Secret Heart

by Amity Lassiter

  "Wait. Don't tell me no."

  "Then…probably not?" Her shoulders lifted in a shrug with her voice.

  "I can work with that." A small victory…maybe even a challenge issued. A hard 'no' was a lot harder to change. He smiled and took a swig of his beer.

  *

  Layla moved through her Sunday evening routine like she'd done it a million times. There was a pretty specific group of regulars on karaoke Sundays; those who came specifically to perform, those who came specifically to watch, and those who came specifically to drink and didn't give a damn about karaoke night. Nate Montgomery didn't seem to fit into any of those categories, and it was unsettling.

  She steered clear, but she felt his eyes following her as he nursed the beer she'd given him. He wanted to take her on a date. A real date. Not a hot-and-heavy-limited-time-offer like they'd had before, but a real date. Suddenly, she was extra self-conscious as she stretched to get a fresh bottle of Johnny Walker off the back shelf, aware of just how long she let Dell Ray flirt with her when she delivered his third drink of the night, and hyper-aware of her body language as Noah Baylor cut through the crowd to Nate's seat.

  Three or four years ago, she had a brief fling with Noah that ended with him in a drunken stupor and his brother driving her to the emergency room while she miscarried a baby Noah hadn't wanted, but she had. They'd made peace, but that didn't stop her from drawing in a tight breath. He was in here at least once a week with his now-wife, and she wasn't jealous or upset, but Layla still hadn't figured out exactly how she was supposed to behave around someone she had that sort of history with. Especially since word around town was Noah and Emma had been trying for a baby going on a year now with no success, and Layla had managed to do it twice now by accident.

  And now Noah stood next to the man whose baby she hadn't lost, the one who didn't know. The stuff of nightmares. When he caught her looking, Noah tipped his head up, indicating he was looking for service so she steeled herself with a deep breath, pasted on a smile she hoped looked convincing, and crossed the floor.

  "'Evening, Layla."

  "Noah," she said, willing the smile not to slide. Nate watched her with keen eyes. "What can I get for you?"

  "Two tequila sunrises and a beer," Noah said, his nose wrinkling as he ordered the drinks of choice for the two women he was wrangling; his wife and her best friend. They ordered the same thing every week, and every week, he made a comment or pulled a face about their choice in what he'd once called 'frou-frou' drinks, but still he traipsed to the bar and ordered it for them, ever the dutiful husband. Noah Baylor had turned into a fine man, just not the man for her.

  "Coming right up."

  "Take your time." Noah nodded, settling onto the empty barstool beside Nate.

  Layla moved efficiently around the bar, picking up a couple of refills for other patrons. Never much of a drinker, it had taken her some time to memorize the mixes, but she'd become an expert at pouring beer early on. Because he'd told her to take her time, she got a refill for Rusty and a new pan of ice from the ice machine in the back. She kept herself half tuned in to Nate and Noah, because she could still feel eyes on her from time to time, but she couldn't hear any of their conversation because a crowd favorite had taken the stage and was ramping up into a growling first chorus of 'Fancy'.

  Noah being there put her on edge. The two were close friends, and that was yet another reason she couldn't say yes to Nate. It would just get complicated and muddled, like every other damn thing in this tiny town. Most of the time, she was happy to be here, but the rampant rumors that stirred up as easily as dust in the wind occasionally had her wishing she could pack up and run.

  She stayed, though, because this was where she had roots, weak as they were. And as few friends as she found in Three Rivers, new places would have even fewer. She wasn't naive enough to think she could raise Mason entirely on her own, and even if half the people who helped raise him now weren't 'real' family, they were what she considered her family. This was where she belonged. But she would still do what she could to keep her name off the lips of others. And going on a date with Nate Montgomery, Three Rivers' favorite rodeo star, would be a sure way to do the opposite.

  When Stephanie Turner took the stage, Layla put Noah's drinks together quickly, and brought them down the length of the bar.

