The Cowboy's Christmas Baby Read online

  Lauren was pouring water into the coffeemaker when she came back and Jodie was putting together a plate of snacks. Cheese and crackers and cookies.

  Her favorite white chocolate macadamia nut, from what Erin could see.

  “Just go sit down,” Lauren said, turning on the coffeemaker and then setting out some mugs.

  Erin walked into the living room and dropped into the nearest couch, finally giving in to the weariness that had fuzzed her brains and dragged at her limbs. She leaned back into the chair as she cradled her now-quiet daughter in her arms, letting herself absorb the familiarity of this place. She knew Lauren and especially Jodie had resented coming here those summers of their youth, after their parents’ divorce, but she’d always enjoyed it in spite of their taciturn father.

  “You look tired,” Jodie said as she brought the plate to the living room.

  “I am. Been driving most of today. It’s a good thing Caitlin was so well behaved for most of the trip.”

  She glanced around the room, then frowned as she noticed an empty space in one corner of the living area. “Did you sell your piano?”

  “No. We moved it to Finn’s place. A tuner was in Saddlebank to work on the church’s piano so we thought we would take the opportunity to move and tune mine while he was around.” Jodie sat down beside Erin, her hand reaching to touch Caitlin, now swathed in her linen blanket. “She’s so perfect,” she breathed, her finger trailing over her tender cheek.

  Erin’s throat tightened up. The words she had rehearsed all the way here now seemed pointless and superficial in the face of her sister’s acceptance. Then Lauren sat down across from her, her hands clasped between her knees, her blond hair hanging loose around her classical features.

  “You look amazing,” she said to Lauren. “I think being engaged agrees with you. Congratulations, by the way. I’m happy for you. For both of you.” Erin turned to Jodie, encompassing her younger sister in her congratulations as well. “I never thought a free spirit like you would end up marrying a sheriff.”

  Jodie released a light laugh. “Me, neither. Though Finn isn’t a sheriff like Dad was. He’s a deputy, but he’s quitting in a year. Hoping to focus on horse training, which is his first love. I don’t know if you remember him. He stayed with the Moores when his mother took off on him.”

  “Vaguely.” Erin hadn’t gotten too involved with many of the people in Saddlebank. When she was here, she had spent a lot of her time on the ranch walking in the hills, or riding. The ten months they lived in Knoxville, where their mother moved them after her parents’ divorce, were always a dissonant time for her. While her sisters loved being in Knoxville, and disliked being on the ranch the two months a year they were sent here by their grandmother after their mom died, she was the opposite. Though their grandmother tried, Erin knew it must have been difficult for her to raise three grandchildren. Erin, of all the children, seemed to sense the tension more keenly than her sisters did.

  So when they were shipped off to the ranch to be with their father, who reluctantly took them in, Erin found a peace that eluded her sisters. She would faithfully do the chores assigned to them by their father before he went off to his job as sheriff of Saddlebank County, then literally head to the hills with her sketchbook. She loved her time alone with her thoughts.

  And her God.

  She stopped reminiscing, turning to Lauren again. “Speaking of the Moores, I certainly didn’t think a cowboy like Vic was your type, either. You always were so businesslike. So proper and—”

  “Stick in the mud.” Lauren laughed as she brushed her hair back from her face, gold hoops swinging from her ears. “You can say it. I was.”

  “That’s not what I wanted to say,” Erin objected. “I meant, you were always so focused and so self-disciplined.”

  “Qualities I get to apply to running Aunt Laura’s flower shop right in Saddlebank now that she’s retiring.”

  “I’m glad to hear you’re taking it over,” Erin said. “I have such good memories of that place.”

  “Her home and store was a sanctuary for us,” Lauren said with a gentle sigh. “And we needed that from time to time. Though I think Jodie and I managed to find some peace the past few months. Since Dad died.”

  Erin felt it again. The tug of unmet expectations. The sorrow she’d felt when she heard her father had died and she couldn’t come to the funeral.

  “I’m so sorry I didn’t come,” she said, struggling once again with her shame. “I do want to visit his grave when we have a chance.”

  “We’ll go there. On Sunday.”

  Which meant she was expected to attend church.

  However she wasn’t getting into that now. They had other things to discuss.

  “He also wrote us each a letter when he found out he was dying,” Jodie said, laying her hand on Erin’s shoulder. “There’s one for you, too. I found them in the house when I was cleaning up.”

  Erin looked down at Caitlin, wondering what their straightlaced, overly strict father would have said about his first grandchild. Born out of wedlock.

  And more.

  “I’d like to read it. But later.” She had to get through this first hurdle—trying to find a way to explain to her sisters what had happened to her.

  “Yes. Later,” Jodie agreed.

  A beat of silence followed and Erin knew that while they had much to catch up on, her baby was, for lack of a better metaphor, the elephant in the room that could no longer be ignored.

  “So, this is Caitlin, like I said before,” she began, pleased her voice came out so steady. “She’s six weeks old. I was on bed rest for two months before her birth. That’s why I didn’t come to Dad’s funeral. I cut back on my graphic design work so I could focus on her.” The words came out stilted. Cold. As if she related the events of someone else’s life. “She was a Caesarean birth, which meant another few weeks of rest and taking it easy.”

