Dearest Cowboys Box Set

by Mia Brown

I wanted to hug her for being so nice about it. Lily walked into the house first, and I took a step closer to Vanessa. She was being diplomatic and calm, and I wanted to thank her for it.

  “Sweetheart,” I started.

  She shook her head, holding her hand up. “Don’t you ‘sweetheart’ me. I know you have a past, but this takes it to a whole new level. There’s only so much I can compete with.”

  “You know that’s not my child,” I said. “We’re on the same side.”

  Vanessa was still shaking her head. “I’m not on anyone’s side. I don’t know anything other than that a woman you slept with is back in our lives right now. How many more of them are we to expect? You better hope to God you haven’t ruined something good we started.”

  She turned and headed into the house, leaving me gaping and helpless on the front porch. I took a moment to pull myself together. She was right, of course. My past was catching up with me. And God, did I regret it. Lily had been one of many, and even though I’d been careful, it wasn’t impossible that one of them could have become pregnant. What if it was all true? What if this was a woman with my baby in her belly? I wanted to go back and take back every time I’d slept with someone. But I couldn’t change the past, only handle the present and hope there was something of a future left.

  I took a deep breath and steeled myself before following Vanessa into a mess that I sincerely hoped wasn’t mine.

  Thirty-Four

  Vanessa

  We were in the kitchen. I saw it as the family room, and I hadn’t wanted to bring that little witch in here, but I had to make tea. If I didn’t do something to keep me busy, I was going to lose my shit—and I didn’t want to leave the two of them alone in the living room. Call it a hunch, but if a woman was after a man that belonged to someone else, it was a call to arms.

  I had put on the kettle, and while it boiled, I was preparing two cups. I was making tea for myself and tea for Lily. I would give Ace a beer; the poor man looked like he was going to faint. It was the only thing that counted in his favor. The man seemed shocked by it all. It was the only sign that there might be something wrong, here.

  I couldn’t believe Lily was here, either. We had been roommates for the last semester only. My roommate had dropped out and asked Lily if she wanted to use the place seeing that her dad had already paid for it. I remembered being grumpy that I wouldn’t have the place to myself, after all. I remembered being pleasantly surprised when the new roommate wasn’t someone terrible when I got along with her.

  That was all out of the window now. I didn’t like her anymore.

  I was calm on the outside. I was keeping it all together, smiling politely and focusing very hard on making the sweet tea. Because on the inside, I was seething. I was so angry I could break something. When I finished the tea, ready for the hot water, I turned to the fridge and fetched Ace’s beer for him. I pushed it into his hand. He stood dazed to the side, taking the bottle from me and sipping it as if he was on autopilot.

  When I put the tea in front of Lily, she had already taken off her jacket. She was even bigger than I’d thought. The jacket had hidden some of her belly, and there was no way she was only four months along.

  The fact that she’d lied about it made me believe she was making up shit.

  “You better come clean,” I said. “If you don’t, I’m going to call the police.”

  Ace and Lily both stared at me.

  “It’s hardly a crime to be pregnant,” she said.

  “You’re trying to take Ace’s money. I’m sure it’s a crime. Won’t your lawyer agree, Ace?”

  Ace cleared his throat, flustered. Lily looked like she was going to cry. I knew pregnant women were emotional, but I wasn’t going to fall for that today.

  “That’s a bit much, don’t you think?” Ace asked.

  I shook my head. “It’s not unless you think the baby is yours.”

  We were caught in a little staring contest. Finally, he looked away. I was dead serious about it. I would get to the bottom of this. Lily wasn’t welcome here right now and blaming Ace for something that’s not his problem was the last thing I needed.

  If it was all true, it was a different story, but nothing added up. I would cross that bridge when I got there.

  When I looked at Lily, she looked pale, her skin pasty against her dark hair. She looked so different than when we were studying together. I couldn’t believe it had only been a few months. She looked stressed now, worn out and tired.

