Colorado Cowboy

by C. C. Coburn

  Megan poured the boiling water into each of the bowls and stirred the Jell-O to dissolve, then moved them to a bench to cool before putting them in the refrigerator.

  Luke lounged against the kitchen doorway, his arms crossed, watching them. “You two work well together,” he observed, then walked to stir the Jell-O for something to do with his hands while he formulated what to say to Megan, “I’m sorry about Sasha,” he said quietly. “It’s going to take her a while to adapt.”

  Megan picked Celeste up. “Can we talk about this later?” She indicated over her shoulder that Daisy and Cody were coming up the steps of the back porch.

  “Later,” Luke said, and Megan wondered if his voice didn’t hold a note of promise.

  Chapter Five

  “You sit a horse well,” Luke said as they rode out into the meadows beyond the house.

  They’d just given the horses their heads for a brisk half-mile canter and had reined them in to a walking pace.

  Luke breathed in the air of the beautiful June day. His spirits always lifted on days like these and Luke hoped it would have the same effect on Megan.

  “I had lessons when I was a child. Every Saturday morning at Miss Dustin’s Riding School.”

  “Sounds upmarket.”

  Megan pulled a face. “It was. Can we talk about something else?”

  Interesting. She didn’t want to talk about her own childhood, yet she was a natural with kids. She’d sure wound her way into Celeste’s heart. They’d made the sponge cake together and put it in the oven and Megan had left Celeste in charge of keeping an eye on the timer. Then, when the cake was done, Celeste was to get Sasha to take it out of the oven. Luke had warned Sasha that if there was the slightest hint the cake had been sabotaged, she was in big trouble.

  “I’d prefer it if you let Sasha and me work things out between us.” Megan’s words broke into his thoughts and he pulled his horse, a huge bay gelding, up beside her mount, an old palomino mare called Sage.

  “Whoa there, Rocket.” He soothed the horse when it wanted to go racing toward the meadows near the creek where the sweetest grass grew. Megan turned in the saddle to face him. “I think your little outburst in the kitchen earlier today only made things more difficult. Sasha’s been humiliated in front of the person she despises most. It’s not going to be easy to reach out to her now.”

  “She has no right to despise you,” he argued. “You haven’t done anything wrong.”

  “In her eyes, I’ve hurt her by coming here, pretty much unannounced, and taking her place as head female in the house. Had I known what I was walking into or had time to think about it, I wouldn’t have married you quite so readily.”

  Her forthright statement had him stopping his horse. “You didn’t have any choice,” he reminded her. “It was either get married or let Cody go to juvenile detention.”

  She turned Sage to draw level with him. “I’m not so sure he would’ve carried through on that threat.”

  “And I wasn’t prepared to take that chance. He’s my son and I’ll do anything to save him from juvenile detention. We’re married now, whether we like it or not.”

  Megan clicked at Sage and the two horses fell into step walking side by side again. “The circumstances are unpalatable to me, too, but seriously, have you thought about what happens next? How we’re going to manage a marriage where the kids know we don’t share the same room—let alone the same bed? That’ll get around school awfully quick. People will start to talk.”

  Luke shrugged. “So let ’em. Our marriage is nobody’s business but ours. We got married to give Cody the stable family life he needs. When we succeed at that, then we’ll move on.”

  Needing to get away from Megan—being close to her made him want her too much—and to clear his head, Luke kicked Rocket into a gallop and took off across the paddock.

  MEGAN WATCHED HIM GO, a chill invading her heart where love should have resided. Then we’ll move on. Move on to what? Other partners, but stay married? She needed to keep reminding herself that theirs was nothing more than a marriage of convenience, created to save their son from juvenile detention. She shivered in spite of the warm June afternoon, then clicked her tongue at Sage, urging the mare to an easy canter, taking pleasure in the fresh air and solitude—two things in very short supply in her part of New York.

  The meadow she rode through was rich with wildflowers and the sky seemed to stretch on forever.

