Page 36 of Cowboy's Christmas Wife

When that didn’t work, Laura sighed and sat up, allowing the pillow to fall off her head to the mattress with a softthud.Might as well go make breakfast, she thought as she untangled herself from the blanket that she’d somehow balled up over the course of the evening. She glanced at Lily, who lay with her butt up in the air in the corner of the pack-n-play, before grabbing the baby monitor and heading to the kitchen.

The house was silent: Laura did her best to move around the kitchen without making a sound. She quickly whipped eggs and dropped bread into the toaster. By the time Daryl and Kyle wandered out of their rooms, breakfast was on the table. “You didn’t have to do this,” Daryl said, even as he sat in his usual chair. “It does smell great, though.”

Kyle was quiet, but he smiled at the plate of food that sat at his normal place. “I could have gotten my own food,” he told her.

Laura hushed him. “The doctor told you not to lift a thing for two weeks,” she reminded him.

“I can lift a spoon, Laura,” Kyle grumbled, but she could see him blushing just the slightest bit.

“That’s all you’re allowed to lift.” Laura looked at Daryl, and her heart hiccupped in her chest. “I’m going to take Lily to the house and get some things cleaned up, and then I’m going to call around and see about hiring a contractor to finish things up.”

Daryl took a moment to absorb that: he blinked a few too many times in a ten-second burst. “I can come with you and help if—”

“No need,” she cut him off. “You start working on whatever chore list Kyle makes for you. Now that we signed the paperwork for the trust, I should be able to hire out some professionals to get things buttoned up with the house.”

“Then you and Lily can move home,” Daryl said, almost so quietly that she had a moment to wonder if he meant for her to hear him.

Regardless, Laura pressed onward. “Exactly,” she said.

Kyle chomped down more savagely than was necessary on a piece of toast. “You don’t need to rush off,” he said through a mouthful of food. “We’ve had way worse houseguests.” Daryl grunted out an agreement, but he wasn’t looking at her now. Instead, he was pushing his eggs around with his fork.

Laura laughed, but it was only to cover the surely audible sound of her heart cracking in two. Hopefully neither of the men realized how strained her voice sounded. “While I appreciate that,” she said, “and while I appreciate you letting Lily and I stay here for so long, I’m really excited to have my own space.”

“Are we that suffocating?” Daryl asked, and Laura shrank at the bitterness in his voice.

“Of course not!” she insisted. “It just wasn’t the plan to live with roommates while Lily grows up. Besides, I want her to grow up in the same home that holds so many of my best memories.” Both men nodded—they did understand living in a place full of good memories, after all—but neither looked happy about it. “Anyway, enjoy breakfast; I’ll be home in the afternoon to start dinner.”

“You’re not eating with us?” Kyle asked before she could escape the room.

She turned on a bright smile. “I’ve been up for nearly two hours, and I ate then,” she lied. It was the best excuse she could come up with. “I’m ready to get the day going, you know?” She touched two fingers to her eyebrow line in a mock salute. “Enjoy,” she told them and then looked at Daryl. “Don’t forget to make that run to the pharmacy sooner rather than later.” Daryl nodded; he still wasn’t looking at her, and all she wanted to do was demand that he meet her eyes.

Laura escaped to her room and gently woke Lily. The baby was normally a light sleeper, but she woke up with a startle that almost alarmed her into crying, though she quickly calmed down when she saw Laura. “Were you sleeping hard, sweet girl?” she cooed as she cradled the girl in her arms. “Mama is so sorry; we just need to go.” Laura pulled out a onesie and a pair of pants and quickly got the baby dressed: she laughed when Lily seemed to be trying to “help” get her clothes on, and she nearly called Daryl to come see, but she stopped herself before she could.You can’t keep calling him to see every little thing…it’ll only hurt worse when you can’t, she told herself.

Kyle and Daryl were still at the table when she emerged from the bedroom and reached for Lily’s diaper bag. They barely looked up from their food, so she bit back her “goodbye” and headed out without one. While she would normally connect her phone to her car’s radio and play something off her curated playlists to get her pumped up for a day of never-ending cleaning, she couldn’t find one thing she actually wanted to listen to, so she drove in silence. Lily barely stirred from her car seat: it was as if she could sense Laura’s bad mood.

When they pulled into the driveway at the house, Laura expected to feel some sense of relief. She was home, and she finally had the means to make it the home that she remembered and cherished. But the darkened windows were foreboding, and she almost didn’t get out of the car.Get it together. Laura pulled in a deep breath, let it out through her nose, and then repeated herself.

Laura plucked Lily out of her car seat and shouldered the diaper bag. “We’ve got this,” she said to her daughter. “Don’t we?” Lily smiled at her, flashing a bottom tooth that was much more visible today than it had been before. She kissed the little girl’s head. “Yeah,” she murmured as she walked up the stone pavers to the front door. “We can do this all on our own. No one’s stopping us now.”

The house, with all of its partially completed projects, hadn’t changed since the last time they were here, but without Daryl, the work seemed to stretch on endlessly. She needed to get on with making calls and tracking down contractors to take over from here, but it all seemed so overwhelming. Laura had gotten what she wanted, and she felt frozen standing in the doorway of her house.

As she stood there, stuck in her own head, a car pulled behind hers in the driveway. Jeanette emerged from the car, and her lawyer-turned-friend joined her. “Laura? What are you doing?”

Laura glanced at her. “There’s so much to do,” she said, almost whispering.

Jeanette glanced through the open door. “I haven’t even gone in, and I know you’re right. Why are we just standing in the doorway?”

“I’m afraid that it’s going to be too quiet in there without Daryl,” Laura admitted.

Jeanette threw her arm around Laura. “Why do I get the feeling that you need to tell me something?”

She was right. There was so much that Laura needed to say. “I love him,” she said.

Jeanette looked at her like Laura had lost her mind. “I figured that you must since you married him.” Laura looked away, shame burning in her cheeks. “You didn’t love him before, did you?” she asked, connecting the dots.

“I needed out from under Clark,” Laura said, “and he needed help with some debts. We made an arrangement, and now, that arrangement can come to end.”

“But you don’t want it to?”

---