The Cowboy’s Mistake

by Jackson, Mary Sue

“Two days,” he said. “I hope you don’t mind a little trip.”

  “Oooh.” Charity seemed excited at this prospect. “I could do some baby shopping if I went early.”

  “I’ll clear my schedule,” he said simply.

  And then he waited.

  Maybe he’d overstepped by assuming she’d want him there.

  “That sounds great,” Charity said, and settled back into her seat.

  Twenty-One

  “We need to shop right away.”

  Trey guided the truck over to the highway exit that would take them to the off-ramp for their hotel. It was just on the outskirts of the city, half a mile from the medical campus where Charity’s appointment was the next day. They’d debated the merits of shopping before or after the appointment, but Charity had been too excited to wait. So, they’d packed up his truck this morning and come early. She’d finally found a window in her work schedule that felt right, and now her mind was free enough of the circuit wear to concentrate on the baby shopping.

  “Let’s check into the hotel room first. Can you wait that long?”

  She sighed. “I guess it’s the responsible thing to do. If we buy a bunch of stuff, we’d have to carry it in to the hotel along with our bags.”

  “We could make multiple trips, you know,” he suggested as he pulled into a spot at the front of the lot.

  “Who wants to make multiple trips? Who has time for that?” Charity said with a laugh. She was in high spirits, but Trey’s were more measured. Dr. Rosario had assured them that this would be a routine visit—just a precaution, really—but what if the specialist found something that she had missed? He had faith in Dr. Rosario, who had taken care of everyone in town for years, but additional appointments could turn up additional risk factors. And he didn’t want that, for the babies or for Charity.

  He checked them into their suite and they took their suitcases up to the third floor in the elevator. Trey led the way, opening the door for them both.

  “Wow,” Charity said as she stepped into the room. “This is pretty nice. I’m glad we stopped.”

  “You like it?” He’d booked them into a suite at a pretty nice hotel. It wasn’t a luxury spot, but it was close enough that Trey could enjoy the room, even if the large picture window only overlooked the highway. The road was far enough beneath them that there was very little traffic noise.

  “This is great.” Charity put her bag down on the luggage rack and took a quick tour. There was a small living area next to the picture window, and a king-size bed was tucked in its own room, separated from the main area by a set of French doors. There were two bathrooms, which made Trey laugh.

  “What?” Charity asked from where she was testing out the bed.

  “Two bathrooms.”

  “Perfect,” she said with a happy sigh. “This place is a pregnant woman’s dream.”

  “I thought I was a pregnant woman’s dream,” he joked, and Charity laughed. There was no better feeling than when she laughed like that, with joy and amusement and affection all wrapped up in one beautiful sound.

  “You’re not so bad,” she said, swinging her legs over the side of the bed. “But I want to go shopping. Let’s go!”

  She led the way to the door without a backward glance, grabbing her purse along the way. Trey lingered behind, looking longingly at the bed. They could have a lot of fun in a bed that size, with pristine sheets and a comforter pulled tightly across the surface—

  “Trey, come on! There’s tons of stuff to do!”

  Charity grinned at him from the door, and as usual, he couldn’t resist.

  * * *

  “I’m not sure if we should go with elephants or clouds.” Charity peered at a small display case with coordinated throws, paints, and wallpaper samples.

  The baby mega-store was more overwhelming than Trey had anticipated. It was the size of an enormous warehouse, and it had everything a baby could ever dream of. Or, he guessed, a baby’s mother could ever dream of. It was, frankly, a little much.

  “Elephants or clouds? Those are the two choices?”

  “Well, there are tons of choices,” Charity said. “But I don’t like any of them as well as I like these ones. What about you? Did you want to go with something pinker? Or lavender?”

  The elephants were part of a yellow color scheme, from what Trey could see, and the clouds went with a pale blue that seemed calming.

  “I like the clouds.”

  She nodded. “Well, we really need to pick two themes.”

  He turned and stared at her. “Two themes for what? I was thinking the babies would share a room, at least until they’re older. Twins usually want to be together, don’t they?”

  Charity ran her fingertips over the elephant-printed fabric samples. “Well, yeah. But we’ll need a nursery at your place, and then we’ll need one at mine. They can be the same theme, I guess, but—”

  “What?” He took a step back from the display cases and ran a hand through his hair. He was going to have to tread carefully on this one. “I thought we were shopping for my house. You’d have to arrange some construction at your place to fit another room, anyway.” He’d assumed Charity and the babies would be living with him full-time. But saying that might set her off. He scrambled for a justification, knowing that he had to have more of a reason than his visceral need to keep her and the babies close. “And you’re going to need to recover once we bring them home. How can you do that in your own house, by yourself?”

  “It’s a good point,” Charity said, a frown darkening her face. “But remember that they’ll probably be premature. If they have to spend time in the NICU, I’ll have time to recover before they can leave the hospital.”

  He took a deep, quiet breath and let it out. He didn’t want to argue with her in the baby emporium, but he did want Charity and the babies to stay with him. He thought that would be the obvious solution. Her house simply didn’t have enough room for the children unless she kept working in his workshop, and how would that possibly make sense? She’d have to bring them over every day anyway if she wanted to get any work done. If she could get any work done. It was all so up in the air. Trey wanted it settled.

