Once Upon a Cowboy (23 page)

“Never should have what, Jess?” He sat still, so still, just waiting for her to answer.

“I never should have pretended to be something I’m not.”

He shook his head, confusion making his eyebrows draw together. “I don’t understand. How have you pretended to be something you’re not?”

“I’m not—not really who you think I am.”

“Don’t go.” He patted the hay bale. “Sit with me. I won’t
touch you, I won’t kiss you, I won’t do anything you don’t want to do. But please, Jess. Please just tell me what has you ready to run right now.”

She took another deep breath. When she’d made up the first lie thirteen years ago, how could she have possibly realized her life would come to a moment like this?

She was sick of the lies. Sick of the truth eating at the edges of her life. Sick of
wondering when it was all going to catch up with her, define her again—kill her again and again and again like it had the first time.

She
had
to tell him.

“Okay.” She sat down gingerly, carefully making sure her thighs didn’t touch his. “Cole, the life you envision for yourself—the life you’re meant to have—I could never be part of that in the way that you want. I can’t give you the things you
deserve, the things you need.”

“How—what?” He shook his head. “No.”

She put up a finger to pause him. It was now or never. “I didn’t grow up in a mansion or in an old plantation house, Cole. I grew up on the way-way wrong side of the tracks in a little dumpy town west of Charleston. I lived in a trailer park with—my mother. And my aunt. And various and sundry men, at various and sundry times.

“A lot of really awful stuff happened there, and I’m not sure I’ve ever quite gotten over it. Despite my best efforts to leave it all behind, I’m carrying the kind of baggage I wouldn’t wish upon my worst enemy. It is
certainly
baggage I wouldn’t wish upon someone like you.”

“I’m not afraid of baggage, Jess.” His voice was soft, soothing.

“You say that, but this baggage”—her voice trailed off—“this
kind of baggage doesn’t go away.”

“Jess.” He reached out, and she could see pain in his eyes. And she had caused it. It made her feel sick all over again. “Whatever it is, it won’t scare me off. I promise you that. There is nothing you could tell me right now that would send me running.”

“You don’t know that.” Her voice was now a choked whisper.
Oh God.
Could she really do this?

“I
do
know
that.” He pulled back his hand, clenched it in his other. “I love you, dammit. I’ve loved you since I don’t even know when, and nothing you say right now can possibly change that.”

Jess felt tears slide onto her cheeks. It was now or never. She hated to do this to him, hated to ruin his rosy misconception that no matter what, he could handle all that she came with. But she’d gone this far. She
needed to tell him.

She braced herself, took another breath, and slowly pulled open the top of her dress. “Cole,
this
is the kind of baggage I come with.”

His eyes held hers for a long moment before he looked down. When he did, she bit her lips hard enough to draw blood as she watched his eyes trace the scars, watched his mouth tighten as he swallowed hard.

“Who did this to you?” She could
hear bristling anger under his ragged whisper.

She pulled her dress closed again. “My mother. And my aunt. This is why detention was preferable to coming home.”

And why Billy was preferable to coming home.

Cole stood up, hands suddenly balled into fists as he paced the floor in front of her. “When?”

“For years.” She wished her voice could sound stronger, but it seemed to be disappearing as
she sat there. “It started when I was little.”

“Did anyone know?”

“Not until a long time in. And by that time, it was just my reality, you know? I only knew what happened inside my walls, such as they were.”

He stopped pacing and turned to her. “This is why you shy away when I touch you?”

“Yes. No.” She took a deep, shaky breath. She’d gone this far. She had to tell him the rest. “It’s not
the whole story.”

He sat back down beside her, but she could’ve sworn he was made of live, snapping, zapping wires right now. It looked as if every fiber in his body was tense, ready to spring—and she didn’t know quite what to make of it.

“Tell me, Jess. Tell me the rest.”

She squeezed her eyes shut. “I had a boyfriend. At the time, I thought he was my salvation. Or—better than being at home,
at least. For a while, anyway. But then things changed.
He
changed.”

“How do I know you’re not gonna go running to the police as soon as I let you out of here?” Billy’s voice was a snarl, his hand a vice as he held her wrist in his tiny excuse for a kitchen.

“I’m not. I won’t. I promise.”

