Nicole Helm - Wyoming Cowboy Sniper

Vanessa Carson was not a coward. In her entire life, she’d never backed down from an insult, a challenge or a fist. She’d faced all three of those things practically since she’d been born, and yet none of it held a candle to this moment.

She sat in the driver’s seat of her ancient sedan in the back parking lot of Delaney Bank. She preferred her motorcycle but... Without thinking the movement through, she placed her hand over her stomach. It was starting to round, just a little bit. No one else would notice, but she could tell. It wouldn’t be long before other people would be able to tell, as well.

The morning sickness had been hell, but it seemed to dissipate more every day. She’d taken to eating better, and she’d sworn off alcohol for different reasons ever since that night. Her doctor said she and baby were healthy as a horse.

Luckily, she was surrounded by clueless men for the most part, so no one in her life had any idea. She was convinced it was paranoia that on more than one occasion she’d caught her cousin-in-law or new sister-in-law staring at her with a considering gaze when she did something like eat a veggie plate or pass on another hit of caffeine.

Paranoia or not, she had to face the music before anyone actually put the puzzle together. Had to. Before the music told him itself.

You are not a coward.

She repeated those words with every step toward the bank. She had never once stepped foot in Delaney Bank, would have rather chewed her own arm off—or simply driven the twenty-plus minutes to Fremont whenever she needed a bank.

But this wasn’t about asking for a loan or sullying the white halls of such an upstanding establishment run by the Delaneys. It was about the very unfortunate truth.

She was going to have Dylan Delaney’s baby.

For a few weeks she’d considered running away. Disappearing. Grady would likely try to find her, with her cousins Noah and Ty not far behind him. But it would have been possible if she’d played her cards right. Eventually, they’d have given up on her. Maybe.

But Bent was her home. Her life. Her mechanic shop was everything she’d built her life on. She’d paid in blood, sweat and tears for it. She wasn’t ever going to let a Delaney scare her into running away.

Your baby is half Delaney.

She paused at the corner of the bank building. Ruthlessly, she reminded herself Dylan wouldn’t want anyone to know that any more than she did. He’d agree to her plan. He had to. He’d never risk his reputation just to be a part of his baby’s life.

Which was why she had to tell him. He’d be spiteful if he found out some other way. She needed this to be quick, easy and painless. Which meant she couldn’t just stand here.

She heard a noise from behind her and turned to see a back door opening. Dylan stepped out, looking perfectly dapper in a suit with a briefcase clutched in his hand. He slid sunglasses onto his face in defense of the setting sun, his dark looks tinged with gold in the fading light.

She’d never understood her reaction to him—a tug, a want . No matter how much she knew she did not want the uptight, soft banker boy, something deep inside of her begged to differ.

Luckily, she was a smart woman who knew when not to listen to stupid feelings. She just needed to explain to him how things were going to be, and be done with him for good.

“Dylan.”

He startled, as if he recognized her voice instantly and how incongruous it was at his precious bank. He immediately scanned the lot before turning his gaze to her.

When he’d seen there was no one else around he took a few steps toward her, suspicious and uncomfortable, but not sneery. She would have preferred a little sneery to get her back up.

“Vanessa,” he said, his voice cool and clipped, though not nasty.

“Dylan. We need to talk.”

He raised an eyebrow. Such a disdainful look, and yet she didn’t feel that same animosity from him she’d always had when they’d been growing up. They’d avoided each other even more carefully than usual since Laurel and Grady’s wedding, which was hard to do in a small town when your siblings were married. But they’d done it.

Still, there’d been a cooling of antagonism on both their parts. Perhaps they now knew a little too well where unchecked dislike could lead. Being apathetic worked a heck of a lot better.

But she wished he’d be nasty, so she could be angry and defensive instead of so nervous she felt sick.

This is better. You can be calm and collected and show him he’s not the only one with some control.

“We really need to talk,” Vanessa repeated when he said nothing. “Privately.”

Again he scanned the lot and seemed satisfied no one lurked in the dusky shadows. “Follow me.”

He used a key card on a pad outside the door he’d come out of, then pulled it open and gestured her inside. She went, chin too high and sharp, shoulders back and braced for a fight.

But it wouldn’t be a fight. It would be a quick, informative conversation, and then she’d walk right out of the bank with this awful weight off her shoulders. She wouldn’t run her mouth. She’d just say it plain.

He stepped inside, the door closing behind him with a definitive slap. With a nod, he moved down the hallway, leading her to another door—this one glass. Inside was a fancy office. Evidently his, since his name was printed on the glass.

“You know, in my shop I don’t have to put my own name on the door to my office.”

“I’m guessing, in your shop, you’re not entertaining wealthy clients in your office.”

She flashed him a hard-edged grin. “You’d be surprised who likes me doing the oil change on their car.”

His lips pressed together. She couldn’t help but remember him not as the slick, suited businessman who stood before her but as the rumpled, slightly shaken man she’d woken up with that morning all those months ago.

He set his briefcase down and took a seat behind the big, gleaming desk, then ran a hand over the lapel of his suit jacket. He looked impossibly elegant. He wasn’t like his siblings. They were the down-home noble type. Laurel the cop, Cam the former marine and Jen the shopkeeper.

Dylan had style—with an edge to it. She didn’t know why he stayed in Bent when he was clearly meant to be somewhere a lot more posh than this nowhere Wyoming town.

She didn’t know why she had this odd memory of his hands on her feeling right .

Just insanity and liquor, she supposed.

“What did you need to discuss?” he asked in the cool, detached voice he’d almost always used on her. Even when they’d been in the same class in first grade, he’d spoken like that to her at the age of seven. Like he was inherently better.

It should have put her back up, but all she could do was stare at him behind his big desk, looking imposing and important in this big, fancy bank office.

She swallowed as an unexpected emotion swamped her. Regret. It was a shame the way her baby had been conceived because this whole Delaney legacy belonged to him or her too.

Money. The kind of reputation people slaved a lifetime to never live up to. The baby wouldn’t even have to deal with being the first commingling of Carson and Delaney. Laurel and Grady would always take whatever heat people blamed on a foolish curse, because they’d promised to love each other in front of God himself.

Not everyone in town took the feud between the Carson and Delaney families as seriously as she did, and not everyone in town believed the old tale that if a Carson and Delaney ever fell in love, the town itself would be cursed to destruction.