The Cowboy's Baby: Devlin Brothers Ranch

by Joanna Bell

  But it wasn't Jackson. It was a short man with the neatest and most intricate facial hair I had ever seen.

  "Room service!" He announced brightly, pushing a cart into the room and removing the silver cloches from a series of plates to reveal a feast of croissants, pancakes, bacon, eggs, muffins, orange juice, fruits and, lastly, a bucket of ice and a bottle of champagne.

  And then, when the ceremony was complete and my small-town eyes were just about popping out of my head, the man stood expectantly, as if waiting for something.

  "It looks so nice!" I said politely as my stomach growled to life at the smell of the croissants.

  Still, the man held his ground. What did he want? Was this like ordering wine at a fancy restaurant? Was I supposed to try something and give my approval?

  Tentatively, I reached for one of the croissants and lifted it off the heavy china plate upon which it rested. It was still warm, the pastry flaking off in my hand.

  The mustachioed breakfast-bringer watched, his expression unreadable, as I took a small bite of the croissant. And oh, God, it was the best thing I ever tasted.

  "It's good," I told him, my voice muffled with French pastry. "It's really –"

  "OK, I can't stand it anymore!"

  It was Jackson, bursting into the room through the open door and pulling his wallet out of his pocket.

  Two minutes later the man was gone and my cheeks had yet to stop burning. A tip. Of course. I knew that.

  "I knew that!" I told Jackson, who was already sprawled out on the couch like he owned the place – he had an uncanny ability to do that, to just take up any space like he belonged there. "I've seen enough movies. I just – I blanked. The croissant was too distracting!"

  "You're too distracting," he replied, nodding in the direction of my legs. I looked down and immediately turned an even deeper shade of red when I saw the robe wasn't fully closed and my bare thighs – I'd slept in my t-shirt and nothing else – were partially visible. I turned away and pulled the robe tighter, horrified that Jackson might think I'd let it fall open on purpose.

  "That's better," he said when I turned back around. "Now I can think again. So, Hailey. This is your trip. What do you want to do today?"

  What did I want to do? In New York City?

  Everything.

  ***

  So, after the best breakfast of my life, that's what we got started on: everything. We went to a deli close to the hotel and had a picnic in Central Park while I marveled over just how loud and busy it all was, how everyone we passed seemed to be, from their pace to their serious expressions, late for a very important meeting.

  And after Central Park we went to the observation deck at the Empire State Building and I made myself dizzy when I looked too closely at the city below us. When night fell we went to Times Square and acted like the tourists we were, taking selfies and photos of each other in silly poses and then eating burgers at an overpriced chain restaurant.

  All day long, I kept having little moments of disbelief. How was it possible I was in New York, when just a few hours before I'd been in Sweetgrass Ridge, Montana – where I'd pretty much always been? And why did everything feel different? I don't just mean the surroundings – obviously they were different. I meant I felt different. And being with Jackson felt different. All day, people assumed we were a couple. At a hot-dog cart on the street a man asked Jackson what his "girlfriend" wanted and neither of us corrected him.

  "You look so happy," he told me as we waited amidst a cacophony of car horns and conversations for a taxi to take us back to the hotel. And before I realized what he was doing he'd taken out his phone and snapped a photo of me.

  "Ugh," I said. "You know I hate people taking photos without warning me."

  "I know," he replied, smiling. "I just don't want to forget what you look like right now."

  Chapter 11: Jackson

  I knew I was going to pay – in more ways than one – for the loan I took out to fund the trip to New York. But there was never a second when it didn't feel worth it. Every smile on Hailey's face, every happy gasp when she spotted some landmark she'd previously only seen in the movies made it worth the debt.

  Not to make it sound like I was doing her some kind of favor. It was worth it for me, too. There was a new vibe between us in New York. I'd been before, many times. My dad hates the place but stepmother used to drag me out there on her bi-annual shopping trips so I could carry her bags and keep her company. Sometimes, after a morning spent following her around Bergdorf's and Neiman Marcus, she would hand me a couple of hundred dollar bills and let me do my own thing for the rest of the day. So even at a pretty young age, I'd seen a lot of New York.

