Cowboy's Baby

But it wasn’t Matt standing in the hall outside. Or any of her other brothers, either. It was Brady.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, fumbling instantly with the open sides of her bathrobe to pull them around her.

But not before Brady’s gaze dropped enough to take in the Wyoming Women are Wild, Wicked and Willing printed across the front of her shirt—a gag Christmas gift from Matt that caused just the corners of Brady’s mouth to tilt upward.

Kate yanked the tie belt around her waist and tied it to make sure she was wrapped up good and tight.

“I’m sorry to bother you,” Brady said in a hushed voice, obviously to keep his impromptu visit clandestine. He raised his chin, pointing in the direction of the room behind her. “Can I come in?”

She wanted to say no and avoid more of what it was doing to her to merely think about having him in her rooms, alone, this late at night, wearing nothing but a T-shirt and a bathrobe.

But he had a manila envelope in one hand and enough of an air of formality about him to let her know he was only there on business.

Business she needed to attend to.

So Kate stepped back and motioned him into the sitting room.

He didn’t hesitate to come in, but he did take a quick glance up and down the hall a split second before. And he made sure to close the door behind him as soon as he could. Very quietly.

That spicy scent that had caught her attention at dinner wafted in after him, and Kate had the urge to close her eyes and take a few deep breaths. But she resisted. She also tried not to notice how Brady seemed to fill the room just by his presence in it, tried not to feel the warm rush of something that seemed dangerously like excitement.

But trying and succeeding were two different things.

Brady held up the manila envelope. “Divorce papers. As promised,” he said, as if he’d brought a treasure map they’d both been searching for.

It didn’t feel good to her, though, and Kate didn’t know why.

“I wanted to go over them with you,” he continued. “To make sure you know what’s in them. Not that they’re complicated, but just to make sure we’re clear on everything.”

“Okay,” she said, hearing the clipped tone of her voice and resolving to amend it. The divorce had been at her insistence, she reminded herself. It was what she wanted. It was the logical thing to do.

And the baby? a little voice in the back of her mind asked.

But she didn’t know yet how she was going to handle letting Brady know about the baby, and she certainly wasn’t inclined to blurt out the news to him right then.

“Why don’t you sit down?” she invited primly, nodding toward the sofa, two overstuffed chairs and the coffee table that were positioned to face the fireplace and the French doors on the outside wall.

“Thanks.”

He crossed the room in long strides of massive legs she had no doubt could control a stallion with nothing but their pressure.

But the fact that he went ahead of her to the couch left Kate with a view of his backside, too. A view she couldn’t resist taking in. A view of broad shoulders and a straight back that narrowed to his waist and to a rear end that made her mouth go dry.

She might have been a virgin until two months ago but that didn’t mean she hadn’t done her fair share of looking at men’s physiques—especially their derrieres. And Brady’s was the best she’d ever seen.

Only when he sat down and deprived her of the sight did she realize she’d been ogling him and cut it short to follow him to the sitting area of the room.

He was at one end of the sofa, so she sat in the chair that was at a forty-five-degree angle to it, grateful that she wouldn’t have to sit beside him to see the papers he was setting out on the coffee table. But even from there she caught a whiff of the clean, spicy scent of him, and it went right to her head.

Maybe it was the pregnancy, she told herself. She’d noticed that her sense of smell was heightened, so maybe it wasn’t so much that he really smelled wonderful, but that she merely had some kind of illusion that he did.

Except that it didn’t seem like an illusion. It seemed as if he just plain smelled terrific.

“This is pretty straightforward,” he said then, flipping through the pages as he spoke. “A simple dissolution of marriage. Basically what’s on all these pages amounts to declarations that we have no joint property or assets to split up, no mutual residence for one of us to keep and the other to move out of, no children so no custody or visitation issues.”

Kate’s mouth went dry, and she didn’t hear the rest of what he was saying.

No children so no custody or visitation issues…

Somehow it hadn’t occurred to her that the baby she was carrying should be included in the divorce papers. Custody and visitation? Those were things she hadn’t even thought about.

