Cowboys Don't Have a Secret Baby

by Jessie Gussman

  “Georgia, it’s Louise Olson.”

  “Hey, Louise. Everything okay?”

  “Yes. Nothing’s wrong. I just needed to talk to your brother, and I wondered if you would give me his number?” She hoped her voice sounded confident and friendly, rather than desperate.

  “I can do one better. Ford’s sitting right beside me. I’ll hand my phone over.”

  “Wait!” Louise took a breath. “Not Ford. Ty.”

  Silence fell on the other end of the line. “Okay, let me get it.”

  Louise waited. Maybe, since Ty was such a big hockey star, Georgia got calls from other people asking for his number?

  “Here it is.” Georgia lowered her voice. “You know it’s kind of a secret, and I’m not supposed to give it out to anyone, especially women.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m not trying to hit on Ty.” She didn’t want to have to explain her driving need to apologize, so she said the next best thing. “We’re co-chairs of the Harvest Fest committee, and I need to speak with him.”

  “Oh. Okay. Of course.” She gave his number, and Louise programmed it into her phone.

  “Thank you.”

  “Maybe we’ll be in—” She stopped abruptly. “Maybe I’ll be in to eat sometime, and we’ll catch up.”

  “I’d love that.”

  They hung up, and Louise pulled up Ty’s number before she could lose her courage. She faced the warm evening breeze and relished the feel of it pushing her ponytail and fanning her flyaway hairs around her face. She pulled the clip out of her hair, throwing it in her car and running her fingers over her scalp, lifting the flat strands and allowing the breeze to ease her tiredness.

  It seemed to take a long time before he answered. “This is a private number. What do you want?”

  She blinked at the abrupt tone and voice on the other end. “Ty?”

  “Don’t call again.” He hung up.

  How had he known it was her? Louise stood beside her car, uncertain. Wow. He was a lot angrier than she’d thought he should be. Of course, she’d been rude, but she’d not been that bad. Had she?

  Or maybe he’d thought she was one of the random people who called because he was a sports star?

  She tried again.

  “I told you not—”

  “It’s Louise.”

  His voice cut off immediately. “Louise?” he asked in a much softer, gentler tone.

  “Yes. Are you at home?”

  “I’m on a four-wheeler halfway between our place and town.”

  “I’d like to talk to you.”

  “I can be at your house in twenty minutes.”

  “No.” She snapped out, not meaning to be mean, but he couldn’t be at her house. Not while Tella was there. “I’m sorry, but my grandparents go to bed early.”

  There was silence on the phone. Then he said slowly, “You could come to my place.” A short pause. “My mother is at a craft show.”

  “I know.” She didn’t want to say that it wasn’t a good idea. She might as well say she knew she had no self-control where he was concerned. Where could they meet? She hadn’t thought this through. “Could we meet at the church?”

  “Uh, sure. I’ll just keep coming in. Be there in ten.”

  “Ty?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thanks.”

  Chapter 10

  What could she want?

  Ty parked his ATV at the end of town and walked up to the church, maybe a little amused with himself that all Louise had to do was ask and he did whatever she wanted. She could have asked to meet him in Texas, and he would be heading toward the nearest plane right now.

  Why? He’d barely even talked to her for the last nine years. He didn’t even really know her. Why did he react to her like she was the only girl in the universe?

  And after she’d been so standoffish since he’d come back. He deserved it, of course, but thought he’d been making headway. Then she’d closed off again earlier today. He’d thought maybe he just ought to let her go. She didn’t want him, and he needed to accept it. It hadn’t made him mad, only sad and guilty.

  He walked to the church, but she wasn’t sitting on the front steps. In his childhood, the church had never been locked. But he’d been gone a long time. A lot of things had changed in the past nine years.

  Walking up the steps, he tried the heavy wooden door. It opened easily. He stepped inside the dark interior, giving his eyes a few minutes to adjust. They were used to the dim light outside, so it didn’t take long.

  “I’m sitting in the back pew on this side.” Her voice came out of the darkness. He could make out her light t-shirt and walked carefully over.

  “I’m wearing dark blue. You probably can’t see me.”

  “I can see your outline against the stained-glass window.”

  He turned his head, and sure enough, he stood directly between her and the window. “Want me to stay here?” he asked softly, not wanting to push her or scare her away.

  “Wherever you’re comfortable.”

  He’d be comfortable close beside her, their legs touching, and his arm around her. Something told him she wouldn’t.

  He shoved his hands in his pockets. There was about five feet between them, and as his eyes adjusted, he could make out her face. Probably if he moved from the window, she could make out his. He chose her pew but sat on the end, leaving plenty of space from where she was in the middle.

  “We seem to do better in the dark,” he said.

  “Better?”

  “At least we’re talking to each other.”

  “I thought with meeting in the church, talking was all we’d do.” She seemed to allude to the fact that they were attracted to each other. It shouldn’t make him happy, but he was glad she felt it too.

  “I won’t touch you.” He’d tried hard not to make promises he couldn’t keep. That one would be hard. Already he wanted to touch her hair, run his hand over her cheek. He put his elbows on his knees and rested his forehead on the pew in front of him.

