Their Little Cowgirl Read online

  Immediately Steven halted. "Jackie, darlin', help us," he said. "Or we're going to take a tumble."

  Immediately Jackie scooped the babies into her arms and righted them on Steven's back. "Whoa, that was close," she said with exaggerated mock relief, brushing a hand over her forehead. "Want another ride?"

  The children squealed with delight.

  "Thank you," Steven said as he began to make the circuit of the mat again. "It may be only a short drop to a heavily padded mat, but a horse has some pride. This horse hasn't dumped a rider yet."

  "What a special father you are," Jackie said suddenly, the words seeming to come out of nowhere. Her own father would have never risked his dignity this way. He'd never even considered the fact that his child needed and craved his attention. Or if he had, he had dismissed her needs as inconsequential in comparison to his own.

  Steven stopped and stared at her. "Nicest thing anyone has ever said to me, I think," he told her, and for some reason she just couldn't look away. She reached out as if to touch him.

  Suddenly there was a stirring on the other side of the room. Beverly was clapping her hands. "Story time, everyone. Mrs. Lucy is going to read everyone a story. Come on, now. Find a spot."

  Jackie half expected a stampede, but she hadn't reckoned with the personalities of one-year-olds. Half the children ignored Beverly completely and kept doing what they were doing. Others simply moved from one activity to another. One little girl started crying piteously. Parents started scooping up children and carrying them over to the story area.

  Steven waited while Jackie helped the two little ones dismount. Then he took the little boy by one arm and looked at Jackie. "Why don't you hold Suzy on your lap while they read the story. She gets antsy and likes to cuddle halfway through. At least she does if she's with someone she likes a lot." His tone implied that Suzy liked her a lot, and that he was okay with it.

  It was the closest to a gesture of total acceptance that Steven had ever given her, and Jackie couldn't stop herself from touching him this time. She placed her hand on his arm. "She's really lucky to have a father like you."

  He rotated his arm and slid his hand to take hers. "Thank you for coming here with me today. Now…about that story?"

  "I love stories. Read them all the time," Jackie said with a smile, and she reached out her hands to Suzy.

  But at that moment, Beverly Darvish barreled in, nearly knocking Jackie down as she stepped between Jackie and Steven. "Steven, I saved a seat for you, just like always. This would probably be boring for you, anyway," Beverly said, barely turning her head to aim the last comment at Jackie before turning back to Steven. "Come on, now, you've got Davis. I'll just take Suzy." And she swung Suzy up in one arm and linked her other through Steven's. Immediately she started moving toward the story area. Suzy was twisting in her arms and trying to look backward to where Jackie was. Her little face was puckered up in a look of sheer distress.

  Jackie glanced at Steven and saw that his eyes had turned hard and cold. He didn't move a muscle at Beverly's urging. Instead, he easily freed his arm and gently placed the little boy down on the nearest mat, making sure the child was safe and happy. Then he took his daughter from Beverly, who flinched at his quick and graceful movements that so easily reversed everything she'd just done.

  "That was real nice of you to offer, Beverly," he said, his voice laced with steel, "but in case you didn't hear me right the first time, I told you that Jackie is my guest. I don't ignore my guests, and I don't exactly appreciate someone practically knocking her down without so much as a word of apology. You'd better run along now. I think you're already missing story hour. Red Riding Hood is just about halfway to Grandmother's house. You wouldn't want to miss the ending. It's pretty good. That wolf is pretty pushy, but the woodcutter doesn't let him get away with anything."

  And then he smiled at Beverly and winked, just as if he'd been kidding all along, but the smile was a bit thin.

  Beverly blinked and opened her mouth. Then, without saying another word she turned and walked away, her back ramrod straight.

  "Are you all right?" Steven asked Jackie, who had jumped back hard when Beverly had all but shoved her out of the way.

  No, I will never be fine, because I can't get my bearings with you, Jackie thought. He caught her off guard in one way or another time and time again. No one had ever truly stood up for her before. No one had ever expressed any true interest in her well-being.

