Expecting His Brother's Baby (Baby Bonds #3)

by Karen Rose Smith

  “Wouldn’t anybody?” she quipped.

  “Maybe. Maybe not.”

  “How about you?” she asked. “Which would you prefer?”

  “I’d prefer the barn,” he replied easily. “But I know reports and vet records and feed expenses all go along with it.”

  “Alex only liked to do the things he liked to do,” she murmured.

  There was something in her tone that made him look a little closer. Yes, he saw grief in her eyes, but was there more than that? Had she helped run the ranch into the ground, too? He couldn’t see much evidence of that. Still, Kylie could have an expensive hobby he didn’t know about besides making Christmas presents for her friends.

  “It would be nice if we could just forget the drudgery, but we can’t,” he remarked.

  The statement was meant to be leading, and he waited for her to say something else. Something more. He wanted to know if the pain in her eyes was from grief and loss or regret. But she didn’t say more and the silence weighed heavily between them.

  Finally he nodded to the saltines. “I don’t see how you can eat those. They taste like cardboard.”

  “They don’t,” she protested with a smile. “Especially not when they’re fresh. I’m trying to stay away from that chocolate cake Gwen brought.”

  “She brought it for you to eat.”

  “Oh, and I’m sure I will. But I’m trying to be good for today. Are you ready to go up now?”

  For some insane reason, he wanted to sweep her up into his arms and carry her up those stairs. He wanted to make sure she didn’t fall, didn’t trip, didn’t overuse her shoulder. He was just going to stick close to her for a few days until she was feeling better, yet he realized the thought of doing that was both a pleasure and a pain. When he was around her, he knew he should stay away from her. When he wasn’t around her, he worried about her. He attributed it all to his big-brother protective instincts taking over. She was such a little bit of a thing, even pregnant.

  Had his brother felt this protective of her?

  That question gave him a stone-cold feeling. He motioned toward the staircase. “Ladies first.”

  Once upstairs in the spare room, Brock realized how bad an idea this was. The room was small, barely big enough for the computer setup, Kylie’s sewing machine, her craft supplies and the table she worked on. There was a soft leather purse laying on the table with fringes that were partially beaded.

  When Kylie sat in the wooden chair at the table, he asked, “Don’t you want a pillow or something?”

  “A pillow would just slide off. This chair’s just right with the table.” She switched on an intensity light where she was working.

  Although he booted up the computer, that wasn’t where his attention stayed. Maybe it was the scent of Kylie’s shampoo, or some kind of lotion. She’d never been one for perfume. She’d always chosen natural scents. This combination was something like peach and spice. At least that’s what it smelled like to him.

  When he glanced at her over his shoulder, she was already busy at work. She had her left arm propped on the table and was using her hands to hold the leather. Her head was bent and her silky, glossy hair, more golden than any wheat field, fell lazily over her shoulder. As she used tweezers and wire, her fingers almost looked as if they were dancing.

  Again he turned his focus to the computer screen and the icons there, clicked on the accounting program and found the year he was looking for. But Kylie working silently less than five feet away was a distraction he couldn’t ignore.

  Out of the blue she asked, “What size turkey did you order?”

  “It’s big. I just told Vince Shafer to hold one for me. How long has he had the store on Bear Claw Road? He used to sell from his ranch.”

  Kylie had her lips pursed as she concentrated on slipping the bead onto the piece of rawhide. “Mmm, about three years, I guess. It’s only been the last one or two he’s gone organic with some of the vegetables. I like that idea, especially now that I’m pregnant.” Her gaze came up to meet Brock’s and he saw there hopes and dreams and longings that twisted in his chest.

  She broke eye contact first and went back to her beadwork.

  “How did Alex feel about being a father-to-be?” Brock asked nonchalantly, though he was feeling anything but nonchalant.

  She took her time in answering. When she did, it was evasive. “He was getting used to the idea.”

  “My guess is, he did want a son so he’d be able to teach him all the secrets of bull riding.”