Of course, she hadn’t really thought about much of anything in terms of Brady and the baby. She hadn’t had time to think about it. In the four days since she’d had her pregnancy confirmed, she hadn’t thought about much of anything except the fact that she actually was pregnant.

It had come as such a shock. The first period she’d missed hadn’t even made her curious. Her cycles had always been irregular and it wasn’t unusual for her to skip a period, so she hadn’t thought a thing about it. It was only when she realized she’d missed a second one that she’d put two and two together.

And in those four days since she’d taken the home pregnancy test and then gone in to see a doctor in Cheyenne to have it verified, she’d mainly been walking around in a daze. About the only thing she’d actually thought through was that she wanted the baby. But beyond that, well, she was still just trying to come to grips with everything.

“Don’t sign anything,” Brady was saying, the first words to penetrate her thoughts since child custody and visitation. But “Don’t sign anything” seemed to come as a reprieve, so maybe that’s why it got through to her.

“Read it all when you have a chance,” he advised, “that way you’ll know what’s there. Then it has to be signed in front of a notary. When we’ve done that, I’ll send it back to the lawyer and he’ll file it with the courts.”

“A notary,” Kate repeated to prove she was listening and to cover up that she hadn’t been before.

“It’s all just a formality, but we have to do it right for it to be legal.”

“But Elk Creek is a small town. If we get a notary here word is bound to leak, and this won’t be only between you and me anymore.”

“We’ll work something out. Maybe we’ll trump up an excuse to fly into the nearest town and do it there in a day or so.”

That seemed like a reasonable solution. And with Matt in matchmaker mode, her brother would likely not question any time she and Brady shared.

“And that’s about it,” Brady concluded, tapping the edges of the pages on the coffee table to make sure they were all even before he laid them on top of the envelope. “I’m sorry it took so long for me to get here with this. But my buddy in Alaska had an accident that put him in the hospital, and if I hadn’t gone up there and flown for him until he was back on his feet, he would have lost his charter company.”

“It’s okay,” Kate assured. “I thought it would take some time.”

The mention of Alaska brought a return of that strange twinge of jealousy she’d felt earlier. And that strange twinge of jealousy compelled her to say, “So Alaska, huh? You talked at dinner about all you did there, but I imagine you met a lot of interesting people, too.”

“Sure. I met a lot of interesting people. It’s an interesting place.”

“Anyone…special?”

She didn’t have the courage to look straight at him when she asked that, so she pretended to restraighten the divorce document before slipping it back into the manila envelope. But out of the corner of her eye she saw Brady smile for the first time since he’d come into the room. A small smile, but a smile she remembered well from Las Vegas. A smile that made a warm rush of something she couldn’t pinpoint run through her.

Unless of course the smile was due to a happy thought about another woman….

“Did I meet anyone special?” he repeated.

“You know, like did you run into Eskimos or fur trappers or bear hunters?” she persisted.

“I met a few of all those.”

“But not many women, I imagine. I read not long ago that there’s still a low ratio of women to men. Is that true?”

“Are you askin’ if we should add adultery as grounds for the divorce?” he joked.

“No,” she said as if the very thought were outlandish.

“Well, you can relax. I was too busy for romance, and what you read is right, I didn’t run into many women. Especially not many available ones. The irreconcilable differences as grounds for the divorce will have to stand.”

“That doesn’t matter to me. I was really only curious about Alaska’s population,” she fibbed. Badly.

“Either way.”

Despite the fact that he seemed to have seen through her, the news that he hadn’t hooked up with another woman in the past two months brightened Kate’s spirits considerably. Although she didn’t want to think about why it should.

Then he changed the subject. “Seems like you’ve managed to keep the whole marriage thing under wraps.”

“Nobody knows anything,” she confirmed. And you don’t know all you think you do.

“That’s good. Then we’ll be able to take care of it without anyone being the wiser.

Oh, if only that were true for the long run….

“And what about you? Are you still mad at me?” he ventured carefully, as if he were afraid he might set off the same reaction he had on New Year’s morning.

