The Rodeo Cowboy’s Baby Read online

  “I didn’t,” Evie cut off her friend, before she could say any more. She was already dreading reading the column Janice had filed. “I think my editor must have embellished what I actually wrote… Quite a lot.”

  But how did that really excuse her? She’d given Janice the ammunition, by telling her about Flynn and agreeing to revamp the piece.

  All Janice had done was apply what she had always called the Evie8 pizzazz—that snarky, sassy, single-girl-about-town voice—to reinvigorate a column that had been dying on its feet for several years.

  Janice had seen an opportunity and gone for the jugular—because Evie hadn’t wanted to anymore.

  Evie was to blame for this shit-show as much as anyone. She had known what Janice wanted—the woman had made no secret about it when she’d first suggested a trip to Marietta.

  We need to get you some new meat for your column, honey.

  Evie knew what a pit bull Janice was, and Evie had given her the raw materials to then fashion the angle she wanted out of the piece.

  And all for a column Evie suddenly knew with complete clarity she no longer wanted to write. She’d exposed her life and her marriage, her infertility and her heartache to a load of strangers. And for what? For a fifty-five-thousand-dollar-a-year salary, which barely covered the rental on a tiny walk-up in Brooklyn that she now lived in alone. And the opportunity to be the toast of the Internet for two seconds before the social media generation moved on to some other poor gobshite’s disastrous love life.

  The guilt and panic roiled around in her tummy like two cargo ships at sea. But underneath it was the much more painful yank of shame. And sadness.

  She’d exposed a man who she cared about to ridicule. And worse.

  She’d tried to convince herself it had been nothing more than a fling. What a great time to discover it actually hadn’t been. Not for her, anyway.

  God, Evie, why not turn a disaster into an absolute catastrophe while you’re about it, woman?

  “Shit, did Janice write the column, Evie?” Charlie sounded horrified, as well she should. She knew Janice, too—she’d worked for her. “And then she put your name to it? That bloody bitch. She got me to get Flynn to sign those release forms. I’m as much to blame as…”

  “No, you’re not.” Evie interrupted Charlie’s guilt trip, trying to sound adamant while her head was about to drop off her shoulders. “You’re not responsible for this, I am.”

  “No you’re not. Janice Pit Bull Wakowski is. When it comes to click bait, that woman does not have an ounce of human kindness or decency… You should sue her for putting your name on something you didn’t write.”

  “I’m not going to do that,” Evie said, her heart shattering in her chest—as the only way out of this mess became crystal clear.

  She was going to hand in her resignation. Start looking for another job. A job she could be proud of again. But most of all she was not going to involve Charlie, or Logan, or Flynn any longer.

  She’d already involved all three of them—not to mention the whole town of Marietta—more than enough in the car crash her life and career had become.

  “Why not?” Charlie sounded frustrated.

  “Because she’s not the only one to blame. I let her do this. I let her think my career was more important to me than ethics and manners,” she said. “And simple human decency.”

  “You’re being too hard on yourself,” Charlie murmured.

  “Am I?” Evie said. “I’m not sure Logan or Flynn would agree with you,” she said, trying not to wince.

  It was stupid to feel sorry for herself, when she’d gotten what she deserved. Maybe if she hadn’t been so self-absorbed, so focused on a career and a column that had been dead in the water for years, it would never have come to this. And maybe if she hadn’t been so terrified of her feelings for Flynn, she would have had the courage to wish him a proper goodbye, instead of running away like a coward. But unfortunately a coward was what she was, and now everyone knew it. Most of all her.

  “Logan will understand when I tell him what happened,” Charlie sighed. “And Flynn… I’m not even sure what he thinks about all this. He’s the only one who hasn’t said anything. I’m sure if you came down here, spoke to him in person, explained what happened with your editor, he’d understand. He’s a smart guy. And he likes you.”

  And I like him, too. Way too much. Which is precisely the problem. I don’t have the right to burden him with my feelings, when I didn’t even have the courage to admit to them myself.

