Maverick (Star Valley Book 3) (8 page)

“Leah, it’s not going to go away. This is real. It’s here and it’s real.”

Leah shook her head, bangs falling into her eyes. “Maybe,” she said cautiously. “Maybe it’s real. These things can be wrong. They’re wrong all the time. It
might
be real.” And that’s all she was willing to risk at that moment. She knew too much about opening your mouth and letting the Devil know what you were thinking, what you were hoping for.

“Will you call him?”

Leah was so lost in her own thoughts it took several moments for her to realize who Candace meant. “I don’t have his number, remember?”

“Jesus, Leah! I left you alone for one night and you went crazy on me!”

Instead of arguing, Leah reached out and steadied the test strip firmly, not wanting it to move one inch, as though looking at it from a different angle might affect the readout.

“What would you do if you
could
find him?” asked Candace.

Leah leaned back in the chair and stared up at the ceiling for a long moment. “I don’t know. Tell him. Maybe.”

“He deserves to know, Leah.”

She blew out a harsh breath. “Yeah, I guess. I just don’t know how that would work. What if he lives in Cheyenne or Rock Springs? That’s a lot of hard driving. And for 18 years? God, I can’t even think about it.”

“But you’d tell him?”

Leah lowered her head and looked at her friend across the table—her
best
friend. It didn’t matter, really, because she knew she wouldn’t go through this alone. She shrugged. “It’d be the right thing to do.”

Candace reached out and plucked a folded newspaper off the stack of mail on the table. She flipped it over, laid it back down, and pushed it toward Leah.

Leah’s heart flip-flopped as she saw a face she recognized, one she’d seen in her dreams about a dozen times since Jackson Hole. “Oh, my God,” she murmured as she slowly lifted her hand toward it—toward
him
. “Oh, my God.”

“His name is Austin Barlow,” Candace declared. “And he lives in Star Valley.”

“Star Valley!” Leah snatched the paper off the table. He was so close! It was unbelievable. There he was looking out at her with his dark eyes and wavy hair and sexy grin that made her melt as though he were there in person. In the photo he was holding the glass trophy she’d seen at the bar. She quickly scanned the story that went along with the picture. Candace was right. He was a cattle rancher who lived just five hours away, which was practically right next door by Wyoming standards. Heat crept up her face at just the thought of seeing him again.

Maybe he wouldn’t want to see her. Or worse, maybe he’d be furious at the news. Doubt started to creep in and it must’ve been apparent on her face because Candace clucked at her. “You’ve got to tell him, Leah,” she insisted.

“There’s…there’s no number,” Leah argued stupidly.

Candace snorted. “There aren’t a lot of ranches in Star Valley called Snake River, I’ll bet. Once we hit town it’ll be easy to find. Says here it takes up half the damn county. Hell, we could drive onto it and just park the car and wait for
him
to find
us
.”

Leah pressed her lips together and stared at the photo.

“He’s got money, Leah.”

“I don’t want
money
! That’s the last thing I want.”

Candace held up her hands in a placating gesture. “I didn’t mean it like that. I meant for the baby. He could help. With expenses.”

Leah chewed her lower lip and tugged at her short, choppy hair.

“But he has to know first.”

“I could probably find his number,” Leah finally whispered. “On the internet. Or call the paper and—”

“Leah, this is not the kind of thing you tell someone over the phone. You don’t just call a man up and say “Congratulations, you’re a daddy!”

“Well, how do
you
know?”

“I don’t!” Candace argued. “It just doesn’t seem right!”

“I know! I know! I…know I have to tell him. I just…don’t see
how
.”

Candace slapped the newspaper sharply. “Well, we know who he is and where to find him. Or at least, what city to look in. You can think of what to say to him on the drive down there. Call Mrs. Finley and ask for tomorrow off. We’re taking a road trip to Star Valley.”

