Page 31 of The Fugitive Cowboy's Baby
Until she’d readCole’s last goodbye, Kat had held it together pretty well. Now, though, she was a mess. She was grateful to be in the trailer where no one would come to find her, where she could sit and cry in private. The instructions at the top of the note said to destroy it after she’d read it, but she knew she could never follow them. She held the receipt to her heart and let out a shuddering breath.
When she had finally pulled herself together, she pocketed the letter and went back to her cabin to find a place to hide it. Eventually, she decided to tuck it on top of a ceiling beam, right where it met the wall. No one would look for it there, she decided. Then she went back to work.
The fact that he couldn’t have told her any of this in person, that he had to take off and leave a note, on the back of a receipt no less, infuriated her. He didn’t trust her at all. That was clear enough. Otherwise, he would have stuck around, just for the night, and they could have come up with a plan together. But no. He had to hide everything from her and walk away while she was sleeping.
“Coward,” she muttered as she mucked out the stables.
That night, she deleted his contact information from her phone. All the warmth she had felt from his last letter had given way to anger that he hadn’t said any of it in person, that he still hadn’t told her the truth. He was gone, and it was time for her to admit that to herself. Kat was good at cutting cords and burning bridges when she needed to. It had been one of her strengths since she was a kid. She ended all her toxic relationships quickly, and she never looked back.
She barely slept, dreaming that he was being dragged away by police, that he blamed her, that somehow it actually was herfault because she had deleted his contact information. Dreams rarely made sense after waking, but in the thick of them, everything seems possible. Kat’s subconscious mind blamed her for losing him. She should have fought harder to keep him from running, she told herself. But of course, it was a cruel lie. There was nothing she could have done, and she knew it. Either way, her dreams taught her something important about herself—that feeling guilty was somehow better than feeling helpless.
At her mother’s house,Kat played with her food rather than eating it. The family get-together had been planned for weeks, and Kat should have been happy to be there. But these days, nothing seemed to make her happy.
Her mom and brothers all sat around the table, chatting and eating, and she felt like a stranger. Once again, she didn’t belong. In the house where she grew up, the house she’d been an infant in, she still didn’t belong. Very little had changed since then, too. The same lace curtains hung from the windows. The same white tablecloth was draped over the table. The walls were still wallpapered with fruit-basket prints. It was the same house, so familiar she could have walked around with her eyes closed and not bumped into anything.
“Honey.” Her mom’s voice cut through her depressing thoughts. She looked up as her mom asked, “Is something wrong?”
Kat forced a smile. “Oh, no. Nothing’s wrong, really. I’ve just been tired recently with all the changes on the ranch. It’s been busy.”
Judd shook his head. “Can’t lie to Mom, Kat. You know that. Come clean now. You’re depressed. Just tell us why. Maybe we can help.”
“Yeah.” Travis agreed and echoed, “Maybe we can help.”
There was no chance she could actually tell them everything. No matter how angry she might have been at Cole, she wasn’t willing to give him up, not even to her family. She thought hard about what she could and couldn’t say, and she decided there were some things she could share. “You know that ranch hand I hired?”
“Yeah,” Judd said, leaning in. “What did he do? Do we need to hunt him down? Nobody hurts our sister and gets away with it.”
Travis nodded like he always did. Between the two of them, as loud as Judd was about taking revenge or whatever else, Kat knew it was Travis people really had to worry about. That boy had her back for her entire life.
When she was little, a kid at school had been bullying her. Judd found out and yelled at him, told on him, used his big mouth to get the kid in trouble any way he could. And Kat was grateful for it. But when no one else was looking, Travis had quietly and physically taught the bully a lesson. In the end, it was that quiet lesson the bully remembered, and Kat was convinced that was the real reason the bullying had stopped.
“He didn’t do anything you need to hunt him down over,” she said to Judd, though she was really talking to Travis. “I just… I kind of fell for him, you know? But it didn’t work out. It’s not only his fault. Not only mine either. Both of us were to blame. It was just not a smart relationship to get into since he worked for me and all. When we realized it wasn’t going to work out, weboth decided it was best for him to move on. Just for our own sanity.”
That seemed to be good enough for Judd and her mom, but Travis narrowed his eyes like he didn’t believe her.
After dinner, her mom disappeared into the kitchen and came back out with what looked like a sheet cake. When she came closer, Kat could see it had one lit candle on top and the wordsCongratulations Daughterwritten in frosting. “What’s this for, Mom?” Kat asked.
Her mom blushed. “It was supposed to be for your business. You know, new starts and all that, but things got crazy and I didn’t have time to personalize it. Sorry.”
Kat blew out the single candle and smiled. “Are you kidding? This is the best surprise ever. It’s like a birthday cake for my ranch!”
“That’s right.” Her mother was instantly cheered when she saw that her surprise had gone over well. “Unfortunately, all they had left was carrot cake.”
“I love carrot cake, too!”
“You’re too sweet,” her mom said.
Judd agreed. “Way too sweet. You should send it back and demand chocolate.”
Kat chuckled a little, and that seemed to cheer everyone up.
“See?” Judd said. “There’s no situation that can’t be improved with cake, even carrot cake. Imagine if it was chocolate.”
“You need to get over your obsession with chocolate,” Travis said, cutting a slice for his sister and then another for himself.
Kat enjoyed the rest of the evening with her family so much that she actually considered staying the night. She didn’t want to go back to the ranch, now that it was as quiet as it was. It felt empty now that Cole wasn’t there. She’d lived alone for so much of her life. What had happened to her since then? One relationship and now she was dependent on constant companionship?
“You two both still working?” she asked her brothers.
