The Cowboy’s Bride by Donna Alward

13

Her seat was empty.

She must have gotten tired of waiting for him. The bullriding was still ongoing, but had to be finishing soon. She couldn’t have gone far…

He wandered around for a good ten minutes before he finally thought to check the truck.

His heart leapt to his throat at the sight of her crouched in the back of the truck bed.

“Alex?”

She lifted her head, tendrils of hair straggling around her cheeks.

She’d been crying. A flash of anger shot through him at whoever had said something to make her cry. He shouldn’t have left her alone for so long. Lord only knew what questions she’d been asked. He’d fielded his share and was left feeling a bit raw as a result.

“What’s wrong?”

She straightened, pushed back her hair behind her ears, and wiped her cheeks with her fingers. “Nothing.”

“You never cry. You hate crying.” He remembered her saying that the night of the ruined meal, and said it back with a smile, trying to cajole her out of her tears.

He hopped up on the tailgate and started to approach the back of the truck bed where she was huddled. He halted when he saw what looked like accusation on her face. Was she mad at him?

“Honey?”

“I’m not your honey.” She lifted her head, sniffed once, effectively shutting him out. “I’d like to go home now, please. I have a headache.”

She was downright frosty, and he took off his hat, squatting down a few feet away from her.

“I’m sorry I left you so long. I got talking and…”

“I know.”

The words came out bitingly cold and he froze. “You saw me?”

“I did.”

She saw the guilt spread over his face, the way he averted his eyes suddenly and his cheeks flushed. She had to be careful, very careful. She hadn’t really heard anything, but by his reaction she knew that he’d been asked those horrible, awkward questions.

The very reason she was upset was the reason that she couldn’t tell the truth. It wasn’t that he’d left her alone. It was carrying guilt around like a noose around her neck. It was that she knew once and for all that her feelings were unrequited, and it made her more vulnerable than ever before. She should have walked away that first moment he’d had those yellow roses in his hands.

She’d allowed herself to get her hopes up. He’d called her his wife, kissed her, held her. Was she wrong in her interpretation of that? Then on the other hand, he’d said he was sticking to their original agreement. This had all been a horrible mistake—she knew that now—and somehow she had to fix it. Right after she said her piece.

“What did you hear?” His voice was quiet and a bit wary and she bravely met his eyes, giving him the only answer she could.

“You told, didn’t you? You told our secret. I thought it was only going to be you, me, and your grandmother. It wasn’t for everyone to know.”

Connor looked around, then leaned closer, not wanting this conversation to be heard by the general population.

“I didn’t say a word, I swear. I wouldn’t do that.”

“That’s hardly the point now, is it.” She sniffed again, eyes clear of any tears now. She knew that sounded unreasonable but seemed unable to stop. “I realized something today. It’s different for you. Not that it should be, mind you, but once word of this gets out, I’ll be judged. I’ll be completely humiliated! A pathetic loser! So desperate I’d sell my soul to a complete stranger! You’ll be poor Connor, taken in by that money-grubber. Because eventually the truth will come out, Connor. And I can’t live with that lie any longer. I can’t pretend for the world that this is some perfect marriage. Someday you’ll let it slip. You won’t mean to. But you will.”

It didn’t occur to her that perhaps she was being a tad melodramatic. Instead she was stripped of her pride, laid bare as the imposter she knew she was. The salt in the wound was that she wasn’t as cold and heartless as she appeared. Her feelings ran deep; her wants and desires, longings and fears.

Reduced to this.

“I won’t tell, I promise. You can trust me.”

“Right.”

Connor looked around him; the crowd was milling about now that the afternoon events were completed. Unless they wanted a scene in front of half the town, it would be better altogether if they left now.

“Let’s finish this at home, okay? In private. I’m assuming you don’t want this to be overheard.”

She ignored the hand he offered her, instead getting to her feet and hopping out of the back of the truck without assistance. He followed her, opening her door and shutting it behind her before jogging around to the driver’s side and getting in.

She stared out the window as she spoke to him. “This isn’t over, you know. I still have a lot more to say.”

“I’m sure you do.”

He pulled out of the lot, letting the radio do the talking in the tense silence.

