“Aaaaah!” Krista screamed into her hands. “Don’t say that! It’s not his fault.”
“But it’s his baby.”
“Don’t say that, either.”
“That it’s his?”
“No. Baby. I’m still wrapping my head around pregnant.”
“One follows the other.” Jenny scooted closer and hugged Krista. “And you’re starting to sound pretty nuts. You know that, right? This isn’t the end of the world.” She tightened the hug. “You’re going to be a mommy!”
“Don’t say that, either. I’m not ready.”
“Sweetie, you’ve been ready since you were eight.” Jenny paused. “Okay, that sounded weird, but you know what I mean. You’re the most nurturing, patient person I know. And, come on”—she gave Krista a little shake—“Mom managed it, didn’t she? And she didn’t have the nurturing or patient parts going for her.”
“But she had Dad.”
“And you’ve got Wyatt.”
“No,” Krista said sadly. “I don’t.” Because that was the worst part of the shock—not just knowing that he absolutely didn’t want a family, but knowing that whatever happened next, the good times they had shared over the past couple of months were over.
“Give him a chance,” Jenny urged. “He’s in deeper than you think. I bet he’ll surprise you.”
“And do what? The last thing I want him to do is propose because he knocked me up!” Krista launched to her feet and paced the wide room, needing to move. “If being in a relationship for more than a couple of months makes him feel like he’s suffocating, what do you think this will do?”
“Make him man up?” Jenny suggested with a bit of an edge. “It seems to me that he’s pretty darn good at taking the path of least resistance, at least when it comes to relationships. You need to make him care enough to dig in his heels and fight for what he wants—like he’s doing with the sculpting.” A corner of her mouth kicked up. “And this is coming from the it takes one to know one department. For the longest time, it was more fun for me to keep moving than to stay put. Then I met Nick, and staying put became the fun part.”
“But you and Nick love each other.”
“So do you and Wyatt.”
“No.” Krista’s eyes were so dry they burned. “That wasn’t our deal.”
“So change the deal. Seems to me, you don’t have a choice. It’s not like you’re going to keep this a secret from him.” An eyebrow lifted. “Right?”
“No. I’ll tell him. I just . . . I need to think things through first.” Krista pressed a hand to her stomach, as nerves and nausea mixed with the discomfiting knowledge that she wasn’t alone in her body anymore. There was something growing in there that was going to change her life. More, it was depending on her to make the very best choices she ever had, starting now.
“Tell him,” Jenny urged. “Now. Tonight.”
“Maybe.” Not.
“I’m pushing. I’m sorry, I’ll back off. I’m just . . .” Her lips curved and her eyes went all soft. “You’re going to have a baby, Krissy. This is a good thing. Such a good thing.”
Something loosened inside Krista, letting her finally take a breath. “I know. It’s just . . .” Her voice climbed to a wail. “Why can’t anything except the business go according to plan? This isn’t the way it was supposed to happen! Mustang Ridge doesn’t do single parenting. And where the hell is my perfect guy? He should have been here by now!”
Jenny sat back. Blinked. “You had a plan?” Then she shook her head. “Of course you had a plan. What was I thinking?”
Krista pinched the bridge of her nose. “It’s stupid. I’m being stupid.”
“Maybe a little unrealistic. But you’ve had a pretty crazy day, so I’d say you can be excused. Maybe you should go home and turn your brain off for a while, if you can manage it. Or do you want to stay here? Nick should be home in a bit. We could watch a movie or two, and the pullout in the guest room doesn’t suck.”
“Don’t talk to me about pullouts,” Krista grumped. “Maybe we should’ve used that instead of condoms.”
Jenny snorted. “Science suggests otherwise, but I’m glad to see you’ve still got your sense of humor.”
“I’m going to head home,” Krista decided. “It feels too wimpy to hide out here.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Maybe I’ll make a plan. That seems to be a good way to ensure that the exact opposite happens.”
