The Cowboy's Triple Surprise

by Barbara White Daille

  Things had definitely changed between them since the night they had spent together.

  Chapter Two

  After lunch, Shay hurried out of the dining room as quickly as she could, wanting to put distance between herself and Tyler. She gave a shuddering sigh and rested her hands on the small folding table she had set up near the entrance to the banquet room. The short walk here had left her unsteady on her feet, but for once she couldn’t blame her shaky balance on the extra weight from her pregnancy.

  She had never expected to see Tyler Buckham again, not after he’d left so many months before.

  Eight months before. But who was counting?

  In the short time he had been in Cowboy Creek last summer, she had fallen hard and fast for him. She had let just a few conversations over just a handful of days lead her to fall into his arms. And then she had made the awful mistake of taking him to bed.

  The shame she felt about that now ranked right up there with the worst moments of her life, which included the day she finally acknowledged she wasn’t going to hear from him again.

  Now she had another item to add to the list—finding Tyler beside her an hour ago in the Hitching Post’s dining room. Well, he wouldn’t hear anything from her, either, about the fact he had gotten her pregnant before he’d left town.

  “And he’s not worth worrying about now, babies,” she said under her breath. “Mommy needs to focus on the reason we’re here at the Hitching Post.”

  The next wedding reception being held at the hotel was only a day away. And yet with all they still had left to do in the room, she had been demoted to assembling table decorations.

  She had spread her supplies across the small table. On the far side of the room, Jane and a couple of the hotel’s waitresses were taking care of the seating arrangements.

  Truthfully, setting up chairs would almost be easier on her now than bending over the display cases at the Big Dipper to scoop up mounds of rock-solid ice cream. But she couldn’t argue about being given light duty here, not when she knew the Garlands were only looking out for her.

  Which was exactly what she needed to be doing right now for them.

  She walked over to the corner of the room to get more of the wedding favors. Before she could lift the carton of vases from the stack, a man stepped up beside her. She nearly jumped a foot in the air.

  Then she froze, knowing it was Tyler and refusing to look at him. Yet, without even a glance in his direction, she picked up so many of the same details she had tried not to notice at the dining room table. So many memories from their brief time together.

  From the corner of her eye, she caught the scuffed and creased cowboy boots. The well-worn jeans. The snapped cuff of a long-sleeved Western shirt. With one breath, she took in the scent of musky aftershave and of the man himself. Standing so close to him, she couldn’t miss the heat of his body. She forced herself to remember that warmth was only on the surface and didn’t touch his heart.

  “So,” he said, “you’re helping out the Garlands this afternoon, too?”

  “I work here,” she corrected.

  “You gave up the job at the Big Dipper?”

  She shook her head and finally glanced at him. “No, I’m doubling up. I’m working my way up to banquet manager for the hotel.” She hoped for that, anyhow. With the babies on the way, she needed more money than she made now.

  “Nice.” He sounded impressed.

  Good. Let him see she didn’t need anything from him.

  “Hey, I’ll give you a hand.” He grabbed the carton. Glass clinked.

  “Careful,” she snapped, half out of annoyance at herself for taking so much of him in, the other half out of irritation at his thinking she needed help—or anything else—from him. “Those are fragile.”

  Eyebrows raised, he eyed her middle as if to say the same applied to her.

  She crossed her arms, intending to stand her ground and stare him down, but the large baby bump made the stance awkward. She lowered her hands to her sides.

  “Don’t worry,” he said, “I don’t make a habit of dropping things.”

  “Oh, really? I’d have said you were an expert at it.” She could have bitten her tongue at the instinctive response, but even that pain wouldn’t have come close to the way he had hurt her.

  “What does that mean?”

  It was too much to hope he would have just let her statement slide. But why should she let him slide when he had treated her so badly? “Sorry. I suppose I shouldn’t have said that.” She kept her voice down, but still, nerves and anger made her pitch high and her tone arch. “I really don’t know how you are about dropping things. But I sure know how you are about dropping women, since you did such a great job of that with me.”

  Abruptly, he shifted the carton. Glass clinked again, and this time she was too annoyed to care. How could he sound so offhand after what he had done?

  “I didn’t drop you,” he said. “You knew I was only in town a few days for the wedding. While I was here, we had a good time together, and that was it. I didn’t make any promises.” He looked at her stomach. “Besides, you obviously didn’t waste any time moving on to someone else.”

  She swallowed a gasp. He couldn’t possibly think she had slept with him one night and then gone on to someone else the next. Then again, considering how quickly she had wound up in bed with him, why wouldn’t he think that?

  As for not wasting time... If he only knew how many sleepless nights she had spent since he had left, especially once she found out she was pregnant. But he wouldn’t know, and she had to stop thinking about that. He had already stolen too much time from her, had already hurt her enough.

  “Don’t worry,” he said in a lower tone, “I’m not planning to say anything about what happened last summer. Your secret’s safe with me.”

  “My—” The sound of footsteps made her cut herself off. This time she turned. One sneak attack was enough—although no one could have startled her more than Tyler had.

  Tina was coming toward them from across the room.

