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

by Green, Crystal

  Yet, soon enough, he began to feel a heaviness on his shoulders again.

  A reminder that he hadn’t told her everything.

  Just because she knew about him being rejected by his birth mom didn’t mean she would understand what he’d done in the past. She still didn’t know the ugliest reality about him.

  She rolled to her side, toward him, slipping an arm over his hip. His flesh tingled where she touched it, and that overwhelming affection for her he’d felt earlier seized him again. Without thinking, he lay back, putting his arms around her as she breathed against him, her belly fitting against him perfectly.

  He must’ve fallen asleep like that because, before he knew it, he was awake and morning was peeping in the curtains.

  Annette was still cuddled against him, her eyes closed, a lazy smile on her face.

  Had she been dreaming about him?

  When she opened one eye and smiled even wider, he was pretty sure that she’d been awake for a while.

  “Morning,” she whispered.

  “Morning to you, too.”

  He kept holding her, wondering if she was going to change her mind about being so close to him.

  But when she planted a kiss on his nose, then snuggled against him, he accepted it for as long as the guilt would allow him to.

  Just as he thought she might fall back asleep, she groaned and said, “Darn,” then shrugged out of the blankets and got to her feet, naked as the morning.

  He couldn’t look away from her shapely, gorgeous body: long legs, curvy hips, round belly, swollen breasts. He guessed she’d had an hourglass figure before the pregnancy, but now she was even more breathtaking.

  “One thing about having a baby,” she said, “is the constant—”

  She pointed toward the bathroom in the hall, and he understood.

  As she left the room, she said, “I hope I didn’t keep you up last night with all my getting up and down.”

  “Not at all.” Maybe he’d slept like a log, after all, because he didn’t remember any of that.

  He heard a door close and wondered what he should do now. It was the morning after, and aside from his short marriage, he’d never stayed around for long with other women.

  But Annette was anything but the usual.

  He got up from the floor, put on his jeans, then decided that he should probably make the bed. It seemed a real polite thing to do and, for some reason, he thought it’d be a nice gesture.

  Maybe he just wanted to hang around a little longer, though, and this was an excuse.

  Whatever it was, Annette came back soon enough, tying the sash of a blue terry-cloth robe around her. She had whisked her hair up into a clip, exposing her neck.

  Was it wrong that all Jared wanted to do was kiss it?

  “You hungry for some breakfast?” she asked, chipper as could be. “Pancakes? Waffles?”

  His stomach was getting a little rumbly, now that he thought about it. “Is all that stuff whole wheat and healthy?”

  “I think there might be a decadent unhealthy waffle somewhere in the freezer. Terry left some food in there before he moved into his new house.”

  She glanced at the semimade bed and smiled at Jared, and he wasn’t sure if it was because he’d been straightening the blankets back into place or because he’d helped her to muss it up last night.

  At any rate, he followed her into the kitchen, where she rummaged in the freezer for those waffles, coming out with an ice-encrusted box.

  “Didn’t you luck out?” she asked, going to the toaster.

  He found his shirt on the floor where he’d left it last night and shrugged back into it.

  Were they ever going to talk about what’d happened? Or did Annette just assume that it was the first step in something more?

  Just tell her everything about yourself before you get in too deep, he thought. Then you can decide.

  But he feared he was in too deep already.

  Deeper than he ever thought he’d be, and he didn’t want to shatter everything good about that.

  “So,” she said, opening the fridge and bringing out a pitcher of orange juice, then a container of cherry yogurt and some kind of health-food syrup that he wouldn’t dare complain about. After putting them on the table, she glanced at him, and for the first time this morning, she looked a little shy.

  His stomach kicked, and gut instinct told him to play it cool. “Is this where I ask you what you’re doing today?”

  She laughed a little at his weaving and dodging. “You could do that.”

  “Then what’re you doing today, Annie?”

  She took some glasses out of a low cupboard, then some utensils from a drawer and placed them on the table, too. “I didn’t have any big plans. But I did think that maybe this was a good time to start some new family traditions.” She rubbed her stomach.

  His hands itched, wanting to cradle her bump, too. “What kind of traditions?”

  “A scrapbook, for one. Technically, this will be baby’s first Valentine’s Day coming up, even though he or she is still cave-bound.”

  “I guess you could make a Valentine page for him or her. One page for each year.”

  “See?” she said. “You’re naturally good at this.”

  Before he could ask exactly what “this” meant—playing a game of Valentine’s-Day-for-Baby or thinking like a parent?—the waffles popped out of the toaster and she went to put them on a plate.

  “I was also thinking,” she said, “of keeping a journal, just so my son or daughter could read it one day. I wish my parents had done that.”

  She brought the plate to him, and he looked up at her.

  “Did you come up with that idea because of Tony’s journal?” he asked.

  She nodded, going to the stove, taking a teapot and filling it with water from the sink. All the while, Jared had the feeling that Annette was mulling over a heavier subject. He just didn’t know what.

