Page 34 of Kayla's Cowboy

He reopened the shot of Kayla and her newborn son in the hospital. As he gazed at it, guilt crawled through him. There she was, not much older than Morgan, facing single motherhood. If some boy got his daughter pregnant, he’d want to wring the kid’s neck. He would do anything to undo the day Kayla had come to him, saying she was pregnant. He couldn’t have married two girls, but he could have supported her and been a part of Alex’s life from the beginning. Instead, he hadn’t even considered the possibility Kayla was telling the truth.

Clicking away from the photo in the hospital, Jackson saw numerous shots of Alex as a plump, healthy baby. The pictures were mostly of Alex as he grew, rarely including Kayla.

But in the second album, around the time Alex turned two, a young man started showing up. Soon after Alex turned three, there was a photo of a radiant Kayla in a long white gown, standing next to the same man in front of a church altar.

So this was Curtis Anderson, the guy who’d let his family down. Knowing the end of the story made Jackson ill at ease to see the happy photos that followed, though it was interesting to see that Kayla hadn’t deleted the ones of her ex-husband. The pictures advanced chronologically until Curtis Anderson was no longer present. For a while the faces weren’t as cheerful, but slowly everyone appeared happier.

Jackson had done his best to forget Kayla, yet he still remembered her talking about finding a soul mate, as if that one person could fill the hungry, empty places inside her. He had news for Kayla—everybody screwed up, and soul mates were few and far between, if they even existed.

Jackson emailed some of the photos to his parents. They were anxious to meet their grandson but were trying to be patient until he’d gotten to know Alex himself.

He’d started to get up from the computer when a message came in from Kayla, explaining Alex had agreed to a quick meeting, but she wanted to talk first.

Letting out an impatient breath, he wrote back, suggesting their usual time at the Coffee Shack.

* * *

KAYLA WAS DELAYED a few minutes the next day and Cora waved her through to the patio. “Jackson already got you an iced latte,” she said.

While the afternoon heat was softened by the overhanging trees, it was still warm as Kayla slid into a chair across from Jackson. He handed her a cup and she took a long swallow.

“I don’t know how you drink hot coffee in this weather,” she murmured, eyeing his steaming cup.

“It’s a cowboy thing.”

She cocked her head. “You seem tense.”

He groaned. “Morgan threw another fit this morning because I told her she couldn’t go any farther than Halloran’s Meadow by herself. She’s a girl, for God’s sake. I’m only trying to protect her. Honestly, teenage girls are the moodiest creatures on earth.”

“Moodiness isn’t limited to the feminine gender,” Kayla said mildly. She couldn’t turn every stupid-ass comment Jackson made into an argument. “I’m raising a teenage boy, and he has his own share of moody moments.”

Jackson gave her a suspicious look. “Whatever. I want to thank you for sharing the pictures.”

“You’re welcome.” Giving him a copy of their electronic family albums hadn’t been easy—it was like opening both her joys and heartbreaks for a stranger to view.

“I noticed there aren’t many photos of your mother.”

Kayla shrugged. “Mom isn’t around much. She drinks heavily and gets involved with the wrong people. I had to give up taking care of her when I started taking care of a baby.”

Jackson’s eyes widened. “You didn’t have any help?”

“I stayed with Mom until Alex was two months old, though I never risked leaving him alone with her. After that we moved someplace else. Not great, but better. Growing up I learned all the ways you could survive. Before Alex was born I found one of those guys who make fake IDs so I could get a better-paying job—a lot of employers won’t hire pregnant, underage girls. I started my business when I turned eighteen.”

“I’d figured your mother was there for you.”

“I had me, and that was enough. We were okay.”

She wasn’t about to admit how scary that first year had been, underage and alone with a baby. Fortunately she’d saved the generous farewell gift from her grandparents, plus every penny from her after-school job in Schuyler. Elizabeth Garrison had delicately hinted it would be wise to keep her money secret. Carolyn hadn’t meant to be a bad mother, but she was an alcoholic, and when the craving hit, her other instincts failed. If she’d known her daughter had some money, it would have eventually gone toward a bar tab.

---