by Heidi Rice
*
Flynn drove into the empty rodeo grounds feeling as if he’s been gut-kicked by Baby Huey, Cody Starr’s least favorite bull.
Evie had looked devastated when he’d arrived at The Double T, the red streaks on her pale skin making his stomach twist and turn into tight knots of guilt and dread. A guilt and dread that reminded him of being six years old and seeing his big brother Gabe get beaten to a pulp. But somehow this was far worse, because he was the cause of all the misery this time.
But as Evie had stood on the porch, looking as if a sharp gust of wind would blow her over, he’d finally figured out what he’d been denying since she’d left eight weeks ago.
She mattered to him. He wanted to make a life with her, or at least try. And he wanted this baby, too. It was nuts, of course, because he didn’t know the first thing about long-term relationships, or being a daddy. He wasn’t even sure he could get through the next ten minutes without getting kicked to the curb for good, because that’s what he deserved, for the way he’d treated her, but he had to try. He had to know if there was any chance they could share more together than just this perfect little piece of DNA. But if that was all he could have, he’d take it, and be grateful for it.
The grounds were deserted now. The pens had been cleared out, the ticket booth and the other concession stands locked up, and the trailers and horse boxes from eight weeks ago when the rodeo had come to town were all gone. The sunshine glinted off the newly painted metal bleachers making the chill in the air more manageable. He parked in front of the ticket booth in the empty parking lot, the lingering memory of the first time they’d made love, under the bleachers, going some way to warming the chill in his stomach, which was tangling with nerves. But the desolate feel of the place pervaded his mood.
Heck, if he were a poetic guy, he might wonder why he’d chosen here of all places to have the most difficult conversation in his entire life.
Rodeo’s simple, Son, you do the work and it’ll give you the reward you deserve. It’s kind of like life that way.
The memory of Mitch O’Connell’s voice whispered through him and suddenly he knew why he’d brought Evie here. The answer was so damn simple.
Rodeo had been his salvation, once. Rodeo and Mitch and Dolores O’Connell. The hard work, the tough knocks he’d learned how to handle in the arena, and the love and commitment of those two people, had turned him around from an angry, confused, lonely kid into a guy who loved his family, loved his brothers and his sister, and could love this community.
He could hear Mitch’s voice now, whispering through the empty arena, the first time he’d shown him how to rope a calf.
You screwed up, Son, so it’s up to you to fix it, you hear me?
He’d been ten years old, and brutally hung over after getting wasted with Gabe and Rafe the night before on a bottle of cooking wine they’d found in the kitchen, taking Mitch’s truck and crashing it into a tree. They’d been celebrating, the first night the three of them had spent together under one roof for four years—ever since the night Jonas Blackstone had been arrested.
He’d been scared shitless sitting in the front seat of Mitch’s truck that day, sure that he’d screwed everything up, sure that the first foster parents to agree to take all four of them together were going to throw them back into the system again after only one night—and it would be all his fault.
But instead of throwing him back, Mitch had taken him out to the back pasture and shown him how to handle a rope. And without words told him he mattered. That he could be worthy of love, that he could be cherished and important if he put in the effort. If he stopped being angry and resentful and doing dumb stuff, and started paying attention.
It hadn’t happened overnight of course, he and his brothers, and even his kid sister Glory had caused Mitch and Dolores no end of headaches, but those good people had loved them anyway. And they’d never given up on them, no matter what they’d done. So what right did he have to give up on himself? To give up on Evie and this baby? If there was a chance they could make something of this, then he owed it to himself to take it.
“I’m so sorry, Flynn,” she whispered, her voice still thick with tears—the heartfelt apology yanking at the guilt. “I know you don’t want to be a father. I really didn’t come back here to cause you any more trouble and I can…”
“Shhh, Evie.” He leaned across the bench and cupped her cheek in his palm, making her look at him. The misery in her eyes crucified him a little more. “Don’t apologize. You have nothing to apologize for.”
