The Cowboy’s Mistake

by Jackson, Mary Sue

  The server came a moment after she got back from the restroom, and Trey ordered a Coke for himself. Then he ordered a glass of milk for her.

  Charity waited until the waitress stepped away to gape at him.

  “Did you just order me a glass of milk?”

  “Yeah.” Trey nodded, his expression earnest. “You’ve got to drink it now, for the babies’ sake.”

  “Between the doctor’s office and now, you got the idea that I need to drink more milk?”

  “Calcium has to be important. And I’m pretty sure it was on the sheet they gave you.”

  The nurse had handed Charity a sheet of quick facts on the way out of the exam room. She’d barely glanced at it. It was impossible to be a woman in the world and not know some of the basic pregnancy rules. Charity wasn’t particularly worried. She tried to eat well in general. But milk? No.

  She looked Trey in the eye. He’d leaned forward, as if he wanted to be closer than the table would allow. “You’ve got to knock it off,” she said.

  “Knock what off?” His forehead crinkled.

  “This…hovering. For one thing, I have always loathed drinking milk, and you know that. For another…there are other sources of calcium.”

  Trey snapped his fingers. “Kale. Kale has calcium. It was on the sign at the grocery store.” At that moment, the waitress stepped back up to deliver the drinks and take their orders. Trey turned to her with a big grin. “First things first, we need to order a kale salad.”

  “Side or lunch portion?”

  “Neither,” Charity cut in. She smiled up at the waitress too, raising her eyebrows just slightly to try and communicate to this woman that her lunch date had gone slightly insane. “And I’m sorry to do this, but we won’t be needing the glass of milk. I’ll have…” She knew she was supposed to cut back on caffeine, though Dr. Rosario would undoubtedly assure her that it didn’t have to be an all-or-nothing proposal. Still, she’d had coffee just this morning. A Coke might be a little much. “I’ll have an iced tea.”

  The waitress looked understanding enough. “Anything to eat?”

  “The chicken salad wrap.” It was the perfect mix of healthy and filling, with vegetables and fried chicken strips that Charity loved the snap and bite of. She ignored Trey, who was eying the menu with distrust. She caught his eye and dared him with one look to change her order.

  “And for you?”

  Trey handed her the menu. “The chicken soup and a BLT. And bring out a side kale salad anyway.”

  The waitress winked at him.

  “You’re being insufferable,” said Charity, turning her attention back to the waitress. “I’m pregnant, and he’s lost his mind.”

  The waitress gave her another knowing look. “Dads' can be that way.”

  “I hope they’re not like this forever,” Charity joked.

  “Oh, it’s even worse once the baby is born,” the waitress said with a little laugh, then went to put in the orders.

  The babies. They weren’t just having one. Trey looked at her across the table.

  “Double the worry,” he said softly.

  Charity shook her head. “Don’t think about it like that. We have to…keep a positive attitude.”

  “I have a great attitude. But two babies? It’s a lot to think about.”

  “So, let’s think about other things.” Charity straightened up. “What are your thoughts about custody?”

  Trey unwrapped his straw, put it into this Coke, and frowned. “Custody?”

  “How involved do you want to be? I’m assuming that after I’m done breastfeeding, we could come up with a joint custody arrangement—”

  “I don’t want joint custody.” Trey’s expression had turned to a thundercloud.

  “You want…full custody?”

  “That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”

  “What do you want, Trey?”

  “I want to be there for everything,” Trey answered. “I want the four of us to be a family. If we got married before the babies were born…”

  Charity couldn’t stop the heat from rushing to her cheeks. “I don’t want to get married. You know that.” The waitress brought Charity’s iced tea, and Trey took the straw from her and started to unwrap it. “What are you doing? I’m not a little kid, Trey. You can’t treat me like I’m totally helpless.”

  “I don’t think you’re helpless.” He stuck the straw into the drink and pushed it over toward her.

  “You’re unwrapping my straw for me. You don’t think that’s a bit much?”

