by Jane Porter
“I hate that feeling,” Tommy said, leaning forward to take another sliver of cake. “I don’t like being behind. Makes me irritable.”
“Makes you an ass,” Billy corrected. “But that’s also what makes you such a good competitor. You never say die.”
“You can’t,” Tommy agreed, licking the frosting from his fork prongs. “Wyatts never quit, and we never give up.” He looked up, a dimple flashing in his cheek. “Even when we should.”
“So, what’s next?” Melvin asked her.
“I’m trying not to get anxious, but I do need to get back to work soon. I need to graduate on time. I need to start earning money—and to do that I need my degree, need work, need to become a licensed therapist.”
“We could use a therapist in the family,” Tommy said. “Billy could use a lot of help, someone to help him sort through his fear of relationships. Why does love scare him—”
“Alright, that’s enough,” Billy interrupted, no more laughter in his voice. “I’m not interested in being dissected—”
“You mean analyzed,” Tommy corrected.
“Same thing.” Billy pushed back from the table, and began collecting the dessert plates and coffee cups. “I’m making it an early night tonight,” he said. “Tomorrow I’m back on the road.”
*
Erika hadn’t thought she’d see any more of Billy that night, but he knocked on her bedroom door after she and Beck had retired for the evening. She opened the door, pointed to the baby sleeping in the portable crib, and then stepped out of her room, closing the door behind her.
“You okay?” she asked.
His brow creased. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Tommy just seemed to take a dig or two at you.”
Billy shrugged. “That’s normal.”
“But it seemed to be a little too personal, especially when it came to you and relationships.”
“That I don’t do relationships?” His big shoulders shifted, and his flannel shirt, already half unbuttoned, fell open, exposing a lot of skin. And muscles. Impressive muscles. “It’s true. Not something I try to hide.”
She studied him intently, aware that there was more behind his breezy tone. “Maybe that’s why April didn’t reach out to you after she discovered she was pregnant. Maybe she knew you didn’t do relationships so the whole parenthood thing was a moot point.”
“If that was the case, she shouldn’t have assumed.”
“Maybe it was hard for her. She clearly had feelings for you—”
“No.”
“Yes. She spent a lot of time chasing you from rodeo to rodeo. She made a whole photo album about one of your special weekends. You don’t commemorate a one-night stand with a photo album. You forget a one-night stand. You put the man, and the memory, away. But she didn’t do that. She wanted to remember you. She… cherished you.”
“I made no promises to her. There were no commitments. Your cousin was an adult. A consenting adult who enjoyed sex. I enjoyed sex. We enjoyed sex together. Not sure why that gives you the right to subject me to your psychoanalysis babble.”
“Just because you don’t understand it, doesn’t mean it’s babble.”
“Just because I didn’t graduate with a plethora of college degrees doesn’t mean I’m a hick.”
“I never said that.”
“But you have formed strong opinions about me, and I’m not sure they’re all justified.”
“Everyone forms opinions. It’s human nature.”
“Want to know my opinion of you?”
She stiffened even as her gaze met his. “Not if you’re going to be unkind.”
“Why do you think I’d be unkind?”
“You’re not a fan of psychology.”
“I think you truly want to help people, and I respect that. But April wasn’t a saint, and she may have fantasized about a future with me, but that wasn’t ever going to happen. Did she keep Beck from me on purpose? I don’t know. Was she not sure Beck was mine? I don’t know that, either. All I know is that you’re here with him, and tomorrow I’ll take a DNA test, and soon we’ll have facts. Facts are what matter now. The rest of it… doesn’t really matter, does it?”
“I think you’re better at compartmentalizing than I am. It’s something I need to work on.”
“You seem to think you need a lot of work. I don’t see it.”
She looked away, averting her face. “We can always be better.”
“We can always torture ourselves about our weaknesses, too. That doesn’t interest me, though. I’d rather get stuff done than spend my life beating myself up.”
*
Billy studied her delicate profile, her elegant features framed by a mass of golden hair. Erika did little to her appearance. He couldn’t even see any makeup, other than maybe a touch of mascara that she hadn’t yet taken off, and even without makeup, she was beautiful. Naturally pretty. In any other situation he’d be flirting with her, teasing her, testing her response to him, but this wasn’t a normal situation. He wasn’t going to take her to bed. For one, she was Beck’s guardian. For another, she was April’s cousin—which was a whole thing in and of itself.
He liked women. Enjoyed bedding them. But he didn’t just hook up with anyone. It had to make sense. He had rules. No married women. No engaged women. No women seeing someone seriously.
No chicks with kids.
No pretending he was looking for love.
No pretending there was a chance for a relationship.
He didn’t want a wife. He didn’t want children. He just wanted to be free and pursue his career. It was what he cared about, and what he wanted most.
But with Erika just an arm’s length away, he felt aware of her as a woman, a warm, achingly beautiful woman, as well as a woman who had no interest in him, and God help him, but that appealed. He loved challenges, responded to them, but this wasn’t a challenge he could accept. So he wouldn’t make a move, but that didn’t make her any less physically appealing.
