by Maisey Yates
“I am so tempted to get in the car with a stranger right now. Could you offer me candy and make it sound a bit more sweet and sinister?”
“Sorry. No candy. But I’m being honest with you about who I am.”
“Somehow I believe you, Mr. Cole Mitchell. And it might be the Stetson.”
“Got a computer with Internet?”
“That’s like asking if I have my right arm handy.”
“So yes.”
“Yeah. Through there.” She gestured into the living room.
“Can you make it?”
“I’m upright, aren’t I?”
“Lead on then.”
He followed her into the living room and chuckled when he saw the letters on her ass again. “‘Juicy,’ huh?”
“Don’t read my butt. I did not give you permission to look there.”
“You’re broadcasting, darlin’.”
“Well, I didn’t expect to have an audience when I dressed.”
“Pants like that are begging for commentary.”
She turned and shot him a glare that could have singed a lesser man’s arm hair clean off. “I’m not begging for anything, I assure you.”
“Now, I wouldn’t dream of being so presumptuous.”
“Ten-dollar word, sheriff.”
“We have schools out in the Wild West.”
She snorted and kicked a black leather office chair out of the way with her foot before leaning over the computer desk and opening up a web browser on her laptop. “What am I looking for?”
“Elk Haven Stables.”
She put in the keywords and hit enter. The top result was the right one, thanks to Lark and her brilliant skills at search engine optimization.
“This is you?” she asked, scrolling through pictures of vast, painterly scenery.
“Purple mountain majesties and all. Click on the cabins.”
She did, and her mouth dropped open slightly.
“Every modern convenience you could ever want, with a little luxury, right out in the pristine Oregon wilderness.”
“So it says right in the tagline,” she said.
“It’s real. Interested?”
“I could write a piece on retreats to cleanse the body and soul,” she mused.
“And you could rest.”
“Yeah, that. I’m bored of that. I like doing things. Thinking of new things.”
“Then yes, work. Whatever makes you happy. And maybe we can . . . figure this out.”
“I’m not letting you drive me there.”
“Fine with me.”
“And I’m paying for it.”
“No.”
“Uh . . . yes.”
He put his hand on her arm, and her eyes widened. “You aren’t paying me. And if you try, I’ll tear the check.”
“Take Visa?”
“I’ll cut your card.”
Their eyes locked, and he felt his stomach get tighter, his heart racing. Not really like attraction; more like the way he used to feel when he did roping competitions. When he knew he was going to get a serious fight from the calf.
“I’m not an easy woman to control, Cole Mitchell. When I set my mind to something, I do it.”
“Then it’s going to be interesting, Kelsey Noble, because I’m not the kind of man who backs down. I’ve got one hell of a hard head and I have no problem butting it against yours.”
She pursed her lips and pulled them to the side. “Hmm. Well, this is going to be interesting.”
“Sure is.”
Chapter Four
“So the only place you can write about rest and relaxation is at this ranch out in BFE, Oregon?”
Kelsey turned her head slightly, grateful that she had managed to keep the vomiting under control since Alexa had come to pick her up. She’d made it to the car with her suitcase and loaded it into the trunk herself.
And now they were twenty miles outside of Portland, headed into the sticks. If Kelsey thought about it too much, she started to feel a little bit nauseous again. Thankfully, her friend had managed to finagle more vacation time so she could come spend a couple of weeks up at Elk Haven with her.
It made it seem slightly less insane. They were using the buddy system. That was just good sense. And this way, she would have someone to hold her hair if she started retching uncontrollably en route.
“I got an offer I couldn’t refuse.” Or at least one she hadn’t been able to turn down lightly. What a mess. She wanted to hide and pretend this wasn’t happening, but seeing the man in person—the father of her baby—it made it feel so real. Made her aware of what she would be denying her child, specifically, if she chose not to have him involved.
He was the kind of man a small child would see as a hero. Tough, larger than life . . .
