The Cowboy's Pregnant Bride (St. Valentine, Texas)

by Green, Crystal

  “It’s not like there’s anything on TV to watch,” he said. “Why head home?”

  “What else do you have in mind for me?” She laughed. “Since you’ve started running my life and all.”

  “I only had you sit on a stool.”

  Something passed over her blue gaze, and he couldn’t translate it. Whatever it was, though, was gentle. Maybe even as full of yearning as what he felt whenever he was near her.

  “Come on,” he said, guiding her toward his pickup.

  “If you’re coming over to dig, we can just take our own cars.”

  “I’m putting off the digging for now.”

  He hadn’t known just what he had planned until he’d said it right then, but she went along with it anyway.

  After he helped her into his truck cab and took off on Amati Street, then turned on the road leading out of St. Valentine, he drove to a place he’d checked out a few times before.

  Annette seemed to know where they were as the pickup climbed uphill, then slowed near a thick bunch of pines at the top. A few other cars were parked around the area, so he steered clear of them.

  “Lookout Point, right?” she asked.

  “Some people also call it Heartbreak Hill.” He backed the truck up so that the rear was facing a view of St. Valentine beneath them, with its lights glowing in the falling darkness. Then he cut the engine. “You know what they say about this place?”

  “Sure. There was a man and a woman who fell in love way back during the thirties, and they used to meet here in secret. He wanted to make good out West, and she was a party girl who neglected to tell him about her husband. But he found the two of them in the St. Valentine Hotel and put an end to their affair. Now they’re ghosts that haunt the place.”

  “That’s one story about Heartbreak Hill.”

  She pulled her coat around her. “I also heard that Tony Amati would come up here before the town was even built. He used to sit here and make plans for the future.”

  And, Jared thought, he probably even used to pine away for the woman he loved after he’d founded St. Valentine.

  He checked his watch, then got out of the truck, reaching behind the seat to pull out some blankets. Afterward, he went around to the other side and opened Annette’s door.

  He offered his hand.

  “You have an agenda,” she said.

  “The lights are supposed to come on soon, right? This is a better place to see them than the internet.”

  She took his hand, and he helped her out. But when she was standing on the ground, he was slow to remove his fingers from hers. Even when he did, he still felt her skin on his.

  “Let’s go,” he said, thinking he should remove as much of himself as he could from her.

  At the rear of the truck he flipped open the tailgate and set down a blanket for a cushion. Then, as carefully as he’d ever done anything in his life, he lifted her, bringing her up to the truck, seating her.

  She watched him, her gaze wide again, as he wrapped her in the other blanket.

  His face was inches from hers, and it was all he could do to keep from kissing her once more. He even stopped breathing, tried to stop his heart from pounding as loudly as it was.

  Fortunately, in the end, he managed to restrain himself, and he climbed up next to her.

  As the truck bounced and creaked under his weight, he attempted not to look at her under the moonlight, because, Lord knew, that was what had done him in last night. Moonlight, beautiful long blond hair and eyes like an eternal summer even during winter.

  “You bundled me up pretty good here,” she said from the depths of her blanket. “It’s not that cold in these parts, you know.”

  “Better safe than sorry,” he said.

  Or was it better sorry than safe?

  For a laden second, they looked at the town beneath them. Just when he couldn’t stand it anymore, he spoke.

  “My grandma said that Tony’s buried somewhere around here.”

  Annette’s voice sounded as if it had been put through an emotional strainer, as if she were just as wracked with tension as he was. “You remember the part in his journal...”

  “Where he wrote that he wanted to be buried next to her?”

  It had come at the end, just before the pages had abruptly stopped, as if Tony had lost hope or run out of time for some reason.

  Annette’s voice barely carried over the night. “Do you think she’s up here, too, then?”

  Jared frowned. If his great-grandmother Tessa were the woman in the journal, as he strongly suspected, then he knew that her ashes had been spread somewhere else—he wasn’t sure where. Gran hadn’t elaborated when they’d talked family history in the past.

  But he said, “I hope she’s close to him. As far we know, Tony couldn’t have her in life, but maybe he could be near her in death.”

  Annette glanced at him. “Well, just listen to you.”

  He pointed to himself. Me?

  She smiled at his surprised look. “Yes, you. Jared Colton, the closet romantic.”

  He pulled down the brim of his hat, not knowing what else to do. “I wouldn’t say that.”

  “I would. It’s good to know.”

  He made a sound of denial, but she kept on him.

  “You might dress like a bad guy, all in black, but you know what?” She leaned a little closer. “You belong in a white hat.”

  Her words had obviously been meant to make him feel good, but how could he when he’d done nothing to earn a silver star in his life?

  Even worse, he couldn’t stand to think about the expression a dedicated mother like her would undoubtedly get on her face if she ever found out that he’d turned his back on his child, leaving her for another man to raise.

  Annette kept watching him. “I should know the difference between a white hat and a black one.”

  “Because of your fiancé.”

  “That’s right.”

