by Leslie North
"I'm pregnant," she said.
"I can see that."
"I can see that you can see that." This wasn't turning out at all like she had planned. Lena's eyes narrowed as she fought to focus. Her day was in complete upheaval, but that didn't mean she couldn't take control of this moment. God knew she hadn't been in control the last time Maxwell Cooper laid his hands on her. "The baby is yours, Maxwell."
The hands on her shoulders tightened protectively. If he felt any surprise now, it didn't register on his face. He watched her from beneath the unkempt thicket of dark hair. Hesitantly, then with renewed conviction, Lena reached forward to brush some of it back behinds his ears. She wanted a clear view of his expression as she continued. "I was going to tell you once I got out of the first trimester."
Even with a full view of his face, she couldn't tell if he bought the lie. She had never planned on telling Maxwell about the pregnancy. Hell, she had never planned on running into him again. She knew how the family curse always unfolded: the women got pregnant, and the men who were half responsible for making the child always took off. She had resigned herself to her fate as soon as the test came up positive. And maybe a desperate part of her still wanted to believe Maxwell wasn't like all the rest. Better to keep her romantic ideas of him intact and accept her new reality without ever having to feel the real sting of rejection.
"You're in your second trimester now?" he asked.
"Yes." She grinned weakly. "Surprise." The word came out as more of a croak. God, she was really earning that piece of pie tonight.
"Where have you been all this time? Why didn't you…?" He broke off and stared at her with the same bewildered expression.
"That's not all." Lena forged ahead. "That tip I gave you about the Arab princes coming to town? That wasn't intended for you. I was supposed to pass it along to my employer, Dan Henderson. But then I—"
"I interfered with you," Maxwell guessed. "I'm sorry, Lena."
Lena tried for another hopeless laugh, and shook her head. "Interfered isn't the word I would use, but yes. You came along, and I…made more than one mistake that night."
She kicked herself the next instant for calling sex with Maxwell a mistake. Even after five months of chaos, she had never thought of their night together as anything but earthshaking. He had been her first, after all. Since then, he had been almost all she could think about. The events of today had been giving his starring role on the stage of her brain a run for its money until the man himself decided to show up.
Maxwell kept his thoughts to himself on the subject of their night together. His palms slid down the outsides of her shoulders. He was rubbing her, as if she were one of his skittish horses that required comforting. "You don't need to worry about a thing, Lena. I'll take care of you from here. Just don't disappear on me again."
"I won't." Looking into his eyes, she could scarcely remember how to breathe. This was what it was like, then, to have a knight in shining armor ride to your rescue. Lena had always figured herself for the type of woman who would save herself when push came to shove, but she wouldn't deny how amazing it felt to let his reassurances soothe her. At least one of them seemed to have a plan.
Maxwell wrapped his arm around her as they left the tack room. The smell of polished saddles and soft leather bridles was a comfort, but his arm was even more so. Lena leaned into him before spotting the collection of women watching them from the other end of the stable. She froze. The crowd was small, but each and everyone one of them must have seen them duck together into the privacy of the tack room. And Maxwell was shirtless.
Her companion also froze beneath their stares. "Does everyone know?" he whispered in exasperation.
Lena shook her head. "No. I haven't told anyone else." She had been too embarrassed already with word of her bungled tip getting out. She had kept her lips tightly sealed against giving any indication that Maxwell was also the father of her child.
"Not that. The damn article."
Lena giggled. "You think they read Reins? Boy you’re bad at reading people. You're being objectified," she explained. "They're not staring at you, Maxwell. They're staring at your six-pack." Lena couldn't say she blamed them. She had never seen a more…stimulating group of muscles.
Maxwell glanced down, and his hair hung into his eyes. Tarzan, was Lena's absurd thought. Without a real haircut, and wearing only an expression of self-reflective confusion, Maxwell might have easily been mistaken for a sexy wild man fresh off a life-long primal excursion in the woods. She trembled all over to think what such a man might do to the next woman to draw his notice…
Damn appetites, Lena thought again as she looked away. Two pieces of pie it is.
