A Conard County Baby

by Rachel Lee

  Her throat tightened a bit and she had to swallow before she could speak. “You’re a very generous man, Cash.”

  He shook his head. “Seems like I was right about one thing, though.”

  “What’s that?”

  “My daughter needed a companion closer to her own age. The sound of the two of you having such a good time did my soul good.”

  “You handled it well. We were both nervous about how you’d react.”

  “It’s just a little makeup, not a crime.” He flashed a grin. “I don’t think she needs it, any more than you do, but...” He shrugged. “I get it. It’s a girl thing.”

  “In some circles it’s required. My mother got a professional to teach me how to apply it when I was fifteen. Every year or so, I got an update session.”

  “Really?” He sounded astonished.

  “Really. Styles change, and as we age we need different amounts of makeup. Then you have to know what to wear according to the lighting conditions.”

  “Over-the-top?” he asked hesitantly.

  “Not at the time. Now it looks like it to me. I’m actually enjoying not wearing any since I got here.”

  “Frankly, I approve. Nothing wrong with the way you looked when I interviewed you, but you have a fresh, very pretty face. It doesn’t need enhancement.”

  She nearly blushed. “Cut it out, Cash.”

  His smile broadened. “Cut what out? Complimenting you?”

  “You’re embarrassing me.”

  “Okay. We’ll talk about Angie, then. She seems to have settled a bit. At least she’s not screaming at me.”

  At once Hope felt an internal jolt of nerves. She had promised Angie she wouldn’t spy on her, but she felt it would help Cash ever so much to know the girl had been molested. The thing was, it was apt to put him through the roof, and she doubted he’d be able to conceal that he knew.

  Which then would break the bridge she’d been trying to build with Angie. How could she keep his daughter’s trust if she didn’t keep her word? But she’d never imagined anything like that little bomb, and keeping it from Cash didn’t seem right at all.

  She sat there, unconsciously biting her lower lip, wondering how to handle it. She’d kept silent too long already, but on the other hand...maybe she’d come far enough with Angie to persuade her that her father needed to know about that man.

  “Hope? What’s worrying you?”

  She felt like an open book, and she wasn’t sure she liked it. “Nothing,” she said finally. “Just thinking.”

  “About Angie?”

  “Well, yes. It’s true she’s not screaming, at least not this week, but there’s still plenty of ice there. I was just wondering how to get past it. It’s not enough for her to like just me. She needs to trust you, too.”

  “I told you I wasn’t hoping for a miracle.” His tone had grown heavy. “I’ve just never been able to get close to her. I don’t know why. Like I said, every time I saw her, I was a stranger all over again. And when her mother died, she lost everything. I get it. Maybe I’m all tangled up in it, because as far as she’s concerned I took her away from everything she knew and brought her to the middle of nowhere.”

  “She just needs to settle in and make more friends,” Hope said with more certainty than she felt. “I like it here. It’s very different from the way I lived before, but I like it. It’s peaceful and pretty, and I love being around horses again. Angie loves horses, too. She’ll get over her sense of isolation.”

  “I hope so. I hear she’s been taking care of her own mount. I appreciate that.”

  Hope almost giggled. “It’s kind of hard for her not to when she sees me doing it. Maybe she’ll discover how soothing it is, and how it creates a bond with her horse.”

  “I hope so. That’s one of those things I don’t tolerate. You have to care for your animals. Period.”

  Hope hesitated. “Have you thought about getting her a pet. A cat or dog? If she’s willing to care for it, that is.”

  “It crossed my mind, but when she was refusing to care for her horse, I just couldn’t see it. Maybe I’ll consider it now.”

  Hope nodded, satisfied.

  “Have you told her about your baby yet?”

  “No.” At once everything inside Hope tensed. “I know I have to, and soon, but it’s so difficult. I’m trying to figure out how to approach it without telling her more than she needs to know.”

  “Like the fact you were raped by your fiancé?” He shook his head, his expression growing stern. “I’m all for protecting the innocence of childhood, but only to a point. There are some facts of life she needs to know for her own protection. I wouldn’t spare her the truth about what happened to you. You don’t need to give her details, but she needs to know that someone you trust isn’t always safe.”

  Hope had to stifle the urge to tell him Angie wasn’t as innocent as he thought, and that she was more aware of the facts of life than Cash suspected. “I’ll try to talk to her tomorrow,” she said.

  “I know it’s hard. I watched you struggle with telling me.” He paused. “Hope? I’ve been wondering... Don’t you need some help dealing with this? A counselor? Something?”

  “Eventually, maybe.” She closed her eyes, turning inward. “Right now, I feel like I’ve dealt with it. Maybe that’s just denial, but I had plenty of time to think about it all, four long months to be furious, sad, betrayed. I feel okay now that I’m away from it.”

  “How okay?” he asked. Then he slid down the couch until he was right beside her. “Nervous?”

  Her eyes popped open and met his. Having him so close was awakening things in her that felt good, not bad.

  “Hope?”

