The Cowboy's Secret Baby: A BWWM Pregnancy Romance (4 page)

She had taken his breath away, standing there in the sun, and when he held her, wrapping his arms around her on the sidewalk, everything from the night they had shared had come back to him and he had felt it all again. Every bit of it; the heat, the electricity between them, her soft skin and sweet lavender smelling hair. The light in her sea green eyes. It had been like a whiplash for him to see her again; thinking everything in his life was fine and going one way, and then in a single instant, everything in his life was going another way.

He had no idea how he was going to handle the sudden shift in his life, but he knew without a doubt that his daughter was going to be part of his life no matter what. He had always wanted children, and he had always planned on having them, but he’d never guessed that it would happen the way that it had.

Jonathon couldn’t even begin to think about why his parents hadn’t told him about his child, but he would think about that later, and focus on talking to Maggie before anyone else. He got into his car, sending a last look at the window of the room where Janis was staying, and then he drove back into town to talk with the mother of his daughter.

***

A short while later, he was standing at her front door with a huge bouquet of flowers in his hand and his heart on his sleeve as he knocked on her door.

Maggie heard the knock and was sure that her heart was about to beat right out of her chest. She looked at her daughter who was playing in the living room, and who, when she heard the knock on the door, looked up at her mother and clapped her hands, toddling toward the door to wait to see who was there.

Maggie stood behind her with her hand on her daughter’s shoulder as she opened the door and looked up to see Jonathon there. He smiled at her and she felt everything in her rush. She smiled back and picked Carly up to hold her while he came inside.

He held the flowers out to her and in return, she smiled at him and asked, “Would you like to hold her? I’m not sure if she’ll let you, she can be a little shy—” Maggie stopped there. Carly had reached her arms out to him, and Jonathon’s eyes lit up and he grinned.

“Is it all right? I’d love to hold her!” he said, reaching for her. She laughed her baby laugh at him and then snuggled in to his neck, wrapping her arms around him as far as she could.

All Jonathon could do was breathe her scent in and close his eyes as his skin touched hers and he held her in his arms for the first time. It was the single most important moment of his life to that point. He held her in silence for a moment, his hands canvassing her entire back; she was so small. He could feel her little heart beating in her and he couldn’t breathe. All he wanted to do was hold his precious baby girl in his arms and somehow hold the moment and make it last forever, but she wiggled and moved, she planted her hands on his cheeks and he opened his blue eyes and looked into hers that were a perfect match of his.

He grinned at her. “Hello, Carly!” he said with a light, happy voice. “You are such a beautiful girl! Yes you are. What a sweet girl you are,” he told her, bouncing her slightly.

Jonathon played with her for a few minutes in his arms and then set her on the floor as she seemed to want, wiggling to get down from him, and as soon as she was on the floor, she walked over to one of her toys and took it to him as he sat down on the sofa, watching her. She went for another toy and brought it to him, handing it to him, and then as he took it, she went off for another.

Maggie laughed a little. “She’s learning about sharing,” she said. “I think she’s got it down, but she tends to go a little overboard on it.”

She walked over and sat near him on the sofa, watching him with his daughter. It made her heart swell to see the two of them interacting as they were, especially having thought that it was never going to happen.

Carly got distracted with her toys, sitting down to play with them, and Jonathon set the armload she had brought him down near her on the floor where she was busying herself with her wooden blocks and plastic shapes.

He looked at Maggie and shook his head. “Tell me what happened!” he said quietly. “I mean, I know what happened the night we were together, I’m never going to forget that, but what happened after that?”

Maggie sighed and leaned forward, resting her arms on her knees as she spoke to him.

“I woke up and you were gone. I didn’t really think much of it, although, I did think I would hear from you after that. A few days went by, then a week, and then two weeks, and then I realized I wasn’t going to hear from you. I was okay with it. We had a great time, as you said in your note.” She smiled to herself.

“Then a month went by and I didn’t feel so good, and then two months went by and I knew something was up, so I went to the doctor. It was the end of my time here, or at least it was going to be, but then the doctor told me that I was two months pregnant, and I was just... shocked. I mean, I had no idea what to do. I came back here and cried for a couple of days, but then I knew I had to pull myself together and figure out what to do.”

He watched her quietly and she seemed to be staring off into the past, her eyes not focused on anything in front of her as she remembered all of it and went back to it in her mind.

“I was supposed to leave at the end of August to go back to school in California, but I knew I wanted to keep the baby; for me there was really no choice in that aspect, and I knew that if I kept the baby, there was no way that I could go to school, and work, and try to do all of it while I was pregnant and alone, and then try to raise a baby by myself. I don’t have anyone; my parents are both much older and they’re in a retirement home. I thought I would go to you and tell you. I thought we could try to work something out together. I found out where your parents’ ranch was and I went there, and tried to ask for you, but they said you were gone. They said you’d been gone a couple of months. I told them that I needed to speak with you, that it was urgent, and they said they didn’t know when they would be hearing from you again, and that they could give you a message for me, but they wouldn’t give me your contact information. I decided to tell them what was going on, and I told them that I was pregnant and we were going to have a baby. They didn’t say anything at all, other than that they would tell you.”

She shook her head in disappointment. “I waited a couple of weeks, right before I had to make a final decision on my move; you know, whether I would stay here in Jackson and get a job or go back to school in California like I wanted to. I went back to your parents’ place and told them I had to see you or at least talk to you. They said they had told you that I was pregnant and that you wanted nothing to do with me or with the baby. They said to leave and not come back; that you wouldn’t be back for a long time and that you would never want to see me again. It was the worst. I was devastated! I left there and came back here to the house. I tried to figure out a way to make school work, but I just couldn’t, so I had no other choice but to give up my last semester of school and stay here to work. I got a job with the Bureau of Land Management and I’ve been working there ever since. I was able to get some insurance, so that helped with medical costs, but everything else has been really hard, and my entire life was put on hold while I figured out what to do.”