Kate was embarrassed at the memory of her behavior and decided this was the opportunity she needed to apologize for it. “I know I went a little wacko the next morning. It’s just that doing what we did… Well, it was so out of character for me. I’m such a straight arrow….” She wished this were coming out more smoothly, but the awkwardness of the situation was making for a bumpy road. “Anyway, I want you to know that in spite of what I said then, I accept that I’m just as responsible as you are for this whole thing.”

“So I’m not the devil incarnate anymore?” Brady asked with a note of wry levity to his voice.

“No. I was out of line that next morning. My memory of New Year’s Eve isn’t clear but it’s clear enough to know that no one twisted my arm. I was all for getting married. And the rest,” she added under her breath.

Brady’s smile stretched into a grin. “Why am I gettin’ the impression that you’re blamin’ yourself now?”

Maybe because she was. Or at least she had been for the past four days, ever since finding out she was pregnant.

Which also happened to be about the same time she’d begun hearing her mother’s voice in her head.

Her mother’s voice from her growing-up years when her mother had done a lot of preaching about the girl in any girl-boy relationship being the guardian of the gate.

It wasn’t something Kate had thought about in years. But suddenly there it had all been again.

The guardian of the gate.

The guardian of the gate, who wouldn’t be in this pickle if only she’d maintained some control, some moderation in the amount of champagne she’d consumed on New Year’s Eve. If she hadn’t given in to her own baser needs, no matter how strong they’d been. If she’d resisted the temptation of sweet, seductive words, the temptation of the handsome cowboy. If she hadn’t allowed herself to be swept away by the desires he’d raised in her….

Maybe Brady read the answer to his question in her expression, because when she didn’t say anything he said, “Things are pretty foggy in my memory, too, but as I recall, getting married was my idea. You just thought it was a good one and went along with it. I think that makes the blame pretty much equal.”

Kate shrugged, still feeling at fault no matter what he said. But what was the use in arguing about it? “I just wanted you to know I don’t bear you the kind of ill will I did that next morning.”

Brady chuckled—a deep, rich sound that rolled from his throat. “That was definitely ill will all right. I was grateful there were no knives in the room or you might have gelded me. You made it clear you thought I was a big bad beast.”

Kate flinched at the reminder. And the truth in it. “I’m sorry. I was out of line. It isn’t what I think of you now.” What she thought of him now was that he was too good-looking and charming and charismatic and sexy for her own good.

“But you still weren’t too happy to see me today,” he said, sounding as if he doubted her claim.

“Were you happy to see me?” she challenged in return.

He didn’t answer right away. Instead he stared at her with eyes so intense she could almost feel his gaze. So intense she finally had to look directly at him, too, to see if she could read what he was thinking.

But before she could he let out another of those wry chuckles and said, “I didn’t expect to be happy to see you, no.”

Did that mean he had been? Because that’s what it sounded like. And the possibility that he’d been happy to see her made something inside her dance.

Then he looked away, as if he didn’t want her to see what was in his expression. And he changed the subject once more. “Don’t feel like you have to go through with showing me around tomorrow. I know Matt railroaded you. He seems to have his matchmaking hat on again. Or is it still?”

“You don’t want me to show you around?”

“No, it isn’t that,” he said quickly. “I had a good time checking out Vegas with you. It’d be nice to learn about Elk Creek the same way. It’s just that if you’d rather not—”

“No, it’s okay,” she heard herself say for no reason she understood. Here he was, giving her a break, and rather than take it, she was getting herself in deeper by making it seem as if she wanted to be his tour guide.

Maybe it was because memories of what a good time she’d had with him in Nevada had sprung to mind and made the prospect of repeating it appealing to her. So appealing that she’d forgotten for a moment that she was supposed to be steering clear of him.

“You’re sure?” he asked.

Too late now even if she wasn’t.

So, trying to cover her tracks, she said, “Matt will never let up if he doesn’t think he’s getting his way.”

“Matt,” he muttered, as if he’d thought her reasons had been her own. And for a split second he looked disappointed.

