A COWBOY'S PROMISE Page 12

  "She was fine," he agreed. "You'll have to ask Cait, but it seems like it's just one of those things."

  "Cait says that teenagers have more premature births."

  "Do they have more trouble delivering?"

  "I think they can." Maddie swiped a strand of gray-blond hair out of her eyes. "But Angie's healthy. She's strong." Now it was her turn to reassure him.

  "She'll be fine," he agreed, as if it were a mantra, even as he prayed it would be true. "And so will the baby."

  When Cait came out, her gaze went directly to Maddie. Charlie might as well not have been there. "She's doing well. Not having a lot of contractions yet, though she's dilating and the cervix is effaced. Still, it will be a while."

  Maddie had questions for Cait. Charlie left them to it. He remembered his own time in the hospital all too well—and he knew what it was like to sit there, as the patient, while people talked about you outside the room. It had irritated him. He was pretty sure it would scare Angie.

  She was still pale, but she looked a little less panicky now. "Cait says everything is coming along fine," she told him. There was a thready nervousness in her voice which implied that she wasn't sure Cait was right, but she was hoping.

  "That's what she told us," Charlie said firmly. He came to stand right beside her, and when her hand moved restlessly on the sheet, he took it in his. Her fingers curved around his and clung.

  They stayed like that for a long while. Neither spoke. Angie hung on. Charlie stayed where he was. His leg hurt. Every now and then he shifted his weight. But he never left, never gave her any indication that he was in pain.

  When Maddie finally came in, she said briskly, "Get a chair, Charlie, and get one for me while you're at it."

  When he did, she pulled the chair he brought over by the window away from the bed and took out her knitting. "This is supposed to be a baby blanket," she said, lifting the pastel bundle and settling it on her lap. "I'd better hurry. I've got a lot left to knit."

  "You don't have to stay," Angie said to her.

  Maddie looked up over her half glasses, startled. "And why wouldn't I stay?"

  Angie flapped her hand vaguely. "You're tired … you've got the stock to take care of." She hesitated as if she might say more.

  But Maddie forestalled her. "They're not more important than you," she said dismissingly. "I rang Taggart Jones before we left. He'll send some fellows over in the morning to see to things." She smiled. "It's the beauty of good neighbors. They come through for you."

  Angie looked at Charlie. He could see in her face what she was thinking—that she'd never had neighbors like that. Until Chase and Joanna, neither had he.

  He gave her hand a squeeze. "You've got 'em now," he said.

  She smiled faintly, then pressed her hand—and his—against her abdomen. "Feel it?"

  It was startling almost, the way it tightened like a drum skin right beneath his fingers. It made his eyes widen. "Whoa."

  "Yeah." She ran her tongue over her lips. "You were gonna tell me … tomorrow … tonight," she corrected herself, "about you."

  "Right." Charlie stretched and shifted again. "No time like the present. Besides, what else have we got to do?"

  He wasn't used to talking about himself—wasn't comfortable doing so. The less people knew about him the better he liked it.

  He'd only shared himself with Chase and Joanna and their family, the Cavanaughs and a few other close friends. He'd only shared part of himself with Cait.

  He'd been too careful in those days, too wary of his own vulnerability. He hadn't wanted anyone to really know him. Cait had come as close as anyone, even though he'd held a lot back from her. He could see now why she didn't trust him.

  How could you trust someone who didn't trust you?

  Love meant sharing, he realized. It meant opening up and being vulnerable—at least to the people you loved.

  He started to tell Angie. He didn't hold much back. It would be good practice, he thought, in case Cait ever let him talk to her again.

  He told her about his father, about his mother, about Lucy. He told her about Chase and Joanna—how they'd pretty much saved his life.

  "They wouldn't see it that way," he said. "But they don't know how close I came to falling right over the edge."

  "Sometimes I think I'm falling over the edge," Angie whispered. Her eyes locked with his. Her lips were trembling.

  He pressed her fingers between his. "You won't," he promised. "You won't if you don't let go. I won't let go of you."