  “I’m sorry,” she finally said. “I didn’t know what else to do.”

  I could think of a lot of other things she could have done than come to my boyfriend and expect him to pay.

  “I had nowhere else to go,” she carried on. “Ace was such a nice person, even though it was a one-night thing. I knew it wasn’t serious, but I needed someone to care.”

  She started crying. Big, fat tears rolled down her cheeks. When I looked at Ace, he looked even more flustered. He didn’t handle crying women very well, from what I could tell.

  “So, Ace is not the father?” I asked. I had to clarify that.

  Lily hesitated and then shook her head no. She sighed, and more tears rolled down her cheeks.

  “It’s okay,” I said. It really wasn’t. “Take a deep breath.”

  Lily did.

  “It’s not his baby. The father wants nothing to do with the baby or with me. I don’t think I can get anything from him. I’m all alone in this now.”

  I nodded, relief flooding me. If the baby was Ace’s, I didn’t know how I would have been able to stay with him. He would have to take responsibility, so I would have left. I was so happy that wasn’t the case. I felt for Lily, but this wasn’t my problem.

  “I’m sorry,” she said through her tears. Now that they had started, she couldn’t stop them. She cried harder and harder. The more upset she got, the more upset Ace became. I was strangely detached from it all. Angry, and detached. Now that I knew it had nothing to do with us, that it wouldn’t affect my relationship, I was distant from it all. Lily was still in our house; it was a problem that still needed to be dealt with, but it wasn’t the same as a moment ago.

  “What are you going to do?” I asked.

  Lily shook her head. “God, I don’t know,” she wailed.

  How was this happening? I couldn’t believe we were going through this. Of all the things that could have gone wrong in my life, this was a complete curveball.

  “Lily,” I said after a while. “I know that you’re in a bad place, but what you did is a terrible thing. Ace and I are happy. He has a very involved life here, and a future that he’s building. You can’t just waltz in here with a ton of responsibility because you’ve decided he’s the lucky one you’re allocating it to.”

  Lily nodded. “I know,” she said. She wiped her tears with her palms, and I was hoping she would stop crying. “I didn’t know what else to do. In a few short weeks I’m giving birth, and if I’m not settled by then, I don’t know how I’m going to do this.”

  I frowned. “Don’t you have any support at all? What about your parents? Have you told them?”

  Lily nodded and burst out into tears again.

  “They hate me,” she said. “They told me never to go back there again. They’re so perfect, and everything is based on religion. And I’m the sinner: the fallen one that got pregnant.”

  She cried harder.

  “I can’t get work like this, either. I tried, but no one will take on someone that is going to go on maternity leave so soon. It’s a liability.”

  I nodded. My heart went out to her. Not about the part where she couldn’t find a job—although that was horrible—but because her parents had kicked her out. If there was anything I understood in life, it was parents not accepting you for who you are. If I were pregnant—I couldn’t even imagine how my parents would lose their minds—but I knew all about not being accepted. A small part of me felt bad that I’d been so hard on her a few seconds ago, but that had b
een because she had gone out to ruin someone else’s life.

  “I can’t go home. I have no other family that will take me in, and the father wants nothing to do with me. I have nowhere to go. I looked Ace up and realized he lived on a ranch. I figured it would be a good place to make it happen, something stable, you know? I wasn’t trying to hurt anyone.”

  I nodded. I was starting to see that now. My anger had subsided, and I had space for other emotions. I understood that she was in a difficult place, and I felt sorry for her.

  I looked at Ace, who seemed to have checked out from the conversation the moment Lily had admitted the baby wasn’t his. I didn’t even want to think about the drama it would have caused, and I was sure it was even more dramatic for him. He looked at me with a face that said, “What now?”