  What this meant on my trip with Hailey was that in some unspoken but very real way, I was in charge. She was too smart and too allergic to using her feminine wiles to defer to me in regular circumstances. But in a new place? One where I knew my way around and understood the ways of the city and the people in a way she didn't? In New York, she looked to me to take the lead.

  And I found that there was something about it that resonated deeply. Maybe I shouldn't have, but I loved the way it felt when she turned to me for help and I could actually give it. I loved the way she hung back even at a hot dog cart, seemingly convinced there was some kind of secret New York code language that only I knew how to speak. But what I most loved was the look in her eyes, one I'd never seen before, when I stepped to some creep getting in her space and he disappeared into the crowd after one look at the size differential between us.

  I'm not a caveman. I knew Hailey Nickerson was my superior in so many ways. But it would be a straight lie to say I didn't derive a certain masculine pleasure from taking care of her in the ways a young woman sometimes needs to be taken care of. Truth be told I think maybe she was just as into it.

  "This feels weird," she said, her voice so low it was almost a whisper and her eyes focused intently on the deep red carpeting as we stood outside her hotel room door after that first day. "Jackson, why does this feel weird?"

  "It's just because we're here," I replied, even though I knew good and damn well it was more than that.

  "Is it?" She looked up, her eyes searching mine.

  We stayed like that for a moment, looking at each other. I'd spent so much time looking at Hailey's mouth by then I swear I could have drawn it blindfolded – the way she chewed her bottom lip when she was thinking, the slight poutiness when she was upset. How many times had I imagined those lips parting in bliss?

  "Uh, I – yeah. I think so."

  "So are we going to hang out or are you tired?"

  We were going to hang out. If Hailey wanted me to hang out, that's what was going to happen. And it was going to happen even if the Hudson river rose up to a thousand times its normal level and sloshed against the windows of the 34th floor. It was going to happen if a goddamn nuclear bomb went off outside.

  "You know I'm not old enough to be drinking this, right?" She asked a few minutes later, smiling the little half-smile she always had on her face when she did something against the rules and taking a small sip straight from the bottle of champagne from breakfast.

  "Don't drink that," I said. "I'll order another one."

  "This is fine – look, the ice hasn't even melted all the way. It's still cold. Try it."

  She passed me the bottle and I took a swig I immediately regretted. "Well, yeah. It's still cold. It's also flat. We're ordering another one."

  "Won't they want to check my ID?"

  I put on my 1930s gangster accent. "This isn't the kind of joint where they check ID, sweetheart."

  She laughed and I ordered that second bottle of champagne. And while we waited for it to arrive we stood at the windows that looked out over Central Park, so close to each other I could smell the melon scent of the shampoo she used back then.

  "How do you know all this stuff, Jackson?"

  "What stuff?"

  "Everything. You know what you're doing here. You know they wo
n't check ID, you know how to get around on the subway – you knew that man this morning wanted a tip. I feel like a total rube but you walk around like you've lived here your whole life."

  "Nah," I replied, because it's easy to be self-effacing when someone is complimenting you. "I told you, Darcy used to take me with her when she flew out to shop. I didn't complain as much as my dad would have."

  But Hailey shook her head. "No. I mean, it's not just that. You're always like this, you know – even in Sweetgrass Ridge. You're always so confident. I've never seen you walk into a room like you weren't the most important person in it."

  I glanced at her reflection in the window, trying to work out if she was making fun of me or not.

  "Do I?" I replied. "Walk into rooms like that?"

  "Yeah. And I, um – I kind of like it."

  She turned and looked up at me. There was that perfect mouth again. Those soft, high cheekbones and those espresso-colored eyes I lived to see dancing with a smile, or widening slightly the way they did when she was impressed.

