The Cowboy's Surprise Baby (Cowboy Country Book 3) (15 page)

They had both moved on. They were over it.

“May the Almighty bless you but good, young man. Y’all are doing all right.”

“We?”

“You and Tessa. And Grayson. You’re a good man, Cole Bishop. And a wonderful father.”

Cole couldn’t meet Jo’s eyes. “You give me too much credit,” he muttered, yanking his end of the tablecloth and accidentally jerking it out of Jo’s hands.

“Oh, dear,” she breathed.

“Sorry.”

“Talk to her.”

“What? Who?” he asked, although he already knew the answer.

“Tessa. Tell her how you feel.”

He shook his head. “I don’t—”

“Hmmph,” Jo snorted, planting her fists on her ample hips. “Are you really going to stand there and finish that sentence, us being in God’s presence and all? He’s everywhere, you know, not just in church. He’s in your heart. Don’t say what you don’t mean.”

“Well, even if I do feel something—and I’m not admitting to anything, so don’t go throwing coal in the engine of the gossip train just yet—I don’t see how talking about it is going to help. There’s too much between Tessa and me that was left unsaid for too long.”

“Sometimes you have to go back before you can go forward, dear. The talkin’ that should have happened years ago but didn’t, for starters. That needs to happen. I know it scares the socks off you, but Tessa might surprise you. High time you two made peace with each other. The real thing, not just a rigid truce.”

Cole lifted his hat and threaded his fingers through his hair. He wasn’t going to be admitting to fear anytime soon, but Jo was right about the rest of it, and she was probably the only one in Serendipity wise enough and brave enough to speak the truth to him.

“Agreed. It won’t be easy, but I’ll talk to her.”

“Today?”

Cole wasn’t sure he was ready for any kind of confrontation with Tessa. He hadn’t had time to think through what he was going to say, and he wasn’t the kind of man to go off half-cocked.

Oh, who was he kidding? He’d had twelve years to think on it. Jo was right. Now was the time for action.

“I’ll speak to her as soon as—”

“Great. She’s right over there, talking to her father.” Jo pointed across the green. “From the looks of things, Tessa might appreciate being rescued right about now.”

Once again, Jo was right on. Tessa was absorbed in a heated conversation. Both she and her dad appeared strained. Her father was frowning as he spoke, and Tessa had her arms wrapped tightly around her middle—a tell Cole well recognized even after all these years.

“I’ll take Grayson,” Jo said, lifting her arms toward the baby. “The teens won’t be performing for another hour at least, and there’s plenty of other folks who can help with the settin’ up. You go do what needs to be done.”

His heart in this throat and his pulse roaring in his ears, he squared his shoulders and headed toward Tessa. His emotions were tentative, maybe even a little bit apprehensive, but his steps were not.

If he was going to commit to this thing, he needed to be all in, mind, body and spirit. Completely focused.

And totally vulnerable.

It wasn’t a comfortable place for him to be.

“Bart,” he said, extending his hand to Tessa’s father. “Good to see you.”

Cole’s words were more of a polite concession than a precise truth. He didn’t like the way Bart was scowling at his daughter, and it was all he could do not to tell the man so. If Bart had a problem with Tessa, there was no need to air it in a public venue.

“Did you hear what we’ve got going today?” Cole laid a supportive hand on Tessa’s shoulder, showing her—and Bart—where he stood in this obvious game of wills. He half expected Tessa to tense under his touch, maybe even pull away, but instead she leaned into him, absorbing his strength.

“That’s what we were just talking about,” Tessa replied, looking as if she’d eaten something that disagreed with her. “I was just telling him how hard our teens have worked to put on their performance today.”

“And I was telling her that she’s wasting her time on these kids. No musical number is going to turn juvenile delinquents into law-abiding citizens.”

“There’s a lot more to it than that,” Cole said. “Tessa—”

Tessa cut him off with a sharp jerk of her chin.

“Tessa,” Cole insisted, “makes a difference in these teenagers’ lives. Many of them have never experienced real love—God’s love and human love. Tessa points them to God and showers them with His love. And hers. I can’t think of many other careers you can say that about.”

