The Cowboy's Forever Family

by Deb Kastner

  Not that she had any choice in the matter. She knew how stubborn Slade could be when he got something into his head, and right now, he wasn’t about to take no for an answer. He’d bundled her up in a blanket and practically carried her to his truck, even going so far as to buckle her in—as if she’d suddenly forgotten how to use a seat belt.

  She probably should have been offended, but his touch was gentle and his expression was lined with concern. Naturally he would be worried. It was his best friend’s baby they were talking about here.

  Actually, they weren’t talking at all. Slade was mumbling something under his breath as he drove, but she couldn’t tell what he was saying.

  “Are you talking to me?” she asked, checking the second hand on her watch to time the contractions, which, after the first few, had become further apart and less consistent in length and strength. It was just that first one that had overwhelmed her. She was probably making something out of nothing, but she’d feel better after she’d talked to the doctor. She needed to know for sure that there weren’t any problems, and that she wasn’t going into premature labor.

  “I—” He glanced over at her his hat low and shading his eyes from her perusal. “No. I was talking to God.”

  “Praying?” She couldn’t have been more surprised. Slade was a man of faith? He’d never said anything. The brash, flirtatious cowboy had a personal relationship with God? She was certain she hadn’t seen him in church since she’d been in town.

  That wasn’t really fair to him, though, was it? She was hardly in any position to judge. Maybe he had his own reasons for not attending the church in town. He was out and about many weekends on the rodeo circuit.

  She had seen the good in Slade, more than once, in fact, glimpses of a soft heart underneath that gruff exterior of his.

  “I know,” he admitted with a self-deprecating laugh, filling the silent space. He glanced at her and one side of his mouth kicked up. “You wouldn’t think that of me, would you? That God and I could be having a conversation?”

  “Well, I—” What was she supposed to say? She had been thinking the worst of him, had immediately jumped to the wrong conclusions, just as he suspected she would.

  “And you’d be right in your assumptions,” he assured her. “Or at least, you would have been, up until a few days before—before—” He stalled and his voice lowered. “Brody had his accident.”

  Another contraction hit at the same time as Slade’s words struck her and she tried not to wince, since seeing her in distress clearly distracted him from the road. She needed him to concentrate on driving.

  “Did you grow up in church?” she asked, as much to distract herself as to keep Slade talking. The contractions weren’t supposed to be so strong, never mind this fast, were they? This wasn’t right. Not with a first baby. It should take her much longer—hours—before she reached this level of pain. She was more worried than she let on but kept her thoughts to herself, mostly because Slade already looked as if he was about to jump out of his skin. Who knew what he would do if she voiced her concerns?

  “Absolutely. I was raised in the church.” She was grateful that he appeared not to notice any change in her demeanor. “Serendipity is a small town with a big heart. Nearly everyone goes to church, which is part of the reason I haven’t worked up the courage to return since I stopped attending as a youth. I haven’t exactly been a model Christian. When I hit puberty I rebelled against authority, and that included God. And you of all people know how terribly I behaved as a young adult.”

  She smiled through the pain. “Now, why am I not surprised that you were a difficult teenager?”

  He chuckled but slid her a worried glance, furtively checking on her when he thought she wasn’t looking. “You have no idea how much grief I gave my parents. My mother used to say she was going to be bald from pulling her hair out at some of the antics Brody and I got into when we were younger.”

  “So what brought you back around?” She was more than just curious now, getting a glimpse into a side of Slade she had no idea existed. “To your faith, I mean.”

  This time when he glanced at her he held her gaze for a few moments. “I’m too ashamed to say. You really don’t want to know.”

  “Hey, if God got your attention, it can’t be too bad.”

  He groaned and jerked his chin. “It was. As bad as it could be, and it was made infinitely worse by the fact that Brody was already married to you at the time.”

  Suddenly she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear this story, but she’d been the one to open this can of worms. Slade had tried to warn her off of it and she hadn’t listened.

  “I challenged Brody to something I shouldn’t have,” Slade admitted, his tone muted. “A rodeo princess much like you caught my eye, and I dared him to see who’d be the first man to get her attention. I don’t think Brody was in any way interested in the woman. He just couldn’t back down from the challenge.”

  Even after all this time and everything that had changed between them, it still hurt that Slade hadn’t respected her marriage to Brody, but she knew he was genuinely regretful of his part in the problems in the relationship. Clearly he had no idea that she hadn’t exactly been a rodeo princess—hardly one of those buckle bunnies Slade and Brody must have been used to, the ones they used to chase and who used to chase them.

  She was a city girl who’d won a contest sponsored by a local radio station and ended up in the arena on the back of a horse with a crown on her head. She’d never in her life been to a rodeo until the night she’d met Brody, and she hadn’t been to one since. The idea of attending the upcoming Serendipity rodeo made her feel sick to her stomach, but now was hardly the time to get into all that. Slade’s eyes were on the road, but she could tell he was lost in the past.

