Should Have Been Her Child

by Stella Bagwell

  “Goodbye, Jess.”

  He carried his daughter out the door. Victoria followed them onto the porch and watched in the early morning light as he situated Katrina in a child’s seat, then climbed behind the wheel and drove away.

  Chapter Ten

  “Jess, you’re gonna break that baby’s neck puttin’ her on a rangy cow horse like Pokie. And after all the trouble Victoria took to get her healthy and well.”

  Jess glanced over at his grandmother who was standing outside the round horse pen made of wooden posts. For the past five minutes Alice had been watching with an eagle eye while he led the bay horse and his daughter around in a slow circle.

  “Pokie wouldn’t break anyone’s neck,” Jess assured her. “Even if a bee flew down and stung him on the rear.”

  From the seat in her daddy’s big saddle, Katrina giggled at the image of Jess’s words. “Funny, Daddy. A bee sting Pokie!”

  He stopped the horse and with a wide grin reached his arms up to his daughter. “You little stinker, it wouldn’t be so funny if a bee did that to you.”

  The child easily slid from the saddle and straight into her father’s arms. The moment he gathered her up, she circled his neck with a tight hold. “Pokie tough, Daddy. A bee won’t hurt him.”

  Yeah, Pokie had exactly what Jess needed, a tough hide. And during the past few years he’d believed he’d developed one. He’d thought nothing could ever get under his skin again. But he’d been wrong. Victoria was like a grub worm burrowing deeper and deeper inside him.

  Three days had passed since he’d packed up his and Katrina’s things and left the T Bar K, yet he was still haunted by the memory of Victoria standing silent on the porch, her white face strained as she’d watched the two of them drive away from the ranch house.

  Even work couldn’t take away the tormenting image of Victoria’s beautiful face or silence the lingering sound of her voice in his ears. He’d believed coming home to the Hastings ranch would give him relief. Instead he was miserable. He missed Victoria. Missed her like hell. And there wasn’t a thing he could do about it.

  Crossing the horse pen, he lifted Katrina over the fence and stood her safely on the ground beside Alice. Instantly, Katrina went down on all fours and crawled back under the wooden railing to get to her father and Pokie.

  “Oh no, young lady,” he said firmly. “You’re going in the house with Ma. It’s suppertime. The horseback riding is over for today.”

  “I wanta ride Pokie,” she wailed as Jess snaked one arm around her waist.

  He plopped Katrina back over the fence and didn’t release her until Alice had a firm grip on her granddaughter’s hand. “Maybe tomorrow if you’re a good girl.”

  Katrina wailed louder. “No. Wanta ride Pokie now!”

  “Come along, sweet pea,” Alice quickly intervened. “Let’s go to the house and you can help me set the table.”

  As Alice led Jess’s petulant daughter toward the house, he took Pokie to the barn to unsaddle him. He found Pa sitting on an overturned bucket inside the tack room and rubbing down a leather bridle with saddle soap.

  The older man looked up as Jess lifted the saddle he was carrying onto a wooden rack. “Sounds like Katrina isn’t too happy with her daddy,” he said with a chuckle.

  Jess grunted. “She’s getting spoiled. I guess I’ve let her have her way too often.”

  “Maybe Victoria did that to her while you two were staying on the T Bar K,” Will suggested.

  Jess realized he’d blamed Victoria for a lot of things, but Katrina’s tantrums weren’t one of them. “No. Victoria made her obey. At least while I was around.”

  Will went back to rubbing the thin strips of leather. “Well, we sure are glad to have you and our granddaughter back home. It was quiet around here with you gone.”

  “Yeah, but at least Ma got a rest.”

  His eyes narrowed shrewdly, Will looked up and studied his grandson’s dull expression. “You know, me and your Ma was real surprised that you took Katrina over to the Ketchum ranch. The way you left Victoria all those years ago, we figured you hated the very sight of her.”

  Jess sighed. He wasn’t in the mood to talk about Victoria, but it appeared as though his grandfather was. After all this time, he could only wonder why. “I’ve never hated Victoria. We…just had different priorities in our lives, that’s all. And thankfully one of us had the good sense to see that.”

