by Maisey Yates
“Wait till my dad gets here. He’s big. You won’t look so cocky then.”
“The worst he’d probably do is instigate a shotgun wedding. And that kind of goes according to my plan.”
She shot him a deadly look. “That’s not the worst he could do. You’re a rancher—you’re familiar with burdizzos, I assume.”
He had the decency to look slightly pale at the mention of the very efficient castration tool. “I’m familiar.”
“Yeah, I thought you might be.”
Her mother returned a moment later with two Cokes, in glasses, with ice, on a tray. She set the tray down on the coffee table in front of the couch, her expression expectant. For an explanation, Kelsey assumed, and not for her reaction to the drink. Still, she stayed true to her chicken roots and took the coward’s way out, taking a long drink to keep from having to talk for as long as possible.
“So . . . I have news . . .” Kelsey said, clicking her fingernails on the glass, looking at a spot on the rug. The same spot she’d looked at when she’d told her parents she was going away to college. The same spot she’d looked at when she’d told them, oh yes, hadn’t she mentioned? She and Michael were living together.
She’d been on the fence about waiting until her father was home. But she really didn’t want to run the risk of her sisters, and their children, being around. She wasn’t in the mood to have the whole clan explode around her in one big ball of scandal.
Her mother’s eyebrows shot up and she looked from her to Cole again. “I’m, um . . . expecting a baby,” Kelsey said.
Her mother sank down into the chair slowly, nodding as she did. “Okay.”
“In November.”
“Oh. So you’re a bit along then.”
Kelsey looked down into her soda glass and watched the bubbles rise to the top, her heart pounding hard. Her mother wasn’t talking more. Her face was set like stone, and Kelsey could feel the disapproval sinking into her, could feel it wrapping around her heart and squeezing tight. She shot Cole a panicked look. But Cole wasn’t moving either.
And what could he say? She’d never told him what she wanted him to say.
Her mother looked pointedly at her hands, still clutching her soda glass tightly. “And you’re single?”
“Well . . . no. Not . . . I mean . . . Cole and I . . .” She shot him another desperate look. She wasn’t sure what she expected from him. “We’re getting married.” The words just sort of fell out of her mouth. She hadn’t planned them. She hadn’t even thought them. They’d just sort of appeared.
“Oh.”
Cole didn’t miss a beat. “I’m sorry things happened out of order like this. Ideally I would have spoken to her father first. Ideally, I would have met you all.” He left out anything about the baby not being conceived before the wedding, but otherwise, he was saying just what her mother would want to hear.
Damn him. How did he do that? She could never do that. Ever. All she ever did was put her foot in her mouth.
“Well, naturally, things happen,” her mother said slowly.
“What? Things happen?” Kelsey blurted. “Really?” Where was the fire and brimstone? The outrage?
Her mother stood. “Kelsey, you’re thirty years old. I hardly thought you were a virgin.” Kelsey nearly swallowed her tongue. “I’m so pleased that you’re giving us another grandchild!” She leaned down and embraced Kelsey, who felt like she was going to implode from the onslaught of unexpected emotion.
“Oh . . . good?”
“You’re happy, aren’t you, Kelsey?” she asked.
Kelsey nodded mutely.
“We both are, Mrs. Noble,” Cole said, offering her mother a winning smile.
Mrs. Noble, even. He was like a Stepford future son-in-law. And he was saving her bacon, so she couldn’t even hate him for it. No matter how much she wanted to.
“Well, how can a baby be a bad thing?” her mother asked, treating Cole to the kind of smile Kelsey had never once been on the receiving end of.
“Great,” Kelsey said.
“I’d be happy to speak to Mr. Noble when he comes home,” Cole said. “To try and start things off right.”
“That’s . . . very thoughtful of you.”
“Mom, I’m not . . . feeling that well,” Kelsey said. It was a lie that wasn’t really a lie. Her mom would think morning sickness. She was just pissed, really.
