Cowboy In Charge

No, he couldn’t. Greg wouldn’t rest until he’d learned every last thing he could about someone who didn’t exist. Sighing, he admitted, “Not a woman. I meant I’ve got a little boy.”

The other man’s jaw dropped for a moment. Then he grinned. “You’re kidding. How old?”

“Three.”

“I don’t believe this. For as long as I’ve known you, you’ve had a son, and you never thought to tell me a word about him? Not even after I started bragging about becoming a daddy?”

“Guess not.”

“Obviously not. Why didn’t you say something, man?”

Inside the house, Greg’s little girl gave a high-pitched giggle. He could picture her a year ago in the photo on Greg’s phone, all wrapped up in a pink-and-white baby blanket. He could see other views of her as she grew bigger, sprouted a little more hair, cut a couple of teeth.

Ages and stages he’d never gotten to see with his son. Thoughts he’d never had until a few months ago. Memories he’d never missed until Greg started with those danged photos.

Those memories had hit him hard last night, when his date had walked away from her child without a second look.

Her action was too similar to the thoughts he’d been dwelling on for months now. Too close to what he had once done to leave him in any mood for enjoying the evening. When he had left his hometown, he hadn’t been a daddy yet. Hell, he still wasn’t. Not in the full sense of the word. But he’d known the baby was on the way. And still, without once looking back, he’d walked away from his unborn son.

Shrugging, he looked at Greg. “What’s there to say?”

“The boy’s name, for starters. Who he takes after. When he was born, and where he is now.”

“Back in Cowboy Creek.”

“You’ve seen the boy?”

He shook his head.

The look on Greg’s face made him wish he hadn’t refused another beer. Giving his buddy the chance to play host might have derailed this entire conversation. “My wife was pregnant when we split up. I left town, and we never kept in touch.”

Greg sat looking at him as if he’d just sprouted a second pair of hands. “That’s not you, man. What the hell happened?”

He shrugged. “It was almost four years ago. You weren’t you then, either. We’ve both changed since then. Both grown up. Back then I was young and stupid,” he admitted, “and still too focused on the wrong things. Like having a good time and hanging out at the Cantina in Cowboy Creek with my friends. Like getting drunk and getting laid. And to hear my ex tell it, like funneling our cash reserves into any rodeo that ever happened by.”

He had his reasons for wanting to enter those rodeos, for needing to win, but Layne saw the cash going toward entry fees and believed only that he was wasting money they needed for other things. “She didn’t appreciate any of that, especially when she sat at home dealing with morning sickness.” He laughed, trying to shrug off his guilt. “How the heck can they call it morning sickness when it seems to last all day?”

“You got me there. But that still doesn’t tell me why you walked.”

He grasped the neck of his beer bottle in both hands. All these years later, the memory of that last fight still made him tense like a spring-coiled wire. “I didn’t walk, at least not at first. Not until my ex threw me out.”

I’d be better off without you. Layne’s voice had cracked on the words but she’d stood firm, her arms crossed over her chest and her chin held high. Her eyes were bright, not with the softness of tears but with the hard flint of anger.

“We’d gotten to the point we couldn’t say good morning without it leading to a fight,” he admitted. “When she told me to leave, I decided I was doing the right thing by going.”

“And your boy?”

Again, he shrugged. “She was only a few months pregnant. I’ve never laid eyes on the kid.”

“But you took care of him? You sent money home?”

“Sure, I did. Every month. And every month the envelope came back marked ‘return to sender.’” And the sight of Layne’s handwriting on every envelope that came in the mail acted like acid on an old burn, opening up the same wound.

You’ve left me alone one too many times, she had said the night he’d come home to find she’d piled his packed and travel-worn duffel bags outside their apartment door.

Then those envelopes had come back to him one too many times, and he’d finally given up sending them. Given up hope. Given up thoughts of ever seeing his son.

He shoved his hand into his back pocket again, grazing his wallet and running the details of the newspaper clipping inside it silently through his mind.

Scott Andrew Slater.

Born not to Layne McAndry but to Layne Marie Slater. She’d taken back her maiden name and put not one mention of his in the birth announcement. She had very likely wiped his memory from her mind.

Just as he’d forced himself to do to her for all these years.

* * *

JASON RAISED HIS fist in front of the apartment door, flinched as second thoughts hit him, and lowered his arm again.

Removing his Stetson, he scrubbed his forehead with one hand and assured himself he was doing the right thing. Close contact with two kids within two days last week had to mean something.

Yeah, something like fate deciding to rear up and head-butt him in the face, the way Burning Sage had almost done in that final ride in Cheyenne. The bull had wanted to take him down. Fate most likely just wanted to knock some sense into him.

Too late for that. He was here.

He raised his fist again and rapped on the apartment door. The wood sounded hollow, just the way his chest felt—if you didn’t count his heart banging against his ribs.

Inside the apartment, a television’s volume dipped, then a little boy’s voice cried, “Mommy!” in stunned outrage. A second later, the doorknob rattled. The door swung open, and he stood staring at the girl he’d left behind.

The wife he’d left behind.

She looked like hell warmed over twice.

Her beautiful golden-brown hair had been pulled up and stuck every which way by a couple of plastic combs. Her skin was paler than he remembered, her nose glowed as red as the taillights on his truck, and her sky blue eyes looked as glassy and bloodshot as if she hadn’t slept for a week.

Those eyes... In this situation, most folks’ eyes would have widened in surprise. Instead, she blinked once and went blank-faced, the way she had always done when confronted with something that shocked or alarmed her. Right now, he imagined she had received a double dose of both.

“Jason?” Her voice came out in a croak. She reached up to rest her hand against the gaping neckline of her fuzzy blue robe.

The ragged tissue she held couldn’t hide the sight of creamy skin patterned with a few small freckles. The vision did more for him than a slip-sliding blouse or skintight leather. It also triggered memories and feelings he forced himself to push aside. This conversation would be hard enough. He didn’t need his body following suit. To combat the reaction, he took another deep breath and let it out. “Layne.”

She covered a rattling cough with her forearm. “What do you want?”

Though he should have expected it, he was taken aback by the belligerent tone. He hadn’t been ready for the question, either. Despite the long drive from Dallas, Texas, to Cowboy Creek, New Mexico, he hadn’t prepared much for this meeting. Big mistake. He sure couldn’t tell her he’d come back to make certain his son was in good hands. “I know it’s been a while—”

“A while?” She coughed again, then shook her head, most likely in annoyance at him. “It’s been almost four years since we’ve seen each other, and we’ve had no contact except filing for the divorce—”

“And—”