The Cowboy's Little Surprise (8 page)

After he had left the room, she sighed, wishing he would see reason about her cousins’ ideas for the Hitching Post.

She thought of having to tell Jed and Abuela the truth about Robbie’s daddy. Her cousins would find out eventually, too, but her grandparents needed to be the first ones she told. At last.

Confessing once would take all the courage she had. She couldn’t hold that conversation a second time. When she talked to Abuela and Jed, she wanted them both together. And not in this room. It was never easy to get Abuela away from her kitchen for any length of time, but this certainly wasn’t the best place for a private chat.

She dreaded having to share the news even now. Especially now, as she’d kept her secret from them for so many years. Abuela would be shocked at learning about Cole and hurt by her long silence. And Jed—who had always loved her, just as Abuela had said—would be hurt, too. They both loved Robbie as much as they loved her.

She rose to transfer the few dishes from the sink into the dishwasher. To wipe down every already immaculate counter in the room. To do anything that would provide a distraction from her thoughts.

Someone was bound to walk in here at any moment, and she now had no onions handy to blame for her tear-filled eyes.

* * *

F
OR
T
INA
,
DINNER
at the Hitching Post was fast becoming the most uncomfortable meal she could ever remember.

Shortly before they had sat down to eat, she had been finishing up some emails in her office. She had heard boot steps on the hardwood floor of the lobby and looked up to find Cole leaning against the door frame. After his day on the ranch, he had showered and dressed in nearly full cowboy attire, down to and including fringed chaps.

As she looked him over and raised her brows, he had grinned. “Might as well give the crowd a thrill. I’d have worn spurs, too, if I didn’t think Paz would have my hide for it.”

“Abuela wouldn’t be too happy if you scratched the furniture,” she had agreed.

Now
she
wasn’t at all happy watching him charm everyone in the dining room.

But he had always been Cole Slater, the playboy. The boy who had once had her under his spell. The boy whose magic had ultimately proved to be an act full of smoke and mirrors. A well-practiced act, like the one he was performing now.

Yet, somehow he seemed different tonight. More relaxed. More genuine. More sincere than the boy she had known years ago.

And definitely sexier than ever.

Startled, she stared down at her plate. Where had that thought come from? And what had she done with all her common sense? One show of weakness in front of Cole could give him an advantage over her. Again.

Almost against her will, she found herself looking in his direction. She sat and she watched and she worried as he played the role of cowpoke to the hilt. Or rather, to the shiny silver buckle on his belt. A buckle, he’d told their guests, he had won at a rodeo in Abilene. Then he’d proceeded to regale them with tales of his bull-riding days.

The guests weren’t the only ones wide-eyed and plying him with questions.

“Y-you killed a animal?” Robbie asked, his bottom lip quivering.

“No,” Cole said immediately. “I just tested my skill against those bulls. Like this—here.” He took a dinner roll from the basket in front of him and tossed it underhand toward Robbie.

Robbie grabbed the roll between his palms and grinned.

Cole smiled back at him. “See how fast you caught that? Those bulls are fast, too. I wanted to see how long I could stay on ’em before they threw me off. It’s a lot different from riding a horse.”

“Like Bingo?” Robbie asked.

Bingo was the smallest pony in Jed’s stable. Before Tina could respond, Cole answered.

“Yeah, like Bingo. He’s your horse, huh?”

“Yep. He’s little, like me. But Scott’s littler. If Scott comes sometimes, I can ride Shadow. Right, Grandpa?”

“Sure you can. You’re getting plenty big enough for Shadow. Now, you see?” Jed looked at the guests seated at two of the smaller tables. “If my little guy can handle himself on a horse, we’ll have y’all up in the saddle in no time.”

Tina noticed he was careful not to let his gaze linger on the elder of the couples. When they had checked in and he had mentioned horseback riding, Mr. Dunbar had responded enthusiastically, but his wife had said nothing.

Trust Jed to find a way of offering reassurances kindly, and without making an issue of it.

Just as Cole had done with Robbie.

She thought of her conversation in the kitchen that afternoon, of the question she had asked Abuela.

