style="font-size:15px;"> “No, dammit, that’s not what I’m suggesting. I would never propose such a thing to any woman carrying my child. If the baby is mine, I take full responsibility.”
Her stomach twisted, seeing the doubt in his eyes. “And that’s the problem, isn’t it, Durango?” she asked, shaking her head sadly. “You don’t believe that the child I’m carrying is yours, do you?”
Durango studied her silently for a moment, remembering everything about the night of passion that they’d shared. He knew there was a very strong possibility, a high likelihood, that she had gotten pregnant if she hadn’t been using birth control, but he was still too stunned to admit anything. “I believe there might be a chance,” he told her.
That wasn’t good enough for Savannah. Whether he knew it or not he was questioning her character. Did he think she would get pregnant from one guy and try pinning it on another?
Without saying another word she walked back over to where she had placed her coat, hat and gloves and began putting them on. “There is more than a chance. It doesn’t matter whether you want to believe it or not, there is something wonderful growing inside me that you put there. Not knowing your child will be your loss. Have a nice life.”
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” he asked in a growl of both anger and frustration.
“Back to the airport to catch the next flight out of here,” she said, moving toward the door. “I’ve done what I came here to do.”
“One moment, Savannah,” he grated through clenched teeth when she reached the door and opened it.
She turned around and lifted her chin. “What?”
“If your claim is true then we need to talk.”
“My claim is true, Durango, and considering your attitude, we have nothing more to say.”
Before he could draw in his next breath she walked out and closed the door behind her.
Durango stood at the window and watched Savannah get in a rental car and pull away. He was still reeling from the shock of her announcement and waited a tense moment to make sure she was out of sight before moving away from the window.
He glanced across the room to the clock on the wall and saw it was just past noon. He wished he could turn back time to erase what had just happened in this very living room. Savannah Claiborne had come all the way from Philadelphia to tell him that he was going to be a father, and he had all but told her to go to hell.
No doubt Chase would have his ass when he heard how shabbily he had treated his sister-in-law. Crossing the room, he dropped down into a leather recliner. It was so hard to believe. He was going to be a father. No way. The mere thought sent him into a state of panic. It seemed that babies were sprouting up everywhere in the Westmoreland family. Storm and Jayla had had twins a few months back; Dare and Shelly had announced over the holidays that they were expecting a baby sometime this summer; and when he had talked to Thorn last week, he had mentioned that Delaney and Jamal were also having another child.
Durango was happy for everyone. But babies were things other people had—not him. It wasn’t that he’d never wanted a child; he’d just never given thought to having one anytime soon. He enjoyed the carefree life of a bachelor too much. He was a man who loved his solitude, a man who took pride in being a loner.
However, the one thing a Westmoreland did was take responsibility for his actions, no matter what they were. His parents had taught him, relentlessly drilled it into him and his five brothers, that you could distinguish the men from the boys by how well they faced whatever challenges were put before them.
Another thing he had been taught was that a Westmoreland knew when to admit he was wrong. If Savannah Claiborne was pregnant—and he had no reason to believe that she wasn’t—then the baby was his.
Admitting that he was going to be a daddy was the first step.
He inwardly cringed at what he knew should be his second step—take whatever action was needed to take care of his responsibility. He checked his watch as he stood up. He wasn’t sure what time her plane would depart, but if he left now there was a chance he might be able to stop her.
The woman was having his baby and if she thought she could pop up and drop the news on him without any further discussion then she needed to think again. She was going to have to deal with him even if the very thought of getting involved with a city girl made his skin crawl.
It didn’t take much for him to remember Tricia Carrington, the woman he had fallen in love with four years earlier. She had come to Yellowstone on a two-week vacation from New York with some of her high-society girlfriends. During those two weeks they had an affair, and he had fallen head over heels in love with her. His uncle Corey had seen through Tricia, had picked up on the manipulator and insincere person that she was and had warned him. But at the time, he had fallen too much in love with her to heed his uncle’s warnings.
Durango hadn’t known that he’d been the subject of a wager between Tricia and her friends. She had bet her friends that she could come to Yellowstone and do a park ranger before marrying the wealthy man her parents had picked out for her. After telling her of his undying love, she had laughed in his face and told him she had no intentions of marrying him, because he was merely a poor country bum who got dirt under his fingernails for a living. She was too refined for such a dead-end union and fully intended to return to New York to marry a wealthy man with connections. Her words had cut him to the core, and he had sworn that he would never give his heart to a woman again, especially to a stuck-up city girl.
And Savannah was definitely a city girl.
He had known it the moment he’d seen her. She had looked high-class, polished and refined. It had been noticeable in the way she’d been dressed, the way she had moved gracefully around the room. She was confident and looked as if she could be married to a member of the president’s cabinet. She was exactly the type of woman that he had tried to avoid during the last four years.
However, he refused to let her being a city girl deter from what he needed to do. Now that the initial shock had worn off and he had accepted that he had unintentionally aided in increasing the Westmoreland line, he would take full responsibility and take charge of the situation.
Savannah had not been surprised by the way Durango had handled the news of her pregnancy. However, the one thing she had not expected and could not accept was his questioning if he was her baby’s father.
“Do you want to return your rental car?”
The question from the woman standing behind the counter snatched Savannah’s attention back to the present, making her focus on the business at hand. “Yes, please.” She glanced at her watch, hoping that it wouldn’t be difficult to get a return flight to Philadelphia. And once there, in the peaceful quiet of her condo, she would make decisions that would definitely change her life.
One thing was for certain—she would have to cut back her schedule at work. As a freelance photographer she could be called to go any place at any time. She realized she would miss the adventure of traveling both in this country and abroad.
But now she would need to settle down. After all, she had prenatal care and visits to the doctor to consider. She would talk to her boss about assigning her special projects. She appreciated the fact that over the years she had built a pretty hefty savings account and could afford