Alexa took her eyes off the road for a second to offer her an arched eyebrow. “Oh, really?”
“What’s ‘Oh, really’?”
“Just the way you said it. It sounded mysterious. You don’t usually do mysterious.”
“It’s not mysterious. I met this guy, and it’s his ranch, and . . .”
“Is this a backwoods booty call?” Alexa asked, her voice pitched higher than normal.
“What does that even mean? And no. No, it’s not. I’m just saying, he showed me the website for his ranch and offered to let me write a piece and stay there and I said yes because—well, who couldn’t use rest and relaxation?—and anyway, I’m a health and wellness columnist and this falls under the heading.”
“Was that all one sentence? That’s a sure sign you’re lying. You’re going to this ranch to hook up with some guy. You want to save a horse and ride a cowboy.”
Kelsey tried not to let the image of riding that particular cowboy linger in her mind’s eye for too long. She hadn’t really studied Cole’s features, since she’d been lost in a haze of sickness and fatigue, but what she remembered of him was pure, masculine goodness. And no, she hadn’t seen him in anything that gave too much information on his physique, but it was easy to imagine what it might look like. Tanned and toned and . . . well, darn if her mind’s eye hadn’t added a little glossy sheen of sweat to those muscles. And a little bit of chest hair.
Saddle up indeed.
She blinked. Nope. She wasn’t riding anyone. She could barely ride in a car without succumbing to dizzying nausea, so the very idea of dealing with motion sickness while she was . . . oh, no, it didn’t even bear thinking about. Not even for a second.
And she hadn’t really pictured riding Cole. Not really. It was Alexa and her stupid dirty jokes. That was all. It had forced the image on her, really. There was no choice but to picture it. Anyone would have. Her mother, the most restrained, least scandalous woman alive, would have had to picture it. And then she would have washed Alexa’s mouth out with soap.
“There will be no riding.” She glared at the side of Alexa’s head. “None. This is rest and relaxation. For work. I said for work, right? Because this is for work. Anyway, if I wanted to hook up, why would I bring you?”
“Because he has an equally hot friend and you pitied me in my long single state and thought I might benefit from a little ‘relaxation’ of my own?”
“I’m not that nice.”
“Stone-cold.”
She was going to have to tell Alexa eventually. But putting it off meant less time in the car with a friend who was screaming at her. Also, the closer they got to Silver Creek, the less likely it was that Alexa would turn the car around and take her back to Portland and straight to a mental health institution.
“That’s me.”
“Hungry?”
Hell to the no. “Sure. Yeah, I could eat.”
“Great. There’s a place up here that does pie and ice cream. Sundaes so huge they need to be eaten with a ladle. They show them on Food Network all the time.”
“I thought you meant lunch. Something sensible.”
“Ugh. You and your whole grains. I want pie. It has dairy, eggs and fruit. He
althy.”
Kelsey laughed. Probably for the first time in weeks. Oh, yes, it was a very good thing she’d brought Alexa along. “Nice try. Very nice try. You have earned your pie, even though your logic is as faulty as a condom that’s been in some guy’s wallet for three years.”
Bad analogy, all things considered. But Alexa appreciated it. As Kelsey had known she would.
“Blech. Can you imagine? One impromptu hookup and you get knocked up by some doofus with expired condoms?”
Actually, Kelsey could well imagine. And she hadn’t even gotten to hook up with anyone. Though the pregnancy had been intentional, the baby daddy drama had not been.
“A new thing to worry about,” she said.
Alexa maneuvered the car off of the main road and into the parking lot of a grubby-looking diner with a bright yellow sign that, at one time, had likely boasted of the tasty treats inside. Now it just had peeling letters that made the message unreadable.
“This doesn’t really look promising.”
“It’s going to be amazing,” Alexa said. “Pie slices as big as dinner plates.”
Kelsey’s stomach rolled over. “Mmm.”
“Right?”