  “Hmm. And I guess that was you,” Will stated thoughtfully.

  Jess leaned a hip against a counter piled with horse liniment, shin boots, curry combs and nylon lariats.

  “Pa, a man pretty much knows when he’s playing second fiddle. It’s not a good feeling.”

  Will’s bushy brows lifted. “And who was you playin’ second fiddle to? I never figured Victoria the kind of woman to look at another man.”

  Snorting, Jess picked up a small string of leather and began to tie it in knots. “It wasn’t another man. Not in the sense you’re thinking. It was Tucker. She was totally devoted to the old man. She never could see that he was a user. All she could think about was that it was her duty, her place to stay on the T Bar K and hold his hand.”

  Will grimaced. “We’re all guilty of using someone, Jess. It’s human nature. You can’t blame Victoria for loving her daddy. Just think how you would feel if Katrina turned her back on you.”

  Jess had to admit it would cut him deeply if Katrina ever turned her back on him. Still, as much as he would always want Katrina to love him, he would never want to dominate her life the way Tucker had tried to control Victoria’s.

  “Pa, the old man didn’t deserve Victoria’s devotion. He’d cheated on his wife for years. Hell, I wouldn’t tell Victoria this, but she’s probably got illegitimate half brothers and sisters scattered all over this state. And there’s no telling how many underhanded deals he’s made. And with people who were supposed to be his friends. Everyone in San Juan County knew he was deceitful. Everyone knew the T Bar K was built with unscrupulous funds. But Victoria refused to see any of this. Instead, she chose to turn her back on me.”

  Will sadly shook his head. “Did you ever stop to think you might have put her between a rock and a hard place?”

  Jess rolled his eyes, then made a palms-up gesture. “All I did was ask her to go to Texas with me. I wanted to make a life for us. I wanted to take care of her, give her all the things she needed and wanted, instead of her daddy doing it for me. Was that so bad of me?”

  After a long, thoughtful spell, Will said, “No. That wasn’t bad, son. The bad part is that you’ve never forgiven her for refusing to leave the T Bar K and go with you.”

  Forgive her? How was he supposed to do that when just talking about it made Jess’s blood boil as though it had happened only yesterday.

  “No. I don’t guess I have.”

  Once again Will’s head swung back and forth. “You can’t forgive her,” Will repeated. “But you still love her. That must have you in a hell of a mess.”

  Jess straightened away from the counter with such a jerk a person would have thought he’d been touched with a live electrical wire. “Where do you get the idea that I love Victoria?”

  Will’s calm expression didn’t change. “It’s all over your face, Jess. I can see it plainly.”

  Will was wrong. Dead wrong. He didn’t feel anything for Victoria. Except maybe resentment and regret. And longing. Yes, longing to hear her voice, see her face, hold her soft body next to his. But that wasn’t love. It couldn’t be.

  “There’s nothing on my face but a little dust,” he told his grandfather. “Now put that bridle away and let’s go eat before Ma comes after us.”

  The next afternoon, Victoria pushed the stethoscope into a pocket on her lab coat and stood back to eye the patient on the examination table. “Your lungs sound terrible, Mr. Morales. You have a pretty good case of bronchitis.”

  The elderly man looked hopefully at his doctor. “I’ve been coughing my head off, Doc. Can yo
u make that stop?”

  Victoria patted his arm, then reached for her prescription pad. “I’m going to give you something to help with the cough. In the meantime, you’re going to need lots of rest and medication to get over this. So I want you to get these prescriptions filled.” She handed the small pieces of paper to him. “Now wait right here and Nevada will be in to give you a shot and a list of things I want you to do at home. And I want to see you again in a week. But come in before that if anything worsens, understand?”

  Mr. Morales arched a brow at her. “I have to take a shot? Can’t you give me some pills to take instead?”

  Victoria chuckled. “You’re going to get both, Mr. Morales. It will help you get well faster. And don’t worry. Nevada has a special touch. You won’t even feel it.”