  Now it was as if she was the one who didn’t want to talk any more about it. The way she’d said it niggled at him, as if there were more to her story than she’d revealed the other day.

  But Annette didn’t seem to be one to dwell on the negative, and when the red-and-white lights flashed on down below just to the left of St. Valentine, she sucked in a breath, her face as radiant as the lights that formed huge hearts, cupids in flight and a cowgirl roping in a cowboy, intent on a kiss.

  Transfixed, he watched her instead of the light show.

  “Have you ever seen anything like it?” she asked, her smile all-encompassing, one hand covering her heart as her blanket slumped down.

  Jared’s chest clenched.

  No, he’d never seen anything like this, and he wasn’t sure how he was going to be able to stand it when it came time to leave her behind, just as he did with everyone else.

  Chapter Six

  When Jared dropped Annette off at her car in the Orbit Diner’s parking lot, she expected him to follow her to the condo, where he could take up where he’d left off with his digging, even if it was dark out now.

  Instead, he said, “I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “You’re not coming over?”

  “Not tonight.”

  Then he took her by the hand and helped her out of his truck, just as if she were some kind of grand lady emerging from a limo.

  How did he have the ability to make her feel like a million dollars, even if she’d just been riding in a pickup while wearing her waitress uniform? Even Brett, who’d taken her out to five-star restaurants and bought her designer dresses, hadn’t made her feel this way.

  Then again, her ex-fiancé didn’t seem to know how to treat a woman with sweetness or, more important, respect. If he had, he would’ve never fooled around with any
one else, and he definitely wouldn’t have made jaw-dropping excuses about it afterward.

  Jared walked her to her car and she opened the door. It stood between them like a barrier that she wanted to erase.

  “Thanks again,” she said. “You were right. The Valentine lights were far more entertaining than some TV program.”

  This man of few words tipped his hat to her, backing away. “Sleep tight, Annie.”

  She blinked. Annie. It was the first time he’d called her that, and it made her sound like an entirely different person. It felt right to be called something simple and pretty like Annie.

  “Night, Jared,” she said quietly, easing into her car, smiling to herself.

  After he got into his truck, she could tell that he was waiting for her to start her engine, then he could see that she was safely headed home.

  A white hat, she thought. A good guy, even though he had seemed discomfited when she’d mentioned it to him earlier.

  Again, she wondered why. But there were a thousand things she wondered about Jared, and that didn’t mean she would ever find an answer to any of her questions.

  She drove home, seeing his headlights in her rearview mirror, although she knew that the cabin he rented near the Harrison ranch was in the opposite direction. When she pulled into her complex, he went on his way, and she suddenly felt as if something had been taken from her.

  Something—someone—she’d gotten all too used to.

  After parking in her garage, she went inside, shrugging off her coat and hanging it in the entry closet, the day finally catching up with her. For the first time, she noticed an ache at the small of her back, and she rubbed it. That, plus an itching sensation on her belly, dampened her mood.

  Reality had set in again now that Jared wasn’t here—aches and pains that she never seemed to notice when he was around.

  She blew out a breath, going to the kitchen, thinking she would prepare warm milk with cinnamon and honey before putting some cocoa-and-shea-butter lotion on the dry and stretched skin of her tummy.

  But then she peered through her back window.

  She couldn’t move for a suspended instant, couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

  Strings of lights on her picket fence, glowing like a necklace of red and white beads.

  She went to the sliding patio door, opened it and stepped outside, running her hands over her arms in the night’s coolness.

  Nope, she hadn’t been imagining things—there were colored bulbs on the fence, plus white heart-shaped lights hanging off her roof and...

  She bit her lip. There was a big red box near the sliding door, decorated with a white ribbon.

  Laughing, Annette bent down to open it and found that it was filled with sparkly heart confetti. A box of chocolates was nestled in the midst of it all.

  No one could’ve done this but Jared. He’d probably noticed that her rented condo had been the only one that hadn’t been trussed up for the festival. She’d spent money on baby clothes and furniture and just hadn’t had the cash for a display of town spirit.

  Not until he’d given her so much of it.

  A smile quavered as she thought of how her mom had always gone all out for any holiday. Annette had told herself that, this year, she wouldn’t be sad when Mom’s birthday rolled around in a few days.

  She turned off the lights for the time being, then went back into the condo, still glowing from the inside out. And after she’d gotten her warm milk, coated the skin of her tummy with lotion and reclined in bed to rest her back, she grabbed Tony Amati’s journal off her nightstand, thumbing to a certain passage that had spoken to her more than any other.

  What it is about her that makes my life new? Is it the way she tells me that, no matter what happened in the past, it doesn’t matter? Is it the way she makes me actually believe this, even though, coming from anyone else, it would sound like a platitude? She does not know what brought me to St. Valentine yet. I will tell her soon, because if I live a lie with her, I wouldn’t be the man she thinks I am, and I love her too much to be less than she deserves.

  I could never pretend to be anyone else with her.

