Having convinced herself that her deep affection for Cash, his family and their friends had been a fleeting thing, she edged forward in the suddenly moving line. And when she thought she saw her husband out of the corner of her eye near a coffee stand, she chalked it up to exhaustion. Instead of admitting that in reality, her seeing him everywhere, in every face, was the desperate act of a woman praying her very own cowboy would ride in on his white horse and bring her to her senses.
Only problem with that scenario was that Cash not only didn’t own a white horse, but no matter how much she craved her own wildly romantic ending, she was grounded enough in reality to know her leaving was the right decision.
JUST TO THE LEFT OF TULSA International’s Starbucks, Cash tugged his best straw hat over his eyes. Had he not seen Wren taking his baby and his dog for himself, he might not have believed they were really leaving.
He wasn’t supposed to be driving and he sure as hell wasn’t supposed to be fawning over a woman who obviously loved her damned job more than him, but he couldn’t help it. Wren had gotten under his skin, and until he discovered a way to exorcise her from his system, he’d have to throw himself into his work. He’d have to push himself harder. Ride as if there was no tomorrow. Because without Wren and Robin and even little Prissy in his life, there might as well not even be a tomorrow.
Solely so she could be a big-city doctor, Wren had broken his heart. And from where he stood, he doubted all the fancy degreed doctors in the world would be able to fix it.
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN WREN’S gone?” Georgina stood with her hands on her hips in Cash’s home gym, staring at him as if he’d sprouted horns and a tail. “Like on a shopping trip to Tulsa?”
“No, Mom. Like in she moved back to Baltimore.” It’d been forty-eight hours since his bride had vacated the premises and as far as he was concerned, Cash preferred to never speak of her again.
“Why’d you let her go? She didn’t take Robin, did she? What about the dog? Even a runt dog like Prissy needs fresh air and plenty of country to roam around in.”
“Look…” He stopped his workout and grabbed a near by water bottle. “Long story short, she felt her work was more important than me—or the rest of her family and friends. End of story.”
“Well, what are you doing here?” his mom demand ed. “Go after her. Drag her back caveman-style if you have to, but get her back.”
He rolled his eyes.
“You think I’m kidding? Any fool could see the girl’s crazy about you. And no grandchild of mine needs to be growing up without her daddy.”
Easing up from his weight bench, Cash tossed a towel around his neck and limped to his gym’s door.
“Don’t ignore me, son. I’ve been on this earth a lot longer than you and recognize true love when I see it.”
Cash snorted. “You must need a new eyeglasses prescription, because where me and Wren are concerned, there never was much between us but lust.”
ONE MONTH LATER WREN SAT alone, save for Prissy, at a mahogany dining-room table large enough to seat twenty. Exhausting work hours had forced her to wean Robin so that the nanny Abigail had found could bottle-feed her.
It was ten at night, and she’d been home only fifteen minutes. Just long enough to peek in on her baby, grab a quick shower and scoop up her dog.
The housekeeper had informed her that Abigail and her significant other were at a fundraiser and not expected home until late. Mrs. Rodriguez had then warmed Wren a pasta-and-chicken dish that was too heavy on olive oil and garlic to suit her taste. What she could use was a big slice of Mrs. Cahwood’s meat loaf with sides of green beans and buttery mashed potatoes.
Wren offered Prissy, who occupied her lap, a pea-sized bite of chicken, but the dog took one whiff of the pretentious food and went back to sleep.
Picking out the tomatoes and nibbling on somewhat edible garlic toast, Wren wondered for the umpteenth time what she was doing with her life. She hadn’t want ed to be in research, but to heal people. Granted, because of her pregnancy she’d been forced out of her current year of residency, but might she have been better off staying at the ranch until July?
Living with Abigail, she’d managed to save enough money for her own place, but her friend had insisted she and the baby stay. After all, it wasn’t as if their paths crossed that often in the rambling estate.
She’d sent apology letters to Georgina and her friends. She’d also packed her mother-in-law’s Kewpie doll in a tissue-lined box, returning it with a note of thanks. So far she’d received only short, sharp notes from Mrs. Cahwood and Delores, imploring her to return home.
But had the ranch ever truly been her home? Had she ever in her life had a genuine home outside the fantasy image she carried in her mind?
The one where she wouldn’t have met Cash until she’d been well finished with her residency. The one where she certainly wouldn’t have had a child until she could afford to take off enough time to be with her.
As it was, what had Wren accomplished besides being lonely and bored with every aspect of her life, with nothing but memories of happier times?
“YOU EVER GOING TO GO get her?” Dallas asked Cash one early-spring afternoon when it seemed as if every blooming thing in the world was coming alive save for him. They’d been riding fences, and had yet to find one in need of repair. Cash figured his brother just wanted an excuse to not only get him out of the house, but nag his little brother. “If by her, you’re referring to my wife,” Cash said, “then nope.”
“Mom told me what a screwed-up childhood Wren had. Think she might need lessons on the meaning of love?”
Frowning, Cash asked, “Isn’t it a little early in the day for you to be hitting the bottle?”