  And another few weeks of putting off what she knew she had to have done many months earlier, when she discovered she was pregnant.

  Tell her sisters.

  It wasn’t until she knew they weren’t selling the ranch that she finally dared to return. Finally thought she might have a place to create a home for herself and her daughter.

  And she knew exactly where that would happen.

  “Oh, honey. You should have told us,” Lauren said, hitting her directly in the guilt zone.

  “I didn’t know how to tell you I got pregnant.” Erin cuddled Caitlin closer, fighting to maintain her composure, frustrated at the sorrow that threatened. She didn’t want to feel sorry for herself. She had made her own choices and was living with the consequences. She didn’t want Caitlin to even sense she might have regretted having her. “I didn’t know where Jodie was living,” she continued, swallowing down her tears. “You were dealing with the aftermath of Harvey leaving you days before your wedding. I knew how devastating that was for you so I didn’t think you needed my troubles. I was trying to handle this on my own.”

  No one said anything as the grandfather clock ticked off the seconds, then boomed the hour.

  “And now you’re here.” Jodie put her hand on Erin’s shoulder. “I’m glad you came.”

  “I am, too.” Erin gave her sister a careful smile. “Once I found out you girls weren’t selling the ranch I felt like I had a place to come back to.”

  “It is your home,” Lauren said. “Though, in our defense when we talked about selling it you said you didn’t care either way.”

  “If you sold it, I would have figured something else out. But knowing this place was available to me. That I had a share in it...” She let the sentence trail off.

  “You felt like you had a home,” Jodie finished for her.

  Erin nodded. “I know you girls didn’t always like coming here over the summer, but
for me it was comfortable.”

  “You and your long forays into melancholy,” Lauren teased.

  Erin laughed, thankful for the gentle return to lightness and comfort.

  “And I’m going to ask the other awkward question,” Jodie said, her hand still resting on Erin’s shoulder. “Is Caitlin’s father involved?”

  Erin bit her lip trying to find the right way to tell them. “We aren’t together anymore.”

  “Is he supporting you in any way?”

  Was that a faintly chiding tone in Jodie’s voice or was she being especially sensitive?

  “He is not interested,” she said firmly. “And I don’t want to have anything more to do with him. It’s...what we had...is over.”

  She was skating on the very edge of vague but her response and her vehemence seemed to satisfy her sisters. She simply couldn’t deal with the past. She wanted to move forward into the new place she had found herself.

  Caitlin stirred in her arms and Erin held her closer, as if protecting her. Too easily she recalled the look on Sam’s face when she’d given him the news. She’d thought he would be happy. Thought he would finally make a decision about their relationship.

  Instead the fury on his face and the check he wrote out to her to pay for an abortion had cut her to the core. And when she found out he was married already, her world tilted so far over she didn’t think she would ever find her footing. She’d walked away and never contacted him again.

  Now she was here and ready to look ahead and leave the past behind her.

  “Well, you have us,” Lauren said, leaning forward. “And you have a share in the ranch. Vic and I discussed the situation and he’ll be talking to his banker about buying your third of the ranch out to give you some cash.”

  Erin knew she was entitled to a portion of the ranch and had already planned what she wanted. “The only thing I want is the Fletcher house. I want that to be my home.”

  “But, honey, you can stay here. In this house,” Lauren said, sounding hurt.

  “No. You and Vic will be living here. I don’t want to be in the way.”

  Lauren didn’t reply, which confirmed Erin’s guess.

  “We can figure out what the house and a few acres of it are worth and I’ll take that as my share of the ranch.” Erin looked down at Caitlin as a slow peace sifted over the chaos that had rocked her life for the past half year. “I just want a place of my own. A place I can be alone.”

  “That’s fine and we can deal with the other details later on,” Lauren agreed. “But the house you want to move into will need work.”

  “So I’ll do it.”

  “You’re a graphics designer, not a carpenter.”

  “I know a few things about building.” Erin chuckled at her sister’s incredulous look. “I learned a lot rehabbing the house my roommates and I lived in.”

  “Well, yes. You said that in some of your texts,” Jodie agreed. “But—”

  “You just can’t imagine that your daydreaming sister can concentrate long enough to handle a skill saw. You should see some of the work I’ve done.”

  They hadn’t of course. Jodie was running around, trying to find herself, playing piano in bars and looking for some kind of peace. Lauren was following her ex-fiancé Harvey around, looking for some kind of commitment.

  All the while Erin had been looking for a home. A place to settle down and a man to settle down with. When she bought the house with her friends and started dating Sam she thought she’d found at least both.

  She stopped her thoughts from heading down that dead-end road.

  “At any rate, we should to talk to Jan Peter about this,” Lauren insisted. “The local carpenter.”

  “Let me see the house first,” Erin said. “I know moving in with you is the more practical option but I’ve been living on top of three roommates for the past year. If it’ll work for me to live there while the work is going on, I don’t mind.”

  “But what about Caitlin? Should you move her into the house?”

