“What if I never get there?” she whispered and looked at Anders helplessly. She was pathetic. She’d gone from confident woman in charge of her destiny to exhausted, cranky crybaby.
Anders wrapped his arms around her, and she let him, practically melting. She just wanted to sleep for a week. But she had to eat. And work. And apologize to Catalina and August for falling into bed instead of returning to the ranch for dinner. And…her mind spun like the colored ball of doom before a hard-drive crash.
“Let’s just take it one day at a time,” he said.
“How?” She felt like everything was flying at her.
“Day by day.” He shrugged and looked a little embarrassed and for some reason that made her want to both cry and burrow into him for comfort. But she had to be strong. Stand on her own.
Anders took the sonogram picture from her limp fingers and stared at it for a long time. “Boy or girl do you think?”
“What?” It took her a moment to register. “Ummmmm.”
She hadn’t thought that far ahead. She hadn’t thought about anything for a long time except running. Only now, she realized with a jolt, she was at the end of the road.
Boy or girl?
She had a person inside her. A baby yes, but the baby would grow and become a person—need school and friends and activities that were their choice, not hers. She would give her child that, she vowed.
Suddenly, driving around the countryside on a Ducati letting the road take her to her next whim or adventure with another person who would have no say in their lives had become untenable. She knew what it felt like to have no control over her life.
She felt the blow like the times she’d swim out in the ocean and an unexpectedly large wave would knock her back when she’d try to get beyond the break point.
“Do you care?” she asked, suddenly curious.
A boy. He must want a boy to carry on his name, the ranch, be a cowboy, a bull rider. Didn’t all men want to see themselves in their sons? See their futures? Her father had wanted a son. All he’d gotten was her. And she’d tried to live up to what he wanted. She’d tried. She’d nearly died trying.
Blue eyes clashed with hers. “I thought…I thought I’d have a family someday…later…when I was thirty maybe. Or older, and I imagined boys like my brothers and me, but…” He looked at the picture again. “I just want the baby to be healthy. Happy. Loved.”
“Yeah. Healthy,” she repeated. It was, she felt, the first thing she’d been able to agree with him on today. “And loved.”
A fierceness filled her. She would love this child. She had to. She didn’t want to bring a child into a world steeped in chilly disapproval.
“Tinsley.” He let her go and squared his shoulders like he was going into some battle she didn’t have the strength to fight today. “I want you to know that even if we weren’t planning on bringing a child in the world the few times we were together, I’m happy about the baby.”
She blinked at him. It was the last thing she expected him to say.
“But that doesn’t make sense.” He was so young. At the top of a competitive and dangerous adrenaline rush of a career. A baby was an anchor in a world where he was riding free and fast.
“Maybe not to you, but it feels right. Weird. Scary. But right.” He took her left hand in his, looked at it for a moment as if it were special, and then he kissed the back of her hand and her ring finger.
She shivered.
Don’t let him propose again. Please. No.
“I lost a brother. Aurik. He drowned in a flash flood on our ranch, and I can barely remember him. Just from pictures of stories August told me. Axel never talks much about the past, or, well about much. But losing my brother so young and then my mom and later my dad has taught me that life is a gift and you gotta live it, hold on tight but enjoy the ride.”
She swallowed hard and felt her eyes tear up. He could be so sweet her heart hurt.
His sweet terrified her.
“I’m going to be a dad, and I’m going to do my best,” he said. “And I want to be a good partner to you as well, but if you don’t want that, if you find that you don’t want me or…or…if you don’t want…well, I’m going to be the dad, and I will raise our child with love from me and my family and I hope with you, but that’s your decision.”
He kissed her cheek. Kissed the picture and gave it back to her. “Keep it,” he said. “I’ll print out the one from my phone and show it to my family.” He walked out the door.
Tinsley stood still for a long moment. What just happened? Did Anders Wolf just give her one giant get out of jail free card and say he’d raise the child without her? Was he serious? Bluffing? She didn’t know him well enough.
But did she want that?
She had no idea what she thought or felt. She’d been living in the moment so long, the future was blank. The past was a no go.
Take it day by day, he’d said.
They had time, he’d said.
Tinsley stood there for a long time, and then she finally looked down at the black-and-white photo.
*
“Finally getting some work out of you,” August commented as Anders loaded various cases of wine into a Verflucht company truck early the next morning. He’d barely slept and had instead swum laps at midnight, hoping that would ease some of the tension that had screamed through him since Tinsley had dropped her baby bombshell.
It hadn’t.
It had killed him last night to leave her alone. He’d wanted to make her dinner. Make sure she ate. He knew he’d have to pick his battles, and he was currently engaged in one he wasn’t going to lose. Too critical.
“Truck or SUV?” He slid two more cases into the back of the truck bed.
“Context?” August asked leaning against a massive cask in the winery and sipping from his thermos of coffee.
“And you’re goading me about work,” he muttered. “You’re going to get soft if you let all your employees do all the physical labor. You’ll slouch into dad bod in no time.”
He was going to be a dad. The shock never seemed to ease.
