The Cowboy's Baby: Devlin Brothers Ranch

by Joanna Bell

  I'm not even saying he was wrong. I'm just saying when I picked Hailey Nickerson up that night my mood was already short, and something about seeing her again just reminded me of all the ways in which my life had changed for the worse.

  It wasn't her fault. I mean, she was the same quick-to-take-offense pain in my ass she always had been – and that's on her, not me – but it wasn't her fault I was short-tempered.

  Did I mention she turned out beautiful? I had to make a real effort not to stare when she was in the truck next to me. And she was beautiful in a way that none of the other girls in Sweetgrass Ridge were. Her hair wasn't the color of sun-bleached straw and her cheeks weren't burnished to a high, orange-y shine with whatever it was girls were putting all over their faces at the time. No. Hailey's hair was dark and thick and prone to needing tucking behind her ears every minute or so. And if she wore make-up, I was just the kind of dumb guy who didn't know how to tell. Why was I noticing little details like that, when I had an established history of not noticing it when women changed their look?

  I don't know.

  I do know. But I didn't back then. Back then all I knew was I felt like shit driving back out to the ranch, where my father had generously gifted me a badly-insulated mobile home a quarter of a mile or so from the main house in exchange for my toil.

  Seeing her again made me happy. And I had singularly failed to express that to her. What if she thought I was just irritated to have to spend time with her? What if that's what she'd always thought? That she was just a pain in the ass to me? Sure I said it all the time, but I was only ever joking. Did she know that?

  It was dark when I got back to my cell. My trailer, I mean. It was also well below zero, which meant an extra early morning the next day in case the heating went out again in the barn where the cattle spent their nights during the bitterest winter months.

  Not that I was thinking about the cattle. I was thinking about Hailey. I was thinking about what I could do to make it right after our somewhat disastrous reunion. She was as prone to taking offense when none was intended as ever, but I knew that's just how she was. Hell, I even liked it about her. I liked that she went through life without feeling the need to plaster a simpering smile on her face and pretend everything was wonderful all the time.

  But what could I do? Flowers? She didn't seem like the flowers kind of girl. It had to be something she would remember.

  Chapter 6: Hailey

  I'd done it again. I'd taken a kindness and thrown it back in Jackson's face. When I woke up the next morning and remembered all the excruciating details it brought something Lili said to me a few years before back to mind:

  You're only mean to him because you like him.

  I denied it at the time because of course I did. But she was right. And far from growing and maturing I'd just gone and followed the exact same childish pattern of behavior that started way back in the hallway of Sweetgrass Ridge Junior School when I dropped my cupcakes and yelled at Jackson for trying to help.

  I resolved to apologize. I was an adult then, not a child. Well, almost an adult.

  "What's gotten into you?" My mom asked at breakfast as we both wolfed down the off-brand flavored oatmeal we started most days with.

  "What?" I asked, genuinely not aware I was acting any different.

  "You seem..." my mother paused, regarding me. "Determined. You have an air of determination about you."

  "Do I?"

  "Yes," she smiled. "Even the way you're eating your breakfast is different. Do you have a test today?"

  I shook my head. "No."

  "Something after school? Are you working tonight?"

  "Yeah. They want me to help close-up so I'll be home after 10. You don't have to wait up."

  When she dropped me off at school she grabbed my arm just before I got out of the car and told me she hoped that "it" would go "well."

  "What?" I asked, still pre-occupied with thoughts of how exactly I was going to apologize to Jackson without making a fool of myself.

  "Whatever it is that's going on with you today. I can tell there's something. It's OK, you don't have to tell me what it is."

  She meant what she said, too. My mother may not have been able to afford the brand name clothes and new model pick-up trucks that so many of my classmates got for their 16th birthdays, but she was solid in every single way a teenager needs a parent to be solid. She let me share things with her on my own time, she rarely pushed me and, above all, she trusted me. They say divorce is always a disaster for the children but as I got older I slowly began to realize that my dad just wasn't a very good person. me and my mom built a good life for ourselves. We didn't have a lot of material things or a lot of (or any) money in the bank, but we had each other – and that was better than a thousand shiny pick-ups in the driveway.

  ***

  As it was, I never got the chance to apologize to Jackson. And I didn't have to help close the Super Mart that night, either.

  At about quarter past 5, I looked up from my till and saw him there in the store talking to my manager –Robin. What was he doing in the Super Mart?

  Getting groceries, probably. You do work in a grocery store, after all.

  But he wasn't getting groceries. A few minutes later Robin caught my eye and gestured for me to come over.

  "What is it?" I asked, noting that they both looked rather serious.

  Robin raised her eyebrows and gave a little shrug. "I actually don't know. Jackson here says he needs your help with something important, but he doesn't seem to want to tell me what it is."

  Jackson. She called him by his first name even though I was pretty sure they didn't know each other personally. Anyone else except him and I would have been surprised. Anyone else except him and Robin would have told them to get lost because I had a shift to finish.

  "It is important," Jackson said, giving Robin a hopeful little smile before turning to me. "I just need your help with something, Hailey. It won't take long. A couple of hours. Three hours tops."

