Page 37 of Cowboy Don't Go

She looked up to see if he was kidding. His smile said he was. Sort of. She shivered again. “I skipped breakfast,” she admitted. “I was too nervous about today to eat.”

He pulled out a roll of mints from his pocket, handed her one and popped one in his mouth, too. “Nervous? Why?”

“I knew you were doing this whole ride under duress.”

“Not at all. I was looking forward to it. This storm was just an unexpected bonus.”

That caught her by surprise. “Really? At least it was Liam’s idea. So, he can’t be mad at us getting back late.”

Cooper glanced at his watch again and sighed. “Except my father has an appointment later this morning with an oncologist. I thought we’d be back in plenty of time for me to get him there, but I’d better call him.”

“Cell signals up here are spotty at best.”

He checked his cell. No signal. A low curse escaped him.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “But that’s encouraging he made an appointment, though. I thought he was against getting treatment. That’s what I heard at least.”

“He was. But after a conversation with your mom, apparently, he changed his mind. At least he seems willing to try something.”

“With my mom? What could she have said to him?”

“But I happened to interrupt a conversation they were having in our apartment. That was your mom telling him to get his act together, I guess. That he couldn’t just give up. Not on her watch anyway. And…that I needed him. It was a surprise, really, because I thought that they hardly knew each other.”

As he talked, his thumb absently rubbed across her shoulder. His fingers warmed her arm.

She felt warm everywhere he touched her. “Maybe they did.”

“I feel like I would’ve known,” he said.

“Really? I don’t think any of us really know our parents when we’re young. I mean, life is complicated.”

Cooper frowned. “Are you saying—”

“I’m saying that our parents are and will forever be a mystery. I guess that’s how it should be. I mean Ryan might not understand . . . this.”

“Me, holding you, you mean?”

His thumb moved against her arm, sending tingles down to her fingertips. There was something particularly intimate about that motion, but she didn’t want him to stop. “Yes.”

“Mind if I ask you a question?”

She gave a noncommittal shrug, afraid he’d just heard her thoughts.

“You never married Ryan’s father. Or anyone else for that matter.”

“Is there a question in there somewhere?”

“I just wondered why. Why a woman like you would stay single and not find some man to love you?”

“Huh. I could ask you the same thing.”

“I asked first,” he said.

After a long moment, she decided to answer him. “Ryan’s father, Ethan Bradley, was a summer boy. You know the kind. His very wealthy family had sent him here on summer break to experience the West. To work on a ranch wrangling his father’s friend’s cattle. To at least pretend he understood an honest days’ work. I was young, he was different, attractive. He was everything I thought I wanted. Someone urban. Someone who could expand my universe. We spent the entire summer together. I thought I loved him. But at the end of summer, he returned to school back East with hardly a goodbye. When I realized I was pregnant, I called him. He told me that it was my problem, not his. He practically denied it could be his. He wanted me to—” She couldn’t even say it.

“So, he basically ghosted you?”

“His parents sent me money. A check. To me, then—even now, to be honest—it was a lot of money, but I wouldn’t keep it. I sent it back. I didn’t want their money. Or anything to do with them. Instead, I had him sign away any parental rights to the baby, which he happily but foolishly did. Because Ryan is an incredible kid who he’ll never know. That was the last I heard from him.”

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