A Baby for the Texas Cowboy Read online

  “I’m not sleeping on a queen,” Anders added, as if he’d heard her mentally arguing with him.

  He wouldn’t be sleeping with her on a mattress—king or queen.

  “Oh. Of course.” Jeff flushed to the roots of his colorless ash-brown hair. “Didn’t…ah, you know…ah, Anders, that you are…you know…together.”

  “We are.” Anders wrapped an arm around Tinsley’s waist and pulled her close against his very fit, very hard body. It was a hold that said belonging, and for a moment, Tinsley relaxed.

  What was wrong with her?

  She pulled away. She wasn’t going to be that girl again, the weak one, dependent on someone else’s opinion, fulfilling their needs, not hers. She’d played that pleaser role before—the perfect daughter, the perfect girlfriend, the perfect fiancée. It had consumed her soul, nearly extinguished her spark.

  “We want top of the line,” Anders added.

  That sounded like something John would have said. Definitely her parents—always the best.

  “No need to be extravagant,” she hissed and wondered if he’d still have the hint of a smile on his oh-so-firm-and-beautiful lips if she stomped on his toe.

  Why had she agreed to this detour when they’d been heading out to his family’s ranch with the intriguing name of Ghost Hill? Anders was trying to take her over. He’d hijacked her bike and now her plans.

  And she needed to put a stop to it.

  Easier thought than accomplished. She’d never seen this roll-over-everything-in-his-path side of him. It was fascinating and infuriating.

  “I want us to be comfortable.” He smiled down at her like he cared. “Especially you. With the baby coming, you will need your rest.” His hand rested on the back of her neck and his thumb stroked her skin. She used to love that when he did it before, but now she wanted to slap his hand away.

  He had no right to talk about the baby in public like this. And by the way Jeff’s overt interest in her fizzled and he stared briefly at her still-flat stomach in horrified fascination, Tinsley felt Anders had done it on purpose.

  “This way,” Jeff said quickly and walked to the side of the display room. “We have our higher end, luxury mattresses on this side of the store.”

  “There is no us,” she told him.

  “Definitely an us,” Anders whispered, his palm sliding from her hip to low on her abdomen.

  She yipped and nearly jumped out of her skin.

  His laugh tickled her cheek and warmed her body even as she tried to stomp down on her reactions.

  “What’s next? Are you going to publicly pee on me to declare me off limits?” she said in a soft, mock-sweet voice. What was he thinking—that he’d go ride off on the tour and take his pleasure with any buckle bunny in line while she’d wait around pining?

  Not that she had any interest in men at the moment and hopefully never again. Too much trouble.

  “Tinsley, I had no idea you were into kink.”

  Her mouth dropped open, and she had a sudden image of her walking in on John during a party they were hosting. He’d been sexually engaged with two women in what would soon be their marital bedroom…. And then later she’d walked in on him with another woman at his office. She scrunched her eyes shut as if that could scrub the images off her retinas for good.

  “No worries, Tinz, I’m up for trying anything you want,” he said easily.

  “Thanks. No.”

  His smile lit his eyes and feathered laugh lines down his cheeks. His mouth quirked up in a sexy, I-know-you-want-me smile. “Sure about that, baby?”

  “Mattress.” She walked toward the salesman with her best I’m-going-to-close-this-deal smile. She could play his game and beat him at it. “Top of the line.”

  Once, long ago, she would never have had to think about price, but she liked her new normal—or she had before the blue pregnant word had busted it wide open. Still, with her new job and her savings, she did want to get a comfortable mattress.

  She plopped her butt down on the mattress but kept her feet on the floor. No need to roll around in front of two men. She bounced a little. Buying a mattress shouldn’t have to be so awkward.

  “Give it a spin,” Anders encouraged.

  She blinked, and he laughed and mouthed kink at her, which should not make her nearly laugh.

  “I can order you anything you like if we don’t have it in stock,” Jeff said. “Are you back in Last Stand for good, Anders? Are you retiring from the tour?” he asked, curiosity stamped on his face.