  When I looked at Lily, I felt sorry for her. I couldn’t just send her away like this. I couldn’t make her go away and know that she was out in the world, all alone. I was angry about what she did, but in a way, I understood her. I thought about a solution, something we could do to help her. It wasn’t our job to help her, but it hadn’t been Ace’s job to help me out, either. And that had changed my whole life.

  “This is what we’re going to do,” I said, making up my mind. Ace and Lily both looked at me. “You’re going to stay here with us. You’ll work here at the ranch for as long as you’re able, and when the time comes, you’ll have a bit of help while you sort yourself out.”

  Lily looked at me with an expression I couldn’t read—something like shock or uncertainty.

  “You can stay in the bunkhouse. It’s not a grand hotel or anything. You’ll be sharing with a lot of people, but they’re all good people, and it’s a place to sleep.”

  Lily nodded slowly. “And when the baby is born?” she asked, carefully.

  “We’ll figure it out,” she said. “But you have to be open and honest about everything, and you have to work as much as you can to earn your keep.”

  “I will, as much as I am able,” Lily said. “Why are you being so nice to me?”

  I took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. “Because, if someone wasn’t that kind to me when I needed it, God knows where I would be now. Is everything settled? I assume you have your bags with you.”

  Lily looked embarrassed when she nodded.

  “Right. Go outside and ask someone to help you find Lance. Let him know you’re a new employee here. He’ll get you sorted with a bed and some chores. Dinner is at 8 tonight. Be back here for that.”

  Lily nodded and got up. For a moment she looked like she wanted to hug me but instead, she shot me a grateful look and left the kitchen. When she was gone, Ace came to me slowly. He was smiling, surprised.

  “That was very nice of you,” he said. “I can’t tell you how grateful I am that you handled that.”

  “Yeah, well, you weren’t any help at all. Thanks for that.”

  His face fell when he realized how angry I was.

  “But it’s okay now, right?”

  I shook my head. “It’s far from okay,” I said. “You better find a way to fix this. I didn’t sign up to be the person to take care of everyone and everything around here.”

  Ace tried to hug me, but I shook my head and stepped away from him. The chaos was averted, but it was by no means alright.

  “You’re angry,” Ace said.

  I nodded. “You bet I am.”

  “Can I ask, if you’re so mad, why did you do it? Why did you reach out to her and help her? She’s nothing of yours.”

  I looked at Ace. The answer was so very simple.

  “Because it is what Jaclyn would have done.”

  Thirty-Five

  Ace

  By Friday, I didn’t know if there was anything left of the relationship between Vanessa and me. Since Lily had gone to find Lance, she hadn’t spoken to me. I’d tried to see it from her side, and I guess I could understand why she was so upset, but it wasn’t like I’d called Lily and told her to come over and act like the baby was mine. The circumstances had been out of my control.

  I did have a reputation, though. One that wasn’t necessarily good, and I could see why any woman would be nervous about it catching up with me. But this was ridiculous. I wasn’t the same person I’d been at the university. The person that had fucked around and hadn’t cared about life back here at the ranch was gone now. It was amazing how much could change in such a short time, but there it was.

  Vanessa had only been in my bed a few short nights before she’d gotten angry at me and moved right back to the bunkhouse. Now, she stayed there with Lance and the Mexicans and Lily—the person that had brought all of this upon us in the first place—and I was alone in my bed at night, left to overthink everything.

  How could someone arrive in someone else’s life and decide to make up a story like that? Lily could have messed it all up for me with Vanessa. If she hadn’t gotten so flustered when Vanessa had asked her questions, and we’d gotten down to the truth of it all, I didn’t even want to imagine what would have happened. I didn’t want to lose Vanessa. I tried not to think too hard about that I might have lost her already.

  I had been so damn careful at college, too, making sure that I didn’t fuck women that were friends with each other, making it clear that it was nothing more than a one-night stand and doing it all no more than once. It should have been a foolproof plan, and it had worked perfectly for four years. It was only now that I had decided I cared about someone, that I wanted to settle down and build a future, that it was all coming back to bite me in the ass.