  He was up to something. I didn't know what it was, but anything was better than work.

  "It is pretty dead in here," Robin said slowly, looking around. It was funny watching people try to justify their natural inclination to go along with whatever Jackson Devlin wanted. "You said it's important?"

  "Yeah." He confirmed, nodding.

  Five minutes later we were heading out into the cold night and I was shaking my head, laughing.

  "What?" He asked, grinning. He seemed to be in a better mood than he was the night before, and that made me feel strangely buoyed, too.

  "You know exactly what."

  "No I don't."

  "You know everyone is just going to go along with whatever you want them to go along with. Especially women!"

  Jackson swooped in to open the truck's passenger side door before I could get to it. "I have no idea what you're talking about," he chuckled, even though it was obvious he knew exactly what I was talking about.

  "So," he continued when we were both in the truck with the heat blasting full force. "I wanted to –"

  "Actually?" I cut him off. I didn't know what he had planned. But I wanted to say what I had to say before he had the chance to do or say something nice. I didn't want him to think I was insincere. "Before you say anything else, I just wanted to say I'm sorry for being kind of a bitch last night. Sometimes I don't know what gets into me. I'm not usually that mean."

  He narrowed his eyes slightly, looking for signs that I was joking. When he didn't find any he just nodded. "Forget about it. I was in a pretty shitty mood myself."

  I'll give Jackson Devlin this: he was never playing the easy going, popular guy. He was that guy. Slow to anger, quick to forgive. Or so I thought at the time, anyway.

  "You never used to be in shitty moods." As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I regretted them. "I'm not saying that in a judgmental way. I mean, I don't mean it in a –"

  "Relax," he smiled, leaning forward in his seat and
pulling his flannel work shirt off now that the truck was beginning to reach tropical temperatures. "It's OK. People change, right? You never used to care about anything I said, for example."

  I turned quickly, looking to see if he was making a fun of me. He was.

  "Well don't get your hopes up," I laughed.

  I would normally have said more than that. I would have kept the joke going. Thrown a few verbal jabs his way. But I couldn't that night because as previously noted, Jackson Devlin had taken off his work shirt. And my brain, upon getting a glimpse of his broad, strong chest under the thinner thermal tee he was wearing underneath, suddenly ceased to process thoughts.

  He was built. Not just built. Built. Built the way only genetics and hard work and never stepping foot inside a gym can achieve. And I, a girl who prided herself on being less giggly and less impressed and just less hyped about hot guys in general than most of the other girls, suddenly had to make an effort not to stare. And to close my mouth, which I realized was coming dangerously close to 'hanging open' status.

  "Don't worry," Jackson said, saving me from myself. "I won't. And why haven't you asked me what the hell it is we're even doing right now?"

  "I know it's not because you need my help with something," I replied, hoping desperately that he couldn't hear anything in my voice that would give away what I was feeling.

  "No, it's not. I had to come up with something to tell your manager, though."

  I threw my head back and laughed. "No you didn't! She would have gone along with anything you asked. Just like everyone else in this town!"

  Jackson crooked his head to one side, stretching out his neck, and then did the same on the other side. I had to look away. When did he get so hot?

  It's not like it was news that he was hot. I had eyeballs. I could see what everyone else saw. But it felt different. I felt different. I felt effervescent, like a shaken can of soda.

  "Where, um. Where are we going then?" I asked, because I had to keep talking. If I could just keep talking, maybe he wouldn't realize the hectic state I was in.

  "I'm not telling you. Not yet. And don't get too excited, it's nothing amazing. I just wanted to show you something. I also, uh..." He trailed off as he turned onto a side street. "I wanted to say sorry. For being an asshole last night. My life isn't so great right now, to be honest. Sometimes I feel like I'm turning into a bitter old man and I'm only 22."

  My first instinct was to laugh. I didn't, because I could hear a sad resignation in his voice that I couldn't remember ever having heard before. It was difficult to imagine Jackson being sad back then.

  "Well like I said, I'm sorry too." I said quietly as we headed out of town in the direction of his family's ranch. "I thought about it all day – what I was going to say to you."

  "Did you?" He asked, skeptical.

  "Yes," I laughed, sensing his disbelief. "Is that shocking?"

  Jackson shrugged and smiled, unable to resist. "I dunno. A little. Apologies were never your strong suit."

  "They weren't."

  Time was I would have come out of that exchange freshly defensive all over again. I was definitely better at handling my own emotions than I was as a kid – but it was Jackson, too. He was easy to be around. Sitting beside him in his truck, I was just happy. Quietly happy, like you are in those few moments before sleep when you have something you're really looking forward to the next day.

  ***

  Twenty minutes later I was standing in a small, depressingly spartan old trailer while Jackson threw various winter coats and scarves and mittens and woolen hats my way. Wherever we were going, it was outside. And whatever I thought I knew about his luxurious, son-of-a-rich-man living situation, I couldn't have been more wrong.

  "It's bad, right?" He asked as I wound a scarf around my neck. "My dad says I have to live here."

