Buch lesen: «The Cowboy's Secret Baby»

Chapter One

Marissa Lopez’s heart began beating faster. Her stomach seemed to turn upside down. Oh, no. That couldn’t be Ty Conroy over there, could it?

She’d stopped in at the physical therapy center to talk to her friend, Sara Cramer. On her lunch hour, she didn’t have a whole lot of time. But she needed Sara’s advice.

However, now—

“What’s wrong?” Sara asked. “You suddenly went pale.”

Marissa pointed her chin toward the other side of the room, where one of the physical therapists was sitting in a chair across from Ty.

Ty.

The father of her baby. Ty. The father of her baby who didn’t know he was the father of her baby.

Sara looked in the direction Marissa had indicated. “Do you know him?” she asked.

Sara wasn’t from Fawn Grove. She didn’t recognize the boy who had made good in the rodeo riding circuit. She didn’t know the bull rider who Marissa had spent a night with. A mistaken, foolish night.

Although she could never even think about her life without her son, Jordan. Not for a moment.

Sara was one of the few people who knew the name of her baby’s father.

“That’s Ty Conroy,” Marissa answered in a shaky voice.

Sara’s eyes went wide. “Are you serious? What are you going to do?” She knew Marissa had never expected Ty Conroy to return to Fawn Grove, California.

“Do you know why he’s here?” Marissa asked, edging toward the door.

Sara shook her head. “I don’t work with him. Even if I did, I couldn’t tell you—patient privacy and all that.”

Marissa couldn’t help but take another glance at Ty, who was now minus his cowboy hat and boots. His hand was on his knee and she spotted a cane leaning against the table. Just what had happened?

She was definitely out of that bull riding loop. Her job at Jase Cramer’s winery, Jordan and her volunteer work with The Mommy Club, an organization that helped parents in need, captured all of her attention and energy. She rarely even watched the news or any TV for that matter, except for SpongeBob and The Disney Channel. Sara was the same. They were both busy women.

Her glance at Ty lingered a little bit too long. The physical therapist moved away from him and Ty’s gaze zeroed right in on hers.

Oh, no! she thought again.

Though she told herself to look away, her eyes took him in. Two years hadn’t made much difference in her appearance, nor had they made much difference in his, though there were more lines around his eyes now.

Where before his expression had been pensive, now he broke into a grin and motioned her over.

She groaned.

“How are you going to play this?” Sara asked, clearly worried for her.

“I don’t know,” Marissa murmured. “I need some time to think about it.”

“You can run out of here,” Sara suggested.

“Running never helped anything. I’ll just have to figure this out as I go.”

Ty motioned to her again. She walked across the room, every step filling her with anxiety, every inch closer to him making her pulse race faster. They’d definitely had chemistry that night, and she could feel it now, even this far away from him.

He looked glad to see her and that made her feel even worse.

By the time she reached him, he was on his feet. Even without his boots, he was over six feet tall, and those broad shoulders—

In a snap-button shirt, with the collar open and his sleeves rolled up, he looked good enough to...to...hug. But she wasn’t about to do that.

He was still smiling.

Before he could say a word, she blurted out, “What are you doing here?” Once the question was out, she couldn’t take it back. Besides, she had to know.

“I’ve been back about two months,” he said, not really answering her question.

She motioned to the physical therapy room. “But what are you doing here?”

He looked down at his left leg and grimaced. “I guess the latest gossip hasn’t reached you.”

Fawn Grove was a small town, and if you kept your ear to the ground, and the coffee shop, and the family diner, and the feed store, rumors floated all over the place. But she didn’t get to any of those places. Besides, only Sara and their friend Kaitlyn knew she’d had a fling with Ty. So why would anybody tell her anything about him?

“So let’s bypass the gossip and get to the truth,” she suggested.

His Stetson was on a chair beside the table where he’d sat. He studied it for a moment, then raised his gaze to hers. “My rodeo days are over. A bull got the best of me, and I had to have a knee replacement.”

Wow! She hadn’t been expecting that.

“When did it happen?”

“About four and a half months ago. I had surgery in Houston, and I did rehab there. But I’ve come back to the Cozy C to help out my uncle, to get plans going that we started when I was in Houston. The doc in Texas thought it was a good idea if I continued physical therapy here, considering I wanted to be back in the saddle sooner rather than later.”

“You’ll be able to ride again?” she asked, knowing how much it meant to him.