“I’m hard where it counts.” His brother smirked.
Anders picked up two more cases of…who knew what? And he didn’t really care. He’d invested in his brother’s distillery business—mainly the whiskey well before it had launched, because he had the bucks and his investment advisor had suggested diversifying a little and maybe becoming involved in a project that might appeal for when he retired. Bull riders had notoriously short careers.
A distillery hadn’t been a career interest, but he knew August had built an empire out of beer and historic event spaces, so Anders had been confident that his start with Four Wolfs and the initial release of Wolf Cowboy Whiskey could be successful. And it would be in the family like the ranch. August had been short on capital and hadn’t wanted to go to a bank or outside investors, and he definitely hadn’t wanted to ask his older brother Axel to spot him the initial investment.
So now Anders had a sizable chunk invested in Four Wolfs and the launch of Cowboy Wolf Whiskey this past year. He’d also continued pouring cash back into the ranch that Axel managed for all of them. Eventually he planned to return and work the ranch and live here, but he wanted to have something of his own as well. For the past couple of years, he’d been thinking about breeding bucking bulls and combining a stock contracting opportunity with one of his best friends, Kane Wilder.
He’d actually been planning to spend this week off on Kane’s ranch and look at his family’s bull-breeding operation in Montana, but Tinsley’s news had derailed those plans. He’d have to go another time to see Kane, who was also thinking about retiring from the tour.
Also?
I’m not thinking of retiring.
But if Tinsley didn’t want to raise the baby with him, he’d have to.
“Can’t believe you let that comment pass,” August said, throwing a work glove at him.
Instead of dodging, it beaned him
in the head and knocked his hat off.
Anders caught his hat and the glove and whirled and threw the glove back fast and hard.
August caught it. “Tinsley really has you in knots.”
He opened his mouth to deny it, but it was true. He thought about telling his brother that she didn’t want to get married, and that she didn’t want the baby, but he had to keep his business with Tinsley private. Besides she’d likely change her mind. Babies had a way of doing that he imagined.
Cowboys too he hoped.
He picked up two more cases.
“Tinsley’s not going to be unloading and schlepping around cases of wine, is she?”
“She will,” August said, his body settling a little. He must know Anders was gearing up for a round with him.
God, it was good to be back home on the ranch. He knew what to do and where he stood, just like he did in the arena.
But until he got things settled with Tinsley, he felt like a rocket that had just had its fuse lit.
“That doesn’t seem safe.” He stared hard at his brother.
August picked up his thermos, took a sip, and stared across the winery floor. Anders could hear the beep of a forklift backing up. New barrels had arrived from France and were being reorganized following a very successful first Verflucht estate harvest.
“It’s going to be a really long nine months if you’re going to freak out about every little thing.”
“I am not freaking out.”
“Seems that way to us.”
Damn. That meant everyone had noticed and said something and August had been elected spokesperson. Anders picked up two more cases to give himself something to do so he wouldn’t say something he’d later regret. Maybe.
“You made an OB appointment for her.”
“She had two panic attacks and a blinding headache.”
“And you took her bike. She loves that bike. The bike is a sweet ride, and I think it represents far more to her than transportation.”
“She can’t zoom around on a damn motorcycle pregnant!”
“That’s her decision.”
“It’s mine too. I have a say.” And he had a picture to prove it. He’d printed out the picture he’d taken on his phone to show his family, and then he’d put it in a soft leather frame he’d made last night to protect it and had decided to keep the picture in his truck. He’d also made it his screen saver.
It sucked that Tinsley wasn’t on board the same way. This should be something they enjoyed and prepared for together.
“You have a voice in the discussion.”
“When did you get so twenty-first century reasonable?” Anders demanded. “I think living in Portland so many years has given you brain damage.”
Yah, he was done with trying to be reasonable with his brother.
“This is rural Texas. Big trucks. Lots of speed. And half the population is hauling livestock in trailers. They wouldn’t even feel the bump if they cut Tinsley off and knocked her bike under their wheels. Would you let Catalina race off down a highway with nothing but a helmet and leather between her and the highway?”
August looked pale under his tan.
Point to me.
Except he, too, felt a little sick at the image he’d drawn.
“Damn, and I’ve been accused of being too creative with my imagery.” August shuddered and drank another swallow of coffee like it was spiked.
“So truck or SUV?” Anders demanded. “Because I’m pulling the trigger on one for her today, soon as a dealership opens.”
“I’ll get her a company truck to use. That will go down easier.” August picked up one of the last cases and slid it into the back of the nearly full truck bed.
“To hell with easy. I’ll buy my wife a truck, not you.”
“Not your wife.”
“Yet,” Anders stated.
“I know you always had a thing for Tinsley,” August said softly, but to Anders, his brother sounded patronizing.
Anders hadn’t weighed in when August and Cat were dancing around each other like boxers this past spring. His brother could give him the same respect and keep his mouth shut.
“So did nearly every bull rider on the circuit,” Anders recalled resentfully, not that he could blame them, but he didn’t want his baby’s mom to have a line of cowboys around the tasting room’s block while he was away for weeks at a time.
