Montana Sheriff

As if he could.

There was something about Cole’s mouth when it quirked that way …

Belatedly, Ronnie realized that her breath had backed up in her throat. Clearing it, she began to move away. “Um, I’d better be getting back. My dad’s going to be wondering what happened to me.”

Aiming her keychain at her car, she pressed the button. The vehicle emitted a high-pitched noise and winked its lights flirtatiously as all four of its locks stood up at attention.

Cole glanced at the dark car, unimpressed. “He’d probably think that fancy car of yours broke down somewhere.”

Ronnie narrowed her eyes. Well, he wasn’t going to make her feel guilty because she’d bought a car that she had secretly fantasized about ever since she’d hit her early teens.

With a toss of her head, she informed him, “It’s a very reliable car.”

His mouth quirked again, this time a half smile gracing his lips. It was obvious he didn’t believe her. “If you say so.”

“I say so,” she retorted as she slid in behind the car’s steering wheel. Yanking the door to her, she shut it. Hard.

She knew she had to go before she found herself suddenly caught up in an argument with Cole. It was all too easy to do, and the last time that had happened, Christopher came along nine months later.

Christopher. The little boy was the absolute light of her life.

After pulling away from the curb, she glanced in the rearview mirror. Cole was still standing there, in the street, arms crossed before him, and watching her drive away.

God, the man was just too handsome for her own good.

And when he finds out you never told him about Christopher, he’s going to be one hell of an angry man.

No way around that, Ronnie told herself, sighing as she drove back to her father’s ranch.

Think about it later, she ordered herself. Right now, she needed to touch base with both her father and her son before she drove down to Helena to see Wayne in the hospital. She had too much to do to let herself get bogged down in her thoughts of what could have been and what, in actuality, really was.

One final glance in her rearview mirror, one last glimpse of Cole, and then she focused her eyes and her attention on the road before her.

But her mind insisted on remaining stuck in first gear. With Cole. And their son.

There were a lot of reasons why, six years ago, she hadn’t told Cole she was pregnant with his baby. Right now, she was damn sure that he wouldn’t accept any of them, but that didn’t change anything. Certainly didn’t change the fact that she knew she was right in doing what she had.

She knew Cole, knew how honorable he was, and how very, very stubborn he could be. If she’d told him about the baby, he would have insisted on marrying her and at the time, marriage hadn’t been in her plans.

Neither was having a baby, but there was nothing, given her convictions, that she could do about that—other than what she’d done. She adjusted and found a way to deal with it, the same way she did with everything else. Consequently, she had her baby and also went on to get her education. All she had to do in order to accomplish that was give up sleeping. Permanently.

Cole, if he’d known, would have insisted that she stay in Redemption instead of going off to college. Would have pointed out how much better it was for the boy to grow up in a place like this town rather than in a large city.

She could see the scenario unfolding before her as if it was a movie. She would have given in and stayed in Redemption. And every day she would have felt a little more trapped than the day before. And a little more resentful that she’d been made to stay.

Leaving Redemption hadn’t been an easy decision for her, even before she’d known she was pregnant. Part of her would have wanted to take the easy way out, would have wanted to stay here because, after all, this was where her family was.

And this was where the only man she’d ever loved or would love was.

But a part of her craved to explore the unknown, desperately wanted to spread her wings and fly, to see how far she could go if she pushed herself. She didn’t want to live and die in a tiny corner of Montana because she had no choice in the matter. If she decided to live in Redemption, she wanted it to be by choice, after having experienced an entire spectrum of other things—or at least something else. She didn’t want to become one of those people who died with a box full of regrets.

Didn’t she have them anyway? Not having Cole in her life had made for a very large, very painful regret. But then, nobody had ever said that life was perfect and any choices she made of necessity came with consequences.

Besides, she was happy.

Or had thought she was, Ronnie amended. Until she saw Cole again.

“You still did the right thing,” Ronnie said out loud to herself, her voice echoing about the inside of the sedan.

If she’d told Cole that she was pregnant, there was no question that he would have married her. The question that would have come up, however, and would continue to come up for the rest of her life was would he be marrying her because he loved her—really loved her—or because it was the right thing to do? The right thing to give his name to his child and make an honest woman out of her so that there would never be any gossip about her making the rounds in Redemption?

Ronnie knew she wouldn’t have been able to live with that kind of a question weighing her down.

What she’d done was better.

Not that Cole would ever see it that way.

But that was his problem, not hers, she thought, pushing down on the accelerator.

COLE WATCHED HER CAR BECOME smaller and smaller until it disappeared entirely, then he went back to his office on the next street.

He’d barely sat down at his desk after muttering a few words to Tim—the overly eager deputy he’d hired last year after Al St. John retired—before the door opened again and his mother walked in.

Midge James was a lively woman, short in stature but large of heart. Over the years she’d gone from being exceedingly thin to somewhat on the heavyset side. But each time she tried to make a go of a diet, her husband Pete, Cole’s father, would tell her that she was perfect just the way she was and that he really appreciated having “a little something to hang on to.”

Eventually she stopped trying to get down to the size where she could fit back into her wedding dress. She figured if she was lucky enough to have a man who loved her no matter what her size, she should just enjoy it. And him. So she did.

As she walked in now, Cole saw that his mother was carrying a basket before her. A very aromatic basket that announced it was filled with baked goods—muffins most likely—before she even set the basket down and drew back the cloth she’d placed over the top.

“Something wrong, Ma?” Cole asked as he started to rise to his feet.

“Sit, sit, sit,” Midge instructed, waving her hand at her son in case he hadn’t picked up on her words. “Nothing’s wrong,” she assured him. “Why?” she asked. “Can’t a mother visit her favorite son without there being something wrong?”

Cole’s lips curved in a tolerant smile. “I’m your only son, Ma.”

“Makes the choice easier, I admit,” Midge responded, punctuating her statement with her trademark cherubic smile. Crossing to his desk, she placed the basket smack in the middle. “Just thought you might like a snack.” She pulled the cloth all the way back. Beneath it were at least two dozen miniature muffins. “They’re tiny. Makes it kind of seem like you’re eating less,” she explained, one of the many diet-cheating tricks she’d picked up along the way.

Glancing at the deputy who was eyeing the basket contents longingly from where he sat, she assured him, “There’s enough for you, too, Tim.”

She didn’t need to say any more. Tim was on his feet, his lanky legs bringing him to Cole’s desk in less than four steps. And less than another second later, he was peeling paper away from his first of several muffins. His eyes glowed as he bit into his prize.

“Good,” he managed to mumble, his mouth filled with rich cake and raisins.

Midge beamed. “Glad you approve, Tim.” She pushed the basket closer to her son. “Have one, Cole,” she coaxed him.

Cole eyed the contents and then selected a golden muffin. There were also chocolate ones and he suspected several butterscotch muffins in the batch, as well. His mother never did do things in half measures.

“Not that I don’t appreciate you trying to fatten me up, Ma,” he said, “but why are you really here?”