Texas Hope: Sweetgrass Springs Stories (Texas Heroes Book 16) (14 page)

H
e found Laken easily enough, sitting in the hospital waiting room beside Ava, her face drawn. Both women were pale and stiff with fear. He wanted to gather up Laken and lend her his strength. Wanted to promise her that everything would be fine.

But it might not. And he should speak to Ava first.

He approached. “Ava, I’m so sorry.”

Laken’s head jerked up.

He forced himself to focus on her friend. He crouched and clasped Ava’s hands. Murmured soothing words he prayed would become real.

A shudder rippled over Ava, and she fell forward into his arms.

Laken stood and set down the magazine she’d been pretending to read.

Michael saw the glitter of tears and captured her wrist.

She didn’t pull away, but she didn’t look at him, either.

With a few more words, he left Ava. Stepped toward her. “How are you, Laken?”

“Fine.” She still didn’t look up.

Slowly, inexorably, he drew her to him. Took her hands in his and turned her to face him. With more patience than he felt, he waited her out.

“How are you, Michael?” So damned polite.

“I’d be better if you’d look at me.” Then he did what he really wanted and drew her into his chest. Slipped his arms around her and urged her head to his shoulder. Felt her at last relent and burrow in. He cradled her head and stroked her back. “I missed you.”

She clutched at the back of his shirt.

He found a small chuckle. “Not ready to talk? Fine—I will.” He kissed her temple. “I met my brother.”

She jerked back. Scanned his face. “You look…fine. Are you? How was he?”

“Shocked is a mild word for his reaction. For all he knew our mother was dead. He’d never known about me either.” He shook his head. “Us? We’re…a work in progress. But he’s a better man than I’d be in his shoes.”

“What’s he like?”

“Weirdly, we have the same eyes and the same dimple. He’s tall, too. He’s a rancher—and the mayor of Sweetgrass Springs by consensus, if not officially. Everyone relies on him. Oh, and he’s married to a woman who was a fancy chef in New York, but she’s now running both her grandmother’s diner and planning a high-end organic restaurant people will want to drive to all the way from Austin.” He grinned. “And she’s pregnant. I’ll be an uncle.”

“Uncle Michael.” She smiled back. “What’s the place like?”

“It’s pretty great. Ian says they could use me there. The closest vet is two hours away.” He chuckled. “To say that town is small is an understatement, but it’s a mecca for all kinds of people. Scarlett—that’s Ian’s wife—has a cousin who’s a video game mogul from Seattle, a native of Sweetgrass, and he’s moved his company there. The town is the damnedest mix of cowboy and geeks, homespun meets West Coast…” He plunged ahead. “I’d like to take you there.”

She froze. “Me?”

Damn it
. “I’m not asking for a commitment, just a visit. You don’t have to give up your life here or anything.”

She glanced at Ava, then lifted her eyes to his. “How’s Ajax?”

“Misses you.”

“I miss him and…”

He arched an eyebrow. “And…?”

She swallowed. “You. I missed you.”

He took his first deep breath. “Good.” Then he, too, cast a glance around the room, landing on Ava. “Now’s not the time, I know. But maybe we could talk later?”

“Do you have to leave now?”

“Do you want me to? Wyatt called me because he thought you might need me.”

She tensed. Admitting need was anathema to her, he knew.

An endless pause, then finally she spoke. “Stay. I’d really like you to stay,” she said. “But, Michael…I don’t know what all this means.”

Relief made him gentle. “You don’t have to. How about if we just…be?”

“Be?”

His chest shook with suppressed laughter. “Poor baby. This is hard for you, I know. Let’s just hang out. You can do that, right?”

Her eyes filled. “Okay,” she whispered. “I can try.”

“The first step is the hardest.” He bent and kissed her softly. “Go be with your friend now, sweetheart. I’ll be here.”

Slowly she turned to go, then saw that Ava’s children had settled to either side of her.

Michael noticed, too. “Come on, then. Let’s sit down.” He escorted her to two chairs side by side and eased her down, then joined her.

“Just…be?”

“It won’t hurt, I promise.” He grinned, hope rising.

That night as Ian and Scarlett prepared for bed, they spoke of everything but what was most on their minds: this unexpected brother. Ian knew Scarlett was giving him space to ponder all it meant, and he was grateful. He was trying to do his best, but…wow.

“I may be getting a new waitress.”

“That’s great. Anyone I know?”

“I don’t think so. She’s not from here. She’s still living in Austin, though Spike says she wants to move and get her kids out of there.”

“Spike?”

Scarlett chuckled. “Yeah. They met at a tattoo parlor.” Her blue eyes were dancing.

He had his first real laugh of the day. “You can’t stop the story there.”

She emerged from the bathroom, headed toward the chair she’d begun to sit in to apply her lotion now that her center of gravity was off, thanks to her beautiful pregnant belly.

A giant fist grabbed his heart and squeezed. His little firestorm, his saucy, unpredictable lady…love for her and their child rose so fast he could barely breathe.

“She’s working in an office right now,” Scarlett chattered on, not noticing. “But Spike says she has a lot of waitressing experience. She wants a better life for her kids and wants to show her sister, who’s married to a doctor, that she can make that life on her own. Of course, the kids are young, but she has a neighbor who will help, and though Spike points out that the closest decent tattoo parlor is nearly two hours away, Sweetgrass doesn’t completely suck, or so she told this Chrissy—what?” She noticed him staring at her. “What is it?”

“I just love you so damn much.” He crossed to her and kneeled at her feet. “My life was so gray before you came into it, and I hadn’t even noticed.”

