The Rancher's Dance by Allison Leigh

Author:Allison Leigh
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2011-09-18T04:00:00+00:00

“Where’s Caleb?” Sarah asked when Lucy got out of the truck she’d parked alongside the half-dozen others already clustered near the swimming hole the next afternoon.

None of the trucks were Beck’s, she noticed as she reached back inside to grab the containers sitting on her seat. “I left a message on his cell phone. He, in turn, left a scrawled note on the refrigerator door which I saw this morning, that he’d make it if he could.” She turned and handed off some of her load to Sarah. “It’s the only evidence that he was home at all since yesterday and he was gone again this morning. I have no idea what’s keeping him so occupied.”

They reached the clearing through the trees where Leandra and J.D. were already setting out food on a folding table. Sarah’s two older children, Megan and Eli, were clambering over the boulders along the edge of the water, while her husband, Max, was already in the water with four-year-old Ben on his shoulders. Lucy also spotted J.D.’s twin stepsons, Zach and Connor, looking like wet seals bobbing up and down beneath the water’s surface. Their father, Jake, was watching from the bank, holding his and J.D.’s baby, Tucker, and smiling. His aunt Susan was stretched out on a folding lounge next to him, reading a book.

“Where’s Evan?” Lucy didn’t immediately spot Leandra’s husband.

“He got called out on a colicky horse,” Leandra said. “He’ll try to make it later.”

“Any news on Angel yet?”

J.D. shook her head. “I talked to my very impatient sister this morning. She’s not real happy that yesterday came and went with no baby. She had her doctor’s appointment last week and everything’s looking good, though, and they’ve already told her they won’t let her go too long before inducing labor.”

“You going to go over and help for a few days?”

“No, she’s not,” Jake said loudly from bankside.

J.D. just grinned and waved her husband off. “He’s afraid I’m going to leave him alone with Tuck and the boys,” she whispered. “He hates changing diapers. I caught him actually trying to bribe Connor into doing it the other day.”

“Sounds like a typical man to me,” Tara said, walking up with a stack of paper plates and cups under one arm and her one-year-old, Aidan, under the other. “Axel always manages to somehow disappear whenever there’s a diaper change coming.”

Lucy grabbed the plates and cups and leaned over to nuzzle her nose against the toddler’s. He grinned, showing off his little white teeth and slapped her face. “Can I take him?”

“Please.” Tara smiled wryly and Lucy plucked the boy out of her cousin-in-law’s arms, swinging him around before hugging him close.

The boy chortled and jabbered away, kicking his legs.

Lucy grinned back. “I have no idea what you’re saying, but it’s fascinating.”

“He talks nonstop,” Axel drawled, coming up behind them with an enormous ice chest in his arms that he set next to the table. “Don’t you, bud?” He stuck his face in front of his son’s, who squealed and kicked even harder.

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