The Cowboy's Sweetheart

by Brenda Minton

  “Do you need to sit down?”

  “Yes, I need to sit down and I need for you to stop acting like this.”

  “How do you want me to act?”

  “I don’t know.” She let him lead her to one of the bar stools at the kitchen counter.

  “Well, that makes two of us, Andie. We’re both in a place we never expected to be. We’re going to be parents. That’s going to take some time to adjust to. Give me a break and don’t expect me to know exactly what to say or how to react.”

  “Fine, then you give me a break and don’t expect me to suddenly think of you as my handsome prince.” She blinked away tears. “You’ve always been my toad.”

  He smiled and shook his head and she thought he might hug her, but he didn’t. As she was contemplating the dozens of reasons why she shouldn’t want him to hug her, his cell phone rang.

  Andie waited, watching as he talked, as his expression changed from aggravated with her to worried.

  “I’ll be right there.” He slipped his cell phone into his pocket. He met her gaze and his eyes were no longer dancing with laughter.

  “What’s up?”

  “Molly’s sick. Wyatt needs to run to town and get something for her. My medicine cabinet doesn’t support the needs of toddlers.”

  “I can go with you.” Andie hopped off the bar stool and grabbed her cell phone that had been charging all night. “Let me get shoes.”

  “You’re sick.”

  “I’m fine. It’s over now.” She tried to smile, but he was still watching her. She was suddenly breakable.

  He’d have to get over that in a real hurry.

  “Morning sickness, Ryder. Morning, and then it goes away.”

  “Right. I get it.”

  The back door opened. Etta walked in, glancing from one to the other, clearly looking for marks of a fight.

  “Where are you two off to?” Etta kicked off her shoes and set a basket of fresh eggs on the counter.

  “Molly’s sick,” Andie explained as she leaned to tie her shoes. “I’m going over to see if there’s anything I can do.”

  “You’re going to help?” Etta smiled a little. “With children?”

  “I can do that.”

  “Call if you need my help.”

  “Will do.” Andie hugged her grandmother. “Oh, if Rob gets here before I get back, tell him Dusty and Babe need shoes. Not that he won’t be able to tell.”

  “Of course.”

  Ryder pushed the door open and Andie walked out, past him, his arm brushing hers. And then he walked next to her. They didn’t talk. When had they ever not talked? They’d always had something to say to one another, something to tease the other about.

  How did she get that back? Or did she? Maybe that was the other consequence, losing her best friend.

  Ryder opened the passenger side truck door. For her. She stopped and gave him a look. “Stop.” She stood in front of him.

  “Stop what?”

  “When have you ever opened the car for me?”

  “I don’t know. I’m sure I’ve done it before. Would you just get in?”

  She shrugged and climbed in. “Sure thing.”

  The door closed and he walked around the front of the truck to the driver’s side. Her heart clenched a little, because he was sweet and gorgeous and a cowboy. For most of her life she’d just seen him as the friend she couldn’t live without. Now, watching him walk away, she wondered if she’d kept that line between them because he’d insisted on just being friends.

  No, that wasn’t it. She was just being overly emotional. She didn’t love Ryder. He didn’t love her. And maybe, just maybe, the test was wrong. She’d go to the doctor tomorrow and find out it had all been a big mistake. They’d laugh and go back to being who they had always been.

  Ryder didn’t talk to Andie on the short drive to his place. As he eased the truck up the driveway, he let his gaze settle on the house he’d grown up in. It was a big old ranch house that his parents had remodeled. They’d added the new windows, the brick siding and the landscaping.

  It had sheltered them, but it hadn’t exactly been a happy home. Wyatt and Ryder had spent their time breaking horses, roping steers and looking out for each other.

  They’d been in more than their share of fights. They’d broken more than a few hearts. He knew that. He could accept that he’d always been the bad boy that most parents didn’t want to see walk through the door to pick up their little girl for a date.