  “I’m not going to do that either.”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake, Evie. Why not? Isn’t that taking Catholic guilt a bit too far?” Charlie sounded pissed now.

  Evie didn’t care. Because there was one thing she wasn’t going to do and that was indulge herself again—in some stupid romantic fantasy about falling in love with a cowboy. Flynn O’Connell had been funny, and sweet and gorgeous and beyond sexy and any woman could be excused for losing her head over him, especially a woman who had been starved of male attention pretty much all her life. But she needed to survive on her own two feet now. To sort out her life and her goals and her sense of self. Then maybe she’d be worth knowing, worth loving again.

  But if and when that happened—Flynn would never be that guy. Because that was not what he’d signed up for during a three-night fling.

  “Charlie, I need you to do something for me, to make me a promise.”

  “What promise?” Charlie sounded wary now as well as pissed.

  “Don’t tell Logan or Flynn about Janice. I need to own this. It’s the least I can do, after the kindness you guys showed me.”

  “What the… But that’s bonkers,” Charlie said. “Why should you own something you didn’t do?”

  “But in a way I did. Even if I didn’t write the words, this was just a rebound fling for me. And I never had any intention of coming back to Marietta.” Something she’d somehow lost sight of. “So I don’t want to fudge this. It’ll be easier for you to cast me as the bad guy and leave it at that. I used Flynn. We used each other. That was always understood.” Something she so needed to remember. “So the way I see it, we’re all good. I’m sorry you and Logan and Flynn got caught in the crossfire, but feel free to give out about me to get back into everyone’s good graces.”

  “I’m not going to do that,” Charlie said, staunchly. “You’re a mate, Evie.”

  The lump in Evie’s throat grew to asteroid proportions. How could she ever have kidded herself that Charlie wasn’t a true friend? That their friendship had only ever been shallow and fleeting? Because right now she felt like the only friend Evie had.

  “If you are,” Evie said, forcing herself to take advantage of their friendship one last time. “You’ll do this for me. Let me be the bad guy. Because I kind of am.”

  And if she remained persona non grata in Marietta there was no chance she would ever give in to the foolish urge to return there, and try to start up something with a man who had not been remotely interested in anything long term.

  This social media snafu could actually be a godsend in disguise. Even if the dragging weight in her stomach made it feel like the opposite right now.

  She had planned for a clean break, but she hadn’t really committed to it one hundred percent. Finding a new job was going to take up all of her time. Daydreaming about a certain rodeo cowboy—becoming fixated on a love that could never be real—would only make that harder.

  Charlie sighed down the phone line. “Okay, Evie. If you insist. But I still think it’s nuts to take the blame for that bitch.”

  But she was to blame—for allowing something that was nothing more than a fling to become more than that in her own head. And her own heart.

  It would be humiliating, if it weren’t so sad. Better that Flynn think she was a bitch, than know exactly how desperate she had become.

  “Keep in touch, okay?” Charlie said.

  Evie said her goodbyes and put the phone down, but she knew she
wouldn’t be able to keep in touch with Charlie, because the temptation to ask after Flynn would be too great. And that would just make her even more pathetic. And delusional.

  And if the pang crushing her rib cage was anything to go by, she was more than delusional enough already.

  Chapter Six

  Six weeks later.

  “So I’ve got all the test results back, Evie.” Doctor Menendez beamed at Evie, the twinkle in her brown eyes making some of the tension in Evie’s stomach ease.

  She’d been feeling wretched for weeks now. Ever since returning from Marietta. So wretched in fact she’d been forced to consult her doctor.

  Good to know it was nothing serious, though. Or surely Menendez wouldn’t be looking so perky.

  Of course, the fact that it wasn’t a physical ailment meant it was an emotional one. Something that didn’t really surprise Evie. The fallout from her trip to Marietta in the last six weeks had been brutal. And she was still negotiating it.

