Wild Cowboy Nights (Foolproof Love 1-3)

She gripped her arms so tightly, she distantly wondered if there would be bruises tomorrow. It didn’t matter. The pain was the only thing grounding her while she tried to process the insanity coming out of his mouth. “What?” Suddenly it all made sense. She pressed her hand to her stomach, the nausea so intense, it was a wonder she didn’t throw up on the spot. “My baby is not my brother.” It came out as little more than a whisper, so she said it again. “My baby is not my brother. What the hell is wrong with you?”

He frowned at her, finally seeming to see her for the first time since he got out of the truck. “What?”

Anger unlike anything she’d ever known rose, black and thick and almost enough to choke her into silence. She wouldn’t let it. Some things needed to be said, no matter how painful. “This—all of this—was about penance. You never wanted me, not really. You wanted a way to assuage your guilt and prove to yourself that you were worth a damn.” She took a step back and then another.

“Hope, will you just listen?” Just that. Not a denial—a plea to explain himself.

He didn’t need to explain himself. She knew how this conversation was going. The guilt on his face made her want to punch something. She shook her head. “Oh my God, I’m right, aren’t I?”

“I’m no good for you. I never have been. I thought I could make everything right, but I can’t.”

Her shoulders sagged. “You know, I spent the last thirteen years fighting against what you’re saying, and believing that I was right. Now? Now I’m tired, Daniel. I am so incredibly tired. I don’t know how two and two add up to seven in your head, but I don’t care anymore. If you think me being married to a man who sees me as an albatross around his neck—who sees my child that way—is a gift, then you’re crazy. I don’t have it in me to fight anymore.”

She took a shuddering breath, half sure that he’d break and tell her that she was wrong, that that wasn’t what he meant at all, that he loved her for who she was, not for the penance she represented. But the seconds stretched into a full minute, and the full minute into three, and he didn’t do anything but look at her with that damned guilt written all over his face.

“You’re right. Fuck, you’re right. I don’t know what I was thinking.” He finally moved toward the kitchen. “You can have the master bedroom tonight, but I think it’s best we go our separate ways tomorrow.”

This was it. It was really happening. Instead of telling her that he loved her, he was all but admitting that he loved his guilt more. Hope shook despite her best effort to maintain control over herself. She wasn’t the only woman who’d been dumped by her boyfriend while pregnant with his child, but she’d never thought Daniel would do something like this—especially since he’d all but clubbed her over the head and demanded she stay in Devil’s Falls and his house. He had been the one driving this from day one, overriding her concerns and her fears, and now he was going to turn around and repeat history?

Her throat tried to close, but she’d be damned before she cried another tear because of Daniel Rodriguez.

Hope pushed her shoulders back and her chin up, holding it together by the skin of her teeth. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. Excuse me.” She sent a text to Jessica as she walked slowly into the spare room and packed up her seriously small number of things. She could feel Daniel’s presence in the house even if she didn’t see him as she made her way to the front of the house.

She paused at the door. “My child will not be named John, by the way, regardless of gender.”

The she walked out and didn’t look back, not once.Chapter Sixteen“Do you want me to kill him? I can most definitely kill him.”

“You can’t kill him because I’m going to kill him.”

Calling Jessica had seemed like a good idea at the time, but now Hope was starting to doubt the intelligence of her plan. She hadn’t been thinking—she’d just been reacting. But no matter her logic, she hadn’t expected to show up at Jessica’s place and find Daniel’s cousin Jules. Jules looked ready to chew through the walls when she heard how things had fallen out with Daniel, and she paced around the large living room, coming up with one plan, discarding it, and coming up with an even wilder and more elaborate one. Jessica was right there with her, egging her on.

It just made Hope so damn tired.

She wrapped a knitted throw blanket around her shoulders and curled up on the couch. Maybe if she didn’t move too much, the women would forget she was here and wander back to their own lives. It was a crappy plan, but today had been filled with all sorts of crappy plans. She rested her chin on her knees and sighed, just a little.