Colton Cowboy Standoff

“No, it’s not no...” he began.

“Then it’s yes?” she asked excitedly.

“It’s not that, either,” he told her before she could get carried away, although he hated seeing that light in her eyes go out. It reminded him of the way things used to be when they were first married and anything seemed possible. “I already said that I’ll have to give this some thought,” he explained. “Getting together to create a baby is a big step.”

“I know. That’s why I’m asking you,” she stressed. “I told you, you’re the best man I know.”

One of them had to be logical, he thought. It didn’t look like it was going to be her, so he’d been elected.

“Flattering as that is, I wouldn’t be such a ‘best man’ if I just jumped right into this without considering all the ramifications,” he told her.

“There aren’t any,” Bailey insisted. How did she get that across to him? She felt desperate. He had to say yes.

“I’m afraid I’d have to disagree with you,” Wyatt told her. “This would be a little person we’d be bringing into the world.”

“A little person you wouldn’t be required to do anything for,” she reminded him again.

Maybe if he approached this a different way. “You came to me, right?”

Bailey blew out a breath. “Obviously.”

“Why?”

She closed her eyes, struggling to keep her emotions in check. “I already told you. I came to you because you are the only person I want to be the father of my child.”

He nodded. “I’m assuming that has something to do with my character.”

“Obviously,” she agreed, wondering where he was going with this.

“Well, this is part of my character. I’m not jumping right into this. I have to think about it,” Wyatt told her.

Bailey knew that look. She could see that there was no talking him out of this. His mind was made up. Sighing, she surrendered. “All right,” she said. “How long are you going to think about it?”

“Until I make up my mind,” Wyatt answered evasively.

She’d meant it when she’d said she wanted him for her baby’s father. That meant that she had to go along with him in this.

“Looks like I’m going to be here for a while, then.” She hadn’t planned on this. “I guess I should have made my reservation at the Lodge for a longer period of time,” Bailey added, mentioning one of the Colton family’s enterprises. “I just booked it for a couple of days.”

This was going to be difficult, Wyatt thought. But he’d meant it when he’d said he needed time to mull this over.

There was only one option left open to him.

“No need,” he told her. “You’re welcome to stay here.”

“Here?” Bailey repeated, stunned. She looked around then back at Wyatt. “With you?”

He nodded. “If you’re here, it’ll help me make up my mind that much quicker,” he told her. “And with you here, we can use the time to catch up.” His eyes narrowed slightly as he looked at Bailey. “Unless you have something to hide.”

She stared at him, completely taken aback. “Why would you say something like that?”

She had to ask? “Because I don’t hear a word from you for six years.” And in the beginning, he’d sought comfort in the bottom of a bottle, convinced that he’d never get over her running out on him like that. Recovery had been slower than he’d ever thought possible. But he’d done it—and he didn’t want to risk a relapse. “Not so much as a phone call or a postcard, and then you show up out of the blue, asking me to father your baby. You have to admit that would make anyone leery.”

“Maybe if that person didn’t know me,” Bailey pointed out. “You know me.”

“Do I?” he quipped. “I thought I did. But the woman I knew wouldn’t have just taken off without a word of explanation the way you did. Which means I didn’t really know you at all,” he emphasized.

Bailey sighed again. Maybe she should extend an olive branch and explain a bit more. To the man she’d once loved.

“I left because I was losing my identity,” she told him.

He scowled. “What does that even mean?”

“It means that you put everything ahead of me. I wanted to become a veterinarian. You told me to hold off on that until after we get the ranch up and running. So I said all right and I held off. I wanted kids. You said okay, but you wanted us to wait until after we finished building the house. So again I said okay. But it wasn’t okay. Not really. I was giving up bits and pieces of me until I didn’t even recognize myself.”

Wyatt frowned. “So you left.”

There was no way she could argue the point. “I had to.”

“And those vows you took? The ones about loving me until death do us part? Those didn’t mean enough to you to make you stay?” he bit out.

Her answer, if it was truthful, surprised him.

“Those meant everything to me,” she insisted.

“But you left anyway.”

“I left because of them,” she insisted. “Don’t you see?”

Baffled, Wyatt shook his head. “No, I don’t.”

