Cowboy Baby Daddy

by Claire Adams

  But I wasn't spending those free hours with Olivia. Instead, I was spending them alone with my thoughts, trying to remember what hobbies I'd had before I became a dad.

  “How is darling Miss Emma doing tonight?” Ernie asked jovially. “All ready for a strawberry banana shake?”

  Emma laughed and clapped her hands together, her earlier tears gone. I couldn't help smiling as well. At least she was happy, regardless of what might or might not be going on between me and Olivia. It was all the more reason not to rush into things with her. I didn't want Emma's whole world to be shaken up again, to the point where she had to relearn how to laugh all over again. The past two years had been difficult enough for her.

  The front door swung open as Ernie went back behind the counter, and none other than Georgia walked in. I groaned, hardly believing my luck. Of all the nights of the week, why did she have to be here tonight?

  Her eyes scanned the diner, looking for an empty seat. True to form, she came over and dropped into the empty seat at our table, not bothering to ask if it was all right. I suddenly had the irrational wish that Emma was old enough to sit in a proper seat, rather than requiring a high chair.

  “So good to see you, Dr. Jones,” Georgia said silkily. “You've been busy lately; you aren't returning my calls.”

  “If you want to schedule an appointment, you need to call me on my work phone; you know the drill,” I told her. I actually hadn't listened to any of her voicemails. I assumed if there were something seriously wrong with her, she'd come find me in person. Or find another doctor. I could only dream.

  “You silly,” Georgia said, laying a hand on my arm. “I'm not interested in booking an appointment with you.”

  “Your shoulder is feeling better?” I asked sarcastically.

  “Loads better,” Georgia said, flashing her teeth at me. “I was just wondering how things were going. I know life as a single parent can't be the easiest.”

  “Unless you're volunteering to babysit Emma on one of Nana's nights off, you should stop right there,” I cautioned her.”

  Georgia frowned and took a sip of my water. “Isn't that what Olivia is for?” she asked.

  “Olivia is Emma's daycare provider,” I said. “Emphasis on the day part of daycare.”

  Georgia giggled. “So I assume if I wanted you to take me out on a date, it would have to be on one of the nights when Nana could watch Emma?” she asked.

  I rolled my eyes. “Georgia, we've been over this before,” I hissed, hoping no one else could overhear us in the crowded diner. “I'm not interested in dating you. Now please, just let it be.”

  “I get it, you're still mourning,” Georgia said, waving aside my protests. Her eyes narrowed. “You know, I'm not sure I would trust Olivia if I were you.”

  “What the hell do you mean?” I asked.

  “Well, she's new in town,” Georgia reminded me. “And let's just say, I have my doubts about the woman's credentials.”

  I raised an eyebrow at her. I wanted to fly off the handle at her, to tell her to get the hell away from me. But there was something about the way she said it that made me curious. I hadn't done a very thorough check on Olivia's background before bringing Emma to her daycare. I had taken the recommendation from Jeannie at face value, as you did in a small town, where everyone in the local business scene was your neighbor. But Olivia wasn't part of the local business scene; as Georgia pointed out, she was new here. I frowned.

  “You know,” Georgia said, leaning in and whispering in an exaggeratedly loud manner, “Harlan told his mom that he saw Miss Olivia kissing a man the other day, right there in the daycare.”

  I frowned, wondering what she was talking about. I had kissed Olivia at the daycare, but that had been nearly two weeks ago now, and we hadn't been in the daycare, strictly speaking. We'd been out in the backyard.

  Was there a chance that that was the kiss that Harlan had been referring to? Then again, he was picked up earlier than Emma most nights.

  “Buck Johanssen,” Georgia said triumphantly, clearly able to see from my expression that she had hit a nerve.

  “What about Buck?” I asked. It had to be me that Harlan was talking about, but something told me Georgia wouldn't have been so smug if that was the case. And was it really so unbelievable that Olivia might have moved on to someone else? She and I had hardly talked over the past couple weeks, and I knew how those city girls moved.

