The Rancher's Surprise Baby

by Trish Milburn

  Movement at the entrance to the barn drew his attention, and he immediately realized he’d just cursed in front of his mom. “Sorry. I didn’t realize you were standing there.”

  “Honey, it’s not the first time I’ve heard bad words, and I’m certain it won’t be the last.”

  “Am I getting my mouth washed out with soap?”

  “I think you’re a bit too big for me to manage that now, don’t you?” She moved closer to where he stood. “But I would like to talk to you.”

  It didn’t take a genius to figure out why. “I’m sorry if I’ve been surly lately.”

  “Honey, you haven’t been surly. You’ve been miserable.”

  That wouldn’t have been the word he used, but he realized that she was right. Life had been going pretty darn well until Christine had waltzed back in. Even though he hadn’t seen or heard from her in the week since that day she’d turned up at the ranch, he couldn’t rid himself of the lingering anger that she’d thought he’d want to see her or hear one word she had to say.

  And, damn it, he missed Mandy. He felt lower than low with how he’d handled things so far, either avoiding her calls or making excuses about why he couldn’t meet up. He wondered if she’d caught on yet that he was brushing her off. Probably, considering he hadn’t heard from her since yesterday. He really owed her an in-person explanation, but would that make things easier or harder for her? For him, he knew the answer. If he saw her, he’d want to pull her close. But to truly protect her and the dream she’d had her entire life, he had to let her go.

  “I know you’re not going to like what I have to say,” his mom said. “But I think you should make peace with your mother.”

  “You’re my mother.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “No, I don’t. Because it sounds as if you want me to make nice with a woman who thought it was a great idea to burn me repeatedly. And I have the scars to prove it.” He couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

  “You were enjoying life, enjoying spending time with Mandy until your mother showed up.”

  “Don’t call her that.”

  His mom hesitated a moment, giving him an assessing look, before she nodded. “Fine—Christine. You’re allowing your past to dictate your future. You’re angry at Christine and miserable without Mandy.”

  Nothing escaped his mom’s notice.

  “There’s a way to fix both of those things.”

  “I fail to see how.”

  “You need to talk with Christine. Both of you need to get out everything you want to say so you can move on.”

  “How can you say that? You know what she did.”

  “I do, and the mother in me, who loves you, wants to smack her—not going to lie. But I see how what she did when you were a little boy still eats at you, how it’s made you feel as if you can’t get close to anyone even when you find someone who is perfect for you.”

  “You’re reading more into things than are there. Mandy and I... It was just casual dating, no strings.”

  “Bull.”

  Ben looked at his mom in surprise, at the certainty and strength of her single-word response.

  “You care about her a lot, maybe even love her,” she said. “And there’s no sense denying it because I’ve got two perfectly good eyes thanks to these bifocals.”

  “She deserves better than me.”

  His mom shook her head. “Son, I don’t know where you get these ideas. I couldn’t imagine that girl finding a finer man.”

  She didn’t understand. How could she?

  “But you do need to deal with your past before you stop avoiding Mandy like you have been the past week. And yes, I’ve noticed. We all have. You’ve been as prickly as a field of cacti.”

  “There’s nothing that woman can say that will change the past.”

  “No, but maybe just by telling her all the things you’ve held bottled up inside all these years, you can finally move forward and stop living your life with a level of detachment. It’s not healthy, and you’ll never truly be happy.” She walked forward and took his injured hand in her own. “I’ll stop talking now except to say you need to go clean this and put some antibiotic cream on it.”

  Despite the topic she’d come out here to broach, he smiled at the last thing she said. That was his mom, the fixer of scraped knees and fingers, the dispenser of no-nonsense advice.

  Except the idea of seeking out Christine didn’t make any sense to him, none at all. But neither did the fact that he couldn’t go five minutes without thinking about Mandy. Damn it, not one thing in his life made sense anymore.

  * * *

  MANDY LET THE cool water of the creek run over her bare feet, wishing that the flow would carry away all the heartache that had built inside her over the course of the past week. Though she hadn’t wanted to admit it at first, she could no longer deny that Ben wasn’t just busy. He was actively avoiding her, evidently done with her and what they’d shared. The irony was that he didn’t even know she was pregnant yet.

  And she was done trying to reach him so she could tell him.

  The sound of an approaching vehicle made her heart leap, tempting her to believe she was wrong, until she realized it didn’t sound like a pickup. Instead, her mom’s car rolled into view. Even so, Mandy couldn’t work up the energy to move from her little spot in the shade.

  “Well, that looks like a good idea,” her mom said as she walked down the slight incline to the creek.

  “Yeah, I think we should install a creek in the shop so we can soak our feet in between customers.”

  Her mom smiled at that as she slipped off her own shoes and sank down beside Mandy. “Hope you don’t mind me coming by unannounced.”

  “When have I ever minded that?”

  “Well, I didn’t want to interrupt if you had company.”

  The way her mom said it, Mandy could tell her mom had heard something and was fishing for information. “I’m guessing by saying that you knew Ben wouldn’t be here.”

