The Rodeo Cowboy’s Baby Read online

  But despite all those very good reasons to view this as a catastrophe instead of a miracle, the leprechaun quick-stepped his way up her torso. And she was finally able to recognize the feeling for what it was. Because the giddy bubbles of hope, of love, and of absolute undying loyalty for this unborn life—which was probably no bigger than a prawn but already meant everything to her—burst out of her mouth.

  “I don’t need any time to think about it,” she said, with complete certainty. “I want to have this baby. Very much.”

  Chapter Seven

  “For fuck’s sake, Gabe, hold it steady.” Flynn heard the grumpy snap in his own voice and tensed.

  “Maybe you should get someone else to help you? I never said I was any good at this shit.” His older brother’s bloodshot eyes were a picture of misery as he struggled to hold the board without shaking.

  “You’ll do.” Flynn swallowed down the all too familiar irritation and impatience.

  Gabe had the DTs. Because Gabe had a drinking problem, which none of them wanted to acknowledge, Gabe least of all. But it wasn’t the fact Gabe had gone out and gotten wasted last night—and had to be brought home by Flynn’s boss because he was too drunk to drive—that had gotten Flynn so riled up.

  It wasn’t even the fact that Gabe was shaking so bad this morning he couldn’t hold a shingle steady to save his life either, even though Gabe had known Flynn needed to finish this job today, because it was the last full day Flynn had off before the snow was due to hit Marietta on the weekend.

  No, neither of those things were what was really bugging Flynn, so perhaps he should stop snapping at his brother like a rattler who’d been dragged out from under a rock.

  The thing that was really bugging Flynn was the same thing that had been bugging him for nearly two months now. Making him snarky and impatient and unlike his usual relaxed, calm, pragmatic self. And that would be the one thing he didn’t want to acknowledge. That he’d made a dumbass of himself over a woman. And he couldn’t seem to get over it.

  He frowned at Gabe and hammered in the nails to anchor the shingle in place. Then waited for his brother to lift up another one and slide it into place on the roof of the stable.

  It wasn’t Gabe he was mad at. He wasn’t even all that mad at Evie Donnelly anymore—and the crummy things she’d written about him in that damn newspaper column—or not much anyway.

  The truth was he was mostly mad at himself.

  What the hell had possessed him to trust her? He’d known she was a journalist. Why hadn’t he checked out what she wrote?

  Heck, even Gabe had seen the photo on the Internet of him making a sap of himself over her, which was why his big brother had turned up unannounced a week ago looking like death warmed over to razz him about it.

  Flynn had persuaded Gabe to stay put, partly because he’d wanted the company. He’d moved into the cabin himself three weeks ago, because he’d figured the solitude and hard work would help with his foul mood over what he was now calling Evie8-Gate.

  He’d worked his butt off all right, every spare minute he wasn’t at The Double T, finishing off the cabin, getting the generator in and the water and other utilities hooked up. But being on his own had only made him more of a bear.

  Because it had given him even more time to dwell on those three days at the rodeo—and how he could have gotten so deluded about something that was nothing more than a booty call to both of them. It was just his bad luck and his poor judgment that she’d turned out to be a journalist with less integrity than a mafia boss.

  He hadn’t read the column, because he hadn’t needed to. The reaction of his friends and the rest of the townsfolk had told him all he needed to know.

  The trash talking he’d gotten from some of the other ranch hands, and Gabe, had been bad enough, but far worse had been the outrage and sympathy of others, like Logan and Charlie. Because those looks of sympathy and concern had reminded him of the kid he’d been before Mitch and Dolores O’Connell had taken him and his siblings into their home.

  The kid who’d been bumped around from foster family to foster family. The kid who only saw his brothers and sister once a month on supervised visits. The kid who the other kids whispered about behind their hands when he started another new school. The kid who wore clothing from the thrift store and tried to pretend he didn’t care if he didn’t have the latest high-tops or a sweater that didn’t bulge in all the wrong places. The kid who never bought the school photos but returned the samples in the bag unopened. The kid who never tried out for the football team, or entered a project in the science fair because he knew there would be no one cheering for him in the bleachers if he scored a touchdown or clapping like a lunatic if he won a prize.

