Chapter 9 Parker
PARKER
My growing stomach stared at me in the mirror, and I stared back at it. Every day, the size turned more from looking like bloat to looking like…I was carrying a baby.
My baby.
Not anyone else’s but mine. The thought scared me sometimes, knowing that the other half of this baby didn’t care enough to be here for him.
That was the thing about life. It built you up just to tear you right back down. I was in shock when I found out I was pregnant. Awestruck when I found out I was carrying a boy. But when Daniel told me he wanted nothing to do with raising a child? I was numb.
A few short months later, I got the call that my father had passed.
It was bittersweet that he’d left this world before my son could come into it.
On one hand, I should’ve been looking forward to bringing his only grandchild to meet him.
On the other? I was thankful I wouldn’t have to one day explain to my son why he didn’t visit his grandfather often.
Why we celebrated holidays alone. Why, when other kids were getting cookies from their grandparents, we were bracing for confusion and violent outbursts from ours.
Alzheimer’s could be a shitty thing. Every day was different from the next.
As time went on, I got more reports of my father’s episodes until I’d asked to stop knowing altogether.
I’d witnessed his wrath enough times growing up that I knew visiting wouldn’t have helped.
He may have remembered me, but it was a version of me from the past. And the way he’d treated me, nothing good would have come from it.
I didn’t think I could handle seeing him like that, anyway.
Which was selfish of me, really. But I’d come to learn over the last few years that in order to protect my peace, I had to think of myself.
But when those two little lines popped up, that shifted, too.
Now, only he mattered. And I’d do anything to keep him safe.
Knuckles rapped lightly on the door to my room. “Parker?”
I adjusted my sweater over my bump, tugging the hem a little harder than necessary to make sure it didn’t crawl back up. I’d need new clothes soon, but I didn’t have the budget right now. Hopefully, that’d change in the coming weeks.
“Yep?” I grabbed my purse off the end of the bed.
Beckham stepped in, leaning a shoulder against the doorframe. “Do you want a ride to work?”
The scent of hay and rain wafted through the room. “Did you go to your parents’ ranch this morning?” It was barely seven thirty.
He nodded. “My brother’s had shit to do, and I didn’t want to leave my dad to feed on his own.”
My hand tightened around the strap of my purse at the mention of his family. “What time did you wake up?”
He tucked his hands in the front of his jeans, his back to the frame now. “Four thirty.”
“Oh.” I chewed the inside of my lip, forgetting the reason he’d come in here.
“Why? Wish I would’ve woken you up?”
I looked up from my duck boots to find him smiling, though a crease had formed between his brows. “No. Waking up that early sounds like hell right now. But…” I bit the inside of my cheek. “I would like to see them.”
He straightened a little. “Yeah?”
“I miss them. Miss your mom.” Charlotte Bronson had never once blinked when it came to taking in a rescue case—whether of the horse or people variety.
The deep line disappeared, and now his face only held a bright smile. “Yeah. She misses you too.”
“She does?”
“They all do, Park. Only reason they quit asking about you is because I couldn’t take it anymore.”
The admission may as well have been him ripping my heart from my chest and stomping it into the floorboards.
“I’m sorry for leaving.”
He shrugged. “I left too.”
“But you had every intention of coming back. I…” I’d been content with the idea of leaving Bell Buckle behind. The good and the bad. And all for what? Some years of traveling from ranch to ranch around the states, just to end up knocked up and a single mom?
Would my fate have been different if I’d stayed?
Would this be Beckham’s baby?
Why did part of me wish it was?
“Didn’t think you’d end up back in my house?”
Pregnant with another man’s baby held unspoken onto the end of his sentence, but for some reason, he had taken to hiding his feelings about my pregnancy.
“Exactly.” I ran my hands down my jeans that barely buttoned.
“That’s okay. Sometimes things don’t go as planned, but we shift.”
I didn’t miss the way he averted his eyes when he said it, how all traces of his smile fell and I was left looking at a shell of the Beckham I’d seen moments ago.
My pregnancy brain wracked my memory until I remembered why he was in here. “That ride you mentioned?”
