And Then You Dance (Crested Butte Cowboys Series Book 2) (8 page)

Renie made him promise he’d go out on the road the next weekend. As much as he didn’t want to, he knew she was right. He needed to get back out there and figure out why his heart wasn’t in saddle bronc riding anymore. Was it winning the championship? Had once been enough, and now the fire was out? He didn’t care about competing. He’d been competing all his life, and now he didn’t care. He couldn’t understand it himself, how could he explain it to her or anyone else.

Something pulled at him, telling him it was time to move on to the next chapter of his life, he just didn’t know what it was.

His second night in Rapid City, South Dakota, at the end of a less than impressive ride, Billy found out what the universe had in store for him.

“I’ve been thinking about what you said.”

“About Pooh?”

“Yeah. You’re right. I’m sure Renie misses her like crazy. Too damn stubborn, always has been,” he mumbled.

This went way beyond stubborn, thought Dottie.

Billy looked out at the meadow, where he’d spent most of his life watching Renie Fairchild ride her horse. He’d give anything to see that sight again. He wiped a tear away. He knew his mom saw it, but he was beyond caring whether anyone knew he cried. He cried a lot about his broken life.

“What about Willow?”

“What about her?”

“Will you take her with you?”

“Do you think I should?”

“Let me think on it.”

Billy knew it might be a day or two before she’d get back to him. She liked to think things through; she wasn’t impulsive like him and his dad.

Two days later Dottie walked into his kitchen. Willow was in her high chair, and Billy was trying to get her to eat scrambled eggs, which she was not in the mood for.

“Hey Mama,” he said, getting up to kiss her cheek.

“How’s my beautiful girl?”

Willow reached out her hands for Dottie who picked her up.

“Leave her with me and your daddy.”

“You don’t think I should take her?”

“I don’t, and neither does Liv.”

“I wish I understood.”

“Me too. We all do. No one could’ve predicted this reaction from her.”

Billy paced back and forth in the kitchen. Pooh tied them together. He knew she’d have to come and get her horse eventually, or send someone to do it for her. If he did this, and she wouldn’t see him, he’d be cutting that tie himself.

“You have to prepare yourself Billy. In case it doesn’t go the way you want it to.”

“I already know how it’s gonna go.” She’ll refuse to see me. There he went again, getting choked up. He reached his hands out for Willow who was all too happy to come see her daddy.

— • —

“Billy Patterson?” the old man said.

“That’s me. What can I do for you?” Billy answered, turning toward him. He was struck by the serious expression on the man’s face.

“It’s about my granddaughter,” he said. His voice faltered. “And my great-granddaughter.”

Billy wasn’t sure what to say. Was the man looking for an autograph? It had been a few months since anyone had sought him out for one.

“Son,” he said, putting his hand on Billy’s shoulder. “I have something I need to talk to you about. Can we go somewhere more private?”

There was something about the way the man spoke that made Billy pay attention.

“Sure,” he said. “Come with me.”

Billy was familiar with these grounds. There was a break room off the main barn he doubted anyone would be using. It would give them privacy to talk.

He opened the door and switched on the lights. “Have a seat,” he said, motioning to the table in the middle of the room.

The man moved slowly. He reached in his back pocket and took out his wallet. He pulled out a photo and handed it to Billy. “This is the only picture I have of Roxanne with her baby.” A tear slid down his cheek as he said it.

Billy recognized the girl in the photo. Roxanne—yeah, he remembered her. He’d hooked up with her a couple of times. Sweet girl. Billy got a feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach.

The man swiped his hand across his cheek, brushing the tears away. He took a deep breath.

“Roxanne was in a car accident two months ago on her way home from the store.” The man paused. “She said she’d be gone a few minutes. But my wife, she doesn’t believe in anybody ever leaving the house, even for a few minutes, without a kiss goodbye.”

The man was openly crying now, trying to catch his breath to continue. Billy put his hand firmly on the man’s shoulder.

“She would’ve told you, eventually. I’m sorry she didn’t get the chance to do it herself.”

The conversation had taken a turn Billy didn’t understand.

“Willow is a sweet baby, but my wife and I are in our eighties. It’ll break both our hearts, but we want what’s best for this little girl. Roxanne’s mom died when she was a little girl herself, and we raised her. Never knew who her daddy was. I guess that’s why she was so set on making sure that when the time was right, Willow would know you. I believe she was working up the courage to tell you.”

Billy stood and walked to the other side of the room. Was this man trying to tell him that Roxanne believed he was her baby’s father?

“Roxanne?” he ventured, wishing he didn’t have to ask the question.

“She didn’t make it,” the man barely managed to answer before his shoulders hunched over, and he cried again.

Billy paced, not knowing what to say. He studied the photo. Why did Roxanne believe he was the baby’s father? They’d been careful; he was sure of it. He was always careful.

Renie…no, he couldn’t think about her, although his hand was on his phone, longing to call her. It was his first instinct. But, he needed to deal with this news on his own.

The old man was watching him. “I guess you want proof.”

Billy didn’t want to be an asshole. The man was telling him his granddaughter passed away. He couldn’t bring himself to doubt what the man was telling him, as much as that was how he was feeling.

“Listen…” Billy started to say, not knowing what he’d say next.

The man reached into his jacket pocket and drew out a letter. The return address on the envelope appeared to be from a law firm.

“I understand you might have questions. You call me when you’re ready to ask ’em. It tells you in the letter how to reach me.”

Billy wanted to stop the man when he rose and walked out of the room, but he couldn’t bring himself to.

He sat down in the chair the man vacated and stared at the envelope.

An hour later, he hadn’t moved. Every time he went to open the letter, he tossed it back down on the table instead.