3
MAXWELL
Not even a week later, and they were arguing on Lena's mother's doorstep.
"I'll just go and get you another medicine!" Maxwell exclaimed. A part of him was having a hard time wrapping his head around their current situation. He stood on Lena's porch like a jilted lover begging to be taken back (which in a way, he realized, he was). Behind him and staked into the law, the “SOLD” sign waved in the breeze. Lena's mother was well underway in the process of moving to Florida, and Lena herself was apartment hunting. As if she didn't already have enough on her plate, what with the baby and losing her job…
Lena stood on the other side of the threshold, doing her best to fill the doorframe and failing. Maxwell didn't care if she was carrying twins (oh God), the woman was still too lissome to really throw her weight around. He gazed past her shoulder into the living room with an unconcealed look of longing. What he wouldn't give to be inside having this conversation like two sane adults…
"I don't want another medicine!" Lena protested. "And anyway, you already drove four hours to get this one! It was a wasted trip."
"Well…I'm a billionaire." Maxwell shrugged. He didn't understand why Lena should be concerned about his gas. If it was his time she was worried about monopolizing, then he obviously needed to try harder to prove to her the lengths he was willing to go.
"Ugh. Don't remind me." Lena pressed a hand to her forehead. For a moment, Maxwell thought she was going to be sick again. The nausea that accompanied her pregnancy had been getting worse these past few days—hence all his research to find her a cure and all that driving to bring it to her. "As if you weren't already the absolute perfect man."
"Huh?" He wasn't sure he heard her right. He felt far from perfect in that moment.
Lena's face reddened. "Nothing. You may be perfect, but the remedy you bought isn't. If anything, it made me sicker."
"I already told you I'll go back and get—"
"I don't want medicine, Maxwell!" Lena exclaimed. "I'm doing fine mitigating all this on my own!"
"You said you weren't feeling well!" he shouted back. He didn't know why he was shouting. He wasn't particularly angry, just frustrated that he couldn't wrap his head around whatever it was bothering Lena. "So I did the research and found the solution!"
"I wasn't feeling well because of all the cookies I ate!" Lena exploded. "There: I said it! I've confessed!" She waved the box of anti-nausea medication. "Nothing you do can help me, because I did this to myself! I've been baking nonstop because you are driving me crazy with the helicopter cowboy routine! I need space, Maxwell, and so does the baby!"
"You've had five months of space!" Maxwell protested, and realized too late that he sounded like an insensitive idiot.
Lena growled and threw up her hands. The medication hit the deck and bounced beneath the porch swing. "I don't have time to pack my things, job hunt, grow a human, and deal with this right now!"
She turned.
"Where are you going?" Maxwell demanded. She left the door wide open as she stormed off.
"To preheat the oven! I'm baking a cake!" Lena shouted. "And I'm probably going to make myself sick eating it!"
This is ridiculous, Maxwell thought. He supposed it was a bit too late to diagnose their argument as absurd. He debated
going after her. He poked the toe of his cowboy boot through the doorway, then quickly retracted it when a pair of fuzzy slippers appeared. It was Lena's grandmother. The elderly woman was holding her ears as if someone had boxed them.
"What's all this commotion about?" she rasped. "The two of you woke me up early from my nap!"
"Sorry, ma'am." Maxwell backed off another step sheepishly. He rotated his hat around and around in his hands, worrying the wide brim until one of the stitches unraveled. "It's Lena. I'm trying to do my best by her, but—"
Grandma Fudge sighed and motioned for him to join her on the porch swing. Maxwell did, politely holding the swinging chair for her so she could situate herself first. When she patted the spot beside her, he sat. He was a big, corn-fed cowboy, too big for the swing, but he supposed one more absurdity was appropriate to top off the afternoon.
"See here." Lena's grandmother laid a gnarled hand on his knee. "The role of a man, in pregnancy and in life, is to support his woman. That means listening to her, helping when asked, and talking to her like a partner."