  She shifted, and the scent of her drifted to him, mixing with the lemon polish and soulful church scent. The setting didn’t keep him from wanting to be closer.

  “I’m sorry for being rude today. I...I don’t usually act like that, and I’m embarrassed at my behavior. Please forgive me. I’ll try to do better.”

  “I don’t blame you for the way you acted.”

  “It was still wrong. I’m sorry.”

  “I deserve that and a lot worse.”

  She was quiet. Maybe that meant she agreed. He wasn’t sure.

  “How’d you get my number?”

  “Georgia.”

  “Ah.” His small town. Of course.

  “I can delete it if you don’t want me to have it.”

  “No. I’m glad you have it. Call me anytime. I have your name programmed in now.”

  “Does that mean you will or you won’t answer with a bark and a growl?”

  He laughed, lifting his head. “Sorry about that. I get calls...” He didn’t finish. She didn’t need to know about the crazy women whose calls he got.

  The church seemed to breathe around them. A quiet, peaceful place. Filled with memories of worship and song. “This was a good place to meet.”

  “I love it here.”

  She’d said that about the river where they met too.

  After a while, he asked, “Did you have something else you wanted to say?”

  “No. I just wanted to apologize.” She breathed out. “When you first came back, I cut you off when you tried to, and I’m sorry. If you have anything else to say, I’m listening.”

  “I do. But I don’t want you to run off.”

  “I won’t.”

  She’d keep her word. She always had. He could trust her with everything.

  He steepled his hands together and allowed his head to hang down. The darkness gave a bit of privacy, and he felt more free to let his emotions course through him.

  She was giving him the chance
to apologize. He was going to explain, too. He wanted to do it right. Because he’d never stopped thinking about her.

  “That last summer, all those years ago, I’m sorry for leaving you the way I did. Something happened before we met for the last time, and I didn’t tell you about it when we met that last night.” To be honest, they hadn’t done much talking that night. The other nights, they’d spent hours talking and maybe kissing some. But that last night, there had been a desperation because of his impending departure that had precluded any talking. He wished he could take it back because Louise deserved better.

  She didn’t say anything, didn’t move, and if she were breathing, she did it so quietly he couldn’t even hear.

  “I fought with my dad.”

  One beat while she processed what that meant, then she gasped.

  “Yeah. The last words I said to him were not nice.” He let his breath out slowly, not wanting to go back to that time. There were so many other memories that were precious to his heart, but he wished he could erase that argument with his dad. “He and I were talking.”

  His throat closed, and he stopped speaking to wait for it to relax.

  “You two were close,” Louise whispered.

  So true. Even as a teen, wherever his dad went, he went too. His dad coached his hockey teams, and he worked on his dad’s farm, doing anything that needed to be done. He loved his dad and loved spending time with him. He knew his dad was proud of him, and after Ford’s accident, he and his dad got even closer, like his dad had realized the fragility of life.

  “We never fought. And I never did anything I wasn’t allowed to do. I mean, of course I was a kid and did stupid stuff, but...” He lifted his head and turned it, laying it on the back of the next pew, looking at Louise’s gray features. “Peggy sent me that note.” He finally remembered her name. His girlfriend Peggy had been best friends with Louise. Ty suspected now it was so Louise could help her with homework and studying, but whatever. “I told Dad where I was going that night. He knew I was meeting Peggy. He knew I didn’t really care about her. And he trusted me so much he wasn’t even up when I came home.”

  He hadn’t been heartbroken about Peggy, but he’d been intrigued with Louise. So intrigued, he’d asked her to meet him again, and she’d agreed.

  “Anyway, he didn’t know about me sneaking out to meet you, but I felt guilty about it. That last night, while we were doing the evening feeding, I finally came clean. I admitted what I’d been doing—meeting you—and that it had been totally innocent, but I told him...” He wasn’t sure he should admit this. He’d never told Louise how, exactly, he felt. But he let it out. “I told him I loved you and was thinking about staying on the farm so I could be with you. Just a year until you graduated.”

  Louise shifted and moved, like she was uncomfortable, but she didn’t say anything.

  “He was adamant that I not forgo college. And the more he insisted, the more I felt like he was trying to come between us and to keep me from the most important thing in the world, which used to be him but was now...you.”

  Chapter 11

  Louise could hardly breathe. Her lungs froze then spasmed. Her heart beat erratically, and her hands felt clammy as she gripped them together in her lap.

  She kept her mouth tightly pressed shut.

  “I didn’t even bother sneaking out that night. I was headed to college, full ride on hockey, and he couldn’t stop me.”

  “I knew you were upset,” she said, her voice barely audible. “I thought it was because you were leaving.”

  “Partly. But yeah, that fight with my dad, all the emotions. I knew he was right, and I knew I’d do what he wanted me to, but I hated that I had to leave the person I wanted most in the world. I was selfish that night. I took what I wanted. I never intended to hurt you. I was going to keep all my promises, I swear. But Dad was already gone by the time I got home, and I never talked to him again.”

