The Cowboy on Her Trail

by Janis Reams Hudson

  “Boy, you’re tough, lady.”

  “No, I’m just not emotionally involved with her the way you are. I’m on your side, looking out for your best interests. You’re on her side. There’s a big difference.”

  “Yeah, I know. But you don’t need to worry about me anymore. I’ve decided to give up and move on.”

  “Have you?”

  “I have. Honest Injun.” He held one hand up, palm out.

  “Oh, bad.” She groaned and rolled her eyes at the tacky phrase he and his brothers—his Native American brothers, she sometimes reminded them, much to their amusement—tossed at each other whenever it suited them. “Bad, bad Justin.”

  However, Emily admitted, when one of the Chisholm brothers said Honest Injun, it was as good as taking an oath with one hand on the Bible. They meant it.

  Unless, of course, there was a certain look in their eyes, or a quirk to their lips, or their fingers were crossed behind their back. But then it was always meant in teasing fun rather than an out-and-out lie. Like saying, “Oh, yeah, suuure.” Wink wink.

  She couldn’t see any of the telltale signs of joking on Justin now, and both his hands were in plain sight, fingers uncrossed. He must be serious. He really had decided to give up on this mystery woman and move on.

  “Are you okay with that?” she asked.

  “I guess I have to be, don’t I?”

  And when Justin said it, he meant it. He was through beating his head against the brick wall of Blaire’s unexplained indifference.

  Who needed her, anyway? She damn sure wasn’t the only fish in the sea, peanut in the can, cookie in the jar, straw in the damn bale. Woman in the world.

  But damn her beautiful hide, he wanted to know why. And he wanted her to look him in the eye and tell him. And by Jove, she would do it.

  Chapter Two

  Blaire Harding surreptitiously wiped her damp palms against her wool skirt and followed her parents down the aisle and into their regular pew at the Rose Rock Baptist Church because she’d been unable to come up with a good enough excuse to stay home.

  Not that she didn’t want to go to church. She enjoyed church. It uplifted her, helped her end one week and gird her loins, as it were, for the next.

  But why did it have to be this church? The one where, every single solitary week, the entire Chisholm clan, which was growing by the month, filled the second center pew from one end to the other.

  She was running out of excuses there, too. With Justin. Every time she thought of him she was swamped by a dozen different emotions. Pleasure. Arousal. Anticipation. Guilt. Hopelessness. Terror. Resignation. Yearning. And more guilt.

  What was she to do about him?

  Her mother entered the pew first, then her father. Blaire followed and sat next to him, her gaze drawn against her will to those broad, suede-clad shoulders belonging to Justin Chisholm five pews up. She knew exactly how wide those shoulders were. She’d felt them, every inch, front and back and all around, her hands against his hot bare flesh.

  Any more thoughts like that, she thought, her cheeks stinging, and a lightning bolt was going to strike right through the beamed ceiling of the church.

  In the second row from the front, Justin felt her gaze on his back as if she were stroking him. He stood it through the opening hymn, through the announcements, the opening prayer. But as the pastor began his sermon on sins of the flesh—why did the sermons always seem aimed at him personally?— Justin couldn’t take it any longer. He turned and glanced back over his shoulder.

  She was there. He’d known she was. Her hair was pulled back and tied at her nape with a clip of some sort. The style gave her a soft, fragile appearance. Especially with that telltale blush staining her cheeks, the stark look in those golden brown eyes before she glanced away.

  Guilt? Was that what he’d seen in her eyes?

  By damn—sorry, Lord—he’d had enough of this. He was going to get answers out of her or die trying.

  When church let out—at 12:25 p.m. because Reverend Conners didn’t know the meaning of “on time,” Lord love him—Justin made for the door as fast as he could without bowling anyone down, but he was still too late.

  Blaire and her parents were gone.

  Justin bit back a curse. This was Sunday; he should be able to do better with his language at least on Sunday. But dammit, he wanted to talk to her. He had to know what that look meant, because it had looked to him like the look a woman gives a man she wants to be close to.