  After a moment, Kylie responded, “We never really discussed that.” Then she stood. “I think I am going to take that nap. This position’s hurting my shoulder and…and I don’t want to make it worse than it is.”

  When she walked to the door, Brock thought she was as graceful as ever, pregnant or not.

  Then she was gone, just like that, leaving him with too many questions.

  He was going to find the answers…and soon.

  Chapter Three

  “Don’t even think about it,” Brock’s deep voice warned from behind Kylie’s shoulder.

  Thanksgiving morning, coming downstairs and hearing the first floor quiet, Kylie had assumed Brock was outside. He hadn’t been around the house much the past couple of days as he helped Dix catch up on chores. She’d gone to the front door, opened it and looked longingly at the barn. That’s where she wanted to be.

  “I didn’t know you were in the house,” she replied softly, turning to face him.

  “I was washing up. I have an eighteen-pound turkey to wrestle. Remember?”

  “I suppose we’d better get it into the oven or it’ll never cook through.”

  “We?” he asked with an arched brow.

  “Do you know how to make stuffing?”

  “You’ve got a point. I suppose you could oversee and tell me how to do it.”

  “I know Dr. Marco said to rest for two weeks. But I can’t be inactive that long. And I have to get back to work at the temp agency.”

  “At the end of two weeks, maybe you can think about work.” He dropped an arm around her shoulders. “You have to learn how to take vacations.”

  “I’ve never had a vacation.”

  When she looked up at him, their gazes locked. His arm was strong and muscled and protective. If he’d meant the gesture to be brotherly, it had failed. She could catch the scent of the soap he’d used from the downstairs bathroom. But he still smelled like hay, too, and a frosty morning. All too easily she got caught up in the moment, forgetting who he was, who she was and why he was here.

  He must have remembered. Dropping his arm from around her, he headed to the kitchen. “Tell me what to do first.”

  She could do that. Or she could clear the air. He was pulling out a chair for her by the kitchen table, but she needed to be on her feet for the next few minutes. “I don’t want you to feel responsible for me.”

  “I am responsible for you. You’re my brother’s wife.”

  Was that really the way he thought about her? “I have the Warner name. You have an interest in this ranch if I sell it. But you are not responsible for my well-being.”

  The lines on his forehead deepened as the nerve in his jaw worked. Finally he asked, “Why don’t you want me here, Kylie, when you so obviously need help? Is it because you think Jack wouldn’t approve?”

  “Of course not! Jack had no right, ever, to treat you the way he did. He had no right to make you feel as if you should be on the reservation with your mother. He had no right to favor Alex over you.” She’d never talked about Jack to Brock this way before, never put all of it into words, and she saw a surprise in his eyes now, as if he believed she hadn’t known the depth of what Jack Warner had done to him. How he’d made a small boy feel as if he didn’t belong. How he’d pretended Alex was a prince and Brock could leave tomorrow and not be missed.

  “And just how would you know about any of that? When you came to live here, I was in college.”

  “Alex and
I went to school together. We were friends. From things he said, I knew what was going on. So did lots of people in town. Wild Horse Junction isn’t that big, and Jack was important enough that people talked.”

  Turning away from her toward the window and the expanse of sugar beet fields and grazing land, he asked, “Why do you think I left?”

  “Because your father favored Alex,” she answered honestly.

  “No. I left because I wanted a life of my own.”

  “You don’t want to be here now.” She knew that as well as she knew she never wanted to leave.

  His expression became unreadable and he wore the stoicism that was so much a part of him. It hid thoughts and feelings and reactions he didn’t want anybody else to see. “Whether I want to be here or not isn’t the issue. As you said, I have an interest in Saddle Ridge, and I don’t want to see it fall into ruin.”

  “Ruin? That’s not what’s happening. Once this baby’s born—”

  “What? You’ll train horses day and night? And suddenly all the repairs will be made? The herd will be built up? You’ll establish Saddle Ridge’s name again?”