"I'm doing all those things," he said.
Grandma Fudge shook her head. "You have to ask Lena what she wants. You can't just assume. That's when it stops being a collaboration, see?"
"I'm reading all the books," he couldn't stop himself from adding. He wanted Lena's grandmother to know about the effort he was putting in. "I know it'd be easy to just ask Lena, but I'm trying to anticipate. And I promise you I'm going to get better at it. I'm going to take care of her and our child. I'm not going to walk out on her."
Grandma Fudge sighed and shook her head. "I'm not worried about you walking out on Lena—I'm worried about you caving in the door to get to her. You're holding her too tight. If you keep reining her in, then Lena may very well be the one who bolts."
"No." An idea was suddenly taking shape in his brain. He laid his hand on Grandma Fudge's to let her know it wasn't an outright denial of her words, but his thoughts were already racing a mile a minute as his plan started to form. "Lena won't walk away. Because I'm going to give her the one thing she wants more than anything."
"Oh?" Grandma Fudge raised a finely penciled, and wholly unconvinced, eyebrow. "And what is it that you think she needs this time?"
"A job," Maxwell said with certainty. "I'm going to get Lena a job."
4
LENA
In ranchland Montana, Cooper Ranch had always stood out like a jewel to Lena. She had never come onto the property itself before, but she had driven by it enough times to understand that it was something special. It wasn't just that it carried the name of the Cooper family dynasty, and that it was tied to the Country Coop retail empire. The sun just always seemed to shine on Maxwell's property. As Lena let herself through the gate, she stopped a moment to breathe the sweet summer air. She smelled fresh-cut grass and horse manure, wildflowers, and the fragrant clematis beside the family ranch house. With a baby on the way, it sometimes felt like her sense of smell had honed itself into a superpower.
"Lena!"
Lena turned, and smiled when she saw Maxwell jogging up the path from the barn. "Maxwell!" She waved as he joined her. "I parked back on the road. I thought a walk would be nice. I hope I didn't keep you waiting."
"Didn't keep me waiting at all." His eyebrows drew together in concern at her use of the word “walk,” but whatever his worries were, he kept them to himself. He removed his black Stetson, and Lena's heart raced as more of his handsome face came into view. Did he intend to kiss her? Did she want to kiss him?
Of course she did. No matter how crazy he drove her with his obnoxious overattentiveness, the memory of his lips burning a trail across her virgin skin was too hot to dismiss. She stared at his mouth now and parted her lips. She racked her brain for another signal to give off, but before she could come up with something, Maxwell glanced away and toed a rock with his boot. Damn. There went her hormones again. Maybe she had only imagined the desire darkening his eyes.
"What did you want to show me?" she asked in an attempt to recover the moment.
"I thought I'd give you a tour of the barn." Maxwell nodded over his shoulder.
"I would love that."
She suspected there was more to it than that but held her tongue. It was no secret that with her mom moving to Florida, Lena was going to have to find her own place. The contemplative look that had crossed his face when she told him as much made her wonder if an offer was incoming. If Maxwell invited her to live with him, would she accept? She thought it would be easier on them both if he found her a place on the property other than the main house, but maybe that was hoping for too much. I need to quit getting ahead of myself, Lena chided herself.
"How's the job hunt going?" he asked her as they started back for the barn.
She shook her head and sighed. "Horribly. No one wants to hire a pregnant single mother in this economy…or any economy, I suppose."
They made small talk as they strolled, punctuated by Maxwell pointing out various points of interest within the barn. Lena had been inside her fair share since becoming a broker for the horse trade, and she was impressed with how well-ordered he kept the operation. He introduced her to Dennis and Tick, his senior stable hands, and a few of the quarab horses that poked their adorable wedge-shaped faces out the stall doors to peer at her. Lena paused to stroke one horse’s satin-soft nose. She knew quarabs, a cross between Arabian, quarter, and paint horses, could vary widely, but this one had to be the flashiest—and most expensive—specimen in the herd.
