by Lori Wilde
He loved that baby girl.
Rhett didn’t know how it was possible to feel so much for a tiny little thing he’d just met. But it was a big, huge, overwhelming thing. Solid and certain. This feeling wasn’t going to go away. Not ever.
Love at first sight was as real as water.
It was a new kind of feeling, something he’d not ever experienced before. The baby changed everything. Problem was, Rhett had no idea what he was doing, and didn’t Julie deserve a parent who could take care of her the way she deserved to be cared for?
He could love her all he wanted, but if he didn’t have the skills to care for her, wasn’t it selfish not to let Tara adopt her?
No matter how much people believed otherwise, love was not always enough. His own mother had loved him fiercely, but her love for her sons hadn’t been enough to save her. And Tara loved Julie just as much as he did, and she had the skills to be an awesome parent.
You could learn.
Yeah? When was that? The PBR schedule ran from January to November. He was always on the road. Roaming from town to town, event to event, and he loved it.
As much as you love Julie?
God, this was so hard. He’d been on the PBR circuit since he was nineteen. He barely knew Julie. But he loved them both with equal vigor.
Aw shit.
Something his father said to him when he was learning how to ride bucking bulls stuck in his head. Take it one second at a time.
If he thought about parenthood too much, he was going to freak out.
So don’t think.
He was pretty darn good at compartmentalizing and blocking off his feelings. It made him an excellent cowboy. But wouldn’t those same talents make him a crappy father?
One second at a time.
Just like the quirky Mariah Bean had said. Establish a permanent residence. Take parenting classes. Get to know his daughter. That was enough for the immediate future. He didn’t have to decide right now. Julie was safe with Tara. There was no rush to file for custody if that’s what he wanted to do.
He’d worry about the next step after that. Rhett groaned and gently rubbed his bruised eye.
“Another beer, cowboy?” asked the waitress, her smile eager as a new puppy. She’d already recognized him, and they’d had a long talk about the PBR before she’d gone off to fill more orders.
“I’m good.” He placed a hand over the top of his mug.
“Yes, you are.” She slanted him the same hot, buttery look he often saw in the eyes of women.
She was pretty enough, petite, skinny, blond. Tara’s polar opposite. Her nametag said her name was Shay. Her shapely calves said she spent a lot of time on her feet. The sultry look in her green eyes said she wouldn’t mind sharing her bed with him.
“I don’t have to be Mrs. Right,” she said. “I’d be happy with Miss Right Now.”
Once upon a time, that would have been music to his ears. Any other night, he’d be squiring her back to his place after she got off work, but not now.
Not tonight.
Not ever.
It occurred to him that any number of women he’d been with could have been the “right” one, and he’d let them slip through his fingers. But he’d never let himself consider marriage or long-term commitment. The women hadn’t been the problem. They weren’t the reason he was alone. He’d made that choice. He’d been too self-absorbed, too focused on his career to pay the women in his life the kind of attention they craved.
Dammit, but he had a lot of baggage to unpack. Julie, and unexpected paternity, had thrown his future into turmoil. Fast-tracked the unpacking. The mistakes of the past were rushing at him with warp speed, and he’d better start learning the lessons or he was going to end up forfeiting everything that mattered.
He couldn’t act like a randy young buck anymore—following his fancy into whatever warm body welcomed him. He was a father now. The father of a daughter who could one day work in a bar, and the last thing he wanted was for some tricky dick cowboy to hustle her into bed.
“You got any kids?” he asked Shay, taking a slug off the beer that had gone lukewarm.
She seemed surprised, cocked her head back, peered at him from underneath thick false eyelashes as if assessing him for potential father-of-her-children material. “I do.”
“Boys or girls?”
“One of each.”
“How old are they?”
“Three and five.”
“Fun ages.”
“Those little rug rats run me ragged.” She smiled softly, affection for her kids easy to see on her face.
“You married?” he asked.
