Texas Wishes: The Complete Series

by Kristina Knight

  She needed to choose.

  • • •

  Jackson was the first to exit the delivery area, a pretty pink bundle in his arms. He glowed with pride. Nathaniel and Mitchum cooed over the new baby, but Monica kept her distance.

  She was just nervous, he told himself, but when Trick took her hand it was clammy in his. He squeezed, trying to reassure her, but wasn’t sure she noticed the gesture.

  “Kathleen said you get first dibs on baby cuddling,” Jackson said, still grinning like a maniac.

  “No, I don’t think I … ” But Jackson took charge. He put the baby in Monica’s arms. A faraway look crossed her face, worrying Trick. When she held the kitten, she was relaxed. Holding her niece, Monica seemed petrified.

  A chill creeping up his spine. He was losing her.

  “We named her Lacy,” Jackson said. He reached around Monica to put his hand on the baby’s head.

  Finally Monica smiled. “It suits her.” She rubbed her finger over the baby’s chin, but that distant look never left her eyes. A moment later she handed the baby back to Jackson and put her hands in her jeans pockets.

  A half hour later, Mat brought out his son, wrapped in a blue blanket, producing more coos from Mitchum, Nathaniel, and Guillermo. More distance from Monica. Trick tried to get her attention, but she kept pacing, nibbling on her thumbnail.

  Trick congratulated the guys. Jackson looked shell-shocked while Mat looked as if he might take on the world. Trick had a feeling he looked jealous. He watched Monica, the seed of worry sprouting into a sapling in his belly and then to full-grown tree in less than an hour. Damn, but he wanted this. The wife, the family. The whole thing.

  And the woman he wanted it with was a million miles away across the room.

  • • •

  She didn’t want this. Not now. Maybe someday. Some distant day in the future.

  Monica held Kathleen’s baby, Lacy, praying she didn’t drop her. Or worse, throw up on her. Her stomach was queasy. Had been since her sisters went into labor yesterday afternoon. She said all the right things — she wasn’t completely lost — but the hospital was the last place she wanted to be. Her skin felt itchy, clammy. She couldn’t breathe.

  She had to get out. Kathleen was asleep, so Monica put the baby in the small crib, placed a light blanket over her, and slipped out of the hospital room. Jackson and the rest of the crew were nowhere to be seen. She pushed through the stairwell door and ran as fast as she could down the steps. She was outside before she remembered she didn’t have a car. Or a phone to call for a ride. She looked up at the third floor of the community hospital. Going back upstairs wasn’t an option.

  A moment later, she was on the street, walking.

  How had she gotten to this point? She wasn’t a home-and-hearth kind of girl, not really. Yes, it was fun playing the part with Trick for a while, but that didn’t mean she wanted the things her sisters wanted.

  Monica wanted more. Kathleen had a career, but she had already put off racing her horse, Jester, at the World Equestrian Games. With a new baby and husband, what were the chances she would realize that dream? Vanessa seemed perfectly content to have her life consist of family when barely a year before she ignored Lockhardt in general and the family in particular. Monica knew what she wanted, too. She wanted the man. She wanted her career. But she didn’t want to be tied to her home. She didn’t want to be tied to Lockhardt.

  She loved Trick, but he was the kind of man who wanted his family close — living under the same roof day after day. Having a routine. Dinner out on special occasions. A wife who was gone as much as she was home couldn’t be in his plans long-term.

  A horn honked behind her, and Monica turned to see Trick driving slowly behind her. He waved her over. Better to get this over with now, she decided.

  “You left your cell on the seat,” he said as she climbed in the cab. Monica pocketed the phone. “Need some air?”

  “Air. Space. It was getting a little claustrophobic in there.”

  He seemed to pick up on her mood, but didn’t question her. “Where do you want to go?”