She went melted-butter soft, her eyes warm and filled with love as she cradled his face in her small hands. “I love you, Ian. You’re my world—oh!” With one hand she rubbed at her right side and pushed. “Move over, young man. I swear he just kicked the inside of my hipbone and bruised it.”

“She,” he corrected. “And she’s a fireball just like her mama.” He took her belly in his two hands and bent to kiss the mound where his child grew. Then he looked back at the woman who was his everything now. He hoped the capacity for love grew once you had children because right now, Scarlett owned all of it, and he didn’t want to love her any less.

Which led to inescapable thoughts of how his own mother had felt him kick, had given him life. Had she quit loving his father then or later? Had he taken up too much of her love, so that she couldn’t love his father, too? Because he did remember being loved by her, held by her. Cuddled and rocked and played with.

His eyes rose to Scarlett’s. “Do you think a child diminishes a mother’s love for the child’s father?”

“What? Oh, Ian, no. I—are you worried that we—” Her gaze softened more. “Is this about your mom? I can’t speak for her, but I know that for myself, the love that I feel for this baby has somehow made my love grow exponentially for you, too. As if I just have more love to give, more ability to feel it. Sometimes I swear my heart is as ready to burst as my big belly.”

He could still span the whole of it with his two hands. “It’s not so big—it’s just that you’re all baby. You’re so tiny, Scarlett.” He grasped her hips. “The doctor says she’s big, and I’m afraid that she will—I just don’t see how what’s in there can come out without tearing you apart.”

She winced. “That’s comforting.”

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything. You’re going to be fine, I swear it. I’m not going to let anything happen to you.” He meant it from the depths of his soul.

She scooted forward and made room for him between her knees, stroking his face before sliding her arms around his shoulders and resting her head on one of them. “I know you would do anything to keep me safe, Ian. I’m not worried. Please don’t be.”

Easier said than done, he thought, when it was your whole world you were talking about. But he wrapped his arms around the tiny, burgeoning bundle that was his wife and his best friend in the world—and when their baby kicked him in the belly, he chuckled. “Just like her mama, I tell you. A firebrand. Dynamite in a tiny package.”

“Doesn’t feel so tiny to me,” she muttered. “I swear I’m giving birth to a baby horse.”

“I’m glad you found a new waitress, tattoos and all. I wish you’d find a new cook. You need to slow down, sweetheart.”

“Maddie was cooking right up until she gave birth.”

“Your cousin Maddie is an Amazon. You’re as small as a fairy.”

She smacked his shoulder and drew back. “I lift big pots all the time, and I’d match my strength to anyone my size.”

“You’d better not be lifting heavy pots. Henry promised me—”

“Do me a favor, Cowboy,” she drawled dangerously. “Quit while you’re ahead. I’m fine, and I’ll keep being fine. I’m in excellent shape—I just have this basketball in my belly. I am not an invalid.” She glared. “I was going to take you to bed and blow off the top of your head with my sexual sorcery, but now I think I’m just going to plant my fat ass on your chest and pull your hair until you stop behaving like a caveman.”

Oh, he loved her when she got steamed. Her eyes became sapphires sparking in sunlight. Her yards of hair got even curlier.

“Stop grinning, you baboon.”

“Caveman,” he repeated as he rose and swept her up in his arms. “Baboon. A fellow could start thinking you didn’t like him.” He crossed to the bed and laid her down gently even as she fumed.

But as he opened the fly of his jeans and drew them down his legs, her look turned considering.

He laughed. “Face it, babe. I’m the sexual sorcerer in this family. If you’ll stop fussing at me, I’ll demonstrate my magic.”

“I know all about your magic,” she sniffed and looked away.

For a second, anyway. Then a sideways glance right back at him accompanied by a grin. “Come on, Magic McLaren, show me your stuff.”

He leaned over her, hovering above as he nipped at her throat and heard her hum of arousal. “It’s pretty good stuff, you have to admit.”

“Oh, shut up and kiss me.” She dug her fingers in his hair and brought his mouth to hers. “You big baboon.”

He smiled into the kiss, but then he drew back. And settled on his knees. “I worry so much about how exhausted you are. If anything happened to you—either of you—I—”

Her face went soft. She stroked his jaw. “I know it’s because you love me. But you worry too much. I’m fine, I swear it.”

“Love makes you a hostage,” he murmured. “There’s no way to get out of it whole, is there? Once you give your heart, you’re never safe again.”

“Do you want to be safe, Ian?”

Deep in his heart, the kernel that was an abandoned little boy did indeed want that desperately, but the grown man knew that life wasn’t safe and also knew that love made you strong even as it rendered you vulnerable. “I gave up on safe the day I stopped on the side of the road to help out a tenderfoot from New York.” His voice went hoarse. “I thank my lucky stars I was on that road at the same time you were.”

“We have so much to be grateful for, Ian. And now you have a brother to love, too.”

He closed his eyes, then forced them back open. “I don’t want to talk about brothers when I’m naked, okay?”

She could see right through his attempt at humor. “But we will talk. And it will be okay. I’m proud of you for welcoming him, but I’m not surprised. Your sense of honor is only one of the reasons I love you.”

He pressed her palm against his cheek and held on tight. After a moment he found a grin. “As much as my sexual sorcery?”

Though he could tell she wanted to talk more, she relented and grinned back. “I don’t know. I think I forgot.” Her expression turned sly. “Maybe you’d better remind me.”

“My pleasure.” Ian rolled them so they were on their sides, a more comfortable position for her now.

And proceeded to do just as he’d promised.