by Maisey Yates
“You can’t have both of them, Cole. Unless . . .” He shot his sister, who was crimson, a sideways glance. “Well, you could have both of them.”
“That’s it!” Lark said. “The testosterone is too thick in here.” She turned and walked out of the kitchen.
“Don’t be such a dog,” he said to Cade, following Lark out of the room.
He stopped cold when he saw Kelsey standing in the center of the common area, looking up at the high ceiling and the collection of antlers on the wall.
“My dad’s,” he said.
“Oh.” She looked at him. “Hi. Look, I just wanted to . . . I’m glad you’re here because . . . I was thinking maybe I should go.”
“No, don’t go.”
“Kelsey?” Lark asked, taking a step forward, her hand outstretched.
Kelsey blinked and shook his sister’s hand. “Yes. And you are?”
“I’m Cole’s sister, Lark Mitchell, and this is our brother, Cade.”
Cade inclined his head and touched the brim of his hat. “Charmed.”
It took all of his restraint not to thump his brother for that. Cade was just as at home on a subway as he was on the back of a horse. The folksy thing was a total put-on he used to get women into bed. It seemed to work for him too.
“Nice to meet you both,” Kelsey said.
“Can we talk?” He ignored the owlish look he was getting from Lark.
Kelsey’s eyes darted to his siblings. “Sure.”
“Out front.” He put his hand on her lower back and she jerked away from him like he’d burned her.
It had been too long since he’d touched a woman. Since he’d interacted with one that wasn’t family. He was losing his mojo, apparently. Although, considering his past selection, it could be argued that he had never had mojo but had just been scraping the bottom of a very desperate barrel.
He lowered his hand and flexed his fingers, tried to ignore the faint heat that lingered there from the brief contact.
He opened the door for her, and she breezed out in front of him, her focus on the fields in the distance, and definitely not on him.
“I’m sorry.”
Her head whipped around, pale blonde hair shimmering over her shoulder. “You are?”
“I was a jerk. I’m not . . . my brother and sister have accused me of not being real personable. I expect they’re a little bit right. I work a lot and I get focused.”
Plus he was just out of practice. Things had changed a lot in the past five years. The loss of his dad, too soon. The loss of his wife, not soon enough. He’d assumed operation of the ranch, and life had just sort of filled up with busy.
He just hadn’t wanted to see people. His sister had been too sweet to let him push her away; his brother too damned stubborn.
“Right. I get that. I guess this is the start of our getting to know each other,” she said.
“Sorry again.”
“It’s fair. It’s how you are.”
“It’s how I can be. I hope it’s not who I am.” But he wondered if it was who he had become. Life had pretty well kicked the idealism out of him, and it had stung. He’d never thought of himself as an idealist until he’d become a cynic, and seen Cole: Pre-marriage for who he really was. An idiot who thought good intentions fixed it all. Who thought all it took was love. Who thought when someone said “I love you,” that was it, and they meant it. Who thought everyone was who they said they were.
Yep. That guy was a damned idiot.
Kelsey shrugged. “I suppose we all have those moments.”
“Right. Tell your friend I’m sorry.”
“Alexa,” she said.
“Right.” He would try to remember the friend-who-wanted-him-dead-or-incapacitated’s name. “If you want, I can give you the tour,” he said, stepping off the porch and looking back at her.
She looked over her shoulder. “Sure. That would be . . . cool. I guess.”
“Do you think you can handle a ride in the pickup?” From the moment she’d stepped out of her car and into the mud she’d looked decidedly underwhelmed by the whole ranch experience, so he wasn’t really sure what to expect.
“Look, sheriff, I might live in the city now, but I’m a country girl born and bred. I may not like getting dirt under my fingernails, but I’m capable of it, all right?”
“Okay then, come with me.”
Kelsey climbed into the pickup and slammed the door shut. It was familiar in a strange way. Like part of another life. She was starting to wonder if all ranch trucks smelled the same. Like sweat and hay and men.
