The longer he was in Wyoming, though, the more he felt . . . well, he felt like a failure.
He’d always thought of himself as a good dad. He made sure Libby ate three square meals a day and she knew how to take care of herself. She brushed her teeth and could dress herself, and he’d even taught her the alphabet song. But meeting the lady at the salon had rattled him. How was he supposed to give his daughter everything she wanted when he didn’t even know some of this shit existed? Princess hair? It apparently wasn’t enough to comb her hair. It had to be princess hair.
Maybe he should have taken that lady up on her date—trick or not—and picked her brain about kids. She seemed to be good with Libby.
He was still thinking about the woman—Becca—when he carried his daughter inside and up to her room. Hank tucked her into the bed, brushed the curls off her brow, and kissed her forehead. When he held her favorite teddy bear up, she reached for it without opening her eyes and rolled over, going to sleep. That was his kid, all right. She slept heavy. He watched her for a little longer, reluctant to leave her side, because it felt like if he turned around and walked away, she’d be eighteen in the next moment and leaving him. He wasn’t ready for that.
Not at all.
Hank eventually left the room and headed downstairs. The Swinging C Ranch boasted a large house with additional cabins out along the path for the ranch hands. His brothers were staying in two of the cabins, but Hank was staying in the house because it had a tub instead of just a shower, and Libby needed baths. He headed into the kitchen for something to eat, and it wasn’t empty. Uncle Ennis was seated at the table, doing a crossword, a cup of coffee at hand despite the late hour.
Well, hell. Uncle Ennis was a chatty sort, and that meant Hank was going to get trapped into a conversation.
Just what he needed.
“Late night,” was all his uncle said as Hank moved into the kitchen and opened the freezer, looking for something to eat.
If he was in his cabin in Foxtail, he’d fire up the griddle and make himself a stack of pancakes because pancakes were easy on the supplies and he had to make them last. But he was tired and preoccupied, and the last thing he wanted to do was spend more time in the kitchen. So he grabbed a frozen dinner, shoved it in the microwave, and crossed his arms, glaring at the thing as it spun around, cooking his food far too slowly.
“Everything okay?” Ennis asked.
Hank grunted a response.
“Libby okay, too? I noticed she was out with you.”
He clenched his jaw. “She’s fine. Had gum in her hair.”
“You try peanut butter?”
Hank reached over and pulled out the empty peanut butter jar that was still sitting on the counter from where he’d left it earlier and showed his nosy uncle. He knew the man meant well, but, damn, he was acting like Hank didn’t know how to be a dad or something. “Took her to the hair lady.”
It was the wrong thing to say. Uncle Ennis lit up. “You saw Becca? She’s the nicest young lady, isn’t she?” He shook his head, leaning over his crossword. “Pretty little thing, too. Shame about the fiancé.”
He thought about the short, curvy woman at the salon. How she’d asked him on a date. Now he had to know more . . . which meant talking to Uncle Ennis for longer. Damn it. It wasn’t that he disliked Ennis . . . but the man was a busybody and it crawled under Hank’s skin sometimes because he wanted to be involved in everything.
His dinner beeped.
Hank took it out of the microwave and slapped it down on the table. He grabbed a fork in silence and began to eat. He wasn’t going to ask. He wasn’t. He knew it was a trap, Ennis’s way of getting him to converse when he didn’t want to converse.
He took a bite.
Waited.
Took another bite.
Damn it. “Fiancé?” he asked as Ennis wrote something down on his crossword.
“Mmmhmm.” He didn’t look up. “She got left at the altar, you know. Man broke up with her for the mayor. Well, she wasn’t the mayor at the time. She’s the mayor now. Anyhow, poor Becca was so humiliated. Everyone felt just awful for her.” He shook his head. “Nicest girl. She deserved better.”
Hank grunted again. Took another bite. The food was awful. He took another forkful and then pushed it aside. “She asked me on a date.”
Ennis sat back in his chair, his expression one of utter surprise. “She did?”
