“She sounds like a wonderful lady.” Mary Karen picked at a loose thread on the tablecloth. “Nowadays so many men—and women—think parenthood is too much work, too much of a hassle.”
“You’re speaking about your ex.” Joel surprised Mary Karen by briefly covering her hand with his. “The man was a fool, Mary Karen. One day he’ll wake up and realize that the freedom he wanted so badly wasn’t worth all he gave up.”
She’d actually been thinking of Travis rather than Steven, but she readily agreed both were fools. Raising three little boys might be challenging at times, but she adored them. She wouldn’t trade her chaotic life with them for anything. And, she was certain once this new baby came she’d feel the same way about him. Or her.
Yet life as a single parent wasn’t a cakewalk. In fact, most days it was downright tough. And the loneliness … She wasn’t sure she’d ever get used to being single in a world of couples. A heaviness wrapped around her heart, the thought of going it alone for the next twenty years was incredibly depressing.
Mary Karen pushed the last few bites of her pie around the plate with her fork for several seconds, then lifted her gaze. “Do you think you’ll marry again?”
Joel sat back.
Heat shot up her neck. Dear God, what must he be thinking?
“I’m sorry.” She raised both hands, palms to him. “I’m just curious. I’m not shopping for a husband. Honest.”
He laughed. “Don’t apologize. Even if you were, I’d be flattered.”
“But I’m not—”
“No worries.” He shot her a wink, and the tenseness in her shoulders eased.
Yes, Joel was a very nice man. It was too bad she wasn’t attracted to him. Not that it mattered. Once she was divorced and raising four small children on her own, there would be no time to date.
Mary Karen smoothed the front of her shirt with the flat of her hand. At least Joel still had options.
“So, will you?” she asked. “Marry again?”
Joel shrugged. “If I find the right woman. But she’ll have to love not just me, but my daughter as well. Chloe and I, we’re a package deal.”
“As it should be,” Mary Karen murmured almost to herself, thinking of her boys. “Any other way wouldn’t work.”
“Any other way would be out of the question.” Joel’s firm tone told her he’d given this matter a lot of thought. “Can you imagine what it’d be like to be a child growing up in a home with a stepparent who wished you weren’t there?”
“You’re right.” Mary Karen slanted a glance in Travis’s direction and sighed. “It would never work.”
Chapter Three
The sun hung low by the time Travis left the table. With Kate still tagging along, he wandered to the back of the large yard to check out the elk refuge. The familiar rugged landscape of green and brown with the mountains in the distance did little to soothe his jagged nerves. He couldn’t get the sadness in Mary Karen’s eyes out of his head.
It didn’t help knowing he was to blame. What had he been thinking? He should never have agreed to give Kate a lift to the party.
If the pediatrician weren’t glued to his hip he could be with Mary Karen right now. Assuring her that she had absolutely nothing to worry about. Confirming that once they completed the annulment papers, what happened in Vegas would forever stay in Vegas.
Oddly, Travis found the thought bittersweet. He remembered how close he’d felt to her the night they’d said their vows. A closeness that had more to do with their friendship and shared history than the mind-blowing sex.
Kate slipped her arm through his, yanking him from his reverie.
“It’s beautiful here.” Her eyes turned surprisingly somber.
“David and July do have a nice yard,” Travis agreed.
“I don’t mean just the yard—although it is lovely.” Kate slanted a sideways glance in his direction. “I mean Jackson Hole. It’s magnificent.”
Travis settled his gaze on the land he loved so much. While some people thought of his birthplace only as a place to ski, he knew that was only the tip of what Jackson Hole and the rest of Wyoming had to offer. He casually untangled his arm from Kate’s and hooked a boot in the lower rung of the fence. “There’s no place like this on earth. Leaving this state was the hardest thing I ever did.”
Kate lifted a dark brow. “Why did you?”
Although he’d been old enough to strike out on his own, he’d refused to walk away from his brothers and sisters. Which meant he had to go with them. “I didn’t have a choice.”
Kate wrapped her arms around herself as if suddenly chilled. “The feeling—that you don’t have a choice—is awful.”
Travis nodded.
“You went to school in Nebraska, right?”
“I did.” Travis spent almost a decade in Omaha. “Great education. Nice people. Awesome college football team. Still, those years seemed endless.”
“Medical school and residency are definitely not for the faint of heart,” Kate agreed.
Travis chuckled. “School was easy. It was everything else that was hard.”
Like the time his sister Margaret had been rushed to the hospital with appendicitis the morning of his Anatomy-Physiology final. She was still in surgery when he’d been called to the high school because his brother Zac had been suspended for fighting.
Kate’s gaze grew puzzled. “I don’t understand.”
He considered making a joke and changing the subject. That’s what he usually did when someone asked about his family or something related to his past. But for some reason, he felt like talking tonight. For it all to make sense, he had to start at the beginning.
“Shortly after I graduated from high school, my parents died in a car accident.” Without even realizing what he was doing, Travis dropped into the monotone he used whenever he spoke of his parents’ deaths. “Their will made it clear they wanted my uncle in Omaha to raise us if anything happened to them. But Len was a lot younger than my mom and still single. He wasn’t sure he was ready for the responsibility.”
“I’m sorry about your parents.” Sympathy filled Kate’s eyes. “Since you went to school in Nebraska, I assume your uncle finally came around?”
He nodded. “We convinced him that all he had to do was provide the house. My sister Margaret and I took full responsibility for our brothers and sisters.”
Travis settled his gaze on a herd of bison in the distance and tightened his fingers around the fence post. Prior to his parents’ deaths his life had revolved around girls, sports and school. Taking on so much responsibility at such a young age had been a huge change. But he’d seen no other option. “If Meg and I hadn’t agreed, Len wouldn’t have taken us in and our family would have been split up. My brothers and sisters would have been thrown into the foster-care system.”
Kate tilted her head. “How many siblings do you have?”
“Seven.”
“No way.”
The shock in her voice made him smile. He lifted a hand and pulled his fingers together in an almost-forgotten gesture. “Scout’s honor.”
Kate’s brows pulled together. “I can’t imagine how you made it through college and medical school