  He had hated being an object of gossip then, or worse pity—his father’s crime following him around like a bad smell.

  He switched his brain away from the bitter memories.

  Yeah, not going there.

  He swallowed past the ball of resentment as he and Gabe set up a rhythm and he tried not to smash his brother’s quivering fingers into the wood.

  But as they worked their way across the roof, that weekend kept playing over and over in his mind, like it had for the past two months.

  How the heck had he gotten so hung up on a three-night booty call? Why was he taking the sympathy and mockery so hard? Probably because a tiny part of him had believed she liked him, too. That there had been a connection there that went beyond the sex. How could he have been so wrong about that? So dumb? Such a sap? That was the real question here.

  And the only answer seemed to be, because a part of that lonely, resentful, needy kid still existed. And Evie had dug him out of hiding.

  He jerked the hammer back, narrowly missing crashing it down on Gabe’s shaking fingers when his brother’s hand slipped again. Gabe swore and shoved the board back into place, but Flynn could tell from the way his brother’s arms were trembling that the roofing slab probably felt like it weighed several tons.

  “You okay to continue?” he asked.

  “Stop griping and get on with it,” Gabe said, the bad-tempered snarl not all that reassuring.

  Flynn hammered the next board home. But as he did so, he forced himself to switch his mind off his own troubles and switch them back where they needed to be. On his brother’s.

  Because Gabe’s troubles were a great deal harsher and more long term than a dumb three-night booty call that had gone south. And made Flynn look like a jackass all over town.

  When Gabe had turned up a week ago on his doorstep, brutally hung over, and with nothing more than a bedroll, twenty dollars, and his old PRCA kit bag, Flynn had been shocked out of his navel gazing.

  He’d never seen the guy look so wasted. Gabe was a handsome man. He’d been the O’Connell brother who took the most after Jonas with his muscular build and his dark hair and those fallen-angel features. But the sallow skin and bloodshot eyes told a different story.

  The guy still had that aura of bad-boy charisma about him that had made him the toast of every girl in the many different high schools they’d ended up in, but it had dimmed. A lot. Shit, the guy was only thirty-one and he looked about ten years older today in the harsh October light.

  At least Gabe didn’t get mean when he got wasted, like Jonas. But it was pretty damn obvious that shouting at him, and taking out his frustrations with Evie on the guy was not going to improve this situation.

  Evie wasn’t important anymore. Flynn was never going to see her again, so he needed to stop thinking about her—and stop dreaming about her, the sheen of tears in her eyes when he’d talked about Mitch and Dolores, her soft flesh and that sweet little sob she made when he eased inside her…

  Flynn’s brain fogged, the familiar surge of blood to his groin making his jeans uncomfortably tight.

  Fuck it. Quit that right now.

  He wrenched his thoughts away from the erotic memory.

  If Gabe saw him getting aroused while nailing shingles he’d
never hear the end of it.

  He needed to track down Rafe and Glory and plan an intervention over Gabe. It was way past time they all addressed the problem of Gabe’s drinking. Especially as they all knew where it came from.

  The unpleasant memories of that terrible night so long ago pushed back into Flynn’s brain, dampening the erection.

  He’d built this cabin with a couple of extra bedrooms, in the hope that he might persuade his siblings to come hang out from time to time—maybe invest in the venture. He’d need more capital going forward and both Rafe and Glory had dazzling careers on the pro rodeo circuit, as a saddle bronc rider and a barrel racer, respectively.

  Gabe not so much anymore. His rodeo career had died a year ago when he’d turned up drunk at an arena to ride a bull and been kicked off the tour and had his PRCA permit revoked.

  But the O’Connell name still meant something. Something they could use to make his new business, O’Connell’s Performance Horse Training Ranch, a success. Plus he’d always planned for this ranch to be a new home base for the O’Connell clan.