“I’m serious. If I could have Bobbie Jo back for just a minute, I sure as hell wouldn’t waste it fighting. Your woman and child and even your dog are just a few states east. All you have to do is fly over there and get ’em.”
“Yup.” Cash spotted a loose place in the fence and reined in his mount to climb off and set about fixing it.
“Then why don’t you?” Already down from his horse, Dallas reached into his saddlebag for a hammer and nails.
“What don’t you get about the fact that she left me? My knee’s getting better by the day and I’m already in talks to head back out on the road. I’m a hot commodity and I’ll be damned if I let some woman determine my self-worth.”
“Been watching much of those daytime talk shows?” his brother asked with a chuckle. “You’re starting to sound like that Oprah.”
“Oh, yeah? Well, you sound like a pain in my ass.”
“I’M SORRY,” WREN’S supervisor said over the phone Thursday morning, “but with patient trials starting, I can’t spare you today.”
“My infant daughter has a 103-degree fever,” she explained. “I don’t feel comfortable leaving her with a nanny.”
Nathaniel cleared his throat. “I don’t mean to be rude, but isn’t that the whole point of hiring a nanny? So that parents don’t have to be inconvenienced by these things?”
“These things?” Wren tried slow breathing to keep from blowing her cool, but failed miserably. “We’re talking about my baby girl. As a doctor, didn’t you take an oath that warmth, sympathy and understanding may outweigh the surgeon’s knife or the chemist’s drug?”
“Pollyanna,” her boss said in a snide tone, “when you get a chance to fly back to reality, give me a call. Until then, consider yourself on probation.”
“Never mind,” Wren said. “I quit.” Pressing the off button on her cell, Wren should’ve been upset. But all she really felt was an enormous sense of relief.
Maybe she’d return to Baltimore to restart her residency in July or maybe not. One thing she was sure of was that when she did finally earn her license, she wouldn’t do it at the expense of her daughter.
Taking Robin from her crib, she dismissed the nanny for the day and then sat in a rocker in front of the nursery’s bay window.
Singing a soft lullaby, stroking her daughter’s downy hair, it occurred to Wren that this was the first time since leaving the ranch that the two of them had spent quality time together.
The fact not only shamed her, but empowered her.
For Wren’s entire life she’d searched for family. For a career that made her feel needed and whole. She couldn’t believe that once she’d finally found it all, she’d thrown it away. How many times had she sworn that when she had a child, she’d be different from her own parents? She’d never abandon him or her to be raised by strangers. But look what she’d gone and done. For all her certainty that returning to Baltimore was right for her, she’d never considered how incredibly wrong it was for Robin. In Weed Gulch her daughter had a father and doting grandmother and cousins and uncles. Living in this mausoleum, she had a full-time nanny and all the priceless objets d’art anyone could ever want. But when it came right down to it, this place wasn’t a real home any more than Wren’s orphanage.
Home had nothing to do with a roof, but the people residing under that roof. People who loved you and comforted you and made you feel whole. People like Cash—her husband. The man she loved with every breath in her body.
Wren might be highly educated, but when it came to common sense, she was sadly lacking.
Key word—was.
From here on out, no more putting work above family. Not only was she no longer afraid of giving her heart to others, but she’d found a new mission. One designed to win back the hearts of those whom she’d no doubt badly hurt.
Chapter Twenty
“As I live and breathe…” Delores held open her front door. “Get in here before all three of you catch your death of cold.”
“Thanks.” Teeth chattering, Robin and Prissy in her arms, Wren said, “I’d forgotten how Oklahoma wind can turn what would otherwise be a perfectly nice afternoon into a walk-in freezer.”
“You’ve got that right.” To the baby she said, “Look how she’s grown. When she sees her, Georgina’s going to bust with pride.”
Though it’d been only a little more than five weeks since Wren had been gone, it felt like a lifetime. Had she been as brave as she’d felt back in Baltimore, demanding Abigail sign her transfer forms, she would have gone to the ranch before stopping anywhere else. As it was, Wren needed to test the waters. Hear from a trusted source whether or not she was even still welcome at the place she used to call home.
After ten agonizingly long minutes of small talk, Delores finally got around to the important stuff. “Much as it flatters me to think you missed me bad enough that I’m the first one in Weed Gulch you’d want to visit, I suspect the real reason you haven’t yet been out to the ranch is you’re wanting the inside scoop on how Cash and the rest of your kin took your leaving.”
“H-how do you know I haven’t been to the ranch?”
“Girl, you forget, nobody comes down this road without me knowing.” Laughing and patting her thighs, she said, “How about you hand over that baby and then I’ll tell you everything you want to know.”
THIRTY MINUTES LATER Wren turned her powerful SUV, the first car she’d ever owned, down her home’s drive. It was funny how she loved the freedom of finally having her own vehicle but no longer cared for sleeping alone.
Since quitting, then telling Abigail that just because she believed Wren was well suited for being the next cardiac superstar didn’t mean that was the path she wanted to take, this was the first time she’d been without Robin or Prissy. Besides learning just how angry Cash was with her, Wren had also been in desperate need of Delores’s services as a sitter. Should Cash decide not to give her a second chance, she didn’t want their daughter witnessing the ugly scene.
