The Cowboy's Triple Surprise

From the corner of her eye, she caught the scuffed and creased cowboy boots. The well-worn jeans. The snapped cuff of a long-sleeved Western shirt. With one breath, she took in the scent of musky aftershave and of the man himself. Standing so close to him, she couldn’t miss the heat of his body. She forced herself to remember that warmth was only on the surface and didn’t touch his heart.

“So,” he said, “you’re helping out the Garlands this afternoon, too?”

“I work here,” she corrected.

“You gave up the job at the Big Dipper?”

She shook her head and finally glanced at him. “No, I’m doubling up. I’m working my way up to banquet manager for the hotel.” She hoped for that, anyhow. With the babies on the way, she needed more money than she made now.

“Nice.” He sounded impressed.

Good. Let him see she didn’t need anything from him.

“Hey, I’ll give you a hand.” He grabbed the carton. Glass clinked.

“Careful,” she snapped, half out of annoyance at herself for taking so much of him in, the other half out of irritation at his thinking she needed help—or anything else—from him. “Those are fragile.”

Eyebrows raised, he eyed her middle as if to say the same applied to her.

She crossed her arms, intending to stand her ground and stare him down, but the large baby bump made the stance awkward. She lowered her hands to her sides.

“Don’t worry,” he said, “I don’t make a habit of dropping things.”

“Oh, really? I’d have said you were an expert at it.” She could have bitten her tongue at the instinctive response, but even that pain wouldn’t have come close to the way he had hurt her.

“What does that mean?”

It was too much to hope he would have just let her statement slide. But why should she let him slide when he had treated her so badly? “Sorry. I suppose I shouldn’t have said that.” She kept her voice down, but still, nerves and anger made her pitch high and her tone arch. “I really don’t know how you are about dropping things. But I sure know how you are about dropping women, since you did such a great job of that with me.”

Abruptly, he shifted the carton. Glass clinked again, and this time she was too annoyed to care. How could he sound so offhand after what he had done?

“I didn’t drop you,” he said. “You knew I was only in town a few days for the wedding. While I was here, we had a good time together, and that was it. I didn’t make any promises.” He looked at her stomach. “Besides, you obviously didn’t waste any time moving on to someone else.”

She swallowed a gasp. He couldn’t possibly think she had slept with him one night and then gone on to someone else the next. Then again, considering how quickly she had wound up in bed with him, why wouldn’t he think that?

As for not wasting time... If he only knew how many sleepless nights she had spent since he had left, especially once she found out she was pregnant. But he wouldn’t know, and she had to stop thinking about that. He had already stolen too much time from her, had already hurt her enough.

“Don’t worry,” he said in a lower tone, “I’m not planning to say anything about what happened last summer. Your secret’s safe with me.”

“My—” The sound of footsteps made her cut herself off. This time she turned. One sneak attack was enough—although no one could have startled her more than Tyler had.

Tina was coming toward them from across the room.

Shay glanced in Tyler’s direction and gestured to the table she had set up. “You can put the carton over there. Thanks.” She forced a smile.

He locked gazes with her. She refused to be the first to look away, which left her staring into his midnight-blue eyes. To her dismay, her stomach did that funny little flip it had taken such a short time to learn months ago.

“Tyler,” Tina said, “thanks so much for agreeing to help us all out. I think Jane’s trying to flag you down. Would you mind giving her and the waitresses a hand with the banquet tables?”

“Sure.” He glanced toward the other side of the room. Then he nodded to them both and ambled away.

Shay tried not to stare after him. She didn’t care where he was going or what he was doing, as long as it wasn’t near her. Let him think what he wanted about her pregnancy, too. She didn’t have to correct his assumption.

“Shay?”

Startled, she turned to stare at Tina. “I’m sorry. What?”

“I said, why don’t you sit and take it easy? It’s hard to be up on your feet, especially when you can’t even see your feet.”

“You should talk,” Shay said, glancing pointedly at the other woman’s middle, then blinking as she recalled Tyler doing the same to her. “You’re not that far behind me.”

“But I’m experienced. And I’m not carrying three babies.”

Shay tried not to wince, not to react at all to what Tina had said. She shot another look across the banquet hall. To her relief, Tyler had reached the opposite side of the room. Even with the acoustics in the high-ceilinged ballroom, he couldn’t possibly have overheard.

“Actually,” Tina said, “I’ll give you a hand, since I have some free time this afternoon.” She took a seat at the table.

Shay followed and returned to her own chair. Again, she couldn’t argue. Tina was only looking out for her. And as one of the Garland family, the other woman was more or less her employer.

She didn’t know what Tyler was doing back here in Cowboy Creek, but for all she knew, Jed might have hired him, too. She might have to face him every time she came to the hotel to work.

The thought was too much for her to consider.

She reached for the ribbon dispenser. Right now, she needed to push aside her reluctance to be near him for even part of this afternoon. She had to focus on the job that was going to help her pay her bills.

And still, she stared across the room.

Tyler had gone down on one knee to inspect something under a table. His broad shoulders strained against his flannel shirt the way her stomach strained against her maternity top. His belt encircled a waist as rock hard as his abs and now slimmer than she was around the middle.

“Shay,” Tina said, “do you mind if I borrow that dispenser before you run out of ribbon?”

Shay looked down at the table in front of her. Her face flamed. While trying to distract her thoughts from Tyler, she had coiled a length of ribbon into a tangled mass around her fingers. She grabbed the scissors and snipped the ribbon free.

Without another word, Tina took the dispenser, then reached for an undecorated vase. Shay sent her an apologetic glance, but the other woman didn’t look her way.

For a while, she managed to focus on the vases and the ribbons and a casual conversation with Tina. Then, all too soon, she found herself tuning in to the thump of Tyler’s boots from the other side of the room, the rumble of his voice as he spoke to one of the women, the sound of his deep laugh as he responded to something one of them said.

A spurt of jealousy hit, an unwanted, unwelcome emotion that twined itself—like the ribbon twisted in her fingers—around her heart.

She should have expected it and been prepared. And she couldn’t let it worry her, because she knew what caused the sudden upswing of emotion.

From the day Tyler had left to the day she finally acknowledged he didn’t plan to contact her again, her up-and-down feelings had run out of control. Late-night anxiety triggered her bouts of insomnia. Stiff-necked tension left her no comfortable position even if sleep had wanted to come. Anger and depression had made her days as uncomfortable as her nights.

There had been no way she would have run after Tyler, no way she wanted an unreliable cowboy in her life. Anger at herself, at how far she had let herself fall, had triggered every one of those reactions. She had simply waited them out, knowing they would pass, and they had. Eventually.

After she had discovered she was pregnant, she had again fought—and won—a battle to get her emotions in check, but there were times, like today, when her hormones won out. Green-eyed jealousy was trying to entice her. She wouldn’t let it succeed. Tyler didn’t mean anything to her anymore. She couldn’t care less who he flirted with now. Though he had fathered her babies, he was a free man.

She didn’t plan to do or say anything to change that.