“What did I do?” He brushed the tears with his thumbs, kissed them away. They kept coming. “Tell me, and I’ll never do it again.”
“Not you. Me.” She gripped his hand and tugged him toward the couch. “I have to tell you something. Everything.”
He tugged her back to him, kissing her in desperation while hoping kisses were enough to stop the tears. “Me, too. I love you.”
“No. Please, Holt. Listen.” She turned her face to one side. “Stop kissing me. We have to talk.”
His arms dropped to his sides. Obviously, she was not crying tears of joy or of love. She was disturbed about something, something she had to tell him, something he probably didn’t want to hear.
Wary now, he said, “Okay.”
“Come and sit down. After you hear me out, if you still want to kiss me, you can kiss me all you want.”
If he still wanted to kiss her?
Uneasy in a way he didn’t understand, he settled beside her on the couch. She pulled his hand into her lap, staring down at his dark skin against her pale fingers. A tear fell on his knuckles.
They’d both been on top of the world when he’d left this afternoon. At least, he had been.
What had happened in the interim?
“Do you want some coffee or supper?” she asked, and another tear fell.
“I want you to tell me what’s going on.” A fear struck him. “Jacey?”
“Is fast asleep and has been for hours.”
He took a deep breath. His baby girl was all right. And AnnaLeigh was here with him. Nothing else mattered.
“Then, what’s going on? What are you upset about?”
“I never directly lied to you. I promise I didn’t.”
“Is this about the contract? Forget that thing. We’ll tear it up and start over.”
“Not about our marriage. Well, except for…” She glanced away, one hand holding to her stomach as if she might get sick. “Before I accepted Jesus, I thought my decision was okay, that I might even be doing the right thing. But Jesus opened my eyes, and now I see how wrong I was.”
With every word she spoke, Holt’s anxiety ratcheted higher. “Say it. You’re scaring me.”
“I’m pregnant.”
Holt blinked. Twice. Three times. It took a few seconds for her words to register. The stark pronouncement was the last thing he’d expected to hear.
“You can’t be.”
Quite literally, she could not be.
Haunted eyes lifted to his. “I am. I wanted to tell you before. I tried to a dozen times, but the words wouldn’t come.”
A roaring noise filled Holt’s head. He attempted to shake it away.
Pregnant. But not by him. AnnaLeigh was carrying some other man’s baby.
Brain on fire and shocked out of his mind, Holt rose from the couch and took a step away.
She reached a hand, beseeching. “I love you, Holt. You and Jacey both. Let me explain…”
“No.” What was there to explain? A pregnancy that didn’t involve him was self-explanatory.
Slowly shaking his head, Holt stared down at her. He wanted to be angry. Instead, he was wounded. He though his heart might literally break and stop beating.
AnnaLeigh claimed to love him, but she’d broken one of the cardinal rules of this relationship, of any marriage. She’d cheated. First, she’d lied about her faith, and now she’d cheated on him and gotten pregnant.
What other secrets had she kept?
Did he even want to know?
He rubbed a sore spot in the center of his chest. If she’d shot him through the heart, he couldn’t hurt worse.
“How could you do this? You promised to be faithful.”
“I have been. I am.”
His laugh was short and harsh. He may have been her fool, but he wasn’t that dumb. “There was only one immaculate conception, AnnaLeigh.”
Her chin trembled. She wrapped her arms around herself.
Her grief looked real. He wanted to believe her. But how could he when she’d deceived him before? And she was pregnant with another man’s baby!
“The baby happened before I moved to Refuge, Holt. He’s the reason I was desperate enough to agree to your terms.”
Desperate, a condition of their agreement, Rule Number Five. His rules. His stupid, stupid rules.
Holt glanced away, his gaze falling on the red roses. They mocked him.
He closed his eyes, tried to breathe. He felt as heavy and lost as an abandoned pack mule.
“How far along?” he managed.
Her hands went instinctively to her belly. “Ten weeks.”
