Baby My Baby (A Ranching Family)

by Pade, Victoria

After five years of experience she knew the answer to that. She knew that he would have been itching to get to the other crisis. And she knew she would have pretended everything was fine, that there was no reason for him to stay.

  And that he’d have gone.

  “I wish you would have thought to call Miss Lightfeather at home so she could have told you where I was or gotten hold of me herself sooner,” he said then.

  “It wouldn’t have mattered,” she lied. “There was nothing you could have done.”

  He let out a derisive, mirthless breath. “And you didn’t need me or want me here, is that it?”

  She raised her chin as if confirming it, all the while inside she was reliving just how much she had wanted and needed him. Too much. Think of the baby, she coached herself. What kind of father do you want him to have? “It was no big deal. I did okay on my own.”

  Ash sat on the coffee table in front of her and captured her eyes with his. “I don’t believe that,” he told her flat out and sternly. “I don’t believe that you weren’t scared to death that you’d lose this baby. I don’t believe you didn’t care that you were alone to face it. I don’t believe that you didn’t want me to be with you. What I can’t handle is that you seem to think it’s so damn bad to let me know it.”

  “It wouldn’t have changed the fact that you were hundreds of miles away at the time,” she pointed out. It would only have shown she was vulnerable and pitiable for having needs that wouldn’t be met.

  “No, it wouldn’t have changed the fact that I was gone,” he admitted. And with that, some of the steam seemed to go out of him, surprising her. “I’m sorry, Beth,” he said then, taking her hands in his.

  “Sorry for what?” she asked in a squeak of a voice as she worked to block the sparks that skittered up her arms at his touch.

  “I’m sorry I wasn’t here for you yesterday. I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you through our whole marriage. I’m sorry I didn’t see just how much I really did neglect you.” He laughed a little wryly this time. “When I got home last night—before I saw the light on the answering machine and discovered Jackson’s message—my grandfather was waiting for me, to point out a few things.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like the fact that no matter how hard I work, I can’t put out all the fires myself. And that I’m not the only one who can try. And that the price I paid for thinking I was, was losing you.”

  Beth didn’t know what to say to that, so she didn’t say anything at all. She just waited and watched him. And went on pushing hard against the wall that dammed her feelings for him behind it.

  “I know I said before that I’d do what I could to cut back on work if you’d marry me again. And I know you didn’t believe it could be done. But it can be, if I hire some help and delegate some of the work and responsibility.”

  “That costs money that’s more needed other places,” she parroted what she’d heard him say himself over the years, and then added the other reasons he’d always used against it. “And no one else carries the kind of clout or has the kind of connections you do after all your years of experience, or the drawing power to drum up funds and support. Plus, when you leave things to other people, they either get fouled up or at the very least are not done as efficiently or thoroughly or as well as when you do them yourself.”

  “Don’t stab me with my own sword, Beth,” he said, and she saw him waver in his belief that he could, indeed, successfully share the load. “I’m not saying it won’t take time to find good people and teach them the ropes and introduce them around and build confidence in them. Or that I’m handing over the helm. What I’m saying is that if I hire some help, I can put this job more into the perspective it should be, and actually have a life with you and the baby.”

  Beth stared at him, loving him so much it hurt, memorizing every sharp plane of his handsome face and wanting to smooth away the lines that creased it with fatigue and stress. She knew he meant well. She knew he even believed that if he tried hard enough, he could do what he was proposing. And she believed he’d truly try.

  But she knew him, knew how much he cared about his people and their plights, how responsible he felt, how duty bound to help, to make a difference. Those weren’t the kinds of things that were just delegated, even to competent, capable people.

  Beth shook her head and fought tears that threatened at the thought that no matter what he promised or how hard he tried, she and the baby still wouldn’t be his first priority. They’d just be what kept him from doing what he felt he should. And she couldn’t live that way. “It wouldn’t work,” she said very softly. “I know you want it to. I know you’d try to make it. But I also know that it won’t. It can’t.”

  “It can with the right people,” he insisted. “And if you meet me halfway and let me know if I’m getting too caught up in work and neglecting you or the baby, if you just speak up—” But he curbed the criticism and tried a different tack. “What about the time I’ve spent here? I’ve had Miss Lightfeather and my grandfather taking care of things, and until a major crisis came up, you and I were doing pretty well, weren’t we? In fact, I was around more than you wanted me to be.”

  Again she shook her head, this time more vigorously. “But you were here, Ash, not in the thick of it. You and I both know that it’s different being on the reservation, different when you haven’t just temporarily postponed things to be away for a little while. And when you’re right there, in the hub of what you care so much about, you are not going to be able to close your eyes to what needs attention. Or if you do you won’t feel good about it, because I’ve whimpered or whined or nagged you into keeping your distance. And I won’t feel good about it, either,” she added quietly.

  “Why is it that you always describe letting me know what you’re feeling in such derogatory terms?” he shot out, clearly frustrated.

  “I’m just calling it the way I see it. Besides, that’s what it would sound like. And I couldn’t do it any more than you could allow anyone else to put out one of those fires you knew was burning.”

