Keeping the Cowboy's Baby novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: The Clause

I should have put it back.

I knew that even as I unfolded the paper under the lamp.

It was one page, the second of a longer document, with a stamp from a law office in Big Timber.

I read the first paragraph, then read it again slowly with my lips moving.

My sons, Boone and Dalton, shall hold the ranch in equal shares.

If either son fathers a living child before the other, the other's share passes in full to that son and his child.

I stood there naked in his bedroom with the paper shaking in my hand.

Dalton had said he would be home to take Boone's place.

The lender had said the whole place would be his by spring.

Dalton had not been trying to ruin me for sport.

He had borrowed four hundred thousand dollars against half a ranch, and a baby was about to take that half away.

My baby.

Boone's baby.

I thought of the lender in his suede jacket, and Dalton in the barn door promising to have me out of the county.

I thought of the heartbeat in the clinic, and Boone crying into his beard.

Was that for the baby, or for the land?

Behind me the bed creaked.

"Cassie?"

I didn't turn.

"What is this?"

He was quiet.

I heard the covers move, and his bare feet touch the floor.

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