Page 37 of Forbidden Cowboy

The hug looked uncomfortable, with Anna slowly wrapping her arms around her mother, and Eliana tightening a vice-like grip on her daughter. Over Anna’s shoulder, Eliana looked at me. She had won, and she knew it. If Anna was going to ask her to stay, I certainly wasn’t going to kick her out.

I walked away from the two of them, knowing Anna would follow if she felt uncomfortable, back into the kitchen.

“Whatever that is,” I said, walking up next to Sierra. “It smells amazing.”

“It’s just a barbecued version of the leftover steak we had last night. Everything smells good if you slather barbecue sauce on it.”

Sierra was stiff, as she usually was if Eliana was in the house.

“Are you okay?” I asked, placing a hand boldly on the small of her back.

I felt her skin jump underneath her shirt at the contact, and I saw something guilty cross her face.

“Of course, I am,” she said with a falsely bright smile.

“If you want to talk about it, you know I’ll always make—”

The kitchen timer over the stove where she was working went off with a shrill ring, and like a spell had been broken, Sierra moved away from the point of contact I had created. She put distance between us, and didn’t quite meet my eyes when I looked at her.

“Dinner’s ready,” she said. “I’ll plate it up if you can ask Anna to set the table?”

Anna did so, with my help, and then, once again, we were all sitting around the kitchen table. Eliana made smart remarks about how we could be using the dining table, the nice one that was meant for company, and I chose to point out that both Anna and I preferred the old farmhouse table in the kitchen. We weren’t about to put on airs and pretend we were more or less than we were. Especially not for Eliana. She could take us as is, or leave. I wanted her to leave.

Sierra stayed quiet through dinner, which wasn’t unusual for her these days, and as soon as the meal was over, she excused herself. The sound of the front door closing hurt my heart, but I knew she was going to the hospital to sit beside Beau.

I stayed behind in the house, trying to get Eliana out before it was Anna’s bedtime.

* * *

The next day, I made a point to talk to Sierra.

She was on the deck, lounging on an Adirondack chair as she oversaw Anna, who was muttering to herself as she played some sort of imagination game in the pool.

“How’s Beau doing?” I asked.

She jerked when she heard my voice and gave me an almost accusatory look for scaring her.

“He’s okay, I guess,” she said. “Making small improvements every day now, and honestly, if that’s what’s going to happen, I’ll take it. I don’t need any big miracles.”

I nodded. “That’s good to hear.”

“Yeah.”

“Are you okay?” I asked, and I knew it was going to get repetitive if I kept asking her the same questions all the time, but I wanted to know.

I genuinely cared for her, and if there was something bothering her, I wanted to be able to help.

“Things are just a lot right now,” she said. “It’s great that Eliana is back and taking an interest in Anna, but I’m constantly worried for her, you know? Anna’s been hurt before. I don’t want that to happen again. I think thinking about it has had a weird effect on me as well—I’ve just been really tired all the time, and bloated, too.”

She pressed a hand to her belly with a frown, and I looked down where she was still sitting. An intrusive thought crossed my mind, her being pregnant with my child, her living here, every dinner being a happy and calm affair. No Eliana, Beau healthy, Anna happy. I shook the thoughts out of my head. It was no good thinking about things like that.

“Is there anything that can help?” I asked, taking a seat next to her.

“Not really. It’s great that Eliana wants to be in Anna’s life, and I would never want to take that away from her. Also, this is your house, your home, and obviously you get to decide who comes and who goes.”

“I don’t ever want you to think that this being ‘my house’ doesn’t make it your home as well. I would hope you think of this place like your home away from home, if you will.”

“I do,” she said quietly, her hand massaging her stomach.