Keeping the Cowboy's Baby novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Gwen

Outside in the cold, Boone asks if the baby is his; she says yes, and Dalton grins that it could be either brother's.

Nobody in the diner breathed.

Boone looked at me, then at his brother, then back at me.

I watched him put it together in about two seconds.

The name of the woman he had searched for.

The name of the man standing between us.

"Dalton," he said quietly. "Take your fiancee out to the truck."

"Boone, you can't be serious. She's trying to shake me down."

"The truck."

It was the voice of a man who had said it to horses and men for twenty years.

Dalton's smile slipped for half a second.

He took his fiancee's elbow and walked her out, and the bell rang behind them.

Peg set the coffee pot down on the counter very carefully.

"Five minutes, hon," she said to me. "I'll cover your tables."

Boone held the door.

Outside the sun was out, the snow was blue in the shadows, and my breath hung in the air.

He walked me to the end of the sidewalk, away from the windows.

He took off his hat and turned it once in his big hands.

"I went to every motel between here and Livingston," he said. "Twice."

"I didn't know that," I said.

"I know. I didn't know your name or your car, and nobody had seen a woman in a thin denim jacket."

He looked down at the hat.

"I figured you'd left for good. I figured I'd done something wrong."

"You didn't do anything wrong."

"Then why'd you run?"

"I heard your brother's voice on your phone," I said. "That morning."

His eyes closed for a second.

"He's the Dalton from Spokane," Boone said. "The one who left you."

"He told me his name was Miller. He told me he had no family."

"He told you he had no family."

"He told me his mother was dead."

A muscle jumped in his jaw.

"Our mother is alive and well, in the ranch house, six miles from here," he said.

"She's going to have a few things to say."

I laughed, and it came out wrong.

"Boone, I came here for a job and a quiet life. I did not come for a family tree."

"I know."

"I'm going to pay my rent and mind my business and get my money back from your brother."

"Gwen."

"And I'm not asking you for anything."

"Gwen," he said again, gentler. "How many weeks?"

I stared at him.

He didn't look at my stomach.

He looked straight at my face, and he waited.

"Six," I said. "Nearly seven."

"Is it mine?"

There was no accusation in it.

He asked it the way a man asks a question when he already knows he'll stand by any answer.

"Yes," I said. "It's yours. There wasn't anyone else for five months before you."

His breath fogged and drifted away in the cold.

He stood very still for a long moment, with the hat crushed in one hand.

"Okay," he said.

"Okay?"

"Okay. I'm here. I'm not going anywhere."

Something in my chest cracked, just slightly.

I did not cry in front of him.

I wasn't ready.

"I don't need rescuing," I said. "I need my fourteen thousand dollars."

"You'll get it."

"From him. Not from you."

"From him," he agreed, and his voice went flat and hard. "I'll see to it."

"Don't hit him," I said.

"I won't."

"I mean it. I want it done properly. In front of people."

For the first time that day, the corner of his mouth moved.

"Yes, ma'am."

I wiped my eyes with my sleeve and took a breath.

"What do I call you?" I said. "You never gave me a last name."

"Culbertson," he said. "Boone Culbertson."

It sounded like a word that had been in the county for a hundred years.

"Cassie Finch," I said, and held out my hand.

He shook it slowly.

His thumb passed over the back of my knuckles.

"Cassie," he said, trying it out.

Behind him, a truck door slammed.

Dalton came strolling back up the sidewalk with his hands in his pockets and his fiancee waiting in the cab.

He stopped three feet from us and looked at our joined hands.

His grin came back, slow and wide.

"Well, well," he said. "Brother, I didn't know you had a type."

"Walk away, Dalton."

"She was mine first, Boone."

He tipped his hat to me.

"Five months ago, to be exact."

"So when she says she's got a bun in the oven, that baby could be either of ours."

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