Читать книгу The Cowboy's Triple Surprise - Barbara Daille White - Страница 13

Chapter Five

Three scoops of ice cream might have been more than he’d needed, but after witnessing Shay’s obvious desire to see him gone, Tyler had been doubly determined to find an excuse to stick around.

He’d given her his exact reasons for his plan to stay. The question he’d thrown at her about her potential for an escape hadn’t been idle talk, either. If he’d left the Big Dipper and come back again, he wouldn’t have been a bit surprised to find the door locked and Shay long gone.

From the booth he’d taken in one corner of the room, he could watch her as she worked behind the counter. He could also listen as she chatted with one customer after another while filling their orders. Now, she had gone to the back room for something, and it was all he could do not to get to his feet and follow her.

The shop had stayed busy for the better part of an hour. It was as if everyone in Cowboy Creek was scheming to keep him from having things out with her.

Of course, that was paranoia talking.

Even as he had the thought, danged if the bell over the door didn’t ring yet again. This time, he recognized the customer who entered. The man took one look at him, grinned, and headed in his direction.

Cole Slater slid into the seat opposite, and Tyler’s heart slid down to the vicinity of his knees. Was he never going to get to talk to Shay alone?

Happy as he was to see his buddy, this wasn’t the time or place he’d have chosen for them to get together.

Cole had no inkling of that, though. Still grinning, he reached for Tyler’s hand. They shook, and the other man said, “Tina told me you were here.”

“How did she know?” Tyler frowned in confusion.

“No, not here at the Dipper. I meant, in Cowboy Creek. We talked earlier today, but she was tied up getting ready for the wedding reception at the Hitching Post, and we didn’t have time to get into much detail.”

“Then what brings you to the Big Dipper?”

“Ice cream, what else? Hey, Shay!”

She had returned from the back room and looked over at their booth. Reluctantly, it seemed to Tyler, she headed their way. “A pint of the usual?” she asked Cole.

“You’ve got it. I’m surprising Tina. She gets cravings,” he said to Tyler, then turned back to Shay. “How about you? Working right here in an ice cream shop, you ought to be able to get your fill of any flavor you like.”

She shook her head. “No, I see it so much every day, ice cream’s not on my list.”

Tyler wondered what she did crave, but she didn’t say.

“Let me know when you’re ready and I’ll get your order together.” She walked away to greet an elderly pair who had come in and taken seats near the counter. As she stood beside their table, chatting, her hand went to her lower back.

Tyler frowned. With the weight she was carrying up front, she probably ought to be sitting once in a while, taking a break. Taking it easy.

“She’s due even before Tina,” Cole said, as if he’d watched Tyler watching Shay.

He nodded, but didn’t comment. Right now, he didn’t want to talk about due dates with anyone but Shay.

He sure couldn’t escape the irony of this situation. All his life, his parents had nagged him about making something of himself. About acting like a responsible adult. Maybe they’d been right. Because, even unconfirmed, his suspicions regarding Shay had sent him on the run out at the ranch this afternoon.

Only the knowledge that he had to find out the truth had kept him from leaving Cowboy Creek altogether and brought him here tonight.

Deliberately, he changed the subject. “How’s it feel to be on the verge of becoming a daddy again?” he asked Cole.

“Great. I highly recommend it. You ought to give it a try sometime.”

He blinked. Could there be a chance he had jumped to the wrong conclusion about Shay’s pregnancy? Was he going to make a fool of himself with his question to her?

“Are you planning to stick around for a while?” Cole asked. “Tina didn’t say.”

“That’s because I haven’t decided yet.”

“Well, we’ll have to make sure you stay longer than you did last time. I barely got to see you.”

Last summer after meeting Shay, Tyler had spent most of his free time during the short visit hanging around the Big Dipper. Guilt made him cringe—until he recalled the circumstances. His buddy couldn’t have had a clue about anything he’d gotten up to. “Not my fault, man. You took off on your honeymoon, remember?”

“That’s not something I’ll ever forget. But that’s exactly my point.”

“I don’t plan to stay very long,” he said truthfully.

Cole nodded. Normally, he could talk the ears off a donkey. But to Tyler’s surprise, the other man stood abruptly, ready to depart. “We’ll catch up when you get out to the ranch. Time for me to go home to my family.”

He said those last two words with unmistakable pride. Pride and family—a combination Tyler didn’t know much about.

