The Cowboy's Secret Baby. Karen Rose Smith

turning herself inside out? She’d start with the simpler explanation.

      “You’re a rodeo cowboy, Ty. That’s all you ever wanted to be. You told me that yourself over dinner at the wedding reception.”

      “Rodeo cowboys can’t be fathers?” he asked in a low, controlled voice.

      “How can they be when they’re never around?”

      Maybe that struck too close to home because a shadow crossed his face and his jaw tightened. “You’re generalizing.”

      “You’ve asked me a question and I’m trying to answer. Maybe you should answer a couple of questions. If I had told you I was pregnant, would you have seen me through my pregnancy? Would you have come back to Fawn Grove? Would you have been here during labor and delivery? Or if that had been the weekend of a big rodeo, would you have been there bull riding? I asked myself those questions and others. Would you quit the circuit? Would you willingly settle down? I came up with a resounding no.”

      “You didn’t give me the chance to make up my own mind. You just sailed right by disclosure into doing it on your own. It takes two people to make a baby, Marissa, and I deserved to know.”

      She’d carried guilt from not telling Ty about the baby, sure she had. But as an unwed mother with nowhere to turn, she’d done the best she could.

      “So you asked yourself about my rodeo life, and you decided that came first with me.” He studied her. “But more was going on than that, wasn’t it?”

      “Sure, more was going on than that,” she said, practically spilling her coffee mug in her agitation as she plopped it down. “This certainly wasn’t a planned pregnancy. You had a life on the road and I had to find some way to make a life. What kind of parent could you have been if I’d trapped you into fatherhood? Wouldn’t you have resented me? Wouldn’t you have resented Jordan?”

      Ty’s expression was almost forbidding when he asked, “What makes you think I would have resented having a son?”

      That question took precedent over all the others. Although she didn’t want to delve into her past, she knew she had no choice if she wanted to make him understand.

      She took a few sips of her coffee as a bracing elixir. She rarely talked about her childhood, but maybe she had to do it now to make Ty understand. She put her hand on Jordan’s head, pushed her thumb through his hair, felt the warmth of his skin on her palm. This was her baby, her child, and she loved him dearly. Could Ty come to love him, too?

      “My father married my mother because she was pregnant.” The statement seemed to fall with a thud onto the table between them.

      Ty’s eyes widened a bit and then he nodded and said, “Go on.”

      She shouldn’t have to go on. That should be enough. But he wanted it all laid out.

      “They had an unhappy marriage. They argued all the time. Dad left for days at a time and didn’t come back.” From that she’d learned to distrust men. Because of her dad’s example, she didn’t believe they could commit to loving a family or stay.

      She paused for a moment and then went on. “He didn’t even care if he had a wife or a daughter, and I never felt loved. I wasn’t about to put Jordan through that type of childhood.”

      Letting that go for the moment, Ty asked, “What happened?”

      “Nothing monumental. But my parents split up. When my father left, I thought it was my fault. I knew they’d gotten married because of me. I’d heard the arguments, the conversations in the middle of the night. Why else would he have left, after all? No child should have to bear that burden.”

      She felt tears come into her eyes, and she blinked fast and hard, not wanting Ty to see. She’d revealed more than enough.

      * * *

      Ty felt as though someone had clobbered him with a two-by-four. First of all, he couldn’t look across the table at Marissa without being attracted to her. He couldn’t look at her without thinking about their night together. It had been almost two years and it felt as if it had been yesterday. The chemistry that had arced between them back then hadn’t flickered out. It was still sparking now in spite of this whole emotional upheaval, in spite of the fact she’d kept something so important from him, and he didn’t know if he could ever trust her again.

      Hearing her background had stirred up a locked box that he kept in a corner of his heart. It was locked because his childhood hadn’t been much better. His background made him a lousy bet for a dad. His own father hadn’t known how to handle responsibility. He hadn’t known how to stay. Maybe he simply hadn’t known how to love.

      He wondered how Marissa had managed. She had been a waitress when they’d hooked up, he remembered. Had she done it on her own, or...

      “Did your mom help?” he asked. “Is she helping you now?”

      Marissa’s voice was almost a whisper. “I lost my mom a few months before we hooked up. Maybe that’s why that night happened. Maybe I just needed somebody to lean on.”

      She’d done more than lean on him, and they both knew it. But he kind of understood what she meant. Loss could make a person reckless. Loss of his career had almost made him reckless until he’d realized his uncle needed him, until he’d realized he could turn being reckless into a little bit of risk-taking and possibly hit a jackpot.

      “So what did you do during your pregnancy? You were a waitress, living on tips and minimum wage.” He motioned to the apartment. “How could you even afford this?”

      “I didn’t have anyone to count on during my pregnancy. But I attended a free clinic and Dr. Kaitlyn Foster, Kaitlyn Preston now, took care of me. I found out about The Mommy Club. It’s a volunteer organization, and the women help parents in need. Sara Cramer, the physical therapist I was talking to when I saw you, is a member of The Mommy Club, too. They helped her.”

      “I don’t get it. You didn’t have to pay them?”

      “There’s no membership fee or anything like that. For example, Sara’s house burned down. Jase Cramer offered her and her child his guest cottage until she got back on her feet. The Mommy Club helped provide clothes and furniture and anything else they needed. It’s what the organization does. They help parents who can’t make it on their own. I know this apartment isn’t the greatest, but they found it for me. I can afford the rent. I’ve made it cheerful and upbeat for Jordan. I’m hoping to ask for a raise and look for a new place soon. But The Mommy Club made this life I have with him possible. They even have a day care set up. The fees are arranged on a sliding scale according to what you can afford to pay. I don’t know what I’d do without them.”

      So Marissa didn’t know what she’d do without The Mommy Club. He didn’t like the idea of her depending on strangers. He didn’t like the idea of someone else doing what was best for his child. She had done a nice job of prettying up the apartment, but it was what it was, and he wanted them living somewhere nicer. He wasn’t exactly sure what he should do next.

      Then suddenly he knew. “Can I hold Jordan?”

      Marissa gave him an odd look, and he was about to spout the fact that he was the dad and had rights, when she explained, “He has a lot of energy and won’t stay still very long. Let me get him out of his saucer and then we’ll go from there.”

      Ty had to acquiesce to her wishes. After all, she knew her son. Their son.

      Jordan wasn’t happy when Marissa picked him up. The baby seemed fascinated with a blue elephant attached to the saucer. He squealed and kicked his legs until Marissa jiggled him, lifted him high up in the air and looked him straight in the eyes.

      “I want you to meet somebody, big boy. Let’s not show off how contrary you can be right now, okay?”

      Jordan reacted to the sound of her voice, stopped kicking and stared at her face, then he broke into a wide smile and cooed.