The Cowboy Claims His Lady

by Meagan Mckinney

  “A check?”

  “You know darn well what that check’s for—your MDR Corporation.”

  “Oh, that.” Hazel acted as if she was trying to remember a two-dollar debt. “Well, don’t bother yourself right now with that. I called to tell you that I want you to come up for the weekend. Just for us gals. The trees are changing color—you’ve never seen Mystery so beautiful.”

  Lyndie smiled into the receiver. “You know I wish I could, but I’ve got to get this loan paid off—and to tell you the truth, there’s a certain man I don’t want to see right now. I just couldn’t take it.”

  “He’s been such a nasty ill-tempered hermit in this valley, some woman either needs to shoot him or marry him.”

  “He’s had plenty of chances,” Lyndie replied, her heart twisting.

  “The man had never quite grieved. When he rescued you, it took the choke-hold of guilt from him, and he was lost, not knowing where to go.”

  “I’ll tell him where to go,” Lyndie offered.

  Hazel chuckled. “There are enough riled-up fillies here to do that, darling. But what I was saying is that he went back to his hibernating old ways as if to find himself. I was hoping—”

  “I don’t want to get involved. Sorry, Hazel. I love you dearly, but my heart and my body can only take so much before they’re all scarred over and untouchable.”

  “Just for a quick weekend. We can do a little business—straighten out that loan—”

  “Half’s coming to you overnight.”

  “No! Darling, you’re the most pigheaded McCallum I’ve ever known. Land sakes, you’re worse than me! It’s going to take a strong hand to tame you. Now listen, you can bring the payment up here if you like—”

  Lyndie couldn’t hide her sigh. “I can’t, Hazel. Truly. If it was just the money, I might, but in truth, I haven’t been feeling so well this week. I just couldn’t fly right now.”

  “Oh.” Hazel seemed undone, as if this was something she hadn’t planned on.

  “So, how ’bout I send that check?” Lyndie wanted to get back to the subject of business about which she was comfortable, and leave the subject of Bruce Everett far away.

  “Don’t send anything. I may just have to come down there for a visit, instead. Love you, darling. I’ll call you when I know my plans.”

  Hazel’s quick goodbye was puzzling, but Lyndie couldn’t ponder it because the phone on her desk rang again.

  She picked up the receiver.

  “Hi, Dr. Feldman. This is Lyndie.”

  Lyndie’s pleasant greet-the-public smile slowly died on her face. The sting in her eyes could only mean the onset of tears.

  “Well, thanks for c-calling—” she stammered. “I-I’m sure after the disbelief wears off I’ll be thrilled.”

  She placed the phone back on the receiver. Shocked, she found herself staring out from her office into the shop. Through the half-open door, her image stared back in the shop mirror, and with a hurt that was like a knife through her heart, she realized how the frilly lingerie that surrounded her was all wrong for the moment—or cruelly right. She didn’t need black lace garters and pink padded bras. No, mothers-to-be needed nursery rhymes and cashmere booties.

  The realization hit like a hurricane, devastating her, laying her emotionally flat. She was going to have a baby. There was no doubt. And also of no doubt, it was Bruce’s baby.

  The thought sent hot tears streaming down her face with no end to their supply. Now, no matter how painful, no matter how she prayed for closure, Bruce Everett was destined never to be gone from her life. Unlike Mitch who she’d been able to excise with an accountant and a lawyer, Bruce and her love for him was to remain, in the face of her baby, forever.

  Lyndie put her face in her hands and sobbed. The call from the doctor had utterly broadsided her. She figured she had a flu or a gastrointestinal infection, but her nausea was from morning sickness.

  She was pregnant.

  Slowly, she dropped her head on the pile of papers on her desk. She recalled time and time again how they’d made love with no protection. Now, she was paying the consequences for her impetuousness. She’d never pictured herself a single mother, but that was what she was going to be if Bruce chose not to participate in the rearing of their child.