  "For how long?" I replied, frowning at the oddness of what he'd just said. He "had" to live there? What did that mean? He was 22 – and his family was rich – couldn't he live wherever he wanted?

  "Here," he replied, standing up in front of me so I got the full effect of just how much taller than me he was. "Put the mittens on before the parka. There. I guess you could say that it's temporary. I moved in the summer after I graduated."

  I pulled away from the coat he was holding up for me to put my arms into and looked up, stunned. "What?! The summer after you graduated? That was almost 4 years ago."

  "I know. Put the coat on, Hailey. You're going to freeze."

  And so for the first time in my life, I saw Jackson Devlin embarrassed rather than the other way around.

  "But why does your dad say you have to live here?" I asked. "Why does he get to decide where you live?"

  The heavy coat, so big it reached almost to my knees, was finally done up. I felt – and probably looked – like a marshmallow.

  "It's a long story. And to be honest I don't want to talk about it right now," he replied. "I just – I just wanted to see you. I wanted to apologize for the way I was. And we also," he pulled his phone out of his pocket and checked the time, "need to get out there. It'll be happening soon."

  I had no idea what was going to be 'happening' on a frigid winter evening in Sweetgrass Ridge, Montana, that could possibly warrant this build-up – and I didn't really care. My head and my heart were a swirl of new and surprising emotions. For one, concern. I was never concerned about Jackson before. He was basically a superhero to the little girl I used to be; the big, smiling, confident guy who always knew what to do, who always got what he wanted, who was loved by everyone in town. And now here he was in a dingy little trailer, telling me he didn't want to talk about it.

  My instinct was to put my arms around him and tell him it was going to be OK, even though I had no idea if it was. I was too afraid to do it. Afraid of myself, not him. So instead I just put one comically be-mittened hand on his forearm and tried to give him a squeeze.

  Jackson's deep laugh broke the strange tension in the air as he looked me up and down. "You look like that guy. That French tire guy."

  "The Michelin Man?"

  "Yeah. You're cuter than him, though."

  I looked down at the floor, blushing furiously.

  ***

  "Oh no. Jackson, no. Hell no."

  I was standing in the middle of one of the Devlin barns, beside a stable containing an enormous, chestnut colored horse. Actually I wasn't standing – I was backing away slowly. And Jackson was giving me a look like maybe I was the biggest wimp he ever met.

  "What?" He asked, baffled. "Are you being serious? It's a horse, Hailey. A horse."

  "And let me guess," I replied, looking at him, and then at the gigantic animal, and then at him again. "You're expecting me to ride that thing, right?"

  "I wasn't sure. I was thinking you could have your own horse or, if you didn't feel confident enough on your own, we could ride together."

  "I'm not riding at all!" I informed him. "Wherever it is we're going, we can walk."

  "We can't."

  "Yes we can."

  Jackson fixed me with a look. "You don't even know where we're going."

  "Well I know horses don't have wings, so wherever it is we can get there on foot."

  "Stop being ridiculous. You live in Montana. You grew up in Sweetgrass Ridge just like me. Are you really trying to tell me you've never ridden a horse before? Hell, by the way you're looking at Trigger here I'd almost say you've never even seen one before."

  Trigger? Oh God, the beast had a name!

  "I've seen horses," I replied. "But I think you might be forgetting where I grew up and where you grew up. You grew up on a huge ranch, remember? I grew up in a condominium on the other side of town. My mom is a nurse's aide. So no, I've never ridden a horse before. And I can tell you right now I'm not about to start. Look at the size of that thing! And why is it looking at me like that?"

  As if to prove the creature wasn't hostile, Jackson reached into the stable and patted it gently on the neck. I watc
hed closely for signs of savagery but Trigger the horse seemed to like it.

  "I didn't mean to imply anything," Jackson said, turning back to me with a pained look on his face. "About, uh – about how you grew up. Sometimes I forget that not everyone out here lives the same way as my family does."

  "It's OK," I replied, aware he hadn't meant anything bad.

  I could see that whatever he had planned was important to him. And that he wanted me to get on the horse. And to my own surprise, I found that I wanted to get on the horse as well, once I was over my initial shock at its size. It wasn't about any particular desire to ride a horse – it was about Jackson. Even the previous night when he picked me up on the side of the road I'd detected a sadness in him that hadn't been there before. I didn't want him to be sad. So if my trying to ride a horse might cheer him up, then I supposed I was going to ride a horse.

  "I can't ride it alone," I finally said, steeling myself. "I don't know how."

  "Really?" Jackson asked, lighting up and making whatever freezing high jinks I was about to get myself into instantly worth it. "So you'll try it? Are you sure?"

  I couldn't say no after seeing his reaction. Sometimes when I look back on that night I think I would have tried to ride Trigger myself if Jackson had pushed it, just to keep that strange cloud of melancholy away from him for a little longer.

  ***

  And that was how I found myself on the back of a horse for the first time, clinging to Jackson Devlin like a terrified spider monkey and headed out into a cold, dark winter night.

  "Look!" He said at one point, gesturing to the sky. I looked up at the twinkling stars scattered over our heads.