  Not that Olivia struck me that way, but you never knew, did you?

  “Well, that's who he saw,” Georgia said cheerfully. “Harlan saw Olivia Sable kissing Buck Johanssen at the daycare. I suppose it makes sense, given that Buck is her mother's gardener. Those two families have always been close.” She paused, staring consideringly at me. “Why, did you hear something else?”

  “No, of course not,” I said after a moment. Buck Johanssen. I couldn't believe it. I swallowed hard, pushing back the bitterness that surged through me. It was my fault, I knew. If I wanted Olivia to be interested in me, I had to get my life together and stop worrying about what Emily would have thought.

  Easier said than done.

  “I've already put orders in for these two, but can I get you anything?” Ernie asked Georgia, arriving suddenly at the side of our table.

  “Oh no,” Georgia laughed as she grabbed her purse off the back of her chair. “I'm not hungry, but thanks anyway.” She winked down at me as she stood up. “It was good seeing you, Dr. Jones. Don't be such a stranger, you hear?”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Olivia

  I flushed the toilet and wiped my mouth, feeling horrible. It had been a while since I was this sick. I worked with kids, so I knew to take my vitamins and eat a healthy diet. I got as much sleep as I could, although lately my sleep had been plagued by dreams of a certain doctor and his wonderful hands. I blushed even thinking of the filthy things that I'd imagined of him.

  But right now, I couldn't feel turned on; I felt wretched. I'd puked the past couple mornings, unable to keep any food down. And the rising of the sun didn't seem to help things, unfortunately. Keeping up with Emma when I felt this crummy was a nightmare, and I was just lucky that it was the weekend. I was all set to put on my fluffiest pair of pajamas and crawl back into bed. Maybe I'd watch a movie, although the idea of focusing on anything made my stomach lurch again.

  I looked at my calendar as I fell back into bed. The middle of May already; how was that possible? This year was flying by.

  Suddenly, I frowned. I flipped back in the calendar to the last day with a red dot in the corner of the box. It had been over a month since my last period. In fact, if everything was normal, I should have gotten my period about a week ago. Yet nothing had happened.

  Queasiness and a missed period…

  My stomach lurched, and I thought I was going to get sick right there. But fortunately, there was nothing left to come up after my episode that morning. Still, I felt entirely unsettled. “I need to get to the pharmacy,” I muttered to myself.

  I could hardly consider that I might be, well, pregnant. Despite all the signs. We'd had sex a couple of times, but I was on birth control, and we'd used a condom. Still, I knew neither of those things were 100% foolproof. There was still the chance that I might be pregnant.

  I wasn't going to be able to relax until I knew for sure.

  I realized that I couldn't buy a pregnancy test at the local pharmacy; the news would be all over town by lunchtime. So I took a long drive, going a few towns over before I bought the test and then backtracking. Even though the wait to know if I was pregnant was making my stomach churn. The bag on the passenger's seat left me preoccupied.

  Even if I was pregnant, what was I going to do? I couldn't imagine a way to tell Eric. And then there was Emma. How would she feel, knowing that she was about to have a little brother or little sister? She already had it so rough. She was already so desperate for attention. What if her little sibling upstaged her? Would she be able to recover?

  I peed on
the stick; then, I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, counting to 20. I glanced at the instruction manual, making sure I knew what the symbols stood for before I looked at the results.

  I couldn't believe my eyes.

  “No,” I whimpered, sinking to the cold, tile floor. Disbelief flooded through me. And shame.

  How was I going to explain this to anyone? Things between Eric and I were already so strained and awkward. I had barely heard from him over the past couple weeks, and it wasn't as though I had tried to contact him, either. I hadn't known what to say to him, even when he had shown up at the daycare to drop off his daughter. It wasn't as though now I could suddenly call him up out of the blue and admit that I was pregnant.