  LUKE DISMOUNTED and slapped his horse’s rump to indicate he could trot off and eat his fill, then helped Megan down, turning her to face him.

  Resting his hands on her hips, he looked into her eyes as if trying to read what was there, then lowered his head to kiss her.

  Startled, she pulled back. “Luke!”

  He smiled slowly at her. “Just getting the wedding kiss I missed out on yesterday.”

  Megan flushed as she remembered how the judge had pronounced them husband and wife and told Luke he could kiss his bride. He’d bent to place a hurried kiss on Megan’s cheek. It had missed and ended up somewhere near her ear, probably because she’d turned her head away. She cursed herself for being so angry with Luke that she’d fumbled the opportunity to feel his warm lips on hers.

  Luke moved his hands farther around her back and pulled her closer, so they were touching from knee to waist. “We’re married,” he reminded her hoarsely. “Married people are allowed to kiss each other, you know.”

  Setting her hands on his chest, she left them there for just a moment, savoring the feel of his hard muscles beneath her fingertips, then gently, reluctantly, pushed him away.

  “We need to talk, Luke. Isn’t that why you brought me here?” she asked. She walked toward an outcropping of boulders by the creek and sat down. Picking a daisy, she examined it, then threw it in the water and wondered if Luke had brought his wife here. Had this been a special place for them? It was a beautiful spot; the wide, crystal-clear creek bubbled over submerged rocks and tiny wildflowers grew along its banks.

  He hunkered down in front of her. “Okay, let’s talk. Why didn’t you tell me about Cody?”

  Although Megan had been expecting the question, it didn’t mean she was prepared for it. She lifted her shoulders. “It’s a long story.”

  “I’ve got—” he glanced at his watch “—’bout four hours.”

  Megan forced a smile. “Let’s just say I didn’t think you’d be interested in hearing from some girl you’d had a short affair with during spring break, telling you she was pregnant with your child.” At his look of disbelief, she said, “Remember, we hadn’t even exchanged addresses or phone numbers. I was pretty sure that as far as you were concerned, our relationship ended the day I left Spruce Lake. I assumed you’d forgotten me by the end of the week.”

  “You didn’t keep our date.”

  She bit her lip. When they should’ve been on their date, Megan was crying her eyes out at the airport as she waited for a standby flight back East. Away from Luke and his betrayal.

  “I…I wasn’t well.”

  “You could’ve called the restaurant. I was there for over two hours, looking like a fool, telling people they couldn’t have my table because I was waiting for my date. My date who didn’t show up.”

  I didn’t show up because I’d learned the truth about you that afternoon, in the locker room at the rec center. You were engaged to Tory. I heard her talking to another girl, bragging about the big wedding you were going to have. About the baby you were having!

  Megan wanted to scream the words at him. But saying them wouldn’t change anything. She’d discovered it was better to leave the past in the past.

  She sighed. “Let’s drop it, okay? The reasons don’t matter anymore.”

  “Don’t tell me it doesn’t matter!” He stood and paced. “I had a right to know I was going to be a father…” He halted and fixed her with a glare. “Unless you weren’t sure who the father was.”

  That hurt. That really hurt. How dared he, of all peopl
e, accuse her of sleeping around when he’d already got another girl pregnant!

  “I was sure,” she said through icy lips. Angered, she jumped to her feet and paced away from him, then spun around. “You knew I was a virgin!”

  He didn’t even have the grace to flinch. “Then why didn’t you try to contact me?”

  “I did!”

  Silence descended on the glen. Even the creek seemed to have stopped its babbling.

  Finally, Luke crossed his arms in a confrontational stance and said, “If I’d heard anything from you, I would’ve acted on it.”

  “I sent you a letter from the hospital, the day I gave birth to Cody,” Megan said, trying not to let her voice waver. Even all these years later, the feelings of rejection, from both her parents and the father of her baby, hit her hard.