  He didn’t kid himself that his sibs would want to settle with him—because Rafe, Glory and Gabe were all wanderers. Even before Mitch and Dolores had died all four of them had left home. And now, five years later, he was the only one who had so far put down roots by choosing to settle in Marietta.

  But one of the reasons he’d fallen in love with this pastureland was that it had said home to him. And the only other thing that had ever said home to him—apart from Mitch and Dolores’s ranch, which they’d been forced to sell to pay the death taxes after Dolores’s passing—was his siblings.

  He knew his background, his upbringing, all those things that had fucked with his sense of self before Mitch and Dolores had found them, meant he’d never be able to hack it as a husband or a father. He didn’t want to take the risk that he would screw it up the way his birth daddy had. But being tainted by Jonas Blackstone’s legacy didn’t mean he couldn’t settle down somewhere. Couldn’t be a productive, worthwhile member of society, because that was Mitch and Dolores’s legacy. A legacy that all his sibs deserved. Gabe most of all.

  Dumping the hammer, he shucked his work gloves and threw them on the ground.

  “What are you doing?” Gabe said, his bloodshot eyes looking annoyed now.

  “Taking a break,” Flynn said.

  “I don’t need a break,” Gabe snapped back, even though he looked dead on his feet.

  “Yeah, well I do,” Flynn countered. “I’ll cook up some ham and eggs for lunch, with hot coffee. It’s nearly noon and I’m starving.” And he knew Gabe would be too by now, because he’d missed breakfast, too hung over to eat when Flynn had kicked him out of bed that morning at six a.m. to get the last of the stable construction done—still pissed with his big brother over his fall from grace the night before.

  Gabe let the board go, and winced as he slung it on the pile of shingles causing a loud crash. “All right, if you say so. You’re the boss of this little operation,” he said, sounding surly. “But don’t think I can’t pull my weight around here. I’m not a freeloader.”

  Jesus, Gabe, how could you ever be a freeloader? We all owe you more than we can ever repay.

  Flynn stifled the words he wanted to say to his brother. Because they were too raw, too emotional and way too revealing—and they would just trigger more of those unhelpful childhood memories that had been bugging him ever since he’d watched Evie Donnelly disappear in a taxicab eight weeks ago without even giving him the time of day, let alone the courtesy of a goodbye. If that hadn’t been a warning to him that he’d been used, what would have?

  Hell, man, get over it, and her. She left without a backward glance. She thought you were a dumbass rodeo cowboy. Good for an easy lay and a star part in her snooty city-girl column. She doesn’t deserve a minute of your time. Let alone eight damn weeks of sulking.

  He placed a hand on Gabe’s shoulder, the bony feel of it disturbing under the brushed cotton of Gabe’s shirt.

  “Come on, let’s eat,” he said. “We’ve still got the rest of the day and the next couple of evenings to finish this and get the place weatherproof—there’s no snow predicted till the weekend.”

  Gabe shrugged off Flynn’s hand but nodded.

  They climbed down off the roof and walked over to the cabin porch. Gabe stumbled, but Flynn didn’t make the mistake of offering him a helping hand. His brother might be hung over, but he hated pity even more than Flynn did.

  Gabe thrust a trembling hand through his hair as he helped himself to a glug of water from the bottle they had on the porch. Even though it was nearing the end of October, it was a warm day. And roofing was thirsty work, especially if you’d had ten too many Wild Turkeys the night before, Flynn figured.

  “Don’t suppose you’ve got anything stronger than coffee?” Gabe asked with deceptive casualness as he passed Flynn the water bottle.

  Flynn’s heart thudded against his throat.

  “’Fraid not, Bro,” he said, with the same studied casualness, as if he hadn’t spent the evening yesterday tipping every last drop of liquor he had in the cabin down the drain while waiting for Gabe to return from town with the supplies he’d asked him to get.

  He stifled the tug of irritation as he remembered he was going to have to call Logan and get a ride into town later to pick up his truck, which would still be parked in front of the sheriff’s office—announcing to the whole town that Flynn’s brother was a drunk.

