Special Ops Cowboy

by Addison Fox

  Maybe a baby would help those things. A new life that brought new hope and renewed feelings toward the future.

  It was a lot to lay at a child’s feet, but maybe it was what they all needed to begin to move on.

  “So how did you and Hoyt get together?” A small smile danced around Arden’s lips, sheer curiosity filling her vivid blue eyes. “I mean, I’m happy about it. I’ve always thought you two would make a great match.”

  “You have?” Reese couldn’t have hidden her surprise if she tried. “Hoyt? And me?”

  “Oh, yeah. There’s something about the two of you that just seems to fit. And that time you came here with your class...” Arden’s voice drifted off. “Yes, I’ve always thought you two would make a great match.”

  Arden’s assessment was not only unexpected, but it was a funny thought to think someone had seen her connection with another and she hadn’t. She and Hoyt lived in the same town and had both grown up there. But for someone—his sister, no less—to have seen something between?

  “Well, I don’t know,” Reese said, hedging. “I’m not sure I’d go envisioning cupids just yet.”

  Arden looked about to argue before she stopped, a sharp look from Belle clearly adding to her decision.

  “I think what Arden is really saying is that we all think this is a great idea.” Belle pulled her close for a hug, the side-armed support going a long way toward assuaging the tension that continued to fill Reese.

  But it was the rest of it, the sheer anxiety of it all, that spilled out next. “I promise I don’t want anything from him. Well, I mean, I want Hoyt to be a part of his child’s life. But this isn’t about money or, well, trapping him.”

  “Of course it isn’t.”

  “We don’t think that.” Arden was the first to respond but Belle’s protest was quickly on her heels.

  “We know you, Reese. Do you understand that?” Arden asked, her blue gaze bright and earnest. “We don’t have any judgment about this. Or about you.”

  They were words she needed to hear, but in a small corner of her heart, Reese recognized she wasn’t quite yet ready to believe them. So instead, she did what she’d been doing for months. She put on a small smile, nodded her head in affirmation and pretended like everything was okay.

  “Thank you. That means more than you’ll ever know.”

  “It’d better,” Belle said with a smile. “Because I expect a lot of cuddles and snuggles with my new niece or nephew.”

  * * *

  Hoyt spent the rest of the afternoon scouring every inch of Reese’s house, inside and out, with Ace and Tate. They’d been thorough and diligent, so it chafed two hours later when they’d found no evidence of anything. Nor had they found the large hairy spider that had been used to torment Reese from her front porch.

  Not that he was surprised on the spider. Now free from its glass prison, the animal had likely hightailed it for wherever it could get. Although a part of him had still hoped the sun-warmed concrete that made up Reese’s front porch might have lulled the animal for a time.

  From the looks of it, the science teacher’s pet had taken freedom over safety and a warm spot to perch.

  While he’d have liked to have found the hairy intruder, he couldn’t deny some relief that the threat had passed. What was harder to work through was the way he’d left things with Reese. She’d been so determined to believe the spider was the work of some kids horsing around that he hated to be the one to suggest something far more sinister was afoot.

  Was he overreacting?

  He’d turned the idea over and over in his mind, from gathering up his brothers to the drive to Reese’s to the unlikely scavenger hunt he’d executed over the past few hours. While a small part of him kept thinking he’d overdramatized the whole situation, a much bigger part of him was worried. He had a pretty finely honed sense of intuition. It had served him well in special ops, where sometimes instinct was all you had to go on. He found the skill equally productive working with animals in the great wide open of Reynolds Station. Split seconds of intuition meant the difference between surviving and...not.

  So the fact that he couldn’t conjure up a casual, relaxed attitude to Reese’s front porch visitor told him something.

  Why would someone want to harm her?

  Sure, kids could be the culprits. And it wasn’t unheard of for a student to hold a grudge against a teacher. Yet, something kept veering him off that track.

  Reese hadn’t mentioned any problems with anyone at school besides her worry that the PTA would freak out. Add on that it was summer vacation. Were kids really likely to randomly go after a teacher during the months they were free and clear from the classroom? The fact that she was well liked made that seem like an even bigger stretch.

  Which left her father.

  Was someone trying to avenge Russ Grantham’s crimes? Someone who believed he should have served time instead of ending things his own way? Someone who felt the child should pay for the sins of the father?

  Hadn’t Reese paid enough?

  “You find anything?” Ace asked as he came around the corner of the house.

  Hoyt shook his head, his dark thoughts scattering as he scanned the porch and surrounding bushes once more in hopes he’d overlooked something. “Nothing. You?”

  “Other than the fact that the woman keeps a ruthlessly organized shed and the cleanest, most well-oiled lawn mower I’ve ever seen? Nope.”

  Hoyt had observed the same. But now that he was actually looking, moving through her things and peeking inside her cabinets, seeking a furry stowaway, it was even more evident how neat and organized she was. “The woman does have an orderly streak.”

  “Orderly?” Ace raised his eyebrows. “I’d say she’s military-grade orderly and if I hadn’t known her my whole life, would have assumed she’d spent time in army boot camp.”