If anything, it made her more so.
“After the DNA test tomorrow, I’m going to be heading on to Boise. I need to be there a few days early as one of my sponsors has a VIP party for me to attend Thursday night, and then a meet and greet at the local mall Friday at noon.”
Erika’s brow creased. “So what do we do while we wait for the test results? Stay in Bozeman? Follow you to Idaho?”
“You could come to Idaho, or you could head home and I’ll call you once we have the results.”
She looked uncertain. “You think I should drive all the way back to Southern California?”
“If you’re tired of being on the road. I like it. But I’m not the one traveling with a baby.” He spotted Tommy from the corner of his eye, coming up the stairs. He gave him a don’t-bother-us look, and Tommy continued on to the room they shared. “If the test says I’m Beck’s dad, I’ll come get him.”
“Before your next rodeo weekend?”
His gaze narrowed. “I don’t know if it’d be that soon. My schedule is pretty structured. I’d need to figure out logistics.”
“Kind of like me and my studies.”
She had a point and he shrugged. “Don’t go home then. Follow me to Boise. We’ll get you a motel room not far from the rodeo grounds. You and Beck can stay there while we sort out the rest.”
“And if he is your son? What will you do then?”
“Figure out how to manage a baby while living on the road.”
“You’re going to take him with you?” she asked incredulously. “From rodeo to rodeo?”
He heard her tone, but it didn’t bother him. The only thing that would bother him would be abandoning a child he’d made. And he wasn’t going to do that. But he also needed to compete. It was how he made money, and he could make amazing money, if he returned to the National Finals in Las Vegas next December, but to do that, he had to do well all year long. If he missed too many events, and failed to place in money at events, then he wouldn’t quali
fy. He couldn’t let that happen. “I’d probably have to hire a sitter. I’m sure I could find someone—”
“A stranger,” she interrupted.
“It’s a job. People do it all the time.”
“He needs to be with people he knows. He needs stability, security, consistency.”
“Then come with us. If I have to pay a sitter, I might as well pay you.”
Her jaw dropped. “Travel with you from rodeo to rodeo?”
“Lots of families do it. The rig is really a trailer, and it’s quite comfortable with a kitchen, bathroom, bedroom—”
“I’d never live in a trailer with you.”
“I could get you a motel room in each town. I wouldn’t put you somewhere too cheap. I’d want you and Beck safe.”
“While you’d stay in the rig, on your own,” she said.
He lifted a brow. “You want me to sleep in the motel with you every night instead?”
“No.”
“Then what? What are you objecting to?”
“Being on the road with an infant! Traveling from town to town for months on end.”
“That’s what I do, darlin’.”
“A rodeo cowboy.”
“That’s who I am.”
“Forever?”
“Certainly for as long as I can.”
“What about Beck?”
“What about him?”
“How are you going to manage it? Traveling, competing, taking care of a baby?”
“I can’t, not on my own. But with your help, I can make it work, and with my help, you can sock away some money and still earn your degree.”
When she said nothing, he added quietly, “We also don’t need to have this conversation until we have the test results back—”
“Everyone else in this family seems sure he’s yours.”
“Then once we have those results, you can leave him, and his bag, and his car seat with me, and you’ll be able to return to Riverside and your life there.”
Her head jerked up, her gaze locking with his. She looked worried, but something else. Scared. Sad.
Why sad?
And then he understood. She’d become attached to Beck. She didn’t want to just abandon Beck. He respected her for that. “You know, you aren’t responsible for him anymore. You have no legal obligation—”
“No legal obligation, but just a moral one. He’s a baby. He needs love. I’m not sure you know how to care for a baby—”
“Or give love?” he finished silkily.
He watched, fascinated, as pink washed through her cheeks.
“You obviously come from a close-knit family,” she stammered. “It’s clear you love your brothers, your mother, your grandfather, but you’ve had a lifetime to form that bond. You don’t have a bond with Beck yet, and babies require a lot of patience, tenderness, and self-sacrifice. I’d find it very hard to just leave Beck here and drive away and feel okay about it. I would worry about him all the time. I would worry that maybe,” she looked away, her voice cracking, “he’d be confused. I wouldn’t want him to miss me. Nor would I want him to ever think I just abandoned him.”
“Maybe we just slow down and take this step by step. First the test, and then the results. Let’s not think about anything beyond that. Just test. And then just the results. We can do that, can’t we?”
She nodded.
“Good.” He gave her a faint, wry smile. “So can I. Try to get some sleep. I think we both could use it tonight.”
Chapter Four
He was on the road, on the outskirts of Boise when the call came. He’d been warned that morning in Bozeman, that even with a rush fee, it could be twenty-four hours before the results came in but they’d do their best. The DNA results had come back sooner, and he was a 99 percent match. There was no question that he was Beck’s biological father.
Call over, Billy focused on the road, but his thoughts weren’t on the ribbon of black asphalt stretching before him. His thoughts were of Beck in Erika’s car, and how he wasn’t just a baby, but his.
It was that simple, and that difficult. He was a dad now, and he’d be a dad… forever.
