What a Texas Girl Dreams (Crimson Romance) (17 page)

“You’re just giving us more to celebrate,” Guillermo said. He put the ribs down and patted her shoulder. “You look beautiful,
mi sobrina,
” he said and kissed her forehead. Vanessa smiled and turned to Mat.

“Are you ready for this?”

“You have no idea.” He rubbed his hand over her belly, and started for the truck. Vanessa pulled her hand from his.

“We have a few minutes. I need my hospital bag, so we’ll go by the house, first. And then we should pick up some flowers for the baby, so the room is nice and cozy.” She was entirely too calm, Monica thought. Vanessa once freaked over the start time for a beauty pageant. Now she was setting up little errands to run when the baby was coming? She put her hand to her belly and grimaced as a contraction began. Once it passed, panic lit her ice blue eyes. “I didn’t pack the focal point or my iPod. I can’t give birth without them; every time we practiced they were right there. I can’t.” She back away from Mat, toward the patio, as if she could go back inside the house and reverse labor. “I am not wearing one of those open-backed, paper hospital gowns … ”

“We’ll get everything to you. Go.” Monica cut her sister off. “Get to the hospital; we’ll take care of the rest.” Monica stood beside Trick, watching her sister and Mat until they were inside the truck and rolling down the driveway. “Okay, if you were my sister where would you hide a focal point and an iPod?”

Trick waved his hand in the air like a magician. “Inside the hospital bag?”

Monica shook her head and began clearing the table of plates and bottles. “You’re thinking too much like a man. Vanessa probably hadn’t finally-finalized the playlist. Don’t worry; I’ll catch you up on her idiosyncrasies. Grab those napkins, would you?”

Guillermo hurried by, a dazed expression on his face and barbecue dripping from the pan still in his hands.

“Ah, should we?” Trick motioned to the older man and Monica nodded.

“Go. Do not let him drive. Put him in your truck and he can ride with us. I’ll just throw this stuff in the kitchen and be right back.”

“Okay, Dad and Grandfather are on their way to the hospital. I caught them before they left the feed store. Do we all want to drive together or … ” Kathleen abruptly stopped talking as a trickle of water hit the cement. “Oh, God.”

“Baby,” Jackson exclaimed from his seat at Trick’s table. Kathleen nodded as the trickle turned into a flood.

“We need to go.” Jackson hustled Kathleen to his SUV.

“We’ll get your hospital bag,” Monica yelled at their retreating backs, but neither Jackson nor Kathleen acknowledged her. Trick returned from his truck, keys in hand. Monica looked at him dumfounded. “Both of them?”

“This was so not what I expected from a family barbecue.”

She shrugged. “I think dinner is officially off. I need to get Kathleen’s bag from upstairs, turn off the stove and make sure the doors are locked. Can you keep an eye on Gui?”

Guillermo got out of the truck, a cell phone pressed to his ear. He waved frantically at them.

He grinned at her. “He’s easy enough to wrangle. And then Mat and Van’s for the other bag and then the hospital?”

She nodded. “Fast as you can drive.”

Several hours later, Trick poured three coffees from the carafe in the waiting room, as if nothing in the world was different. Impossible since everything had changed once more. Jackson and Mat were in the delivery rooms with Kathleen and Vanessa. Mitchum stood at the waiting room windows, hands on hips, while Nathaniel pretended to read a magazine. Guillermo was still talking on the phone, presumably to every relative he and Mat had. Monica was becoming more frazzled by the minute.

She paced down the hall. Returned and sat for less than a minute, only to get up and head down the hall again. Her thumbnail was a mere stub, and her eyebrows felt permanently knitted together. Her sisters were going to be mothers. She was going to be an aunt. More family. More strings. The knowledge was terrifying and exciting. Would she be the cool aunt her new nieces or nephews turned to when Mom and Dad shot down their ideas? She wanted to be that, Monica admitted.

She glanced at Trick, handing out coffee to the family. Calm and collected, just as he’d been when he delivered the kitten. Nothing fazed the man. Sure, he liked his life the way it was but even that was steady. Monica knew if she left for a rodeo tomorrow he would still be here when she came home.