  While it certainly might have been her personality, Hoyt couldn’t help wondering if that rigorous, practically ruthless organization wasn’t tied to something else. The woman hadn’t exactly had a drama-free life. Her brother’s addiction—especially coming on when Reese was still in school—would have forced one of two outcomes: a child equally matched with the same devil-may-care attitude as her brother or what seemingly came out instead.

  Neatness. Order. Perfection.

  If the rest of your life was out of control, the one place you could control was your personal space.

  “You ready to get out of here?” Ace asked.

  “Sure. We’ll grab Tate and head out.”

  “I think he was checking the trees out at the back of her property.” Ace hesitated for the briefest moment, lines settling in his forehead just over his eyebrows. Hoyt knew those lines. They were his eldest brother’s tell and it meant he was both uncomfortable as hell and determined to pursue a line of questioning, anyway.

  “I know what you’re going to ask.” Hoyt beat Ace to the punch.

  “What’s that?”

  “You’re going to ask why Reese Grantham. Why now. And why a baby.”

  Ace didn’t quite smile, but the lines softened, smoothing out and reminding Hoyt his brother was still only a few months shy of thirty-five. “You pegged a few of my questions.”

  “What’d I miss?”

  “I’m not questioning why Reese. That part’s obvious.”

  Obvious? What could possibly be obvious about a woman he barely knew? “Obvious how?”

  “You’re crazy about each other. I’m not saying the news of a baby hasn’t been a surprise, but you and Reese? That part’s easy.”

  If Ace had whipped out a show tune and begun a soft shoe on Reese’s front porch, Hoyt would have been less stunned. “Me and Reese are easy?”

  “Sure are, little brother. You’ve always had a thing for her.”

  “How could I have a thing for a woman I’ve ba
rely spoken a sum total of twenty sentences to before she and I hooked up a few months ago?”

  “Ahh.” Ace nodded his head knowingly. “So that explains it.”

  “Why I’ve been a raging ass?”

  “Why you’ve been more of a raging ass than usual.” Tate’s voice boomed out from behind Hoyt as his other brother took the last few steps toward the front porch.

  Although he’d opened the door, Hoyt couldn’t quite give his brothers the room to keep poking at what had happened back in June. Or his behavior since. “I’m surly and grumpy. You all like me that way.”

  The twin snorts didn’t require his response but Hoyt decided to press on anyway. “And for the record, I don’t have a thing for Reese Grantham. She’s a beautiful woman and things sort of progressed a few months back. We’re two single, unattached people. Stuff happens between two single, unattached people.”

  “Like babies,” Ace said.

  “And house raids to trap the school pet,” Tate added.

  “And sex,” his brothers said in unison.

  “You’re both high on ranch fertilizer if you think there’s anything else there.”

  “You keep telling yourself that, little brother.” Ace slapped him on the back. “And know we’re here for you on that day you realize we’re right.”

  * * *

  Hoyt was still chewing over his time at Reese’s house an hour later, after he’d washed up and was heading down to the kitchen for dinner. He might have cleaned away the day’s grime, but his brothers’ knowing smiles, glances and smug words hadn’t rinsed away so easily.

  In fact, if he were being honest, they’d stuck in his mind like glue and didn’t seem to have any intention of budging.

  Especially since Reese was waiting for him in the kitchen. He’d spoken to her briefly when they’d returned, reassuring her that her home was safe. They’d looked for the spider and while it might have found a soft place to land outside, it hadn’t made its home inside hers. She’d seemed resigned to the lack of discovery and had promised to call her fellow teacher and break the bad news that his science classroom would be missing one of its pets for the start of the new school year.

  So here he was, stalling in his bathroom, anticipating seeing her again and recognizing they’d be the object of his family’s attention.

  Did he blame them?

  While he’d tried to play it cool and keep his nose out of it, he hadn’t been immune to the recently burgeoning relationship between Tate and Belle. The entire ranch had recognized that spring was both in the air and working its magic on his brother’s love life with his first—and only—love. He’d be a hypocrite if he didn’t anticipate the same scrutiny on him and Reese.

  The problem was, everyone wanted to see the same outcome.

  Yes, they were having a baby. And while it seemed like a complication on the surface, he had every confidence they’d make raising a child together work. That didn’t mean the two of them had some great love story just waiting to unfold.

  “Hell. We don’t have a love story at all,” he muttered to himself before slamming his towel over the top of the shower and heading for the door to his room. He wasn’t hiding up here and he’d be damned if he was going to let whatever was in his family’s collective heads mess up his. He knew who he was. He also knew what he and Reese had, and it wasn’t some grand romance.

  His wing of the ranch house was one floor up and located at the opposite end of the house from the kitchen, so it wasn’t until he was narrowing in on the front staircase that led down to the living areas that he heard voices.

  Reese’s voice, in particular.

  “I’m feeling good. Mornings can be tough and several afternoons, too, but other than that it hasn’t been too bad.”

  Arden offered up some teas that she knew to be good for anything upsetting digestive balance and Hoyt let that sink in. His baby sister was giving the mother of his child tips on helping morning sickness.