  “Go ahead with whatever you want to say,” he told her.

  She didn’t waste a second. “I’ve just been wondering... You’ve never come right out and told me why you’re so into Tony Amati. I mean, I could guess, but I’d kind of like to hear it from you.” She turned on the burner and put the kettle on. “If you want to tell me, that is.”

  He sat down and doused his waffles with syrup. His first thought was about how much he could tell her without totally revealing everything about himself.

  His second thought was that he shouldn’t be hiding anything. Not anymore.

  But he couldn’t let her know just what a white-hat kind of guy he wasn’t, especially if he stayed around.

  Good God, he was actually thinking that it was possible. A drifter like him, finally setting down some roots. Yet how could he stay around for her if he kept lying about what sort of man she was with?

  He decided to give her as much as he could for now. “My fascination with Tony is complicated,” he said as she filled his glass with juice.

  “Isn’t everything?”

  She sat near him, and his body came alive, just as it had last night.

  “The easiest way I can explain it is this,” he said. “When you look in a mirror, you see your reflection. That’s how we know who we are, right?”

  “Right.” She was looking at him, following every word he said closely.

  “Well, Tony looks just like me. He’s kind of a mirror, so to speak.”

  “Someone you feel close to.”

  “Exactly.” This was easier than he thought it would be. “After I found out I was adopted, I hired that P.I., and after he tracked down my birth mom, he also looked into seeing if I had any other living relatives. I don’t really know what I was doing, searching my past even after my birth mom rejected me... Maybe I was just tr
ying to find someone out there who might want me in their lives.”

  Annette’s smile told him that he’d found that in spades, and it gave him the courage to go on.

  “When he told me that I had a grandma near Houston, I set out here, thinking I’d just meet her, appease my curiosity, then go on my way.”

  “It didn’t quite turn out that way, though.”

  “No, it didn’t.” He grinned. “Gran isn’t anything like her daughter. She was warm and accepting right off the bat.”

  “I wonder if that’s because she knew what it was like for you to be turned aside by your birth mom because her daughter did the same thing to her.”

  “You’re right. But the thing is, I kept letting Gran know that I wasn’t going to stay around forever. I didn’t want her to be disappointed when I left.”

  Annette went quiet, and it just about slayed him.

  He leaned forward, using his finger to tip up her chin. “That was at the beginning, before I got to know you.”

  She brightened at that, and he hated himself. What if he ended up not staying? What if she was ultimately so disgusted by everything he had to tell her that she didn’t even want him around?

  He continued, refusing to think about the worst.

  “Anyway, that brings us to Tony,” he said. “I went into St. Valentine one day, into the Queen of Hearts Saloon, and there he was, on the wall in those pictures. I told you before that I asked Gran about him, but she said she didn’t know all that much.”

  “And you don’t believe that.”

  “No. People just don’t randomly look alike, especially when Gran said my birth family has roots in this area that go way back. So that’s why I’m still here. Because I’m going to get to the bottom of who he is and how I’m related to him.”

  She tilted her head. “But that’s not all, is it? Tony, your mirror, can show you what you’re made of. He can make you proud of who you are, unlike your birth mom.”

  Out of everyone in creation, Annette had understood.

  At least this part of his story.

  “For a while,” he said, “when I was young, I knew exactly who I was because I thought I knew who my parents were. But then I found out differently, and I realized that I had no idea about anything anymore.”

  “What about Gran? Isn’t she enough to make you feel good about your new family?”

  “Not when I have another me who once existed.”

  She smiled, taking it all in before saying, “I get it, Jared. It makes perfect sense to me.”

  Then she stood and went to the stove, totally content with his explanation, as if he’d told her everything.

  Even though he hadn’t.

  Chapter Nine

  It had been too much for them to stay away from each other for the rest of the day, and they’d ended up in one another’s arms again, stretching out the hours, getting to know each other’s bodies tenderly. Slowly.

  Wonderfully.

  In the end, though, after they’d showered and rested, Annette was just happy to have Jared by her side on the sofa, where she could lean over and put her head on his shoulder and hold on to his arm. She loved the feel of him—the strong muscles, the sense that he was with her and didn’t want to be anywhere else.

  He hadn’t said as much, but she knew it had to be true from the way she would catch him looking at her with that craving in his gaze.

  Yet, every so often, she had to admit that there was something else there, too, even though he’d revealed a big part of himself last night and this morning.

  She could only guess that it had to do with something he still wanted to say to her, though he wasn’t saying it.

  But she’d always known that Jared wasn’t a man to rush into matters. She would just give him time to come out with whatever he had to tell her.

  All the time he needed.

  After they ate some of Gran’s leftovers for dinner, Jared seemed a little cabin feverish, so she suggested getting some air. And she knew the perfect place to go.

  They drove to the Helping Hands Ranch, where the lights could be enjoyed from the ground, or from far above St. Valentine, just as she’d seen them with Jared the other night.