He stared Bart down, daring him to disagree. Bart glanced at Tessa and opened his mouth as if to argue, but when his gaze returned to Cole, he clamped his jaw shut.

Tessa quivered and Cole stepped closer to her, enveloping her with his arm. She fit perfectly under his shoulder. He didn’t remember that from his youth. He supposed maybe he’d grown some since then, physically as well as emotionally, and for Tessa’s sake, he was glad that was true.

She was a strong woman, but she was also extremely sensitive. Not to mention the fact that it was her father getting down on her. Fathers and children were a special dynamic, and in this case not a good one. Didn’t Bart realize he was hurting her by his careless words and actions?

“It’s almost time for us to get the teens together,” Cole said. “If you don’t mind, Bart, Tessa and I have a few items to go over before the performance begins.” Though he didn’t feel it, he smiled at Bart. “Keep an open mind, sir. I think you’ll be impressed by Tessa’s hard work with these kids. I know I am.”

He didn’t wait for Bart to formulate a comeback. Instead, he guided Tessa gently but firmly in the opposite direction.

Tessa waited until they were well away from her father before she whirled on him. “Do you want to tell me what that was all about?”

He cocked a brow and kicked up one side of his lips. “What? No, ‘Thank you, Cole’?”

Her gaze widened, and for a moment he lost himself in the emerald of her eyes. He waited for her to unload on him—how she didn’t need rescuing. How she was doing just fine on her own. How he ought to mind his own business. And probably a lot of other things about him that she’d think but never say aloud.

“Thank you, Cole.” It was little more than a whisper, and her gaze dropped to the floor. “I don’t know why my dad gets that way sometimes. You’d think after all these years he’d get over the fact that I changed majors and am doing a job I really love. But occasionally he just gets—”

“Stubborn,” Cole finished for her. “Prideful—and unreasonable. Traits males all seem to have in common. Getting our backs bent all out of whack when we should be listening and trying to understand stuff.”

“Stuff?” she repeated, her gaze rising and her eyes clouding with confusion. “Are we still talking about my father here?”

Cole shook his head. “No. No, we’re not. See, you figured that out because you were listening.”

She chuckled. “They don’t call it women’s intuition for nothing.”

“Great. Then it’s settled. We don’t need to have this conversation, after all.”

“This conversation? Why do I feel like you have an agenda here?”

“I do. We do. Walk with me?” He gestured to the outskirts of the community green, which was surrounded by a gravel pathway marked with several iron benches.

“Where’s Grayson?”

“In Jo’s capable hands. We won’t be interrupted, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Grayson would never be an interruption.”

Cole laughed. “I meant Jo.” He placed his hand on the small of Tessa’s back to guide her away from the ever-growing crowd.

“This day isn’t going to be easy for either of us, is it?” she murmured, but it was a thoughtful comment and not an accusatory one.

“The first Saturday in June has always been a problem for me. I expect it may be the same for you, especially since you’ve been living in Serendipity for a while.”

She nodded. “I usually make an excuse to avoid the whole thing. This year I don’t have that choice—and I suspect that’s exactly the way Alexis and Jo wanted it.”

“You always have a choice, Tessa. You do now, and you did back then. I’ll admit I was an overconfident kid at the time and I didn’t even realize it. It didn’t even occur to me that you might reject my marriage proposal or I certainly wouldn’t have made it into a public display.”

“I know you went to a lot of trouble for me. I appreciate that now, looking back on it. You brought in my favorite singing group. Planned out every detail of what you thought was going to be the perfect proposal.”

Cole chuckled drily. “Well, it obviously wasn’t the
perfect
proposal, seeing as you turned me down and bolted from the scene.”

“I regret my actions that day.”

“Rejecting me or bolting from the scene?”

“Both. I had to turn you down, Cole. I
had
to. But I wish we had been able to talk about it before you left for the navy.”

“Yeah, I guess I did my fair share of bolting as well, didn’t I?”

