“For what?”
“The house where we’ll be raising our son.”
He heard her shaky sigh. “Caleb, I said I’d marry you. I’m not going to run off. So there’s no reason to rush like this.”
“I have five years’ worth of reason. I’ll see you this afternoon.” Before she could offer another protest, he ended the call and went back to his work.
Ever since he could remember, medicine had consumed him. Becoming a physician, then actually being one, crept into every personal thing he did. For the first time, though, it was his personal life that kept sidling into the forefront. Even when he should be wholly intent on his work.
It took him twice as long to finish his orders as it should have, because he kept picturing Tyler in place of his small patients.
“Everything all right, Dr. C?”
He glanced up to see Lisa Pope watching him curiously. As well she might, the way he was standing there staring blankly at the chart. “Fine, Lisa. I’m ordering an antibiotic for the Riley newborn.” He finished off the chart with his scribbled signature and handed it back to her. “You know where to reach me if you need,” he said before leaving the maternity unit.
He only had one patient in peds, a ten-year-old appendectomy who was recovering well. He played a game of Uno with him—which Caleb lost resoundingly—and left after promising to redeem himself at their next visit.
“Dr. C’s so nice,” he heard the boy’s mom say once he left the room.
He doubted she’d think so if she were in Kelly’s shoes.
He washed up in the doctor’s lounge, grabbed a stale doughnut and a blistering cup of coffee that he drank on his way out to his truck. He retrieved Bingo from the diner—stopping only long enough for Tabby to see him through the window so she’d know that he was taking the pup again—and drove out to the farm.
Tyler was sitting on the porch steps, his chin in his hands. And even though he gave Caleb a wary look that held the power of a punch to his gut, the boy couldn’t resist the lure of Bingo when Caleb set her on the ground.
Tyler had barely gotten down the steps, though, before Bingo raced across the dirt to jump on him.
Tyler giggled and caught the puppy up against the chest of his bright green coat.
“Hey, Ty,” Caleb said as he neared him.
The boy watched him from the corners of his brown eyes. Eyes that Caleb now recognized were the same dark shade as his own. Kelly’s eyes were brown too, but so much lighter. As different as day was from night. How could he not have noticed from the very beginning?
“Your mom inside?”
Tyler nodded against Bingo’s head.
Caleb had never found it hard to deal with kids. Until life and circumstances taught them otherwise, they were unfailingly straightforward. It was one of the things that had drawn him to pediatrics.
But he found it hard now.
Instead of going inside to beard the lioness in her den, he sat on the porch steps a few feet away from her wary cub.
His cub.
“You’re still upset with me.”
Tyler’s brows lowered. He didn’t answer. But he was peeking at Caleb over the top of Bingo’s silky blond head.
“I understand that.” He propped his wrists on his bent knees and spread his palms. “Anything I can do to make you not upset?”
“Mommy says when you’re sorry you’re supposed to say you’re sorry.”
“Mommy’s right.” He studied Tyler. “I’m sorry I upset you last night.”
“You upset Mommy.”
“I’m sorry I upset her, too.”
Tyler lifted his head enough for Caleb to see his wrinkled nose. “You gotta tell her.”
Caleb nodded, considering. Easier said than done when he still felt like he was reeling inside. “Right. The other part of saying you’re sorry is accepting it.” He reached out to rub Bingo’s belly with his fingertips. “You know what that means?”
Tyler nodded.
“So if I tell you I’m sorry and I really mean it, you need to think about whether you can forgive me and really mean that.”
“Forgiving means I can’t be mad no more.”
“Yup. You want to think about it for a while? Forgiving me?”
He nodded.
Caleb nodded, too. “That’s fair. I’m going to go inside now and talk to Mommy. Okay?”
Again, Tyler nodded.
“Watch out for Bingo.”
“I will. I gotta stay by the steps.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Caleb pushed to his feet.
“Do I gotta call you Dad?”
It was another slug to the gut. “You can call me whatever you want to call me.” He waited a beat. “Except George. I don’t usually answer to George.”
Tyler ducked his head against Bingo again, but not quickly enough to hide his faint grin.
“Caleb. Cal. Cale. I’ve been called all of those.”
“Kale is a vegetable,” Tyler corrected, as if Caleb ought to know that.
“Better kale than carrots.” Caleb shook his head. “I do not like carrots.”
“I don’t, either!” Tyler took a step forward. “Mommy says I don’t have to eat ’em. Long as I eat the other stuff.”
“Mommy’s pretty cool that way.”
“Mmm-hmm.” Tyler put Bingo down on the ground, and she immediately started to dart off. He chased after her. “Bingo, we gotta stay by the steps.”
“Maybe you should just bring Bingo inside.”
Caleb turned on his heel to see Kelly leaning against the open doorway. “How long have you been standing there?”
“Long enough. George.” She dropped her folded arms and straightened. She was wearing a gray turtleneck sweater and jeans tucked into tall, low-heeled boots. Her hair was slicked back from her oval face into a tight knot that his fingers wanted to untighten. “Tyler’s already had his lunch, so we can go now.”
