The Cowboy's Secret Baby Read online

“For you, always.” She turned to hand the package to her customer. “Thanks so much, I hope you enjoy it. Please come again.”

  The woman, a visitor from Texas, beamed. “This will be the envy of all my friends.” She swept from the store, the bell above the door jangling.

  When they were alone, Elizabeth said, “Olivia claimed summer is her slow time, but we’ve had quite a few tourists, plus the locals who come in to see what’s new.” Or were the regulars sniffing for gossip fodder? No one could have seen her kiss Dallas, though. She was being paranoid. “First thing this morning, I supervised the packing and loading of a pricey Chesterfield sofa.” The indecisive customer had finally made up her mind. “The odds aren’t favorable that I’ll make another big sale today, but at least the store was hopping then.” That was both good and bad news. Elizabeth was enjoying her job, but by five o’clock she’d be even further behind in filling the online orders in her inbox for Kedar rugs. She’d have to work late and next weekend to catch up.

  Jenna strolled around the shop’s main room. “Managing this place without Olivia must be a workout.”

  “I’m dragging,” she admitted, “and today I’m shorthanded. Becca didn’t come in this morning or phone to let me know she was taking more time off.” Had she quit without notice after their conversation about Becca’s possible pregnancy? Elizabeth bit her tongue. She couldn’t mention that. “I haven’t had an opportunity to call and see how she’s doing. Now, about you...” she said, because obviously Jenna had come in for a reason other than to say hello.

  Jenna stopped beside a table of antique snow globes. “Remember how much I love Luke and Grace? But I still can’t get it out of my head that I’d like to have another child. I’ve tried to bring it up with Hadley, but I feel disloyal. The twins are my family now, but they weren’t mine when they were born. I thought I was resigned to never holding my own newborn baby, but obviously I’m not.”

  Elizabeth knew Jenna’s life hadn’t been easy. Other people may not have seen that. But after she’d left home, and her parents’ dysfunctional family, for Kansas City, she’d married young. Her first husband, a successful lawyer, had provided well, and their life together, their expensive home in a fashionable suburb, had appeared to be perfect. But that had proved to be a facade. He hadn’t been the most loving man, and the marriage had ended badly, in part because Jenna’s infertility had driven a wedge between them.

  Elizabeth felt a guilty tug at her heartstrings. Yes, she’d lost a child, but she had three others, and, like Becca, she was pregnant again. If Elizabeth didn’t miscarry this time—a constant worry—she would have four children while poor Jenna would never hold the one baby she wanted so much. “Have you talked to a new fertility specialist?”

  “I’ve seen them all, from Farrier to Kansas City. My ex and I even tried in vitro. Several times.”

  “Then, are you thinking adoption? I know you considered that once.”

  Jenna sighed. “That’s why I was in Farrier today. I talked with the agency there, gathering information before I face Hadley again.”

  “You’d have your hands full with three kids under five, Jen. Are you ready for that?”

  “With Clara’s help, yes. She’s a godsend with the twins.” Her expression dimmed as if someone had turned out the lights. “Unfortunately, I’m told the local adoption pool has dried up. Either more women are keeping their babies—or, sadly, they don’t go through with their pregnancies.”

  “That’s a tough one,” Elizabeth said.

  “Tell me. As I said, my ex and I tried everything until I finally did get pregnant—wonder of wonders—but then I lost it right away. We didn’t try again.”

  “I didn’t know that. Losing a baby, no matter how that happens, is a tragedy.” Elizabeth’s heart ached. “I’m so sorry, Jenna. When I lost my baby last year, my mother actually kept telling me not to think of it that way. With Harry out of the house, our marriage on the rocks, how would I deal with four children? Another way, I suppose, for her to urge me to reconcile with him.”

  “You were right not to patch things up. How could you ever trust him again?” Jenna murmured, “I just wish I knew the right thing to do in this situation.”

  “You have to do what’s right for you.” Just as Becca would, as Elizabeth had done with Harry, as she still needed to do with Dallas. “Are you afraid Hadley won’t support you in this?”