Billy exhaled slowly, running a hand over his bristled jaw. That call changed everything, and emotions rolled through him, thoughts tangled.
He’d had a son for all these months and he didn’t know. Billy wondered if April was ever going to tell him. Had she planned on just surprising him one day, showing up at the rodeo with the baby, much like Erika had?
He wished he’d known what April had been thinking, wished he’d known she was pregnant. She should have told him. She should have reached out the moment she knew. No, they weren’t planning on seeing more of each other, but pregnancy was different. Pregnancy wasn’t about romance or sex, it was about life. Their child’s life. And maybe he’d been a little too blunt when he’d told her that he didn’t see a future for them, and that he thought maybe it was time they stepped back, focused on other people, but how else were you supposed to end things with someone? Ignore them? Ghost them? That wasn’t his style. Far better to be honest. Aboveboard. And he’d never been unkind. But he had let her know he was moving on, and he was asking her to move on, too. Leave him alone. Focus on her life. Which might just be why she didn’t tell him about the pregnancy. He hoped it was because she was confused, not spiteful. Because keeping his son from him wasn’t right. He would have wanted to know as soon as April suspected she was pregnant. He would have wanted to be part of Beck’s life from the beginning.
Twenty minutes later, he signaled that they were taking the exit off the freeway. He checked his rearview mirror to see if Erika was paying attention, and she was, following his truck and trailer off the highway and down along a frontage road, and then down another road until he pulled in at a motel, and parked in a spot on the side where his long white trailer could fit without being in anyone’s way.
While Erika stretched her legs, Billy checked her in, using his credit card to pay for the room, and then carried all of the baby’s things in to the room at the end of the hall on the ground floor. The room had a little patio with a view of the parking lot and Billy’s trailer. “I’m going to find food,” he said. “Do what you need to do. I should be back soon.”
“Take the key,” she said. “Just in case I’m in the shower.”
Billy tried not to dwell on the image in his head of her in the shower. He didn’t want to picture her naked. Didn’t need physical desire to complicate things more than they already were. By the time he returned, she was sitting on the bed, giving Beck a bottle. Beck was in his jammies, and she was in comfortable sweats, her long hair wet, her face scrubbed clean.
“Success,” he said, placing the paper bag filled with chicken sandwiches between them. “Three for me, two for you. No fries. Trying to be good.”
Erika laughed. “You have an interesting definition of being good.”
“Fries are fattening.”
“And breaded chicken isn’t?”
“I like my chicken crispy. None of that pitiful grilled breasts for me.” He dropped into a chair, and extended his legs. “I’m hungry,” he said, tucking into the first sandwich.
They ate in silence, the only sound besides crinkled foil wrappers was Beck greedily sucking on his bottle.
Billy watched Beck work his bottle, his little brow wrinkled with concentration.
His baby. His kid.
Crazy.
Amazing.
Amazing that Erika had figured it out.
He waited until she’d finished a sandwich to let her know that the DNA results had come in, and that they’d confirmed what she’d said—Beck was his.
For a long minute Erika said nothing. “Are you surprised?”
He gathered the crumpled paper bags and foil wrappers. “Not really, no,” he said, tossing them into the motel’s waste basket.
“But you fought the truth—”
“I didn’t fight anything. I just needed time to come to terms wi
th the fact that I had a baby. A baby who’d been alive for months without me ever knowing anything about him.”
She put Beck up on her shoulder and began burping him. “It sounds as if you’re turning things around. Blaming April.”
He arched a brow. “You don’t think she should have told me?”
“Maybe she did. Maybe she wrote to you, or called, or sent you a message through Instagram. Maybe you ignored her—”
“I didn’t.”
“Maybe you’d blocked her.”
Yes, he had blocked her. On his phone and on Instagram. She wouldn’t stop sending him selfies of her naked. Titty pics. Bikini waxed privates. It was uncomfortable, especially once he was seeing other women and she wasn’t taking no for an answer. “There were other ways she could have reached me, especially if she wanted to tell me about the pregnancy. She just needed to say there was a baby—”
“And you would have believed her?”
His jaw ground tight. Erika saw far more than he’d like her to see. “Probably not without a paternity test, no.”
“What did she do to make you so mistrust her?”
“You weren’t in touch with her for the past few years. You yourself said you’d lost touch with her. I don’t want to be unkind, but the April I knew wasn’t the April you remember. The April I knew craved attention, and would do anything for attention, and not just from me, but from a number of guys.”
Erika looked at him for a long moment, expression guarded. “Why weren’t you surprised that Beck was yours when the test results came in? What changed your mind?”
He hesitated a long moment. “Mom had said he looks just like me. She said she knew he was a Wyatt the moment she met him.” Billy shifted in the chair, propping one boot over the other. “Mom doesn’t tend to exaggerate about things like that.”
“You never told me.”
“I wanted my proof. I’m a hard facts guy, and I needed the paternity results to confirm everyone’s suspicions. This is one of those things you need to test, prove.” He shrugged, shoulders shifting. “Which I now have.”
“And the test results change everything. Right?”
“I wouldn’t say they change everything, but things will be different.”