Maxwell led her into the office. He pulled a chair out for her, and Lena sat gratefully. She tried not to let it show too obviously on her face that she was glad to be off her feet for a minute. She was barely halfway through her pregnancy, and going on a tour of the barns with him shouldn't really exhaust her yet. Maybe she was just crashing from the sugar rush she had given herself that morning with her fresh-baked scones.
"Thank you," she said of his chivalrous gesture.
He didn't join her in sitting down. He slid a stapled document from the other side of the desk over to her, then he turned away to pace. Lena crooked an eyebrow. "What's this?"
"Look it over," Maxwell advised. "It outlines all the details of the job I want to hire you for."
"Hire me?" Lena blinked. She could scarcely believe what she was hearing. "Are you serious?"
"Dead serious." Maxwell stopped pacing and turned to look at her. "The neighboring barn is hosting its yearly sale, and there's a horse ranch about a half hour out that will be organizing something similar before the end of the month. Those events bring in a ton of buyers."
"Like the Arab princes." Lena rotated the contract beneath her fingers. "But help me understand, Maxwell. How do I factor into that?"
"I want to take advantage of the prospective clientele coming in. These are people I might never normally get a crack at." Maxwell yanked his work gloves off and cracked his knuckles like he was preparing for a fight. "You know the routine—a pre-sale day for VIP buyers, along with a regular sale day, plus a demonstration day or two so the sellers can show off their horses."
"Are you going to include your stock or pleasure horses?" Lena prompted. Maxwell's excitement was infectious.
His eyes glimmered. "Both. Maybe next year I’ll get in on the mustang makeover event, but this year, I’m all about selling horses."
Lena clapped her hands together and grinned. She was a huge fan of the mustang showcase. The trainers, skilled beyond belief, worked magic with their horses, and the formerly wild mustangs available for adoption were absolutely majestic to behold.
"It's going to be a lot of work," Maxwell said. "I could really use someone like you."
Lena's cheeks warmed. "Someone like me?"
Maxwell scratched the back of his head. "I'm not much of a talker. You have a gift for starting conversations with people. Everyone knows it."
His gaze was nothing short of admiring, but Lena was less certain that her hallmark trait as a t
alker was a blessing. It felt more like a handicap recently.
Lena hated the thought of taking advantage of anyone's charity, especially Maxwell's. She didn't want him extending her a helping hand because he felt responsible or—worse—sorry for her. He may be a knight in shining armor, but she was determined to avoid becoming the damsel in distress.
But she could entertain a real job offer.
"I must admit this sounds wonderful," she said as she pulled the contract closer to her. "And just skimming over the language of the agreement, it looks like I'll be responsible for helping out with all the same chores as everybody else. I can work with that."
"I don't want you around the horses," Maxwell said.
Lena pointed out a paragraph to him, but his eyes didn't leave her face. "This line clearly states that all employees are expected to lend a hand in the barns."
"I'll change the language."
"I don't want to be an exception," she emphasized.
"You are an exception!" he exclaimed. "Lena, how can you not see that?"
His words stunned her and made her heart pull off a gymnastics routine she hadn't been aware it was training for. Still, she couldn't read too much into what it meant to be exceptional to Maxwell. She was carrying his baby; of course he wanted to make matters easy for her. But she couldn't proudly look herself in the mirror every morning if she accepted his charity.
"If you really value what I can bring as an employee," she replied, "then what I want shouldn't be a problem. I'll only take the job if you keep the demands of the stable work in the contract. I don't want any special treatment. I want to earn what I earn. I want the same contract as anyone else."
Maxwell stared helplessly. Lena watched as he peeled his gloves off and snapped them against his thigh methodically, as if keeping time to a song only he could hear. She didn't know the man as well as she should, considering he was the father of her child, but she knew what that little habit of his meant. He was debating, or frustrated, or both. How badly did he really want this?