Ten weeks. Before they’d met and before she’d become his wife. She hadn’t cheated. That much, at least, was true. Or could be proved.
“You should have told me from the beginning.”
“Would you have married me?” The question was a plea.
Shoulders slumped, eyes red and puffy, she looked as broken as he felt.
He didn’t want to feel sorry for her. She’d kept a monumental secret from him, let him fall in love with her, and made him vulnerable to her tears.
Would he have married her?
“I don’t know,” he answered softly, aching too much to raise his voice.
Holt didn’t know how he felt about anything at this point. All he knew was that he hurt. She’d gutted him.
AnnaLeigh pulled a throw pillow onto her lap, another of the improvements she’d made in his house, in his life. He wouldn’t think about any of that now.
“Do you want to know the rest?” She squeezed the pillow against her belly. Her knuckles whitened. “I need to tell you all of it. If you still care enough to listen.”
There was more?
Holt rubbed both hands over his face. He wasn’t sure he could take another shock. “Not tonight. I can’t think. I’m exhausted.”
Suddenly, the energy he’d sustained for miles seeped from him like air from a punctured tire.
How could he ever again trust her? Or any woman? How could he live with her? What would he do about the baby she carried? What did she expect from him at this point?
No answers came.
He needed to think, to pray, and to get his emotions under control before he said something they’d both regret forever.
“I’ll leave if you say so,” she whispered.
He stared into her wet eyes. Her words burned into him like a brand. She would leave if he asked. Was that what he wanted?
“I don’t know what to do, AnnaLeigh. I just don’t know. Right now, I’m going to bed.” Alone.
Weary to the soul, to the heart, he gave her one long, sad look and left the room.
Her soft weeping followed him down the hall. He thought he heard her say, “Forgive me. Please. Forgive me.”
AnnaLeigh didn’t sleep. She couldn’t. The pain on Holt’s face haunted her. She’d broken his trust along with his heart. Even if he could forgive her, he’d never trust her again.
She had a terrible feeling that any love they shared had died with her confession.
She placed the heels of her hands against her throbbing temples and pressed.
Everything she’d ever dreamed of had been within her grasp, and she’d ruined it. Her deceit had killed Holt’s love before it had had time to blossom.
She should have told him from the beginning. She would have if she’d known how much he’d come to mean to her and how much she would come to love him and Jacey.
She hadn’t planned on love.
Nor had she planned on Jesus. He’d changed her on the inside, removing not only her sin, but the blinders of selfishness and deceit.
Focused on herself and her baby, she’d never considered the effect her decisions would have on Holt and Jacey.
After tonight, could they possibly mend the broken pieces? Even if Holt didn’t want her as a wife, would he allow her to continue the way they’d agreed in the contract? Could she, at least, remain Jacey’s mother?
But
would Holt even allow her near his daughter now, the precious little girl AnnaLeigh had come to love?
Deep inside she knew the answer. She’d wounded him, fooled and humiliated him. No man could tolerate that from his wife.
He no longer cared enough to listen to the rest, about Alan and his thugs. Any love he’d felt was gone forever. And she couldn’t blame him.
AnnaLeigh swiped her pajama sleeve across her eyes. Enough tears. No one else had caused her problems. Only her. She deserved to be turned out in the cold. Alone. On her own.
She’d be alone again. She’d been alone all her life, really. Except when she’d been with Alan, and that had been worse than being alone.
The thought of her ex-boyfriend rattled her. When he discovered his henchman didn’t have her, Alan would send someone else or come after her himself. And he wouldn’t be happy.
He’d come here, to Holt’s ranch, and stir up trouble. A lot of it.
Holt was an honorable man. He’d defend his wayward wife, maybe get hurt. Alan didn’t let anyone stand in his way.
AnnaLeigh clenched her fists. “No! I can’t let that happen.”