“Let me know if I can do anything.” Jenny hugged her tight. “I love you, kiddo. And remember, you’ve got a lot of people on your team.”
“I love you, too, sis.” But as Krista burrowed into Jenny’s embrace, the hollow ache inside her said she didn’t want a team—she wanted Wyatt. Problem was, she didn’t know how to make that happen without trapping him . . . and if she did that, sooner or later, he would hate her.
*
Wyatt had just treated himself to a beer and Klepto to a couple of slices of turkey from his small stash in the bunkhouse fridge when his phone rang. Thinking that the cell was getting a workout today, he checked the ID and grinned as he answered, “Hey, stranger. How did everything go at Bootsy’s this afternoon?”
“Good. Everything was . . . good. I think the guests had fun.” Krista’s voice was blurry.
“You okay? You sound tired.”
“It was a long day.”
“There’s a hot tub here, calling your name.”
“Can I have a rain check? I think I’m going to crash here tonight.”
He did a double take. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine, really. Just need some down time.”
“Want me to come over and make you soup, or tea or something?” Which was stupid, given that she lived with her parents, and her grandparents’ cottage was just down the hill. But she didn’t sound like herself.
“I’m good. Just tired. See you in the morning?”
“Sure,” he said, doing his damnedest not to be disappointed. She wasn’t obligated to spend every night in his bed, after all. “Sweet dreams, cowgirl.”
“Thanks, Wyatt. You, too.”
“Call me if there’s anything I can do. And if you change your mind, the door’s always open.”
After ringing off, he stood for a minute, dangling his beer and trying to laugh at himself for suddenly being all now what? about having a night to himself. “Looks like it’s just us guys,” he told Klepto. “You want a beer?”
He doled out more turkey, instead, and then they headed for the workshop, where the cowboys sitting around the fire had stalled out and he’d gone back to the drawing board. He kept coming back to the Doorknob Kiss, the piece he and Krista had made together. It didn’t say “Wild West,” of course, or “pioneer spirit,” but something about it kept tugging at him, the same way he kept looking at the main cowboy and the dog together and thinking that it was almost there, but still missing something major.
Staring at the doorknob statue, he could picture a whole line of the tabletop sculptures, each of them different, always with a man and a woman, and sometimes a horse or two, made from household scrap metal. But that didn’t solve his more immediate problem—the APM was doing its post-reno relaunch in the spring, and expected him to have something more than a couple of half-finished cowboys and a dog that really ought to be something else.
But what?
“What do you think?” he asked Klepto. “A calf, maybe?” That could work—maybe there was a tame dogie with the cowboys, an orphan that tagged along with the Cookie. Possibly named Mini-burger. Or Slider. “Okay, forget the calf.”
He needed movement in the foreground, though, something to draw the eye up to the main cowboy’s face. Flipping to a fresh sheet of paper, he grabbed a Sharpie because he was suddenly jonesing for bold, black lines that he couldn’t erase. Looking from the doorknob piece to the cowboy and back again, he blocked in the man’s figure, but then paired it with an obviously feminine shape.
He didn’t know what the woman was doing out on the roundup or why she was holding the cowboy’s hand and looking down at the dog, but the shapes sent a shiver down the back of his neck. Like maybe he was finally on to something.
*
Krista sat alone at the dining table, flipping through a box of old pictures and not really seeing the faces. Instead, she was hearing the concern in Wyatt’s voice when he offered to brave the main house to make her a cup of tea.
She hadn’t told him. Why hadn’t she told him? It was just three little words: Wyatt, I’m pregnant. Except those three words had such power, maybe even more than I love you. Because suddenly there was another life involved in the conversation.
It was strange, really, to think that all of the people in these pictures had started that same way, in one form or another. Honey, I’m pregnant. We’re going to have a baby. Knocked up. A bun in the oven.