  “Well, we could sure as hell give it a try, Beth.”

  He was angry again.

  But then so was she, for his wanting to force her back into the same position that had made her leave him. “It just wouldn’t work,” she said again.

  “Let’s just try,” he suggested as if soothing a skittish colt, squeezing her hands at the same time. “Come back to the reservation with me. We don’t even have to get married right away if you want to wait until I’ve proven to you that we can work through it all, that I can cut back. And maybe once we have more time together like we have while I’ve been here, you’ll see it isn’t so tough to open up to me, too.”

  But as tempting as it was, she still shook her head against it, maintaining her denial. “I just don’t believe either of us could pull it off. Old habits die hard—I’ve heard you say that a million times over the years. And no matter how honorable your intentions, I know you’ll be drawn back into it all. And even if I could live with it, it isn’t fair to the baby. The baby deserves more than that. It deserves a father who’s there for it.”

  Too vivid in her mind was the memory of the past night, of letting herself think he would arrive any minute when the truth was he was gone, that in spite of his claims that he wanted to be a part of her pregnancy, a part of everything that was going on with her and the baby, he’d left at the drop of a hat.

  Much as she loved him, she couldn’t risk it happening again.

  “I don’t understand,” he said harshly. “Are you saying it’s better for the baby if its parents aren’t together?”

  “In this case, I’m afraid that’s so. Not the way we’d be together.” Beth willed herself to keep from crying.

  “And that’s it? Your final answer? To hell with me. To hell with your own feelings for me. To hell with being a family.”

  His words made her shudder internally. But all she could say was, “For the baby’s sake, if not my own,
I just don’t think I have a choice.”

  This time it was Ash who shook his head. Clearly disgusted. Frustrated. So furious his jaw clenched once more.

  But he didn’t say anything. It was as if he couldn’t trust himself to.

  Instead, he stood and walked out, slamming the front door hard.

  And the sound of that slamming door toppled the bricks of the dam that held her feelings contained, and they all suddenly came flooding out to drown her.

  Chapter Twelve

  “Are you all right?” Jackson asked Beth as he came out of the kitchen a moment later.

  Beth didn’t know her brother hadn’t left the house after letting Ash in, and the realization that he was about to witness her falling apart jolted her back into control. She sat up straighter, squared her shoulders and blinked away the tears so perilously close to the surface.

  “Sure. I’m fine,” she managed.

  But Jackson didn’t seem convinced. He perched on the arm of the sofa, hooked a boot on the edge of the coffee table and frowned at her. “Shag would have been proud of you,” he said, though it didn’t sound like a good thing.

  “You were listening?” But of course he had been, she thought. It was just like Jackson to be on the alert in case she’d needed him.

  But all he said was “Voices carry.”

  Once more she found herself under a man’s steady, unrelenting stare. And she was getting tired of it. “You look like you’re busting to say something, Jackson. If that’s the case, spit it out,” she said peevishly.

  That was all the invitation he seemed to need. “I don’t mind tellin’ you, Beth, I was worried that Ash wasn’t doing right by you. But the truth is, it’s you who’s doing wrong. By Ash. By the baby. By yourself.”

  “Overhearing one conversation doesn’t give you a complete picture.”

  “Gives me enough of it. Don’t forget, I was raised by the same man, in the same way you were.”

  “That doesn’t have anything to do with this.”

  “Maybe,” Jackson allowed. “Then again, maybe it does.”

  Beth frowned back at him, wishing he’d leave her alone with her misery.

  No such luck.

  Jackson went on in that slow drawl of his. “Listening to Ash’s side, it seems to me that Shag taught you too well to keep things to yourself.”

  Beth rolled her eyes at that, but began to be grateful for the rising anger that helped block the pain of having made what she believed to be the right decision against marrying Ash. Somehow it hurt even more than her earlier decision to divorce him. “Don’t tell me you’re advising me to turn into some simpering fool.”

  “Me?” he asked, shocked. “I’m the last one who’d do that. I’m just sayin’ that when keeping your feelings to yourself means it costs you what you want most, it can’t be all good.”

  She looked away from him and said flatly, “What makes you think I want Ash?”

  Jackson blew out a derisive breath. “I was with you last night, remember? I was the one you kept sending to call him every five minutes. To find out anything I could about where he’d gone, if he’d be back, how to get hold of him. I was the one who watched you wishin’ he was there so much you were nearly comin’ apart at the seams. Now I hear you telling him to get lost for the baby’s sake. But you and I know that’s not what it’s really about.”

  “It’s all more complicated than you think, Jackson.”

  “Sounded pretty simple to me. Ash finally sees that he worked too much and is willing to hire some help so he can fix that. You’re not willing to give him another chance because you’re terrified of what it will do to you if he fails.”

  “That’s an oversimplification.” But was it?

  Jackson ignored the comment. “Seems to me old Shag would have whupped the tar out of you for sitting back like some martyr and just being the silent, long-suffering wife. Speak up for yourself is what he’d have said.”

  Jackson sounded so much like their father when he mimicked him that it made her smile in spite of herself.