  Forget pit bull, Janice had gone the full Rottweiler when Evie had handed in her resignation at the paper the morning after her Marietta column had been published. A column that once she’d read it, she’d had no doubt at all she could not remain at The Brooklyn Voice.

  I gave you a brilliant career and now you’re going to throw it away because of the hurt feelings of some guy you banged for two nights?

  However hard it was to do, Evie had known one hundred percent she was making the right decision. She couldn’t continue to pretend she was okay with Janice’s lack of ethics, her cavalier attitude to personal privacy and her privacy in particular.

  But even so, she’d had to wrestle the self-doubt and the huge hole in the pit of her stomach—which she had a bad feeling was a Flynn-sized hole—into submission every single day since she’d walked out on her not-so-brilliant career. Sending off résumés and calling in every single contact she had in the business to beg for work, or at least the chance to schmooze various magazine and newspaper editors into offering her another chance, had taken its toll.

  Really it was no wonder she was tired all the time, had no appetite, had lost weight she couldn’t afford to lose and felt as if she’d been run over by a truck most evenings when she got back from another round of interviews and meetings and schmooze offensives. Even her periods had stopped, but then they’d never been very reliable in the first place, especially when she wasn’t eating properly.

  At least she’d managed to find herself an agent. Something she probably should have done years ago. The woman was respected and had loved the samples of Evie’s work she’d shown her. And Mel had already managed to find her a couple of freelance gigs writing copy for a dating app and an Agony Aunt column that was syndicated throughout Upstate New York and most of Connecticut and New Hampshire.

  The work wasn’t enough to support her, not even close, but it was a positive start.

  She was paid up to the end of the month on her apartment rental but she had already made the decision to move out of the New York metropolitan area. She could write anywhere. And Brooklyn—even if your apartment was the size of a postage stamp—wasn’t cheap. Plus, the energy and individualism of city living—which had been such a major draw for her in her twenties—had finally lost its charm. Something else she could lay at Marietta’s door.

  All she had to do now was figure out where she wanted to go.

  “I have some phenomenal news, Evie,” the doctor said, jerking Evie out of her thoughts.

  Evie frowned. Okay, Menendez’s perkiness was getting a little weird.

  “You’re pregnant.”

  Menendez’s words didn’t compute at first. Possibly because they were words Evie had dreamt about hearing so often what felt like several lifetimes ago. Hearing them now, in Menendez’s office as the October sunshine beamed through the window—the very same office she’d come to with Dan when they’d first launched themselves on the grueling journey of fertility treatments—felt as if she’d been yanked back into that alternative reality.

  “I… What?”

  Menendez smiled again. “You’re pregnant. From the hormone levels I’d say we’re talking six to eight weeks.”

  “But I… That can’t be possible.” Evie shook her head, trying to shake the dream loose. “I’m infertile.”

  Grand, now I’m hallucinating, too. My mental health is totally screwed.

  “Evie, no you’re not.” Menendez gave her a patient look, one Evie remembered from that time long ago, when she and Dan had been arguing about whether to pay for another round of IVF—and her then husband had stormed out. That was the moment she had known her marriage was over.

  “I explained to you that we never managed to find a cause for the failure to conceive,” the doctor said.

  “But Dan’s new girlfriend is having a baby in the spring.” Something that obviously didn’t bother Evie anymore, because the usual tug of envy at the thought of Dan’s baby failed to materialize. “So it must have been my fault,” she said, her voice hollow.

  This couldn’t actually be true. She was going to wake up in a minute and all would be right again. Or as right as it could be when she was in the middle of a nervous breakdown.

  “Not necessarily,” Menendez said, going from patient to patronizing. But Evie was too stunned to care. “There can be all sorts of reasons why a couple fail to conceive naturally.”

  Or unnaturally, Evie thought, remembering the three grueling, invasive rounds of IVF, which had never once gotten a positive pregnancy test.