She wanted to rodeo. She wanted to stay. In a perfect world the two wants would mesh. Butterflies started flying around her stomach and she wiped a bead of sweat from her hairline. As much as she loved it, she had to admit the Double Diamond wasn’t perfect.

She needed to choose.

• • •

Jackson was the first to exit the delivery area, a pretty pink bundle in his arms. He glowed with pride. Nathaniel and Mitchum cooed over the new baby, but Monica kept her distance.

She was just nervous, he told himself, but when Trick took her hand it was clammy in his. He squeezed, trying to reassure her, but wasn’t sure she noticed the gesture.

“Kathleen said you get first dibs on baby cuddling,” Jackson said, still grinning like a maniac.

“No, I don’t think I … ” But Jackson took charge. He put the baby in Monica’s arms. A faraway look crossed her face, worrying Trick. When she held the kitten, she was relaxed. Holding her niece, Monica seemed petrified.

A chill creeping up his spine. He was losing her.

“We named her Lacy,” Jackson said. He reached around Monica to put his hand on the baby’s head.

Finally Monica smiled. “It suits her.” She rubbed her finger over the baby’s chin, but that distant look never left her eyes. A moment later she handed the baby back to Jackson and put her hands in her jeans pockets.

A half hour later, Mat brought out his son, wrapped in a blue blanket, producing more coos from Mitchum, Nathaniel, and Guillermo. More distance from Monica. Trick tried to get her attention, but she kept pacing, nibbling on her thumbnail.

Trick congratulated the guys. Jackson looked shell-shocked while Mat looked as if he might take on the world. Trick had a feeling he looked jealous. He watched Monica, the seed of worry sprouting into a sapling in his belly and then to full-grown tree in less than an hour. Damn, but he wanted this. The wife, the family. The whole thing.

And the woman he wanted it with was a million miles away across the room.

• • •

She didn’t want this. Not now. Maybe someday. Some distant day in the future.

Monica held Kathleen’s baby, Lacy, praying she didn’t drop her. Or worse, throw up on her. Her stomach was queasy. Had been since her sisters went into labor yesterday afternoon. She said all the right things — she wasn’t completely lost — but the hospital was the last place she wanted to be. Her skin felt itchy, clammy. She couldn’t breathe.

She had to get out. Kathleen was asleep, so Monica put the baby in the small crib, placed a light blanket over her, and slipped out of the hospital room. Jackson and the rest of the crew were nowhere to be seen. She pushed through the stairwell door and ran as fast as she could down the steps. She was outside before she remembered she didn’t have a car. Or a phone to call for a ride. She looked up at the third floor of the community hospital. Going back upstairs wasn’t an option.

A moment later, she was on the street, walking.

How had she gotten to this point? She wasn’t a home-and-hearth kind of girl, not really. Yes, it was fun playing the part with Trick for a while, but that didn’t mean she wanted the things her sisters wanted.

Monica wanted more. Kathleen had a career, but she had already put off racing her horse, Jester, at the World Equestrian Games. With a new baby and husband, what were the chances she would realize that dream? Vanessa seemed perfectly content to have her life consist of family when barely a year before she ignored Lockhardt in general and the family in particular. Monica knew what she wanted, too. She wanted the man. She wanted her career. But she didn’t want to be tied to her home. She didn’t want to be tied to Lockhardt.

She loved Trick, but he was the kind of man who wanted his family close — living under the same roof day after day. Having a routine. Dinner out on special occasions. A wife who was gone as much as she was home couldn’t be in his plans long-term.

A horn honked behind her, and Monica turned to see Trick driving slowly behind her. He waved her over. Better to get this over with now, she decided.

“You left your cell on the seat,” he said as she climbed in the cab. Monica pocketed the phone. “Need some air?”

“Air. Space. It was getting a little claustrophobic in there.”

He seemed to pick up on her mood, but didn’t question her. “Where do you want to go?”

Home. Back to the life that didn’t surprise her. The life she’d carved out on her own over the past four years. Her mouth went dry. The quiet house in Austin morphed into Trick’s three-bedroom ranch. A big bed with a navy comforter beckoned, a kitchen with bar seating. She wanted to go home with him, but that wouldn’t solve anything.

“Just take me back to the ranch,” she said.

They were on the gravel lane too quickly. Parked beneath the trees before she could think of a way to gently break Trick’s heart.

