Heiress (45 page)

Nearly certain that she was sterile, she had taken precautions with MacCrea only during the most crucial times. Now, with a sudden sinking sensation, Abbie calculated where she was in her cycle. Lately she'd paid little attention to it; it hadn't seemed important, since she wasn't going with anyone. She never dreamed last night would happen.

Now she was forced to face the very real possibility that she was pregnant. She pressed a hand to her stomach, feeling frightened and half-sick. After all this time, she was about to find out whether the problem had been Christopher's, or hers. . . only it wouldn't be Christopher's child growing in her womb. It would be MacCrea's.

She didn't want to think about it. She didn't even want to consider the possibility that she had finally gotten pregnant. But she had to. If she was pregnant, what was she going to do? What did she want to do? What was right? What was best? She reeled from the endless questions that hammered through her mind, finding no easy answers to any of them.

Before long, the possibility became more than just a fear as Abbie started waking up in the mornings plagued by a queasy feeling in her stomach. Several times she wasn't sure she was going to make it through the morning workouts, but she always did. When Babs remarked on her pallor, she blamed it on tiredness and overwork. But she knew she couldn't hide the truth much longer. Sooner or later people were going to guess, if they hadn't already.

The flashy gunmetal-gray gelding she was riding snorted at the tractor chugging across the adjoining cotton field. Abbie slipped a hand under his cream-white mane and petted his arched neck, speaking softly to the young horse to quiet him as she glanced at the man bouncing along on the tractor seat. Dobie waved to her. She lifted a hand briefly in response, then turned the Arabian gelding toward the barn, less than a quarter-mile distant.

During times like these, when she wanted to be alone and think, she was glad Ben believed horses should be ridden as much as possible over open country and not endlessly worked in arenas, traveling in circles all the time. He claimed nothing soured a good horse quicker than arena work, insisting it became just as bored as the rider with the monotony of it. Abbie agreed with his philosophy, although today her reasons were slightly selfish.

As Abbie rode into the yard, she saw Ben in the small work pen they'd constructed next to the barn. He was working with a yearling filly being trained to show at halter. A marvel to watch, he relied on none of the more severe methods she'd seen some trainers use—no chains under the jaw, no head jerking, and no harsh whipping. Instead, he used a long buggy whip to get the horse's attention, cracking it behind the filly's back feet, and rarely ever actually striking her with it. Most horses quickly learned that as long as they paid attention to Ben, the whip was silent. Once Ben had the horse's attention, it was a relatively simple matter to teach her to face him and to direct her movements by altering his body position, creating a conditioned response.

Abbie dismounted near the barn and watched from the sidelines as she unsaddled the gelding. As usual, Ben kept the training session short, preferring not to tax the horse's attention span. He finished at the same time Abbie started to rub down the gelding.

After he turned the filly back in with the other horses, he joined her. "The ride was good? Akhar went well for you?"

"Yes." Abbie paused at her task and pushed up the sleeves on her heavy sweater, conscious of the tenderness in her breasts.

"Do you feel better now, after the ride?"

"I feel fine. I did before I left," she insisted defensively, aware of the intent way he was studying her. In the last couple of days, she'd caught Ben watching her closely several times. She thought he suspected something, but maybe she was just becoming paranoid.

"When a person has problems, it is good to go riding sometimes."

"Problems? What makes you think I have any? No more than usual anyway. I'm just tired, that's all." But more so than normal. She felt she could sleep for a week and not be rested.

"It is natural for you to be," he said, and Abbie darted a wary glance at him. His usually impassive features wore a troubled frown of concern. "You have the look of a female when—" He stopped abruptly as if suddenly hearing the words coming out of his mouth.

There was no point in keeping the truth from him, Abbie realized. He'd already guessed. With a sober wryness she faced him squarely. "I hoped since I wasn't a horse, you wouldn't be able to tell by looking that I was pregnant. I should have known I couldn't fool you."

"It is true then?"

"Yes. MacCrea Wilder's the father." She knew Ben would never ask. "He was at the party we hostessed in River Oaks early this month." It seemed a lifetime ago instead of a little less than three weeks. "I thought. . . It really doesn't matter what I thought. I was wrong."

