A Baby Changes Everything (2 page)

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.

Someday, he promised himself, he would be able to kick back a little and enjoy the fruit of his labors, like the Fortune men he'd grown up with. Right now was his time to prosper.

But only if he kept after it.

He leaned over and kissed the top of her head. “Hi,” he said wearily.

Savannah forced a smile to her lips. He looked as tired as she felt, she thought. “You made it home,” she murmured.

His broad shoulders moved in a careless shrug beneath a faded denim work shirt that was damp with sweat. “I always do.”

He said that as if he resented coming home to her, she thought. She took a breath. “Hungry?”

Yes, he was hungry. Hungry for a lot of things. Hungry for more than food. But all his body begged for was some
place to drop so that it could finally, finally rest. Cruz shook his head.

“No, I'll just turn in.”

She looked at the food, which had long since cooled, waiting on his arrival. After leaving Vanessa's, she'd returned home, determined to be more patient. To be the loving wife she wanted to be. That had entailed making an elaborate Mexican dish her mother-in-law had taught her how to prepare. “But I made your favorite.”

Cruz forced a smile to his lips only because he was too tired to do it naturally. He looked at the meal. Chewing took more effort than he could give it.

“Thanks. Save it for tomorrow.”

She struggled to hide her hurt. He was rejecting her. Again. “It won't taste the same.”

“You made it. It'll still taste good.” Cruz felt his temper threatening to spike. It took all the energy he could muster to keep it in check. “Look, I'm exhausted. If you don't mind, I'm going to turn in.” He was already walking away from her toward the stairs.

“Yes, I do mind,” Savannah said under her breath, but Cruz was too far away to hear.

Angry tears stung her eyes as she began to clear the table.

S
avannah made it upstairs less than half an hour later, after clearing the table and putting away all the untouched food. She'd gone to the trouble of cooking mainly for Cruz. The way her stomach was behaving, it didn't welcome eating no matter what time of day she tried. The best she could hope for was to keep down a few crackers at a time.

Crossing the threshold into their room, she found him facedown on the bed, his face pressed against a pillow. Cruz was sound asleep.

She sighed. Her husband looked as if he'd crashed on the bed the second he came into the room. His body was sprawled on top of the covers, his opened shirt fanned out on either side of him like denim wings. Savannah shook her head. Cruz hadn't even bothered getting undressed, except for his boots.

The air in the master bedroom was oppressively heavy. It felt sticky, still ripe with the day's humidity. Savannah walked to the windows on either side of the king-size bed and opened them as far as they would go, hoping to get a little air circulating through the room.

Nothing happened. If there was a breeze in the vicinity, it was avoiding them.

Not bothering to shed the loose-fitting sundress she had on, Savannah lay down on the other side of the bed and pretended that all was well in her life.

 

“Why didn't you put your nightgown on last night?”

It was the first question she heard when she walked into the kitchen the next morning.

Savannah felt groggy. Her stomach was just now inching its way down from her throat after being lodged there for the better part of the last fifteen minutes, as she'd knelt over the toilet bowl. She'd then crept down the darkened stairs, making her way through the all but pitch-black house, guided by the light coming from the kitchen.

Cruz was sitting at the table, eating. He'd fixed his own breakfast. Again.

So now she felt useless as well as harried and ignored.

“You noticed.” Savannah hadn't meant to let the cryptic words escape, especially in that tone, but they had.

A piece of toast raised to his lips, Cruz looked at her as if he thought her pregnancy had somehow loosened a few screws in her head.

“Of course I noticed. You were lying right there beside me.”

Savannah shrugged as she opened the refrigerator and
moved a few things around. “Since you were wearing
your
clothes, it seemed like the thing to do.”

Taking out a container of milk, she poured the glassful she forced herself to drink every morning. As she raised it to her lips, she felt her stomach tighten in rebellion.

Taking her words to be a criticism, Cruz did his best to stifle the annoyance that rose up like a tidal wave inside of him. He'd never had a long fuse, but lately his temper was exceedingly short. “I was exhausted.”

Savannah put the container back in the refrigerator and sat down at the table, joining him. “You're always exhausted.”

His back went up, even though he continued eating. “Running a ranch takes a lot out of a man.”

Savannah set the glass down after only two sips. She absolutely hated milk. “Then let someone help you run it.”