Alex stared straight ahead. She couldn’t look at him. To do so she knew she’d lose her nerve. She needed to remain cool and objective right now, the way she should have all along.

The initial agreement was a platonic marriage for a short term. Money would change hands. Everyone would get what they wanted. Instead she’d come up here in the middle of nowhere, stupidly looking for something that didn’t exist. A happy ending. A fool wishing on stars. Now look where that got her. She would have been lonely, but a hell of a lot happier if she’d stayed where she was.

The fact of the matter was, all Connor needed for the money was a marriage certificate. It didn’t hinge on her actually living at Windover. Perhaps she should have insisted on it all along. But she’d felt at home at the ranch, and she’d never questioned the decision to remain there until the baby was born. Until now. Why hadn’t she thought of this before now? She wasn’t sure. But she was positive that knowing her feelings, and knowing they were not returned in kind, she had to leave.

Connor pulled into the driveway and killed the engine. She hopped out, not waiting for him but using her own key to open the front door.

“Alex, wait,” he called out from the foyer. She was already at the second step of the stairs.

He put his hand on the banister. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she replied, taking another step.

“You don’t sound fine. You don’t act fine. I think we should talk about this.”

“You want to talk? Be careful what you wish for, Connor. Because I’m still really angry.”

“You don’t hold the franchise on that, by the way.” He bit the words back at her, hard verbal pellets. “I’d like to know exactly when I gave you the impression that you couldn’t trust me.”

She ignored the question since she didn’t have an answer. Instead she spun on the steps and marched back down to the bottom. “You know, we agreed to get married for your trust fund. You agreed to support me and the baby. That scenario doesn’t require me to actually live here. I’m thinking it’s probably best if I find my own place. I’ll help out as much as I can if you can give me some assistance with rent.”

His mouth fell open in blatant shock. “Are you joking?”

“Not at all.” He crowded her at the bottom of the stairs, close enough she smelled the aftershave and dust and leather that made up the scent that was distinctly Connor. Even now, when she was spitting mad, hurt, and God knew what other emotion in the spectrum, just his smell had the power to bring to the surface all the longing she had for him. She pursed her lips and skirted around him, stalking towards the living room.

“It might be easier all around, rather than pretending that this is something it very clearly isn’t.”

The words echoed in a very sudden stillness, until his deep voice broke the awkward silence.

“Where would you go?” Already he felt how empty the house would be without her. In a few short weeks, she’d made it a home again.

“It doesn’t make sense,” he continued. “It’s ridiculous…just take a deep breath and let your hormones settle, will you?”

“Hormones? You’re going to blame this on hormones?” Her mouth dropped open, incensed he’d even insinuate such a thing! “You don’t understand anything, do you?”

She turned to run but he caught her by the forearm. “Then you’d better explain it to me. What’s really going on?”

Her eyes blazed into his for a long moment. The words I love you but you don’t love me back raced through her mind but thankfully stopped at her lips. She took deep breaths, willing him to let go of her arm. When he didn’t it took all the strength she had to answer quietly, deathly calm.

“From where I’m standing, it makes perfect sense. We both knew this plan was over the top to begin with. I’m not handling the strain well. I’m not good at pretending, Connor. I don’t like lying. I can’t do another six months of this.”

If he thought she meant the agreement and that deception, well and good. It was better that he didn’t know the pretending she meant was pretending not to love him when she did so very desperately. She’d been humiliated enough. She wouldn’t go a step further and make it worse by embarrassing him with flowery statements of unrequited devotion.

Connor withdrew, opened the patio doors and stepped out on to the deck. What was he going to do now? She’d already pulled away from him once; today she was suggesting she leave altogether. How could he explain how he felt now? It was obvious that her withdrawal the other night was genuine. She didn’t want him. He’d come on too strong. He knew that now. He stared across the fields at the mountains; watched a hawk circling above, on the hunt for prairie dogs.

It wouldn’t be fair to ask her to stay somewhere where she wasn’t happy. But the option was life without her and he couldn’t accept that. Somehow, he had to make her see that she could trust him. And trust him with her heart. He had to keep her here to do that.

He’d lost too many of those he’d loved. He wouldn’t allow himself to lose another.