“Why don’t you go upstairs and rest? I’ll let you know when your dad comes home.”
Kelsey nodded. “Cole . . . can you bring up my bags?” Cole nodded and stood up, preparing to head out to the car. Kelsey watched him walk out, feeling dizzy.
“Even though you are engaged, and pregnant, he’s not sleeping in your bed while you’re here,” her mother said, that tone that was so familiar to Kelsey emerging.
“I know, Mom. He knows too.”
“Good. As long as you understand.”
“I do.” She understood it was what her mother had to do. But that was as far as it went.
“Well then, have a nice rest.” Her mother started clearing the glasses from the coffee table, and the intense normalcy of it hit Kelsey square in the chest. It was so normal it was abnormal. Because nothing felt usual about the moment, and yet, nothing had really changed either.
She made her way up the stairs, to her childhood room. There was one queen bed in it now, instead of three twin beds, but otherwise, it looked a lot the same. Faded pink paint, white curtains dotted with roses.
She sat down on the mattress and sighed. She’d just managed to take a mess and make it messier. It was sort of becoming her thing.
Cole appeared a few seconds later, bags in his hands. “Well, she didn’t yell at you,” he said, setting her bag down at the foot of the bed.
“No. But that’s just because I lied. The big mother of all flipping lies.”
“So it was a lie? I was hoping you’d changed your mind.”
She let out a long breath and put her face in her hands. “Oh . . . I don’t know if it was a lie.” She looked back up at him. “I’m making a huge disaster of this.”
“It’s not like there’s a guidebook.”
“Stop it,” she groaned. “Stop being so nice. Be . . . vaguely disapproving, at least. It’s what my mother would do.”
“Is it?”
This subject was a tiny bit easier to deal with than her impromptu acceptance of his proposal. “She’s happy about having a grandbaby, and I believe that, but she hates the idea that I’m pregnant without being married. And I don’t even think it’s morality with her. It’s just . . . There’s a way things should be, a way they should look, and that’s the most important thing. I’ve never, ever fit her idea of what one of her daughters should be like. And I never will. This just sort of . . . confirmed it.”
“She didn’t say anything horrible when I left, did she?”
“She didn’t have to. It’s just . . . there. I mean . . . she loves me. I know that. But she wishes I were different too. And I don’t really know what to do with that.”
Cole sat down next to her on the bed. “I don’t wish you were different.”
“You don’t?”
“No. I like the way you are. Stubborn and independent. Headstrong.”
“Hey now.”
“I meant it as a compliment.”
“Even when you don’t get your way with me?”
He nodded. “I like that you have your own mind.”
Kelsey felt something in her chest melt, like butter. It was disconcerting. Everything Cole made her feel was wonderful, and terrible, and scary. She wasn’t sure what to do with any of it. He’d asked her to marry him, but he’d never once mentioned having feelings for her.
And she really didn’t want to be in . . . feelings, alone. More than that, she didn’t want to trap a man with her because she was having a baby and then have to wonder if he’d lost interest in her yet. She and Michael had, supposedly, had this real true emotional commitment. Even that hadn�
�t kept him faithful.
What would keep Cole faithful?
Though, really, she couldn’t imagine Cole being unfaithful. He was too good. He would just stay in abject misery with her for the rest of his life.
She didn’t really want to be a part of that either. Which meant no feelings. But what about the marriage proposal? She could always make her parents believe she’d said yes for a while, then changed her mind. But then, what would that do to their perception of Cole? And of her.
He was the father of her baby, and he would be in her life. And likely in her parents’ lives. The last thing she needed was for them to hate him.
“You really do?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“And do you mind so much that I just kind of . . . accepted your proposal?”
“You really want to marry me, Kelsey?”
