Secret Heart

by Amity Lassiter

  "Sit down, I'll get you more tea."

  She did as she was instructed, curling in on herself while Kerri moved around the kitchen, then came back, settling on the other edge of the couch. She packed her computer carefully and set it aside.

  "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have dumped on you. I know you need to study for finals."

  Kerri shrugged, smiling kindly. "Sometimes a friend needs someone to listen, and that's more important than studying."

  She was as much a friend as her sitter, at the end of the day. Maybe the only person she really shared her day-to-day stresses and troubles with…until Nate. He was her friend. Maybe she didn't have to ruin all of this because they were friends…but no, he'd used that word, and it had screwed everything up. And it was the right thing to do. That would be her new mantra until she saw him tomorrow and confessed.

  "You know how much I appreciate you, right? You are so much more than a babysitter."

  The girl just shrugged with a smile. "I just can't believe you never told me before this. You've never been a good secret keeper."

  "Well, I've been holding onto this one for a long time."

  "And even Nan doesn't know?"

  "I think Nan might know, in her heart, but you know Nan."

  "Right, she'd never let it cross her lips unless it was common knowledge. But do you think she might have told Nate her suspicions?"

  Layla shook her head.

  "Wow…" Kerri brushed a hand over the top of her head. "I just…I guess I've wondered before. But it's none of my business, right? Nate was definitely not on the top of my list of guesses, though."

  "Who was?"

  "Cutter Anderson." Kerri grinned broad and Layla rolled her eyes, the tension slowly working out of her. Cutter Anderson as a father was laughable in itself, but her and Cutter…that was almost worth a belly laugh.

  "Uh, no."

  "It would explain his quick break to Denver."

  Layla laughed, shaking her head. This felt normal, it felt good. She knew it would be chaos by this time tomorrow, but she could enjoy this for what it was now.

  —THIRTY-FOUR—

  Nate sat back in his favorite booth at Hinkley's, his legs stretched out under the table, a mug of coffee in front of him. Across from him, Lily was still jabbering about a new sponsor for the rodeo school. Shit was starting to get real; whether he was in it or not, there were clearly lots of gears turning he didn't have a thing to do with. He let her go for a minute or two, his lips pursed like he was listening, but really, he was thinking about Layla, across the street and down a block, manning the desk in Dr. Fields' office. When they'd first reconnected, he'd thought maybe a few dates and she'd be out of his system, but the opposite had happened. The more time he spent with her and Mason, and at her quiet little love-filled house, the more time he wanted to spend with her. And it was escalating pretty quickly beyond just a little crush or a way to pass the time. So much so that the thought of hitting the rodeo circuit again, going out on the road to rope and drink and row, just wasn't appealing anymore. Hell, he'd even used the 'L' word the other night. It might not have been the right move, but there was definitely something there, something simmering just under the surface of his heart, and it just might have been love. He wasn't sure he even knew what that was supposed to feel like, but it didn't feel like anything he'd ever felt before.

  "And maybe once you're back in the scene again with the rodeo school, you can head back to Denver. You could work your way back up the ranks." That caught his attention. He snapped his gaze to his friend across the table.

  "Lilypad," he interjected. "I don't want to rodeo anymore." The idea formed as the words came out, and as it hung in the air between them, it even felt good. He would have preferred to retire with a nice bankroll to span him out, raise some stock, and love a woman on the nice little spread he'd owned, but when it boiled down to it, the end result was the same. Even if he could have scrounged up the money, somehow, to traipse all over the Midwest to ride the country's rankest bulls, he didn't want to.

  "Oh come on now, that's like me saying I don't want to ride endurance anymore because of my accident."