  But in a town as small as this, it wasn't as though I could avoid him. Sure, I could stall for a little while, but eventually, he was going to find out the truth. Especially since he was the town's one main doctor. If I tried to hide this from him, he would probably be able to diagnose me long before I even started to show.

  I grabbed my keys, before I even knew what I was doing, and headed out, locking the door behind me and walking to Mom's house.

  “Hey, Mom,” I said, finding her in the kitchen. “What are you working on?”

  “Hey, sweetie,” Mom said warmly, taking a break from whatever it was so that she could kiss me on the cheek. “I'm canning cherries. The crop has been so good this year that I don't even know what to do with all the fruit. So I figured, a few dozen jars of cherry preserves to keep us through the winter! Can you imagine cherries on waffles, cherries in cookies? It'll be great.”

  “Sounds yummy,” I agreed, taking a look down into the vat that she was stirring.

  “What's up?” Mom asked, looking worried.

  I didn't know how she could tell so easily that something was wrong, but I appreciated it. I wanted to tell her all about the pregnancy test and about the fact that it was positive, but the more I thought about it, the more sure I was that that was a bad idea.

  I swallowed hard. Ever since Mom had found out that she had cancer, she'd become spacey. I knew she wanted the best for me; she always had. But as much as she wanted me to be happy, and as much as she wanted to have grandchildren, I couldn't help but wonder how pleased she would be for me if she were to find out that I was pregnant.

  I didn't want her to think that I was making the same mistakes that she had made. Of course, she would never phrase things in that negative light, but all the same.

  Besides, I didn't want to tell her and have Eric find out from someone else before I had the chance to tell him. He was the father of this child, whatever else might happen, and he deserved to hear the news from me. Before anyone else did.

  I shook my head and took a step back from the pot of cherries. “I just was wondering what you were up to,” I lied.

  Mom raised an eyebrow at me, continuing to stir her cherries. “Are you sure that you're not just here to check up on me?” Mom asked.

  “Mom, I know you can get by just fine on your own,” I said, rolling my eyes.

  “Sure,” Mom agreed. “But the next thing I know, you're probably going to be asking me if Dr. Jones has called again recently. And you'll want to know what I've said to him, what I've decided regarding the chemotherapy, and everything else. Isn't that right?”

  I blushed and ducked my head. From the way she said it, I could tell that she really thought this was all none of my business. I didn't understand how she could feel that way when I was her only daughter. Didn't she realize how much I stood to lose? But I shook my head, knowing that an argumentative approach was going to get us nowhere. In fact, it would probably only cause us to lose ground.

  “So has he called?” I asked.

  Mom laughed. “Yes,” she admitted, sounding only amused. “The good doctor gave me a call yesterday to see how I was doing. I told him that nothing's changed.”

  “Well, did he ask you to come in for more tests?” I asked.

  “Oh no,” Mom said, shaking her head. “I made it pretty clear that I wasn't going to be doing anything like that.” She grinned. “He's just angling for another dinner invitation, I'm sure. But I'm not cooking for him again, not right now. I don't have the energy.”

  I frowned. “Mom—”

  “And don't you go saying that the lack of energy is caused by this cancer!” Mom interrupted.

  I stared at her for a long moment, wondering what else I could say. I felt totally at a loss. And the thing was, I didn't want to keep fighting with her on this, especially not right now, with everything else on my mind. I swallowed hard.

  “Don't look so glum,” Mom said, patting me on the head. “Everything always works out exactly the way that it's meant to; you know that.”

  “I know,” I whispered.

  “Now, why don't you give me a hand with these cherries? I'll give you a few jars to take home with you. Bet it's been a while since you've had real cherry preserves, not those canned monstrosities that you can find at the store. They taste great over a bowl of vanilla ice cream.”

  I grinned at her. “All right, sold,” I told her, rolling up my sleeves. “Where do you want me to start?” Maybe the manual labor would get my mind off the fact that I was pregnant.