  “Justin,” his grandmother called. “Are you coming to dinner?”

  “I’m coming.” Every Sunday after church the Chisholm family went to Lucille’s on Main for dinner. The Chisholms, and everyone else in town, it seemed. Caleb and Melanie were with them today. It was the only time during the week that they were all together as a family.

  Family meant a lot to Justin. Maybe because he’d grown up without parents. His brothers and grandmother had been his family. They were everything to him. It seemed odd to him that Caleb no longer lived at home, but they were grown men now, not boys. It was time for them to see what they could make of themselves.

  But Justin had always thought that the “making of themselves” would be done right there on the Cherokee Rose. That was home to him, to all of them. His soul was rooted in the land that first Chisholm had staked out after surviving the horrors of the Trail of Tears.

  The ranch had changed in size from time to time, depending on the direction of the winds of fortune and the ability of any given generation to hold on through lean times and flourish in good times.

  The Rose was Justin’s home.

  When Caleb had moved to the PR with Melanie, it had been a jolt for Justin. He’d never really thought about any of them leaving the ranch.

  Then, too, Melanie had been Justin’s running mate, his buddy, his playmate, for most of his life. She was still and always would be his friend, but he doubted if she’d want to help him TP the mayor’s house when that new city sales tax went into effect next month. In the old days, she’d have been the ring-leader of such a gag. Now she was his brother’s wife.

  But at least the PR was right next door, so to speak, so that wasn’t too bad. He could see Caleb and Mel whenever he wanted. Hell, they had even installed a gate in a stretch of fence common to both ranches, so they could get from one house to the other on horseback as the crow flies.

  Yes, the Rose was Justin’s home.

  So why was he starting to feel like the odd man out?

  Lucille’s was packed, as was usual on a Sunday afternoon. But among the dozens of diners there was no Harding family.

  Justin ground his back teeth together in frustration. Blaire and her parents used to come here every Sunday after church. He couldn’t remember the number of times he’d seen them there. Now, however, when he wanted to talk to her, they weren’t there.

  “You look like you could chew nails.”

  Justin jerked and knocked his elbow against Melanie’s arm. “Oh. Sorry. What?” Melanie Pruitt Chisholm was Justin’s newest sister-in-law. She and her parents had been their closest neighbors forever. Mel and Justin had been best pals their entire lives. Now they were family, and that was fitting. He had loved her like a sister for years. There was nothing they couldn’t say to each other, nothing they wouldn’t do for each other.

  She nudged him back with her elbow. “You could scare little kids with that look, pal. You practice it in the mirror?”

  “Did you rehearse that joke? Maybe try it out on the cows first before you take it out on the road?”

  “Quick,” Sloan said from across the table. “Somebody separate those two before they start a food fight.”

  Justin and Melanie gave him twin mock looks of innocence. Each put a hand to the chest and cried, “Moi?”

  The conversation halted then because the waitress arrived with their orders. After the food was distributed and everyone dug in, Melanie gave Justin a smirk.

  “So,” she said between bites of Lucil
le’s infamous spaghetti. “I hear you’ve got hemorrhoids.”

  Justin nearly spewed a mouthful of tea across the table.

  “Oh, I am going to enjoy getting even for that.” He included Melanie, Sloan and Emily in his warning. “You won’t know where, you won’t know when. You won’t even know how. But one day, suddenly you’ll realize that I got you back. All of you.”

  “Oooh,” Sloan said in a high falsetto. “I’m shaking in my boots.”

  “Yeah,” Melanie said with a sneer. “I’m gonna lose a lot of sleep over it myself.”

  Emily merely shook her head and smiled.

  By the next day Justin was more determined than ever to confront Blaire. That look he’d caught on her face in church had stayed with him all day Sunday, and he’d lain awake half the night trying to figure out what it meant, why she would look at him that way, yet refuse to speak to him.

