Maverick (Star Valley Book 3) (13 page)

“In Jackson Hole,” Austin replied.

“Oh. Jackson Hole? Are you a friend of Kyle, or Becca?”

He remembered, at the very least, that Leah had been in town for wedding that weekend. “No, ma’am, I wasn’t there for the wedding. I was accepting an award. For ranching.”

“You’re a rancher,” Mr. Pierce repeated.

“Yes, sir. Leah and I met, and well, we hit it off and…” He struggled to think of something to say, something Leah would appreciate. A lie, but not. “And I haven’t had eyes for anyone since,” he finished with a smile. True enough.

“Mama, Daddy, there’s something I have to tell you. I’m…” Leah took a deep breath and opened her mouth but her mother jumped up out of her chair.

“
Tea?
” she practically shouted.

Austin rocked back in his seat.

The woman sped off to the kitchen where Austin could see her over the wet bar, flinging open the refrigerator and pulling out a container. She opened and closed cupboards, gathered napkins onto a wooden tray, not once looking at Austin or her daughter who’d come to see them.

“Mama, we don’t need tea,” Leah called.

“Nonsense,” the woman replied. “I made it this morning. Fresh brewed. No trouble. It’s no trouble.”

The room fell silent as she hefted the refreshments back, walking so slowly she might as well have been moving backward. At the coffee table, she bent and lowered it to the flat surface. The cups rattled so loudly that Austin thought they might chip before she finally set them down on the table.

“Mama,” said Leah, but the woman refused to look up.

“I have some sugar,” Mrs. Pierce declared a little too loudly. “But no lemons, sorry. I didn’t know. If we’d known…
If we’d known
…” Her sharp voice trailed off as though speaking had become too burdensome, too challenging. Austin glanced at Mr. Pierce whose face was an unreadable mask. His initial happiness at having Leah home for a visit had seemed to fade into a guarded uneasiness.

Austin realized with a sickened twist of his gut that he knew these people, or at least their expressions. They looked exactly the way Dad had looked when snow kept coming down and showed no signs of letting up. When he counted the days on the calendar and knew the herd had gone too long without hay and there was not a damn thing they could do.

These people were afraid.

“Mama,” said Leah, standing up and taking the woman’s hands in her own. They were shaking so badly Leah had trouble keeping them still. “Mama, I’m not sick. I’m pregnant.”

Leah’s mother froze. “Wh…what?”

Leah’s father leaned forward in his chair. All his stoicism slid into a deep-lined frown. “How’s that now?” he asked. “You’re…you’re…?”

Leah cleared her throat and stood up a little straighter. “Austin and I—”

He noticed how carefully she was presenting them as a couple. He smiled widely, to help her along.

“—are expecting a baby,” she finished.

“Leah, honey,” her mother said quietly. “Are…are you
sure
? How…how can that be?”

Leah produced the small strip of photos from her pocket and held them out.

Her mother looked at them for a long moment before taking them. She stared at them, unblinking, mouth gaping.

“This one’s for you,” Leah told her, handing over the small square she’d snipped off the end and handing it to her mother. “I’m sure there will be more and we’ll get copies of them all for you. But here’s the very first one.”

Her mother handed the photos to her father who seemed almost reluctant to take them. Austin couldn’t help but feel a renewed sense of compassion for them all. They were all so afraid that the rug would be pulled out from under them at any given moment.

Leah though, for her part, beamed proudly. “And I know things must seem like they’re happening fast.”

He bit down on the inside of his lip to stifle a snort.

“You’ve only just met him and I’m sure you’d like to get to know him.” Leah bit down on her own lip and Austin, not knowing what else to do, just held the stupid smile and nodded. “And you will. You will. I’m sure. But…he’s got a house, down in Star Valley. And we think it’s a good idea for me to move there. You know, for obvious reasons. It’s not that far away,” she added quickly. “You can visit.” She glanced at Austin who nodded.