He cocked his head, dark eyes narrowing. “I don’t know. You play all badass, Star, but inside, maybe
you’re just a little narc waiting for a chance.”

“Stop it, Billy. Not true. I won’t tell anybody.”
Because as soon as you let go of me, I’m outta here. Outta this apartment, outta this town. First bus to anywhere. I don’t even care anymore.

“Maybe you need a little reminder what will happen if you breathe a word?”

“No!” Star’s free arm went to her stomach, protective. “Let me go!”

His eyes
suddenly went suspicious, and she dropped her arm.
Oh, no. Oh, hell no.
He poked her stomach, hard, and she clenched her lips, determined not to let on.

Determined not to let on that there was a tiny baby in there, a teeny tiny spark of hope that was the only reason she hadn’t chosen to do something desperate.

“What the hell, Star? You knocked up?” He poked her again, and she couldn’t help but
put her hand out in defense.

“Stop it. Stop, Billy. Just let me go. I want to go home.”

“Right. You ain’t never wanted to go home before. What’s waiting there for you besides a liquored-up whore who don’t care whether you come home tonight or next week? Or never?”

Star bit her lip. Nothing. Nothing was waiting for her, and he damn well knew it.

“Answer my question.” He lifted her chin with
an angry finger. “You pregnant?”

She didn’t know what to do. Either way, she was doomed. Finally she nodded.

“Not funny, Star.” Billy’s dark eyes bored into hers as his huge hand clamped her wrist harder.

“I’m not joking, Billy.” She shook her arm with false bravado. “And let go.”

“How the hell did you let this happen?”

“Seriously? I just called up the stork and asked for a baby. How do you
think
it happened?”

He shook his head, face going dark, angry.

She braced herself.

“It ain’t mine.”

“Of course it’s yours.”

“Prove it.”

“I can’t prove it, Billy. But I’ve never been with anybody else. You know that.”

He pushed out his chin, narrowed his eyes. Shit. She knew what was coming next. She shook her arm again, but it only made him hold her more tightly.

“Come on, Billy. Cut it
out.”

“You trying to saddle me with an effing kid? It’s not 1950, princess. That ain’t how it’s done.”

“I’m not trying to saddle you. It happened. I don’t know how. We’ve always been careful.”
And I wasn’t even going to tell you. I was going to get out of this hellhole and
never
tell you.

He twisted her arm, making her wince. But she didn’t cry out. This time she didn’t cry.

“You need to take
care of it. I’m not having no baby mama in my life.”

“I
will
take care of it. Don’t worry about it. I’ll raise her myself.”

“Her?” His sneer was so ugly she just wanted to slap his face. But she would never, ever do that.

She put her free hand to her stomach. “Or him. I don’t know, obviously.”

He looked at her as if she were three forks short of a silverware drawer. “I don’t mean
take care
of it. I mean get rid of it.”

A hollow feeling filled her gut. No way would she ever do that. Ever. This baby might have come half from Billy, but the other half was all her. She would have this baby, damn it. And she would love it with all her might, and take care of it the way a child
should
be taken care of.

She had no idea how. But she’d be damned if she’d let anything happen to it.

“I will
not, Billy. I’m not getting rid of it. I’m going to have the baby.”

“No, you’re not. No girlfriend of mine’s showing up looking like a beached whale. And no girlfriend of mine’s gonna be whining for child support for the next twenty years. Not happening.”

She gave her hand one final pull, and miraculously, freed her wrist. Then she turned to go, prepared to walk out of Billy’s dank little apartment,
prepared to walk—somewhere, anywhere where she might be safe.

Not here.

Not home.

She got all the way to the doorway. Had her hand on the doorknob. Had even started to twist it. But then she felt her head snap back as Billy grabbed her hair.

“We’re not done here, princess.”

She shivered as he spoke low and menacing, right next to her ear.

That was the last thing she remembered.

She woke
up in a hospital bed late the next day, and the nurses averted their eyes when she asked about the baby—said, “Wait for the doctor, honey. He’ll explain everything.”

She finally lifted the sheet, saw the dressings, felt the emptiness, the pain, the loss. And then the doctor had finally come, had talked about hemorrhaging, and emergency hysterectomy, and baby girl couldn’t be saved, and so, so
sorry, and her sobs finally faded away on a Valium cloud.

