Baby My Baby (A Ranching Family) (2 page)

“I don’t know about that,” Linc mused, and Beth knew she’d poured it on a little too thick.

But there was no admitting to anything less than complete independence. Not for her. Not for a Heller. So she forged on insistently.

“Ash and I are
divorced.
It was a clean break and I want it to stay a clean break. This baby doesn’t fit in with his plans, anyway, so when he gets here, I want you guys to say I left Elk Creek and you don’t know where I am,” she finished like a boulder gaining momentum on a roll down a steep hill.

“By God, he owes his own child more than to just turn around and act as if it doesn’t exist,” Jackson nearly shouted.

“You know, Beth,” Linc interjected reasonably. “Jackson isn’t all wrong. No matter what Ash’s plans were, or how he may or may not feel about it, he has a responsibility to this baby and to you now.”

“You don’t understand. I don’t want—”

The doorbell rang right then to cut off her words.

Beth suddenly felt hot and cold at once, as if something were chasing her, and all she knew was that she had to get away.

“Please,” she implored her brothers. “If that’s Ash, just tell him I’m gone. Tell him I don’t want anything from him but for him to leave me alone.”

“Like hell I will!” Jackson headed for the door.

Beth turned a final plea to Linc. “Come on, trust that I know what I’m doing. It’s really better if Ash and I don’t see each other.”

“I don’t know about that, Beth,” he repeated.

“Look, I’m going to slip out the back door, so telling Ash I’m not here won’t even be a lie—for the moment at least. Just do it and get rid of him!” And with that she turned and hurried through the dining room in the direction of the kitchen.

She had every intention of doing just what she’d said, or getting out of the house, into her car and taking off—if not for parts unknown, then at least for the other side of town. For Kansas’s house maybe.

But she only got as far as the swinging doors to the kitchen before she stopped.

Go on!
she told herself.

And she meant it.

But somehow she was suddenly paralyzed. She turned toward the front door just as Jackson opened it.

And there Ash stood. Tall, proud, almost regal in his bearing and the pure power of his masculinity.

Her heart took a skip she didn’t want it to, and then everything seemed to click into slow motion as she watched Jackson double his fist and land a punishing blow to her former husband’s jaw.

Ash’s head shot to the side, but that was all that was disturbed by the punch that would have knocked any man in Elk Creek across a room.

Then the big, powerful Indian again leveled his coal-colored eyes on her brother and, with a deadly calm, he said in his deep, rich bass voice, “I’m here to see Beth.”

The instant the words were spoken, something made him look past her brothers into the dining room, where Beth had stalled. And just the way her gaze had been caught and held by his on that airplane the first time they’d met, so it was now.

Did she heard him whisper her name or only read it on his lips? She didn’t know. But she knew he’d said it. And somehow she also knew it was filled with confusion. With pain. Maybe with longing....

No, that couldn’t be.

But she suddenly realized those things were alive in her, even if they weren’t in him. And she hated herself for it. For the fact that for just one split second it took away the anger she felt at him—for being there, for not having given her the life she’d been so sure they’d have together. Her anger at what would never be...

“Go away, Ash,” she said in a voice that was barely audible.

In spite of her brothers blocking his path, he took a step forward, as if he wouldn’t—or couldn’t—stay away from her.

“Linc!” she called, sounding panicky, beseeching her brother for the help she’d requested moments before.

Then she saw Linc’s hand go to Ash’s broad, hard chest to hold him back.

And that was when she made her escape.

From the man who had fathered her child.

The man she’d divorced.

The man who had, once upon a time, enchanted her.

A
sher Blackwolf stood in front of the mirror in the bathroom of his rented log cabin in Elk Creek’s only tourist accommodation—the ten-cabin hunting lodge. With a hand on either side of the old-fashioned pedestal sink, he leaned close and turned his stiff jaw carefully from one side to the other, angling his head slightly to give himself the full view of his jawbone.

There was soreness to go with the slight discoloration where Jackson Heller’s fist had landed the night before, but he’d live, he thought wryly.

And a punch in the face was the only thing he’d gotten for his trouble.

“Damn you, Beth,” he muttered under his breath, not really blaming Jackson—or Linc, either—for being upset and feeling protective of their sister. In spite of the fact that she wasn’t in need of protection.

Even Linc, who he knew to be the more mild mannered of the two, had looked as if he wanted to bruise the other side of Ash’s jaw. But then, if he had a sister who was pregnant by her ex-husband and ran out of the house as if she were afraid of him, he doubted that he’d be well-disposed toward that ex-husband himself.

Of course, she didn’t have any damn reason to be afraid of him. Or to run from him, for God’s sake. And he didn’t really understand why she had. Did she hate him that much?

That thought twisted his gut, though he told himself the response was uncalled-for. Whether she loved him or hated him shouldn’t matter. Their marriage was over.

But what he had every right to resent was her leaving him alone with his two former brothers-in-law glaring at him as if he were a mass murderer.

