The Curvy Astronomer and the Cowboy (He Wanted Me Pregnant!) (7 page)

Troy nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “I always have.” Suddenly, he seemed to be uncomfortable. “I want to stay here, raise a family.” He glanced nervously at me.
What’s wrong with him?
It was the first time I’d seen him be anything but easy-going and relaxed. “But, you know. It’s kind of hard to--”

“Find the time? Long hours at the stud farm?”

“No...I get plenty of free time. But--”

“Talk to women?” I asked helpfully. “You get tongue-tied?”

“No,” he was getting testy, now. “I mean,
yeah,
sometimes. I’m not so good at...you know. Talking and stuff. But I meant--Mustang Falls is a small place.”

“Nowhere to go on a date?”

“No!”
He let out an exasperated sigh. “I mean, yeah, actually, we
could
do with a bowling alley. But I mean it’s
small.”

I looked at him uncomprehendingly.

“Goddammit,” he muttered. “You don’t make this easy.”

“Make
what
easy?”

He sighed. “There aren’t all that many women--”

My jaw dropped. “Is this one of those places where men mail order brides?
That’s
what you’re trying to tell me? You have a mail-order bride waiting for you at home?”

“No!
I mean….” He ran a hand through his hair. “I wanted to settle and have kids but...I hadn’t found the right person,” he said at last, looking right at me.

Hadn’t?!

Implying he had, now?

My stomach fell thirty feet, straight through the floor and down into the earth.
Me?!
Was that really what he was saying? That he really did have feelings for me, that he wanted....
babies
with me? I stared back at him, feeling my face go pale. I was shocked, not horrified. It was way too sudden for me to even process--I couldn’t be terrified or elated or anything else.

But he misread my shocked expression. I saw the hope go out in his eyes, hope I’d been too stupid to see was there. “Sorry,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m a damn idiot.” He stood up, turning away from me. “Anyway, we’ll be out of here tonight.”

I was suddenly breathing fast. Was this really happening? Had he just clumsily declared his feelings for me? And I’d inadvertently pushed him away?

Part of me wanted to throw myself into his arms. But now, after worrying that he didn’t even like me and then worrying it was only about sex, we’d swung to the opposite extreme. My head spun at the thought of a life together. I needed thinking time. “We can’t go,” I said. “I don’t have the shots, yet.”

He turned around to look at me, then sighed. “We’re way out of town, here. If that snow comes down and blocks the roads, we’ll be stuck up here. No phone reception, no radio.”

There was a slow, deep pulse within me, scarlet and hot, as I thought to myself that being trapped up here with him didn’t sound like the worst thing in the world. And staying here into the evening would give me some much-needed time to process all this. Maybe I could work up the courage to tell him how
I
felt.

On the other hand, the bear had reminded me that this was his world. If he said it was dangerous, he was probably right. On the third hand, I really did need to get those shots, or I’d be flat broke. “The snow’s coming from the mountains,” I wheedled. “We can stay ahead of it. As soon as I get the shots I need, we can get going.”

Troy ducked down so he could crane his head up and look out of the window at the sky. “How late?” he asked suspiciously.

“Oh...eight in the evening. Nine,
tops,”
I lied. “The snow won’t be here until midnight, right?”

He gave me a look. “Weather forecasts are
that
accurate, where you come from?” He stared at me. I could see the pain in his eyes--pain I’d caused by looking so shocked at his revelation. “I’m sorry, but it’s too risky.”

I looked up at him with my best puppy dog eyes. “
Please?
I really need this.”

He stared at me. “Okay,
fine.
But we’re out of here at nine.”

***

Ten O’ clock.

I’d spent all day going over it and over it in my mind. First, I’d been unsure if he liked me. Then, after the bath, I’d been pretty sure he had, but I’d been worried he’d just use me and leave me. Now, I knew he was serious...and it was his very seriousness that was scaring me off.
Babies?
Why would he want
me
for that? Shouldn’t he want some local woman with aprons and recipe books and a sensible haircut? I was independent and restless and--

I hesitated.
Was
I independent? Or was I just lonely? Was I restless, or just running?

A week ago, the idea of falling for someone like this would have seemed crazy. When we’d met, we’d seemed like opposites. Maybe we
were
opposites. But he was so big and solid and
real,
next to my flightiness and my tendency to live inside my own head, that maybe that was a good thing. No one had ever made me feel like he had. Just being around him, even without us ever kissing, I felt safe and warm...and permanently hot as hell.

And yet the thought of admitting all that, of trusting a man again, filled me with a dread that made my stomach lurch. Rick had
wanted me to settle down with him as well. And, once I was good and relaxed, once I’d made a cosy little nest--

I was seeing it all over again. His car, pulling into her driveway. My slow walk up the stairs to her bedroom….

What if Troy turned out to be like that? What if, once the novelty wore off--

So the whole day, I brooded. When night finally fell and I started working, I was no closer to a decision. And now it was ten O’clock, an hour past when I’d said I’d be finished.

I was huddled over the telescope, trying to adjust knobs through two pairs of gloves. Troy was alternating between watching me through the window and coming out to pace around.

“You’re not helping,” I said quietly when he came out to stand over me.

“Have you looked behind you? Have you seen the size of those clouds?”

“No,” I said levelly. “Because I’m trying to get the right exposure for the nebula right now. Why don’t you tell me?”

“Those clouds are going to dump a whole state’s worth of snow on our little corner of Wyoming any minute,” he said. “They’re right overhead.”

I glanced up sarcastically at the clear sky...only to find it wasn’t clear anymore. The area ahead of me, where the telescope was pointing, was still beautifully clear--one of the clearest nights I’d ever seen, in fact. But he was right: the clouds had swept in right overhead while I’d been gazing at the stars.

