Cowboys Don't Have a Secret Baby

by Jessie Gussman

  “So, I heard about the hockey hunk that had his arm around you in church yesterday.” Rebel smirked when she walked in.

  “Same guy that’s been hanging around here for the last few weeks.” Louise shrugged like it was no big deal.

  “Sitting together in church, as close as you two were reportedly sitting, is a big deal, and you know it.” Rebel wiggled his brows, and Jackson laughed.

  “Spill. When’s the wedding?”

  Louise’s chest hurt with each beat of her heart, but she ignored their busybody questions and focused on doing her jobs. Both of them.

  Ty had asked her to go with him. She wished she had just said yes. Then she’d know what was going on. But she couldn’t believe that he’d do the same thing to her that he’d done before, so she kept her head up, deflected everyone’s questions, and tried to stifle her doubts.

  Tella came into the diner after school, since Miss Donna had gone on another trip to a craft show. She ate and did homework while Louise handled the supper rush.

  Even though they were busy, the time seemed to drag until it was finally time to go home. She kept checking her phone. No texts. No calls.

  Tempted to give up, she refused. Ty was going to keep his word. He did care for her. He couldn’t kiss her the way he had and then walk away from her. But he’d done it before, a little voice insisted.

  She sat at the kitchen table that evening, playing a board game with Pap and Gram and Tella. Ames and Palmer had gone on a four-wheeler ride after Louise got home and hadn’t returned, so Louise helped the new nurse get Gram and Pap ready for bed, and then she and Tella went upstairs.

  “Did Daddy call us?” Tella’s question as she stopped in to say good night cracked Louise’s heart.

  Her mouth was dry, and she couldn’t swallow. When did Tella start calling him Daddy? “Not yet. I’m sure the first day is busy. He probably should have gone home before he did.” Maybe she shouldn’t make excuses. Maybe she should just admit that he’d done what he’d done before. But she couldn’t do that. Couldn’t make Ty look less in Tella’s eyes.

  “If he calls later, will you tell him I said I love him?” Tella asked. Eyes that looked so much like Ty’s stared at Louise over the covers.

  “I will.”

  “And I miss him.”

  “Yeah. I’ll tell him. I miss him too.”

  And she did. She’d had to bus her own tables. He hadn’t been there with his hot eyes following her every move. She missed talking to him and just his comforting presence. A call would help.

  But he didn’t call that night. Nor the next day. Nor that night.

  The forecast was calling for a fall blizzard, which wasn’t unheard of this time of year, but Louise couldn’t dredge up any feeling about it one way or the other as the folks around her talked about what a hard winter it was going to be.

  By Wednesday, Louise knew she needed to quit deluding herself and face the truth: he’d done it again.

  WEDNESDAY NIGHT AFTER camp, Ty was almost beside himself. He’d tried looking up numbers on the internet with no luck. Sweet Water must be the most common name in the United States.

  He’d gone to the store yesterday after camp, hoping to buy a new phone and get his contacts and everything switched over, but he hadn’t been able to provide his old phone or number, and due to some kind of glitch in their computer system, they’d not been able to access his account. He’d had to leave the store, because he’d been about two seconds from strangling the poor salesman who hadn’t done anything wrong. The guy had shrugged and said, “Maybe try again in a couple of days when they work this bug out of the system.”

  Ty had tried using Duncan’s phone to call what he thought were the right numbers. He’d tried about fifty different combinations, getting the wrong number every time. He’d also harassed Dave, who was still really sick, but Dave claimed he couldn’t get a hold of his mother. Ty remembered she had a trip planned for this week, but she should have her cell phone on her.

  Ty toyed with the idea of going AWOL from camp and taking the first plane he could get to North Dakota. If he didn’t have a phone by tomorrow, that’s what he was going to do.

  “Hey, Ty! Yo, man, wait!” Duncan hollered.

  Ty turned to see him waving his phone and jogging down the hall toward him.

