by Maisey Yates
“No.”
“You don’t have a wife or anything?” the kid asked.
“No,” Bennett said.
“Girlfriend?”
“Do you?” Bennett asked.
Dallas shrugged. “Hard to hang on to one when you’re moving all the time.”
“Sure.”
More seconds ticked off.
“I bet if you touch any of the girls here their dads run you off the property with a shotgun, right?” he asked.
“I don’t know about them, but I might chase you with a shotgun.”
Dallas snorted. “That’s funny. Especially because I know my mom is from here, and I know that you knocked her up.”
“I did,” Dallas said. “She told me she had a miscarriage.”
Dallas looked shocked at that, and Bennett wondered if he should have said that. But honestly, there was no point letting the kid cast him as any more of a bad guy than he already had. Marnie wasn’t here. Marnie was off mired in drug addiction somewhere. And any sympathy that he had felt for her situation was rapidly disintegrating. He would have helped her. He would have stayed with her. She didn’t need to run away. He had no clue why in hell she had done that. No clue what had possessed her. If she hadn’t wanted the baby, he would have taken the baby. He would never understand this.
“She didn’t tell me that,” Dallas said.
“I don’t know what she told you. But I’ll tell you, honestly, I found out she was pregnant, I was going to propose to her. She told me she had a miscarriage, and then she told me she was leaving town. She broke up with me. We were young and we were stupid.”
“I’m younger than you were,” Dallas pointed out.
“Yes. And you’re young and stupid. Because when you’re fifteen you’re stupid. And when you’re sixteen you’re not much better. We were stupid. But I didn’t know... I didn’t know. You don’t have to believe me right now. I don’t know that I can really believe any of this. I feel like I’m going to blink and you’re going to disappear. I’m going to wake up and it’s gonna be some kind of weird dream. But as long as you’re standing there... I didn’t know about you. I’m going to be honest with you. That’s what I’m going to do.” Bennett made a decision then, and he decided to go with it. “Whatever else, I’m going to tell you the truth. I’m going to be really bad at this. I don’t have any experience with kids.”
“Not really a kid,” Dallas said, shrugging.
“You’re not,” Bennett said, his heart clenching tight. Because the boy in front of him was really more of a young man, and the first fifteen years of his life were lost to Bennett. There was nothing he could do about it. That hurt like a son of gun.
“But you are,” he continued. “And you need somebody. I’m going to be that person. And I’m going to be honest with you. Even if it’s hard. So, that’s my first bit of honesty.”
“That doesn’t mean I believe you,” Dallas said. “Just because you told me to.”
“That’s fine. It’s going to take a while for you to believe that, I know.” He swallowed hard, and the sound of his heartbeat blended into more seconds ticking by.
“Do you have an Xbox or anything?” Dallas asked, breaking the silence.
“No,” Bennett responded.
“Really? What the hell do you do?”
“I have animals,” Bennett responded. “They’re time-consuming.”
Dallas frowned. “What the hell do you do for work?”
“I’m a veterinarian,” Bennett responded. “Big animals. Cows. Horses. Llamas.”
“Llamas?”
“Llamas get sick too.”
“What do you do around here for fun? Did you...go cow tipping?”
Bennett crossed his arms and looked at Dallas. “Well, I got my girlfriend pregnant when we were sixteen, so I think that answers your question about what we do for fun around here.”
Dallas blinked, and then huffed a reluctant laugh. “Great. But you just told me to stay away from the girls.”
“I didn’t say I recommended that kind of behavior,” Bennett said. “I mean, I got my girlfriend pregnant. And now I’m standing here with you.”
“Condoms, dude.”
Bennett shook his head. “Okay. Too much honesty. Way too much honesty. I’ll get you an Xbox.”
Bennett was a terrible parent already. He was making deals and bargains and buying Xboxes. And he hadn’t even told his brothers yet. Or his sister. Or Kaylee.
Dammit. Kaylee.
She was going to be so mad at him.
“Where’s that bedroom at?” Dallas asked, looking around.
For just a moment a crack in the kid’s bravado seemed to break. Right around the moment when Bennett felt his own beginning to crumble.
“I’ll show you.” He walked him down the hall and opened the door to a room that was fully furnished, and definitely not the kind of thing a teenage boy would find interesting at all. Because it was done up for guests he had never had. Hypothetical ones that he thought someday when he and Olivia had married they might have.
There was a plaid bedspread and a full-size bed with headboard. Art with Oregon landscapes framed on the walls.
Dallas looked around and dropped his trash bag next to his feet. “It works.” He turned to Bennett. “Don’t worry. I probably won’t kill you in your sleep.”
Bennett lifted a brow. “Probably?”
“I’ve lived with a lot of families. I only did that once.”
Bennett had to laugh at that, a forced, short chuckle, because of course the thought had crossed his mind. And of course this kid was calling it out. Because he was just that kind of kid. Hard and direct and more than willing to put himself at odds with Bennett in the interest of not showing any vulnerability.
But it was there.
The very fact that the kid was standing here, and not running off in the woods was evidence of that.