Kelsey followed Alexa’s bouncy brown ponytail into the diner and tried to ignore the faint tacky feeling of the floor as they walked over to a red vinyl booth. It smelled like grease. French fry grease and a hot griddle top. Which normally wouldn’t be a bad thing, but given the current state of things, it was very bad.
“It smells like a deep fryer in here.”
“So good,” Alexa said, picking up the single-page menu and reading the list of offerings.
Kelsey glanced at the menu, unwilling to pick it up in case it was as sticky as it appeared, and looked for the most innocuous item she find. When the waitress came by Alexa dropped the menu.
“Can I get a burger? And then I’ll have a slice of the marionberry pie after.”
The woman nodded and looked at Kelsey.
“Green salad. No dressing. Water?”
Both Alexa and the waitress raised their eyebrows at her.
“Sure, honey,” the waitress said, taking the menus and walking away from the table.
“Don’t tell me you’re on some kind of weird cleansing diet.”
“How would iceberg lettuce cleanse you?” Kelsey asked.
“I don’t know. I don’t do stupid things like that. I eat. Food sustains us, after all.”
Kelsey rolled her eyes. “Yeah, french fries are the side dish of champions.”
“You look thinner than you did at your sister’s wedding. No one needs to be that thin.”
Kelsey was sort of nourishment-deprived against her will, but she didn’t really want to have that conversation yet. She didn’t really want to have it ever. Alexa was going to flip out. And Alexa’s reaction was the least of her worries. She really, really wished she could crawl in a hole.
Not face her friend. Not face her family. Not face the decision she’d made a couple of months ago. And most especially not face Cole, the father of that decision.
“I just don’t feel very well. The car ride and all.”
Alexa frowned. “Yeah, you look pale.”
“Thanks.”
The waitress returned a few minutes later with Kelsey’s salad and Alexa’s grease-fest. Alexa picked up one of the yellow plastic bottles and squeezed a blob of mustard onto her hamburger.
The tangy, bitter scent of the mustard hit her with a force that was shocking for a condiment. Her stomach turned over, a vile flavor filling her mouth.
“Excuse me.” She jumped up from the table and dashed into the diner bathroom, where she lost what little she’d eaten that day. She bent over and slapped her hand on the side of the bathroom stall, a tear rolling down her cheek.
This wasn’t what she’d signed on for. None of it. Not the nausea, or the weight loss, or Cole. Most especially not Cole.
“What’s wrong with you?” Alexa pushed open the stall door, and Kelsey cringed. She didn’t really want anyone seeing her right now, on her knees on the grimy tile floor of a diner bathroom.
“I’m sick.”
“Obviously. How sick are you? Holy crap. Are you dying or something? Is that why you’re going on a retreat and eating only lettuce?”
“I’m not dying.” Kelsey stood up, her legs wobbly, her muscles feeling more like gelatin than anything else. “Even if I feel like I am most days.”
Alexa breathed out an expletive that probably could have shocked the two biker guys sitting at the counter in the dining area. “Are you pregnant?”
Kelsey rested her head against the cool wall and breathed out slowly. “Yes,” she said. “Move over, I need out of the stall. And I need a toothbrush.”
Alexa stood to the side and Kelsey bent over the sink, washing her hands and face, blotting at her clammy neck with a paper towel.
Alexa stood, arms crossed, eyebrows drawn together. “So you already rode the cowboy.”
Kelsey sighed. “It’s more complicated than that.”
“Sex isn’t really that complicated.”
Kelsey arched a brow. “That’s a lie. A lie from the pit of hell. Sex is nothing but a complication. On that you can trust me. Michael having sex with another woman was complicated.”
“And I suppose when one gets pregnant that also makes sex complicated?”
“Yeah.” She held back the truth. Because how could Alexa, who had a severe aversion to all things baby, understand the sort of driving ache that had made Kelsey make the decision to have a child? Even now, that ache, that desire, was what kept her sane. It was what reminded her why she was doing this. Her own baby. And not just a baby—a child.
