Page 34 of My Cowboy Temptation

Chapter 11

Three months later

Callie

“I never would have thoughtabout putting these two pieces next to each other,” Natasha says as she nods at the art in front of us. “But seeing them up there, the contrast between the light and dark, the softness and the angles? Genius.”

I grin, happy at her compliment. “Thanks.”

She pats my arm and returns my smile. “Thank you. I knew that you would be amazing in this job. Much better than working for what’s-his-name,” she says, although we both know perfectly well who she means.

I stuck it out working as Theodore De Longer’s assistant for nearly three months, something that I should be commended for. The man is a tyrant. Not only that but a conceited tyrant who was prone to full-blown tantrums when his painting didn’t take the shape he envisioned for it.

Oh, and instead of taking the blame for that, he preferred to throw that blame on anyone else. Like me. I might have stuck it out longer, since the money was more than decent, but Natasha, who I stayed in touch with, made me an offer that I couldn’t resist.

Come back to Montana and work as her assistant at the art gallery in Kalispell.

It’s crazy. In high school, I couldn’t wait to get out of Montana and go on to bigger and better places, but after being back this past spring, something has changed. Not just between Brody and me, but I have a new appreciation for the place where I was born and raised. Where my ancestors were born and raised going back generations.

And for the first time in my life, and despite living in one of the coolest cities I’ve ever been, I experienced homesickness. Homesickness for Castle Falls, Montana, a feeling that was compounded by the new direction my life was about to take.

So last week, I packed everything up, said good-bye to the moody artist and to my mom and her husband, and headed home.

Unlike my last homecoming, I haven’t told anyone I’ve come home except for Natasha. Because this time around, I want to do it entirely on my own.

I need to prove that I can stand on my own two feet without anyone’s help, financial or otherwise. With the money I made in London, I put down the first and last month of rent on an apartment in Kalispell that’s also within walking distance from the gallery where I work now. Adding in the money I’m making from Natasha, I not only have enough to pay the rent, but also some left over to sock away for future expenses.

Big future expenses.

“If there isn’t anything more you need from me, I’m going to head home,” I say, checking the time. As exhausted as I am, if I get home in the next twenty minutes, there will be enough natural sunlight streaming in my apartment to allow me to get the lighting of the sunset in my painting just right.

“No, go ahead. Go put your feet up and relax, and I’ll see you tomorrow night at the opening,” she says, smiling as I grab my stuff and head out the door.

Outside, the air is warm, maybe in the late sixties, just as I would expect for the first week in September in northern Montana, before the chill of fall hits, and the temperatures drop significantly.

It’s been a few years since I’ve spent winter surrounded by snow. Probably another reason to splurge on a used SUV instead of a car when I go shopping on Saturday, something that can handle icy roads since walking will be more of a struggle by then.

I breathe in the fresh air that carries a hint of cinnamon and yeast from the bakery half a block away, and I’m tempted to stop and get some of their delicious cinnamon rolls. But I still have the brownies I picked up yesterday, so I keep going. Besides, it’s almost six in the evening. A more well-rounded meal than cinnamon rolls is probably in order.

When I finally reach my building and walk up to my second-floor apartment, I’m winded and tired. But at least my energy has picked up from where it was the previous month, where I lived in what felt like a constant state of fatigue, sleeping when I wasn’t on my feet working.

I walk over to my current painting, a watercolor that represents a field of wildflowers on the slope above the ranch, something I’m doing from memory. In the past, I usually have preferred the intensity and richness of oils in my painting, but I’ve had to make a number of adjustments in my life in the past couple of months, and there will be more to come.

Sighing, I stare at the picture that is turning out better than I expected. Without thinking, I run my hand over my belly, a new tick that seems to comfort me.

“What do you think, baby? Should I add in a few prairie stars?”

I had been in London for a little over a month when the heavy fatigue started to nearly do me in, fatigue followed by significant vomiting—day and night—that I initially thought was due to some virus.

It took me almost another week to finally stare at the calendar and do the math.

I’ve never had regular periods, which my doctor said wasn’t unusual when she suggested that birth control could help. Maybe I should have given better consideration to that suggestion…

No. Not a chance.

I wouldn’t change anything, least of all the fact that I’ve made the choice that in about six months—or twenty-six weeks as my new doctor estimated more precisely—I’m going to be welcoming a new little life into this world.

It’s this little one who made the decision to come back home easier. I couldn’t think of anywhere else that I would raise my child.

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