She blinked. “That’s not true, Flynn, you know it’s not. I used you. I… The column…”
“The column you didn’t write you mean?” he cut in.
The blush hit her cheeks and he realized Gabe had called it right. She hadn’t written the damn thing, or not the bits that had hurt the most. But weirdly, they didn’t really hurt anymore anyway; in fact he could almost see the funny side of the damn thing.
“Gabe told you about Janice’s input?” she said.
“Yeah, he did, but I should have figured it out on my own.” He caressed her cheeks with his thumb, stupidly grateful just to be able to touch her again. “Or maybe you should have mentioned it to me. Why didn’t you?”
“Because it was still my fault. I told her about you, about our fling.” She ducked her head, and his hand dropped away. “Even if it wasn’t my intention to hurt you that way, I exposed you to that ridicule. I’d had a part in it. I’d been so focused on my career I’d let it happen and I’d…”
“That would be the career you dumped right after the column came out would it?” he said, then tucked a knuckle under her chin to raise her face back to his.
“How did you find that out?” she asked.
His belly lifted into his throat. Score two to Gabe and his secret dating column obsession.
“Because it turns out my big brother is a fan of your writing.” He smiled, his heart lightening at the look of shock on her face. “He’s still pissed that Evie8 stopped publishing, by the way. Why did you give it up?” he asked, but he was hoping against hope that he already knew the answer.
“Because I…” She seemed to struggle and he saw the lie in her eyes as her gaze darted away from his—for a journalist, she really was an open book. “Because it just wasn’t for me anymore,” she said. “The column was dying on its feet and I needed to pull the plug.”
“Dying on its feet, huh?” he said. “I heard that piece went viral and you got offered a ton of endorsements? Kind of weird you decided not to take advantage of them.” She could have made a mint. He thought she had, but she hadn’t. Now all he had to do was make her admit why.
She pushed her head up, her chin firm, but the tremble on her lower lip was a dead giveaway.
“I hurt you. I hurt this town. I hurt Charlie and Logan. Maybe it wasn’t my intention, maybe Janice had a hand in it. A big hand in it. But deep down I knew I was responsible for it. That’s why I decided I couldn’t do it anymore. Is that what you wanted to hear?” she said.
He nodded, his heart surging in his chest. She cared about him, she’d just admitted it, that she cared about hurting him enough to give up something she’d taken years to create. That had to say something. But now it was his turn.
If he wanted to make a start with Evie, he had to be honest and open with her too. He had to tell her why he’d really behaved the way he had when she’d come back today. Why he’d turned his back on her and on their baby. And make her realize that it had nothing to do with her. But he needed to know something first.
“When you said this baby didn’t have to be mine, what did you mean?” He had to know, the prickle of jealousy, that maybe some other cowboy was in the frame too, hard to deny.
She sighed. “I wanted to give you a choice. If I hadn’t told you I couldn’t get pregnant you would have continued to use protection and…” She chewed her lip, turned away, the agony of guilt touching his heart. Because what she had said had confi
rmed the only thing that mattered to him. He was the only guy who could have fathered this child.
The surge of pride was almost as overwhelming as the surge of possessiveness.
Her head swung back. “I didn’t plan for this to happen, I really didn’t. But once I found out about the pregnancy I was glad it had. I knew you would be unhappy about it, so I just wanted you to know, you didn’t have to be involved. That you could have a choice about being the father if you wanted it, that I would…”
“Stop right there,” he said, determined to set her straight on a couple of things. “There’s no choice here, Evie. I got you pregnant.” He let his eyes drift to her belly, finally taking in the enormity of what that meant. They’d created a life together.
Wow. How cool is that?
“That makes me the daddy. No ifs or buts, okay.”
“But that’s just it,” she argued. “I didn’t want you to feel beholden for something that wasn’t your fault.”
“Uh-huh? How do you figure that?” he asked, touched all over again by her desperate effort not to blame him. “As I recall I was the guy inside you when it happened.”
