by Liz Isaacson
“Well, I wish I could tell you.” His husky voice could’ve lit a city on fire. “When I know, you’ll know.” He stepped back, swiped his hand through his hair, and started making something for lunch.
With only a month left in her pregnancy, it became too difficult to bend over and pick up saddles. Too tiring to paint stall doors and lead horses from the barn to the arena. The weather worsened, and April started staying at the homestead and helping there instead of going out to the ranch in the afternoons.
Her time with Ted dwindled to almost nothing, even in the evenings. She wanted to give him the space he needed to figure out how he felt, and as more and more nights went by where he didn’t invite her over either, her self-confidence took a nosedive.
With only three weeks left before the baby was due, Ted finally came to see her. Right down the steps and into the basement too, where she lay curled up on the couch, a cartoon playing on the television in front of her as she babysat the twins so Megan could get some accounting work done for the ranch.
She scrambled to sit up, but as she didn’t do anything quickly these days, it took her several seconds. She was sure she looked like a beached walrus trying to get back to the waves, and a burst of embarrassment bolted through her. “Hi,” she said when she finally reached an upright position.
“Haven’t seen you in a while.”
“I’ve been helping more around the homestead until the baby comes.”
“Then what?”
She sighed. “I don’t know.”
He nodded. “All right. That’s what I needed to know.” He turned toward the steps and took them two at a time.
April stared after him for a second, then she got to her feet and followed him. Much slower, so she caught him just as he was stepping through the front door. “Ted, wait.”
He paused, ducked his head so that sexy cowboy hat concealed his face, and half-turned back to her.
“What did you need to know?”
He faced her, a perfect storm of emotion raging across his handsome features. Her fingers itched to touch that beard again, kiss those lips, fall into the warmth of his embrace. She held her ground.
“I don’t think this is going to work between us.”
His words knocked her backward. “What?”
“I love you, and I’ve been hoping you’d fall in love with me too.” He glanced at her belly. “But I don’t think you’re in a place to do that. I don’t blame you. Honest, I don’t.” He wiped his palm over his beard. “I just need some closure before the baby comes, and I was hoping—it doesn’t matter.” He put his hand on the doorknob and took another step outside. “I’m sorry, April.”
He left, pulling the door softly closed behind him. April sank onto the couch, the absence of that May haunting her.
What had just happened? And why had it happened?
Chapter Thirteen
His dogs didn’t know how to handle Ted’s bad mood. Stormy whined and Lolly wouldn’t leave his side. He patted the puffy animal, but the same comfort he’d always taken from her didn’t come.
He picked up his phone and dialed his father. Ted had told him all about April, and it had been his dad who’d made Ted realize that this unsure relationship needed a solid foundation to thrive.
“Hey, Dad.”
“Ted.” The level of surprise in his father’s voice wasn’t hard to detect.
“April still doesn’t know what she wants.” He exhaled. “I broke things off with her.”
“Oh.” That was all. No condolences. No sympathy.
“Do you think I should’ve done that?”
“I don’t know, Teddy. All I know is what you’ve told me.”
“She doesn’t know what to do. She has a lot of big decisions to make, and I don’t want to be in her way.”
“Has she ever said you’re in her way?”
“No.”
“Why do you think that then?”
Because she’d said so. She’d said she needed to know how he felt before she could decide how she felt. And while he’d hugged her when she’d asked him to last week, he didn’t like that she couldn’t examine and evaluate her own feelings.
“She just has too much going on right now, what with the baby due in only a couple of weeks and all.”
Someone knocked on his door, and he glanced up from the couch. It wasn’t April; the knock was much too solid for that. “I have to go, Dad. I’ll call you later.” He hung up and headed toward the door.
Blake stood on the other side, his collar turned up against the night wind. “Hey, your headlights are still on. Truck’s locked, or I’d have turned them off.”