Although, she had to confess that Cole smelled better than most men she associated with hard work and dirt. He smelled like leather, and aftershave. And, yes, a little like sweat—but she was surprised to find that it didn’t make her want to gag.
Maybe she was showing progress on the morning sickness front. She was going to celebrate that victory rather than dwell on her disturbing appreciation of his scent.
She cleared her throat. “Your brother and sister don’t know, do they?”
“Nope.”
“I thought not. Based on the lack of abject horror or shock on their faces when I walked in.” She worried her lip between her teeth. “Are you going to tell them?”
“Eventually.”
“If you decide you want to be involved?”
He nodded slowly. “That’s the plan.”
She let out a breath. “I’d better let Alexa know to keep quiet.”
“Does she do quiet?”
“Not well. But she will if I tell her it’s really important. She’s a good friend like that. And after sixteen years of friendship, we’re sort of stuck together for better or for worse.”
“I can tell you right now, she expects this situation to be a for worse.”
He was observant. Or maybe he wasn’t, so much. Alexa wasn’t known for subtlety. “With Alex, you’re always guilty until proven innocent. She’s sort of a born cynic. It’s part of her charm.” She put her elbow on the arm rest and looked out at the wide expanse of green. “So, explain it all,” she said as he turned the key.
She jumped when the engine turned over, the roar of eight cylinders filling the cab. She gripped the door handle and shot him a bland look.
He smiled. That sort of half-cocked grin that made her want to hit him. Or something. “The ranch? Or is this extending to the mysteries of the universe?”
“Just the ranch will do, pilgrim.”
“Well, like I told you earlier, mostly we raise horses, and ideally, those horses compete in the ProRodeo circuit. My dad had beef, but I think cows, in mass quantities, are too much trouble.”
“And horses aren’t?”
“Oh, no, it’s a pain in the ass, but basically, all ranch work is.”
“Then why do you do it?”
His smile spread, a genuine one this time. “Because I love it.” He maneuvered the truck onto a dirt access road and she gripped the handle tighter as her side of the cab pitched up when the front tire on the driver’s side dipped into a pothole. “We do still raise beef cows, but on a small scale. It goes out locally, unadvertised, so we don’t have to deal with certifications.”
“Is that legal?”
“Yeah. Technically.”
“Oh. Nice.”
“As long as they buy the cow while it’s alive.”
“Oh, ranch life. How I haven’t missed it,” she said.
“Right, you’re a country girl. So, tell me about it.”
“About being a country girl? Are you trying to form a milkmaid fantasy? Because I don’t milk cows, and I really wouldn’t do it in a minidress.”
“Hardly. Just curious. Since you’re the mother of my baby and all.”
His words hung in the air, awkward and intimate in a way that made her shift in her seat. She didn’t know him well enough to be the mother of his baby. It made her head hurt.
“Right. That.” Talking about her childhood was preferable to thinking too hard about their
current situation. “I was born and raised in Oregon. In Bonanza, actually. My parents own a ranch. It’s not commercial or anything, but we had ducks and chickens. Horses. One cow, which we couldn’t eat because Jacie named it. Actually, she became a vegetarian over that friendship.”
“Sounds like she’s a good friend to have.”
“She is. All of my sisters are.”
“How many?”
“Four.”
He looked at her, his eyebrows raised. “You don’t want that many kids, do you?”
“So what if I do? They won’t be yours.”
“No, they won’t.”
She regretted her choice of words right after they’d slipped out of her mouth, because they just sounded bitchy. Really, though, she was right, and it wasn’t his business how many kids she wanted. “Not because you aren’t a fine specimen of a man who I’m sure has fantastic genes, but mainly because I barely know you, and I’m not really enjoying gestating this baby all that much. My original statement stands.”
“I’m not offended,” he said.
“Good. I wasn’t . . . I didn’t mean to offend you.”
“Have you wondered at all why I left the deposit? Details, I mean, not vague generalizations.”