“What’s going on?”

“I just … I think … A lot has happened in the last twenty-four hours. I just need to catch up.” It was a lame excuse, and he deserved better, but Monica couldn’t give that to him. Not yet.

Her phone buzzed, and she ripped it from her pocket as if it were on fire. A racing friend was on the other end, asking her to ride in the pre-show the following weekend. Monica jumped on the offer, eager to get out of Lockhardt, away from the stifling Texas summer.

Away from the people who needed her to be someone she wasn’t.

She gave Trick a quick peck on the cheek as she hung up. “I have to go. There’s a pre-show next weekend in Casper, and they’ve asked me to ride.” She left the truck to hurry inside.

He followed. “You don’t have a horse.”

“I’m not racing, just part of the pre-show. Piebaby can handle it.” She pushed open the patio door and turned toward the stairs to her room. “I need to pack, but I’ll call you when I get back, okay?”

She didn’t wait for his reply, just sprinted up the stairs and into her room, anxiety rising as she heard his footsteps behind her.

“We should talk about this.”

Monica dragged her suitcase from beneath her bed and tossed clothes from her bureau inside, not caring if the garments were properly folded or wadded up. She could fix the issue when she got there. “Talk about what?”

“What happened yesterday between us. With your sisters.” He crossed the room and put his hand over hers as she opened another drawer. “About why you’re running away from everything we have here to chase some rodeo where you won’t even be competing.”

“It’s my job, Trick.”

“No, it’s your way of avoiding life.”

“How dare you!”

“Because I love you. Don’t run away to another rodeo, Monica. Stay here. Figure out what you want.” His blue eyes ordered her to stay, to choose him and Lockhardt and her extended family. Monica’s queasy stomach demanded she leave it all behind. Get back her equilibrium and her life.

“You don’t love me. You can’t. You don’t know me.”

“Sure I do.”

“Really? Then tell me what I want.”

Trick crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the closet door. “You want everything. You want a family of your own. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be running away from your sisters and their families now. You want your career. You want a fifth All-Around Cowgirl title so badly you can taste it and you’re pissed off that Jinx is injured and you’ll have to wait.”

Monica swallowed. How could he know her so well when she couldn’t read him even a tenth as well. He wanted her, but which Monica was the one he would accept for the rest of his life? The Monica who stayed in Lockhardt and built a life with him or the Monica who rodeoed and was only home a few months out of the year?

“You want me. What are you so afraid of?”

She shook herself and tossed another shirt into the suitcase. She tripped over her flip-flops and threw them into the suitcase, too. “I’m not afraid. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“We’ve been together, in every way that counts, for nearly three months. You’re the first person I think of when I wake up, the last person I want to see before I go to sleep. As soon as your taillights disappear down the drive, I miss you and I know the sound of your truck from a block away. You’ve turned me into a god-damned, love-wrecked teenager and I’m nearly thirty years old.” He shoved his hands through his hair and then waved his hand between them. “Before any of this, I knew who you were by reputation. Everyone in town said Monica was the perfect daughter. You didn’t get into trouble in school. You train harder than anyone else on the circuit. You want to know why you’re like that?”

She clenched her jaw. “Because I want to be the best.”

“Because when you’re focused on anything outside this house, you can pretend your childhood wasn’t crappy. You can pretend that everything here has always been perfectly normal, all the while telling yourself you’ll never be normal because of the shadows in the past.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Prove me wrong then. Stay and fight for what you really want.”

She tossed a few more shirts in the suitcase. “My career is what I want. To beat my own times, to train great horses … ”

“Bullshit.” He waited until she raised her gaze to his. “You want more than that. You want the fairytale. You want the career and the family and you’re petrified that you’ll wreck it because until Kathleen and Vanessa settled down, you’d never seen a couple work through their issues.” He crossed the room but didn’t touch her. “I know what you want, probably better than you do. You’re petrified.”

Sunlight glinted off the trophies from her high-school competitions. Monica held a shirt to her chest. Damn right, she was scared. She did want those things. But most of all, she didn’t want to hurt him. She knew with certainty that if she gave up her career, she would be no different than Nathaniel. She’d be unhappy and then Trick would grow unhappy, too. She couldn’t bear the thought of doing that to him; it was better to stop everything now.