  “It’s not that. The ranch is coming along, but not out of the woods yet, and even though Fantastic Designs is doing well, I have to wonder if I’d be putting another burden on Hadley. He’d have a third mouth to feed, a child to put through college.” She added, “The twins are already covered. The trust we set up for them with the money their mother left will be sufficient for their educations.”

  Elizabeth put an arm around Jenna’s shoulders. As Jenna’s friend, she wanted to help find the right answer too. “You won’t know how to proceed until you discuss this with him,” she said, knowing she should deal with her fear of miscarriage then take her own advice.

  After that, their conversation took a lighter turn, and Elizabeth told funny stories about the kids’ adventures in Colorado, and Harry’s attempts to manage all three of them. Come to think, she hadn’t talked to them in days. She’d felt swamped with work, and maybe they were off somewhere with their father. Jordan couldn’t be right that they never saw him. “By now, I hope he’s truly bonded with them.”

  Despite what Dallas had said at the McMann ranch, rejecting any notion of a serious relationship, they did have a problem. It wasn’t only hers, and those moments with him hadn’t made telling him about her pregnancy any easier. How would she ever find the words? And the courage?

  * * *

  BY THE TIME she got home, Elizabeth’s daily bouts of queasiness had passed, but her last bit of energy had dripped through her veins. All afternoon the shop had been even more crowded than in the morning, Jenna’s dilemma was still playing through her mind and Elizabeth had more work to do before bed. She also needed to call the local radio and TV stations—maybe they’d interview Dallas—and the Barren Journal, the town’s weekly newspaper. Thank heaven she’d been able to turn the food competitions and chili contest over to Clara.

  A sudden commotion from somewhere close by shattered the remnants of her concentration, then Elizabeth heard—

  “Mom!”

  “Mommy!”

  “Mama!”

  The trio of sweet voices split the air from just outside the house. And Elizabeth’s heart nearly stopped. Unable to believe what she’d heard, she hurried to the window. No, she wasn’t hearing things. Her children were running along the front walk! Their footsteps pounded up the steps, then across the porch. They burst through the door—and her arms were suddenly filled with a bunch of squirming little bodies. My babies.

  “What a surprise,” she said, face buried in Seth’s hair. She kissed one dear face then the next. She’d come home to her empty house, but the rooms reverberated now with sound as each child vied to share some aspect of their summer adventures. Her thoughts a jumble, Elizabeth flipped through her mental calendar. They’d left in mid-June, it was now July, and late August, when they were due home, was still weeks away. Why this change in the schedule? As if on cue, Harry appeared in the entryway. He gave the children a critical glance.

  “Why didn’t someone shut this door?”

  No one answered him. Elizabeth disentangled herself from the four-way embrace, and the kids scampered off up the stairs to their rooms, but she didn’t mind the noise they made. They were home... Although it wasn’t exactly convenient timing all around, especially because of the secret she carried. “Harry, what is this?”

  “What do you think? I’ve brought them back.”

  “Early,” she said. “Their school doesn’t start until—”

  “I know when the fall term begins. Try to keep up, Elizabeth. The
last time we spoke, I told you about job interviews. They’re scheduled now, half a dozen. Did you think I planned to take them with me?”

  Hoping the children couldn’t hear, she kept her voice low. “I thought you planned to have them for the summer. I’m glad they’re here, but really, how can they trust you if you’re of one mind today and another tomorrow?”

  He surveyed the room, as if he were conducting a meeting at town hall, his gaze focused in turn on each member of his administration, except that Elizabeth was the only other person in the room now. “Jordan was bored. Stella misses her dolls. I can never remember their names, a mark against me in her book. Seth is always homesick. Nothing I tried changed that enough, but surely you don’t want me to miss an opportunity to quit being unemployed?”

  “I didn’t want you to miss this time with them—the whole time,” she said. “Why didn’t you tell me you were on your way? There’s a lot going on here too, Harry. I’m up to my ears at the shop, with the upcoming rodeo in Barren—”

  “A rodeo,” he muttered. “Ah, I see,” he said. “I’m interrupting your plans?”