  Every day, it is an effort to be worthy of her love. But I have already come to peace with the truth that love is pain. Love is work. But love has also given me this new life and new purpose, and there is nothing I would not do to have her love.

  Annette only wished she could ask Tony Amati when he’d found this complicated emotion within himself.

  And when he’d finally been able to admit that it was real.

  * * *

  Jared was just shucking off his work gloves and coming out of the stables at the Harrison ranch after mucking out some stalls when a fellow hand, Dale Wesley, moseyed up to him.

  “Off and running?” the cowboy said, waggling his thick eyebrows.

  “My day here is done besides some business that I need to see to at the feed store.”

  Dale, who couldn’t have been more than twenty-five, had a rakish side-swipe grin that charmed a lot of the females in town. Jared had seen proof of that while hanging around the Queen of Hearts Saloon, sitting in the corner and nursing a beer by himself as his coworker kicked up his boots and flirted with the women.

  But that easygoing grin faded now. “Just thought you should know, Jared, there’s some talk going around.”

  “Isn’t there always?”

  “Sure, but it’s never been so much about you and Annette before.”

  Jared bristled. “What do you mean?”

  “Listen, I wasn’t the one who started any rumors.” Dale nudged back his Stetson, revealing a thatch of brown hair. “People get to talking in this town all the time, and suddenly, they’re enthralled with Annette’s...condition.”

  The pieces of this conversation had already locked into place all too quickly. “They’re speculating about who the father of her baby is.”

  “Right. I heard that she told Rita Niles that the father died, but that doesn’t stop some busybodies from jumping to more exotic conclusions. People get bored here. They love to elaborate. And you’ve been spending a lot of time with Annette, and that’s obviously lent some spark to a few imaginations.”

  “Aw, come on.” Jared slapped his gloves against his thigh. “Are you telling me somebody’s just entertaining themselves with a lie?”

  “I guess so, but I’m just the messenger here, pardner.”

  “Do you know who started this rumor?”

  “Pick anyone who might’ve been in the diner when Annette and Rita were talking.”

  Jared hadn’t paid any attention to the crowd last night. Besides, he’d walked into the conversation late, after he’d been over at Annette’s decorating her backyard for the Valentine’s Day Festival instead of doing his digging.

  “Just thought you should know,” Dale said, clapping a hand on Jared’s shoulder on his way into the stables.

  Jared’s temper was the kind that grew with a slow burn, and as he made his way toward his truck, hopped into it, then drove to his cabin to shower and dress into new jeans and a shirt, that temper was at a simmer.

  What could he do about the tongue-wagging besides wage his own campaign against the gossip? And how could he track down whoever had started the rumor?

  Damn, why did people have to misspend their time by gossiping about everything from him and Annette to him and Tony Amati?

  Instead of heading toward Annette’s condo and all the digging that awaited him there, he drove to the diner. He didn’t know exactly what he planned to do about this ridiculous rumor, but it might be best to check with Annette to see how she was holding up. Then he could figure out some damage control.

  No one was going to make her life any harder than it had to be.

  When he poked his head inside the diner, Ge
orge Manderly and Dexter Lars were at the counter playing chess. It was limbo time between lunch and early dinner, so business was at a lull, and they looked up at the sound of the bell as it filled the room.

  “Seen Annette around?” Jared asked.

  The elderly men must’ve recognized some steam rising in Jared, and George pointed to his right, out the long window.

  “She’s on break,” he said.

  Dexter added, “She took a walk to the hotel. She likes to sit out front and watch the world go by when Old Lady Ferris isn’t camped there smoking her cigars.”

  Jared had known about Annette’s penchant for relaxing on that bench. It was one of those casual things he’d found out early on.

  George said, “Just to be clear, we didn’t say a word about nothin’, Jared.”

  Both of their grizzled jaws were set, as if they were just as offended by this rumor going around as Jared was.

  “Has she already heard what people are saying?” he asked.

  “I think so,” Dexter said, “but you wouldn’t know it.”

  Jared thanked them and went on his way. Of course Annette wouldn’t seem affected by small-town small talk. The actual truth about the father of her baby was far worse than a dumb story about Jared being the dad.

  He slowed his steps as he approached Amati Street and the boardwalk. God, had he really just thought that it wasn’t a bad thing that some people assumed that he was the father?

  The very idea was ridiculous, all right, but it also sent another random thought flashing through his head.

  Would it actually make Annette and her child’s situation better if Jared did agree to act as if he were the child’s dad? No one could pinpoint exactly when they had met, seeing as both of them had come to town around the same time and no one knew them all that well. And it probably wasn’t a stretch to think that he and she had...

  He put all thoughts of sex out of his mind. He could handle a lot in life, but he couldn’t go there right now.

  Yet, on a practical level, he still couldn’t let go of the notion that if he didn’t deny this new rumor, he would be giving Annette a solid cover story should her ex-fiancé ever get it in his head to track her down. Of course, the story wouldn’t beat a paternity test if Brett demanded one, but maybe her ex wouldn’t have the desire to request it if Jared were around to actively discourage him.