The Cowboy and His Baby

by Jessica Clare

  He laughed. “So it is. You ready to do this?”

  She wasn’t entirely sure. Her heart was fluttering a mile a minute, as if she were running a race instead of sitting in a truck with a cute cowboy. No, she decided. “Cute” wasn’t the right word for Dustin. Spidey was cute, with his smooshed-in snout and big eyes and stout little body. He made you want to squeeze him and hug him close.

  Dustin was . . . not the same.

  Dustin was dangerous. His smile made her feel nervous and excited at the same time. His eyes were the most gorgeous shade of blue that seemed to turn green at certain angles, with sexy little crinkles at the edges as if he found the world just a little bit more amusing than everyone else. His face was strong-jawed and open, and if his eyebrows were a little heavy and his nose a bit bigger than it should have been, he made up for it with that killer smile. His features were each a little “too much” but on him, they were perfect—as bold and appealing as the man himself. She couldn’t see much of his hair under the hat, but she remembered it was dark and cropped short against his skull.

  Really, she was spending far too much time paying attention to how he looked. This was just friendly, that was all. She wasn’t looking to hook up.

  “I appreciate you taking us,” Annie told him, her tone brisk and efficient. “And I’m sure if we rescue the dog, he will thank you, too.”

  “I don’t mind. Told the others I’d be back to finish up my chores after dark.” He shrugged, turning on the car and then slowly easing out of the parking space along the main street of Painted Barrel.

  “I can pay for the gas.”

  “You can, but I won’t let you.” He glanced over at her again. “My treat.”

  “This isn’t a date.”

  “No ma’am.”

  “I just need a friend with a car.”

  “Of course.” His tone remained even and easy, as if he were amused at her protests.

  “And after this, I’ll probably never call you again.”

  “Unless there’s another dog to rescue,” Dustin agreed smoothly.

  “Right.” She sighed. “Wow, I sound like an ass even to myself.”

  He chuckled, gazing at the road as the wipers worked merrily across the windshield. “I wasn’t going to say it. Figured you were just filling the air with words until you got comfortable.”

  A smile tugged at her mouth. Maybe she was. “Either way, it’s very nice of you to take me, and I sincerely appreciate it.”

  “I like the company.”

  “You barely know the company.”

  His grin widened. “That’s partly why I like it so much. This is a small town and more of the same gets tiresome. I like new people. Reminds me that the world’s bigger than this little place and I should get out and see it.”

  There were a million questions she wanted to ask about that, but she wasn’t sure if it’d be prying. Spidey snorted in the back seat, and she glanced over her shoulder at him. The truck was an extended cab, and across the bench in the back, fluffy towels had been laid out, along with a rope toy and a sock monkey stuffy.

  “Figured if we got him, he might be nervous,” Dustin said when he noticed her looking. “I brought some dog treats, too. And a ball, somewhere. Cass was showering me with crap the moment she heard what we were going to be doing.”

  She laughed. “Cass is your friend’s wife?”

  “Eli. Yup. She’s nesting. Pregnant and all. We’re all being smothered by her need to take care of everyone,” he teased, even as thunder rumbled overhead.

  “It’s very thoughtful of her.”

  “I even brought us snacks,” he said, gesturing at the satchel near her feet. “Couple of bottles of soda, some fresh-baked cookies, and two bags of chips. Again, Cass.” He shook his head. “Guess she thought we’d starve to death before we hit Casper.”

  Annie looked anxiously at the skies as the thunder rumbled again. “You think we’re okay to drive in this weather?”

  “It’ll be fine. We’ll just go slow on any steep roads between here and there.” He glanced over at her. “What time do they close?”

  “I called and they said they’d stay open another hour if we were coming by, just for us.” When all he did was nod, it got quiet again. Annie peeked over at him from under her lashes, doing her best not to stare and well, kind of failing. She felt that awkward need to fill the silence, say something to make herself seem witty and fun and again, nothing sprang to mind. “So . . . ah, you work with cows?”