“I honestly believed you’d come after me that day. That we’d be able to work through our problems.”

“Is that what you were waiting for?” Cole’s spine stiffened. “Were you playing some kind of game with me?”

“What? No. No! I would never do that.”

He let out the breath he’d been holding. “Then explain it to me. I wasn’t ready to hear your reasoning back then, but I am now. Why did you reject me? We’d been talking about getting married and having a future together.”

“That’s just it. We spoke of the future, but you never mentioned enlisting in the navy. Not until after the fact.”

“I didn’t?”

“Well, maybe in general terms—wanting to see the world, thinking there must be more excitement outside of our little community. Call me naïve, but I thought those were just the aimless ramblings of a restless teenage boy. I believed if we were going to get married and have a family, it would be here in Serendipity.”

Cole scoffed. “In a way, my words were aimless ramblings, or at least youthful ones. Adulthood isn’t quite what you expect it to be when you’re looking at it from the teenage end of things, is it? Where there were no restrictions or limitations to your thinking and nothing to hold you back from your dreams?”

They reached a park bench. Cole gestured for her to sit and then slid beside her with his arm resting across the top of the bench.

“I still don’t understand why you didn’t talk to me before you enlisted,” she said. “If you really believed we were going to marry each other, I would have thought we’d discuss something that important as a couple. If I had accepted your proposal, your joining the navy would have affected me as much as it did you. Maybe more, in some ways.”

“You’d think I would have considered that, wouldn’t you?” He pursed his lips, only now truly seeing his actions through her eyes. All these years he’d placed the blame squarely on her shoulders for leading him on and then tossing him away. Now he realized it wasn’t quite that simple.

“I couldn’t do it.” Tessa shifted her gaze to somewhere over his left shoulder.

“Do what? Marry me?”

“Marry a military man. Not after watching my parents’ marriage disintegrate over the stress of my mother’s multiple deployments. Not after having to move from base to base and school to school without ever really being able to put down roots. Not after grieving for a mother who was killed in the line of duty.”

Cole’s gut clenched as if he’d been punched. He hadn’t seen it—any of it. He’d been an immature and self-absorbed kid with his head in the clouds and his feet not even remotely close to being solidly planted on earth. And he’d thought he would be a good husband and father?

“I couldn’t have proposed to you in any worse way, could I? Starting off by announcing my enlistment to you and the whole town and then pulling out a ring and expecting you to act surprised and pleased by it.”

“Oh, I was surprised, all right. Just not in the way you imagined.”

“I should say not.”

Their conversation lapsed into an uneasy silence as they each explored their own memories and emotions. The expression on Tessa’s face, so raw and painful, tore at Cole’s heart. He reached out and gently smoothed away the worry lines on her face with the pad of his thumb.

“We thought we were ready. We weren’t,” Tessa said, sniffling. Her eyes were glassy, but no tears fell.

“No,” Cole agreed. “We weren’t. We were just a couple of immature teenagers, not much different than the kids we’re mentoring now.”

Tessa’s gaze widened, but then she nodded. “No, I suppose we weren’t.”

“I did love you, you know.” He almost slipped and said
do
—in the present tense, and not the past.

Where had that come from?

“Yeah,” she replied, sighing deeply. “Me, too.”

“If we’d married, you probably wouldn’t have gone to college and discovered your gift for counseling teenagers.”

“And had we been more circumspect, you might not have joined the navy, might never have seen the world. Might never have had Grayson.”

Cole cringed. If only she knew Grayson was conceived in the first place precisely because he’d been mourning the loss of their relationship. Only an idiot, a weak man, lost control the way he had, drinking himself into oblivion.

But the alternative, marrying Tessa right out of high school, seemed equally unreasonable to him. He would have been holding her back from becoming the woman she was now, helping any number of teenagers to move on to better their lives.

“Even if we’d made different choices at the time, it never could have worked at all, could it?” he asked.

A single tear trailed down Tessa’s cheek, but she swiftly and silently brushed it away. She looked down and shook her head. “No, I don’t suppose so. You’re right. We never would have worked out.”