  The next step was to go to Montana. She would have to see him. Even she wasn’t so cold as to tell him over the phone.

  But she didn’t know how she could bear seeing him. Weeks had passed since she’d seen or heard from him. He might have a steady girlfriend by now—someone who was the salt of the earth, a real Montana cowgirl who was perfect for him.

  Now Lyndie and her news was going to throw a wrench in his life. But she would have to prepare herself for all the terrible possibilities, even though all of them bit into her heart hard.

  “Honey, you okay?” asked Vera, her shopkeeper, when she came to the back to look for stock.

  Lyndie raised her head. She wiped her tear-soaked cheeks. She didn’t know how she was going to manage, but she knew she wanted this baby, wanted it like she wanted the father, and if she only got one of them, she was going to cherish him or her as no other.

  “I’m fine, Vera. Fine. But look, I just found out I’ve got to go out of town. Do you think you can manage the shop while I’m gone?” She sniffed and patted her red eyes dry.

  “I’ve been doing it fine for years. I’ll manage. Maybe you need another vacation, huh?” Vera studied her, obviously not buying her story at all. “That last one took more out of you than it put back from the way you looked coming off that plane.”

  Lyndie stood at the door and took a good long look at her shop.

  Several customers were inspecting the rows of silk bras that had just come in for autumn in rich spice colors. A peignoir of palest ivory hung in the window, its sheer silk chiffon something that would add confection to a woman, not coverage.

  “Can you get the peignoir out of the window for me, Vera. I’m going to take it with me. Put the flannels there, instead—you know, the black ones with the pink poodles. That’ll be fun for a fall display.”

  “Sure. Right away.” Vera gave her a strange look.

  Lyndie had never taken anything from the shop but what was serviceable, but things were different now. She was different now. She was going to be a mother and she had the fight of her life yet to come. Her broken heart aside, she had to tell Bruce the aching truth. The rest would just be holding her breath. If they could work things out, she would be forever grateful. But if not, well, she would go down fighting—for herself, her baby and for the man she loved.

  So, she was heading back to Montana.

  Twelve

  The next day, still tired and nibbling crackers, Lyndie checked the new shop she’d just opened in the Garden District.

  Her plane ticket was purchased for a night flight to Denver. There she would stay overnight, then fly to Mystery in the morning. She just had to call Hazel with the unexpected news that she was coming up, after all.

  But still, she hadn’t picked up the phone. She couldn’t bear the questions. Particularly those best answered face-to-face.

  From the large glass window in front of the shop, she watched the live oaks scatter what few leaves they would lose in the fall. A breeze whisked away the last of the hot, sticky weather.

  Her thoughts drifted north. She wondered what Mystery Valley looked like in a mantle of autumn, a chill to the air that whispered of snow and snuggling by the fireplace.

  “So, how long you gonna be gone this time? Man, I should be the boss,” Annie lamented, having just been promoted to the managerial position of the new store.

  “Oh, it’s hell being the boss. Truly.” Lyndie gave her a wry smile. “You think I take a lot of vacation time, but the fact is, I’m never on vacation. I’m working all the time, in my head, and it’s awful.”

  “So you say,” Annie retorted good-naturedly.

  Lyndie laughed. She was grateful for her loyal employees like An
nie. Those that had been there for over five years were jewels, and she was bound and determined to treat them as such.

  Besides, she was now looking out for two, and suddenly everything meant a lot to her.

  “I just have to go over a few of the orders, then I’ll cab it to the airport. I hope only to be gone a couple of days.” She rubbed her flat belly almost subconsciously.

  “Let me know if you need anything.” Annie went to greet a woman who had just entered the shop.

  Lyndie wasn’t in the back room for more than fifteen minutes when Annie came sauntering in.

  “We’ve had a lot of men looking for gifts at Milady, but I swear, none of them can hold a candle to the handsome creature who just came in.”

  “Good. Make him flirt with you, then he’ll spend even more money, just to relieve the guilt of flirting with the shop girl.” Lyndie gave a diabolical chuckle.

