Barbara Daille - The Cowboy's Triple Surprise

Not his babies.

Hers.

“How did you get away from the hotel today without having to talk to Tyler?” Layne asked.

Shay explained about the missed phone call, which she had noticed on her cell phone at the best possible time. “Grandma just wanted to remind me not to hurry home, since she had plans to be out for supper at SugarPie’s.” The sandwich shop in town was one of Mo’s favorite hangouts, and Sugar Conway, the owner, was one of her best friends. “It gave me a reason to leave the banquet room. Once I was away from everyone,” she confessed, “I used the call as an excuse to run. Which is going to make going back tomorrow even more awkward.”

“Couldn’t you just call in sick?” Layne asked.

She almost choked on a laugh. “I wish. But I can’t let Jed and everyone else down. Besides, I need the money. Neither of my part-time jobs comes with insurance.”

“I thought you told me you had money from your parents.”

“I do. From their life insurance policies. So at least I won’t have to worry about the hospital bills.”

She didn’t want to think about those policies and what they represented—the mom and dad she had lost years ago. Money couldn’t take their place in her life. But in reality, she had lost them both long before the accident that had taken them away. Her dad had chased the rodeo and her mom had chased her dad, and as a result, she had never really had them in her life to begin with. All the more reason for staying away from Tyler.

How could she have let herself...

How could she have slept with a rodeo cowboy?

“Grandma practically raised me,” she said in a low voice. “I know how much she loves me, and I know she’ll help me out. But I’m trying to save up as much as I can for everything else the babies will need. I have to report to the Hitching Post tomorrow.”

She looked at Layne. “But I’m just dreading having to walk back into that hotel and see Tyler again. Or having to face any of the Garlands. Everyone else in Cowboy Creek must know the situation, too. What did I think?” she added, rolling her eyes. “That I could hide my head in the sand like an ostrich, and they wouldn’t figure out the timing as soon as they saw my stomach getting bigger?”

Layne smothered a laugh. “Sorry. That’s some visual. But if hiding the truth was your goal, I’m afraid you can forget it. Take it from a mom twice over. Nobody around here messes up the math on a pregnancy.” Sobering, she added, “I know you don’t want to tell Tyler the news, Shay. But you should think about it. Before someone else does.”

“People ought to respect my right to privacy,” she snapped.

“In this town? No. Someone, sometime, is bound to tell him—out of the goodness of their heart, though. You know that.”

“Oh, I do know. They’ll have the best of motives, thinking they’re making things easier and doing me a favor.”

“Exactly. The longer you wait, the more you run that risk. And worse, the more gossip and speculation will fly.”

“I know that, too,” she mumbled. Her eyes blurring, she stroked her stomach and sighed.

Chapter Four

Tyler patted the stallion’s flank, then left the stall.

In the corral outside the barn, a few of the hotel guests were saddled up, looking stiff and serious as they took instruction from some of the cowhands.

He headed across the yard to the Hitching Post.

The wind had picked up a bit, but the midafternoon sun had gotten stronger. Together, they kept the temperature at a comfortable level. Too bad they couldn’t do anything about his temperature. Since yesterday, he had jumped from hot to cold and back again every time he thought of Shay.

As he reached the hotel, the back door opened. Pete, Jed’s ranch manager and Jane’s husband, came out of the hotel and down the porch steps. “In for the day?” he asked.

Tyler nodded.

“Whenever you’re needing another ride, you’re welcome to any of the mounts here.”

“Needing?” Tyler echoed.

Pete shrugged. “The way you tore out of here after lunch, I’d have said you were looking for more than just time in the saddle.”

“Yeah.” All morning, he had helped Tina and Jane in the ballroom again. Shay hadn’t been around, and no one had mentioned her name.

They had released him from duty just before lunch, and afterward he and Freedom had done some hard riding on Garland Ranch. The long trek had been designed to help him outrun his thoughts. Instead, it had only given him more time alone, ample time to envision what he’d seen yesterday.

Shay, with her belly so big she looked like she might give birth at any moment. Not that he was an expert on pregnancy. But he could count. And he still didn’t like the numbers he’d come up with.

“The ride doesn’t seem to have done you much good,” Pete said. “Or else that expression of yours is saying you hit a cactus patch somewhere out on the ranch.”

“I hit something thorny,” he agreed, wondering just how much the other man could help him. Pete had two kids of his own. He certainly ought to know something about the stages of pregnancy. He might also know when Shay was due to have her baby.

But he didn’t intend to stand there gossiping about her with Jed’s ranch manager. Or even to discuss her with Jed. He had to talk to Shay. All day, he’d replayed their conversation in his mind. Her lack of reaction when he had said he would keep her secret told him he couldn’t be the daddy. But he needed her to tell him herself.

“See you later.” Tyler made his way into the Hitching Post. A short walk down the hall took him to the wide doorway of the hotel’s kitchen.

Paz stood near a counter, where light glinted off a knife resting on a cutting board filled with raw vegetables. She broke off from what she was saying to gesture toward a large coffeemaker on one counter. “Coffee is brewed there.”

“Thanks.”

At the large table, Jed sat with a mug in front of him. “Take a load off,” he invited, waving at an empty chair.

Tyler filled a mug and took his seat at the table.

“As I was saying,” Paz said to Jed, “Tina talked with Shay and told her we won’t need her for the reception tonight. Shay’s planning to work at the shop instead, but she said she’ll be here tomorrow afternoon.”

“Good.”

Not so good for him. Tomorrow afternoon seemed a long time away. And if the Garlands herded her like a stray mare again, chances were good he probably wouldn’t get to talk to her alone. He couldn’t let this opportunity pass him by. “Shay seems to be pretty far along.”

“She is,” Paz confirmed. “She has just a few weeks left.”

“We’re trying to keep her from overdoing it,” Jed put in. “That’s why we appreciated your help yesterday and this morning. You deserved the break after lunch. Enjoy your ride?”

“Yeah,” he said, not satisfied with changing the subject but unwilling to push the issue. “It felt good to get out.”

“Of the hotel?”

“Just out. On horseback.” What had those all-knowing blue eyes seen to make Jed ask that question? He couldn’t tell the man the truth.

Last night, he had spent the evening with the Garlands and their hotel guests. And yeah, between that and today’s stint in the ballroom, then at the crowded lunch table, he had felt the need to get out of the hotel, to get away on his own. To put some space between him and the Garland family. Along with Jed and Paz, and not counting the absent newlyweds, that included two granddaughters, one of their husbands and a handful of kids. A lot of Garlands to go around. He’d needed some breathing room.

Maybe it was having all the other hotel guests there, too, that left him feeling boxed in. Maybe it was just the fact he’d grown up without brothers or sisters and had gotten used to the quiet.