  He was tired of guessing. It was time she gave him some answers. Maybe then he could get her out of his system once and for all.

  He pulled up around 9:00 a.m. at the feed store and went directly toward the office in back where Blaire took care of the store’s bookkeeping. Just outside her half-open door Justin was stopped cold by the furious voices coming from within.

  “Don’t you go blaming this on me, by damn.” That was Thomas Harding, Blaire’s father, speaking. “Like mother, like daughter.”

  “What are you saying?” This frigid response came from Nancy, Blaire’s mother.

  “You know exactly what I’m saying. You got knocked up, now so has she. Like mother, like daughter. Her watch won’t even run on her arm anymore.”

  Justin reached for the wall to steady himself. Knocked up? Blaire was pregnant? Watch? What watch?

  “I got knocked up?” her mother shrieked. “Why you clueless, thickheaded piece of frog bait, who the hell was it who knocked me up? It takes two to tango, mister.”

  “You shoulda been on the damn pill and you know it.”

  “Oh, that’s right, it’s all my fault. You were just an innocent bystander.”

  “I never said any such thing. I married you, didn’t I?”

  “Yeah, and you haven’t let me forget it for one single day since.”

  “I’ll tell you one thing, Nancy girl. If I ever find out who did this to our little girl I’m gonna tear him to pieces with my bare hands. Right after I’ve made sure they’re good and married. She’ll make a pretty widow.”

  Justin gulped. Holly Hannah. Tom sounded like he meant every bloodthirsty word.

  Discretion being the better part of valor, he decided it was time for a hasty—and silent—retreat.

  Back out in his pickup, Justin sat a minute to catch his breath and let his head stop spinning.

  Blaire was pregnant? Pregnant?

  From what he’d seen of her in the past year or so—and he’d seen plenty, because he’d had his eye on her for at least that long—the only man who’d been near her in ages was…himself.

  If she was pregnant, as far as he could tell, he was the father. They’d used a condom, but those weren’t foolproof.

  Father?

  He shook his head hard. His heart was pounding at three times its normal speed. It took him two tries to get his key in the ignition, his hand shook so badly.

  There was no question now. He had to talk to her. And he would, if it meant tearing this whole damn town apart to find her.

  She hadn’t been at the feed store. She could have been at her parents’ house behind the store for some reason, or at her apartment above their detached garage. But he didn’t see her faded red compact in its usual spot next to the garage, so he figured she’d gone out to run an errand.

  It was early, but maybe she was meeting a girlfriend for coffee. He drove through the parking lot of Lucille’s, but her car wasn’t there. Neither was it at either of the other two cafés, or at the burger place.

  He tried the grocery store, but didn’t see her there, either.

  He was about to give up and go back and demand her parents tell him where she was when he spotted her coming out of the hardware store.

  Considering how slippery she’d been for the past couple of months, he pulled up behind her faded red compact car and blocked her in so she couldn’t leave. He killed his engine and pocketed the keys before getting out.

  The sky was crystal blue, the air almost balmy for early February, the temperature hovering in the mid forties. But the slight breeze out of the north had a little nip to it, warning of another cold snap on the way.

  Blaire stopped next to her car and stared at him, a small paper sack clutched in one fist. Her chest rose and fell rapidly. Her tongue flicked out and moistened her lips. It was a gesture of nerves, that much was obvious. But it still made Justin want to follow her tongue with his own.

  “Justin.”

  “Blaire.” He rounded her car and stopped five feet away from her. She was just as beautiful as he remembered. Her dark blond hair turned honey gold in the sun, a shade that matched her eyes, narrowed now, and wary as they studied him, then darted away. She looked as if she might want to turn and run, but to her credit, she stood her ground.

  “What do you want?” she asked.

  Justin gave a harsh laugh. “Maybe if you’d returned any one of my dozens of calls during the past weeks you might know.”

  “You’re upset because I haven’t called you back? Is that what this is about?”