This was the fourth rodeo in the last six weeks he registered to compete in, and the first one he’d shown up for. He wondered if the man had gone to the other three looking for him.

He put his head in his hands. He longed to call Renie. She’d help him figure out what he was supposed to do next. There was something telling him not to.

Instead, he got in his truck and started the seven-hour drive home. It would take him close to five to get to Fort Collins. He’d decide then whether to stop and talk to her about it.

It was one in the morning when he drove by her exit. It wouldn’t be right to wake her up over this. He decided to drive home and talk to her in the morning. He still hadn’t opened the envelope.

***

Renie logged onto Twitter and saw on RodeoChat that Billy hadn’t placed either Friday or Saturday night. He’d probably head home early Sunday morning. And when he got there, she’d be waiting for him. It’s what she would’ve done anyway, before things had changed between them.

She loved her horse, no question, but if it hadn’t been for Billy, she wouldn’t go and see her as often as she did. Pooh was the excuse for her visit, Billy was the reason.

When she got to the house a little after nine, Sookie was sitting at the kitchen counter reading the newspaper. She knew Sookie; he’d worked for her mom last year. She sat and talked to him for a few minutes, and then went downstairs to the room she usually stayed in. The one that had been hers all her life. If Sookie hadn’t been there, she might have gone in and crawled into Billy’s bed. Probably not, but she might have.

***

Billy got home just after 2:00
am
and saw Renie’s car, and Sookie’s truck. God, if there were ever a time he regretted telling Sookie he could stay at the house, it was now.

What was she doing here anyway? He hadn’t texted her last night, and she hadn’t texted him either. He bet she worried about him, since she hadn’t heard from him. He often texted after he rode. And he would’ve, if Roxanne’s grandfather hadn’t gotten there when he had. After that conversation, he hadn’t known what to say to her, so he didn’t say anything.

He went inside and went straight downstairs to her room, instead of to his. As selfish as it was to wake her, he needed her. He took off his clothes as quietly as he could, eased into the double bed, and wrapped himself around her.

She murmured, turned so her body faced his, but didn’t wake. And he didn’t go to sleep.

It was after seven when she finally woke. Billy thought he’d go crazy waiting for her to.

“Hi,” she said, her voice heavy with sleep.

“Hi,” he answered.

“I didn’t expect you until later this morning. When did you get in?”

“Couple hours ago.”

She opened her eyes wider. “How come you came home in the middle of the night Billy?”

He hesitated and ran his hand over his face. “Listen, I got somethin’ I have to talk to you about Renie. It’s important.”

That made her sit up. Without realizing she did it, she pulled the sheet closer to her, almost up to her chin. She was wearing that sweatshirt again, the one that used to be his. It wasn’t as though she were covering anything up with the sheet. Her reaction was purely instinctual. She knew by the tone of his voice that whatever it was he needed to talk to her about would hurt.

“Come here first.”

“No, Billy,” she started to get out of bed, but he held her where she was.

There was that fear again, the fear he saw in her eyes last weekend. She was afraid he was about to hurt her. And he was.

He had the envelope close enough that he could reach it. He sat up and pulled her into him, so he had one arm around her, holding her tighter than he should.

“A man came to see me last night after I rode. He brought this letter with him. I haven’t opened it yet, but I know what’s in it.”

“What?” she whispered.

“He came to tell me that his granddaughter was killed in an accident.”

He meant to keep talking, to tell her the rest, but the look in her eyes was ripping him to pieces. He pulled her closer, tighter, and she rested her head in the crook of his shoulder.

“She has a baby. A baby she believed is mine.”

Renie gasped.

“I don’t know what to think,” he continued.

“Are you going to open it?”

“At some point, I guess I’m gonna have to.”

“Do it now Billy.”

“Do you want me to go upstairs and open it?”

“No, you can open it here.”

He was her best friend after all. And she knew him. He wasn’t irresponsible. Even if things hadn’t changed between them, even if he weren’t in her bed right now, she’d still believe that about him. Billy might be a bit of a cad, but that didn’t make him irresponsible.

He tore the end off and reached in for the letter.

“Do you want me to read it for you?”

“Would you?”

For him, she’d do anything. Didn’t he realize that? Her own instincts kicked in, and the most powerful thing she was feeling was the need to protect him.

She read it out loud, so he could hear it. She wanted to rip this bandage off fast, for both their sakes.

It said that before she died, Roxanne had told her grandparents that Billy Patterson was the father of her child. She hadn’t told him she was pregnant, or that she’d had a baby. She’d told her grandparents that she planned to. But, the let
ter went on to say, she died before she was able to.

The lawyer representing the family, and the baby, wrote that a paternity test would be arranged at Billy’s earliest convenience. It also stated that Roxanne’s grandparents wanted Billy, the baby’s father, to become her sole guardian. They were too elderly to raise a baby.

“Do you have any reason to confirm or deny this Billy?” She was trying to be as straightforward with him as she could be.

“I slept with her,” he answered. “But not without protection Renie, I wouldn’t…”

It felt as though a rock landed in the middle of her chest. This wasn’t news to her. Even though Billy didn’t talk to her about having sex when he was out on the road, she knew he had. She didn’t want to think about it, talk about it, or acknowledge it, but she knew it.

“I know you wouldn’t Billy. But, obviously there was a reason Roxanne thought you were her baby’s father.”

“I don’t know what to do.” He was having a hard time looking at her. She sensed his discomfort.

“Do what they ask. Take the paternity test. There isn’t anything you can figure out until you know for sure you’re the father.”

“God Renie. I mean…
God.
”

“I know.” She felt the same way. “You should tell your parents right away. You can’t handle the burden of this on your own Billy. I know you can’t. You’ll need their support.”