“Not anymore.” Shay winked and touched his wrist with her fingertips.
Slowly, he inched his hand away from hers. “What’s it like?”
“What’s what like?” She lowered her lashes, polished the bar between them with a cleaning towel.
“Being a single parent.”
She pressed her palms to the seat of her jeans. “It’s exhausting and demanding. Your life is never your own. Something as insignificant as a long, hot shower becomes a moment to treasure. And if you don’t have a community of family and friends to help pitch in, you’re really screwed.”
Rhett winced. “But you don’t mind. You’ve got more patience. You’re more understanding. Right?”
Shay tossed her head, laughed. “Having kids doesn’t make you a different person. Sometimes I wish it did. It would be so much easier if I didn’t have a sarcastic, selfish streak.”
He felt a noose tightening around his neck. He coughed, put a hand to his throat. You don’t have to be a parent. You can let Tara adopt her.
“You about to have a kid or something?” Shay asked.
“Just found out I’ve already got one. She’s four months old.”
“Oh shit,” she said. “That’s heavy.”
Heavy, yeah. As a grand piano.
“Do you get along with the baby mama?” she asked.
Tara wasn’t the baby’s mama, but he didn’t want to get into all of that with Shay, so he simply said, “She doesn’t like me very much.”
“You done her dirty?”
He shook his head. “We just don’t see eye-to-eye.”
“It can be rough.” Shay shrugged. “My ex and I try to be respectful for the kids’ sake, but sometimes I just want to strangle the sonofabitch.”
Rhett laughed because she seemed to expect it. “How do you make the coparenting thing work?”
“Best you can. One day at a time.”
One day at a time was an upgrade from one second at a time. He wasn’t sure which was better. “Sounds like a prison sentence.”
“Sometimes parenthood feels like that.”
“But it’s all worth it in the end . . . right?”
“Sure,” she said as if by rote, and Rhett wasn’t the least bit comforted. “Sure, it is. There’s nothing like being a parent. When they wrap those sweet arms around you and give you sloppy kisses, it’s the best feeling in the world.”
“Would you do it all over again if you could go back in time?”
Shay paused, and her face took on a faraway expression. “I love my kids more than life itself. And I wouldn’t give them up for all the money in the world. But if I could go back in time?”
He waited. At the back of the bar, someone punched a tune into the jukebox. Kenny Chesney. “There Goes My Life.”
Rhett rolled his eyes to the sky. Seriously? This song? Right now?
“Would I have kids if I had it to do all over again?” Slowly, Shay shook her head.
Rhett gulped twice. Felt a twist of heat start in the base of his spine and corkscrew all the way up to his head. “Why not?”
“Because it makes you too damn vulnerable,” she whispered. “It’s like wearing your heart outside your body. Anything happens to them, and you’re annihilated.” She took a breath so deep her breasts shot up. “You sure you don’t want a fresh beer?”
“Naw.
”
“You got a picture of her?” Shay asked, leaning over the bar so that he got a whiff of her scent, popcorn and beer.
Rhett pulled his phone from his back pocket, called up the photo he’d taken of Julie just before he’d left, passed it to Shay. In the photo, his daughter was cradled in Tara’s arms.
“Oh my goodness!” Shay exclaimed. “Isn’t she adorbs?”
Rhett felt his chest puff with seam-busting pride, and that surprised him.
“Who is the woman? The baby mama?”
“Foster mom.”
“Your daughter is in foster care?” Shay’s eyes widened. “Oh, well that changes things. I’m sorry for your troubles.”
“It is what it is.” He held out his hand for his phone.
Shay didn’t immediately give the phone back. Instead, she punched in her number, shot him a coy expression. “Just in case you ever want to talk . . . you know . . . about what life is like as a single parent.”
“Thanks,” he mumbled, pulled out a twenty to pay for his four-dollar beer, pushed back from the bar stool, and got up. “Keep the change, Shay.”
