The Cowboy's Triple Surprise

“She’s due even before Tina,” Cole said, as if he’d watched Tyler watching Shay.

He nodded, but didn’t comment. Right now, he didn’t want to talk about due dates with anyone but Shay.

He sure couldn’t escape the irony of this situation. All his life, his parents had nagged him about making something of himself. About acting like a responsible adult. Maybe they’d been right. Because, even unconfirmed, his suspicions regarding Shay had sent him on the run out at the ranch this afternoon.

Only the knowledge that he had to find out the truth had kept him from leaving Cowboy Creek altogether and brought him here tonight.

Deliberately, he changed the subject. “How’s it feel to be on the verge of becoming a daddy again?” he asked Cole.

“Great. I highly recommend it. You ought to give it a try sometime.”

He blinked. Could there be a chance he had jumped to the wrong conclusion about Shay’s pregnancy? Was he going to make a fool of himself with his question to her?

“Are you planning to stick around for a while?” Cole asked. “Tina didn’t say.”

“That’s because I haven’t decided yet.”

“Well, we’ll have to make sure you stay longer than you did last time. I barely got to see you.”

Last summer after meeting Shay, Tyler had spent most of his free time during the short visit hanging around the Big Dipper. Guilt made him cringe—until he recalled the circumstances. His buddy couldn’t have had a clue about anything he’d gotten up to. “Not my fault, man. You took off on your honeymoon, remember?”

“That’s not something I’ll ever forget. But that’s exactly my point.”

“I don’t plan to stay very long,” he said truthfully.

Cole nodded. Normally, he could talk the ears off a donkey. But to Tyler’s surprise, the other man stood abruptly, ready to depart. “We’ll catch up when you get out to the ranch. Time for me to go home to my family.”

He said those last two words with unmistakable pride. Pride and family—a combination Tyler didn’t know much about.

Cole went to the counter to get his order, then waved farewell as he left the shop. Most of the other customers soon followed him, except the older couple near the counter.

When they finally made their slow way across the room, Tyler was about at the end of his patience. Shay seemed to miss that fact completely. After walking the pair to the door and waving goodbye, she turned the open sign to closed. She wiped down the couple’s table and tucked their chairs neatly beneath it. She closed out the register and straightened up the counter. Then she disappeared into the back room and didn’t return.

It felt too much like yesterday afternoon when she’d run off from the Hitching Post. He wouldn’t put it past her to have slipped out a back door.

Frowning, he tossed his ice cream dish into a nearby trash container and stalked across the tile floor to the doorway behind the counter.

In the workroom, Shay stood with her back to him, leaning over an industrial-size dishwasher while she loaded ice cream scoops and metal milk shake containers into the compartment inside. As he watched, she paused to rest her hand against the washer’s door. With her free hand, she rubbed her lower back. He felt another momentary pang of concern.

“Come take a load off.” At the sound of his voice, she shied like a startled rabbit. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you.”

“But insults don’t require an apology?”

“Who insulted you?”

“You did. Is that what you think about pregnant women—they’re just carrying a load?”

He ground his teeth together. So much for his show of concern. “It was a turn of phrase.”

“One that turned in the wrong direction.”

“Jed said the same thing to me this afternoon, and I didn’t take offense. Maybe you’re being overly sensitive.” Or maybe that sensitivity came along with pregnancy. Suddenly, he felt as if he were walking on eggshells in the middle of a henhouse—a helluva place to be. “Let me rephrase it, then. Come and take a seat. We might as well both be comfortable, because there’s no way I’m leaving until we’re done talking.”

“What if I have nothing to say?”

He laughed without humor. “You’ve said plenty already, even if you haven’t run off at the mouth. Leaving the Hitching Post yesterday was only the first of a long list of clues.”

She raised her chin belligerently, but he stared her down, waiting her out. He’d stay here all night, if necessary.

As if she could read that thought in his expression, she finally sighed and closed the dishwasher door. She crossed the workroom warily, the way a horse accustomed to mistreatment approached someone she feared would deliver more of it. A pang of regret flowed through him. Only his need to hear the truth from her kept him standing there.

When she came nearer, the light scent of her perfume surrounded him, unsettled him, bringing back a time he didn’t want to think about.

“Have a seat,” he said as pleasantly as he could. He gestured to the booth where he’d been sitting. “I’ve kept it waiting for you.”

She slipped onto the bench and tried to slide behind the tabletop. Her belly, nearly pressed against the table’s edge, made her movements awkward. The sight made him swallow hard. He took the seat across from her and knocked back the cup of water she’d given him along with his triple dip of ice cream.

She folded her hands on the tabletop in front of her.

Suddenly, his palms began to sweat. He wiped them on his jeans, rested his hands on his thighs and waited. Let her make the first move.

“Well, obviously,” she said at last, “you’re not here just because you had a sudden desire for my company. Or for ice cream.”

“And obviously, you’ve got something you don’t want to tell me.”

She looked away. The pale green shirt she wore rose and fell with her deep breath. Her reaction didn’t come as a shock. He knew what it meant. No matter what he’d tried to tell himself, or what that brief uncertainty he’d felt a few minutes ago tried to tell him, he had known the truth the moment she’d turned pale in the Hitching Post’s dining room.

She turned back to him, her green eyes glittering. “I’m sure you’ve already guessed. I got pregnant the night we slept together.”

“And you didn’t think to tell me?”

“Why would I?”

He stared at her, not trusting himself to speak.

After a moment, she lifted her chin again as if it bolstered her courage to attack. “How exactly was I supposed to tell you? You didn’t leave a forwarding address. And you never got in touch with me. What was I supposed to do, tell the Garlands I needed to contact you about a little something you left behind?”

“There’s nobody else?” Again her face drained of color, and he realized how she had taken what he’d said—because he’d phrased it like a fool. “I mean, is there anybody else in the picture now?”

“Why is that important?”

“It’s not, I guess.” Or was it? He needed to get his head together and focus on what did matter. “When are you due?”

“In about three weeks.”

He eyed what he could see of her over the tabletop. “Are you sure? You look as though you’re...ready right now.”

“I feel ready right now. But my doctors say otherwise. At least, at the moment. But they also say anything could happen.”