  Anders’ smile fled. He looked at Tinsley, and she felt panic stir in her stomach.

  Oh. God. He wasn’t thinking of giving up his career, was he? For her? No. The baby. He’d hate her. Resent the child.

  “No,” she said quickly. “Definitely not. Anders is on top of the leaderboard and likes it there.”

  Her smug smile lasted all of two seconds.

  “Gotta admit I like it on top.” He winked down at her with a full smile—two dimples, sparkling blue-ocean eyes like he’d just made a joke shared between them.

  “I handed you that one,” she groused, trying to ignore how just looking up into his amused face softened her core and flared her nipples.

  This version of Anders was catnip, tasty and addictive, but it had not been this side of him that had reeled her in and weakened her resolve to indulge herself one last time.

  He sprawled down on the bed next to her and pulled her flat.

  “Stop,” she whispered.

  “Haven’t even started, darlin’.”

  “And cut the darlin’,” she said firmly. “Save it for your buckle bunny fans.”

  “Anders calls everybody darlin’,” Jeff said. “It was his thing in high school. All the girls loved it. They giggled and followed him and blinked a lot.”

  “What fun.” Tinsley winced for her sex, but she’d probably been just as goofy.

  Anders lost his cocky smile. “Small towns,” he muttered ruefully.

  “Wonder what else I’ll learn about you, while I’m here,” she said sweetly and rolled to standing up.

  “Anything else to show us?” she encouraged.

  “This is the TEMPUR-LUXE breeze,” Jeff said. “It’s thirteen inches and a firm mattress. You like firm or soft?” Jeff asked Tinsley earnestly.

  She ran her hand along the plush covered mattress. “Hard as hell,” she deadpanned and reveled in Anders’ cough.

  Jeff waved his hand over the mattress in invitation.

  Not creepy or awkward at all. Then Tinsley looked at the price tag. More than five grand?

  “No thanks.” And then she squeaked as Anders swooped her up in his arms. For a brief moment she felt his rock-hard abs teasing one side of her body before he all but tossed her on the mattress.

  “Good bounce,” he commented, looming. “Roll over.”

  Tinsley barely scooted out of the way before Anders’ big body was stretched out beside her. He had his boots on the mattress protector at the bottom and one arm curled back behind his head. The pose was unbearably sexy.

  For some reason her heartbeat raced into her throat making it hard to swallow.

  “Relax,” he said, and rolled to his side so he could look down at her.

  Like that was possible lying so close to him with an audience. She could feel Ander’ heat. Smell his appealing masculine scent that had always reminded her of sun-warmed grass and pine and fresh earth. And her body reacted—nerves jangled, her breath tangled, and her limbs felt fluid and warm. She felt juiced, primed for action, and her thighs had an inappropriate urge to part as if eager to cradle him.

  It’s just sex. Biology. Chemistry. Dopamine and endorphins.

  But the reminders didn’t give her the brains to pull her fascinated gaze away. His eyes were such a beautiful blue and with the light behind him, he glowed like an angel—although a fallen one. His Stetson rested on the bed beside him, and the moment seemed way too intimate.

  “Comfortable?” he queried. Then his hand
brushed over her forehead and along her cheek.

  “Anders.” It sounded more invitation than protest.

  Her body was betraying her. Again.

  “We’re not sleeping together,” she whispered, but she was reminding herself as much as him.

  “Who said anything about sleeping?”

  *

  “I’m not sure why we’re here,” Tinsley balked at the entrance to a large red barn. It was long and low and not at all what she thought a barn would look like—at least it looked nothing like the barns where she had kept her dressage horse as well as her competition horse she’d jumped with—Juniper. The image of the gray horse rose up unexpectedly and for a moment she could almost feel Juney’s nose nuzzle her neck for treats.

  It seemed like the past intruded more and more on her present.

  Let it go.

  “I’m supposed to meet Catalina up at the winery to start to learn more about that side of the operation. I don’t want to keep her waiting. There are so many things I need to put in motion before I can open the tasting room.”