  Ugh, she was an idiot. The moment the words left her mouth, she wanted to take them back.

  Dustin’s lips twitched. “Several hundred of them.”

  At least he wasn’t laughing at her. “Do you own the ranch?”

  “No. I’ve been working there for about two, two and a half years now. Before that, I worked at a ranch in Idaho. Before that, Montana.”

  “So you roam around a lot?”

  “A fair amount. Once one place gets to be too much of the same, I start looking for new opportunities. Kinda hate being in one place for too long. Makes me feel trapped.”

  “I guess I’m the opposite. I’ve been moving around with work so much that sometimes I just want a nice long stretch where I don’t have to go anywhere. My home’s in Los Angeles but I think I’ve been back there for all of three weeks in the last six months.”

  He chuckled, gaze on the road. “Maybe we should trade places.”

  “I don’t think I want to stick my hands in a cow’s uterus.”

  His laughter grew. “That’s the all-too-common and unglamorous side of being a cowboy, I’m afraid. When it’s calving season, there’s no time to be squeamish. You just have to hold your breath, reach in, and hope for the best.”

  She wrinkled her nose at the thought. “Do you deliver a lot of the babies like that?”

  “The calves? Not too many. Usually we just step in if something looks like it’s not going right or if the mother’s struggling. Most of the time they just drop ’em in the pasture and we find them when we check the herd and do a head count.”

  Annie tried to picture it, but cattle were very different than dogs and she was a city girl. She couldn’t picture ten cows together, much less hundreds. “And this is what you wanted to do for a living?”

  “You sound so skeptical.”

  “I guess I am.”

  Amusement colored his tone. “It wasn’t that I dreamed of being a cowboy, though as far as jobs go, I like it. It was more like I knew what I didn’t want to end up as.”

  “And what was that?”

  There was a long pause. “My father.”

  She bit her lip, worried she’d pulled the conversation into unpleasant territory. “Should I not have asked? I’m sorry.”

  “No, it’s all right. I don’t mind.”

  The rain slackened up a little, just enough for her to hear the gentle snoring of Spidey in the back. He loved a car ride and didn’t mind storms—this long drive might be perfect for the little guy’s nerves. If nothing else, he’d enjoy the trip.

  “My dad,” Dustin continued, thoughtful as he drove, one big hand carefully guiding the steering wheel. “My dad was a great guy, actually. Still is, though I haven’t talked to him in a long time. We didn’t see eye to eye when I was a kid, though. He was born in a small town in Iowa. Grew up there, married his high school sweetheart and the only girl he ever dated. I think he would have liked to go away to college or join the military, but he got my mom pregnant and that was the end of that. Took over the family business when his father died and expected me to take the reins after him. Lived in the same house all his life, surrounded by the same people, and he’ll die there.” He shook his head. “That’s not me.”

  “You have grander plans?” She understood that. How many times had people looked at her and seen her mother’s daughter instead of som
eone who was her own person?

  “I don’t know about ‘grander.’” He gazed out the window, pausing for a long moment. “I just remember how defeated he was all the time, and how I didn’t want to be like that. How small his world was. He always talked about traveling, but never did. Had to run the business and all.”

  “What was the business, if you don’t mind me asking?”

  “Tailoring and dry cleaning.” Dustin smiled when she chuckled. “It’s not glamorous, but my father was very dedicated to his customers.”

  “Nothing wrong with that if it pays the bills.”

  He nodded, stealing a little glance over at her that made her skin prickle with awareness.

  “How did you start as a cowboy, then?” Annie asked, feeling a little flustered at his attention. “It’s a bit of a change from dry cleaning.” She clasped her hands in her lap so she wouldn’t fuss with her clothing out of nervousness, and fought the urge to grab Spidey from the back seat so she could pet him.

