The Cowboy's Sweetheart (16 page)

“Oh.” Caroline walked to the coffeepot.

“What?”

“Well, I'm glad you're putting the babies ahead of yourself.” She poured her coffee and turned.

Andie stood at the door, not sure how to have another conversation with her mother. They'd never discussed the important things in life. They'd barely discussed more than the weather in the three times that they'd met. Except last night, when they'd gotten to know each other a little.

But it still felt like a new pair of boots. She wondered if that would always be their relationship?

Andie guessed probably so if that's all she expected. She breathed a little and let go. Because Caroline wasn't going away anytime soon.

“I love him.” Andie slid the strap of her purse over her shoulder and she wondered if her mother saw the parallel between their lives, the way she was seeing it.

“I know you do.” But Caroline had never approached anything with faith. Andie was holding fast to hers.

“I know you believe I'm doing the wrong thing. But in my heart I know that going right now and talking to Ryder is the right thing to do. I know that we have to stop being stubborn and be parents.”

Caroline smiled. “You're doing the right thing.”

Andie nodded and left. She hadn't needed to hear that from her mother, she already knew it. But it shifted things. A small empty space in her heart closed up a little.

 

Ryder carried the sanded cradle into the nursery. He planned on painting it that same ivory color. He thought that'd be the right color. First he had to figure out what kind of paint to use. Babies chewed on things. He knew
that. Even toddlers chewed on stuff. He'd found Kat chewing on the kitchen cabinet.

He turned at a noise and smiled. Kat was sitting in the doorway, watching. She had a paintbrush and was pretending to paint the door. Fortunately she didn't have paint.

“Good job, Kat.”

“Ryder, you have company,” Wyatt shouted up the stairs.

Ryder had thought he heard a car come up the drive a few minutes earlier. He brushed his hands down the front of his jeans and wiped dust off his shirt. It might be Andie. Or it might not.

He wondered just how bad a guy could look after getting just a few hours sleep over the last few days. He raked a hand through his hair and hoped for the best. When she came up the stairs, he was waiting for her. Kat was still sitting in the doorway, smiling at her pretend paint job.

“Hi.” Andie stopped in the hallway, smiling, looking from him, to Kat, to the open door.

“You look good. I guess it feels good to be out of the house.”

“Really good.” She shrugged. “It might not last long.”

He let his gaze slide to her belly. In a few months he'd be a dad. To twins. Andie was going to be the mother of his kids. And she'd never looked more beautiful. He wanted her to know that.

He took a few steps and when he was close enough, he ran his fingers through her hair, and pulled her closer to him, holding his hand at the back of her neck.

“You look beautiful.” He whispered words that he'd never said to her before. And he should have. His
teenaged attempts at being cool had included phrases like, “You look hot.”

But she was beautiful.

“I'm beautiful?” She blinked a few times and shot a look past him. He turned, smiling at Kat who watched with all of the attention she typically focused on her favorite princess cartoon.

“Yeah, beautiful. I've been meaning to tell you that.”

“When you were stumbling over words like, ‘Hey, babe, how about you and me get hitched?'”

“I should have told you that you're beautiful and then said ‘Hey, babe, how about if we get hitched.'”

“Not much better.” She touched his cheek. “You look beautiful, too.”

She stole his breath with those words and that moment. He had too much to say to stop now and hold her the way he wanted to hold her. If he didn't back up he'd never get the words out.

“Ryder, I'm here because I've had time to think, and I want to marry you. I want to raise our babies together.” She bit down on her bottom lip. “You don't have to love me, but I love you. I've loved you for as long as I can remember, but I didn't want to lose you by saying something that would push you out of my life.”

He hadn't expected that. She could have said almost anything and he'd have been fine, but he hadn't expected love. Or that she'd marry him. And he didn't even have to love her back.

He'd done that to her. All of his macho words about staying single and never falling in love had put these ideas into her mind.

Kat was giggling and she couldn't understand their conversation. He shot her a look and it didn't quell her
two-year-old joy an ounce. She was beating on the door, grinning her kind of toothless grin.

Ryder turned back to Andie. “That's it, you love me? And now we can get married?”

 

Andie hadn't expected that reaction. She swallowed the lump that lodged in her throat. Maybe it was too late for those words. Maybe he'd changed his mind after her third rejection. Not that she blamed him.

And then he smiled. That smile that shifted the smooth planes of his face and took a girl by the heart, holding her tight so she couldn't escape if she wanted to. Andie didn't want to escape that smile or what it did to her heart.

“Andie, I want you to see what I've been doing.” He took her by the hand and led her into the bedroom, past the very smiley Kat.

Andie had felt like crying a few times since she'd walked up the stairs and saw Ryder for the first time in three days. But this room, it undid her emotions. Emotions that were raw and close to the surface overflowed when she stood in the center of a room he had planned out and painted.

For their babies. He didn't have to tell her that this was a nursery. The colors and the box of nursery items said it all.

“This is beautiful.” She walked around the room, stopping at the rocking chair next to the window. She pictured herself in that chair with her babies.

In this house.

She pictured late night feedings and a lamp glowing softly in the dark. She was holding her babies and Ryder was standing in the doorway, watching. He was leaning
against the door frame, his hair a little messy and his feet bare.

She liked him like that. And she liked images of herself in this house.