  They'd both had devastating injuries, sure. She and her horse, Encore, had been struck from behind by a texting driver during a training session. Lily's pelvis had been broken and Encore, while he'd recovered physically, had never recovered mentally, and was turned out as a pasture puff at the Baylor ranch. But it hadn't been the very sport she was trying to participate in that had hurt her, it was just an asshole in a Toyota. His bull riding career tried to kill him every time he wrapped the bull rope around his hand, and this time, it had damn near succeeded. He was still walking and he wasn't addicted to painkillers, and he counted both of those as a resounding success. Quit while you're alive. It was a good policy.

  "I really mean it."

  Lily watched him with sharp eyes—they'd known one another for a long time; from the time he'd first spied her hanging over the gates at the rodeo, with a camera half as big as her head. At the beginning, he'd fancied her a romantic interest, but they'd turned out to be great friends—something he'd been grateful for when she showed up at his hospital bed with her eyes full of tears but an encouraging smile on her face. If he was lying to himself, she'd know.

  "Nate Montgomery."

  Rhonda Sullivan interrupted their serious conversation with a holler from halfway across the diner. He sat up a little straighter. He hadn't heard the full story from Layla—it was clear she had an interesting relationship with her mother—but either way, a man was a fool not to try at least a little bit to impress the kin of the woman he was falling in love with.

  "Mrs. Sullivan," he said with a smile as she approached.

  "Hi Mrs. Sullivan," Lily said, lifting her hand in greeting.

  Ignoring Lily altogether, Rhonda leaned against the table, turning her back to his dining companion.

  "Nate," she started, her voice sugar-sweet. "I'm so glad to see you by yourself. I just wanted to have a chance to say how impressed I am."

  He ducked his head. "Nothing too impressive here, I promise."

  "It's just, there are so many men that just shirk their fatherly responsibilities, and it's nice to see you stepping up. Even if it did take you a while."

  Right now, Nate's heart was in the back of his throat, and he swallowed hard a couple times to try and come up with a response but nothing was coming.

  He fumbled for a minute, sounds coming out of his mouth that didn't form words, Lily's surprised stare boring holes in him. The walls of the diner suddenly felt awful close.

  "Uh, Rhonda…Mrs. Sullivan…I'm not sure what you're talking about."

  The woman tipped her head as she looked down at him, like she'd just knocked him down and was trying to find the softest, most vulnerable part of him to kick. It sure as hell felt that way, too.

  "Oh you know what I'm talking about. Lord knows Layla works too hard trying to keep that baby fed and clothed. Hopefully you can find it in the goodness of your heart to start living up to your financial fatherly duties, too." Her voice rose octave by octave until he was sure people outside the diner could hear her.

  And just as quickly as she'd appeared inside the door of the diner, she was gone—without even stopping to talk to Tina behind the counter, who had stopped midway through wiping down the counter and was staring in his direction with her jaw hanging open.

  Suddenly, the diner was tiny. Nate couldn't draw a breath; his throat felt like it was closing, his chest constricting. He was sure every eye in the place was on him, waiting for him to say something. But all he could think about was Layla. In his mind, he combed over every conversation they'd had, every minute he'd spent there, every feature of Mason's face. He hadn't asked. So she hadn't told. A lie by omission. But she would have told me, wouldn't she have? After seeing how much he cared about Mason, wouldn't she have said something? They'd become so close in such a short time, imagining Layla as being deceitful was a tough pill to swallo
w.

  He could hear every swish of his heartbeat in his ears, and his cheeks were blistering hot.

  Lily's voice cut through the din.

  "Nate?" He focused on her face, her lips set in a grim line, her hand waving in the space between them to try and bring him down to earth. "Breathe."

  Was this what a heart attack felt like? He could imagine the obituary headline now. 'The bull didn't kill him, but the baby did.'

  Not the baby. His baby. Jesus.

  He got to his feet and bolted out of the diner.

  —THIRTY-FIVE—

  By Layla's estimation, the best part of the day was in the evening when everything was quiet and still, and she had a few moments to herself where she didn't have to do anything. She was just settling into that moment with a mug of tea in the kitchen when she heard the familiar rumble of a diesel engine in the yard. They'd made plans—she would tell him tonight—so her heart jumped a little, knowing it was so close. But she'd made peace. Whatever happened would happen and there was nothing she could do about it.