Cole went to the counter to get his order, then waved farewell as he left the shop. Most of the other customers soon followed him, except the older couple near the counter.

When they finally made their slow way across the room, Tyler was about at the end of his patience. Shay seemed to miss that fact completely. After walking the pair to the door and waving goodbye, she turned the open sign to closed. She wiped down the couple’s table and tucked their chairs neatly beneath it. She closed out the register and straightened up the counter. Then she disappeared into the back room and didn’t return.

It felt too much like yesterday afternoon when she’d run off from the Hitching Post. He wouldn’t put it past her to have slipped out a back door.

Frowning, he tossed his ice cream dish into a nearby trash container and stalked across the tile floor to the doorway behind the counter.

In the workroom, Shay stood with her back to him, leaning over an industrial-size dishwasher while she loaded ice cream scoops and metal milk shake containers into the compartment inside. As he watched, she paused to rest her hand against the washer’s door. With her free hand, she rubbed her lower back. He felt another momentary pang of concern.

“Come take a load off.” At the sound of his voice, she shied like a startled rabbit. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you.”

“But insults don’t require an apology?”

“Who insulted you?”

“You did. Is that what you think about pregnant women—they’re just carrying a load?”

He ground his teeth together. So much for his show of concern. “It was a turn of phrase.”

“One that turned in the wrong direction.”

“Jed said the same thing to me this afternoon, and I didn’t take offense. Maybe you’re being overly sensitive.” Or maybe that sensitivity came along with pregnancy. Suddenly, he felt as if he were walking on eggshells in the middle of a henhouse—a helluva place to be. “Let me rephrase it, then. Come and take a seat. We might as well both be comfortable, because there’s no way I’m leaving until we’re done talking.”

“What if I have nothing to say?”

He laughed without humor. “You’ve said plenty already, even if you haven’t run off at the mouth. Leaving the Hitching Post yesterday was only the first of a long list of clues.”

She raised her chin belligerently, but he stared her down, waiting her out. He’d stay here all night, if necessary.

As if she could read that thought in his expression, she finally sighed and closed the dishwasher door. She crossed the workroom warily, the way a horse accustomed to mistreatment approached someone she feared would deliver more of it. A pang of regret flowed through him. Only his need to hear the truth from her kept him standing there.

When she came nearer, the light scent of her perfume surrounded him, unsettled him, bringing back a time he didn’t want to think about.

“Have a seat,” he said as pleasantly as he could. He gestured to the booth where he’d been sitting. “I’ve kept it waiting for you.”

She slipped onto the bench and tried to slide behind the tabletop. Her belly, nearly pressed against the table’s edge, made her movements awkward. The sight made him swallow hard. He took the seat across from her and knocked back the cup of water she’d given him along with his triple dip of ice cream.

She folded her hands on the tabletop in front of her.

Suddenly, his palms began to sweat. He wiped them on his jeans, rested his hands on his thighs and waited. Let her make the first move.

“Well, obviously,” she said at last, “you’re not here just because you had a sudden desire for my company. Or for ice cream.”

“And obviously, you’ve got something you don’t want to tell me.”

She looked away. The pale green shirt she wore rose and fell with her deep breath. Her reaction didn’t come as a shock. He knew what it meant. No matter what he’d tried to tell himself, or what that brief uncertainty he’d felt a few minutes ago tried to tell him, he had known the truth the moment she’d turned pale in the Hitching Post’s dining room.

She turned back to him, her green eyes glittering. “I’m sure you’ve already guessed. I got pregnant the night we slept together.”

“And you didn’t think to tell me?”

“Why would I?”

He stared at her, not trusting himself to speak.

After a moment, she lifted her chin again as if it bolstered her courage to attack. “How exactly was I supposed to tell you? You didn’t leave a forwarding address. And you never got in touch with me. What was I supposed to do, tell the Garlands I needed to contact you about a little something you left behind?”

“There’s nobody else?” Again her face drained of color, and he realized how she had taken what he’d said—because he’d phrased it like a fool. “I mean, is there anybody else in the picture now?”

“Why is that important?”

“It’s not, I guess.” Or was it? He needed to get his head together and focus on what did matter. “When are you due?”

“In about three weeks.”

He eyed what he could see of her over the tabletop. “Are you sure? You look as though you’re...ready right now.”

“I feel ready right now. But my doctors say otherwise. At least, at the moment. But they also say anything could happen.”