  At least Gabe hadn’t driven in that condition, Flynn thought. And had the sense to take the ride Logan had offered him when the reserve deputy had spotted his brother crashed out in the truck’s flatbed while coming off his shift at ten.

  Logan understood, because Logan’s old man had been a drunk, too. But even so, Flynn felt the pang of embarrassment when Logan had told him as much after helping him pour Gabe into bed. And warned him about letting Gabe drive the truck again.

  After having the whole town feel bad about the way he’d been treated by Evie Donnelly, Flynn did not need the added humiliation of having them all know about his brother’s drinking problem.

  Logan wouldn’t gossip, of course, the guy was as stoic and discreet as a stone. But it was going to be hard to quell the rumors from circling all over town if Gabe got wasted at The Wolf Den again.

  Which meant Logan was right. Flynn was going to have to ground his big brother. And wasn’t that going to be a fun conversation to have over ham and eggs?

  The rumble of an engine cut into his thoughts, and he paused at the cabin’s front door as Gabe stomped into the house.

  As if by magic, his truck appeared over the rise and drove down into the yard.

  The tiny spurt of relief, that one of The Double T hands had been good enough to drive the truck back from town for him—thus saving him the embarrassment of having to beg his boss for another favor—turned into a jolt of shock when his gaze focused on the person in the driving seat.

  He blinked, twice.

  Not one of The Double T’s hands. Not a guy at all in fact, but a girl. A slim girl, with tumbles of dark hair who was struggling with the heavy steering on the pitted farm track.

  Terrific, now I’m having weird hallucinations about her. How fucking uncool is that?

  He tried to rationalize what he was seeing. This could only be all the stress and strain of the last two months and the hard backbreaking work he’d been doing on mostly sleepless nights all taking their toll on his psyche.

  He resisted the urge to pinch himself, because that would just make him even more of a dumbass.

  But then the truck braked in front of him. And the hallucination flung open the door and stepped down. Those captivating blue eyes fixed on his face—bold, and determined. She wore jeans and boots, a pretty little blouse with flowers on it and a city-girl jacket that was way too flimsy for October in Montana. That wild blue-black hair danced in the autumn breeze and the blouse pressed against her spectacular rack. Which a
ppeared to have gotten even more spectacular since he’d last seen her.

  He shook his head, trying to dislodge the vision, and the heat flooding into his groin like the Marietta River in spring when the snow thawed on Copper Mountain.

  But then the vision spoke. “Hello, Flynn. I brought your truck back. We need to talk,” she said.

  And he knew—however stark, surreal and nuts this was—it wasn’t a hallucination. This was actually happening. Evie Donnelly had just had the balls to drive into his yard in his truck and mess with him again. Because the sharp bitter taste of hurt and betrayal had shuddered through him as his body registered the soft Irish lilt of her accent.

  It took him a moment to find his voice, but then the fast furious flood of temper, the temper he’d been trying to keep on lockdown for eight solid weeks, burst out of his mouth.

  “Yeah, Irish? Well that’s a damn shame because I’d rather chop off my own nuts than talk to you. So why don’t you head back to Brooklyn and leave me the hell alone.”

  Unfortunately, as she stiffened at the crude talk, her pale face going a riotous red, illuminating the freckles he’d once kissed in the moonlight, the blood surged in his crotch. And it occurred to him, while he didn’t want to have one damn thing to do with Evie Donnelly anymore, his cock definitely hadn’t gotten the memo.

  *

  How can he look even more gorgeous than I remember him? How is that possible, or even fair?

  Evie shuddered. She stuffed her fists into her jacket pockets and wrapped the edges around herself. But she knew the shiver of reaction was as much to do with the cold disgust in Flynn’s emerald eyes as the whisper of snow on the October air.

  “I…I can’t,” she stuttered. “I don’t have any transport,” she added, throwing her arm back to indicate his truck. “Unless you want to give me a lift back to town.”

  Maybe if she could get him alone in his truck, she could get up the guts to say what she’d come to say.