The Cowboy’s Secret Babies (The Careys of Cowboy Point #3)

Chapter Ten

T hey spent a few days debating how they should do it. Whether they should do it up, do it quick, or try for something in between.

“I don’t know about a big thing,” Rosie told him one night while they were sitting on the couch in his Airstream, the boys tucked into bed in back. He had her feet in his lap, massaging them. Ryder took maybe too much pleasure in it every time he hit a tight spot and she tipped her head back, groaning with the kind of pleasure he normally only heard when he was inside her. She sighed as he switched what he was doing from one foot to the other. “After all, this is kind of a cart before the horse situation.”

“If you want a big party,” he said, fixing his gaze on her intently, because he didn’t like to think that she wanted something but thought she didn’t deserve it, “with the dress and the wedding party and the blowout reception with everyone you’ve ever met, then that’s what we’ll do.”

He wasn’t used to this kind of thing. He had always avoided intimacy of any kind, so already, Rosie was breaking new ground with him. They parented together. They couldn’t keep their hands off each other any time—every time—they were alone.

As far as he could tell, they were practically married already.

But Rosie had already been through a little too much on her own. He couldn’t change that. What he could do was make sure that if she wanted the whole big thing for their wedding, she would get it. He would give it to her.

And he did not choose to examine the fervency he felt when it came to that.

“Let’s just be married,” she said, and he liked the way she smiled at him then. It wasn’t that pageant smile she could trot out at a moment’s notice, the one that made him think of plastic. This one was real. It felt like his .

Ryder was still surprised at how fervently he wanted her to be his, too.

“We can just be married,” he told her.

And there in the cozy main room of his trailer, that seemed to hum between them like heat. Like the low note of a song only the two of them knew.

That was how, the following Thursday, they dropped the boys off with their delighted grandparents. They left them with Belinda already dancing around the kitchen and teaching them her favorite songs—songs that Ryder found himself humming immediately, because she’d taught them to him, too—while Zeke was so delighted that he seemed a lot like a man in blazing good health.

Shockingly so, in fact.

Then Ryder and Rosie drove up to Livingston, an hour up the interstate, and met Wilder and Cat there.

They’d discussed that, too. What it came down to was that while Rosie loved her family, she didn’t need them at the ceremony. But Ryder couldn’t see himself doing life-altering things without Wilder.

Is this a twin thing? Rosie had asked, smiling up at him. They’d taken the boys on a long walk, clomping around in the snow on Ryder’s property. That meant they were now carrying two exhausted toddlers back to the trailer, all red-cheeked and sulky, bordering on full meltdowns—so they were keeping up a brisk pace.

Ryder didn’t find them any less cute when they were being little monsters. He thought that had to be the genetic bond doing its thing, because he’d certainly never found other people’s children all that adorable before.

That or he was well and truly cooked when it came to Rosie and these two small creatures they’d made. But that wasn’t news.

He’d looked at them, lower lips trembling and tantrums approaching like a storm over the mountains. Then he looked at Rosie. His sparkling-eyed, happy-looking Rosie, out here in the snow. And he couldn’t have said what it was that clutched at his chest, then.

When you’re twin , he told her with exaggerated seriousness, everything is a twin thing.

Ryder liked the way she laughed. He liked the way the breeze played with the ends of the hair she’d tucked away beneath her warm, bright hat. He liked the way the cold brought out the color in her cheeks and how she managed to be a beautiful, delicate-looking thing while also being practical and hardy.

Before Rosie, Ryder had always been under the impression that women were one or the other. Something he’d mentioned to her exactly once, and had received a nice long lecture on the topic of women, society, and expectations.

At least, he had thought then, he could pride himself on the notion that he was not a man who had to learn a lesson twice.

Or so he hoped.

In Livingston, the notorious wind was kicking hard. Rosie had worn a pretty dress beneath her coat and now, as they walked hand in hand into the registrar, she wrinkled up her nose at him. “I haven’t worn a dress in a very long time,” she told him. “And now I remember why. I can feel that wind.”