  “I agree that the clouds are better,” Charity said, breaking him out of his thoughts. “I like the blue. It seems like something that would lull a baby off to sleep, and we need it to be twice as effective.”

  “All right,” he said. If she wanted clouds, they’d decorate the nursery with clouds. It didn’t make much of a difference to him. He only wanted them close.

  Charity marked down the applicable items in the little notebook she’d brought. “Now, strollers.”

  They made their way through a maze of aisles until they came to the opposite end of the store. There were strollers of every kind up against the wall, fully assembled and waiting for testing.

  “This is a lot,” Charity admitted.

  “It’s a lot.”

  They stood there, looking at the row of strollers together. “What kind do you think you’d want?” she asked finally.

  “Something that can go off-road, I guess.” Trey was picturing taking the babies out for a walk, but the two-tracks that crisscrossed his property were way too bumpy and uneven. Was it feasible to pave them all? No, that was ridiculous. But he could pave some of them. In the worst-case scenario, he could pave a pathway all the way to the property line. Charity probably wouldn’t mind if he ran the new path all the way to her house through one of the gaps in the fence.

  “Yeah.” Charity considered the strollers with pursed lips. “I mean, it’s a totally different thing, taking them out to walk on the property and taking them to walks downtown. If it’s on the property, we’ll need the most robust tires on the planet. But if it’s for city walking—” She laughed. “Then we can have something sleeker, easier to maneuver. I like the looks of this one.” She tugged one out from the row and pushed it back and forth.

  “There's only one problem.” Trey said. “That one’s meant for
one baby.”

  Charity looked down at the stroller in her hands. “Oh. Right. Right. That narrows it down…well, that narrows it down considerably.”

  The store had six double stroller options available, so Trey pulled them all out from their spaces against the wall and lined them up. Three of them were side by side models, and three were single row models with one seat after the other. They all seemed overbuilt to him. He had no idea which one would be considered a farm stroller and which was strictly for sidewalks.

  Charity dove right in. The store offered heavy dolls to test how the strollers behaved with a little weight in them. She pushed each one around in turn, then added the dolls and tried them again, switching off each stroller with Trey so he could push it, too.

  “—some options on this jogging stroller that I like. But, then I have to ask—have I ever been that into jogging? I guess the shocks would be good for the two-tracks and that kind of thing, but I’m not sure something like this is worth it when I don’t see myself actually running. But then again, maybe I’ll feel differently once the girls are here. This one would be better for grocery shopping. Wait. Do people use strollers for grocery shopping?”

  She paused, and Trey realized she was waiting for an answer. “I don’t know. I think they usually put the car seat in the cart. Don’t they?”

  “I guess, but what are we going to do? There are two car seats.”

  “We’ll have to tag team grocery runs. One of us can do the shopping while the other stays with the babies.”

  “But we’ll need groceries for two households. How’s that going to work?” Charity looked back down at the strollers with a thoughtful expression.

  “That’s the thing.” Trey saw his opening, but he was still going to tread carefully. “I think we should move in together and call it good. And I think we should do it before the babies are born, not after.”

  He delivered this thought in as mild a tone as he could possibly muster and watched Charity carefully, waiting for the telltale flash of anger to cross her face.

  It didn’t. Instead, she kept looking at the strollers.

  “I mean it,” he said quietly. “Even if we don’t get married. I still think it’s the most practical decision, and probably the safest one for everybody involved.”

  “Safest?” Charity moved one of the strollers back and forth again.

  “Stress-wise,” he said. “For the babies. It’ll let us both get more sleep. Not that we’ll have much of that lined up once they’re here, anyway. It’ll make things easier for anyone who wants to come help us, too. And I’m assuming we’re going to need a lot of help.”

  “Wouldn’t it make more sense to live at my place, then? It would be closer to my parents.”

  “Remember how you couldn’t even fit all your work materials in your spare bedroom?”

  “Yeah.” A wry smile lit up Charity’s face. “I guess it could be tight with two cribs and two changing tables and two wardrobes in there. And it’s best if you’re close to the horses,” she admitted.

  Speaking of wardrobes, he could see Charity had reminded herself that there were clothes to shop for. She filled the bottom of the cart in ten minutes flat with multiple adorable outfits, similar styles but different colors. “I don’t think we want to get too matchy-matchy,” she said.

  “No.” He reached out and rifled through the rack of baby outfits, choosing two more that stood out. Really, if they did match the outfits, how would they ever tell the babies apart?

  Charity also decided they should get two strollers, and at least one of the nursery outfits for starters. But that was too much for the truck. Trey worried about all of it flying off on the freeway, so they had some of it shipped. All except the baby clothes and smaller gear.

  They left the store with Trey’s arms slung with all the bags. “I’m starving,” he said. “Let’s drop the stuff at the room, and then head out to find some food.”

  “Good plan.” Charity looked very pleased with herself. “I think we did a good job today.”

  “Me too.” He pulled out of the parking lot and onto the main road, headed back to the hotel.

  “Trey?”