Chapter Eight

T
essa couldn’t get away from Cole fast enough, but unfortunately, she was obligated to spend at least part of the afternoon with him. The sooner she could get the teenagers on stage, the sooner she could make her excuses and get far, far away from the disaster that was the June BBQ. It occurred to her that maybe she was running away again, but how could she stand to be here after all Cole had revealed about his heart?

Even if we’d made different choices at the time, it never could have worked at all.

His words were true enough, but that didn’t make them any less painful, like a sharp knife to her already aching heart.

With Cole back in town and their collaboration on the teens’ musical number, she’d known the barbecue was going to be emotional for her, even before they’d had their heart-to-heart conversation. She’d had no idea how topsy-turvy it would be. Her stomach was churning as if she’d just exited a roller coaster—one that had gone upside down and backward.

She’d known there was no hope of a relationship between her and Cole. This wasn’t news to her. And until today, she would have denied the thought had even crossed her mind that she might want to try again.

But in one shocking moment as she’d sat across from Cole with their gazes locked and their hearts open, she’d realized that was not completely true. She
did
still harbor feelings for him. Maybe they had never left her. Granted, it was a different kind of feeling, one that encompassed where they had been, where they were now and where they were going.

Too bad she’d experienced that emotional epiphany at the very moment Cole was denying such a love could ever or would ever work out between them. Talk about the irony to end all ironies.

Cole might be right about some of the things he’d said. Their relationship could very well have been an unmitigated disaster if they’d said their I do’s as a young couple. In a town as small and close-knit as Serendipity, many folks married young and had long and prosperous relationships and happy families despite, or maybe even because of, the challenges they faced.

Would she and Cole have been different if they’d married? Would their lives have taken other roads? Tessa couldn’t honestly imagine her life without the therapy work she did at Redemption Ranch.

And yet—a life with Cole would have been something special. Loving him. Bearing his children. Growing old with him. She couldn’t help but wonder what that life might have been like. She already knew he was a wonderful father and had no doubt he would be a good and faithful husband to the woman blessed to become his wife.

Even now, only minutes after their heartbreaking conversation had ended, Cole already had Grayson in his arms and was proudly showing him off to the community. He beamed whenever he looked at his son. His luminous blue eyes would simply alight with joy. Those long nights pacing the hallway with a colicky baby had only drawn him closer to the infant.

She shook her head and scoffed at herself. As Cole had just said, she wasn’t a starry-eyed teenager anymore, and yet here she was, mooning over the rugged cowboy like a lovesick calf.

She pulled her emotions back, burying them deep inside her. Speaking of teenagers—she had a job to do. She was grateful to have something productive to take her mind off her conversation with Cole. She could mourn the loss of that love later, in private.

Right now she had teenagers to rustle together and a musical performance to direct. As she found the teens and guided them toward the stage on the green, Cole handed Grayson off to his father so he could set up the mics and test them for sound quality.

It wasn’t long before she could hear the teens’ nervous chatter over the milling of the crowd. She waved to get their attention and made a slicing motion across her throat with her index finger, mouthing the words
live microphones
.

The teens were banded in a tight group on stage. Without any prompting on Tessa’s part, Cole split them up into the couples they’d been practicing with over the past week and then gave Tessa a thumbs-up to begin the performance. After a few last-minute, hastily whispered directions, the teens were ready to do their thing. Cole scrambled off the stage and moved to stand beside her.

He brushed her elbow with his arm, and she felt as if he’d shocked her. She was excruciatingly aware of his every movement. His presence was tangible even when he was standing perfectly still beside her.

“Ready?” he asked, his finger hovering over the play button on a sound system that was nothing more than a hastily hacked rig of their portable CD player and someone’s home theater surround-sound system.

Taking a deep breath to calm her shaky nerves, she raised her hand like a conductor and waited until she was certain she had all of the teenagers’ attention. The crowd on the green had stopped talking and was eagerly awaiting the performance. Even Matt, who was usually the one goofing around when he was supposed to be serious, stopped fidgeting and stood perfectly still, his hands resting lightly on Whitley’s waist, ready to perform the minimal choreography they’d managed to work out over the week’s worth of rehearsals.

