The Cowboy's Pride and Joy

“I won’t lose my son.”

She choked out a laugh, lifted one hand to cover her mouth as if she could push the sound back inside, then looked up at him. “You realize I came to you for help?”

“Ironic,” he acknowledged.

Cass walked away from him and dropped down to sit on the edge of his bed. Seeing her there again brought back all the memories he’d been trying to ignore for months. The scent of her on his pillows. The image of her hair, spilling across the sheets. The gleam in her eyes when he filled her with his body and the soft sigh of completion that always touched something deep inside him.

All of those memories and more came crowding back until he nearly choked on them. He’d been fine with his world before she came here and got trapped for a week. And after she left, he worked damned hard to be fine again. Hadn’t really happened, but he’d been moving toward some sort of peace until she showed up again.

When she looked at him, she said softly, “So basically, I went from the frying pan into the fire?”

“Yeah.”

She laughed shortly and shook her head. “One word. Typical.”

Sighing, Jake let the anger within dissipate. He’d learned long ago to accept what had already happened because he couldn’t change it. He’d lost so much time with his son that he’d never get back, but that was done. All he could do now was ensure that he wouldn’t lose any more of his child’s life.

He walked over, sat down beside her and took a breath, dragging her scent into his lungs. “Were you ever going to tell me about Luke?”

Her hands twisted in her lap as she admitted, “I don’t know.”

Nodding, he briefly shifted his gaze to the window and the night. “What happened to forthright?”

Cass looked at him. “If lies will protect my son, then that’s what I’ll do.”

“You think he needs to be protected? From me?” Insult stabbed at him.

“It’s my job to make sure Luke is happy. Safe. Loved,” she said, not really answering the question.

The room was dark so that he could hardly see her, and maybe that was best. If he read fear or worry or anything remotely like that in her eyes, he might soften. Might relent. And he couldn’t.

He wasn’t going to lose his son, so Cassie had best make up her mind to be his wife.

“We’ll do that. Together.”

“I’m not going to marry you, Jake.”

“Your choice,” he said softly. “But you’re not going anywhere, Cassie.”

“I’m not a prisoner,” she countered. “You can’t make me stay here if I want to go, Jake.”

“Oh, I could. Make no mistake. As it turns out though, I won’t have to.” He pointed at the wall of windows and the dark winter beyond the glass. “There’s a severe storm warning for this area for the next five days. A blizzard’s going to hit and it’s gonna be a big one. So settle in, Cassie. You and Luke are going nowhere.”

* * *

The wind screamed for hours.

Like the shriek of lost souls, it wound itself around the house, as if frustrated at not being able to find a way in. Just as Cassie couldn’t find a way out.

Physically, she was good and trapped here. Once the snow started falling, she knew she could never risk traveling on that terrifying mountain road. It would be one thing to risk her own safety, but no way would she strap her son into a car and hope for the best.

But emotionally, she was trapped even more neatly. For almost a year and a half, she’d done her best to forget about Jake. To put him on a shelf in her mind so that she wasn’t constantly tormented by the memories of the week she’d had with him. But with Luke looking more and more like his father every day, forgetting wasn’t easy.

She’d even begun to question if she really wanted to forget. Cass had wondered constantly if she’d done the right thing in keeping Luke a secret from his father—though there was no changing that decision. Now she was back with a man who was both furious and determined to get her to marry him.

How could she do that, though? Marry a man who didn’t love her? Wasn’t marriage a risk even with love?

Cass had seen her parents’ marriage erode into rubble and she still had the emotional scars to prove it. She couldn’t set her own child up for the kind of hurt she’d once known. Sure, Jake was positive he wanted her and Luke here now. But what about a year from now? Five years? What if he one day decided he’d had enough and sent them away?