Page 3 of The Cowboy's Secret Babies

Zeke had known immediately whose babies those were. For one thing, it was clear that Rosie had gotten pregnant down in Austin, where she’d been at school. There was only one of Zeke’s sons who spent any time in Texas, because Ryder had gone off chasing the rodeo when he was still a teenager himself and Texas was one of the places he apparently liked better than home, he was there so much.

He had Belinda had gone round and round on that one, too.

He needs to do right by those babies and that girl, Belinda would mutter in bed at night, glaring at the ceiling while they curled into each other after making sure the sheets were nice and rumpled.All three of us raised him better than this.

Because that was Belinda. Always making sure Alice was a part of this family she’d helped make.

I don’t think he knows, Zeke usually said after these rants of hers. All focused on the horror of thinking one of her boys was a deadbeat, in the end. The shame of it would kill her, she was sure—but she planned to make sure Ryder felt it too.

He will, Belinda would say, darkly.Believe you me, he will know.

Zeke couldn’t believe that Rydercouldknow. Ryder was a big rodeo star these days and Zeke had a good idea what sort of attention went along with that, especially from women, but this was still Ryder they were talking about. The child who’d always had a strict code that he’d adhered to from birth, more or less.

He wouldn’t tattle. What he would do was claim that any wrongdoing was his if he thought he could take fire from one of his brothers. Always happy to take the fall, even when innocent, that was Ryder.

Because, like every other member of the Carey family, Ryder secretly believed he alone was the tough one. Zeke was familiar with the pathology, having had it pointed out to him sweetly—but consistently—by one wife, and a whole lot louder by another.

No way would Ryder let Rosie suffer. That was the thing. Relationships were complicated, but Ryder would never let a woman withhisbabies worry where her kids’ next meal was coming from. He would never leave anyone exposed to town gossip and scandal thanks to him. That wasn’t how he was made.

It had been tempting to tell him straight out.

But Zeke had decided they needed a plan. They couldn’t demand that Ryder come home without telling him why. And Zeke and Belinda agreed—eventually—that Rosie and Ryder had to be the ones to have the conversation. It wouldn’t help any to insert themselves.

He’ll either know those little boys are his on sight or he’s an idiot, Belinda had said.As I plan to tell him myself.

Besides, there was Rosie herself to consider.

Cowboy Point was a small place. Zeke had known Rosie her whole life, and her parents for their whole lives too. Belinda was friendly with Rosie’s mother, the dreamy, impractical Charlotte who was forever declaring that she hadentered a new eraand therefore had a new name to go with it.

Most recently, if Zeke was keeping up,Moonshadow.

Moonshadow Stark, of all things.

How a flighty woman like Charlotte had ever married Jimmy Stark, who had been curmudgeonly even when he was small, no one would ever know. He had shuffled off the mortal coil far too young and left no answers behind him. Just three kids spread out over some fifteen years. Rosie was the youngest.

Charlotte Moonshadow, or whatever she was calling herself these days, spent most of her time out in the hippie enclaves deeper into the mountains with like-minded folks. Art, she liked to say, usually without solicitation, was what called her to rise each morning and face the new day. And art was what lulled her to sleep again at night.

Zeke had no squabble with art. He’d always made his own. It had never been clear to him what Charlotte’s artwas.

She could usually be found talking intently about intentional communities, festivals of authenticity—whatever those were—and communal experiences whenever a person happened to stray too close to her in a public place. Zeke kept his distance.

Belinda liked to get as close as possible, mostly so she could report back on the state of New Age Nonsense Ranch, which was not, sadly, the actual name of the spread an hour deeper into the hills and over unmarked dirt roads from Cowboy Point. It was called Nepenthe Creek, though Zeke liked to pretend he couldn’t remember that.

Charlotte was about as untethered to reality as a person could be without requiring medical intervention. Rosie, on the other hand, had always been practical and levelheaded. It hadn’t surprised anyone that when she left for school after high school, she was one of the few who didn’t come crawling back within the year. She was the sort of kid that everyone expected would stay gone. Visiting at the holidays, but building a life somewhere far away from this tiny little mountain community.

Rosie Stark coming back home as a single mom had never been on anyone’s bingo card.

Belinda moved toward him there in the kitchen and Zeke wrapped her up in his arms, automatically. Then, when she was close, he tucked her against him and felt the way their bodies immediately melted into one.

There was no end to it, this dance of theirs.

How could he not want this for his own sons? Especially with a girl like Rosie, who had always had that core of steel in her. She’d need it, with a man as skittish as Ryder had always been.

Zeke wasn’t above teaching Ryder a few of the necessary steps, just to help him along. The only trick would be doing it without Ryder catching on to the fact that Zeke knew about those babies before he did, and kept it close.

But as Zeke held Belinda close, swaying back and forth in their cozy, brightly lit kitchen to the music only the two of them could hear—while the snow came tumbling down outside and somewhere down south, rodeo hero Ryder Carey was finally headed back home to stay a while and meet his future head-on—he liked his chances.

Chapter One

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