  “We’ll look at it first, then I’ll decide for sure. But at this stage Caitlin tends to be oblivious to what’s going on. Sleeps like a baby,” she joked.

  Erin didn’t miss the sidelong glances Jodie and Lauren shared. Spacey Erin, making inappropriate jokes.

  “I’ll talk to Vic and Dean about it,” Lauren said. “We could see what they say.”

  Erin knew staying in this house with Lauren was her best option but she couldn’t shake the need for some quiet. For a place to put down some roots.

  “Another thing, I’ll need to get internet service up and running,” she said. “I want to get working as soon as possible.”

  “Do you have work?”

  Erin looked away from responsible Lauren to her younger sister Jodie who probably better understood that life could be erratic at times. That plans get messed up.

  “I’ve just started up again.” She glanced down at her daughter. “I had...Caitlin and a few other things to deal with. But I’ve got a few bites on some feelers I put out.”

  “I’m sure you’ll be back at it in no time.” Jodie gave her a one-armed hug and leaned closer to Caitlin, cupping her tiny shoulder with one hand. “And now you’ve got help.”

  Erin felt tears threaten at the thought that she wasn’t on her own anymore. But she wasn’t going to let herself get pulled into the pity vortex. She had made her own choices. Made her own bed.

  Now she had to lie in it.

  Chapter Three

  “So it looks like the basic structure is sound.” Jan Peter looked around the inside of the house, pushing against a wall between the dining and living room. “The bearing walls are solid and if you’re not knocking any of them out, we won’t need to look at supporting beams.”

  Jan was a tall man with friendly eyes, graying mustache and a quiet air that hid the savvy businessman he really was. Dean followed him around, his uneven footsteps echoing in the empty space. He had to force himself to concentrate on what Jan was saying and not to look too hard at Erin who stood beside her sister in the living room, her baby cradled in her arms.

  He would have preferred not to see her so soon after their first meeting, but his truck was still at Alan Brady’s mechanic shop and wouldn’t be ready until tomorrow, so Jan had picked him up today. Then, as they drove, he’d told Dean he had to stop at a job right on the way. It wasn’t until they pulled into the yard that he discovered they were looking at the same house he had spun his own dreams around. When he and Tiffany were dating they would stop at this house, peek in the windows and plan.

  Instead he was listening to his boss talking with Erin and Lauren about what they needed to do to make the house ready for the winter, and struggling with mixed feelings at her presence.

  Today she wore blue jeans. Her hair looked tidier. She looked less weary and far more attractive.

  “I just want to know if I can move in right away,” Erin was asking.

  “If we’re not doing any interior work you can, but it’ll be noisy,” Jan said, turning back to Dean. “So what do you think we’ll need to do? I know you’ve talked about fixing up this place yourself.”

  Dean was pleased that Jan asked his opinion. “The shingles on the roof are good but the siding should be redone,” he said, remembering the changes he and Tiffany had talked about. “I’d replace the living room window—the seal is busted and it’s all fogged up. Same with the one in the spare room upstairs.”

  “Spare room?” Jan slanted him a questioning look. “Which one is that?”

  When he and Tiffany were making plans they had given each of the rooms a name. Master bedroom, first kid’s room, second kid’s room and spare room. But he wasn’t about to admit that much in front of Erin.

  “The smallest one,” he said, hoping he sounded
more nonchalant than he felt. “To your right when you go up the stairs.”

  “Did you live here?” Jan asked.

  “No. I just been here before,” Dean said, catching Erin’s confusion as well in his peripheral vision.

  He wasn’t about to satisfy it, either. Bad enough that she got to see him in all his crippled splendor, she definitely didn’t need to hear about losing his dreams when Tiffany jilted him.

  In favor of his brother.

  “I think you’re right about the work it needs.” Jan turned to Erin. “The renos Dean suggested are the ones we have to do to get the house ready for winter. We’ll pick a warm day to replace the windows. You won’t be cold, but you might be fighting flies that day.” Jan grinned at Erin but she was looking around, a peculiar smile on her face, as if the idea of living here held infinite appeal.

  Dean knew how she felt. He was thirty-three and still living at home. That definitely hadn’t been in his ten-year plan. When his brother started renting the ranch from Keith he had hoped to get this place subdivided. This house had been his goal.

  “So I could live here? Right away?” Erin asked.

  Jan shrugged, brushing off the dust he’d gathered while inspecting the attic. “You could move in this afternoon if you want. Like I said, you’ll have to put up with a few inconveniences when we do the windows.”

  “That’s good news.”

  Jan turned to Dean. “I’m putting you on this job. If you need help I might be able to spare a guy here and there but for the most part I think you can do this on your own.”

  “I thought I would be helping on that new barn you’re building by Mercy.” He didn’t want to work on this house. He didn’t want Erin to see him making his slow and methodical way up and down a ladder or scaffolding.

  And the fact that it bothered him, well, that bothered him, too. He wasn’t supposed to care what people thought of him. He was Dean Moore. A tough-as-leather cowboy and, even more, a saddle bronc rider.

  One-time bronc rider, his thoughts taunted him.

  “Isn’t there someone else who can do this work?”