute, he took Wyatt’s glass, too.

  “Hey, I wasn’t done.”

  “The last thing anyone needs on my wedding day is Wyatt Halford hung over.” Mitch drank the remains of Wyatt’s whiskey. “You’ll get another glass when we toast the birth of our babies.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  ASHLEY WAS COMING downstairs early on the morning of Laurel’s wedding day when she heard someone cry out.

  “Laurel?” She ran to the apartment behind the check-in desk. “Laurel?” She pushed open the door.

  Mitch was rushing around. “Where’s the birthing bag? And my keys. Where are my keys?”

  Laurel sat in a kitchen chair. Her cheeks were red. “I have the worst luck. My water broke on my wedding day.”

  “Are you okay? What can I do?” Ashley set her stack of folders and laptop on the desk and knelt next to her. “And, no, I will not pretend to be the bride so the wedding can go on.”

  “I hate you right now.” Laurel sucked in a breath and pushed her shoulders back, as if she was trying to separate her head from her belly. “But then again, I’m having contractions and I hate everyone. Mark the time. Gabby! Where are you?”

  Gabby came through a door carrying a mop and bucket. “I’m on cleanup detail, remember?”

  “Ashley can clean up.” Laurel was in fine form.

  “This is payback for every little thing I’ve ever done to you, isn’t it?” Ashley tried to joke.

  “No, Ash. This is labor.” Laurel glanced around. “Where is Mitch? Mitch, it stopped. How long was that?”

  “I can’t find my keys or the hospital go bag.” Mitch was bug-eyed.

  Wyatt pushed his way inside the small kitchen, cowboy boots ringing with purpose. His black eye was a greenish purple. “I see a set of keys in the fruit bowl beneath the orange. And there’s a gym bag under the kitchen table.” He pointed to Laurel’s feet, which were propped up on it. “Call Dr. Carlisle. Let’s get you to the hospital. Forget Mitch’s keys. I’m driving.”

  They all stopped moving.

  “I thought you didn’t believe these were yours?” Ashley narrowed her eyes at him.

  “I need to see these babies for myself.”

  “Why?” Ashley frowned. “Does everyone in your family have a heart-shaped birthmark on their butt?”

  “Ashley, he wants to see them once before he signs away all claim to them. That’s just wrong.” Mitch grabbed the bag and helped Laurel to her feet. “I’d advise you so, if I were your lawyer, Halford.”

  “Ha. But you’re not my lawyer, Kincaid.” Wyatt took a red baseball cap from a rack near the door and put it on Ashley’s head.

  “Is that true, Wyatt?” Ashley demanded, while Wyatt took another hat and put it on his own head.

  “Can we debate this in the car?” Laurel waddled toward the door.

  “Gabby, you and Grandma Gen are in charge.” Mitch gently pushed Wyatt and Ashley out of the way. “And if that doesn’t strike fear into someone’s heart...”

  “Dad. I can handle it.” Gabby saluted and raised the mop in triumph.

  “Of course she can,” Mitch muttered. “She’s twelve going on twenty-two. Let her run the credit card machine. Let her approve reservations online. No social media, Gabby. I mean it.”

  Wyatt chuckled as he followed them out the door.

  Ashley hung back. “Grandma Gen is going to be hung over. She won’t get out of bed until this afternoon. Don’t wake her. Don’t even wake her when we call to tell you the babies have been born.”

  “Really?”

  “Ashley!” Wyatt called from outside.

  “What am I worried about?” Ashley hugged Gabby. “You’ll be fine. Just you and Devin and the rest of the Monroe clan.” She hurried out the door.

  “I hate you,” Gabby called after her.

  * * *

  DESPITE THE FACT that both Wyatt and Ashley wore baseball hats, and that Wyatt had a black eye, they were still recognized at the hospital in Ketchum.

  By staff. By family members waiting for babies to be born. By curious passersby in the hall when they went to check on Holden in the cardiac unit, who had a clear bill of health, other than a bout with anxiety.