Holt didn’t deserve any of the trouble she’d caused or was likely to cause in the future. This was on her. She was the guilty party. Holt and Jacey would not suffer anymore because of her.
Trouble followed her, but she wouldn’t let it find the people she loved.
Holding back a sob, she grabbed her cell phone to check the messages. Nothing from Alan.
She still had time to protect her family.
AnnaLeigh threw back the covers and, using her phone as a light, hurried to her closet.
Holt tossed and turned, his bed feeling like a bed of nails. He flipped his pillow over, flopped back down, his mind racing.
What had he gotten himself into? Why hadn’t AnnaLeigh told him about the pregnancy before they married?
Except he knew the reason. He’d have run sideways like a wild colt. He’d married her to be a wife in name only, a mama for his daughter. A pregnancy wasn’t in the deal.
They weren’t truly man and wife. They could get an annulment. Couldn’t they?
Did he want that? Could he live with himself if he turned away from her and her innocent unborn baby?
Jacey would be heartbroken if AnnaLeigh left, but what was a man supposed to do in a crazy situation like this one?
She lied to you. Toss her out. You knew better than to get married again.
But he had married again. He’d made a vow before God to love, honor, and protect AnnaLeigh for the rest of his life. Except he hadn’t actually loved her at the time.
Maybe he’d been a little dishonest too.
With a groan, Holt flopped to his side, confused and aching. The bedside clock glowed the time in blue. Three o’clock. He’d have to get up in a few hours. AnnaLeigh rose early, too. Would she cook his breakfast as if nothing had happened? Did he want her to?
Or did he simply want her gone?
The thought of losing her was a spear to the belly.
The thought of seeing her again was almost as painful.
Sighing heavily, Holt flipped to his back and tried to pray. “Show me, Lord. This is too big for me.”
A scripture rolled through his head.
Husbands love your wives, just as Christ loved the church.
“I do love her. Or I thought I did.”
Love is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
He wasn’t angry, he was heartbroken. But maybe he had been self-seeking, wanting a wife in name only for his benefit and that of his daughter and expecting AnnaLeigh to follow his rules without regard to her needs or wants.
Still, what she had done was monumental. He couldn’t exactly forget she was going to have a baby. Not that the baby was the problem. It was AnnaLeigh’s deception that tortured him.
Love keeps no record of wrongs.
That was a tough one, real tough. Who knew the love chapter from Corinthians could be so hard on a man’s conscience?
Forgive, even as the Lord forgave you.
A thought struck him then. The Sunday AnnaLeigh committed her life to Christ, she’d asked him if Jesus would really forgive everything in her past.
And he’d told her yes.
Had she been trying to find the courage to tell him about the pregnancy that day? Was she asking if he practiced what he preached?
Holt went on praying and wrestling the issue. Sometime later—he didn’t know how much—he was faintly aware of a noise in the house. Probably AnnaLeigh up to the bathroom.
The sound was the last thing he remembered until his alarm jolted him awake.
Fighting fatigue, he stumbled into his clothes and crept in sock feet to the kitchen. AnnaLeigh wasn’t up yet. He didn’t know if he was relieved or sorry.
One thing for certain, with God’s help, he’d come to a decision in his short, restless night. Once Jacey was on the school bus, he and his wife would sit down like adults and talk this thing out together.
She was his wife. He had a responsibility to handle this appropriately, whatever that entailed.
He fixed his own coffee and set the tea kettle on the stove for AnnaLeigh, suddenly understanding her preference for peppermint tea. Morning sickness, not nerves or car sickness, as she’d let on. More deception.
He sighed. How many lies were tangled like poison ivy through their marriage?
Love keeps no record of wrongs.
“I hear you, Lord, and I’m trying.” Sometimes doing God’s will was harder than it sounded.
AnnaLeigh still wasn’t up when the kettle whistled, so Holt decided to let her rest. Last night had been traumatic. She probably hadn’t slept much either.
With the love scriptures running through his head, he got Jacey out of bed.