  She picked up her mug, turning just as the screen door slammed loudly behind him. She thought to remind him he'd come late enough Mason was already in bed, but when she looked up and saw him standing in the middle of the floor like a thundercloud, she drew in a tight breath. Something was really, really wrong.

  "Is Mason mine?"

  Three words. Her heart dropped to her toes. It wasn't supposed to happen like this. It was meant to go the other way. She'd spent the afternoon considering how she'd soften the blow, and now she'd waited too long. Everything was ruined.

  She stumbled over words, trying to say something, anything, that would make it okay for her to cross the floor and touch his jaw, kiss him, and draw strength from his arms. She stopped, steeling herself.

  "Why don't we go outside and talk?" It was an effort to keep her voice even when all she wanted to do was cry. This would be much more painful than she'd anticipated.

  She breathed a sigh of relief as he stalked back out the door he'd just come in and she caught up just in time to stop the door from falling shut, trying to assemble words into some kind of an explanation.

  Taking a seat on the bench they'd spent so much time on this summer, she motioned for him to sit, but he stood, arms crossed, leaning his hips against the rail of the porch across from her. This is bad.

  "What's this about, Nate?"

  "Why don't you just answer the question, Layla?" His dark gaze pinned her, and she wrapped her hands around her mug, every part of her body tense, her jaw clenched so tight her teeth ached.

  She dropped her gaze, unable to look him in the eye when she answered. "Yes."

  "Fuck."

  Maybe she was just like the family she'd tried so hard not to be like. Manipulating good people for their generosity. Except this wasn't about money. This was about love. And she'd still end up empty-handed in the end. Hot tears prickled her eyelids.

  "I'm sorry, Nate. I just…"

  "Why'd I have to hear it from your mama? In front of everyone at Hinkley's? Why didn't you call me in Denver? Why am I just finding out now? Were you ever planning to tell me?"

  Overwhelmed by his rapid-fire questions and feeling like her whole body was being held in a vise, she let out a short breath through her nose. Of course, her mother. As hard as she'd tried to hide their relationship from her, she'd clearly failed, because Rhonda had been sure enough to act on her hunch. The woman was something, but family wasn't something she could be considered anymore.

  She swallowed a big ball of emotion in her throat that wanted to come out as a sob and lifted her chin. It would have been easier if he just left, walked away, nursed his anger on his own. But here he was, demanding answers—answers she owed him, and nothing she could say wouldn't sound selfish and awful and silly now the tables had been turned on her.

  "I didn't think you'd stick around when I said I wasn't interested in the same thing we had before. And then things went quick…"

  Nate wiped a hand over his face, letting out a long breath. When he spoke, his voice was filled with emotion, insistent. "If you'd told me when you first found out, I could have helped you, Layla. I could have sent money—"

  At that word, she found her voice, and the strength to bring herself to her feet. "No. I didn't want money. That's why I didn't call you in Denver. That's why I didn't tell you here. My mother wanted money and that's why she made a guess at you being Mason's father because I sure as hell didn't tell her."

  He could think of her however he wanted, but that was one thing she wouldn't let him think about her.

  "You didn't think I would want to have a part in my son's life?"

  "I didn't want you to feel like you had to."

  "What about what I want?" He ran a hand through his hair, clearly getting more agitated. He'd told her over and over during the last few weeks he was around because he wanted to be—it never occurred to her maybe he would have wanted to be a part of Mason's life from the beginning. Somehow, she'd imagined his life in Denver so far removed from what happened here in Three Rivers there was no way he'd want to be tied down to the girl from the wrong side of the tracks who had been too stupid not to get pregnant during a one night stand.

