Page 75 of A Baby for the Texas Cowboy
“You do realize next year we will be running this madness with babies dangling off front packs like we’re wine industry kangaroos,” Catalina reminded her.
The idea no longer filled Tinsley with dread. How could it? Anders had spent most of his long break before the finals with her—oh, he’d helped out at the ranch four or five long days during the week, but he’d often spent the weekends helping out at the tasting room so that she could take a break, and the evenings were all for her. Anders was so attentive and fun that she hadn’t felt trapped or panicky once.
Last night after they both kicked back on one of the couches on the back patio and stared at the night sky through the beautiful, old-fashioned-looking, glowing orange filament lights, he’d laid his cheek against her slight baby bump, and had sung a Garth Brooks song to the baby.
Something inside of her had cracked open—something she could never put back together again, and it was both exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. With tears rolling unchecked down her cheeks, she’d stroked his shaggy, very layered hair he still hadn’t cut and just allowed herself to feel.
She’d never told him about her parents. She’d never told him the truth about John. She was living in the present finally, and she wanted to stay here. Besides, the moment never seemed right. They were busy or Anders was gone. And the events seemed so long ago, and she was so different—stronger, but healed now—that she felt like it had happened to a different person.
Anders was leaving today, Sunday, for the week-long publicity blitz that was the AEBR finals in Las Vegas. Tinsley and the rest of his family were heading out to join him on Thursday. There had been a lot of discussion about closing the tasting room, but the staff, five strong now, was capable and confident.
Humming to herself, Tinsley headed downstairs to the tasting room to join Isla and Tarek as traffic started ticking up later in the afternoon. Mentally, she began packing what she would bring. She was still fairly slim. Her breasts had gone up a bra size to Anders’ enthusiastic observation, but he was obsessed with the new curve in her abdomen that had recently become visible. Tinsley no longer felt like trying to hide it.
She still wore many of the boldly colored print bohemian-style blouses and dresses, but she’d added a few more form-fitting clothes that showed off her changing figure, along with skinny jeans, boots and soft floral blouses or T-shirts with embroidered details or ruching paired with a stylish vest.
She wore her hair up in a loose twist or messy bun—so different from her sleek and conservatively preppy style growing up and her sassy curly high ponytail when she poured whiskey on the AEBR tour.
“You’d start a riot if you poured a shot you let me drink off your breasts now,” Anders had whispered huskily to her last night when they’d made love under the stars. “Can we re-enact that pose when your baby bump is huge?”
“I’m not thinking that far ahead.” She’d playfully swatted him. “That was a once-in-a-lifetime thing.” Although with social media, who knew? Maybe their kid would get an eyeful someday with an unexpected YouTube tour or Google search, but hopefully the years and antics of others would deeply bury her sexy and showy impulse at last year’s finals.
Still smiling, Tinsley entered the tasting room. They’d opened a couple of hours ago and she and Isla and Tarek were the only ones staffing the tasting room today. Tinsley had already written an ad for more back-room help with shipping, food prep, cleanup and covering breaks.
It was fairly busy, and even as she greeted and served customers, she kept an eye out for Anders. He was delayed in leaving because he’d had new chaps customized and they were being finished today. He and his best friend Kane Wilder were tied for first place entering the finals. Kane Wilder had announced his retirement after the finals, so the AEBR was hyping the event even more than usual. Kane was one of their biggest stars, and Anders was just one of several bull riders jockeying to take his well-established place at the top of the leaderboard.
Tinsley soon lost herself in a rush of new guests. It was fun pouring tastes and discussing each wine’s characteristics as well as recommending other wineries, restaurants and places to stay. She was starting to feel a little like a local.
“I didn’t believe it. I thought John must be wrong.”
Tinsley’s knees buckled. She gripped the counter and turned around slowly, her heart pounding so loudly she couldn’t hear what her mother said next.
For a moment she couldn’t think, much less speak.
“I never for a moment…all the money we spent on your education and you’re working as a barmaid and dressed like…like…like a…” Words failed even the East Coast blue-blooded Daughters of the American Revolution board member.
“Mom. What are you…how did you…?” Tinsley tried to keep her voice even and failed miserably.
“Find you?” Her mother wore a trim floral dress by one of her favored designers, heels and a pale pink belted trench coat. Her strawberry-blonde hair was pulled back in a smart twist and anchored with three pink diamond jeweled hair combs. “My only daughter? The one who ran away from a marvelous man, the catch of Manhattan? The girl who caused her parents years of shame so that we no longer mention you or make excuses for your absence? My so-called daughter who selfishly walked out of a six-figure job she’d been groomed and hand-picked for following her graduation from Barnard?”
Tinsley felt as if her blood had turned to ice.
“Yeah, that,” she said as five years of feeling strong bled away.
Isla shot her a curious, WTF look and turned back to the three women who’d just finished their tasting and were trying to decide what to buy.
“You’re barely recognizable.” Her mother stared at her as if Tinsley were something stuck on the heel of her equally esteemed designer shoe. “I didn’t find you. I wasn’t even looking.”
That was good.
But somehow the chilly, properly elocuted tones hurt.
“Your father certainly doesn’t know I am here, in Texas,” she said like one of the largest, most populated and influential states in the country was beneath her notice. “None of my friends know, and they’d better not hear of this.”
Tinsley wasn’t about to send out announcement cards.
“Then why bother coming to Last Stand for proof of something you didn’t care to know?”
It shouldn’t hurt. It really shouldn’t. She’d realized how her mother cared more for prestige, status and bragging rights than her only child when she’d run home bruised and terrified and told her mother what John had done, and her mother had blamed her and demanded that she apologize for upsetting John.
