“Well, when you put it that way,” Austin said with an exaggerated sigh that made Sara giggle. “Yeah, it’s kind of been a doozy, hasn’t it? But we got through it. I think that deserves a cheers.”
He held up his beer, and Sara sat up even straighter, forcing her face into a serious expression with hints of merriment dancing just underneath. They clinked their longnecks, each of them following the gesture with a long, satisfying swallow.
They sat in silence for a little while after that, Sara looking at the sky again while Austin’s thoughts shifted back and forth between worrying about everything that had happened and trying not to notice the warmth of Sara’s leg against his. When she cleared her throat pointedly, he jumped, sure that she could somehow read his racier thoughts.
"What do you think you'll do?" she asked, her expression almost shy when she looked at him. For a moment, he was confused, still caught up in the way she sometimes bit her lip when she was considering something. Then he realized that there was only one thing she could mean, and he took another deep gulp of beer.
“I don’t know,” he finally said, looking out into the dark where his father’s car had recently been. “Honestly? I’ll probably call him in the end. Whether I like it or not, the man is my father. I might as well hear him out, right? See what he has to say? It doesn’t have to mean anything.”
“No,” she said after a pregnant pause. “It doesn’t. And I think that’s fair. If it were me, I would almost certainly do the same thing.”
He glanced at her quickly, looking for some indication that she was only saying what she thought he wanted to hear. When she seemed sincere, he heaved a surprisingly large sigh of relief. He hadn’t realized until that moment just how much her approval on this matter meant to him.
Her hand, warm and reassuring, landed on his back, startling him so completely that he almost jumped off of the step. If she felt the flinch, she didn't show it, though, just ran her palm up and down his back so that the tension seemed to leak right out of him.
"Everything is going to be okay, Austin," she said calmly, not even a hint of doubt there. "This was a rough day, but it's over now, and tomorrow is a new one. We got through this, and we'll get through the next thing, too."
“But Lea,” Austin said thickly, the full force of what had almost happened hitting him all at once. “If we hadn’t found her—”
“But we did find her,” Sara interrupted, gentle but firm. “And right now she’s safely asleep in her bed. There’s not any place safer on the planet for her to be. You just have to remember, mister, that you’re not alone in this. You may have been before, but you’re certainly not now. You’ve got me, whether it’s for help with Lea or just to do a little venting. And just so you know, I’m a really good listener.”
Maybe it was the way her eyes shone in the moonlight, or the sweet scent of her so close. Maybe it was simply the fact that he couldn't remember the last time somebody had cared for him so well. Whatever it was, Austin suddenly found it impossible to stop staring at those damn lips. She was biting the bottom one again, and all at once, he knew that he needed to know the way those lips tasted.
He didn’t think, didn’t give himself the time to do the smart thing. He set his beer down, leaned in close, and kissed her.
Sara awoke slowly with the kind of delicious heaviness in her body that only came with a truly good night's sleep. She stretched out as far as her limbs would go, shivering with pleasure at the feeling of the day's first use. Before she even remembered why, her fingertips went to her lips, and she shut her eyes, shuddering a little at the memory of the kiss she and Austin had shared.
In all her life, she had never had a kiss nearly as good, a kiss that made her blush just to think of it. She was pretty sure she had gone to bed smiling, despite the fact that they hadn’t shared more than two words after they had pulled apart. They had finished their beers in silence and gone to their separate beds without either one mentioning what had just happened.
The memory was lovely and made her feel warm all over…and yet, as she woke more fully, Sara couldn't help being a little uneasy. Things hadn't seemed awkward or bad as they had said goodnight, but maybe she was wrong. Maybe the kiss was a mistake that would undo most of the progress they had made in figuring out how to co-exist.
She showered and dressed quickly, determined to meet her fears head-on, and let the chips fall where they might. When she arrived in the kitchen, though, she found a note waiting for her instead of the people she was expecting. Apparently, Austin had taken Lea on an impromptu, early morning park run. While Sara was thrilled that father and daughter were starting to spend more quality solo time together, she couldn't help wondering if Austin was also trying to avoid her.
