Lonetree Ranchers: Colt

The panic suddenly filling her violet eyes bothered him. A lot. “Are you all right, Kaylee?”

She nodded. “I’m fine.”

“Me see, Mommy,” the little voice insisted. “Me see.”

“Not now, sweetie,” Kaylee said gently.

Colt felt as though he’d been sucker punched. Kaylee had a child? Was she married?

“We need to talk,” he said seriously.

He told himself that Mitch would want Colt to make sure she was doing okay. But the truth was, he wanted to know what was going on.

“I can’t imagine what you think we need to talk about.” She gave him a one-shouldered shrug, but he could tell from the tone of her voice that she was nervous as hell about something.

“Come on, Kaylee,” he said, watching her closely. “I drove all the way down here from the Lonetree just to talk to you. The least you can do is give me five minutes.”

Her defeated expression caused the air to lodge in his lungs. Something was definitely going on, and Colt had every intention of finding out what is was.

“Kaylee?”

She closed the door, released the chain, then swung it wide for him to step into the tiny apartment. “I’m sorry about the mess,” she said, pointing to the toys scattered on the floor in front of the couch. “I wasn’t expecting anyone.”

Colt turned to tell her he was used to seeing toys scattered all over his two brothers’ homes, but the words died somewhere between his vocal cords and opened mouth. The baby riding Kaylee’s hip was a little girl with raven curls. Her face was buried shyly against Kaylee’s neck, but something about the child caused his scalp to prickle and his pulse to race.

“Is she yours?” he asked cautiously.

Kaylee stared at him for what seemed like an eternity before she slowly nodded. “Yes. This is my daughter, Amber.”

At the sound of her name, the baby looked up, but when she saw him staring at her, she stuck one tiny index finger in her mouth and once again hid her face in Kaylee’s shoulder.

The glimpse Colt had gotten hadn’t been much, but it was enough to see that the little girl’s eyes were blue. A vivid blue. His sisters-in-law, Annie and Samantha, called it “Wakefield blue.”

His heart pounding against his ribs like a jungle drum, he had a hard time drawing air into his lungs. The child had to be around the same age as his brother Brant’s little boy, Zach. From there it didn’t take much for Colt to do the math.

Swallowing hard, he asked, “She’s mine, isn’t she, Kaylee?”

Colt watched her bite her lower lip to keep it from trembling. He knew the answer, but he needed to hear her tell him.

“Kaylee?”

She took a deep breath, then defiantly met his gaze. “Yes, Colt. Amber is your daughter, too.”

Two

“Dammit, Kaylee, why didn’t you tell me?” Colt demanded. Conflicting emotions twisted his gut and he had to force himself to take several deep breaths in an effort to stay calm. “Didn’t you think I had the right to know about my own daughter?”

Anger flashed in her violet eyes. “No.”

Colt wasn’t sure how he’d expected her to answer, but the vehemence in her tone surprised him. He’d never seen her this angry before.

“Why not?” he asked, his own anger flaring.

If anyone had the right to be pissed off here, it was him. Kaylee had been the one who kept him from knowing about his child.

The baby started to whimper and clutch at her mother. Apparently their raised voices were upsetting her.

“Would you like to have some juice, sweetie?” Kaylee asked, her voice once again soft and gentle as she rubbed the little girl’s back.

The child nodded.

“Let me get her settled down.” Kaylee’s voice was calm, but the look she gave him was pure defiance. “Then we’ll talk.”

“You’re damned right we will,” he muttered, watching her carry her daughter—his daughter— into the kitchenette.

His daughter.

Colt’s chest swelled with a feeling he’d never before experienced. He was the daddy of a two-year-old child—a little girl who looked just like him. The thought caused a lump to form in his throat and made it hard as hell for him to drag air into his lungs.

As the knowledge sank in, questions flooded his mind. How could Kaylee have done this to him? Why hadn’t she let him know that their only night together had made her pregnant?

He wasn’t sure what her reasons had been, but he had every intention of finding out. Removing his cowboy hat, he set it down beside a tape player on a shelf by the door. He wasn’t going anywhere until Kaylee gave him some answers. And, he decided as he ran a frustrated hand through his thick hair, they’d better be damned good ones.

Kaylee brushed past him to set Amber on the floor with her toys. He waited until she handed the toddler a small plastic glass he’d heard his sisters-in-law refer to as a sippy cup before he asked, “Were you ever going to tell me about her?”

Kaylee picked up a mug from the coffee table. “No.”

Shocked, Colt started to ask her why, but she stopped him by motioning for him to follow her into the kitchen. Walking behind her, he tried not to notice that her cutoff jeans hugged her cute little rear to perfection, or the fact that they exposed a lot more of her long, slender legs than they covered. When she reached up to get another coffee cup out of the cabinet for him, he swallowed hard. Her hot-pink tank top pulled away from the waistband of her cutoffs and gave him more than a fair view of her smooth, flat abdomen.

He shook his head. What the hell was wrong with him? Kaylee had not only kept his only child a secret from him, she was Mitch’s little sister. And although Colt had given in to temptation once, he couldn’t—wouldn’t—let it happen again.

Pouring them both a cup of coffee, she indicated that he should sit at the small table. When he lowered himself into a chair, she seated herself across from him so that she could watch their daughter play with a small teddy bear.

“As far as I’m concerned, you never needed to know about Amber,” she said, glaring at him.

Anger and confusion raced through him and he had to wait a moment before he could speak. Losing his cool wouldn’t net him the answers he needed.

“Being pregnant was the reason you took that year off from school, wasn’t it?” he asked, suddenly understanding her evasive answers in the training room the night he’d been injured.

“Yes.”

“You should have told me,” he said, trying to keep his voice even. “I would have helped.”

“I didn’t want or need your assistance.” Her voice shook with emotion. “I never wanted you to know about Amber.”

“Why, Kaylee?” He’d never seen her this stubborn. But then, he was just as determined. “What made you think I didn’t have the right to know that I’d fathered a child?”

“You gave up the right,” she said without looking at him. Her voice was a little more calm, but her words couldn’t have held more resolution.