Having the Cowboy's Baby
Page 20
When he broke the kiss, Logan whispered against her lips. “Please believe me, Skyler.”
She nodded. He kissed her again, then held her close, her cheek against that chest that was a constant star in her dreams of him. She listened to the steady rhythm of his heartbeat and wished she could have him hold her like this forever.
Eventually, however, he eased away from her. “I need to go.”
She didn’t say anything, not trusting her voice as she allowed him to lead her to the door. Logan dropped another kiss on her lips, this one soft and lingering, before he stepped out the door. Unwilling to watch him walk away from her for possibly the last time, she closed the door and leaned her cheek and palm against it. When she heard his truck start, the tears pooled in her eyes broke free.
Chapter Sixteen
Skyler blamed fatigue for staying in bed the next morning, begging off a planned breakfast with Elissa and India. But her friends knew her too well and showed up at her apartment. She ignored them when they knocked and called out to her, hoping they’d go away and leave her alone. She felt wretched, and after a night of crying she was sure she looked it, too.
“Skyler, we’re not going away, so open the door,” Elissa said.
She managed to drag herself out of bed. Might as well get this conversation over with. It had to be better than listening to Elissa bang on her door all day, which she certainly would.
The moment she opened the door, she saw the shock on their faces.
“Sky, what’s wrong?” India stepped inside and grabbed Skyler’s hands.
“Logan’s gone.”
“Gone? What do you mean?”
“He left for Montana last night, back to the rodeo circuit.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.” Elissa looked confused.
“Of course it does. We all knew this would happen eventually. I just fooled myself for a little while that maybe he’d changed.”
“He did,” Elissa insisted with some sort of meaningful glance at India.
“Obviously not.”
“What did he say?” India asked.
“Oh, that he’d be back in a few days. Seems I’ve heard that before.”
“I believe him,” Elissa said. “You should, too.”
Skyler bit her lip against a sudden tremble. “I want to. You can’t know how much I want to.”
“Go get dressed. There’s something you need to see.”
“I don’t feel like going anywhere.”
India squeezed her hand gently. “Elissa’s right. It’ll be good for you to get out, anyway. Staying cooped up in here crying isn’t good for you or the baby.”
If it had just been her, Skyler would have pushed her friends out the door and spent the day any way she pleased, probably with a giant self-pity party that involved ice cream and a movie marathon where women kicked guys’ asses. But at the mention of her baby’s welfare, she took a deep breath and turned toward her bedroom.
After she was showered and dressed, she allowed her friends to drive her away from the inn on some mysterious mission. Her heart ached when she remembered the last time they’d done something like this, the day she’d met Logan, just before he’d jumped out of a plane with her.
When she realized they were headed to the ranch, she stiffened. She didn’t want to go there, for so many reasons. “Why are we going to the ranch? I told you, he’s gone.”
“Because you need to see why we believe he’s coming back.”
Her breath caught when they came within view of the ranch. Logan had repainted the house. Gone was the weathered exterior, replaced by bright new white paint with black trim and door. As Elissa turned into the driveway, Skyler noticed the plants along the edge of the freshly painted fence. No wonder he’d spent so much time out here. How much had he spent on a home that wasn’t even his? That would someday belong to a stranger.
When Elissa parked, Skyler couldn’t move at first. “I had no idea he’d done so much.”
“You haven’t even seen the inside,” India said.
There was more? Her heart sped up as she noticed all the new flowers and shrubs that filled her mother’s old flowerbeds. The rotted timbers around the beds had been replaced with new ones. She climbed the steps and used her second key to open the front door. The smell of new paint hit her as she stepped into a house that didn’t look as if it had been abandoned. It felt new and alive. She walked from room to room, looking at the bright colors and how clean everything was.
When she got to her old bedroom, the new coat of purple paint caused tears to blur her vision. She spun in a slow circle. “How? Why?”
Elissa leaned on the doorframe. “He may have had some help.”
Skyler looked from Elissa to India and back. “You all helped him?”
“Among others,” Elissa said.
“Why?”
“Because he asked us to.”
Skyler shook her head. “I don’t understand.”
“It’s not that hard to figure out. That man loves you.”
“That can’t be it.”
“Why? Because he hasn’t said it? He’s a dude. It’s easier for them to paint a house than say those three little words.”
India crossed the room to stand beside Skyler. “You should have seen him here, Sky. He looked like a man on a mission.”
Skyler sank onto the edge of her childhood bed and thought she caught a whiff of Logan’s scent. If she were alone, she’d curl up in the bed and inhale deeply until she filled herself with the part of him that lingered.
