The Cowboy's Surprise Baby

“I don’t get it.” He shoved his fingers through his thick blond hair and shook his head. “I thought you wanted to be a lawyer.”

“Daddy wanted me to be a lawyer.” That was a topic for a different discussion, and she wasn’t going to get into that with him now. “When I went to college, I discovered my real interest lay in psychology. I received my master’s degree and then returned to Serendipity to work here at Redemption Ranch.”

“Why?”

“Why did I choose psychology?”

“Why did you come back to Serendipity?”

“I never intended to leave Serendipity in the first place. I thought you knew that.”

His eyes clouded with confusion but quickly froze to an ice blue.

“You were the one who wanted to leave,” she pointed out. She hadn’t realized that at the time, when they were dating as teenagers. She should have seen the signs, but didn’t, hadn’t heard what he was trying to tell her. Cole had thought the navy would be a way of escaping what, to a restless teenage boy, must have seemed like a dull and dreary existence. The polar opposite of what her heart ached for. As an army brat who’d never known a sense of community before she and her father had landed in Serendipity, Tessa had been, and still was, on the totally opposite end of that spectrum. She loved what Serendipity offered.

Just as she hadn’t realized the depth of his desire to leave, Cole hadn’t recognized her need for stability in her life—something the military couldn’t offer. He’d wanted to take her with him on his worldwide adventure. Planned to take her with him, in fact. As his wife.

Wow, had they ever gotten their wires crossed. Talk about a serious lack of communication.

But back then, they’d both been immature teenagers with their heads in the clouds, floating along on the wings of love. Now their feet were on solid, unforgiving ground, anchored there by the weight of reality.

“Still seems to me it won’t be hard to avoid each other,” he said, his voice gravelly.

Especially if we’re trying.

It was what he’d left unspoken that stung her emotions like the crack of a whip. Well, he didn’t need to get so personal. And he was still laboring under a mistaken impression about how often they would have to be in each other’s company.

“I take it Alexis hasn’t run down your job description with you yet. She hasn’t shared the particulars of what the wranglers are expected to do here?”

He scoffed. “We were interrupted before we could finish our conversation,” he reminded her with a bite to his tone. “Anyway, what’s to know? I’ve been riding and roping since before I could walk. Not like I need on-the-job training or anything.”

“Yes, but—” She started to tell him that the wrangling he’d be doing at Redemption Ranch had much more to do with the teenagers than it did with the cattle, but it wasn’t really her place to inform him of his official job description.

Who knew? Maybe Alexis had something different in mind for Cole—something that wouldn’t require them to suffer through the perpetual awkwardness Tessa knew would remain between them.

“Well, I won’t keep you,” she said, reaching back to open the office door. “I just wanted to make sure we had an understanding about how our professional relationship here at the ranch was going to go.”

He scowled at the word relationship and slammed his dark brown Stetson on his head.

“Just came as a surprise, is all,” he muttered.

“I’ll say,” Tessa agreed.

“Didn’t expect to be back in Serendipity for a few years yet. Maybe ever.”

He sounded so bitter that Tessa cringed. What had happened to the boy she’d once known? Who or what had darkened the sunshine that had once shone so brilliantly in his eyes?

“Cole? Why did you come back now?” She knew she was taking a mighty big risk asking such a personal question, but it seemed to her that he’d been the one to open the door to the subject. She held her breath and waited for an answer.

He tipped his hat and started to walk past her without speaking, and Tessa thought she’d pushed him too far. Whatever his issues were, they were his business, and clearly she was the last person on earth he’d talk to about them even if he was inclined to share.

He was almost out the door when he suddenly swiveled around to face her.

“Grayson.” His gaze narrowed on her as if weighing the effect of his words on her.

She scrambled to put his answer in some kind of context but came up with nothing.

“Who—”

He cut off her question and ground out the rest of his answer.

“My son.”

Chapter Two (#ulink_d7ae4a9c-50dc-5676-9af5-81e9703363ca)

Yesterday at the Haddons’ office, after throwing the curveball that emotionally knocked Tessa right off the mound, Cole had walked away without another word.

She walked down the row of pinewood beds within the girls’ dorm, absently making small corrections to the square corners of the sheets as she went. The room was silent and empty now, but tomorrow morning it would be filled with the chitter-chattering of adolescent females, none of them happy about being pawned off into Tessa’s care. At least, at first they wouldn’t be. Tessa’s experience was that the young ladies under her supervision eventually adapted, and she liked to think they left Redemption Ranch better people than when they first arrived.

Now that it was morning, she was bone-weary from lack of sleep and from fighting all the emotions stirred up by Cole’s unexpected pronouncement.

Cole had a son?

Probably a wife as well, although he hadn’t mentioned her.

He had a family.

She let the thought sink in, rest for a moment deep in her chest until her breath evened out.

Why had his news taken her so very much by surprise? It shouldn’t have, and she was a little ashamed by her lack of forethought and her response. Just because she was single and unattached didn’t mean Cole wouldn’t have found someone to settle down and share his life with. That the thought hadn’t even occurred to her at the time explained why she’d been shaken up.

She needed to get her head together. Her newest young charges were arriving for their Mission Month tomorrow, and she had to make sure everything was ready for them. A stab of pain and regret sliced through her gut. She prayed every day that she’d make a real difference in the teenage girls’ lives, but no matter how hard she tried, no matter what she did, it wasn’t always enough. Her mind strayed for a brief moment to Savannah, a girl who’d visited the ranch last summer. Savannah had shown a great deal of promise during her stay. Her attitude, once bitter and angry, melted under Tessa’s tender love and direction. By the time Savannah left, Tessa was certain she was destined for a better future.

She’d been wrong. Shortly after leaving Redemption Ranch, Savannah had become pregnant, and her parents had thrown her out on the street. Tessa had lost track of her then. She didn’t know what had happened to Savannah or her precious baby.

Being the female counselor at the ranch, Tessa was responsible for her teenage girls nearly twenty-four-seven during what the Haddons termed their Mission Months. Ten months a year with little breathing space between groups of kids. It was a hard position to be in and a heavy load to carry, yet Tessa’s heart was completely in her work. She softly whispered another prayer for the six young ladies who’d soon be arriving, asking that this time she’d reach them all.

She groaned and pushed her hair off her forehead with the palm of her hand. If only it were so easy to push the melancholy thoughts from her mind.

Focus.

The humidity was even higher than usual today, and her long, thick locks were unwieldy on the best of days. As a youngster she’d been teased about her frizzy red mop, and she’d always been self-conscious about her hair—until a blue-eyed boy with a smile that could melt glaciers came into her life and made her feel like the most beautiful woman in the world, both inside and out.

When Cole had first coined the nickname Red, he had made it sound like the best kind of compliment, his own special name for her, said with the utmost affection. She hadn’t dreamed such love existed—at least not for her. Even as a boy, Cole had changed everything for her.

But yesterday when she’d wandered into the Haddons’ office with her mind on the incoming teenagers, she’d discovered that boy had become a man.

And Red?