His gaze met mine again, a spark of hope in those hazel depths.
“I’d love that.”
Beckham’s phone chimed with at least five texts on the drive over, and after the fifth, he silenced it. I’d chosen to ignore them, my mind instantly going to the worst-case scenario. That it was his girlfriend.
But why was that the worst case? We weren’t a thing. We wouldn’t be a thing. And yet, the air still felt charged around him. Like one spark and we’d go up in flames.
He parked in the lot and I got out, waiting for him by the hood.
“Do you have a girlfriend?” I blurted when he came to a stop beside me, hands in his Carhartt jacket’s pockets.
He looked like I’d hit him with a bat. “What?”
I gestured to the phone tucked into the inner pocket of his jacket. “Was that your girlfriend texting you?”
His mouth twitched. “Jealous, Park?”
I could see the hint of amusement on his face.
This was just what I needed—a reason for him to tease me.
“No. I’m only curious so I know not to—” I snapped my mouth shut.
His growing smile was downright devious. “Know not to what?”
My hands did some weird, extremely awkward movement through the air before I stuffed them in my coat. “Nothing.”
He pressed his lips together like he was holding in a laugh, and I scowled.
“Stop that.”
“You want to know if I have a girlfriend.”
I let out a growl of frustration—yes, a growl, because Beckham made me lose all sense of humanity. “Yes! I want to know. Happy?”
“Very.”
I waited for his answer, rolling a piece of lint between my fingers as I did. But then he turned and continued toward the door.
“Aren’t you going to answer me?”
He grabbed the handle, pulling it open, and faced me. “No. I don’t have a girlfriend. Haven’t in ten years.”
Well, if the cold hadn’t sucked the air from my lungs, that sure would have.
“Oh.”
God, why was I always speechless around him? One answer and the past was slamming into me over and over again, a blaring red sign screaming, Warning! Your pregnancy hormones already have you acting crazy, and now you’re hanging out with the one guy that makes you literally crazy. Beware!
He gestured to the shop, and I forced my feet to move, slipping past him into the heated lobby.
Had he slept with anyone since me? And if he had, why did I feel a pang of jealousy at that thought, when we both knew damn well I’d slept with someone?
I wasn’t purposefully trying to be celibate over the years, but when all I did was travel from ranch to ranch, helping out old cowboys and tough women, I didn’t have much time for flings.
“Have you slept with anyone? Since we parted?” I mentally cursed myself after the question slipped out. Where the fuck had my boldness come from today?
None of this was my damn business.
“In terms of sex, no.” He stepped in behind me, letting the door fall shut, and started taking off his jacket. “But I’ve fooled around.”
I shoved the pinch of jealousy away. I had no right.
“Okay. Who was texting you?” I asked, and winced. Curiosity was my arch nemesis today.
He hung his jacket up on the rack, pulling his phone out from the inside pocket. He clicked on the screen, squinting down at it. “Lettie. And Brandy. Sage.” He scrolled a little more. “Bailey. Oakley.”
“So, everyone,” I surmised.
He nodded, locking the phone and shoving it back in the pocket. His smirk had me knowing what was coming next. “Why so many questions this morning?”
“Just trying to catch up,” I chirped.
He blinked a few times, likely waiting for me to add anything of value to that poor explanation. When the silence stretched, he said, “They want to see you.”
“When?”
“If they had it their way, it’d be now. But I want you to do this on your timeline, not theirs.”
I took a steady inhale. I was eager to see everyone again, and their new partners, but I knew what came with seeing people from the past. It wouldn’t only bring up the good, but it’d dig up the bad, too.
All those times I joined them for dinner and fought back tears because we never had nice meals at my house.
When I’d broken my arm, and Charlotte hadn’t hesitated to pay the medical bill.
“Tonight?” I offered. No matter what, I’d have to relive what I’d left in Bell Buckle. I might as well nip it in the bud before I could think about it too hard.
Beckham studied me like he might be able to read whether I was looking for an out. I wasn’t. “You still want to go to the ranch for this?”
I nodded. I missed that place.