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “I so don’t know what I want. What I’m supposed to want. I feel like . . . I feel like every route I take is so confused and tangled there’s no way I can see the outcome. I don’t know what the best thing is. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. And I’m a chicken, like you said. I just caved as soon as my mother gave me that look. And I told her what she wanted to hear. Well, the closest thing I had to what she wanted to hear. She really didn’t want to hear that I was pregnant out of wedlock.”
“Wedlock. Do people even use that word anymore?”
“My mother does. In that context.”
“So, will you marry me, Kelsey? Really?”
Kelsey’s throat felt too tight, and so did her chest. “Yes,” she said, the word a strangled nothing, even in the silence of the room. How could she say no? How could she say no when, no matter how crazy her family made her, the fact remained that she had her family? All of them. Together. She’d had it growing up, she had it now. And being here made it clear, so blindingly clear, that she needed to do this for her child.
“You sound thrilled.”
“I’m scared to death. I don’t know if it’s the right thing to do . . . I don’t—” He leaned in and caught her lips with his.
He broke the kiss and rested his forehead against hers, his breathing broken, ragged. “I’ll do my very best to make you happy. To make sure you never regret marrying me.”
In that small moment, when she wasn’t thinking too hard about the future, she could believe it. Believe that everything would be fine. They would live in the big ranch house and raise their child. Sleep in the same bed. It would be fine.
She willed away every intruding thought, every concern. Just for a moment, things were clear. They made sense. She wanted them to stay that way.
“You’ll be faithful to me?” she asked, hating how insecure she sounded, but knowing she had to ask.
“Always.” The conviction in his eyes burned down to her soul.
“Then that’s all I need.” A small ache in her chest made her wonder if that was a lie. If she might need more. She looked into his eyes: dark, beautiful, so sincere. And she wished she could ask for more. Wished they could have more.
And she prayed he would never feel like he was stuck with her, like he’d been sentenced to life in prison.
“I shouldn’t stay in your room for too much longer. We might give your mother gray hair.”
“Ha!” she said, not really feeling like anything was funny.
“And I have to figure out what I’m going to say to your father.”
“You don’t really have to talk to him.”
“I do. We both know I do.”
“Ah, Cole, it’s just . . . you don’t have to play the game. They’re going to be pissed at me no matter how we do this.”
“I want to. For you. For later. Right now, this is hard, but if we do it right . . . if we do it right, this won’t matter, not in ten years.” He turned and walked out of her room, closing the door behind him.
Ten years. Dear Lord. They would be together that long. Or longer. She waited to panic. But there was no panic.
She flopped back on the bed and crushed a pillow to her chest. This whole mess was almost starting to make sense.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Dinner with the Noble clan was interesting, to say the least. Kelsey looked pale. Her sisters, Kailey, Jacie, Alesha and Tara, and their husbands were oblivious to the tension, and her nieces and nephews were shrieking and passing food back and forth. Through the air.
He hadn’t had a chance to talk to her father, and he was sort of looking forward to putting it off. He hadn’t had to talk to a girl’s dad about anything since high school. And that had just been prom. And while there had been sex involved, he hadn’t asked for permission. His wedding to Shawna had been untraditional; she’d been estranged from her parents and he’d never once met them. He was a novice at this.
His main goal was to get through it without getting killed. Or without having his balls separated from his body.
“So, Cole, what is it you do?” This from Kelsey’s mother.
“I own a ranch in Silver Creek. We raise horses and we have guest accommodations. It’s nice. You should come and stay. All of you. On the house, naturally.” Lark wouldn’t be happy, but oh well.
Kelsey’s sisters nodded enthusiastically.
“A ranch, huh?” Kelsey’s father, who had been introduced to him as Chuck, spoke now. “That surprises me. Kelsey isn’t so into country living.”
“Things change,” she mumbled, looking down at her food.
“You can hardly be bothered to come back and visit here. You looked like you were on the verge of hives through my whole wedding,” Kailey said, treating Kelsey to a dagger glare.
“It was a pollen . . . reaction. Thing. Nothing to do with the wedding,” Kelsey said. “Anyway, you can make changes when you . . .”