  This couldn't get better. How could he trust her again after she'd misled him? Now that her mother was involved? The best thing to do was let him cut his losses and walk away. She hadn't considered, when she had played this out in her mind, that he would resist. But it was the only way. Her heart was breaking, but she'd have to cut deep. It was better to hurt now than later, when Mason would be old enough to experience the loss, too.

  "You don't want this, Nate," she said, crossing her arms over her midsection in an attempt to hold herself together. "You might think you do, but you don't. And it would have been easier for you to walk away when you didn't feel any obligation."

  "You don't know what I want. You have no clue. You haven't since the beginning. You just never believed me." Nate's voice got progressively louder. Not shouting, but she could feel his anger simmering just under the surface, just beneath his words. "And even if you knew, would you even care? Would it even hold a candle to what you want? When do my needs get to be considered in this equation?"

  "They don't." Something flitted across his features, barely registrable, but it was what she was looking for. It was the severed tie.

  He scowled, took a step toward her like he had more to say, but then shook his head, turned on his heel and stalked away. She didn't try to stop him.

  —THIRTY-SIX—

  Nate parked his truck in the lot at Danny's. He'd had Layla's busy schedule memorized, but he double checked the spot where she normally parked just in case she'd been called in for a shift, and was happy to find it empty. In Denver, there would have been any number of places he could have gone to drown his…whatever feeling this was in a bottle or two, but in Three Rivers, his choices were Danny's or Nan's basement, and neither one of those sounded appealing. He could have gone to the Baylor ranch, he supposed, but then he'd have had to fill everyone in…if they hadn't already been filled in by Lily or any number of the patrons who had been at Hinkley's to see the scene Rhonda Sullivan had laid out for the whole town to see.

  He steeled his thoughts with a deep breath, putting the truck in park, and climbed out. It had been a good long time since he'd had any amount of anything to drink—it was a dangerous path after the accident that he'd seen far too many friends go down—but he needed to burn out this hurt. He couldn't figure out how, but somehow, Layla Sullivan had managed to singlehandedly make him hurt more than he had when he got the foreclosure notice, loaded his prized cutting horses onto a stock trailer destined for auction, and said goodbye to his little ranch.

  He was Old Nate. Feeling lower than low, not giving a shit about a thing. No, he was lower than that. He was something on the bottom of Old Nate's boot.

  Pushing through the door, the proprietor of the establishment, Danny, nodded to him in greeting
. It was a weekday afternoon, so it was no surprise to find the owner behind his own bar.

  "'Afternoon, Nate. Layla's not in yet."

  Maybe he'd been naive to think nobody noticed him showing up, taking her home. Well no—he hadn't thought that. Not at the time when it was happening. At the time, he'd been proud for people to see them together, even though she'd been much more reluctant. Now he wished it wasn't the same, because people would notice when they weren't together, and he'd have to answer questions he didn't feel like answering. All while the secret she'd kept from him was right on the tip of his tongue, so close it still made him feel dizzy to even think it. I have a son. Mason is my son.

  "Not looking for Layla," he said, purposely choosing a different stool than the one he typically occupied when he was waiting for Layla to finish up. Yet meant she was maybe picking up the evening shift. That was okay—he could be in and out before she turned up. "Just Jack."

  Danny's brow quirked up, but he flipped a shot glass over on the bar top and tilted the Jack Daniels bottle to fill it. Nate lifted the glass to Danny, then tipped it back, the burning liquid an easy distraction from what the last couple of days had been; dodging Nan, avoiding Banks' questions, and trying to figure out where the hell he was supposed to go from here. Danny hesitated nearby with the bottle in hand and took Nate's silent direction as he set the shot glass back down to refill it.

  When he angled for his third shot, Danny's brow shot up again. He'd put down the bottle and picked up a rag—this was the other side of bar keeping—a side Danny was known for, but Nate wasn't interested. He'd never been the type to talk things out, and here in this small town where anybody could be listening wouldn't be the start of it. Hoping to avoid the conversation altogether, he tapped the shot glass on the countertop once more.