He laughed. “You should think about changing that,” he told her. “Because you look fantastic. Wind or no wind.”

They got themselves a license, then looked at each other as if to test whether one of them was getting cold feet. But no cold feet presented themselves, so they went right ahead and got married.

With Wilder and Cat as witnesses, they said their vows, grinned at each other, and then it was done.

Outside, the old cattleman’s city of hardscrabble neon seemed like magic.

Ryder had booked them into a restaurant, so the four of them settled in and proceeded to eat one of the best meals he’d ever had. Maybe it wasn’t the food, all locally sourced and perfectly prepared. Maybe, Ryder thought, it was just that this was a perfect night.

And Rosie was his wife.

Every time he thought that, it was like the world stopped for a moment. Like it took a pause along with him, to really honor that truth.

To remind him that it was real.

“Ryder Carey, a married man,” Wilder said later. They’d finished with dinner and were walking down the street, following the neon signs to see if they could get a little dancing in. After a few drinks with dinner, everyone had agreed it was a necessary component of any wedding night. “Who would’ve believed it?”

“Kind of feels like the pot calling the kettle black,” Ryder replied.

Up ahead of them, their wives—their wives —were walking arm in arm, heads together, and the only thing that floated back on that wind was their laughter.

Ryder still wasn’t fully on board with the addition of the Lisle family into the picture, but he had to admit that Cat suited his brother perfectly. He felt certain that the same was true with Rosie and him. He would make sure that it was.

After all, that was why they’d exchanged vows.

“I guess I never thought I’d see the day when you actually admit that you feel something,” Wilder continued, still in that musing sort of voice.

Ryder frowned at him. “I feel all kinds of things. What are you talking about?”

“Do you?” Wilder’s voice was bland, and his look was the same. “Because I was under the impression that your response to anything emotional was to run away, find a rodeo, and try to kill yourself on the back of a bull. Between you and me, brother, you know that’s not exactly healthy, right?”

“Funny,” Ryder said, letting his drawl get a little dangerous. “I don’t recall you as any kind of healthy model of emotional regulation. I’m pretty sure they have names for serial one-night standers.”

Wilder only laughed. “And look at us now,” he said.

They made it to the bar in question. Cat and Rosie fell into a conversation with the grumpy old man sitting just inside the door with an incongruous fedora on his head—but hey, this was Livingston. Ryder found his brother looking at him with a strange expression, as the neon lit them up bright and pink.

“If she’s the one,” Wilder said quietly, “I hope she knows it.”

Ryder shook his head at him. “You were literally just at the wedding.”

“You and I are genetically the same person.” Wilder’s gaze was intent in a way that Ryder didn’t like. At all. “And I still find you impossible to read. Imagine how she feels?”

But he didn’t wait for Ryder to answer that. He didn’t seem to want an answer, and that was almost more irritating than demanding one. Ryder had to be comfortable with Wilder simply walking into the bar with the ladies, leaving Ryder to fume or follow.

He chose the latter.

And he forgot about that weird moment as the night turned into something bright and even more magical, as the four of them laughed and danced, told stories, drank a little too much, and ate enough dessert to make up for any missed wedding cake opportunities.

Much later, they all made their way across the road. They kept taking too many pictures of themselves, so that Rosie and Cat started laughing hysterically about how cold their fingers were—not that impending frostbite kept either one of them from continuing with the wedding selfies.

Ryder understood. It was pretty. They were pretty. There was snow in the street already and more coming down all around the neon signs, and when they made it into the lobby of the grand old Murray Hotel, it was like stepping back through time.

They said their goodbyes to Wilder and Cat. There were a lot of hugs, even from Wilder. And then, finally, it was time for their wedding night.

Ryder swung Rosie up into his arms and carried her up two flights of stairs. She tipped her face into his neck and laughed until he found their room, accessible only by an old-fashioned key. Once she handled the lock, he took great pleasure in sweeping her across the threshold.

And inside, the night shifted once again. Something about being in a historic hotel made the momentousness of what they’d done here seemed press in all around them.

Ryder had married her. The woman who had haunted him from the start. The mother of his children. The only woman he’d ever come to know well, and thoroughly, and not only in bed.