  How had that happened?

  And then he remembered how it all had happened, a flush of heat coursing through his body at the remembered hours with Reese Grantham in his arms. Whatever had come since, that lone night hadn’t been far from his thoughts.

  Or just how right it had felt to hold her close.

  * * *

  Reese settled her napkin onto her lap and took a moment to look around the table. Hoyt’s siblings were a raucous bunch; everyone seemed to be talking at once. Belle Granger certainly had no problem inserting herself in the mix, her conversation easy as she teased Ace about an article he’d appeared in for a national ranching magazine before shifting gears to ask Arden when she was doing another vinyasa class down at the Midnight Pass Community Center.

  “Sorry if they’re a bit overwhelming.” Hoyt leaned in from her left, handing her a basket brimming with warm yeast-scented rolls.

  “They’re not—” Reese turned to face him, their heads coming close, and plum forgot what she wanted to say. The stress of the day, coupled with the seesawing fears that his family would accept her or think her a money-grubbing schemer faded away in the depths of those vivid green eyes.

  She could get lost there.

  And, as she remembered the child they’d made, realized she had gotten lost there. One lonely night at the local bar and pool hall and in the glorious hours that had followed.

  Shifting her focus to the basket of rolls, she selected one and used that time to collect her thoughts. “They’re wonderful.”

  “I’m not quite sure I’d go that far.” When she looked back up, prepared to argue, he stopped her with a broad smile. Laying a hand over hers where it rested on the table, he said, “They are pretty great, a fact I’m well aware of. And while being overbearing seems to be a gene that comes with the Reynolds name, they have my back. And now they have yours, too. I hope you know that.”

  “I do.”

  Funny enough, for all the swings of emotion, the one thing that had been more than evident in her conversation with Arden and Belle, and even later, once Ace and Tate had come back in with Hoyt, was that sense of belonging.

  Of being one of them.

  The Reynolds siblings had closed ranks over a decade ago when their father had been accused and found guilty of illegal ranching practices. The whole town had seen it and marveled on the fact that the children of Andrew Reynolds could still hold their heads high, while they all worked tirelessly to rebuild the ranch, its product and its reputation.

  Maybe it had been her own personal hell with Jamie’s addiction and how desperately she didn’t want her family to be judged for her brother’s illness. Perhaps it had been her friendship with Arden and how she understood the embarrassment her friend had suffered, struggling to find her place in Midnight Pass once the Reynolds name had a blight over it.

  Or maybe it had even been more superficial, after all those years in school when she, along with the rest of the female student population, had found the Reynolds boys the object of more than a few appreciative sighs. Like she’d done with the movie stars she loved to read about, she’d always placed the brothers in a special category of male beauty and charisma, their cowboy boots and tipped hats making them seem larger than life.

  It was hard to say now, because it was likely all those things, as well as a lifetime of sharing this same small, square plot of Texas, that had influenced how she saw the Reynolds family. They’d all been raised under the same bright blue skies and on land that had stood under six flags. They’d all run wild as children like the mustangs that used to roam this land.

  But like the mustangs that had long since vanished, so had their childhood. Youth had been lost to the harsh realities of life, whether it was addiction or crime or greed, and adulthood had come far too early.

  Funny how it all faded in the camaraderie that filled the table and the support she felt from each and every one there.

/>   Her child had a future. And while she and its father might not share anything more than a heated night and—perhaps—genuine affection, they also shared mutual respect and a willingness to raise their child with love.

  It would be enough.

  It would have to be.

  Chapter 9

  “You don’t have to walk me inside.” Reese heard her prim tone and tried not to wince. “I mean, it’s nice if you do but you don’t have to.”

  Hoyt laid a hand over hers, waiting quietly until she tore her gaze from her closed garage door, visible through the windshield of his truck. “Reese.”

  “Yes?”

  “You don’t need to do this alone.”

  Sure, I do. I always have.

  The thought hit so hard it cratered through her, leaving a strange emptiness in its wake. She was alone and had been for far longer than she wanted to admit. Even now, when she and her mother should have found some measure of comfort in their shared experiences, they’d each gone their own direction, like two magnets repelling at the poles.

  Since the darkness of Hoyt’s truck, after an emotional day and evening, would have been the perfect place to settle in and say all she felt, she pushed herself in the opposite direction and reached for the door. No use trying to take comfort when it had a limited shelf life. A fact she understood to the depths of her toes.

  They’d shared one amazing night, but they weren’t married or even remotely attached to each other. Both their lives would go on and he’d find someone else, a woman who likely wouldn’t appreciate Hoyt Reynolds’s past indiscretion or the living evidence of it all nosing around the edges of their new life.

  The door slammed harder than she intended and Reese made her way to the front door. In spite of her swinging moods, she was touched to see he’d left the porch lights on after his earlier visit with his brothers and reveled in that small measure of thoughtfulness.

  “We didn’t touch much. Just enough to search every area thoroughly.” Hoyt spoke from behind her, his large form radiating heat at her back.