Rough Riders Bundle 1(books 1, 2, 3) (106 page)
“Doctor Spock, the baby expert. Not the Vulcan Star Trek character,” Doc Monroe said dryly. She reached into a cabinet, pulling out a big white plastic bottle. “Prenatal vitamins. I’ll write you a prescription, but this should get you through until I see you next month.”
Then she rattled off a spiel about unnatural bleeding, swollen tissues, tingling in arms and legs, when to come in—Sky heard it all, but through a fog of disbelief.
The word pregnant kept repeating in her mind.
In a daze, she wandered to her car, keeping her coat wrapped tightly against the cold November wind.
Kade had a right to know about this baby. She’d have to steel herself against his reaction—most likely not positive. They’d had sex one time. One. Freakin’. Time. What were the odds she’d end up pregnant? Would he even believe her that the kid was his?
Only one way to find out. She fished her BlackBerry from her purse and scrolled down the contact list.
Dammit. In a fit of anger she’d erased his cell number. Last she knew he’d temporarily moved in with his parents. Even if that was no longer the case, they’d know how to get in touch with him.
Skylar punched up the local phone directory, narrowing it to Sundance before she attempted the surrounding Wyoming counties. McKay. A shitload of them were listed:
McKay, Bennett
McKay, Calvin and Kimi
McKay, Carson and Carolyn
McKay, Carter and Macie
McKay, Casper and Joan
McKay, Charles and Violet
McKay, Colby and Channing
McKay, Colt
McKay, Cord and AJ
McKay, Quinn and Libby
No Kade. No Kane. Think, Sky. What were his parents’ names? No clue. What was up with all the “C” names anyway? That was confusing as hell. She scrolled and started with the couple at the top of the list. Calvin and Kimi.
She dialed. Her heart jumped into her throat, nearly choking her when the phone was answered on the second ring. “McKays.”
“Hello. I’m looking for Kade McKay.”
Deep male laughter. “Look elsewhere.”
“Excuse me?”
“My brother is gone.”
The man speaking had to be Kane, Kade’s twin. “Gone? What do you mean gone?” Then Sky remembered Kade’s cousin had died in a tragic ranch accident and the blood drained from her face. “Is he…dead?”
A snort. “No, he’s gone, as in, he moved.”
“When?”
“Three months ago.”
Damn. Wasn’t that a coincidence? Was that irony laughing in the background or just the rude man on the phone?
“Before you ask where he’s gone, he might as well be livin’ in Timbuktu because there’s no way to get a hold of him. Try back late next summer.” And he hung up.
Skylar stared at her cell phone in astonishment. How had she ever mixed up Kane and Kade McKay? They were different as night and day.
Which mattered not a single whit.
Call back next summer.
Right. Looked like she was on her own. Again.
Skylar patted her stomach. “Just you and me, kiddo.”
After five minutes of aimless staring at the gray nothingness outside her window, she laughed until tears poured down her face.
“A case of mistaken identity with identical twins, unprotected sex in a pickup truck, and now, a secret baby. Heck, with your cowboy daddy MIA, if I moved into a trailer and bought a shotgun we’d be living the redneck anthem.”
The fluttery sensation in her stomach solidified as the baby gave her a good swift kick.
Nine months later…
T
he door slammed
hard enough to shake the whole house.
“Kade West McKay. I want to talk to you right now.”
Kade sighed. He wondered what he’d done to invoke his mother’s wrath this time. Left the toilet seat up? Parked in her spot? Forgot to wipe his boots? Did she know how mortifying it was to be treated like a naughty eleven-year-old boy, rather than a thirty-two-year-old man responsible for running a ranch the size of Rhode Island?
A thirty-two-year-old man who was living at his folks’ house. Again. Temporarily, he silently amended. He’d been back from the yearlong grazing experiment for just two days, and it felt as if he’d gone back in time twenty years.
All five-feet-one inches of Kimi McKay barreled around the corner into the living room. Whenever she got her mad on, he and his brother Kane snickered and called her the blonde tornado—behind her back, of course.
Nothing about the mean glint in her eye invoked his secret chuckle today. Something serious had put the starch in her spine. Out of reflex, he sat up straighter. Rather than risk saying the wrong thing, Kade said nothing.
She bent close to him, her face a mask of fury. “I don’t know what the hell is wrong with you. I raised you better than that.”
“Better than what?”
“Don’t you get smart with me.”
Count to ten. “I’m not.”
“Don’t you lie to me, neither.”
“Ma. Calm down. Lie about what? What’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong? Your behavior is what’s wrong.”
“What are you talkin’ about?”
“I’m talking about you being such a…” She tossed up her arms. “A McKay!”
“Huh?”
“I never pegged you as the love ’em and leave ’em type, Kade. I’d hoped you were different.”
“Ma—”
“Why is it so damn hard if you can’t keep your damn pants zipped to remember to wear a damn condom?”
Baffled, he just stared at her as she ranted and swore a blue streak.
“So you were caught up in the moment of passion, I understand that. But I expected you’d do the right thing, Kade, not walk away. Or run away as the case may be.”
“Have you lost your mind? What in the hell are you babblin’ about?”
“You”—she drilled his chest hard with her index finger—“neglecting to tell me you’d knocked up a woman and then flitted off to the new north forty of the McKay ranch, leaving her to deal with the pregnancy and the baby all alone.”