  “He wants to see a bra and panty set in palomino. You ever heard of that color? I didn’t want to look dense.”

  Lyndie stared at her. The word palomino made her think of Girlie. She wondered how the mare was getting on these days.

  “Palomino is kind of a beigy-blond color.” Lyndie furrowed her brow. “You know, I think we have a set in that color in the New York shipment. I’ll bring them out for the display before I leave.”

  “Thanks.” Annie raised her eyebrows. “Let me get back. I don’t want him to leave without my phone number.”

  Lyndie shook her head, then she went into the storeroom to look for the box.

  She found the set she was looking for. Taking an armful, she walked into the shop and placed the stack on the Victorian display case.

  “I think this is pretty close to the color of a palomino. What size does your girlfriend wear?” Lyndie asked the man whose back was to her, as he looked at a silk camisole Annie held out in her hands.

  He turned.

  Lyndie’s heart stopped.

  She should have recognized the black cowboy hat, but in the South, sometimes men wore hats just like it.

  Then again, she should have noticed the broad back, the tall stature. She should have known it was Bruce Everett just by the scent and the crackle of sexual tension in the air.

  “Hello.” Lyndie put down the bra and panty set she was about to hang up.

  “Hello, Lyndie,” Bruce said, his gaze strangely warm.

  Annie’s eyes popped out of her sockets.

  When she realized Lyndie knew the hunk, she made a quick excuse to check the storeroom and left them alone.

  “What brings you all the way down here?” Lyndie asked, caution in her voice.

  “You. I came to see you. To tell you—” He hesitated. His expression became taut.

  She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed his hard, inscrutable face until now.

  “To tell me what?” she asked solemnly.

  “To tell you how good it feels to be released from Katherine. To tell you how great it feels to wipe the slate clean and be free. It took saving you on that mountain to make the ghosts disappear.”

  His words strangely disappointed her.

  “You could have written me a note. You didn’t have to fly all the way down here,” she admonished. “After all, you could have saved anyone up there on the mountain, it didn’t have to be me.”

  “But it was you.”

  She glanced around the shop, trying to retain her detached attitude. “How did you know where my shop was?” she ventured.

  “Hazel told me.”

  She nodded. “So that’s why she called yesterday. On your behalf.”

  He released a dismissive grunt. “I haven’t seen Hazel since the Mystery Dude Ranch closed for the season. In fact, I only just talked to her this morning over the phone.”

  His words didn’t quite make sense to her, but she was through with making sense out of love.

  “Strange. I was leaving to see Hazel this afternoon. She called and insisted I come up there for a few days. I figured it was on your account.”

  “I can take care of my own business—just like you told me you could take care of yours, remember?”

  She didn’t reply. The tilt of her eyebrow was her only response.

  He seemed thoroughly annoyed.

  “What I came to say is that I’m sorry things got so out of hand,” he began. “I didn’t realize how crippled I was inside over Katherine until you came along. It was my responsibility to take you to the airport, and I found I just couldn’t. After that time on the mountain, there was nothing left in me. I just had to sort it all out.”

  The wound inside her ripped open. He was saying he didn’t love her, and for some strange reason, he felt the need to tell her personally.

  The timing couldn’t have been more cruel.

  “Again,” she stated, “you could have put this in a letter. You needn’t have felt the obligation to come all the way here to tell me this personally.”

  “I wanted you to know.”

  It was her turn to grow annoyed. “Well, consider the message sent. I never once felt you shirked your duties. Hazel would have driven me to the airport whether you were around or not, so no problem.” She studied him, still puzzled over his appearance at her shop.

  His frustration seemed to grow. “What I want to say is, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I got you all involved with me and Katherine. I’m sorry for—well, for everything.”

  It seemed too horrible to have to suffer the same rejection over and over again, but somehow, that was what had come to pass. He was sorry he’d gotten involved with her, sorry he’d made love to her, sorry he’d dangled her along while he wrangled with Katherine’s ghost.

