Just Shoot Me (Cowboy Way, #1) (28 page)

Tina had no idea why, but she loved him. Laney
loved him too. When he wasn’t Mr. Cranky Pants, everyone loved him.
They would get past this somehow.

If they just knew what was going on with both
of their custody suits, things would be a lot better. If their
fricking attorney would return her calls to
tell
her what
was going on. Tina had left three messages in the last three days
for him, but so far he hadn’t called. He was in court.

Well, if she had to drive to Dallas herself,
she was going to get answers.

She balanced the tray of food on her hip, and
opened the bedroom door. It was dark inside the room, so she
reached in and flipped on the light switch and Dean groaned. “Get
your ass up,” she said she kneed the door open and walked inside.
“Your food is here, Master.”

He wanted to be grumpy? She could more than
meet him grump for grump. Laney and Jeremy were at school, so Tina
didn’t have to worry about putting on a pretty face for them. She
could deal with Dean just like he was dealing with her. Feeling
sorry for him and coddling him hadn’t gotten her anywhere. It was
time for a little intervention.

“
Not hungry,” he said and rolled
over toward the wall.

“
Too damned bad, you’re eating,”
Tina said as she sat the tray on the nightstand to turn the lamp on
too.

“
Cut the damn lights off and leave
me alone. I said I’m not fucking hungry!”

“
You want me to leave?” she asked
softly, and his shoulders tensed.

“
You won’t leave.” He said the
words confidently, but Tina heard the worry too.

He needed to worry. “I’m thinking about it
when your parents get back. If you can’t talk to your wife, then I
don’t want to be married to you.” It was true. Tina had married
Dean Dixon under less than ideal circumstances, with a proposal
that had to be the most unromantic proposal in history. She had
cared about him then, but she loved him now.

She wasn’t a martyr though. And if they were
going to make a go of this marriage, he was going to stop feeling
sorry for himself and start talking to her about how he was
feeling. Caring about how she was feeling, because she was in the
same boat with him, they were just paddling in different directions
right now. She didn’t have her legal situation solved either, which
was her main reason for agreeing to marry him.

His voice was about as dark as she’d ever
heard it when he said, “Leave then.”

“
Is that why Cindy left?” Tina
asked knowing that would get a rise out of him. “Because you didn’t
care enough to ask her to stay?”

His whole body tensed, she heard a rumble that
turned into a growl, as he spun over so fast the bed shook. His
eyes when they met hers were so filled with hate Tina flinched.
“No, the reason I let her leave was because she was a whoring bitch
that couldn’t give two flying shits about me or her
son.”

“
You think that about me too? Is
that why you don’t care if I leave?”

The anger left his eyes, and his eyebrows
rose. “Hell no, I don’t think that about you,” he said then
collapsed back against the mattress to throw his good arm over his
eyes. “And of course I care if you leave. You’re my
wife.”

“
Then talk to me, because I
do
give two flying shits about you and
our
son,” she
said, sitting down on the edge of the bed. That’s how Tina felt
about Jeremy now. He was her kid as much as Laney was hers. More,
because she was married to his father, and she loved Dean
too.

Dean didn’t respond for a while, but Tina was
patient, because all she had was time. He finally swallowed then
said, “If I lose him, I’ll die.”

“
If you don’t fight for him, you’ll
lose him,” Tina volleyed, damned relieved that he had finally said
something to her. It was a start.

“
I fought and I lost,” Dean said in
a defeated tone. “I’m just waiting for the hammer to drop
now.”

“
That hasn’t happened yet, Dean.
Jeremy is still here, and he needs you to be his daddy. You can’t
let him see you give up, or he’ll get upset. I’m not letting Laney
see that I’m worried either. The attorney still has that detective
looking for my sister. The new school wants a copy of the
guardianship papers and I can’t produce those.”

