Jill Kemerer - Reunited With The Bull Rider

Amy headed down the staircase to the meeting rooms. The low hum of male voices quickened her pace. What would the girl look like? Would they hit it off right away? And would the dad be cute?

Cute? Really, Amy? Who cared what the father looked like? A romance would be inappropriate given the situation. And, anyway, she’d been scorched at love twice. She would not put her heart on the line again.

The hallway walls were filled with pictures of kids doing crafts at previous vacation Bible schools. Excitement spurred her forward. Life was falling into place. Business was booming at her quilt shop, she’d finally gotten up the nerve to submit a portfolio of her fabric designs to several manufacturers and now this! She’d never intended to remain single, but that’s how life had worked out. Helping this little girl would ease the longing in her heart for a child of her own.

She peeked into the preschool room. Hannah Moore, the pastor’s wife, was standing next to their toddler son, Daniel, and a young girl.

It’s her!

Dark blond hair cascaded over the girl’s shoulders. She looked woefully thin under a purple sweater and striped leggings. Amy couldn’t see her face, but she stood stiffly near Daniel, who was pushing a toy dump truck on the colorful ABC area rug. As much as Amy longed to join them, she continued toward the door at the end of the hall where Pastor Moore was waiting with the father.

Entering the conference room, she greeted the pastor then turned her attention to the man sitting at the end of the table. Her stomach plunged to her toes, the sensation worse than the roller coaster incident in eighth grade.

No! This can’t be... He can’t be...

Her knees wobbled to the brink of collapse. Unable to hear a word the pastor was saying, she shook her head, her gaze locked on familiar blue-green eyes. Every instinct screamed for her to run, to get out of there, to make sense of the fact Nash Bolton was in the room.

Nash. The man she’d loved completely. The one she’d thought she’d marry. The guy who had left town over a decade ago—no goodbye, no explanation. The jerk who had never come back.

It hit her then... The little girl she’d been asked to unofficially mentor?

His daughter.

She was having a nightmare. She’d wake up and be in her bed under her favorite quilt—

“Thank you for meeting us tonight,” Pastor Moore said.

It wasn’t a nightmare. And yet it was.

She blinked a few times and sat in the nearest chair, forcing herself to focus on the pastor’s face. In his early thirties, he had a kind air about him.

“Sure.” She hoped her lips were curving into what could pass as a smile.

Pastor Moore gestured to Nash. “Amy Deerson, this is—”

“We know each other.” Nash’s deep voice was firm, and its familiar timbre unlocked memories she’d thought long gone.

She dared not look at him. Couldn’t handle whatever she would find in his expression. Regret? Sarcasm? Pity? Didn’t matter—her feelings for him were dead. She’d been over him for a long time—years and years. The shock of seeing him had sent her into a tizzy. That was all. In a few minutes, she’d be fine.

“Good.” The pastor took a seat opposite her. “I’ve had such a strong feeling about you helping little Ruby.”

Ruby. The girl’s name was Ruby.

“Amy has been training for several months to be a mentor. She’s passed her background checks and is willing to devote the extra time you mentioned Ruby needs. And with none of our other trained mentors available to help at this time, well...it seems ideal. With your permission, I’ll tell her about Ruby’s situation. Or would you like to?”

Nash brought his fist to his mouth and cleared his throat. He looked older, his face harsher than she remembered. And he’d filled out. Still wiry, but with more muscles in his arms and chest. Gone was the young cowboy she’d loved. In his place was a chiseled man.

Their past flashed back. The day they’d met. Their first kiss. His big grin and slicing sense of humor. The future they’d planned. Oh, how her heart had overflowed for him. And then he’d disappeared, leaving her devastated.

And now he was back. And she—out of all the women in this town—had been asked to spend time with his child when all she’d wanted was to marry him and be the mother of his babies? God, You wouldn’t be this cruel. This is a joke, right?

“Pastor,” Nash said, “could you give us a moment, please?”

“Of course.” He stood. “I’ll see how it’s going in the preschool room. Be back in a few minutes.”

Amy straightened. She wanted to look away but didn’t. It had been ten years. She’d moved on. And the fact he had a daughter made it quite obvious he had, as well.

“I didn’t know, Amy. I never would have agreed to come if—”

“If you’d known I was involved.” She hated how snippy she sounded. And that his full lips and high cheekbones still made her chest flutter. His cropped brown hair gave him a maturity his previous waves had not. The laugh lines around his eyes were a kick in the gut. He’d been carefree, rising to the top of the professional bull riding circuit while she’d nursed a broken heart. And he hadn’t cared one bit.

He hadn’t loved her.

He’d loved someone else and had a baby with her.

“So, she’s your daughter.” She was surprised she wasn’t yelling at him.

“No.”

No? What was he talking about?

“She’s my little sister.”

“I know that’s not true,” she snapped. “You’re an orphan.”

“Yeah, about being an orphan.” He shifted his jaw. “Not quite.”

* * *

Nash had known moving back to Sweet Dreams was dumber than climbing on the world’s meanest bull while recovering from a broken rib, but he’d done both anyway. The bull hadn’t been nearly as scary as the thought of running into Amy. He’d been in town a mere week and already his worst fear had come true. Except this was even worse than running into her. This was...horrible...beyond bad.

He’d loved Amy more than anything on earth. That’s why he’d had to leave all those years ago—to protect her.

But now another female needed his protection. He would give Ruby all the love and normalcy he’d missed out on as a kid, and if it meant living in the same town as Amy, so be it.

He just hadn’t planned on running into her this soon. In fact, he hadn’t put any thought into what he’d do when he eventually did run into her, which was inevitable in a small town.

How could he tell her everything that needed to be said in a few minutes? It was hard to concentrate with her big coffee-colored eyes shooting knives his way, not to mention her long dark brown hair tumbling over her shoulders, reminding him of its silkiness. Creamy skin, curvy figure—she looked even better than when he’d left, and she’d been a knockout back then.

“What do you mean, ‘not quite’?” Her clipped words told him loud and clear how hard this was for her. He owed her...so much.

“I wasn’t an orphan. I lied to you.” It had been the only lie he’d told her. And it had torn them apart. She just didn’t know it.

“I see.”

He hesitated. “The pastor will be back soon, so I’ll give you the condensed version. My mother had me when she was fifteen years old. She was a drug addict and, at times, a prostitute. She told me she didn’t know who my father was—could have been any number of guys. I haven’t seen or talked to her in over ten years. In December I got a call saying she’d died of a heroin overdose. That’s when I found out I had a little sister.”

The chaos of the past four months gripped his muscles in relentless tension. He shrugged his shoulders one at a time to relieve it, which didn’t work. Amy stared at him with a mix of disbelief and disgust.