Did you think Jed wouldn’t want to know the truth?

From the minute Cole had met her son, she had watched his reactions. She had read the anger in his posture. Had heard the hurt in his tone. At this moment, she could see the wonder in his eyes.

Every single emotion said he would have wanted to know about Robbie.

Chapter Eight

After dinner ended, Cole asked Robbie about his ponies. When her son enthusiastically led him down the hall, with Trey toddling behind them, Tina found herself trailing along, too.

To keep an eye on the boys,
she told herself. And of course, to visit with their guests.

She and Jed always kept themselves accessible to those who stayed in the hotel. They made a point of joining their guests for a while in the sitting room during the afternoons and evenings. When Abuela was free after dinner, she often stopped in before going to her room in their family wing of the hotel. Now Cole would be there, too.

In the sitting room, she settled into her favorite chair and pulled the afghan from the back of it into her lap. Less than three feet from her, Cole took a seat on the floor in front of the couch. The boys hurried to the corner where they had left the plastic horses.

To her dismay, all four of the hotel’s guests crossed the reception area without even a glance into the sitting room. A moment later, they closed the front door behind them. Then she heard Jed in the hallway directing Jane and Andi to his den.

She had expected Jed, at least, to come in here. Instead, she was alone with the two boys and Cole.

From the cubby built into the coffee table, he pulled out a wicker basket filled with her son’s building blocks. Idly, he stirred through them.

The chunking sound caught Robbie’s attention. Leaving the ponies behind, he and Trey came to kneel beside Cole. Robbie tilted the basket, spilling blocks onto the floor.

“We can make a dungeon,” he said. “Or a castle or a fort.” He tilted his head and looked at Cole. “But no corral, okay?”

“No corral, pardner. If that’s the way you want it.”

He sat watching Robbie and Trey.

Cuddled beneath her afghan, Tina watched Cole. Again.

Occasionally, he would offer the boys a helping hand when a block got away from them or their fort threatened to collapse.

Right now, she felt about as shaky as their structure. She prided herself on her logic and ran her life based on careful analyses. But like the boys’ blocks, her emotions were getting away from her.

The sight of Cole and Robbie smiling at each other made her chest tighten and her eyes prickle. Made her think how much different things could have been...if Cole hadn’t walked away from her, causing her to pull her reserve around her like the afghan she now had tucked nearly under her chin.

Things could have been different, too, if Cole hadn’t left.

But he
had
left—first his job here at the ranch and then Cowboy Creek altogether—without giving her time to find a way to tell him about her pregnancy.

Yet in all honesty, how could she put one hundred percent of the blame on him?

Suppose you’d given me the news a long time ago?
he had asked.
How do you know I wouldn’t have stayed in town then?

He’d said nothing about staying
with her
.

She was the one with the long-held dreams of settling down with him someday.

Dreams it seemed she couldn’t forget even now.

Until this week, she hadn’t spoken to Cole for so long. She had no idea what kind of man he had become, except the kind who would help two small children build a fort from wooden blocks. The kind who would reassure a frightened little boy who cared about animals.

After Cole had left town, she and Ally had never worked up the nerve to question his sister about him. They hadn’t felt they could ask Sugar or even Abuela. As a result, she had never known his reasons for leaving Cowboy Creek.

She also knew nothing about what he had done in all the time he’d been gone. But now she had both the nerve and the need to ask. For Robbie’s sake.

Cole looked at the chime clock on the wall, then up at her from his seat on the floor. “I’m not keeping you from anything important, am I?”

“No. Why?”

“Just thought you might have something better to do than supervise this construction site.”

She couldn’t miss the edge in his voice. “Nothing better than keeping an eye on things. In case you suddenly decide to break free of this corral.”

Robbie looked up. “No corrals, Mama. Not for the ponies.” He turned to Trey. “The ponies!” he said, as if suddenly remembering the herd they had left in the corner of the room. Within seconds, the boys had abandoned the blocks for the horses.

His eyes narrowed. “You heard me say that the other day.”

“I did. Is that why you left town in the first place? You wanted to break free?”

