Marie Ferrarella - A Baby Changes Everything

Savannah sighed. There was sadness in her eyes as she looked up at her best friend. “Not as much as I wish I was.”

Communication was the only way, Vanessa thought. It certainly worked for her and Devin. “Have you told him how you feel?”

Savannah looked at her. Hadn’t she been listening? “I just said—”

“I know what you just said,” Vanessa interrupted, squelching a minor bout of impatience. The solution, or at least a start, seemed pretty clear to her. “That you’d have to make an appointment to see him. Well, make one. Do whatever it takes. Grab him by the arm when he walks in tonight and say, ‘Cruz, we have to talk.’” She waved her hand, as if trying to bring about a magic spell. “And then talk.”

“He’ll probably fall asleep while I’m talking.”

Cruz had done that just the other night. Right after dinner. He hadn’t even got up from the table. He’d laid his head down for a second, just to “rest my eyes,” and boom, he was out like a light. It took everything she had not to put on the radio and blast him. But she hadn’t. She’d gently prodded him to his feet and then, with his arm slung across her shoulders, she’d somehow managed to get him up the stairs and into bed. During the one occasion when he’d been intoxicated and the same thing had happened, he’d pulled her down on top of him and they’d made love.

This time, though, he’d gone straight back to sleep.

Leaving her out in the cold.

“It won’t be the first time,” Savannah concluded, keeping her voice low for Luke’s sake. It throbbed with emotion.

Vanessa glanced at the iced tea container. “Then keep a pitcher of cold water handy and douse him if you have to.”

Despite the situation, Savannah heard herself laughing. “You’re a radical woman, Vanessa Kincaid, you know that?”

Vanessa winked in response. “Maybe, but I get results.”

He had begun to think that today was never going to be over. Since before sunup, the day had felt endless.

Which, he supposed, made it no different from all the others that had come before it in the last few months. His days were stretched to the maximum, filled from beginning to end with work. By the time he finally walked up to the house each evening, Cruz Perez felt as if he barely had enough energy to put one foot in front of the other.

Certainly not enough to sit and talk the way Savannah always wanted to do when he walked in through the front door.

He wished he had the energy she required of him.

He wished she could understand.

Getting the life he wanted for them required a great deal of sacrifice on his part. And part of that sacrifice meant not doing what he would rather be doing.

Which was being with Savannah.

He loved his wife. He really did, he thought as he drove up the winding lane to his house. Loved her with every fiber of his being.

But at the same time, the very sight of Savannah made him acutely aware of all his shortcomings. They came at him from all directions, illuminated with glaring headlights. They made him ashamed, because he couldn’t give her what he wanted to give her.

A woman like Savannah deserved to have things, things he couldn’t find a way to give her no matter how hard he tried. How hard he worked.

He always knew that running a ranch wouldn’t be easy, but he had lusted after it as far back as he could remember. Having a ranch made you your own man, gave you something to make you proud.

If it was successful.

Lately, though, there were more headaches, more bills than there was joy. A lot more.

And then there was the new baby coming—a baby that hadn’t been planned.

Lightning certainly did strike twice, he thought, driving his Jeep into the garage. Getting out, he began to walk toward the house. Luke had certainly not been planned. His firstborn had been the result of a night of passion, the kind that most men only dreamed about.

Cruz’s mouth curved as he remembered. He’d been working for the Fortunes then, with a chip on his shoulder and an army of women trailing after him. He’d had more than his share, but from the first moment he laid eyes on her, he’d seen something special about the quiet beauty who was Vanessa Fortune’s friend.

Savannah was genteel, refined, not like the other women he’d bedded. Women who wanted a wild ride with the rebel stallion, who hadn’t seen him for who he really was. Savannah had looked into his eyes, and he’d felt that she was seeing things inside of him that he had only been wishing were there.

She made him want to be a better man.

Still, when she’d left soon afterward, he’d locked her memory away and gone on with his work, being a horse whisperer. Gone on with his life, bedding every willing woman he came across. But even then, Savannah had haunted the perimeters of his mind, making him long for her even though she was an unattainable dream.

After she’d lost her teaching position in a prim and proper private school, she’d returned, to work for the Fortunes as the Double Crown’s bookkeeper. He’d been stunned to see her belly slightly rounded with child. His child, although pride had her denying it at first.

Pride was the one thing they had in common. Her pride wouldn’t let him marry her out of a sense of obligation, so she’d lied to him about the baby’s father. And his pride wouldn’t allow Savannah to be married to anyone but a success.

It still didn’t.

He was determined to be that success for her. And for his son. Honor demanded nothing less.

He’d expanded on the original ranch’s one hundred acres, buying more land to the east, planning on having more horses, planning to put the name of La Esperanza on the map. This ranch would never rival in size anything the Fortunes had, but in quality…well, that he could strive for. That would be something worthy he could give Savannah and Luke and whoever else was joining the family in six months. No, four, he mentally corrected himself after ticking off the months in his mind.

Damn, it was hard to keep that straight. Hard to keep anything in his life straight these days, what with one thing after another. Just the day-to-day chores were overwhelming now that Paco had left for reasons that had nothing to do with Cruz.

Didn’t matter what the reasons, he thought, walking up to the front door. He still felt the man’s loss. Paco had been with him since the beginning and had remained more out of loyalty than the pay. Cruz was down to three hands. The money he’d set aside to hire a new man had been eaten up by vet bills when one of his mares had been bitten by a rattlesnake. He’d come close to having to put her down, but now she was out of the woods. And he was very close to being out of money.

That left him a man short, with him having to take up the slack, since in clear conscience he couldn’t ask anyone else to do it. He wasn’t that kind of a boss, wanting his hands to do more than he did himself.

It was after nine. The last bit of July daylight had been siphoned off, and night had descended, sitting oppressively over the terrain along with its humidity.

He felt more dead than alive, but he remembered to stomp his boots on the doormat with its faded Welcome sign. He knew how Savannah hated having dirt tracked into the house.

Lately, there seemed to be a lot of things Savannah hated, he thought.

He followed the trail of lights, shutting them off as he went. Electric bills didn’t pay for themselves.

He found her sitting at the table in the small dining room. She turned her face toward him as he entered. The table was set for two.

A sad smile twisted his lips. Savannah had given up setting it for three. Luke had long since gone to bed.

Cruz missed his son. Missed his wife. Missed enjoying his life. But sitting back and enjoying things was for dreamers. Not for men with responsibilities.