Best of Cowboys Bundle

by Vicki Lewis Thompson, Barbara White Daille, Judy Christenberry, Christine Wenger, Shirley Rogers, Crystal Green, Nina Bruhns, Candance Schuler, Carole Mortimer

  “We’ll see,” she returned. “I haven’t made any promises.”

  And everyone could interpret that whatever way they wanted.

  She hadn’t promised them she’d run the dessert booth. She hadn’t promised him she’d stay. Or that she’d raise their child with him. She hadn’t promised him anything.

  What guarantee did he have that she’d stick around?

  He couldn’t let her go off and settle down in some unknown big city where she could change her mind about contacting him and he might never see her again.

  Where he might never track down his child.

  AT HOME in the ranch-house kitchen, Marissa smothered a yawn with one hand and set her bag of empty serving dishes on the counter near the sink.

  “It’s late, Gabe. I’m going to bed.” She hung her coat on the peg beside his hat. “Just leave the dishes here. I’ll get to them in the morning.” Fighting another yawn, she left the kitchen and started down the hall.

  “Hold on a bit,” Gabe said. His boots hit the hardwood floor behind her, and he caught her in mid-stride, slipping his arm around her shoulders and swerving her course toward the living room. “Don’t you want your present?”

  Present? “We didn’t say anything about exchanging gifts.”

  “What does that matter? Don’t need permission to buy a little something for my wife, do I?”

  “No…” Still, she couldn’t help tensing beneath his guiding arm as he maneuvered her to the couch. As always, his nearness threatened her willpower and lowered her resolve.

  Gabe crossed to the Christmas tree and pulled a green envelope from its branches. He must have slipped it in place while she was packing the food to take to Mrs. Gannett’s. The envelope certainly hadn’t been there when she sat daydreaming in front of the lit tree a few minutes before that.

  He took a seat beside her on the couch and put the card on her lap.

  “Thank you.” She bit her lip, wishing she’d known to expect a gift, feeling awkward that she hadn’t bought one for him.

  She’d never had a card from Gabe before, not even on their wedding day. What had he chosen? A funny rhyme? A cute picture? A mushy verse, one that would tell her in another writer’s words the feelings he could never bring himself to share?

  Her hands shook as she turned the envelope over and lifted the flap. She held her breath and slid out the folded paper inside.

  It wasn’t a card.

  Instead, she opened it to find a gift certificate from the local hardware store made out in her name. A nice gift, of course, but…

  “They’ve got a huge decorating section,” he told her. “All kinds of paint and wallpaper. Thought you might like to look there for the baby’s room.”

  “Oh.” He hadn’t given up on the idea he had raised the night before. He was trying to make things work, in his own way. She smiled. “Thank you.”

  “That’s not all. The manager’s going to keep the store open late tomorrow night. Just for you.”

  “Oh, Gabe. How thoughtful.” And it was.

  The gift proved he was thinking about their child, a fact she truly cherished. The special arrangement proved her right—he did have two sides to him. The tough side, the armor, that he wouldn’t let down in front of her. And the sensitive side, the sweetness, that he wouldn’t let her see.

  The confirmations made her crumple.

  “Merry Christmas, Marissa,” he said in the husky murmur that always threatened to undo her.

  She reached out, wanting only to touch his cheek in a gesture of thanks. But he pressed his hand against hers, trapping her fingers against the warmth of his cheek, tantalizing her palm with the brush of his five-o’clock shadow.

  Who was she kidding, thinking friendship with this man could ever be enough? It couldn’t. Not when their relationship had started out red-hot, exploded to scorching, and continued to burn ember-bright inside her long after she had left him.

  She couldn’t stop herself from reaching up with her other hand to cup his face in hers. Couldn’t stop him from wrapping his free arm around her waist and sliding her along the couch until they sat thigh-to-thigh against each other.

  His lips brushed hers in an unspoken question. Her mouth joined his in a silent response. If he wouldn’t give her the words she wanted, she would take what he offered and make of it what she could. She would read the language of his lips, his hands, his body, and satisfy herself with everything they so eloquently said.

