Jenna's Cowboys

by Laura Jo Phillips

  “Thank you, Anna, that’s very kind of you.”

  “Think nothing of it, hon, us women gotta stick together, after all,” Anna said. “What can I get for you, Meg?”

  “I’ll have the same as Jenna,” Meg said.

  “Okie doke, I’ll be right back with your drinks.”

  Meg watched Anna walk away and sighed. “Sorry about that, Sugar,” she said. “Anna can be a bit odd sometimes.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Jenna said with a shrug. “It seems kind of strange that she just found out I’m having twins though. I thought everyone knew.”

  “She works here, but she lives in Jackston,” Meg said. “She’s not a part of Sparx.”

  Jenna nodded her understanding. The people of Sparx were a close knit group and they didn’t share information about each other with outsiders, and that meant anyone who didn’t live in Sparx.

  She picked up her tea and took a sip, still trying to figure out what Meg had been hinting at. “Oh, I get it,” she said suddenly, shifting her eyes to Meg’s. “Do they really want that?”

  “Oh they want it all right,” Meg said. “They want it so bad they can’t hardly stand it.”

  Jenna felt hot tears stinging her eyes at the knowledge that Jack and Hank, two men who’d come to mean a lot to her over the past year, wanted to be grandfathers to her children. Asking Meg to be a grandmother had just popped into her mind one day and since it refused to leave, and since Meg loved her, and she loved Meg, she’d asked. But she’d never imagined anyone would actually want it as much as they apparently did.

  She blinked the tears away and nodded her thanks to Anna when she delivered their drinks, using the moment to compose herself. After Anna moved away she leaned over the table toward Meg and smiled. “What do you think, Meg? Should I give it to them?”

  “That’s up to you, but if you want my opinion, I’d have to say yes. They’re wonderful men and they’d love those babies real good.”

  “I agree completely,” Jenna said. “Don’t tell them just yet okay? I wanna find a way to surprise them with it.”

  “My lips are sealed.”

  Jenna laughed as she reached for the sugar bowl only to find it missing. She slid out of the booth, grabbed one from a neighboring table and sat back down. Suddenly the entire diner went quiet. Her heart skipped a beat and her face paled as she looked at the door, but it wasn’t the Howards. Before she had a chance to fully process her relief, Meg’s expression went from happy to decidedly unhappy in the blink of an eye.

  “Oh hell,” she said softly. Jenna looked around, her eyes landing on a man who looked to be about sixty with short gray hair, and the lean build and tanned face of a long time cowboy. He was staring right at her but she had no idea why, or even who he was.

  “Meg?” she asked, tearing her gaze from the man, her heart beginning to race uncomfortably.

  “That’s Peter,” Meg said. “He’s been with the Howards their whole lives. They think of him almost as a father.”

  “Should I be scared of him?” Jenna asked, not quite daring to look at him again.

  “Scared of Peter?” Meg asked in surprise, then shook her head. “No Sugar, there’s no reason to be scared of him. But from the way he looked at you it’s clear he knows who you are, and he just discovered you’re pregnant. He’ll likely tell Cole and Dillon.”

  Jenna nodded, carefully hiding her fear. She’d known a moment like this would come sooner or later. Had, in fact, expected it sooner. A lot sooner. “It’s all right, Meg.”

  “It is?”

  “Like Sophocles said, Do nothing secretly; for Time sees and hears all things, and discloses all.”

  “I’m sorry hon, but I’m not close to being as smart as you. What’s that mean?”

  “I’m not so smart, I just remember things Dad used to say. All I mean is that this was never a secret that could be kept forever. But I’m not as scared about it as I was. I have you on my side now, and Hank and Jack, too. That helps.”

  “You’ve got a helluva lot more than just us, hon,” Meg said as Peter approached their table. “Don’t you forget it, either.”

  “I won’t,” Jenna said. “I promise.” Then she grabbed hold of her courage and looked up at the man staring down at her.

  “I’d like to talk to you a moment Ms. James, if you don’t mind.”

  Jenna’s hands covered her stomach in a protective gesture that she couldn’t prevent and didn’t try. “I understand you’re a friend to the Howards.” She was surprised by how calm she sounded to her own ears, and it gave her some much needed confidence.