  “I ran away from home when I was sixteen,” he told her, his easy expression telling her that the memory wasn’t a bad one despite the gravity of the situation. “At that point I’d realized that I wasn’t good enough at baseball to play pro, wasn’t good enough at school to get a scholarship, and my dad was making noises about me helping out at the cleaners on weekends. I thought that was the first step to turning into him, so I picked a fight. A nasty one. Told him he was a waste of space and a nobody, and I didn’t want that to happen to me. I made a big scene, made my mother cry. It wasn’t pretty, and my dad was furious at me for upsetting my mother. I was so angry I packed a bag, wrote a note, and left. Thought it’d be real easy to get a job doing whatever I wanted, because I was good-looking and charming.” He looked over at her and cast one of those winning grins. “I also failed to realize that a lot of doors aren’t open to a sixteen-year-old dropout.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Held up signs on street corners, hitched across country, whatever I could do to scramble a few bucks here and there.” He looked over at her again.

  She noticed he was looking at her a lot, and she squeezed her fingers in her lap, determined not to fuss with her hair. “And then?”

  “And then I met a guy who wanted me to come and muck out his stalls for twenty bucks and a burger. I was so hungry at that point I’d have said yes if he wanted me to muck out a hundred stalls. He gave me a ride to his ranch, gave me a pitchfork, and told me to get to it.” His teeth flashed white with a smile. “I had no idea what I was doing, but I gave it a shot anyhow. Worked my ass off that day and when the guy came back out to pay me, he took one look at my efforts, laughed his head off, and then told me I was an idiot, but a hardworking one. He gave me a job for the winter—room and board in exchange for hard work. I took it; it didn’t pay but it was food and a roof over my head. After winter was over, he offered to have me stay on for another year, this time with pay. I did, and by that time, his kid was old enough to help him around the ranch so he didn’t need me. He had a buddy that needed help in Montana, though, so I headed there, and have bounced around from ranch to ranch ever since.”

  “Hands in cow uteruses across the west,” she agreed, then felt herself flushing at the stupid joke.

  Dustin threw his head back and laughed. “Yeah, I guess so. Wasn’t born into ranching, though, or even thought about it. I keep saying to myself that maybe I’ll do something else with my life, but then the next day dawns crisp over the mountains and I get to spend my day on horseback in the sunshine, and I figure there are worse things.”

  “You make it sound nice.”

  “Oh, sometimes it’s awful. Sometimes the cows get sick and I end up having to give a hundred shots in a day. Sometimes the calves die and you feel like it’s your fault. Sometimes you end up covered in so much mud that you feel like you’ll never get clean again. Every job has a downside.”

  Annie nodded at that. “They do.”

  “So why are you in movies? You like the fame?” He looked over at her, his expression intent. “Become a big star?”

  “No. Not at all, really. The thought of being on camera makes me break out into a cold sweat.” She gave a little shudder, rubbing her arms. “I don’t like being the center of attention. I think I do movies just because that’s what people in my family do. My uncle is a sound editor. My mother’s an extra. My cousin’s a key grip—that’s someone who handles the camera equipment. Everyone I know is involved with movies or television in some way or another. I always loved animals, so when a friend of my mother’s had an opening to assist on a dog movie, I took it. It was my first real picture experience and my job was to run around and collect dog poop and clean cages. The entire movie was about a pack of show dogs that were crossing one end of California to another to get to a competition. I didn’t like the movie itself, but I loved those dogs.” She smiled wistfully. “One of the trainers thought I was good with the animals and worked with me. I took some classes, got certified, and got an agent and went to work. Here I am, years later.” She spread her hands. “Like you, it’s just something I happened into but I like it. Well, I like most of it. I love the animals. I’m not sure about all the people. Do you have dogs?”

  He shook his head. “Never seem to stay in one place long enough, unfortunately. I love the ranch dogs but I haven’t committed to one of my own just yet.” Dustin looked over at her. “Does this ruin my chances with you?”

  “That’s cute. You thought you had a chance?”

  They both burst into laughter.