  “Relax, she’s not going to expect you to open the tasting room before you’re settled in.”

  “That’s her call and August’s and mine. Not yours.”

  “Stop trying to pick a fight with me,” Anders said, his tone reasonable while Tinsley felt increasingly frustrated.

  He walked into the barn, looking around, and not at her. “August tricked out the apartment and what was salvaged after the accident was moved here. We also have furniture from the house and some things August bought for the house when he remodeled and expanded it last year.” He turned back and smiled at her. “It’s practically a store.”

  “Stop playing nice. You’re trying to take over, and it’s not going to work,” she told him.

  “I’m only trying to help.”

  “Why?”

  “Why not?” He grinned in an aw-shucks kind of way that cranked up her irritation.

  “It’s my life, and I need to figure things out my own way.”

  Anders briefly closed his eyes, pinched his nose.

  Did he really feel the need to control things that badly that he thought she was way out of line? How had she not seen this side of him? After her childhood and engagement to John, her radar should be fine-tuned.

  Anders dropped his hand, opened his eyes, and took a deep breath. His T-shirt stretched across his shoulders and honed chest enough that she could see muscles rise and fall. She felt heat bloom low. Why was asserting herself and arguing with Anders turning her on?

  “Fine.” He held his hands out, palms spread. “Pick what you want and I’ll get some of the hands to help me get it over to the apartment while you work with Catalina and August to learn more about the vineyard.”

  “You don’t have to set up my apartment,” she said automatically.

  “Yeah, because I’m the jackass who’d drive away while the mother of my child drags furniture up a steep flight of stairs.”

  He did make her sound like an uptight shrew.

  “Or maybe you think I’d head over to the Last Stand saloon, have a beer or two with my buddies while you haul your furniture into town, balancing it on your head while you race that sexy speed demon bike on gravel ranch roads.”

  Now he was just trying to make her seem ridiculous. Maybe make her laugh. She’d seen him defuse quite a few tense situations between bull riders, cowboys and fans. Did he really think she was being purposely difficult? She felt like she was trying to survive in this new world.

  “You just keep trying to take control.”

  He closed the distance between them. Reached out to touch her but then put his hand down. Tinsley, who’d been waiting for his touch—her body already warm and tingling and needing—leaned toward him, her eyes drifting shut as if to give her sense of touch free rein. She inhaled deeply catching his warm, masculine scent and longing swept through her.

  “I just want to help, Tinsley. I need to help. I’m not trying to control you.”

  She opened her eyes, embarrassed and disappointed that he hadn’t touched her, although he was close enough so she felt the heat his body gave off. She craved his warmth and touch, and she hated that need.

  He leaned closer. Was he going to kiss her? He shifted his head slightly so that his mouth brushed against her ear. “But I do want to control you in bed.”

  “Want or need?” She forced teasing into her tone, even though her body started to go liquid at his closeness, and she froze, afraid to move and give away her desire. Heat bloomed and she could feel herself going damp—and he hadn’t even touched her. And he was pissing her off.

  “I want it. A lot.” His voice was deep and smoky and Tinsley was hyper aware of all the furniture, the inviting surfaces—it wasn’t like Anders had always waited for a bed. No, not him and definitely not her.

  She took two steps back.

  “That’s what got us into trouble in the first place.”

  His smile shut down as fast as the teasing light in his eyes, and for an insane moment, she wanted it back.

  “Tinsley, we are having a baby.”

  “Stop saying that word. Stop making me think about it every second.” God, she sounded so stupid. Like an ostrich and every other dumb denialist analogy an overeducated poet could dream up.

  “We are having a baby who will be our child, and our child is not going to ever feel like he or she was a problem.”

  He sounded angry, and she felt like he’d slapped her. He was right. So right. How did he do that? Jump from easygoing love ’em and leave ’em smiling cowboy to accepting fatherhood as naturally as he would a new shirt?

  She felt on the edge of a cliff with sharp edges and churning cold water below. Panic sliced through her.