That sure felt like a sacrament, no matter where they’d happened to tie the knot legally.

And so, here in this room that must have seen more relationships than anyone could count, Ryder set about making love to his wife for the very first time.

He was the one who undressed her, piece by piece, carefully and reverently. When he was done he kissed her everywhere, until she was clinging to him, her skin warm and soft. He picked her up again and lay her out in the center of the big bed.

Then he set about shrugging out of his own clothes, glad that he’d dressed up a bit for the occasion and even more glad that her eyes got that hot, glazed look as he shrugged off every last bit of it.

And when he was finally as naked as she was, he crawled up onto the bed and stretched out beside her. They both stayed there a moment, smiling so wide that he thought he couldn’t be the only one whose jaw began to ache.

This time, it was an ache he liked.

He would never know, looking back, who moved first.

At first it was all reverence, all worship.

Sacramental devotion, sweet and perfect.

But this thing between Rosie and Ryder had always been a firestorm, and soon enough, they began to blaze.

They couldn’t help it.

Ryder was pretty sure that it was always going to be like this for them.

The first time, they let it run hot and wild, and finished in a rush that had them both shouting so loud it made them laugh, thinking security was going to come crashing in the door.

“This can’t be the first time…” Rosie managed to say, her face buried in his shoulder.

“Pretty sure you have to be selectively deaf to work in a place like this,” Ryder agreed.

Rosie kept laughing until she had to wipe at her eyes. Only then did they explore the little suite they had for the night. They ate the snacks they found, sitting together on the bed, as if they’d been starving for weeks. Then they took a shower together, making each other laugh because the stall was so narrow.

Then sigh, because narrow had its uses.

The fire built again.

And the next time they found themselves stretched out in the bed instead of cramped into the shower, they took their time. The fire was there but they kept it at a simmer, and everything seemed slow. Achingly new.

When he finally let Rosie fall over the edge, she had tears in her eyes once again.

This time, not from laughter.

The next morning, he woke up to find his wife crawling her way down the length of his torso, tasting everything along the way. She kept going until she found the hardest part of him, and when she looked up at him, the way she smiled nearly made him lose it there and then.

He managed to hold out a while, because it was the principle of the thing. But when he was finished, he thought it was a great idea to return the favor. And Ryder might have previously defined his life in increments of seven seconds, but not when it came to Rosie.

When it came to Rosie, he had all the seconds in the world, and then some.

By the time they finally stumbled out of their hotel room into a bright, cold morning to find some breakfast, they were both a little too giddy.

“Call it sleep deprivation,” Rosie said when she nearly tripped over absolutely nothing as they sat down to eat.

Or something stronger , Ryder thought. Something much stronger.

They drove back down to Marietta, then took the road up and over Copper Mountain. It was particularly stunning today. The snow on the hills and the sky with layered clouds that let the sun shine through. Ryder couldn’t help but take it as a good, Montanan celebration of their marriage.

“It was so much fun to take a night away,” Rosie said with a happy sigh as they wound their way down into Cowboy Point, also looking its prettiest in the late-March sun and clouds. “But it’s amazing how much I missed the boys.”

Ryder was driving with one hand, his other hand resting so comfortably on her thigh that it was like they’d always done this. As if they’d been together for years.

He couldn’t get over how it felt that way. How it really, truly felt as if there had never been any part of his life that wasn’t this . Maybe because none of it had been as good as this, if he was honest about it. He remembered what it had been like to drive into town nearly two months ago now, filled with reluctance and apprehension but still certain that he was doing the right thing.

He wasn’t sure he could remember that version of him.

Because everything with Rosie was better than anything he might have had to leave behind. It wasn’t even a competition.

He hadn’t even seen it coming. One day he’d been marking time and hating himself for it, because the only way out of this place involved a loss he couldn’t bear to think about. The next he’d been a father of twins, and this woman— his wife , he kept reminding himself—was the center of everything.

What was funny was that he’d always thought that leaving the rodeo lifestyle would be a tough, hard, bittersweet decision.