  For a second, I honestly thought I was going to pick up the sofa and throw it through the window when the sound of someone knocking on the door shattered the moment between us. It was the champagne I ordered. Perfect timing. Fuck!

  Ten minutes later we were standing on the balcony drinking champagne out of crystal glasses and shivering in the chilly fall breeze. Hailey was leaning over the edge slightly, looking down at the cars on the street below. I felt her body stiffen momentarily when I moved up behind her, bending down to look over her shoulder.

  Not that I gave a single fuck about the view, you understand. It was like I said – a nuke could have gone off and I wouldn't have been distracted. The only thing in the entire universe in that moment was the firm, perfect curve of Hailey's ass against my body, and the sound of her laugh ringing in my ears when a cabbie on the street below yelled at someone to "get out of the way, cocksucker!"

  Hailey was a virgin. She'd admitted it to me recently, her cheeks aflame as we sat on the hood of my truck overlooking the Yellowhead river valley. And I, Jackson Devlin, was about as far from virginal as it's possible to be.

  So why, when she relaxed her body back against mine on that balcony in Manhattan, did it feel like the first time I'd ever touched a girl in my life?

  "Jackson?" She turned around to face me again, and I could see that the color was high in her cheeks.

  "Yeah?" I replied, aching to touch her again.

  "Did you just bring me to New York so I would sleep with you?"

  Even as the words came out of her mouth she was pressing herself against me, leaning into me.

  "No," I shook my head. As it happens, I was telling the truth – but I knew what it looked like. "Do you want me to stop?"

  She reached out, took the sleeve of my hoodie in her fingers and gave it a tug, and then another for good measure. "I don't know. Yes. But also – no."

  And still she held her body against mine.

  "Sometimes I don't know what you want from me, Jackson."

  "Really?" I replied, surprised. Wasn't it obvious what I wanted? I just wanted to be with her. When we were together, I felt a contentment I never had before. When we weren't, all I thought about was the next time I was going to see her. "You don't know how I feel about you?"

  "How would I know? You never talk about it. We never talk about it."

  She was nervous, more self-conscious than she wanted to admit to herself. But I could see the dark need in her eyes, even as she thought she was hiding it from me.

  "I didn't know we had to," I told her. "I thought it was obvious."

  I could have pushed harder that night. She wanted me to push harder, I think – that's why she was asking for reassurance. But the trip to New York couldn't be about that, I decided. Because if we slept together, I knew that no matter what I said, she would always imagine it to be the reason I bought the tickets and paid for the fancy hotel.

  So I had to leave. There was no option to stay and keep talking about something else. I was so hard it was almost painful, for one thing. Making conversation wasn't going to be possible.

  "I should go back to my room," I said firmly, trying to convince myself as much as Hailey. "We have to be at the airport at 4 tomorrow, but there's one more place I want to go – and maybe there's something you still want to see?"

  Hailey watched me as I backed away and looked around for my phone. And then before I was about to leave she told me to wait.

  "What?"

  I knew what.

  "You don't – you don't have to leave."

  "Yes I do," I replied at once. "I do. I don't want to, but I do. Because what you said is right. If I let anything happen, then this whole trip becomes about me getting what I want. And that isn't why I bought those tickets, Hailey. I bought them because it's your 18th birthday and 18th birthdays are a big deal. I wanted yours to be amazing."

  She opened her mouth to reply and then paused, thinking better of whatever she'd been about to say. And then, when I was halfway down the hallway to my room she stepped out and called after me.

  "Jackson?"

  I turned to look back at her, my beautiful dark-haired girl. "What is it?"

  "It is amazing!"

  I broke into a smile in spite of the ache in my jeans. "Good."

  Chapter 12: Hailey

  I thought about Jackson as I lay in bed in my fancy hotel room. Anyone else would have closed the curtains but I liked the orange glow of the city, so different from the total darkness of Sweetgrass Ridge after nightfall.

