Читать книгу The Cowboy's Sweetheart - Brenda Minton - Страница 11

The question she hadn’t even wanted to ask herself. Ryder, her best friend for as long as she could remember, was peering down at her with toffee-brown eyes that had never been more serious. He wasn’t a boy anymore. She wasn’t a kid.

And she didn’t want to answer this question, not today. She didn’t want to stand in front of him, with her heart pounding and her stomach still rolling a little. She looked away, to the field across the road. It was nothing spectacular, just a field with a few too many weeds and a few cattle grazing, but it gave her something else to focus on.

“Andie, come on, we have to talk about this.”

“Like we talked two months ago? Come on, Ryder, admit that neither one of us want to talk about this.”

He took off his hat and brushed his arm across his forehead. He glanced down at her and shook his head. “No, maybe this isn’t how I wanted to spend a Sunday afternoon, but this is what we’ve got.”

“I don’t want to talk about it. Not today.”

“So you are…?”

“I don’t know.” She looked down, at dusty, hard-packed earth. At his boots and hers as they stood toe-to-toe in that moment that changed both of their lives. He was just a cowboy, the kind of guy who had said he’d never get married.

And she’d claimed his conviction as her own. Because that’s what they had done for years. She had never been one of those girls dreaming of weddings, the perfect husband or babies. She didn’t play the games in school with boys’ names and honeymoon locations. Instead she’d thought about how to train the best barrel horse and what it would take to win world titles.

Babies. As much as she had wanted to pretend otherwise, her feminine side had caused her to go soft when she held a baby or watched children play. When she watched her friends with their husbands, she felt a little empty on the inside, because she shared her life with Etta—and with Ryder—but Ryder never shared his heart, not the way a woman wanted a man to share his heart.

“Andie, I’m sorry, this shouldn’t have happened.” He touched her cheek and then his hand dropped to his side and he stepped back a few steps.

“I definitely don’t want you to be sorry.” She looked up, trying her best to be determined. “Like I said, I don’t know. It could be that I caught the stomach virus some of the kids in Kansas had. When I know for sure, I’ll let you know.”

“Let me know?” He brushed a hand through his hair and shoved his hat back in place, a gesture she’d seen a few too many times and she knew exactly what it meant. Frustration.

Well she could tell him a few things about frustration. But she wasn’t in the mood. She wasn’t in the mood to spell out for him that this hadn’t been in her plans, either. He hadn’t been in her plans, not this way.

“Yeah, I’ll let you know. Look, whatever happens, whatever this is, it isn’t going to change anything.” She was glad she sounded firm, sounded strong. She felt anything but, with her insides quivering. “You’ve always been my friend and that’s how it’ll stay.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I’m not going to tie you down or try to drag you into this. It doesn’t change things.”

“I have news for you, Andie Forester, this changes things. This changes everything.”

“It doesn’t have to.”

He shook his head. “Are you being difficult for a reason, other than to just drive me crazy? If you’re pre…uh, having a baby, it changes a lot, now doesn’t it?”

She wanted to smile, because even the word brought a bead of sweat across his brow and his neck turned red. But she couldn’t smile, not yet.

“I’ll let you know when I find out for sure.”

“Fine, you let me know. And we’ll pretend that this isn’t important, if that’s what you really want.” He turned and walked away, a cowboy in faded jeans, the legs worn and a little more faded where he’d spent a lot of time in the saddle.

He waved as he climbed into his truck and started the engine. She waved back. And it already felt different. She’d been lying to herself, trying to tell herself it wouldn’t matter.

She watched him drive away and then she considered her next move. Go inside and face her mother, or stay in the barn and hide from reality. She liked the hiding plan the best. Facing Ryder and her mother, both in the same day, sounded like too much.

In the dark, dusty interior of the barn she could close her eyes and pretend she was the person she’d been two months ago. But she wasn’t.

A lot had happened. She turned over a bucket and sat down. She leaned against the stall door behind her and closed her eyes. Everything had changed. Most importantly, she had changed.

On a Sunday morning in a church service at the rodeo arena she had changed. It had started when she walked out of her horse trailer, a cup of coffee in hand, and she’d heard the couple who led the service singing “Amazing Grace.” She’d walked to the arena and taken a seat on a row of bleachers a good distance from the crowd.