  “Yes ma’am,” Peter said. “My name’s Peter Longy.”

  “All right, Mr. Longy, please have a seat.”

  “Just Peter, ma’am.”

  “Just Jenna, then.”

  “I’ll just run to the ladies,” Meg said, excusing herself as she slid out of the booth. She gave Peter a warning look that he acknowledged with a nod, then she left them alone.

  Peter sat down and crossed his arms on the table as he studied the young woman across from him. She was a pretty little thing, but she looked too thin, too pale, and too tired. His protective instincts flared, and the anger he’d felt when he’d seen her stand up and realized not one of his so-called friends had bothered to tell him she was pregnant, eased a bit. He knew as well as everyone else that she’d only dated two men, just the once. While that alone didn’t prove anything, the silence that had fallen when he’d spotted her left no doubt in his mind who’d fathered the baby she was carrying. Granted, she looked a bit further along than she should but she was awful small, and Cole and Dillon were mighty big.

  “How can I help you, Peter?” Jenna asked politely. She’d never even met him, and he had no right to question her. She could have refused to talk to him and no one, not even he, would have blamed her. That she agreed to speak with him at all earned her a good deal of respect in his eyes.

  “I’m just wondering,” Peter said, changing what he’d been about to say, “why it is you’re keeping this secret from Cole and Dillon?”

  “As you’ve just seen for yourself, Peter, it’s no secret.”

  “Then why don’t they know?”

  Jenna met his gaze unflinchingly. “Since I haven’t seen or heard from them since they left my apartment the morning after our date, I couldn’t begin to answer that question.” She shrugged. “I’m not so sure they don’t know, anyway.”

  “They don’t,” Peter said.

  “Everyone in this town knows I’m pregnant. It’s not like I can hide it.”

  “I didn’t know,” Peter pointed out weakly.

  “It’s all right, Peter,” she said quietly, as though trying to ease his mind. “I’ve been on my own a long time, and I can take care of myself and these babies just fine. I have friends willing to help me if I need it, and that’s a whole lot more than I ever expected to have. I don’t need more than that.”

  “Don’t you think they have a right to know?”

  “I’m not stopping them from finding out the same as you just did,” Jenna said, sidestepping the question. “But I’m not running them down to tell them something they don’t wanna know about, either. I got enough on my plate right now, and I don’t owe them that.”

  “No, you don’t,” Peter agreed with a sigh. “Babies?”

  “Twins,” she said with a nod, reaching for her purse and pulling some money out. She paused a moment, then seemed to make a decision. “After the babies are born they’ll have visitation if that’s what they want, though I doubt they will.”

  “Why wouldn’t they?”

  “Because they despise me.”

  “Why do you say that?” he asked, shocked.

  For the first time since he’d sat down she dropped her eyes, but not fast enough for Peter to miss the pain she was hiding. Once he knew it was there it hit him like a freight train, nearly knocking the air from his lungs.

  “They let me know exactly what they thought of me the las
t time I saw them. I can’t think of any reason for their opinions to have changed.” Peter had nothing to say to that, but he was suddenly very angry with Cole and Dillon.

  “I understand that you’ll want to tell them about this,” Jenna said, looking up at him again, her mask of calm back in place. “When you do, I’d appreciate it very much if you’d also tell them that I don’t want anything from them. Not their money, not their name, not their help, nothing at all. That’s real important to me. If you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to work now.”

  “Sure,” Peter said. He watched as Jenna got up and walked away, pausing at the cash register to pay for the lunch that hadn't even been delivered. He felt bad about that when he saw Meg hand her a paper To-Go bag. The moment she was out the door and it closed behind her, he looked around at the faces of the remaining diners who, he noted, were all watching him.

  “Don’t tell them,” Hank said, not even having to raise his voice to be heard across the silent diner. “They don’t deserve to have this handed to them on a platter, Peter.”

  “What do you mean?” Peter understood why everyone felt protective of Jenna. Hell, he felt that way himself. But he didn’t understand the anger toward the Howards, especially since everyone seemed to know they were in the dark about Jenna’s pregnancy.