  Part of me was relieved he left. I was so shy about my virginity – which I had managed to hang onto longer than most of the girls at school – and so worried that if he saw how inexperienced and naive I really was in comparison to all those blonde cheerleaders he used to date he would instantly snap out of whatever spell he was under.

  Another part of me wanted to slip out of bed in my t-shirt and panties, tip-toe down the hallway to his room and knock on the door. What would his big hands feel like on my body – on my bare belly? What would it feel like to be underneath him? To look up and see his eyes half-closed with lust?

  I slipped my hand down under the expensive sheets, down over my own belly and between my thighs, fixated on Jackson Devlin and how his body had felt against mine on the balcony. And when I came, which didn't take long at all, it was his name I whispered helplessly into the darkened room.

  ***

  The next day, we took a taxi to the Fischer Institute of the Arts and stood on the sidewalk outside the main building, watching bright-eyed students in impossibly stylish outfits rushing up the stairs to their classes.

  "So this is it," Jackson said, lifting a hand to his eyes to shield them from the bright sunshine. "This is where you'll be going?"

  I laughed self-consciously. "I doubt it. I probably wouldn't get in. Even if I did I would need a scholarship – it's not cheap."

  He was quiet for a minute before looking down at me pointedly. "Are you being serious right now?"

  "About what?" I replied.

  "About not getting in. Don't act like you don't know you're talented."

  His faith was heart-warming. But Jackson was a rancher's son. He knew even less about the arts than I did – and that wasn't very much.

  "Lots of people are talented," I told him. "You could take a hundred talented people and put them in a room and only 1 or 2 of them would qualify to get into Fischer."

  Later, as we stood on the top deck of the ferry to the Statue of Liberty, I looked up to see Jackson looking stricken. When I asked him what was wrong, he swallowed hard before replying.

  "I don't know. I've been so pissed off at my dad for so long. This is where my great-great-grandfather was processed, you know. At Ellis Island. There's a family story that he got into a bar fight with an Englishman on his first day, and that was what convinced him to head west to Montana."

  "Too many Englishmen in New York?" I asked, touched by the obv
ious emotion in Jackson's voice.

  "Yeah," he replied abruptly. "Maybe."

  I'd never seen him like that before. The whole subject of his family was one I always let him bring up. I didn't know what to say as the crisp autumn wind reddened our cheeks and made us pull our coats tighter. So instead of saying anything I took his hand in mine.

  "And by the way, Nickerson," he continued, addressing me by my last name - a habit of his which always made me giggle. "I'll have you know I may have cattle, I may live in a trailer and I may even wear a cowboy hat – but I'm not some dumb Montana hick, you know. I saw you dismiss what I said back there at the Fischer Institute, about you being talented, and –"

  "I didn't dismiss you!" I protested, horrified as I realized he was being serious. "I didn't –"

  "You did. You didn't have to say anything, either, because I could see it in your eyes. Don't worry, I'm not actually upset. But I just want you to know that you are good at drawing. Like, really good. And I'm allowed to say it."

  Before we could continue the conversation a woman next to us gasped and Jackson and I both turned our heads towards the statue. A few seconds later I looked back at him. He was clenching and unclenching his jaw, struggling with his emotions. And for whatever reason, comforting him was suddenly more important than any of my own worries or self-consciousness. I wrapped my arms around him and he pulled me in closer, holding on tight like he thought I might blow away in the wind.

  "I've done so much for him," he said a few minutes later. I knew exactly who he was talking about. "And you know what I'm starting to think? I'm starting to think it will never be enough."

  Jackson didn't know it, because it wouldn't have helped him to let him know, but I hated Jack Devlin. Strong feelings for someone I'd never been formally introduced to? Sure. But they were real, and very well deserved as far as I was concerned. What kind of heartless asshole raises a son to inherit a business and then decides, after that son is grown and after he has only been shown one kind of life, to force him to jump through a series of needlessly cruel hoops? And with no end in sight, no salary, nothing of his own except a vague promise that someday, some time off in the distant future, it will all be worth it?