Wyoming Cowboy Sniper. Nicole Helm
was in her bed.
No Delaney man was naked in her bed, in the middle of her apartment above her mechanic shop. She looked to the left. There was her little kitchen, the hall with the bathroom door. She looked to the right, at the door to the stairs down to the shop, and in that line of vision was clearly a man.
As she blinked at that shape of a man next to her, it was Dylan’s dark eyes that widened and sharpened. It was every gorgeous plane of Dylan Delaney’s face that went very, very hard.
Vanessa closed her eyes tight, counted to ten in a whisper. It had to be a dream. It had to be an alcohol-induced mirage. It had to be anything but the truth.
But when she was done counting, Dylan was still there.
“Apparently bad dreams do come true,” Dylan said, his voice all delicious rough gravel.
Get yourself together. Nothing about Dylan Delaney is delicious.
She watched, horrified, really she was horrified and not intrigued at all, as he flung the covers—her covers—off of him and stood, clearly having no compunction about being naked in her room.
With jerky movements, he pulled on his pants from last night. Last night. She’d...
“You can’t tell anyone.” If she’d been feeling better she would have kept that inside. Ignored the panic and held on to the upper hand. But she was dying, and she’d apparently slept with Dylan Delaney.
She remembered nothing. Nothing about last night beyond the wedding ceremony where her rough-and-tumble brother had promised himself forever to goody-two-shoes Laurel Delaney. A cop.
Beyond that, everything got fuzzier and fuzzier until...
Best kiss of your life.
Ha! She’d been drunk. How would she have known?
Dylan gave her one smoldering look—enough her heart started pumping overtime and her whole body seemed to blaze with heat. She could almost, almost picture them together, feel his big rough hands on her—
But Dylan Delaney, a bank manager, did not have rough hands. She was hallucinating. And was that a tattoo on his chest that disappeared as he pulled his shirt on and began to button it?
“Who on earth do you think I’d tell about this horrifying lapse in judgment?” he said disgustedly.
It didn’t sting, because she felt the same way. Except lapse in judgment was way too tame. Catastrophe of epic proportions was more appropriate.
A catastrophe she would also blame on Grady, because if he hadn’t married a Delaney, she wouldn’t have gotten drunk enough to sleep with one.
Dylan was now completely dressed, and she was still naked in her bed. Naked.
“We’ll both forget this ever happened,” Dylan said. No. He demanded it, like she was a peon to be ordered about. But even she couldn’t work up contrariness at his tone when this had happened.
“I don’t even know what happened. We didn’t really...” But he’d been naked, and she was naked so...
“I don’t remember either. So we’ll just say we didn’t.”
“But—”
“We didn’t,” he said firmly, patting down his pockets. “I have my wallet. No keys.”
“Surely neither of us were stupid enough to drive.”
“Surely neither of us were stupid enough to have someone drive us together anywhere.” He sighed, running an agitated hand through sleep-tousled hair. He did not look like his normal slick self. He was disheveled and...
Appealing.
No, not that.
“Hate sex is a thing,” she blurted, feeling unaccountably out of control and nervous. Which did not make any sense, but she couldn’t seem to straighten herself out. It had to be the hangover and all the booze still in her system.
He scowled, and Vanessa didn’t understand why her eyes wanted to track the small lines around his mouth or note the way dark stubble dotted his chin where it had been smooth last night.
There was something compelling about him. She’d admit it now and regain some of her control. They were polar opposites, and sometimes when polar opposites got drunk enough, they ended up attracting.
She’d swear off alcohol for the rest of her life right here, right now.
“Hate sex is not a thing. Not for me it’s not.”
“Apparently for drunk you it was.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’m leaving. We’ll never speak of this again. And if anyone saw us...”
“We lie,” Vanessa supplied for him.
He seemed startled by that word, but what else was there to do?
Eventually, he gave a sharp nod. “Through our teeth.” He turned and strode out her apartment door.
Vanessa stared at the ceiling, hoping she never, ever remembered what had transpired and willing herself to forget about it for good.
Four months later
Vanessa Carson was not a coward. In her entire life, she’d never backed down from an insult, a challenge or a fist. She’d faced all three of those things practically since she’d been born, and yet none of it held a candle to this moment.
She sat in the driver’s seat of her ancient sedan in the back parking lot of Delaney Bank. She preferred her motorcycle but... Without thinking the movement through, she placed her hand over her stomach. It was starting to round, just a little bit. No one else would notice, but she could tell. It wouldn’t be long before other people would be able to tell, as well.
The morning sickness had been hell, but it seemed to dissipate more every day. She’d taken to eating better, and she’d sworn off alcohol for different reasons ever since that night. Her doctor said she and baby were healthy as a horse.
Luckily, she was surrounded by clueless men for the most part, so no one in her life had any idea. She was convinced it was paranoia that on more than one occasion she’d caught her cousin-in-law or new sister-in-law staring at her with a considering gaze when she did something like eat a veggie plate or pass on another hit of caffeine.
Paranoia or not, she had to face the music before anyone actually put the puzzle together. Had to. Before the music told him itself.
You are not a coward.
She repeated those words with every step toward the bank. She had never once stepped foot in Delaney Bank, would have rather chewed her own arm off—or simply driven the twenty-plus minutes to Fremont whenever she needed a bank.
But this wasn’t about asking for a loan or sullying the white halls of such an upstanding establishment run by the Delaneys. It was about the very unfortunate truth.
She was going to have Dylan Delaney’s baby.
For a few weeks she’d considered running away. Disappearing. Grady would likely try to find her, with her cousins Noah and Ty not far behind him. But it would have been possible if she’d played her cards right. Eventually, they’d have given up on her. Maybe.
But Bent was her home. Her life. Her mechanic shop was everything she’d built her life on. She’d paid in blood, sweat and tears for it. She wasn’t ever going to let a Delaney scare her into running away.
Your baby is half Delaney.
She