  Of all the days to be fawned over and handle photo requests. Ashley’s patience dangled from a very thin thread. Wyatt kept his arm draped over Ashley’s shoulders, and they leaned into each other, hat brims pulled low to avoid more attention.

  She and Wyatt found an empty couch and slumped into it. “I guess our social-media campaign did its job,” Ashley said. “Nobody has looked at us and questioned why we’re together.”

  Down the hallway, Laurel labored. And she wasn’t one of those women who labored in silence. Ashley gritted her teeth and forced herself to take shallow breaths, as if she were her sister’s labor coach.

  “Are you kidding me? We go together like peas and carrots.” Wyatt patted her thigh.

  “We could.” Ashley was feeling emboldened by Laurel’s change of heart last night and Wyatt’s heroic charge to the rescue this morning. Mitch had been in no shape to drive. “You never answered my question about playing a secondary role as a father or in my film.”

  “Would you kiss me if I said I’d given both some serious thought?” He turned the bill of his hat around and nuzzled her ear. “I’m having an emotionally draining day and need some TLC.”

  She elbowed him back. “All you’ve done since you’ve come to Second Chance is mull things over. At some point, you have to make a decision.”

  “Like I said this morning...” Wyatt began. “I need to see—”

  Laurel let out a primal scream.

  “Oh, no. No, no, no. This is torture.” Ashley tried to hide her face in Wyatt’s broad chest but only succeeded in knocking her hat off.

  “I need to see the babies, okay?” Wyatt brought her face in front of his. “And then I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you anything and everything.”

  “I meant it’s torture that I can hear Laurel down the hall.” Ashley cringed at a particularly sharp scream. “But I’ll hold you to that, too.”

  A nurse poked her head into the waiting room. “For Monroe?”

  Wyatt and Ashley stood.

  “Come with me.” The nurse spun away, walking quickly.

  Ashley clutched Wyatt’s hand. “Laurel must have wanted you to witness the birth.” She just hoped she could manage to stay in the room without falling to pieces.

  A scream peaked, followed by a woman’s shouts. “Get my husband in here. Right now! He did this to me.”

  They passed the room with the screaming, upset woman in labor.

  “Where are we going?” Ashley glanced back. “I thought that was my sister.”

  The screamer’s husband sprinted into the room, followed by what looked like two grandmas-to-be.

  Wyatt wrapped an arm around her and smiled.

  The nurse half turned. “We’re headed to the NICU. Your nieces were born about twenty minutes ago.”

  “I am so relieved.” Ashley settled into Wyatt’s side as they moved along quickly.

  They went through a series of doors until they came to a glass wall. Beyond the partition, several babies were in incubators. Laurel sat on a stool in between two. She gave Wyatt and Ashley a weary smile as Mitch took pictures with his cell phone. Their nurse escort went inside, scrubbed down and then wheeled the incubators close to the window.

  The two little girls were wrapped up tight in blankets with pink beanies on their heads. Bright red hair fringed their caps.

  Wyatt leaned closer to the glass, clearly eager.

  The details of their features registered. The shape of their lips. The tilt to their tiny noses.

  “Oh. My. Word.” Ashle
y turned slowly to Wyatt. “They look just like you.”

  * * *

  LAUREL WAS ASSIGNED a room in the hospital. Once the nurse had her settled in bed, she passed out from exhaustion.

  Wyatt could relate. He was exhausted.

  I’m a father. That part of the day hadn’t really sunk in. Babies who looked like him. Babies who he’d helped create. Babies who needed him to keep their best interests in mind.

  Mitch, Wyatt and Ashley joined a slumbering Laurel in her room as they waited for the twins to be brought in for a brief visit under a nurse’s supervision. Dr. Carlisle said they were doing well and breathing on their own. If all went well in terms of weight gain and health, they could go home in a week.

  “When you get back home, the signed paternity papers will be on your kitchen table,” Wyatt said firmly. He didn’t think he’d let go of Ashley since they’d entered the hospital. At his announcement, she yanked his hand like a bellpull.

