had done a few moments before. Finally, he set the cup down—a little harder than necessary—and he turned his gaze on her again. “It’s not like you ever came looking for me, not like you gave me any kind of sign that you wanted me around.”
She met his eyes and she refused to look away. “It wasn’t my job to make you feel wanted. It was your job to be a father to your son.”
A muscle in his jaw twitched, but he kept his voice strictly controlled. “You don’t give an inch, do you, Glory? You never did.”
“I couldn’t afford to. I had a son to raise.”
“Ouch,” he said, too softly. And then he continued, “The good news is, I do get what my job is. And I’m ready to do it, to be a father to my son. You’re not chasing me off this time, no matter what you say or what you do.”
Her temper flared. “Meaning I chased you out of town before? You know that’s not true.”
“How many times did you refuse me, Glory? A hundred? A thousand?”
She stared him down. “Tell me to my face right this minute that you think a marriage between us would have been a good thing. You go ahead, Bowie Bravo. You tell me that lie.”
He had the grace to look away. And then he brought up his big, rough yet heartbreakingly graceful hands, and scrubbed them down his face. “I didn’t come here to do this, to play the blame game. I honestly didn’t.”
“Then stop,” she commanded in a hissing whisper. “Just…stop.” She shoved back her chair and lumbered upright. Too bad that once she was on her feet, she didn’t know what to do next. So she turned and went to the counter. She got the coffeepot, brought it back to the table, held it up.
“Great. Yeah,” he said.
She refilled his cup. It was an awkward moment, standing there beside him, pouring with her arm extended at an odd angle. She had to turn a little to the side so that her bulging stomach wouldn’t touch him. She didn’t think she could have borne that right then, to have her stomach and her baby inside it—Matteo’s baby—touching Bowie Bravo.
She managed to pour without spilling and also without any part of her body making contact with his. That accomplished, she took the pot back to the coffeemaker. Then she turned, leaned against the counter and told him, “You should know that Johnny and Matteo were close. Johnny loved his stepdad a lot.”
Bowie gave one slow nod of his close-cut golden head. “That’s good. For Johnny. And Johnny is the one who matters.”
She took one step toward the table again—and that was when the contraction hit.
A full-blown, hard-labor contraction. Starting at the top of her uterus, it moved down and around, like huge and powerful hands, tightening, pressing.…
Stunned at the suddenness of it as much as at the pain, she cried out, “Oh!” and staggered.
“My God. What the…” Bowie shot to his feet and started for her. “Glory…”
She clutched her belly with one hand and put out the other to ward him off. “I…no.” She tried to deny the reality of what was happening. Anything to get him to stay back, not to touch her. “Really, I’m fine, I…” The sentence died unfinished. All she could do was groan deep in her throat as the contraction kept squeezing, as it got even stronger. It had her in a vise grip, until she couldn’t hold herself upright any longer. She had to turn and bend over the counter to keep from sinking to her knees.
“Glory…” He came at her again and that time, she didn’t have the presence of mind to back him off. All at once, he was there, touching her, putting his arms around her, supporting her as she rode out the pain.
There was a minute—or two or three—an endless, animal space of time when she didn’t even care that Bowie Bravo had his hands on her again. All she knew was the pain, all she cared about was to ride it, to get through it and come out on the other side.
When it finally faded and left her panting for breath, the relief was the sweetest thing she’d ever experienced. By then, she was sweating and holding on to him. She couldn’t help it. She needed someone to hold on to and he was the only one there.
“Better?” he asked so softly. He was stroking her hair by then. It felt way too good.
She kept her head buried in his shoulder. “Yeah. Better. For the moment at least.” He smelled good. Clean. Like soap and cedar shavings. Like pine trees in the springtime. He’d always smelled like pine.
“What was that?” he asked. “Are you going to be okay?”
“Yeah, more or less,” she panted and made herself look up at him, at his worried frown and his blue eyes full of questions. She told him, “I’m in labor. The baby’s coming. The baby’s coming now.…”
Bowie’s tanned face blanched. His eyes, too, seemed to lose their color, to grow paler. She looked in those eyes and she thought of his father, for some crazy reason. She’d never seen Blake Bravo in the flesh. He’d made his last visit to the Flat before she was born. But she’d seen the pictures, heard the stories. People said that Bad Blake Bravo, kidnapper, suspected murderer and notorious polygamist, had the kind of eyes you never forgot.
Pale eyes, wolf eyes…
Bowie was staring at her, blinking like a man suddenly wakened from a deep sleep. “Uh, what did you say? Tell me you didn’t say what you just said.”
She had the most ridiculous urge to laugh. “Sorry, I did say it. And it’s true. My baby’s coming.” Strange how absolutely certain she was. But then again, she’d been here before. “It’s just like it was with Johnny. Out of nowhere, with zero warning, I was far gone in labor. He was born an hour and a half after I had my first contraction—one that felt exactly like the one I had just now.”
“You’re not serious.”
“Oh, yes, I am. This baby is coming. And coming fast.”
Chapter Two
“Now?” Bowie cast a desperate glance toward the windows. Outside, the wind gusted and the snow came down harder than ever.
“Yeah, Bowie. Now.” She could almost feel sorry for him. This had to be the last thing he’d expected when he came knocking on her door.
He gulped. “The hospital. I’ve got to get you to the hospital.”
She shook her head. “In this storm, on the mountain roads? It would take forever to get there. And this baby is just like Johnny. This baby is not going to wait.”
He remembered. She could see it in his eyes. He’d been there when Johnny was born—or at least, he’d tried to be there. She’d had Johnny in her mom’s house down the street, upstairs, in the big front bedroom. Bowie had begged her to marry him as she sweated and screamed through one grueling contraction after another. He’d pleaded and he’d coaxed. He’d been drunk, as he usually was back then. His brother Brett, who was the town doctor, had finally gotten him to go away.
But he wasn’t drunk now. He said, “The emergency helicopter. We can