“Any time,” he clarified. “Really.”

Her mother sat down in the chair with a bit of a graceless
whump
, which Austin thought was well deserved under the circumstances. “Well…I mean…it’s a
surprise
. A
shock
really,” the woman said in a dreamy, disconnected voice. The older couple exchanged glances while Austin and Leah waited silently.

“What…” Leah’s mother asked her husband. “What do we…?”

“
How
far away is your place?” her father asked, taking over.

“About five hours, sir, to the city limits and then another twenty minutes to get to our homestead. Star Valley isn’t as big as Cody, but there’s a feed store, a diner, a post office and a few shops. Leah and the baby would have everything they need there. And almost my whole family lives there, right there on the ranch, three of my brothers plus our foreman and his family. My brother Seth lives with his wife on the next spread over. She’s a nurse at the medical center. She has a little girl and a baby on the way,” he added to make them feel better. “Leah wouldn’t be alone, or lonely, or anything like that. Even when I’m out at camp with the herd.”

The Pierces were far enough removed from Star Valley that they didn’t bristle at the name Barlow and all it implied. Closer to home he might’ve had to fight whispers about wife-napping.

“Visit as often as you’d like,” he added for good measure. “There’s plenty of room and Sofia, she cooks for us, can feed an army.”

“And I might not even stay,” Leah chimed in and Austin was disappointed that they weren’t even home yet and she was already thinking about leaving. “I mean, we’re just trying it out.”

He forced himself to nod. “I take my responsibilities seriously, Mr. and Mrs. Pierce. To Leah and the baby,
to everyone
, my town and my Church.”

Mrs. Pierce frowned. “Seems like both of you could’ve spent more time in Church,” she muttered.

“Yes, ma’am,” Austin replied, because he couldn’t think of anything else to say.

The woman’s face softened, though, and she pulled Leah to her again. “A baby, though,” she whispered fiercely. “
A baby.
”

Leah nodded into her mother’s shoulder and wiped fresh tears off her cheeks.

“Well, what the Lord has blessed us with we won’t sully with finger pointing,” said Mrs. Pierce. “It’s a miracle.”

Austin watched Leah stiffen at the word and wondered about it, but said nothing. Mrs. Pierce offered him a warm smile and he returned it, thinking he could have worse in-laws (or almost in-laws) for sure. They were taking the news better than he knew he had.

“How are you for money?” Leah’s father asked.

Her mother’s hands fluttered, excitedly. “I’ve got some of your baby things, somewhere. Aunt Debbie has your old crib. At least I think she has it. I’m not sure if we can ship it from Utah, but I’m sure—”

Leah held up a hand, waving both of them off. “I’m fine, mom. I’m fine. I’ve got my job and my jewelry…it’s going just fine.”

Austin stepped forward. “I’ll take care of them, Mrs. Pierce. There won’t be anything they don’t have.”

After exchanging numbers and a prolonged goodbye filled with tears, clutching hugs, and hearty handshakes, Austin helped Leah into the truck once more and they rattled along her parents’ pothole-riddled driveway to the highway that would take them back to Star Valley.

“You parents seem nice,” he told her and meant it sincerely. Though they were worn, slightly brittle people, and Austin could see, even in his few hours with them, why Leah was so fiercely protective of them. This was a family that lived without hope that much good could actually happen to them. Surviving each and every day as it came seemed to be what they had accepted.

“They are,” Leah said with a firm nod. “They don’t have a lot of money…
we
don’t have a lot of money…but we’re grateful for what we have.”

Austin didn’t miss the way her hand went straight to her belly when she said it.

“The bill will come, for yesterday’s appointment.” She sighed and leaned her head back onto the seat.

“I’ll pay it.”

“I’ll pay half,” Leah insisted immediately.

Austin wasn’t sure he was willing to let her do that. “Are you sure you can afford it? How much do you make? With this jewelry thing?”

Leah sank down lower in the seat and bit her lip. “I didn’t
lie
. Not exactly.”