‡

A
ustin stepped out
of the hay barn to see a group of women standing on the front porch. Squinting in the sunlight as he wandered over, he saw Sofia and Cassidy standing with two others. If they were friends of Cassidy, he hadn’t met them before, a brunette and a waif-like blonde with a ponytail. They had cookies and lemonade and he could use some of both.

As he mounted the porch steps, the blonde turned and something familiar about her made him stop in his tracks. It took a moment to recognize her, to realize she wasn’t one of Dakota or Cassidy’s friends. “What are you doing here?” he asked, thoroughly confused. He didn’t recall leaving her his number. Or, come to think of it, even telling her his last name. It was shocking to see her standing on his porch. “I don’t…um…”

“Leah,” she said with a deep frown. “Leah Pierce.”

“I know your name,” he said, and he did, that was true. Her first name, anyway. He still remembered it. He was just troubled by the fact that she was here at all, standing on his front porch. It felt like being trapped inside a dream in which he was back in school and it was finals week, except he’d never cracked open a book. He felt thoroughly unprepared.

She looked wildly different, too. She had dark circles under her eyes and was quite a bit less…curvy…than he remembered. Her eyes were the same sparkling blue, though, and when he looked into them now she seemed…nervous.

It was a little late to start feeling awkward, he thought, after the night they’d spent together.

“What’s that?” he asked, nodding to her arm.

She pulled out the paper, unfolded it slowly, and handed it to him. He saw his own face smiling back at him in black and white. “Candace saw this and read about you. And that’s how we knew where to look. We drove down from Cody.”

Something about this was all fucking wrong. He had no idea what it was, but Austin didn’t like it, not one little bit.

“Can we talk?” asked Leah. “Alone?”

They headed across the driveway, toward the horse barn, side-by-side and walking slowly, out of earshot of her friend, Sofia, and Cassidy on the porch. She still seemed nervous, unsure what to do with her hands. They fluttered around her as though she had no control over them.

“It’s no one’s fault,” she began rapidly. “Or it’s both our faults. Or…look, I don’t really care about whose fault anything is. It’s just that—”

“Slow down there, rabbit. You’re tearing off and leaving me behind. Whose fault is what? Or isn’t, or whatever?” He watched her take a deep breath, shoulders rising.

“I’m pregnant,” she said quietly.

He stopped moving, boots scuffing the fine gravel. “
What?
”

“I’m pregnant, Austin. That’s what I came to tell you.”

“How can you be pregnant?”

She sighed. “Well, we didn’t use a condom and—”

“
You said it was okay! You said you were on the pill!
”

“I never told you that.”

“The hell you didn’t! I asked and you said—”

“I said it was okay. And I thought it was. I never said I was on the pill.”

Austin felt drunk again, like the world was tilting underneath his feet. “This is unbelievable. Absolutely unreal.
In what universe did I not mean ‘Are you on the pill?’
”

“I’m sorry! I was drunk and a little overwhelmed. I was in over my head.”

“Why haven’t you shown up before now? You didn’t even stay after that night. I woke up and you were gone. Why now? You saw my picture in the paper and thought you’d come find out how much you could get out of me?”

Leah’s eyes widened. “No!”

“Leah!” came the other girl’s voice.

They both turned to see the girl sprinting off the porch. When the brunette was close enough she gave Austin a look poisonous enough to bring down a bison. “Don’t you dare yell at her! I’ll kick the shit out of you,
cowboy
!”

Walker, who’d come out to of the barn at that moment, managed to get in front of her and head her off though he looked bewildered. “Whoa there, girl. I don’t know what the hell is going on or what kind of bee is in my brother’s britches, but—”

“She wasn’t alone in this!” Candace spat from behind the large man corralling her. “It takes two to tango,
asshole
. This is your baby, too!”