“Fall in love,” Jacie finished, a dreamy expression on her face.
Kelsey nodded, her lips curving into a smile that looked more like a sneer to Cole. “Uh-huh. Yeah. Love.”
An uncomfortable tightness hit him in the stomach. He chose to blame the meat loaf. And the fact that he still had to tell Kelsey’s father she was pregnant with his baby.
“Love, huh?” Chuck gave Cole a pointed look.
“Yeah,” he said, offering a smile and taking another bite of the meat loaf. It was awful. If it had come straight out of a Purina can he wouldn’t have been surprised. Thank God he had a cook at the ranch. Just in case Kelsey had inherited her mother’s cooking skills. Though, knowing Kelsey, she’d become a world-class chef just to be different.
The rest of dinner was filled with talk of Kailey’s baby, and the due date, and morning sickness. He could tell Kelsey was biting her tongue.
He reached under the table and put his hand over hers. She squeezed it, and he felt a strange sense of satisfaction that he’d connected with her. That he’d managed to make her feel better.
“Dessert?” Lisa stood from the table with a bright smile on her face. He shot Kelsey a look and she shook her head slightly.
“No, thank you,” Cole said. “But, Mr. Noble, if you have a moment, I’d like to speak with you.”
The older man looked at him and nodded slowly. “The living room okay?”
There was a low chance Chuck would shoot him inside the house, so it suited him fine. “Works for me.”
He stood, and Chuck followed his lead, letting Cole direct them into the other room. He could feel Kelsey’s sisters watching them, their eyes glued to his back. They were guessing, he imagined, that he was going to be asking their dad about a proposal. And they were right. Sort of.
“Have a seat,” Chuck said.
“I’ll stand, thank you.” Because while he respected that Kelsey’s parents were traditional, there was going to be a shift, here and now. “I would like very much to marry your daughter.” He found that the words were true as he spoke them. It surprised him just how very true.
“I see. Does she want to marry you?”
“She seems to.”
That was less true. She seemed more trapped than eager. “There’s another thing. We’re having a baby. I thought I should be the one to tell you.”
The lines in Kelsey’s father’s face hardened, and for a moment, Cole really did fear for his life. If not his life, his testicles. “A baby?”
“Yes.” Cole crossed his arms over his chest.
Chuck shook his head. “I shouldn’t really be surprised. She never did see the point in doing things the right way.”
Cole gritted his teeth. It wouldn’t do him any good to explode at her father, but there were certain things he wasn’t willing to let slide. Not now, not ever. “And this is where we’ll have to disagree, Mr. Noble. It would be nice if you could be involved. You’re her father and I respect that, but only as far as you respect her.”
The silence was deadly. Cole thought he really might have pushed it one too far. That he might end up buried in a Bonanza field, never to be heard from again.
Kelsey’s father assessed him, gray eyes glinting in the dim light of the room, and then he extended his hand. “You just might be able to handle her.”
He clasped the other man’s hand and shook it. “I don’t want to handle her. I just want to be with her.”
Chuck nodded. “All right then. You’re going to marry her fast, right?”
“As fast as she’ll let me. Which means I have no idea. She may want to wait, but that’s up to her. And I’m absolutely serious about one thing. If I hear anyone making comments about her doing things wrong, or if anyone makes her so much as tear up, I’ll step in. I’m not letting her get hurt like that. If I could protect her from ever getting hurt again, I would.”
He got another nod of grudging respect from Chuck.
“I’m glad we had this talk,” Cole said, backing out of the room. He was not going to turn his back on the older man. No.
He turned and saw Kelsey at the dining table still, sitting in front of a big piece of pie that looked like it needed a pickaxe to break through the crust.
Her sisters looked at him expectantly.
“I’m alive,” he said, sitting down next to Kelsey.
“Why don’t you go have a beer with the men?” Jacie asked, her look pointed.