by Maisey Yates
He stopped and turned, frowning. “I don’t think I’ve brought it up once. You, on the other hand . . .”
“Well . . . well . . . hell.” She stopped walking. She’d assumed . . . her stomach curled in, humiliation assaulting her. She’d been attracted to him. Wildly so, from the moment she’d first seen him; and she’d jumped to conclusions. Conclusions that had apparently been way off the mark.
Or he was screwing with her. Either way, she was the one with her foot in her mouth. Bastard.
“Don’t be embarrassed.” He reached out and brushed his thumb over her burning cheek.
She backed away. “I’m not. I don’t do embarrassed.”
“Could have fooled me.” He turned away again. “Now, do you want to see something cool or not?”
She was grateful for the reprieve. And annoyed that she was grateful. “It better be really good, Tyler.”
“Oh, it is.”
***
“Oh. My. Is Alexa on a horse?” Kelsey’s jaw dropped when they pulled up to the corral.
“It appears that she is.” Cole put the truck in park and killed the engine. “Is she not into horses?”
“She’s not into nature so much. Or animals of any kind. Or babies. Anything that could possibly get her dirty or wake her up in the middle of the night. Men excluded.”
Cole laughed. “Well, she seems to be doing all right now.”
They both got out of the truck and walked over to the corral. Tyler was in there with her, keeping an eye on things as Alexa maneuvered Miss Kitty around a few widely spaced barrels, her lips pursed, her concentration intense.
Cole leaned against the fence, dropping his arms over the top rail. That simple action was more interesting than watching Alexa engage in the world’s slowest barrel race. There was something about Cole. From his tight jeans to his belt buckle, his button-up shirt, tucked in. His muscular build and strong profile. He looked like he belonged. Like he was a part of the land, the ranch.
She’d never felt at home like that anywhere. She was starting to wonder if Kelseys had no natural habitat.
“Ride ’em, cowgirl,” he called out, a grin, a real one, brightening his face. Her stomach tightened. He was the father of her baby.
Would their baby look like him? If he was a boy, she hoped he did. Cole was so handsome, tall, broad-shouldered. And Cole could teach him things. Things she couldn’t.
For the first time she was glad about the mix-up. Glad there was someone else. Which seemed chicken, and wimpy. Because she’d made the decision on her own, and now she didn’t have to follow through on her own.
And part of her was relieved. A part of her that was getting bigger.
Cole looked at her. “What?”
She blinked rapidly, realizing she’d been caught staring. “Nothing. Well, not nothing. I was wondering . . . who the baby would look like.”
He swallowed visibly, his Adam’s apple bobbing with the motion. “Oh.”
“Yeah. I’m . . . getting ahead of things a little bit.”
“I think that’s normal,” he said, keeping his voice low. “If we had . . . planned it together, wouldn’t we be wondering about things like that?”
Her eyes caught his and held, sending a wave of heat through her body, all the way down to her toes. “Yeah.” She turned her focus to Alexa. “They’re going to hook up.”
“You think?”
Yes. Focus on them. Not on Cole. Not on all the handsome. “She got on a horse for the man. She wants him.”
“Poor Lark.”
“What about her?”
Cole smiled ruefully. “She has a thing for Tyler. But please, don’t tell Alexa. Because honestly, if he wants to hook up, I don’t want it to be with my sister. She’s too . . . innocent.”
“Plus she’s your sister.”
“Well, there’s that. But honestly, she’s sweet. She’s not . . . she’s managed to come through losing her parents, watching Cade and me go through the crap we’ve gone through. Hell, she had to share a house with my ex for two years, and she was . . . she was a bitch. Not just to me; to Lark. Lark lived through all of that without losing her optimism, her ability to see good in people. I don’t want anyone to take that from her. A minor heartbreak would be better than one that happened after some big love affair.”
Kelsey snorted a laugh. “Yeah. Those suck.”
“Not one for big love affairs, huh?”
“No. Not exactly.”
