Читать книгу Expecting His Brother's Baby - Karen Rose Smith - Страница 8

Wild Horse Junction, Wyoming

Kylie Warner didn’t often compare herself to other women. She’d been a tomboy all her life, more comfortable on a horse than anywhere else. Function, rather than fashion, had always directed her clothing choice. But meeting this pert and sexily dressed waitress from Clementine’s—Wild Horse Junction’s watering hole—Kylie felt as if she’d let herself go. With her straight blond hair drawn back in a ponytail and her parka fitting snugly over her maternity outfit, she wondered what had happened to her sense of womanly pride since Alex died.

“I’m Trish,” the waitress said with a smile that looked more forced than genuine. “We can use the boss’s office. He went home for dinner.”

When Trish had called Kylie, she’d said she wanted to talk about boarding her horse at Saddle Ridge Ranch.

Since her pregnancy, Kylie hadn’t been able to take on training horses…or even giving lessons. After her baby was born, she was hoping to jump in again with both feet. Until she could, boarding horses would help keep Saddle Ridge from sinking deeper into debt.

At seven-and-a-half-months pregnant, she was driving herself hard, concentrating on the life growing inside of her, managing Saddle Ridge as well as working as office manager at Wild Horse’s temporary employment agency. No wonder she hadn’t gotten her hair trimmed in months or applied more than lipstick before she left the ranch every morning.

As she followed the brunette in the short black skirt down the hall to the saloon’s office, the hairs on the nape of Kylie’s neck prickled. Something about Trish Hammond’s demeanor seemed…off. Kylie’s hand protectively went to her tummy. The fingers of her other hand gripped her purse tighter.

This is about boarding a horse, she scolded herself. Relax.

Yet once she stood inside the small cluttered office and Trish Hammond closed the door, her uneasiness grew. Squaring her shoulders and lifting her chin, she looked the waitress in the eye. “You have one horse to board?”

Trish’s red blouse clung to her breasts as she gave an offhanded shrug. “I never exactly told you I had a horse to board. I just said I wanted to talk about it. Really, I had another reason for asking you here. I have something you might want. It belonged to your husband.”

Trish opened her cowhide purse, the same shade of red as her boots, and extracted something shiny.

Kylie felt suddenly queasy as she recognized the belt buckle. Alex had several of them that he’d won at rodeos. Bull riding had always been his passion…and it had killed him.

Her mouth went dry. Her heart raced. Her worst fears, which had gnawed at her over the past couple of years, had also urged her to hide her head in the sand. Yet she knew she had to play this out. She knew she had to finally face the truth.

Taking the buckle from Trish, she turned it over and saw the engraving on the back. Alex had been dead for four months, but he still had the power to hurt her. The date on the belt buckle was April, the month before she’d gotten pregnant.

When she lifted her gaze to Trish’s, she knew this was the woman who’d been calling the ranch and hanging up whenever Alex wasn’t home. This was the woman who had been her competitor and she hadn’t even known it. It had been Trish’s initial on the note on the cocktail napkin Kylie had found when she’d sorted through Alex’s clothes.

Why had Trish called her here? To humiliate her? To see for herself the woman Alex had married, yet betrayed? Kylie could attack. She could sling accusations. She could show how much she was shaken by this proof that Alex had cared for someone else, maybe as much as he’d cared for her, perhaps even more. But she knew anything she did or said could affect her baby. She could gain satisfaction for a minute, but anxiety from words flung in pain would last a lot longer. Her hands trembled and she wouldn’t let Trish Hammond see that.

Whatever Trish’s reasons for needing this confrontation, Kylie wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of a scene. She laid the buckle on the desk. “If Alex gave that to you, then he wanted you to have it.” She turned to leave.

Obviously Trish had wanted to get a much bigger rise out of her because she asked, “Didn’t you mind sharing your husband?”

Fury rocked Kylie. She didn’t think she’d ever been this angry in her whole life. But she also knew her life with her son or daughter was more important than any hurt this woman could inflict.

Still, she couldn’t keep the fierceness from her voice. “I believed in the vows I made. I tried to hold my marriage together, but I couldn’t do it alone.”

As tears burned her eyes, she turned her back on the other woman and left Clementine’s quickly. Outside she blindly made her way to her small blue pickup at the edge of the parking lot. Rooting for her keys, she finally found them as she tried not to think…tried not to feel…tried not to remember.

However, as she climbed into her truck and turned the ignition switch, she did remember—the weeks at a time Alex had gone on the road following the circuit, the nights of loneliness, the days of chores and finally facing the fact that Saddle Ridge was sinking deeper and deeper into debt and her husband wouldn’t listen to her about it.

Backing out of her parking space, she veered toward the lot’s entrance and Wild Horse Way. Once on the road she turned on the heater, knowing she was too cold inside for the warmer air to do any good. Tears began falling then as she relived her decision to leave Alex if he didn’t go to a counselor with her. Before he’d left for his last rodeo in Las Vegas, they’d argued. He’d accused her of getting pregnant on purpose to keep him at home more. She’d insisted their marriage didn’t stand a chance unless they tried couples’ therapy. That had been the main reason for her wanting to take the job at the temp agency. Not only to earn more money to pay for the bills, but to pay for counseling so they could put their marriage back together and maybe start over.

As she avoided a pothole in the road, tears fell harder. She increased her speed outside of town. Her heart hurt so badly she knew it might finally break. Picturing the satisfaction in Trish Hammond’s eyes as she’d handed Kylie the belt buckle, Kylie couldn’t hold in the sobs that broke loose now.

Distracted, she barely registered the upcoming pothole. As she hit it, her truck listed and fell to the right, banging onto the road. She lost control and, in horror, knew she was going to land in the ravine.

One prayer passed her lips. “Lord, keep my baby safe.”

Then the truck lurched sideways and fell sharply, throwing her against the door. When her head hit the steering wheel, a gray fog swept over her. Closing her eyes, she let it engulf her, relieved to escape the pain of a broken heart.