  “They used her,” Hank said coldly. “It took her damn near a year of living here, learning to trust us, learning to feel safe. She chose to spend one night with them, believing they cared about her, and they treated her like cheap takeout food. They took what they wanted and tossed the rest away like so much trash.”

  “There’s more to it than that,” Peter said, but he could see that’s what everyone thought, and conceded that they had no reason to think otherwise. Unfortunately, the Howards’ secrets weren’t his to tell. A thought that made him realize it wouldn’t be fair to tell Jenna’s secrets, either.

  “It don’t much matter to us,” Jack said. “What matters to us is Jenna and those babies she’s carrying. We don’t want her upset, hurt, or fucked around with. She’s got some serious marks against her with this pregnancy, and Doc’s keeping a real close eye on her. So are the rest of us. There’s not a man or woman in this town that’ll stand by and let her be hurt any more than she already has been. If you tell the Howards that Jenna’s pregnant, you best tell ‘em that, too.”

  A sudden crash broke the heavy silence. Everyone in the diner jumped in surprise and turned to see Meg and Anna quickly reaching for towels to clean up a glass of iced tea that one of them had dropped on the counter. Peter took the time to consider what Hank, Jack, and Jenna had said, and made a decision.

  “I hear you loud and clear,” he said, getting up and reaching for his wallet. “I love those boys like my own, but I won’t be butting into this. Not because of what you’ve said, but because of what Jenna said. She’s right. If they wanted to know this, they’d know it.”

  The tension level dropped suddenly, surprising Peter. He hadn’t realized just how important it was to the people of this town that Jenna’s wishes be respected on this issue, but he did now.

  “I ought not to say this, but I’m going to anyway,” he said, turning to face Hank, though he knew everyone in the diner was listening. “Cole and Dillon are good men. They’ve been dealing with a real tragic situation the past few months that I’m not at liberty to discuss. I’m not saying it excuses their behavior toward Jenna because I don’t think it does. I’m just asking that y’all not judge them too harshly just yet.”

  Hank frowned, but nodded. “We don’t know what happened between the Howards and Jenna because she’s never said a single word about it as far as I know. She never even told anyone she was pregnant, let alone who the fathers are, but it wasn’t hard to guess. Whatever the story is, we all know there’s gonna be two sides to it. My point is, we don’t care what the story is.

  “We gotta put Jenna first, Peter. She has no one to take care of her, no men to rely on, and no family to turn to. She’s doing it all on her own, working ten, twelve hours a day, seven days a week without a bit of help. Knowing she’s gonna have twins just means she has to work twice as hard and spend twice as much to prepare for them. The medical bills alone will take her years to pay off since she has no insurance and she won’t let Doc treat her for free. Considering how well off the Howards are, that doesn’t sit too well with the rest of us.”

  “It doesn’t sit too well with me, either, Hank,” Peter said with a sigh. He paid for his lunch and, with a half-hearted wave, he turned and left the diner. He climbed into his truck, then sat staring at Jenna’s shop up the street while trying to figure out what he should do. He couldn’t spill Jenna’s news. He’d said he wouldn’t, and he always kept his word. But Cole and Dillon needed to know about this.

  He wondered suddenly what Jack meant when he’d said she had some marks against her with the pregnancy. She’d looked pale and thin, with none of that glow women usually had when they were pregnant. He felt a flutter of fear in his belly for Jenna, her babies, and for Cole and Dillon, too. He considered going back inside to ask, but something told him he wouldn’t get any more answers. After a while, he started the truck and headed out of town, still wondering what he was going to do.

  ***

  “Where the hell you been, Peter?” Cole demanded as soon as Peter climbed out of his truck.

  Peter froze for a long moment, then closed the door before turning slowly to face Cole. Employer he might be, but he’d known the Howard boys since they were no more than a gleam in their momma’s eye, and he sure as hell wouldn’t be taking that sort of shit off Cole, or anyone else.

  He leaned back against the side of his truck, crossed his ankles, and shrugged as though he didn’t have a care in the world. His icy glare and stiff jaw were more than enough to give his feelings away.

