Natalie Patrick - Boot Scootin' Secret Baby

“Me?” She cursed the squeak of surprise in her forced response but thanked her lucky stars that was all that her voice betrayed.

One more long look at Cub, from the set of his custom-made hat down the length of his bull rider’s body, filled her with far more than astonishment. “I don’t know whether to be flattered that you think I’m suddenly so sly that I’d dare to match wits with an old bull artist like yourself or just angry at the fact that you won’t respect my wishes and let me walk you—”

“I ain’t a dog that needs walking anywhere, Alyssa.” Cub’s shirt rustled as he shifted his expansive shoulders.

Jaycie’s laughter drifted above the clatter of lawn chairs and the murmuring crowd.

Alyssa faced Cub, taking a step backward in hopes of coaxing him to follow.

“What I think,” she said, taking yet another small step, “is that this is neither the time nor place for us to talk.”

His lips twitched but he said nothing.

“Let’s get this little one to bed, Ma,” Alyssa heard Yip tell her mother, Dolly.

Drastic situations called for drastic measures, she thought. If she truly was a new woman, strong enough to stand on her own without Cub Goodacre, then she surely could be strong enough to stand up to him. “I’m not trying to walk you like a dog, Cub, but if you don’t stop being so stubborn about leaving, I may just grab you by your collar and run you off my ranch.”

The thin scar along his deeply tanned jaw and neck shown pinkish red in the moonlight as he tipped his head to one side. He didn’t smile, but amusement tinged his tone when he ran one finger along the side of his thick neck and said in a gruff whisper, “Is that so?”

Despite her anxiety, she couldn’t help noticing how his dark skin contrasted against the crisp whiteness of his stiff collar. Or how his sandpaper-and-velvet voice massaged her prickling nerves like warm fingertips over aching muscles.

“That’s so.” The answer lacked the conviction she’d hoped for but it got her message across. She wasn’t the guileless child he’d once known. She was the woman in charge.

Just over Cub’s shoulder, Alyssa watched Yip pause to strike up a conversation with someone just a few feet from the porch. Nothing she had tried worked, and any second now her father would move right behind Cub. Perhaps sooner, her daughter would see her and call out. She had to find another way to get Cub to leave before that happened.

“And now I suggest, Cub, that you—” Somewhere in the crowd, she heard her name.

Shelby Crowder, her new business partner, held up one hand to her.

“Who’s that?”

It interested Alyssa that she still had enough innocent dreamer left in her to convince herself she heard jealousy in Cub’s quiet question.

“That’s my...” She paused to lick her lips. Even beneath the cover of his hat brim, she saw a glimmer of an old familiar emotion in his eyes. He was jealous.

A flash fire of feelings singed her cheeks.

Cub’s face told her he saw her response.

“Your what?” he asked in a husky bass.

Don’t blow this, she told herself. Tomorrow when she was calm and prepared, she’d straighten everything out, until then...

“That’s Shelby Crowder.” She turned to wave back at the handsome red-haired man in the impeccable designer western clothes. When she faced Cub again, she’d puffed her confidence up to meet the enormity of the situation.

Smiling broadly, she told the only lover she’d ever had, the father of her beloved child, the only man who could turn her to jelly with a glance, the one thing that would get him off the ranch in a huff and a hurry. “He’s the man I’m going to marry.”

Alyssa had fallen in love with another man.

Cub dipped his hands into the cool water pooled in the gold-veined sink in his hotel bathroom. Streams of clear liquid slid between his fingers to trickle back into the sink as he lifted his cupped palms.

He swallowed a gasp as the cold water stung his face and icy droplets splashed onto his bare chest. But when he raised his gaze to confront the man in the mirror, he knew that nothing could wash away the grim reality etched in his features. Alyssa would become some other man’s wife and he would wear the pain of losing her for the rest of his life.

He snapped the hand towel from the rack, closing his eyes against the blinding whiteness of the morning sun gleaming on the white-tiled room. As he scrubbed the rough terry cloth over his face, the picture of Shelby Crowder haunted him.

Successful, handsome, well-educated, the solid type—everything Cub was not. Oh, Cub was solid, he supposed, solid with rock-hard muscles and a head to match. As for higher education? He had a couple advanced degrees by now from the school of hard knocks. He’d never been handsome and a few falls facedown in the dirt and one real good slam into an iron gate hadn’t prettied him up any.

Still, he’d always thought if he’d worked hard enough and achieved enough he could overcome those obstacles. He’d once believed that if he could earn enough to buy a little spread and take care of Alyssa comfortably he’d prove himself worthy of her love.

Today, because of his hard work and the fact that bull riding meant big money, he’d earned a tidy nest egg and then some. With bull riding’s corporate sponsorship, like tennis or NASCAR racing, these days a name rider drew six figures a year. And Cub wasn’t just a name rider, he was the name rider. He’d met that goal and then some.

And yet, Alyssa was marrying someone else and threatening to run him off her ranch, not even willing to speak to him without an appointment.

He threw the towel across the room.

Every muscle from his neck to his belly clenched as he fought back a wave of regret. Last night when she told him she was marrying again, he’d have given every damned dime he’d ever earned to go back to the last morning he’d woken up with that woman in his arms.

“And do what?” he asked the steam-blurred image in the mirror. The heel of his hand squawked against the glass as he swiped away a circle to see himself clearly.

He would still have left—to earn the money needed to buy a ranch. But this time, he’d wake his wife up to explain it all to her, to make her understand. He hadn’t done it the first time because he knew she’d be mad at him for breaking his promise. His life experiences had taught him that anger meant hatred, disgust, rejection. He hadn’t thought he could survive getting those things from Alyssa.

Besides, as the husband, wasn’t it his place to make the decisions? To do what he thought best for Alyssa? Her notion of getting a job in a local diner to pay the bills was an affront to his manhood—it was saying outright that he couldn’t take care of his own. He’d already been down that road in his life and he wasn’t going there again. So starting an argument about something he would take no argument over was just senseless.

And as soon as he’d left, her parents had rushed in to verify what she’d probably suspected all along—she’d made the biggest mistake of her life by putting her faith in him. Poor kid. His actions and the confirmation of her own parents had made her feel a total fool and a failure.

He dragged one knuckle over his freshly shaved cheek. They’d probably both be better off if he hopped in his truck and drove away right now, just forgot about Summit City Rodeo Days and the bull he’d come to do battle with.

He hadn’t protected her from unhappiness then, hadn’t been the man she needed him to be, beat-up as he was inside and out. He wasn’t any better now—worse, if you counted only the physical toll his profession had taken on him. No amount of money he made would change that fact.