  And now he was going to be a dad. The idea itched inside him, like something he was deathly allergic to. But when he walked through the front door and saw three-year-old Molly on the sofa, a stuffed animal in her arms and her little face red from the fever that must have come on since he left the house, he thought different things about being a dad.

  He thought about a kid of his own, one that he wouldn’t let down.

  But what if he did? What if he messed up a kid the way his parents had messed him up? What if his kid grew up too independent for its own good, or always afraid of what was happening in the living room?

  The last thing he should be thinking of was a little girl with Andie’s eyes.

  Wyatt held Kat. “Can you watch them while I run to Grove and get some medicine?” The little girl looked like she might be nearly asleep, but when she saw Ryder she smiled. And then she held her arms out to Andie.

  And Andie’s eyes widened. “Oh, okay.”

  She held the little girl and when she looked over Kat’s shoulder at him, he felt like someone who didn’t belong in this picture. Andie probably felt the same way.

  “I’ll be right back.” Wyatt grabbed his keys, shot a look over his shoulder and walked out the front door.

  Something about that look had Ryder worrying that his brother wouldn’t come back. He walked to the door and watched the truck drive away. “How about some lunch?”

  He turned, smiling at Kat, and then Molly. His dog, Bear, was curled on the couch at her feet. As Ryder approached her side, Bear looked up, letting out a low growl. So, it had been that easy to steal the dog’s loyalty? It just took being a little girl with big eyes.

  “Bear, enough.” At the warning, the dog’s stub tail thumped the leather sofa.

  Molly’s eyes watered. Ryder sat down on the coffee table, facing her. “How about a drink of water?”

  She nodded and sat up, still dressed in her nightgown with a princess on the front. His heart filled up in a way he’d never experienced. And then it ducked for cover, because this couldn’t be his life.

  Movement behind him. He turned and Andie was sitting in the rocking chair, Kat held against her. If Wyatt was running, he should have taken Ryder with him.

  “Is her forehead hot?” Andie asked, her voice soft, comforting. He’d never heard it like that, as if she al ready knew how to be a mom.

  Maybe women were that way? Maybe they had that natural instinct, and only men had to wonder and worry that they’d never get it right. The way he was worrying.

  He touched Molly’s head. “Pretty hot.” He winked at the little girl as she curled back into her blanket, his dog curling into the bend of her knees.

  “Maybe get a cool, wet cloth?” Andie shrugged. “I really don’t have a clue, but it could be a while before Wyatt gets back and maybe cool water would bring her temperature down. We could call Etta.”

  “Wyatt will come back.” Ryder cleared his throat. “I mean, he’ll be back soon. It doesn’t take that long to drive into Grove.”

  “Right.” She was still holding Kat, her fingers stroking the little girl’s brown hair. “Do you have a brush? Her hair’s kind of scraggly.”

  He stood up. “I’ll get a wet cloth for Molly and a brush for Kat.”

  When he walked back into the room, Molly was dozing and Kat had found a book for Andie to read. The two of them were cuddled in his big chair, Andie’s bare feet on the ottoman.

  His throat tightened and he looked away, because it was a lot easier to deal wi
th Molly and not the crazy thoughts going through his mind.

  Wyatt came back.

  Andie breathed a sigh of relief when he walked through the door an hour later. He had a bag of medication and two stuffed animals. He avoided looking at her, and at Ryder. She wondered if he had thought about not coming back.

  How did a person go on when the person they had loved the most, the one they had promised to cherish and protect, took their own life? She couldn’t imagine his emotions, the loss, the guilt and the questions.

  The questions about her mother leaving didn’t begin to compare to what Wyatt must be asking himself every single day. She wanted to tell him he couldn’t have stopped it. She wanted to tell him that people make choices, and when they’re making those choices they aren’t always thinking about how the ones left behind will feel. Wendy wouldn’t have wanted to hurt him, or her daughters.

  It wasn’t her place. She and Wyatt had never been close. He’d been older, wiser and never up for any of her and Ryder’s crazy antics.