  CHAPTER SIX

  It was the loveliest afternoon she’d had in a long, long time. The rain continued to hammer at the truck all the way into Casper, and it made the interior of the cab seem cozy and private. Despite the initial awkwardness, they managed to chat and laugh the entire two hours into the city. Dustin was smart and self-deprecating, and he made her giggle at his astute observations. He told her stories about crazy happenings at the ranch, interesting things that occurred in town, and the time one of the dogs ran off with his boot and he’d ended up hopping after it across an entire field.

  Annie shared stories of her own, but they never seemed as exciting or funny as Dustin’s. But he seemed to like hearing them, so she kept talking, and before she knew it, they were in Casper and driving through the city to get to the shelter.

  The moment they pulled up she felt a nervous hitch in her belly.

  “You okay?” Dustin reached over and touched her hand. “We don’t have to go inside if you don’t want to.”

  She offered him a weak smile. “This is the hardest part of the job. I have to find a dog I can train, a dog that will be all right around groups of people, a dog that can perform on camera. And he has to have a certain look. A lot of people get their dogs from breeders because they can at least take the ‘look’ part out of the equation, but I try to rescue. Even so, if he doesn’t fit what I need for the movie . . . I have to leave him behind. And that’s difficult. I feel like I’m betraying them every time I do.” She didn’t add the part where she usually spent the evening crying because all of the wistful, hopeful faces in the shelter with the wagging tails made her so sad. It was part of the job, and she told herself that over and over again. Someday she might actually even get used to it.

  “Nothing wrong with having a soft heart,” Dustin told her. He squeezed her fingers. “I’m here to provide moral support if you need it.”

  Strangely enough, that made her feel a little better. “I’ll settle for you watching Spidey while I sit with the new dog.”

  “I can do that, too,” he said easily. “I’m a man of many talents.”

  She blushed at that.

  The rain let up a moment later and Annie managed to get Spidey harnessed without getting soaked. She set him down on the pavement despite the puddles, because he’d want to walk and stretch his legs, and she was grateful when Dustin immed
iately took the leash, leaving her hands free. “Why don’t I let him sniff around a little before we join you inside?”

  “Great idea. Thank you.” Annie beamed at him for being so thoughtful, then headed in, steeling herself.

  Shelters always made her emotional. As an animal lover, it tore at her heart to see so many little lives in need of saving when she was unable to do it. She both loved and hated the sad eyes and the wagging tails, because she was bound to disappoint them, just like how they’d been disappointed by the people that put them in this place. She knew she couldn’t save them all . . . but it didn’t mean she didn’t want to try.

  The interior of the shelter was neat and clean and the woman at the front desk was snuggling a kitten. Annie smiled at her. “Hi. I called about the Bernese mountain dog? Has he been adopted?” Perhaps in the hours that it had taken her to get here, some family had wandered in and found the perfect playmate for their little boy and everyone would go home happy.

  The woman beamed at her. “Hi, I’m Cara. You’re looking for Moose. And he hasn’t been adopted yet, no. Do you want to sit with him for a few?”

  Annie’s heart gave another little squeeze. “I do. Thank you.”

  “Right this way.” She put the kitten into a plush bed shaped like a strawberry, then gestured for Annie to follow her. Cara opened the door to the kennel area and immediately, dogs began to bark and howl at the tops of their lungs, desperate for attention. Her heart squeezed again every time they passed a cage with a tail-wagging pup and had to keep on walking past. Annie wanted to apologize to each and every one of the dogs for not picking them, for needing a specific kind of dog for the next movie. She even avoided eye contact, as if that would make things better somehow. Then, they were at the back of the long room and at the last cage.

  And there was her dog. Moose.

  He was enormous. There was no denying that. The thick, shaggy coat made him look bigger than he actually was but even so, he overflowed the square brown dog bed he was lying on. She noticed his food bowl was full—never a good sign with big dogs who had big appetites—and he didn’t raise his head as they approached. The big, liquid brown eyes were sad and his tail didn’t wag as he looked at them.