Page 7 of Her Cowboy Baby Daddy
“Are you kidding? I plan on being on retainer once I pass the bar.”
“That you will,” Hayley said before opening her arms and giving him a hug. “Thank you for staying with me after Dad died,” she said. He could have headed back to Missoula then and gotten a better-paying job while he waited to hear about law school, but instead he’d stayed and helped her run the ranch while she grieved her father’s passing. She was forever grateful and, although she’d known this day was coming, it was so much harder to deal with than she’d anticipated.
Her throat felt thick, and she swallowed. Vince looked like he was also on the edge of emotion, and Vince didn’t do emotions, so Hayley stepped back. “Keep in contact, visit often, and consider spending Christmas here.”
Vince laughed. “Will do. Thanks, boss. Take care of my sweetheart for me until I have a place that I can keep her.”
“Will do.”
Remy, sensing that the love of her life wasn’t returning anytime soon, squealed and ran the fence as Vince drove away. Then she stood watching through the slats as the truck disappeared.
“We’re on our own,” Hayley said to the pig as she let herself into the front yard. Remy ignored her, continuing to watch through the slats.
Vince had done her a favor by staying, and now she was doing him a favor by not needing him. She’d sidestepped his questions about how she planned to replace him, and he stopped asking after the third try. She’d manage because that was what she did.
Hayley let Greta out of the house, and the little terrier trotted across the lawn to stand next to Remy as the pig stared down the driveway. If Greta needed a new foster home, Hayley would once again volunteer. Remy needed a friend. Hayley found her phone and was searching for the number to Whiskers and Paw Pals when a call came in.
“Mom. Hi.”
She’d been taught from a young age to call her mom Reba when they were around people, but in the privacy of her kitchen, she could call her mother anything she liked. And she liked Mom. That was what her kid was going to call her. That or Mama. She wasn’t picky as long as she wasn’t referred to as Hayley.
“Hi, sweetie.” Reba’s voice was low and husky. Hayley had long admired her mom’s voice modulation. “I just wanted to touch base before leaving.”
“Thanks, Mom.” She’d been through this procedure too many times to ask, “Are you sure about this?” Because her mother would indicate that she was passionately certain that this guy was the one and yes, heading off for a multi-month tour of South Pacific islands was the perfect way to spend the summer. A week here, a week there. Exactly the way Reba liked to live life, and the exact opposite of how Hayley liked to live, another reason she’d moved to the Lone Tree.
The important thing was that Reba was happy, and, thanks to her lawyer, who was actually husband number two after Hayley’s dad, her assets were tied up in a way that it was hard for a new beau to get at. Not that Reba would let them. She loved to fall in love, but she also liked to live well, and she was not about to risk the latter for the former.
“I’ll be out of the country for two, maybe three, months, but I promise that the second I get back into the States, I’ll visit.”
“That would be nice, Mom.”
They chatted for several more minutes about superficial things because that was what they were comfortable with. They’d never shared mother-daughter secrets, nor had Hayley wanted to. She’d realized from a young age that her mom wasn’t like other moms, and by the time she’d moved in with her dad, she’d been comfortable having one ‘normal’ parent. Her other parent, her mom, was like an elusive butterfly. Beautiful and charming, she’d flit in and out of Hayley’s life, and because that was the only relationship Hayley had known with her mother, she’d accepted it—for the most part. Sometimes she envied her friends with two normal parents, and at other times, when she had friends dealing with strife in their families, she was glad her parents had figured things out so early. She remembered no fights between her mom and dad because she’d been so young when they split up. By the time she was aware of their interactions, they’d developed a distant, yet amiable, relationship for her sake. So, no full-time mom, but no upheavals, either.
By her late teens, she’d come to understand that if her mom hadn’t accidentally become pregnant with her, she wouldn’t have had children at all. Reba was open about having her tubes tied after Hayley’s birth, and equally open about her diagnosis of endometriosis in her early thirties, which had caused her to have a partial hysterectomy. Ironically, like her own mother, Reba had fertility issues, but had still managed an accidental pregnancy.
Hayley was hoping to do the same, but without the accident part.
Hayley wished her mom a safe trip, didn’t let on that she couldn’t remember the name of the current beau—John, Jean, Jean-Ralphio, something like that—and then hung up with the usual empty feeling that followed a call with her sole parent. Now that her dad was gone, she realized that she wanted amommom. She didn’t have one. But... she could be one. And she was going to.
After hanging up, she ambled down the hallway to the room next to her bedroom. The room that had once been her dad’s, which she was turning into a kid’s room. She hadn’t done much yet because she was half-afraid of jinxing herself and never having a kid. It appeared that time was not on her side.
Hayley was almost twenty-nine and when her last visit to the doctor had indicated that she, too, was in the early stages of developing endometriosis, she’d decided to act. Unlike her mother, she wanted children, which meant doing something before her body began working against her. There were many avenues to achieve that goal, and she may well try them all, but to begin with, she was going with the old-fashioned way.
Well, maybe not old-fashioned, since it involved medical intervention.
She leaned against the doorjamb and studied the room, which she’d painted a delicious pale green and trimmed with white. Good start. She’d had meetings with counseling personnel at the clinic she’d chosen, and now it was a matter of picking a father from the fine catalog they had on hand, and deciding when to start Operation Baby.
She was thinking late fall, after the fields had been harvested and the ground turned over and the cattle brought in. The big question was how long it would take to get pregnant via artificial insemination—after she chose a father, of course. That was another issue slowing her down. That damned catalog with all those guys staring back at her. What if she chose wrong?
They’re vetted. The clinic has a stellar rep.
True. And it wasn’t like she was going to go cruising for a baby daddy in person. That wasn’t her style. She might have come out of her shell, but not to that degree. The catalog it was.
Hayley pushed off the doorjamb and closed the door. The house was quiet, too quiet sometimes, reminding her that her dad was gone, but despite the silence, the house had a good feel. She’d put hours and hours into making it cozy after returning home from college, and she loved everything about it, from the sunny kitchen to the colorful throw pillows she’d made last winter.
Funny thing, she thought, as she lit the burner beneath the teakettle—she was never without a project or goal. In high school, she’d been driven to become valedictorian. She’d ended up salutatorian, but she could live with that. When she went to college, she’d graduated cum laude with a degree that was actually pretty useless in a practical sense, though she didn’t regret her course of study. Going to college had broadened her perspective and better prepared her for parenthood. And now she was pouring her energies into making the ranch a real home and having a baby. Making the best of the life she had.
She only wished that her dad could have been there to be a grandfather to the child. He would have been the best grandpa...
