Page 31 of Cowboy's Christmas Wife

Daryl left her to herself, and she grabbed some pajamas and quickly changed. She went down the hallway to Daryl’s room and climbed in on what had become her side of the bed. He refused to tell her if she was on the wrong side or not, but she figured that if he truly had an issue with it, he would let her know. She slipped beneath the covers and leaned back into his pillows. Daryl’s bed was simple but deceptively comfortable. When she had stayed that first night with him, she hadn’t expected to sleep so soundly, but the mattress was like nothing she had ever slept on before.

She sighed as she got comfortable and reached for her phone, which she had left charging in here while they ate dinner. She thought maybe she’d watch something on YouTube until she was ready to fall asleep. She wasn’t expecting any notifications to pop up. Besides Jeanette, there wasn’t anyone that she spoke to regularly. But on her lock-screen, she saw that she had a new email. When she opened up her email app, she saw that it was from Clark.

Delete it, she told herself.Or just forward it straight to Jeanette.Nothing good would come of reading that email. Laura went to delete the message but found herself opening it instead. It was like any other message that he sent her, but this one was meant to drive a knife into her heart. One section in particular made bile rise in the back of throat:I hope for your sake that you come to your senses sooner rather than later; the judge will see through this dog and pony show of a marriage you have, and what will you have then? Come home, Laura. You’re making a fool out of yourself.

Laura couldn’t understand why he was under the impression that she was just punishing him for his indiscretions. In another email, he had actually had the gall to promise to hide it better next time in order to save her the embarrassment. Laura had sent that email to his mother: she should know what kind of man her son had become. She never did receive a reply, but she was pretty sure that the woman had gotten the message—and acted on it—because the emails had been scaled back for a long while. Until now. Until this insulting piece of trash that pressed every insecurity that she had. Laura checked the baby monitor, almost compulsively, and relaxed when she saw the baby snoozing away. Some nights, bad nights, she would look into the crib and touch Lily’s back over and over to make sure that she was still breathing.

She heard footsteps in the hallway and curled up in the blankets, squeezing her eyes shut tight. She heard Daryl come in, and she bit back a giggle when he proceeded to tiptoe around in order to not disturb her. When his weight finally settled beside her, she full expected for him to grab her or “wake” her or something, but instead she felt a feather-light kiss on her shoulder. Then, nothing: he rolled over and gave her space.

Laura lay there for a moment longer, then she had to roll over. “What were you working on?” she asked.

Daryl startled. “I thought you were asleep.”

She shrugged. “I was waiting for you.”

He scooted closer and threw his arms around her. Laura put her head on his chest with a soft sigh of contentment. “I needed this,” she said, thinking back to the email.

Daryl tightened his grip on her for a moment. “Me too,” he admitted softly. “Me too.”

EIGHTEEN

Laura was exhausted and snippy the next day: Lily spent much of the morning in the same foul, clingy mood that she’d been in the night before. Every time Daryl had come into the house—to check on her, to use the bathroom, whatever—she was walking the living room carpet with the little girl. When he’d come in for lunch, Laura was positively vibrating with frustrated energy. “Give her here,” Daryl said and held out his hands for Lily. “You need to go lay down.”

Laura nearly snarled at him. “I’ll let you know when I need something, all right?” she snapped, but then she seemed to deflate. “I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I’m just—” She adjusted the baby on her shoulder, and the girl let out a little snuffle-cry.

“Frustrated?” Daryl supplied, and she nodded, looking so absolutely defeated that it made him ache. “What do you need?” he asked. “I want to help.”

She sincerely thought about it for a moment, but then shook her head. “I think I’m going to lay down with her,” she said. “I don’t make a habit of co-sleeping, but it’ll do for an afternoon nap.”

“Are you sure?”

Laura gave him a flat look. “Yes, I’m sure,” she said, and then turned on her heel and all but marched down the hall. He did feel a stab of satisfaction when she ducked through his bedroom door, even if she shut the door soundly behind her.

Daryl tried to go back to his shop—he had orders to finish, after all—but he couldn’t get Laura’s tired eyes out of his head. He backtracked into the house and down the hall. He cracked open the bedroom door and smiled: Laura was sleeping on her side, having created a space for Lily in the center of the bed free of pillows and blankets. The little girl was sprawled out on her back, arms over her head, sleeping deeply. His fingers itched to grab his phone: he wanted a picture of this peaceful moment, but it wasn’t his place.Though you want it to be, his mind whispered to him.

Laura’s phone began to buzz on the nightstand, and he quickstepped into the room to turn it off. Whoever it was could wait. His girls were sleeping for now. He only meant to stop the buzzing, but when he looked down, he saw that it wasn’t an incoming message but a reminder from her calendar. She had an appointment in thirty minutes with “Contractor Ted” at her house.I should wake her up, he thought.I could volunteer to take Lily for the afternoon.

But then, another idea came to mind: he could go meet with “Contractor Ted” for her. Let her get a good nap in. He could even pick up dinner on the way home so that she wouldn’t need to cook tonight. Mind made up, Daryl turned the reminder off and set her phone back down, with the ringer silenced; he backed out of the room and shut the door with a gentlesnick.

He closed the front door just as softly and made his way to his truck. Before he pulled out, he shot a text to Kyle and asked him to keep it down if he headed back to the house. Laura needed her rest. His brother sent a thumbs-up emoji. Satisfied, Daryl headed to Laura’s house. The drive was becoming second nature to him.

There was a large, white van in the driveway when he pulled up, and when he parked, an older man opened the door and stepped out. He looked at Daryl, eyebrow raised in question. “You don’t strike me as a ‘Laura,’” he said.

Daryl stuck out his hand. “I’m her husband,” he said, “Daryl.” It was the first time he’d used the wordhusbandto describe himself to someone else.Hot damn, but I like that, he thought.

“Hey, Daryl,” the man said and shook his hand. “I’m Ted. Your wife called me in to look at the roof here.”

Daryl liked someone else calling Laura his wife even better. “Yes,” he said, although he hadn’t known that she had called in a contractor at all. “We know that it’s probably going to need to be replaced, but I don’t know about roofing to know for sure.”

Ted had an easy smile, and he held up his clipboard. “Let’s take a look, and I can walk you through the options.”

He nodded. “Sounds good, man.”

For the next half hour, they looked at the roof from every possible angle, and Daryl received a crash course in roof repair. From what Ted told him, the whole thing was one bad storm away from collapse and would need to be replaced as soon as possible. With any luck, when they pulled off the boards to get a look at the joists, those could be salvaged, but they wouldn’t know until they could see them. The sagging, Ted told him as he pointed at the significant dip in the roof that faced the backyard, was troubling though.

Ted talked him through all of their options and the pricing. “Let me talk it over with Laura,” Daryl said, eyeing the bid that the man had given him. “We’ll let you know in a few days?”

Ted nodded. “Sure thing.”

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