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All kinds of terrible scenarios reared up in her head, and they weren’t making the phone call she had to make any easier.
She tried to shove those thoughts aside and focus on all the positive things.
Maybe she’d wowed him with her prowess and he was too intimidated to try to call her again but was secretly hoping she would.
She laughed out loud. That was positive thinking, possibly, but more likely it was just comedic thinking, but it made her laugh.
Regardless, laughter eased some of the tension inside of her, and she mentally shrugged her shoulders. What was going to happen? He was going to tell her it was a terrible night and he didn’t want to have anything to do with her? All right. She could handle that and move on with her life.
Except, the idea made her a little sad. Ryan wasn’t that shallow, first of all. But second, she didn’t want to think that they were incompatible. She knew she didn’t think that way. And she couldn’t think of a man that she would rather have as the father of her child.
The biggest problem was she was ashamed of her sin, which was the real reason she didn’t want to make the call.
It took thirty minutes of brushing Goldie before she was calm enough to pull her phone out of her pocket and call the number she had memorized.
It rang so long she thought he wasn’t going to answer. But then, his familiar voice came on the phone.
“Dakota?”
“Ryan.” She sounded breathless. She hated that. She swallowed, took a breath, trying to sound calm. She couldn’t lead off with, “I’m pregnant, and it’s yours,” so she tried to think of something else to say. “How are you?”
“Good. You?”
He didn’t sound the slightest bit welcoming. How was she going to be able to tell him about the baby? Did she want to if he was going to be unfriendly and cold? She already knew he wasn’t going to be happy about that. He obviously wasn’t happy about what they’d done. He’d never been this off-putting to her before.
She had just taken a breath to tell Ryan straight out the reason that she was calling.I’m pregnant.
Two little words she needed to say, but she just couldn’t seem to push them out, and then through the phone, she heard, “Ryan? Put the phone down and pay attention to me.”
It was so close the woman’s mouth had to be right next to the mouthpiece on his phone. Which meant she was standing close enough to Ryan to be touching him, holding him—Dakota glanced at the time—waking up with him.
Her stomach flipped and spun and curled and flinched, and she could hardly breathe.
“Sorry. I didn’t realize you were busy.” She somehow managed to push the words out, but she knew she sounded gutted. That was exactly how she felt. She couldn’t pretend otherwise. She hadn’t realized that she had such feelings for Ryan. She should have known, when she ended up in bed with him, that there was more to it, because alcohol or no, she wouldn’t end up like that with just anyone. But the idea of him with someone else, waking up with someone else, holding someone else, she could hardly stand it.
“Yeah. I gotta go.”
Was that regret in his tone? Disgust? She wasn’t sure.
“Marry me, Ryan?” she said, hating the desperation in her voice, but at the same time, the words shocked her. She was supposed to be telling him she was pregnant, not asking him to marry her.
“You’re not serious.”
“Yes. I am. Please. Marry me?” She wanted a father for her baby, needed someone, didn’t want to do this by herself. She didn’t know how to raise a child. She knew about horses, riding them, barrel racing, that was what she was good at. Kids? She knew nothing.
“You know I’m not ready to get married. I want to earn a back-to-back championship.”
What could she say to that? She tried not to cry. She couldn’t help it. But now she knew how he would react to her news—he wouldn’t want to have anything to do with her or her baby.
And more than that, if she told him, and if he felt honor bound to marry her, he would forfeit the possibility of winning again and would lose the money he could earn from sponsors next year, and she’d basically be blowing up his entire life.
Unless she handled this herself and, in the process, set him free to be everything he was destined to be.
“Sorry.” She didn’t know what else to say.
“Yeah. I’ll see you around.”
“But—” Her voice broke off. He hadn’t even entertained the idea of marrying her. Acted like she wasn’t even serious.