During that service, God had pulled her back to Him. She had been drawn back into a relationship that she’d ignored for years. And it hadn’t been God’s fault that she’d walked away. It had been about her loyalty to Ryder.

She opened her eyes and looked outside, at a sky growing darker as the sun set. The days were cool and growing shorter. She wasn’t ready for winter. She definitely didn’t know how to face spring, and seven months from now.

How did a person go from turning back to God, to making a giant mistake like the one she’d made with Ryder? And what about God? Was He going to reject her now?

She’d had experience with rejection.

It had started with her mother. She squeezed her eyes shut again, and refused the tears that burned, tightening in her throat because she wasn’t going to let them fall.

“Forgive me,” she whispered, wanting peace, something that settled the ache in her heart and took away the heaviness of misgivings.

She stood and walked into the feed room to look at the calendar tacked to the wall. It recorded dates and locations of rodeos. She thumbed back to the month of the Phoenix rodeo and tried to remember. She leaned, resting her forehead against the rough barn wood.

For two months she’d told herself there wouldn’t be consequences, other than a little bit of time when they’d be uncomfortable with each other.

But she’d been wrong. There were definitely consequences, and this wasn’t going away any time soon. She picked up the pencil she used to mark the calendar and she went through the next few months, marking through events she’d planned to attend, but now wouldn’t.

Things had definitely changed.

Roping hadn’t taken Ryder’s mind off Andie and the possibility of a baby. His baby. He didn’t need proof of that fact because he knew Andie. As he drove through Dawson after loading his horse and talking for a few minutes with friends, his mind kept going back, to better choices he could have made. And forward, to how his life would never be the same.

Ryder drove through Dawson. It was Sunday night and that meant there wasn’t a thing going on and nothing open but the convenience store. A few trucks were parked at the side of the building and a few teenagers sat on tailgates, drinking sodas and eating corn dogs. Big night out in Dawson.

He turned left on the road that led out of town, to his family farm, and on past, to the house where Andie had grown up with Etta. He considered driving there and talking to her, trying to figure out what they were going to do. He didn’t figure she’d be ready to talk.

Instead he pulled into his drive and drove back to the barn. As he got out, he noticed Wyatt in the backyard with the girls. Wyatt was sitting at the patio table, the girls were running around the yard with flashlights. They were barely more than babies.

And Wyatt didn’t know what to do with them. That thought kind of sunk into the pit of his stomach. Wyatt had always been the one who seemed to know how to do this adult thing.

Ryder stepped out of the truck and walked back to the trailer to unload his horse. The big gelding stomped restlessly, ready to be out and ready to graze in the pasture.

“Easy up there, Buddy.” Ryder unlatched the back of the trailer. He stepped inside, easing down the unused half of the trailer to untie the animal and back him out.

When they landed on firm ground, Wyatt was there. Ryder smiled at his brother and got a half smile in return. The girls had stopped running and were watching. They weren’t used to horses. Wyatt had taken a job as a youth minister in Florida and they had lived in town.

“Long night?” Wyatt stepped back, watching.

“Yeah, kind of.” How did he tell his brother? Wyatt had always held it together. He’d held them together as best he could.

“What’s up?” Wyatt followed him to the gate, opening it for Ryder to let the horse out into the pasture.

“Nothing.”

“Right.”

Ryder pushed the gate closed and latched it. The horse reached for a bite of grass, managing to act like he hadn’t eaten in days, not hours. Horses were easy to take care of. They could be left alone. They didn’t make requirements. They had to be trained, but he was pretty sure they were a lot easier to train than a child.

He ranched. He raised quarter horses and black angus cattle. He didn’t raise babies.

Until now.

The girls ran up to them, tiny things, not even reaching his hip. He closed the gate and turned his attention to Molly and Kat. And boots. They were wearing his boots. The good ones that had cost a small fortune.

He glanced up, pretty sure that God was testing him. This was a lesson on parenting, or patience. He didn’t know which. Probably both.

“We like your shoes.” Molly grinned, and he was happy to see her smiling. But man, she was wearing his best boots.

The look he gave Wyatt was ignored.

“Boots.” Kat giggled. The pair she was wearing covered her legs completely.

“Yep, boots.” He scooped up Kat and snuggled her close. She giggled and leaned back. She looked a lot like her mom. That had to be hard for Wyatt. Kat had Wendy’s smile, her dimples, her laughter.