  Elizabeth tried to explain. “I promised to help my neighbor.”

  His voice oozed with disdain. “That cowboy?” He sounded like her mother.

  “And Clara McMann. The kids will love it, which is a big part of the reason I agreed to take part, but honestly, I don’t even have a babysitter who can fill in while I’m at work in the shop or for the event.”

  He smirked. “You’re too busy to take care of your own children? I can’t imagine that would please Claudia.”

  Elizabeth ignored that. Harry had often tried to keep her in line by mentioning her mother. “Excuse me? You never had time to look after them yourself. You and I had an agreement. I expected to have the summer—” which she’d dreaded in June “—to fix my own life, which I’ve been trying to do, and now you’ve reneged. What am I supposed to do? Quit the job I just started so you can trot off to all your interviews? Abandon people who are depending on me?”

  “Jordan, Stella and Seth depend on you.”

  “As they did on you, Harry. You let them down, which isn’t new, and you keep changing the rules. First, you have an affair, and you father a child who is not part of this family. You betray me in front of this whole town, all my friends...yes, my mother too. You leave me to pick up the pieces of my life, then waltz out of here again now to pursue your own interests when you should be—”

  “Apparently you’ve pursued yours, as well. Don’t get on your high horse with me, Elizabeth. That was an issue from the day we got married. Maybe I looked for someone more giving, more interested in who I was...which means part of the blame for our ridiculous divorce falls on you. One person in a relationship doesn’t get to supersede the other.”

  “I could say the same thing to you.” She might not confront her mother as she should, like Dallas advised, but she’d put Bernice in her place, and it was time to stand up to Harry. “In case you’ve forgotten, you were home maybe one night out of five. When you were, you stayed in your den on the phone with people who obviously meant more to you than we did. Than I did,” she said. “We both know how that ended. And it is over, Harry. I’ll expect you to pay for the sitter I need to find.” She walked to the door, making sure she didn’t come near him. “Thank you for bringing the children home. We’ll manage, as we did before. Good luck with your interviews, wherever they may be.” Elizabeth would not ask. “Let me know when you want to see them again.”

  She held the door until he walked through, then slammed it shut, rattling the windows.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  IN HER BEDROOM Becca huddled up in a ball on her bed. She shouldn’t have talked to Elizabeth the other day. She shouldn’t have told Calvin about the pregnancy. Becca had been hiding out since then. When she’d reached the house again late today, her dad had been in the kitchen, the telltale sizzle from a skillet telling her he was browning meat for supper. Tiptoeing past the doorway, Becca had gone straight to her room. Now, filled with dread, she waited for him to come upstairs.

  The soft rap at her door startled her anyway. “Yes?”

  His deep voice rumbled from the hallway. “May I come in?”

  She couldn’t say no, and he’d only try the doorknob if she didn’t answer.

  The door opened. With one eye she peeked out from beneath the arm she’d flung across her face, shutting out the light, the world, as if hiding might make things simpler. Now there he stood, eyes dark with concern, the coveralls he’d worn for work today—every day—smudged with dirt from the barn.

  She wondered how he managed without help. They couldn’t afford hired hands, and it wasn’t as if the farm was big like the Circle H or Wilson Cattle ranches, or even Clara McMann’s, but her dad worked too hard. Drove himself, really. Becca asked, “Did you finish fertilizing the fields?”

  “Almost done.” He edged into her room. “Anything you want to share with me, Becca?”

  “No,” she tried, hoping he’d give up and go away.

  He stayed, of course. “It’s not like you to come home yesterday without saying a word, and today you must have known I was in the house. You didn’t even call hello or eat dinner.” He crossed to the bed, then stood over her, Becca’s solid, dependable dad. “If you dislike the job you have, then look for another.”

  “I’m okay. It’s easier to work with Elizabeth than Olivia.”

  His face darkened. “Then what about that boy you’ve been seeing? If he’s hurt you—”

  “It’s not Calvin.” He was certainly part of the problem, an even bigger part now when she feared letting her dad know why. But Calvin hadn’t taken her news—their news—in the way she’d hoped, and she doubted her father would either. “I...didn’t feel good. That’s why I left work early again.” In fact, she’d never gone to the shop today. She’d driven around aimlessly. She’d gone once to Willow’s house, but after her vacation her friend had stayed in Ohio to spend time with an aunt.