“Thanks.” Ted twisted to locate his keys. He’d gone down to town before lunch, his emotions a tangled mess he’d hoped to fix with sugar and fried dough. Three of the half-dozen doughnuts he’d bought from the bakery still sat in the box, and he’d eat them for breakfast tomorrow. Or maybe for dinner tonight.
He walked out with Blake and climbed in the truck. He tried to start the truck, but the ignition only clicked. He sighed. “They’ve been on all day.” It had been raining earlier that day when he’d driven down the canyon. “Can you give me a jump?”
Blake smiled but it held hints of weariness. Ted imagined farming in the winter was miserable business.
“Let me get my cables.” Blake went next door and returned a few minutes later. The two men made short work of the dead battery, and Ted left the truck running to get the charge back up.
“Thanks.” Ted shook Blake’s hand. “You wanna stay for dinner?” Ted suddenly didn’t want to be alone tonight, his sad dogs his only companions. He couldn’t believe he’d gone and fallen in love with a pregnant woman. Not only that, but a woman who had never committed to staying in town for longer than it took to have the baby.
How many times had she said she couldn’t wait to have the baby? So many Ted had lost count. Had he ever truly seen her happy? A few nights, while she cuddled with him on the couch, he thought he’d sensed some real contentment in her.
“Hey,” Blake said. “You okay?”
“Sorry.” Ted shook his head, wishing the thoughts of April didn’t scream so loudly. “I didn’t actually make dinner. Maybe we should go over to the—” He cut off. He wasn’t going back to the homestead.
“Maybe Tess has something,” Blake said. “Want me to text Walker?”
“Yeah.”
Blake did, and said, “Yeah, Tess has chicken and wild rice soup ready. Let’s go.” Ted followed him to the foreman’s cabin, stepping into the cheery yellow light and blazing warmth of a fire. He smiled at the tween boys and asked them if they were ready for Thanksgiving break. They started talking at the same time, and Ted absorbed himself in it the way he did with the twins at the homestead.
Walker gave him a strange look, and Tess stared him down as she put two more soup bowls on the table. “You boys eat at the counter tonight,” she said and Ted helped move the boys’ bowls and silverware to the counter.
Blake tried to sit across from Tess, but she said, “You sit here, Blake. Ted.” She nodded to the spot where she wanted him, and he sat obediently and tucked a napkin into his collar. He’d been out of the dating game for a while, but he knew an angry girlfriend when he saw one.
Tess waited until grace had been said and everyone had food before she said, “So you broke up with April today?”
Walker swung his head toward Ted so fast, Ted thought the foreman would have a severe kink in the morning. “You what? I thought you liked her.” His soup spoon hung in midair, fully loaded and ready to be slurped.
“I do like her.”
Tess clucked her tongue. “False. You’re in love with her.”
Ted filled his mouth with food so he wouldn’t have to talk. Didn’t matter. Walker and Tess had a conversation about him as if he wasn’t even in the room.
“Maybe he should just tell her he’d like to raise the baby with her.” Walker finally put that bite of soup in his mouth.<
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Tess shook her head. “No, April won’t believe him. Her self-worth is really low right now. Once the baby comes—”
“Why does everything hinge on the baby?” Ted interrupted.
Blake seemed riveted by the conversation, and his eating speed didn’t slow. Dinner and a show.
“Ted,” Tess said. “The baby is the physical representation of everything April dislikes about her life. It’s something everyone can see. Something that testifies to everyone of what she did wrong. She can’t move on until the baby is born.”
“Why can’t you just wait until the baby is born?” Walker asked.
“Wait a second.” Ted put his spoon down. “Didn’t you two get married on the fly, mere hours before a surgery you weren’t sure Tess would survive?” He nodded at Blake, who looked half surprised, half horrified. “True story. So how do you get to lecture me about waiting?”
“I’m just saying that April can’t make a decision until the baby comes.”
“And what if she doesn’t pick me?” Ted asked, his real fear coming out.
