The Bull Rider's Baby Bombshell

by Amanda Renee

  When he had stood in the church earlier, he envisioned Audra, Hadley and Mackenzie’s christening. Who would be their godparents? He assumed Jade, but who else? And why was he jealous of a man he didn’t even know. Did Liv even plan on having them christened? Maybe they had been already. As much as he wanted to know the answers, he knew he had no right to them. And that stung. His brain wanted him to admit that Jade was doing the right thing by keeping him away, but his heart told him otherwise.

  “Okay.” Harlan wrapped an arm around Wes’s shoulder and steered him away from the other christening guests mingling around the Silver Bells Ranch. “It’s time you tell me what’s really going on.”

  “What are you talking about?” Wes attempted to shrug him off, but his brother refused to lessen his grip.

  “For starters, you showed up without a date. You rarely come to dinner without one, let alone a big event. And something seemed off with that whole car seat situation yesterday.”

  And here Wes had thought his brother would commend him for putting the children’s safety first. “I told you the truth. Liv’s sister is here watching the kids.”

  “I get that. But why isn’t Jade using Liv’s car and where is Liv anyway?”

  Wes faced his brother. “Look, if I tell you, I don’t want it to go any further. Not that it won’t be public knowledge at some point anyway. For now, I’d appreciate you keeping this quiet.”

  For the next half hour, Wes explained the circumstances surrounding Liv’s disappearance, conveniently leaving out his role in the triplets’ parentage. “And because of my friendship with Liv, Jade asked me for some help. Now that she knows her sister is safe, she’s trying to make the best of a very difficult situation. I’m here, so I agreed to pitch in whenever she needs me.”

  “After Molly walked out on me and Ivy, I had questioned if she had postpartum depression and if I had missed it.”

  “Wasn’t Ivy a year old?”

  “If untreated, it can manifest into other disorders. When Molly finally returned, she told me how unhappy she had been in our marriage and that she hadn’t been prepared to have a child. To this day I still wonder if PPD played a part in her disappearance. And she had disappeared just like Liv. Only Molly was gone for years. Liv had the sense of mind to get help.”

  “But Molly’s fine now, right?” Ivy’s mother had popped back into their lives last year shortly after Harlan and Belle’s wedding. Liv’s baby drama had just begun to grab hold of Wes at the time and he had selfishly ignored what was going on in everybody else’s lives.

  “Molly’s great. Her relationship with Ivy is still strained, but she missed seven years of her daughter’s life. It’s a work in progress. And I can’t say for sure that she had PPD. I don’t think she could, either. But I can tell you Liv is not alone. I’ve gone on more than a few calls relating to the baby blues as some people ignorantly refer to them. The baby blues and postpartum depression are two different things.”

  “I saw that mentioned on a few websites too. I watched the girls alone for a few hours when Jade met with the attorney yesterday, and it was overwhelming to say the least.”

  “I think it’s hard for people who’ve never carried a child—both men and women—to understand all the changes a woman’s body goes through postpregnancy. Physical and emotional. Personally, I find the entire process fascinating and beautiful. Granted, I haven’t always felt that way. I made a point to be home for a month after Travis was born so I have a better appreciation for it this time around. I can thank Molly for that.”

  “I didn’t realize you and your ex had become such good friends.” Wes hated the growing distance between him and his brothers. He and Harlan especially. Wes was a little less than a year older and they’d always been close. But ever since Ryder accidentally killed their father, he’d found it next to impossible to escape their family’s dysfunctional past. His brothers’ memories differed widely from his because they’d either chosen to ignore it or they’d been that oblivious. Ryder had understood. Until the night he’d made the Slade family the talk of the town. Now that distance seemed impossible to close.

  “I don’t think Molly and I will ever be good friends.” Harlan laughed. “Let’s just say we have a newfound respect for one another. She pointed out how absent I had been when she had Ivy. Liv carried triplets, almost to term if memory serves me correctly. Her body alone had a lot to recover from. It’s too bad she didn’t have a partner supporting her through all of this. Kevin would have made a great dad if he hadn’t turned out to be such a jackass.”

  “She definitely loved him.” Wes grabbed two beers from an ice-filled horse trough and handed Harlan one.

  “He loved her, just not enough.” Harlan twisted the cap off his beer. “He’s getting married sometime next month.”

  “You’re kidding.” Wes had only been gone for six months and the Kevin he knew had been loving the single life when he ran into him on New Year’s Eve. “To who?”

  “Some woman from Kalispell. I haven’t met her personally, but I hear she’s nice. She has a couple kids from a previous marriage.”

  Wes froze, the bottle halfway to his mouth. “Wait a minute. That SOB divorced Liv because he didn’t want to raise another man’s kid and he’s marrying someone with kids?” Wes had to tell Jade.

  “Yep.” Harlan took a long tug of his beer. “In all fairness to Kevin, I think there’s a difference between watching your wife carry and give birth to a stranger’s child versus coming into the picture years after the fact.”

  “Still, that had to have hit Liv hard. You wouldn’t happen to know when they got engaged, do you?”

