Lone Wolf Cowboy

by Maisey Yates

“It is never too early for panic,” Ellie said, her face utterly serious.

  “You did it all alone,” Vanessa said, looking at all the books. “Didn’t you?”

  Ellie looked away, then sucked in a sharp breath. “I can’t even... I was so devastated when Clint died. And so terrified that something would happen to Amelia. She’s the last piece of him that I have. At first I thought about her that way. I don’t now. Amelia is herself. Wholly and completely, and it’s wonderful. She’s part me, and she’s part him too, which is a gift. But...”

  She cleared her throat and looked back at the shelf. “Those books were like my surrogate husband. Something to worry with. And I had to go through all of the what-ifs. Because somehow... I thought if I didn’t I might be caught unawares again. I didn’t worry about him. Not really. He was just so confident. He thought he was bulletproof, and he seemed like he might be to me. There was not a single part of me that thought when he went out on that fire I wouldn’t see him again. You can’t think that way when your husband is in a dangerous job anyway. If you do, it’ll drive you crazy. It was just so...shocking. The whole bottom fell out of my world. On the top. On the sides. If I hadn’t had Caleb... If I hadn’t had the whole Dalton family, I would have collapsed. But panic books and family. They’re family to me, even if they’re not family by blood.”

  Well, that was complicated. Considering that Jacob Dalton was actually the father of her baby.

  There wasn’t going to be any...not telling him.

  “I’m ready to do it alone,” Vanessa said, feeling a sense of certainty. Jacob was a solitary man, and she would absolutely give him a choice. But her choice was already made.

  She wanted to confess all to Ellie and ask for her opinion on how Jacob might react, but the fact of the matter was, Ellie already knew about the baby before Jacob did. She couldn’t really add more to that by also telling her that he was the father before he knew.

  Well, that would be a new experience. The thought was not a particularly happy one. Considering that the father of her first... Her first pregnancy...

  Well, she wouldn’t have wanted him involved anyway. And also considering the way things had ended it just wasn’t a particularly fun thought.

  You could just leave. You could leave again, run away. Nobody would be surprised.

  Your family would just think you had a relapse. Jacob probably would too.

  She could live up to everyone’s expectations and swan off freely to start over again.

  No one would have to know where she was. And she could raise her child on her terms.

  Not with the stifling, unwinnable atmosphere of the Logan family hovering overhead. Not with her name attached to her like a millstone.

  Totally new. Totally clean.

  No.

  That was what Vanessa would have done ten years ago. It was what she would have done five years ago.

  Run and hide.

  Bury the problem. Pretend that it wasn’t happening. Pretend that it hadn’t happened.

  Fly under the radar because she could never fly above it.

  She wasn’t going to do that. Not now. Not this time.

  “I have some conversations I have to have,” she said.

  “Is...is it someone here?”

  Vanessa sighed. “I really probably should talk to him first.”

  “Right,” Ellie said. “Understandably.”

  “I need to talk to him first.”

  “Yeah. Totally.”

  “Can I have one of your panic books?” Her voice sounded small in her head.

  “Sure. Gestational panic?”

  “Nothing about how to tell a guy he’s going to be a father, is there?”

  “Sadly, no. But then, that wasn’t my particular hurdle.”

  “Yeah. I’m sorry. It probably seems silly for me to be worried about that, all things considered.”

  “No. I was actually terrified to tell Clint that I was going to have a baby, and we’d been trying. But I knew that it would change everything. Babies do. Though in my case...I’ve always been so grateful that with Amelia I had another person to love. Because I lost... I lost someone that I loved. And if I hadn’t had someone else...I don’t know how I could have gone on.”

  “I suppose you just would have,” Vanessa said. “That is what we do. We go on.”

  And she knew that she had never lost someone, not in the way that Ellie had, but she still knew that to be true. That you soldiered on as best you could. That you made a life, even when it was grim.

  That was the thing. Her addiction years were completely lost years. In some ways they were, but in others... She had jobs. Lots of different ones. Sometimes she hadn’t had them. Sometimes she’d had places to live, and other times not. She had big groups of friends. Loud and noisy and distracting.

  She’d been happy sometimes. Sometimes happier than she’d been in the past five years. And sometimes, if she was completely honest in her memories, she felt like she had a greater sense of freedom then.

  But that was only true when everything was perfect. When she was high and out with friends.

  When she wasn’t so acutely aware of the fact that she had a leash and a collar made of substances that her body craved in order to have those feelings.

  That was the trouble with the past. It was tempting to make it all bad or all good. The truth was often much more complicated. But complicated wasn’t comfortable. And nobody liked to try to wade through complicated feelings. Brilliant bright labels were much easier.

  She often resented the lack of them. But that was another thing she’d learned. That painting with broad brushstrokes could be dangerous.

  Comparison could be too. Trying to make what was happening now a direct parallel to what had happened ten years ago.

  She couldn’t. It was different. She was different.

  The entire circumstances were different. And she didn’t need to wonder how she would’ve handled it the first time, because it wasn’t the first time, and she wasn’t seventeen. She was strong now. Braver than she had been.