But then he seemed to rebound. “You think we should play along with his matchmaking, just to keep him off our backs?”

“It might be our only chance.” Oh, you fraud, you, a little voice in the back of her mind chastised, when a part of her knew full well that she wasn’t merely agreeing to spend time with Brady to appease her brother.

“We’d only be pretending, of course,” she said. “And there wouldn’t be anything to it but things like letting ourselves be thrown together once or twice. We talked about being friends, and that would really be all we were doing. It’s just that Matt wouldn’t know it.”

“Only pretending,” Brady repeated.

But there seemed to be some reservation in his tone, and Kate wasn’t sure why.

“Unless you don’t want to,” she said, reversing course in case he was having second thoughts. “I mean, if you want to just hang out with Matt, we can sit him down and tell him point-blank that what he wants to happen is not going to happen, no matter what he does.”

“You think that would help?”

Kate hated that he sounded so hopeful.

“It might.”

“Or it might not,” Brady pointed out. “But if we go along with a few of his maneuverings—”

“And then tell him we’re just going to be friends after that, we’ll have something to back it up. We can say we tried but we just didn’t click.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Brady agreed. “And it’ll be the perfect cover for getting to a notary with these papers, too.”

“True.”

“So, tomorrow. Matt wants to give me the tour of this place in the morning. Why don’t we shoot for leaving around one in the afternoon? After lunch?”

“Fine.”

Had they really just talked themselves into spending part of Brady’s visit to Matt with each other instead?

They had. And Kate couldn’t believe she’d let it happen. Hadn’t she spent nearly every minute since she’d found out Brady was coming thinking of ways to stay away from him?

What had gotten into her?

But Brady stood just then, and she stood with him, hoping that if he left, she could get a handle on what she’d just done.

He didn’t leave, though. Instead he was studying her again, as if he wanted to relearn her face.

“You really do look good,” he said after a moment.

“You, too.” She’d meant that to be a simple volley, but it had come out much more seriously, much more heartfelt, and she had the sense that she’d just exposed something she shouldn’t have.

“Tomorrow then,” she reminded, hoping he’d take the hint before she gave away anything else.

He didn’t respond, though. He just continued staring at her, looking into her eyes now in the same way he had just before he’d kissed her for the first time in Las Vegas.

Was he going to kiss her?

Alarms went off in her mind that told her to move away. To shove him toward the door, if she had to, to get him out of there.

But that wasn’t what she did.

Instead she stayed rooted to the spot, gazing up into those eyes that were the color of a summer sky before a storm, her chin tilted, thinking about the way his lips had felt against hers New Year’s Eve—sweet and gentle and oh, so adept….

But a kiss didn’t come.

All of a sudden he broke the hold he’d seemed to have over her and repeated, “Tomorrow. Afternoon. To keep Matt happy.” Then he headed for the door.

Kate didn’t follow. She couldn’t have, even if she’d wanted to, because thinking about him kissing her and then not being kissed had somehow left her drained. As if dashed anticipation had sapped her strength.

Brady opened the door, peered out to make sure the coast was clear and then said, “’Night.”

“Good night,” she answered, watching him step out into the hall.

Only after the door closed softly behind him did Kate feel as if she were breathing freely once more. But as she found the strength to go into her bedroom, it occurred to her all over again that she’d just agreed to precisely what she shouldn’t have agreed to—spending time with Brady.

What was there about the man that always had her doing the wrong thing? Even when she knew just how wrong it was? How much of a mistake it was? What was it about him that attracted her to him even when she didn’t want to be? That had her thinking about kissing him even when she wanted him to leave her alone?

She didn’t understand it. Not any of it. But then, there were a lot of things she didn’t understand about herself and her actions since meeting Brady. In fact, she’d been more confused than she’d ever been in her life.

Maybe she’d had some kind of breakdown over Dwight and just hadn’t known it, she thought, as she got into bed and pulled the covers up to her chin. And then she’d met Brady right after that, and maybe meeting someone in the middle of a breakdown caused a person to do bizarre, out-of-character things. And to go on doing bizarre, out-of-character things.

