Nicole Helm - Wyoming Cowboy Sniper

A story passed down from generation to generation since the Carsons had accused Delaneys of stealing their land back in the eighteen hundreds.

Enough people believed it to make it a thing .

The fact Bent hadn’t immediately crumbled or been struck by lightning didn’t soothe the most superstitious. They were still waiting for it. As for Vanessa, she was more of a take-life-as-it-comes type of girl. She’d deal with a curse if there was one, and she wouldn’t be surprised if life went on as it always had.

“I know you’re not here for the view. Or a repeat performance,” Dylan said, shocking her out of her reverie.

Repeat... She clamped her jaw shut so it wouldn’t drop. No one ever turned her off-center like this.

It was the baby softening all her edges. Which was fine and dandy, once she’d done her business. She was determined to be a good mother—the kind hers had never been—where her kid came first and foremost. And not one man was going to ruin that for her kid. She’d soften every last edge, sand off her tattoos and cut out her own swearing, drinking, idiot tongue if it meant giving this baby the kind of idyllic childhood she’d never had.

Which meant no strife with the father of the baby, even if Vanessa didn’t plan on him being involved.

The best way not to have any strife was to be quick and to the point. She took a deep breath in and let it out, forcing herself to meet Dylan’s dark, imposing gaze.

“I’m pregnant.”

* * *

THE WORDS LANDED like a blow, the kind that had your ears ringing and your eyes seeing stars. Even as Dylan’s brain scrambled to make sense of those two simple words, he desperately held on to his composure.

In business, composure was everything.

This wasn’t business.

Pregnant. Baby. She was telling him she was pregnant and that meant...

He opened his mouth to speak, though he wasn’t sure what it was he meant to say. No words or sound came out, anyway.

“I’m not asking you for anything,” she said clearly. Her gaze was calm, direct, but he saw the way she clutched her hands together in her lap. For a woman like Vanessa she might as well have been shaking in her boots. “I’d rather—”

“Yes, I can imagine all you’d rather,” he muttered. He glanced at her stomach where her hands were clutched. There was no evidence a child grew there, but one did and it was his.

His.

His heart squeezed as if gripped by some iron outside force, a mix of panic and awe. Mostly panic, he assured himself.

“But if I didn’t tell you, you’d figure it out and assume. So I’m telling you. You don’t need to worry or do anything. I’ll keep your part in this a secret and raise this baby myself.” Her hands squeezed harder, and he couldn’t seem to bring himself to lift his gaze from them to meet hers.

“Yourself,” he repeated stupidly.

“Yes. I’m capable. Maybe I don’t look like the most maternal—”

“I’m not challenging you, Vanessa,” he snapped, looking away from her hands. Her eyes were storms of a million things. Things he didn’t want to consider.

But she was pregnant with his child. His child.

Hell.

“Regardless,” she said, sounding surprisingly prim. “I wanted to be clear that I’ll be taking care of everything. As long as you don’t yap, we’ll be fine.”

“Fine,” he echoed. Fine. This was not fine.

She began to stand.

“Where the hell do you think you’re going?”

She raised her eyebrows. “Home. I told you what I had to say and—”

“And you think I’d just step back and ignore the fact I have a child? You honestly thought you’d make your little announcement and that would be it?”

Her eyes went cool, the nervousness in her clutched hands gone as they came to rest on the arms of the chair. “Obviously, I considered you’d be obnoxious, but I held out hope you’d understand that yes, that’s it. Because it’s a Carson child.”

He stood, pressing his hands to the shiny surface of his desk in an effort to center himself and leash his anger. “Half Delaney.”

She folded her arms across her chest and gave him one of those patented Vanessa Carson, you-are-a-bug-to-be-scraped-off-my-boot looks. “Are you suggesting we cut the baby in half?” she asked dryly.

“I’m not suggesting anything. You’re not giving me time to suggest anything. You’ve dropped your bomb and now seem to think you’re going to waltz out of here and leave me to deal with the fallout.”

“I believe that’s usually how bombs are dropped,” she replied. She was back to herself. Sharp, dismissive and oh so sure she was better than him.

But she hadn’t been for a few minutes, and she was carrying his baby. His child.

A living, breathing human being .

He sat back down. The weight of it floored him. “I can’t... How long? It’d be...” He did the math. “You’ve been sitting on this for a while.”

She shrugged. She wore jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt. Heavy black boots. Even with her tattoos covered, she looked like trouble. She always had. He didn’t know why he’d think pregnancy would change it.

He focused on her. On the gleaming silver skull ring on her thumb. The way her hair seemed all that much blacker against the fair, freckled skin of her cheeks. Sharp edges with surprising hints of vulnerability.

And she was carrying his child.

She sighed heavily. “Look, I don’t know what you think sitting there staring at me is going to accomplish, but this is how things are going to be. I have the kid, tell people the father’s some random out-of-towner. I live my life and you live yours.”

“Knowing your child is mine.”

“Consider yourself a sperm donor.”

“I will not,” he said, managing to keep his voice as even as hers. It was a hard-won thing. “I don’t know if you’re trying to be difficult or if it just comes naturally, but this is not a small thing. It’s a huge, bomb-sized thing.”

“You seem pretty calm and collected to me,” she muttered.

“Years of practice,” he said through clenched teeth. The lies he’d told and the things he’d seen. Yes, he’d had years of practice in how to appear calm when he was anything but. In control of a world that would not bend to his will—here in Bent or out there where he’d lived his secret life.

Now this. He wanted to be angry, but every time it spurted up, this strange weight settled over him. Calm wasn’t the right word for it. There was something like a flash of her, from that night. Something he should remember and couldn’t. A softness. A rightness.

He shook it away, but he couldn’t shake away the realization he didn’t have a choice here. She thought he could walk away, turn his back on his own child, and he wouldn’t in a million years.

Which meant he had to find common ground with the one person in this whole town—and possibly world—he wasn’t sure he could.

There had to be common ground here though, whether he liked it or not. They had to find a compromise.

Something had changed that night, and not just the life it had created. The animosity between him and Vanessa had dulled. Or maybe it was watching Laurel and Grady these past few months. No matter how much grief they got from the town or Dad, they laughed and smiled and...didn’t care. Something had changed inside of them so they didn’t care.

Dylan had made a child. It was time to not care. “Vanessa.”

The distinct sound of a gun being fired jolted them both. It had come from the front. Dylan was on his feet in seconds.

“Stay here,” he ordered.

“Stay here ?” Vanessa repeated incredulously. “You can’t... Was that a gun?”