“He’ll be back,” Elissa said, conviction in her voice. “And if he doesn’t show up, I will hunt him down and make him wish he’d never set foot in Texas, let alone Blue Falls.”
Skyler laughed, a miracle considering how incredibly alone and hollowed out she’d felt since the night before. As she sat in the house that had for so long held only painful memories for her, a spark of hope lit inside her and began to grow. She just prayed that the things she’d said to him the night before hadn’t made Logan change his mind about coming back.
* * *
“ARE YOU SURE about this?”
Logan looked at his mother, who sat in the same chair he’d seen her sit in nearly his entire life. “Yes, positive.”
After successfully riding Hot Tamale and collecting his impressive winnings, he’d made another decision. So he’d hit the road again, this time for North Dakota to see his family and to sell out his portion of the family ranch to his brothers and sister.
“So you’re really never coming back here?”
“I’ll come for visits, but there’s somewhere else I’ve got to be.” He took a deep breath before continuing. “There’s someone I care about in Texas, and we’re going to have a child.”
His mother’s eyes widened as sounds of surprise filled the room.
“Are you going to marry her?” His father sounded as if he already knew the answer and didn’t like it.
Instead of getting angry, Logan met his father’s eyes and smiled. “If she’ll have me.”
Andrea, his younger sister, crossed the room and gathered him in her arms. “I’m so happy for you.”
He hugged her back and realized how much he’d missed his family. He’d never consciously thought about it, because thoughts of them were always so tangled up with their inability to understand the way he chose to live his life.
“Will you still ride?” Eric, his oldest brother, asked.
“I think my days of riding
bulls are over.” If he’d needed an exclamation point on that decision, it had been how he’d felt the morning after riding Hot Tamale—as though he’d been body-slammed for about an hour straight. He’d lost count of how many curse words he’d used just trying to get out of bed the next morning.
By midafternoon all the paperwork was done and he had a substantial check in hand. As he walked toward his truck, his mother caught up to him. “Next time you come for a visit, bring your Skyler and the baby, okay?”
He nodded.
“And...when the baby comes, I’d like to come visit you if that’s okay.”
He wouldn’t have been more surprised if a flying saucer full of little green men had landed next to them. “I’d like that. I think you would enjoy visiting Blue Falls.”
She smiled up at him and placed her palm against his cheek. “I’m sorry we’ve been so hard on you. For me it was worry. I was so afraid you’d get hurt far from home. But by holding you too tightly, I just pushed you away. We all did.”
A huge chunk of the resentment toward his family slid away. Maybe it was because he was about to become a father and he knew he’d do anything to keep his child safe. He leaned forward and kissed his mom on her forehead. “It’s in the past. No sense hanging on to it.”
As he hit the road back toward Texas, he hoped he could convince Skyler of the same thing.
* * *
SKYLER WALKED BACK to her office after consulting with Amelia about a group scheduled to arrive later that afternoon. She glanced at her apartment door adjacent to her office and couldn’t help remembering the night Logan had kissed her there. With each passing day, she grew more anxious that he was gone for good, despite Elissa’s and India’s confidence that he would be back.
As soon as she sat down behind her desk, the phone rang.
“Skyler Harrington,” she answered.
“Hey, Skyler. It’s Justine. I’ve got good news for you. We’ve finally got a buyer for your ranch.”
Pain blossomed in her chest. After all the years of wanting to be rid of the ranch, now the thought of letting it go broke her heart. Since the day she’d seen all the work Logan had put into it, she’d started focusing on the good memories from her childhood. Her mom pushing her on the swing in the backyard. Her dad holding her hand as she walked barefoot along the top of the fence. She couldn’t have been more than four or five, and she’d felt as if she was the queen of the world. It felt wrong to let it go to strangers who wouldn’t have those memories, who wouldn’t know how much what Logan had done meant to her.
But it didn’t make financial sense to keep a place she didn’t use.
“Skyler?”
“Yeah, I’m here.”
“The buyer is ready to begin the paperwork today but would like to meet you and talk about some aspects of the ranch I don’t know about. Can you meet us out there in an hour?”
No, this was moving too fast. Would the ranch be gone before she even got to thank Logan for all the work he did to make this possible?
“Uh, yeah.”
As she drove out to the ranch, her heart ached. But with the funds she’d get from this sale, she’d be able to complete the additions to the park, things that everyone could enjoy and would hopefully bring more tourists to town. That would help all the businesses, not just hers.
Justine waved to her as Skyler got out of her car.
“Hey, perfect timing. We’ve only been here a couple of minutes.”