  “You couldn’t find it in you?” Unlike Wyatt, Mitch spoke in a whisper. “Disappointing, man.”

  “We don’t have to do anything today,” Ashley said softly. “Except discuss. You promised me answers to questions once you saw the girls.”

  “Hazel and Eleanor.” Mitch took Laurel’s hand without waking her.

  “No.” Wyatt’s grip tightened on Ashley’s. He’d never asked what they were going to name the babies. Not once. “Not Eleanor.”

  “I hardly think you’re in a position to argue about their names if you don’t plan to sign on to being a part of their lives.” Mitch gave him a dark look reminiscent of the day they’d met. “Do you know how many months Laurel and I have talked about names?”

  “Hope,” Wyatt said.

  “Excuse me.” Mitch looked to Ashley for a save, since Wyatt was clearly confusing him.

  “One of the girls needs to be named after my mother. Hope.”

  “She died of lung cancer several years ago,” Ashley explained to Mitch.

  “Hazel and Hope.” Mitch gave him a curt nod. “But don’t be surprised if Laurel writes Hope Eleanor on the birth certificate.”

  “Birth certificate...” Wyatt looked to Ashley, clung to Ashley. He’d been able to joke in the waiting room. But not here. Not now. Now he could barely find his own voice. “Their father’s name is...Mitch Kincaid.” It was the hardest line of dialogue he’d ever delivered.

  “No,” Ashley said, tugging his hand again.

  “We can wait,” Mitch said. “Laurel doesn’t have to write the father’s name on the paperwork right now. It can even be amended later.”

  “No,” Ashley said again.

  Wyatt took her face in his hands. “This is what’s best for Hazel and Hope. A chance at a normal life outside of the circus that is mine. I’ll be their favorite uncle Wyatt, whose title was earned because he was their father’s good friend.”

  “No,” Ashley said a third time, gripping his hands and pressing them against her cheeks. “This isn’t what you want.”

  “You know what I want,” Wyatt said softly, dying a little inside. “I want to be the highest-paid actor on the planet, the actor every man dreams of being and every woman dreams of being with. I can go on being difficult and charging an annoyance fee, breaking box-office records and paydays.” He drew a shallow breath, preparing to say the words that threatened to break him inside “Hope...and Hazel will be fond of their uncle Wyatt. They’ll be proud of me. And they’ll love Mitch, their daddy.”

  “Man, I really hate you right now,” Mitch choked out.

  “You will regret this,” Ashley told him, tears dampening her cheeks and his palms.

  He already was. “But I won’t change my mind.”

  Because he’d finally realized what the right thing to do was.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  “THEY DIDN’T TAKE that well,” Wyatt said to Ashley as she drove them back to Second Chance. Mitch and Laurel were going to spend the night in the hospital.

  “I don’t blame them,” Ashley said. She was so disappointed in Wyatt. “I haven’t taken it well, either.”

  Wyatt made an unintelligible sound. He was angled away from her, staring out the window. “It’s for the best.”

  “They’re going to look like you, Wyatt. And at some point, they’re going to put two and two together and realize you aren’t just their uncle Wyatt. And then what?”

  “And then they’ll have Mitch and Laurel to explain things to them.”

  “That is such a cop-out.” She took her hat and swatted him with it. Not hard enough to hurt, but hard enough to make her feel better. “It’s hard to believe you were encouraging me to get out of my shell and you won’t get out of yours. No sidekick roles. No fatherhood. You can’t make action movies when you’re sixty.”

  “I know several sixty-something actors who’d argue that point.” Wyatt sat up and turned his back to the door.

  “I don’t plan on being a has-been,” Ashley said staunchly. “I plan to be an actress people still want to see when I’ve aged gracefully.”

  “Here we go,” Wyatt said wearily.

  “I plan on doing work that is well respected.”

  “Multi-award-winning,” they both said at the same time.

  Ashley took her hat off again and swatted at him, but he deflected her swing with ease this time. “Are you making fun of me?”

