Cowboy's Baby. Victoria Pade

to counteract it she’d kept soda crackers on her nightstand to eat before she’d even raised her head from the pillow each morning.

      So that was what Kate had started doing—sneaking soda crackers into her room at night to nibble the minute she woke up.

      The next morning, as she lay in bed doing that her thoughts trailed back to the previous evening. To Brady. And to what to do about him in conjunction with this baby that was making her feel so bad at that moment.

      Should she tell Brady she was pregnant now, before the divorce went through? she asked herself. Or later? Or at all?

      She really hadn’t had time yet to think about whether or not to tell him, but Brady’s offhand mention of custody and visitation had made her realize she had to at least consider what she was going to do.

      It was tempting not to tell him at all. Ever. To just keep the baby to herself. To have it be her baby and her baby alone.

      But in spite of the temptation, she knew that wouldn’t be the right thing to do. The baby wasn’t hers alone, and she knew Brady had a right to know about it.

      But when? Sooner rather than later seemed to be the answer to that. At least it was the answer since he might be moving to Elk Creek. If he ended up living nearby, eventually he would notice. And count back. And know. And she didn’t want him finding out that way. That was the coward’s way.

      But that still didn’t mean she had to tell him immediately. Immediately being before the divorce was final.

      And waiting until it was final appealed to her. With good reason.

      It hadn’t been easy for Kate to grow up with four brothers. And not just in terms of bumps and bruises, practical jokes and teasing and horseplay that overlooked the fact that she was a girl at all. Growing up surrounded by men had also given her an insider’s view into some other aspects of that gender. Good-looking men had plenty of wild oats to sow and just as many women willing to have a part in sowing them.

      She learned how men talked—and thought—about some women and some situations with women. Also, regardless of the fact that they might enjoy the favors of a woman who got drunk and spent the night with them, men didn’t think highly of her the morning after.

      And if that woman got pregnant? Then they considered the man trapped.

      Trapped…

      That wasn’t only a concept she’d garnered from her brothers, though. She had proof. Kelly McGill—her best friend since kindergarten.

      Kelly had gotten together with a friend of Matt’s when they were all in high school—Buster Malloy. Kelly and Buster had been madly in love. Inseparable. They’d even been voted the couple most likely to grow old together, and they’d assured everyone that was true.

      Then Kelly had gotten pregnant and everything had come apart, even though a quickie marriage followed Kelly’s graduation and the end of Buster’s first and only year of college.

      Maybe the baby wasn’t even his, Kate had heard him say to Matt one afternoon when they hadn’t known she was in the next room. Matt had discouraged that idea, reminding Buster that Kelly hadn’t so much as looked at anyone else.

      “Then I’m trapped, is that what you’re saying?” Buster had demanded, sounding furious.

      Trapped—the same thing Kate’s brothers had said about other guys in Buster’s predicament. The same thing she’d heard them talking about after Matt’s conversation with Buster, agreeing that, yes, Buster was trapped. Stuck. That he had no way out….

      The cracker Kate was slowly munching wasn’t helping as much as usual because suddenly she felt her bile rise in spite of it.

      Or maybe it was what was going through her mind that was churning her stomach. Because she had no doubt that Brady felt the same as her brothers did about things like an inebriated woman he hardly knew spending the night with him.

      And getting pregnant.

      He would feel trapped. Stuck. And nothing good could come of that. Nothing good had come of it for Kelly, that was for sure.

      Kate knew all her friend had gone through since her shotgun wedding to Buster, because Kate had been right there to hold Kelly’s hand through the worst of it. Like right after Buster’s frequent rants at Kelly for ruining his life. Like when Buster had shirked his responsibilities to Kelly and the twins she’d delivered six months after their wedding and Kate had needed to pay Kelly’s rent so she and the twins wouldn’t be evicted because Buster had disappeared with their rent money. Like when Buster had announced that he wanted out—that was how he’d put it, as if he were demanding his release from the cage of his marriage to Kelly.

      Kate had been there to hold her friend’s hand then, too, when Kelly and Buster’s relationship had become one battle after another over everything. Poor Kelly had been left not only with two boys to raise and support on her own, but with a broken heart and a whole lot of questions about how Buster could have stopped loving her so suddenly, so completely. How he could have turned into someone Kelly didn’t even recognize. How he could have come to hate her.

      But the answer had always been the same—Buster had come to all of that because he’d felt forced to marry Kelly since he’d gotten her pregnant. He’d felt trapped and stuck.

      And if it wasn’t enough for Kate to have seen with her own eyes how bad a situation the unplanned pregnancy had put her friend in, she’d had Kelly on the phone the night before her doctor’s appointment reminding her how bad things still were, even ten years later.

      Kate fought another overwhelming spell of nausea, wishing even as she did that Kelly hadn’t been leaving for a vacation in Mexico the same day Kate had gone to the doctor in Cheyenne. Kate had told her friend she was afraid she might be pregnant but now that she knew for sure, now that she was facing Brady, she craved Kelly’s support.

      Not that she couldn’t guess what her friend would tell her if she could talk to her, Kate thought.

      Kelly would say to let the divorce go through before Kate told Brady anything. Kelly would say that just learning about the baby would likely make Brady feel some sort of obligation, but at least if he was already off the hook in the marriage department Kate could make it clear that she didn’t need anything from him. That besides being part owner of the ranch she was also opening an accounting and bookkeeping service in town and would make an adequate living at that, so she could afford to support both herself and the child. And, while raising a child alone was a daunting proposition, millions of women did it and she could, too. Kelly was, after all.

      “But if I tell him before the divorce is final, he won’t believe I mean it,” Kate said out loud, as if she were actually talking to Kelly. He would believe she didn’t want the divorce at all. That she wanted him to stay married to her.

      And he’d most definitely feel trapped.

      But Kate was bound and determined that Brady Brown was not going to feel—or be—trapped by her.

      No man was going to be married to her because he had to be. No man was going to accuse her of the things Buster had accused Kelly of. No man was going to blame her for ruining his life.

      The cracker hadn’t worked at all and Kate flung the covers aside and made a mad dash to the bathroom where she spent the next twenty minutes being miserable.

      When the bout was finally over, she went to the sink, splashed cool water on her face and brushed her teeth.

      Being alone in all this was definitely not something she would have chosen for herself. In fact, recalling what Maya had told her about Shane made Kate feel a little jealous. Apparently her brother had waited outside the bathroom door for his wife every time she’d gotten sick, ushered her back to bed and served her fresh crackers when she’d thought she could tolerate them again.

      That would be nice. Much nicer than the way things were for Kate—having to suffer through the illness alone, all the while hoping no one realized she was ill at all and