  “What do you mean, this? Can’t a man stop and say hi to a woman he once spent a remarkable night with?”

  The blush that stained her cheeks did his heart good.

  The way she glanced sharply around to see if anyone might have overheard knocked a hole in what was left of his ego.

  “What do you want, Justin? I’ve got to get back to the store.”

  He supposed if he wanted a straight answer about anything, he was going to have to ask a straight question. He stuck his hands into his coat pockets and clenched his fists. “Are you pregnant?”

  Blaire gasped and took a step back. Her face turned ashen. “What?”

  “I asked—”

  “I heard you. I guess what I meant was, why would you ask such a thing?”

  “Because I went to the feed store to see you and overheard your parents arguing over which one of them was to blame for your being pregnant.”

  She closed her eyes and turned around, then leaned back against her front fender.

  “So it’s true,” he said, his voice going husky. “Maybe you’ve got the right idea.” He stood next to her and leaned against her car, too. “I’m the father, aren’t I.”

  She swallowed and nodded. “Yes.”

  Justin took three long, deep breaths and kept his jaw clenched to keep from bellowing at the top of his lungs. When he thought he could speak in a rational tone, he said, “This is why you’ve been avoiding me. You weren’t going to tell me at all, were you?”

  “Justin, I’m sorry.” She turned toward him with a plea in her eyes. “I’m sorry. I panicked. I didn’t know what to do. I’m still not sure. But I think when I figured things out, I would have told you about the baby.”

  Justin shook his head. Dear God, he was going to be a father. “How long have you known?”

  She glanced down at the ground and kicked a pebble with the toe of her cowboy boot. “Since the night we spent together.”

  “Aw, come on. You couldn’t have known that soon.”

  “Okay. If you say so.”

  “Look, Blaire, this has taken me by surprise, and that’s putting it mildly. We need to talk about it.”

  “There’s nothing to talk about, Justin. We spent a wonderful night together, but you don’t owe me anything. I don’t want or need anything from you, I don’t plan to make any demands of you. Don’t trouble yourself about me one little bit. I’ll be just fine. Now if you’ll move your truck, I’d like to get back to work. Daddy’s waiting on this part.”

  Justin stood there for a long moment, unable to move,
unable to think. All he could do was stare at her and hope the air would keep moving in and out of his lungs without his help, because he wasn’t capable of anything just then.

  He was going to be a father. Blaire Harding carried his child. And she wanted nothing to do with him. Not one damn thing.

  He turned around and climbed into his pickup and started the engine. The next thing he knew, he was parked at home in front of the barn without a single memory of the thirty-minute drive.

  By the time Blaire drove the three blocks back to the feed store and home, she was shaking so hard she could barely get the car in Park.

  She had hurt Justin. Not just today, but every time she hadn’t returned his call or gone out with him when he asked or spoken to him when they happened to end up in the same place at the same time.

  And she had hurt herself. This entire mess was no one’s fault but hers. If she hadn’t given in and gone out with him in the first place, she would never have ended up in bed with him and none of this would have happened.

  But he was so ruggedly handsome, so devilishly charming, and he had intrigued her for so many years. What was a girl to do? How did she keep saying no to his invitations time after time when all she’d wanted in the world was to say yes?

  Then, when she had given in and gone out with him a few times, she had given in big time and made love with him that night at the motel.

  She’d known before that night was over that she carried his child. She should have handled everything differently from that point on. She should have told him at once that she didn’t want to see him anymore instead of making up excuses, then avoiding his calls.

  How childish of her. How cowardly.

  But how was she to look him in the eye and tell him she didn’t want to see him anymore, when it was a bald-faced lie? She wanted very much to see him again. But she knew that couldn’t be. Not now, not ever.

  With a heavy sigh, she grabbed the sack from the hardware store and climbed out of her car. She carried the part to her father, but he wasn’t behind the counter. Both her parents, she found a moment later, were in her office, yelling at each other.