  “It’s your agent. Now, apparently, I’m your secretary. I want a raise.”

  “Gimme the phone.” Ty reached for it, hoping he had news about his mother or his phone or something.

  “I’m gonna start charging you for using my phone,” Duncan complained but handed the phone over.

  “Yeah?” Ty said into the mouthpiece.

  “Ty. Your mother finally answered her phone. I guess she didn’t recognize my number and thought I was a telemarketer. She doesn’t have her voicemail set up.” Dave’s voice was still weak. He’d told Ty he’d spent the entire week in bed and hadn’t been able to keep anything but clear liquids down.

  Ty knew his mother wasn’t very tech savvy, so it didn’t surprise him that she didn’t have voicemail. “Okay?” Just tell him about his phone already.

  “She said she mailed it, like priority mail or something, on Tuesday. She gave me the numbers, and it’s supposed to come tomorrow. I know you’re real concerned about it. I can go to your apartment and hang out there until it comes if you want me to.”

  “Yeah. I want it as soon as it comes. Wherever I am. I don’t care about the box or the packaging or anything. Just get me the phone.”

  “Okay. I’ll have that contract for you to look over, then, too.”

  “Fine,” he clipped out. He really didn’t care about the contract.

  Dave groaned a little, and Ty felt bad for him for being sick all week. Not bad enough to tell him not to worry about the phone.

  Friday after camp, Dave sat on a chair in the hall outside of the locker room. Ty saw him immediately when he walked out and rushed over. Guilt slapped at his insides because Dave really did look like the walking dead. Pasty white face, sunken cheeks, and big black circles under his eyes. He was dressed in beige slacks and a polo shirt, and they both looked like they were a size too big.

  He held his head in his hands, and his whole posture screamed defeat. Ty assumed the folder sitting on his legs was his contract, but he didn’t see his phone anywhere.

  “Dave.” Ty stopped in front of him.

  Dave slowly raised his head. His eyes were wary, and Ty didn’t need a crystal ball to see that it wasn’t just his sickness. Dave had bad news.

  “What?” Ty snapped out.

  “I was sick on the way in.”

  “Sorry to hear that.” Ty tried to inject compassion into his voice, but he was afraid he failed miserably.

  “I puked in the men’s room toilet.” Dave nodded at the restrooms to their left.

  Ty almost said he really didn’t want the details of his sickness, just hand the phone over, but he forced himself to cling to a thread of decency and manners. Louise would want him to act like a civil human being. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “I had your phone in my hand.”

  The past tense of that sentence concerned him. His stomach began to undulate.

  “It fell in the toilet.”

  Ty swore. Then he glanced around. His eyes were probably wild, but he didn’t even care. “Where is it now?”

  “Still there.” Dave put a hand over his stomach. “I just couldn’t...”

  Well, Ty could. Maybe the thing was waterproof. He’d paid enough for it; it should survive a shark attack.

  “Which stall?” he asked as he walked away.

  If Dave answered, Ty didn’t hear. He yanked the bathroom door open and walked in. He’d never been in that bathroom—the locker rooms were right beside it—but it was typical. A few urinals and two stalls. The first toilet had puke in it. Other things floated in it as well, but Ty didn’t even hesitate. He couldn’t see his phone, but he stuck his hand in anyway, swirling it around until he felt the
hard plastic.

  Grabbing it, he yanked it out, rinsed it off in the sink, soaping it up along with his hands, and carefully dried it off.

  He remembered hearing they shouldn’t be turned on when wet and sticking it in rice was supposed to draw moisture out. He could wait two more hours, he figured as he rushed out of the bathroom.

  “Here,” Dave called, waving the folder.

  “Thanks,” Ty ground out as he grabbed the folder. Manners, and the thought of what Louise would think, made him ask if he needed help up.

  Dave stood on wobbly legs.

  Concern for the man that had become a friend hit him as Dave swayed on his feet. “I think you ought to go to the hospital. You’re probably dehydrated.”

