Having the Cowboy's Baby

by Trish Milburn

India seemed as if she wanted to say something else, but she refrained at the last moment. It was enough, however, to make Skyler uncomfortable. The truth was a part of her was still, after everything, very much attracted to Logan. She had to keep reminding herself it was only physical, nothing more. But then her traitorous memory would snap to the picnic, the flowers, the day of the fire and tempt her to believe in him. To admit it was more than physical, at least on her part.

  But she couldn’t. He’d left her and their baby behind, and chances were he’d do it again. She wasn’t about to even think about opening up her heart to someone, giving him the ammunition to crush it. She’d seen that happen with her parents, and she had no desire to walk down the same path her mother had taken.

  “What are you going to do if he does stick around?” Elissa asked.

  “Ignore him until he goes away.”

  That proved difficult when she walked into the dining room a few minutes later to see him sitting at a table right next to the beverage station.

  “Good morning, Skyler.”

  She considered turning around without acknowledging him, but that would just make him more determined. He’d once admitted to her that he liked the chase. “Morning.” She poured a glass of milk and walked back out the door.

  She expected Logan to follow her, but he didn’t. And the longer she sat in her office, glancing up at the doorway, the more irritated she got at herself for letting his mere presence under the same roof bother her.

  Of course, it was when she’d finally settled down enough to work that he appeared at the door.

  “I’m going to need the key to the house back.”

  She just stared at him.

  “I left work unfinished, so I thought I’d get back to it today.”

  “I’m in the process of hiring someone else, someone dependable this time.” He didn’t have to know that all she’d managed to do was think about it.

  “No sense paying for the labor when you can get it for free.”

  “Because that worked out so well last time.”

  “So you don’t believe in second chances?”

  “If I say no, will you go away?”

  “Nope.” He smiled, and it caused that fluttery feeling in her chest. Why couldn’t he turn butt ugly overnight?

  “Fine.” Anything to make him leave her in peace. She pulled open the desk drawer where she’d stashed the key, but she didn’t let him see that she’d kept the envelope it had arrived in. She wasn’t even sure why she had. She extended the key to him.

  He stepped into the office, making it seem much smaller. “Thank you. Hopefully I won’t almost burn to a crisp this time.”

  She didn’t respond. In all honesty, she didn’t know how. This man was very, very good at scrambling her thoughts and emotions, and she hated that feeling of not being in control of either.

  Something passed over his face, there one moment and gone the next. If she didn’t know better, she’d swear it was disappointment. Well, what did he expect from her, effusive thanks?

  “I’ll get to it, then. Have a nice day.”

  He was already gone when she found herself saying, “You, too.”

  * * *

  LOGAN STOOD IN front of the ranch house. The work that needed to be done here was nothing compared to what he evidently was going to have to do to get back into Skyler’s good graces. But he was oddly prepared to do whatever it took. He didn’t totally understand his new, deeper determination to make her believe in him, but it was there nonetheless. So he went with it.

  He didn’t bother Skyler for the next few days, instead staying at the ranch and working from early morning until he fell into bed at night. By the end of the week, the place was beginning to look inviting again. All of the fencing was fixed, the rotten boards on the house replaced, weeds ripped away and a new kitchen faucet installed. Before he got started stripping away the old paint on the house, he poured an entire bottle of water over his head and used a bandanna to wipe off his face.

  The sun beat down mercilessly as he worked throughout the afternoon, but he was proud of how much he got done by the time the sun started to set. He wanted to call Skyler and have her come out to see his progress, but he suspected she wouldn’t budge from her little safe haven. He’d really messed up by leaving before.

  As he sat on the lowered tailgate of his truck, he thought maybe he should wait until he was completely done with the renovations before he invited her out. Maybe she’d be more impressed, more willing to believe that he did want to help her.

  He dragged his tired, aching body inside to the kitchen. But when he looked in the fridge, he couldn’t face another ham-and-cheese sandwich. Half of him just wanted to go collapse in the bed, but the other half managed to trudge to the shower. After he dressed in clean clothes, he headed into town.

  He glanced at the Wildflower Inn as he passed it as if Skyler might happen to be outside where he could see her. She was nowhere to be seen, which caused an unexpected pang in his middle. Convincing himself it was hunger, he drove on into downtown. He’d aimed to go to the Primrose, but another idea hit him. Several minutes later he walked out of Gino’s with a piping-hot pepperoni pizza.

  Next he stopped at the Mehlerhaus Bakery, where a lovely Hispanic woman moved to the counter to help him.

  “I’ll take one of every kind of cupcake you have.”

  With pizza and cupcakes in hand, he headed straight for the inn. He didn’t even pause in the lobby on the way to Skyler’s apartment. He knocked. “Pizza delivery.”

  It wasn’t Skyler who opened the door. Instead, it was Elissa. She took the pizza from him.

  “Thanks. I was getting hungry.” And then she shut the door in his face.

  He stood there staring at the door, stunned into inaction. Before he could decide what to do next, the door opened again. This time it was Skyler.