  But even as he promised, he knew the helplessness that Chase and Joanna must have felt. They had thrown him lifeline after lifeline when he'd been a teenager, but they'd never been able to make him hang on.

  Ultimately he had to want to—he'd had to respond, to reach out to them. He had—barely.

  He'd been afraid to do more. He'd been afraid to let them adopt him.

  What if they'd died like everyone else he'd ever loved? What if somehow it had been his fault?

  That was, he realized, the reason he'd run from Cait. To save himself, yes—but also to save her and Resi.

  Like he was somehow responsible for all the world's pain.

  He wasn't. He could only do his best. He gave Angie a lopsided grin as she tensed with another contraction.

  "They're getting stronger, Charlie."

  "Okay," he said, "let's go to work."

  Five hours later it was time.

  Cait checked on Angie frequently, but she didn't want to hover. It was her experience that laboring moms liked to have her nearby but not standing over them. It made them feel as though she was impatient and waiting to get on with it, and that it was their fault if nothing was happening.

  And besides, there was Charlie.

  Cait didn't want to be there with Charlie.

  She hadn't wanted to call him. She hadn't wanted to see him. She'd told Angie they would do fine without him.

  But Angie had insisted. "He said he'd help. He said he'd be here! He promised!" And with each sentence she grew more panicky and strident until Cait had had no choice but to call.

  She didn't know if he'd come. She rather wished, for her own sake, that he wouldn't.

  Of course he did.

  She expected that he'd agreed to it so he could bother her some more, but it didn't take long for her to see she was wrong. She kept well away from him, of course. But for once he didn't pursue. His focus was entirely on Angie.

  And before it was over, she had to admit it was a good thing he was there. He kept Angie steady. He kept her focused. He kept her calm. He talked to her almost nonstop in low, gentle tones that were so soft Cait couldn't really hear what he said even when she was in the room. And Angie listened intently to whatever it was he had to say.

  When things began to speed up, when the contractions got stronger and labor more intense, he moved up behind Angie and let her grip his hands, all the while still talking to her, murmuring, steadying, encouraging, getting her to do what Cait needed her to do.

  "I can't!" Angie cried at one point. "Oh, God! Oh, God! Oh, God!"

  "Take it one breath at a time," Charlie said. "Work with me, Ang'."

  And Cait could see their hands locked together, their gazes locked together. She could see in Charlie the man she'd once believed he could be—the man she'd wanted to marry.

  But she had a baby to deliver. She couldn't let herself think about that.

  "One more push, Angie," she said. "When you start to feel the contraction, go with it. Okay. Now. Push. Push!"

  The girl grimaced, her sweat-streaked face red from exertion, her knuckles white from crushing Charlie's hands in hers. "I c-c-cannnn—I did!" she exclaimed as a wet squirming baby girl slid out into the world.

  Cait caught her, held her, marveling as always at this miracle of new life, at the tiny perfectly formed fingers and toes, at the dark eyes that blinked at her.

  Angie was crying, her body shaking with emotion and exertion. Maddie was beaming. "Oh
, isn't she lovely? Isn't she wonderful?"

  And Charlie was just staring, an expression of awe on his face. Then he dropped a kiss on Angie's forehead. "Good for you, kid," he whispered.

  Cait, watching, envied that kiss far more than she wanted to.

  Denver.

  She just had to get to Denver. That was what she told herself for the next twenty-four hours. Once she was in Denver—or even on the road—she would be looking toward the future, not the past. She would be seeing Steve, not Charlie.

  And all would be well.

  She kept telling herself that, counting the hours.

  She wasn't sure exactly when she knew it wasn't going to work. Maybe she'd known before she ever set foot in Steve's car Friday night.

  She'd jumped in eagerly enough, after giving her dad a hug and a kiss and the promise that she'd have lots to tell him Sunday night when they got back.

  She'd refused to see the look of worry that had crossed his face. He was just concerned about himself, she told herself. He just wanted her to look after him forever. Well, she couldn't. If she needed to, he could move to Denver.

