The Rancher's Baby

by Maisey Yates

  They turned up the dirt road onto her property and didn’t speak until they were inside the house again. Then finally she turned to him, her dark eyes full of compassion. He didn’t like that. The compassion. Because it was so damned close to pity.

  “I don’t know what to say,” she said, when they got into the house. She looked at him with luminous eyes, and he could read her sincerity. Her sadness.

  He didn’t want either.

  He reached out, grabbing hold of her wrist and wrapping his arm around her waist, crushing her to his body, because he couldn’t think of anything else to do. He needed something to hold on to, and she was there, like she had always been. In the middle of that horrible breakdown that he’d had at Eleanor’s funeral, she’d been there. And she was here now. There was a yawning, horrific ache inside of him, and she was the only thing he could think of that would fill it.

  “I used to be a husband,” he said, his voice rough. “I used to be a father. And now I’m just a man with a hole inside, and I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do to fix it. I don’t even know if I want to fix it. I don’t know who I am.”

  “I do,” she said softly. She lifted the hand that was currently free and brushed her fingertips against the side of his face, tracing the line of his jaw. “You’re a man, Knox. A man that I want. For now...can that be enough? Can you just be that for me?”

  Everything inside of him roared an enthusiastic hell yes. He could be that. He could do that. It was actually the one damn thing he knew in that moment. That he could be Selena’s lover. That he could satisfy them both. He didn’t know what the hell was going on in the rest of the world, but he knew what could happen here, in her bedroom.

  And so he picked her up, holding her close to his chest as he carried her to the back of the house and deposited her on her bed. He stripped them both of their clothes, leaving the lights on so he could drink his fill of her beautiful body. He was about to do to her what he had done last night, to force her legs open and taste her as deeply as he wanted to. But she sat up on the bed, moving to the edge and pressing her hands to the center of his bare chest.

  “Let me,” she whispered. She pressed a kiss to his pectoral muscle, right next to his nipple. “Let me show you. Let me show you how much I want you.”

  He tensed, his entire body drawn tight like a bow. She continued an exploration down his torso, down his stomach, and lower still until she reached his cock. She curved her fingers around him, leaning forward and flicking her tongue over the head. His breath caught sharply, his entire body freezing.

  “I’ve never done this either,” she said. He looked down at her and saw that she was making eye contact with him, her expression impish. “If you were wondering.”

  Of course he had wondered, because he was a man, and damned possessive even if he shouldn’t be. And the fact that she was doing this for him, only for him, and had never done it for anyone else was far too pleasing a revelation by half.

  She braced herself on his thighs and took him deeper into her mouth, arching her back and sticking her ass in the air. He pressed his palm down between her shoulder blades and tried to keep himself from falling over as she continued to pleasure him with her lips and her tongue. It was a hell of a thing, accepting pleasure like this. He hadn’t fully realized what he’d been doing to himself all this time. Punishing himself. Taking everything away that he possibly could.

  Sex. Leisure time. All of it.

  He hadn’t allowed himself to enjoy a damned meal since his daughter’s funeral. It was all hurry up and then get back to work. Leave work and then exercise. Work the ranch. It was only during this past week while he’d been here with Selena that he had begun to get in touch with some of the things he had left behind. Things like the company of people he cared about. Like going to an event and seeing people you knew. Like how much he enjoyed the touch of a woman. And he didn’t know what he felt about all these revelations—the knowledge that he’d been punishing himself and the fact that he had started letting go of that punishment this week.

  Piece by piece.

  He felt a sharp pang of guilt join with the overriding sense of pleasure she was pouring onto him with all that sweet, lavish attention from her mouth.

  Need was roaring through him now, and it was almost impossible for him to keep himself in check. He knew he needed to, but part of him didn’t want to. Part of him just wanted to surrender to this completely, surrender to her completely.

  But no, she deserved better than this.

  In the end, she deserved better than him, but he was too weak to turn her away.

  He didn’t have the power. And that was what it always damn well came down to.

  That when it came to the important things, he didn’t have the strength to make an impact.

  But he could make it good for her. And he would take that.

  “Not like this,” he said, his voice rough.

  He grabbed hold of her arms and pulled her up his body, claiming her mouth in a searing kiss, his heart pounding hard, his breath coming in fierce gasps. Then he laid her down on the bed, hooked her leg up over his hip and thrust into her deep and hard, taking her until they were both breathless, until they were both completely caught up and consumed in their release.

  When it was over they lay together. Just a man and a woman. Who had wanted each other. Who had needed each other, and who had taken steps to act on that need.

  It was simple. Peaceful. He let his mind go blank and just rested. Listened to her breathe in and out. Focused on the feel of her silken skin beneath his touch. The way her hair spread over his chest in a glossy wave.

  It didn’t last long.

  Didn’t take long before he remembered who he was. Who they were. Before he had to face the fact that even though he felt like he might have been washed clean by what happened between them, he was still the same. Deep down, he was still the same.

