“Hello?”
“Congratulations,” a stern voice said. “It’s yours.”
Swinton.
When Bo smiled at Holly, she got the gist of the call, and she beamed, sending bolts of jubilation into him, too.
“You ran an energetic race, Arthur,” Bo said. He’d told himself that he wouldn’t mention Swinton’s mud-slinging. He’d act with the dignity Thunder Canyon needed.
“I’m about to make my concession speech, but before I step out there, I just have one thing to say.”
Bo let him have his moment.
Swinton’s voice lowered. “I’ll still be around, Clifton, and I’ll be keeping an eye on you.”
“Thank you, Arthur. Have a great night.”
Bo hung up, not dwelling on what Swinton might have meant. Was he talking about his marriage or his mayoral policies in general?
Not that it mattered, as Holly waited for him to say something.
Now that Swinton was off the phone, the news was sinking in, still partly a dream.
But Holly…She wasn’t a figment of his imagination.
Without stopping to think, Bo rushed to her, taking her in his arms, mindful of the baby, even while embracing her.
She was laughing wildly as he buried his face in her curls.
“We did it!” he said against her ear.
Holly’s laughter ended on a gasp, and it was as if they both just realized that their bodies were close, intimate in this moment of triumph.
He even thought he could feel her heart pounding, through the atmosphere, into him, just like that night they’d fallen into bed.
The night he’d replayed over and over again in his mind.
They drew back from each other, her curls falling away from the stubble on his cheek, a few still clinging to the five o’clock shadow. And, as they stared into one another’s eyes, he yearned to put his arms around her again, ask her to stay in his life, because he never wanted this to be over.
But that had to be the euphoria of the moment, right?
That’s all it was…
The announcement came over the radio, but it was only background as Bo and Holly stayed locked in the bubble of this victory. Of what they were to each other.
“It’s official,” the reporter said. “We just received news that Arthur Swinton has conceded. Bo Clifton is our new mayor by a landslide!”
When the door burst open, that bubble burst, and it was as if the surroundings popped, too, everything going back into fast motion, loud and insane.
Rose was cheering, and so were the volunteers who spilled into Bo’s office behind her. They hugged Holly and, in the chaos, they swept Bo farther and farther away from her, out the door, shoving his coat and hat at him as they pushed him into the cold night air until he got to the town square, where a bunch of townsfolk had gathered at a podium draped with red-white-and-blue.
Surreal, the people waiting for him out there, drowning out his thoughts with their voices, their yells of hope.
All the while, Bo looked for Holly.
Because nothing meant much without her to celebrate it with him.
Someone had turned on a microphone, and the glare of flashbulbs and news camera lights from stations in Bozeman and Billings, who’d decided that Bo’s “mythology” was noteworthy stuff, distracted him. He saw his friends at the front of the crowd: Grant and Steph, so proud of their cousin. The Cates brothers, along with Haley Anderson.
Bo was just focusing on Dillon and Erika when he saw Erika’s face light up even more as she spotted someone to her left.
Holly, and she was being escorted to his side by Rose.
His manager took Holly’s hand, giving his wife over to him, and…
It was almost as if Bo was taking Holly and the baby into his life again during a second wedding.
But he couldn’t think about that now. Everything was speeding by, leaving his lungs shallow.
Even as the cameras flashed and the crowd chanted—“Gold with Bo! Gold with Bo!”—Holly’s hand slowly slipped out of his, gone.
Just as she soon would be, now that the election was over.
Back at the house, after a night of celebrating in the campaign office, Holly slumped onto the sofa in the living room while Bo, as usual, headed for a separate room.
Even after tonight’s victory, he’d left her alone.
She pressed a hand over her eyes, hoping it would help to discourage tears of exhaustion, happiness…despair.
It’d been a long night, a long few weeks, and she was done, even before the inauguration.
And she didn’t just mean she was done with Bo’s political career, either. She couldn’t continue with this roller coaster—Bo looking like he really did love her one minute, then coming back here and turning into a stranger the next.
Did he even have any idea of what had passed between them yet again, after he’d won? The moment when he’d taken her in his arms, as if she was the only person he wanted to cheer with? The emotion that had been so obvious to her when she’d come to him at the podium, before he’d given a rousing acceptance speech to Thunder Canyon?
No, she was sure he didn’t have any clue, because he’d gotten what he wanted tonight, and it had very little to do with her.
Bo entered the living room, standing by the edge of the sofa, the mayor of Thunder Canyon in his boots, blue jeans and Western shirt. A man who still made her want to cry every time she even thought about him.
“Looks like you didn’t quite make it to your room,” he said.
“I wasn’t heading there just yet.” She was so tired that she wasn’t tired. But maybe that was because her soul wasn’t giving her any peace.
“Well,” he said, and his comment didn’t head anywhere else.
She looked up, and she could see the reaction she caused in him—that softening of his blue eyes. Then the way he seemed to fortify himself afterward.