He stayed quiet for so long that she thought he wouldn’t answer.

“One of the reasons,” he said finally.

“Layne never mentioned what you’ve been doing since you’ve been gone.”

“Cowhand.”

The same work Jed had hired him to do, now and years ago.

She could envision Cole in those high school days as if no time had passed at all.

While she rode the county bus home, he had driven his pickup truck, which meant he arrived at the ranch much sooner than she did. So many times, Abuela had scolded her for running right to the barn once the bus had dropped her off when she should have gone inside to tackle her homework and chores. But she had lived in hope that she could steal a few minutes to talk with him before he started his assigned job for the afternoon.

“Did you go somewhere in particular?” she asked.

He shook his head. “No. I didn’t want to get tied down.” For a moment, his eyes looked bleak. He set one of the building blocks on top of another and batted it off again. “A rolling stone, that’s me. Meant to roam. I stayed in the South, though. Spent the last two years in Texas. It’s a big state.”

“As nice as New Mexico?”

He laughed. “Talk to my friends in Dallas, and they’ll tell you everything’s bigger
and
better in Texas.”

“Nothing’s better than being home.” When he didn’t respond, she asked, “What are your plans now?”

He shrugged. “To give Layne a hand.”

Not the most definitive answer. She couldn’t push without being willing to give in return if he pushed back. And she wasn’t ready for that. Instead, she said, “This was the first I’d heard about her having to move.”

“She didn’t get much warning, either.”

His grim expression made her wince.

“I don’t see her very much anymore,” she admitted, “not even at SugarPie’s. Abuela and I stop there when we go into town to grocery shop. But it always seems to be a day Layne’s not there. I’m sorry things didn’t work out for her and Terry.”

“She’s better off.”

“From her situation with Terry or from marriage in general?”

If she had given herself time to think, she would never have spoken. Why bother, when she already knew what his answer would be? But now she
had
asked the question, she wouldn’t back down.

* * *

K
NOWING
—
AND
NOT
LIKING
—the direction their conversation had suddenly taken, Cole stared back at Tina. “What does that mean?” he asked, keeping his voice low.

“The first day you came in to the hotel, you made a comment about swearing off marriage and kids.”

“Yeah. I made that statement about me, not Layne. And before I knew I had a son. That changes part of the equation.”

He stacked a couple of blocks in front of him. He’d barely spent any time at all with the boy. Certainly not enough time to figure out how to break the news to him. And right now he wasn’t thinking beyond that.

Obviously, she wasn’t any more prepared.

One of them needed to redirect this conversation.

“Speaking of changing things,” he said, “how are you feeling about all the excitement around here?”

At yesterday’s brunch, when Andi had arrived and Jed had made his big announcement about the hotel, he could tell Tina hadn’t liked the news at all. He felt sure no one else had noticed. But he had sat right beside her, close enough to hear her breath catch. Close enough to see the way she had clamped her hands together beneath the edge of the table.

From Jane and Andi’s comments at supper tonight, he knew she was doing her part, keeping track of ideas for the hotel in order to gather estimates for the work.

Still, she seemed quieter about the project than he had ever known her to be about anything.

And she hadn’t responded to his question. She probably never would, unless he could break through that reserve of hers. He knew what would do it. And—what the heck—it wouldn’t hurt to make clear how he stood on a subject she had raised herself.

“To tell you the truth,” he said, “I don’t see a problem with the hotel the way it is. But then, I’m not much for weddings, especially after what happened at mine.”

Her eyes opened wide. “You’re married?”

“Was, almost.”

She frowned. It didn’t take long for her analytical mind to figure out the answer. “You mean, you were engaged?”

“Yeah, for a short time. Until I found myself standing in front of a Las Vegas preacher with no bride.”

“Someone left you at the altar?” She sounded stunned.

“Truthfully, I don’t think the place had an altar. But yeah, she stood me up. And I deserved it. I should have known better.” And he’d learned from the experience. It had been his first—and sure as hell his last—attempt at marriage.

“That,”
he said, “explains why I’m not much into the idea of turning this into a honeymoon hotel. What’s your objection?”