But she didn’t actually think a person could have a breakdown and not know it.

Which left her back where she’d started—with no explanation for why she’d done the things she’d done with Brady on New Year’s Eve or why she was doing the things she was doing now.

Right now.

Because even as she hashed through it all in her mind, at that moment there was still a part of her that was actually disappointed he hadn’t kissed her.

And if that wasn’t confusing, nothing was.

Chapter Four

One of the good things about knowing she was pregnant—if you could call it a good thing—was that Kate finally knew why she’d been waking up nauseous every morning. Without revealing her condition, she’d done some subtle, conversational questioning of Shane’s wife, Maya—who had found out she was pregnant at Christmastime—and garnered some help for it. Maya had said she’d had morning sickness early on, and to counteract it she’d kept soda crackers on her nightstand to eat before she’d even raised her head from the pillow each morning.

So that was what Kate had started doing—sneaking soda crackers into her room at night to nibble the minute she woke up.

The next morning, as she lay in bed doing that her thoughts trailed back to the previous evening. To Brady. And to what to do about him in conjunction with this baby that was making her feel so bad at that moment.

Should she tell Brady she was pregnant now, before the divorce went through? she asked herself. Or later? Or at all?

She really hadn’t had time yet to think about whether or not to tell him, but Brady’s offhand mention of custody and visitation had made her realize she had to at least consider what she was going to do.

It was tempting not to tell him at all. Ever. To just keep the baby to herself. To have it be her baby and her baby alone.

But in spite of the temptation, she knew that wouldn’t be the right thing to do. The baby wasn’t hers alone, and she knew Brady had a right to know about it.

But when? Sooner rather than later seemed to be the answer to that. At least it was the answer since he might be moving to Elk Creek. If he ended up living nearby, eventually he would notice. And count back. And know. And she didn’t want him finding out that way. That was the coward’s way.

But that still didn’t mean she had to tell him immediately. Immediately being before the divorce was final.

And waiting until it was final appealed to her. With good reason.

It hadn’t been easy for Kate to grow up with four brothers. And not just in terms of bumps and bruises, practical jokes and teasing and horseplay that overlooked the fact that she was a girl at all. Growing up surrounded by men had also given her an insider’s view into some other aspects of that gender. Good-looking men had plenty of wild oats to sow and just as many women willing to have a part in sowing them.

She learned how men talked—and thought—about some women and some situations with women. Also, regardless of the fact that they might enjoy the favors of a woman who got drunk and spent the night with them, men didn’t think highly of her the morning after.

And if that woman got pregnant? Then they considered the man trapped.

Trapped…

That wasn’t only a concept she’d garnered from her brothers, though. She had proof. Kelly McGill—her best friend since kindergarten.

Kelly had gotten together with a friend of Matt’s when they were all in high school—Buster Malloy. Kelly and Buster had been madly in love. Inseparable. They’d even been voted the couple most likely to grow old together, and they’d assured everyone that was true.

Then Kelly had gotten pregnant and everything had come apart, even though a quickie marriage followed Kelly’s graduation and the end of Buster’s first and only year of college.

Maybe the baby wasn’t even his, Kate had heard him say to Matt one afternoon when they hadn’t known she was in the next room. Matt had discouraged that idea, reminding Buster that Kelly hadn’t so much as looked at anyone else.

“Then I’m trapped, is that what you’re saying?” Buster had demanded, sounding furious.

Trapped—the same thing Kate’s brothers had said about other guys in Buster’s predicament. The same thing she’d heard them talking about after Matt’s conversation with Buster, agreeing that, yes, Buster was trapped. Stuck. That he had no way out….

The cracker Kate was slowly munching wasn’t helping as much as usual because suddenly she felt her bile rise in spite of it.

Or maybe it was what was going through her mind that was churning her stomach. Because she had no doubt that Brady felt the same as her brothers did about things like an inebriated woman he hardly knew spending the night with him.