  “So like I said, we were vying to see which one of us could get her attention first. We were just a couple of arrogant jerks who thought too much of themselves and not enough about the women we were chasing. Imagine our surprise when we tailed her into cowboy church. Let’s just say neither one of us was ready for what happened next. We didn’t get the woman’s attention, but God sure got ours.”

  “Mmm,” she said, not so much an affirmation as it was an expression of pain. Up until this point Slade had been unusually attentive, but now he didn’t appear to notice her struggle to breathe evenly through the contraction wracking her midsection.

  Conversation ceased as he pulled his truck in front of the doctor’s office. It had only been a five minute drive but it had felt much longer than that, not only because of the two contractions she’d experienced while inside the truck, but also because of all Slade had revealed about himself.

  “I can walk,” she assured him when he rushed around to get her door.

  “Be that as it may,” he said, gripping her elbow with one hand and securing the other around her waist. “I’m here to help you, and I don’t want to take any chances with your health. Or the baby’s.”

  It was a little bit embarrassing to have Slade coddling her as they entered the doctor’s office, and she was thankful when Delia didn’t make a big deal of it.

  “She’s having contractions,” Slade informed the doctor before Laney could say a word. He actually sounded a little frightened, or at least completely lost. “Dr. D., you’ve got to do something for her.”

  Delia gestured to the examination room. Unlike the previous visit where Slade stayed out in the waiting room lumbering around like a grizzly, this time he stayed by Laney’s side, helping her onto the table and keeping a firm, reassuring grip on her hand.

  “You’re just over thirty-six weeks, right?” Delia asked. Laney nodded. Delia smiled reassuringly. “There’s no cause for worry, hon. Many healthy babies have been delivered at thirty-six weeks, although ideally we’d like to keep this little bun cooking in the oven for a few weeks longer. Let’s get you hooked up to a fetal monitor and see what we’re looking at. Then I’ll call Zach and Ben and put them on standby with the ambulan
ce, just in case these contractions are the real deal. As you probably know, at thirty-six weeks there’s always the possibility that the baby’s lungs may not be fully developed. It’s nothing to worry about now, but just in case it comes to that, I’d feel more comfortable if you delivered in a hospital setting rather than here.”

  “Hospital?” Slade repeated, his face blanching and his voice nearly an octave higher than usual. “An ambulance? It’s that serious?” He was squeezing Laney’s hand so tightly she thought she might be losing circulation in her fingers.

  “Slade,” she said, brushing her free hand over his. “Isn’t it me who is supposed to be squeezing your hand?”

  His grip immediately loosened and color returned to his face in spades. He gulped a breath of air. “I’m so sorry, princess.”

  Delia and Laney shared a laugh at Slade’s expense, but he grinned and shrugged it off. He really did look completely out of his element. He was as jumpy as a wet cat, acting even more nervous than Laney felt, which might have rubbed off on her, but thankfully didn’t. She found herself enveloped in peace, knowing God would bring Baby Beckett into the world at just the right time and place, whether at the hospital or elsewhere, now or nearer to the due date.

  Slade was definitely not in the same emotional space as she was. Peace wasn’t even close to the word she would use to describe him right now. He’d removed his hat when he’d entered the office and had scrubbed his fingers through his hair so many times that the black tips were sticking up every which direction. His electric blue eyes held an untamed quality to them, as though he was a wild animal ready to break from his cage.

  He was definitely worried, that much she’d give him. She couldn’t help but wonder what the basis of his actions were all about.

  Was he worried about Baby Beckett, or did his concern extend to her, as well? Maybe he was simply experiencing a lingering sense of guilt on his part for what had happened between him and Brody, especially since they’d just been talking about it. His story about leading Brody down the wrong path certainly explained a lot—just not enough to satisfy her.

  What if that was all it was—some lingering sense of responsibility toward her and Baby Beckett? She was grateful for his help, and his motives shouldn’t matter.

  But they did.

  Another contraction started just as the realization washed over her—she did care what Slade thought of her. The intensity of this contraction was weaker than the last. The raw, coarse tightening of her chest around her heart felt infinitely more painful than any contraction could be.

  How had she managed to put herself in this position? She’d lost her focus, which should be on the blessing of life, God’s beautiful gift residing within her, not to mention all she had to learn to keep Brody’s ranch, his legacy to his child, intact.

  Definitely not on Slade.

  After a while Delia returned and checked the tape dangling from the fetal monitor, nodding at the peaks and valleys where Laney’s contractions had occurred.

  “Good news,” Delia said, patting Laney on the shoulder.

  Slade’s grip on her hand tightened again, but she didn’t bother reminding him about it. She was too busy holding her breath.

  “I don’t think you’re in labor,” Delia continued. “I know the contractions feel strong to you—painful, even—but they aren’t registering particularly high or regularly on the monitor, which I would expect to see if you were in real labor. I’m fairly certain this is just a practice run.”

  Laney chuckled weakly. Of course she was relieved by the news, but she was more than a little overwhelmed by it all.