“So . . . are we going to beat child support out of him with a stick or what?”
“No.” She ran cold water over her wrists. “No, I think he’s more than willing to pay child support.” They hadn’t discussed money, but there had been no reason Cole needed to track her down. He wanted to be involved. If he didn’t, she would have been able to continue on, blissfully unaware of who the owner of half of her baby’s genes was. But he had come looking for her. For his child.
She shut the water off and braced her hands on the countertop. “He wants to get to know me. To decide what we’re going to . . . do.”
“Are you keeping the baby?” Alexa asked.
“No matter what.” Even if she puked her guts out from now until she was in labor, she was keeping her baby. “It’s just . . . it’s the complicated thing again. We don’t really have a relationship. And we really weren’t planning on having any sort of connection.” That was the truth. Sort of. “And a baby is a connection, no matter how much we both want to pretend that it’s not.”
“So you broke your dating moratorium by hooking up with a random guy?”
“No. And who said I was on a dating moratorium?”
“You have been though, right? You haven’t had a date since Michael. Admit it.”
“No. I won’t admit it. Because it’s not true. I’ve had a date. And a half.”
“Half?”
“He was nice. But the waitress spilled a drink in my lap during dinner, and then I noticed he had a piece of spinach in his teeth, and . . . you know, there’s nowhere to go but down from there.”
“And then what?”
“I faked a work emergency.”
“Do newspaper columnists have work emergencies?”
“I might have led him to believe I was an ace reporter. And that there was a robbery somewhere . . .”
“Shameless. So, what about the cowboy?” Alexa asked.
“I’d rather not talk about Cole in the women’s room. Can we . . . No, I don’t want to go back and smell your lunch either.”
“I had the waitress clear it. And I paid.”
Kelsey tried her best to keep her lip from wobbling. “I love you.”
“Why didn’t you tell me then?” Alexa pushed open the bathroom door, and they both walked out
into the diner, ignoring the looks they got from the burly guys at the counter.
Kelsey sucked in a breath when they were outside, grateful for the fresh air. “I didn’t tell you because . . . I thought you’d think I was crazy.”
She opened the door to her little green sedan and settled into the passenger side, even more grateful now that she had a driver.
“Why?” Alexa settled into the driver’s seat and jammed the key into the ignition. “For having ill-advised sex? Most of us have been there and done that. I don’t want to drag skeletons out of my own closet but there was this guy at my work a couple years back. He was an intern, for heaven’s sake. An intern. He was like barely twenty. It doesn’t get much more ill-advised, or fast, than that.”
“No. I know you wouldn’t think I was crazy for that reason. You’re more likely to think I’m crazy because I’ve never had anything other than stable-relationship-we-have-a-commitment sex.”
Alexa pulled the car out onto the highway and leaned forward, her forearms draped over the steering wheel. “’Splain, Lucy,” she said, her tone exasperated now, which was fair enough, since Kelsey was talking in circles and she knew it.
“I think you’ll think it’s crazy that . . . I got pregnant on purpose.”
Alexa turned to face her, her green eyes round, her lips pressed tightly together, like she was holding a string of very foul expletives back. Which she probably was.
“See! You’re judging me. Your face is all . . . judgey.”
“I’m not . . . No, wait . . . Hell, yes, I’m judging you! That’s . . . crazy . . . What, did you pick him out because you saw him in a bar and liked his genes? And I’m not talking Wranglers here.”
“No! You make it sound like I’m one step away from sending him pieces of my hair in the mail. Gah. No. I . . . I spent a lot of time thinking about it, and a couple of months after the wedding I went to a clinic and I did hormone treatments started the process of getting inseminated. It took a couple of tries but in February . . . it was successful.”
“These are the kinds of life decisions you talk to your friends about!” Alexa nearly shrieked it. “You wouldn’t decide on a scrunchie for prom until I gave you my opinion! Why would you do this without consulting me?”