  “Yeah. My wife wanted me to go this morning, but I told her I needed to get your phone first.”

  Ty cursed to himself. How could he walk away after the man had delayed the treatment he needed just to get him his phone? Although, in hindsight, it would have been better if the phone were sitting in a box beside his condo door.

  Five hours later, Dave was admitted to the hospital, his wife was with him, and Ty walked into his condo, holding a bag of rice he’d picked up at the grocery store because he didn’t have any in his condo. His phone was already buried in it.

  He paced. How long did the phone need to stay in the rice? It had already been in about thirty minutes. More?

  He gave it another five before digging it out and holding his breath while he held the button on the side.

  Nothing.

  Maybe it was dead. He brought his charger out from his bedroom, plugging it into his phone then sticking it in the wall socket. Electricity arced, stinging his fingers and arm before the lights in his apartment flickered and went out.

  Right.

  If his phone wasn’t already dead from being dropped in the toilet, he’d just killed it.

  That settled it for him. He grabbed his wallet and keys and, on a whim, the folder with the new contract and walked out, locking the door behind him.

  Chapter 23

  Louise glanced out one of the windows as the early October blizzard put the snow down. Ames and Palmer were out taking care of the stock. They didn’t quite have everything ready for winter, and they were working to make sure they didn’t lose anything in the freak storm.

  Twenty-two inches. They hadn’t gotten that much snow in October since 1972. At least Friday was her day off, and she wasn’t driving in it. Although she kind of wished she were working. It would keep her mind busy. As it was, she had finished up all her editing projects and played two hours’ worth of games with Tella and Gram and Pap.

  Now the three of them were watching a movie on her laptop while vegetable soup simmered on the stove, bread rose on the counter, and Louise tore down the pantry, emptying it out, wiping the shelves, and organizing everything in alphabetical order. It wasn’t helping get her mind off the thing she was trying not to think about. Her silent phone.

  She almost dropped a ten-pound bag of flour when it buzzed. Throwing the flour on the shelf with the “D” items, she grabbed her phone from her pocket with trembling hands.

  Hope withered in her chest when Paul’s number came up. She almost didn’t answer. But she swiped on and said, “Hello?”

  “Louise. Hey. How have you been?”

  “Just fine, Paul. Thanks.”

  “I heard about you and that hockey player in church last Sunday.”

  From the way he talked, he wasn’t there, which she’d never even noticed. “That’s nice.”

  “You two getting married soon?”

  “No. We’re not getting married.” Louise said it firmly and clearly. She was tired of answering questions. Although the hardest questions to face were Tella’s. She hadn’t asked today yet if “Daddy” had called. Yesterday when she asked, she’d called him “Ty,” and Louise hadn’t been able to correct her.

  “I was thinking about you, and I know he left without a word the last time. If you’re interested in renegotiating our agreement, just let me know.”

  She wanted to snap Paul’s head off, but how could she get angry when he was just stating the facts? That’s what Ty did last time.

  Controlling her voice, she said very clearly, “Thanks, but while Ty and I do not have marriage plans, we are still together.”

  “Oh.” His voice dropped. “I just heard on the news that he had disappeared, and I thought you two had broken up.”

  “He disappeared?” Louise repeated before realizing that if she and Ty were “together” like she’d indicated, she’d know about that.

  “It’s what the news said.” There was a deliberate pause. “You don’t know anything about it?”

  “I have to go. Sorry, Paul.” She hung up and pulled up the search engine on her phone, intending to search for hockey news, but the internet was down. Not uncommon in a storm like this.

  Frustrated and more than a little worried, she dialed Donna’s number.

  “Hello?”

  “Miss Donna. It’s Louise.”

  “Yes, I have your name programmed in.”

  “Have you heard from Ty?”

  “Today?”

  “Yes.” Louise bit her tongue, because the way Miss Donna said “today” sounded like Ty had been in touch with his mother at some point.

  “No. Why?”