Jess sat on the hay bale, her shoulders deflated, her eyes full of tears as she finished recounting her final night in Smugglers’ Gully. Cole was dead silent beside her, and she bit her lip as she waited for him to say something, anything.

“I’m sorry, Cole. I never wanted you to know this. Never wanted to relive it myself. I’d buried
it and left it behind, and I wasn’t ever going to tell
anybody
. But then I got the letters, and it’s like hell opened up a black hole and is trying to suck me back in.”

Her voice was all catchy and desperate sounding, and she hated it. It reminded her of thirteen years ago. “I was never going to tell, but that’s not fair. Not to you. I’m so sorry, Cole.”

Still he was silent, staring toward the
window, breathing evenly, but his body was as tense as a bull in the chute.

She took another shaky breath. “This—this is why I can’t be what you need. I can’t give you the life you just told me you envision. I can’t give you a big, happy house full of kids. I can’t give you
any
kids. And God, that would kill me. Because if there’s anything,
anything
in this world that you deserve, it’s that.
You were born to be a father, Cole. Anybody who knows you at all knows that. I could never take that away from you—and being with me? That would take it away forever. I just—couldn’t. I won’t.”

He still didn’t speak, and all of her fears blossomed. She’d known the truth could scare him away. She’d known the risk she was taking. And yet, she’d held out hope that even knowing what he now knew,
he’d still be able to look at her like he’d been looking at her for two years, with that mix of desire and affection that melted her knees every single time.

But what man
could
ever look at a woman the same way, knowing the things that had happened? She wore her scars on the outside
and
the inside, and they were huge, ugly, jagged ones. What man in his right mind would sign up for that, especially
one who wanted children as badly as Cole did?

No man, that’s who.

No man.

She pushed herself off the hay bale, brushing bits of hay from her dress, and still he didn’t speak, didn’t look at her.

She stumbled toward the ladder, waited painfully for him to call her back, for him to look at her, for him to do anything at all, but he was frozen.

Four hours later, the flight attendant taking her
freshly purchased ticket on the first flight out eyed her dress and whispered, “You’ve got hay in your hair, darlin’,” before she ushered her down the Jetway.

But it didn’t matter. She’d driven Kyla’s car all the way to the airport at three o’clock this morning with dry, defeated eyes.

Nothing mattered.

“It’s way too early for a meeting.” Cole squeezed his eyes shut as he took a seat across from Decker’s desk in the lodge Sunday morning.

“Aren’t you the one who wanted to have it?” Decker smiled as he put a pile of paper into a box. “Or did getting together this morning sound like a better idea before you spent the night with Jess?” He winked. “Not much sleep, I take it?”

Cole suddenly
found his boots really interesting. “Not a lot, no.”

Like, none
.

But not for the reasons Decker was thinking. Where he ought to be right now was Jess’s cabin, down on his frigging knees apologizing for his reactions last night.

After she’d delivered her painful bombshell, there were so many ways he could have reacted. There were so many ways he
should
have reacted. But no. He’d done none of
them. Instead of taking her in his arms, he’d had his fists so tightly clasped he couldn’t even reach for her. Instead of soothing her with kind words, he’d gone completely, utterly, painfully silent. He’d been so shocked that he hadn’t been able to form words, for God’s sake.

Because for all of the guessing he’d been trying to do about what might have caused her to be so jittery and distracted
since she’d arrived at Whisper Creek, the real story was so, so far beyond anything he could fathom that he hadn’t even been able to process it.

And so he’d let her go. Instead of assuring her that whatever had happened in the past made no difference to him as long as she could be his future, he’d sat there like a stupid, shocked wooden soldier, not saying any damn thing at all. Even when she’d
gotten up and headed for the ladder, even when he could
feel
her begging silently for him to say something—anything—he hadn’t been able to open his mouth.

Nothing he’d ever known could have prepared him for the things she told him. His father had been a drunk, but that was nothing compared to what Jess had lived through. He closed his eyes tightly, trying not to picture a lit cigarette, a child’s
stomach.

And after she’d told him about Billy, it had been all he could do not to head to South Carolina and kill the man with his bare hands. How he could have hurt someone so precious was unspeakable. The
ways
he had hurt her were unforgivable.