He laughed, and it wasn’t a comfortable sound. “Married less than a month and here we are, already out of conversation.”
Just listen to that. Holly would’ve said that he had given up on their marriage a long time ago, but she knew that he’d never really started with it. To him, relationships didn’t exist but for a string of dates or an arranged union.
Done…I’m so…
She sighed, and it hurt.
…done.
“Bo, what conversation would we be having right now if you had lost the election?”
“I didn’t lose.”
He had no idea what was about to hit him. “Could you just be honest with me? I’m a big girl. I can take it.”
He gave her a look that was so filled with respect and—yes—adoration that a tiny burst of hope roared to life in her.
“I know you’re a big girl,” he said. “Rose keeps saying that, and I’ve known it for a while now.”
“And?”
He raised his hands halfway, as if showing her that they were empty. “Six months, Holly. That’s what we said.”
“You’re telling me that, if you had lost tonight, you still would’ve kept me around, even though I didn’t have any more use to you politically.”
“Right.” He said it as if he was pulling it out from his core, as if he couldn’t believe that she didn’t already know how he would answer. “I…”
Say it, Bo, she thought. All you have to do is say it.
But he didn’t.
Holly closed her eyes. When a tear leaked out—damn it—she wiped it away, hoping he hadn’t seen.
He got down to his knees next to her, whisking his fingertips along the damp trail that the tear had left.
His voice was thick. “I never meant to make you cry. I should’ve known I would.”
“Stop it.” She opened her eyes. “Stop being so gloom and doom about marriage. I know we didn’t get together for the right reasons, but just for future reference, has it ever occurred to you that you do more sabotaging than a marriage could ever do to itself? That you make
sure that you fail at it before it can fail you?”
“Yes, I’ve thought of that.”
She had to wait a moment for that to make sense to her. He knew? He just didn’t want to stop himself?
Oh, God, she and the baby meant less to him than she’d ever thought. She’d been imagining everything. He’d only decided to be nice to her, to let her down easily after he’d seen that she was taking this marriage too seriously—she’d been right about that.
In her mind’s eye, she saw Alan walking out the door again. She’d imagined that he’d been attached to her, and she’d dumbly repeated the mistake with Bo. And it was so much more agonizing now.
“I see,” she said, wishing she could just disappear off the face of the earth.
“The last thing I ever wanted to do was be another Alan for you, Holly.”
“You’re not.” Couldn’t he see that? She hadn’t loved Alan as she loved Bo, and she didn’t think she could ever feel this way about anyone again.
“I just thought there’d be no complications in our arrangements,” he said, “no…”
She wanted to hear him say it. “What?”
When he didn’t speak, she rallied. If she was imagining what Bo felt for her and the baby, she wanted irrefutable proof. She would let go if she had it.
Only then.
“You didn’t think there’d be any love between us?” she said.
He started to stand, but she reached out and pulled him back down.
“I’m putting my heart on the line here, Bo. At least do me the favor of telling me yes or no.”
“And what good would it do?”
The tears were rushing her again, but Holly couldn’t hold them back. “You can’t even say that there’s hope for something with us?”
His shoulders slumped, and with a pain in his gaze that she couldn’t reach, he rested both hands on her belly.
“Isn’t it enough,” he said, “to tell you that even after six months is up, you can stay here as long as you want? That I’ve grown to like having you and Hopper around and that you’ll always have a home here?”
The flicker of hope in her burned a little higher now. He was getting closer to admitting what she knew was in him.
As Bo kept his hands on her belly, she bent to him, resting her lips on the top of his head. His thick hair felt so silky, and she slid her fingers through it, easing her other arm around his back until his face was nestled against her neck. The skin there tingled, sending a wash of sparks through her.
If she kissed him, would he see more clearly?
If she showed him how much love she could give him…?
Holly pressed her lips against his head, then his temple, his cheek.
“I don’t want to go anywhere after this deal has been played out,” she whispered. “But I need a reason to stay.”
Then she kissed his lips, and just like that first night, when they’d loved each other, he responded.
Soft. She’d never known a man could have such soft lips.
She reclined on the sofa, taking him with her, kissing him with such agonizing slowness that she didn’t think she would survive past this moment.
“Be my husband,” she said, leading one of his hands to the buttons on her suit. “Tell me that you want us to stay because of a better reason than you just like having us around.”
His hand splayed over her breast, and she gasped, his mere touch enough to send spikes of passion through her.
He lowered his head, as if fighting himself. “I don’t make promises like that. You don’t want me to, because you’ll find yourself sorely disappointed in the end.”
“You won’t disappoint. I believe that, Bo, just as much as I believed in your becoming mayor.”
She undid one of the large buttons on her top, another. Then she unsnapped the front hook of her bra, guiding his hand inside. As soon as his flesh met hers, she winced in pure pleasure.
His fingers skimmed her nipple, and she bit her lip as a buzz started to hum between her legs.
She wanted a real honeymoon with him.