  “I feel like I’m erasing Scott. He was one man, not all men. It’s not like he was the only guy I ever dated. He’s not my only point of comparison. And I didn’t feel at all uneasy when you said you found me attractive. Quite the opposite.”

  “Really?” He held out his hand.

  She knew what he was asking—was she really comfortable enough with what had happened to her that she could tolerate taking the hand of a man? Without hesitation, she freed one hand from the afghan and laid it in his. His palm was warm, work-roughened, his grip gentle as his fingers closed around hers.

  He smiled, his eyes reflecting a heat that somehow didn’t seem threatening. It seemed inviting.

  “Good,” he said.

  The next thing she knew, he’d slipped his other arm around her and drew her against his hard, warm body. She caught her breath as an astonishing sense of hopeful expectation filled her. A wild sense that if he just made love to her, Scott would be forever banished. But that wouldn’t be fair to him.

  And evidently it wasn’t what he wanted at all. He just held her in the midst of the quiet night, filling her with the belief that it all could get better.

  All of it. She allowed her head to come to rest on his shoulder and closed her eyes. This was good and right. A long-unfamiliar warmth began to creep into her heart, along with yearnings she had thought she might never feel again. His shoulder was firm beneath her cheek, and the sound of his heartbeat comforting and strong. Like the man himself.

  “Rest,” he murmured. “Sleep if you can.”

  At first she didn’t think that would be possible, as achy desire filled her, but perhaps a hug was exactly what she needed.

  Because soon she drifted away into pleasant dreams about Cash, the most pleasant dreams she had had in months.

  She slept safe in the circle of his arms.

  Chapter Six

  Cash couldn’t explain it. For more than a decade now he’d felt no serious attraction for any woman. Since Sandy packed up and left, he’d concluded that he had nothing to offer, really, so why throw his heart into anything but his ranch?


  He’d had a few flings with women who knew the score, but nothing that mattered. After a while he and they had parted ways amicably enough. He was no catch in any way that he could see. He spent too much time working, had little time for casual socializing, certainly no time to keep a wife happy, judging by Sandy’s past remarks.

  So what the hell was he thinking when it came to Hope? She said she was past Scott, but he wondered about that. Setting her aside for the moment, he had to wonder at himself. Nothing to offer a woman, but he was looking at Hope in a whole different way.

  She wasn’t a casual fling. She couldn’t be. A meaningless romp would only wound her all over again. She was the marrying kind, especially since she had a child to think about. But despite his every effort, he felt pulled to her by hunger and something else, as if there was a rubber band between them trying to yank him closer.

  Holding her last night had only made it worse. Just a hug, yet he felt as if the outlines of her soft body had been permanently tattooed on his. The fullness of her breast, the gentle curve of her hip, the weight of her head on his shoulder. Her womanly scent. Enough to drive any man mad, and he was no exception. One hug had turned him into a wildfire.

  More than once he’d caught an expression in her face that suggested she was attracted to him, too. But that wasn’t enough. Attraction would never be enough, and she was probably still more of a wreck than she realized.

  He couldn’t offer her healing. He was no counselor, and besides, he just plain had nothing to offer. He had a troublesome daughter and a ranch that consumed him, and that would never satisfy a woman.

  What’s more, she was used to a life so different from his it was almost beyond his imagining. Men who could take her out for fancy dinners and buy her roses. A family that probably thought nothing of taking European holidays and long skiing vacations at places he could never afford.

  So what if she said she liked it here. Soon enough she’d realize there was little to be found here at all.

  So he had to be smart and not cross any lines. For both their sakes.

  So what the hell had he been doing last night, holding her while she fell asleep against him? Being brotherly? Hah! He knew himself better than that.

  He looked at her and thought she might need some professional help. Looking at himself, he realized he might need the same thing. All this time and he evidently still hadn’t recovered from the blow Sandy had dealt him.

  If there was anything to recover from. Hell, she’d taught him a lesson, and he’d thought he had learned it. Maybe not.

  For some reason in the past week, old dreams had been surfacing, dreams of family and home, and a woman to come home to every night. It was an illusion, one he could never bring to reality, but he had begun enjoying coming home after working with the cattle to find lights on, dinner in the oven and a smiling woman waiting for him. It was just a step away from pretending they were a happy family.

  And the laughter last night had almost put a seal on it. A man could work his heart out for that warmth and laughter, that welcome.

  That was his problem, wasn’t it? Working his heart out. Loving the ranch more than anything else, according to Sandy. More than her.

  Those remarks had been scalding him for over a decade now. It was a barrier he couldn’t find a way to cross. If a woman couldn’t see it, how could you explain to her that working that hard was a mark of his devotion to his family? What was he supposed to do? Let everything go slowly to ruin, leaving them homeless and hungry?

  It was a question he’d never been able to answer. Certainly not in a way Sandy had understood. Now he was having these vague thoughts about Hope, a woman who was used to being treated like a princess?