“What woman? What baby?”
Kimi McKay snapped upright. Her pale blue eyes searched his. A mixture of surprise and resignation replaced the anger on her face. “Oh, good Lord. You really don’t know, do you, son?”
“Know what?”
“Know that you’re a father.”
“What? Run that by me again.”
“You heard me right. You’re a father.”
Kade remained calm in light of his mother’s delusions. “Remember where I’ve been the last twelve months. I’ve barely seen a woman in that long, let alone touched one.”
Why don’t you just brag about your lack of a sex life to your mother of all people?
“Which fits, because that baby is over three months old.”
Kade’s heart damn near stopped. His mouth dried up like a summer stock dam as he did the math in his head. Last time he’d had sex was last year with Skylar. In their single, spontaneous, passionate bout of lovemaking, they’d forgotten to use a condom.
Not that they’d talked about the “oops” incident afterward. She’d been livid when she learned of his duplicity; he’d resigned himself to losing her for good after she wouldn’t return his phone calls. He’d left town within two weeks. Kade realized—for the first time—it was entirely possible that he might’ve gotten her pregnant.
Oh yeah? If that’s true, then why didn’t she contact me after I sent her that letter?
Whoa. Talk about acting like a surly eleven-year-old.
“Kade?”
“You saw Skylar?”
“Aha!” She shook her finger in his face. “You aren’t denying it?”
“No, but you’d better start at the beginning and tell me exactly how you came across this information.”
“Fine. I popped into Sky Blue in Sundance for a bottle of hand cream. India always helps me. So imagine my surprise when I see her sister, the owner working the cash register. Imagine an even bigger surprise when I see a sweet baby nestled in her arms. And that baby sports a shock of black hair and looks at me with blue eyes, McKay blue eyes. I’ve seen my share of McKay babies in the last thirty-six years and there wasn’t any doubt I was lookin’ at one.
“When Skylar saw the name on my check, she stammered and couldn’t get rid of me fast enough. I knew that baby had to be yours. Or Kane’s.” A pause. “But Skylar is too classy and ambitious to be Kane’s type. Then something triggered my memory. Kane mentioning after Dag died you’d suffered a bad break-up with a woman. Is she the reason you were so eager to disappear last year and take a job in the boondocks that no one else wanted?”
“Partially, but I sure didn’t know she was pregnant because I never woulda left. Never. You know that, Ma.” This was so unbelievable he was having a devil of a time focusing. “Did you ask her if…?”
“Of course I didn’t ask her.” She leaned forward again. “Do you know how hard that was? To see that darlin’ little girl baby, all pretty in pink ribbons and bows, smilin’ and cooin’ at me, knowin’ she was my granddaughter?”
“Skylar had a girl?”
“Yep. Only the second McKay girl born in a hundred and twenty-three years. And she’s yours.”
His. He had a baby daughter. “Holy shit.” If Kade hadn’t been sitting down, he’d’ve been falling down. He repeated inanely, “A baby? Skylar had a baby? I’m a father?”
“It appears so.”
“What’s her name?”
“Eliza.”
Eliza. Pretty. His head spun. “Why didn’t she tell me?”
“I don’t know, son, but I suspect you’d better find out.”
Kade heaved himself out of the chair. “Damn straight.” He snagged his hat off the coat rack and stormed out to his truck.
Rough Riders Series
Rough Riders Legacy Series
Wild West Boys Series
Blacktop Cowboys® Series
STRUNG UP (Sept. 13 2016, novella)
Mastered Series
SCHOOLED (digital only novella)
Single Title Novels
Single Title Novellas
BALLROOM BLITZ (Two To Tango anthology)
Need You Series
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Lorelei James is the NY Times and USA Today Bestselling author of erotic westerns: the Rough Riders series, the Blacktop Cowboys series, and the erotic romances in the Mastered series. Lorelei lives in western South Dakota.
Long Hard Ride
Rough Riders, Book 1
Lorelei James
Copyright © LJLA, LLC
Ridgeview Publishing
Cover design by Meredith Blair –
www.authorsangels.com
Photo by Kimberly Rocha
Model: Bryan Benisvy
Rode Hard
Rough Riders, Book 2
Lorelei James
Copyright © LJLA, LLC
Ridgeview Publishing
Cover design by Meredith Blair –
www.authorsangels.com
Photo by Brad Reed –
www.bradreedphotography.com
Model: Michael Dale, Jr. – FORD/Robert Black Agency AZ –
www.fordrba.com
Cowgirl Up and Ride
Rough Riders, Book 3
Lorelei James
Copyright © LJLA, LLC
Ridgeview Publishing
Cover design by Meredith Blair –
www.authorsangels.com
Photo by Brad Reed –
www.bradreedphotography.com
Models: Michael Dale, Jr. and Katie Klein—FORD/Robert Black Agency AZ –
www.fordrba.com
Bundle ISBN: 978-1-941869-65-9
Kindle Edition
No part of this book may be used in any manner whatsoever without prior written permission from the author.
This book is a work of fiction. All names, places and situations in this book are the products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons is coincidental.
The following story contains mature themes, strong language, and explicit sexual situations. It is intended for adult readers only.