  She didn’t want to think about her parents right now. It brought up too many bad memories of how she’d always been made to feel second best. Both of Megan’s parents had unabashedly favored her older brother. There was nothing Jordan could do wrong in their eyes. He was an A-student, a gifted sportsman, a golden boy. When Jordan had expressed an interest in following in his father’s footsteps and studying law, he’d been given a brand-new imported sports car.

  Megan hadn’t particularly cared about that, but it was yet another example of how Jordan was always rewarded, while she was always criticized. Getting pregnant in her junior year of college had sealed her fate. Her feelings of rejection and being not quite good enough were brought into stark relief. She’d hoped that her brother would stand by her. But Jordan proved to be as fickle as she’d suspected and had cut her completely out of his life.

  “I didn’t get it,” Luke said, waking Megan from her musings. He stood with arms crossed. Challenging her.

  He didn’t believe her, and Megan didn’t believe him. She shook her head and turned away. Why, oh, why did she give in to Cody’s demands and agree to marry Luke? Neither of them trusted the other and she didn’t see how they ever would.

  “Don’t hide from me, Megan. And don’t lie to me.”

  She spun back to him, more angry than she’d ever been in her life. She felt the fury in her stomach, her chest, her heart. She rushed at him and beat his chest with clenched fists.

  “How dare you, you bastard! How dare you accuse me of lying! I wrote you a letter, and a month later I called the ranch! I did everything I could to contact you.” The words and the anger spilled out of her as she hit him again and again as if it could purge fifteen years of wretchedness from her soul.

  “Your wife answered the phone!” she screamed.

  Luke had remained steadfast, taking her blows, but now he gripped her forearms, preventing her fists from striking him.

  “What did you say?”

  “You heard me!”

  “I wasn’t married when we were dating,” he said in a slow, measured voice, as if it was important she understand that.

  Megan wrenched her arms out of his grasp. “You were married when I called. The baby was my responsibility. There was no point in taking the matter any further.”

  She steeled herself against the knowledge that Luke had made love to her when he was already engaged to someone else. Don’t you know how cheap that made me feel? she wanted to shout.

  “It takes two people to make a baby, or at least it did the last time I checked. Your pregnancy was my responsibility, too.”

  “No, it was mine. Alone.” At Luke’s puzzled look, she explained. “Remember when you’d run out of condoms and I assured you it was a safe time of the month for me?”

  Luke nodded. “I remember,” he said hoarsely. He’d been so crazy for her, he hadn’t wanted to delay, hadn’t wanted to go out and buy more condoms.

  “Turns out it wasn’t a safe time, after all. It was my mistake and I paid for it.”

  Looking at Megan now, her shoulders slumped in defeat, her once-sparkling eyes filled with dull pain, he found it hard to reconcile her with the person he’d known back then.

  He had to take some of the blame for the change in her. It couldn’t have been easy raising a child on her own. She’d come from a wealthy, privileged family, been a junior at Wellesley when he’d met her, yet there was no sign of affluence in the outfit she’d worn yesterday. Gone were the designer labels she’d once sported. And her Rolex watch. Had she sold it to make ends meet? The guilt of realizing how bad things had been for her weighed heavily on him.

  Wanting to keep Cody away from his old neighborhood, he’d been relieved when she consented not to return to her apartment to collect anything and instead agreed to have their possessions shipped to Colorado. They’d used the few hours before their flight to shop. Megan had done so carefully, paying a frugal amount for her jeans and shirt in the department store.

  He’d produced his credit card and insisted she buy whatever she wanted, but Megan had shaken her head in firm denial, paid for her clothes out of her well-worn wallet and gone off to buy a few toiletries. At least he’d managed to talk her into letting him pay for Cody’s things—by pointing out she’d been supporting their son for fourteen years and now it was his turn. Cody hadn’t had a problem with it, choosing name brands and stocking up on the latest gear for teens. Megan had stood back and let him go ahead, but she hadn’t been happy about it—not one bit.