  She had to do something to justify her actions, to save her rapidly disintegrating self-esteem. Because, heaven help her, she was in danger of falling for Gabe Miller.

  Again.

  Something she would not allow to happen.

  She couldn’t give up everything she had fought so hard to accomplish. Wouldn’t dismiss everything she so desperately needed to prove to herself. And absolutely refused to give in, yet again, to the sexual chemistry she had once mistaken for love.

  Yet, right at that moment, she wanted to forget everything that had happened in the past, everything she wanted for the future, and simply focus on the present.

  On the here and now, in Gabe’s arms.

  Chapter Twelve

  Time was a-wasting this Saturday evening, when Gabe had places to go. People to see. A wife to court.

  He’d waited all these hours already, this day after Christmas, to take Marissa to cash in her gift.

  She didn’t seem too eager, judging by the time she took to wipe down the counters, then fold the towel and center it on its hook. Stalling, it seemed—though he couldn’t fathom why—and trying to avoid eye contact.

  He frowned. “You about ready to head in to the hardware store?”

  “Yes, I will be in—”

  The telephone interrupted her. He crossed the room to answer it. The male voice at the other end sounded high-class and frosty-cold as it asked to speak to Marissa.

  Gabe held out the receiver. “For you.”

  Curiosity kept him from leaving. Heck, he owned the place. If she didn’t want him to overhear, she knew the location of every phone in the house. He took the nearest chair and tuned in to the conversation. It didn’t take long to find out the first thing he wanted to know—who was this stranger calling his wife?

  “F-Father?” Her voice rose.

  Shock or maybe fear, judging by the way her eyes darted around the room, as if afraid the man might appear there.

  “How did—? I mean, Merry Christmas. I—No, I didn’t—I was planning to but—”

  He could’ve sighed in frustration. It sure wouldn’t satisfy much curiosity, if she kept this up. Then, even worse, she gave up on the chopped-off attempts at speech and switched to a wide-eyed stare. At nothing.

  After a long silence, she blurted, “How did you find—?” Her face went as white as the pastry dough she’d made Christmas morning. That brought him to his feet.

  He moved to stand beside her, hovering near her elbow, not sure she even knew he was there.

  “And that’s all I am to you, Father?” she burst out. “Just one of your employees?” Another silence, this one seeming to stretch on and on. Then she gasped, her eyes brightened, and her fingers on the receiver turned as colorless as her face. “No! That’s not true! I’m not—” Her voice broke.

  So did Gabe’s heart. Where did this guy get off, upsetting her like this? Before he could think things through, he snatched the phone from her unresisting hand.

  “What’s going on here?” he barked into the receiver.

  “I am Marissa’s father.” The voice had dropped a few notches to a deep-freeze. “And this is a private conversation.”

  “Yeah? Well, I am Marissa’s husband. And this is the sound of me hanging up on you.” He slammed the receiver into the cradle. The thought hit him, too late, that Marissa might not have appreciated the interference. He didn’t much care. He’d have hung up on the bigheaded SOB regardless.

  He took his seat and shot a glance her way.

  She star
ed back, her face still ghostly pale, her eyes wide and watery, one stray teardrop caught on her lower lashes. As he watched, her mouth twisted in silent fury and he waited for the tongue-lashing he knew would follow.

  But instead she gave way to a cross between a hiccup and a giggle.

  He narrowed his eyes. “Something funny?”

  “You.” She giggled some more. “What you did. I can’t believe you hung up on him.”

  “If he talked to you the same way he talked to me, he deserved it. And he must have, seeing how you reacted.”

  As if he’d doused her with cold water—or she’d just recalled that unfeeling voice on the phone—she sobered. “That was my father.”

  “So I gathered.”

  “And that’s pretty much how he speaks to anyone who displeases him.”

  “Knowing you’re married and expecting ‘displeases him’?” He took his anger out on the salt and pepper shakers in front of him, shoving them to one side of the table.

  “That’s not it. He still doesn’t know about the baby.”

  “Someone must’ve told him.”