“What makes you think I object?”

“Call it a reluctance, then. A difference of opinion. An unwillingness to take one for the team.”

She winced. “I’m not unwilling. It’s just that...I was raised here. The Hitching Post is more than a hotel. It’s my home. And I don’t like the idea of making drastic changes to it.”

Suddenly, he felt an urge to smile. That statement of hers took him back quite a few years.

Tina had never liked change or anything that upset her carefully thought-out plans. From kindergarten till now, she had held the same interests, going so far as to turn her favorite school subject into her full-time job. She had kept the same hairstyle, that long braid she hadn’t let him unravel the night they’d...

Well, no sense thinking about that.

The point was, she had stayed the same quiet, reserved Tina she’d always been. An all-business bookkeeper with a soft heart when it came to houses and kids.

Even if he forgot the secret she’d kept—as if he could—she wasn’t
at all
the kind of woman a man who had sworn off marriage should be thinking about.

* * *

“Y
OU
’
RE
DOING
FINE
,
S
COTT
,” Tina told Cole’s nephew the next afternoon. She led him on horseback in a slow walk inside the corral.

“It’s bumpy,” he said with a nervous giggle.

“I know it is. But you’ll get used to being on Bingo. Then it will feel as easy as riding in Uncle Cole’s truck.” After mentally shaking her head for bringing up the man’s name, she attempted to forget him and just enjoy the sunshine soaking into her shoulders.

A failed attempt, since the tingling between her shoulder blades made her certain he was watching her. Again.

She hadn’t been a bit happy when she had come out to the barn that afternoon and seen Cole and another hand leading their more seasoned horses into the corral.

When she asked him about it, he told her Pete said Jed had made some changes to the day’s roster. Jed had told his manager to pass along the message that Cole should help with the riding lessons.

Her suspicions about Abuelo flared again. But if she asked him, she knew she would get only another seemingly innocent explanation.

The pony tugged on the lead rope in her hand. “Be careful with your feet,” she reminded Scott. “If you kick Bingo, he’ll think you want to go faster.”

He nodded, but then his lower lip trembled.

Her heart went out to him.

Though they had given him the smallest mount in Jed’s stable and she had walked his pony for a good hour, he still hadn’t gotten comfortable. He glanced enviously at Robbie and at Pete’s five-year-old daughter, Rachel, both trotting their horses around the perimeter of the corral and obviously at home in the saddle.

Riding lessons at the ranch included a list of instructions. Their guests watched as their horses were saddled up and learned how to adjust the girth and stirrups, with everything double-checked by the wranglers, of course, before anyone was allowed to ride.

Cole had worked with the adults and now was patiently leading the nervous Mrs. Dunbar on horseback around the corral.

Tina gave the woman an encouraging smile.

As she glanced at Cole, his gaze met hers. For a moment, the several dozen yards between them seemed reduced to a handful of inches.

Unsettled, she turned away.

Last night, his announcement about being left at the altar had shaken her more than it should have, too.

She focused again on the boy astride the pony. “See, Scott,” she said, “in the beginning everybody has to learn how to ride. You’ll get there.”

She spent another few minutes walking him and Bingo inside the fence. Anything to keep her away from Cole. Yet she couldn’t resist another peek across the corral.

He had helped Mrs. Dunbar dismount and was handing her horse’s reins over to one of the stable hands.

Though her emotions were in a whirl, as she watched him the cool, analytical side of her brain couldn’t help taking over, making a quick tally of what she saw.

To the credit column, she added blue eyes the color of a springtime sky. Brown hair as soft as the silk of her favorite nightgown. A generous mouth she unfortunately from time to time still dreamed about. And the entries went on and on.

Too bad the single item in the debit column canceled everything out.

“Hey, Mama,” Robbie called, waving from his seat on Shadow.

She waved in return.

“Looking good,” Cole called.

He might have meant the compliment for Robbie or Scott or anyone else in the corral. But when she turned, he was striding in her direction. His gaze was firmly on her, making her conscious of her comfy but too-snug jeans and scruffy boots.