Montana Cowboy Daddy (Wyatt Brothers of Montana #3) - Jane Porter Page 0,22

his. She looked worried, but something else. Scared. Sad.

Why sad?

And then he understood. She’d become attached to Beck. She didn’t want to just abandon Beck. He respected her for that. “You know, you aren’t responsible for him anymore. You have no legal obligation—”

“No legal obligation, but just a moral one. He’s a baby. He needs love. I’m not sure you know how to care for a baby—”

“Or give love?” he finished silkily.

He watched, fascinated, as pink washed through her cheeks.

“You obviously come from a close-knit family,” she stammered. “It’s clear you love your brothers, your mother, your grandfather, but you’ve had a lifetime to form that bond. You don’t have a bond with Beck yet, and babies require a lot of patience, tenderness, and self-sacrifice. I’d find it very hard to just leave Beck here and drive away and feel okay about it. I would worry about him all the time. I would worry that maybe,” she looked away, her voice cracking, “he’d be confused. I wouldn’t want him to miss me. Nor would I want him to ever think I just abandoned him.”

“Maybe we just slow down and take this step by step. First the test, and then the results. Let’s not think about anything beyond that. Just test. And then just the results. We can do that, can’t we?”

She nodded.

“Good.” He gave her a faint, wry smile. “So can I. Try to get some sleep. I think we both could use it tonight.”

Chapter Four

He was on the road, on the outskirts of Boise when the call came. He’d been warned that morning in Bozeman, that even with a rush fee, it could be twenty-four hours before the results came in but they’d do their best. The DNA results had come back sooner, and he was a 99 percent match. There was no question that he was Beck’s biological father.

Call over, Billy focused on the road, but his thoughts weren’t on the ribbon of black asphalt stretching before him. His thoughts were of Beck in Erika’s car, and how he wasn’t just a baby, but his.

It was that simple, and that difficult. He was a dad now, and he’d be a dad… forever.

Billy exhaled slowly, running a hand over his bristled jaw. That call changed everything, and emotions rolled through him, thoughts tangled.

He’d had a son for all these months and he didn’t know. Billy wondered if April was ever going to tell him. Had she planned on just surprising him one day, showing up at the rodeo with the baby, much like Erika had?

He wished he’d known what April had been thinking, wished he’d known she was pregnant. She should have told him. She should have reached out the moment she knew. No, they weren’t planning on seeing more of each other, but pregnancy was different. Pregnancy wasn’t about romance or sex, it was about life. Their child’s life. And maybe he’d been a little too blunt when he’d told her that he didn’t see a future for them, and that he thought maybe it was time they stepped back, focused on other people, but how else were you supposed to end things with someone? Ignore them? Ghost them? That wasn’t his style. Far better to be honest. Aboveboard. And he’d never been unkind. But he had let her know he was moving on, and he was asking her to move on, too. Leave him alone. Focus on her life. Which might just be why she didn’t tell him about the pregnancy. He hoped it was because she was confused, not spiteful. Because keeping his son from him wasn’t right. He would have wanted to know as soon as April suspected she was pregnant. He would have wanted to be part of Beck’s life from the beginning.

Twenty minutes later, he signaled that they were taking the exit off the freeway. He checked his rearview mirror to see if Erika was paying attention, and she was, following his truck and trailer off the highway and down along a frontage road, and then down another road until he pulled in at a motel, and parked in a spot on the side where his long white trailer could fit without being in anyone’s way.

While Erika stretched her legs, Billy checked her in, using his credit card to pay for the room, and then carried all of the baby’s things in to the room at the end of the hall on the ground floor. The room had a little patio with a