  And most important, she had gone out and gotten a pregnancy test the moment she suspected, rather than waiting. That was symbolic of something. Her ability to face up to reality. Or whatever.

  “Are you going to be okay?” Ellie asked.

  “Yes,” she answered definitively.

  Because she would be. Whatever happened with Jacob. She just would be.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  AS FAR AS Jacob was concerned it had been a perfect Friday so far. He’d gotten up early and hiked up to the top of the ridge behind his cabin, standing and looking down on everything below. From his vantage point on the rocky mountaintop, he could see the sloped, pine-covered mountains fade into a bright patchwork of fields and vineyards. Barns and houses rising up out of the landscape, horses’ and cows’ miniature black silhouettes against the green.

  Sometimes, when he stood up there, he was consumed with thoughts of falling. Falling from the sky in a helicopter. Falling from the edge of a cliff like the one he stood on.

  And inevitably when he saw himself fall, he saw a boy falling too.

  Like his dreams. Like his memory.

  He couldn’t explain why he felt compelled to climb to the top of mountains, given they always gave him thoughts like that. But he had them quite a bit. And he found something good in standing there defying the feeling anyway.

  The bad memories were there whether he stood on the mountain or not.

  When he got back to the cabin he was sweaty and he stripped his shirt off as soon as he got out from beneath the cover of the trees and into the clearing in front of his house. He stopped when he saw a figure standing there, looking out over the view in front of his place. It was Vanessa.

  She had her hands clasped in front of her, her dark hair blowing in the breeze.

  She turned to face him and his stomach went tight.

  Hell, if she was here for round three, he was ready.

  In fact
, that would make a good Friday a very good Friday. Physical exertion outdoors and indoors. He would take it.

  “Hey,” he said.

  As opening lines went, it probably wasn’t his finest. But she had come to him. So he assumed pickup lines weren’t really required.

  “Hi. I probably should have called. I think I have your number somewhere. But I just thought I would come and see if you were home. I guess you are.”

  “I guess,” he said. “I was climbing.” He took a few steps toward her and she took a step back.

  He lunged forward, his arm outstretched, panic overtaking him. “Careful,” he said, grabbing hold of her arm and pulling her back toward him.

  “I’m not... I’m not close to the edge,” she said.

  He supposed she wasn’t.

  But...he had just seen her falling again. He could always see people falling.

  “Sorry,” he said, gritting his teeth. “First responder habits die hard.”

  “I bet,” she said. “I bet you have definitely seen some things.”

  “Things I wish I hadn’t,” he confirmed.

  “Okay, well. This is off to a great start.”

  “I’m in,” he said.

  She blinked at him. “I’m sorry, what?”

  “I’m in,” he said. “I’m already half-undressed anyway.”

  The corners of her mouth pulled down. “Did you think I was here to proposition you?”

  “Yes,” he said. “About the only thing we’ve done together alone is have sex. So I figured that was probably a trend that was going to keep going.”

  “Wow. No. That is not what I’m here about.”

  “Then what?”

  She took a deep breath and looked off to the side, her hair ruffling slightly in the breeze.

  She was beautiful. And it struck him hard like a punch to the chest. He didn’t really know why. He’d seen beautiful women before. He’d seen a lot of beautiful women. But there was something about her. Standing there the way that she was. There was just something about her.

  It wasn’t the first time he’d felt it either. Like he was staring into his future every time he looked into her eyes.

  “I’m pregnant,” she said.

  The word hit him like a slap to the face, and before he could react at all, she continued, “I would like to keep the baby. And there is no obligation on you. But I knew that there was no way I could walk around being pregnant and not acknowledge the reality of the situation.”

  “Excuse me?”

  That was not the best response, and he knew it. But he didn’t know what the best response was. He was still reeling from the first thing she’d said. He hadn’t had any time to process the rest.

  “I might not... I might have another miscarriage,” she said. “Who knows. You know that I... You know that happened.”

  “I’m sorry. I need to back up about five steps. You’re pregnant.”

  “Yes.”

  “Dammit.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I really thought that you got past this kind of thing in high school.”

  “Well, I did it then too. But I’m not sure why you would think that. Considering you can make a baby as long as you’ve got sperm.”

  “I just... I’m always...”

  “We didn’t use a condom. And I think I very deliberately didn’t think about that. Because it was—”

  “I always do,” he said.

  “But you didn’t.”

  Yeah, and he’d known it, because he had to go buy condoms after their first time. And he put one in his wallet. But he very deliberately erased any concern that she might be pregnant. He had figured she was on the pill or something. Because she hadn’t said anything.

  Yeah, right. You didn’t figure anything. You didn’t think about it because, just like her, you didn’t want to.

  “I don’t need anything from you,” she said. “I made my decision, you’re going to have to make yours. But I don’t need you to do anything.”

  “I—I know that traditionally people get married in this situation...”

  “I don’t want to marry you,” she said. “I profoundly don’t want to marry you.”

  “My parents... If you knew... Marriage is...”