  How could this possibly have happened by accident?

  “Sometimes, it’s simply that the couple themselves are incompatible. There’s been some research that suggests sometimes the environment in a woman’s uterus can repel the sperm of some men while being fertile ground for the sperm of other men.”

  Had they told her this? They must have, but her life had been such a blur when her marriage had imploded she obviously hadn’t registered it.

  Something began to leap and jiggle in her stomach with all the vim and vigor of an inebriated leprechaun. Not exactly excitement, not exactly exhilaration, but something else. Struggling to be heard through the fog of stunned disbelief.

  “I know you and Dan are divorced,” Menendez said not unkindly. “I think the question I need to ask next is, when you say there’s no possibility that you could be pregnant, does that mean you haven’t had intercourse in the last two months?” The twinkle in Menendez’s eyes dimmed considerably. “Because if that’s the case, we need to do further investigations to discover the cause of these hormonal readings.”

  “I…” The admission choked off in Evie’s throat. She swallowed convulsively, realizing she was going to cry.

  Flynn.

  She and Flynn had made a baby together.

  This was real. It was happening. And she had no idea how she felt about it.

  “Actually, I have had intercourse.” Although calling it that made it sound clinical and cold, when it had been exactly the opposite. “Unprotected intercourse.”

  “When was this?” the doctor asked.

  “The weekend of the eighth of September.” About ten times, since that first time without a condom, to be precise.

  The prickle of sensation flared all over Evie’s skin, as it did whenever she allowed her mind—and her body—to stray back to those three glorious nights in Marietta.

  The twinkle flashed back into Menendez’s eyes. “Ah-ha,” she said. “Well, that would certainly work with your dates. So at least we’re not dealing with an immaculate conception.”

  No, it hadn’t been immaculate. In fact, she’d encouraged Flynn not to use contraception. To go bareback.

  A thick layer of guilt washed through her—but failed to put even the slightest hitch into the jaunty leprechaun’s stride—who was still dancing an Irish jig in her stomach as if he’d just downed a keg of whiskey in one go.

  She was pregnant. She had a life growing inside her. A part of herself—and Flynn—that she
could bring into the world. To nurture and love.

  The tears stung her eyes, and no amount of swallowing would stop them slipping over her lids.

  “Evie, are you okay?” The doctor’s concerned frown only made the tears flow more freely. “I realize this is a shock, and I’m guessing completely unplanned. You may want to take a little time to consider what you want to do about this pregnancy.”

  Evie scrubbed her cheeks with her fists, the shock giving way to the feeling of being tossed and turned in a storm of emotions that she had no control over whatsoever. The same emotions that had been tossing and turning inside her ever since she’d left Marietta.

  But now they were bigger, and so much more overwhelming.

  Flynn would be horrified and possibly furious at this turn of events. She didn’t know him well enough to know how he would react to the news that their three-day fling had led to a pregnancy. But she didn’t think it would be good.

  The look on his face, the first time that they had made love without protection, slammed into her with the force of an eighteen-wheeler. And stole her breath.

  That look had said shock and horror. Panic even. And he was not a man to panic easily. That much she did know, after watching him leap off a charging horse without a moment’s hesitation.

  And if Flynn was furious with her, he had every right to be. He’d asked for her assurance there was no chance of a pregnancy and she’d given it to him. He’d probably think she’d tricked him into this. And maybe, on some subliminal, unconscious level, she had.

  And quite apart from Flynn’s reaction, this wasn’t the dream she’d clung to for so long—even after it was over. Her dream had been to have a child within a stable relationship, with a father who wanted it, or said he wanted it.

  It had been a goal that had made complete sense within the context of her marriage. It made no sense whatsoever now.

  She didn’t even have a proper job. She’d just jacked in her career. She was going to be homeless in a matter of weeks. The father of her child lived thousands of miles away in Montana. He didn’t want to be a dad and probably didn’t even want to speak to her after the way their affair had ended.