Stopping at a black-and-white of a dozen or so people posed in front of the big fireplace, circa the forties, she picked out her great-grandparents and a blanket-wrapped bundle that, based on the two older kids standing with them, had to be Big Skye. Who, at some point, had been a Honey, I’m pregnant.
At least she could think the word now without hyperventilating. She was still sneaking up on baby.
“Find anything good?”
She looked up, startled to see her dad standing in the wide entryway. He was wearing a battered old T-shirt, his lucky fishing hat, and the old denim overalls that went under his waders.
“Going fishing?”
“Sure am. You want to come?”
It was more tempting than she would have expected—the tug of the current against her legs, the feel of rocks rolling beneath her boots, and the rushing sound of the river as she and her father cast the light fly lines over and over again, not really caring if the trout latched on or not.
She shook her head, though. “Thanks, but I think I’ll stay in tonight.”
“Everything okay with Wyatt?”
“Sure. Why?”
“Your bed hasn’t seen much of you lately. Seems strange to find you here now.”
Ack. Fighting not to squirm, she said, “I’ve got everything under control.” Sort of. Not really.
“Maybe that’s the problem.”
“I didn’t say there was a problem.” But she wrinkled her nose at him. “What do you mean?”
“In my experience, the minute you think you’ve got a relationship figured out or going according to plan . . . well, that’s when you get yourself in trouble, because you’re not the only one in the equation. It’s like working with a mustang—you can train in all the buttons you want, but you’re still dealing with a wild creature that’s got a mind of its own.”
She frowned. “So I should click and treat him until he does what I want?”
He chuckled. “I was thinking more along the lines of asking for what you want, but not getting too caught up in how you get there. But what do I know? I’m just an old man who’s headed out for a wild night on the river with his fishing pole.”
She rose, crossed the room, and wrapped her arms around his waist. “Thanks, Dad. And thanks for giving Wyatt a chance.”
He kissed the top of her head. “He’s a good man, in his own way. But if he messes with your head again, he’ll have to deal with me.”
I think this time it’s going to be me messing with his head. But maybe Jenny and her father were right. Maybe it was time for her to ask for what she really wanted, and see whether he wanted her enough to make a change.
And if not . . . well, she would deal with it.
“Good luck.” She kissed her father’s cheek and nudged him toward the front door. “And keep your hat higher than your feet, okay?” It was what she usually said to the greenhorns, but she figured it applied equally well here, too.
When the door swung shut behind him and the house quieted around her once more, she returned to the table and shuffled the photos she had been poking through, sticking them back in their bins to await official cataloging. Because, really, all she had been doing was flipping through and thinking: face, face, two faces, baby, face, face—
Two faces with a baby. And not just faces. Familiar faces in washed-out sepia tones, with a swaddled baby and chickens pecking around the edges of the woman’s skirt.
Krista froze, pulse bumping as she realized that it wasn’t exactly the same picture they had hanging in the dining hall. The chickens were in different spots and the man’s arm was around the woman, his hat tipped down as he looked at her and the baby, as if to say: Mine. She didn’t know why the photographer had taken two of the same picture—maybe because this one was so washed out, or maybe for some reason she would never know. But her hand shook as she lifted this one. Turned it over. And saw faded writing in a spidery, angular hand.
Patience Smith (younger sister to Mary Skye), her husband Seamus, and their adopted daughter, Blessing. A church foundling, Blessing later married Jeremiah Skye. The local pastor refused to recognize the union, believing them cousins (though not of blood), so they had a native ceremony. They died in old age within hours of each other, and were survived by five children.
Krista traced the writing and let out a soft breath. If this wasn’t a sign from the universe, a Big Foam Finger saying yes, you know what you have to do, then she didn’t know what was. Because the situations weren’t identical, but the message was clear, at least to her.
Family was what you made it, as was love. And sometimes that meant breaking the rules.