  Before he could argue that point, Victoria left the examining room and headed back to her office. Once she was behind her desk, she made several notations in Mr. Morales’s chart. That finished, she leaned back in the big leather chair and closed her eyes.

  She’d never felt so drained in her life. She’d thought coming back to work would make things better and help to get her life back to normal. But so far it hadn’t helped her forget how much she missed Jess and Katrina.

  “Smile, Doc. Mrs. Guymon canceled right at the last minute so you’re finished for today.”

  Victoria opened her eyes to look at the nurse standing just inside the door of her office.

  “That news doesn’t make me smile, Nevada. Mrs. Guymon has a heart condition, she has no business canceling her appointment. She did it because she doesn’t want me to lecture her about her eating habits.”

  “You’ll have that chance soon enough,” Nevada said with a grin. “She rescheduled for tomorrow afternoon.”

  Sighing, Victoria sat up straight in the desk chair. “Good. So that’s it? No one else in the waiting room?”

  “All finished. You can go home and relax.”

  Victoria placed Mr. Morales’s file to one side of the desk and reached for another. “I still have patient notes to catch up on. And going home is…not all that appealing right now.”

  Her expression thoughtful, Nevada walked over to Victoria’s desk. “Are you feeling all right, Victoria?”

  Nevada’s question brought a look of surprise to Victoria’s face. “Why, yes. Why do you ask?”

  Nevada grimaced. “Because ever since you’ve come back to work you’ve looked strained.”

  Victoria looked away from the other woman’s concerned gaze. “I’m okay, Nevada. I just need a little more time to get back into the swing of working again. That’s all.”

  Nevada’s wan smile said she wasn’t at all convinced. “You were only off for a week. Maybe you should have taken another week off. Dr. Martinez would have been happy to continue filling in for you.”

  Victoria shrugged. “I know he would. But there wasn’t any need for me to take off work any longer. Katrina had recuperated and Jess was in a hurry to get her back home.” And in a hurry to get away from me, Victoria thought sadly.

  It had crushed Victoria to watch him and Katrina drive away from the ranch. Yet, hard as that morning had been, the following days had been much worse.

  For the past three nights she’d driven home from work and walked into the house, somehow expecting to hear Katrina’s squeals and to find Jess at the kitchen table, giving Marina a hard time about her cooking. But of course the house was always silent and empty. As empty as her heart.

  A wry smile suddenly spread across Nevada’s face. “And here I was thinking that the time Jess was spending on the ranch would bring you two back together.”

  Victoria shot her a frown. “Why would you be thinking such a thing?”

  Nevada’s grin turned absolutely naughty. “Close quarters tend to bring two people of the opposite sex together. Especially when they’ve been lovers.”

  Crossing her arms against her chest, Victoria gave the nurse a scathing look. “I don’t feel like talking about this, Nevada.”

  “You just told me you felt okay,” Nevada countered.

  Victoria threw up her hands in total despair. “All right, I’m not okay. I’m miserable. I’ve fallen in love with a little girl that can never be mine. And I—I wish I’d never seen Jess Hastings again!”

  Nevada made a tsking noise of disapproval. “You don’t mean that, Victoria.”

  “Why not?” She asked, her voice rising. “The man is—” She stopped as she realized if she said much more, she’d be exposing her feelings.

  “One of the sexiest lawmen in San Juan County,” Nevada finished for her, then with a shake of her head, said, “No, let me change that to the sexiest man in San Juan County.”

  Victoria drew in a long breath and heaved it out. “I can’t deny that,” she admitted to the nurse. “But he also has to be the most hard-nosed, hard-hearted man in the whole state of New Mexico.”

  Nevada’s expression quickly changed to one of concern. “I take it you two parted on strained terms.”

  Victoria passed a hand over her furrowed brow. “I guess you could put it that way. He was more than ready to leave and I—”

  “You’re still in love with him,” Nevada finished flatly.

  Dear Lord, was she that transparent? Is that what Jess had seen every time he looked at her? She glanced guiltily at Nevada. “I wasn’t aware I was wearing my feelings on my sleeve,” she muttered.