“I’ll stand with you on that one. Love’s just a kind of crazy they make Hallmark cards for.”
“Another thing we have in common.” A good thing too. He was practical, like she was. Not to be swayed by feelings or attraction or . . . anything. Except he was looking at her very intently, and it was making her feel all languid and weak-kneed and . . .
“Check that out!” Alexa crowed as she dismounted the horse. “I barrel raced.”
Thank God.
“Against no clock. Really slowly.” Kelsey gave her two thumbs up. “I think you won.”
Alexa responded with a bright smile and a different, one-fingered signal. “Whatever. I did awesome.”
Tyler smiled at her. “You did.”
“See?” Alexa shot back. “I did.”
“Well, I’m not getting on a horse, so you beat me by a long shot.”
Alexa did a small, uncoordinated dance in place. “I kicked butt!”
“You’re insane,” Kelsey said.
“So what? I rode a horse.”
“All right, enjoy your moment of contentment.”
Alexa sauntered over to the fence. “So, where have you two been?”
“Town,” she and Cole answered together.
Alexa’s eyes widened. “There’s a town? Are there sidewalks? I miss sidewalks.”
“Drama queen,” Kelsey said.
“So? It’s part of my charm.”
“It is.” Tyler walked up to stand beside Alexa, and Kelsey was shocked to see a flush of color stain her friend’s cheeks.
“Well, Tyler, if you think so . . . you’re welcome to baby-sit her any time you like,” Kelsey said.
“Noted.”
There was a strange sort of normalcy to the whole exchange. And Cole appreciated it, given how weird and upside-down everything had been for the past few years. Starting with Shawna, to the revelations about his father and on to the baby.
“Hey.” Cole turned at the sound of Cade’s voice coming from behind him.
“Hey.”
“Got a minute?”
He looked at Kelsey and Alexa, who were busy engaging in banter with Tyler. “Yeah.” He touched Kelsey’s arm and felt a shock, like static electricity. But this went deeper, beneath his skin. “I’m going to go see what Cade needs. See you later?”
She licked her lips, the action sending a different kind of electricity down south. What a time for his libido to make a reappearance. “Yeah. See you later.”
Cole followed Cade around behind the truck. “What’s up?”
“I was looking at the books, and there’s like fifteen thousand dollars missing. I don’t know what it went to. It’s just gone.” Cade held out the printed sheet of paper, evidence of the discrepancy. Which Cole didn’t need to see, because he knew it was gone.
His mouth went dry. The money he’d used to start paying off his father’s debts. The house his father’s bit on the side had lived in had already been repossessed. All that was left was for the collectors to start in on the estate in Silver Creek. Unless Cole could get it paid off. And he didn’t want Cade to know how bad it was. To know that the dad they’d looked up to, the dad they’d loved more than anything, had been a lying, cheating, gambling bastard.
“What were you doing looking at the books?”
“I know you think I’m half illiterate, but the fall from the horse broke my leg, not my head. I wanted to check and see how things were going. This is my inheritance too.”
“Why didn’t you just ask if you wanted to see
the financials?”
“Look, Cole, the money stuff has always been you; it’s really not my thing. If the ranch needs money—”
“It doesn’t. We have money.”
“Then what’s this about?”
“Nothing. Shit gets lost sometimes.”
“Fifteen thousand dollars? It gets lost? Cole, you would dropkick my ass to Idaho if I lost fifteen grand. Now be straight with me.”
“I messed up.” It was a lie. “I must have made a mistake in the accounting. I’m sorry. I’m sure it’s there, or never was, or something.”
Cade crossed his arms over his chest. “This is a big operation. If you need some help keeping track of things—”
“I don’t need help. I have a bunch of new contracts lined up with the rodeo association. New stock to get put into the circuit. And whatever this discrepancy is . . . it’s just a paper mistake. It’s nothing big.” He grabbed the papers out of Cade’s hand and stalked back to the house. He would get the truck later. For now he needed the walk.