“Where’s Mommy?” She yawned and rubbed sleep from her eyes.
Mommy. Jacey loved her new mom.
How quickly he and his daughter had settled into a routine with the new woman in their lives. It was almost as if AnnaLeigh had always been here.
Except she hadn’t. She’d been somewhere else with someone else.
He blocked the thought and let his mind chant the Bible verse again.
“We’re letting her sleep late. You can ride the bus with Ellie this morning.” AnnaLeigh often dropped Jacey at school on the way to work, but not today. She was staying home with him, and he’d call Rachel himself to smooth the way. The coming conversation was too crucial to postpone.
“Is Mommy sick again?”
“I don’t think so, but she’s really tired. She waited up for me last night.”
“She’s nice like that. We’ll be extra quiet, okay?” Jacey put a finger across her lips.
Holt had a sudden flash of himself doing the same thing to AnnaLeigh yesterday before he’d left. He could still feel her lips against his skin, the warmth of her sigh.
“Sounds like a deal.”
A pair of jeans and a thick purple sweater with matching socks waited atop Jacey’s small dresser. Her warm, clean boots, along with her backpack, stood by the bedroom door. AnnaLeigh again. Taking care of his child.
Tender, loving gestures that he’d barely noticed. She did them for him too.
He grunted. “Get dressed. I’ll fix your cereal.”
“Mommy makes me scrammeled eggs. With cheese. And cimmumum toast.”
Of course she did. She loved his daughter. He didn’t doubt that for a moment.
He managed to get Jacey fed and off to school, though he’d given up on her hair and simply brushed it down. With a shrug and a hug, she’d flown out the door as the school bus had rumbled into sight.
He checked his watch. AnnaLeigh still wasn’t up. Maybe she was sick. Taking a cup of her favorite tea, he went to her bedroom and pecked a knuckle against the door.
“AnnaLeigh.”
No answer.
“AnnaLeigh,” he said louder and tapped once more.
Was she avoiding him?
He tried the knob. The door opened a crack. He leaned his face close to the opening.
“AnnaLeigh, are you up? We have to talk.”
When she still didn’t answer and no sound came from inside, he pushed the door open. His heart tumbled to his sock feet.
The bed was made, the room empty.
AnnaLeigh was gone.
“AnnaLeigh! Where are you?” Holt’s voice raised on every word. He heard the ragged edge of panic.
He’d been up for an hour. She was nowhere in the house, certainly not here or in the bathroom she shared with Jacey. But he set aside the cups and rushed from room to room, anyway, finding each one empty.
With his heart sinking and dread creeping over him, he returned to her bedroom and opened the closet. All her belongings had disappeared. He peered out the window. Her car was gone.
She’d left him.
He collapsed on the side of her neatly made bed.
How could she do this? She was his wife. She couldn’t just up and leave.
They had a contract!
With a groan, he dropped his head in his hands. Forget the contract. He loved her, loved her. He couldn’t turn off his feelings because of a baby.
Heck, he didn’t mind another baby or two. Not now. Not when he’d fallen in love with her.
AnnaLeigh was a great wife, a loving mother.
But he’d never told her.
He was a clueless jerk who should have treated her like the special woman she was.
He should never have walked out on her last night. But he’d been so shocked. Not angry. Stunned. Hurt. Jealous.
She must have concluded that their marriage was over, so she’d packed her bags and left.
He had to fix this.
But how? He had no idea where she’d gone.
Stumbling from the bedroom, he searched for his cell phone. Finding it on the kitchen counter with barely enough battery to turn on, he shot a desperate text.
Where are you?
When she didn’t respond, he called her number. The phone went straight to voice mail. Her soft voice came on the line, asking him to leave a message.
“AnnaLeigh, it’s me, Holt. Come home. Please, sweetheart. We’ll figure things out. I meant it when I said I love you.”
Ten Rules for Marrying a Cowboy Page 17