“Can I take a shower?”
“Yeah,” Bennett said. “Bathroom is across the hall.”
“Cool.”
He stood there for a moment, and then looked over at Bennett. “Is there any point in me unpacking this?” He gestured down to the plastic bag.
“Yeah,” Bennett said. “Unpack it. Throw it away.”
He’d get him a new bag. But not now. Not when it would just look like he was giving him nicer luggage for a nomadic existence. No. He’d make sure he didn’t need a bag for a good while.
“I’m just checking. Because if you really didn’t know about me, and you’re really as surprised as you say you are, I figure it’s going to take a little while for reality to set in. And when it does, you probably won’t want me here.”
“I’m going to have you here,” Bennett said.
That was the truth. He was giving him the truth. Want was... He didn’t even know what that word meant right now.
But he had been prepared sixteen years ago to upend his life to raise a child. To put everything aside for the baby he had made with Marnie, accident or not. That it was all happening sixteen years later didn’t matter.
The kid was still his responsibility. And Bennett was still going to lay it all down for him.
Because outside of what he felt, Bennett knew what was right. And even if he couldn’t feel it all, he could still do what needed to be done.
“You’re staying,” Bennett said decisively, resolutely. “Unpack the damn bag.”
CHAPTER FIVE
KAYLEE WAS IN her pajamas when her phone rang. She’d just come inside after riding her horse, Flicka, around the trail behind her house and getting her put away, and was currently sprawled on the couch with her cat, Albus, lying across her chest.
Her heart kicked a little bit when she looked at the screen and saw that it was Bennett.
“Are you having more cow
drama?” she asked. “Because I’m getting ready for bed.”
“No, not exactly.”
“What’s going on?”
He sounded...he sounded weird. Not like himself. Bennett was cool and in control, always. He was the kind of guy you wanted to have around in a crisis, and he professionally handled animal crises on an almost daily basis. He was not the kind of guy who ever sounded... Well, whatever it was he sounded now. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it. Only that it wasn’t him.
“It’s hard to explain. Can you come over?”
Thoughts chased each other around her head like rabid foxes. He was ill. He had some kind of terrible disease. He was quitting the business and leaving her.
“I’ll be right over.”
She hung up and started hunting for something to wear. She put on a pair of ripped jeans and a gray T-shirt that had a logo for the veterinary clinic on it. By the time she had gone to her truck, she had thought of at least three new scenarios, each one more upsetting than the last, for why Bennett had sounded so grave.
Olivia wanted him back. Olivia, who was pregnant with another man’s baby, wanted him back because Luke had abandoned her. Yes, that was it. Luke had abandoned her, and she was asking Bennett to raise another man’s child.
Bennett was a good man. He was a good and faithful man, and he was going to do it.
She was going to tell him not to do it.
Kaylee was completely worked up in a lather by the time she was halfway to Bennett’s place. Ready to fight him over his chivalrous nature. He was not marrying a woman and raising another man’s child as his own. He wasn’t doing it.
She couldn’t imagine anything more terrible.
At least when they had been together at first she had thought Olivia was exactly the kind of woman he should be with. And yes, that had burned. Because Olivia was so different from everything that Kaylee was. And having to acknowledge that Olivia was going to fill a place in his life that he clearly didn’t think Kaylee could fill was painful. Painful all the way through her bones in a way that forced her to clench her teeth to make them stop aching.
But nonetheless, it had been bearable. Bearable because she had thought that Olivia would make him happy.
But this wouldn’t make him happy. This was outrageous.
She pulled her truck up to the front of his house and turned the engine off quickly, hopping down out of the cabin and slamming the door, only to stop once she’d climbed the front steps.
She was just about to raise her hand to knock when the door opened, and she was met by a shell-shocked-looking Bennett.
“It’s Olivia, isn’t it?”
It occurred to her just then that Olivia might have lost the baby. That she wanted to marry him now that she wasn’t tied to Luke. That would be a lot harder to talk him out of. Especially if Olivia was upset and Bennett wanted to fix it.
“Don’t do it,” she repeated. “Don’t take her back.”
“What?”
She blinked.
Right. He hadn’t actually said anything about Olivia. He hadn’t said anything about anything. It was just that all of those scenarios had seemed so possible, and she had latched on to that one so tightly, and turned it over about fifty different times on the drive over.
“Never mind. What’s happening?”
He stepped outside, closing the door softly behind him. “I don’t know how to explain this to you,” he said, his words rough.
“What?” He looked... He didn’t look good at all. His eyes looked like they’d been punched, dark shadows spreading beneath them. “Bennett, you are freaking me out.”
He shook his head and walked down the front steps past her, his boots making a hollow sound on the wood, then crunching on the gravel.
He sighed slowly, heavily, looking upward. She followed his gaze, staring at the inky sky, with the stars bursting through like a candle in punched tin.
“You’re the first person I called,” he said, sounding as if the realization of that was dawning over him slowly. “I’m going to have to talk to Wyatt. And Grant. Jamie. My dad. I’m going to have to explain some things to a lot of people.”
