The Convenient Cowboy. Heidi Hormel

out the phone and narrowed her tabby-cat eyes at him in an obvious this-conversation-is-not-done look. “Hey, Jessie, what’s up?” She took a small step from the door. He didn’t walk away. Her paleness worried him. He didn’t want to leave her alone until she was in bed or sitting on the couch. “Payson told you what?”

      Apparently, doctor-patient privacy didn’t count when it was your brother.

      “Yeah. That night. I can’t talk about it now. I’ve got to go.” Olympia shoved the phone into her jeans’ pocket and turned slowly to him. “You told your brother? We decided to keep it quiet until we worked everything out.”

      “I called him for medical advice. I wanted to know about morning sickness.”

      “Get that damned agreement out now because we’re going to hammer this out. I don’t want any more surprises.”

      “You do know that eventually everyone will know you’re pregnant.”

      “We’d better be divorced before then.”

      He opened his mouth to tell her that if anyone really looked at her now, they’d know. He glanced down where her shirt stretched across her breasts. The generous curves had swelled to... She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him. He said hastily, “I’ll get you toast and soda, then we’ll talk about the prenup.”

      “I’ll meet you in the kitchen.”

Chapter Five

      Pausing their discussion and moving to the kitchen had gotten rid of any sense of emotional connection, Olympia decided. She sat on the mismatched chair at the table she’d salvaged from a pile of trash left on the side of the road. She’d slapped a heavy coat of sunny-yellow paint on it, which had turned it into a blinding rectangle rather than a “sunny accent.” Maybe she should start buying women’s magazines rather than Barrel Racer News and Ranchers Monthly. The place still needed those homey touches that seemed beyond her. On the other hand, she had zero dollars to make it any better. On the third hand, she’d always lived with zero dollars. Would that ever change? She swallowed hard, heartburn adding to her misery. How could she even have heartburn when she’d eaten nothing?

      “What?” Spence asked staring at her hard from where he stood at the cupboard.

      “TUMS. I need TUMS.”

      “Stay there. I’ll get them.”

      Olympia fought to keep her head up so she wouldn’t knock it against the table, weeping. Because she felt like crap...all the damn—darn—time...and because her rodeo dreams and freedom from her never-ending, crushing responsibilities felt further and further away. Worse, she’d gotten harnessed to a man who would leave as soon as he got his son, no matter what he said about family. She knew how this story would end, with her holding a baby and watching him walk away—like every other man in her life.

      He stood above her holding out the plastic container of TUMS. His dusty-blue eyes were marred by a shadow of worry and something she couldn’t quite name. She took the bottle, careful to not touch him. She’d learned in their weeks together that even brushing up against him made her shivery and hot. It had to be the pregnancy that had turned her into a heap of exposed nerve endings.

      He produced a yellow legal pad from somewhere. She never imagined that lawyers actually used them.

      “The current agreement is clear about how we’ll dissolve the marriage, but it didn’t take into account—” he hesitated “—a pregnancy, as you know.”

      “I didn’t imagine being pregnant.”

      “I know. That’s what we’re trying to address.”

      She nodded and stopped as her head swam. Women actually wanted to get pregnant? Her mama had done this four times! If she’d had a different relationship—really, any relationship—with her mother, she’d call and ask when the sickness went away. Jessie had been pregnant once and was trying again, but because she’d lost the first baby, the subject was too sensitive to ask her for advice or even sympathy. “What did you say?”

      “I said I want you to sign over full custody of the baby to me in utero.”

      “Excuse me?”

      “I want it to be clear that the baby is mine since its conception.”

      “There you go again, getting all puffed up about your damned...darned swimmers.”