  “I wondered. I had lunch with Diane today. She seems to be under the impression that you and Ben are no longer together.”

  “She’s right.”

  “What happened?”

  “I don’t know. You’d have to ask him.” She considered whether she should reveal the rest, but it wasn’t as if she could hide the truth forever. “I need to tell you something.”

  “You know you can tell me anything.”

  Mandy stared at her feet with the water flowing over them. Would she have to do this in the months ahead to reduce swelling?

  “I’m pregnant.”

  “Oh, honey, that’s wonderful.”

  Mandy looked up at her mom’s unexpected response.

  “Don’t look so surprised. You’ve always wanted children, and I’m thrilled at the idea of being a grandmother.”

  Mandy shook her head. “I didn’t want to do it this way. I had it all figured out. I’d meet a great guy, fall in love, get married and have a wonderful family. You’d have so many grandchildren you’d have a hard time spoiling them all.”

  “Sweetheart, there is still time for all of that.”

  “You missed the part where there’s a great guy in the picture.”

  “Ben’s a great guy.”

  “And we’re no longer together.”

  The expression on her mom’s face changed, darkened. “He doesn’t know about the baby, does he?”

  “No, but it doesn’t matter.”

  “Of course it matters. He’s going to be a father.”

  “It didn’t matter to Dad.” Mandy felt awful as soon as she said it. She started to apologize, but her mom stopped her.

  “You’re right. Your dad was not cut out for fatherhood, but Ben is not your father.”<
br />
  Mandy turned toward her mom. “Even if Ben wanted to be a father, I wouldn’t use this to trap him in a relationship he obviously doesn’t want to be in.”

  “I think you should at least tell him, talk about it.”

  “I’ve tried, but I’m not going to beg for it. I’ll be fine. You proved that single mothers can be awesome, that they don’t need a man to be able to raise a child well.” If she couldn’t have the man she loved, then she would pour all the love she had to give into being a mother. It would be enough. It had to be.

  Her mom looked as if she wanted to say more, but instead she gripped Mandy’s hand and smiled.

  “You will be a wonderful mother. And we’ll make it work.”

  “No.” She had to make sure her mother didn’t use this pregnancy as an excuse to go back to working another job. “This is not your responsibility. It’s mine, and mine alone.”

  “It is no such thing.”

  “Mom, I just got you to lighten your load. I don’t want you to feel like this is another burden you have to bear.”

  “First of all, you were never a burden. You’ve been the joy of my life. And I would never assume you couldn’t provide for your little one. But I fully intend to shower him or her with love, and if you deprive me of the occasional babysitting duty, I’ll never forgive you. It’s been a long time since I’ve been able to snuggle a baby and breathe in that sweet baby smell.”

  Mandy smiled. “I’m sure there were times I didn’t smell so good.”

  “Well, that’s true. I don’t care how cute a baby is, poopy diapers never smell like roses.”

  That made Mandy laugh, something she hadn’t been able to do in days.

  “Things will work out like they’re supposed to,” her mom said.

  Maybe that was true, but Mandy couldn’t help wishing that Ben could have been a part of that picture of the future.

  * * *

  BEN WAS CONVINCED he was never going to get another decent night’s sleep again, and that was entirely his fault. It sure felt as if he was being punished and he deserved it. He’d told his mom that Mandy deserved someone better than him, and he’d proved that by the way he’d ended things with her. He needed to make that right, but his mom might also be right that he first needed to face the thing he’d been running from his entire life.

  He rubbed his burning eyes as he drove toward the far edge of Austin where he was supposed to meet Christine at a public park. He hadn’t thought meeting in a restaurant a good idea because some of the things he had to say...well, no one else needed to hear them. And he flat-out refused to meet her at home when he found out she still lived in the same place where he’d lived as a child. There was only so far he was willing to go to face the past.

  As he pulled into the parking area, he thought about turning around and leaving. He still wasn’t convinced that this meeting was going to make any difference. It certainly wasn’t going to change his bloodline or the scars on his body. But damn if his mom’s words about confronting the past before he could move forward hadn’t burrowed so far into his mind that they refused to let him rest. So he’d do this, and then he’d apologize properly to Mandy and wish her all the best. And then he would put one foot in front of the other as he walked away for good, trying not to think about how much he missed her. Why did doing the right thing have to hurt so damn much?

  He spotted Christine’s car several spaces away and forced himself to get out of the truck. He’d swear his scars burned as he walked along the sidewalk into the heart of the park. Damn if he didn’t have to remind himself he was a grown man now. He didn’t have to fear this woman. She could no longer harm him. Even so, when he caught sight of her, he stopped in his tracks and once again considered leaving.

  No, he’d come this far. Whatever the result, he was going through with this. As he drew close, he noticed something he hadn’t when she came to the ranch. He’d been too angry to notice. She was pale, thin, didn’t look well at all. It was the look of someone who’d lived hard.