  Harlan removed his hat and wiped his brow with the back of his arm. “Not sure, but I received the wedding invite probably a month ago. I’m surprised you didn’t get one. They just about invited the entire town. I think it’s still in the envelope it came in. I can check the postmark when I get home. You think this was a trigger, don’t you?”

  “Amongst other things.” Wes had read the risk for postpartum depression increased when the woman had a weak support system, had difficulty in breast-feeding, relationship problems and stressful events in their life. Those are just the things Wes knew Liv had battled. He loved his friend dearly, but she wasn’t ready to be a single parent. And certainly not a single parent of three children. He should have said no. “Excuse me for a second while I call Jade and fill her in.”

  “Fine, but don’t run off somewhere tonight.” Harlan clapped him on the back. “We have a lot of celebrating to do and you’re a part of it. You’ve been gone for too long. It hasn’t been the same around here without you.”

  Wes’s head started to pound with guilt. He doubted Dylan or Garrett would take the time to visit him in Texas. He could already hear the excuses about how they were too busy running Silver Bells. Even though Harlan had stuck his head in the sand right beside their brothers, he desperately tried to keep what was left of their family together. Surely Harlan, Belle and the kids would spend the holidays with him in Texas. Of course, it wouldn’t be every year, but maybe every other one. Despite the past, his chest ached, already longing for the family events he’d miss.

  “I didn’t want to say anything earlier in front of Dylan and Garrett because I was afraid it would start an argument, but where’s Mom?” She hadn’t visited after either of Holly’s or Travis’s birth and now she’d missed the christenings. “This is the first time in years that all of us are together and she can’t drag herself away from her new family and precious California to see us. Ryder killed Dad. Why is she punishing us?”

  Wes competed in the Golden State a few times a year, and during the rare times his mother made an appearance at one of his events, she brought along her new husband and his adult children. What should have been a nice visit always turned into Wes feeling like an outsider with his own mother.

  “We asked her to come and Dylan
sent her a wedding invite. She responded tentatively. Considering she missed this weekend, I’d wager a guess that she’ll miss the wedding next Saturday.” Harlan turned away and watched Belle sitting under one of the ranch’s shade trees breast-feeding Travis. She caught his gaze and smiled. Their love for one another radiated across the pasture. Wes had been so hell-bent on never getting himself tied down, that he hadn’t given much thought to the sweeter side of marriage. He’d never even come close to that level of commitment with anyone.

  “You’re a lucky man.” Jade’s face clouded his vision. No! Jade would not become the first, either. He took a swig of beer. “Let me make this call and I’ll catch up with you in a minute.”

  “Sure thing.” Harlan’s eyes remained transfixed on Belle as he hopped the top fence rail and walked toward his wife and baby. A love like that was rare. Just because three of his brothers had stumbled upon it over the past year didn’t mean anything. They were meant to be family men. He wasn’t.

  He pulled Jade’s number up on his phone and tapped the Call button, praying she’d shoot him straight to voice mail.

  “Hello?” Her voice, sultry and deep, reverberated in his ear. Good Lord! One word, two syllables and he was already a goner.

  “It’s Wes. I’m sure you’re busy, but I had to tell you what I just heard about Kevin.”

  “Kevin? As in my sister’s Kevin?”

  “As in someone else’s Kevin. He’s getting remarried. The invites went out about a month ago.”

  Jade sighed through the phone. “That had to have stung. I wonder why Maddie didn’t mention it.”

  “Maddie moved to town after the divorce. She doesn’t know Kevin and I doubt Liv would have mentioned the wedding to her.”

  “I wish she had confided in me.”

  “If I hadn’t left, I’m positive she’d have told me.” Wes chose his next words carefully, not wanting Jade to feel bad about her strained relationship with Liv. “The circumstances surrounding my friendship with your sister leant itself to many all-night discussions about her ex and my family. I moved away, but I should have stayed in contact with her. I own that. That being said, I think this goes beyond Kevin getting married again. His fiancée has kids, so—”

  “That jerk!” Jade shouted into the phone. “So he’ll be their stepfather.”

  “You see where I’m going with this, right?”

  “My poor sister. She battled everything silently. I shouldn’t be surprised. She always has.”

  “What do you mean?” Once again, the Liv who’d been his friend for almost five years and Jade’s version of the same woman were two very different people. She’d been raw and honest, and their talks had been extremely therapeutic and cathartic. If something had bothered her, she’d told him.

  “We bounced around a lot when we were kids. Whenever our mom got out of jail and claimed us—” Jade snorted “—as if we were a piece of luggage, Liv became the parent. Constantly babysitting Mom and trying to keep us safe. Between cleaning up drug paraphernalia and hiding our mother’s own money so she couldn’t blow it all, she took the brunt of the abuse. But I never heard her complain. Not once.”

  “No child should ever be subjected to that.”

  “Just like no teenager should have endured the teasing you did because of me. I didn’t want to do this over the phone, but I can’t wait any longer to apologize to you. I’m sorry.”