Tess leaned back in her chair, a knowing look on her face. “So that’s what this is about. You’re scared.”
“Of course I’m scared. The woman I love might give up her baby. I don’t know what that will do to her, but I know it’s not going to be easy. She told her mom she doesn’t like the ranch life, and who am I? A cowboy who works and lives on a ranch. And let’s say she keeps the baby. Then what? Can I be the father? Will she let me? I don’t even know how she feels about me.”
He stared at Tess, his breathing almost frantic. Walker volleyed his gaze from his wife to Ted. “He has a point. A lot of them, actually.”
Ted stuffed half a piece of homemade bread in his mouth, feeling justified in his fears, his decision to protect himself by breaking up with April.
“So you broke up with her so you wouldn’t get hurt.” Tess wasn’t asking.
“Yes,” Ted said. The thought of going back to his life before April made his throat thick, and Ted remembered why he didn’t date. Then he didn’t have to fall in love with a brunette who didn’t reciprocate.
Tess shook her head and scoffed. “Just because you’ve been scorned in the past doesn’t mean April’s going to hurt you.”
“She doesn’t have any idea what she’ll do.” Ted removed the napkin and stood. “Thank you for dinner, Tess. It was delicious.” He glanced at Walker and Blake. “See you guys at work.” He left the cabin because the only thing worse than having all the thoughts contained in his head was speaking them out loud, trying to make them line up, attempting to justify that what he’d done was the right thing.
As he headed back to his cabin, he knew it was. He’d freed April so she could make the smart decisions she needed to make, without emotions clouding her reason.
The following day, Ted sat in his truck, the engine idling and the heater blowing so he didn’t freeze. He didn’t want to drive down the canyon to the church by himself. He couldn’t believe he’d ever done that. Ever walked into that chapel alone. Ever looked around and wondered who to sit by.
Maybe he hadn’t. Maybe he’d never realized how alone he was, how he went to church with Blake and the other single cowboys like it was normal.
It didn’t feel normal now. Normal now was talking with April as he navigated the roads. Holding her hand on the way inside. Parking himself on the end of the back bench and draping his arm around her. How could he go back to sitting with other men? Or worse, alone?
He backed onto the lane in front of his house and drove down to the homestead and took a deep breath. “It’s thirty seconds,” he told himself. “Be brave for thirty seconds.” He’d told himself this mantra for a decade as he rode broncs in the rodeo. Thirty seconds. He could do anything for thirty seconds. He dialed April, a constant prayer in his throat that she’d answer.
She did.
“Hey,” he said. “I was wondering if you’re going to church today….” Five seconds down. Twenty-five to go.
She seemed to stay silent that long before finally saying, “I don’t think so, Ted.”
He nodded, his bravery gone and his pride choking him. He wouldn’t beg her to go with him. “All right. Sorry to bother you.” He hung up before she could respond, before he could say something else to upset her.
He drove down to town alone, but he bypassed the church. He had never realized how many families filled the pews, as he’d never really considered having a family himself. April had blown up everything in his life. Everything he thought he was okay with. Everything he thought he didn’t want.
He parked near the walking path at Oxbow Park and started strolling. His feet took him out to the island that had enthralled April, and he leaned his elbows against a black iron railing, able to see all the way through the two-acre park now that the leaves had fallen.
As he stood there, alone in the icy air and snowy scenery, he felt calm. Peaceful. He realized that he didn’t want to live alone for the rest of his life, and he pulled out his phone and called his dad again.
“Why didn’t you ever get remarried?” he asked.
“I wasn’t alone, Teddy,” his dad said. “I had you and Stephen.”
“I don’t have anyone,” Ted said, his voice falling into a hush. He thought briefly of returning to Texas, to his family, but that made his blood curdle and he dismissed the idea.
“Well, if you don’t want to be alone, do something about it.”
“All right, Dad.” Ted finished the conversation with news about Stephen, who’d gotten a new job at the state courthouse, and hung up. He’d always loved and admired his father. It couldn’t have been easy raising two sons alone.
