“I didn’t want to jump into the manure pile like you did,” Joey said. “That stinks and I might have missed and landed on the ground. I could crack my head open and die on my birthday. I don’t want to die on my birthday. That’s no fun. I’d miss out on all the presents and cake. Can we cut my cake now?”
Colt grinned at Joey, unable to stay angry at his youngest for more than five seconds. “Yes. Cake sounds like a good idea.” He stood, and his boys stood, as well. “You run and tell your aunt Maggie it’s time. She made the cake especially for you.”
“It’s a real cake, right? She didn’t let Aunt Kitty make it out of broccoli or anything healthy, did she? I won’t have to pretend I like it, will I?”
Kitty, Maggie’s sister, was an honorary aunt who tended to overdo “green.”
“Nope, your aunt Maggie told me it’s pure sugar and flour.”
“Yay!” Joey yelled and the three boys took off to look for their aunt Maggie, while Colt shook off any lingering tension that had encompassed his body.
“How the heck do parents do it with a whole houseful of kids? Three boys are enough to keep me up all night worrying about what crazy shenanigans they might come up with next. I never even considered a planned jump off the barn roof. If I had any more kids, I’d probably go insane.”
He felt thankful he’d had the wherewithal to take care of that possibility years ago.
Besides, when his beautiful wife died in childbirth with Joey, he’d decided then and there he never, ever wanted to be responsible for another pregnancy as long as he lived.
He turned to Helen. “Now, what did you want to talk to me about?”
Chapter Two
It had taken Helen three days to drive to Briggs, Idaho, from Vegas, and on the way she’d taken four home pregnancy tests, gone through three boxes of tissue and arrived on the Granger ranch puffy-eyed, solidly pregnant and homeless. She had leased out her little house for six months to a family of four, who had happily settled in.
The drive had been grueling due to all the stops she’d made not only to pee a million times, but because she could barely see the road through her tears. She had cried almost the entire drive back, not so much over the pregnancy itself but more about the stifling fear she felt over being someone’s mom. Heck, even though she had recently turned twenty-eight years old, she could barely take care of herself, let alone a whole other person.
Helen decided that telling Colt he had fathered baby number four after he about had a coronary when his youngest jumped off the barn roof might have been the wrong moment to break the news. Then there was always his date, a woman totally wrong for Colt, who seemed a tad bit overly protective, and clingy.
Not exactly the optimum time to tell a cowboy who had taken the radical step to ensure he would never father another child that he had indeed impregnated another woman.
So instead, Helen made her excuses and abruptly left the party right after Jenny Pickens sashayed back to Colt and draped her scrawny little arm around his shoulder.
That was more than four months ago.
Since that day, Helen had secured Tater at M & M Riding School in Briggs, where she had boarded him for the past couple of years when she wasn’t on the road, then driven to her parents’ house in Jackson, Wyoming, less than an hour away. She’d spent the majority of her time allowing her friends and family to shamelessly dote on her every whim while she adjusted to her new life.
Apparently she’d needed all that doting, because only in the past few weeks had she finally reached the total-acceptance stage. She was good with her pregnancy now, had gone through the five stages of mourning over her old, carefully planned life and was looking forward to all that motherhood had to offer...at least on her good days.
Her sweet and affectionate stepmom, Janet, had provided her with an e-reader and loaded it up with every conceivable book related to pregnancy and the baby’s first year. Some of it soothed Helen’s concerns, while others she’d read, especially details of the delivery, gave her night sweats. She dreaded getting a tooth filled; how on earth was she ever going to push out an entire baby?
The concept crippled her. So instead, she put the e-reader in a drawer and told herself she’d deal with it later.
Her logical electronic engineer dad had helped get her finances in order, and had generously contributed to her dwindling bank account so she no longer had to worry about funds. Her cousins, aunts, uncles and benevolent friends had all rallied around her with support and nonstop love. Helen felt truly blessed.
Now all she had to do was tell Colt Granger he was the father, a fact that everyone in her circle kept nudging her to do, but she kept resisting. Each time she had screwed up enough courage to tell him, she found a hundred reasons why she couldn’t make the phone call or drive that long hour to Briggs. Add to that an element that he might not believe her, and it was everything Helen could do to even think about how she would broach the subject.
What finally forced her to have to cowgirl up and face him was an official phone call from Mrs. Milton, one of the owners from the riding school. After thirty years in business, the school, land and private home was up for sale. The owners had decided to retire, a fact that saddened Helen more than she thought possible. The M & M Riding School had been her summer home for most of her teen years and the arena at the school had served as her main training ground ever since she’d taken cowboy mounted shooting seriously.
She was informed that Tater was one of only three horses still left that needed to be moved. “We kept him as long as we could, honey, hoping that we’d get a quick sale and you could board him with the new owners. Unfortunately, that isn’t the case, so you’ll have to move him in the next few days. Sorry to put you under such pressure, but our new house in town is ready and we want to get settled in before the holidays.”
“Not a problem,” Helen told her, thinking she’d move him over to her cousin Milo’s place in Briggs until she could find him a more permanent home. She knew he wouldn’t mind. He’d boarded Tater before and loved him almost as much as Helen did.
The call required immediate action, and so did her growing condition.
It was time she took charge, moved her horse and told Colt the truth despite her apprehensions.
“I’ll be there tomorrow,” she told Mrs. Milton. She disconnected, walked out onto her parents’ back porch, gazed out at the bright blue sky, the surrounding mountains and contemplated Colt Granger.
She hadn’t seen or heard anything about Colt since Joey’s birthday. He’d called a couple times, but she hadn’t returned his calls. She’d been thrown into a lifelong responsibility with a man who was dating other women, Jenny Pickens just to name one. Now that he’d started dating again, who knew how many more women were chomping at the bit to be in his little black book. For all she knew, practically every single woman in the entire county had made the cut. It was only a matter of time until he found Ms. Right, and it certainly wouldn’t be her.
Helen was more in the Ms. All Wrong category, and for now, that suited her just fine. They’d made love exactly once. Okay, so it was powerful and more passionate than what she’d ever experienced with any other man, but that didn’t mean they could ever have a viable relationship. For starters, he had three sons, three ornery, unmanageable sons. She had fears and apprehensions about one child, let alone three more.
Her baby moved and kicked as she sat back rubbing her tummy, grateful that she could trust her family with her secret until she was ready to tell Colt. She decided to spend a few days with her cousin Milo Gump in Briggs. Everyone in the family had an open invitation to stay on Milo’s ranch. He liked the company, especially now that his parents had retired to a smaller place in Oregon, and his sister had moved to Austin, Texas, with her new husband.
Her thirty-year-old cousin was a man who was generous to a fault, and the one person in the entire