  “Ah, hell, Peter,” Cole said, hanging his head. “I’m sorry. I got no reason to talk that way to you.”

  “You sure don’t,” Peter agreed coolly. “Matter of fact, you got no reason to be talking to any of the men that way, but you keep on doing it. Pretty soon you won’t have enough hands to rope a sick calf, so if that’s your aim, you’re well on your way.”

  Cole looked up, his eyes narrowing. “Every damn hand on the place has been giving me and Dillon the cold shoulder for weeks now and ain’t no one will tell us why. It just flat pisses me off. Now you’re doing it. You wanna tell me what’s going on or are you just gonna glare at me like everyone else?”

  “Oh, I wanna tell you,” Peter replied. “But I won’t.”

  “Why the fuck not?” Cole demanded, his anger growing. “Whatever this game is, I’ve had enough of it.”

  “It’s no game,” Peter said frostily. He tilted his head. “Tell me something. Did you ever figure out how Lyssa did it?”

  “Yeah,” Cole said, the wind going out of sails so fast Peter thought he’d fall down. “She finally told us. It don’t much matter anymore. What’s done is done. We just gotta move on.”

  “What’d she tell you?” Peter pressed.

  “About what?” Dillon asked, joining them.

  “How did Lyssa end up pregnant?”

  “She sabotaged an entire box of condoms,” Dillon said. “Stuck a needle through the center of every damn one, multiple times on most of ‘em. Once we knew what to look for, we saw it.”

  Peter’s stomach tightened. That wasn’t the lowest thing he’d ever heard, but it came close. “She coming back?”

  “Hell no,” Cole snapped. “She steps foot on this ranch again I want Sheriff Luke called. We’ll press charges if she trespasses. She’s already been warned. I’m not kidding on this Peter. That woman doesn’t step one fucking toe on our land.”

  Peter nodded as he studied the dust on his boots for a long moment. “So, let me see if I got this straight,” he said. “She sabotaged an entire box of condoms what, six months ago?”

  “Yeah, that's right,” Dillon said.

  “What about all
the other women you’ve slept with using those condoms?” Peter asked, knowing he was skimming real close to breaking his word, but unable to stop himself. “Did you tell them about it?”

  “There was only one other woman, Peter,” Cole said. “I doubt like hell she’d wanna hear from us. Besides, that was five months ago. If she had a problem I’m sure she’d have told us about it by now.”

  “I see,” Peter said coldly. “Well, I best get to work. Gotta fence needs mending.”

  He turned and walked away, forcing himself to take each step when what he really wanted to do was shake some sense into those two boys. He knew they could be a bit spoiled sometimes, but he never would have guessed they’d do something like this. He thought he’d raised them better than that.

  He was half way to the barn when he heard Cole and Dillon approaching. “Peter,” Cole said. He stopped, clenched his fists at his sides and turned. Cole and Dillon both took a step back at the expression on his face. “What the hell?” Cole asked. “Why’re you so mad at us, Peter?”

  “You have to ask?” Peter rasped.

  “Evidently,” Dillon said.

  “You slept with a woman using damaged condoms, you both know it, and instead of informing her you decide she can come to you if she has a problem?” Peter shook with fury as he remembered Jenna’s carefully hidden pain, her too thin, too pale face, her quiet, gentle dignity. “Fuck the both of you,” he said. “I quit.” With that he turned away from them and headed back to his truck.

  Cole and Dillon ran ahead of him and blocked his path. “Get the fuck out of my way, boys,” he growled.

  “You’re right,” Dillon said. “We didn’t find out about the condoms until a few weeks ago, but we still should have told her, Peter. It’s unforgivable that we didn’t.”

  Peter glared at Dillon for a long moment, but he saw nothing but sincerity in his eyes. He looked at Cole who was hanging his head. “Dillon’s right, you’re right, I know it,” he admitted. “We’re not nowhere near good enough for Jenna and that’s a fact. We fucked up with her so badly Peter that I can’t even bring myself to tell you about it. We were gonna go apologize to her, I swear it, but that’s the same day we got home and found that message from Lyssa’s sister. Now we’re too damn ashamed of ourselves to face Jenna, let alone apologize.”