The Cowboy's Baby by Linda Ford

Author:Linda Ford
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Steeple Hill
Published: 2010-11-08T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

Colby heard her enter as he sat cross-legged in front of the cross where he’d been for some time, thinking and praying. He could understand why Anna felt the cross was so special. He, too, found it easier to direct his thoughts heavenward as he sat there.

“Anna, I’m in here.” He waited for her to join him, sensing a calmness in this place that made it easier to speak honestly without fears and doubts getting in the way.

He turned as she slipped into the room and at the eager look on her face, his heart took off like a wild horse. He wondered it didn’t leap from his chest. She cared. Lifting a hand he reached for her. “Come and sit beside me.”

She hesitated only fractionally before she took his hand and let him draw her to his side. She sat close enough he barely had to shift for their shoulders to brush. When she didn’t make any effort to move, his heart settled into a steady gallop.

“I was sitting here praying. And remembering.”

“Remembering? What sort of things.”

A smile started deep in his heart and slowly spread to his lips, rounding his cheeks and filling his eyes. “You and me.”

She lowered her head and studied her hands curled in her lap.

He felt her uncertainty as forcefully as if she’d pressed her palms to his chest and held him at bay. But there were things that needed to be said, things worth keeping despite all that had come after. “Remember the first time you baked bread?”

Her head came up then, surprise swathing her features. And then she whooped with laughter. “That’s your top memory? What a disaster. I had to bury it in the garden.”

He chuckled. “Several weeks later the Kleins’ dog dug it up and dragged it all over town. No one could figure out what he had.”

“Rose knew but she never let on.”

“It was a lot of fun.”

“More like embarrassing. Do you know how I dreaded that someone would figure out what it was and that I was responsible?”

He reached for her hand. Again, she let him. He examined her long fingers, turned the palms upward to see little scars where she’d nicked herself with a knife and hard little calluses at the base of each finger—evidence of how hard she worked.

The air between them was fragile with hopes and expectations.

Slowly she withdrew her hand. “Colby, what brought you back?”

Her whispered words strummed through his heart. He ached to tell her the whole truth but he couldn’t.

If she knew…

If anyone found out…

“I didn’t like what I was becoming.”

“What?”

“My old man.”

Something flared in her eyes. Something he took for compassion, maybe even hope. And she claimed his hand, gently squeezing it.

Her touch raced straight to his heart and grabbed it.

“Is that why you run? Because you think you’ll be like your father?”

He rubbed his thumb across her knuckles as he studied their joined hands and considered her question. Why did he leave when Rose died? What was he afraid

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