Tina’s eyes landed on the congealed chicken
and dumplings in the bowl on the night stand and her stomach
lurched. She’d had a bowl of it last night and it hadn’t made her
sick, but just the sight of it disgusted her now. She damned well
thought she might be getting an ulcer from all this. It definitely
wasn’t the flu she had, it had been going on too long, and she
didn’t have any other symptoms.

She took several deep breaths, swallowed then
looked back at Dean. “You need to get up, get cleaned up and—“ The
rich buttery smell punched her in the stomach. Tina vaulted off of
the bed and ran for the bathroom.

Dean heard Tina retching all the way down the
hall. Worry shot through him as he shoved off the covers and walked
toward the bathroom. He stopped beside her at the toilet to glare
down at her. “What the hell is wrong with you?” Tina didn’t look up
at him, she just kept her head bowed and breathed. “This has been
going on too long. You’ve been sick since we got married.” Dean
knew the stress they were both under was enough to make anyone
sick, but this had to be something else. After his Daddy’s close
call with death last year, this scared him. It could be serious
too. “We’re going to the doctor
today
to find out what’s
wrong with you.”

“
I’ll be fine,” she assured him as
she pushed up to stand.

“
I know you will, because we’re
going to the doctor. I’ll get Hope to watch for the kids when they
get home. Get ready, we’re going to the doctor.” Dean walked down
the hall to the bedroom, grabbed clean clothes and then went back
to the bathroom. Tina still stood there. She had a strange look on
her face, sort of shell-shocked. He didn’t have time for her to
dawdle. He wanted to know what the hell was wrong with her. “Now,
Tina. Go get ready!” he said as he tried to squeeze between her and
the door.

“
I think I know what’s wrong,” she
said in a trembling voice.

Dean stepped back outside to grab her
shoulders. “What’s wrong then?” he asked gruffly. Tina didn’t
respond, and she wouldn’t look at him, so Dean tipped her chin up
to him. “Tell me dammit!” Her eyes teared up, his heart shot up to
his throat. “Fucking tell me, Tina, or we are going to the doctor
right now,” he growled.

“
I’m pregnant,” Tina said
softly.

Shock rocked Dean, her words hung in the air,
then echoed through his skull, before they registered on his brain.
His chest tightened, his hand fell to his side and he staggered
back from her. He shook his head in denial. “You can’t be pregnant.
How could you be pregnant?” he asked when he could breathe
again.

Her eyebrows raised, and she crossed her arms
over her chest, as if to say if you don’t know I’m not telling you
buddy.

“
We used condoms.” Every fucking
time they had sex. Even though Dean wanted nothing more than to go
bareback and feel her heat directly, he didn’t want another kid. He
had enough problems now. They both did.

He pushed past her into the bathroom, fumbled
through the bottom drawer where he’d stashed what was left in the
box he’d brought in from the truck. He found them and held them out
to her. “I used almost this whole box.” His hand shook as he pulled
the single pack left in the box of thirty-six out and tossed it
down onto the counter. “Explain to me how the hell you’re
pregnant!” A thought occurred to him, and a sense of déjà vu caused
the hair on the back of his neck to stand on end. “Were you
pregnant when I married you? When we had sex the first time? Were
you trying to trap me like my ex-wife did?”

Tina’s mouth dropped open, her arms fell to
her sides, and her body practically vibrated. “Yeah, you’re such a
fucking prize as a husband, I decided I’ve got to have him,” she
said snidely then a nasty smile eased up the corners of her mouth.
“You need to wake up asshole, before you run off everyone in your
life who loves you. You just lost another one.”

Dean watched her stomp down the hall. She
stopped at the end and turned back to throw up her middle finger,
before she walked around the corner. Dean picked up the condom box
off of the counter, and held it close to his face to read the fine
print there.

Ninety-eight percent effective. Two fucking
percent didn’t convince him she was pregnant with his kid. He kept
reading and nothing else there did either. His eyes dropped to a
narrow white box on the bottom right of the package. The print was
a different font, and lighter than the rest so he held the box
closer to the light until he saw it was a date.