  But he wasn’t finished saying his piece. “Hell, Beth, even old Shag gave in to feelings for the opposite sex. You know he had a soft spot for Momma, and then there was Margie Wilson over at the café. And what about his lady friend in Denver those last years? He even left a full quarter share of everything to her, he must have loved her. You didn’t see him counting it as a weakness and fighting against it the way you are.”

  Beth didn’t have a comeback for that because it was true. It just hadn’t ever occurred to her before.

  Jackson stood then, apparently drawing his lecture to a close. “You have a baby to think of now,” he said firmly. “And a whole life of your own stretchin’ out ahead of you. You may think you’re doing this for the child’s sake, but are you? Have you considered that a second marriage could work? Have you considered the fact that Ash could change, that you might be depriving your child of a damn fine daddy after all?” He finished with a clear note of challenge in his voice, leaving her to think about it.

  And she did think about it, because her brother’s last comment rang in her ears.

  Was she refusing to believe Ash could change because she was worried how she could bear it if he let her down again? Was she afraid of expressing her feelings to him and still coming up empty-handed?

  But what had been accomplished by hiding them? she asked herself suddenly.

  Sure, as a kid it had kept her from her father’s wrath and harsh punishments. But as an adult it had cost her her marriage. It had caused her to walk from the lake so Ash wouldn’t see her heart break and that had caused the fall that had put the baby in jeopardy.

  Lord. She’d never thought of it like that before. But there it was now, frightening her to realize just how high a price she’d paid, how much more she could have paid.

  And what about Jackson’s perception that she wasn’t standing up for herself?

  That made sense, too.

  But recognizing it and doing something about it were two different things.

  Could she do it? Could she voice her needs to get them met if she and the baby began to slip down Ash’s list of priorities? What if they got back to the reservation and being there, in the thick of the foundation’s works and the problems that went with them, pulled him back in just as thoroughly as he’d been before? Would she really be able to pull him out again with complaints that would always ring in her ears as things she shouldn’t be saying?

  She didn’t know.

  And yet, when she really thought about what Ash had promised, she also realized that she should consider the kind of man she knew him to be. A man of intense pride and honor. A man who always kept his word. And he’d given her his word that he would do all he could to be a better husband. In fact, he’d given his word again and again that he’d try. If only she would...

  Sitting there on that couch where Ash had left her, Beth had never felt so desolate.

  She was facing the rest of her pregnancy and the birth of their baby alone—the way she’d been the night before.

  She was facing raising the baby on her own.

  But worst of all, she was facing the rest of her life without Ash. Without his love. Without his touch. Without sharing their child.

  What she wanted, what she needed, was Ash as her husband. And as an active, full-time father to their baby. And there was only one chance of having that—if she met him halfway. No matter how tough that might be for her.

  “Jackson!” she shouted in the direction of the kitchen, hoping her brother hadn’t left the house.

  Because she wasn’t supposed to drive just yet.

  And she needed to get to Ash before he really did give up on her.

  * * *

  One advantage to living in a small town was that Beth had no trouble getting a key to Ash’s cabin at the lodge once she’d showered, dressed and fixed her hair and Jackson had driven her there.

  She expected Ash to be asleep by then, so after ass
uring her brother he could go, she slipped quietly into the small, rustic room.

  Ash was in bed, on his back, one arm across his eyes, the other over his bare chest, a sheet covering his lower half.

  He’d taken a shower himself before he’d gone to bed. Beth knew because there was a faint lingering of steam from the bathroom. The smell of his soap was strong in the air, and the towel he’d used to dry off was on the floor beside the bed.

  She wanted to crawl in with him, curl up close to what she suspected was his completely naked body under that sheet, and content herself with lying with him while he slept. But she knew she’d disturb him, so she merely sat in one of the chairs at the table, intent on waiting until he woke up.

  No matter how long that might be.

  Just being able to look at him helped her feel that it wasn’t too late for them. That she could rescind the rejections and mistrust and doubts she’d heaped on him recently and make everything all right again.

  “What are you doing, Beth?” His deep voice came then as he lifted his arm enough to let her see that he’d been watching her from beneath it.

  “I’m sorry if I woke you.”

  “I wasn’t asleep yet. I was having trouble getting there. For some reason I seem to have a lot on my mind.”

  “Like why in the world you ever thought you wanted to remarry someone so worried about being a fool for love that she was just a plain fool?”

  “Like how I was going to prove to you I meant what I said about putting work into line behind you so I could convince you to marry me again.”

  “And how were you going to do that?” she asked, her curiosity piqued.

  “I’m moving to Elk Creek, for starters,” he said without anything hypothetical in it.

  That surprised her. “What do you mean?”

  He sat up in bed, raising one knee under the sheet at the same time to brace an arm on. “I’ve been thinking about what you said earlier this morning, and you’re right. As long as I’m in the thick of things on the reservation, I’ll be drawn into everything in spite of the best intentions. But I can run things from here if I hire some help, and then I won’t be tempted to rush to every little fire that starts. And when I do need to leave to take care of something, you’ll have your family and Kansas and—”