  “I had that traditional family,” Vanessa said. “You know, the one that’s supposed to protect you from everything? Mom and Dad married, stable, owning their own house and everything. My mom stayed home with us. I had all the things that were supposed to make me successful and keep me out of trouble. My parents had a fifty percent success rate with that. I was doing absolutely everything you would be afraid your child was doing. And no amount of old-fashioned American family values could do anything about that. I don’t need a nuclear family to create a safe space for my child.”

  “You’re using therapist-speak again.”

  “Well. I’m just saying. And it sounds to me that you had married parents too.”

  “Yeah, but I don’t know that you can call us a model for the great American family.”

  “Fine. But my point is, I think we can acknowledge that marriage isn’t going to solve anything.”

  “Okay.”

  “Now, I’m not opposed to us trying to co-parent.”

  “Co-parent.”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s...the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. How are we co-parenting? We would just be parenting. It’s always people doing it together unless somebody chooses not to, or the guy is a dickhead.”

  “So you think a guy who doesn’t take his paternal rights is a dickhead.”

  Yes. He damn well did. He was not going to be like his father. Not in that way. He had spent a damn lot of years doing a good Hank Dalton impression. Swaggering around and not taking a damn thing seriously.

  And Jacob might not have designs on being a husband, and he may not have chosen to be a father, but the thing was...he was going to be one.

  His own dad had a string of illegitimate children all over the country. And it was something Gabe was working hard to clean up now.

  He thought of McKenna, his half sister, who had come to them just a couple of years ago. Who had been given such a hard run of life thanks to their father’s lack of involvement.

  And even though Hank hadn’t known about those children, the fact remained that his irresponsibility was a serious issue.

  “There’s no reason on earth I shouldn’t be a father to a kid that I’m actually the father of,” Jacob said.

  “Great,” Vanessa said. “So we’ll...we’ll come up with an agreement.”

  “Okay.”

  “Why don’t I... Why don’t I wait a couple of weeks and make some doctor’s appointments?”

  The idea of waiting a couple of weeks for anything right now seemed like torture. It was only the rest of his life.

  “You know, I need to make sure everything looks good. I never went to the doctor last time. So I don’t actually know... I don’t know what happened. I don’t know if something was wrong with the baby or with me. Or if it was just one of those things.”

  “You seem remarkably calm.”

  “I’ve had a couple of hours to process it. But I didn’t wait long to come to you. The first time I was pregnant I was too young to be a mother. And...the circumstances were not great.”

  “I imagine,” he said.

  “I mean...really not great. The guy... He’s not a good guy.”

  “Does he still live around here?”

  “As far as I know.”

  He wondered if that had to do with her avoidance of the Gold Valley Saloon. Because most people in their age group hung out there on a given weeknight.

  “Who is it?”

  He’d wondered then. Because even though he had been intent on evaluating her situation at the time of the miscarriage he’d asked if she’d wanted him to call someone. And she had been emphatic that no one could know.

  Terrified even.

  He could remember that clearly. Her holding his h
and and looking up at him, terrified, telling him her family couldn’t know. That no one could know.

  That included the father.

  “I don’t really want to talk about it right now. Honestly, for obvious reasons I have to think a little bit about my past right now. You know, for medical reasons. But I don’t want... I don’t want this to be the same thing. It isn’t. I’m different. And I’m in a place where this actually isn’t bad news for me.” She met his gaze. “If it’s bad news for you, you don’t have to be involved. I know you feel like you have to be, and that it says something about your masculinity if you don’t. But that’s not how I want it to be.”

  “You just told me the other day that being good isn’t always about wanting to do right. It’s not wanting to and doing it anyway. Or did that only apply to you?” he asked.

  “No, it applied to me choosing to stay sober. But a person shouldn’t be made to feel like you resent them. Like you had to choose them.”

  He shook his head. “Well, I suppose you and I have different definitions of why people should do things.”

  “No. I just don’t want my child to feel unwanted.”

  “Whatever my feelings are right now, and I’m not entirely sure what they are myself, it doesn’t change what I should or shouldn’t do. Right is right whether or not you want to do it.”

  “Jacob—”

  “No. I spent my whole damn life doing what was easy. Avoiding things. Doing what felt good. You know what? It’s bullshit. Being happy is bullshit. It doesn’t mean anything. Being irresponsible like that is just putting the responsibility on someone else. It doesn’t go away, it just shifts. I learned that lesson the hard way, and I will damn well not learn it with you. I will not learn it on a child. I won’t be the struggle that kid has to have in life. And if I don’t feel thrilled about it, that doesn’t change what I should do.”

  “You know what,” Vanessa said. “Fine. I can’t make the decision for you. I told myself that I wouldn’t. It’s just that I didn’t expect to try to talk you out of taking parental responsibility.”

  “You thought that I would leave you alone to do it?”

  He expected her to say something about men, about the fact that men tended to do that. Or maybe about him personally. Instead, her face went slightly waxen. “Everyone always has. Every major event in my life I’ve handled alone. So yeah, I didn’t just assume that this would be different.”