She breathed out, long and slow. Good yoga breathing. Thought-clearing breathing. Except it wasn’t working. “I don’t really want to think about it, actually.”
“Why is that?”
“It might humanize you, and I’d rather be pissed at you. I’d rather blame you for this somehow, but I know you’re just as much of a victim as I am.”
“I don’t know about that. I don’t have to give birth.”
“But I chose this.”
“And I could have chosen to walk away,” he said.
“That’s true. So why haven’t you?”
Cole pulled his truck up in front of a long, narrow building, painted dark red with natural wood trim. He threw it into first, killing the engine. “I don’t know. Is that a good enough answer?” Kelsey shook her head. “I didn’t think it was; it isn’t good enough for me. All I know is . . . I can’t walk away. Because like I told you already if we’d had a one-night stand, I wouldn’t walk away, and it feels . . .”
“It’s not the same.”
He took a deep breath, the lines around his mouth deepening. “It feels the same.”
“Except you truly had no part in this. You didn’t make the choice to . . . to sleep with me. You didn’t make any choice.”
“No,” he said slowly. “I did. I chose to bank the sperm.”
“Why?”
“I don’t like talking about it. And it’s not because it’s serious or anything, not really. It’s because it’s stupid. It’s because I made a stupid choice and I married a woman I had no business even going on a date with, and the list of things I let her talk me into is long, and it’s ridiculous. And banking the sperm so that we had premium biological material was just one of the insane things. And now it’s turned into about the biggest, most long-lasting repercussion of that marriage. Answer your question?”
She looked down at her hands, her heart pounding hard. “Sorry. About the marriage thing.” If there was one thing she knew about love and marriage, it was that it could suck bad when it went wrong.
“Well, you know, everyone makes mistakes. I happen to make giant-ass mistakes that are harder to get rid of than they should be.” He opened his door and got out of the truck, his movements easy, slow, giving her plenty of time admire the view of his denim clad butt as he made his was over to the barn. That view was fist-bitingly good.
She stifled a whimper and opened her door, hopping down onto the soft ground.
It took her a moment to notice she’d managed to scramble. “I didn’t puke,” she said when she entered the barn.
“I’m glad to hear it,” he said, not turning to face her.
“I’m sorry, but . . . you know this mistake doesn’t have to last for you.”
“Yeah, Kelsey, it does. Whether I walk away or not doesn’t change that a child of mine exists. It just changes how big of a douche I am. It changes whether or not I’ve abandoned my child for my own comfort.” He turned away again, kept walking.
She let out an exasperated breath and increased her pace, pleasantly surprised by the continued lack of nausea.“So, these are your horses?” She walked along the row of stables, looking through the window in one of the doors. There was a large bay standing there, his brown eyes assessing Kelsey. He seemed to find her acceptable. He raised his nose and nickered, and Kelsey put her hand through the opening in the stall door, letting him sniff her, letting his lips brush over her palm.
“Yeah. That’s Ol’ Trigger,” he said, affecting a slow, folksy drawl.
She turned to face him, her eyebrow raised. “You’re joking.”
He stuffed his hands into his pockets and offered her a smile. “Yeah. And this one’s Simon Says Stop, but we call him Simon. Then we have Coal Black over there; my brother named him for the satisfaction of calling him Coal when he’s a pain in the ass. Then there’re Miss Kitty, Captain Kangaroo and Jumpin’ Jack Flash.”
“Fancy names, Cowboy.”
“They’re retired rodeo horses. Now they just live here and get spoiled rotten. Miss Kitty and the Captain are our barrel racers. They go easy enough that guests can ride them, learn a few tricks.”
“Sounds fun.”
“Can pregnant women ride horses?” he asked, looking down at her stomach.
She put her hand over it, covering his view. It seemed invasive, having him look at her like that. She wasn’t sure why. “Uh . . . I think it’s all right if you’re already a rider, but I’m not, so I definitely wouldn’t start now.”
