And then, as if that wasn’t awkward enough, he’d walked into the kitchen and she was there. All soft eyes and warm smiles and “Do you want me to make you some eggs?”
So of course he’d responded by acting like a complete ass.
Her anger had been completely justified.
And ass that he was, he couldn’t help but notice how pretty her eyes were when they flashed with fire, how kissable her lips seemed even while they were berating him.
But now that the caffeine had started to work its way through his system, he at least had the wherewithal to recognize the inappropriateness of his behavior and acknowledge that he owed her an apology.
He looked at the eggs on the counter and wondered if scrambled or fried would taste better with a side of crow.
Then he rummaged through the fridge for bacon. Because everything was better with bacon.
* * *
By the time Beth had Cody changed and dressed, ready for his trip to the clinic, she was ready to acknowledge that she may have overreacted.
Not that she wasn’t in the right to be mad at Wilder—because she was—but perhaps she could have expressed her feelings a little less forcefully. No doubt it was the uncertainty of the situation that had them both on edge. But they had an appointment at the clinic today, and though she knew they wouldn’t get any immediate answers, it was at least a step in the right direction.
“Just to be clear,” she said, when she ventured back into the kitchen as Wilder was finishing his breakfast, “I don’t want to be here any more than you want me here.”
“I know.” He cleared his empty plate then pulled a chair away from the table. “Sit down. Please.”
She strapped Cody into his car seat first, and then she sat. Her puzzled gaze shifted from the folded napkin and cutlery to the steaming mug of fresh coffee with a splash of cream—and finally the plate of food he set in front of her.
“What’s this?” she asked warily, as if the crisp bacon and scrambled eggs might, in fact, be something else.
“An apology,” he said, proving her suspicion was correct.
She lifted the fork and poked at the eggs, as if she didn’t quite trust that his culinary offering was a sincere effort to make amends.
“We don’t keep any arsenic in the kitchen,” he assured her.
“Why are you apologizing?” she asked, after she’d nipped the end off a slice of bacon.
“Because I was mad at your sister and I took it out on you.”
His honesty was as surprising as his apparent contrition, and equally appreciated. Beth sampled the eggs, then nodded. “Apology accepted.”
“Really?” Now it was his turn to sound skeptical. “Just like that?”
“I’m not too happy with Leighton right now myself,” she acknowledged, still unable to understand why, if her sister was finding parenting such a challenge, she hadn’t reached out to Beth.
But even as the question formed in her mind, she ruefully acknowledged the answer. Because Leighton had always viewed Beth as the favorite child, a rule follower who did everything right, even following in their mother’s footsteps and becoming a kindergarten teacher. Leighton, on the other hand, liked to break the rules and had even dropped out of high school when she was sixteen to sing in a band.
They’d traveled across the country, en route to Seattle, playing in bars that paid them in free drinks, not caring that most of the band members were underage. Leighton had made it as far as Twin Falls, Idaho, before deciding that she’d had enough of eating fast food and sleeping in a rusty van.
Of course, she didn’t come home with her tail between her legs. Regret and remorse had never been her style. Instead, she’d regaled Beth with outrageous stories about the things she’d seen and done, taking pleasure in shocking her straitlaced sister.
Their parents had only heard about half of the stories, but that had been enough to shock them, too. Eager to create some distance between their younger daughter and her so-called friends, Alfred and Lucy Ames had encouraged Leighton to spend a few months traveling in Europe.
Such a trip was a luxury beyond the means of their solidly middle-class lifestyle, but they made it work by cashing in Leighton’s college fund. Since she’d given no indication that she was interested in even graduating from high school at the time, it seemed a better use of the money.
As Beth had mentioned to Wilder, Leighton eventually got her GED but she was still happy to work as a bartender, boasting that she could make more money in tips in one night than Beth made in a week working with “snotty-nosed little kids.”
And wasn’t it ironic that Beth, who’d always dreamed of marrying and having a family, was still single and alone, while Leighton, who never wanted to be tied down, had been blessed with a beautiful, perfect baby?
“So we’re good?” Wilder prompted, drawing her attention back to the present.
“We’re good,” she said. “But if we don’t get a move on, we’re going to be late.”
* * *
She was a little nervous about taking the baby into a clinic potentially full of sick people. Though Cody was as up-to-date with his immunizations as he could be at four and a half months, Beth still worried about unnecessary exposure to germs and viruses.
The Rust Creek Falls Clinic was bright and clean with friendly and efficient staff. While Wilder filled out the necessary paperwork, Beth sat Cody on her knee, gently jiggling her leg to keep him moving so he wouldn’t fuss while they waited.
Thankfully, they didn’t have to wait long. When the doctor came in to the exam room, he explained how the test worked, asked if they had any questions, then completed the procedure.
Wilder volunteered to go first, so that Cody could see how it was done. He showed no outward hesitation, but Beth sensed his wariness, though she suspected it was related to the potential results rather than the requirements of the test itself.