“Baby?” Walker bellowed, turning away from the girl and zeroing in on Austin. “
Baby?
”

“That’s what she says,” Austin replied, glaring at Leah. “Though I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

“I thought you’d
want
to know! Candace said—”

“What did Candace say?” he shot back. “The two of you cooked up a scheme to get me all tangled up? Did you know who I was when you came up to me at the bar? Did you set your sights on me in the elevator?”

“What? No! I didn’t know you.”

Austin narrowed his eyes at her. “You go to bed with a lot of guys you don’t know?”

“No, I do not! And you went to bed with me, too! You didn’t know me, either!” she shouted, though her voice was wavering.

“And I’m still trying to figure you out.”

It was one of his worst fears materializing right in front of him. God knew they all loved Cassidy now, but it hadn’t always been that way. Sawyer’s woman had originally been sent by her father to get her hooks into the Snake, their land and their bank accounts. She hadn’t been the first and she wouldn’t be the last. And now a girl Austin had taken for a sweet young thing was waving around what amounted to a gossip column that might as well have
Eligible Bachelor
for a caption below his smiling face.

“Well…well…
I’ll save you the trouble, Austin Barlow.
You don’t ever need to figure
me
out. Just forget I ever came here at all! I don’t need you. I told you the truth. I did the right thing. I don’t need you. Or your money. Not that you have any. Everyone in town knows that mine of yours is empty.”

Austin recoiled and stared at her. “How do you know about the mine?” He knew it’d barely gotten a mention in the newspaper she was holding.

“We stopped at the diner in town and asked how to find you. Some people there told us.”

“So you were asking around about me?”

She narrowed her eyes into slits. “I was asking how to
find
you since you didn’t exactly leave me a trail of bread crumbs!”

“Well, I didn’t know you were hunting me down!” he shot back. He ran a hand through his hair and tried to settle himself with a long, deep breath. He didn’t much like being the prey.

“I’m not!” she shot back.

“Then why are you here in the first damn place?”

She seemed to have no answer to that, or didn’t want to give him one (as if he didn’t already know.) Leah turned away from him and just kept walking. “Let’s go,” she told her friend.

The brunette looked back at Austin, confused. She didn’t move. “Leah,” she said quietly.

“
Come on
,” Leah demanded, shaking her head. Even from here Austin could see tears sprinkling her flamed cheeks. “It doesn’t matter.
He
doesn’t matter.”

Candace’s brow furrowed. “But you haven’t worked anything out yet. Maybe we should all—”

“He called me a whore,” Leah snapped, shooting him a hard look.

The girl gasped. “No, he did not!” she insisted, clearly in disbelief.

“Basically,” Leah muttered. “A whore, a gold digger.” She snorted. “Or a
silver digger
, I guess.”

Candace turned her gaze on him and now he had two women who wanted to cut him off at the knees. He hadn’t
said
whore, or anything else,
not really
. All of this was way too much coming at him at once. “I didn’t—!” he called out, but Leah wasn’t interested.

“Let’s
go
, Candace!” Leah snapped and headed back toward their dusty car. They sped away, kicking up rocks.

Austin stormed into the house, feeling as though they’d just run him over. “They should’ve asked me about the mine instead of the irrigation system,” he said, tossing the paper onto the table. “I could’ve told them the silver was played out. Then no one would come sniffing around.” He was thinking as much of the new tracks on the ridge as the woman who’d just dropped a bombshell on him and left.

Walker stopped it with a large hand just before it toppled over the far edge and onto the floor. “Maybe they weren’t sure how to spell your grunts.”

Austin glared at him. “I’m not that bad.”

His twin brother didn’t glare but returned an equally hard look, just the same. “Are you sure about that? Because you’ve just run off a girl who came to you for help. A girl who may or may not be carrying your child.”

Austin’s eyebrows shot up. “It might not even be mine,” he insisted. “If she’s even pregnant at all! She’s just a girl from Cody I spent a few hours with.”

Walker nodded. “True. But you didn’t exactly express any interest in finding out, did you?”