Falling for the Cowboy's Baby by Rebecca Winters

Author:Rebecca Winters
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2022-05-17T12:16:46+00:00

Chapter 2

Pepper’s directions to Gene’s ranch had included exact mileages, road names and landmarks. Even in the sameness of the rocky terrain, dotted with gray-green bushes and low trees, he’d easily found the turnoff that wound through a short downhill drive. Flatlands opened up for a distance before moving into another set of foothills that rolled into mountains. The ranch included a low house, outbuildings and corrals. The animals milling around ranged in color from white to shadows-at-noon black. But they weren’t cattle or horses or even goats.

He checked his rearview mirror to see his daughter, who was eerily quiet. Her head swiveled back and forth as she looked out the windows, staring wide-eyed, her lost-all-its-stuffing dog clutched tight in her fist.

Contrary as any McCreary, after days on the road wishing she’d quiet down, he wanted noise from his daughter now so he could stop thinking about Pepper. She somehow made scrubs look as good as painted-on jeans and a tight cowgirl shirt. She actually looked better than the buckle bunnies who’d been the honey to his bee for years. EllaJayne’s mama had been Miss Kentucky Rodeo two years before he’d met her.

He stopped the truck in front of the house that had a lumpy outline of clearly unplanned additions. It had been Gene’s home. He’d talked of the ranch with a lot of pride. Gene had retired from the rodeo circuit after a string of bad wrecks. Both Danny and AJ had tried to talk him out of it because he was the best at reading the animals. They’d been young and hadn’t understood what it meant to have a body that had been battered and broken again and again.

AJ knew he couldn’t stall any longer. Though he hated to intrude, his nearly maxed-out credit card and flat wallet told him otherwise. He had to swallow that pride and ask—beg for—their hospitality. He’d stay for the memorial, then move on. He’d come west for a brand-new start where no one had heard of the McCrearys of Pinetown, Kentucky.

He held EllaJayne firmly in his arms when he knocked on the weathered door. Up close, the ranch house looked like a cross between a trailer and a cabin.

“There you are,” said the woman who opened the door. “Come in.” Obviously, this was Faye, just as Gene had described her: “Stevie Nicks who bought her duds at Sheplers and her jewelry at swap meets.” She stepped back, pushing a drape of gray-streaked hair with strips of color like her daughter’s out of her watchful green eyes.

“Thank you, ma’am,” he said, finally remembering the manners that had been knocked into him with a spatula and fly swatter.

“Oh, my,” she said as tears filled her eyes. “Don’t you have the look of Gene? It’s just like he’s here. And those nice manners.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He and Gene looked nothing alike.

“And who is the gorgeous baby? Yours. Look at that hair, that skin. Oh, my, but she’ll be a beauty. Come here, sweetheart,” Faye said and held her hands out to his daughter.

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