  She shifted and he moved, as if he had just noticed her. Kat had fallen asleep in her arms and Molly was sleeping on the couch. Andie looked at Ryder. Without words, he took the sleeping child from her arms and placed her on the opposite end of the couch from her sister.

  Bear hopped down, looking offended the way only a dog can.

  “We should get you back before Rob gets there to shoe those horses.” Ryder had walked to the door. His gaze settled first on the girls and then on Wyatt. “Need anything before we go?”

  “No, we’re fine. Thanks for watching them.”

  “No problem. Call if you need me.”

  As they walked out to the truck, Andie slowed her pace.

  “Do you think he’ll be okay?” She glanced back at the house. Ryder followed the direction of her gaze and shrugged.

  “I guess he will. What else can he do?”

  “I guess you’re right. But I can’t imagine…”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  His hand reached for hers. Andie didn’t say anything. She walked next to him, his fingers tightly laced through hers. When they got to the truck he squeezed lightly and then let go. His hand was on the door handle, but he didn’t open it.

  Andie reached to do it herself, but he stopped her.

  “Andie, we’re going to figure this out. I don’t know how, but we will. I guess we’ll do it the way we’ve al ways faced everything else—together.”

  She nodded, but her eyes were swimming and she just wanted him to hold her hand again. She didn’t want to feel alone. His words had taken away a little of that feeling and replaced it with hope. Maybe they would survive this.

  “We should go.” Andie glanced away, but Ryder touched her cheek, drawing her attention back to him, forcing her to meet his gaze. She stared up at him, at lean, suntanned cheeks and a smile that curved into something delicious and tempting.

  That smile was her downfall. She should turn away and not think about her life in terms of being in Ryder’s life. She should definitely look away. But his eyes were dark and pulled her in.

  “We should definitely go,” she repeated, whispering this time.

  “I know, but there’s one thing we need to do before we leave.”

  He leaned, his hand still on her cheek. Her fingers slipped off the chrome door handle to rest on his arm.

  His lips touched hers in a gesture that was sweet and disarming. His hand moved from her cheek to the back of her neck and he paused in the kiss to rest his forehead against hers.

  Andie gathered her senses, because she couldn’t let her heart go there, not in the direction it wanted to go.

  “We shouldn’t have gone there.” She broke the connection and reached for the door handle. This time he opened it for her.

  “Andie, at least give me a chance to figure this all out before you give up on me.”

  “I’ve never given up on you.” She touched his arm. “But I can’t be distracted, Ryder. I have to make the right decisions, now more than ever.”

  “And you think turning down my proposal was the right decision?”

  “Yeah, right now it is. It was sweet of you, really it was, but it was spur-of-the-moment and this is something that we should take time to think about.”

  Spur-of-the-moment was definitely a bad idea.

  Chapter Six

  Andie walked through the glass doors of the women’s health clinic the next morning and she couldn’t deny that her stomach was doing crazy flips and her palms were sweating. This time it was a good old case of nerves and not morning sickness. She rubbed her hands down the sides of her jeans and ignored the cautious look Ryder shot her as they walked across the granite-tiled lobby.

  “We could skip this. I mean, the test is probably right.”

  Ryder laughed a little as he pushed the button on the elevator. “Right, we already know, so why bother with a doctor? I mean, who needs help delivering a kid into the world?”

  Every word spiked into her heart. Delivering. Kid. World. This baby wasn’t going to stay inside her, where it was safe, where it was a thought, something in the future. It would come kicking and screaming into her life. If Etta’s calculations were correct, it would happen in May. Spring.

  Andie wouldn’t be riding for a world title any time soon.

  But with the life growing inside of her, that couldn’t be her focus. Her old plans were being replaced by new ones. Etta was looking at paint samples and fabric for baby quilts.

  It was a little soon for that.

