The Cowboy's Christmas Baby. Carolyne Aarsen

honey. You should have told us,” Lauren said, hitting her directly in the guilt zone.

      “I didn’t know how to tell you I got pregnant.” Erin cuddled Caitlin closer, fighting to maintain her composure, frustrated at the sorrow that threatened. She didn’t want to feel sorry for herself. She had made her own choices and was living with the consequences. She didn’t want Caitlin to even sense she might have regretted having her. “I didn’t know where Jodie was living,” she continued, swallowing down her tears. “You were dealing with the aftermath of Harvey leaving you days before your wedding. I knew how devastating that was for you so I didn’t think you needed my troubles. I was trying to handle this on my own.”

      No one said anything as the grandfather clock ticked off the seconds, then boomed the hour.

      “And now you’re here.” Jodie put her hand on Erin’s shoulder. “I’m glad you came.”

      “I am, too.” Erin gave her sister a careful smile. “Once I found out you girls weren’t selling the ranch I felt like I had a place to come back to.”

      “It is your home,” Lauren said. “Though, in our defense when we talked about selling it you said you didn’t care either way.”

      “If you sold it, I would have figured something else out. But knowing this place was available to me. That I had a share in it...” She let the sentence trail off.

      “You felt like you had a home,” Jodie finished for her.

      Erin nodded. “I know you girls didn’t always like coming here over the summer, but for me it was comfortable.”

      “You and your long forays into melancholy,” Lauren teased.

      Erin laughed, thankful for the gentle return to lightness and comfort.

      “And I’m going to ask the other awkward question,” Jodie said, her hand still resting on Erin’s shoulder. “Is Caitlin’s father involved?”

      Erin bit her lip trying to find the right way to tell them. “We aren’t together anymore.”

      “Is he supporting you in any way?”

      Was that a faintly chiding tone in Jodie’s voice or was she being especially sensitive?

      “He is not interested,” she said firmly. “And I don’t want to have anything more to do with him. It’s...what we had...is over.”

      She was skating on the very edge of vague but her response and her vehemence seemed to satisfy her sisters. She simply couldn’t deal with the past. She wanted to move forward into the new place she had found herself.

      Caitlin stirred in her arms and Erin held her closer, as if protecting her. Too easily she recalled the look on Sam’s face when she’d given him the news. She’d thought he would be happy. Thought he would finally make a decision about their relationship.

      Instead the fury on his face and the check he wrote out to her to pay for an abortion had cut her to the core. And when she found out he was married already, her world tilted so far over she didn’t think she would ever find her footing. She’d walked away and never contacted him again.

      Now she was here and ready to look ahead and leave the past behind her.

      “Well, you have us,” Lauren said, leaning forward. “And you have a share in the ranch. Vic and I discussed the situation and he’ll be talking to his banker about buying your third of the ranch out to give you some cash.”

      Erin knew she was entitled to a portion of the ranch and had already planned what she wanted. “The only thing I want is the Fletcher house. I want that to be my home.”

      “But, honey, you can stay here. In this house,” Lauren said, sounding hurt.

      “No. You and Vic will be living here. I don’t want to be in the way.”

      Lauren didn’t reply, which confirmed Erin’s guess.

      “We can figure out what the house and a few acres of it are worth and I’ll take that as my share of the ranch.” Erin looked down at Caitlin as a slow peace sifted over the chaos that had rocked her life for the past half year. “I just want a place of my own. A place I can be alone.”

      “That’s fine and we can deal with the other details later on,” Lauren agreed. “But the house you want to move into will need work.”

      “So I’ll do it.”

      “You’re a graphics designer, not a carpenter.”

      “I know a few things about building.” Erin chuckled at her sister’s incredulous look. “I learned a lot rehabbing the house my roommates and I lived in.”

      “Well, yes. You said that in some of your texts,” Jodie agreed. “But—”

      “You just can’t imagine that your daydreaming sister can concentrate long enough to handle a skill saw. You should see some of the work I’ve done.”

      They hadn’t of course. Jodie was running around, trying to find herself, playing piano in bars and looking for some kind of peace. Lauren was following her ex-fiancé Harvey around, looking for some kind of commitment.

      All the while Erin had been looking for a home. A place to settle down and a man to settle down with. When she bought the house with her friends and started dating Sam she thought she’d found at least both.

      She stopped her thoughts from heading down that dead-end road.

      “At any rate, we should to talk to Jan Peter about this,” Lauren insisted. “The local carpenter.”

      “Let me see the house first,” Erin said. “I know moving in with you is the more practical option but I’ve been living on top of three roommates for the past year. If it’ll work for me to live there while the work is going on, I don’t mind.”

      “But what about Caitlin? Should you move her into the house?”

      “We’ll look at it first, then I’ll decide for sure. But at this stage Caitlin tends to be oblivious to what’s going on. Sleeps like a baby,” she joked.

      Erin didn’t miss the sidelong glances Jodie and Lauren shared. Spacey Erin, making inappropriate jokes.

      “I’ll talk to Vic and Dean about it,” Lauren said. “We could see what they say.”

      Erin knew staying in this house with Lauren was her best option but she couldn’t shake the need for some quiet. For a place to put down some roots.

      “Another thing, I’ll need to get internet service up and running,” she said. “I want to get working as soon as possible.”

      “Do you have work?”

      Erin looked away from responsible Lauren to her younger sister Jodie who probably better understood that life could be erratic at times. That plans get messed up.

      “I’ve just started up again.” She glanced down at her daughter. “I had...Caitlin and a few other things to deal with. But I’ve got a few bites on some feelers I put out.”

      “I’m sure you’ll be back at it in no time.” Jodie gave her a one-armed hug and leaned closer to Caitlin, cupping her tiny shoulder with one hand. “And now you’ve got help.”

      Erin felt tears threaten at the thought that she wasn’t on her own anymore. But she wasn’t going to let herself get pulled into the pity vortex. She had made her own choices. Made her own bed.

      Now she had to lie in it.

       Chapter Three

      “So it looks like the basic structure is sound.” Jan Peter looked around the inside of the house, pushing against a wall between the dining and living room. “The bearing walls are solid and if you’re