The doctor opened the sterile package, the potential daddy opened his mouth, and the inside of his cheek was swabbed. The swab with the collected sample was then deposited in a tube and sealed up again.
Cody was less cooperative on his turn. He didn’t understand the concept of keeping his mouth open for the doctor to complete his task, and he didn’t seem to approve of either the taste or the texture of what was in his mouth. Several times he clamped his jaw down on the wooden stick, prompting the doctor to remark that it was a good thing the baby didn’t yet have any teeth. Still, it didn’t take long for the doctor to be satisfied that he had an adequate sample, and less than half an hour after entering the clinic, they were exiting again.
“That was almost anticlimactic,” Beth remarked, as she walked beside Wilder to his truck.
“Now we just have to wait for some computer to analyze the spit on those sticks and decide whether or not I’m the kid’s father.”
“Something like that,” she agreed.
“Doesn’t seem like it should take seven to ten days,” he grumbled.
“The doctor said it’s usually less than a week, but the lab might be backed up because of the holidays.”
“I guess that puts a snag in your plans.”
She shrugged. “I can’t really complain about spending the holidays with my favorite guy.”
“I’m flattered,” he said.
She shook her head. “You know I wasn’t talking about you.”
“Yeah,” he admitted with a grin. “But I do like to see you blush.”
“Am I blushing?” she asked. “I can’t tell, because my whole face is frozen.”
He chuckled as he opened the passenger-side door of his truck for her.
Of course, she didn’t immediately buckle up, because she had to wait for him to set Cody’s baby seat in place and double-check that it was securely locked in the base.
“Are you hungry?” he asked, when he slid be
hind the wheel.
“It seems as if breakfast wasn’t that long ago,” she said. “But actually, I am hungry.”
“You want to grab a bite at the Gold Rush Diner?”
“Sure,” she said.
The restaurant wasn’t far from the clinic—but according to Wilder, nothing in Rust Creek Falls was too far from anything else. A cowbell rang overhead as they entered, no doubt intended to alert restaurant employees to the comings and goings of customers. Though she would have thought they were ahead of the lunch crowd, several booths and tables were occupied by diners already eating or even finishing their meals.
Beth decided on a booth because she knew Cody’s seat would fit snugly on the red vinyl bench. She wrangled the carrier into place, then unzipped the fleece cover-over top so the baby—who’d been lulled to sleep on the short drive—wouldn’t get overheated while they were in the restaurant.
Menus were tucked against the wall, propped up by a tray of condiments. Wilder handed one across the table to her, then took one for himself.
She quickly scanned the offerings, then set the menu aside.
“That was fast,” he noted.
“I’ve had a craving for a spicy chicken sandwich, so I was happy to see it on the menu.”
“Sounds good,” he decided, and tucked his menu away, too.
A server appeared almost right away. She introduced herself as Raina and started to relay the lunch specials, then she spotted the baby seat and completely lost track of what she was saying in favor of cooing over the sleeping infant.
“See?” Wilder said to Beth, after Raina had finally managed to pull herself together and take their orders.
“What am I supposed to see?”
“The way she oohed and aahed over the baby.”
“It happens all the time,” Beth said matter-of-factly. “Because he’s too adorable for real words.”
“Well, my dad would say that’s just more proof he’s a Crawford,” he said immodestly.
“What do you think?”
He shrugged. “I guess we’ll know for sure in seven to ten days, won’t we?”
“I guess we will,” she agreed, as Raina delivered their drinks to the table.
As she sipped her diet cola, she noted interesting details about the decor. But while she looked around the restaurant, she got the uneasy feeling that others were looking at her. Not that anyone was blatantly or obviously staring, but a couple of times, she caught a gaze being quickly averted before connecting with her own.
“Why do I get the feeling people are staring at me?” she asked, whispering across the table to Wilder.
He turned his head so that he had a view of the seating area. “Because they probably are.”
“Thanks for the reassurance,” she said dryly.
“Or they could be staring at me,” he suggested as an alternative, shifting his attention back to her. “Rust Creek Falls is a small town, and newcomers and strangers are equally rare sightings. And there’s been a fair amount of talk and speculation about the Texas Crawfords—as we’ve been dubbed by some members of the community—who plunked down a boatload of cash for the Ambling A.”
“How much is a boatload?” she wondered aloud.
“Are you looking for the specific number?” Wilder asked.
Beth immediately shook her head. “No, I’m only pointing out that ‘boatload’ is an incredibly imprecise measure,” she told him. “I mean, a boat filled with singles wouldn’t necessarily be a lot of money—unless it was a really big boat. On the other hand, a smaller boat filled with C-notes could be a significant amount.”
He chuckled at that. “Fair point.”
“But if the other diners are staring at you—Wilder Crawford from Texas with boatloads of money—they’re probably also speculating about your relationship to the baby that your father insists looks so much like a Crawford no one would guess he was anything else.”