  She shook her head. “No one knows. Being the owner’s daughter doesn’t earn you too many friends. No one in Father’s empire knows I’m pregnant.” She refused to meet his eyes. “I didn’t think he’d even know yet that I quit my job because I’d gotten married. That’s all he would say when I asked how he knew,” she added bitterly, her voice shaking. “‘You know I keep up-to-date information on anyone in my employ.’”

  She sank into a chair at the other end of the table, her expression blank. Closed to him. “He’ll never forgive me.”

  He snorted. “For what? Quitting? Getting married? Not inviting him to the wedding?”

  “For not conforming to what he wants me to be.” She sighed. “He didn’t have any control over me when I was growing up, no say in how I was raised. And so, no interest in me.” Her voice grew more bitter, her eyes lost focus, as if she’d left the ranch-house kitchen and gone back in time. “I had to beg him to let me live with him when I turned sixteen. He didn’t want me at all.”

  “I won’t argue the point with you, Marissa.” He kept his voice low, wanting to bring her back from the hurtful memories. “Bad things happen in life, like having a parent desert you. If you’re lucky, you hold even tighter to the people still there. You were lucky. You had your mother.”

  Her head shot up. He’d said exactly the wrong thing.

  “Sorry, Gabe, you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  He did know, in a way. But this time he kept his mouth shut.

  “You remember I told you my mother and I never had a Christmas tree? Because we moved around too much?”

  He nodded.

  “We moved so often because my mother couldn’t settle down for very long. As in, stay with one man for more than a few months.” Shaking her head, she added, “Mother changed men more often than I changed my mind about what I wanted to do when I grew up. And trust me, I didn’t always know I wanted to be a chef. That came gradually, after years of doing the cooking for the two of us and the latest lover.” She toyed with the salt shaker he had pushed aside, passing it from hand to hand.

  “Oh, she loved each and every one of them. For as long as the feeling lasted.” She laughed without humor. “She couldn’t have married any of them, anyway. Oh, no. Give up the monthly alimony check that managed to reach her no matter how often we moved? Because, of course, Father kept tabs. I’m sure he was as good then as he is now at gathering background information.”

  She tilted the salt shaker, dribbling white crystals almost grain by grain onto the tabletop. Just as she was dropping one heartbreaking fact after another.

  He thought about stopping the conversation. But maybe talking about her past helped push away thoughts of the present—and that telephone call.

  “And of course—” her hand shook, sending a shower of salt onto the table “—she couldn’t have let me live with Father. No, that would mean giving up the monthly child-support check.”

  “I don’t—”

  “Please don’t tell me you think that couldn’t be true. I know what she thought. I know what she did. I know what she let happen, for the sake of that extra check.”

  Under the edge of the table, he fisted his hands against his thighs, sure he knew what was coming and not certain at all he could block his reaction.

  “I’m surprised she wasn’t jealous that some of her boyfriends paid so much attention to me. Or maybe she was. Maybe that’s why, when it happened once too often and I managed to get Father to agree to let me live with him, she didn’t offer a protest.”

  “Sweetheart, I’m sorry.” Sorry wasn’t good enough, but what more could he say?

  She cupped a hand at the table’s edge and swept the loose salt into her palm, then closed her fingers in a white-knuckled fist. “It seems Father felt I needed to hear that I’m just like my mother.”

  “That’s crazy talk, Marissa. Why’d he say that? You left behind a string of men?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Then what?”

  After a long pause, she shook her head. “I think it’s because I no longer work for him. That takes away his control.”

  “Sounds to me like you’re better off without him.”

  “Am I?”

  “Sure. And maybe you’ve got no other family, no other place to go. But you’ve got a place here.”

  He’d blurted out the statement without giving it a moment’s thought. Which didn’t matter, because he meant it. He felt for her, having such a jerk as a parent.

  Much as he’d missed his mama and had suffered from not having her around, Marissa had run up against a whole other situation. She would have been better off never getting involved with her daddy to begin with. Then again, she’d have been stuck with another worthless parent.