Instead, he’d made it without a second thought, so much so that he hadn’t realized until right now that he really, truly wasn’t going back.

He wasn’t missing another moment with his boys.

And he sure as hell wasn’t missing any more time with Rosie.

Something he’d thought would be layered and complicated, something he’d expected would come with a ton of regret was, it turned out, so easy it felt like breathing.

But all he said was, “I missed them too.”

Then, as they made their way through town—noticeably quiet today, though Rosie didn’t seem to notice—and then up toward the lodge, he had to bite his cheek to keep from grinning.

He waited. When they got to the crest of the hill, Rosie frowned. She stared at the lodge that was all lit up against the sky.

“What’s going on?” she asked. “Why are all the lights on?”

“I don’t know,” Ryder said, though he did. “I guess you better go see.”

He pulled up in front of the lodge and, once again, had a sense of being a part of that sweep of history. Of being rooted right here, right where he’d always belonged, despite how hard he’d tried to get away.

But this time, it felt the opposite of trapped. It felt like finally, he’d figured out how to be free.

He’d asked Rosie to wear her dress again today, claiming once wasn’t nearly enough. And it wasn’t a fancy ball gown, so she’d complied, though she’d made a lot of faces while she’d dressed for him, back in that hotel room in Livingston.

It had tested his resolve more than he liked to admit that he hadn’t interrupted the show.

And there was something so Montana about her, he thought now. She climbed out of his truck almost hesitantly, stopping and frowning again when she heard the sound of voices and music from inside. She was wearing her snow boots, a pair of leggings, and that pretty, pale pink dress she’d found that picked up all that strawberry in her hair and made her glow. With a stocking cap on her head, she couldn’t have looked more like a Montana man’s dream if she’d tried.

The best part was, she hadn’t tried. This was just his Rosie.

His Rosie, he thought again, letting it settle in hard. Like a brand.

He took her hand, the one where he’d put two rings yesterday. A ruby for obvious reasons, to keep with the red theme and to catch that strawberry goodness that he sometimes thought he could taste on his tongue, and a wedding band to match. He liked the feel of the ring on his finger, too. Last night, they’d sat in bed eating salty things, talking about how strange it was to wear rings at all, as neither one of them were ring people.

But he intended to wear her ring until he died.

Hopefully a long time from now.

“What on earth…?” she was asking as they made it to the front door, where the noise was even louder.

But he didn’t answer her. He drew her with him, pulling her inside the lodge and directly into the grand old lobby.

It wasn’t entirely restored. It was rustic all around the edges, but this afternoon they’d transformed it into something magical.

There were lights strung everywhere. There was a long table piled high with food, because folks around here took their potluck dishes seriously. Some of the local musicians were playing over to one side, and everyone they knew was here.

The whole town had turned out. Ryder and Jack had planned the whole thing, but it was only by the cooperation of the Stark brothers and the Carey brothers—and, no doubt, Belinda’s eagle eye and flair for the dramatic—that the old place that most thought was falling down looked, instead, like a fairy tale.

Because one thing Ryder knew about Rosie was that she liked a happy ending.

He’d made sure to give her one, because deep down, he was pretty sure that was what she wanted.

Their boys were there, dressed up nice and fancy—though Levi had already lost his tie and Eli looked like he’d tried to wrestle his coat into submission—and when they came charging over to hug on them, shrieking in all that ear-splitting joy, Rosie stopped pretending she wasn’t crying.

Ryder hooked an arm around her neck, kissed her face, and said, “I decided we needed a big thing, after all.”

“It’s perfect,” she told him in a low, choked voice. “It’s everything I said I didn’t want, Ryder, and I’m so glad you did it anyway.”

He took pleasure in the way she looked around, taking in all the people who’d come out for her this afternoon. He saw her smile at her family, his family. It widened as she saw all the friends who never would have missed this, her mother and an assortment of folks from the community out in the boonies.

And then he watched that smiled dim as she looked at some of the other townspeople, like that Gwen Sheen. She was standing in the corner with her mother, both sets of their eyes a little bit bright with an avid sort of speculation.