“If I’d stayed, I would have wound up resenting you because you were stifling me,” she told him. “Not intentionally, I know that now, but the result was the same. I was losing my sense of who I was, other than just the woman by your side, the one who was helping you build this big ranch house while taking myself apart. Eventually, I knew I was going to wind up hating you for what was happening to me.”

“So you left.”

“I had to. I had to sacrifice our marriage in order to save the feelings we had for each other,” Bailey insisted.

That made absolutely no sense to him. “I don’t understand.”

She smiled. “I don’t expect you to,” she told Wyatt wistfully. “But just know that I always loved you. And I always will.”

Chapter 3

Bailey had managed to catch him off guard again. Wyatt had lost count of how many times that made since he’d opened his door this morning.

But just know that I always loved you. And I always will.

Her words echoed in his head. Wyatt frowned. Was his ex-wife just playing him, professing that she felt something for him as a means to an end?

“Don’t say things you don’t mean,” he retorted, growing angry. “It’s not going to propel me to make up my mind any faster.”

Bailey tried not to take offense at being dismissed this way. She had hurt him and that cut him a lot of slack in her opinion. But he should have known better.

“I didn’t say it for that reason and I don’t say things I don’t mean,” Bailey reminded him tersely.

She rose to her feet and began walking toward the door.

Wyatt was right behind her. “Where are you going?”

“I’m going for a drive to clear my head—and to cancel my reservation at the Lodge,” she answered. As quickly as it had threatened to flare up, her temper had receded again. Her voice softened as she told him, “I’ll be back later. You still keep your doors unlocked?”

“Yes.” Roaring Springs was a relatively small community and trust was a way of life here. For the most part, neighbors all looked out for one another.

Bailey nodded. She thought so. “Good. Then I’ll let myself in when I get back.” About to open the door and leave, she stopped as something else suddenly occurred to her. Turning back, she looked at Wyatt as she asked, “You’re not with anyone, are you? I mean, I won’t be walking in on your girlfriend or mistress or significant other when I come back to the ranch, will I?” Her eyes washed over his face, searching for an answer.

“A little late to be asking that, isn’t it?” Wyatt retorted, somewhat amused by her question. In the last six years there’d been no one who’d even remotely stirred his interest—especially the way Bailey had. As far as he was concerned, that part of his life was over.

The slightest hint of color rose to her cheeks. Wyatt was right. It hadn’t occurred to her until just this moment that he might have moved on. She hadn’t, so she’d just assumed he hadn’t, either. Was he making fun of her? Or was this his subtle way of hinting that he actually was involved with someone else.

She avoided his eyes as she told him, “I didn’t exactly rehearse any of this beforehand.”

“That’s obvious,” he commented. And then he took pity on her. Embarrassing Bailey didn’t make him feel any better about what had gone down between them. “And no, there’s no girlfriend or mistress or significant other to worry about.”

“No one?” Bailey asked, wanting to be absolutely sure he was being honest.

He caught the note of suspicion in her voice. “Why? Would you feel better if there was?” Wyatt asked, interpreting her question to mean she was worried once she got what she had come for, he might try to make her stay.

But he had no such intentions. He was neither a masochist nor a slow learner. Being unceremoniously dumped once was more than enough for him. He had no desire to suffer through that again. His heart didn’t need to be cut out of his chest a second time.

“No,” Bailey quickly denied. “I just wanted to make sure that I wouldn’t accidentally mess up your relationship.”

His eyes met hers. “Once was enough,” he told her in a cold voice.

Bailey had no idea how to respond to that. At the time, she hadn’t thought she mattered all that much to him. She quite honestly didn’t even think he’d notice she was gone immediately because he was so fixated on building up the ranch to the exclusion of everything else. Other than representing another pair of hands he could call on, she could have been anyone.

For a moment she debated apologizing, telling him she was sorry. But she really wasn’t sorry. Because if she hadn’t left, she would have never become a veterinarian, never become her own person.

For now, she decided it was best just to leave the subject alone.

“I’ll be back later,” she repeated as she started to leave again. Pausing, she added, “And thank you for hearing me out.”

“I haven’t said yes yet,” he reminded her, following her to the front door.