  As for the weekend, she said blithely as she departed, "I'm sure Charlie will be checking in on you while I'm gone."

  She was sure he would be. She'd asked him to. She'd made a point of telling him she was going when she'd seen him in Angie's room this afternoon.

  She'd said, "Oh, by the way, if you could stop in and see Dad this weekend, that would be great."

  He'd blinked. Then his eyes had widened and he'd started to grin that heart-stopping Charlie grin, as if he thought she'd changed her mind and was going the long way round to say it.

  So ruthlessly she'd gone right on. "Because Steve and I are going to Denver tonight to look for a place to live."

  The grin had died, and she'd been pleased. It was an angry sort of pleased. She still felt angry.

  "Who's Charlie?" Steve had asked.

  "A new hand my dad hired," Cait said briefly. She was angry about that, too. She'd been dumbfounded when her father had announced that he was hiring Charlie.

  "Hiring Charlie?" she'd said in stark disbelief. "For what?"

  "To help out."

  "He's not a cowboy!"

  "He can dig a post hole well as most," her father said complacently. "And he's a damn good rider. He's got a good eye. Comes from takin' pictures, I expect. Don't matter. A feller's gotta start somewhere."

  Cait didn't see why Charlie had to start at all. He was a photographer, for heaven's sake, not some two-bit cow-puncher! He'd leave again in a few days. Please God he would leave before she came back!

  "You oughta be glad," her father said. "Gus said we need more help. Hell, sweetheart, you been sayin' the same thing yourself. Said you was overworked, you did. Needed more time for the hospital and the babies."

  "Yes, but—"

  "So, I hired Charlie, and now you got it."

  Hallelujah, Cait had thought grimly.

  But then she pushed thoughts of Charlie out of her mind. She breathed deeply. Steve stepped on the gas and they drove away.

  Cait watched the ranch recede in the rearview mirror and then, resolutely, she looked ahead. She waited for the feeling of anticipation, of euphoria, to settle on her. It didn't come.

  Miles passed. They stopped in Billings and got a bite to eat, then forged on. The sun set behind them and they turned south on 25 and before long headed into Wyoming.

  Steve talked about Denver, about the new practice he was going to be joining, about the hospitals he'd be working at, about what neighborhoods would be nearby and where they ought to look for a place to live.

  Cait didn't say a word.

  She thought—about her father, about how hardheaded he was, how almighty stubborn. She thought about Angie and her baby. They'd checked out of the hospital today to go home with Maddie.

  Angie still didn't know what she was going to do. She needed to find Ryan, the baby's father and talk to him. Cait had made her an appointment with Martha, the social worker, who might be able to help. Cait had mumbled words about adoption, in case Angie wanted to think about that but was afraid people would think she wasn't brave enough to keep her baby.

  "Sometimes it takes a braver person not to," Cait had said. "You have to decide what's right for you and for … Charlene."

  Angie had named the baby after Charlie.

  Even Charlie had tried to talk her out of it, but Angie had insisted. "She's my baby," she'd said fiercely. "I can call her whatever I want. Her name is Charlene."

  But she called her Charlie. Cait had heard her. She'd cuddled the baby close and whispered, "I love you, Charlie," to her.

  Cait wondered which of them she was really talking to—the man or the child.

  She tried not to wonder much. She tried not to think about it. About him. About Charlie.

  But it was hard. The trip was long. She was only marginally interested in Steve's ramblings about his practice. She wasn't interested in Denver. She didn't care where they lived.

  Charlie, too, had held the child. He'd stroked her soft cheek with his finger, a look of pure awe on his face, a smile flickering, barely suppressed as he'd said softly, "You're a darn sight better looking than me, kiddo."

  She wasn't.

  No one on earth was better looking than Charlie. At least not to Cait. No one could make her heart zing the way he could just by walking into a room.

  Looks weren't everything, she reminded herself sharply. Looks really didn't matter at all.