It wasn’t nice, whatever they were thinking over there. Ryder would have ignored them the way he’d done in the feed store.

But he saw the way the Rosie looked at them, and then looked down.

“Don’t pay attention to them,” he told her, putting his mouth to her temple again. “They both like to run their mouths. Like mother, like daughter, I guess.”

The little twins had toddler adventures to take care of, so off they went in a rush, safe in this room with so many watchful adult eyes. Once they were off, Rosie turned to him.

Her eyes were so full. She reached out and took his hands.

“I want you to know, it’s okay,” she told him. Very seriously, he could see.

Like these were new vows.

“What’s okay?” he asked, because somehow, he didn’t think she was talking about Gwen and Marla Sheen, of all people.

Rosie moved in closer and tipped her head up, a lot like she was about to whisper love words. He would have liked that just fine, but she didn’t.

“It’s okay that you don’t love me, Ryder,” she told him instead.

And not for the first time in her presence, he felt as if he’d been cut in two.

He couldn’t speak. He couldn’t breathe. It was that same terrible feeling all over again, tossed high into the air and ready to hit ground, so hard, that he might just consider it lucky if it killed him on the spot.

Meanwhile, she was still smiling at him, softly. That made it worse. She was still wearing that silly, bright hat and her puffy coat.

She was the prettiest thing he’d ever seen. He’d thrown her a wedding party because he’d wanted to see her smile. He couldn’t make sense of what she was saying to him.

“Rosie—” he began.

But she reached up and put her fingers over his mouth, quieting him like he was one of their kids. Only unlike them, he actually went silent.

“It’s okay,” she said in that same quiet, serious way. “What matters is that you love the boys. Good marriages have been built on less.” When he started to argue, there against her fingers, she shook her head. “I knew when I met you that night in Austin that you weren’t a man who stayed put. I accept that. I want you to know that I’ll always be here, no matter what. Because I love you, and I’m not a doormat. That’s not what I’m talking about.”

She looked away for a moment, and he did too, catching a glimpse of her mother across the room. When he looked back, Rosie seemed more resolved.

“I intend to love you forever, Ryder,” she told him. “And that means all of you. You don’t have to stay here in Cowboy Point to prove anything. Not to me.”

He thought he would have liked it better if she’d actually hauled off and sucker punched him.

Ryder felt something almost volcanic inside of him. He was almost certain that he was going to erupt.

Because he couldn’t stand that she believed that he would treat her like that. He couldn’t stand that she believed he was so cold.

She didn’t just believe it. She knew it. This wasn’t even resignation. She’d accepted it.

He took the fingers she had at his mouth into his, and kissed them. Then he looked around and really took stock of the way the townspeople were looking at them. There were those who looked happy for them, but he was related to most of them.

Otherwise, there was a lot of that speculation.

He thought about what that Gwen had said to him. The word she’d used. Trapped. He thought nothing of it, but clearly, Rosie did.

Just because she hadn’t told him about the things she might have heard, that didn’t mean she hadn’t heard them.

He thought about what Wilder had said to him, as if even his own twin doubted him when he’d just watched Ryder get married. And he thought of what else his brother had said—that suggestion that Ryder was hiding his feelings.

The thing was that he’d never thought of it that way. He wasn’t hiding from anything. He simply preferred to work out the things that haunted him with a high-octane sport that required every single bit of his attention, which meant he couldn’t think about anything else.

When he’d been eighteen, that had meant he didn’t need to think about his home. About how much he missed it, when he’d been so fired up to get away. About the death of his mother, which he’d carried with him everywhere, and not because Belinda wasn’t wonderful. Both things could be true at once. He would miss his mother forever. He loved Belinda as another mother.

But it was easier to ride bulls than it was to talk about those things.

And he’d decided that he preferred anonymity to small-town fame. Because as the song said, everybody here had that fame. They didn’t need a tabloid. They had each other. They gossiped happily in the streets.

The streets were one thing. His Rosie’s wedding party, on the other hand, was something else.

Ryder decided that it was high time he set the record straight.