  She nodded slightly. "I'm fine," she said. "She didn't really knock me down."

  "Well, if she had, I got the impression she wouldn't have noticed or cared. Come on. Care for a story?" He looked toward the area where almost everyone had gathered.

  "Oh, I'm afraid I've had a bad experience with that one," she said softly. "I've always loved fairy tales, but Red Riding Hood put me off of hiking in the woods for weeks when I was a little girl."

  "No wolves here at Kids Kamparound," he said with a smile.

  "No," she agreed, for no one could call a man who wasn't interested in a woman a wolf. "But I have an idea. When we're done here, take me to a bookstore, and I'll find a new story for Suzy. I'd like that. But…" She looked down at the cheerful little boy who had gone back to his pink teddy bear. He was hugging the bear and nearly falling over with drowsiness. "Who does he belong to?"

  Steven chuckled. "He's Mrs. Lucy's, the storyteller. He's such a good baby that she knows someone will always take care of him. In another minute, when the story ends, she'll come get him and take him home. In the meantime, I'm going to find him a crib and tuck him in. He needs some snooze time. All babies do."

  But Suzy was looking as bright-eyed as ever. "Suzy doesn't seem sleepy at all."

  "She thrives on all this company. It's as if she forces herself to stay awake through the whole thing, but when we get her home, she'll go out almost right away. Happens every time."

  "Ah, a little social butterfly," Jackie said, kissing Suzy's hand.

  "Just like her mother," Steven said, and then he froze.

  So did Jackie.

  He rubbed the back of his neck and started to open his mouth.

  "Don't," she pleaded. "It's okay, really. I'm sure that something happens in the womb, some kind of communication that scientists haven't been able to analyze yet. Even though your wife died, and even though Suzy came from my eggs, I bet your wife still passed on a part of herself to Suzy."

  The look that Steven gave her was fierce, dark and far too difficult to read. "Let's go," he said.

  "What? Did I say something wrong?"

  But he was already gently picking up the little boy and carrying him to a crib, where he covered him and stroked his cheek softly before carrying Suzy out of the playgroup.

  Jackie followed. She arrived at the car just as Steven had finished putting Suzy in the car seat.

  "Did I say something that made you angry?" she asked. "If I did, I'm truly sorry."

  He rose to his full height and took two steps that brought him right beside her. "You didn't say anything wrong," he admitted.

  "Then why do you look so angry?"

  "I'm not angry with you. I'm angry with me because you said something very right. It's not the first time, either. You say things, you do things, that intrigue me, and I don't want to be intrigued. Can you understand how it is?"

  Oh yes, she could understand all too well. He was standing so close she could breathe in his scent, could feel his warmth. She could remember how he had put Beverly in her place just because she had been rude to his guest. Jackie barely managed to nod.

  "You say that, but I don't think you really can," he told her, and he raised one hand and slid it beneath her hair, behind her neck.

  She swallowed hard. "I—no one has ever stood up for me before," she said suddenly, her heart speeding up to a trot. "That intrigues me. I don't like it much, either, even though I'm grateful for what you said to Beverly."

  But he frowned. "What do you mean, no one has ever stood up for you bef
ore?"

  She shrugged. "Nothing, really. I just—my father didn't like having children. He and my mother were divorced, and she blamed my existence for causing him to leave."

  Steven uttered a word Jackie couldn't quite make out. She was pretty sure that it wasn't a nice word, and that he had muttered it beneath his breath so that she and Suzy wouldn't have to hear him swearing.

  "I'm not complaining," Jackie quickly said. "I got over all that a long time ago, and it's okay now. I'm just explaining."

  He continued to stare at her, tilting his head to study her more closely. "It's not okay," he said in a deep rasping voice. "But you stand up like a little soldier and just take what life gives you. You duke it out and make your way. You take the time to notice the little things, the important things. You donate your eggs to a woman who could never have a child without them, and then go so far as to speculate that that woman surely gave her baby something in utero. You said it because you felt that it mattered to me."