  Go figure.

  I woke up before dawn and couldn’t sleep again. The bed felt huge without Vanessa in it now, even though she’d only shared it with me a few times—and all these things kept running through my mind. I got out of bed and walked to the kitchen. The light was on already, and Andrew was sitting at the kitchen table in his boxers, head in his hands.

  “Can’t sleep either, huh?” I asked.

  He looked up at me and shook his head.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” I sat down at the table with him. He had a cup of coffee in front of him that might have been there a while.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Sometimes it all hits me, you know? Mom’s gone.”

  I nodded. I knew what he was talking about. Sometimes it hit me, too.

  “What about you?” he asked. “Why are you up? Girl trouble?”

  I sighed. “God, too much of it. I was all happy that Vanessa had taken pity on Lily and hadn’t sent her away. She’s such a kindhearted person, and I love that about her. But Lily is around now, a constant reminder of my past and everything that could have gone wrong. And did go wrong.”

  “Yeah, that’s a tough one. I don’t know how you always get yourself into this shit. To me, it’s a no-brainer. It’s always been Alana.”

  I shrugged. “We all handle shit differently. To me, it was an escape. Except now, there’s no escaping. But I can’t tell her to go away. The father of that baby was a dick to tell her that he wanted nothing to do with her. I have every right in the world to say that to her because it’s not my problem, and I’m not even that bad.”

  Andrew shrugged and stared at the cup of coffee he still hadn’t touched.

  “I wish I knew what to say, but I have no clue, bro,” he said.

  I nodded. “I guess I’ll just have to roll with it.”

  We sat together in silence for a while. Slowly, the sun rose and lit up the kitchen, painting it with gold. Sunrise at the ranch was always like magic, color replacing the grays of the night and a new day breathing life into the sleeping animals and facilities.

  “I have to get dressed and get out there,” I said. “Might as well get an early start while I’m up.”

  Andrew agreed and got up when I did. I walked to the bedroom and got dressed. I would see Vanessa around today, but I had no idea if she would forgive me. I had done nothing wrong, but she was so damn angry.

  When I walked out
of the house, Lance walked toward the house from the bunkhouse.

  “Just the man I was looking for,” I said. “Coffee?”

  Lance shook his head. “I had some in the kitchenette. Can we run through the ideas for the bunkhouse?”

  I nodded. “Let’s go to the office. Might as well start using it. Did you put it on paper?”

  “I did,” Lance said.

  “Come with me. We can review it.”

  We walked to the office together, and I unlocked it. It was a room that was attached to the house but not accessible from the inside—the perfect business spot that you could lock up and walk away from once the work day was done.

  “Talk to me,” I said when we were both sitting down on the couch against the corner.

  “I was thinking,” Lance said, “we need to expand the kitchenette, open it up so that it becomes a real place that we can cook in. The men are eager to be independent of the meals served at the house, and with Jaclyn gone, it’s not fair to expect Alana or Vanessa to do it.”

  I nodded. I agreed with that. Making everyone a part of the family had been great for morale, but it wasn’t realistic. We were aiming for more of a business feel than a family concept the way my mom had always done it. She had run the place her way and it was something I would have loved to hold onto, but if we were going to make it work we had to do it our way.

  “And I was hoping I could create an apartment for myself. I don’t mean to be snobbish, but I’m above the men, and I feel that it doesn’t set the right tone if I have to bunk with them.”

  “What do you have in mind?” I asked.

  Lance explained how he would change the top part of the bunkhouse—a storage room, now—into an apartment for himself with a bedroom, bathroom and little office of his own.

  “I’ll still use the kitchenette,” he said.

  I nodded. “It sounds good to me. All of it, even the apartment. I like your thinking. I’m going to review this,” I looked at the paperwork Lance had handed me, “and run it by Andrew for the financial side. I’ll let you know.”