  Selena curled more tightly against him and he wrapped his arm around her, relishing the feel of her warmth, of her feminine softness, of her weight against him. Those words, those thoughts, triggered terror inside him. So he pushed it away.

  “Are you going to stay away forever again?” she asked, her tone sleepy.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, this is the first time you’ve been back to Royal since...well, you know since what. You’ve been in Wyoming. I had to chase you down over there to even see you.”

  “I know,” he said.

  “Is that what we are going to do? Are you going to leave and put distance between yourself and Texas again?”

  And between himself and her. That part was unspoken, but he sensed it was there. And that it was a very real concern.

  “It’s hard to be here,” he said. Finally. “The life Cassandra and I made together was here. It was a good life. It’s one that I could have lived till the end. This beautiful house... Our beautiful family. It was good. It really was. I made it. I had all the things you think you want when you picture reaching that perfect position in your life. Then it crashed into a wall.” He shook his head. “Nobody likes to go back to the scene of an accident. And that’s what it feels like to me.”

  “I can’t even imagine,” she said, her voice muffled. She buried her face against his bare shoulder and he curled his hand around the back of her head, holding her. It was strange, to touch her like this, so casually. As if it all hadn’t changed between them just last night. Because touching her like this felt natural. It felt right.

  “Grief is a hell of a thing, though,” he said. “It doesn’t really matter where you are. It doesn’t really care. It’s in a smell, a strange moment that for some reason takes you backward in time. It’s seeing a little girl that’s the same age as Ellie would’ve been now. Or a little girl the same age she was when she died. Just seeing people walking together. Couples walking through life. It’s freezing
in the grocery store because you’ve picked up a box of crackers.”

  He tried to laugh, but it was hard. “We carry these crackers in the store. You know, graham crackers. Organic, obviously. And they were her favorite.” He cleared his throat but it did nothing to ease the pressure in his chest. “I can’t walk by that damn shelf, Selena.” The words were broken, tearing through him, leaving him bloody and ragged inside. “Because I remember the way she used to wipe her mouth on my shirt and leave a trail behind. She would just...ruin all these really nice shirts. It was frustrating, and I think it annoyed me, even though I never got mad at her. Because she was just a baby. Just a little girl.” It was surreal. Lying there, talking about this. Like he was watching someone else do it. But if it was another man’s life, it wouldn’t have hurt so much. “I’d give anything—my damned life—to wash graham cracker out of a shirt again.”

  He felt wetness on his shoulder and he realized she was crying, and then he realized there was an answering wetness on his own cheeks. “I didn’t need to stay away from Texas to protect myself. There’s no shielding yourself from something like this. I can lose my shit over a fucking cracker.”

  She buried her face in his chest. “I wish I could fix it,” she said. “And those are the most frustrating words I’ve ever said. Because they don’t give you anything. And they don’t fix anything.”

  “Between the two of us I think we have a lot of broken pieces,” he said, clearing his throat.

  “I guess so.”

  “I won’t stay away this time,” he said, moving his hand up and down her bare curves, down her waist, over her hip. “I don’t think I could.” He was quiet for a long time. “I haven’t told anyone that story.” She didn’t have to ask which one. “I just kept all this stuff to myself.”

  And he knew it was why his marriage had ended, or at least it was part of the reason why. Because he’d gone inside of himself, and Cassandra had retreated into herself. And neither one of them had known how to find their way back to each other, and they hadn’t had the energy—or the desire, really—to even begin to try.

  “Thank you for telling me,” she said. “Thank you.”

  “You said you felt like you hadn’t done anything. But you have. You did. You gave me this. This memory. This moment. The first thing I’ve really enjoyed in years. That’s not nothing.”

  “What are friends for?” She smiled, and then she kissed his lips.

  And after that, they didn’t speak anymore.

  Ten

  Knox spent the next week at Selena’s house, and he didn’t really question what he was doing. Yes, he had an inkling that he was avoiding his real life. That he was avoiding dealing with the charity event that his ex had organized, that he was avoiding the reality of life in general, but he didn’t much want to focus on any of that.

  The mystery surrounding Will’s return hadn’t been solved, but there had been no more fake letters and no attempts by anyone to contact Selena. Knox was leaving all of that to the investigators and Will’s family.

  Instead, he wanted to focus on this newfound layer of his relationship with Selena. Wanted to focus on enjoying the way things felt again. Sex. Food. He and Selena were enjoying a lot of both.

  And he was still helping her sort out her property. Slowly, though, because he really wasn’t in a hurry to finish. He was working out in the shed, while Selena took care of some business things in the house, when his phone rang.

  It was from a number he didn’t recognize, so he picked it up just in case it was a business call. “Hello?”

  “Knox,” the voice on the other end said.

  Cassandra. The impact hit him like a punch to the stomach. And his initial response was rage. Absolute rage that she was intruding on this peaceful moment in his life. On this new thing that was happening with him.