“I am riding. Horses, not bulls.” His tone was wry and she suspected there were a lot of feelings behind it. However he didn’t express them.

“I did hear your uncle’s having a tough time of it.” Jase Cramer, Sara’s husband, had mentioned he was thinking about buying the Cozy C property if it ever went up for sale. He’d mentioned Eli Conroy was having a problem paying his taxes. She’d briefly thought of Ty when she’d heard that, but she’d never imagined he’d be back here.

“Yeah, Uncle Eli has had it rough. He was finally honest with me about it after this happened. But I won my best purse ever the night that bull did me in. So Uncle Eli and I are going to turn the Cozy C into a vacation ranch.”

Marissa supposed that was one solution. That would take an awful lot of money, and one huge overhaul. Which meant Ty was going to stay around...

She had to get out of here. She couldn’t make chitchat with him. She didn’t want him to find out anything she didn’t want him to know, at least not yet. Though she understood in her soul that the day was coming when she’d have to tell him about Jordan.

She checked her watch. “I’m on my lunch hour and I have to get back to work. It was great to see you. Good luck with your uncle’s ranch.”

And before Ty could say another word, could even utter a goodbye, she turned and fled.

* * *

Ty stared after Marissa Lopez, totally baffled by what had just happened. When their gazes had connected across the room, he’d seen the same sparks there now that he’d seen when they’d attended the wedding of friends together two years ago. They’d known each other years before that. They’d gone to the same high school, known some of the same kids, though he’d been two years older than Marissa and had stayed away from her. No easy feat, because she’d been a beauty even back then.

Automatically his thoughts returned to the wedding they’d attended in Sacramento. He’d known the groom and she’d known the bride. At the reception, they’d hooked up. Then they’d gone back to his motel room.

That had been a night that had been hard to put out of his memory. That had been a night he’d even thought about the day the bull had ended his career. Thinking about Marissa had helped him deal with the pain. He had to admit he’d intended to look her up again eventually—when he was whole once more, when this PT was all done with, when the Cozy C was an amazing success. He didn’t know why all that had been important, but it had been.

Seeing her today...

His gaze still on her as she headed toward the door, he watched the receptionist stop her. He listened, without being concerned at all about eavesdropping.

The blonde at the reception desk asked, “Are you going to be helping with The Mommy Club food drive for Thanksgiving?”

Casting a quick glance his way, Marissa turned her back to him, nodded and then murmured something in reply.

Then she was gone.

Just like she’d been gone the morning after their night of passion.

He’d awakened as she’d dressed, but he’d known they really hadn’t had anything to say. He was going out on the circuit again. She would be staying in Fawn Grove. He didn’t know when he’d be back. So he’d let her leave without a word.

And that had been that.

But the receptionist’s question stuck with him.

The Mommy Club? What did Marissa have to do with that? Every once in a while he checked in on Fawn Grove’s Chamber of Commerce’s Facebook page, just to see what events were going on, what was happening in the town he’d grown up in. He vaguely remembered seeing postings about The Mommy Club.

As soon as he got back to the ranch, he’d have to check it out.

* * *

As Ty opened the newly painted white wooden screen door and stepped into the Cozy C’s renovated kitchen, he was barely mindful of the smell of new paint and coffee. Yet he couldn’t miss the sight of his uncle Eli sitting at the oak pedestal table nursing a mug of a dark brew.

“You’re leaning on that cane pretty heavy. Tough workout?” his uncle asked.

If it were up to Ty, the cane would be tossed into the recycle bin. He rarely used it now, though his physical therapist wanted him to. But after today’s exercises, he needed to ice the muscles around his knee before getting along with his day.

“No tougher than any other,” he assured his uncle, leaving the cane by the door and hanging his Stetson on the hat hook. There were four of them there now, for any of the dude ranch’s guests who came to visit the main house’s kitchen.

“Still smells like paint in here,” his uncle grumbled.

“You wanted to keep the wooden door. It needed a facelift.”

“And that stainless-steel stove and refrigerator make me want to close my eyes when I come in here in the morning. It’s so damn bright.”

That was an exaggeration if Ty ever heard one, but he could tell his uncle was in a complaining mood.

“You like the new touch faucet, though, don’t you?”

His uncle glanced at it and scowled. “I liked that old white porcelain sink just fine. And in my day, a spigot for hot and a spigot for cold was all I needed. Now we’ve got that fancy sprayer and a filtered water tap.” Eli shook his head.