  “If this is just practice, I hate to imagine what the real thing will be like,” she said, trying to laugh off her misgivings and utterly failing. She was frightened. Who wouldn’t be? It was her first baby and she didn’t have any idea what to expect. And yet women had been giving birth since the beginning of time. She’d make it through whatever was thrown at her.

  Slade jumped in before Delia could speak. “There are painkillers or something she can use, right? Some way to make it easier for her during labor?”

  Delia nodded, amusement evident in her gaze and the quirk of her lips. “Don’t worry, Slade. Laney has plenty of options at her disposal when the time comes. I’m sure she’s educated herself in all of this, and she’ll have plenty of help around her, whether here or at a hospital. She’ll be able to keep her labor pains manageable.”

  Laney did know all about those options, everything ranging from narcotics to epidurals, but she didn’t plan to use anything to manage her pain. Despite her unexpected and surprisingly painful introduction to contractions, she wanted to have a natural birth. But seeing the concern lining Slade’s face, she didn’t think now would be a good time to bring that up, especially as relieved as he’d appeared once he heard there were ways to ease her pain in labor. She could actually see the muscles in his neck and shoulders unwinding.

  “I want you to take it easy for a couple of days, Laney,” Delia instructed. “Slade, make sure she doesn’t take on too much, okay?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he answered with a firm jerk of his chin, his gaze as serious as Laney had ever seen it. “I promise I’m not going to let her lift a finger.”

  Laney sighed. There went her trip to see her sister. She knew Slade well enough to know he wasn’t going to let her out of his sight until he deemed her well and fully past this trial. She doubted if he’d even let her off the couch to do anything more strenuous than visiting the bathroom.

  If he was this assertive now, she couldn’t even begin to imagine how bad he’d be once the baby was born.

  The thought made her smile. For all his domineering behavior, she wouldn’t change him if she could. His single-minded focus and his strength were what made him the man he was. She hated to admit it, but his overbearing attitude more often than not seemed to originate from his need to do something, to fix whatever appeared to him as a problem. In Slade’s world, mountains weren’t for looking at—they had to be conquered.

  Maybe that was what had gone wrong in her marriage to Brody, she realized, as Slade wrapped her in a blanket and bundled her back out to the truck, fussing over her as if she was made of fine china and might break at any moment.

  Now that the thought had occurred to her, she couldn’t help but compare Slade with Brody. From the moment she and Brody had exchanged vows, she had done nothing but try to change him. She’d been attracted to the young, handsome bull rider, and yet she’d never accepted the rodeo as part of his life, nor the fact that he served on the police force. Had she simply embraced who he was and not tried to make into something he wasn’t, maybe things would have been different. He might have taken her with him to his weekend rodeos, or brought her home to Serendipity.

  Brody was a risk-taker and a thrill-seeker. That was who he’d been, and she’d had no business trying to mold him into anything other than that. Wasn’t it God’s job to work on people’s hearts?

  And the worst part was, she had the evidence right in front of her that God could work on a man’s heart, no matter how hardened he appeared to be on the outside. She remembered Slade saying that the Lord had touched Brody, and Brody had been planning on coming home to her.

  She slid a glance at Slade, but his attention was on the road, his hat pulled low over his eyes so she couldn’t read what he was thinking. His jaw was tight with strain again, and she couldn’t help but wonder what he was thinking that made him look so tense. She’d been proclaimed good to go. She’d expect he’d be relieved by that.

  Whatever it was that was bothering him, he obviously didn’t feel inclined to share it with her, and she didn’t know how to ask, so they rode in silence. Thankfully, her contractions appeared to have petered out. That was one blessing.

  It was only after they’d arrived back at the Becketts’ ranch and he’d ushered her inside that he spoke. His agitation had faded like the calm after a thunderstorm, at least until it was replaced by his usual dic
tatorial attitude, the one she knew and loved.

  Okay, not loved. But at least it was familiar.

  “You,” he said, pointing first to her and then to the sofa. “There. Now. I’m going to go find you some extra pillows. When I get back, I expect to see you lying down with your feet up. Understood?”

  “Bully,” she muttered.

  “Stubborn woman,” he replied back, one corner of his mouth lifting.

  They were both right, Laney thought. As evenly matched as two people could be. It was a toss-up to know who would prevail, or even if it were possible for either of them to win at their constant battle of wills.

  She didn’t even know if it mattered, because at this point she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to win.

  Chapter Nine

  Slade was fairly satisfied with what he’d accomplished. He’d managed to keep Laney comfortable and resting—for the most part, anyway. When he’d called her stubborn, he’d had no idea just how true his observation was. It had been the longest five days of his life, trying to keep Laney resting on the couch.

  From the moment her fake contractions—or whatever they were called—diminished, the woman had been just itching to get up and back to work. It was all Slade could do to keep her contained.

  Naturally, he had stopped her from taking that kind of risk, with Grant and Carol’s assistance. And it hadn’t been easy.

  Doctor’s orders. And he would keep telling her that until she actually listened to him. He’d completely cleared his schedule so he could be with her. One of the benefits of small-town living—the police captain was a personal friend and was very understanding about his needing time off.