His whole life people had blamed him for stuff he hadn’t done. And now, the one time he wanted to take the blame for something he had done, she was trying to give him a get-out clause. He’d probably be able to see the irony, if his heart weren’t pounding so hard in his chest.
“Yes, but I told you not to worry. I told you it couldn’t happen, that it was…”
“What if it happened that first time?” he said, interrupting her guilt trip again. “What if that was when my little swimmers hit the jackpot?”
She stared at him, the blush rising up to her forehead. “Why are you trying to let me off the hook?” she finally said.
“Because maybe I’m not as cut up about this turn of events as you think,” he said, finally forcing the truth of how he felt out of his mouth.
She’d blindsided him an hour ago, but now he’d had a chance to think about it, really think about it. Having a baby with Evie didn’t seem too bad at all. He’d never thought that he could be a daddy, that he’d want to be one. But now the choice had been taken away from him, he didn’t feel trapped or frustrated, he didn’t even feel panic or shock anymore. What he felt was a weird kind of contentment—and no small amount of excitement. This would be an adventure. The kick of adrenaline that was rushing through him was just as exhilarating as the one he got when jumping off a charging horse to sling a rope around a calf’s neck in under eight seconds… The only difference was, this shot of adrenaline was going to last a lifetime.
“You aren’t? Are you sure?” she asked, the sheen of moisture in her eyes making them turn an even truer blue.
“Yeah, I am,” he said, the words coming out on a growl thanks to the thickening in his throat. “Because I want you. And if this baby means we get to stick together. Then I want it, too.”
For a moment, she looked overjoyed, but then the sadness came back into her eyes… And he knew the moment of truth was finally upon him. Because she was the first woman who had ever gotten behind the shield he’d kept around his emotions for so long, the shield built on shallow charm, and empty sex. And now he’d finally gotten up the guts not just to admit it to himself but to her too… She didn’t believe him.
*
The leap of joy in Evie’s heart butted her tonsils at Flynn’s declaration. But as she swallowed down the lump of emotion, and forced herself to even her breathing, she could see the kindness in Flynn’s face, see his knuckles whitening on the truck’s steering wheel, and she knew she shouldn’t believe him.
Her mother had once told her there was no such thing as miracles, not for the likes of her.
The baby was a miracle. But the idea that Flynn might have feelings for her too, that was too much of a good thing. He was lying. Lying to make her feel better. Lying because he was a responsible guy and he felt responsible for this child and by extension her. But as much as she would love to exploit that feeling of responsibility, she knew she couldn’t. She’d already married one man for all the wrong reasons. And this would be far worse, because she’d never felt for Dan what she already felt for Flynn.
“You don’t have to say that, Flynn,” she said. “I want you to be a part of this baby’s life, and if you’re willing to do that, that’s more than enough. You don’t have to pretend to have feelings for me, too. We can work out a custody arrangement, once the baby’s born.”
He swore softly under his breath, then looked away, his gaze fixed on the empty bleachers, the deserted rodeo grounds, his face bleak.
Her heart dropped down to her toes. The heartbreak of knowing how good a man he was no compensation for the sense of loss she felt—at having that gold ring dangled in front of her face then snatched away again.
“I’m not lying,” he said at last. “About how I feel.”
“Yes you are,” she said, her heart breaking that she was having to argue a point she wanted so much to be true. “You made it very clear, when I told you about this baby, that you didn’t want any part of me. You wouldn’t even talk to me, Flynn. If you’ve had a change of heart now, it’s only because you feel responsible.”
“My reaction then…” He cleared his throat, the words gruff. “It had nothing to do with the baby. And not a damn thing to do with you. And how I feel about you. It has to do with where I come from and things that happened to me years before you ever met me.”
“What things?” she asked, hearing the distress in his voice, but unable to stop herself from finally giving in to the curiosity that had plagued her during those three precious days and nights at the end of the summer. “Is this to do with being fostered?”