  "I said it because I thought it might be true," she said, half breathless as his hand slid gently higher on her scalp. It might be true, she thought. The woman who carried the baby might well give her child a part of herself through her bloodstream. Wasn't it possible? But, she admitted to herself, she had done her wondering out loud because she had thought that he needed to hear it. He had lost his wife and, his life had been invaded by a woman he had never thought to meet—the egg donor. He had given to her, Jackie admitted, and she wanted to give back what she could. She breathed out slowly.

  "I said it because it might be true," she insisted softly. "It could happen. Babies are so much more than genetic material."

  "Oh, but that genetic material can be very important," he said, his voice dipping deeper, his thumb beginning a slow caress up and down a sensitive inch of her neck.

  Jackie swallowed hard. "I…I…maybe."

  "You want me to stop touching you?"

  She closed her eyes. "Yes. No. I don't know. You intrigue me, too, and I don't like it, either."

  "I know. I wish to heck it wasn't so, Jackie darlin', but the truth is that there's just something about you…"

  She felt the warm, minty drift of his breath. Her eyes flew open. She gazed up at him and then she reached for him. She rose on her toes. "There's a lot of something's about you. I don't like it at all," she declared hotly. And then she kissed him. Hard.

  "I don't like it," she repeated, half to herself. "And I don't want it. Now let's go home and forget all about this." She didn't even berate herself for using the word home—he knew what she meant.

  She just wished she knew.

  And she wished, she really wished, that she could stop thinking about Steven as a man she liked, a man she desired. How much easier it would be if they could just go back to arguing and being adversaries.

  But that couldn't be good for Suzy, Jackie thought.

  I guess I' in just doomed to burn for the man until the day I leave. And then I'm going to turn my back on Rollins Acres forever. I'm going to try to forget.

  But a part of her knew she would never forget, not the child and not the man. The best she could do for now was to distract herself and keep her mind off Steven and on the reason she had come here.

  "I can do anything I want to if I put my mind to it," she told herself later that day. "All I need is a really good plan."

  Chapter Ten

  Steven had apparently taken her words to heart, Jackie thought two days later. Since she had kissed him the man had barely come near her other than to let her know where he could be reached or to let her know in small, subtle ways that he trusted her with his daughter.

  "I've talked to Charlotte," he had said just that morning as he was going out the door. "She agrees that you should have more of a chance to spend time with Suzy. So if you want to take her to the playground or for a walk, I just want you to know that I'm not going to be dogging your footsteps. I don't want you to feel you have to be looking over your shoulder to see if I'm watching your every move."

  "But I'm not," she whispered to Suzy as she squeezed a dollop of baby shampoo into the palm of her hand and luxuriated in the feel of the little girl's tiny scalp beneath her massaging fingertips. "Your daddy has hardly even been around lately, sweetie pie. How could I even begin to think that he was watching my every move? He's off somewhere with his horses and cows, I expect." Jackie knew that her voice was a little wistful. She couldn't escape the fact that she missed Steven's deep voice. She missed him, even though she had no business doing so.

  But at that moment Suzy looked up at Jackie, blinked and then splashed both palms in the bathtub, sending water flying everywhere.

  Jackie jumped but held on to the baby. "You little imp," she said, smiling at Suzy. "Did you do that on purpose to make me laugh?"

  Suzy cooed and smiled and looked totally innocent.

  "Yes, well, serves me right for letting my thoughts drift, sweetheart. I shouldn't have been fretting about your daddy, anyway. It's probably better if I stay here and he stays with his cows. At least I can't do anything stupid this way." Other than spend all her time missing a man she had no business missing.

  "Cowww?" Suzy said, dragging the word out. "Moooo."

  Jackie laughed. "Yes, moooo," and she puckered her lips to accentuate the word.

  At that moment she looked up to see Steven standing in the doorway, watching them. Jackie realized that her lips were still puckered. She quickly straightened them.

  Steven's gaze dropped.

  She looked down and realized that the water had made her white blouse cling to her body. She breathed in a deep gulp of air and looked up into Steven's fierce, dark eyes. But all he did was give her a quick nod, then move away.