  “That’s it? That’s all you have to say?” Wes turned away from prying eyes and walked toward the stables as he fought to keep his voice low despite the resentment bubbling beneath the surface. “I understand your grudge against me and I admit, I was wrong to do what I did. But, sweetheart, what you did was a lot more than teasing. You telling everyone I was gay not only got me beat up at school, it followed me on the rodeo circuit and home. Dammit!” Wes tripped and caught himself before he hit the ground. He couldn’t walk as fast as he wanted to run. Hell, he wanted to fly far and fast. He unlatched the tack room door and swung it wide. Cradling his phone between his chin and shoulder, he grabbed a saddle and blanket off the wall racks.

  “Wes, I—”

  “My father looked at me with disgust.” Wes interrupted whatever excuse she had in her arsenal. He had to finally tell her how she’d ruined his life. “I won’t repeat some of the names he called me, but your little game incited fights at home. Not only between me and my dad. But between my parents because my mom defended me. My dad could be a loving man, but he could also be a bigot. You have no idea what that did to us. What you did to us.”

  “I didn’t—” Jade swore under her breath. “I never told anyone you were gay.”

  “The hell you didn’t.”

  “Wes, please hear me out,” Jade pleaded.

  Wes held the phone from his ear, tempted to hang up.

  “Wes?”

  “Fine.” He had no idea what compelled him to give her a chance to explain, because there couldn’t possibly be any justification for her cruelty. “Go for it.”

  Jade sighed heavily. “I was labeled a slut after you told everyone we had slept together. After everything I’d been through, that really hurt. Here I was the new kid and I already had a reputation for something I didn’t do. One afternoon when I was changing for gym class a few girls started calling me names. I wasn’t going to take that, so I stood up for myself and I told them we never slept together, and that you had broken up with me because I wasn’t your type.”

  Wes scoffed. He didn’t even know what his type was back then. “That’s not what I heard.”

  “I know. One of the girls had twisted my words and inferred that I was saying you were gay. All I wanted to do was get out of that damn locker room, so I didn’t respond. By the end of class, the rumor had spread and instead of correcting it and telling everyone that wasn’t what I’d meant, I said nothing.” Her voice broke. “My silence perpetuated the rumor and for that I’m truly sorry. If I had known what was going on with you at home, I swear I would have been there telling your father it wasn’t true.”

  Tension eased from his jaw as the anger began to slip away. “Even after what I had done to you?”

  “Yes. No one deserves what you endured.” Her voice soft, barely above a whisper. “My assistant and truly my best friend, Tomás, is gay. He’s told me some horrific stories about how he’d been treated when people learned of his sexuality. I would never wish that on my worst enemy. I’m sorry. I realize that doesn’t mean much today, but, Wes, I am so sorry for not setting the record straight from the beginning.”

  For years, he had wanted to rip into Jade and tell her exactly how he felt. To force her to see how bullying affects not only the person being bullied, but everyone around them. While she was wrong to let the rumor get out of hand, he was just as much to blame. He’d lied and told one person they’d slept together, and she’d paid a steep price. If he’d kept his mouth shut and his pride at bay, she’d never have been in the position to defend herself and the escalation wouldn’t have happened. They’d both suffered greatly at the hands of the other.

  “Wes, are you still there?”

  He entered Bonsai’s stall, and rested his head against the quarter horse’s neck. The animal bobbed his head and nickered, welcoming the human contact.

  “Honestly, Jade, I get it. I know all too well how easy it is to lose control of a situation. I also need to accept my part in this. What was it we learned in physics class? For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. I don’t know if you’ll ever be able to forgive me. I certainly don’t expect it, but I—” Wes swallowed hard at the words he never thought he’d say. “I forgive you. I think we need to put our resentment aside and end this here.”

  Silence echoed through the phone for a long moment before she spoke. “End this? You make it sound like we won’t see you again.”

  “You made it very clear last night and earlier when I c
alled that I’m not needed. The girls are in very capable hands. But I wish you had come to this realization before you involved me in their lives. I can’t unsee what I’ve already seen. I can’t unfeel what’s already in my heart.”

  “You need to spend time with your family. I believe that even more now than I did before. And I’m sorry for getting you involved, but come on, Wes, we were already involved. Who else could I have turned to? You were the only person who knew everything.”

  “Almost everything. I didn’t know about you.”

  “And your reaction to the news was justified. You told me your initial connection to my sister was misery loves company. I can relate. I didn’t want to be alone. I wanted someone who understood. Someone in the same position I’m in. Maddie—” Jade lowered her voice to a whisper. “She’s a great help, but she doesn’t get it the way you do. I saw that you were struggling with this so I set you free. I don’t know what the right thing to do is.”

  “The right thing is to say goodbye.” Wes blinked away the moisture forming in his eyes as he smoothed the saddle blanket over Bonsai’s back. “It’s better this way.”

  “Wes—” Her voice was barely audible.

  “Goodbye, Jade.” Wes disconnected the call and turned off his phone before shoving it in his pocket. He lifted the saddle on the horse and tightened the cinch straps. Nothing cleared a man’s mind like being alone with his horse. And since his Tango was in Texas, his uncle’s beloved horse was the perfect stand in.