If she had a reason to stay.
If he would just say it.
“Tell me,” she said. “Tell me there’s hope.”
He paused, and silently, she urged him on.
But when he withdrew his hand from inside her top, taking care to close it before he leaned away from her, she remembered how it had felt when she had sat in the middle of the room, pregnant and afraid, hours after Alan had gone.
The same rejection, all over again.
The same failure that she’d been so afraid to admit to.
But she had to now, because she’d lost again, and it was more than she could stand. Even in her giddiest moments with Alan, she’d never felt like this—as if every second of her life was enhanced when Bo was around, as if he was the first and last person she wanted to see when the day started and ended.
If a heart could actually break, Holly’s was doing it.
Slowly, mustering all the dignity she could manage, she buttoned her top, then took off the ring he had given her.
When she held it out to him, Bo sat back on his heels. “Don’t do this, Holly.”
She leaned forward and dropped the ring into the opening of his shirt pocket, her body shaking with the emotion she had to hold in, because she wouldn’t let him see her sob.
Her back had started aching, but she hadn’t noticed when it’d started. Maybe it was the stress, but she didn’t let that stop her from what she had to do.
“Now that you’re the mayor, I’m going to leave,” she said. “I promised I’d stay until spring, but I can’t take this anymore.” A near sob pushed her next comment out. “I just love you too much to be around you, Bo.”
As her statement reverberated through him, he stood, watching as the tears gathered in her eyes again.
Those big blue eyes that comforted him, that invited him to go places he’d never thought possible before.
Love. She loved him.
And she was leaving.
If Bo could just tell her what she wanted to hear, she would improve him. It should be that easy, but years and years of seeing how good intentions got warped during marriage had left their mark, and Bo had never made a promise he couldn’t deliver.
Yet she was leaving, and the reality of it just kept blasting away at him.
“Don’t go,” he finally said, but it hadn’t come out in the persuasive way he’d intended.
Couldn’t he just say that he’d begun to feel for her, too?
Holly was holding her hand to the small of her back, and he stepped toward her. Panic—the same as he’d experienced before when he thought the baby was in danger—mauled him.
“You’ve got another back pain.”
“I’ll be fine once I get out of here.”
Stubborn. Damn, she was bullheaded.
But he could sure as hell be, too.
Without preamble, he bent down, scooped her into his arms, then carried her to her bedroom.
“What’re you doing?” she asked, her voice tight.
“Putting you on your bed. Locking you in. Making sure you don’t go anywhere and that you rest for now. Then I’m calling the doctor about these backaches.”
“Don’t worry about it,” she said, repeating what he’d told her over and over this past month.
But he did worry. So much, too much.
He didn’t say anything until he got to her bedroom and laid her on the mattress. Right away, his feisty wife sat up, getting off the bed and going for the closet, her hand still on her back. She pulled out a suitcase.
Damn it.
“Holly,” he said.
“I’ve heard all I need to from you.”
“What about the baby?”
That froze her surely enough. She sent him a furious look. “Are you reminding me that I’m shortchanging my child by leaving you?”
Bo took a big breath, then let it out. “I’m telling you that it’s not an
act when I touch your stomach. I picture Hopper in there, and…”
The line. Here it was, and he straddled it. It had to be enough to keep her here.
Wouldn’t it be?
“…it’s as if he or she is my very own child,” he finished. “I’d be proud to have your child known as my son or daughter. I’ve already come to love the little bugger.”
Holly hesitated over her open suitcase. Then she whispered, “I’ve noticed your affection…for the baby.”
But he couldn’t say the rest, committing himself to Holly, not just the baby. He couldn’t forget about the day he’d realized, even when he was about ten, that his mom and dad didn’t act like other married people. That they seemed to regret being with each other, though they’d validated that notion only years later, long after Bo had left the roost.
When he didn’t continue, Holly’s shoulders hunched. Her sadness broke him down.
He went to her, but she held up a hand.
Before she could tell him to stay away, she sucked in a breath, holding her stomach.
“Holly?”
She sank to her knees at the bedside, grasping the mattress. “I think I…”
“What?”
“Contraction…”
He didn’t get it at first. Then the terror came.
Too early… She was only eight months along…
Panic consumed Bo, and he took her into his arms again, carrying her out of her room, his heartbeat ramming his chest as she grabbed his shirt, fear filling her gaze.
He couldn’t imagine a world without Hopper…without them both.
Dear God, he’d given her a hard time, and look what he’d done…
“It’ll be okay,” Bo said as he brought her to the SUV, sounding so put together, even though all he wanted to do was run with her to the truck then slam down on the gas pedal, burning rubber.
But the last thing she needed was a hysterical husband.
He got his wife to the hospital just after the next contraction hit.
Chapter Twelve
Hat clenched in his hand, Bo must’ve paced the tile in the empty Thunder Canyon General Hospital waiting room a thousand times over, but he wasn’t keeping count.
When the Cowboy said “I Do” Page 16
