Twenty minutes later, he signaled that they were taking the exit off the freeway. He checked his rearview mirror to see if Erika was paying attention, and she was, following his truck and trailer off the highway and down along a frontage road, and then down another road until he pulled in at a motel, and parked in a spot on the side where his long white trailer could fit without being in anyone’s way.
While Erika stretched her legs, Billy checked her in, using his credit card to pay for the room, and then carried all of the baby’s things in to the room at the end of the hall on the ground floor. The room had a little patio with a view of the parking lot and Billy’s trailer. “I’m going to find food,” he said. “Do what you need to do. I should be back soon.”
“Take the key,” she said. “Just in case I’m in the shower.”
Billy tried not to dwell on the image in his head of her in the shower. He didn’t want to picture her naked. Didn’t need physical desire to complicate things more than they already were. By the time he returned, she was sitting on the bed, giving Beck a bottle. Beck was in his jammies, and she was in comfortable sweats, her long hair wet, her face scrubbed clean.
“Success,” he said, placing the paper bag filled with chicken sandwiches between them. “Three for me, two for you. No fries. Trying to be good.”
Erika laughed. “You have an interesting definition of being good.”
“Fries are fattening.”
“And breaded chicken isn’t?”
“I like my chicken crispy. None of that pitiful grilled breasts for me.” He dropped into a chair, and extended his legs. “I’m hungry,” he said, tucking into the first sandwich.
They ate in silence, the only sound besides crinkled foil wrappers was Beck greedily sucking on his bottle.
Billy watched Beck work his bottle, his little brow wrinkled with concentration.
His baby. His kid.
Crazy.
Amazing.
Amazing that Erika had figured it out.
He waited until she’d finished a sandwich to let her know that the DNA results had come in, and that they’d confirmed what she’d said—Beck was his.
For a long minute Erika said nothing. “Are you surprised?”
He gathered the crumpled paper bags and foil wrappers. “Not really, no,” he said, tossing them into the motel’s waste basket.
“But you fought the truth—”
“I didn’t fight anything. I just needed time to come to terms with the fact that I had a baby. A baby who’d been alive for months without me ever knowing anything about him.”
She put Beck up on her shoulder and began burping him. “It sounds as if you’re turning things around. Blaming April.”
He arched a brow. “You don’t think she should have told me?”
“Maybe she did. Maybe she wrote to you, or called, or sent you a message through Instagram. Maybe you ignored her—”
“I didn’t.”
“Maybe you’d blocked her.”
Yes, he had blocked her. On his phone and on Instagram. She wouldn’t stop sending him selfies of her naked. Titty pics. Bikini waxed privates. It was uncomfortable, especially once he was seeing other women and she wasn’t taking no for an answer. “There were other ways she could have reached me, especially if she wanted to tell me about the pregnancy. She just needed to say there was a baby—”
“And you would have believed her?”
His jaw ground tight. Erika saw far more than he’d like her to see. “Probably not without a paternity test, no.”
“What did she do to make you so mistrust her?”
“You weren’t in touch with her for the past few years. You yourself said you’d lost touch with her. I don’t want to be unkind, but the April I knew wasn’t the April you remember. The April I knew craved attention, and would do anything for attention, and not just from me, but from a number of guys.”
Erika looked at him for a long moment, expression guarded. “Why weren’t you surprised that Beck was yours when the test results came in? What changed your mind?”
He hesitated a long moment. “Mom had said he looks just like me. She said she knew he was a Wyatt the moment she met him.” Billy shifted in the chair, propping one boot over the other. “Mom doesn’t tend to exaggerate about things like that.”
“You never told me.”
“I wanted my proof. I’m a hard facts guy, and I needed the paternity results to confirm everyone’s suspicions. This is one of those things you need to test, prove.” He shrugged, shoulders shifting. “Which I now have.”
“And the test results change everything. Right?”
“I wouldn’t say they change everything, but things will be different.”
“How?”
“I’m Beck’s father.”
“Okay. So you’ll settle down and raise him? You’ll stop putting your life in danger—”
“My life isn’t in danger.”
“Every time you compete, you’re risking your life.”
“Gross exaggeration.”
“I’ve read the statistics. The rodeo is dangerous.”
“Life is dangerous. I could get hurt in a car accident just as easily. Look at April—”
“Yes, look at April. She’s gone. Do we really need you gone, too?”
“Can you not jinx me? I try to avoid negative thoughts like that.”
“It’s called being mature and facing reality.”
He rose and scooped up his hat off the round table. “Well, I don’t like your reality. It’s pretty bleak, if you ask me.”
*
Erika winced as Billy left, closing the door firmly behind him. After he’d gone, she stared at the door a long moment, unsure of how she felt. On one hand she was elated that she’d been right. Billy Wyatt was Beck’s dad. But on the other, she was troubled that April hadn’t ever told Billy. She’d had nine months of pregnancy to let Billy know, and even if Billy had blocked her number, April wouldn’t have found it difficult to track him down. Erika didn’t know him and she’d still managed to find him, in three different places, three different weekends.
She rose from the bed, locked the door, and closed the curtains at the window, aware that in the end, what April did, or didn’t do, wasn’t important anymore. April wasn’t here. But Beck was, and Billy was, and father and son were finally together, the way they were supposed to be.
*
Erika had gone to bed feeling almost euphoric. She’d united a father and son and she’d be able to start getting caught up with her work. Billy would be able to take Beck for a good part of each day, giving her time for some undisturbed writing. The great thing about a laptop was that she could work almost anywhere, including a small motel room off the freeway.
Unfortunately, the next morning Billy got a call that Tommy’s truck broke down a couple hours east of Idaho Falls, and Billy was needed to collect Tommy’s trailer with the horses while Tommy had his truck towed to an auto shop. But instead of returning to Boise that night, Billy stayed with Tommy in Idaho Falls, and it was late Wednesday before they arrived in town, with Tommy’s truck still in the shop, waiting on a part from Salt Lake City.