  “I never even wanted a kid,” she practically yelled. “Ever.”

  Anders took a step back into a brightly painted bookcase and it wobbled. He stared at her, breath puffing in and out. The case started to tip, and it was clear she’d shocked him into immobility. Tinsley caught the case, righted it.

  “You don’t want our baby?”

  Fear, regret and something she couldn’t name compressed her chest. The headache that had niggled all morning bloomed into blinding pain.

  “No.”

  He’d wanted to get things straight between them. This was a long ribbon of highway line divider. Her might not like it or her, but at least she was being honest.

  “W-w-what are you saying?” Anders whispered. “You’re not… You weren’t thinking of…” His tone made her turn to face him. He sagged against the side of the barn. “You never…”

  She would have thought a man like him would have looked hopeful, not shattered. What man wanted to be saddled having a kid with a woman he’d planned to have a fling with and then roll on to the next one? But no, Anders looked pale, even a little sick.

  “I don’t understand you at all,” she admitted.

  “What’s to understand?” Instead of sounding angry and issuing out orders, he sounded bewildered, and somehow his confusion calmed her enough that she admitted more—just got it out on the messy table of their lives.

  “I was so…so anxious and angry and in denial when I started to suspect I was…you know. It just didn’t seem possible or fair.” She nipped her lower lip then stopped. She pressed her palms down on her leathers like that would do anything to make them less clammy. “I was such a coward, waiting a few days to buy the test. I kept waiting, hoping. And then when I finally took the test I screamed and hurled the positive stick across the motel room into the wall.”

  “You did?” Anders’ voice was a whispered thread.

  “Yeah.” She scowled. “I didn’t want a kid. I never wanted a kid. I loved my job with Four Wolfs and representing Cowboy Wolf Whiskey. I loved my bike. I loved being able to go where I wanted to go and when I wanted to. I loved traveling, seeing new places, meeting new people. Dancing in honky-tonks, shooting pool, listening to concerts, drinking whiskey wit
h friends, hiking. I loved having so many different jobs. The challenge. The creativity. Reinventing myself each time. My whole life I…”

  Her voice had gathered steam as she remembered how free she’d felt, how happy, but then she went too far into the past and she stopped before she jumped off that cliff.

  “And now it’s all gone,” she said. “The life I built is all gone.”

  Chapter Eight

  Anders didn’t know how he got through the next hour. His head hurt. His gut hurt. He ached all over like he’d been in a fight. He was used to pain, but this wasn’t physical. He didn’t know how to muscle through. He wanted to get in his truck, crank up his play list and just ride. But he had furniture to move.

  Tinsley picked a few items. He gave her a stack of Post-its to stick on the pieces she wanted. He stood outside the barn and stared blindly at the view of his ranch—the rolling hills, stands of oak, grazing herd of longhorns that had always soothed him—and battled the urge to throw up. Or hit something. Anything to take away from this feeling of helplessness and anger.

  And fear for his unborn child.

  She didn’t want the baby, and she didn’t want him.

  Where exactly did that leave any of them?

  He didn’t trust himself to speak to her. For the first time in his life, he opened his truck door but didn’t help her inside the cab. He drove her to the winery, both windows down because he didn’t think he could breathe with all the tension clawing through him.

  The air was warm and fragrant with the miles and miles of nature surrounding them.

  He dropped her off at the winery. Catalina and the crew were already coming out to greet her, so he drove off with just a slight tip of his hat that caused Catalina’s eyes to goggle. Tinsley didn’t notice as she strode away from his truck, her legs long, her back straight and her face averted from the man who’d ruined her life.

  So now what?

  He’d texted a couple of hands to help him load and unload. Instead he got his oldest brother, Axel.

  He’d always wished that Axel had talked more when he’d been growing up. He’d admired his big brother so much. He’d pretty much taught him everything he knew, but Anders felt like his brother was mostly a mystery. That worked in his favor today because Anders wasn’t in the mood for small talk or eviscerating himself with explanations. They loaded the furniture in his truck and the small trailer Axel had hitched to his truck.