And she was a dirty mess. Mud caked her, and his boots. From the tangles in her hair, he guessed it had been a couple of days since it had seen a brush.

“You need a bath.” He held her tight as they headed toward the house.

Kids needed things like baths, and their teeth brushed. They had to be tucked in and someone had to be there for them. They didn’t need parents who drank themselves into a stupor and made choices that robbed a family of security.

He didn’t drink. He had one thing going for him.

Anger knocked around inside him. The past had a way of doing that, and a guy shouldn’t get angry thinking of parents who had died too young.

“If you need to talk…” Wyatt followed him up the steps to the back door, and then he shrugged. They’d never been touchy-feely. Sharing was for afternoon talk shows, not the Johnson brothers. They’d always solved their problems, even dealt with their anger, by roping a few calves or riding hard through the back field.

Every now and then they’d had a knock-down-drag-out in the backyard. Those fights had ended with the two of them on their backs, staring up at the sky, out of breath, but out of anger.

Talking about it didn’t seem like an option.

“Yeah, I know we can talk.” Ryder put his niece down on the floor and flipped on the kitchen light. Kat stomped around in his boots, leaving dirt smudges on the floor he’d mopped last night. “Did you guys eat?”

He looked around. There was an open loaf of bread on the counter and a jar of peanut butter, the lid next to it. He glanced down at Kat. She had a smear of peanut butter on her cheek. He twisted the bread closed.

“Did you feed the girls?” Ryder asked again when Wyatt hadn’t answered.

“Molly made sandwiches.”

“And you think that’s good?” A three-year-old making sandwiches. Ryder screwed the lid on the peanut butter because he had to do something to keep from pushing his brother into a wall to knock sense into him. “Girls, are you hungry?”

Kat grinned and Molly looked at her dad. Ryder exhaled a lot of anger. He didn’t have a clue what little kids ate. Wyatt should have a clue. If Wyatt couldn’t do this, how in the world was Ryder going to manage?

“Tell you what, I’ll make eggs and toast. Do you like eggs?” Ryder opened the fridge door.

“I can do it.” Wyatt took the carton of eggs from his hands.

“You girls go play.” Ryder smiled at his nieces. “I think there’s a box of toys in the living room. Mostly horses and cowboys.”

His and Wyatt’s toys that Ryder had dug out of a back closet the night before.

When the girls were gone, he turned back to his brother. Wyatt cracked eggs into a bowl and he didn’t look up. “I’ve taken care of them for a year.”

“Yeah, I know you have.”

The dog scratched at the back door. Ryder pushed it open and let the animal in, because there was one thing Bear was good at, and that was cleaning up stuff that dropped on the floor. Stuff like peanut butter sandwiches.

Bear sniffed his way into the kitchen and licked the floor clean, except he left the mud. Not that Ryder blamed him for that.

The dog was the best floor sweeper in the country.

“I’m taking care of my girls.” Wyatt poured eggs into the pan. “And I don’t want tips from a guy who hasn’t had kids, or hasn’t had a relationship in his life that lasted more than a month.”

“That’s about to change.” Ryder muttered and he sure hadn’t meant to open that can of worms. He’d meant to butter toast.

“What’s that mean?” Wyatt turned the stove off.

“Remember what it was like, growing up in this house?”

“Sure, I remember.” Wyatt scooped eggs onto four plates. “Always laughter, mostly the drunken kind that ended in a big fight by the end of the night. And then there were the phone calls.”

Phone calls their mother received from the other women. Ryder shook his head, because memories were hard to shake. His dad’s temper had been hard to hide from.

“Right. That’s not the kind of life our kids should have.” Ryder let out a sigh, because he had been holding on to those memories for a long time.

“Well, as far as I know, the only kids in this house are mine, and they’re not going to have that life, not in this house. If you’re insinuating…”

“I’m not insinuating anything about you or how you’re raising those girls.” Ryder tossed a slice of buttered toast to his blue heeler. “Wyatt, there isn’t a person around who blames you for having a hard time right now.”

“I guess this isn’t about me, is it?”

No, but it would have been nice to pretend it was. Ryder shrugged and poured himself a cup of that morning’s coffee. He ignored his brother and slid the coffee into the microwave.

“No, it isn’t about you.” He took his cup of day old coffee out of the microwave. “I’m going outside.”