“And...go,” Cole whispered, punching the button.

The intro to the music began, and the girls successfully launched into the first verse, growing stronger and more confident with each line. The boys had just joined in for the chorus when she felt Cole’s hands gently kneading her shoulders.

“Your shoulders are as stiff as mine feel,” he murmured with a low chuckle. “I’ve got to admit I was worried about how this thing was going to go off. I’m a bundle of nerves. You’d think I was the one up there performing. But the kids are doing great.”

Tessa nodded, feeling as if all the oxygen had faded from the atmosphere—and not because she’d been worried about how the kids were going to do in their performance. There was that, of course, but it was Cole’s warm breath fanning her cheek that had her struggling to catch a breath.

“These kids can really sing,” Cole said. “Not like me. Remember? My first time singing on the stage was a last-minute Hail Mary. My voice was so shaky that night. I’m surprised anyone could understand a word I sang.”

She remembered, all right, but he was wrong about his voice. It had been perfect. Mesmerizing, at least for her.

“Here we go for round two,” he said. “Let’s get ’em, guys.”

The boys jumped into the second verse with a cheerful abandon that surprised even Tessa. She’d figured they’d probably perform better with the entire town watching them, and she’d been right. They acted as if they were really into it—and into the girls who were their partners.

Even Matt. Maybe especially Matt, as he whirled Whitley out and then back again before she stepped up to the microphone to sing her solo.

Her pure soprano had more than one audience member oohing and ahhing, and Tessa smiled.

Personal issues aside, this day was a win.

“Yes!” Cole exclaimed, pumping his fist in the air as the teenagers finished the song in a harmony that was...actual harmony. In tune and everything.

The teens joined hands and stepped forward to take a bow. All of them were smiling at the response of the roaring crowd. Nothing like a good audience to make a performer feel like a million bucks, and all of her kids were worth at least that much. Matt gently insisted that Whitley step forward to take a bow on her own and enjoy a round of applause for her solo. Then the teens joined hands once again to take a final bow. Cole whistled and cheered louder than anyone else on the green.

Tessa had to admit she was surprised at Cole’s unabashed reaction to the performance. He’d been present at all the rehearsals but hadn’t shown much interest in the production. He certainly hadn’t acted remotely like the man who was currently high-fiving every one of the teens and telling them how well they’d nailed their song.

The kids were eating it up. Clearly Cole’s affirmation meant a lot to them. They looked up to him. Tessa wondered if Cole knew just how successful a mentor he had become.

Soon the teenagers disbursed, and Cole was back at Tessa’s side. When she turned toward him, he whooped and wrapped his arms around her waist, picking her clean off the ground and twirling her around and around until she was dizzy. Or maybe the light-headedness came simply from being in his arms.

“That was awe-some,” he said, breaking the word into two distinct syllables.

Tessa laughed despite herself. “Yes, it kind of was, wasn’t it?”

“I never would have thought.”

Tessa suddenly became aware of the way her arms wrapped around his neck and the strength of his shoulders. “Thought what?”

“How great it would feel to see our kids succeed at something like that.”

Her heart welled, not only from seeing his pride, but because he had referred to them as
our
kids. Finally, he was getting it, starting to understand just how incredible it was to be a mentor.

“Cole?”

“Hmm?” He bent his head on the pretense of listening to her, and his face was buried in her hair. “You smell just like I remember. Like when the lavender bushes bloom in the springtime.”

If she could have stopped time at that moment, she would have—there in his arms with him whispering sweetness into her ear. But life went on, and if they weren’t careful they would make a spectacle of themselves.

“Put me down. My feet aren’t touching the ground.”

In more ways than one.

“Oops.” He laughed and then set her down so suddenly that she overcorrected and nearly lost her balance. Fortunately, he saw her waver and swiftly reached for her shoulders, keeping a gentle hold on her until she found her feet again.