  Shay glanced in Tyler’s direction and gestured to the table she had set up. “You can put the carton over there. Thanks.” She forced a smile.

  He locked gazes with her. She refused to be the first to look away, which left her staring into his midnight-blue eyes. To her dismay, her stomach did that funny little flip it had taken such a short time to learn months ago.

  “Tyler,” Tina said, “thanks so much for agreeing to help us all out. I think Jane’s trying to flag you down. Would you mind giving her and the waitresses a hand with the banquet tables?”

  “Sure.” He glanced toward the other side of the room. Then he nodded to them both and ambled away.

  Shay tried not to stare after him. She didn’t care where he was going or what he was doing, as long as it wasn’t near her. Let him think what he wanted about her pregnancy, too. She didn’t have to correct his assumption.

  “Shay?”

  Startled, she turned to stare at Tina. “I’m sorry. What?”

  “I said, why don’t you sit and take it easy? It’s hard to be up on your feet, especially when you can’t even see your feet.”

  “You should talk,” Shay said, glancing pointedly at the other woman’s middle, then blinking as she recalled Tyler doing the same to her. “You’re not that far behind me.”

  “But I’m experienced. And I’m not carrying three babies.”

  Shay tried not to wince, not to react at all to what Tina had said. She shot another look across the banquet hall. To her relief, Tyler had reached the opposite side of the room. Even with the acoustics in the high-ceilinged ballroom, he couldn’t possibly have overheard.

  “Actually,” Tina said, “I’ll give you a hand, since I have some free time this afternoon.” She took a seat at the table.

  Shay followed and retur
ned to her own chair. Again, she couldn’t argue. Tina was only looking out for her. And as one of the Garland family, the other woman was more or less her employer.

  She didn’t know what Tyler was doing back here in Cowboy Creek, but for all she knew, Jed might have hired him, too. She might have to face him every time she came to the hotel to work.

  The thought was too much for her to consider.

  She reached for the ribbon dispenser. Right now, she needed to push aside her reluctance to be near him for even part of this afternoon. She had to focus on the job that was going to help her pay her bills.

  And still, she stared across the room.

  Tyler had gone down on one knee to inspect something under a table. His broad shoulders strained against his flannel shirt the way her stomach strained against her maternity top. His belt encircled a waist as rock hard as his abs and now slimmer than she was around the middle.

  “Shay,” Tina said, “do you mind if I borrow that dispenser before you run out of ribbon?”

  Shay looked down at the table in front of her. Her face flamed. While trying to distract her thoughts from Tyler, she had coiled a length of ribbon into a tangled mass around her fingers. She grabbed the scissors and snipped the ribbon free.

  Without another word, Tina took the dispenser, then reached for an undecorated vase. Shay sent her an apologetic glance, but the other woman didn’t look her way.

  For a while, she managed to focus on the vases and the ribbons and a casual conversation with Tina. Then, all too soon, she found herself tuning in to the thump of Tyler’s boots from the other side of the room, the rumble of his voice as he spoke to one of the women, the sound of his deep laugh as he responded to something one of them said.

  A spurt of jealousy hit, an unwanted, unwelcome emotion that twined itself—like the ribbon twisted in her fingers—around her heart.

  She should have expected it and been prepared. And she couldn’t let it worry her, because she knew what caused the sudden upswing of emotion.

  From the day Tyler had left to the day she finally acknowledged he didn’t plan to contact her again, her up-and-down feelings had run out of control. Late-night anxiety triggered her bouts of insomnia. Stiff-necked tension left her no comfortable position even if sleep had wanted to come. Anger and depression had made her days as uncomfortable as her nights.

  There had been no way she would have run after Tyler, no way she wanted an unreliable cowboy in her life. Anger at herself, at how far she had let herself fall, had triggered every one of those reactions. She had simply waited them out, knowing they would pass, and they had. Eventually.

  After she had discovered she was pregnant, she had again fought—and won—a battle to get her emotions in check, but there were times, like today, when her hormones won out. Green-eyed jealousy was trying to entice her. She wouldn’t let it succeed. Tyler didn’t mean anything to her anymore. She couldn’t care less who he flirted with now. Though he had fathered her babies, he was a free man.

  She didn’t plan to do or say anything to change that.

  * * *

  WHEN HIS YOUNGEST GRANDDAUGHTER, Tina, entered the kitchen, Jed Garland took notice. Her grin made him sit back in his chair and nod in satisfaction.

  Paz, standing near the refrigerator, stopped and turned their way.

  “Tyler went for the bait, did he?” Jed asked.

  “I don’t know about that.” Tina laughed. “But as you would put it, let’s just say Jane had him well and truly hooked by the time I left the banquet hall. He’s helping with the table setups, though his attention keeps wandering, and so does Shay’s. I’m now beginning to think you were right all along. You’re some matchmaker, Abuelo.”

  “I try,” he said modestly.

  Both she and Paz laughed out loud.

  “I’m curious,” Tina said. “Tyler seemed so reluctant to help after you told him Shay would be working with us. I’m surprised he’s cooperating now. What did you say to him after the rest of us left the dining room?”

  “I simply mentioned that no able-bodied man would let a woman in Shay’s condition get overworked.”