Hell. He knew he shouldn’t have said anything. Hank shrugged.
Ennis smiled. It wasn’t a normal smile. It was slow and sure, and far too pleased. “Well now. When are you two going out?”
“Ain’t. I said no.”
Uncle Ennis opened his mouth to protest, a look of confusion on his face. He must not have noticed the warning glare on Hank’s face that told him he needed to let it go. Instead, his eyes focused on the door behind Hank. Two seconds later, the screen slammed and Hank’s younger brother Jack sauntered in. He headed for the fridge and stared inside it, not greeting either one of them.
“Hank was asked on a date by a pretty young woman in town,” Uncle Ennis announced.
Hank gritted his teeth. He shoulda kept his mouth shut, damn it. Now Uncle Ennis was going to tell everyone he ran into all about Hank’s business.
Sure enough, Jack jerked around, his eyes going wide. He stared at Hank, then at Uncle Ennis. “A date?”
“Sounds like.”
“Was she blind?” Jack asked.
Hank scowled. He wasn’t that ugly. “Go away, Jack.”
“Even more than that,” Uncle Ennis said, tapping his pencil on the crossword. “He turned her down. She’s real pretty, too. I’ve known her since she was a baby.”
Jack moved over and put his hand on Hank’s forehead, pretending to feel for a fever.
Hank swatted his hand away. “Cut it out.”
“Just wondering why you turned her down if she’s attractive.” His eyes widened. “She was ugly, wasn’t she? That’s why she wanted you.”
“She wasn’t ugly,” he gritted out. “She was real pretty. She was . . . short. Nice.” He tried to remember the woman’s features. He remembered her hair, her smile . . . and the way her tits moved when she shifted. Not that he was supposed to be thinking about that sort of thing. Didn’t seem right.
“But you didn’t wanna go out with her,” Jack restated, grabbing a chair and flipping it around, then straddling it. He sat at the table and gave his older brother a hard stare. “Did you pull a Caleb?”
Caleb was their other brother, and he was quiet and polite . . . most times. Around women, he got all red-faced and said nothing at all—and when he did say something, it usually came out wrong. Jack still liked to tease poor Caleb about the last time he liked a woman—Tina Tattersall was wearing a pretty, low-cut blouse and tending bar back in Anchorage when they’d stopped in for supplies one time. After dreaming about her for six months, Caleb had walked up to her and instead of saying, “Hi, Tina,” he’d said, “Hi, Tits,” and then turned around and walked out of the bar.
He’d never gone back.
“Becca isn’t ugly,” Uncle Ennis declared. “She’s a very sweet girl. Very lovely. And she hasn’t dated anyone since Greg left her at the altar.” Ennis patted the table. “I think you should go out with her.”
“No,” Hank said quietly again. “Not interested.”
“If she’s so pretty, maybe I’ll go say hello to her,” Jack said, scratching at his unkempt beard. “She can’t be all that picky if she asked you out, and I’m of a mind to start datin’ since I’m here.”
That was enough conversation for him tonight. Hank got to his feet, glared at Jack, glared at Uncle Ennis—who was grinning like a fool—and headed up to his room. At the top of the stairs, he pushed Libby’s door open wider and checked on her. His little girl was asleep, thumb shoved in her mouth, clutch
ing a teddy bear, the blankets kicked off. He tiptoed in, replaced the blankets, smoothed her hair . . . and realized too late that he’d just gotten glitter on his hand.
Pink glitter.
Damn it.
Hank quietly left the room and went to the bathroom to wash off the glitter. Shit was everywhere, and somehow it had gotten into his beard in the last thirty seconds. How the heck did that happen? Frowning at his reflection, he scrubbed at his beard and then stared at himself. He saw a deep scowl, heavy, dark brows, and a long beard. Nothing that would entice a pretty, sweet woman like Becca to instantly ask him out on a date.
Had to be a trick. Had to.
