The Maverick Meets His Match (Hearts of Wyoming Book 2)(91)

Despite her exhaustion, sleep would elude her tonight, she knew, as it had for the past few nights since Ty’s announcement. Tomorrow she had an appointment with the doctor. If he confirmed the pregnancy, she would tell her mother.

And then she would have to tell Ty. She’d have to speak to him. To be in the same room with the man who had betrayed her and everything she stood for.

And why did her traitorous heart speed up at the thought of seeing him? Maybe it was just the baby sending her a signal of some sort.

“What kind of daddy will he be to you?” she wondered aloud as she swept a hand gently over her tummy. “You will always have me, baby, to lean on. I promise you that.”





*


It went against every rational argument. And still Ty did it.

“Now what?” Brian asked as he looked over the papers set before him.

“Now I tell Mandy.”

Brian leaned forward on the desk, his hands pressing down on the polished surface as if bracing for the worst.

“Will she even speak to you?”

Ty shook his head. “Hasn’t since she stormed out of the meeting. Hasn’t returned my calls. Hasn’t come into the office. Hell, it’s like a morgue in there. No one wants to get within ten feet of me, it seems. Karen, JM’s former assistant, is as frosty as a freezer. Guess they are all waiting for the official ax to fall.”

“You know, given you voided the provision by not sleeping in the same room with your wife, you would have had another six months at least as head of Prescott if you hadn’t done this. You might have been able to work it out with Mandy and avoided taking this step. It’s a lot of money just to make a point.”

Ty braved a smile. “It’s the right point to make. And I’m hoping for more than just her agreement.”

“JM has a letter he wants read to both you and Mandy at the end of the six-month period. I could call a meeting about it, and you can tell her the news then?”

Ty shook his head. “I think I’d best do this in private. If I have any hope of getting through to her, of convincing her to stay married to me, I think it has to be just her and me.”

“You thought about how you are going to get her to meet with you? She’s stubborn. Like her grandfather.”

How well Ty knew. He’d already tried every way he could think of to get her to see him, but she’d refused to acknowledge he even existed. He realized he needed to enlist some help. Not an easy thing when everyone treated him like a leper.

“I think I’ve got it covered. If I don’t, you can be the backup plan.”

Ty picked up his hat from its resting place on Brian’s desk and secured it on his head. If everything went as he hoped, maybe he could have it all.





*


Mandy turned into the sparsely graveled driveway and noted the house looked as tired as it had before, despite the money Ty had reportedly made available to Trace. But at least the barns looked repaired, and there were cattle in the nearby pasture and two cowboys on horses trailing behind a bunch being moved to another corral.

The place didn’t exactly look prosperous, but it did look like it was moving in that direction.

She’d been surprised to get Trace’s call asking her for help in interviewing a housekeeper and caregiver for Delanie. He wanted a woman’s perspective, and his neighbor, it seemed, was out of town. How could she say no? Or tell him she and Ty were no longer a couple, since Ty had obviously not spoken to his brother, yet.

In fact, if not in deed, she was still married. Mandy had been determined not to file the divorce papers until she knew for certain she was pregnant, and her pregnancy had only been confirmed that morning. And, then she would have to tell Ty first.

Not that she wanted to face Ty. If she could have kept it from him and still looked herself in the mirror, she would have. But her child deserved to know its father.

Something to deal with another day.

As she closed the car door, a little figure came running out of the house, letting the screen door slam behind her.

“Aunt Mandy,” the little girl called as she ran toward her, the child’s lissome legs, clad in denims, moving at the full throttle of four-year-old speed.

Mandy’s heart crumbled into little pieces like a dried leaf under a tire. How and when would she tell this special little girl she was no longer Aunt Mandy? At least Delanie would have a cousin. Mandy could give the little girl that.

Mandy scooped Delanie into her arms and gave her a hug, breathing in the sweet scent of baby shampoo as she nuzzled her. “What a wonderful greeting,” Mandy said as she kissed the little one’s cheek.

And so unlike their first encounter. That psychologist Trace had found through Ty’s connections was surely working wonders.

“The meeting is there.” Delanie pointed to the house. “Daddy’s going to take me riding while you talk.”

Odd, Mandy thought. She had expected to interview the applicants with Trace there.

“Where’s Daddy now?” she asked.

“Inside. They both are.”

Mandy looked around for another car, but there was none visible. Perhaps Trace had picked up the candidate in town and brought the woman out to the ranch house. And was there only to be one? Trace had made it sound like there would be several applicants lined up.