Curious who might be calling the ranch home soon, she followed Justine into the house and toward the kitchen. When she stepped inside the room where her mother had served many meals, she gasped. Logan stood at the other end of the table watching her. He looked so good that she wanted to run into his arms, but she almost didn’t trust her eyes. Was he really there?
She glanced toward Justine, but she’d slipped out of the room. She shifted her gaze back toward Logan, half expecting him to have disappeared, as well. “Why are you here?”
“I told you I’d come back.”
“But why the ruse to get me to come out here? You could have stopped by the inn.”
“Because you need a buyer for the ranch, and I’m prepared to buy it from you.”
She tilted her head, not sure if she’d heard him correctly. “Why would you buy the ranch?”
“Because I need somewhere to live.”
She shook her head, still not clear on what was going on. “I don’t understand. I said you could stay here.”
“In exchange for working on the place. The work is done.”
“Wouldn’t an apartment make more sense?”
He rounded the table and walked slowly toward her. “No. I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t want bulls in the yard.”
“What?”
He stopped so close to her that she could reach out and touch him if she allowed herself. “I’ve ridden in my last rodeo, but I’m going to raise bulls for the rodeo circuit. I need a place to do that. I need a home.”
Skyler’s heart rate increased even more at the thought that he might really and truly be staying for good. That she’d be able to see him and their child would grow up knowing his or her father.
“Before anyone signs on any dotted lines, though, I need to ask you something.”
“Okay.”
“Would you ever consider living here with me?”
Skyler gripped the back of a chair for support as Logan pulled something from his pocket.
“I’m willing to buy the ranch, but I’d rather you keep it and we make a life here together. You, me and our child.” He lifted a little black box and popped it open.
The diamond-and-amethyst ring inside took her breath away. She met Logan’s eyes. “What...” She swallowed against the lump in her throat and tried again. “What does this mean?”
She saw understanding in those beautiful eyes of his.
“It means I love you, Skyler Harrington, and I want you to be my wife. It means that I’m never going to abandon you or our baby. It means that I want to make a life here with you, if you’ll have me.”
She lifted a shaking hand and placed it against his jaw. “Are you sure that’s what you want? You’re not just doing this because you think it’s what I want you to say?”
He smiled. “Does that mean you want to marry me?”
“Answer my question first.”
“I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life. The entire time I was away, all I could think about was how fast I could get back here and hold you in my arms again. And no, I never thought I’d ever say something quite so corny.”
Skyler smiled, and joy burst to brilliant life within her. “I like corny. And I love you, more than I ever thought myself capable of.” She pressed herself against him and captured his lips with hers.
Logan kissed her so deeply that she felt his love for her all the way to her toes. When they finally came up for air, Logan laughed. “I’m going to take a wild guess that that was a yes to my proposal.”
“Good guess,” she said, then kissed him again.
Skyler didn’t know how long they stood in the kitchen kissing, but by the time they wandered hand in hand out to the porch Justine was already gone.
“I guess she figured out her services weren’t needed,” Logan said.
“And I’d wager it won’t be long before half of Blue Falls knows why.” Skyler laughed. “Verona is going to be impossible after this. She’s two for two this summer.”
That made Skyler laugh even more. “It’ll serve her right.”
Logan pulled Skyler close and dropped little kisses along her cheek. “I happen to like the fact that your friends are matchmakers.”
“Me, too.” She ran her hands up his chest. “You know, I seem to remember saying something about it being a crime for you to wear shirts.”
“You plan to report me to the police?”
“No, I have a better idea.” She tugged the bottom of the T-shirt out of his jeans and slid her hands over his heated flesh before she started walking backward toward the front door.
Logan gave her that mischievous smile she’d come to love. “I like how you think, woman.”
She did, too, because she was thinking that life couldn’t get more perfect.
* * * * *
Be sure to look for Trish Milburn’s next book
in her BLUE FALLS, TEXAS miniseries!
Available in 2014 wherever Harlequin books are sold.
Keep reading for an excerpt from Callahan Cowboy Triplets by Tina Leonard.
We hope you enjoyed this Harlequin American Romance story.
You love small towns and cowboys! Harlequin American Romance stories are heartwarming contemporary tales of everyday women finding love, becoming part of a family or community—or maybe starting a family of her own.
Enjoy four new stories from Harlequin American Romance every month!
Visit Harlequin.com to find your next great read.
We like you—why not like us on Facebook: Facebook.com/HarlequinBooks
Follow us on Twitter: Twitter.com/HarlequinBooks
Read our blog for all the latest news on our authors and books: HarlequinBlog.com
Subscribe to our newsletter for special offers, new releases, and more!
Harlequin.com/newsletters
Chapter One