Page 33 of His Texas Claim

I didn’t have a response to that.

“You may have gotten me pregnant two nights ago,” she said. So damn blunt. It was irritating and refreshing all at once. “I’m not going anywhere, and you don’t get to disappear on me now like this was nothing.”

“Didn’t say it was nothin’.”

“You’re acting like it. You watched your father do something ugly and now you’re shutting down. This why a handsome man like you is still single?”

“That supposed to be funny?’

“A little. Is it working?”

“No.”

“Well it was worth a shot.” She crossed her arms, taking a step toward me—not backing down an inch. “Talk to me, Stetson. Actual words. You’re good at those when you try.”

I looked at her—mud dried into the creases of her knuckles, hair a mess from three days on the creek, standing on Millie and Gage’s porch refusing to let me off easy.

“Might’ve made you a promise I got no business keepin’,” I said finally.

“What promise?”

“To be a decent father if you wanted that.”

Her scowl hardened.

No pity.

"That's what this is about."

"Watched him tonight. Watched exactly what kind of man makes a kid without carin' what it costs anybody. Don't know what parts of that I'm carryin' around."

“And you’re just going to go home alone and never find out?”

“Better that than hurt a child.” I set my jaw. “Or you.”

“You think you’re not hurting me right now?”

“Don’t know. Just know I don’t wanna find out I’m him twenty years too late.”

She actually laughed at that. It made my chest ache and I couldn’t pinpoint exactly why.

“Oh my god.” She threw her hands up. “You’re doing the thing.”

“What thing?”

“The martyr thing!” She took another step closer. “Where you decide what’s best for both of us without asking me, because apparently your feelings matter more than mine right now.”

“That’s not⁠—”

“It’s exactly that. You’re standing on this porch deciding to disappear on my behalf, like I don’t get a say in whether I want a broody cowboy overthinking himself into perpetual loneliness.” She poked me in the chest so hard it made me rock backward. “I did not fall into your creek, get carried through your family’s front door, and let you put a baby in me—possibly—for you to bail the second things get complicated.”

“Bryn—”

“No, I’m talking.” She still wasn’t backing down, her hands on her hips again. Buck watched the whole thing like a tennis match. “You’ve spent this entire trip being the most careful, controlled, watch-everything man I’ve ever met. And the one time something actually scares you…your solution is to run off and be alone with it? That’s not caution, Stetson. That’s a coward’s move dressed up as nobility.”

I lowered my voice, fixing my eyes on her. “Watch it, Bryn.”

“I’ll watch it when you stop being foolish,” she said, no more than a few inches away now. “You want to know what your dad actually does that makes him him? He doesn’t think about anyone but himself. That’s it. That’s the whole rotten core of it. And right now, standing here, deciding unilaterally to walk away from a woman who might be carrying your kid because it’s easier than sitting with your own fear? That’s the most selfish thing I’ve seen you do all week.”