But had Cole said any of those things last night as she sat practically quivering beside him? No. He’d been full of so many boiling emotions he’d been
afraid to open his mouth for fear of frightening her with his anger.

“Y’know, for a guy who finally got lucky with the woman of his dreams last night, you sure look like hell, buddy.” Decker stopped what he was doing and sat down on the edge of his desk. “You okay?”

Cole shook his head, letting out a big sigh. “No.”

“What happened?”

He braced himself for brotherly ribbing, or a tasteless joke
at his expense, but neither of those came. When he looked up at Decker, he saw his brother’s eyebrows drawn in concern, his mouth serious.

“Jesus, Decker. I am way, way over my head here.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“It isn’t. I mean, it is. But it isn’t.” Cole scrubbed his hands through his hair. “Ah, hell. I don’t know.”

“Did you guys—
not
?” Decker tipped his head. “Because the
way you left the reception, I was pretty damn sure we wouldn’t be seeing you at breakfast this morning.”

“I know.”

“Did you—figure out what’s been going on with her, finally? Is that what happened?”

Cole struggled with how to answer the question. He’d never break Jess’s trust by breathing a word of what she’d told him, but he also had no idea how to explain why they’d left the reception hand-in-hand—but
had woken up this morning in their own cabins.

Well,
she
might have woken up. He’d never gone to sleep. After finally leaving the hayloft and lying in his bed for two hours, he’d gotten back up and walked down the pathway to her cabin. He’d gotten all the way to the door, fully intending to go in, to apologize until he was blue in the face, and to make her see that nothing she’d told him could
possibly make him any less in love with her.

But with his hand raised to knock, he’d stopped. He’d realized it was three o’clock in the morning. He’d had a sudden, horrible vision of her closing the door right back in his face, and he’d realized it wasn’t fair to show up on her doorstep in the middle of the night after treating her the way he had. No, he needed to make things right this morning,
in the light of day, with a few hours of reason pounded into his skull on top of the shock.

“Hey, boys.” Ma blew through the doorway with a waxed paper bag in her hand. “You having a meeting without me?”

She stopped, sensing the mood in the office. “What’s going on, you two? Somebody die?”

“No, Ma.” Decker pushed himself slowly off the desk, giving Cole a look that told him they weren’t done
talking. “Everybody’s alive. Just tired from the wedding.”

She looked from one to the other of them, and Cole knew damn well she didn’t buy Decker’s explanation, but for once, she didn’t push. Instead, she sat down in the wingback chair next to Cole’s and lifted her coffee mug to her lips.

“So.” She put down the mug. “I understand we have some talking to do. Cole? You want to start?”

Cole looked
at Decker, who put his hands up like he was innocent.

“No? You don’t want to start? All right.” She pointed to Decker. “How about you start instead, then?”

Decker cleared his throat and pushed his chair back from the desk. “I have something to run by the two of you—something I’ve been thinking about for a long time now. Cole, I know we’ve talked about this a little, but we never seem to have
time to finish the conversation.”

Cole saw worry sneak into Ma’s eyes, and her hand tightened on her mug. “What are we talking about here? Decker, why’d you ask me to come in here?”

“Because.” Decker took a deep breath. “Ma, the way things are around here—it’s just not working. Not for me, and not for Cole.”

“Okay? What does that mean?”

“It means we’ve all got our hands in all the pots, and
that worked for a while, but we’re growing, and I think it’s time we talk about dividing up responsibilities a little more clearly.”

Alarm pinged Cole’s gut, but he tried to tamp it down. This was exactly the conversation he’d been wanting to have for months, right? But he’d wanted to have it on equal footing—didn’t want Decker to deliver decisions to him like he was incapable of making them
himself.

Ma sat back in her chair. “What kind of dividing are you talking about?”

“Well, I have a proposal. I’ve been working on it for a few weeks, but I wanted to get it finessed before I talked to you two about it. Obviously, it’s all up for discussion, but I think Cole and I need to separate our responsibilities so we’re not either stepping on each other’s toes, or having to cover for each
other.”

Cole felt his eyebrows go up, and saw that Decker noticed. “And don’t worry, Cole. I fully realize it’s me doing the stepping, and you doing the covering.”

He leaned back on the desk and grabbed two sheaves of paper, handing one to Ma and one to Cole. “So here’s what I propose. I wrote it all out here so you can digest it later, but I’ll just walk you through my thoughts, and then we
can either talk now, or wait until later if we need to.”