  Home. Back to the life that didn’t surprise her. The life she’d carved out on her own over the past four years. Her mouth went dry. The quiet house in Austin morphed into Trick’s three-bedroom ranch. A big bed with a navy comforter beckoned, a kitchen with bar seating. She wanted to go home with him, but that wouldn’t solve anything.

  “Just take me back to the ranch,” she said.

  They were on the gravel lane too quickly. Parked beneath the trees before she could think of a way to gently break Trick’s heart.

  “What’s going on?”

  “I just … I think … A lot has happened in the last twenty-four hours. I just need to catch up.” It was a lame excuse, and he deserved better, but Monica couldn’t give that to him. Not yet.

  Her phone buzzed, and she ripped it from her pocket as if it were on fire. A racing friend was on the other end, asking her to ride in the pre-show the following weekend. Monica jumped on the offer, eager to get out of Lockhardt, away from the stifling Texas summer.

  Away from the people who needed her to be someone she wasn’t.

  She gave Trick a quick peck on the cheek as she hung up. “I have to go. There’s a pre-show next weekend in Casper, and they’ve asked me to ride.” She left the truck to hurry inside.

  He followed. “You don’t have a horse.”

  “I’m not racing, just part of the pre-show. Piebaby can handle it.” She pushed open the patio door and turned toward the stairs to her room. “I need to pack, but I’ll call you when I get back, okay?”

  She didn’t wait for his reply, just sprinted up the stairs and into her room, anxiety rising as she heard his footsteps behind her.

  “We should talk about this.”

  Monica dragged her suitcase from beneath her bed and tossed clothes from her bureau inside, not caring if the garments were properly folded or wadded up. She could fix the issue when she got there. “Talk about what?”

  “What happened yesterday between us. With your sisters.” He crossed the room and put his hand over hers as she opened another drawer. “About why you’re running away from everything we have here to chase some rodeo where you won’t even be competing.”

  “It’s my job, Trick.”

  “No, it’s your way of avoiding life.”

  “How dare you!”

  “Because I love you. Don’t run away to another rodeo, Monica. Stay here. Figure out what you want.” His blue eyes ordered her to stay, to choose him and Lockhardt and her extended family. Monica’s queasy stomach demanded she leave it all behind. Get back her equilibrium and her life.

  “You don’t love me. You can’t. You don’t know me.”

  “Sure I do.”

  “Really? Then tell me what I want.”

  Trick crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the closet door. “You want everything. You want a family of your own. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be running away from your sisters and their families now. You want your career. You want a fifth All-Around Cowgirl title so badly you can taste it and you’re pissed off that Jinx is injured and you’ll have to wait.”

  Monica swallowed. How could he know her so well when she couldn’t read him even a tenth as well. He wanted her, but which Monica was the one he would accept for the rest of his life? The Monica who stayed in Lockhardt and built a life with him or the Monica who rodeoed and was only home a few months out of the year?

  “You want me. What are you so afraid of?”

  She shook herself and tossed another shirt into the suitcase. She tripped over her flip-flops and threw them into the suitcase, too. “I’m not afraid. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “We’ve been together, in every way that counts, for near
ly three months. You’re the first person I think of when I wake up, the last person I want to see before I go to sleep. As soon as your taillights disappear down the drive, I miss you and I know the sound of your truck from a block away. You’ve turned me into a god-damned, love-wrecked teenager and I’m nearly thirty years old.” He shoved his hands through his hair and then waved his hand between them. “Before any of this, I knew who you were by reputation. Everyone in town said Monica was the perfect daughter. You didn’t get into trouble in school. You train harder than anyone else on the circuit. You want to know why you’re like that?”

  She clenched her jaw. “Because I want to be the best.”

  “Because when you’re focused on anything outside this house, you can pretend your childhood wasn’t crappy. You can pretend that everything here has always been perfectly normal, all the while telling yourself you’ll never be normal because of the shadows in the past.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Prove me wrong then. Stay and fight for what you really want.”