Shit.
He opened the door to his office and slammed it shut for good measure, throwing the paper and pen down onto the floor. He should have known there was no way to keep it from Cade, but dammit, he wanted to. Why did everyone have to have their childhood crash down around their ears? Why should everyone know what a lie their lives had been?
Why should everyone know that the man who had been there for them, who had loved them and guided them, had abandoned another child? Had barely sent them cards for Christmas. That the man had betrayed their mother with another woman for at least ten years of their marriage.
A marriage that had been Cole’s inspiration to try and do right by his wife. That had led him to allowing himself, and his family, to get walked all over by that same wife so he could try to keep some peace. The wife that was the reason for the sperm mix-up fiasco.
Man, people tried to blame a lot of crazy stuff on their parents, but he really had a right to.
He swore and pressed his fingers into his temples. He would have to tell Cade eventually. It was one of the many things that sucked about having his brother living in his pocket. He was right; this was his inheritance too.
That meant he’d inherited the cosmic disaster their dad had left behind, same as Cole. It meant they would have to have some sort of honest talk about it.
But not yet. Not just yet.
***
Kelsey and Alexa had dinner in the lodge every night that week. But Kelsey didn’t talk to Cole very much. After he’d left the corral the other day, he’d come back in a surly mood, and had been distant ever since.
On the bright side though, she’d been able to eat every day that week, and she was wondering if the morning sickness had run its course. Sure, there was the odd fit of nausea if the wind kicked up when she walked by the feed barn that held the silage for the cows, but otherwise, she was starting to feel like herself again.
Like herself, but not. Because she doubted if she would ever feel like she had before she’d gotten pregnant. Because everything was changing. Everything in her and around her.
She looked up from her chicken pot pie—chicken that she could eat without dire consequences—and at Cole, who was content to let the ranch hands BS and tell stories while he said nothing. Just as he’d done at dinner every night recently.
“Dessert?” Jason, the man behind the fabulous food, came out of the kitchen with a tray laden with cobbler.
There was a round of yeses, but Kelsey’s stomach rebelled. She was at the end point of her happy eating. Any more and she would be sorry. Of course, she’d be hungry five minutes after she left the dining room, but she’d bought a bag of cookies the day she and Cole had gone to town, so now she was armed with sugar for emergencies.
“I’m going to get some fresh air,” she whispered to Alexa, who was engaging Tyler in conversation. Alexa had been talking almost exclusively to Tyler all night. And Kelsey had a feeling it had been the cause of Lark’s early departure from dinner.
It made her feel bad for poor Lark. But if a guy wasn’t that into you, there was no point trying to force it. That just led to broken engagements and ugly fights that just weren’t worth the hassle.
“Do you need me to come with you?” Her friend looked genuinely concerned.
“No. I’m fine. Stay and flirt.”
“I’m not flirting,” she hissed.
“Yeah, you are. But it’s okay. I’ll look the other way and pretend it’s not happening.” Kelsey stood from the table and walked out of the dining room. There was so much activity she doubted anyone would really notice if she slipped out for a while.
That was one of the things she liked about the ranch. There was so much activity. So many people. She was from a big family, so she was used to that to a certain degree, but in her family, it was different.
This “family,” because whether they were blood-related to each other or not, they felt like a family, was populated with people who came from all kinds of different backgrounds. People who were headed in different directions, but who were together for now. And who accepted each other just as they were.
There was no crushing weight of expectation. No sense of feeling odd or out of place. Somehow, everyone at the Mitchells’ dining table managed to be different from her, without ever making her feel like their differences were wrong.
So unlike her family.
She wandered through the living area of the lodge and through the back doors onto an expansive wooden deck that overlooked the pastures. It was dark out, nothing visible but the inky black shape of the mountains backing the deep blue sky, which was dotted with big, bright stars.
She breathed in deep, feeling the air wash through her. The simple act of breathing here was like a baptism. It made her feel clean, refreshed. Like she was starting over every time.