As she approached the achingly familiar house, a knot formed in her throat she feared wouldn’t soon go away.
After parking and exiting the car, she added a light tremble and upset stomach to her body’s list of complaints.
She rang the doorbell, only to have no one answer.
A glance at her watch told her that by three in the afternoon, Mrs. Cahwood was long gone.
Worrying her lower lip, Wren looked to the barn, only to now lose all of her air. Exiting the corral was Cash in all his cowboy glory. Walking tall with no sign of a limp, he wore his favorite cowboy hat, a dust-covered white T-shirt, faded jeans and those damned chaps that had first landed her in trouble all the way back in Vegas.
Never had she seen a more handsome man—or one whose expression looked more thunderous.
Pulse racing to a degree she’d never dreamed possible, her mouth summer-drought dry, Wren raised her chin and continued walking toward her husband. She wanted to run. Toss her arms around him and never let go. But in leaving, she’d given up that right and didn’t blame him for his icy reception.
“Where’s my baby?” he asked, his jaw hard and his normally welcoming green eyes icy-cold.
“Safe and happy with Delores. Prissy’s there, too. If you don’t mind, I’d like a few minutes on our own, not being parents, but a couple.”
Gazing across rolling prairie, he said, “I’ve been thinking a lot about filing for divorce. If that’s why you’re here, I’d be the last person to stop you from making the death of our marriage official.”
It crushed her to know the man she’d finally realized she loved thought so poorly of her. But in the same respect, learning he hadn’t already taken it upon himself to draw up a legal separation was great news. That meant the door for reconciliation might not be wide open, but it also wasn’t padlocked shut.
Forcing a breath, she managed to whisper, “I’m not here to divorce you, Cash, but confess how much I love you.”
He tensed. “So help me, if this is some big-city game designed to trick me into signing over my legal rights to Robin, I’ll—”
Desperate to derail his negative train of thought, Wren used the only trick she knew. The one stemming from the sexual chemistry neither had ever been able to control.
Arms around his neck, she kissed him as if there was no tomorrow, because from where she stood, there might not be. She kissed him hard and softly and every way in between, not only hungry for his taste, but desperate for his understanding.
“I’m so sorry,” she murmured between kisses. “My leaving was the most harebrained thing I’ve ever done. I had to, though, to prove to myself what we shared was real. A thousand times more important than some residency at a prestigious hospital. I no longer even want prestigious, but meaningful. I want what Doc Haven has—not just patients, but friends. I’ve already made calls, and my former dean promised to put in a good recommendation for me with OU. If all goes well, I’ll start in Tulsa in July. It’ll still be rough, being apart from you for even days, but the end prize will mean I could set up a practice right here in Weed Gulch. I even bought an SUV for just that reason. So that even in bad weather I’ll be able to get to anyone who needs me.”
“Woman,” Cash noted, “you first showed up on my property talking a mile a minute and telling me how things were going to be. Well, hate to burst your bubble, but you wearing the pants in this relationship no longer works for me.”
Terrified he was on the verge of telling her to climb back into her car and drive on out of his life, her fingertips turned numb.
“At the airport, watching you go, I knew you were making a huge mistake, but—”
“You were there?” Hand over her mouth, eyes tearing, she said, “I knew I saw you, but I thought my imagination was playing tricks on me.”
“Oh…” He laughed. “I was there, all right, telling myself over and over about that old saying. You know the one? How if you love something, you have to set it free?”
Nodding and not bothering to hide her tears, she said, “If you’ll have me, Cash, I’m back, and wanting nothing more than to be your wife.”
“You just refuse to let me have the last word, don’t you?”
He tried looking stern, but his scowl transformed in to the grin that had never
failed to turn her tummy upside down. “Robin will always be welcome, but if I’m going to let you and your silly little dog back into my bed, there are going to be changes.”
“Whatever you’d like.” Dizzy with relief even though she still had Georgina’s wrath to face, Wren was more than willing to make a few concessions.
“First,” he said, holding her tight while kissing the crown of her head, “well, second after I get my hands on our gorgeous baby for a nice long hug, we’re going on a proper honeymoon. You teased me back in Vegas and then here, prancing around in your pregnant glory…”
Now she was laughing. “I would hardly call my blimp like shape glorious.”
“Trust me, it was. And I’ve been horny for you for months. Third, you ever so much as think about leaving me again, I want it in writing that I have permission to lasso you to the bed.”
“Done,” she said, warm and shivery at the thought of him once again having his cowboy way with her.
“Finally—and this one’s a biggie—you will have to tell me on a daily basis that I’m the most handsome man you’ve ever seen, ever hope to see and will ever see. Think that’s something you can manage?”
Laughing and crying at the same time, Wren wholeheartedly agreed.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-7642-4
THE BULL RIDER’S CHRISTMAS BABY
Copyright © 2010 by Laura Marie Altom
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario M3B 3K9, Canada.
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