  She tossed a few more shirts in the suitcase. “My career is what I want. To beat my own times, to train great horses … ”

  “Bullshit.” He waited until she raised her gaze to his. “You want more than that. You want the fairytale. You want the career and the family and you’re petrified that you’ll wreck it because until Kathleen and Vanessa settled down, you’d never seen a couple work through their issues.” He crossed the room but didn’t touch her. “I know what you want, probably better than you do. You’re petrified.”

  Sunlight glinted off the trophies from her high-school competitions. Monica held a shirt to her chest. Damn right, she was scared. She did want those things. But most of all, she didn’t want to hurt him. She knew with certainty that if she gave up her career, she would be no different than Nathaniel. She’d be unhappy and then Trick would grow unhappy, too. She couldn’t bear the thought of doing that to him; it was better to stop everything now.

  “I have to go.”

  “So that’s the way you’re going to play this.”

  She nodded. “That’s the way it is.”

  He sighed and pushed off the doorjamb. “I may not be here when you decide to be honest with yourself.”

  Monica hated the confidence in his voice. Hated more that he was right. Some wholesome, Texas woman would catch his eye sooner or later and then she would be left with only memories to keep her warm at night. She took a breath and closed the suitcase.

  “When I was little, I used to sleep in that corner.” She pointed to the space between her bed and the wall. “I’d fill it with every stuffed animal I owned when I didn’t want to be alone, when Nathaniel was gone and my mother was too distracted by where he was to worry about me. Or Kathleen or Vanessa, if either one was around. I’d cry myself to sleep, wishing just one of those toys would wake up and hug me and tell me everything was going to be all right. Not one of them ever did, but I kept sleeping there. I’m good at being alone, Trick. It’s what I know. I tried to convince myself I could change, but I can’t. I just don’t have it in me. Seeing my sisters and their babies … “ She raised her gaze to his. “A normal person would have been happy. I was terrified. I don’t know how to be the person I tried to be for you.”

  “That’s the fear talking, and you know it. I never asked you to be anything but you.”

  She picked up her suitcase and walked to the door. “You badgered me to ‘date’ you.”

  “Seemed appropriate, since we were already sleeping together.”

  “You made dares with me.”

  “Just keeping things light, the way you like them.”

  “The point is, I didn’t want a traditional boyfriend. I wanted a fun, loose relationship, but I tried to change what I wanted. For you.”

  “You love me.”

  Her heart cried at the pain in his eyes. She wanted to drop the suitcase and beg him to accept her, just the way she was. That couldn’t last, though. He would wind up hating her because she couldn’t be the woman he wanted. “You smother me.”

  “You’re lying to yourself. Is this what racing Piebaby at the fairgrounds was about?”

  “Ye — no. How did you know about that?”

  “Small town, sweetheart. Where everyone knows everything about everyone else. I thought maybe you were just testing him, but it was more, wasn’t it? I gave you your ticket out of here.”

  “He’s my horse; you only brought him here.”

  “Not much of a leap, if you ask me. I thought I was helping you get past what happened to Jinx.”

  “You did. Piebaby isn’t a barrel racer, but he is a good horse, and I am going to ride him next weekend in Wyoming.” Monica ordered herself to stand still. To not run across the room and throw herself into Trick’s arms. Yes, she loved him. Too much to hurt him. “My life is rodeo. You deserve more than a part-time girlfriend, and I can’t be anything but that.”

  Monica backed out of the room, watching until she couldn’t see Trick any more.

  Then, she turned and ran.

  Chapter Nine

  Monica circled Piebaby with the rest of the riders. The pole holding up the American flag sat snugly against her saddle. The crowd sang along with the piped-in national anthem, and as the last bars rose in crescendo, she took her place in the center of the ring.

  A few whoops and hollers sounded from the crowd, growing louder as the music faded away, and then everyone burst into applause, screaming at the tops of their lungs.