“A little snow won’t hurt us,” I said. “It’ll take time to build up on the roads. We’ve got hours before they’re blocked.”

Troy let out a groan of frustration. “Is
that
what you thought? That it doesn’t matter until it’s deep? Emily, this is the country. The weather can change very fast and we get winds like you wouldn’t believe, coming down off the mountain. It’ll be a
blizzard.
A white-out. We won’t be able to see to drive!”

For the first time, it occurred to me that I might have messed up. “Okay,” I said carefully. “Another ten minutes and I’ll start packing up.”

“You said that a half hour ago!”

“I mean it, this time.” I could feel the wind, now. My coat and all the layers I was wearing had kept me warm, but they’d also lulled me into a false sense of security, shutting out all the warning signs. Now, I could feel the wind’s cruel chill on the narrow slice of skin between my hat and collar, and it was like an icy blade.

Troy managed to restrain himself for another ten minutes. I adjusted, adjusted, adjusted...
there!
I finally got the shot I’d been waiting all evening for. And just in time. A flake of snow suddenly obscured my view. Then another and another. “Okay,” I said, giving in. “I’m done.”

But it was too late. The weather had changed.

Chapter 6

When I looked up, the clouds were sweeping over us to fill the sky and a million heavy snowflakes were drifting down towards us. The wind was already starting to whip them up, sending them horizontal to plaster against whatever was in their way. My coat went from blue to white in seconds.

“Come inside!” said Troy. Already, the wind was almost drowning out his voice. God, he’d been right about it coming on fast.

But I shook my head. “I have to take down the telescope!” It’d be ruined if I let all of the delicate optics sit out here in the snow. I needed to close the shell, but doing that meant lowering the telescope and locking it down and about a million other things.
Shit!
I’d never really had to do it in a hurry before. Or in cold like this. My hands slid and fumbled over knobs, clumsy in their gloves, so I pulled them off. Then I had to get down on the floor and crawl around the base of the telescope, and my thick winter coat made me too big to squeeze through the gaps, so I had to take that off, too.

“Are you nuts?” shouted Troy over the wind. “Put that back on! Come inside!”

“I’m not leaving it!” I yelled. My eyes were streaming from the wind and from my hair whipping into them. I tried to swing the telescope around so that I could lower it and lock it down, but the cogs protested. Had snow already got in, or was the cold making things jam? I worked at it and worked at it, getting colder and colder.

“It’s just a telescope!” Troy shouted. “You’ll freeze out here!” The wind was howling in our ears now, and the cold was the sort that numbs your whole head until it seems to ring.

“I’m not leaving it to be ruined!” I yelled back.
This is my life,
I thought bitterly.
Nursemaiding an inanimate object because it’s the most important thing I have.
“
You
go inside. I’ll be fine by myself.”

Troy stared at me for a full ten seconds. Then he jumped up into the trailer with me. “Goddammit!” he said. “You are the single most stubborn woman I’ve ever met! What do you need me to do?”

“Swing it around!” With his brute strength, he got it moving. “There!” I worked at the hand crank to lower it and the whole thing started to tilt slowly downward.

“Hurry!” he yelled.

“I
am
hurrying! It’s a hundred years old! It doesn’t
do
fast!” At last, it was locked down. We hauled on the ropes to pull the outer shell closed, but the rope kept slipping through my fingers. And I was shaking. I couldn’t stop shaking.

Troy’s huge, warm hand closed over mine and, together, we hauled on the rope. The two halves of the trailer swung into place and I tried to tell Troy how to work the latches to lock them there. But my voice wouldn’t work. I couldn’t form words, I was shivering so hard.

Troy took one look at me, slammed the latches home and then grabbed me around the waist and threw me over his shoulder. As we moved clear of the trailer, the full force of the wind and the snow hit me. I could barely see the cabin. The snow plastered to my face, blocking my eyes and mouth, and the cold made it difficult to even think.

Troy ran with me bouncing on his shoulder, and a moment later we were barging through the door into the cabin.

The air was so warm that it was like stepping into the bath again. I could feel the snow melting and sliding from my eyes and face, but the cold stayed behind, already bone-deep.

“Emily,” Troy was saying. His voice sounded very far away. “Emily!”

And all of it started to mix together. I knew I was standing in the cabin, but in my head, I was still out on the highway in the station wagon, all alone, getting colder and colder.

“We need to warm you up,” he was saying. He was right in front of me, but he sounded as if he was on another planet. I saw him throw open the doors of the range cooker and I could see the blazing logs inside, but I couldn’t feel the waft of heat I knew must be there.

He could be another Rick,
the sensible side of my brain said.
He could betray you.
Safer to keep moving. Safer to stay out there, instead of in here, lest I get hurt again.

But what if...what if being out there, independent and free and wild, was just as dangerous as being in here? A slow pain that crept up on me, instead of a quick one, but no less damaging.

“I--I don’t--” It was hard to speak, through the shivering. “I don’t--”

He put his big hands on my cheeks, and the warmth of them seeped into me.

“I don’t want to be cold anymore,” I said in a rush. And stared up at him with big, scared eyes. Because I’d finally figured out that the only thing worse than trusting someone and having them hurt you, is to never trust anyone at all.

“Oh, Emily,” he said in a low voice. “You don’t have to be.” And then his hand was under my chin, tilting it up even further, and his mouth was coming down on mine, his lips blessing mine with the warmth they so badly needed. A little jolt of heat wended its way down into my core, like a drop of boiling water searing into ice.