Page 31 of The Cowboy's Christmas Baby
His dad closed the door with ominous care. “Did we come at a bad time?” The glare in his eyes warned his calm tone was a complete lie.
“I think we both know the answer to that,” Miles replied, because while bull riding had never made him brave enough to smart-mouth his father, apparently hanging with a woman who could make Santa cry did.
The bravado didn’t last long. Not once his mother entered the ring. “I hope you used protection,” she said.
“Jesus, Mom.” Miles closed his eyes. He’d never be able to have sex again if he discussed condoms with her.
“Don’t swear at your mother. What the hell is wrong with you, boy?” his dad barked.
Tate reappeared, all bare legs and sleep-tousled hair, but at least with his shirt all the way buttoned this time. She carried Iris, who was not at her best. Her nose ran from crying, she had something crusty stuck in her hair, and she’d worked one chubby leg free of her sleepers. She rubbed her damp face, and as Tate passed her over to him, she transferred her runny nose goo to his shoulder. Then she saw strangers, decided this was a great chance to play shy, and pressed her face into his neck.
“Excuse me,” Tate said politely, then disappeared before Miles could introduce her, which was just as well, because his parents were focused on the baby and not paying a lick of attention to anything else.
“This isn’t what it looks like,” he said, since no one was talking, even though yes, it was exactly how it appeared.
“Why don’t you tell us what you think it looks like and we’ll see if we’re all on the same page?” his mother suggested, not lifting her eyes from the sniffling bundle he held.
Why not tell them the truth and get that out of the way? This couldn’t get any worse. “It looks like I got a girl pregnant, she decided she didn’t want to be a mother, and a week ago, she dropped a daughter on me. This is Iris, by the way. She’s eight months old. Then, I had to hire a babysitter to look after her. That would be Tate,” he added, gesturing with his free hand toward the bedroom, in case they couldn’t make the connection themselves. “The ranch had their annual Christmas party last night, and it ended late, so Tate slept over.”
“Jesus,” his dad said. “I guess that answers the question about protection.”
“What are you doing here?” Miles asked, hoping to redirect the conversation, but his parents weren’t having that.
“We came for the rodeo, and to take you home for Christmas after,” his mom said. “But I see you have your hands full.” She began playing peekaboo with Iris, who was about as shy as a hot-tempered bull. His mom quickly caught on and held out her hands. “Give her to me.”
“You took a paternity test, right?” his dad said while Miles made the transfer.
His mother glared over Iris’s head at his dad, which gave Miles hope she could be swayed to his side. “I think I can recognize my own grandchild.”
“If that’s true, you’re going to be busy,” his dad growled. “The boy’s likely left a trail of them from Texas to Maine.”
Tate reemerged, this time wearing the dress from the previous night. It was wrinkled and the sleeves were uneven, but she looked breathtaking all the same. She squeezed past Miles in her trippy high heels and grabbed her coat from the arm of the sofa in the front room. Everyone watched in silence from the cramped kitchen. Apparently, they all planned to pretend they didn’t see the pair of panties on the floor under the flat-screen TV.
She stopped on her way out to give Miles a quick kiss on his scarred cheek.
“I’ll pick up more condoms before work Monday morning,” she said. “We’re all out.”
Then she was gone, leaving him on his own to deal with two irate parents and a fussy baby who chose that moment to remember how hungry she was.
*
Tate
If teenaged Tatehad once dreamed of meeting Miles’s parents—which she hadn’t—she would not have envisioned it unfolding this way.
I had to hire a babysitter… That would be Tate.
Her face burned as she got in her car while the rest of her shivered as she waited for the engine to warm up. So much for wanting to be different than the rest of Miles Decker’s fans. She should have kept quiet about the condoms, but she couldn’t stand the thought of his parents believing she’d try to thrust another unwanted pregnancy on him. Her babysitter dignity might be damaged, but her pride was intact.
Since her day hadn’t gotten off to a great start, and she didn’t plan to sit around dwelling on it because no good could come from that, she might as well take Dana’s gift to Billings. Four hours in the car—two there and two back—were what her dignity needed to work out the dents.
She flicked off her phone in case Maybe was too impatient for an update on the party to wait. Hopefully, by the time the sisters showed up to decorate the tree Ford had provided, Tate’s sense of humor would have returned. Something about this had to be funny.
Forty-five minutes later, after stopping to change her clothes and pick up the gift, she was on her way to Billings. Two hours after that, and after a couple of wrong turns as she entered the city, she found Dana’s parents’ house.
The Barretts lived in an older subdivision, in a plain, split-entry home on a lot surrounded by trees and with a dry creek bed that cut past its backyard.
Dana was a big part of why Tate no longer raced. They’d been casual friends up until Dana began dating Tanner. He’d had lots of girlfriends before, but he’d been serious about Dana, and for the first time in her life, Tate had felt so excluded, and she hadn’t tried very hard to maintain the friendship. After the accident, the two women could barely look at each other.