“Okay, then.” She released the breath she’d been unconsciously holding.

“Sorry,” he said, one corner of his lips kicking up. “I guess I got a little carried away there for a moment.”

So had she.

“I didn’t realize it until the teens were up there singing just how much I’d hoped they would succeed. For their sakes, not mine,” he clarified.

Tessa smiled softly. “That’s because you’ve become invested in them.”

He angled his hat up. “I have, haven’t I?”

“They’re blessed to have a man like you in their lives.” She dropped her eyes, unable to meet his shimmering gaze. “I’m glad you came back to Serendipity.”

“Yeah?” He tipped her chin up with his index finger. Their gazes locked. His eyes were swirling with emotions, so many that Tessa couldn’t pick one from another. His voice lowered, emerging subdued and husky. “Me, too.”

Cole’s father, Ford, approached, bouncing Grayson in one arm. “My grandson loved the song, especially that young lady Whitley.” He turned his smile to Tessa. “Reminds me of another pretty teenage girl with a remarkable voice.”

Tessa blushed at Ford’s compliment.

“I’m proud of you, son,” Ford continued, slapping Cole on the back with his free hand. Then he enveloped Tessa in a quick hug. “Proud of the pair of you.”

Tessa’s heart welled with emotion, a combination of honor and pain. If only her own father could see the good in what she was doing.

Marcus approached and complimented them, and then to her surprise, her father stepped into her line of vision. He brushed a hand back through his hair, a nervous gesture.

“I may have been wrong about this,” he admitted. How he made his apology sound like a grumble was beyond her, but she was over the moon that he’d seen even a glimpse of the promise of the career that consumed her life. “The kids were good.”

“Thanks, Dad.” It was a start, and for now, it was enough.

“I think I’d like to hear another musical number,” Cole’s father boomed. “An encore of sorts.”

Cole shook his head. “Sorry, Dad. That’s all we’ve got. I guess we should have guessed the community might want more than one song from the teenagers, but they learned only one.”

Ford’s eyebrows rose, and his eyes glittered with mischief. “I wasn’t talking about the kids, as good as they were. Hey, Jo?” He waved Jo Spencer over to join the conversation. “Since the teenagers were so well received, what do you think about having their directors perform a song for us?”

Jo’s bright orange T-shirt had the word
Roasted
swirled over the front. The word was well-placed. Tessa imagined she and Cole would be well-done by the time this day was over. When Jo clapped in delight at the idea and Marcus whooped loud enough to turn the whole crowd’s attention to them, Tessa’s stomach sank to the floor. They’d reached the point of no return, now that Ford had enlisted Jo in his idea.

Her gaze caught Cole’s. He had the same deer-caught-in-the-headlights expression on his face that she imagined she had on hers. Surely Ford didn’t mean—

“What was the name of that song I liked so much?” Ford tapped his finger against his chin. “The one you guys did in high school from that different version of
Phantom
.” Ford’s grin widened, and he winked at her.

“‘You Are Music,’” Cole supplied, sounding downright miserable. “From the Kopit and Yeston version.”

Tessa cringed. He didn’t have to go and offer up the song. And anyway, how could Ford possibly think this was a good idea? Sharing his suggestion with Jo was paramount to adding kindling to an already roaring fire—one that was burning her cheeks.

“It’s been twelve years, Dad,” Cole objected. “I don’t even remember all the lyrics. And besides, we don’t have a soundtrack to back us up. There’s no way we could sing such a demanding song a cappella.”

Never mind a soundtrack. Tessa was quite certain she didn’t have a
voice
. She couldn’t utter a single squeak in protest, much less sing an entire song.

Jo waved the teenagers closer. “You kids all want to hear Cole and Tessa sing a duet, don’t you?”

The clamoring response from the teens was immediate and crazy loud, drawing the attention and interest of any of the people milling around on the green who weren’t already hovering to find out what was going on in their circle. Soon it appeared that everyone at the barbecue was aware of the request—and were raucously insisting that Cole and Tessa fulfill it.