Arlene James - Baby Makes a Match

“Better make up your mind,” he said to Bethany, “because I can’t leave those horses sitting out there in the heat any longer.” He looked down at her then, saying, “I’m harmless, I promise, but it’s up to you.”

Suddenly, she remembered what she’d been doing when she’d first caught sight of his rig. She’d been praying for a safe way to get to her brother, with a minimum of delay and hassle. Maybe, she thought, God had actually listened this time.

“I ought to call first and let someone know I’m coming.”

“Go ahead.”

Making her decision, she got to her feet. “Ma’am, Shug, could I use your phone?”

“Why, sure, hon.” The waitress handed it over, reaching for Bethany’s untouched plate with the other hand. “I’ll just wrap this up for you.”

The cowboy put out his hand. “Name’s Chandler.”

“Bethany,” she said, placing her hand in his. “Bethany Ca—” She stumbled over the surname. “Willows. Bethany Willows.” She still couldn’t help thinking of herself as Bethany Carter. That, however, was behind her now, and all that really mattered was getting to Garrett and finding a way to make a life for herself and her child.

Stepping away, she called for the first time the cell-phone number that Garrett had sent in his letter. She had not dared call before, with all that had been going on in her life and his, and she dared not bring it up now, for both their sakes.

After only a few seconds, he answered. Relieved to hear the sound of her beloved brother’s voice, she mentioned tentatively that she was coming to see him. He sounded elated and assured her that it would be no problem. She almost told him about the cowboy, but in the end, she decided against it.

Why worry him when he could do nothing about it, having only a motorcycle as transportation and a workday to get through? She wouldn’t impose on him too much or jeopardize the life he’d managed to put together for himself. Besides, she felt no threat from this Mr. Chandler. Maybe it was because he was so handsome, but if he’d meant her ill, why would he have let Shug take a photo of his license? Garrett, however, wasn’t likely to see it that way. Prison, she had heard, made a man suspicious.

Getting off the phone as quickly as she could, she passed it back to its owner, smiled her thanks and squared her shoulders before facing the stranger who had offered her a ride. “I’m ready.”

“Let’s get on the road. Next stop Buffalo Creek.”

“Uh, no,” she muttered, patting her belly, “I think we’ll be stopping before then.”

He just laughed and pointed her out the door.

Biting off a huge chunk of burger, Chandler chewed a few times and swallowed without ever taking his eyes off the road. He’d already made short work of the fries, preferring to eat them while they were hot.

“I guess Shug was right,” his passenger commented. “You were a hungry man.”

“Not really.”

He glanced in Bethany’s direction and again felt the jolt of her beauty. God had blessed this Bethany Willows with sleek brown-black hair, pale pink skin as smooth as porcelain and a startlingly piquant face. Broad at the brow and cheek but with an adorably pointed chin, it put him in mind of a drawing of a fairy princess in a children’s book. Her delicate nose and brows offset huge, tilted eyes of cornflower blue, rimmed with dark lashes, and wide, plump lips of a rich, dusky rose.

She shifted in her seat, crossing her legs beneath the full skirt of her flower-print sundress. The straps of the elasticized bodice tied at the shoulders, emphasizing the delicate line of her collarbone. She seemed petite but was, in fact, taller than average. He judged her to stand at least seven inches over five feet, which still left her a good eight inches shorter than his own six-foot-three-inch height. The pregnancy bump merely called attention to her long, slender limbs and lithe dancer’s body.

“So you stopped to eat but you weren’t hungry?” Those big blue eyes looked a question at him, her fairy face tilting to one side.

He tried hard to marshal his thoughts. Aiming his gaze straight ahead, he formulated an explanation. “When you rodeo for a living, you learn to eat on the move and whenever it’s convenient. I saw a good place to park the trailer, it was getting on to the dinner hour, so I pulled over.”

A big part of what he did for a living was just getting him, his horses and his gear from one place to the next. It was a logistical nightmare sometimes, and took careful planning. He and his partner, Pat Kreger, sat down every few weeks and worked out a schedule, deciding which contests made the most sense. They’d managed to improve their standings year by year and had hoped that this year they might make the national finals in team roping, which was why Chandler was alarmed and somewhat irritated by Kreger’s failure to show up in Georgia this past weekend.

The Fourth of July holiday offered up some of the richest rodeos of the summer, and Kreger should have been there, but he hadn’t showed, and his phone went straight to voice mail every time Chandler called. No one Chandler had spoken to had any idea where Kreger might be, and that was decidedly odd, for Pat was a particularly sociable fellow. Chandler supposed that his partner could be ill and holed up in the little house they shared on the small ranch that they co-owned, but it was more likely that he’d merely given in to some wild impulse and hared off in a different direction. It had happened before, though not often.

If his sister Kaylie, a nurse, had been in town instead of gallivanting around Europe on her honeymoon, Chandler would have asked her to go out to the ranch and check. As it was, he could only hope and pray that Kreger was well and could offer up some clever excuse.

“So you’re a rodeo cowboy, are you?” Bethany Willows asked, pulling his thoughts back to the moment.

“That’s right.”

“What events?”

“Tie-down roping, steer wrestling, team roping.”

“No bull riding or bronc busting?”

Chandler grimaced mentally. Those were the glamorous events. Bull riders and bronc busters were tough, skillful hombres, but the most successful ones were compact men with low centers of gravity. Chandler’s size and skill set partly dictated the events in which he competed, but he wouldn’t have had it any other way. He loved working with a rope. Still, he wanted to impress this woman, silly as that seemed.

“Nope, and no barrel racing, either,” he answered flippantly.

She laughed at that, barrel racing usually being a female event, and he cut her a glance that became a stare when he caught sight of that beaming smile. It knocked the breath right out of him and left his chest hurting. He stared until she lifted her burger in both hands and nipped off a small bite with her even, white teeth. Freshly jolted, he jerked his gaze back to the highway and gobbled down the last of his own meal. Wadding up the wrapper, he dropped the paper into the bag standing open on the console between the seats, doing his best to forget what he’d seen. Or rather, what he had not seen.

He had not seen a wedding ring on her long, tapered, slender finger.

“So where can I drop you?” the cowboy asked, carefully checking both of his sideview mirrors as he clicked on the rig’s right signal.

They had driven in silence for the better part of the trip, though he had stopped when she’d asked him to, without complaint. The silence had been protracted during this last leg of the journey, however, so much so that Bethany had closed her eyes and pretended to sleep for part of the time. Now, she waited to reply until the truck and trailer had exited the highway.