“Don’t go,” he whispered hoarsely, sensing her somewhere behind him. Somehow even the air changed when she was near. He knew he’d been right when she answered.

“I think I have to.”

He turned his back on the peaks to the west and shook his head. “I’m sorry. I should have discussed it with you more before we went. I should have made sure you were comfortable with going. I… I hadn’t thought out how I was going to answer questions about us. But I swear to you, Alexis, I didn’t say anything about our arrangement.”

“I felt so…cheap. Like everyone was looking and judging, even without knowing the truth.”

Despite any fears, her words sparked something in him he could not ignore. He stepped forward and put his hands on her wrists. “Never. Not you. You are honourable and kind and good.”

She pulled her hands away from his. “Someone honourable and good wouldn’t have married for money.”

“Someone honourable and good wouldn’t have convinced a pregnant woman to marry him for a trust fund, either.”

“But that’s why I should go, don’t you see? At least if I leave it’ll be honest.”

He turned away from the earnest look on her face. Honest? Hardly. But the truth would send her running faster than any misapprehensions she was under now.

“I don’t want you to go.” He said it with his back to her. “That’s honest.”

“Why? Why does it matter where I live?”

“It just matters, okay?”

She’d looked like a scared jackrabbit the other night after he’d kissed her. If she knew he had real, deep feelings for her she’d panic and bolt. He knew that for sure now.

He kept his back to her as he tried what he could manage of an explanation. “I want you here. I want to know that you and the baby are fine. I enjoy your company, if it comes right down to it. I’ve rattled around in this old house for so long, having someone else here has spoiled me.”

“I’m going eventually anyway. Why does it matter if it’s now or in a few months?”

Connor turned and looked at her again. No matter how she protested, he could see her distress by the brightness of her eyes, the way her hand shook as it rested against the soft cotton of her top. She was upset, distraught even. Now was not the time to be making rash decisions.

“You’re far too upset right now to make any permanent decisions. I can’t let you leave this way, Alex, I’m sorry.”

He couldn’t decipher the expression on her face. It had flattened with surprise, like she didn’t quite know what to make of it.

“You’re forbidding me.”

“For now, yes.” He paused, gentling his voice. “Alex, I’m asking you to stay. To let this arrangement play out.”

Oh, dear Lord. What was she going to do now? Her head said go. Staying any longer would only make leaving harder in the end. Staying and falling harder for him, knowing he didn’t feel the same, would be torture.

She looked into his eyes. She’d never been able to resist his eyes; she should have known better. But in the moment their eyes met it was like she could hear him speaking although his lips never moved.

Don’t leave. Stay with me.

He might not be the biological father to her baby. And their relationship had started out as strangers. But in her heart she also knew there was something more between them. Whether or not it was love, she couldn’t be sure. But she did know there was a heart-to-heart recognition, and more—a need. They filled a need in each other and she gave the only answer she could possibly give.

“All right. I’ll stay. For now.”

* * *

The truce was a tentative one.It was like they both realized how tenuous a relationship they’d forged, one that could be easily damaged, even broken. They walked on eggshells around each other, keeping to the most inane pleasantries. In the following days there were no more intimate rocks on the porch swing, no more kisses in the moonlight or long looks across the breakfast table. It was, in fact, very much like they’d both envisioned in the beginning. Friendly. Amicable. Completely and absolutely platonic.

Alex alternated between being glad she’d stayed and angry at herself for not having the fortitude to leave.

Connor was friendly, what she would assume was his normal happy self. He smiled and joked at mealtimes, enquired solicitously how she was feeling, made plans for the ranch when the money came through.

But she missed their intimacy terribly.

She held back, too. She took pleasure in keeping the house scrubbed and shined, improved her cooking by sheer force of will, and picked the very first greens from the garden, the first she’d ever grown on her own. But there were no more languid looks from across the room, and when the baby kicked she smiled to herself and ran her hand over her tummy reassuringly. She didn’t reach for his hand to feel too, and she missed the warmth of his wide palm on her taut skin.

She didn’t ask any more about the crisis with the ranch. Instead they lived each day the same, no peaks, no valleys.