  "I was just trying to talk Layla here into letting me take her out," Nate started, once she was in ear shot. Oh no. Her stomach sank while she scrambled to paste on the kind of gently patronizing smile she used when Dell Ray had one too many and started hitting on her. So much for keeping things under wraps.

  Noah's eyebrows lifted as his unreadable gaze passed from her to Nate.

  "That so?"

  Nate nodded, a stupid shit-eating grin gracing his features. He'd always had a great smile and she hated her body for reacting to the lines that framed his mouth and the way his eyes crinkled in the corners, because he was betraying her. Putting her in a shitty position now, whether she said yes or no. Of course, he didn't know what he was doing. When people in town talked about him, it was about his accomplishments, what a shame his wreck was, how great his Nan was for raising those two boys. When people in town talked about Layla, it was wondering who she was tramping around with, what shitty money grab her parents were up to now, or who the daddy of her baby was. That one she'd kept firmly under wraps by not telling anyone, ever. It didn't stop the speculation, but speculation really only hurt her, not anyone else. And least of all, the golden boy of Three Rivers.

  Now they were both looking at her expectantly. She brightened her smile a little as she opened Noah's beer and set it on the bar next to the mixed drinks. Stephanie was belting out 'Before He Cheats' which was ironic because everyone in town knew Jamie Turner was the last man who would ever cheat on his wife.

  "Harassing me, more like it."

  "Eas-y," Nate teased, drawing the word out and holding a hand over his heart. He clearly found it amusing, and if she could forget about everything just under the surface of all of this, she could have gone along with it a little more willingly.

  "I don't know how it was in Denver, with buckle bunnies falling into your lap, Nate Montgomery, but that's not how I work," Layla sassed. She had a particular role to play at this point, or else everything fell apart. And nobody wanted to see a bartender with running mascara.

  His fingers clutched the front of his shirt and his eyebrows lowered as he tipped his head back. "You're wounding me, sweetheart."

  "Maybe it's good for you," Noah piped up, clapping his friend on the shoulder with a chuckle. "I'm sure you'll recover."

  "Maybe," Nate said with exaggerated doubt on his features. Layla shook her head with a little chuckle when she realized he kept an eye on her the entire time.

  "Our table's over there if you wanna come on over in a bit." Noah tipped his chin up toward the stage area, where Emma and Stephanie had staked out their normal table.

  "Yeah, I'll talk to you later, Noah."

  They watched Noah weave his way through the other patrons back to his table with the drinks, then Layla turned back to Nate. It had taken him all this time, but his beer was finally empty.

  "Can I get you anything else, Nate?"

  He paused, his expression serious now that his friend was gone.

  "I know that's not how you work."

  She raised a brow.

  "What?"

  "I know you're not impressed by my wins or my rides. If I wanted to take one of the girls hanging around the bull chutes out on a date, that's what I would do."

  His somber tone made her slam on her brakes. No, no, no. Playful Nate was dangerous, but this one was so much more. This was something else, entirely. It made her heart pound in her throat, blood rushing through her ears. She was so well accustomed to being the butt of a joke, even that would have been easier than whatever she was supposed to do about Nate wanting to take her out.

  "I know."

  She expected him to ask again, bu
t he didn't. Instead, he pushed back his stool, peeled a ten dollar bill out of his wallet and put it on the bar top before he screwed his ball cap onto his head, tipped the brim at her, and headed out the door without looking back.

  —FIVE—

  Nate paused outside the door of Dr. Fields' office and drew in a big breath. No better way to kick off the week than with an appointment full of disappointment. He hadn't visited Three Rivers' resident physician yet, but he knew the files that had been transferred from the office in Denver would lead the kindly older MD to the same verbiage he'd heard for the last six months. Usually there was something in there about being lucky, and often something about his career being over. Same shit, different day. He figured he was doing well enough to accept it without having to be reminded every time he spoke to a medical professional.

  He pulled the heavy glass door open and stepped inside the cool office. It was only early June but temperatures were climbing. He should have been standing ringside watching some of his buddies get their asses handed to them by Denver's finest bucking stock, but instead he was here.

