Cowboy's Baby

And getting pregnant.

He would feel trapped. Stuck. And nothing good could come of that. Nothing good had come of it for Kelly, that was for sure.

Kate knew all her friend had gone through since her shotgun wedding to Buster, because Kate had been right there to hold Kelly’s hand through the worst of it. Like right after Buster’s frequent rants at Kelly for ruining his life. Like when Buster had shirked his responsibilities to Kelly and the twins she’d delivered six months after their wedding and Kate had needed to pay Kelly’s rent so she and the twins wouldn’t be evicted because Buster had disappeared with their rent money. Like when Buster had announced that he wanted out—that was how he’d put it, as if he were demanding his release from the cage of his marriage to Kelly.

Kate had been there to hold her friend’s hand then, too, when Kelly and Buster’s relationship had become one battle after another over everything. Poor Kelly had been left not only with two boys to raise and support on her own, but with a broken heart and a whole lot of questions about how Buster could have stopped loving her so suddenly, so completely. How he could have turned into someone Kelly didn’t even recognize. How he could have come to hate her.

But the answer had always been the same—Buster had come to all of that because he’d felt forced to marry Kelly since he’d gotten her pregnant. He’d felt trapped and stuck.

And if it wasn’t enough for Kate to have seen with her own eyes how bad a situation the unplanned pregnancy had put her friend in, she’d had Kelly on the phone the night before her doctor’s appointment reminding her how bad things still were, even ten years later.

Kate fought another overwhelming spell of nausea, wishing even as she did that Kelly hadn’t been leaving for a vacation in Mexico the same day Kate had gone to the doctor in Cheyenne. Kate had told her friend she was afraid she might be pregnant but now that she knew for sure, now that she was facing Brady, she craved Kelly’s support.

Not that she couldn’t guess what her friend would tell her if she could talk to her, Kate thought.

Kelly would say to let the divorce go through before Kate told Brady anything. Kelly would say that just learning about the baby would likely make Brady feel some sort of obligation, but at least if he was already off the hook in the marriage department Kate could make it clear that she didn’t need anything from him. That besides being part owner of the ranch she was also opening an accounting and bookkeeping service in town and would make an adequate living at that, so she could afford to support both herself and the child. And, while raising a child alone was a daunting proposition, millions of women did it and she could, too. Kelly was, after all.

“But if I tell him before the divorce is final, he won’t believe I mean it,” Kate said out loud, as if she were actually talking to Kelly. He would believe she didn’t want the divorce at all. That she wanted him to stay married to her.

And he’d most definitely feel trapped.

But Kate was bound and determined that Brady Brown was not going to feel—or be—trapped by her.

No man was going to be married to her because he had to be. No man was going to accuse her of the things Buster had accused Kelly of. No man was going to blame her for ruining his life.

The cracker hadn’t worked at all and Kate flung the covers aside and made a mad dash to the bathroom where she spent the next twenty minutes being miserable.

When the bout was finally over, she went to the sink, splashed cool water on her face and brushed her teeth.

Being alone in all this was definitely not something she would have chosen for herself. In fact, recalling what Maya had told her about Shane made Kate feel a little jealous. Apparently her brother had waited outside the bathroom door for his wife every time she’d gotten sick, ushered her back to bed and served her fresh crackers when she’d thought she could tolerate them again.

That would be nice. Much nicer than the way things were for Kate—having to suffer through the illness alone, all the while hoping no one realized she was ill at all and why.

And if the person keeping her company, taking care of her, could be Brady?

She chased that notion away, knowing it was dangerous to even entertain such a fantasy. Because in reality, if he knew and if he were there by her side for this, it wouldn’t be because he wanted to be, the way Shane had, but because he felt he had to be, the way Buster had. And he would resent her the way Buster had. He’d resent her the way Buster resented Kelly. He would resent the baby the way Buster resented his twins. He’d resent being trapped….

Kate took a few deep breaths in an attempt to fight off another wave of nausea, feeling more convinced by the minute that thinking about Brady this morning was making her more ill than usual.

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