“Go where?” Tyler slid around Caleb with the puppy right on his heels.
“For a drive.”
“A long one?” The boy looked alarmed. “It took us a hundred hours when we came here for Grandma Gette’s funeral.”
“Not quite a hundred hours,” Kelly corrected wryly. “And no, this won’t be that long.” She pushed his hair off his forehead. “We’re going to Braden. I told you that while you had your sandwich.”
“Yeah, but why?”
Kelly’s gaze collided with Caleb’s. “So your daddy and I can get married.”
“We’re not getting married today,” Caleb said evenly. As much for Tyler’s benefit as hers. “We’re just getting the license that says we can get married.”
“Why you gotta get a license?”
“Because the law requires it,” Kelly murmured. She reached inside the house for a moment and then held out Caleb’s leather coat. “Before I forget to give it to you again.”
His fingers brushed hers when he took it, and she quickly looked away.
“Why’s the law acquire it?”
“Require,” she corrected and reached inside again, this time coming up with a black jacket she pulled on and a white scarf she looped loosely around her neck. “Because getting married is a serious thing.”
“Like driving a car?”
“Something like that.”
“Mommy, Dr. C—Caleb—don’t like carrots, either.”
Her gaze skidded over him again. “I heard that.” She pulled the door closed behind her, focusing back on Tyler. “Does that make you just like him?”
Tyler’s head fell back as he squinted up at Caleb. “I’m not as tall,” he said matter-of-factly.
Kelly smiled slightly. “Not yet. But he didn’t start out as tall as he is now, either. He
was five years old once, too.”
Tyler hopped down the porch steps. “Did you know my mommy when you were five?”
“Yeah. She was in the same class as me when we started kindergarten.”
“All the way through high school.” She followed him.
“And now Caleb’s my dad.” Tyler walked ahead of them, giggling when the puppy kept going between his feet. “’Cause you kissed and then bounced on the bed together.”
Kelly’s eyebrows shot up her forehead as she looked at Caleb. Her cheeks turned red. “Where did you get that idea, Tyler?”
The boy scuffed his shoe through the dirt, kicking a pebble. “Gunnar told me. He said that’s how babies get made.” Then he chased after Bingo, who’d chased after the pebble.
“Well,” Caleb murmured. “I guess I had the facts of life wrong all this time. No wonder we ended up with him.”
She stifled a laugh. But at least it was a laugh.
Chapter Thirteen
The diamond ring on her finger felt heavy. Kelly couldn’t help twisting it nervously as she walked with Caleb into Leandra and Evan’s house the next afternoon.
“Relax,” Caleb muttered. “Everything’s going to be fine.”
“Easy for you to say.” He’d told her that he’d already broken the news about Tyler to his parents. Which meant that was one task she could avoid, but it also left her not knowing what kind of reception she’d be getting from Cage and Belle when she came face-to-face with them.
Which she would be doing.
The pickup truck with the Lazy-B emblem on the side they’d just parked next to assured her of that.
Sunday dinner at Caleb’s family members’ homes meant anywhere from two people to twenty. She’d loved the days she’d been included when she and Caleb were teenagers.
Sometimes, she’d thought she loved his family as much as she loved him. Because she could pretend, for at least a few hours on a Sunday afternoon, that she was part of the Buchanan clan for real.
Of course, she’d always gone home afterward to the family that was real. To her mama. Who’d usually jeered at Kelly for acting as if she was good enough for the likes of them.
Caleb covered her fidgeting hands with his. “Relax,” he said again. “You’ve known most of them nearly your whole life.”
He meant it to be comforting. She knew that.
But she could still feel a bead of perspiration crawling down her spine. She wanted to turn around and leave. Or at least go outside, where Tyler was playing with Lucas and a handful of smaller, younger children.
She never had the chance to turn tail, though, because Leandra and Lucy both appeared, their faces wreathed in smiles. “Finally,” Leandra exclaimed while Lucy snatched up Kelly’s hand.
“Let me see the ring.” Lucy’s eyes were bright.
Caleb frowned. “Who told you?”
His sister laughed merrily as she squeezed Kelly’s left hand and gave her a quick wink. “Our family grapevine spreads all the way to Braden these days. You know that. Yowza. Major sparkle.” She looked up at her brother. “Didn’t know you had it in you, Caleb.”
“Everyone already knows?” From his tone, Kelly couldn’t tell if he was annoyed or discomfited.
She was hoping for the latter. It made her feel slightly less alone.
“I’m so happy for you guys,” Lucy said, wrapping her arms around Kelly’s neck for a quick hug. “And Shelby’s over the moon.” She let go of Kelly’s neck but only to grab her arm and tug her farther into the house. “She figures it’s her divine right to be in her uncle’s wedding. Look who’s here, everybody.” Lucy raised her voice as they entered a great room crowded with bodies.
Kelly pinned a smile on her face that she was miles away from feeling. Everyone seemed to focus on the fact that she and Caleb were engaged, but not a single one of them mentioned the reason why.