“I know. One step at a time.”

Opening the door, she walked out just as a tall, lean, muscular cowboy was coming up the walk. Their eyes met for a split second, and then Bailey lowered hers and hurried off to where she had parked her car.

Foxworth Colton’s mouth dropped open as the woman registered belatedly in his brain. Like a cartoon character, Wyatt’s cousin/adopted brother turned around and watched the woman he had almost walked into quickly get into her car and drive away.

Still stunned, Fox turned back to look quizzically at Wyatt.

Harrison Colton, Fox’s father, had died following a deadly accident where he’d unintentionally driven his car off the road. Fox’s mother, Dana, who’d been in the passenger seat, had lingered long enough to ask her sister, Mara, to care for her children. Wyatt’s parents had both agreed to take in Fox and Sloane.

Because they were close and always had been, when Wyatt had inherited the Crooked C from his grandmother, he’d set aside forty acres on the southern part of his property and offered it to Fox so that his cousin was able to breed his horses. In return Fox worked closely with Wyatt and could always be called upon to help out when Wyatt needed him.

No one had been happier for Wyatt than Fox when Wyatt had gotten married. Fox had also been there for him when Bailey had suddenly taken off for parts unknown. Fox had been the one to slowly ease Wyatt away from trying to drown his pain in alcohol when that process threatened to get the better of him.

Fox’s patience and efforts had paid off. Wyatt had finally gotten back to his old self, albeit more closed off emotionally than he’d been previously.

But that could all change again with Bailey coming back, Fox thought.

Maybe he was mistaken. Maybe that only looked like Bailey. After all, why would she suddenly come back after all this time?

“Hey,” Fox said, doing his best to sound cheerful, “that wasn’t—?”

“Bailey?” Wyatt supplied. Turning on his heel, he walked away from the front door. His voice was flat as he answered, “Yes, it was.”

Bordering on shocked disbelief, Fox walked into the house right behind Wyatt. He glanced over his shoulder one last time even though the car and the woman were gone. “You’re kidding.”

“Not something I’d kid about,” Wyatt assured the younger man.

Fox closed the door behind him and went straight to the coffee maker on the kitchen counter. He needed a hit of coffee, the stronger the better.

“What’s she doing here?” Taking a mug from the counter, he filled it to the brim with inky-black coffee. “Did she suddenly come to her senses?” he asked even though he doubted that was why Bailey had suddenly turned up.

“I don’t think that’s why she’s here.”

Fox looked at the man above the rim of steaming black liquid. “Then why is she here?” He burned his tongue and swallowed a curse. Blowing on the liquid, he waited a second before taking another sip, slowly this time.

“She came to ask if I’d make a baby with her.”

Fox had just taken another sip of coffee. He started choking and almost spit the liquid out in a spray. He managed to swallow it at the last moment.

He set the mug down on the kitchen counter, and his eyes were watery as he stared at his cousin. “I thought you just said that she asked you—”

“She did,” Wyatt said quietly.

Forgetting about the coffee, Fox focused his attention on Wyatt. He didn’t want to see the man he thought of as a brother getting hurt again. “When did all this happen?”

Wyatt nodded at the closed front door. “Just now.”

That didn’t seem possible, Fox thought. “She didn’t give you any warning?”

Wyatt shook his head as he walked back into the living room. “Nope.”

Fox was right behind him. “You’re telling me that Bailey didn’t call you first to see how you felt about this?”

Feeling suddenly drained, Wyatt sank onto the sofa. The same sofa he had just been sitting on with Bailey beside him. It almost seemed like a crazy dream now.

“That’s what I’m telling you.”

Fox was trying to get this all straight in his head. “And you haven’t heard from her in the last six years, right?”

Wyatt’s eyes shifted, slowly looking toward his brother. “Not a word.”

Fox emitted a low whistle. “Hell, Wyatt, what are you going to do?”

Wyatt laughed even though the situation was far from funny. “Damned if I know.”

Fox’s mind was racing now. “She’s not staying in town, is she?”

The corners of Wyatt’s mouth rose in an ironic smile. “As a matter of fact, she isn’t.”