  Maybe.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Eric

  On Sunday, I needed to drive to Aurora to pick up some new equipment for my practice. I'd wanted to just have the stuff delivered to me in Tamlin, but apparently, they didn't do rural deliveries, and I'd had to have the stuff delivered to a larger practice in the city if I wanted to get my hands on it. I rolled my eyes. Bureaucratic nonsense.

  The drive into the city was frustrating: traffic was at its peak, but I was glad I didn’t have to deal with how people from Chicago liked to drive. I had to go to Chicago on occasion and that was a living nightmare. I was glad that I was able to have the equipment delivered to a smaller city like Aurora. There was still plenty of traffic, but it wasn’t a total nightmare.

  I found the building that I needed wasn’t totally convenient to get to, but I was just going to have to make it work. I found a parking spot near the front. Not quite where I would have liked to be, but as long as they had dollies I would be alright with where I parked. I had to admit this was still less stressful than the times I had been to Chicago. Aurora was still pretty big and busy, but it was easier to get around. I made sure my parking was good, I didn’t want to get a ticket and have to come back for the court date. Once I'd checked my parking job, I lingered in the car for a long moment, taking deep breaths and letting them out slowly. I shouldn't let myself get so riled up about this. It wasn't as though there was a specific time that I had to pick up the packages.

  Of course, I knew that it wasn't just the traffic and the parking situation that had me riled up. I had had a dream about Olivia the previous night, a sexy one, and I'd woken up feeling guilty in the bed that I used to share with Emily. Not for the first time, I wondered whether it wouldn't have been easier for me to move somewhere new after her death. Staying around Tamlin made it impossible for me to move on sometimes.

  But then again, Tamlin was where Helen lived, and Emma needed her Nana. Plus, even though I knew people uprooted their kids all the time, I still didn't want to do that to Emma, not when she was so young and impressionable.

  And in some ways, I didn't want to move on from what I'd had with Emily. I'd loved the woman very dearly, and I wanted to hold that little piece of her, whatever was left, for the rest of my life.

  Of course, I never thought I'd love someone more than Emily, my mind said, and I dropped my head down on the steering wheel. I couldn't possibly love Olivia already. But there was something about my feelings for her. They went impossibly deep.

  I had the sudden wish that I'd invited Olivia along with me on this day trip. She always helped to pass the time in the car, chatting about anything and everything. I wouldn't have been so upset about the traffic if I'd just had a companion there with me. Besides, it was
a Sunday; she didn't have daycare duties that day. And I had a feeling that she could probably come up with plenty to do in the city for a day: see some old friends, go shopping, eat at her favorite restaurants.

  But it was too late to ask her now, even if I'd wanted to.

  I frowned, remembering what Georgia had said in the diner. She's probably doing something with Buck anyway.

  I hated the surge of jealousy that went through me as I thought of that, but I couldn't help it. As much as I didn't want to believe Georgia, as much as I wanted to believe that she was just trying to rile me up or turn my interests back toward her (not that I'd ever actually been interested in her). I had to admit that it made logical sense that Olivia and Buck might be going together. I knew that Buck did yard work for Jeannie. And he was a strapping young man. Maybe not too bright, but I didn't know what Olivia was interested in.

  And maybe all they were doing was having sex. His intelligence level wouldn't matter if that were the case.

  I hated thinking of Olivia having sex with someone else, but I had to admit that that, as well, was a distinct possibility. She'd been so quick to say that what she and I were doing was just casual. For all I knew, that was because she wasn't planning on just being casual with me; she could have someone else on the side.

  I shook my head and headed inside to collect the packages.

  Fortunately, my ride back to Tamlin went a lot more smoothly once I got out of the city, and by the time I got back to the office, I was a lot more relaxed. I set up all the new equipment in my office and then went to my one afternoon appointment, with Maggie Quinn. Normally, I didn't take weekend appointments, but from the sound of it, Maggie thought she was dying, and the elderly woman was one of Helen's closest friends.

  I had a difficult time focusing at the level that I knew that I should be, so, fortunately, her appointment was easy. I prescribed some antibiotics to her, and that was that.