Jonathon listened to her speaking and he could see it all as it happened, except the part with his parents. He was amazed that they would be that way with her and that they would lie to her about him and tell her that he wasn’t interested in her or the baby.

Maggie continued, taking a deep breath and letting it out in a sigh. “I started working and I was able to save up a little money before she came, and then when I went in to labor I had her on my own at the hospital, and then came home with her. I was able to take a little time off of work to be with her, but then when my maternity leave was up, I had to go back to work and she started to go to daycare. In all that time I never saw you again, and I never thought that I would hear from you again. I just kept raising her and trying to figure out how to get back to school to finish, but it’s just too much for me to do on my own.”

She leaned back against the sofa and looked at Carly as she played. “I thought that by the time she turns five, I’ll have a lot of money saved up and I can move back and finish school and then see if the company I wanted to work for still wants me like they did when I got pregnant with her, but I feel now like I’d have to do even more schooling to catch up, and what I learned two years ago will be obsolete if I graduate when she’s five. It’s just hard to try to get back to the life plan I had B.C.” She chuckled a little.

He looked at her and raised an eyebrow. “B.C.?”

She looked at him with a twinkle in her eye. “Before Carly. I have some nice friends now that I’ve gotten to know over the two years I’ve been here, and they refer to my time prior to my mommy days as B.C.”

Jonathon shook his head. “I remember your plan. You were going to go save the world, and I was so sure that you would. You were so inspiring to me; all the work you had done to reach your dreams and goals, and now I find out that you never got to do that because I got you pregnant and left you; although I want you to know that I had no idea, I mean, if I had ever known you were pregnant, I’d have been back here immediately to help you through all of it and help you try to make your dreams of school and graduation still happen, even though you were having a baby. I’d have been here for all of it, if I’d have known. I’m so sorry about the way this happened, I didn’t know.”

She nodded and sighed deeply. “It was really hard to go through it all alone. I mean, I made friends after she was born, but I really didn’t know anyone or have anyone I was friends with that I was close enough to that I felt I could share the burden with; just acquaintances, that’s all. It was one of the most difficult and rewarding things I’ve ever done.”

He watched her and saw just as much strength in her as there was beauty. “You amaze me,” he said, shaking his head. “I’ve never known anyone like you. You worked so hard for what you were going to do with your life and then when life threw you a curve ball you worked just as hard to make that succeed as well, and you did it all on your own.” He covered his mouth with his hand for a moment, trying to hold in the wall of emotion that was crashing through him. “That’s a strength I have rarely seen in people, and you just keep going; you just keep handling it. It’s incredible,” he said with reverence and awe.

“I wish I could have been here for you before, but I’m here now and I’m going to do everything I can to help you. I’m not leaving you again. I’m going to be here for Carly every day for the rest of her life. I don’t know why my parents did what they did, and I am going to talk with them about it when I get back to the house tonight, but I want you to know that I’m here now and I’m not going anywhere again.” His eyes were locked on hers and she knew that he meant every word.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a thick envelope and handed it to her. “It’s not much, not nearly what I think you ought to have, but it’s at least going to help you and it will compensate you for much of what you’ve had to spend and do alone.”

She looked at him quizzically as she took the envelope and then gasped as she opened it up to find a solid stack of hundred dollar bills inside it. Maggie’s eyes shot up to his face and he looked at her solemnly.

“It doesn’t make up for me being gone, but at least it will help. You’re going to have regular funding from me. I’ll make sure that you are both well taken care of. I just... I just want to make sure that I’m going to be able to be a part of Carly’s life. I want to see her all the time and be a parent with you. Is that going to be a possibility?” he asked, looking at her a little anxiously.

She nodded, amazed that he had handed her as much money as he had. She was fairly sure that she hadn’t yet spent that amount of money on her daughter, not even from the day she was born, but she knew she would be. The small smile on her face grew into a wide one, and she shook her head at Jonathon.

“This is incredible! Thank you so much... thank you for helping, thank you for wanting to be part of her life, and for being here for me. I can’t tell you what this means to me, and what it will mean to her. Of course you can see her any time you like, and I would be so glad to have you help out raising her.”

He grinned back at Maggie. “That’s the best news I’ve ever had. Thank you.” He laughed a little.

She tilted her head and looked at him. “So, where have you been all this time? You just vanished for two whole years. Where did you go?” she wondered, looking at him with incredulity.

He grinned. “Well, I left here, of course, but the really ironic thing is that I left because of you; because you inspired me to leave. I told you what I had told my parents, my friends, a couple of my teachers in school and some other folks around here—that I wanted to go explore the country, and all of them had always told me not to go, or not to bother, or just that it wasn’t a good idea. They said I had responsibilities here, they said my future was here, they said there wasn’t anything for me out in the world. They all held me back, held me down, and tried to bind my winds... but you, you were the only one who ever acted like it was a possibility. You were the only one who ever said ‘just go’ and made it sound like it was so easy to just get on a bus and leave, and it was!”

His eyes seemed to glaze over as he looked back in his mind to the night they’d met. “You and I, we had that incredible night... and that was the best night of my life. It still is, although now it is for more reasons... because that’s the night we made Carly, but after you and I were together that night, and you told me what you did not only about yourself but about me going, well, I could barely sleep and every moment that passed made it seem more real and possible, and I just decided to go. Right then. I left here, went home and packed a bag, and got on the first bus headed out of town that morning.”