The Baby Trail

Seeing Garrett, her dad flushed slightly. “I didn’t mean to interrupt anything. If you want me to go—”

Bag in hand, Garrett came over to where they were standing. “No need for that. I was just leaving.”

The two men could have passed like the proverbial ships in the night, but Gwen felt the need to introduce them to each other. “Garrett Maxwell, this is my father, Russ Langworthy. Dad, Garrett is helping me find Amy’s mother.”

Garrett’s brow arched as if she should have put that a different way, but she didn’t care. They were working together on this whether he liked it or not.

“I’ve heard about you,” Russ said, extending his hand.

Garrett shook it with a smile. “Do I want to know what you’ve heard?”

Her father laughed. “Mostly rumors. That you live in the hills, stick to yourself, and you used to be FBI. This is Wild Horse Junction, boy. A kernel of truth gets embellished and goes a long way.”

“What you heard is true.”

“Besides the gossip, I remember your parents. Your dad was a commercial pilot. How are they? I heard after they divorced, your mom moved to Wisconsin and you and your dad to California.”

“Dad passed away some years back. Mom’s still in Wisconsin.”

“Dad, Garrett has to be going,” Gwen intervened. She suspected Garrett wasn’t the type of man to talk about his personal life easily.

“It’s okay,” Garrett assured her, but his body was a little more rigid than it had been a few minutes before.

“I’m sorry to hear about your dad.” After an awkward pause, Russ said, “Divorce is tough on kids. It was tough on Gwen, especially her mother’s move to Indiana,” he explained. “How old were you when your parents separated? Around fifteen?”

“Dad,” Gwen protested fiercely before Garrett could answer.

That wasn’t a subject Gwen wanted to discuss with either Garrett or her father. Long ago she’d dealt with the abandonment by her biological parents, but her adopted mother’s defection had been much harder. Not only had Myra Langworthy divorced her dad, but she’d divorced Gwen, too. All she’d cared about was the man she’d fallen in love with and the new family she’d begun with him in Indiana. Gwen had felt like an outsider on her few visits there, and had lived in quiet misery with her dad, wondering why her adoptive mother hadn’t loved her enough to want her in her life in a meaningful way.

Rerouting her father’s frame of mind, Gwen said to him, “I have cake and coffee if you’re interested.”

“I’m always interested in cake and coffee.” Letting the subject stray from Garrett, he lifted a pamphlet in his hand. “I brought a brochure about a cruise I’m thinking of taking. I’d like your opinion on it.” To Garrett he said, “It was good to meet you.” With a glance at the kitchen, he told her, “I’ll go start on that cake,” and then he left them alone while he ambled into the other room.

“I’m sorry about the questions,” Gwen said as soon as her dad was out of earshot.

“Your father was just making conversation.”

“Maybe.” She never knew exactly what her dad was thinking, let alone what he’d do next.

After studying her for a few moments, Garrett asked, “How old were you when your parents divorced?”

Did she want to talk about this with Garrett? She only hesitated a few moments. “I was six—too young to understand, yet old enough to know my life was changed irrevocably…just like Dad’s.”

Shaking off the melancholy she often felt when examining memories of those years after the divorce, she gestured to the bag in Garrett’s hand. “Let me know what you find out about that, okay?”

“How do you know I’m going to find out anything?”

“Because you already have an idea about the yarn.”

“Were you a private investigator in your past life?” he asked sarcastically.

“Nope, but I watch CSI.”

When he laughed, she liked the sound of it. She liked way too much about him.

“I’ll let you know what happens.”

Their gazes locked for a few interminable moments and she vividly remembered everything about their kiss, about him holding her, about him backing away. The chemistry between them was so hot, it had burned away memories of Mark’s defection. Even so, in another few moments, she would have ended the kiss and backed away. At least that’s what she told herself.

Garrett opened the door and without a goodbye, he stepped into the cloudless night. Deep down Gwen knew he was a much different kind of man than her ex-fiancé. Garrett was intense…focused…and passionate. She closed the door behind him.

Maybe cake and coffee with her dad would help her find her equilibrium. Maybe it would help alleviate the worry that was always with her that he would fall off the wagon again.

“We shouldn’t have come,” Gwen said. “You’re tired.”

On Thursday evening, Gwen and Shaye sat in Kylie’s living room while she brought them glasses of iced tea. She’d insisted on getting it herself. Almost six months pregnant now, she was wearing a maternity top with her jeans. She looked tired and Gwen couldn’t imagine her friend trying to keep up with the chores on the ranch, work a job in town and take care of herself, too.

Sitting on a teal-and-wine striped chair with huge rolled arms that seemed to swallow her, Kylie protested, “I’m fine.”

“You’ve got to take care of yourself,” Shaye suggested gently, “and the baby.”

“I’m doing that. I try to be finished in the barn by nine, so I’m getting a good night’s sleep.” Kylie had pulled her long, straight blond hair back into a ponytail and her blue eyes under her bangs seemed to hold constant worry now.

“I hope you’re not doing any heavy lifting,” Gwen scolded, noticing that the plasma screen TV Alex had bought to study his rodeo technique was gone.

“Dix won’t let me. You know that.”

Dix Pepperdale had been foreman of Saddle Ridge Ranch since long before Jack Warner, Kylie’s father-in-law, had died. He looked on Kylie as a daughter and was protective of her.

“How’s the new mustang?” Gwen asked.

“Great.” Suddenly Kylie brightened. “Feather isn’t afraid of me now, at least not as afraid as she was. I hope this week I can get her to eat out of my hand.”

Kylie had adopted a wild mustang from those that ran free in the Big Horn Mountains. When the Bureau of Land Management thinned the herd, they sold them at auction.

“She’s really helping me cope…with Alex being gone,” Kylie added. “It’s so odd. I do miss him. Even though I was thinking about leaving him, before we were married we were friends for so many years.”

When Gwen thought about Alex, she pictured a charming cowboy who’d never grown up. His parents had pampered him. He’d pampered himself. He hadn’t been ready for marriage, not a real marriage where commitment was all-important. Kylie had found that out too late.

“Have you heard from Brock?” Shaye asked.

Kylie hesitated a few moments. “He called a few days after the funeral.”

It was unusual that Kylie hadn’t told them that before now.

“I had his address in Texas and I called there, leaving a message for him to phone me,” Kylie went on. “He didn’t get it until after the funeral. He was in some jungle looking for oil. It wasn’t until he got back to base camp that he found my message.”

“Did you tell him you were pregnant?” Gwen asked. Kylie had taken the job as horse trainer at Saddle Ridge when she was seventeen. Since she lived on-site she had run into Alex’s older half brother Brock whenever he had come home from college. Gwen knew that when Kylie was younger, she’d thought Brock Warner had walked on water.