Cole glanced down at the papers, but then he flipped them over. “Just tell us, Decker.”

“Okay.” Decker took a deep breath and let it out. “I think it’s time I step aside from the general operations end of things here at Whisper Creek.”

Cole’s mouth fell open, as did Ma’s.

He continued. “The Boulder Creek development is good for the ranch,
it’s good for the family, and it’s good for me. I like the design work. I like being on-site for the building. I like having my hands on that project, start to finish. But right now I don’t have the time to do that because I’m also trying to be here as much as possible.”

Ma glanced at the papers. “Which place would you
rather
be?”

Decker sighed. “I’ve been trying to answer that question for
months now. I love both places. This ranch is in my blood. I’ve poured buckets of sweat into it since I came back from L.A.—and I’m really proud of all we’ve done. But here’s what I’ve come to realize over the past six months: the ranch doesn’t need
me
nearly as much as I need it.”

“What does that mean?” Cole saw Ma’s hand shake. “Do you want out?”

“No. No, Ma. I
never
want out again. I want
to build Kyla that house on the hill, and I want to raise our kids here, and someday I want to sit on the porch and watch the next generation—Cole’s and my kids—take over at Whisper Creek and continue our legacy.”

Cole felt a stabbing pain in his chest at Decker’s words—at the blank assumption that kids automatically came with the picture for whoever wanted them. Maybe he and Kyla would have
kids, and Cole would be happy for them, but for poor Jess, kids weren’t ever going to happen. Someone had taken that away from her—forever.

“Ma, I talked with Cole at the wedding yesterday, and he put my mind at ease about something that’s been eating at me forever. After Emily died and I—left—Cole got stuck here. He had no choice. When I left, he was checking out med schools online, and when
I got back, he was mucking out stalls. It was hard not to think maybe he’d had other dreams he might still want to go after.”

Cole shook his head. “No, Decker.”

Decker put a hand up to silence him. “And so I tried to learn back everything I’d missed. I tried to keep my fingers on every pulse around here so if one day Cole said
you know what? I want to see what else is out there
, we’d have things
covered here.

“But Ma, this ranch is in his blood, too. He’s not going anywhere, either, and I thank
God
for that. We missed ten good years together as a family, and nothing would make me happier than for us all to live here, run this business, and pass it on to the next generation when it’s time.”

Ma glared at him. “You could have started with that part, you know, instead of giving your poor
ma a heart attack that one or both of you was heading off with your stuff packed in the trunk.”

Cole laughed quietly. “Not going anywhere, Ma.”

She took a deep, relieved breath. “Okay, then. What do we do? How do we make this work for everybody? I’m keeping the kitchen, if that’s on the list.”

Decker smiled. “You keep the kitchen. We can’t cook, remember?”

Then he walked back around the desk
and scooped his clock and lamp and a couple of pictures into the box he’d been loading with papers. “Cole, if it’s all right with you, I’m clearing out of this office. This desk should belong to the person running Whisper Creek, and as of today, I think that oughta be you.”

“Ahem.” Ma cleared her throat.

“With Ma’s full input on all important decisions, yadda yadda.”

Ma nodded. “Thank you.”

Cole looked from one to the other of them. “You’re serious?”

“Dead serious.” Decker looked out the window. “You don’t need my help. You’ve been doing it for years, and you know a hell of a lot more about it than I do. I’m not going anywhere, and I’ll still help out however and whenever I can, but I’m officially handing all reins to you. You make the decisions, you steer the ship.”

“Holy hell,
Decker. When I said we needed to talk about who does what, I didn’t mean you needed to clear out your desk and give me the proverbial keys to the office.”

Ma stood up. “It’s the right thing. We all know it. And damn, I’m the luckiest woman alive, having the two of you.” She grabbed both of them into a fierce hug.

“But there’s a lot more to it than this.” Cole shook his head, mystified. “We have
a lot to talk about. It’s not this simple.”

“ ’Course it isn’t,” Ma said as she sat back down. “Okay, let’s figure this out.”

Just then Kyla burst through the French doors, holding up her phone. “Has anybody talked to Jess?”

Cole whipped his head around. “Why?”

“Because she’s gone.”