  They got off the elevator at the third floor. Andie stood in the wide corridor, staring at Suite 10. Another couple stepped off the second elevator, smiling, holding hands. The other woman’s belly was round and her eyes were shining with anticipation. And Andie didn’t know how to reach for Ryder’s hand, or how to make this about a happy future for the two of them. The three of them.

  Her own belly was still flat. Her jeans still fit. Other than nausea in the morning and a positive sign on a stick, this didn’t seem real. But it was.

  At least Ryder was with her. Of course he was. She knew him well enough to know that he wasn’t going to let her go through this alone. He just wasn’t going to be the person with adoration in his eyes, holding her hand and telling her he’d always be there for her.

  He’d never been that person for anyone. She knew him, knew that he’d worked hard at never letting himself get too involved. He didn’t even want kids.

  That was one thought she wished she would have blocked. Too late, though, because it had obviously already been swimming around in her mind.

  “We’re going to be late.” Ryder reached for the door and glanced back at her. “Andie, you coming with me? I’m pretty sure this doctor doesn’t want to examine me.”

  She tried to smile. “I’m coming.”

  They stepped into a prenatal world of soft colors, relaxing music and mothers-to-be reading magazines as they waited. The bad case of nervousness she was already experiencing went into overdrive. It was bad enough to make her reach for Ryder’s hand, tugging him close.

  “Relax.” He walked with her to the counter. The receptionist smiled up at him. He grinned with that wicked Ryder charm that had kept girls following him since kindergarten. “Andie Forester. We have an appointment.”

  “Right. Here’s the paperwork for new patients, Mr. Forester.” The young woman handed over a clipboard with a pen and a stack of papers to be filled out.

  Ryder turned, handing Andie the clipboard. “There you go, Mrs. Forester.”

  She smacked him with the clipboard. “You’re horrible.”

  He winked. “Yeah, I work at it. But you’re color is coming back, so that’s a plus.”

  She walked away from him and he followed. When she sat down in a corner, as far away from other patients as she could get, he sat down next to her. He crossed his right leg over his left knee and leaned back in the chair that had to be one of the most uncomfortable she’d ever sat in.

&nb
sp; While she filled out paperwork, he flipped through magazines, giggling a little bit like a junior-high kid with the lingerie catalogue. She shot him a dirty look and he didn’t even manage to look contrite.

  Thirty minutes later, Andie walked through the doors of the exam room, alone. Other women had taken their husbands, the father’s of their babies. Ryder wasn’t her husband. And she couldn’t face this with him.

  She didn’t know how to face it without him. She sat down on the examining table and waited for the doctor. And she waited. She glanced at her watch and groaned, it was way past noon. No wonder she was getting shaky. Baby needed to eat. An OB should know that.

  The door opened. Andie’s hands were shaking. She twirled them in the robe she’d been told to wear by the nurse who had made a brief stop some thirty minutes earlier.

  “Sorry, had an emergency.” Dr. Mark looked down at his file. “Good news. You’re pregnant.”

  He said it with a happy smile that faded when he looked at her face.

  “That is good news, isn’t it?” he asked, pushing his glasses to the top of his head. His hair was blond and thinning, his smile was kind and fatherly. She liked him.

  “It is.” She bit down on her lip, trying to stop the trembling. “I’m sorry. It’s not really a surprise. You can’t be sick for days on end and really be shocked by the news that you’re pregnant.”

  “But it isn’t something you planned. I’m assuming it is something you plan to keep?”

  Heat rushed to her cheeks. She’d never thought of anything other than keeping this baby. Her baby. She blinked a few times.

  “Of course I’m keeping my baby.”

  “Of course.” He smiled and sat down. “I’m going to do a quick exam, but first we’ll do an ultrasound. If the father is here, he can come back…”

  “No, he can’t. I mean. This isn’t what either of us planned. We’re not, we’re not in a relationship.”

  It sounded pathetic. Not in a relationship, but having a baby. She buried her face in her hands and waited for her cheeks to cool to their normal temperature.