  “I don’t know what’s a bit much. I just found out we’re having twins. Twins, Charity. That’s way beyond…that’s way beyond one baby.”

  “Yes, it is. The math checks out,” Charity said dryly, and then, over Trey’s shoulder, she caught a glimpse of someone she had decidedly not invited to this little event. “Seriously? How could you?”

  Trey twisted around in his seat. When he saw who was coming in the door, he threw Austin a little wave.

  “You texted him? We haven’t been out of the doctor’s office an hour,” Charity hissed across the table.

  “I didn’t. I swear, I didn’t.”

  Charity didn’t believe him. But it was too late to say anything else about it, because her brother had approached their booth and slid in next to Charity.

  “My two- favorite people,” Austin said, wrapping his arm around her for a quick hug. “Lunch date?”

  Charity sighed. “Trey came with me to my first…appointment.”

  Austin stiffened. “First appointment?”

  She took in a deep breath. “Yes.” Part of her still felt the need to explain why she was out to lunch with Austin’s best friend. But that was already out in the open. They’d done a lot more than eat lunch together, and Austin obviously knew that. The waitress came back over and Charity straightened up while she delivered Charity’s wrap and Trey’s soup and sandwich, along with the side kale salad that Charity had no intention of eating. “I didn’t know one more would be joining you,” she said with a bright smile, looking Austin up and down. “What can I get for you, sir?”

  Charity leaned forward and flashed the waitress a grin of her own. “He’s not eating with us. No need to bring anything.”

  “Cold,” Austin said with a laugh.

  “Well, you’re not.”

  The waitress laughed, too, hesitated another moment, and hurried back toward the kitchen.

  “I came in here because I was hungry.”

  Charity gestured to the rest of the booths around them. “There’s plenty of seats.”

  “You won’t let me have a lunch with my sister and my best friend?” Austin opened his eyes wide, doing his best to look offended.

  “Not when you butt in like this,” Charity said. “Besides, I know you’re only here to—”

  “How’d the appointment go?” Austin said across the table to Trey, his voice suddenly low and urgent. Charity lifted her wrap from the plate with a sigh. Leave it to them to ignore her completely.

  “It went…fine.”

  Austin slapped a hand to the surface of the table. “Don’t lie to me, Trey Cantor.”

  “I’m sitting right here,” Charity said. “And you’re being…weird. You haven’t been this overprotective since I broke my leg in elementary school. But go ahead. Ask Trey what happened.”

  “It was mostly fine,” offered Trey.

  “So, I should be worried?” Austin looked sincere, a bit less of the blustering father figure he’d been playing a few moments before.

  She swallowed the bite of the chicken wrap. It was really good. If only Austin wasn’t crowding her out of the conversation, like she was a child with nothing to contribute… “Tell him what you’re going to tell him. Clearly, he came here for a reason.”

  “I didn’t invite him,” Trey said, but then he couldn’t help looking back at Austin. “There are two babies.”

  Austin’s face was blank, and then his mouth dropped open. “You�
�re having twins?”

  “I’m having twins,” said Charity. This had nothing to do with Austin, and she wished he’d take a hint and leave. Maybe if they hurried this conversation up, he’d leave and go about his life, leaving her to do the same with hers. “And everything’s—”

  “Everything’s a little complicated,” admitted Trey. Then, before Charity could interject, he told Austin everything. “It’s high risk,” he finished finally, his spoon hovering over the surface of his soup.

  Charity took another bite of her wrap and looked over at her brother. His shoulders were tensed.

  “All right,” said Austin after a long silent moment. “She’s off the circuit, then.”

  “I’ve got that all figured out,” answered Trey. “It’s the twins that’s got me a little…” He shrugged as if to indicate his growing tension and worry. “It’s got me worked up.”

  “There’s got to be somewhere better than her house. Maybe my parents?”

  “Being alone probably isn’t the best,” agreed Trey. “But there’s always my house, too.”