  Piebaby shifted, unused to the noise inside the arena. He stilled when she tightened her hold on the reins. Finally, the announcers finished talking, and the participants began one last lap. Flags whipped in the wind created by the fast-moving horses. A flash of light, and then green and blue fireballs cascaded from the sky. The echo of the firework’s boom sounded loudly behind her. Far away from the steers and other livestock.

  She breathed a sigh of relief.

  Cameras flashed from the stands as they rode out of the gate. Workers set up the first barrels, but Monica didn’t stay to watch. She continued around the back of the chutes to her truck and trailer.

  After she unsaddled Piebaby and stored the gear, she loaded the horse into the trailer and shut the gate. Sagged against it.

  She was tired. So tired she didn’t consider staying to watch any of the other events. Monica climbed into the cab, twisted her key in the ignition, and pulled out onto the highway. She sipped stale, black coffee until she saw a roadside motel with a corral off to the side where Piebaby could stretch his legs.

  Leaving Texas five days before, she hadn’t thought about what a trip like this would be like for the horse. He was exhausted from standing for long hours in the back of the trailer, unhappy not having a place to run or forage.

  The rodeo, he’d loved. The loud noises hadn’t bothered him. The crowd of people wanting to see him and the other horses hadn’t fazed him.

  Both had bothered her. She paid for the room and then let Piebaby into the corral for the night. She filled a bucket with grain and another with water and then went into her own room. Monica stripped as she walked toward the shower, tossing her clothes as she went. She turned the taps until water began steaming up the room and then stepped beneath the harsh spray. Her chest and arms turned pink within seconds, but she didn’t care. She stood there until the water ran cold and goose bumps broke out on her skin.

  Even after her shower, she still felt unsettled. She wanted to sleep. Needed just a few hours of mindless sleep, in which she wouldn’t think about Trick or her family or the fact that this trip would be her last, at least for a while.

  She hated everything about this trip, up to and including living out of her suitcase. She didn’t like staying in hotel rooms, drinking stale coffee, or having uninteresting conversations with ne
ar strangers over breakfast. She wanted to go home.

  Monica never thought that want would consume her, especially after she ran out on Trick. This trip was supposed to be about declaring her independence, getting over the man. All she could think about was going home and snuggling under that navy blue comforter. Finish Jinx’s rehab. Work with Piebaby a little, and maybe look for another barrel racer in a few months.

  It was too late to go back. Fear made her decision as soon as Jackson exited that delivery room with Lacy in his arms. Fear had her throwing another layer of mortar on the walls she’d tumbled thanks to Trick and running as far from Lockhardt as she could.

  Besides this could all be … boredom because she wasn’t racing. If Jinx wasn’t hurt she would be in the competition not sitting out the event. Until she was positive what she wanted she couldn’t take the chance on hurting Trick again.

  Her phone bleeped in the other room. Monica turned off the water and stepped from the shower into the muggy bathroom. She wrapped herself in a towel, moved into the bedroom, and picked up the phone. Vanessa had sent a new picture of the baby — wearing a baby-sized cowboy hat, red boots, and a diaper. He smiled from the fuzzy blanket. Or maybe that was just gas.

  The phone bleeped again.

  “How was the rodeo?”

  Vanessa couldn’t be interested, but Monica answered anyway.

  “Hot. Muggy. Dirty. Just got to my hotel room.”

  A few minutes later another message hit. “We miss you.”

  A twinge in her chest made her catch her breath. What was wrong with her? Five days ago, she couldn’t get out of Texas fast enough. Two hours ago, she’d felt left out because she couldn’t compete. Now a text message from her sister had her desperate to go home?

  She missed them. All of them, babies included. She flipped through the pictures on her phone, smiling at the cute baby outfits her sisters kept texting over. Her finger paused over one photo, taken the day of the barbecue. She and Trick were making faces at the camera while Jackson ordered them to straighten up and let him get a good picture. She traced her finger over Trick’s face.