His thoughts started to race. He didn’t want April to struggle the way his family had. If she chose to keep this baby, he couldn’t let her do it by herself.
The negativity that he’d allowed to infiltrate his life lifted. He still wanted April to make her own decisions, and all he could do now was hope and pray that God put her on the same path that Ted was currently on.
Is that possible? he asked. Lord, if possible, help April choose me.
Without the birds that usually twittered in the park, only silence responded to him. “Have I done the right thing?” he asked out loud this time, a bit of unease returning. “Or should I go get April and make sure she knows I want her to choose me?”
Ted had never really had a lot of decisions to make. Certainly not hard ones like what April faced. He grew up with horses and had always wanted to join the rodeo. So he had. He’d taken to it easily, and his natural talent and skill with horses had made him a champion. His injury had put a kink in his life plans, but the decision to stay in the rodeo or leave had been easy.
He was hurt; he had a lot of money; he was done with the rodeo. Landon had called about Brush Creek the day Ted’s cast had come off. The decision had been easy. And Ted had enjoyed his work on the ranch for the past five years, never once questioning if he should be doing something else, trying to find a woman to share his life with, nothing.
“So should I go talk to her?” he wondered again, and though the earth didn’t shake and he didn’t feel anything especially significant, he suddenly had the urge to tell April—again—that he loved her.
He hurried back to his truck, telling himself he’d have to be brave for a lot longer than thirty seconds this time.
Chapter Fourteen
April lay on the couch in the basement, the homestead around her huge and hulking. Megan and Landon had left for church twenty minutes ago, and the brief conversation with Ted had ended ten minutes ago.
April wasn’t sure how to feel. She didn’t feel. Just stared. She’d spent the evening with Megan stroking her hair, telling her that she could still have Ted if she wanted him. Did she want him?
April hadn’t been able to answer any questions with more than “I don’t know.” She really just needed to know what to do, but God hadn’t been very vocal when she’d asked. When
she’d confessed to Megan that she didn’t feel worthy of someone like Ted, Megan had scoffed.
“We all make mistakes, April. Don’t let yours define you—or Ted. He’s wiser than you think, and you’re better than you think.”
Megan’s words had played through April’s dreams. They stuck in her mind as she put on the same clothes she’d been wearing for the past week. She didn’t have much that fit anymore, and with only a few weeks left, she didn’t want to purchase anything new.
She sighed and picked up the remote control, realizing she had no idea what she was even watching. She clicked the button at the same time a flash of discomfort started in her stomach. She groaned as pain ripped through her abdomen. She’d never had a baby before, but she knew she shouldn’t feel like an animal was trying to claw its way out of her stomach.
The remote forgotten, April eased herself into a sitting position, her breath coming quicker as she tried to tame the pain. It receded after only a few moments, but her muscles didn’t release until they were sure the discomfort wasn’t going to return.
April glanced at the clock. She hadn’t spent much time thinking about the delivery of her baby. She hadn’t read a single book. She’d gone to the doctor several times, and was due to go on Tuesday before Thanksgiving. She wasn’t due for another three weeks. Maybe she just had a little indigestion or gas.
Nine minutes later, her baby kicked and the pain shot through her with the power and speed of a bolt of lightning.
She couldn’t deny it. She was having labor pains. The next one came only seven minutes later, and after it passed, April walked into her bedroom and glanced around like a fairy godmother would appear with a bag of clothes and toiletries she could take to the hospital. Nothing poofed into existence, so she threw a few things into a bag, grabbed her toothbrush and toothpaste from the bathroom and got herself upstairs before the next contraction came.
Without a hospital in Brush Creek, April had been planning to go to Vernal to deliver the baby. She hadn’t planned how she’d get there, who would drive her, or anything. In a bout of panic, she wondered if she’d even be able to make the forty-five minute drive in time.