“Just don’t go to the bar,” Wyatt said, his sudden appearance causing me to jump. Beckham seemed to track my reaction before we both faced Wyatt where he was coming in from the back door.
“Why not?” I asked. “Something happen to Outlaw’s Watering Hole?”
Beside me, Beck’s teeth ground together. “Wyatt.”
“He’s got a drinkin’ problem, ya know.” Wyatt sat in his chair, swiveling it around and shaking the mouse to wake the computer.
“What?” My eyes flew to Beckham to find him stiff as a board.
In my periphery, Wyatt seemed to freeze. “Shit, Beck. I thought she knew. She’s got your baby and all, so I thought—”
Beckham raised a hand, stopping him.
The room was suddenly tense, the air too thick.
“I’ll just leave you two to it.” I didn’t look to see Wyatt leaving the way he’d come. The sound of the door shutting was the only indication he’d left.
Beckham turned my way, but I couldn’t read his expression. Guilt? Concern?
“Parker—”
“Were you going to tell me?”
“Tell you what? There’s nothing to tell.”
“A drinking problem, Beckham! That’s a pretty big fucking deal.”
“I had a drinking problem.”
“That doesn’t just go away overnight.”
“I quit drinking, so yeah, it does.”
“Why?” I had no idea why I was mad; I only knew that I was.
It felt like he’d been hiding it, even though I hadn’t been around to know about it in the first place.
All those years, so many things happened, and I knew none of it.
The reminder of all that lost time stung, making me more upset than I should’ve been.
“It got that bad you had to full-on quit?”
He ran a hand over his jaw. “I had a wake-up call, so yes, I chose to quit.”
My eyes widened. “A wake-up call? What does that even mean?”
“I punched my brother.” His tone was flat, like there was no emotion inside of him aside from a hint of regret.
“You what? Which one?”
“Reed.”
That was the last name I’d expected. Reed and Beckham always got along growing up, despite making everything a competition. What the fuck had changed in the last ten years?
Not only had he turned to alcohol, but it had gotten so bad that he’d punched his own brother?
What the hell was happening?
I tore my hands through my hair, spinning around to face the wall. I silently counted to ten.
Beckham knew my dad was an alcoholic. Knew how bad he’d gotten. He knew all of that, and yet that was how he’d chosen to end up.
“Parker. Take a breath.”
I spun on him. He’d come closer, only a foot separating us now. “Tell me why you did it.”
He looked ashamed of himself, and that had me nearly breaking. “I was mad.”
“Because of the alcohol,” I filled in.
“No.”
“There’s no other reason, Beckham!”
“Yes, there is.”
“Then tell me.”
Pain washed over his features like a waterfall, and he was trying not to drown in the current. “Park.”
“Tell me, Beckham.” I swallowed back the knot in my throat. “No secrets, remember?”
“Fuck, Parker. Because of you!” He ran a hand over his hair, fingers digging into his scalp. “Because Reed brought you up to get a rise out of me, and it worked.”
My lashes fluttered, processing what he’d said. “Why would you punch your own brother over me when I hadn’t been here in years? You didn’t even know if I’d be coming back.”
He laughed, though it held no humor. “Don’t you get it, Parker?” He stepped closer. “I never stopped thinking about you. Every fucking day, I wake up, and I think of you and—” He cut himself off, but I tried not to look too far into why. Who else did he think of when he woke?
“It’s always because of you.”
I shook my head. “My dad—” I choked out.
“I know.” He grabbed both my hands, cradling them in his own like I was the most fragile person on this planet.
“I know, Parker. I was in a really dark place. Reed helped me. My family helped me. I’m getting better every day.
I’m never drinking again. You will never go through anything like that again. ”
Despite it all, I believed him. Beckham had never lied to me, and I had to trust that was the one thing that hadn’t changed over all these years.
“Promise me,” I whispered, unable to muster more than that.
He moved even closer, our clasped hands grazing both our stomachs now. “I promise.”
“Are you okay?” I asked, because I couldn’t not worry about Beckham. Even hundreds of miles apart, I worried about him.
He lowered his head, placing his forehead to mine, and nodded. “I’m okay.”
And that was enough.
It always was.