Pocketing the photo, she stuffed her feet in her boots and struck out along the trail, needing the air and the wide open. When she crested the hill and saw the bunkhouse, though, the air went thin and the wide open suddenly felt like it was crowding in. She made herself keep going, pushing herself up onto the porch and forcing herself to knock, even though he’d said he would leave the door open.
There was a scuffle and a “whuff,” then the sound of boots on the floor. Moments later, the door swung inward to reveal Wyatt, still dressed for the workday.
“Hey!” His face brightened. “You changed your mind!” He tugged her in for a kiss that started soft and gentle but heated quickly, until she was pressed up against him with her arms twined around his neck and a voice inside her saying, You don’t have to do it tonight. You can wait. Enjoy the end of the season. Get through the ride-off. Get used to the idea yourself.
But she couldn’t, she knew. It would be too much like what he had done to her, back in the day.
“Are you feeling better?” he asked against her lips, then pressed a kiss to her cheek, her temple. “Or did you come for that cup of tea?”
“Actually, I came because there’s something I want to show you.” Then, God help her, something she wanted to tell him. And after that? Well, they would see. Because this was about to become either one of the best days of her life, or a complete train wreck.
25
“You found them!” Wyatt grinned at the picture that Krista had laid on the breakfast bar, then flipped it over and read the inscription on the back again. “I can’t believe you actually found them. What are the chances? We should ride up to the waterfall in the morning and see if we can find their names. Seamus, at least, should be up there.”
“I think he might be,” she said, surprised that her voice sounded so normal when part of her was standing aside and looking at him, thinking, This is the father of my unborn child.
“You guys had it right all along, didn’t you?” he enthused. “Gran said you figured they were a few years younger than Jonah and Mary, but not Jeremiah’s generation. Except for the baby, of course.” His lips curved. “Blessing. That’s a nice name. I wonder what her story was, how she ended up left at the church? Seems like she got lucky, winding up here.”
“She lived here her whole life, with Jeremiah.” Her one and only. When had Blessing finally realized she loved him? Or had it been part of her all her life, like the shape of her nose and the color of he
r eyes?
Something must have come through in her voice, because he glanced over. “How about that tea?”
“I don’t need tea.”
“Wine, then. Or cookies. You’re pale.”
“I need to ask you something.”
“Anything.” He turned to face her and slid the photo aside, then pulled out the barstools at the kitchen counter. “Sit. I’ll get some wine.”
“Water’s fine.” It seemed like some sort of cruel cosmic joke that alcohol was off limits at a time like this.
The ice maker’s buzz was loud; the sound of water going into the glasses reminded her of the waterfall. And by the time he set her glass in front of her and took the other seat, with their knees bumping and his hand stretching across to the arm of her chair, his expression had gone serious, his eyes wary. “You can ask me anything, Krissy, you know that.”
She did. Just like she knew he would tell her the truth now, even if it wasn’t what she wanted to hear. “If you close your eyes and look five years into your future, what do you see?”
To her surprise, he closed his eyes and thought about it for a few seconds, giving her a moment to watch him. A moment for her heart to shudder in her chest.
She didn’t want to do this. But what other choice did she have?
His eyes opened and found hers, and in them she saw regret. “You want me to tell you that you’re in the picture, but I can’t say that. I can’t say much, really. I see myself still sculpting, maybe dancing with Ashley at her wedding—hopefully not to Kenny, but if that’s what she wants . . .” He lifted his hand from the back of her chair to touch Krista’s cheek. “I thought we were having fun. Can’t this be enough?”
She would’ve given anything to be able to say yes, but that second little pink line had changed everything. “I’ve tried to tell myself it’s enough.” She caught his hand and flattened his palm against her cheek, held it there. “It’s more than I’ve had before, and I don’t regret a second of the time we’ve spent together. I need you to know that. I need you to know that I”—love you—“care deeply for you. That’s not going to change, and neither will the memories we’ve made this summer.”
Harvest at Mustang Ridge Page 24