  “Mentioned?” Paz repeated.

  Chuckling, he looked over at the hotel cook. She had worked for him for more than twenty years now, since before they had this granddaughter in common and long before those gray streaks had started threading through her hair. “Well, maybe a bit stronger than mentioned. What do you think of his reaction?”

  She crossed the room to take the chair beside Tina’s. After a glance toward the kitchen door, she smiled at them both. “I think it has proved your point. If we didn’t already believe that Tyler is the daddy of Shay’s babies, I would surely think so now.”

  He nodded. “We’d have had to be imbeciles not to have caught on months ago. The boy’s reactions today only confirm he and Shay had something going on.”

  “True,” Tina said. “I was watching, and the look on his face when he stood in the doorway and saw her was priceless. So was Shay’s when she found him sitting beside her. But I’m feeling a little guilty you didn’t tell either of them ahead of time that they would see each other at lunch.”

  He shook his head. “There’s a lot to be said for shock value. And there’s even more to be said about keeping those two on their toes. Jane and the other girls are still with them in the banquet hall, aren’t they?”

  Tina nodded.

  “Good. Nothing like holding something a man wants within his sight but just out of reach. I’m betting the longer he has time to question things, the more eager he’ll be to stick around to get answers. And in the long run, the more Shay will benefit.”

  “Yes.” Paz nodded. “We have to think of Shay.”

  “We do,” he agreed. “It’s best we all pretend ignorance for as long as we can. Then they’ll never suspect we’re trying to get them together.”

  “You think this plan is a good one, Jed?” Paz asked.

  “Of course, I do. And it’s not just me and the girls who believe in it.”

  Tina gasped. “You talked to Mo?”

  “I did, just before lunch. And she’s in complete agreement. Shay puts on a good act when she’s with any of us, but her grandma said she’s been moping for months now at home. And that’s not good for her.”

  “Especially in her condition,” Paz said in alarm.

  “Exactly. Well, don’t worry. We’ll be keeping her much too busy to worry about anything...except Tyler.”

  “You are a devious, scheming man,” she said, shaking her head.

  “Thank you,” he said with a grin.

  Chapter Three

  “We need that table over here,” Jane called across the banquet room.

  “No problem.” Tyler turned in midstride, rolling the round table on its edge across the hardwood floor toward the space she indicated. “You ladies sure do know how to put a man to work around here.”

  “Are you complaining?”

  “Heck, no. Hard labor is my middle name.” Though Jane laughed, he couldn’t keep from wincing. Head down, he busied himself with pulling out the legs of the table and tightening the supports. Then he crossed back to the wheeled cart and took down the next table.

  The phrase he’d jokingly tossed out—hard labor—had made him think of Shay and her pregnancy. Where was the man who had gotten her into that state? There had to be someone in the vicinity. A husband. A boyfriend. Someone. Despite her lack of a wedding ring, for all he knew, she had married that someone a week after he had left town.

  It looked to him as though she might be ready to have her baby at any minute. But what did he know about that, either? After lunch, she had stood from her seat beside his and lumbered away. Except for the rolling gait of a saddle-sore greenhorn, from the back she seemed just the way she had when he’d met her months ago. Quite a few months ago.

&nb
sp; For a moment, his thoughts got hung up on the time frame. But only for a moment. He couldn’t have been the one to get her pregnant. After all, when he had said something about her moving on to someone else as soon as he’d left town, she hadn’t denied it.

  “Hold up, Tyler,” Jane called. “The reception’s in this room, not on the patio.”

  To his chagrin, he saw he’d overshot his mark and was almost to a pair of doors leading outside. “Got it,” he said, forcing a laugh. Abruptly, he turned back and took the table to the appropriate spot.

  As he continued to work, Shay remained absorbed in her vases and ribbons. Every time he attempted to set up a table closer to her, Jane sent him to another area of the room.

  Maybe that was for the best. He and Shay didn’t have anything left to say to each other. And they couldn’t have talked much, anyway, with Tina or Jane constantly by her side. It was as if they were standing guard over her. Every time Jed stopped by the room, even he seemed to take up a protective stance. Because...

  Because she was due to have that baby at any minute?

  Despite his own reassurances to himself, he did some quick mental math. The results caused him to pull his bandanna from his back pocket. It took him two tries to wipe the cold sweat from his face.

  “You okay, cowboy?” Jane called teasingly.

  Across the room, Shay looked up from her work.

  “Ma’am,” he said to Jane, “I’ve had a change of heart. You’re about working me to death here.” He grinned. “Even the hired hands ought to be entitled to a cold drink now and then, don’t you think?”

  He saw her fighting to hide a smile. She made a show of glancing at her watch. “Well, I suppose we can spare you for a minute.”

  “Good.” He ambled across the room, deliberately avoiding Shay and Tina and aiming straight for the corner table a few yards from them. Earlier, one of the waitresses had brought in a jug of sweet tea. He filled a glass.

  After a mouthful of the drink, he turned to look at the two women. Both were pregnant. Was there something in the water around here? He eyed his tea glass and swallowed a laugh. Then he looked at Shay’s belly again, and his sense of humor deserted him.