He thought of the first and last woman he’d fallen for. Well, “fallen for” was the wrong phrase. But he’d been mighty sweet on Adria Young every time he went into town. Tried to go out of his way to say hi to her. She always gave him welcoming smiles and flirted with him when he went to the bar. One night, he’d had a few too many to drink, Adria had been real friendly, and the next thing he knew, they were in bed together. It had been his first time with a woman—twenty-six was old for that sort of thing, and it was bothering him, but remote Alaska wasn’t crawling with eligible ladies. He’d thought Adria was amazing. Stunning. Maybe a little too sly for his taste, but that didn’t matter after a few beers. She’d curled up in bed with him, and in the morning she’d asked for money for a pack of smokes. He’d offered her his wallet and she’d smiled cutely and took a couple hundred.
And because he was an idiot that had gotten laid, he let her.
That went on for about a week before he realized she was always taking money out of his wallet the moment he had his back turned. One of the drunks at the bar had commented on how she’d done that to him last season—how she picked a mark and cleaned him out when he came into town with his savings—and Hank realized he’d been made a fool. She’d cleaned out his savings, sure enough, a few bills at a time out of his wallet.
He’d packed up his supplies and left town that same day, spent all winter at his remote cabin, throwing himself into daily chores and wishing he’d never met Adria. He’d piled up more pelts than ever before, worked harder, and repaired the log cabin so many times that Caleb and Jack got irritated every time he picked up a hammer. Eventually it was time to go back into town, and he had . . . and had woke up one morning to Adria on the doorstep of his motel room with a fat baby in her arms.
“This is yours. I don’t want it. She’s cramping my lifestyle.” She’d dumped the baby in his arms and left.
Hank hadn’t known what to do. Adria wasn’t at her apartment and he didn’t know where else to find her. He’d gone down to the police station with the infant in his arms and they’d chuckled at him because they all knew Adria. They’d politely suggested a DNA test.
He’d taken it and left with the baby girl to wait for the results. Before it had even come back, he’d fallen in love with the poopy little angel. She’d vomited all over his shirt and made disastrous diapers and cried so much he hadn’t known what to do. But when she settled down and held his finger? And smiled up at him with those toothless gums? He’d felt . . . something special.
The DNA test had said she was his, but it didn’t matter. Liberty Marie Watson had been his the moment she’d grabbed a fistful of his beard and giggled in delight.
She was the only female he liked and trusted. The only one whose smile was completely innocent.
He’d never seen Adria again. He’d kept going into town for a while, wondering if she missed Libby or wanted to see her. She never showed up, never responded to texts or emails, and last he heard, she’d moved to Dutch Harbor, because crab fishermen normally had loaded pockets.
So, yeah, Libby was his and that was all there was to it. Libby was the only reason he was here now. If it was just Hank, he’d have stayed high in the mountains in Alaska and never come out. But he had a tiny daughter to think about. Towns had books and dentists, and he figured Libby might need those things. When Uncle Ennis said he needed help at the ranch, he’d thought long and hard and eventually decided to go. It wasn’t just the money or that Ennis was family. It was that he needed to know if Libby needed a community. He’d give Painted Barrel some time, determine how Libby handled being around so many townsfolk and adjusted to life on the farm, and then see how things shook out after calving season.
If she wanted to go back to Alaska, he’d take her.
If she wanted to stay in town, well . . . he’d endure it. He’d do anything for his baby girl.
Maybe not date the local hairdresser, but . . . most anything.
CHAPTER THREE
Four Months Later
All was quiet in the salon, even on what was normally a busy weekend. Becca flipped through a magazine, eyeing the hairstyles. She wasn’t worried. As the only hairdresser in Painted Barrel, she had a captive audience. Unless they wanted to drive a half hour up the road just for a trim, everyone would come in sooner or later. Right now, it was “later” because it was right in the middle of calving season, which meant that every rancher with two hands had them full right about now. Happened every spring. The cattle all seemed to want to give birth at the same time, which meant the ranchers didn’t have time to breathe, much less head into town for some grooming.