“What? Do you have some kind of terrible disease? Do you have gambling debt? Have you lost the ranch?” She frowned. “Did you lose our business?”
He shook his head. “No. Kaylee... You remember Marnie Claire?”
“Yes,” Kaylee said, and an instant spike of loathing burst hot and insistent through her chest. Yes, she knew Marnie Claire. Bennett’s first girlfriend. Kaylee hadn’t liked her, not at all. Not because there was anything wrong with her specifically, but because Bennett had been so obsessed with her. She’d seen less of him over the months he’d dated Marnie than she ever had since they’d become friends.
He’d told Kaylee before they’d had sex for the first time, a shy grin on his face as he’d confessed it was going to happen that night. And Kaylee had wanted to die. It was the moment that had forced her to realize that she was...jealous. That she wished it were her.
She’d decided very quickly after, sometime during his very messy breakup with Marnie, in fact, that she didn’t want that. She didn’t want to be his girlfriend for a little while. She wanted to be his friend forever. To become veterinarians like they’d promised each other, and work together.
To be something more, better, than a husband and wife. Her parents’ marriage hadn’t made the institution seem all that aspirational.
“There’s something you don’t know,” he said.
“What?” He sounded so very, very grave. Grave enough she was starting to wonder if she was going to have to prove that she was a friend who’d help hide the body.
He lowered his head. “When we were sixteen Marnie got pregnant.”
Kaylee felt like the ground tilted underneath her feet. “What?”
“Marnie was pregnant in high school.”
“Whose baby was it?” The words felt numb and ridiculous. But they fell out of her mouth naturally. Because if it were Bennett’s... It couldn’t have been.
“Mine.”
She was...stunned. She couldn’t even process it. Because there had never been a baby. So how could Marnie have been pregnant?
“Marnie left. She moved away,” Kaylee said.
“Yes,” he said slowly. “After she lost the baby.”
Kaylee’s breath rushed from her body, like it was trying to flee the scene of this very difficult conversation. “Bennett, how did you never tell me any of this?”
“I didn’t tell anyone,” he said. He closed his eyes. “I told one person. I told Cole Logan.”
“Olivia’s dad. He’s the one that knew.” There were implications to that, and she knew it. But she couldn’t sort them out, not right then.
“I was scared,” Bennett said. “I was stupid and I didn’t want my dad to know that I made such a big mistake. I didn’t want him to be disappointed in me. At that point Wyatt was gone, off riding in the rodeo. Grant was getting married, and Dad really wished he wouldn’t. He was still coping with Jamie being a little kid, being a single dad. I wanted him to be proud of me. I wanted to be something easy for him. Not something hard. So I talked to Cole.”
“And not me?” she asked.
How weird that a secret kept from that many years ago could hurt. But they’d talked about everything back then. He’d told her when he’d gotten a note from a girl in math class asking him if he liked her, and to check Yes or No. She’d told him about the time she’d taken a cigarette some older kids had offered her, and she’d hated it.
She hadn’t talked about her family, but that was different. The day-to-day things. School, friends, growing up. Hopes, dreams, fears. First kisses and first times. They’d shared that stuff. The parts of her life she cared about, she’d shared with him.
She’d thought he’d share
d it all with her.
“I was scared, Kay. Scared of what you’d think of me. I went to Cole because he was the closest thing to an uncle I had. And I was terrified of telling my dad.”
“But wait, why...” It was like the other shoe had dropped straight out of that starry sky and crash-landed between them. “What’s happening now?”
“She didn’t lose the baby,” Bennett said, his voice raw. “She didn’t lose the baby. She lied to me.”
“Why?” She blinked. “How do you know that?”
“Because the baby is a damned fifteen-year-old boy and he is in my guest room.”
Kaylee exhaled. “Dammit to hell.”
“That’s what I said. Well, that’s what I thought.”
“How do you know he’s yours?”
“He looks just like me. He’s the right age. She would have had to go and get pregnant again pretty damn quick for all to match up like this. And with someone who resembled me.”
“Possible,” Kaylee said, “I mean, if she had a type.”
“She lied to me,” Bennett said. “She lied to me, and she lost custody of our son at some point because of drug addiction.”
“Bennett... I don’t even know...”
“Me either. You were the first person that I called. Kaylee, I need you.”
And there he was, standing out under a romantic, expansive Oregon sky, professing to need her, his dark eyes illuminated by the moon, the sincerity in them deep enough to steal her breath. He needed her. But not for what she had always hoped he might. He needed her because his life was falling apart. He needed her because everything was falling apart and he knew that she would help pick up the pieces, no matter how big or heavy they were. Because it was what she did. It was what they did.
He had called her. He needed her.
And yes, she’d just been in the process of trying to fix her narrowed, Bennett-focused world, but she didn’t know how she could turn away from him now. How she could possibly spend less time with him when this was happening.
Dates with nice men who had nicer dogs were important. She needed to go on them because she needed to figure out a way to find some healthier balance inside of herself.