Mind still racing, she poured herself a glass of juice and took it to the kitchen table, where Austin’s note still sat. She was just settling in to reread it, searching for some kind of hidden meaning between the lines, when a knock at the front door gave her such a start that she almost slopped juice all over the tabletop.
“Coming!” she called, her heart still beating uncomfortably quickly as she hurried to the door, where the knocking continued unabated. It didn’t occur to her until she had the door part of the way open that she might find Austin’s prodigal father standing there, but by the time that thought occurred to her, it was too late for her to stop.
"Rachel!" she exclaimed, the sound a mixture of relief and surprise as Austin's sister pushed through the front door. "Thank goodness it's you!"
"Hi," Rachel said, looking around the room with narrowed eyes for a moment before Sara's words seemed to register fully. "Wait, what do you mean, 'thank goodness’? Who else would it be? And where's Austin?"
“Hold on,” Sara laughed, starting for the couch and trusting that Rachel would follow. “This officially qualifies as too many questions at once.”
“Okay,” Rachel said with a nod, pacing in front of where Sara sat instead of sitting down herself. “Let’s start with the basics. Where is Austin? Please tell me he doesn’t have you answering the door for him now.”
“Oh, no,” Sara said quickly, her face growing hot, although she couldn’t quite say why. “He’s not here. He took Lea on an early morning outing to the park. And besides, with how hard he works out on the land, I don’t mind opening the door. It’s not a big task.”
"If you say so," Rachel mused, finally stopping with her hands placed firmly on her hips. "But that's good about the park. Sounds like a positive sign, at least."
“Yes,” Sara agreed with a nod, clasping her hands in her lap and looking up at her friend with a small smile of amusement. “I think so.”
"So then the next question is, is the text Austin sent me last night legit or was he messing with me? Is our stupid dad really in town?"
Sara sighed and patted the space beside her. When she looked at the way Rachel's face fell as she sat down heavily, Sara couldn't help wishing that Austin could have delayed his impromptu daddy-daughter date until after he'd spoken with his sister. He should be the one to talk this thing over with Rachel, not Sara. For a long time, it had been the two siblings and their mother against the world. If the news of their dad's return was hitting Rachel half as hard as it had hit Austin, he should be the one to cushion the blow and help her process the situation.
“Sara?” Rachel prompted, pinching her arm to get her attention the way she had done when they were kids. “Earth to Sara?”
“Yes, I heard you,” Sara answered slowly, weighing her options and finding all of them lacking. “And yes, your dad showed up here last night. Austin was pretty shaken up, to be honest.”
“Yeah,” Rachel said on a long exhalation. “I bet. Austin basically stopped talking to Dad long before the guy actually packed up and left. I don’t know what Dad was thinking, going to Austin first instead of me.”
“Neither do I,” Sara said with a frown, her concern over the older man’s motives coming back with full force.
�
�How badly did Austin take it?” Rachel said. “Did he put a fist through one of his walls?”
“No,” Sara stammered, suddenly keenly aware of the heat in her face and the intensity of the blush likely accompanying the warmth. “Actually, he...well, he kissed me.”
“What?!” Rachel shouted so loudly that it made Sara flinch. Rachel jumped back off of the couch and threw her hands up in the air in a “what gives?” gesture that made Sara laugh in spite of her nerves.
"Yeah," Sara continued, tugging on the ends of her hair nervously and already wondering if saying anything had been a mistake. "It just sort of happened. We didn't discuss it at all afterward."
"Well, no," Rachel laughed. "You wouldn't have. Austin is crazy guarded, Sara. It'll take a while before he can really open up. But for what it's worth, I'm thrilled by the idea of you two getting together. I—"
"Whoa," Sara interrupted, holding up a halting hand that trembled noticeably. "Nobody said anything about us getting together. I won't deny that I like him and that there's an attraction—"
“Yuck,” Rachel interrupted, wrinkling her nose.