  He’d wondered about that, too. Was she upset about the amount being spent? That she couldn’t afford it and he could? Or was it something else? A fear that Cody would change his allegiance from her to him simply because he could buy their son the things she couldn’t? That he would therefore buy Cody’s love? Teens could be such fickle creatures and he could understand why Megan felt that way. Well, she could relax on that score, because Cody despised him as much today as he had yesterday.

  “What about your folks?”

  Her snort of derision said more than words.

  “I take it they weren’t pleased to learn you’d brought back a souvenir from spring break?”

  She dragged her eyes up to his. “They weren’t. And they were downright unpleasant when I refused to have an abortion or put the baby up for adoption. They washed their hands of me when I wouldn’t tell them who the father was, so they could go after you with a shotgun.”

  He picked up a stone and rubbed it between his fingers, then let it fall. “Why didn’t you tell them? Why didn’t you chase me down as soon as you knew? I would’ve done the right thing by you.”

  The right thing? Megan wanted to lash out at him. Oh, sure! She wanted to cry. As if you would’ve broken off your engagement to marry some lovesick idiot who happened to be pregnant with your child!

  Instead, she kept her emotions in check and said quietly, “We would’ve gotten married for all the wrong reasons. It wouldn’t have lasted.”

  “I don’t consider giving a child two parents and a family who loves him the wrong reasons for getting married. Tell me this. Why did you agree to marry me yesterday but you didn’t want to marry me fifteen years ago?

  “You know why I agreed yesterday! I had no choice. It was either marry you—or lose Cody!”

  “What made you think you could do it on your own?”

  She shrugged. “Stupid arrogant pride, I guess. I was young. I thought anything was possible. And I was out to prove something to my parents.”

  “You took a chance on my son’s life to prove something to your parents?”

  She whirled around. “What are you implying? Cody’s life was never in danger! Yes, I had to quit school, but fortunately I got a job working on the financial section of a Greenwich newspaper that provided on-site daycare.”

  “Since you dropped out of college by the time you had him, it couldn’t have paid too well.”

  “It didn’t. But it was the only job I could get where I could have a baby at work with me. I managed. I managed for twelve years until the newspaper closed down and then I had to take two jobs because Cody needed health care and it costs a lot to feed and clothe a teenager. And we ha
d to keep finding new apartments because whenever I fell behind in the rent the landlord suggested there were other ways I could pay the rent!” She choked out the words, angry with Luke for pushing her so hard.

  Curbing her anger, she said, “The same way some of the other desperate single moms ‘paid the rent.’ No way was I going to let that happen. I was trying to finish my degree one course at a time, but I’d lost interest in economics, so I switched to a more practical option. Everything I did, I did for Cody and I always worked around his schedule, his needs. Or…I tried to.”

  She hated the catch in her voice, but she was powerless to stop it. Luke was implying that she was a bad mother, that she’d taken unnecessary risks. Didn’t he understand? She’d had no choice! “I couldn’t do what my parents demanded.” Her thinly held control broke and she covered her face with her hands and wept softly. “I couldn’t kill our child,” she whispered.

  SHOCKED BY HER ADMISSION of how hard her life had been, Luke felt guilty that he couldn’t have made her life and Cody’s easier for them. Megan might not have wanted marriage, but he still could’ve supported them financially. He rubbed her back in soothing strokes. He was aware there were things she wasn’t telling him, but for now, he’d let it go. She needed reassurance, not reprimands.

  “You did a great job, Megan, in spite of everything. You should be proud. He’s a good kid.”

  Megan looked up at him, her eyes brimming with pain. “A good kid who nearly ended up in juvenile detention.”

  “Thanks to you and a smart, caring judge, he didn’t. And he never will,” he said with conviction. He released her and moved away, feeling uncomfortable with their contact. At first it had been to comfort her, but now that Megan had recovered her composure, her closeness was doing other things to him—things Luke didn’t want her noticing.