  Her cheeks were hot, and she felt his questions were a personal attack. “Saddle Ridge already has an established name.”

  “No, not anymore, and I wonder why that is. Haven’t you been schooling horses as long as you’ve been here? What suddenly happened?”

  What had happened? She’d analyzed the past five years over and over again.

  As if Brock were trying to figure it out, he continued. “Alex was technically good at training cutting horses, even if he didn’t have your gift. With the two of you taking clients, breeding stock—” He sliced his arm through the air. “You only have four horses in the barn now. What happened?” he asked again.

  She’d never been less than honest with Brock, but she didn’t know how to be honest about this. In spite of how Jack had treated them both, Brock had loved Alex, and she knew he was grieving as deeply as she was. But for her, there were other losses thrown in. There was so much more than grief, and she didn’t know how to explain any of that. Not without disillusioning Brock. Not without making him more bitter than he already was.

  “You might as well tell me, Kylie. I’ll figure it out when I get to the last year or two’s expenses.”

  She looked into his bottomless, dark, dark brown eyes, felt the twittering in her belly that wasn’t the baby moving and realized her heart was pounding because just being around Brock always did that. Complete silence in the house intensified the tension until it was broken by the wind whistling against the kitchen window.

  “It’s Thanksgiving, Brock. Can we just enjoy the day without getting into everything?”

  Still wearing that cut-in-stone face, a masculine mix of Apache and Anglo, he asked, “Have you become a procrastinator?”

  “Maybe I have in some ways. Sometimes reality’s easier to face tomorrow.”

  “What matters is what you do with today.”

  She gave him her best and brightest smile. “My point exactly. Today I want to stuff a turkey, enjoy the aroma of it cooking, call my mom to wish her a happy holiday, light a fire in the fireplace and think about how my life’s going to change with a baby. I don’t like confinement, but I’ll make the best of it. How about you? How do you want to spend the day?”

  She caught a flicker of emotion in his eyes, but it was gone quickly.

  “Once we get the bird in the oven, I’m going to exercise the horses and spend a little time with your mustang. We both know, for ranchers, holidays are pretty much like any other day.”

  “Is Dix going to join us for dinner?”

  “No. He said thanks for asking, but after he’s finished in the barn, he’s heading out to Cody. A friend there invited him to an all-afternoon-and-evening poker party. So it’ll just be you and me.”

  She wanted to ask him how he felt about that. If he’d rather be anyplace else than here. But that would back him into a corner. He wouldn’t want to hurt her feelings, yet knowing Brock, he’d be honest. She didn’t want to face that honesty today.

  As if proving her point, his gaze fell to her stomach and the baby she was carrying—Alex’s child. “I saw the cradle in the bedroom upstairs. Jack had Pete Monroe make it before Alex was born.”

  “You remember that?”

  “I remember a man built like Paul Bunyan hauling it in here. I remember Jack telling him ‘that’s for my son.’”

  There was no evidence now of the boy Brock had been. He’d learned to hide vulnerability. He’d learned to protect himself against his father’s lack of respect and attention. But Jack’s indifference to Brock had left its mark.

  “It’s only right Alex’s baby should sleep in it,” he went on. “I saw you made a cover for the top of the dresser.”

  “It’s padded. I’m going to use that for a changing table. Dix put the bed in the storage barn for me.”

  “Did you make the decorations on the walls?”

  She’d hung one of her smaller quilts in pink, blue and white on the one wall. On the other, she’d arranged a set of nursery rhyme prints that had been a shower gift. “I made the quilt, but a little friend of mine who took riding lessons from me gave me the prints. You’ll meet her tomorrow. Her mom’s bringing her out for a little while since she doesn’t have school.”

  “How old is she?”

  “Molly’s ten. She’s a great kid. She loves horses almost as much as I do.”

  “I probably won’t be around. I told Dix I’d pick up supplies he needs in town.”