“Hey, thanks.” She pocketed the twenty. “You leavin’ so soon?”
“Got a call to make.” He settled his Stetson on his head.
“Good luck on the circuit.”
He gave her a rueful smile. “Night.”
“Come back real soon . . .” Shay invited. “Or call me.”
Surreptitiously, Rhett deleted Shay’s number from his phone and headed outside. He knew if he called the bartender, the last thing they’d end up talking about was single parenthood. His best guess, they wouldn’t do much talking at all.
He walked out to his pickup, his thoughts on Julie. In his mind’s eye, he saw his daughter’s tiny baby hand curled around his pinkie finger. Remembered how she smelled like heaven in a blanket, and what it felt like to hold her in his arms.
Letting out his breath through clenched teeth, Rhett punched in a number on his phone. It rang once. Twice. Three times.
“Yes?” said a familiar voice.
Rhett’s gut clenched tight. This was a big step, and part of him was praying the man on the other end of the line would talk him out of it.
“Rhett? You there?”
He hesitated.
“Hello, hello?”
He took in a deep breath and asked his manager, “How long can I reasonably stay off the circuit, and still have a chance to make Vegas?”
After Rhett and Ms. Bean left, Tara put Julie down for a nap. Then the first thing she did was phone Aria.
Quickly, she filled her youngest sister in on what had happened with Rhett.
“Can you believe he said that vibrator thing to me?” She was still quivering with anger. “What gives him the right to comment on my sex life?”
“Or lack thereof.” Aria giggled.
“Unlike some people, I don’t easily swing from bed to bed.”
“Low blow, sister.”
“I was talking about Rhett.”
“Oh.”
“He thinks he knows everything there is to know about sex.”
“Well . . .” Aria cleared her throat.
“Well what?”
“He is pretty skilled in the bedroom. Practice makes perfect, I suppose.”
“I don’t need to know this.”
“He’s also rather gifted in the nature department, if you know what I mean.”
“Nature?”
“He’s got a big di—”
“Shh, I get it, I get it.” Tara put a palm over the ear not pressed to the phone.
“Just saying, you could do worse than a night with Rhett Lockhart.”
“Oh dear God. No way in hell.”
“Kit has been gone for over two years, Tea. It’s time to move on.”
“Not with Rhett!”
“No, but there’s nothing wrong with having a good time in bed.”
“You don’t get it. I’m a mom now. I can’t run around having random sex.”
“I’m available to babysit. Even moms need a little sumptin’, sumptin’ once in a while.”
Tara sank down on the couch, picked up one of the strawberry wafer cookies that was still sitting on the tray on the coffee table. Munched it. Hmm, the cookies were pretty tasty in a childhood nostalgia kind of way.
“You’re crunching in my ear,” Aria said.
“Oops, sorry.” Tara finished off the cookie.
“How did he look?”
“Who?”
“Rhett, who else?”
“Like he’d been in a barroom brawl. Black eye, stitches, busted lip, the works.”
“Ooh.” Aria breathed heavily. “Sounds sexy.”
“The things you consider sexy,” Tara muttered.
“You need to get out more. Have more fun. I know you’re the savior of children, but—”
“I have fun,” she said, feeling defensive.
“Reading does not constitute fun.”
“It does to me.”
“Neither does eating ice cream alone in the bathtub.”
“So what do you think is a lively time? Wait, forget I asked.”
Aria did not forget. “Shopping, swimming, getting soused at Chantilly’s, dancing, going out with hot guys . . .”
“I’m not twenty-one anymore, Aria.”
“Mentally, you’ve never been twenty-one, Tara. You were born forty.”
“I just don’t see the point in trivial pursuits.” Tara switched on the baby monitor perched on the end table, kicked off her shoes, and stretched out on the couch.
“That’s probably one reason you and Rhett clash like cats and dogs. You don’t know how to have fun and he’s party central.”
“That’s one reason.”
“Invite him dancing. He’s a great dancer. I’ll babysit.”