  “I’m sorry about that,” she said.

  He smiled. “You’re being nice to me.”

  “I’m being civil. Is there something wrong at the ranch? A swarm of locusts hasn’t descended, has it?”

  “No, it remains plague- and fire-free.” At the expectant look on her face, he went on. “I just thought we could talk.”

  “About?”

  “The baby, how you’re doing.”

  “I have company.”

  The door opened wider behind her, and India ushered an obviously irritated Elissa out the door, passing between Skyler and Logan. “We were just leaving,” India said.

  “You got here like five minutes ago,” Skyler said, sounding a little desperate at her friends’ departure.

  “See you tomorrow,” India said over her shoulder.

  Skyler sagged against the doorframe. “Do I have one of those faces that says ‘Please abandon me in my hour of need’?”

  Logan felt the sting of that as if she’d hit him with a whip. “Maybe they thought we had things to talk about.”

  For a long moment, Skyler simply stared at him. He felt a bit as if he were being dissected. When she finally opened the door wider for him to come inside, he almost couldn’t believe it.

  Her apartment wasn’t as big as he’d imagined it, but she really didn’t need much space for one person. Of course, in a few months there would be two. As he followed her, she paused to straighten a blocky candleholder that hadn’t looked the least bit out of place.

  “Nice place,” he said.

  “Probably better than that old ranch house.”

  “I don’t mind it.”

  She rounded the end of the small dining room table where the pizza sat and braced her hands against the back of a chair. “You haven’t fled in the night yet. That’s a good sign.”

  He wondered if she was ever going to let him live that down. “No. It’s actually felt goo
d to be back at the ranch. Last night I sat out on the porch and saw several shooting stars.”

  “Good. Maybe someone else will be as charmed as you seem to be and snatch it up. That would certainly be one less headache in my life.”

  “Is that how you see me, as a headache?”

  She looked startled by his question. “I didn’t say that. You’re...unexpected.”

  “And you don’t like unexpected.”

  “For the most part, no.”

  “So you don’t like surprises?”

  “Not particularly. I’ve not had a good track record with them.” She pulled out the chair she was grasping. “You might as well help me eat this pizza. I already feel like I’m eating enough to feed half of Texas. Before long I’ll be that big, too.”

  “So I should take these back?” He held up the bakery box.

  “Tell me you didn’t.”

  He opened the lid and playfully fanned the box in front of her. “What? Bring you delicious cupcakes? I didn’t. These are a figment of your imagination.”

  “I hope you planned to share those with everyone staying at the inn.”

  “I didn’t know which was your favorite, so I bought one of each.”

  “You are evil,” she said as she reached inside and grabbed the chocolate cupcake.

  “You haven’t eaten your pizza yet.”

  “I stopped having to follow that ‘dessert comes last’ rule the day I went to college.”

  He laughed and felt a weight lift off his shoulders, one he hadn’t been aware he was carrying.

  “Hey, I like how you think.” He grabbed a vanilla cupcake and took a huge bite, getting cream-cheese frosting on his nose.

  Skyler laughed. He loved the sound of her laughter, and he wanted to tell her how beautiful she was when she smiled. But she would probably clam up, robbing him of the light feeling in his chest. And she needed to laugh more. He realized how often she looked stressed out or upset. That couldn’t be good for the baby.

  He lifted his cupcake. “I bet every man in Blue Falls is after the woman who makes these.”

  “They better not be, because she’s married to the sheriff.”

  “Drat, all the good ones are taken.”

  He watched her closely for her reaction, and he caught a brief smile. Was she finally thawing toward him?

  “How are you feeling?”

  “You ask that a lot.”

  “Maybe I just want to make sure you’re okay.”

  Skyler placed what remained of her cupcake down on a napkin. “I’m tired, but that’s to be expected.”

  “And your doctor says everything is fine?”

  “I’m healthy. So is the baby.” She looked across the table at him. “You think it’s going to be a boy.” It wasn’t a question.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Maybe because everything in the basket you gave me was blue.”

  “I didn’t really think about it. I just went through the store grabbing whatever looked like something you could use.”

  “You put the basket together yourself?” She seemed genuinely surprised.

  “I picked all the things in it, but they had a basket-making service. It was one of those superstores full to the rafters with baby stuff. I felt like if I’d stayed in there five more minutes, I would have walked out pregnant.”

  Skyler snorted, then covered her nose and mouth for a moment in embarrassment. “That would certainly be the end to your bull-riding career.”

  They finished off their cupcakes, and the silence wasn’t as awkward as it could have been. “So, when can we find out what the baby is?”

  “Not for two or three more months.”

  His cupcake history, he opened the pizza box and inhaled the heavenly aroma of bread and Italian spices. “Is there anything I can do to help you out?”

  “Stop bringing me things to make me fat.”

  He laughed a little. “Seriously.”

  “No. Well, nothing beyond the ranch repairs. I need to sell the place so I can stop thinking about it, and hopefully the repairs will up my chances of that.”