  “Yeah?”

  He glanced across at Charity, who was looking back at him. “I’ll think about moving into your place permanently. Well…semi-permanently. I love my little house, but I can also see how it makes sense to be roommates, at least while the girls are little. We need to be able to share the responsibility, right?”

  “Right,” he said, as if it didn’t matter at all. But his heart was singing. Having her living in his house would mean they’d be more than roommates. How could they help it?

  Twenty-Two

  They’d looked up restaurants around their hotel, since parking in the city was notoriously difficult and after several hours walking the aisles at the baby store Charity wasn’t in the mood for a hike. Her feet hurt, which was so….pregnant. Her mild irritation was tempered by the fact that she kept remembering that she was pregnant with Trey Cantor’s babies.

  It was that kind of day. She’d noticed more than usual how good he looked in his jeans and the button-down shirt he’d worn to travel to the city. He’d been so thoughtful about all the hundreds of things they’d looked at in the baby store, too, always taking time to give a measured opinion. Even when she could tell he was a little exasperated by the amount of choice. Plus, there was the little snag of having to buy two of almost everything. The pressure of that, she thought, would have sent lots of couples into a stress-induced argument. But they’d held it together. They’d done well.

  Trey parked near the upscale Italian place they’d chosen. “So, you can get off your feet sooner,” he said, flashing her a gallant smile.

  “You think of everything,” she said, then laughed. It was a little sappy, but so what? Today was a good day. She’d even popped into a smaller store next to the baby warehouse and got a sleeveless black maternity dress that mainly looked like a swing dress. Trey helped her out of the truck, and for a moment Charity felt exactly like a princess. She slipped her hand into his, floating on cloud nine.

  Until they were halfway to the restaurant door.

  Charity caught a flash of red hair in the window. It was familiar enough to make her stomach turn, but…no. It couldn’t be her, could it?

  Her shoulders tightened, and Trey noticed the movement. “Did you forget something? The car’s right there if you want to go back.”

  “No, I—” Charity could still see the woman’s hair, but not her face. “It’s nothing.” Charity felt her shoulders slinking upward toward her ears. It probably wasn’t her. There was no reason to get nervous about it.

  They went inside, and Trey put their name in for a table. The hostess flashed them a welcoming smile. “It’ll just be a moment. Let me check and make sure the table I have in mind is open.” She disappeared into the seating area, and Charity held his hand tighter. They were so close. In a minute, they’d be safely ensconced at a cozy table or a booth, and Charity would only have to look at Trey and the waitress until the end of—

  “Charity? Charity Miller?”

  Oh, God. It was her. She’d know that voice anywhere.

  Charity froze. Maybe if she ignored her, she’d go away. Surely, she had somewhere else to be. She felt Trey twisting to look and see who’d called her and gripped his hand, willing him to stop, to just keep looking at the hostess station, and not say anything…

  “Charity, I can see you! I can’t believe it. It’s been so long.”

  Fine. She was caught.

  Charity turned stiffly around to face none other than Gina Watts.

  The memories of her days at school with Gina came rushing to the surface, despite Charity’s best efforts to keep them shoved deep, deep down. She almost never thought about that time in her life, and it was for a good reason. Why would she want to remember struggling with her lisp? Why would she want to remember how painfully awkward and out of place she felt until that summer at h
orse camp?

  What was Gina doing here?

  “I knew it was you,” Gina said, a sharp edge to her voice. “All the way here in the big city!” Anyone who’d ever known Gina would know that her smile was fake.

  “Yes,” Charity said. “I’m here.” She left no other door to the conversation open.

  That didn’t stop Gina.

  “Here at such a fancy place.” And there it was—her cruelty bubbling straight to the surface, just as it always did. Gina had said fancy and place with a deliberate lisp. Just like she used to in school.

  Hot shame flooded Charity’s face. She wanted nothing more than to watch Gina walk out the door and fall into a manhole. “It’s a noise place,” she said. “Nice. I meant nice.”

  Really? Really? Her own mouth was going to betray her in this moment?

  Gina paused, eyes wide, and then she laughed, leaning toward Trey a little bit as if the two of them were in on the joke together. “I don’t recognize you,” she told him, cocking her head to the side. “But you look awfully familiar.”

  “Trey Cantor,” he said, holding Charity’s hand tightly. He didn’t move to shake Gina’s hand.

  “Aren’t you something,” Gina said, looking up into Trey’s face as if Charity wasn’t even there. “Where is my date?” She asked the question without a single glance around. “I thought he was getting the car, but it looks like we’ve had a cute miscommunication. Good thing, too, because you need me.” Somehow, she’d shifted her attention back to Charity.

  “Need you for what?”

  “You know,” Gina leaned in close. “I had a friend who lost fifty pounds on Keto. At the end, she was almost attractive.” She winked at Charity. “That might work for you, too.”

  Charity couldn’t bear to look at her a moment longer. She looked at Trey instead, and realized from the purple shade of his face that he was ready to cause a scene. Any moment now, he would—wait. Why was she letting him get this upset over a terrible person like Gina? Why was she hoping he would fight her own battles for her? That wasn’t the way she wanted to do things.