Caleb had told his parents about Tyler, so they all surely had to know by now.
Across the room, Justin was pulling Tabby up to her feet, then she, too, was waddle-trotting toward them to add her congratulations. “Have you set a date?”
“Where are you planning to live?”
“Are you still going to sell the farm?”
“What kind of wedding do you want?”
“Izzy could make her dress!”
The bodies crowded around them. The questions and comments were flying, the voices seeming to get louder and louder as one person needed to speak above another.
“Give them some room to breathe, for heaven’s sake.” Belle Buchanan’s calm order cut across it all, and suddenly, Kelly was face-to-face with Caleb’s parents.
“Don’t let them overwhelm you, Kelly.” Belle wrapped her in a lightly fragranced hug. “They’re like anxious calves getting at their mama’s milk.”
“You’ve been married to a cattle rancher too long,” Cage joked. He nudged his wife aside to hug Kelly as well. “Welcome to the family, darlin’.”
Belle and Cage’s affection was so easy. So genuine. It made Kelly’s throat tight and her eyes burn. “Mr. and Mrs. Buchanan—”
“Now, none of that. My wife told you before. It’s Cage and Belle.”
“Or Nana and Papa, depending on the generation,” Lucy said humorously. Then her eyes widened at the look she received from her parents. “What? We’re not pretending Tyler isn’t Caleb’s, are we?”
“Jesus, Luce,” Caleb muttered.
“It’s all right,” Kelly said quickly, deciding it was a little like ripping off an adhesive bandage. No point in drawing out the process or the pain. “I’m sorry you all had to learn the way you did, but—”
“The point is we learned,” Belle interrupted. “There’s no need to say anything more. There’s not a soul here who hasn’t had a misstep before, or found themselves caught between a rock and a hard place. You’re family now. That’s what matters.” She squeezed Kelly’s arm. “And, of course, Tyler is perfect. I just saw him outside. I didn’t say anything about being his grandma. I know this is all going to be very new for him. But he’s just precious, Kelly.” Her arm circled Caleb’s waist, too. “And now that I know, I can see so much of both of you in his face.”
“And before you get all weepy,” Leandra interrupted, looking none too dry-eyed herself, “I’ve got a dozen boxes of pizza in the kitchen getting cold.”
As quickly as Caleb and Kelly had first been engulfed by bodies, they were abandoned.
“Never underestimate the power of food when it comes to that group,” Caleb said. “Told you everything was going to be fine.”
* * *
Which it was.
If you considered having your immediate future pretty much planned out by committee.
By the time Caleb and Kelly left several hours later, that’s the way she felt.
The wedding would be on Thanksgiving Day.
Which was two and a half weeks away.
It would be just a family affair out at the Lazy-B.
Which meant only half the town versus all of it.
And Isabella—Izzy—whom Kelly had never met until that afternoon but who was married to another one of Caleb’s cousins and designed gowns, had insisted that two weeks was plenty of time to whip up the perfect dress.
“The only thing they didn’t settle was where we were going to live,” Kelly said when they finally left. “The farm. Your apartment. The Johansson place.” She waved at Tyler through the window.
She’d finally given in to his pleas to stay with Lucas. Leandra had promised to drop him off at the farm when she took her son to school in the morning.
“Not the farm, that’s for sure. You’re selling it off, remember?”
As if she could forget.
“Would you rather have someth
ing different? A church wedding?”
When she was eighteen, she’d dreamed of the big white dress and their friends and family all crammed into the Weaver Community Church. But that was before her dreams turned to dust. Before she learned she wasn’t what he wanted. And long before she’d run away from Wyoming to avoid this very thing.
“I don’t see why we need a wedding at all when a trip to the justice of the peace would do just as well.” She stared out the side window as they drove away from Leandra and Evan’s place. “We could do it when you’re between patients. No fuss, no muss.” Maybe that way she could get through it without slipping into the fantasy that he truly wanted to marry her. That it wasn’t a calculated decision on both their parts to give their son the parents he deserved.
“That’s a good thing to show Tyler. His folks cared so much about becoming a family, they got hitched on a lunch break.”
She closed her eyes as they neared the Perry place. “I don’t know why it needs to be so fast, then. I still have the auction to get through. I have to figure out how to get our stuff from Idaho. Turn in my notice. I don’t even have a job here.”
“You don’t need to have a job. I can afford—”
Her eyes snapped open. “I want a job. I worked hard to become a nurse! If you don’t count the accident the other day, there are even some days when I think I’m pretty good at it.”
He sighed noisily and suddenly turned off the road.
They were facing the Perry barn.
And he went just as silent as she did.
“Remember the first time we came here?” His deep voice finally broke the hush.
“How could I forget?” Her chest ached with memory. “Sixteen years old. You were the only boy I’d ever kissed. Much less—” She broke off, shaking her head. She’d kissed a few others in the years since. But he was still the only one she’d ever slept with.
That probably qualified her as an anachronism these days, but she didn’t care. From the moment she’d known Tyler existed, her life had been all about him.
It had been easy, considering the only man she’d ever wanted was his father.
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