The second Tuesday in July dawned already swelteringly hot. Alex woke with the covers already thrown off. Since it was only six a.m. and the air was already like an oven, she dressed in shorts, a light halter top, and her sandals.

Her eyes strayed to the picture on the night table. She’d taken it out of her backpack the night before the wedding and placed it beside her bed. It was the only picture she’d ever saved and bothered to carry with her. In a plain wood frame was a five-by-seven-inch family picture—her, her mother and father in a studio-type shot. Tucked behind the colour photo in the back of the frame were two newspaper articles. One had a copy of the same picture, and a small story from an Ottawa paper on her parents and one of their adventures. She had been thirteen at the time.

The other article was an extended obituary for her parents after the crash, outlining their achievements.

She’d garnered a whole line in that one. Even in their death, she still felt like she’d been less of an achievement than their career.

Alex put her hair up in a ponytail, twisting the tail around and around and anchoring the dark bun with a plain scrunchie, keeping her neck free and hopefully cool. When she was done, she placed both hands over the place her child lay. And she vowed that no matter what, her baby would always know what was important. That nothing mattered more than him or her. For a while she’d indulged in fantasies about how Connor would look, cradling her child in his arms, kissing its tiny fingers one by one. Now she had to adjust those visions to something more realistic…of her and motherhood and making sure her child always felt loved and valued.

Connor was already gone when she went downstairs, so she ate a quick breakfast, washed a load of towels, and decided to pick vegetables out of the garden before the heat became unbearable.

When Connor came in at noon, he carried the mail.

“Anything good?” Alex finished setting the table and put out a plate of sandwiches and a bowl of fresh greens and tomatoes.

Connor slit open the first envelope. “It’s a bank confirmation. My trust fund went through. I officially am in the black.” He couldn’t hold back the relief in his voice at finally being able to pay the bills. On the other hand, he wasn’t sure what this meant for his relationship with Alex.

She’d married him for the security. He couldn’t deceive himself on that point. She’d made it abundantly clear in every way possible. A farmer’s life was unpredictable, hard, and even lonely. He couldn’t expect her to choose this indefinitely. Even if he did want her to. Knowing she was there when he got home; seeing her laugh, cry, argue…all had him feeling more alive than he had in years. She was right. The place would seem empty when it was just him rattling around in it again.

He was too used to losing people he cared about. The last time he hadn’t foreseen enough to try to prevent it.

This time, he could see trouble coming from a mile away. Connor remembered the feeling he’d had when the baby had moved beneath his hand. Protective. Humbled. Strong. What would it be like to have a son or daughter? To hear them cry and soothe them with a rock in the rocking chair, to see the baby feed at its mother’s breast in the pale light of early morning?

He was wishing this was his family, his baby, and he had absolutely no right. He knew that if Alex gave him a chance, he’d be a father to her baby, blood or no. If he felt this way after only a few weeks, how would he feel after the baby was born and he had to set her free? There had to be some way he could give her a reason to stay, long enough to prove to her that he could be what she needed. What she wanted.

“That’s great,” Alex answered weakly. “Sit down and eat. I’ll get you some water.”

Connor held a ham sandwich with one hand and bit into it while he sorted through the remainder of envelopes with the other.

“Connor? What is it?”

He stopped chewing, and the hand holding the sandwich put it down like it weighed five pounds. He picked up the brown envelope, staring at the front.

“Connor?”

When he looked at her she saw something new in his eyes, a real fear. Her stomach tumbled. Whatever was in that envelope wasn’t good.

“Open it,” she whispered.

He ran his finger under the seal and pulled out the papers inside. His tanned face paled; his lips thinned until they were white around the edges.

Suddenly he started laughing. Not a funny laugh, but the frightening laugh of a man who’d reached the end of his rope. Like one who’d finally lost his hold on reality.

“Connor. You’re scaring me.” Her voice trembled as she stared at him, her lips falling open as the maniacal laughter halted as quickly as it had begun.

“It’s over,” he said flatly. His eyes were dull as he stared up at her. “We’re linked, you see. No trust fund in the world can help me now.”

“What are you talking about?” She took a step forward, then halting at his look of sheer despair.

His next words broke her heart as surely as they broke his spirit.

“I’ve got to cull the herd. Windover’s done.”