For three hours he’d sat there facing them, none of them knowing what to say, none of them happy. Jackson downright mad, and Linc only repeating again and again that Beth had begged him to tell Ash to go back to the reservation and leave her alone, and suggesting that maybe that was what he should do.

Ash had certainly spent more pleasant evenings.

It hadn’t even been informative. Beyond the fact that their sister was pregnant, neither Linc nor Jackson knew any more than Ash did.

And he had plenty of questions. Like why the hell she hadn’t come to him personally with news like this. Why she’d waited so long. Why she hadn’t told him before the divorce was final. What they were going to do now...

Ash let his head hang down between his shoulders as the impact of the news washed over him the way it had been every few minutes since he’d found out.

She was
pregnant...

Was she happy about it? Unhappy about it? Did she resent that the baby was his? Was that why she wanted to exclude him—so she could try forgetting it was his child at all?

No doubt about it, there were questions he needed answered.

Linc had assured him he’d try to reason with her about seeing him. But whether or not his former brother-in-law convinced her to agree to it, Beth Heller was going to see him today. She could do it willingly, or she could do it unwillingly, but she was going to see him.

Because the one thing he wouldn’t do was accept her orders to ignore the bombshell she’d dropped on him.

He pushed off the sink and went back into the room where one double bed, a small table with two chairs and a bureau with a TV on top of it filled the space. His suitcase was open on the rack at the foot of the bed and as he bent over it to get a clean shirt, he caught sight of Beth’s letter out of the corner of his eye.

His teeth clenched at just the thought of it, but rather than taking his shirt out the way he’d meant to, his hand reached to the letter.

He’d read it a dozen times since finding it in the mail that had accumulated while he was gone, but for some reason he was compelled to open it and read it yet again.

It was just like her, he thought, feeling a dull ache in his jaw from muscles that tightened in anger.

She didn’t want his help.

She didn’t need it.

She had everything planned out. Everything under control. Everything taken care of.

He was superfluous.

Excess baggage.

No, she hadn’t said he was superfluous or excess baggage. Not in so many words, anyway. But he knew it was what she was telling him.

But, damn it, this baby was his, too. And he wasn’t going to be written out of its life before it was even born. Or after, either, for that matter.

He sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the words on the white paper.

In a few months you’re going to be a father...
Once more that wave of shock and awe and disbelief washed through him.

They were going to have a
baby.

He and his beautiful Beth...

Ash’s eyes pinched closed in rejection of that thought that had come on its own and he shook his head the way a dog shakes off water.

She wasn’t
his
Beth anymore.

They were divorced and he had no claim on her.

Or did he? The baby changed things, that was for sure. It tied them together despite the legal severing of their marriage.

But did it give him claim to Beth again?

Probably not.

Not that he wanted claim to her again.

They’d been right to get divorced. Somehow they’d lost that precious spark that had brought them together. She went her way. He went his. And every now and then they met up. Usually accidentally. Or coincidentally.

Or in bed...

But he was better off not thinking about that.

He still held the letter, and once more he focused on the impeccable handwriting on the crisp white stationery, hating the words that were there. Not for their message of the baby, but for what they conveyed about Beth not needing him.

It didn’t surprise him. Why should this be any different?

But he couldn’t help wishing that just this once it had been.

Deep down, in a secret place he didn’t want to acknowledge even to himself, he envisioned the letter he wished he’d received.
We’re going to have a baby and I need you by my side. I want you...

He blew out a wry, mirthless sigh at the very thought.

Not Beth Heller. The earth could open up under her feet and she wouldn’t holler for help.

She was the damned most self-sufficient person he knew. And the stubbornest.

Not that anyone would think it to look at her. She was so thin, so fragile looking, with that alabaster skin and those wide blue eyes the color of Colorado columbines. Delicate—that was the word for how she appeared, her high-cheekboned face haloed in that thick, coffee-bean-hued hair, those soft pale lips, that thin nose that could have belonged to a porcelain doll...

Ha! She was no porcelain doll. Beneath it all beat a will and determination stronger than any man’s. Furniture to move? Beth Heller would do it herself. Or die trying. A tight lid to open? She’d beat on it, run it under hot water, use pliers, nearly break the jar rather than admit she couldn’t do it herself. Heavy boxes? If she couldn’t drag them, she’d devise something else—once she’d used roller skates—but she sure as hell wouldn’t ask for help.

Funny—when they’d first met, her independence had been one of the things that had attracted him to her. But her determination had somehow lost its charm. Ash wished that, just once, she would break down and admit she needed him.

But maybe what she’d told him was the truth. That even pregnant with his child, she didn’t want him or need him.

It had been such a long time since Ash had been able to read her feelings. She’d never been the type to say “I love you.” In the early months of their marriage, though, he’d always seemed to sense what she was feeling.

Somewhere, they’d lost their connection. She hadn’t so much as let him comfort her in her grief when her father had died. All she’d shown him was a stiff upper lip. Stoicism. Resolution. Death, she’d said to dismiss his concern for how she might be taking the news, was a fact of life.

