The Cowboy Says Yes, page 13
“And I’m forty. But the baby’s healthy. And you’re doing well, right?”
She nodded, a small smile edging her lips. “Aside from the morning retch sessions off the Waynes’ downstairs hallway bathroom. I’ve taken to carrying Clorox wipes in my tote bag.”
Although there was distance between the chair and couch, Carter shifted to the end and reached for her hand over the small expanse. The warm curve of her palm fit neatly against his and he added a small stroke of his thumb along the tender skin of her hand. “It does take some getting used to. Life-changing news usually does. But we’ll figure something this wonderful out. Together.”
He had no idea where the steady calm came from. Some small part of him, way down deep in his gut, kept flashing like a neon sign that he should be upset about this. Or nervous. Or hell, running for the hills. Yet even as he considered it, he discarded the panic.
Their situation wasn’t easy or neat. A child was a responsibility beyond measure and her slip about her age suggested Bea had fears that went beyond the awe-inspiring prospect of motherhood. Yet even with those two solid truths, he couldn’t stop the steady shots of joy that enervated his blood and ticked just beneath his skin like a live wire.
He was going to be a father.
Chapter 10
Hadley’s eyes popped open and she struggled to sit up straighter, suddenly wide awake in the passenger seat. She had something to tell Zack. It was a secret, but she had to tell him anyway. Or so she thought as his truck bumped over the last few miles to home.
“You okay?” His deep voice floated across the small space.
“Sorry. Did I fall asleep?”
“Just a little nap. You’ve been burning the candle at both ends.”
“Did I snore?”
“Never.”
She heard the smile in his voice and landed a light punch on his arm. “Liar.”
He loved to tease her about her snoring and it was only now, as she realized how long it had been since she’d slept in his presence, that she felt a shot of sadness at that fact.
One more reminder they weren’t okay. A fact they’d been dealing with for years but which had imploded in startling fashion a few weeks ago. Only tonight . . .
Tonight he was teasing her about snoring and she was punching him in the arm. And tonight, she’d had a date with her husband.
Her hot husband. And she knew he was hot because, well, because he was. With those sexy broad shoulders and jean-clad hips and oh, when he had a few days’ scruff on his face he was . . . sexy. Vibrantly, achingly so.
And then there were his eyes.
A dreamy sigh bubbled up in her throat and she heard it escape before she could check the impulse. His eyes were that deep, rich brown and when he looked at her, he fully looked at her. Consumed her, really.
That had done her in from the very start.
When Zachary Wayne put his attention on you he gave you his whole focus. It was powerful and heady and more than a little intoxicating.
“You have a really hot ass. You know that, right?”
“What?”
“The bridesmaids were all talking about it.”
“When did you talk to the bridesmaids? You and Bea were as thick as thieves tonight.”
Bea . . . Was Bea the secret? The thought flitted away before she could grab it. “What was I saying?” she asked, the thread of their conversation seeming to vanish from her mind.
“My ass, I believe.”
“Oh yeah.” She smiled, supremely satisfied by the remembered words she’d overheard from inside of a bathroom stall, surrounded by giggling bridesmaids. It was hardly classy and she wasn’t particularly keen on objectifying anyone, let alone her husband, but hell, she had eyes.
And to be fair to the bachelorette party, they all had eyes, too.
And Zachary Charles Wayne had a supremely perfect ass.
“Well, they’re right.”
“Thank you. I think.”
“Damn straight.” She didn’t even realize she’d lifted her hand in a fisted “yeah right” move until she saw herself, illuminated by the lights of the entrance to the ranch’s property.
“What were you and Bea talking about?”
“The show. And some funny stories from the trip last week. Some weird research dude came to one of our meetings.” The heady waves of her buzz and impromptu nap faded as she remembered the look on Bea’s face when she described the various marketing terms the guy had used. “Only it wasn’t really funny, actually. What he said.”
“What did he say?”
Hadley didn’t miss the careful question, or the way Zack’s tone of voice suggested he barely leashed his temper.
“Something really insulting about single women with disposable income. Like he has a right to tell them how to spend it. Or worse, that he’s so greedy to get his grubby hands on it. But that wasn’t the only part that made me mad.”
“What else?”
“It’s this idea that people are objects. Or worse!” She settled on an image that seemed to fit what she and Bea had talked about. “It’s like they’ve taken people and put them into groupings like they’re our cows. Like they move in a herd and all do the same things and are led around with some sort of poking device.
“I mean, I know it’s my business and all, but I want people to watch the show or buy the book because they want to. Because they are willing to share their time with me and feel I have something to say. Not because I’m talking to them like they’re objects.”
She let out a hard breath, not sure why the discussion with Bea had upset her so badly. Only as she tried to dimensionalize it, a weird, shocking sob escaped in a hard rush.
“What’s wrong?” Zack slowed in front of the garage, reaching up to hit the opener where it perched on the visor. He put the car in Park and turned in his seat to face her. “What has you so upset?”