Austin shot her a look. More Not Lying. How much of it did she do?

“I sell
some
,” she insisted.

“But not enough to pay off your medical bills,” he surmised, judging by the stack of bills he’d picked up off the floor of her apartment.

“No,” she said glumly. “There are less than 10,000 people in this town. I do okay, but…” She sighed heavily and twisted her short hair in her fingers. “They shouldn’t have to worry. They’ve worried enough.
My whole life
. I make jewelry. I sell a little. They don’t need to hear about anything else. I can’t be their responsibility anymore. It’s not right. I have a job. The jewelry’s just a side thing and it helps a little. That’s all they need to know.”

They made it through Cody and almost to the western city limits when she lifted her hand and pointed out the window. “Can we stop?” she asked, gesturing to a turnoff.

“Do you have to pee already?” he asked, trying for a joke.

She didn’t take it for one, though. “No. I just…want to stop. Right here. At the dam.”

“All right, I guess.” He checked for traffic and then swung wide into the parking lot. He hopped out and fell into step alongside her as she moved past the large, glass building and went straight for the walkway that stretched out over the enormous reservoir.

She turned her face up to the sun, eyes closed, lips curved into a slight smile.

Austin had to fight the urge to cup her face in his hands and kiss her. “What do you like about this place?” he asked instead.

For a long moment he thought she wouldn’t tell him, but after a while she finally said, “It shouldn’t be here. It shouldn’t exist at all. Every year from the time they started, floods would come and destroy most of their work, but they never gave up on it. And now here it is, stronger than anything around it for hundreds of miles.” She leaned out over the wall. “Water is a destructive force. One of the
most
destructive. It attacks from all sides, relentlessly, but the dam never buckles or collapses. Despite the fact that it shouldn’t be here,
it is
. It has a
purpose
.”

Austin watched her hand float absentmindedly to her lower belly and he didn’t have to ask what Leah thought her purpose was. There were worse things in life, he decided, than a woman like this having his child. Far worse. Who knew how things would work out between the two of them, but he felt certain that Leah would protect their baby in the same way she was obviously protecting her parents.

“You have a purpose, too, Leah,” he pointed out to her.

“I do now.”

It didn’t seem worth it to nitpick her choice of words or what they said about how she saw herself. Austin simply helped her back into the truck and they set off down the highway toward Snake River, which he liked infinitely better than the Shoshone for obvious reasons and hoped Leah would grow to love, too.

He flipped on the radio and let her choose the station. Willie Nelson filled the cab and they sang along, finding common ground where none had seemed to exist at all before then. By the time Waylon was singing about a small town in Texas, Austin looked over to see if maybe he’d finally stumped her on lyrics. Instead, he found her asleep, slumped against the passenger side door. When they hit a bump, because he was too busy looking at her—whoops!—she opened her eyes, squinted around, and then inexplicably moved closer to him and put her head on his shoulder.

“Leah, are you hungry?” he asked, more than willing to stop at a drive through once they got out of Yellowstone. She didn’t answer, though, and he thought perhaps it was better to drive straight through and get her home. Sofia would have a hot meal waiting for them whenever they arrived.

When he finally turned the truck onto the gravel driveway of Snake River, the rumble in the cab jolted her awake. Austin felt her jerk against him, blink and look up at him, confused. She pushed away from him and he let his arm slip from her shoulders. “You fell asleep,” he declared, stating the obvious. “And you moved over to my side.”

Leah frowned as though she didn’t believe him, but blushed as she ran a hand through her unruly hair. “Sorry,” she mumbled.

Austin smiled at her. “You don’t remember doing it, do you? Moving to my side?” She shook her head then looked away. He refused to be discouraged, though. Part of her trusted him, at least. That was enough for now.

He parked in front of the Big House and put the truck neutral. “Well, here we are,” he said as he helped her down from the cab. “Welcome home, Leah.”

‡