  She wanted to laugh and cry at the same time.

  Certainly, the time to tell him about their child had now come and gone. He was making it brutally obvious he didn’t want her, so there was no need to mention a child and throw a noose around his neck.

  A marriage to a man she loved when there was no love in return was beyond her worse nightmare.

  “Well, I’m glad you got that off your chest. And believe me, I don’t lay in bed pining for you. I chalk up our time together as a lust thing, and that’s all.”

  She swore she saw hurt on his face, but she didn’t dare hope. The pain inside her was too raw and exposed at this point to ask anymore questions she didn’t want to have answered.

  The coldness in his eyes returned. His jaw tightened. “I’m glad it hasn’t inconvenienced you.”

  Staring at him, she could barely get out the words. “I’m fine. Really. Only, I have a plane to catch. Hazel awaits.”

  He stepped aside to let her pass. She grabbed her overnight roll-aboard and her briefcase with her laptop. After saying farewell to Annie, she left to catch her waiting cab.

  He watched until she was out of sight.

  She slumped down in the cab, everything inside her crushed at the goodbye. Everything except her feelings for Bruce’s child.

  If she couldn’t have love, then she vowed to make do with love’s child.

  Instead of calling Hazel, Lyndie decided to rent a car and surprise her, if that was possible given her grim mood.

  She pulled the white sedan through the gates of the Lazy M around five in the evening the following day. Hazel’s Caddy was right in front of the house, in the circular drive.

  At least she’s home, Lyndie thought, parking the rental behind Hazel’s car.

  “Land sakes, are my eyes deceiving me?” Ebby exclaimed when she opened the door.

  Hazel looked up from the papers at her desk in the library. Lyndie spied her through the walnut pocket doors, her leopard reading glasses perched on her nose.

  “The devil?” Hazel rose and went to Lyndie.

  They hugged. And Lyndie could see the concern on Hazel’s face. She might fool Bruce, but there was no lying to the cattle baroness.

  “So, what is it?” she asked.

  Lyndie broke from her, shaking her head. “I kind of needed a break. I’ll
tell you when things quiet down a bit. You mind if I go to my room and rest for a while?”

  Hazel seemed to understand. She told Ebby to send a tray to the guest room, then went with Lyndie to settle her in.

  Unpacking her case, she finally was able to say, “Bruce came down to see me in New Orleans. In fact, I was on my way out the door to the airport when he stopped by the shop. I suppose he must have had a cowboy convention to go to down there, because what he had to say to me wasn’t worth the trip.”

  “What did he say?” Hazel asked, as usual getting right to the point.

  “He thanked me for helping him get over Katherine.” Lyndie shrugged. She was amazed at how hard and cold she was becoming inside. She didn’t feel like crying at all now; her tears had all frozen up.

  “He loves you, Lyndie. I’ve never seen two people so right for each other. He wasn’t down there for no convention. He’d come to see you,” Hazel informed her.

  “Do you know that for sure? He told you that?”

  Hazel hesitated. “Well, truth to tell, I haven’t talked to him much since you left. He holed himself up at the ranch and there was no dealing with him. The ranch hands said he was mean as a grizzly. He called yesterday to ask where your shop was, and I told him, figuring he was going to send you some flowers or something.”

  “Okay, so you don’t know if he loves me.”

  Lyndie put down the pile of sweaters she’d gotten out of her suitcase. “But I think he made our relationship crystal clear when he apologized for everything. Everything is the word he used, and that pretty much says it all.”

  “You darn young folk! Neither of you can talk worth a damn. When Bruce gets back here, I’m gonna get the truth out of him or—”

  “No.” Lyndie was firm. Her conviction silenced Hazel. “It’s really important that he not be coerced, Hazel. I don’t need a man so badly that I’ve got to get him to the altar by putting a gun to his head, and—” she paused, choosing her words carefully “—and I think love is what makes a marriage work, and you can’t force that.”