“Are you nuts? Why in God’s name would I take him dancing?”
“To smooth things over between you two.”
“Things don’t have to be smooth. Wrinkled is fine with me.”
“Dancing with Rhett is like dancing on a cloud.” Aria sighed dreamily.
“So go dance with him.”
“Been there, done that. It was fun while it lasted.”
“Why did you two break up?” Tara asked.
“We both knew our thing had an expiration date. Neither one of us were in a place to get serious.”
“Do you think Rhett could ever be serious about anyone?” Good grief, why had she asked that? What did she care?
“Probably not.”
Tara let out a sigh of relief. “Thank heavens for that.”
“You’re worried he wants custody of Julie?”
“You should have seen the way he looked at her, Aria.” Tara tightened her grip on the phone.
“Did he say he wanted custody?”
“He said he was going to take a parenting class. Why would he take a parenting class if he wasn’t considering it?”
“Rhett’s got a good heart, but unless it has something to do with bull riding, he doesn’t have much stick-to-it-ness. I wouldn’t worry too much.”
“Easy for you to say. You don’t have anything at stake.”
“Think of it this way. Do you ever see him willingly giving up the PBR? That man will ride until he’s so busted up he can’t walk.”
“That’s what I thought, but Aria, you didn’t see his face when he looked at Julie.” Tara reached for another wafer cookie and nibbled it softly to avoid crunching in Aria’s ear.
“Trust me on this. Once he brushes up against a few dirty diapers and a colicky baby, he’ll backpedal.”
“I’m not so sure about that.”
“I get it. Fretting is your thing. Fret away, and when he signs over his parental rights to you, I’ll say, ‘I told you so,’ and you can take me out to eat at MacClain’s,” Aria said, naming one of the priciest restaurants in El Paso.
“If you’re right, gladly. You can even order the most expensive
thing on the menu.”
“Wanna know Rhett’s kryptonite?” Aria asked.
“Duh, yes!” She’d take any advantage she could get.
“Daisy Dukes.”
“What?”
“You know, blue jeans cut off so short you’re falling out of them, like Daisy Duke on the old Dukes of Hazzard show.”
“I know what they are,” Tara said. “How are Daisy Dukes Rhett’s kryptonite?”
“Wear a pair in front of him and find out.”
“Oh, good grief, I’m not wearing Daisy Dukes.”
“Okay, just saying, if you want to bend that man to your will, put on a pair of Daisy Dukes. He’ll be putty in your hand. He’s a leg and butt man, and boy do you qualify on both scores.”
“Thanks for the tip, but I don’t use feminine wiles to get men to do what I want.”
“Now see, that’s your first mistake. Men secretly want to be controlled, and you love to be in control. Use it. Wanna know what he likes in bed?”
“I do not.” An image of Rhett in bed, his naked body casually draped by a thin cotton sheet, cowboy hat on his head, a come-hither smile on his face, one finger beckoning her to join him, popped into her head.
What the hell?
She shook her head but could not shake the vision.
“He’s a sucker for—”
“I’m hanging up now.” Tara sprang to a sitting position and switched off her phone. Horrified to find she was sweating and her breath was coming in rapid little pants.
Aria and Rhett were both right about one thing. She had gone without sex for too long. And apparently hormone overload was poisoning her brain.
Chapter 7
Arm jerker: A bull that bucks with the power to cause a great amount of pull on the contestant’s arm.
On Saturday morning, May 18, Tara checked her roster for the weekend attendees, and learned she had eighteen students enrolled. It was her first time going back to work since she’d brought Julie home from the NICU two weeks earlier. She’d left the baby in the hospital day care for the six-hour class, but she’d already texted twice in twenty minutes to see how Julie was doing.
“Still asleep,” the day care worker assured her, barely able to keep the exasperation from her voice. “I promise to let you know if she has any issues.”
“Thanks,” Tara said, but she couldn’t quell her worry.
