Page 35 of Cowboy's Christmas Wife

Daryl could do nothing but watch them leave the room, again, without him. “Is he okay?” Laura asked.

He shrugged. “They weren’t worried enough to keep him overnight, but he did lose a lot of blood, and he’s got stitches holding his forearm together,” he told her. “He can’t lift anything until they come out in two weeks.”

Laura patted at Lily’s back absently, grounding herself. He could see her eyes start to sheen, but when he moved to comfort her, to dosomething, she backed away slightly. “I think I’m going to take her to bed,” she said. Then, she too disappeared down the hallway.

Daryl collapsed onto the couch: his elbows rested on his knees, and he held his face in his own hands. A door shut, but he didn’t look up. There were steps coming towards him, and for a split second, he thought it was Laura. She would put her arms around him and draw him close. It would help him to feel a little less lost at sea, so to speak. “Kyle told me why he was working on that barn alone. What in the hell were you thinking?”

Of course, it would be Georgina; he’d been waiting for the riot act since he walked in the door hours before. “I forgot,” he mumbled. “When he asked for my help, I thought about my work calendar, and I forgot all about the hearing.” He could hear Georgina take a breath, winding up to yell, but when he looked up at her, she paused. “What?” His voice came out in a rough whisper.

“Nothing,” she said. The anger had bled out of her, and she just looked tired. “Look, I’m angry at Kyle, too. It was a dumb, macho move to decide to tackle the barn himself when he knew it was a two-man job. But him being an idiot doesn’t excuse you letting him down.”

Daryl rubbed at his eyes with the heels of his hands, trying to get rid of the sting. “I know, I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ve been putting so much time into a fake marriage that I forgot about my real family. I won’t make that mistake again.”

Georgina cocked her head, studying him. “You’re sure that it was all fake?”

Daryl sighed. He’d asked himself that question while Kyle was getting stitched up, and he still wasn’t sure. But if he said it enough, he would believe it eventually. Right? “It’s temporary,” he said. “Nothing has happened to change that. We said in the very beginning that this marriage would last long enough to get the money out of the trust fund so that she could get her renovations, and I could pay off the ranch’s debts. This was all just a means to an end.”

His older sister looked incredulous for a moment and then shook her head. “I don’t even thinkyoubelieve that,” she said. “Why bother trying to convince me?”

“It was never real, Georgina,” Daryl insisted, though he had to force the words out of his mouth. “Any connection that I might havethoughtI felt means nothing, all right? Laura and I are adults who made a deal, and I have held up my end. Now, she can hold up hers, and we’ll part ways just like we agreed that we would.”

She sighed and shook her head again. “I like her, Daryl. I like her for you,” she said softly. “Kyle and I aren’t upset that you’ve found someone. You just get…scattered sometimes.” She sat beside him, and he felt her head rest on his shoulder. He smiled: they hadn’t sat like this in years. “You’ve always been a little impulsive,” she told him. “You throw yourself so hard into the things that matter to you that you can get tunnel vision and forget about everything else. Right now, you feel bad about Kyle, and I worry about what that’ll make you do. I don’t want you to jump away from this good thing with Laura because you think you deserve some kind of penance.”

Daryl stiffened.How could she know exactly what I was thinking?“It was nothing, Georgina,” he told her. He didn’t want for things to end with Laura—he was man enough to admit that he was head over heels for her—but he had blinders on when it came to her and Lily. He couldn’t allow it to continue; he couldn’t keep letting his brother and sister down.

TWENTY-ONE

It was nothing.Those were the words from Daryl’s mouth, verbatim. What happened between them was nothing. Laura stood in the hallway and sucked in a breath, and then one more for good measure.It’s better this way, she thought, even as she pressed a hand over her mouth to stifle the sob that threatened to break free. A relationship was never supposed to be the endgame here; this had been a business arrangement that was always meant to end after it had run its course. Swallowing back the bile rising in her throat, she faked a cough to announce her presence in the hallway.

Daryl and Georgina’s conversation dropped almost immediately, and she padded into the living room, molding a cheerful smile onto her face. “The patient get to bed okay?” she asked Georgina.

The woman nodded, and she pushed herself to her feet. “He’s sleeping,” she said and dug out a piece of paper from her pocket. “This is his prescription for his pain meds.” Her eyes were on Daryl. “Can you get it filled, or do I need to in the morning?”

The question was pointed, and she watched Daryl shrink inside of himself. Laura gritted her teeth, mouth frozen in a smile-snarl. She reached over and plucked the prescription from Georgina’s hand, bringing the woman’s eyes to hers. “We’ve got it handled,” she said in as pleasant a voice as she could muster. “You should head on home now, Georgina. It’s getting late.”

Georgina’s eyebrow quirked up in question. “Really?” She smirked. “All right, then. I’ll leave it to y’all.” She glanced at Daryl. “You two have a goodnight.”

Daryl stood. “Georgina—”

The woman held up a hand. “Your wife clearly wants to speak with you,” she said, and those words, too, were pointed, but this time, they dug at Laura’s gut. “I’ll call tomorrow, okay?”

Daryl nodded. “Okay.” He threw an arm around his sister and pulled her in for a hug—a gesture that seemed to shock her for a moment. She hugged him back, patting his shoulder. Laura waved as they broke apart, and Georgina went for the door. When it closed behind her, Daryl shifted his focus to her, and she could feel his attention like she would be able to feel his hands on her if he reached out to touch her. “You wanted to talk to me?”

Under the weight of his gaze, Laura couldn’t find the words she wanted to say. Was she supposed to tell him that she heard him earlier? That had been her plan—or something close to that—but now she was frozen. “Lily’s been fussy all evening,” she managed to say. “I’m going to sleep with her tonight so that we all get a good night’s sleep.”

Daryl looked a little shellshocked, but he nodded after a moment. “Okay,” he said. “If you’re sure?”

Laura nodded, probably a little too vigorously; her neck snapped up and down almost painfully from the movement. “Yeah,” she said. “I think it’ll be easier on everyone.”

A look passed over his face—a recognition of what she was saying—and he frowned. “We should probably talk,” he said.

Laura agreed, but she couldn’t find it in herself to sit in the living room and have the conversation they both knew they should have. “Later,” she said. “Tomorrow, okay? I’m a little worn out from everything that happened today, and I’m sure you are too.”

Daryl nodded. “Yeah,” he agreed. “I’m exhausted.” They walked down the hallway together, pausing outside of her and Lily’s room. “Goodnight.”

Laura nodded and tried to smile, but it came off more like a grimace. “Goodnight.” Their eyes met for a moment, and she thought that he would kiss her, but instead, he awkwardly patted her arm and kept moving to his own room.It’s for the best, she told herself.You both know that this has to end, so there’s no reason to further complicate it. Even so, she felt bereft as she opened the door to her room. Lily was quiet in her crib—she hadn’t been fussy all day—and Laura had to resist the urge to pick her up. The weight and warmth of her snuggly baby would be a comfort. But Laura was the mom—she was supposed to be strong and in control and be the one who provided comfort forLily,not the other way around. She crossed the floor and climbed into the bed. It was cold, and she didn’t know whether to sleep on her side or in the center: neither option felt as comfortable as it did when she first came to the ranch.

The next morning, she woke up well before she normally did and could not go back to sleep no matter how hard she tried. She rolled over and pulled one of the extra pillows down over her head. She squeezed her eyes tight and willed sleep to come back to her.

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