  “No.” He looked gaunt and sad, nothing like the vibrant Wyatt Halford who’d sauntered into Second Chance to squelch a rumor.

  “We need comfort food.” Ashley pulled into a burger joint, one of those local one-offs that were family owned. She ordered them burgers, fries and shakes, and then pulled forward to pay at the window.

  “Hey, aren’t you famous?” The young cashier who took Ashley’s money couldn’t place her. “Oh, but he’s Ian Bradford!”

  “Yes,” Ashley said, turning to Wyatt to raise her eyebrows. “She couldn’t even remember my name.”

  “And she only knew me by my most famous role.”

  Ashley smiled, and it felt like her first real smile in days. “Better than your least famous role. Jeez, we’re almost has-beens.”

  He gave her a half smile.

  “Can you autograph this bag for me?” The cashier snapped their picture with her phone and handed her a bag and pen.

  Fan satisfied, they were given their food and drove off.

  “You should be happy,” Wyatt said after he’d devoured his burger and before he swiped hers. “We’ve had our picture taken so many times today. Great PR for your festival and movie.”

  Ashley shrugged. “But the most important photo is the one you took of Hazel and Hope. Maybe when we come back tomorrow, you can hold them.”

  She drove up the mountain highway, and Wyatt fell silent, finishing her fries and her milkshake.

  “I made a mess of things, didn’t I?” Wyatt stared out the window. “That’s what my father would say.”

  “I think you should focus on what your mother would say.” The woman he rarely talked about. The woman she felt was the key to understanding Wyatt.

  “What my mother would say.” Wyatt’s voice sounded empty. “I... She... Seven years ago, the doctors gave her three weeks to live. I came home to see her, which shut down the movie I was starring in.”

  Ashley approached the last curve before the top of the pass, waiting to hear what else Wyatt would share with her.

  “Mom was happy to see me. My sisters, too. Dad was... He sat in the corner of her room at the hospice and refused to talk to anyone.”

  Ashley could guess where this was going. “They wanted you back on set.” Film productions were expensive and full of moving parts. There’d be little to do if the lead actor wasn’t available.

  He nodded. “Mom wanted me to go. And it was only supposed to be for a few days. Five at the most.” Wyatt didn�
��t sound like himself. Or maybe he did, because deep down, he was a man with a tremendous heart, one that could be hurt. And he was letting that pain spill into his words. “She died on day three. My father didn’t speak to me at the funeral.”

  “He wasn’t speaking before that,” Ashley pointed out. “He was probably grieving.”

  “My sisters said they understood, but I could tell they didn’t. I wasn’t there for Mom at the end. And they were disappointed.”

  “You weren’t there for them,” Ashley gently chided. “When you lose someone, it’s those who gather round that need love and support. When my grandfather died, he was ready. It was the family who wasn’t prepared.”

  “Maybe.” Wyatt rubbed his hands over his face. “Does it matter? Nothing I did healed that rift.”

  “Nothing as in whatever you bought them out of guilt. A house? A car? A...recliner?”

  They reached the summit and started their way down the mountain into Second Chance. The roof of the Lodgepole Inn was visible above the treetops and the white church spire in the field where the wedding was to have taken place.

  “Hey—” Wyatt sat up “—didn’t anyone cancel the wedding?”

  * * *

  “WHAT THE HAY?” Ashley slowed the car as they approached the stop sign in Second Chance. “They may have canceled the wedding, but it looks like they didn’t cancel the party.”

  Wyatt recognized some faces in the crowd, including the silver-haired director, Jess Watanabe. The Monroes who’d gone horseback riding clustered around the church, away from the rest of the guests.

  Genevieve met them when they parked at the inn. “Come on up. The party is in full swing.”

  It was the right thing to do for their careers. They were trending on social media, and several outlets had put in requests for interviews. And, of course, there was the Jess Watanabe fence to be mended.

  “We’re not dressed for a party, Mom.” Ashley glanced down at her jeans and T-shirt.

  “No one cares.” Genevieve gestured toward the gathering. “You can tell us all about the babies.”