Fox looked at his cousin suspiciously. “I don’t like the way you phrased that.” And then it hit him. “Wait—she’s not staying here, is she? Please tell me she’s not staying here.”

“I could,” Wyatt answered, “except that I made it a point never to lie to you.”

Astonishment nudged its way into Fox’s soul. “She’s going to be staying here,” he concluded incredulously. He stared at Wyatt, unable to believe what the other man was telling him. Maybe there was some mistake. “You’re actually considering doing what she asked?”

“Well, I—”

Wyatt got no further than that before Fox barked, “Wyatt, are you out of your mind? This woman did a tap dance on your heart, disappearing on you without even having the decency to tell you why to your face, and now she’s popped up out of nowhere, asking you to sleep with her—”

Maybe it was nerves that made Wyatt laugh at the way Fox was phrasing his narrative. “Actually, sleeping isn’t exactly a factor here—”

Fox wasn’t in the mood to see the humor in this. “You know damn well what I mean. Maybe you don’t remember what you were like after she left because most of the time you were too anesthetized with whiskey to know your own name. But I remember the whole thing. Clearly,” he emphasized. “She practically destroyed you—and I’m not going to let her get a chance to do it a second time,” Fox informed him angrily.

Wyatt knew that the other man meant well, but this was his problem to deal with. “You don’t have anything to say about it.”

“The hell I don’t,” Fox snapped. “For better or for worse, you’re my family and I care about you. Now you might not be able to say no to that woman, but I certainly can,” Fox informed him with finality.

Wyatt raised a salient point. “She didn’t ask you to father her baby, Fox. She asked me.”

Fox scowled. He was incensed and didn’t like being tripped up because of words. “You know what I mean,” he growled.

“Yeah, I do,” Wyatt replied. And then his voice softened. “And I know you mean well but, ultimately, this is my decision to make.”

“So you’re actually considering doing this?”

“I’m thinking about it,” Wyatt corrected him. To him thinking came before considering and he needed to think this all through, taking in all the ramifications, the extenuating circumstances as far as he was able. “Look, I’m the one who brought her out here and she sacrificed a lot to help me get the ranch up and running. I owe her.”

“Is that what she told you?” Fox chided angrily. “That you owe her?”

“No, that’s what I think. And it’s true. Bailey wanted to go to school to become a veterinarian and I talked her out of it, saying she could do that later because I needed her working alongside me at the time.

“I said the same thing to her when she wanted to have kids.” Wyatt went on, vividly remembering the circumstances now. “I said having kids could wait because we needed to focus our attention on the ranch and getting a herd going.”

Fox refused to allow Wyatt to blame himself. “So you wanted to build something and you did. That wasn’t a bad thing,” he insisted.

“No, it wasn’t,” Wyatt agreed. “But it wasn’t her thing,” he said, trying to see the situation from his ex-wife’s vantage point. “It was mine. Bailey didn’t get to do what she wanted, didn’t get to have the kids she wanted.”

“So she’s here to collect now?” Fox asked in astonishment. “Is that what you’re saying?”

Wyatt frowned to himself as he sighed. There were so many ambivalent feelings running through him. “Something like that.”

This still wasn’t making any sense to Fox. “Bailey’s still young,” he insisted. “She’s what? Thirty? Thirty-one?”

“Thirty-five,” Wyatt corrected him.

“Thirty-five,” Fox repeated, nodding his head as if this substantiated the point he was about to make. “Not exactly ready for the old age home. Plenty of time for her to have a baby.” He paused, looking at his cousin. “No offense, but why you? It’s been six years. She should have moved on.”

Wyatt shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “She said I was the best man she knew.”

“She joined a convent after she left you?” Fox wanted to know, keeping a straight face.

“Very funny,” Wyatt retorted. “No, apparently she made a discerning decision.”

Fox grew serious. “All kidding aside, Wyatt, you are the best man I’ve ever known, but even taking that into account, you could be letting yourself in for a lot of grief here.” He was silent for a moment, thinking. “Maybe she has an agenda, coming back to you after all this time.”

Wyatt had come a long way from the man he had been six years ago. That man had felt he’d had something to prove to his parents by making a success of himself. He was less driven now. Even so, it felt as if there was something still missing from his life. Maybe this was it. He didn’t know, but it was worth thinking about. “Like what?” he asked Fox.