  He didn’t want to hear her voice. Not while he was standing here in Selena’s shed, mounting a new shelf so she had adequate storage.

  “I don’t know this number,” he said.

  “I got a new phone,” she responded, her voice tenuous.

  “Why did you call?”

  And he felt like an ass for being impatient with her. For being such a jerk, because it wasn’t like she had ever done anything to him. They had never really done anything to each other, and that had been the problem in the end.

  “You never responded to the invitation for the Ellie’s House fundraiser,” she said.

  “Did I need to? I wrote a check.”

  “I want you there,” she said. “Ellie’s House is really important to me. It’s the only thing that makes me feel like what I went through—what we went through—wasn’t completely pointless and cruel. I want this to be important to you. I want you to be there. To lend your connections. Your appearance matters.”

  “Don’t say it like that,” he said. “Don’t say it like the charity isn’t important to me. Like she’s not important to me.”

  There was a long pause on the other end. “I didn’t mean it like that. I really didn’t. I did not call to have a fight with you, I swear.”

  He shifted, looking out the door of the shed at the field and trees off in the distance. The leaves blowing in the breeze, the sun shining down on it all. Like the world wasn’t really a dark and terrible place. Like he wasn’t being torn to shreds every time he took a breath. “We didn’t fight while we were married. What’s the point in fighting now?”

  That produced another long silence. “There isn’t one.” Cassandra took a breath. “It would mean a lot to me if you could come. And I need to tell you something. Something that...I don’t know how to say. I don’t know...where to begin.”

  His chest tightened. “What?”

  “Knox... I...I’m getting married.”

  He had not expected that. Neither had he expected the accompanying feeling of being slapped across the face with a two-by-four. “What?”

  “I met someone.” Something in her voice changed. Softened. Warmed. Happiness, he realized. He hadn’t heard it in her voice in a long time. Certainly not when talking to him. “I didn’t expect it. I wasn’t looking for it. I didn’t even want it. But he’s... He makes me happy. And I didn’t think I could be happy again. I have purpose with Ellie’s House, and...I really want you to come. And I want you to see him. To meet him.”

  “I’m sorry—why the hell would I want to meet your fiancé, Cassandra?” he asked. He could feel his old life slipping away. Moving into the distance.

  Or maybe she was moving on and life was going past him.

  “You don’t love me,” she said. “You’re not in love with me, anyway.”

  That wasn’t even close to being part of the visceral, negative reaction to her announcement. That much he knew. He didn’t want Cassandra. He’d had her, they’d had each other, and they hadn’t tried to fix things.

  There was something else. Something he couldn’t pinpoint. But it wasn’t about wanting her back.

  “No,” he said.

  “But we still care about each other, don’t we? We were together for ten years. It’s such a long time. Our whole twenties. It was you and me. We went through something... You’re the only other person on earth who will ever know how I feel. You’re the only person who experienced the same losses as me. You’ll always matter to me for that reason. I just need you there. I need this closure. Please come.”

  Those words hit him hard. And somehow, he found that he didn’t have the strength to turn her down. “Okay.”

  “Bring somebody,” she said. “I mean it. Find a date. Find...something. We deserve to be happy.”

  After that, they got off the phone, and he struggled with his feelings about what she’d said. Because at the end of the day, he wasn’t entirely sure he deserved to be happy.

  He stumbled out of the shed and went into the house. Selena was sitting in there, her d
ark hair piled up on top of her head in a messy bun. She was holding a pen in her mouth and staring down at her laptop.

  She was so damned beautiful he could barely breathe. “Hey,” he said.

  She looked up and she smiled at him, and it felt like the sun coming out from behind the clouds. Which, for a man who had spent the past two years in darkness, was a pretty big thing.

  “Do you want to come to a charity thing with me?”

  “Sure,” she said, giving him a strange look.

  “It’s Cassandra’s thing,” he said.

  “Oh,” Selena said, her expression cautious. “For Ellie’s House?”

  He frowned. “You know about that?”

  She bit her lip. “About the foundation, yes. I wasn’t invited to any charity event. But I sent some money in a while back.”

  He cleared his throat and shoved his hands into his pockets. “Well, she told me to bring a date.”

  The corners of her lips turned upward, just slightly. “Then I’m happy to fulfill that role.”

  “Great,” he said, trying to force a smile.

  It was only later that he questioned the decision. He realized he was committing to bringing Selena to a public function, as his date. Which had less to do with how it might look—he didn’t care, and anyway, it was well established that they were friends—but that he was bringing her along as a plus-one to his grief. That he was basically submitting himself to showing it all to the public.

  But it was too late now. He’d already agreed. He’d already asked her to come with him. He was just going to have to get a handle on himself. To get some of his control back.

  Because everything was moving in a direction he wasn’t sure he liked. All that was left to do was try and keep a handle on himself.

  * * *

  Knox acted strange for the next week. Which was not helped at all by the fact that Selena was starting to feel a little bit strange herself.