He shook his head, then turned to face her. “No, it’s to do with what happened before that, with my birth father. A guy called Jonas Blackstone.”
She didn’t speak, unsure what to say. She couldn’t see how this had any bearing on them, but she was willing to listen. The misery in his eyes, though, made it hard for her to press.
“Remember I told you he got life without parole?”
She nodded, the agony plain on his face.
“I should tell you why.” He sighed.
“You don’t have to do that,” she said.
But he shook his head. “Yeah, I do, because then maybe you’ll understand why I shut down like that when you told me about…” His gaze drifted down to her belly, then back to her face. “Me and Glory and Rafe and Gabe, we weren’t his only kids, we were just the only ones unlucky enough to end up having to live with him. Rafe and Gabe’s mom died when they were little. And Glory and me, our mom shacked up with him a few years later. She was a teenage runaway—she had some Blackfoot ancestry. I think she lived for a time on the rez in East Montana—that’s pretty much all I know. I don’t remember her that well. She used to sing to us. Gabe and Rafe remember her better because she became their mom, too. She had me when she was sixteen. She had Glory a couple of years later. That night, she was pregnant again. He came home, drunk. We all knew to stay out of his way when he was like that. But that night, I remember hearing her crying.”
Flynn finally looked at her, the horror story he was about to tell her written on his face, in the stark lines of grief and a guilt she didn’t understand.
“Gabe was only ten, but he burst in on them, told him to take his damn hands off her. That’s when…” His voice broke.
“Flynn you don’t have to tell me any more.”
“He beat the shit out of Gabe that night. He’d hit all of us before. He didn’t like to be sassed, as he called it. And he was a mean drunk. But he’d never beaten any of us like that. My mom tried to intervene but she was pregnant and… There was blood everywhere. Rafe was protecting Glory, who was crying. I raced to the next-door trailer and told them to call the cops. It took them forever to come… I don’t remember anything else from that night. The whole thing seems kind of like a dream to me now. Or rather a nightmare. They
took us away from him. Threw all four of us into the system. We got split up. And that was the hardest thing of all… I missed my older brothers—I even missed Glory. They let us see each other, once a month. But no foster family ever stuck. Until Mitch and Dolores agreed to foster all of us together four years later.”
“What about your mother?” she said, tears streaming down her face now. How could any child survive that kind of horror and come out whole and capable the way he had?
“She didn’t make it. Neither did the baby. He’d kicked her in the stomach, over and over, because he didn’t want any more kids he’d have to pay for. He was charged with her murder. Got convicted.”
Evie placed a trembling hand on his sleeve. “I’m so sorry, Flynn.”
“Hey now, don’t cry, Evie,” he said. “I didn’t mean to make you cry twice in one day.” The curve of his lips, that devastating smile, seemed that much more devastating through the mist of her tears. “I didn’t tell you about him to make you feel sorry for me, I told you because I wanted you to understand the real reason I behaved like such a dick when you told me about the baby.”
She sniffed loudly, tried to scrub away her tears. “Because pregnancy and birth has only meant terrible things to you,” she said, understanding now and realizing how much more of a disservice she’d done to him.
Then he chuckled, the low sound confusing her. “Hell, no, that’s not it at all. I shut down because I was scared. I was terrified, because his legacy still had a hold over me. He died in prison when I was fifteen. Mitch told us, and asked if we wanted to go to the funeral. We didn’t. As far as I was concerned he wasn’t my father, Mitch was. But I guess there was always this feeling inside me that part of him would always be there, holding me back, stopping me from being the man I wanted to be. I always told myself I couldn’t be a daddy, couldn’t go the distance with a woman because it would somehow end in disaster. And your news had all that bullshit tumbling back.”
“I don’t understand.” She frowned, not getting it at all. “How could you possibly think you’re anything like him? There isn’t a mean bone in your body, and these two circumstances couldn’t be more different.”