“Any complaints about the new guest cabins?” Ty asked, amused by his uncle’s rant.

“If somebody wants to stay here, they should be happy with the bunkhouse,” Eli muttered.

“You can’t expect a family to stay in a bunkhouse, even if we did give it an overhaul and a more refined look. Single guys who come for the ranch experience can bunk with the hands there. But what if we get a couple who wants to explore the area on horseback for their honeymoon?”

“So you want to provide a love nest?” Eli sounded aghast at that thought.

“I want to provide a cozy cabin where they’ll be happy so they spread the word to their friends and we get even more guests. Instead of all these changes, would you have rather sold the Cozy C?”

They’d had the conversation many times since Eli had confessed the state of the ranch while Ty was still in Houston. Ty supposed his uncle hadn’t wanted him to return and be shocked by what he found. And Ty would have been. When he returned two months ago, the place had been sorely run-down. The tax collector had been on Eli’s doorstep for the past year. With his bull riding winnings tucked into a bank account, Ty had been able to think, plan and move fast—from his rehab facility in Houston. He and his uncle had spent long sleepless nights over this decision before renovations started, but there really had been no other choice but to turn the Cozy C into an income-generating ranch.

Now Eli took a long swig of coffee, then set down his mug with a thump. “I still don’t like the idea of using all your winnings for this. You could have had a sweet retirement fund.”

“That’s a long way off.”

At twenty-nine, Ty had plenty of years to worry about retirement. If they could make a success of the Cozy C, he and his uncle would both be set.

“This place is going to be great, Unc. You’ll see.”

Eli pushed his chair back, stood, and went to the new sink. “All I see is you working day and night when you should still be recuperating.”

“I’m done recuperating. Haven’t you noticed?”

Eli turned and looked him in the eye. “I don’t know if you’ve ever started.”

Ty wasn’t even going to ask what that meant, though his uncle was probably referring to his childhood, not just the bull riding accident. Ty had spent the first few years of his life in Texas. Vague memories that had to do with dust and heat and hills sometimes shadowed his dreams. His dad had ridden the circuit and his mom, well, she’d gotten tired of the whole thing—the dust, the heat, as well as being alone and taking care of a child all by herself. One weekend, when his dad had come home between rodeos, she’d announced she was leaving. Not only leaving, but she was leaving Ty with his dad.

His father hadn’t had a clue how to take care of a four-year-old, so he’d called his brother Eli. In no time, the two had moved to Fawn Grove, California, and the Cozy C. Once they had, his dad had gone on the circuit again. He’d been killed by an ornery bull a few years later. Maybe Ty had gone into bull riding to prove he wouldn’t have the same fate.

No, not the same. A different one.

Needing to change the topic of conversation, Ty went to the coffeepot and filled his own mug. Standing there as casually as he could, he said offhandedly, “I ran into Marissa Lopez in town.”

“That gal who turned your head when you were in high school?”

“She didn’t turn my head. She was two years younger and—”

Eli cut in and waved his hand. “Never no mind. Just stay away from her. She had a baby with no dad in sight. You don’t want to get tangled up in that kind of complication.”

She’d had a baby? That’s why she was involved in The Mommy Club.

“How old’s her baby?” Ty asked.

“A year, maybe a couple of months more. It’s not like I keep track of everybody in town.”

A year? Fourteen months? His heart pounded in his ears.

His uncle acted as if he didn’t keep track, but Eli often drove into the diner for breakfast, and he and his cohorts gossiped as much as any women’s group. They knew the comings and goings. They knew the old-time residents. They knew who was new. They just knew.

Making quick calculations in his head, Ty didn’t like what he came up with. If her baby was a couple of months over a year old, and it took nine months to have a baby...

That would put the night of conception right about when he and Marissa had hooked up after the wedding.

He hoped he was totally mistaken. The thing was, he had to find out...and soon.

* * *

Ty didn’t like the looks of the apartment building at all. It was shabby, like the landlord could care less about it. Its pale yellow stucco had seen too much sun. The pavement was cracked under Ty’s boots as he walked around the back of the building to the apartments on that side. Checking the address on his phone again, he saw that Marissa’s apartment was the middle one, on the second floor. He mounted the stairs and the finish of the railing came off like powder on his hand. Sure, maybe he’d stay in a place like this on a long rodeo stint, but it was no place for a mother and a child. He imagined Marissa was living here because she could afford the rent. Still...

Just where did Marissa work? Did she make enough money to support her and her baby? Was there a guy in the picture now?