A fucking expiration date. Two years past the
current date. Dean sat down on the floor in the bathroom and
crushed the box in his hand.

Tina couldn’t hold back the angry tears that
poured down her face as she walked across the yard to the
bunkhouse. Her new home for now, because she could not live with
Dean Dixon one more minute. And she couldn’t leave him until Laney
finished the school year. She was trapped at this ranch with him
for now, but she didn’t have to live with him. Or see him. Or care
about him.

The tears came harder, as Tina just opened the
door and walked in. Hope came out of the hallway looking sleepy.
She must’ve been taking a nap, Tina figured, as she walked over to
plop down on the sofa and hug herself.

“
Hey,” Hope said with a yawn as she
rounded the sofa. She stopped and studied Tina. “What’s wrong?” she
asked as she sat beside Tina to put an arm around her
shoulders.

Tina sucked in a shuddering breath and hugged
herself tighter. “Later,” she said and her throat felt raw. “Can I
stay over here?”

“
Of course you can. Did Dean pull
something?” Hope asked with fire in her voice.

“
I’m done,” was all Tina could push
past the knot of emotion in her throat.

“
You want a drink?” Hope
asked.

Tina shook her head, then her lips trembled as
she said, “Oreos.”

Hope nodded, got up off of the sofa and walked
to the kitchen. God bless her soul, when Hope came back she had a
huge glass of milk, a bag of Oreos, and various other junk food.
She spread the bags out on the coffee table, and Tina grabbed the
cookie bag and ripped it open.

Like a crack addict looking for a fix, she
pulled a cookie out with trembling hands, then dunked it into the
milk. The black cookie swirl on top of the milk made her smile.
Drinking the milk after she’d eaten her fill of cookies was her
favorite part.

Tina wasn’t sure there were enough Oreos in
Texas to take away the pain in her chest this time though. But
dying of a cookie coma sure beat dying of a broken
heart.

And that’s how she felt. Like she was bleeding
to death on the inside.

Hope picked up a cookie out of the bag, dunked
it then shoved it into her mouth. Tina looked at her. They both
smiled black cookie smiles. Tina ate her tenth cookie then grabbed
the glass and downed the milk. She sat back against the sofa with a
sigh, surveying the selection on the table.

Hope brushed the crumbs off of her hands and
sat back too. Lacing her fingers together over her rounded belly,
she said, “I’m pregnant so I have an excuse, but before we proceed
with your pity pigfest tell me what the party is about.”

“
I have an excuse too,” Tina said,
sitting up to grab the bag of cherry gummy worms from under the bag
of chips. More sweets first, then salt, she decided ripping the bag
open.

Hope looked confused for a moment, then she
gasped. She shot to her feet and squealed as she jumped up and down
clapping her hands. She threw her arms wide, and Tina guessed her
friend expected her to stand and get excited with her. Tina shoved
two gummy worms into her mouth instead. Hope’s face fell, as she
sat on the edge of the sofa. “What’s wrong?”

“
I don’t want to talk about it
right now,” Tina said around the wad of rubbery cherry
deliciousness in her mouth. “Let’s watch a movie.”

“
What’s your flavor?” Hope asked
getting up to walk to the television cabinet.

“
Something funny.” God knew she
didn’t want to cry anymore. She was done with that. Tina was going
to stay here with Hope and Cord until Laney got out of school, but
she wasn’t going to just sit here. She was going to come up with a
plan for the rest of her life that included her baby, but did not
include Dean Dixon. Apply for jobs and get something lined up, get
the paperwork drawn up for a divorce. The last day of school would
be the last day of her ill-fated marriage to him.

He better hope he had his ducks in a row where
Jeremy was concerned by then. Tina had an idea on how he could fix
that situation, planned on telling him about it, but after what
he’d just said to her, she just didn’t give a damn. She would pass
her idea on to Cord, have him pass it on to his brother if he
wanted to, but she was not getting involved.