Trish Milburn - The Rancher's Surprise Baby

How could she feel so different from when she’d gotten up that morning? She was the same person with the same job, the same home. And yet as she sat there, there was no denying that something had changed within her sometime since she’d looked up at the sound of her car being crunched.

And she wasn’t sure what she was going to do about it.

* * *

WHEN BEN REACHED the porch of his family’s home, his sisters were sitting in two of the rocking chairs in the dark.

“Thought maybe the mountain lion had eaten you,” Sloane said.

He leaned against one of the porch supports. “Glad to see you were so concerned you decided to lounge out here with a glass of lemonade.”

“What? I’ve got two other brothers.”

“Sloane!” Angel said and kicked at her older sister’s foot.

“What? He knows I’m just giving him a hard time.” Sloane looked over at him. “Seriously, though, did you find the mountain lion? I’m not about to bring any more kids out here to camp in tents if it’s still running around.”

“I didn’t see him, but there were tracks. He’s not a small animal.”

“Did you follow the tracks in the dark?”

He shook his head.

“Then where have you been all this time?” The teasing crept back into Sloane’s voice.

He considered brushing off her question, but that would just make her more persistent, like a dang mosquito buzzing around his ear, determined to draw blood. Better to tell her the truth. Well, partial truth. He wasn’t about to tell anyone about his unexpected reaction to Mandy, how he’d dang near kissed her as they’d hidden from Greg. She’d felt so good in his arms. Warm, soft, full of a zest for life.

“You remember that time Greg got me in trouble in high school?”

“How could I forget? Those pictures were epic. I thought Mr. Kushner was going to pop a vein.”

“Mandy may have given me a way to finally get some payback.”

“Okay, now I’m intrigued,” Sloane said.

He told them about the wrongfully delivered pink streamers and how Mandy had suggested they wrap Greg’s truck in them and how he, in an evident moment of insanity, went along with it. He mentioned how they’d almost been caught but skipped right over how he’d held Mandy in the dark, feeling her soft curves and her chest rising and falling against his, how he’d experienced the almost irresistible urge to drop his mouth to hers.

“I’d give good money to have seen Greg’s face when he saw that truck,” Sloane said.

“Heck, I’d settle just for seeing the truck.” Angel laughed.

Ben pulled out his phone and scrolled to the photo Mandy had sent him then extended the phone to Angel.

“Oh, my, that’s awesome,” she said before handing the phone to Sloane.

Sloane snorted. “I cannot wait to tease Greg about this.”

“Don’t tell him who did it.”

“I won’t, but probably half the town knows about this by now. People are probably hopping in their cars to cruise by to see it.”

“He may have it all off by now.”

“Trust me, a fair number of people would have gone to gawk before he managed to remove all that. You and Mandy did an excellent job.” She shook her head then looked up at him. “One thing I don’t understand, though. How did that prank on Mr. Kushner even come up in conversation?”

He shrugged as he took his phone back. “Don’t remember how we got on that topic.”

“Nice try but you’re lying.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Yep, you are, and I’m going to figure out what you’re hiding.”

“You live to annoy people, don’t you?”

“Side benefit of being part of a big family.”

He shook his head in annoyance. “Good night, Angel.”

Sloane just laughed as he headed inside. He wished he’d gone straight in when he arrived instead of confessing what he’d been out doing. This day just needed to end before the house caved in on him.

* * *

MANDY DRANK THE last bit of coffee in her cup as she stared out the window over her sink, which gave her a good view of the driveway. She wasn’t normally an anxious person, but waiting for Ben to arrive had her fidgety. She’d only been able to eat a piece of toast. There was probably a trip to Mehlerhaus Bakery in her future about midmorning.

She recognized how crazy it was to have a fear of morning-after awkwardness when it really wasn’t a morning after. There’d been no sex. Not even any nakedness.

No! She did not need to think about Ben and being naked. Not when he would be arriving any minute.

It had taken her forever to fall asleep the night before, but she’d had the hope that she’d wake up and feel perfectly normal this morning. That all the unexpected attraction to Ben had simply been an odd side effect of the crazy day before she’d had. Ha! The attraction had followed her into sleep, where she’d had dreams about things that could have happened in that darkened corner next to Greg’s shop if he hadn’t come close to discovering her and Ben.

Mandy’s face flushed and she splashed it with water for the umpteenth time that morning. Good thing she was a minimalist when it came to makeup—it only took her about thirty seconds to reapply it.

The sound of Ben’s truck sent her heart into overdrive. That was it. She would call Greg when she got to work and tell him she needed her repaired car, like, yesterday.

She dumped the last dribbles of coffee into the sink, rinsed the cup and placed it on the counter. After a deep, calming breath, she grabbed her purse and headed outside. She didn’t give him time to get out of his truck, stepping up to the passenger door as soon as he came to a stop.

“Good morning,” she said with perhaps too much enthusiasm as she pulled herself up into the truck.

Ben looked across the cab at her, the area between his brows furrowed. “You always this peppy in the morning? If so, I’m going to have to rethink my offer to drive you to work.”

“Grumpus.”

He just growled at her and proceeded to back out of the driveway.

“I appreciate you taking me to work. You won’t have to again. I’m calling Greg today to tell him I really need my car back.”

“I don’t mind,” Ben said as he pulled out onto the road. “I just didn’t sleep well.”

A pang of guilt hit her. “I’m sorry I dragged you out last night.”

“No need to apologize. It was actually the best part of my day.”

The guilt in her middle got shoved aside by a zing of excitement. Acting normal would be so much easier if he didn’t say things like that, even if he didn’t mean it in the way she’d like him to.

“Admittedly, it only had to clear a really low bar,” she said.

“True. Still, I wish I could have been a fly on the wall—or in the tree, I guess—while he was removing all those streamers.”

Mandy smiled at that image in her mind. “Heaven help us if he finds out we did it.”

She fidgeted when the conversation died. Normally, she didn’t have trouble chatting away with people whether they were friends, casual acquaintances or complete strangers. But the buzzy feeling she’d gotten around Ben since the previous day had her second-guessing everything she might say. The fact that it was still hanging around this morning after a night of sleep and several hours away from him had her feeling equal parts antsy, thrilled and confused. How could you go basically your whole life knowing someone without feeling more than a passing knowledge that he was good-looking and then one day, whammo, your heart rate refused to behave itself around him?

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