He remembered again the wedding they’d attended in nearby Sacramento. They’d been on opposite sides of the aisle in the church, he on the groom’s side and she on the bride’s. But he’d ended up behind her in the receiving line and they’d taken seats at the same table at the dinner. They’d talked some, laughed at high school escapades they’d remembered. They’d shared the bride and groom’s happiness as the couple had exchanged pieces of cake and then danced. That’s when the real night had started for him and Marissa. He’d asked her to dance.

That dance...

It had started the rest of the night.

At the top of the stairs, he stood at her door, which was decorated with a wreath of autumn leaves, nuts and gourds, not knowing exactly the right way to handle this. Maybe there was no right way.

He pressed the doorbell, but when he didn’t hear it ring, he knocked. It was after six. She should be home having dinner, taking care of her baby.

When she opened the door, he saw that she’d changed from the beige slacks and cream shirt into worn jeans and a T-shirt that proclaimed JORDAN’S MOMMY.

So she had a son, and his name was Jordan.

She looked horrified when she saw him glancing down at her T-shirt. Her face went pale. But he had to give her credit. After a deep breath, another second and a lifetime later, she produced a smile.

“Hi, Ty. I didn’t think I’d see you so soon. What brings you here?”

She was holding the door three-quarters of the way closed behind her, but he could hear sounds coming from inside the apartment. They sounded like baby squeals.

He motioned behind her. “Can I come in?”

She glanced over her shoulder. “It’s not a good time.”

“When would be a good time?” he asked in a compromising tone.

“I don’t know. I’m fixing supper, and then I have work to do. My to-do list is pretty full this week.”

No matter what she did or said, he was determined to have a talk with her.

“Invite me in, Marissa, for old time’s sake. I won’t stay long.”

With another glance over her shoulder, she gave a huge sigh, opened the door and motioned him in.

He couldn’t read the expression on her face. Was it dread, nervousness, regret? He’d love to know what was going on in her head.

He walked in and saw the baby right away. On the rodeo circuit Ty had talked with kids and horsed around with them. He liked their innocence and naïveté and optimistic outlook on life. They made him laugh. But he’d never been around babies.

This little fellow was seated in a high chair, playing with little round cereal pieces on his tray. Ty barely noticed the yellow-and-white kitchen curtains, the skillet simmering on the stove with what looked like barbecued beef. The smell wafted through the kitchen but it didn’t even make his stomach growl. He couldn’t take his eyes off the little boy.

“My uncle told me you’re unmarried and you have a baby.”

Marissa kept silent.

“How old is he?”

As if Jordan wanted to answer for himself, he pounded his tiny fist on the plastic tray, squealed and gave a lopsided toothy grin to Ty. Ty’s heart turned over in his chest.

“He’s fourteen months old,” Marissa said.

Ty’s gaze swung to hers. He could see she was trying hard to hold it together, to act as if nothing were the matter, acting as if that hadn’t been the most important question in the world.

“We used protection,” he said matter-of-factly.

“Not in the middle of the night,” she reminded him softly.

How could he have forgotten that? How could he have forgotten they’d reached for each other, half-asleep, come together as if they’d been lovers for years and rocked the bed as if lightning was striking all over again?

“He’s mine.”

She only hesitated a moment, and then he saw what he’d sensed about her from the very beginning—from the time they were in high school. She was honest and wouldn’t lie.

“Yes, he’s yours. His name is Jordan.”

As if he was drawn by a very powerful magnet, he crossed to the child and stared down at him, trying to let the implications of it all wash over him. The little boy was pounding on his tray again, gleefully burbling, kicking his legs. He had Ty’s brown hair, a much lighter shade than Marissa’s. But the baby had Marissa’s dark brown eyes, sparkling and shiny with new life and expectant hope.

Suddenly the gravity of what was happening hit Ty in the solar plexus. He swiveled on his boots, faced her and said, “You should have told me.”

She looked dumbstruck for a second.

He held up his hand, knowing they both needed to take a few deep breaths. “I need some air. I’m going for a walk, but I’ll be back. Don’t leave.”

“You can’t order me around, Ty. This is my life, not yours.”

“That baby is our life, Marissa.”

With that, he left her kitchen. With that, he took a few gulps of fresh air. With that, he hurried down the steps of the shabby apartment building.

He had a son. Somehow he had to wrap his mind around the idea that he was a father—and then quickly decide what to do about it.