“You didn’t ride horses back in the day?”
She rolled her eyes. “Well, back in the day, sure. But it’s been . . . years.”
“You don’t ride when you go back home?”
She snorted a laugh and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, moving from Ol’ Trigger’s stall down to Coal Black’s. “I don’t stay home long when I go. Like this last time, I went to my sister’s wedding, but I didn’t stay any longer than I needed to.”
“Just long enough to catch the bouquet?”
“More like dodge it.”
“And run to the nearest fertility clinic?”
“I didn’t run straight there,” she said dryly.
“You regret it?”
“The vomiting, the cowboy, the feeling like the inside of my mouth is carpeted in roadkill, yes. Those things I regret. The baby? No. When I think about the baby I’m sure I did the right thing.”
Cole looked down at Kelsey, at her determined face. She looked sure. Surer than he could remember feeling about anything in a long time. After Shawna and the big bad divorce, and finding out his dad—his hero—wasn’t the man he’d always thought he was, Cole’s life hadn’t made a lick of sense. He’d just been trying his best to hold it all together, to keep the ranch moving. To keep Lark and Cade from ever finding out that their dad had feet of clay.
“What about you, Cole? Are you sure this is what you want?”
He shook his head. “Nope. Not even close. But it’s happening, right? Not to compare the more joyous event of conceiving a child to finding out your wife is a master manipulator who loves your money a hell of a lot more than she loves you, but in some ways, it’s like my divorce. No matter what, it’s going to happen. And whether you want it to or not, whether you want to deal with it or not, doesn’t matter. It’s happening. All you can do is do the best you can with the situation you’re in.”
Talking about the whole ex-wife thing ranked right up there with getting his scrotum caught in his horse’s reins and getting dragged across the Oregon mountains by his balls. Actually, at the moment, the thing with his balls seemed less awkward than this.
Because why even bother getting to know each other? They had nothing in common. Nothing but a baby.
A heavy weig
ht settled in his gut. Not for the first time, he wondered what the hell he was doing. There was a piece of him, a small corner of his mind, that could imagine what it would be like to have a kid. To be a father. That part of himself pictured sweet, homey scenes. Pictured him teaching his child how to ride a horse.
But that was a very small part of himself. The rest of him . . . the idea of a baby in his arms seemed so strange and foreign. Scary, mostly. He didn’t have any experience with kids. He’d spent his adult years working hard and playing hard. At least until his dad had died. Till he’d gotten married. Now playtime was . . . nonexistent. But just the thought of getting hammered on a Saturday night didn’t seem worth the hangover that would be there at sunrise. He had too much responsibility to sleep in. And as far as getting laid went . . .
He didn’t even seem to care about that anymore.
His focus was squarely on the ranch: on restoring its former glory, then improving it further. An eventual wife and children hadn’t even been on the radar. He’d put all that way behind him.
Now, though, it wasn’t just a distant thought. Wasn’t just something he could say he didn’t want to do. It wasn’t even a “someday.” There was a due date involved. He couldn’t imagine turning his back on a real child, one with his DNA. That was where he got stuck. That was why Kelsey was here.
“Ready to see the rest?” he asked.
Kelsey turned and smiled at him. It made his stomach tighten. Her entire face lit up when she smiled, a dimple creasing one of her cheeks. He’d never seen her smile before. Not really.
It turned out she was beautiful.
“Ready,” she said.
***
Alexa turned right at the fork in the path that led from the cabin and found herself out in a pasture. A fricking pasture.
It was so open it made her dizzy. The silence, the thick, oppressive silence, was foreign now. Give her the concrete jungle any day of the week. Sure, she was from the Beaver State, but she’d adopted New York with extreme enthusiasm.
“You can’t even order pizza out here,” she muttered, tromping through the tall grass. She should have stayed back at the cabin. She was supposed to be giving Kelsey alone time with her accidental baby daddy. But Kelsey had clearly gone dangerously insane, so leaving her alone might not be the best idea.