  Charity ate her wrap and didn’t bother to hide her irritation. Here she was, a grown woman who was about to be a mother, and her brother and his best friend were planning out her life for her as if the situation had rendered her incapable of taking care of herself or making her own decisions. There were some aspects of the twins’ condition that scared her. Of course, they did. When she’d discovered she was pregnant, Charity had never considered that it might be more than one baby. All of the news from the doctor was still sinking in, even as she ate the wrap and tried to brush off her brother’s voice like a swarm of obnoxious flies. Still, there was a part of her that didn’t feel scared—at least not right now. Maybe more fear would come later. But for now, she just felt…determined.

  “—going to be out on the circuit soon,” Austin was saying. “I’m not going to be able to be around if anything happens.”

  “I’ll figure out my schedule,” Trey said. “You don’t have to worry about that.”

  Austin shook his head. “Best thing you can do is get married. That way, you’ll be all set to move in together and nobody’ll bat an eye. Minimal stress.”

  “Yeah.” Trey nodded like this was the advice he’d been waiting all his life to hear. “But then there’s all the planning involved.”

  She took the last bite of her wrap and popped a couple of fries into her mouth. “Excuse me,” she said loudly to Austin.

  “Sorry,” he said, hopping up. “It doesn’t need to be some fancy affair, Trey. The important thing is—”

  “Wait, Charity—are you going to use the restroom?”

  She gave him a noncommittal nod and a little smile. That was enough for Trey, who went back to huddling with Austin over their plans for her life. Charity reached down and pulled the keys off the hook, holding them tightly in her hand so they wouldn’t jingle. Not that the two men would notice anyway. They didn’t notice when she headed into the kitchen instead of the narrow hallway to the restroom, smiling apologetically to the staff before slipping out the back door.

  Outside in the sun, Charity tipped her head back and took a deep breath. Trey could get a ride back with Austin. She needed a break.

  And honestly, screw them. They’d treated her like a child, and she simply wasn’t in the mood for that crap. She’d spent so many years fighting to be heard by them, fighting to be seen, and she wasn’t going to keep fighting if Austin and Trey still hadn’t learned that she was a person who deserved their consideration.

  Maybe she was a little too heated. But she walked around to the front of the cafe and climbed in the driver’s seat of Trey’s truck. She adjusted the seat, started it up with a quick turn of the key, and was on the highway in less than a minute.

  Charity glanced in the rearview mirror as she hit the accelerator. They weren’t rushing out toward the road. They probably wouldn’t notice she was gone for a good long time.

  Fine by her. What had she ever seen in Trey, anyway?

  Pointless to even consider having a relationship with him, she thought as she turned the radio up and cursed him with the sound covering her voice. She cursed the two of them all the way home.

  Fifteen

  Austin grinned at him from across the table and dipped another one of his fries in ketchup. “How do you stand waiting around for my sister like this?” His eyes sparkled with the joke, but Trey knew better than to bite. It was one thing for Austin to joke about Charity, but if anyone else dared…suffice it to say that Trey had no interest in seeing Austin’s neck veins bulge out. It was disgusting.

  They’d been talking about Austin’s plans for the circuit, and whether Trey would be fine on his own given all the recent developments. Austin had summoned the waitress almost as soon as Charity had headed for the back. He’d beckoned her down to his level at the table and ordered a beer, along with a burger and fries. Then he’d shrugged at Trey. “Can’t kick me out if I’ve already ordered.” The conversation had taken all of thirty seconds to turn back to the pregnancy, the twins, and everything else.

  But how long, exactly had it gone on? Long enough not just for Austin’s food to arrive, but for his plate to become half empty.

  Trey glanced toward the narrow hallway that led to the restrooms at the back of the restaurant. Why did he have a glancing memory of Charity’s shirt heading back into the kitchen instead? That couldn’t be right.

  His gut lurched. “Oh, god. Maybe something went wrong.”

  Austin paled. “Like what? It’s just lunch.”