His stomach felt like it had thudded into his boots.
Was that even going to work anymore? The AEBR tour usually was four or five weekends in a row and then there would be a one-week bye, which was when he would often head to the ranch to help out. But if he did that, Tinsley would be on her own for a month with only a brief reappearance from him.
August pulled off his work gloves and stood on his tiptoes and stretched his arms up before bending over and placing his palms flat on the cement floor of the winery.
“So you’re into yoga now,” Anders taunted.
“I can’t take jibes like that from a grown-ass man who stood on a medicine ball for over an hour, watching the game last night. Those are for lifting, not standing on.”
“It’s how I practice balance,” Anders said. “So, is there a uniform for Verflucht like a long skirt and blouse or a pantsuit?”
The uniform for Cowboy Wolf Whiskey had been a short denim skirt, a tight cropped graphic T, Stetson and cowboy boots. Tinsley had rocked it. All the girls had been fun and pretty, but Tinsley had just shone brighter than the sun.
August laughed. “Please, please, please say that to her face so I can record her reaction. Then I’ll play if for the baby when she’s a teenager, and you’re trying to lay down the law about clothing.”
Anders flipped his brother off. “I’m just wondering.”
“Well don’t. Tinsley is honest, hardworking, focused, creative, smart, and I don’t want you pissing her off.”
“I’m not. I’m buying her a truck or an SUV,” Anders said.
He wanted Tinsley to marry him. He wanted her to live at the house so she’d have family around. He wanted her to have a safe vehicle. A safe home.
Was that really being controlling?
And should she be lifting cases of wine? He needed to call the doctor.
“Get her the truck.” August grinned. “Saves me a pile of cash. Just make sure to stencil Verflucht on it so you keep your head and other more pertinent parts of your anatomy, because I don’t want to have to bail my tasting room and brand manager out of jail after she righteously disembowels you.”
Chapter Eleven
Tinsley stood in the empty dirt lot behind Verflucht and breathed in the cool, crisp air. She didn’t know much about Texas in early fall. She’d imagined it barren, scorched, tumbleweed dry, but Hill Country was anything but. When Catalina had driven her around the vineyard yesterday, Tinsley’d been so entranced by the views of limestone outcroppings, rolling hills dotted with large stands of oaks, and the symmetrically planted rows and rows of vines already stripped of their fruits.
She’d missed harvest by over a month. In another couple of weeks Catalina was heading to Willamette Valley, Oregon, with August to harvest and process Pinot Noir grapes in a few small, scattered, mostly abandoned vineyards. For a moment, Tinsley had longed to join her—a road trip, a short job filled with purpose.
But her job was in Last Stand now.
Her life was here.
For at least two years.
But next year she’d be in the thick of harvest.
With a baby.
She still avoided touching her lower abdomen. Even when she put on her vanilla, allspice and sandalwood lotion, she didn’t want to rub her hand over her still-flat belly. She was going to have to get over that. She made a face and sipped her tea. She missed coffee, but the smell turned her stomach.
Her stomach growled, and she rolled her eyes at herself. She’d had no appetite for months, and yesterday the doctor said it would likely kick back in. This morning she had forced herself to e
at something—an egg and some polenta with fresh sautéed spinach. As a joke, she’d thought about texting a picture of it to Anders so that he’d know she’d eaten something.
But he’d probably take her seriously and expect daily updates.
Great. Let the food fest and body ballooning begin.
No. Her mother had always obsessed about food and weight and appearance. Tinsley didn’t have to think like that anymore. She didn’t want to. And if she had a daughter—her heart lurched in alarm—she would have to set a positive, self-affirming message and tone.
She wondered if she’d get any weird cravings and when.
Maybe junk food. Then she’d gain sixty pounds, pop out a six-pound kid and watch the back of Anders as he strode off back to the tour for good.
Her mother’s fears again, right?
But did she want Anders to stay? She was starting to fear that maybe she did, and that was even scarier than thoughts about the baby.
Not wanting to think about how much her life would change in the next six months, she instead focused on the outdoor area. Maybe there should be a partial covered area so visitors could stay out of the direct sun but still have light. Perhaps umbrellas? She frowned, thinking of the majestic stands of oaks out at the ranch. A massive tree would provide shade and beauty, but that would take years to grow, although maybe… She leaned against the back wall and sipped her tea. Maybe she could have a large wood pole anchoring several colored canvas awnings. Perhaps if the strips of canvas were green, the pole could mimic an abstract tree.
Grapevines could be planted along the back fence and trellised to cover the fence. Potted olive trees would add a grove-like feel to the backyard. And something that bloomed—jacaranda and magnolias? Would those grow in Texas Hill Country? She made notes on her iPad as her eye quartered the space and her mind raced.
The back would require a focal point—a sculpture? Something Last Stand historical? Or from the ranch? And sitting areas for groups. Maybe in the evening there could be music and trendy finger food appetizers and the patio could become an upscale wine bar.
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