  All the more reason for their own child to grow up in a good environment. On the ranch. With two parents.

  Couldn’t Marissa see that?

  AS HE ENTERED Dillon, instead of heading for the hardware store, Gabe turned the pickup toward the diner. He needed some time. Some breathing room. Some of Delia’s high-test.

  Marissa had taken that stupid phone call to heart. And she’d been distant to him all the way to town. He’d tried to distract her, cheer her up, make things right.

  But she’d been so hurt by her own daddy, she hadn’t paid him any notice.

  He suspected the man had money, enough to help her rustle his own ranch out from under him. But somehow, after listening to her talk, he doubted that was her aim. She had too much pride to ask her father for anything.

  Inside the crowded diner, everybody greeted him and Marissa like an old married couple. Which they wouldn’t get to be, if he didn’t make up his mind and do something about it.

  He nodded at Delia and grabbed gratefully at the mug she’d filled when they’d come in the door.

  “Hey,” he said to Marissa, “Doc and Mrs. G are down back in Doc’s usual corner. Let’s go join them.”

  “Fine.” She led the way.

  “Well, look who’s here,” Doc said.

  Mrs. G moved over on her bench seat and slid her dinner plate along with her.

  Marissa took the empty space.

  Gabe took a wooden chair from the next table and set it at the end of the booth, close enough to Marissa to reach out and take her hand. She didn’t pull away. She wouldn’t, in front of company. But she was still quieter than usual.

  He didn’t like it. He had to do something to make her forget the phone call. He squeezed her hand. “We’re glad we ran into you tonight, aren’t we, honey?”

  “Yes.” She gave a small smile, probably for the benefit of Doc and Mrs. G.

  “Marissa and I’ve got some good news.” Her hand tensed in his. “I’ll come right out with it—we’re having a baby.”

  Mrs. G gasped. “How wonderful! My dear, when can we expect the new arrival?”

 
; “The beginning of June,” Marissa answered, her voice soft.

  Her cheeks had turned pink, but her smile warmed. She turned to answer a slew of questions from his old schoolteacher.

  Across the table, Doc winked at him.

  Gabe sat back in his chair and took a big swig of coffee.

  He listened to Marissa rattle on about the baby. She sounded happy. Anyone could tell that. Her happiness, and Doc’s assurances about the pregnancy, made him finally certain.

  She hadn’t lied about being pregnant.

  It stood to reason she wouldn’t lie about him being the father, either. Truth to tell, he’d believed that all along, though he’d only let himself admit it a short while ago. He’d listened too long to his fear, when he should’ve been heeding Marissa.

  We’re having a baby.

  The same words she had said to him the morning she’d come back. The same reason, more than ever now, she needed to stay.

  But would she?

  He thought back to all she’d said about her life, the way she had lived in her early years, how she had gone from town to town as her mother moved from man to man. Would Marissa repeat the pattern? Hadn’t she, already, by leaving?

  Suddenly, Delia’s high-test tasted bitter.

  DOC WATCHED as Gabe and Marissa left the diner. A split second later, Lily Gannett signaled across the room.

  Delia started toward them, having the presence of mind to remember the coffeepot. She plopped into the chair Gabe had left at the end of the booth. Years of practice had her refilling Doc’s coffee without spilling a drop, even though she’d locked eyes with Lily. Doc reached gratefully for the mug.

  “Delia,” Lily said in a hushed voice. “You’ll never guess. Gabe and Marissa are on their way to the hardware store to pick out wallpaper—for their baby’s room!”

  “She’s pregnant?”

  “She is. And Gabe’s pleased as punch about it.”

  “Then maybe we’re wrong?” Delia’s brow wrinkled. “Sounds like everything’s fine and dandy, after all.”

  He sipped coffee, considering.

  Gabe seemed fit to bust at sharing the news, but he knew the boy well enough to detect something still forced about the enthusiasm. Marissa, he didn’t know well at all, but that day she’d come in to his office, he’d seen both happiness and excitement. He’d seen a bit of that tonight, too. But, every once in a while, she’d looked distracted…and upset, to boot.