He used the edge of his toast to coax the last of his scrambled eggs onto his fork. “You mean like you?” He shook his head as he took another bite. “You're already doing the bookkeeping. And you've got Luke and the house, not to mention that you're—”

Savannah cut him off. How could someone so smart be so thick? “I know exactly what I've got to do.” The words rang a bit too sharply in her ears, but she couldn't seem to control the tone of her voice this morning. “And I didn't mean me. I meant one of the hands.” She thought a second. “What about Paco?”

Cruz could literally feel annoyance creasing his brow. In the next minute it was gone as he reined in the frustration that seemed to appear more and more quickly these days whenever he was home.

“I told you before, Paco left.” Impatience returned de
spite his best efforts to keep it in check. “Don't you listen to me?”

“I listen to you,” she said with indignation. “I can count every word you've said to me in the last month. There haven't been many.”

Was she going to start in on that again? “Look, Savannah—”

She didn't want to argue. She wanted to find a solution. Desperately, she went over the names of the other ranch hands. “What about Hank?”

Cruz stopped and stared at her. Just what was his wife up to? “Hank?”

“Why can't he share some of the burden in running the ranch?” she asked slowly. “Maybe you can make him your foreman.”

He had never appointed a foreman. It was something he'd meant to do, but found himself putting off time and again. Naming a foreman meant giving someone else a share of the responsibilities that he viewed as his own. It was his ranch. His brand on everything. His good name that hung in the balance if anything went wrong.

Cruz frowned, looking down at his plate. “Hank's not ready for it.”

Why not? Savannah asked herself. Just the other day her husband had mentioned how well the man was working out. Didn't Cruz remember? “He's been here almost two years—”

“I said he's not ready for it.”

She pushed herself away from the table, glaring at Cruz. Damn it, he was doing this on purpose. “In your opinion, no one's ready for it. I think you're just using the ranch as an excuse not to come home to us at a decent hour.”

Like a man standing on one leg on a tightrope, Cruz felt as if he was being pushed beyond his endurance. “You want decent hours, you should have married some fancy businessman who clocks in from nine to five, not me.”

She stared at him. Where had that come from? There'd never been anyone but him in her life. “I didn't want a fancy businessman, I wanted you.”

He caught hold of the one word that threw everything they had into jeopardy. “‘Wanted?'”

“
Want
. I
still
want you,” she amended, realizing what her slip must have sounded like. “But I never get to see you.”

He finished his cup of coffee and put it back on its saucer. “What are you talking about? We see each other every day.”

That didn't count and he knew it, Savannah thought. “For what?” she demanded. “Ten, fifteen minutes at a clip? You're always either on your way out the door or too tired to keep your eyes open.”

“If that's true, how did
that
happen?” Cruz shifted his eyes toward her belly and the child who was growing there.

Picking up his plate and empty coffee cup, Savannah took both to the sink. “Once in five months doesn't count.”

His manhood insulted, Cruz required a hefty dose of self-control to keep his temper and reaction in check. “It's been more than once,” he corrected hotly.

She ran hot water on the plate and left it in the sink to soak for a moment. Then she shut off the tap and wiped her hands.

“You know what I mean.”

“No, I don't know what you mean,” he retorted, addressing his words to the back of her head. “You make it sound as if I'm having fun out there.”

Tossing the towel aside, Savannah swung around. “Well, aren't you? In a way, aren't you having the time of your life out there? Horses are your first love, aren't they?”

Angry words sprang to his tongue. Cruz pressed his lips together, struggling to hold them in, knowing that once they were said, there was no way to take them back. He tried to cut her some slack because of her condition, even though she seemed bent on not cutting him any.

“I'm beginning to think the horses understand me better than you do,” he said darkly.

Her eyes narrowed. They were fighting. The fight was unfolding in front of her and she felt like a bystander at a train wreck, unable to stop what was happening. Unable to curb the words that kept flying up to her lips, demanding release.

“That's probably because they get to see you more often.” Taking the glass of milk, she threw the contents down the drain, then clutched the sides of the sink, trying to pull herself together. None of the words being exchanged were ones she'd meant to say this morning. She took a deep breath, trying to center herself. “Look, Cruz, I don't want to argue.”

Standing up, he threw down the napkin he'd used to wipe his mouth, echoing the movement of knights of old when they threw down a glove as a silent challenge.

“For a woman who doesn't want to argue, you do a damn poor job of reaching your goal.”

And then, because he truly did love her, Cruz made his own attempt to smooth things out. Maybe he hadn't been supportive enough, but hell, he was busier than God these days. Every time he turned around, there were more bills to face, more problems to smooth out. And that didn't
even include the training. Cutting horses required a great deal of time and attention.