  When she spotted him, she started to stand but some instinct made him motion that it wasn’t necessary. Even so, he didn’t sit beside her. He walked to the opposite side of the pathway and leaned back against a bicycle rack.

  “Thank you for coming,” she said. “I was surprised to hear from you.”

  “No more than I was that I called.”

  She looked down at her hands, and he noticed how wrinkled they were. The only memories he had of her were cruel ones, but in them she was so much younger.

  “Now that you’re here I don’t know where to start,” she said.

  “How about why you burned a defenseless child.”

  Her body jerked as if she’d been the one made to feel the lit end of a cigarette.

  “We were drunk or high, maybe both. It’s not an excuse, just a fact. We had no business having a child, but we did.”

  She was right about that, but for some reason he didn’t say that out loud.

  “I know nothing I say will make things right. I don’t deserve forgiveness. But I’m telling the truth when I say I’m sorry and wish I could go back and do things differently. If you continue to hate me, I understand and don’t blame you. Believe me, I hate myself, too. Always will.”

  He thought he should find some satisfaction in her self-flagellation, but he didn’t. He just found it sad, a waste of a life that could have been so different.

  “Why are you the only one here trying to make amends? I didn’t get these scars on my body just from you.”

  “Your father died five years ago.”

  He didn’t love the man, had in fact spent most of his life actively hating him, and yet the news that he was dead made Ben feel...sick for some reason. Was it just because Ben could never confront him like he was Christine?

  “I wasn’t with him anymore. I had been working to get clean and sober, and he wanted no part of it. And it killed him. He was drunk when he drove through a barricade and off the end of an overpass that was being built. He injured a construction worker in the process.”

  That sounded about right for the man Ben had done his best to forget.

  He noticed how she would only glance up at him, unable or unwilling to maintain eye contact.

  “Did you ever think about me?” Why in the hell had he asked that? It was as if the question had formed in some corner of his brain he didn’t know existed.

  “Truthfully, not for a long time. I was too messed up. But I overdosed and nearly died. I know you may not believe me and that’s okay, but that changed me. I got help. It hasn’t been easy. I’m still tempted sometimes. But I work hard every day to not backslide into that life. When I got clean, it was the first time my mind was clear enough to even remember you. I wondered where you were, if you were with a good family. I knew anywhere had to be better than where you’d started.”

  Ben stared at her for several long moments, trying to figure out how he felt about her answer. No one liked to think their own mother never thought about them, but at least she was honest. How did someone even get to the point in her life where she was so messed up that she forgot she had a kid somewhere in the world?

  “I’ve had a good life, great parents,” he said. “Finally had a little luck on my side.”

  She continued to stare at her hands. “That’s good. I’m glad.”

  Part of him hated that he was giving her any sort of peace of mind, but then something shifted inside him and he suspected his mom had been right about him needing to face his birth mother and what had happened to him. He hadn’t truly realized it was a wound that had been festering his entire life, but all of a sudden it felt as if he’d finally applied some antibiotic and given it a chance to start healing. That a dark weight had begun to lift the smallest bit.

  “Is there anything you want to say?” Christine ask
ed.

  He thought of all the anger-filled things he’d said in his mind over the years, but none of them came out.

  “Why find me now?”

  She shrugged, but then she looked up at him fully for the first time. “I did wrong by you, so wrong that it makes me sick now. Even if it made no difference, I had to tell you I’m sorry. It’s as simple as that.”

  He wanted to stay angry, to continue to feel that ball of hatred deep inside him, but it suddenly seemed too damned exhausting to maintain. For some reason, he thought of Mandy’s attitude about her absent father. He knew the man’s leaving had made life harder for her and her mother, but they had made do. And Mandy wasn’t a prisoner of a lifetime of anger toward someone she didn’t even remember.

  “I don’t know if I’ll ever want to see you again,” he said.

  A sad smile of understanding accompanied her slight nod. “I know. I’m just glad to know you have a good life and are happy.”

  As he drove back toward Blue Falls, her words echoed in his head. And he realized she was wrong. He wasn’t happy, at least not totally. Christine might have done him wrong, but that didn’t excuse the way he’d treated Mandy.

  He pulled over on the side of the road and dialed her number. When his call went to voice mail, he shouldn’t have been surprised. If she’d dumped him without a word, he wouldn’t be quick to answer her call either.

  “Hey, Mandy. I’m sorry I haven’t called you back. I’d like to talk. Let me know when it’s convenient for you.”

  There was a part of him that wanted to say more, but that would only make things worse. So he ended the call but continued sitting on the side of the road for several minutes, hoping she’d call back. His phone stayed silent. He should have known better. He allowed his head to drop back against the seat’s headrest.

  What a day. What a hell of a day.

  * * *

  MANDY FINISHED THE transaction for a group of ladies from Boerne who were having a girls’ day out and had purchased an array of soaps and candles. She maintained her smile until they exited the shop even though she hadn’t felt much like smiling lately. It wasn’t helped by the fact that Ben had called and left several messages, and it had been harder than it should be to not call him back. In fact, she’d bet money that it was him causing the ringing of her phone right now.