  “I don’t know. Anything. Anything could have gone wrong.” They’d been so busy making plans to protect Charity that they hadn’t realized she could be…Trey didn’t even know. He didn’t know what kind of scene awaited him in the bathroom. What if she’d fallen and hit her head? What if it was worse than that?

  He leaped up from the booth, very nearly taking out the waitress on his way. She jumped back with her clattering tray of drinks. “Is everything okay?”

  “I hope so,” he shouted back at her.

  “We’re going to need the check,” Austin said behind him. How could he be thinking of the check at a time like this? No. Austin was right. If they had to run out of here and rush Charity to the hospital, they’d at least be able to avoid dining and dashing and getting the police involved. Not that their waitress would call the police in an emergency like this one…

  He ran back through the hallway, his shoulder brushing against the wall. There were two single restrooms at the back of the cafe. Heart in his throat, Trey stepped up to the women’s room and pounded on the door with his fist. “Charity?” He tried the doorknob. Locked. He knocked again, harder. “Charity, are you in there?”

  “Occupied,” someone snapped from inside. Someone…who didn’t sound like Charity. But that couldn’t be right, could it? The toilet flushed, water ran, and Trey heard the squeak of a paper towel dispenser. A moment later the door swung open to reveal a little old lady holding tight to her purse like she might hit him over the head with it. “My.” She shook her head, nose wrinkled. “Do you always make a habit of standing outside the ladies’ room, young man?” She stuck her finger into Trey’s face. “Find something else to occupy your time.”

  The moment she was out of his way, he pushed the door open with his hand, eliciting a disgusted noise from somewhere down the hall.

  The bathroom was empty.

  “She’s not here.” He turned to find Austin coming to look over his shoulder. “She’s gone.”

  Austin froze, and then…laughed. “Oh, man. You drove here together, didn’t you? I saw your truck in the parking lot.”

  “Yeah.” Trey ran his hands through his hair. “We have to go. She could be walking along the highway right now, and the shoulder’s not very wide—”

  “My sister? I don’t think so.” Austin turned and headed back for the booth. The check waited for them on the table, and without a backward glance at Trey, Austin pulled out his
wallet and tossed some bills onto the table. “Do you have your keys?”

  Trey patted his pockets and came up empty. Right—the holes in his pockets. His gaze fell to the hook next to the booth.

  “No keys.”

  Austin patted his shoulder and gave a solemn nod. “I’ll give you a ride to her place.”

  * * *

  Half an hour later, Austin dropped Trey at the front of Charity’s house. His truck was nowhere to be seen. She’d probably parked it at his farm and walked back to her house.

  The two friends sat looking out the windshield of Austin’s truck. “I can’t believe she snuck out the back of the restaurant and stole my truck,” Trey said.

  Austin cleared his throat. “Maybe it was one of those…you know.”

  “What?” Trey watched Charity’s front window for any sign of movement.

  “One of those pregnancy mood swings.”

  That wouldn’t explain it. Trey and Charity had certainly felt tension between them since she headed over the property line to ask him to train her horse. Maybe that same tension had just…boiled over. In her defense, he’d been pretty deep into the conversation with Austin. It was a stupid move, ignoring Charity like that, and he knew it. But stealing his truck was out of character for Charity.

  “Thanks for the ride,” he told Austin.

  “Good luck, buddy.”

  His best friend put the truck in reverse almost as soon as Trey’s feet hit the driveway. So much for both of them apologizing for driving her right out of the restaurant. Not that he’d expected that from Austin anyway.

  He took a deep breath and headed for Charity’s door. Raising his hand to knock on it took him right back to how he’d felt at the restaurant, pounding on the bathroom door. But she wasn’t having an emergency—she was just mad at him. A mood swing. That was it.

  The door cracked open, but Charity didn’t undo the chain on the inside. “What do you want?” Her blue eyes flashed with anger. Okay. Yes. This was definitely a mood swing.