Barbara Daille - The Rancher's Baby Proposal

Reagan had told her the kitchen door at the back of the house would be open. She went inside and took the baby over to the table.

She hadn’t gotten her fill of Reagan that day long ago, but it was the first time she had ever been able to sit and stare at him unnoticed by anyone. Including him, unfortunately.

“Your daddy’s a couple of years older than I am,” she explained. “Well...probably closer to three, and I guess he thought I was just a little kid. He never did pay much attention to me.” Leaning closer to the baby, she whispered, “But let me tell you, things are going to change now. What do you think of that?”

The baby looked up and instantly gave her his answer. He stiffened his arms and legs, scrunched up his face and let out a screech.

“Hush,” she said hurriedly, rocking the seat slightly. The movement did no good and even seemed to upset the baby more. “Shh-h-h. Shh-h-h. Don’t cry, baby. Your daddy will hear you and fire me on the spot.”

“I already hear him.”

She jumped and let out a screech even louder than Sean’s.

Reagan’s voice had come from the other side of the kitchen. Reluctant to turn and face him, she stared down at the baby, whose face was getting redder by the minute. So was hers, judging by the heat flooding her cheeks. Reagan had heard the baby crying. But had he also heard anything she had said to the baby?

Suddenly, Reagan was standing beside her. He had sturdy hands with long fingers, and in seconds he had unfastened the straps around the baby. “When a kid’s this wrought-up,” he said, “rocking the seat’s not going to help. He needs out of here.” He lifted Sean and placed him against his shoulder.

She noted he cupped his hand around the back of the baby’s head just the way Tina had taught her.

“Let me guess,” he said. “Mrs. B fed him not long before you went to pick him up.”

She nodded. “That’s what she said. But he was fine in the car. He didn’t let out a peep the entire trip.”

“He’s making up for it now.” He patted the infant’s back. “He’s probably battling some gas from his formula.”

Again, she nodded. In the past, she had heard both Tina and Andi say something similar about one of their babies. Obviously, it was common with little ones. Why hadn’t she thought of that herself now?

She hadn’t been in the house two minutes yet, and already she had given Reagan reason to think she couldn’t handle the job he needed her to do.

* * *

SEAN SQUAWKED IN Reagan’s ear. “Shh-h-h,” he said, the way Ally had done. The baby quieted, but only a daddy with zero experience would expect that to last.

“Come on,” he said, “while we can hear ourselves talk, let me take you up and show you where to find all the baby’s things.” Leading the way, he left the kitchen and went to the stairs.

He was having trouble getting an image out of his mind, the sight of Ally leaning over the baby seat and whispering to his son. He had overheard the tail end of her one-sided conversation, and he was having trouble forgetting what she had said right before she had lowered her voice.

I guess he thought I was just a little kid. He never did pay much attention to me.

She meant him. And she was right. He hadn’t paid her much mind years ago. Three years’ difference, give or take, made a big gap between a grade-school girl and a kid in junior high. The division between junior high and high school had caused a greater divide. Then, it had seemed like a big reason to avoid her. Not that he’d had any interest in her, anyway. He had thought of her as just a kid.

But as he looked at her now—

Sean let out another squawk.

Good boy, trying to get his daddy’s attention back where it belonged.

He cleared his throat and deliberately faced forward as they went along the upstairs hall. “Ignore the mess downstairs. When I was out here the other day, I got as far as cleaning the kitchen and bathroom, and that’s it. You might’ve seen the baby’s playpen in the corner of the kitchen.”

“I did.”

“I moved a portable television into that area, too, and a stack of magazines. You should avoid the other rooms downstairs until I have a chance to give them a good going-over. Upstairs, I’ve only tackled one bedroom and the bathroom. So this little guy and I are bunking together in my old room. The memories might remain, but at least the dust is gone.”

A dumb statement. He hadn’t meant it to come out sounding so pathetic. It was too late to take the words back and too late to stop Ally from following him into the room. He turned as she stopped short just inside the doorway and looked around.

He let his glance rove over what she was seeing. The baby’s portable crib. The pine bedroom set. The shelves still filled with memorabilia from his childhood interests and high school days.

“Is this the way the room looked when you were a kid?” she asked. “With the football and baseball pennants and the autographed balls, the 4-H ribbons and all the trophies?”

“Yeah,” he said sheepishly. “When I left for school, my mom wanted to leave everything the way it was. I think she believed I’d want to come back and relive the memories of all my school years.”

“Those were the days,” she said drily.

Was she thinking again about the times he hadn’t paid attention to her?

Blinking, she gave him a small smile. “I’m sure she missed you a lot while you were gone.”

“Yeah,” he said gruffly. “You know...only child, and all that.”

“Me, too. But unlike you, I never left my mama.”

Again, he wished he could go back and change the past. If not for his fight with his dad, he might have gotten to see his parents a lot more in those years after he left for college. By the time he had earned his degree, he had lost any chance to see his mom at all. Then, a year ago, he had learned he’d never have the opportunity to mend fences with his dad.

He yanked a diaper from the sack in the top dresser drawer and laid a towel on the bed. It took him only a minute to show Ally where he had stored Sean’s clothes and blankets.

While he changed the baby, she moved around the room, checking out the trophies. “Baseball,” she said. “Football. Softball. Track. No wonder you were named all-around athlete the year you graduated.”

When he glanced up, he found her looking at him. He turned his attention back to Sean. “You remember that?”

“I was there in the stadium the day they gave out the awards. Along with three-quarters of Cowboy Creek.”

He remembered that day, too, and not because of the standing ovation.

“Is there any sport you don’t play?” she asked.

“Not really,” he said, grateful for the question and the chance to change the subject. “How about you? What’s your favorite sport?”

“Telephone tag.”

He laughed. She did, too, a low, sexy laugh very different from the high-pitched giggles he remembered hearing from her and her friends.

Sean let out another squawk.

“I guess he gets the joke, too,” she said. “Smart baby.”

“Yeah.” Blinking, he focused again on his son.

An attraction to his boy’s babysitter was something he hadn’t expected. Something he sure didn’t need, considering he planned to have her help him out as often as she could in the next week or two.

“I’d better get back to the job.” Suddenly it seemed even more important to make progress. The sooner he finished up everything he needed to do here at the ranch, the better. “I spent most of this afternoon working in the barn and want to keep at it while the light’s still good.”

“That makes sense.”

“Yeah.” Luckily, she didn’t comment on what would have made the most sense, tackling the house first so he could get it ready to sell. But if his bedroom held so many dusty memories, he hated to think what he would discover once he went through the rest of the rooms, the closets, the cubbyholes. “My dad has a lot stored out in the barn—tack and farm tools and all the other equipment you need to run a ranch.”