“It can’t be yours, though.” His words suddenly become sharp and crisp again. “No news is good news. She would’ve told you.”
“Right.” Would she have told me? She didn’t want anybody to know we hooked up in the first place. Admitting she’s pregnant withmy babywould make it awfully hard to deny we fucked.
“You wrapped it up, right?”
“Yeah, of course.”
“Then I’m sure you’re good, man. Don’t stress about it.” He slaps me on the shoulder and strolls into the bunkhouse like he didn’t just drop a fucking atom bomb into my lap.
If only it were easy to simplynot stress about it. For the rest of the night, the rumour consumes every thought. I go to bed early because my eyes can’t focus well enough to differentiate between a club and a spade during poker with the other ranch hands. Then I dream about Cass turning up on my doorstep with a baby. And it’s the first thing on my mind as I splash cold water over my face in the morning. I can’t even enjoy my coffee, my stomach’s churning as if I chugged back a two-six of vodka last night. Assuming it’s mine, she’s close to three months along already.
Shit.Does that mean she decided to keep it?
Sitting around the massive kitchen table up at the ranch’s “big house,” Jackson assesses me in the same way he does an unbroken horse, with an intimate understanding of exactly what’s going on between the ears. I fall smack dab in the middle of him and Denny in age, so the three of us caused nothing but trouble around the ranch as kids. We may not be related by blood, but they’re more of a family to me than the four biological brothers I have. Growing up on a rural cattle ranch, with a permanently exhausted mother and a drunk, violent dad, forces you to find your chosen family pretty early.
Jackson clears his throat. “Denny talked to you, I assume?” Thankfully, the kitchen’s busy enough for nobody to give a shit about our conversation.
“Sure did.” I swallow the bile rising in my throat.
“You good to work today?”
Not a fucking chance. I don’t even think I have the wherewithal to tack up my horse, something I’ve done half a million times.
“No. Not at all, man. Once I’m out there, it’ll be fine, though.”
“Aus,” Jackson calls to the oldest of the three brothers, who’s drinking coffee at the far end of the weathered wooden table. “Red’s off today. He needs to go handle something. I’ll work in his place.”
Austin glances up at us with a skeptical side-eye. “Okay. You good, Red?”
Whatever magical touch Cecily has that mellowed out his harsh attitude over the last year, I like it. The old Austin wouldn’t have been so quick to give a ranch hand the day off when we’re arguably in the busiest season for cattle ranching. With the amount of work to be done, he’d have all twenty of us working sixteen-hour days, seven days a week, if it was legal.
“I’ll let you know in a few hours, boss.”
“Sounds a bit inauspicious.”
“Don’t know what that means, but… If there’s anything to share, I’ll tell you guys later.”
Cassidy’s house is easy enough to find by process of elimination. Like sorting cattle. Wells Canyon has about 2,000 residents, and I know where at least half of them live, so I hone in on the houses I don’t know. I wind my piece of shit Dodge down the quiet streets, reading mailbox names, and searching for her crappy little blue car. Thankfully, I’ve seen it parked outside The Horseshoe enough times to spot it from a mile away, in the driveway of a small, white rancher with a bright-yellow door.
This is fucking stupid. I can’t show up at her house at seven a.m. and ask if she’s pregnant with my baby out of the blue. Who the fuck does that? It’s completely unhinged.
We had sexone time.Even if she is pregnant—which I don’t know for sure—the odds of it being mine are incredibly low. I should drive back to Wells Ranch and pretend this didn’t happen. Not knowing one way or the other will eat me alive, but enough whiskey can cure that problem.
Then again, I came all this way. And, as soon as she confirms this was all a misunderstanding, we can carry on. She can tell me I’m being the world’s biggest moron, slap me, and we’ll never talk about any of this again. Like she wanted.
Doesn’t matter that I saw her in a new light that night. Not just the funny little girl from elementary school. Not just the popular and smart girl who wouldn’t even look in my direction in high school. Not just the snarky, pretty waitress from The Horseshoe. She’s fucking gorgeous. A sexual goddess. Absolute perfection. And she wanted me, even though she tried so damn hard to pretend like she didn’t.
Doesn’t matter that I’d do practically anything to have her again. There are three ways this can go:
She’s pregnant with my kid and didn’t want me to find out.
She’s pregnant with Derek’s kid, and they’re backtogether.