  He sat down on her bed. She didn’t want to lie to him. “I stopped at the pharmacy on my way home,” she said. “I got some stomach medicine.”

  “Your stomach, Becca?”

  “I think have a virus.” Maybe that would make him leave her room. He wouldn’t want to pick up whatever she had and lose time to run the farm, not that he would ever take a sick day. But he didn’t move. He stayed seated beside her, gazing at her with concern in his already sad eyes.

  “Why don’t you make an appointment with Doc Baxter?”

  He was right about the doctor but for the wrong reason. Sooner or later, she’d have to see Doc, who was semiretired. His younger partner, Sawyer McCord, whom she preferred, was in some foreign country this summer, and in his absence Doc was holding office hours again. For now, she’d take the test she’d bought at the drugstore.

  He frowned. “I’m concerned, Becca. Don’t sit on this, promise?” He must be thinking of her mother, who’d ignored her symptoms until it was too late. She hadn’t wanted to worry him.

  “I promise.” Becca rested a hand on her stomach. Each day its soft swell seemed more noticeable to her. How long before everyone would guess the truth, her dad especially? Still, she’d buy time if she could. Once he knew, he’d see her in a different way. After that he might not love her, and he’d miss her mother’s presence all the more. Even if Becca remained in the house, it wouldn’t be the same. “I should rest. I’ve also been doing too much.”

  “Seeing Calvin Stern,” he said, “when you should have stayed home.” His smile didn’t touch his eyes. “You missed The First 48 this week. Forensic Files was an old one.”

  “They’re all old,” she said. “I’ve been neglecting you, haven’t I?” That, at least, wouldn’t be a problem for now, because she hadn’t heard a word from Calvin. The thought made her feel more exhausted than she had before. She’d let down eve
ryone she loved, including the memory of her mother.

  “You’re not supposed to take care of me,” her father said. “I’m the dad, you’re the daughter. That’s my job.” His gaze fixed on the far wall.

  “Daddy, I’ll be fine, but I’d rather be alone right now. I don’t feel like watching TV tonight.” She faked a yawn, her hand still cradling her abdomen.

  What if Calvin really didn’t want her or their baby? She was terrified, afraid to think she might panic and do something drastic. Like not have it. She’d read about girls who hid their pregnancies, gave birth in some restroom stall, abandoned their newborns... She needed to talk to Elizabeth again. There was no one else she could trust.

  “Rebecca, tell me the truth.” A sense of betrayal threatened to make her cry. He’d lost her mother, the love of his life, and yet he got up every morning, tended the farm and her roses, tended to Becca, as he’d said. The truth wouldn’t get easier to reveal over time, and her dad’s eyes told her he’d already made a connection. “It’s not your stomach, is it?”

  “No, and I’m not that sick,” she said quickly to reassure him. He wasn’t going to lose her as they had her mom, but she was going to break his heart. Becca waited until his gaze moved from the wall to meet hers. She took his hand and drew it to her tummy but still couldn’t speak. Finally, he said the words for her that would change them forever, his quiet voice filled with the realization and shock.

  “You’re pregnant.”

  The tears welled in her eyes, then streamed down her cheeks. “I’m sorry, Daddy.” Through blurred vision, she watched disappointment take over his expression, and a sheen of moisture brimmed in his eyes too. Without another word, he rose from the bed and left the room, his head down and his steps slow. She heard none of the clatter he usually made going down the wooden stairs; he didn’t make a sound.

  Leaving Becca and her baby alone.

  * * *

  WHAT IS HAPPENING next door? Every light in Lizzie’s house seemed to be on, the deep thrum of bass from a television reverberated through those walls into his, and from his side window Dallas glimpsed the shadow of someone moving past in an opposite upstairs room. A figure in the darkened rear yard bounced a basketball in front of the hoop on the garage. Lizzie was no longer alone. Was that Jordan?