  Once again, she and Suzy were alone. This was what she had wanted when she came here, wasn't it? It was still what she wanted, wasn't it?

  Carefully, she scooped the baby out of the tub and wrapped her in a clean white towel. She hugged Suzy to her.

  "You're all that matters," she whispered to her child. But in her heart she knew she lied. She was starting to care for things she had no business caring about. She was starting to realize that her coming here might have been a mistake in many ways.

  But if she was going to be able to go back to her own life and be happy, she needed to find a way to turn things around and make these two weeks end light and easy. Somehow, there had to be a way.

  He was doing his best, Steven told himself as he moved about the house later that night. He had not gone near Jackie, even though it meant time away from his daughter. Jackie only had a short time with Suzy. He was going to try very hard to let her have it in peace, with no distractions.

  But as he passed by Suzy's room, he couldn't help peeking in. Maybe he could just give his child one quick good-night kiss and then leave.

  Slowly, silently, he pushed open the door, not wanting to wake her if she was already asleep. And there they were. Jackie was seated in the rocker, Suzy on her lap, a book held so that both of them could see.

  "And then when the handsome prince realized chat not only was the princess beautiful, but also a pretty good barrel racer who was terribly smart and very handy with ranch chores," Jackie said, "he decided that he really wanted to get to know her better. What do you think of this story so far, sweetness?"

  Suzy cooed sleepily. She pointed her little chubby fingers at the picture, then rubbed her eyes.

  "Yes, that was one pretty on-the-ball prince, don't you think? He knew that a woman is more than just a lot of pretty hair and eyes," Jackie added. "Not that there's anything wrong with pretty hair and eyes. Yours are very nice, but I can already tell that you're smart and funny and so much more. The prince saw that in the princess, too. And look, see, she realized that he had some good points, too. He could ride and rope and flex his muscles, but he also knew how to cook and wash his own dirty laundry. Not bad for a guy, huh?" And she hugged Suzy and dropped a kiss on the top of her head.

  Well, heck, St
even thought, holding his laughter in check with some difficulty, how was a man supposed to ignore that? He cleared his throat.

  Jackie jumped. His lovely visitor looked up then, her eyes big and round, just like Suzy's. The only difference was that Suzy was smiling. Jackie was turning a delicious shade of pink that dipped right down the vee of her white blouse in the most enticing way.

  Reluctantly, and with some difficulty, he reined in his errant thoughts. He let her off the hook by raising his gaze back to her eyes. "Nice story," he said, not able to keep from smiling. "I don't seem to remember it reading quite that way the last time I looked at it, but I'm sure the author is long gone and won't mind a bit of embellishment."

  Jackie lifted one shoulder and gave him a reluctant and sheepish smile in return. "Oh, it's a great story just as it is, but…"

  "You like a man who can cook and wash his own dirty laundry?"

  "I…well, I've never actually had to do either of those tasks for a man."

  "But if you did, it would be nice if he could step in and do the right thing?"

  Jackie shrugged. "We were just being silly." She cuddled Suzy, who was looking drowsy, as she rose from the chair. She tucked the baby into her crib and gave her a kiss before returning to Steven.

  "What do you look for in a man?" he asked, rephrasing the question.

  "I've told you I don't."

  "But if you did?"

  She bit her lip. He gave her points for not reprimanding him for butting in where he had no business. "I guess I don't really know," she said. "This was just a story. I was just playing it by ear. Suzy's going to be raised in the real world. Even though she can't really understand, I wanted her to know that there's so much more to a person than their looks. Life can be fulfilling on many levels."

  He let himself wonder what he had avoided thinking about until then—what would happen when Jackie left the ranch?

  "Is your life fulfilling?" he asked suddenly.

  She didn't hesitate. "Yes. I have my work."

  "That's all?" He hadn't allowed himself to wonder too much about a man in her life. She had said she didn't want one, and he believed her. But things could change if the right man came along. He wondered if that would happen and what she would do then.