  And so was Layla. Suddenly being here wasn't that bad. He didn't expect to see her sitting behind the reception desk, and she didn't seem to expect him to be coming in, because what started as a warm, friendly smile froze on her features when he approached the desk, just like the other night at the bar. She recovered quickly, but he'd already seen it.

  He thought they'd had a good time the last time he'd been in Three Rivers. He'd just dropped off Lily Jacobs-now-Baylor and her horse at the ranch and headed to Danny's for a drink. And there she'd been, a bit more brassy and confident than he'd ever known her to be. He'd checked all the right boxes; consent, expectations, protection. The definition of a no-strings-attached one night stand. It had been a lot of fun, but somehow, he'd left her…what was that? Angry? Scared? Bitter? Something that hadn't emerged right away, but had clearly been simmering under the surface since he'd gone back to Denver. Either way, he was looking down the barrel of a long summer in Three Rivers if she shut down like that every time he came around. Especially since she happened to work at the two places in town he was most likely to frequent.

  "Nate. How can I help you?"

  "I have a ten o'clock." He rubbed a hand through his hair and suddenly wished he had bothered to shave. It was easy to fall into the spiral of letting oneself go when you didn't have a job to get up for every morning anymore. A woman might have been sufficient motivation, but he hadn't been interested in those in months. Until last week, when he'd first watched Layla move around the bar and remembered just what that long-limbed, soft body looked like minus the jeans and t-shirt.

  She was wearing a sundress and a cardigan today, with her long hair braided straight down her back. Conservative, but sexy as hell in little ways most of the patients who came in wouldn't notice. Her cardigan was halfway unbuttoned, joining together midway down and framing a good section of exposed bust and the creamy skin of her throat and chest. A couple strands of hair had worked their way out of her braid and framed her face in soft waves. She'd been overlooked all through high school because of where she came from, who her family was, but Nate knew she was a good girl underneath it all. A good girl who'd been handed a couple of shitty cards.

  Layla tapped a few keys on the computer in front of her. She twisted the long braid hanging over her shoulder around her finger and bit her lower lip—God help him—and then finally nodded. "So you do. Dr. Fields will be with you in a few minutes."

  "Hey," he said, leaning against the tall desk. A sign indicating a charge for canceled appointments clattered to the lower level of the desk in front of her. She'd turned him down once, but is inner Cowboy Casanova wasn't so dead he wouldn't try again. At least once more. "You should let me take you out sometime, Layla. I'm going to be here for a while."

  She didn't lift her eyes from the computer screen. "Probably not a good idea."

  "Probably not, but I've never been one to listen to logic."

  She finally glanced up, amusement lighting up her blue eyes, and he felt like he'd scored a point. "That's probably right. You are a bull rider, after all. And I can't think of a less logical career choice."

  Was a bull rider.

  "Guilty as charged."

  She paused, thoughtful.

  "You aren't gonna give up 'til I give in, are you?" Narrowing her eyes, she leaned forward on her elbows. That sundress was not quite as conservative as his initial observation, especially for a woman as well-endowed as Layla. Despite his interest, basic decency made him glance away, shaking his head with a smile.

  "You know it."

  "I should warn you, I'm not the same woman you took home from Danny's last time."

  He'd always liked a challenge.

  "Fair play. I'm not the same man, either."

  "Nate Montgomery?" Dr. Fields' voice sounded from the doorway of his exam room, and he didn't know whether to be grateful he didn't have to elaborate or disappointed their flirtation had been disrupted. He tipped his head at Layla and moved across the office to shake the doctor's hand, stepping into the exam room.

  "Good to see you, Doc."

  The older man closed the door behind him and gestured to a chair across from the heavy oak desk in one end of the room. This end of the room could almost trick him into believing this wasn't exactly like every other physician's exam room he'd haunted in the last year or so, but an exam table and a cabinet full of medical supplies inhabited the other end of the office, just behind him.

  "Shame about the circumstances, Nate. That was some kind of wreck you had."