“I’m not doing this for money. I know our life is a product of that, but it comes from me. For fun. For entertainment. And to make people realize they can make good things themselves. Good cooking and baking doesn’t always have to happen outside your home or be done by other people.”
“That’s why you’re successful. Right there.” Zack reached over, his thumb gently brushing the unexpected tears off her cheek. “That passion and excitement and belief in what you’re doing. That’s what people are responding to. That’s why they want to watch your show or buy your book. It’s you, Hadley. You make the difference. In your passion they see themselves.”
That all-consuming stare drew her in, and just like always, being the object of that full focus was heady.
Intoxicating.
And far more potent than a few whiskey chasers.
But as they sat there, parked in front of the home they’d shared since they got married, she wanted to relive some small pieces of their old life. Their night out was a start. The teasing about her snores was another. And while she knew they needed to talk about what happened on the kitchen counter, for one single moment, she wanted to take what was right here beside her.
Anticipation beat between them and, unwilling to check the impulse, she leaned in, pressing her lips to his. The move was expected—she knew it, he knew it—and Zack was right there waiting for her.
His arms wrapped around her, over the console between them and it was perfectly awkward as he pulled her close in the confined space. Deliciously so. It made the leaning and the twisting and the strained press of their bodies feel ever so slightly out of reach.
Hadley sank into the kiss, the blend of memories and urgent, needy heat of the present moment crashing into her. His mouth was perfect, the insistent play of lips and tongue over hers familiar and somehow, not.
Because while the man kissing her might be her husband and might have been the only man who’d kissed her for more than a decade, there was something new underneath the aching familiarity. Almost as if the distance of the past two years meant they had to somehow start over again. Not quite strangers, but people who’d lost touch and moved down different paths and didn’t quite fit any longer.
Even if the kiss was explosive.
And more than a little wild as the air heated around them in the relatively small space of the truck cab.
“Zack,” she whispered, pulling her head back. “Let’s go inside.”
The sensual blaze still flared, hot and high, but his slight frown quickly dampened some of the flames. “I think—” He let out a hard exhale, his hands tightening around her briefly before he shifted back into his seat. “I think you had a lot to drink and we have an early morning and . . . Aw fuck, Had—” He leaned his head on the rest, closing his eyes. “We just shouldn’t.”
It was a rejection. And it should have felt like a rejection. Only somewhere between her request to go inside and his “aw fuck” she sensed the truth. It was the only thing keeping her from feeling well and truly rejected, that knowledge that the incident a few weeks ago still hovered between them, blinking like a Vegas-sized neon sign.
“What happened the other night?” She asked the question, half expecting the need to clarify what she meant.
But the raw pain in his dark eyes as he opened them and turned his head toward her was the proof she didn’t need to clarify anything. “A few weeks ago? After we had dinner?”
“Yeah.”
She’d wanted to ask and didn’t need beer and whiskey to do it, but now that she had the mix of liquor and self-righteous anger from her conversation with Bea, not to mention a raging case of lust, it felt like the exact right time to address it.
Like those things were just enough armor to work through the hard things they had to say to one another.
“I’m sorry. For all of it. You deserved better and you deserved something mutual between the two of us. And that’s not what I did. And I’m so—” He let out a hard sigh. “I’m so sorry, Hadley.”
If the hitch in his voice caught her by surprise, the absolute misery lining deep grooves in his face speared her heart.
“I did have an orgasm. A damn good one, as a matter of fact.”
Instead of lightening the mood, that misery only seemed to grow deeper. “Don’t make light of this. You’re not an object, Hadley, but I treated you like one. I took my frustration and my anger out on you in the worst way.”
“Wait.” She waved a hand. “Wait a minute. I was there. In that same moment with you.”
“And I took advantage of you.”
The mix of memory and need and anger and sadness swamped her before she could stop it. “I’m not . . . I mean . . . I don’t feel that way.”
But she had been upset after that night and a lighthearted tease wasn’t the right response to his apology. Nor was a make out session in their driveway with the issue still unresolved between them.
But damn it, neither was this a disaster between them. She refused to allow that.
Reaching out, she laid a hand over his where it fisted on his thigh. “Before we take this to a place where we don’t hear each other, it’s important to me that you understand this. How I feel. What I feel.”
He nodded, his gaze never leaving hers. “Okay.”
“I wanted you. I wanted to have sex with you. In the worst way. And we were. And then something changed. Like the whole event became a competition instead of something mutual. I’d like to understand why. I want to know what upset you.”
The storm clouds never left his eyes, but he didn’t evade the question, either. “The book. I was upset about the book.”
“The one I wrote?” She realized she was still sporting the earned effects of alcohol consumption, but their conversation and that heat-drenched kiss had her rapidly sobering. Yet even with that, she still had no idea what he was talking about.
“No. I mean yes, that one. The new cookbook.” He shook his head, before laying his free hand over their joined pair. “It’s important that you understand this, too.”