  “I just wondered.” She didn’t want to worry Donna about Ty disappearing, especially if Paul were making it up. Surely if Ty had gone missing, his mother would know.

  Miss Donna continued, “I know his agent was sick and Ty was at the hospital with him last night. Apparently, it was a nasty stomach bug.”

  “Oh. I hope Ty doesn’t get it,” Louise said, knowing her voice wasn’t as strong and confident as she wanted it to be, but she couldn’t help it. Obviously, Ty was just fine and talking to his mother. But he hadn’t taken the time to call her. Her stomach felt like a ball of wire had landed in it. “I’m sorry, Donna. I need to go. Thanks.” She hung up before Donna could say anything else.

  Although her heart felt like it was on fire, and her stomach felt scratched and sore, her eyes were dry, thankfully. No more tears.

  Still, part of her refused to believe that Ty had not been sincere when he’d lain on her bed and spoken all the sweet words to her. He wouldn’t abandon his daughter, either. Suddenly she wished she’d spent more time on the phone with Miss Donna and questioned her more thoroughly, no matter that she was embarrassed Miss Donna might find out Ty hadn’t called or texted her since he left.

  Louise put the pantry back together but couldn’t calm her restless spirit, so she tackled the back porch, scrubbing and cleaning until it sparkled.

  Saturday, there was still no word. The snow had stopped, and Louise made it into the diner where work was slower than usual. She didn’t sleep very well that night and was almost late for church. It was hard to get the gumption to play, but she did her best because it was her job, anticipating the moment when she could step off the platform and sink down into her pew. Alone. So different than last week.

  There seemed to be more talking than usual during the offertory, but Louise didn’t try to look around. She always lost her place in the music when she took her eyes off it, and she couldn’t see much from the corner where the piano was anyway. Plus, she just couldn’t find it in herself to care.

  Finally, she stepped off the platform as Pastor gave the references and people’s Bibles started crinkling as they found their places.

  Louise kept her head down and was almost beside her row before she saw him. Sitting in her seat. Same position as last week. His arm over the back rest, her purse and Bible beside him. His eyes tracking her every movement.

  She couldn’t help it. She stopped dead in the aisle. He wasn’t smiling. But maybe his eyes were pleading with her to have patience or maybe to believe in him. Whatever it was, she couldn’t deny him. Did that make her weak? Maybe.

  Whatever.

  She slid into her seat,
stopping where she had the last time. This time, he didn’t say anything but moved her purse and Bible and slid over, putting his arm on her shoulder and tucking her against him.

  Maybe it was Palmer growling low and deep behind them or maybe someone’s stomach was rumbling.

  Louise didn’t care. She wasn’t sure what had kept Ty away, but until she could grill him, she was just going to be glad to be beside him again.

  The church service dragged on and on. Usually Louise loved to listen to Pastor explain God’s Word and exhort believers to love and good works, but today she just wanted him to finish.

  There was no dinner on the grounds, and by the time she was done playing the postlude, Ty stood by the platform stairs waiting for her.

  “Ride with me, please. I need to talk to you.”

  “Tella...”

  “Is going to spend the afternoon with her grandmother and the evening with me, if that’s okay with you.”

  He took her hand, his feeling big and strong next to her slender fingers, but as he turned around, Palmer and Sawyer blocked their path, standing shoulder to shoulder.

  “You haven’t called her since you left.” Palmer stated it flatly. It wasn’t a question. Louise wasn’t sure how he knew, unless Tella had been talking to him.

  The people milling around in the church building quieted. No one pretended to not be staring at the Old Testament-type confrontation at the altar.

  “No.” Ty pulled his hand from hers and pushed his shoulder in front of her as though she needed protection from her own brothers. Which was ridiculous.

  Chapter 24

  Ty faced Louise’s brothers. At the front of the church of all places. He didn’t want to fight them and didn’t plan to. If they felt it was necessary to deck him, then he supposed he deserved it, if for nothing else than being dumb as dirt. But he didn’t want Louise to get hurt, so he put her behind him.