  Most of the doctors he'd visited in the last year had everything on a computer, but Dr. Fields flipped through a thick stack of papers. His old file from childhood, maybe.

  "Yeah, it was something all right." Nate sat back in the chair, resting his palms on his thighs. These appointments were all the same these days.

  "How do you feel?"

  That was a loaded question.

  "Fine," he shrugged. "Everything's working the way it's supposed to."

  The doctors all told him the same thing; everything had healed up as well as could be expected, and he could resume life as normal, with some stiffness and minor residual pain—but the bull-riding part of his 'normal' was out. He'd stopped hoping a doctor would give him a different answer a long time ago.

  "Good. This is just a standard exam to touch base now that you're back under my care, Nate. Would you mind stepping over to the exam table?"

  At the end of twenty minutes, the doctor looked over his glasses at him.

  "You made the right choice to resign from the circuit, Nate."

  As if he had any choice. He'd tried to show up for his buddies over the winter season, even flown to Nevada for a break, but the minute he got anywhere near the chute, his insides went to liquid, reducing him to a shitting, puking coward. Barely a man. A far cry from the fearless fan favorite he'd been for the last eight years. He knew he was lucky to have lasted that long; there were career-ending injuries every single season. Some of his best friends got that call from the doctor years ago. Nate was still dealing with the idea of being one of those busted up old cowboys who still hung around the bucking chutes just to feel the adrenaline, and he couldn't even be that right now.

  But he didn't want to talk about it. And even though he'd known Dr. Fields his entire life and respected the man, he was over the whole doctor thing.

  "So no more follow-ups?" he asked, jiggling his legs, anxious to leave.

  "One more in six weeks, then not again unless something's bothering you." The physician closed his big paper file and pushed his chair back from the desk, offering his hand to Nate. "I'll see you soon, Nate."

  "Don't take this the wrong way, Doc, but I hope not."

  Layla's smile from behind the desk was a breath of fresh air when he left the exam room.

  "Gonna live another day?"

  "Guess so," he said, his mood lightening by leaps and bounds. He
paused by the desk, tapping his fingers on the upper level. "Why don't I pick you up tonight at 7:30 and we'll go to Yvette's for burgers?"

  A pretty blush washed over her cheeks as her eyes flickered down, and he thought maybe she'd say yes, but regret echoed in her eyes when she looked up. "I'm sorry, Nate. I really can't. I'd like to, but…"

  He straightened, nodding. "Hey, I get it, Lay. It's okay."

  She offered him a relieved smile, and he shifted back a step. She wouldn't say yes today, but she would, eventually. And that was enough for him.

  —SIX—

  The rest of the morning and into the afternoon were slow—a blessing and a curse. As busy as she was, Layla liked quiet time at the office to gather her thoughts, look at the week ahead, and reflect a little on the progress she was making with the house. But today, the quiet was filled with Nate. He was going to keep showing up at her place of work and she was going to have to figure out a way to minimize the effect. She was so immersed in distracting herself by penciling her shifts into her planner, she didn't realize someone was coming in until she heard the bell over the door tinkle. Nobody was scheduled, but in a small town where the hospital was a thirty minute drive away, it wasn't uncommon to have non-urgent walk-ins, and Dr. Fields always fit them in where he could. Her standard welcoming smile died on her lips when she lifted her eyes and saw her mother standing in the doorway.

  "Layla." Rhonda Sullivan smiled, which immediately put Layla on edge. She did her best to maintain a relationship with her family for Mason's sake, but the incessant questions about paternity had started when she'd barely had a baby bump. She'd spent a few weeks in Nan's basement, insisting to her parents she was doing fine and just needed her own space, as an adult—something she hadn't had in her entire life—but the relationship had never been the same since.

  "Hey mom." She tried her best to be pleasant, but the only times Rhonda Sullivan made contact with her were to have conversations about 'being reasonable', and making Mason's father 'nut up and be a man'. The life she'd carved out wasn't easy, but it was her own, and she wouldn't have traded it for the alternative. "What can I do for you? Dr. Fields isn't busy."