She liked it. It made all the baggage she’d carried around for so long seem lighter. Seem unimportant.
“You okay?”
She turned and saw Cole standing in the doorway, his broad frame silhouetted by the lights shining from the house. “Fine. Just . . . wanted to get out for a minute.”
“I smell rain,” he said, walking out onto the deck and coming to stand beside her, leaning against the rail. “It’s coming soon. Do you smell it?”
She closed her eyes and breathed in again. “I actually do.”
“I actually like rain. I don’t really like the heat. Fall is one of my favorite times of year. The leaves don’t turn dramatically. Most of the trees just stay green. But it reminds me of my mom baking pie, of cold mornings, before snow, with frost on the ground.”
“That’s how it was for us too,” Kelsey said. “Well, all of us girls would bake pie with our mom. I always managed to mess it up. Like, I’d put the apple on the peeler corer thing kind of wonky and then seeds would get in it, and I wouldn’t notice because I was always thinking about something else.”
“A daydreamer?”
“Guilty,” she said.
“What were you dreaming about?” he asked.
She looked at him, her breath catching when she saw his expression. Serious. Intent. “I . . . at the time, I was dreaming of a lot of things. Moving to Portland. Being a writer. Wearing black.”
He laughed. “Wearing black?”
“Yes, wearing black. Because I thought of it as being very dramatic and artistic. Don’t laugh. My mom said I looked like a Goth, and she always made me wear one article of clothing with color.”
He shook his head.
“Right?” she said. She hesitated. “And then of course I was dreaming a lot about marrying Michael.”
“And who was Michael?”
“My boyfriend. I started dating him my last year of high school. We moved to Portland together after graduation. We went to college instead of getting married, which my parents through was . . . crazy. Then we moved in together, which my parents thought was even crazier. We got engaged. And everything was going just how
I wanted it.”
“Obviously it didn’t keep going how you wanted it, or you’d be married to him.”
She snorted. “Yeah. Obviously. Well, I might have thrown my diamond engagement ring at him when I came home early from work to find him in our bed with another woman. Very naked, very sweaty and doing something he never seemed to want to do for me.”
“Did the ring hit him?”
“Right in the ass. Less satisfying than it sounds, since I was pretty distraught and the ring was so pitifully small it didn’t have enough weight to do much of anything. But I kicked him out, because hey, it was my house. I was the only one of the two of us who’d managed to get a good job after college, and the house was in my name. Thankfully.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s not my favorite memory, but I’ve moved on.” Liar. “I’m really, really glad I didn’t marry him.” That was true. She didn’t regret the loss of him. But the fact that she hadn’t had a relationship since definitely meant she hadn’t moved on.
Cole studied Kelsey’s face. She didn’t look sad talking about her ex. Talking about her family made her look sad, wistful. Talking about him just seemed to irritate her.
“He was an idiot.” He heard himself say it before he realized he’d even thought the words. But they were true. Any man who had Kelsey in his bed and couldn’t keep it in his pants around another woman was definitely an idiot. He’d had his faults as a husband, but staying faithful hadn’t been a problem. And Kelsey—she was the kind of woman male fantasies were made of. At least his. At least now that she didn’t look like she was on death’s door.
Not that it mattered, since he wasn’t ever going to go there. But it was the truth, and while he was abstaining, he wasn’t blind. “Or he was unhappy and he was doing what he could do to try and get out of it. Either way, we weren’t meant to be. Which is great, because when I am at the point in my life that requires me to clean orange Cheetos fingerprints off of my couch, they better be from kids and not my husband. With Michael, there was no guarantee.”
“I know a little something about ill-fated romance,” he said, looking down at his hands. “I met Shawna when I was twenty-six. And I was nuts for her from moment one. She was . . . fun and wild and all these things I’d never really been. Growing up on the ranch, being the oldest, I’d always had a lot of responsibility. Not much time for crazy. Not like . . .”