"Does he know?"

"No," she answered quickly, forcefully. "And he's never to know, Ben. No one is. I want your word that you'll never tell anyone, not even my mother, who the father is."

"If this is what you want, I will do it," Ben agreed, but with obvious reluctance. "But what will you do?"

She'd thought it through thoroughly, considered all her options, and reached her decision. "I'm going to keep the baby, of course." No matter what else in her life had changed, she still wanted a baby. In the end, it had been as simple as that.

"But a young woman with no husband, you know what people will say," he reminded her sadly.

"Then I'll just have to get myself a husband, won't I?" Abbie declared, feigning an insouciance that couldn't have been farther from her true feelings. At the sound of the tractor chugging in from the field, she turned and glanced at the driver. "He's a likely candidate, wouldn't you say?"

"He has asked you?" Ben questioned.

"No, but that's a minor detail." She shrugged that aside, the same way she shrugged aside her feelings. If she sounded hard and uncaring, it was because she had to be. With a baby on the way, she had to be practical. She couldn't afford the luxury of personal feelings—neither her own nor Dobie's. "I can handle him."

"But do you want a husband you can handle?" Ben frowned.

"I don't want any husband at all," Abbie declared somewhat hotly. "But since I have to have one, I might as well marry someone I can manage."

"You would not respect such a man."

"I don't have to respect him. I just have to marry him." But she didn't mean to sound so scornful of Dobie. "Besides, Dobie would be a good father."

Late that afternoon, after the horses were fed, Abbie walked by the machine shed on her way to the house. When she saw Dobie inside, tinkering with some part on the tractor, she hesitated. More than anything, she wanted to go to the house and lie down for a while, but this project of hers wasn't something that she could afford to postpone. Altering her course, she entered the machine shed.

"Hello, Dobie."

He straightened quickly at the sound of her voice and hastily wiped his greasy hands on an oil rag. "Hello, Abbie." He smiled at her warmly. "I saw you out riding this afternoon."

"I saw you, too." She returned the smile, then came to the point. "I was wondering if you're busy tonight. I'd love to go somewhere to have a drink and maybe dance a little. But I don't want to go by myself. It wouldn't look right. I thought. . . maybe you'd like to come, too.”

For a moment he was too surprised to speak. "I'd love to," he said finally as he pushed the battered Stetson to the back of his head, revealing more of his strawberry-blond hair. "Maybe we can leave early and have dinner somewhere first."

"That sounds good," she said, agreeing readily.

"I'll pick you up about seven. How would that be?"

"Fine. I'll be ready."

When Dobie picked her up that night, he was driving the brand-new pickup he usually kept parked in the garage under a protective dust cover. Dobie was all slicked up himself in a western-cut jacket, a sharply creased pair of new jeans, and shiny snakeskin cowboy boots. Even his red-gold hair had the sheen that said it had been freshly shampooed.

The evening didn't turn out to be the trial Abbie had expected. She couldn't have asked for a more attentive escort. Dobie was always opening doors for her, holding her chair, and fetching her drinks. Over dinner, they talked mostly about his farm and the current commodities market. At a local country bar, they two-stepped and slow-danced, but he was always careful not to hold her too close. Abbie decided that she had rejected his attentions a few too many times in the past, making him leery now.

On the way home, she actually felt guilty for the way she was using him. She almost wished Dobie wasn't such a gentleman. But this was something she had to do, for the sake of everyone concerned.

She waited as Dobie came around to help her out of the pickup. He opened the door and reached for her hand. "Well, here you are back again, safe and sound."

Abbie climbed out of the truck, then continued to hold his hand once on the ground. "I want to check on Breeze before I go to the house. Would you like to come along?"

"Sure," he agreed cautiously, as if uncertain about what she expected of him.

She released his hand and started walking toward the barn. "I really enjoyed myself tonight. I hope you did, too, Dobie."

"I did," he assured her, lagging about a half a step behind her. "It's been a while since I've been out, too."

