Last Chance Cowboy. Leigh Riker

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       CHAPTER TWO

      THE NEXT DAY at her desk, Shadow made a few calls, pored over several new applications for potential caregivers and mostly stared out the window again. She wasn’t getting much done. When she finally saw Grey’s pickup pull into a space in front of the agency, her anxiety ramped up another notch. Her mother’s words yesterday had only made that worse, all the more because, in some ways, she was right. As Grey walked into her office, every muscle in Shadow’s body tensed.

      “Well?” he asked, sinking onto the chair in front of her desk. He wore a more familiar denim shirt, jeans and boots today. And, of course, the black Stetson, which he’d removed as soon as he opened the door. He balanced it on his knee.

      Shadow pushed a pile of papers to one side and straightened the two ballpoint pens she always kept nearby. She folded her hands on the clean desktop but didn’t look at him. She glanced at the phone, almost willing it to ring, creating a delay. “I don’t know how to begin,” she said at last.

      “Just tell me. Whatever it is.”

      She made herself meet his gaze. “That would be best,” she agreed, wondering, even fearing, how he might react. “Grey, something else happened ten years ago. Something other than Jared.”

      “Yeah,” he said. “You and I broke up—not for the first time.”

      “For the last. And soon after Jared...died, I—” She cleared her throat, then rushed on, her heart a hard lump in her chest. She’d rehearsed these words but they stuck in her throat. “I discovered I was pregnant.”

      Grey blinked. For a long moment he said nothing. Shadow watched a dozen emotions flash across his face. He turned the black hat on his knee in a circle. “Pregnant,” he repeated.

      “Yes.”

      His mouth hardened. “And you never told me.”

      Shadow reached out a hand, but they didn’t connect. Grey sat too far away from her across the expanse of her desk and he’d pushed deeper into his chair, creating even more distance between them. “You’re right. I didn’t. I take full responsibility, Grey.”

      “Well, that’s something. Now,” he murmured.

      “I’m sorry. I know that sounds terribly inadequate, but at the time—because of Jared, too—I felt I couldn’t tell you.” She took a breath. “That was wrong of me.”

      “And it’s still wrong. Ten years?” He shook his head. “I suppose you told your parents.”

      “Yes.” Shadow had come home from school that day to find her father in his living room recliner, his “seat of business,” he always claimed.

      “The TV was on,” she continued, “blaring some rerun of an old cowboy series. He watched the episodes over and over, like he was trying to relive his dreams of being a successful rancher. I could have recited the dialogue word for word, but I was too scared to even think. All day in class I’d dreaded telling him. It was only a week after Jared died.”

      “How did you know?”

      “I’d had some physical signs but tried to ignore them. At first, I thought my body was just reacting to all the anxiety, the grief. Then I...was late again, and I bought a test.” She remembered that night, locked in the bathroom while her youngest brother, Derek, banged at the door, saying it was his turn. “When my mother walked into the room and turned off the TV, my heart was beating like some ceremonial drum. I could hardly get the words out. ‘Daddy, Mama, I’m pregnant.’”

      The test didn’t lie. At seventeen, Shadow had been about to become a mother.

      Grey’s mouth twisted. He still didn’t look at her. “What did your father say?”

      “His face got red and he gripped the arms of his chair—like he had СКАЧАТЬ