“But neither one of us is in a place to get into a relationship,” Sara continued firmly. “The kiss was just one of those things that happened.”
"Sure," Rachel said, looking at Sara consideringly. "But you have to remember, sweetie, that life rarely hands us the things worth happening at the picture-perfect time. Sometimes you just have to take a chance and see how things go."
Sara opened her mouth to disagree but promptly shut it again when she realized that she actually agreed with her friend.
The only problem was, she had no idea what Austin was thinking and she didn’t think she was brave enough to ask him.
Eleven
“Pink, Daddy! Pink!”
"That's right, baby," Austin agreed with a chuckle, glancing down from his position on the ladder to see his daughter looking up at him rapturously. "It's your birthday party, and you're going to have just as much pink as you want."
Lea nodded approvingly and turned her attention back to her stuffed bear, looking up again every now and then to make sure that Austin’s decorating skills were up to par.
Austin just shook his head, smiling to himself as he tried to perfect yet another oversized pink ribbon. Five years ago, if somebody had told him he would be spending a Saturday afternoon preparing the pink princess decorations for a three-year-old’s birthday party, he would have laughed out loud. He was learning that things changed, though, and sometimes the divergences were for the better.
“Sara?” Lea asked curiously, reminding him of one way in which he was still struggling to adapt to change.
"No, honey, not right now," Austin said, looking hard at his work instead of at his daughter. For a three-year-old, she seemed to have disturbing insight into his thoughts, and he didn't want her to sense his confusion surrounding Sara. "She's on the phone. She'll be out here with us soon enough."
The answer satisfied her for the time being, and Austin said a silent prayer thanking God for small miracles. He wasn't ready to get into a conversation with anyone about Sara. He was still far too confused to be able to talk about her in any capacity.
Almost a week had gone by since their kiss beneath the stars, and they hadn't spoken so much as a word about it. For the most part, they both seemed to be behaving as if it had never happened at all. If anything was different, it was in the feeling he got coming off of her. She seemed a little shy, a little more reserved than she had been since her earliest days on the ranch. There was a feeling of the two of them walking on eggshells around each other, which was the exact opposite of what Austin wanted. After the intimacy he'd felt with her as she reassured him on the porch step, her current reserve made him feel acutely alone. The idea that he'd scared her off made him feel a little sick.
And that wasn’t the only thing weighing on him. His concern over where things stood with Sara felt like child's play compared to the roiling mass of doubt that was his feeling about matters with his dad. Every time he thought about Pete ambushing him in his own front yard, he was tempted to either cry or put his fist through a wall.
It wasn't only his dad he was mad at, though. Not by a long shot. He was mad at himself for being so wishy-washy—for not being able to just tell the man where he could put his offer of reconciliation. He kept getting close to doing just that, reaching for the card sitting on his nightstand to rip it into bits or make an angry, ranting phone call, but he couldn't quite make himself go through with it. It left him feeling impotent and restless, so that a day of decorating was a welcome distraction.
"Hey, sugar," he called down to Lea. "Take a step back, will ya? I'm coming down the ladder, and I don't want to actually squash you in the process."
Lea giggled like it was the funniest thing she had ever heard in her life, which made Austin grin like he was still a kid himself. When he was safely on the ground, he scooped her up in his arms, hugging her tightly and taking a deep breath of her little girl's smell.
“You’re my girl, you know that?” he said around a lump that had suddenly taken up residence in his throat. “You’re my best girl.”
“My daddy,” she said decisively, squirming in his arms after she had gotten as much cuddling as she could tolerate.
“That’s right,” he said, fixing her hair ribbon as he set her back down. “I’m your daddy and nobody else’s.”