Reaching ahead of her, he opened the Dutch door. Abbie stepped inside and flipped on the light switch. Several horses snorted and thrust their heads over the mangers to gaze inquiringly at them. Abbie passed all of them as she walked down the aisle to her filly's stall. River Breeze nickered a welcome and pushed her velvety-soft nose into Abbie's hand. "How are you, girl?" Abbie crooned and scratched the hollow above one of her big liquid brown eyes.

"She really likes you." Dobie watched from the side. "I've never had much to do with horses myself—not since I got bucked off of one as a kid and broke my leg. We took her to the sale barn and sold her that very next week."

"You should have gotten back on." She turned slightly, angling her body in his direction. "After your leg healed, of course. Just because you got hurt once doesn't mean you'd get hurt again."

He looked at her, then down at the floor, and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "Some things just aren't worth the risk."

"Why haven't you ever gotten married, Dobie? You have so much to offer a woman, besides a home and this farm. There must be dozens of girls who are just waiting for you to ask them."

"Maybe," he conceded. "But I've never wanted any of them." Hesitating, he glanced at her. "There's only been one girl I ever wanted to marry. I think you know that."

"You could have also changed your mind."

"I haven't." His voice sounded thin.

"I'm glad." She had to make herself smile encouragingly. She kept telling herself that everything would be all right if she could just get this over with.

He moved hesitantly closer and leaned a hand against the stall partition near her head. He looked at her for a long moment, then swayed uncertainly closer, and carefully pressed his mouth against her lips for a very few seconds. As he started to move away, Abbie cupped the left side of his jaw in her hand.

"I'm very glad, Dobie," she whispered and brought her mouth against his lips, moving it over them, gently persuading.

For an instant, Dobie was too startled by the initiative she'd taken to respond. Then his arms went around her and she was gathered against him. He kissed her roughly, fiercely, almost frightening Abbie with his unbridled ardor, like a man too long without water and guzzling down the first glass given to him.

Abruptly he broke it off. "I'm sorry, Abbie. I—"

"Don't be." She pressed against him when he started to pull away from her.

"I've wanted to. . . kiss you and. . . hold you for so long. And now—Why now, Abbie?" he questioned.

"Sometimes, Dobie, you get so used to having someone around you that you. . . don't notice them." Abbie chose her words carefully. "You know they are good and kind and wonderful, but. . . you just take them for granted. You don't appreciate all the really good things about them. I guess that's the way I've been with you."

"Is it?"

"Yes." She nodded affirmatively. "Ever since my divorce, I think I've been afraid to trust a man again. But these last few months, living here and seeing you every day—I guess it's opened my eyes."

"I figured I never had a chance with you."

"You were wrong." She laid her head against his shoulder, unable to look at him anymore and lie. "You were very wrong, Dobie."

"All this time, I—"

"I know." With a lifting turn of her head, she sought his mouth and closed her eyes tightly when he kissed her.

She felt like a cheat. But she firmly reminded herself that she wasn't. Dobie was getting what he wanted, and that was her. Maybe she wasn't all that he bargained for, but that's just the way life was.

As one kiss led to another, his caresses grew bolder. Soon it was a simple matter for Abbie to draw him down on to the pile of straw next to the manger. She hadn't realized seduction could be so easy—or that she'd feel so empty and sick inside afterward.

As tears pricked her eyelids, Abbie turned her back on him as she sat up and pulled on her blouse. She could hear him dressing behind her, the rustle of straw, the thump of boots being pulled on, and the race of a zipper. She buttoned her blouse slowly in an attempt to delay the moment when she'd have to face him and pretend how much she'd enjoyed it.

"Abbie." He knelt on the straw beside her. "Are. . . are you sorry?"

That was the last question she expected. She wanted to scream at him for being so damned considerate. "No, of course not," she replied.

And it was the truth. She'd do it all over again if that's what it was going to take to get a wedding ring on her finger. She wasn't going to subject herself to the embarrassment and humiliation of having an illegitimate child. The county had talked enough about her family. They weren't going to talk about her. By the time she had this baby, she was going to have a husband.