Judy Duarte - The Cowboy's Family Plan

“Yeah, well...” He sighed and gave a little shrug. “I messed up my knee a while back, and my orthopedic surgeon sent me to physical therapy, which I get here.”

“How did you get hurt?” she asked.

“I...uh... Well, it was pretty stupid.”

“Most accidents are.”

Alex chuffed. “I thought I was immune to that sort of thing, but that’s what I get for taking shortcuts and not keeping my mind on my work.”

He still hadn’t told her what he’d done, but she refrained from pushing any further. After all, his injury really wasn’t any of her business.

“So what are you doing now?” he asked.

“I’m going to head home and get a bite to eat.”

“Oh, yeah? Me, too. Why don’t you let me buy you dinner? There’s a little café a couple of blocks from here.”

She wondered if he had more questions this time around—or if he just wanted to spend some quiet time with her. As appealing as the latter seemed to be, she shook off the feminine thoughts. “You don’t need to buy my dinner.”

“All right. Then we’ll ask for separate checks.”

As she pondered the invitation, shaking off the urge to agree too quickly, he added, “You probably spend way too much time around the hospital and this place anyway.”

He was right. And she had made up her mind to spend a little more time getting out into the world... So she said, “Sounds good to me. Do you mind if I take a quick shower and put on my street clothes? I won’t take long.”

“I’ll wait for you in the lobby area.”

“All right.”

True to her word, she returned within ten minutes. “Sorry I took so long.”

“You didn’t.” He got to his feet, and they made their way to the entrance. He opened the door and waited for her to exit first.

How about that? The handsome cowboy was well-mannered as well. She’d have to make a note of that.

Oh, for Pete’s sake. Alex Connor wasn’t the kind of man she’d ever allow herself to crush on—and for several reasons, the biggest of which was the fact that he still seemed to be in love with his late-wife.

In college, Selena had fallen for a graduate student in the biotech program. They’d had something special, or so Selena had thought. She’d even started daydreaming about June weddings.

Then, when he went home for Christmas break, he met up with his first love, and their high school romance had blossomed again.

Selena, of course, had been heartbroken and had vowed never to get involved with a man who still pined over a lost lover—and that would certainly include late wives.

Of course, sharing a cup of coffee and killing an hour or so before bedtime wasn’t even close to having a date or “getting involved.”

“It’s a nice evening for walking,” Alex said, as they made their way across the parking lot and to the street.

Selena looked up at a nearly full moon and an array of bright, twinkling stars. “You’re right.”

When was the last time she’d taken time to gaze at the evening sky, let alone noticed the natural beauty in nature?

She couldn’t remember. She’d been so caught up in her practice that she’d spent her days and nights either holed up at the medical center or at home. But she was trying to change that—first with the membership at the wellness center and maybe even with her agreement to walk to the coffee shop this evening with Alex Connor.

As they stepped onto the sidewalk and turned to the right on a side street that ran along the busier county road, she realized that Alex walked with a limp.

“Maybe we should have driven,” she said.

“It’s only a couple of blocks.”

They continued in silence until Alex asked, “What made you want to be a doctor?”

“I don’t know. I’ve always had an interest in medicine. And science and math were my favorite subjects when I was in high school, so it seemed like a natural career choice to make.”

Her efforts had also pleased her parents, something that was important to a girl who was the middle child in a family with seven siblings. And those same efforts had proven to be invaluable because she’d been offered a full-ride scholarship at almost every college to which she’d applied.

“Why did you choose obstetrics?” Alex asked.

Because she’d loved babies ever since the time her mother had first laid her newborn brother in her chubby little arms. But because she’d always thought her reason for choosing obstetrics wasn’t all that impressive, she gave him her standard response when people asked the same question. “I found the birth process fascinating.”

At least she’d found it fascinating when she’d envisioned experiencing it herself once or twice.

But enough about her. The conversation and the questions were getting way too personal for comfort, and she was ready for a change in subject.

She was tempted to start by turning his original question right back on him and ask, What made you want to be a cowboy?

But maybe she’d been wrong about him. Maybe there was more to Alex than a Stetson and boots.

The Aggie T-shirt he was wearing suggested he might have attended college. And he hadn’t blinked about the cost of having a woman carry those embryos for him.

Maybe she’d been right. Maybe he was a rancher. After all, he’d mentioned that he lived outside of town.

Either way, if Jim Ragsdale had approached him about the hippotherapy program, his background with horses had to be pretty impressive. So he was more than the average cowboy.

Before she could ask what line of work he was in, he pointed to the red-and-white-striped awning over the entrance of the coffee shop he’d been talking about. “There it is. Katie’s Country Café.”

Even though the diner was located within sight of those who traveled along the nearby county road, it didn’t appear to be too busy this evening.

As they neared the entry, a pregnant brunette who’d parked her weathered sedan in one of several spaces in front opened the rear passenger door and removed a preschool-age girl from her car seat. Then she waited for an older boy to climb from the car.

The mother and children walked into the diner, just in front of Selena and Alex. The boy, who was about seven or eight, spotted the refrigerator display case that held a variety of pies and cakes.

“Look,” the boy said to his sister as he pointed to the goodies. “Maybe we can have dessert, Kimmie.”

“Grandma will have cookies for us when we get to her house,” the pregnant woman said. “So we’ll just grab a quick bite to eat here.”

As they all waited to be seated, a waitress serving slices of chocolate cake to an elderly couple in one of the booths in back said, “Y’all can choose any table you like.”

The mother reached for her daughter’s hand, then gasped and looked down at her feet, where her amniotic fluid had formed a puddle. “Uh-oh.”

The little girl pointed to the wet spot and asked, “Mommy, did you potty in your pants?”

“No, sweetie. I...” The woman, her cheeks flushed, her eyes wide, glanced at Selena, her embarrassment and apprehension obvious. “My water broke.”

It certainly had. And she just stood there, clearly perplexed.

“Can I call someone for you?” Selena asked, thinking the woman’s husband ought to be notified.

“My mother, but that’s not going to do me much good now.”

“Why not?”

“Because she doesn’t drive at night. The kids and I were on our way to pick her up and take her back home with us so she could help out when the baby came, but...”

“But what?” Selena prodded.

The woman paled and bit down on her bottom lip. “This wasn’t supposed to happen. I’m not due for another five or six weeks.”