He bent forward to examine the box of pink bows still waiting to be hung, amazed at the way they seemed to be multiplying. Pretty soon the barn, usually reserved for hard work, animals, and sweat, was going to look like a pretty princess den, and he wouldn't have it any other way. As far as he was concerned, Lea was going to have the best damn little girl's party that there ever was.
“Do we get a pony for the party?” Lea asked sweetly from behind him, hurrying past him to the box of decorations and peering over the side. “A pretty pony?”
Austin stopped his movements, standing stock-still, almost afraid to even look at her for fear that he would break whatever spell was responsible for what he'd just heard. She had a couple of words she spoke with some regularity now, “Sara” and “Daddy” being among them, but he hadn't heard her speak a full sentence since her mother had dropped her off on his doorstep.
“What did you say, sugar?” he asked slowly, forcing himself to take a breath. “Can you say it again so that I’m sure I heard you right?”
“Can we have a pony?” she repeated, giggling at how silly he must look to her now. “For the party?”
Austin's eyes filled with tears, and before he could think what he was doing, he strode to the open barn door and shouted Sara's name.
“Seriously, Sara, you should think about it. This would be nothing like what you were doing before. You would be playing in a whole new league if you signed on with Reagan Academy. You would be the envy of everyone you know, too, if that has any bearing on your decision.”
“No,” Sara answered, shifting restlessly where she sat perched on the arm of the couch. “It doesn’t. I don’t really care about that kind of thing, Sacha. You know that.”
“Okay, fine,” Sacha laughed good-naturedly. “Would it make a difference if I told you that I’ll personally be so jealous I won’t be able to see straight? If the position was for a teacher instead of a pathologist, I would be all over it. I would kill to work for that school. I might actually turn green.”
Despite the way her head was spinning, Sara couldn’t help but laugh. Sacha Woods was a friend she had worked with in Casper and one of the few people she still talked to after walking away. When she had seen her friend’s name pop up on her phone, Sara had walked Lea to the barn to sit with Austin awhile so that she and Sacha could catch up in peace. Now that she knew the reason for the call, she was heartily glad she’d stepped away where the others couldn’t hear her. Whether or not Lea would actually understand what they were talking about, Sara knew she would feel guilty discussing a job that would
take her back to Casper in front of the child.
“Well, thank you for the information,” Sara said lamely. She winced at how uncertain she sounded, sure that Sacha would pick up on her hesitation. Sure enough, her friend made a disgruntled, scoffing noise that made Sara’s fingers move gingerly to her temples.
“Is that really all you have to say?” she asked incredulously. “I thought you would be more excited than this.”
“I just don’t know yet,” Sara said truthfully, gazing out the window at the barn where Austin and Lea were busy decorating. “I don’t want to let down the people I’m helping here.”
"Fine, I get that, I guess," Sacha said huffily, sounding very much like she didn't get it in the slightest. "But don't spend too much time trying to decide. They're going to have to fill the position sooner rather than later. You don't want to be busy thinking still and find the job snatched out from under you. That's all I'm saying."
Sara reiterated that she would give it both serious and speedy thought and hung up with a sigh of relief. The relief turned out to be woefully short-lived, though, when she heard Austin shouting her name almost as soon as she had set her phone aside.
“Oh, my God!” she exclaimed, then laughed at her own skittishness. She could tell by the tone of Austin’s voice that whatever it was he wanted her for, it was a good thing. Smiling to herself, she hurried towards the sound of father and daughter, wondering what it could be.
“What is it?” she demanded breathlessly, her grin widening. “What do we have going on in here?”
At the sound of her voice, Austin looked up from Lea, his smile rivaling her own.
“I called you because I wanted you to hear something,” he said, a mischievous twinkle in his eyes.
“Hear what?” Sara asked, her curiosity rising with every second that passed.
“Do you want to tell her, Lea?” he asked, turning to his daughter instead of explaining what was going on. “Want to ask her what you asked me?”
The Rancher’s Tempting Nanny Page 8