  Hell, he really did need his head examined. Wanting her wasn’t enough. It would never answer the questions.

  He mounted up and rode over to the chutes where he and his three men were going to check out the rest of the cattle, count how many were pregnant.

  The work was never done.

  * * *

  Hope waited nervously for Angie to come home. She wanted to hear about the makeup experience today, maybe learn something about who Mary Lou was, and finally, like it or not, she was going to have to address her pregnancy.

  God, she wasn’t looking forward to this, but she couldn’t let it go any longer. The looser clothes might not be a giveaway, though soon her baby bump would really show. Angie would have every right to feel Hope had been keeping important secrets, and given the girl’s fragile state, she’d probably find it cause to distrust even more. Or direct her anger at Hope.

  Her mind kept wandering back to falling asleep in Cash’s arms last night. It had been innocent enough on the face of it, but it filled her with a glow and had ignited a small sense of future possibilities in her. Cash didn’t find her repugnant because she had been raped. He wasn’t repelled by her pregnancy. Instead, he had welcomed her into his embrace, making her feel safe. Better, he made her feel okay, something she had not felt since the rape.

  Months of hearing that she was a liar, an ingrate, a stupid child and even worse had seriously chipped away at her self-image. She had been told more than once that if Scott had had sex with her, it was her fault. She must have invited it. She must have teased him. She must have done something bad. It was all on her.

  There were times when she had even questioned her own sanity, and all that saved her was the reality of the child growing in her. She hadn’t imagined that. And no matter how many times she examined her actions that night, she couldn’t see what she might have done that made Scott think she wanted to be taken over her own protests. No meant no, didn’t it?

  Apparently not in Scott’s world. At times when she forced herself to remember, she had the distinct impression that he had taken her struggles and her telling him to stop as part of a game, a challenge of some type. Then when it was over and she was sobbing he told her to grow up—she had nothing to cry about because they were going to get married soon. As if a piece of paper could bandage that wound.

  She stifled a sigh and glanced at the clock. Any minute now. Start cheerfully, she cautioned herself. Keep the conversation to school, makeup, Mary Lou while Angie got her snack. Then...well... She couldn’t help but feel she might be going to the executioner. If all of this was hard to explain to herself, how much harder to share it with a thirteen-year-old.

  At last she heard the front door open. Her heart picked up pace and it was suddenly difficult to keep her face smooth. She heard the door close, the backpack bang as it was dropped at the foot of the stairs. Then she heard something for the very first time: Angie called her name.

  “Hope?”

  “I’m in the kitchen.”

  Angie’s step was quick and light, and when she appeared in the kitchen, she was grinning. “Everybody liked my makeup!”

  “Wonderful.” Hope smiled broadly. “I’m so happy for you.”

  “Only the girls noticed it, of course, but that was the plan, right?”

  “Well, only a girl would notice it when you’ve done it so tastefully.”

  “Thank you! I had a great day today. Since Mary Lou started talking with me last week, some of the other girls have started to pay attention to me. Today I felt like I had a crowd again.” She opened the fridge and pulled out some milk, filling a glass then grabbing some cookies from the cookie jar. Moments later, she was sitting at the table with Hope.

  “You’ve been missing your friends, haven’t you?”

  Angie nodded. “I had two really close friends in Arizona, and I miss them. But now I think I can make new ones.”

  “I’m sure you can.”

  “Anyway, some of them asked me if you’d give them lessons on makeup, too. Maybe Dad will let some of them come over on Saturday?”

  “We’ll have to ask. I can’t answer for him.”
>
  Angie’s face darkened a bit, then brightened again. “He’ll say yes,” she said decisively.

  Hope laughed lightly, refusing to say anything because it wasn’t her place. She suspected Angie was right, though.

  “So will you do it?” Angie asked. “Show them?”

  “Sure. But ask them to bring their own makeup, and try to match their skin tone as closely as they can.”

  “I was telling them all about that today,” Angie said proudly. Then she hesitated. “I just said you had a lot of training in makeup. I didn’t say you’re my nanny.”

  “I don’t exactly feel like a nanny. Is that how you think of me?”

  Angie shook her head quickly. A crumb went flying from the corner of her mouth. “No. You don’t feel like that. More like...an older friend?”

  Hope didn’t know how ready she was to be referred to as older, but regardless, this was a huge step. And she was still looking for an entrée to bring up her pregnancy. Then she had a thought.

  “Angie, before you invite your friends over, there’s something you need to know about me. I don’t want to cause you any trouble.”

  Angie put her cookie down, swallowed some milk and grabbed a paper napkin from the basket on the table to wipe her mouth. “You mean that you’re pregnant? I wondered if you’d tell me.”

  Hope’s jaw dropped open. “How did you know?”

  “One of the girls at school said you were buying maternity clothes yesterday. Her mother works at Freitag’s. Everyone thinks my dad is the father, but I told them he can’t be because you only got here a week ago. Even kids my age can count.”

  Hope sat back, simply staring in disbelief. “It got around that fast?”