  “I heard that a lot of news outlets picked up the internet broadcast,” Annette told him as they walked toward a massive field located away from the corrals and stables, where disadvantaged kids spent their time tending to the horses and turning around their lives with the help of counselors. “This place has already become a piece of St. Valentine history.”

  The air was chillier than usual, and Annette had put on a pair of red gloves to go along with her coat. Jared walked next to her as they approached one of the displays—the cupids in flight.

  From the ground, everything looked like a celestial maze of red and white bulbs, and as she brushed against him, he reached over, taking her hand in his, as if they were entering something unknown together.

  A trill of adoration shot through her. “It’s a little bit like heaven, isn’t it?”

  “As close as you can get to it on Earth, I suppose.”

  He was right because heaven was Jared, here, with her now, being unafraid to show everyone that they were together.

  They were an actual couple, Annette thought almost giddily. Somehow, she’d brought him out of that dark Black Bart shell he’d used for so long.

  As they made their way to the middle of the cupids display, the white bulbs reflected in Jared’s eyes like stars whenever she looked up into his gaze. He smiled down at her, and she forgot all those moments today when she had wondered what he might still be holding back.

  And when he would say he wanted to stay with her forever.

  Around them, folks were strolling down the illuminated lanes—people from town, whose gazes tracked Annette and Jared with curiosity, and tourists, who greeted them anonymously without minding who they were or what kind of gossip they would probably cause around St. Valentine now.

  But Annette just smiled at every one of them, hardly caring about anything because life was that good.

  They were just rounding a corner, coming upon the display of the cowgirl roping the cowboy, when they ran into the last people Jared probably cared to meet.

  Davis and Violet Jackson had obviously taken the night off from the newspaper, enjoying some time together, and when they saw Jared and Annette, they slowed their steps.

  “Evenin’,” Davis said as they approached. His dark blond hair caught the lights, and his tailored suit and coat and fancy hand-tooled boots boasted that he had money to spare.

  Although Violet was a hometown girl, she looked just as cosmopolitan as her husband tonight, her red hair cut in a trendy style that skimmed her neck.

  She sent Annette a grin because they’d always gotten along, then turned to Jared. “We didn’t come here tonight to chase you through the lights, if that’s what you’re worried about. There’s an unofficial interview moratorium in this maze.”

  Jared’s voice was low. “I wish that sort of offer lasted outside it, too.”

  Annette didn’t know how the reporters would react to Jared’s gruffness, so when they chuckled, she was pretty surprised.

  “Jared,” Davis said, “if there were an easier way to uncover information about Tony Amati than asking you for it, Vi and I would be all over that.”

  “As it is,” she said, “we’ve exhausted just about all of our options, although we’ve got one more lead to comb through.”

  So they were just about at the end of their ropes with Tony Amati, too, huh? Annette thought of all the upset dirt in the back of her condo.

  Davis and Violet Jackson weren’t the only ones coming up empty.

  Jared had tightened his hold on her hand. “Maybe that’s how Tony would have wanted things—priv
ate and dead-ended.”

  Davis said, “He would’ve wanted what was best for St. Valentine. If he could see what his mystery has done for the town’s economy, I think he’d be happy.”

  “He might,” Jared said, taking them all aback with the concession.

  His hat had been riding low over his eyes, but he pushed it up an inch. Davis and Violet both stood still, as if they’d never seen this much of Jared before.

  As if he’d never shown anyone outside of Annette more than he’d needed to.

  He kept holding her hand, and the reporters’ gazes took that in, too. Were they seeing an entirely new man tonight?

  Annette’s heart warmed. He was different now, wasn’t he? Because of her?

  Jared continued, “Don’t you have enough on Tony?”

  “We’re not much further than when we started,” Violet said. “Even with all the work we’ve done, it’s still as if Tony barely existed before he came to St. Valentine.”

  “But, as you said, it seems that’s sufficient enough to bring in more business than the town’s seen in years,” Jared said. “People love what they don’t know. That’s why they’ve been lured here. It could be that giving them all the answers about Tony would crush the mystery and the draw.”

  Davis laughed. “You’re talking to reporters, Jared. We live for answers.”

  Annette remembered those odd references in Tony’s journal about having to start over here, and she was sure Jared was only doing his best to defend his probable ancestor in his own way.

  But this also seemed to go into very personal territory for Jared. Was he asking Davis and Violet to back off more investigating because, subconsciously, he didn’t want to know everything about Tony? Was he hoping that Tony had only done good deeds and that would finally bring him some pride?

  Jared had told her that the man was like a mirror for him, a reflection that might help him find himself. How awful would it be for him to discover that Tony hadn’t been exaggerating about the “terrible sins” he’d mentioned in his journal?

  It’d be one more slap in the face for a man who’d been beaten down his entire life, and Annette felt as defensive of Jared as he’d been of her with those dirty-mouthed ex-miners the other day.