A Cowboy to Marry by CATHY GILLEN THACKER Read Free Book Online Page B

worse about dragging him into the situation, and dumping all her problems on him.
    â€œI never thought less of you.” He wrapped his arms around her shoulders and pulled her close. “My heart went out to you that night,” he murmured against the top of her head. “You’d just lost Percy a couple of months before, and when you thought you were having his baby, you had such joy.” His warm breath touched her ear.
    In an effort to shield her eyes from his probing gaze, she let her head rest against his chest. “And guilt, and a million other things,” she whispered as a flood of tears pressed hotly behind her eyes.
    He brought her closer yet, one hand moving down her back in long, soothing strokes. “Why guilt?”
    Maybe it was time she began to unburden herself. And who better to tell than Holden, who had his own regrets?
    Fighting the overwhelming sadness she felt whenever she thought of all that preceded and followed Percy’s tragic death, she looked him in the eye and took another halting breath. Finally, she asked what she had never dared voice before. “You don’t know the real reason Percy insisted on taking that trip to South America, do you?”
    â€œHe said it was to cheer me up after my divorce was final,” Holden replied in a low, gravelly voice.
    Libby dabbed at the moisture beneath her eyes. “Well, that was part of it,” she said finally, drawing back.
    He brought her back into the curve of his strong arms. His touch was more brotherly than anything else, despite their earlier flirtation with passion. “And the other…?” he murmured.
    Libby struggled to get her emotions under control.“Percy and I had been arguing about starting a family. I really wanted a baby.”
    Holden nodded, his grip tightening protectively.
    â€œBut Percy didn’t.” The tears she had been doing everything to block flowed anyway.
    Holden frowned.
    Libby pressed on the bridge of her nose to keep more tears from falling. “He already felt tied down.” She gulped and forced herself to go on, get it all out. “He felt he had gotten a raw deal. Inheriting the responsibility for the family business years before he was ready to assume it. Having the woman he married turn out not to be so adventurous and wild at heart, after all. The last thing Percy wanted was the responsibility of a child. Not then, he said, maybe not ever.” She shook her head, remembering that last awful fight. “I was devastated.”
    Holden exhaled. “And angry, I’m guessing.”
    She forced a watery smile, then she dabbed at her eyes again. “Very. The presumption that we would have children, if for no other reason than to carry on the Lowell name and bloodlines, had always been there.”
    She looked up at Holden, wanting him to understand. “Suddenly…with the death of his parents—and the absence of that familial pressure to produce grandkids—there was no reason in Percy’s mind to go forward with a family at all. So he scheduled the trip with you to Colombia, and that was that. There was not going to be any more discussion about it when he came back.
    â€œI was so angry and disappointed I didn’t even kiss him goodbye before he left.”
    And then he had died….
    Leaving her with even more to grapple with.
    Holden shook his head. Swore softly. “Libby. I had no idea—”
    She held up a hand. “I know—no one did.” Feeling calmer now, she pulled away. “Anyway, that’s why I had such a crazy mix of emotions when I suspected I might be pregnant after Percy died. I was happy about the baby, but knew he wouldn’t have been. It felt like a miracle and a lifelong burden of guilt, all in one.”
    â€œStress can do funny things to a person’s body.”
    Libby nodded, appreciating Holden’s attentiveness, even as she warned herself not to get too used to