She didn’t mind. It was a regular occurrence, and work would pick up when calving slowed down. Until then, she just had to entertain herself.
The door opened, and one of her weeklies stepped inside with a gusty sigh. “This place is like a ghost town!” Hannah said dramatically. She set her purse on the floor and then hopped into the chair next to Becca’s. “Calving season always makes this place feel deserted.”
Becca’s lips twitched with amusement. As the local hotel owner, Hannah wasn’t affected by calving season that much, but she loved to be dramatic. She also loved gossip, so Becca did her best to be careful about what she said to her. Hannah didn’t have a mean bone in her body, but she also didn’t have a private one, either.
Becca got out of her seat and put a cape on Hannah’s shoulders. “Is your husband helping up at Price Ranch?”
“He is. That old fart.” She shook her head, smiling. “Still thinks he’s not a day over eighty.”
Becca giggled. Hannah and her Clyde might have found each other late in life, but they were determined to make every day count. She’d never seen a pair so very happy with each other. It was nice, though. It reminded her that love was a real thing that existed. Sometimes she needed that. She let Hannah complain for a bit before taking her over to the sink to wash her hair. She then started to blow-dry the short white hair into the puffy curls Hannah preferred. As she worked, Hannah rambled on about the town’s gossip, whether Sage’s baby would be a boy or a girl, or who was driving into town extra late on a weeknight.
“I saw Jimmy Irons bought some fresh paint at the hardware store, you know.” Hannah met her gaze in the mirror. “Everyone’s keeping busy with spring projects during calving season except you.”
Becca smiled as if the comment didn’t bother her. She’d been expecting it, really. “It has been a little quiet around here.”
“You need something to do or you’re going to go stir-crazy.”
“Oh, I still have some clients coming in. It’s just quieter.” She shrugged, teasing a white curl with the iron. “Until then, I’ll catch up on my reading.”
“Reading? You should be chasing after children or looking after a husband.” She shook her head, messing up Becca’s careful work. “I told my Clyde that it isn’t normal for a young thing like you to be all alone. Surely there’s got to be someone you can date.”
Jeez, Hannah made it sound like she was a leper. “I’m not sure I’m ready for that.”
“It’s been two years, Becca. You need to get back on the wagon.” Hannah gave her a knowing look in the mirror. “I heard Greg’s chasing down that new teacher. Miss Amy.
”
She’d met Amy a few times when the woman came in for a trim. She seemed very soft and sweet, with gorgeous thick mahogany hair and naturally long lashes that framed bright blue eyes. That seemed unfair, but Amy was kind. Besides, it didn’t matter to Becca who that loser Greg dated. She was done with him. “Good for them. I hope he makes her very happy.”
Hannah just watched her in the mirror. “Mmmhmm,” she said knowingly. “Just seems wrong to me that he kept you on hold all your best years and now he’s going to hitch up with someone new lickety-split.”
Gosh, she hated these conversations. She said nothing, spritzing a layer of hairspray on the perfect puff of curls adorning Hannah’s head. “You want to get your nails done this week or next week?”
Hannah threw her hands up, her expression that of a martyr. “Oh my goodness, it has to be next week. I’m so very busy today.”
“Oh? New guests at the hotel?” Was she pouncing on the conversation change? Probably. Did it matter? Nope. If there was an opportunity for diversion, she’d take it.
“Mercy, yes.” Hannah rolled her eyes. “The repairman is coming for the washer, and I have a ridiculous amount of dirty linens waiting to be cleaned. I have new guests coming tonight and Chelsea’s on vacation this week and Clyde’s helping out over at Price Ranch, and I promised Doc Parson that I’d drive groceries up to him. I’m just . . . swamped!”
Becca’s lips twitched. Hannah was swamped because she loved being in everyone’s business. If she spent more time working and less time gossiping . . . well, Becca wouldn’t even have a client today. So she couldn’t complain. She adjusted one last curl, absently noting, “You’re driving groceries up to Doc? Are they too slammed to get to the store?”
The Cowboy Meets His Match Page 3