“Look,” he began again, “you're pregnant. Your hormones or whatever are all over the map. Why don't you leave Luke with one of my sisters today and take a bubble bath or something?”

As if soapy water could somehow magically change everything between them, she thought.

Well, she amended, maybe it could at that. Or at least it could help her take a stab at starting over.

Turning from the sink, she crossed to him, then smiled. “I'd like to take a bubble bath. With you.”

He felt the effects of her smile. It was like watching sunshine rise over a darkened land. “That's too girlie.”

Another wave of nausea threatened to overtake her. Savannah concentrated on pushing it back. This was far more important. She wound her arms around her husband's neck, playing with the dark locks of hair at his collar.

“Not if I'm in the tub with you…”

He could feel the heat from her body. The heat from his own. “Yeah, well…”

Sensing her advantage, Savannah pressed herself against him, her eyes taking him prisoner. “Like we used to, Cruz.”

“We never took a bubble bath together,” he protested, but not too vehemently.

“No,” she agreed, grinning. “But we took showers together. Don't you remember soaping up each other's bodies?” Her voice was soft, low. It stirred him. “Don't you remember what it was like, Cruz, drying each other off?”

His body was rebelling, betraying him. Now wasn't the time or the place! “Savannah, you know you're making me crazy.”

“Am I, Cruz? Am I?” Hope lit a tiny candle in the dark center of her soul. She pressed her body against his, feeling the imprint of it along her own. Feeling him harden. She had him, she thought in heady triumph. She just needed to press her advantage. “Why don't you take the morning off? We can drop Luke off at one of your sisters, just like you said.” She raised herself on her toes, her face turned up to his. “Spend a little time together.”

Her mouth was seductively close. Temptation leaped out at him, taking hold.

He wasn't made out of stone and he loved his wife. From the moment she'd returned to the Double Crown Ranch, there hadn't been another woman around who could even remotely tempt him. He didn't want anyone else. It was as if he'd buried that part of him that had searched for answers in other women's beds. Savannah was the only answer he'd ever wanted or needed.

But right now he was needed elsewhere, not here, giving in to his own desires.

Cruz struggled to hold himself back. He knew that if he gave in to the ever-increasing wave of desire within him, if he even kissed Savannah, he'd be sunk.

He couldn't afford to let that happen. There was so much to do today.

Very gently, he took hold of the arms around his neck and untangled himself from her. He saw the confusion, the disappointment in her eyes and felt something twist within his gut.

But she'd been his wife for over five years now. She understood about this life they led. What was required. “Honey, I just can't today. I've got five new horses coming in.”

Frustrated beyond words, she wanted to scream, to rant. For the first time in her life, she wanted to throw a full-scale tantrum. “And you have to greet them personally?”

He tried to put his hand on her shoulder, but she shrugged him off. They were back in their corners again. “Savannah, you know better than that.”

Stepping away from him, she sighed. “Yes, I know better than that.”

He couldn't stand to see the sadness in her eyes. Allowing himself one final moment before hurrying out the door, Cruz paused to take her chin in his hand. Tilting her head back just a little, he lightly brushed his lips over hers.

“Soon,” he promised. “Just be patient a bit longer.”

“What choice do I have?” Savannah murmured, feeling dejected. She saw another endless, frustrating, lonely day stretch out in front of her. A day without Cruz. She dearly loved her son, but she needed a break from him. A break from him and time with her husband. But that wasn't going to happen.

Her eyes met Cruz's, willing him to stay. “I love you.”

“And I love you,” he told her. “This is all for you, you know that. For you and Luke.” Grabbing his hat, he started to leave the kitchen.

“No,” she said sadly to his back. “It's all for you. Because I could live in a mud hut, as long as you were right there beside me.”

Wearily, Cruz spun on his heel to look at her. She was spouting romantic nonsense and he was in no mood for it. “No,” he said evenly, “you couldn't. Because you can't wear mud, you can't eat mud, you can't hand a bucket of mud to the doctor. It takes money, Savannah. Everything takes money and I'm earning it the only way I know how.”
And he was getting damn tired of having to justify himself to her on top of everything else he had to do. “Go call one of my sisters. Take that bubble bath,” he instructed. “You'll feel better.”

She said nothing as the sound of his boots receding on the wooden floor echoed through the silent house. The next moment, she heard the front door closing.