  But it wasn't only Charlie's looks, the devil's advocate in the other side of her brain pointed out.

  She fought with it. She turned away from her thoughts and stared out into the blackness. Steve droned on.

  Cait thought about Charlie.

  She couldn't stop thinking about Charlie.

  Not that night. Not the next day. Not when Steve took her around the hospitals where he'd be working or to meet the doctors with whom he would be practicing. She tried to remember their names, tried to smile and be polite and friendly. But she felt disastrously out of place. Like her body was here, but her mind and heart were somewhere else.

  With Charlie.

  Damn Charlie!

  She didn't want to feel this way about Charlie. She didn't trust Charlie. He wanted her—he said he loved her—but what did that mean?

  It meant he wanted her in his bed. He wanted to be in hers. He wanted what they'd had in Abuk.

  He said he wanted eternity, forever with her—but how could she believe him?

  And why should she want to?

  She had Steve! She loved Steve!

  But equally, she knew she couldn't marry Steve—not when she was as mixed up as this. But she couldn't just blurt it out.

  It wasn't that she'd changed her mind—it was that she didn't know her mind! She only knew that she was a fool to be planning a huge wedding to one man when she couldn't get another one out of her head.

  So she kept her peace. All day Saturday she smiled and nodded and listened to the doctors Steve introduced her to and the hospital administrators they met. She did the same with Annette, the real estate lady who showed them through half a dozen condos and an equal number of houses.

  "What do you think?" Steve asked her.

  "What do you think?" Cait countered.

  "I want you to be happy," Steve said. "You decide."

  The real estate lady looked at Cait expectantly.

  Helplessly Cait shook her head. She couldn't blurt it out here, either. "I don't know. I think we need to … talk."

  That night at dinner she tried to find the words to say what she felt. "I think we ought to … hold up a bit," she said at last.

  "Hold up?" Steve looked mystified. "You mean about picking a place? Well, that's okay with me. You know that. I just thought you might not want to move twice. We can rent an apartment. I can call Annette back and—"

  "I didn't mean about the place. I mean about the wedding."

  Steve stopped,
his fork halfway to his mouth, and stared at her. "The wedding?"

  Cait shrugged helplessly. "I'm just … confused."

  "About me?"

  "No! Me! It's me," she said desperately. "Not you. It's just … I don't know what to do!"

  Slowly Steve shook his head. Lines appeared above his brows. "About what?"

  "About … life. About … love. About … what I want."

  It sounded so stupid, so shallow. She felt like a child—a badly behaved, selfish child. But what else could she say? It was the truth.

  "I've been so busy. I've been worried about my dad. I haven't had time to think. And now there's all this planning and I … just … I don't think I'm ready. Yet," she tacked on desperately.

  "Ah." Steve's brow cleared. "Yet." He smiled a little. "Prewedding jitters."

  "Yes!" Cait grasped the explanation eagerly. Then she shook her head. "Sort of." Because honesty required more than that. She didn't want to talk about Charlie, but she did want to let him know there was more to it than a few stray worries. "I'm sorry. I just … don't feel ready. And I can't get married until I do. Do you see?"

  Why should he? She wasn't making sense!

  But he nodded. "I think I do."

  She pressed her lips together in a moue of self-disgust. "I'm sorry. I didn't realize until we came. Then it became so … real. I—" She stopped. Then she began to struggle to pull off her engagement ring. "Here. You shouldn't be stuck being engaged to a woman who doesn't know her own mind."

  But he reached across the table and stilled her hands.

  "No." He shook his head and his eyes, cool blue eyes, steady blue eyes, smiled faintly. "Wear it."

  "But—"

  "Wear it," Steve said. "I want you to. You'll get yourself sorted out. And maybe is better than no."

  * * *

  Eight

  « ^ »

  "Been thinkin'," Walt said as they pushed several dozen head of cattle across a hillside, heading for lower ground, "'bout Vietnam."

  "Uh-huh." Charlie wasn't thinking about Vietnam. He didn't give a rat's ass about Vietnam.