The cold air felt good after the overcrowded, smoky atmosphere of the Honky Tonk. The night was clear, the stars bright. Delaney leaned against the outside wall and opened her mouth to tell Conner exactly what she thought, but then Josh and Mary came out and she said good-night to them instead.
“What’s the matter?” she asked Conner once they were gone.
The light from the windows of the Honky Tonk was too dim to read much of his expression, but Conner didn’t look happy.
“Nothing,” he said. “Everything’s fine. It’s just getting late.”
“Late? It’s not even midnight. The Honky Tonk doesn’t close until two.”
“I’m ready to leave,” he said.
“I’m not.”
Shoving his hands in his pockets, he walked to the edge of the porch, pivoted and came back. “Well, you shouldn’t be drinking. It’s not good for the baby,” he said.
“I’m not drinking. I’ve only had soda water. I’d never do anything to endanger this baby.”
He hesitated. “Secondhand smoke isn’t good for the baby, either.”
Where was he going with this? “Conner, Rebecca always smokes outside the house. So the only time I’m around secondhand smoke, even hers, is here, and I come maybe twice a month. I don’t think that puts me in a high-risk category.”
“Why do you want to stay here, anyway?” he suddenly demanded. “So you can dance with Curly and Moe in there?”
“That’s Billy Joe and Bobby, and they happen to be friends of mine.” She pushed away from the wall and went to sit on the bench that seated the Honky Tonk’s overflow on warm summer nights. “And I’m having fun. You don’t have a problem with that, do you? Because I’m finding your reaction a little strange. You’re my employer.”
“I’m also the father of your baby.”
“What does that mean?”
“That’s what I want to know!” He leaned on the railing facing her, but where they were was even more shadowed than by the door, and she had a hard time figuring out what he was feeling. He seemed upset, frustrated, but when she’d left him at the ranch he’d been fine. Why the change?
“I can tell you what it doesn’t mean,” she said. “It doesn’t mean you can order me around or decide where I go or when I leave.”
“This is crazy,” he said. “I have no rights where you’re concerned. If you want to dance with someone else, you’re free to do so. If you want to go home with someone else, you’re free to do so. Yet you’re walking around with my baby inside you.”
“I already told you, I’m not going to do anything to endanger this baby! I’m amazed you care so much about it. You’ve been angry ever since you found out.”
“It’s not just the baby,” he said.
“Then, what?”
He frowned. “It just doesn’t seem right that you can take off with any guy you want.”
“You have the same freedom I do,” she argued.
“Maybe I don’t want it,” he said, then straightened as though he was surprised by what had come out of his mouth. He tried to correct himself. “I mean, of course I want my freedom. I just…”
“Don’t want me to have any?” Delaney supplied.
“No, that’s not it. I realize that wouldn’t be fair. But—” he paused, grimacing “—oh, I don’t know. If you stay, what are you planning to do?”
“Nothing!”
“Then what’s the big deal about leaving?”
“You’re the one who’s having a problem.” She thought about going home just to please him. He was obviously worked up about her staying. And she’d brought this whole baby thing on herself. But she couldn’t see any point in giving him that kind of power over her, didn’t like where it could lead. Whether she stayed at the Honky Tonk or went home shouldn’t matter to him. She’d just gone through three of the most miserable months of her life, and tonight, for a change, she wasn’t sick. She wanted to be with her old friends and pretend she hadn’t destroyed the life she knew—before Rebecca got married and moved away and everything became irretrievably different.
“This conversation isn’t making sense,” she said.
He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, and after another pause, said, “You’re right. I don’t know what I’m saying. Go inside and have a great time.” Then he strode off into the darkness.
Delaney heard his truck start, watched his headlights swing around as he drove out of the lot, and wondered why going back inside suddenly seemed so much less important than it had five minutes earlier.
DELANEY SAT AT THE TABLE, no longer interested in playing darts or dancing or anything else. Rebecca and Billy Joe and Bobby badgered her about her abrupt change in mood for the first half hour or so, but Delaney couldn’t forget the frustration on Conner’s face, couldn’t release herself from feeling responsible for his confusion and anger.
Eventually Billy Joe took a bathroom break and Bobby wandered off to play some pool, leaving Delaney and Rebecca alone at the table. “Delaney, he was in the wrong, so forget about it, okay?” Rebecca said.
Delaney rested her chin on her fist. “I’m the one who started all this, Beck. I feel terrible.”
“I told him he can walk away if he wants to, that you want him to walk away.”
“I don’t want him to walk away.”
“Then, what do you want?”
At this point, she wasn’t sure. She’d altered her life and Conner’s, and even Aunt Millie’s and Uncle Ralph’s, with one night’s irresponsible behavior. But there was no changing things now. And sometimes, when she thought about the baby, she knew she wouldn’t go back even if she could.
“I want to go home,” she said. “Can you get a ride?”
IT FELT GOOD TO BE HOME in her own bed, in her own room, and yet Delaney couldn’t stop thinking about the ranch. Rebecca had stayed at the Honky Tonk, promising to catch a ride with someone sober, but she wasn’t home yet, and Delaney found it odd to be completely alone. She was so used to Conner being somewhere in the house, just a few rooms away. She thought about the times she saw him throughout the day—when he was freshly showered in the morning, with his hair wet and curling slightly around his ears; when he was heading out to work, wearing his jeans, boots and cowboy hat; when he came in for dinner, looking tired and dirty but still appealing, always appealing; at night, when he buried himself in his office and his jaw was just beginning to show dark stubble after a long day. The moment she’d realized Conner was Clive’s grandson, she’d expected him to be lazy or incapable of doing the work required of a cowboy. But from what she’d observed, he cared about the ranch, worked hard and was quickly gaining the respect of the other ranch hands. Even Roy, who hadn’t been the least bit happy to have Conner at the Running Y, now seemed to admire him more than anyone else did. Except, perhaps, some of the ladies who’d seen him at the Honky Tonk tonight.