  Nevada moved around the desk and placed her hand on Victoria’s shoulder. “You’re not. It’s just that I know you pretty well. And I can see the change in you since Jess and Katrina stayed on the T Bar K.”

  Victoria sighed. “That’s just it, Nevada. I don’t think I’ve really changed. Being close to Jess and his child has made me realize that I never stopped loving the man.”

  Nevada squeezed her shoulder. “What are you going to do about it?”

  Victoria groaned. “Now you sound like my sister-in-law, Maggie. And like I told her, there’s nothing I can do about it.”

  Nevada jammed her hands on the sides of her hips as she studied her boss’s wretched expression. “We’re different kinds of women, Victoria. And I probably shouldn’t be giving you any kind of advice. But if I loved a man the way you obviously love Jess, then I darn sure wouldn’t sit back on my heels and do nothing about it. I’d go after him. Any way I could.”

  Shaking her head, Victoria rose from the desk chair. As she pulled off her white lab coat and hung it in a tiny closet at one end of the room, she said, “Jess doesn’t want me going after him.”

  “Hah! A man never knows what he wants until a woman shows him.”

  Back at her desk, Victoria gathered up an armful of paperwork then switched off the lamp. “I’ll think about that, Nevada.” She glanced at her wristwatch. An hour until the clinic’s usual closing time. Surely she wouldn’t be missed on this slow day. “Now I think I’ll follow your advice and go home. Call me if you need me.”

  Outside, the late afternoon sun was very warm, a warning that hot summertime was growing near. As Victoria steered her car onto the main highway leading out of Aztec, her thoughts turned to Katrina. She wished she had told Jess to have Alice bring Katrina in to the clinic for a checkup. Not that there was much chance of her having a relapse. The visit would have merely given Victoria a chance to see the little girl and hold her in her arms.

  A mile passed before another thought struck her. Jess might not want to see her, but he hadn’t said anything about her staying away from Katrina. And since Victoria was off early this evening, it would be a perfect time to stop by the Hastings ranch and see the child for a few minutes. Jess would be at work, so there wouldn’t be much danger in running into him, she reasoned with herself.

  With her mind made up, Victoria pressed down on the accelerator and for the first time in days, she smiled.

  A few minutes later Victoria pulled to a stop outside the Hastings’s modest ranch house. As she passed through the yard gate and walked the short distanc
e to the front porch, she noticed there had been little change to the place since she’d last been here four years ago.

  The Hastings ranch had been one of her favorite places to visit. It was homey and comfortable. Plus Alice and Will had always treated her like a daughter. Much to Victoria’s relief, that hadn’t changed since she and Jess parted ways. His grandparents visited her clinic from time to time with minor health problems and sometimes she accidentally met up with one, or both, of them on the streets of Aztec. They always greeted her with nothing but genuine warmth and affection.

  Knowing she would be welcomed made it easy for Victoria to knock on the Hastings’s door.

  “Why, it’s Victoria!” Alice exclaimed a few moments later as she pushed open the screen door and folded Victoria into a tight hug. “Oh honey, it’s so good to see you!”

  “Hello, Alice. How are you?”

  The older woman thrust Victoria out in front of her and proceeded to inspect her with a shrewd eye. “I’m fine, honey. Just fine. And you couldn’t look more beautiful.”

  Victoria blushed at the compliment. “Thank you, Alice. I hope I’m not disturbing you. I left the office a few minutes ago and I thought I’d drive by and see Katrina. Is she here?”

  Smiling broadly, Alice took Victoria by the hand and led her into the house. “She’s in the kitchen eating a little snack. I told her to stay there while I answered the door, but once she sees you she’s going to be out of her seat and dancing on her toes. You’re just about all she’s talked about since Jess brought her home.”

  No doubt that had peeved the man, Victoria thought, as Alice led her through the living room, then down a short passageway, which opened into a large kitchen.

  “I’ve missed her so much,” Victoria admitted. “The ranch house has been so quiet without her.”

  Alice’s soft chuckle was full of understanding. “Yeah, kids seem to fill a place with noise. Sometimes I can’t hear myself think around here. But I wouldn’t have it any other way.”