“Why are you smiling?” Ryder had walked up to her and he leaned in, slipping his arm around her waist and pulling her close.

“I love the room.” She touched his shoulder, sliding her hand down to his. “I love you.”

He leaned, resting his forehead against hers. “I want you to marry me.”

Okay, that was better than his earlier proposals.

“I'll marry you.” She swallowed all of her fears, emotions that could become regret and she said it again. “I'll marry you. I want us to raise these babies together, to give them a home where they feel loved and protected.”

“What about you?” He was still standing close.

“I'm sorry?”

“What about loving you?”

“You're my best friend.”

Ryder reached into his pocket and pulled out the same ring he'd tried to give her three other times. But this time he held onto her hand and sank to one knee. He raised her hand to his lips and kissed her palm. He turned her hand over and slid the ring into place.

“Marry me, Andie. Marry me because I love you so much I can't breathe when you smile at me like that. I want to be more than the father to our babies. And I plan on having a bunch of them. I want to marry you because I love you.”

“You love me.” She dropped to her knees in front of him and cupped his cheeks in her hands. “You're not just saying that?”

“I'm not just saying that. I love you. It was easy, being your best friend and not worrying about hurting you or losing you. But I love you and I was hurting you. I hurt you by not being honest with you or myself.”

“We're both pretty stubborn.”

“We are.” He lifted her hand and his ring glinted on her finger. He brushed a kiss across her knuckles and then he pulled her close and kissed her again.

Andie closed her eyes, letting her heart go crazy with his words. He held her close and his lips brushed hers again and again and then moved to her ear.

“We have an audience?” He motioned toward the door with his head.

Andie glanced that direction and smiled. Kat was standing at the door, holding it and watching, her thumb in her mouth.

“That's going to be our lives,” she whispered.

“Yeah, I think I'm going to like it a lot.”

She was going to like it a lot, too. She was going to love living in this house, being his wife and loving him as he loved her back.

R
yder woke up, wondering why Andie wasn't next to him in bed. It didn't take him long to find her. She was sitting in the rocking chair in the nursery. Her foot was on the cradle in front of her, rocking lightly. But one of his daughters slept in her arms. Both of the girls must have woken up.

He stepped into the room and peeked into the cradle at the sleeping, month old baby girl. Her hair was blond, like her mother's hair. She slept on her side, her fist in her mouth.

The other baby was her identical sister. They were both blond with eyes that might turn brown. Or maybe blue. He'd insisted on matching pink sleepers.

“Which one is eating?” He peeked but couldn't tell.

Andie looked up at him, her features soft in the dim light of the lamp. She smiled and he would have done anything for her. He would do anything for her. Every moment since she'd married him and moved into his house, their house, had been better because she was part of his life.

And they were a family. In this house they were a
family. With Wyatt and the girls in their own place—but always around, at church when they sat on the pew with Etta, Jason and Alyson, they were a family.

“They're your daughters and you can't tell the difference?” she teased.

“No, Mrs. Johnson, I can't. So, who is this?”

She lifted the baby girl and handed her to him. “This is your daughter who needs to be burped while I feed her sister.”

He peeked at the tag inside the sleeper. “Ah, my darling Mariah.”

“Exactly. And Maggie is about to get her midnight snack.”

“This is actually her 3:00 a.m. snack.”

He pulled the second rocking chair next to Andie's. That had been a necessity when they'd found out they were having twins. Two rocking chairs. Two cradles. One crib because Andie and Alyson insisted the babies sleep together. And stay together.

These two little girls would never be split up. They would be protected and they would have parents who raised them with love and security.

Ryder was working hard to keep that promise to his wife and to his little girls.

“I love this room,” Andie whispered into the quiet of the room.

“Me, too. I love waking up and having you here. I've never loved this house more than I love it right now.”

“Do you know what I love?” Andie shifted her nursing daughter and turned to look at him. “I love looking up and having you standing there, watching me. I dreamed about that the day you proposed. I dreamed of seeing you standing there, your hair messy and your feet bare.”

“Really, Mrs. Johnson, I had no idea.”

“No, you have no idea.” They leaned close together. The kiss was sweet and a promise of something wonderful and lasting.

“I've always loved you, Andie.” She cuddled her baby close and smiled, because nothing in the world felt better than being loved by her best friend and knowing that their children would grow up in a family where two parents loved them and they were there for them. Twenty years ago she had pulled petals off a daisy and prayed the last petal would tell her that he loved her. And he did.

Dear Reader,

Welcome back to Dawson, Oklahoma. Andie Forester's story really started with Alyson's story (
THE COWBOY'S COURTSHIP
). It was there that we met the twin sisters and got to know Andie a little bit.

I was excited by the story that unfolded for a heroine who quickly became one of my favorites. I felt like I knew Andie. But as her story unfolded, I realized it wasn't going to be as easy to write as I had assumed.

I didn't undertake this story, or the subject, lightly. I hope that you'll trust me when I say that I prayed about this and labored over the words and how to handle this very delicate subject. People make mistakes. Each of us has done something that we regret, but obviously we can't go back and undo what we've done. So we move forward, we seek God, and we find a way to move forward in grace and with faith.

That's exactly how Andie and Ryder handle their situation. I hope you'll fall in love with these two characters the way I've fallen for them. And come back soon for Wyatt's story.

Many blessings,