The Cowboy's Surprise Baby

The urge almost made him veer toward the side of the house, but he managed to keep himself in check. If she had just gotten home, she was spending time with her family. Not the best time to drive up and demand an explanation.

No, he could wait until tomorrow, Jack told himself.

“Mom loves that you’re going to be home for a good long while, you know,” Tom said as they neared the house.

Jack could see his mother moving around the kitchen, and he felt a pang of guilt over his desire to drive over to see Amy without a word of explanation to anyone. His mother had likely been cooking up a storm while they were out with the horses.

Jack glanced at his brother, whose mouth was set in a thin line. He knew that Tom was worried about their mother and the ranch she’d lived on for so many years, and that Jack being home wasn’t the godsend their mother thought it was, if only because it brought a halt to any extra cash Jack brought in from riding in rodeos.

Tom hadn’t been kidding when he’d said they could use any extra business their little riding school could get. As the town had shrunk over the years, so had the number of students they could count on coming to learn to ride. After their father died and Tom moved back to pick up the slack, it had only gotten worse; and Jack knew Tom felt that it was his failings as an instructor that was causing the trouble, despite anything Jack said to the contrary.

Jack hated that he had no idea what he could do about all that. Up until last week he’d tried to help by sending home what he could from his earnings on the circuit, but even that never seemed to be enough. He was sure he could become a real champion if the cards fell right, and then they could stop worrying so much, but for that he needed a great partner and a whole lot of luck—two things that hadn’t seemed to come his way lately.

His old partner was decent, but since he broke his leg and decided to call it quits, Jack wasn’t sure what he’d do. No partner, no rodeos. No rodeos, no money.

He loved being home on the ranch he hoped to run one day, but now he needed to find someone to rope with. It was the type of decision that could make or break his career. All that on his plate, and now there was Tom to help, too. It was a tall order.

And now he had Amy McNeal to think about. His stay in Spring Valley was already getting much more complicated than he’d expected just a few days ago.

* * *

AS THE SUN dipped behind the mountains ringing Spring Valley, Amy lowered herself carefully from Brock’s truck until her feet were planted securely on the gravel driveway of their parents’ old sprawling ranch house. The last time she’d come home, she’d fallen and twisted her ankle badly doing that very thing, and she wasn’t about to go through that again. If Cassie, who was a doctor and lived next door, hadn’t taken care of her, she might have ended up missing her departure flight last time.

Amy turned her attention from her feet to the group of people standing on the front porch. Cassie was already there, with her twin sons, and Ma and Pop, all happy to see her. Amy felt a twinge of homesickness, which was silly. She was home, after all.

Cassie, Brock’s fiancée, came down and gave Amy a tight hug. Even though they had only met up a couple times during Amy’s last stay, and that was when she was still just the neighbor, Cassie had been kind and friendly from the start.

“How’s your ankle?” she asked the moment she and Amy broke apart.

“Good, most of the time. Just gives me the odd twinge if I step down wrong,” Amy said, glad to have a doctor in the family.

Cassie nodded sympathetically, but it was clear there wasn’t much to be done about it. Just another sign that she wasn’t in her teens anymore.

The cool evening breeze ruffled Amy’s hair, and she wished she had a jacket. Living out of a backpack for years, she’d learned to just buy occasional items as she needed them, and she certainly hadn’t needed anything heavier than a light sweater in nearly a year, following the summer and staying on tropical islands or in deserts.

She might need to buy a coat. But for the time being, she would just borrow something from her mother, however grandmotherly her Ma’s wardrobe was—and it had been since she’d adopted Amy, if the pictures were any indication.

Ma herself rushed forward and pulled Amy into a tight hug, and Amy felt her heart swell with the feeling of home. As much as she avoided Spring Valley, she missed it, and the people. “Hi, Ma,” she said, hoping the older woman wasn’t going to cry.

Ma was a tough lady, but she never could understand why Amy was gone so much, and it hurt Amy to see the toll it took on her. To avoid it, Amy rummaged in her bag and pulled out two packages, handing one to Ma and the other to Cassie. “They’re some different spices and a grinder,” she explained.

Cassie thanked her, but Ma looked skeptical. “Smell them and give them a shot,” Amy said, sure her adopted mother would manage to make something magical and somehow still completely Southern with them.