She nodded, as her own words came back to her.
“I’m proud of you. Damn proud. I want you to make TV shows and write books and be interviewed and whatever the hell it is you want to do. I love that you’ve found such amazing success. It doesn’t upset me or threaten my masculinity or whatever damn Google search anyone’s done on how I might feel about it.”
“Who’s googling anything?”
“I overheard a few of the show staff talking about it one day. That all your success might hurt my pride.”
The same threat of violence she’d heard in his voice when she spoke of skinny-pants researcher hit a fierce chord in her own chest. There were more than sixty people on the ranch during any given shoot and it would be impossible to know who said it. But it still stung.
Like all the other stuff she and Bea had talked about.
All the damned assumptions.
“But it’s not my pride. Or it was my pride, but not because you wrote a book. That’s great. But it’s what we talked about. The fact I didn’t see it first is what sucks.”
Hadley might still be processing the gossiping show staff, but the hurt in his voice was solely a result of her actions. And as she considered it from his perspective, she could see what had bothered him.
There was a time when they’d shared everything. And as time had passed, their lives growing further and further apart, they shared very little of the day-to-day realities of living.
Zack might have been talking about the book, but couldn’t they say the same about so many aspects of their life?
Hadn’t she offered the job at the Trading Post to his mother without telling him? The contract extension she’d signed the prior spring for The Cowgirl Gourmet came up and she’d handled it, no conversation required. Even the trip to New York the week before had been issued as an edict for him to agree to, not something she’d considered discussing with him so close to their trip to California.
Why?
Because if you don’t tell him those things you also don’t have to tell him the big thing. The one that will well and truly break you both.
A baby.
She’d wanted Jessica and had grieved the loss of their daughter in the worst way. In every way. But she had moved on. Or maybe better said, she’d moved past. Into the after.
And on into a new life where the reality of having a late-stage miscarriage was a part of her. Both a blessing for having had the experience of that life touching hers for the briefest of moments and a scar that was a reminder every day of what she’d lost. She’d never be over the loss of her child, but she had accepted living a childless life.
The Cowgirl Gourmet didn’t define her, but in the drive and purpose and determination to find some joy in her life after losing Jessica, she’d found that after.
But if she said the words, the after she’d worked so hard for—the one where she couldn’t imagine a life without him or a life that included a child—would vanish, too.
So she’d said nothing. And had said nothing for so many seasons it had caused a rift in their marriage neither knew how to fix.
Worse, a rift for which Zack had no knowledge of the origins.
Just like the book . . .
“I didn’t think about that. I don’t know what to say, other than I’m sorry.”
So many “I’m sorry”s between them. It was healthy and needed, but was that all there was between them anymore? Just an endless litany of apologies for the way they kept fucking up?
“Don’t you see, Had? That’s the problem. It’s not about an apology. It’s about us. There’s a time I would have been the first person to see it. And now . . .” The hand that laid over hers squeezed lightly, like a physical way to soften the blow. “Now I’m not.”
Zack tapped the wheel of his truck, considering all that had been said—as well as all that hadn’t—the night before. He’d enjoyed the evening out, with his wife, with his ranch hands. No, he amended. With his friends.
When was the last time he’d done that?
He didn’t miss the carefree days of his early adulthood. He’d enjoyed himself, but he’d never reveled in it as other people—both male and female—had always seemed to. Whether it was the responsibilities of the ranch or just who he was and how he saw the world, Zack wasn’t sure, but he’d enjoyed himself and when it had been over, he’d been happy to see that time pass. Had been even happier to find Hadley and move into the stage of his life where he shared it with another person.
An old soul, his mother had always called him.
And maybe that was it, but he’d always believed it was a bit more. He hadn’t had to stare longingly at a troop of bachelorettes, hoping for his shot at the pretty one who’d caught his eye, because he already had the best woman by his side. The one he wanted to make and share a life with.
He still remembered, vividly, the first day he’d noticed Hadley. Really noticed her. The way a man notices a woman.
She was working at the small bakery downtown, Frosting, and he’d walked in to pick up a cake for his grandmother’s birthday. He noticed her immediately, the big smile, pretty green eyes, and hair a shade of red that had captivated him then and every day since.
He knew of her. Hadley Allen and her sister, Harper, had been several years behind him in school, but they had been there around the same time his sister Charlotte had gone through. They didn’t run in the same circles, but Rustlers Creek was small enough that everybody knew everyone.
So why hadn’t he noticed her before?
That thought had kept him company as she walked him through the merits of cream cheese frosting on carrot cake or the decadent delights of an Italian cream cake. Even as he’d asked himself, he knew the reason. When she had been young enough to be running around with his sister, he wouldn’t have given her a second thought. But now, staring at her over that bakery counter, something clicked.
Hard.
He flirted his way to getting her phone number and had texted her while sitting in the driveway of his grandmother’s house.