  Something about her answer made him think it wasn’t as simple as she tried to make it seem. “Why does the place hurt you so much?”

  He thought she might not share whatever old hurt was lurking there behind her eyes, but then she sighed and leaned back. “There’s a reason I don’t trust you to not leave again. I see a lot of my father in you.”

  “He was a rodeo rider?”

  “No, but he had incurable wanderlust. I don’t doubt that he loved my mom and me, but it just wasn’t enough to keep him at home. He tried, but the call of some new adventure or another always pulled him away. I grew up not knowing when or if I would ever see my father again. And as I got older, I began to hate him for it, more because of how I could see my mom’s heartache every time he left, how she would watch the road as if she could bring him home with just the power of her thoughts. But it never worked. He came home, then he left again in a never-ending cycle.

  “The ranch had been his idea, but it was Mom who kept it going while he was off chasing some new pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. She worked herself to death. I never hated my father so much as when he showed up for her funeral. Somehow I made it through the service and the burial, but I lost it the moment we got back to the ranch. I screamed at him that he’d been the one to kill her as surely as if he’d put a bullet in her head. A couple of months later he went off the road and hit a tree. He wasn’t wearing a seat belt and was thrown from the truck. The officer said he looked like he’d been crying, and I’ll wonder for the rest of my life if it was because of Mom or because of what I said.”

  Logan slid his hand across the table and captured hers. She was so lost in her painful past that she let him. “I’m sorry, Skyler. I truly am.”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “But bringing up those memories was. I’m sorry for that.”

  She nodded, then met his gaze. “What really made you come back?”

  He risked telling her the truth about his conversation with Sam. “The longer he talked, the worse I felt. I don’t want any child of mine not knowing who I am or growing up hating me because I’m the world’s worst dad. I want to be there, be the cool dad.”

  Skyler stared at him for several seconds without saying anything. Finally, he couldn’t stand it anymore. “What are you thinking?”

  “I want to believe you. Really, I do.”

  “But you don’t.”

  “I’m sorry. I’ve just seen good intentions fall by the wayside too often.”

  He couldn’t argue her doubt, because her father wasn’t the only person who’d reinforced it. All he could do was prove himself to her one day at a time. And as he looked at the beautiful woman across from him, he realized that he didn’t want her trust just because of the child she was carrying. He wanted very much to have Skyler believe in him, to know in her heart he’d be there for her whenever she needed him, for whatever reason.

  As he left a few minutes later, plans were already spinning in his head, ones that would make Skyler look at him with something other than the expectation that he would leave again at any moment. She’d been left alone too much, and no matter how hard it might be for him to change his ways, he wasn’t about to add to her mountain of pain.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Logan stepped out of the hardware store and nearly ran into Liam Parrish.

  “Hey,” Liam said as he eyed the buckets of paint in Logan’s hands. “Looks like you’re still busy fixing up Skyler’s old place.”

  “Yeah. Lots to do.”

  “You got time to ride in this weekend’s rodeo? We’ve got room for a few more riders.”

  Logan started to say no,
that he was busy, but then the itch started. He hadn’t let himself think about it since he’d come back to Blue Falls, afraid it would make him break his word to Skyler, but he missed being around a rodeo. Maybe if he rode in the local event, it would take the edge off.

  “Sure, sign me up.”

  “Great. Try to stay cool. It’s gonna be another scorcher today.”

  Liam stepped inside the store, and Logan turned to head for his truck. A flyer in the window caught his eye. He stepped closer so he could read it.

  “To celebrate the reopening of Wren Cove Park, join us for a community canoe outing on the lake.”

  Logan noted the date and time, then smiled.

  Hours later he was up on a ladder painting when he heard a vehicle turn off the road. He turned, anticipation leaping as he expected to see Skyler. But it wasn’t her car coming toward him. By the time he reached the bottom of the ladder, Elissa was walking toward him.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  Well, hello to you, too. “Painting a house.”

  “Did Skyler ask you to do that?”

  “Not specifically. Our deal was that I could stay here if I made the place more attractive to buyers.” He gestured toward the house. “Thus, new paint.”

  She quirked an eyebrow at him. “What’s your game?”

  “My game?”

  “Yeah, you fly the coop, and then you just magically reappear claiming you’re a different man now.”

  “I never said that. I’m not going to stand here and lie to you and say I don’t miss the road and the circuit, because I do. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to be some loser who abandons his kid.”

  “And what about Skyler?”

  “I don’t plan on abandoning her either.”

  “That’s not what I mean. Do you care about her?”

  “Of course I do. She’s carrying my child.” But it was more than that, wasn’t it? Otherwise, he wouldn’t think about her approximately a thousand times a day. There was something about her that drew him despite the fact that she was the opposite of every other woman he’d ever been with. She was steady, responsible and practical, and that should have scared him. But it didn’t, and he couldn’t figure out why. Something deep inside told him it was more than the fact she was as beautiful as a goddess.