“No doubt the gossip is spreading like wildfire,” he agreed.
“That doesn’t bother you?”
He shrugged. “I try not to be bothered by things that are out of my control.”
“That’s a very Zen attitude,” she noted.
“Plus, there is a silver lining,” he said.
“What’s that?”
“Rumors that I knocked up an old flame in Dallas and moved away to shirk the responsibility of fatherhood might discourage the local women who have set their sights on snagging the last Crawford bachelor from Texas.”
“Are such rumors going around?” she asked, immediately concerned for his reputation.
“No,” he admitted. “But I haven’t given up hope yet.”
She shook her head despairingly. “Is it really such a trial to be sought after by a few young ladies in the community?”
“It is when ‘sought after’ becomes ‘hunted’—which is what happened when my father put a bounty on my head.”
“A bounty?” she echoed dubiously.
He nodded. “Max offered a ridiculous sum of money to a local matchmaker to find marriageable women for each of his sons.”
She couldn’t imagine that any of the Crawford brothers had ever needed help snagging a woman’s attention. Though she hadn’t yet met all of Wilder’s siblings, there were enough photos around the house to prove they were a good-looking group. In her opinion, Wilder was the most handsome of the bunch, but none of them was hard on the eyes. And according to Avery, each one was as charming as he was good looking.
But her curiosity was piqued by his revelation, prompting her to ask, “An honest-to-goodness matchmaker?”
“Well, technically she’s a wedding planner, but that didn’t stop her from embracing the challenge. And though she hasn’t had much success, every one of my brothers has gotten engaged or married since we moved to Rust Creek Falls.”
“How long ago did you move here?” she asked him.
“Six months.”
“You’re kidding.”
This time he shook his head. “Barely more than a month after a chance meeting at the matchmaker’s office, Logan married Sarah at the Ace in the Hole and became an instant daddy to baby Sophia. Then Xander fell in love with Lily, though she was originally identified as a prospective match for Knox.”
“Lily and Knox didn’t hit it off?” she guessed.
“They never had a chance to hit it off. Knox decided to be a no-show for the blind date Vivienne had arranged, so Xander went in his place and the rest, as they say, is history. Very recent history, in this case.”
“What happened next?” Beth wanted to know.
“Well, our dad was starting to feel pretty smug about two of his sons finding their matches in short order, so Knox married Gen to teach him a lesson about interfering in his life.”
“That seems like an extreme response,” she noted.
“And one with very unexpected consequences.”
She held her breath, waiting for the reveal.
“They fell in love,” he concluded.
“Unexpected but happy consequences,” she decided.
“Maybe. Depending on your point of view.”
“You don’t think they’re happy?”
“No, they are happy,” he confirmed. “I just don’t think falling in love is always a happy consequence.”
“Have you ever been in love?”
“I’m too steady on my feet to fall,” he told her, adding a cocky wink for good measure.
She rolled her eyes at that as she sipped her diet cola. “Okay, so that’s three of your brothers.”
He nodded before continuing his narrative. “Finn was the next—or maybe he was the first, because he’d actually hooked up with Avery in Dallas before we moved to Montana, but they only got married a couple months ago. Their second wedding—after they’d already eloped—w
as a big, splashy affair in Rustler’s Notch, Colorado. We convinced Hunter to bring a nanny along to help out with his daughter so he could have some grown-up fun, and now he’s engaged to the nanny.”
“But going back to Logan and Sarah, it all started with the visit to the matchmaker,” Beth pointed out. “So maybe she’s done a better job than you’re giving her credit for.”
And though it wasn’t something she’d ever considered before, it occurred to her now that enlisting a professional to help her find a life partner might not be such a bad idea. Because as much as she wanted to believe that her perfect match was out there waiting for her, she was twenty-eight years old and starting to doubt her ability to find him on her own.
“Or she’s secretly serving Homer Gilmore’s spiked wedding punch to her clients,” Wilder muttered.
“What?”
He waved a hand dismissively. “Never mind. That’s another long story.”
“So has this matchmaker turned her attention to finding a match for you now?”
“If she has, she’s destined for failure there,” he said. “Because I have no interest in being matched by her—and even less in being manipulated by my father.”
“Leighton always balked at being told what to do, too,” Beth noted. “Which is why I was so surprised to learn that she’d brought Cody to Montana, because from day one, I’d been urging her to contact his father.”
“Why do you think she decided to listen to you now?”
“I don’t know,” Beth admitted. “But I don’t doubt that she was doing what she thought was best for Cody.”
“Do you really think she’ll come back?” he asked, as Raina approached with their meals.
“I know she will,” Beth said, attempting to project more confidence in her voice than she actually felt. Because she wanted to believe it was true, though after five of days with no communication from her sister, she was beginning to have some doubts of her own.
Cody woke up when the server set their plates on the table, almost as if he expected there to be food for him, too. Instead, Beth gave him a pacifier to keep him busy—and quiet.
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