Then, in the middle of the night when she’d thought he was asleep, she’d locked herself in the bathroom to cry for the old cuss. And when Ash went looking for her, would she unlock the door and let him hold her? Let him console her? Not Beth Heller. She’d gotten angry that he’d discovered her and she refused to open the door. She’d spent the whole damn night in that bathroom. And when she’d come out the next morning? Not a word about it. Not a tear or a sign that she’d ever shed one.

And he’d been left with empty arms aching to hold a woman who didn’t want him to.

No, the way she looked was no indication of the way she was. It didn’t reflect the core of steel that she wanted everyone to believe ran right through the center of her.

Whether it really did or not.

Ash threw the letter back into his suitcase and snatched his shirt with a vengeance.

That was all old business. Finished. Now there was something else to deal with, something else to concentrate on.

They were going to have a baby.

In spite of it all.

* * *

Late June sunshine flooded the cheery guest bedroom in which Beth woke up that morning. All of Kansas Daye’s house was like that particular room—bright, warm, homey, comforting. But it didn’t help the knots that formed in Beth’s stomach the minute her eyes opened and she recalled the reason she’d appeared on her old friend’s doorstep the night before, asking to sleep over.

She’d driven around for a long time after leaving the ranch, hoping to give her brothers enough of a chance to get rid of Ash for her.

But when she’d gone back, his car was still there.

She’d been afraid he was stonewalling, refusing to leave until he spoke to her, and so she’d sought refuge with Kansas.

Lord, but she didn’t want to confront him!

It had probably been unrealistic, but she really had hoped he would take her letter seriously and leave her alone. That he’d just go on with his life the way it was and let her go on with hers.

But no, he had to come to Elk Creek.

Why, exactly? she wondered, staring up at the ceiling.

There wasn’t anything he could do. It wasn’t as if he could take a turn carrying this baby. Any involvement on his part couldn’t happen until the child was born, and that wouldn’t be for months yet. So what was the point?

Maybe he’d come just to let her know how unhappy about it he was.

After all, she knew he’d been against their having kids of their own. On the few occasions when the subject had come up, he’d talked about adopting hard-to-place Indian babies at risk of being given to people outside of their culture when homes with Native American parents couldn’t be found.

But he’d only spoken of it as something far down the road, when he wasn’t so busy with work, and Beth hadn’t believed that it would ever happen, that Ash would ever have time to be a father to any child.

Any more than he’d had the time to be a husband.

The trouble she’d had reaching him to tell him she was pregnant wasn’t out of the ordinary. Sometimes she thought he must believe there wasn’t another person in the world who could deal with the problems and causes of Native Americans. Maybe it was a cliché, but it was true that the man had been more married to his work than to her.

The Blackwolf Foundation. Demanding wife, exacting mistress and needy child, all rolled into one package.

Ash was head of an organization he’d established with a portion of the substantial estate he’d inherited from his paternal grandfather.

Beth had never met her former husband’s namesake. The man had been dead several years when she and Ash first encountered each other, but she knew he’d been a renowned and very successful metal sculptor who had amassed a fortune late in life, a fortune large enough to make Ash a wealthy man and still help fund the foundation.

And the foundation did good work. Valid work. Necessary work in areas of drug and alcohol rehabilitation, in programs that trained Native Americans for better jobs, in family counseling, in aid for the needy, in college grants and scholarships, as well as keeping an eye on legislation that might help or hinder the rights of Indians, and helping to find legal representation for Native American individuals or businesses that ran into problems.

And Ash did it all.

He was a hands-on kind of person. When there was a problem—and there was
always
a problem somewhere—he was right there to see what could be done.

She admired that about him. She respected his devotion to the plights of his people. She was impressed that a person who could easily have used his inheritance to become a man of leisure was instead the first person to roll up his sleeves and dig in.

But it made for a lousy husband.

As the years had passed she’d come to feel almost like an incidental speck in the corner of the much bigger picture of his life.

His secretary had been more involved with him than Beth had. At least the daunting Miss Lightfeather always knew where he was at any given moment and how to reach him. Beth had rarely known even that.

There had been many times in the past when one crisis ran into another commitment that overlapped yet another engagement or responsibility and kept Ash away for so long that she’d begin to wonder if he even remembered he had a wife.

She’d tried hard to keep busy with her own work, but accounting was a nine-to-five job for the most part, and it still left her with long evenings and weekends alone.

She’d volunteered for his pet projects and programs, hoping that immersing herself in his causes, his interests, might bring them together.

He’d appreciated that, welcomed her help and her contribution, but before long he’d start to act as if she were his delegate, leaving her to represent him while he went on to other pressing obligations.

She’d made friends and built a social life, but somehow it wasn’t enough. Something was missing from her life.

And then, late one night, she’d realized she was just plain lonely. Deep down, depressingly lonely.

The oddest thing about it was that it had happened after a terrific round of lovemaking.

Not that their lovemaking wasn’t always terrific. It was. It was the one thing in their marriage that was an unqualified success. But each encounter in bed only made her hungry for more of him. More time with him. The chance to really get to know him. To talk to him. To have a life together.