  Silence lay between them. Her heart broke for him. She’d never known he’d fought with his dad and hadn’t had a chance to reconcile before he died. As close as they were, that had to have eaten at him all these years. Ty would have been devastated, not only by his father’s death but by the fact that they could never make up.

  There was one thing that bothered her. Louise knew this wasn’t the most important takeaway from everything Ty had said, but as a mother, it was the one that drummed in her heart. “Did your dad talk to your mom about what you and he had fought about?”

  His shoulder lifted in a shrug. “Probably. I don’t know. They talked about everything. So, if there was time, he probably did. I never asked my mom exactly how things went that night. I don’t think I want to know.”

  Miss Donna might have been like a grandmother to Tella because she knew she was Tella’s grandmother.

  Louise sat in the still, sweet silence of the church, knowing she should tell Ty about his daughter but unable to summon the words. After hearing everything he’d said, she had a much better understanding as to why he’d left.

  “So, you’ve probably figured out by now that once Dad died, my guilt for our fight, and the thought that it caused his heart attack, and all that, is why I never tried to contact you. It was like I couldn’t make up to him what I’d done that night, the fight, the disrespect, the break in our relationship, but I could give up what caused it to try to atone.”

  “And that was me.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Maybe she should stay angry. Maybe she shouldn’t feel his pain so acutely, but she wanted to reach over and comfort him. Put her arms around him and share his burden.

  She spoke the words in her heart. “I don’t think your dad would feel that you needed to atone.”

  “I know. He wouldn’t.”

  “And maybe some of that was that he never got to see you play.”

  “Yeah. I’ve thought of that too. Every single time I do something on the ice worth celebrating, I want to look in the stands and see him there. It hurt too bad to come home.” He straightened and twisted in the bench so that his torso faced her. “After a while, not reaching out to you was like a penance.”

  He leaned forward, and she thought for a moment he was going to break his promise not to touch her. But his hands fisted, and he dropped them on the bench between them. “I wanted you more than anything. Through college, through the draft, through the NHL and all the stuff I had to do, but after a while, it felt like it was too late. After a month, it would have been hard. After a year, almost impossible. I felt like there was no chance for us.”

  “Oh, okay. I guess that’s when the supermodels came in.” She hated the flippant tone of her voice, but Palmer and her pap watched a lot of hockey. She couldn’t help but see him. Tella loved him. He was her favorite player, because Palmer had said he came from their hometown. Louise couldn’t say that the connection went even closer.

  He ignored her statement. “It seemed like there was no chance. But when I came back and saw you at Palmer’s wedding, everything I’d ever felt for you, and never felt for anyone else, ever, hit me hard.” He spread his hands out between them. Large, strong hands.

  Louise couldn’t stop looking at them.

  “I know I don’t deserve it, but I’d like a second chance.”

  Every beat of her heart shouted in the silence, “Yes, yes.”

  “I just told Paul last week that I’d marry him.”

  She didn’t want him to tell her to go back on her word. She didn’t want him to take her word that lightly.

  He didn’t say anything for a bit, and relief cooled her chest.

  “Is that what you want? Is that what you really want?” he whispered instead.

  The answer was easy. “No. But I haven’t made a single decision to do what I wanted, only what I wanted, since you left.” He would never understand why. Not until she told him about Tella.

  “Tell me that you don’t feel anything for me, and I’ll leave you alone.”

  “I—” Oh, but it w
ould be a lie. “No lying.”

  “No lying,” he repeated.

  “I trusted you once before.”

  “I know. And I failed in a big way. I’m sorry. I wish there was something I could do to show you how much.”

  There wasn’t. The only thing would be time. Unless she made herself trust him.

  When she didn’t say anything, he said, “Could we, maybe, be friends? And you just know that I want more. And put Paul on hold?”

  She threw her hands up. “I don’t even know how that would look! You’ve got a whole life far away from here. A whole world that I don’t know anything about! I don’t know anything about you as a person.”

  “Hey. Hey. Shh.” He didn’t touch her, but he slid closer. “How about we just take it a little at a time?”

  And this was where she should tell him about Tella. There was no reason not to tell him, except...she was a coward. For so long, it had been her secret. Only hers. But there were other things, things that had run through the back of her mind since he’d come back.

  How would that work out? Would he take Tella? Maybe he’d want Tella to live with him. And Tella was such a big fan, she might. Louise couldn’t hide her forever, and he was going to find out, but it was too much for tonight.

  He stood beside her, bigger and stronger than she remembered. The attraction was still there.

  “I need to get home. My family will wonder where I am.” Distance. She needed distance.

  “Yeah.” He followed her out the pew. “Booker?”

  She smiled at the nickname. “Yes?”

  “I know I don’t deserve it, but please, give me as much of a chance as you’ve given Paul.”

  “Maybe I have some secrets that I need to share, too, but not tonight.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “No.” That was too soon. “Give me a couple of days.”

  “You’re working at the diner this week?”

  “Not tomorrow. Friday.” Sawyer was coming in then to take Tella to his ranch one last time before school started, which worked out nicely since Palmer and Ames were going south to a cattle auction. They were feeding the stock before they left. “My shift starts at three. Maybe we could meet at two?”