“Your last name is Colton,” Fox reminded Wyatt. “She has your baby, she has a claim on the Colton money.”

Wyatt shook his head. “No, she said she didn’t want anything from me except my DNA.”

“Women say a lot of things to get their way,” Fox pointed out.

That might be so in some cases, but he’d believed Bailey when she’d said she wanted nothing from him. “When those divorce papers arrived in the mail, she never asked me to do anything but sign them. There was no settlement in her favor, no requests for alimony made. I was a Colton then, too,” he reminded Fox.

His cousin wasn’t altogether convinced. “Maybe she’s gotten smarter since then and realized she missed a huge opportunity.”

“Fox, you’ve met her. In some respects, you knew her almost as well as I did,” Wyatt argued. “Does that sound like the woman you knew?”

Wyatt had a point, Fox acknowledged. But he still thought Wyatt should hold off just in case. “People change, Wyatt.”

“People change.” Wyatt emphasized the word. “Bailey hasn’t. And she went back to school just like she wanted to. She got her degree and became a veterinarian,” he told Fox, realizing that a bit of pride had slipped into his voice as he’d told his cousin about his ex-wife’s accomplishment.

Fox studied Wyatt’s face in silence for a long moment. And then he nodded his head, not in response to anything the other man had said, but in response to something that had just occurred to him.

“You’ve made up your mind, haven’t you?” he asked. “You’re going to tell her yes.”

But Wyatt wasn’t all that quick to confirm his cousin’s assumption. Instead he said, “Right now, I’m leaning that way.”

“Think long and hard, Wyatt,” Fox counseled. “Truth be told, until she stomped on your heart, I always liked Bailey. I thought she was good for you. But think about this... If you say yes and she has this baby, how are you going to feel when she takes it away? That’s what she said, right? That all she wants is your DNA and then she’s gone.

“I know you, Wyatt,” Fox told him. “You father that baby, you’re going to want to be part of its life and maybe Bailey won’t want that. Maybe she’ll just pull another disappearing act on you when you’re not looking, and this time, she’ll be running off with your son or your daughter. How are you going to feel then?”

“You’re asking too many questions,” Wyatt said dismissively.

“And you’re not asking enough,” Fox insisted. “You might have a big heart and be a pushover when it comes to Bailey, but I’m here to make sure that you’re not hurt again.”

Wyatt looked at his cousin impatiently. “I can take care of myself.”

Fox didn’t see it that way. “Obviously not.”

“I haven’t said yes yet,” Wyatt reminded him, hoping that would shut Fox up for the time being.

“But you’re going to, aren’t you?” he asked. It was a rhetorical question.

Wyatt cocked his head and pretended to listen to something in the distance. “I think I hear the horses calling you.”

For now, Fox gave up. They both needed a little space to allow this to settle. “We’re not finished talking yet. This isn’t over. In the meantime, I’m going to confiscate the alcohol you keep here.”

Wyatt knew what his brother was referring to. It wasn’t a period of his life he was proud of. “You don’t have to worry. I’m not about to make the same mistake twice,” he told Fox.

Fox paused by the front door. “Just remember that you said that,” he said before he left.

Chapter 4

Working alongside Fox today, Wyatt found that he had spent a good part of the time defending Bailey. He’d had no idea that Fox had so many misgivings about his former wife’s sudden reappearance. More, apparently, than he did.

Wyatt was well aware where his brother was coming from. Most likely, in Fox’s position, he might even feel the same way. But from somewhere deep within him, something akin to a sense of protectiveness stirred inside Wyatt. Right or wrong, he felt compelled to get Fox to change his mind, or at the very least to hold off making any final judgments against Bailey until she’d had a chance to redeem herself.

But after going back and forth for the length of the day, at the end of that time they were still at an impasse and Wyatt left it at that. Especially since he really hadn’t made up his mind one way or the other regarding Bailey’s request.

Preoccupied, Wyatt didn’t notice the car that was parked around the side of the ranch house until he had already walked inside. That was when the combined scent of chicken frying in the pan mingled with the light perfume she always wore seeped into his consciousness.