  Brock was taking care of business, putting Saddle Ridge on the road to recovery. She realized she longed for more. She wanted him to meet Molly and…

  Get really involved in your personal life? What will that prove when he’s going to leave again? She didn’t know.

  As Brock took the loaf of bread from the back of the counter to start the filling, she wished she knew what part she wanted Brock to play in her life…in her baby’s life.

  “Gwen makes a great apple pie,” Kylie said lightly after she’d finished her last bite.

  She and Brock were sitting on the sofa, eating dessert in front of the fire. She’d tried to keep dinner light, the conversation light, the mood light. They’d been okay as long as they’d talked about Dix or horses. But when their gazes collided, their elbows brushed or their fingers tangled as they reached for the bowl of stuffing at the same time, Kylie knew nothing between her and Brock was light. She was so aware of him beside her, the muscled leanness of his body, his broad shoulders in his denim shirt.

  “I’d better put another log on the fire.” He’d finished his pie before she had and set the dish on the coffee table. Crossing to the native rock fireplace, he took a log from the fireside basket, moved the fire screen and then settled it into place. With the wrought iron poker he positioned it just right. The flames flared, rose higher and scattered around the log.

  Her gaze moved to Brock’s back, the fit of his jeans as he crouched, the clean cut of his hair at his nape. She couldn’t help making comparisons between him and Alex. She knew it was wrong. She knew she shouldn’t be doing it. Maybe her heart was beating faster every time she looked at Brock because Alex had hurt her so badly.

  Never a femme fatale, she didn’t have wiles and she didn’t play games. Had she been boring to her husband? Had she simply been convenient? Had she been useful? A hard worker? Someone he could count on but not be loyal to? Had she been an absolute fool?

  With Brock she felt different from the woman she’d been with Alex. There was something in Brock’s eyes when he looked at her that made some of the hurt she was feeling a little less painful.

  Yet maybe that’s what she just wanted to see. Maybe that’s what she needed to see.

  “When I called my mother, she said she’s sending me a Christmas package for the baby,” Kylie commented.

  “Had you called her after you were in the accident?”

  “No. I didn’t want to worry
her. I told her about it today, though.”

  “Did she want you to go to Colorado?”

  “She’s always wanted me to go to Colorado. But I could never live in the city with her and Aunt Marian.”

  “Does she still work in a department store?”

  “Yep. They both do. They share a condo and expenses, and they seem content. My mother was never cut out to be a rancher’s wife. I do think she loved my dad, though. When he was diagnosed with lung cancer she talked about coming out here to help me take care of him, and I really think she would have. But then he caught pneumonia, and well, it was too late. I think she always regretted not having a chance to say a last goodbye.”

  Since she didn’t want to go into last goodbyes and what had happened when she and Alex had said theirs, she asked, “How about your mom? How is she?”

  “I’ve tried to convince her to move off the reservation to Houston so she’s closer to me. But she says she wants no part of Houston. I don’t think it’s the city so much as she’s afraid to leave what she knows, even if she could have a better life somewhere else.”

  “She makes jewelry, doesn’t she?”

  “Yes, she does. She works mostly with silver. She’d love all your beads upstairs.”

  Kylie had never met Brock’s mother. Conchita Vasco Warner had been long gone from Saddle Ridge when Kylie had started school with Alex.

  Replacing the fire screen and the poker, Brock sat on the sofa again, and somehow ended up a little closer to her than before. Her arm brushed his, and she looked up at him, planning to say something. Anything. But instead, the depths of his eyes wiped every thought from her head.

  “You look pretty today.” His voice was low and husky.

  She’d sewn the maternity top herself. It was a pink knit fabric with long sleeves and a round neckline. She’d worn it with her expandable jeans. “I’m not sure how you can find me pretty when I’m this fat.”

  His protest was quick in coming. “You’re not fat. That’s all baby. And you’ve got a glow about you.” As if he couldn’t help himself, he ran his thumb over her cheekbone.