Then Amy turned to her soon-to-be nephews. “I brought y’all spices, too!” she told them.

“You did?” Carter asked, not sounding too enthused at the idea.

“No. I want to be your favorite aunt, and I have some catching up to do, so I brought you fez hats and drums,” she said, pulling out the items and handing them to the boys.

Zach immediately began giggling to see the funny little hat on his brother, and they both started hitting the drums enthusiastically. Brock appeared at Amy’s elbow. “Drums? Really?” he asked his little sister.

Amy shrugged. “There were some really cool knives I considered getting them. This seemed like the better choice.”

Brock and Cassie winced at the noise. “I’m not so sure about that,” Brock commented.

Cassie whispered quickly to Zach and Carter, and they both ran over to Amy, giving her a big hug. “Thanks, Aunt Amy,” they said in unison.

Amy nodded to them, fighting tears. She didn’t want to admit how much it twisted her heart to be around these two sweet boys. They reminded her too much of truths she didn’t like to think about.

“Time to get inside,” Ma said, ushering everyone through the door. “Dinner’s ready and will start getting cold any minute.”

Amy, thankful for the interruption, followed the rest of them inside after giving Pop a quick hug. She only paused at the door for a second, looking in the direction of Stuart Ranch, and wondering what her life would be like if things had been just a little different.

Suddenly, she wished she was on a plane to Panama. Or Indonesia. Heck, Idaho would work. Anywhere, so long as it was a couple thousand miles from the painful memories that were threatening to come back to the surface now that she was here.

But those painful memories were the reason she was here, so she bit back the desire to flee and walked inside her childhood home, closing the door behind her.

Amy soon found herself sitting down at her parents’ table, already piled high with Ma’s famous cooking. “So, update me on what’s going on with everyone,” she said, hoping talk would keep her mind from wandering back toward Stuart Ranch.

“Pop’s working himself too hard fixing the barn when he could just let me do it. Or hire someone,” Brock began as they all began filling their plates.

Pop cut into Brock’s scolding. “I’m not so old I can’t lift a hammer, Brock,” he said around his mustache. “And the horses will appreciate it, which is good for the riding school.”

Pop had always been such a strong, consistent force in her life that it was hard for Amy to imagine him ever slowing down, but she could see that Brock was concerned. Still, he didn’t seem willing to push the topic any further than he already had.

“Speaking of riding,” Brock said, pointing to the twins, “these two have been doing a great job learning to ride and care for horses.”

Zach and Carter beamed. “Mr. Stuart says we’re naturals,” Carter declared.

Amy about choked on her water. “Stuart?” she asked in between coughs.

Brock nodded, looking proud. “Tom Stuart’s taken over the school since his father passed a year ago. The boys go there twice a week.”

Amy’s heart started again. She hadn’t known the boys were going to the Stuarts’, and hearing the name out of the blue like that had done more to her than she liked to admit. She suddenly hoped to heaven that Jack was still out on the circuit. Maybe he would even be gone the entire month she was there, and she could board her plane to Thailand after the wedding and just forget about her resolution to speak to him, which seemed awfully daunting now that she was home.

Brock gestured to her with his fork. “Jack’s back in town right now, too. Weren’t you two an item for a while in high school?”

Amy felt her heart jolt again at the sound of his name. Of course, Brock had been on the rodeo circuit when they’d started dating. He didn’t know how serious their relationship had been, didn’t know that his name cut through her like a knife.

But Ma and Pop knew some of it. Pop stood, clearing his throat, and all the attention turned to him. “I just want to thank y’all for being here. It does an old man good to see so many people he loves around the table together.”

There was a round of “hear, hear!” and a lifting of glasses, and then Pop sat back down. “Now, stop with the chatter and get to eatin’. I don’t plan on having leftovers,” Ma added.

With that, they tucked in, eating heartily. Amy didn’t look at Brock, in case he decided to start up the conversation again. She did, however, risk a glance at Pop, who was looking at her with concern. Amy gave him a little nod of thanks, then turned her eyes back to the plate in front of her.

Jack Stuart was in town right this minute, just a few miles away. When she’d bought her ticket to come home, she had hoped he would be, but now...

The mix of emotions he evoked was too much to analyze. All she knew for sure was that she couldn’t run and hide any longer, and she needed to be prepared to talk to him. Tell him the truth.