“I have been thinking about this a lot lately. For the life of me, I can’t figure out why you wouldn’t ride this thing. Why you wouldn’t even get on it.”
She gave Gracie one last caress, then turned and started walking out of the stable.
“C’mon, Ash, don’t run away.”
“Dan Dawson. If I don’t want to ride a bike, I don’t have to.”
“Ash, you can’t ride, can you? That’s what it is.”
Well, she couldn’t be any more humiliated. He might as well know the truth. Ashby swung around. “No. I can’t ride. And I can’t swim, either. There, are you happy?”
He laughed and threw his hands up in the air. Of all the reactions, that was not what she’d expected. Spinning away, she stormed out of the barn and across the yard.
But she knew she was acting foolish and petty. After all, he’d shared his past with her, and this was a silly bike.
“Ash, wait. I wasn’t laughing at you.”
His words stopped her short. She knew him. She hadn’t known before, but she knew now that he would never do this out of spite. The knowledge was certain, so much different than her opinion of him all those weeks ago when they’d been in the bike race together. “I know,” she admitted with a sigh. “I overreacted. I’m sorry.”
“Completely understandable,” he said, pushing the bike toward her. “I’ve been puzzling over this for more than a month now, and honestly this was all I could finally come up with. You talking about your upbringing the other day planted this seed of an idea. Sure, you’re a little stiff at times—now, don’t blow a gasket! You’ve been better lately and I understand where that comes from now. But even that didn’t explain why you wouldn’t ride the bike. It finally hit me that people are generally defensive about things that are scary to them, new to them, or if they’re hiding something. I took a chance that you couldn’t ride.”
“It’s just so ridiculous for a grown woman not to know how to do something most kids learn to do early,” she said.
“Not really. People don’t always have opportunities to learn what some take for granted. I want to teach you to ride.”
Ashby shifted from one foot to the other. She took a deep breath. “My mother thought bike riding was a waste of my time. Swimming too dangerous.”
Dan studied her with an encouraging light in his eyes. “I’ll teach you to swim, too.”
“I’m almost thirty years old.”
He laughed, threw his head back and belted one out. “You act like thirty is the end of the world. You can still learn new things even at that ripe old age.”
Ashby blushed. She knew he was right. She’d said she wasn’t going to let her mother’s insecurities continue to affect her life, but here she was, letting them do just that. “Then teach me,” she said, planting her fists on her hips. “Teach me how to ride that bike. We’ll talk about swimming after that.”
He flashed that grin that made her toes curl up. “Well get ready, sugar pie. This is going to be one afternoon you won’t soon forget.”
It already was.
Chapter Eighteen
Ashby put aside the fact that she felt silly as she perched on the seat of the bike with Dan pushing her. The excitement was too great. She was learning to ride a bike!
She laughed as she glanced at him, jogging beside her, holding the seat with one hand and urging her to pedal. His eyes were sparkling.
“You can’t steer this thing if you keep looking at me,” he exclaimed.
She proved him right when the bike wobbled. “Oh!” she cried, refocusing on doing her job. “Sorry. But I’m afraid you’re going to let go.”
He chuckled, his breath coming in spurts from the exertion of jogging, pushing and keeping her upright. The man was in good shape. “That is the general idea, you know.”
“But I get dizzy.”
“That’s just nerves. Hang on to those handlebars and just do it. C’mon, you know you can.”
She was gritting her teeth, when suddenly he let go. “Wait!” She glanced at him as he continued to jog beside her. He was nodding his head. And she was riding the bike by herself!
She was riding—it wobbled. She had to put her feet down to keep from crashing. He immediately grabbed the seat with one hand and her with the other, keeping her from harm’s way.
“What’d I tell you? You were doing it.” He hugged her tightly.
Ashby’s heart was thudding and the world was spinning, but she’d ridden a bike! For all of five seconds, maybe, but next time she was going to do it longer.
She felt like a schoolgirl. “I did,” she said breathlessly. “And I’m not dizzy.”
“You ready to go for gold?” He rubbed her arms briskly, like a coach getting his athlete warmed up for the next event.
She nodded.
“That’s my girl. Okay, this time, since you have a feel for the balance needed, you’re going to try it on your own. You don’t need me.”
Ashby wasn’t so sure about that. Dan Dawson brought something to her world that she’d never known before. Not only did he add his own style of confidence, he provided an element of fun and spontaneity. Sure, she could have learned to ride a bike on her own. But would she have? Dan shared his sense of adventure with her; it rubbed off on her when he was around…and looking at him now, she realized how much she’d started to crave that.
“This is some shindig,” Applegate shouted over the country band on Thursday evening. He saluted Dan with the chicken leg he’d plucked from the overflowing table of food on his way over to talk to him.
Dan watched Ashby, still amazed at what she’d pulled off in two short days. He hadn’t given her much notice, but she’d done it. Of course, he’d never thought she couldn’t. The woman was amazing. She was vulnerable in the most surprising ways, and strong in more ways than she seemed to know.
He’d never met anyone quite like her.
“You hear what I said?” Applegate shouted louder, and poked the drumstick at him. Dan realized he’d never answered the older man.
“Yes, sir. I think Ashby did a great job.”
App nodded, his bushy eyebrows wrinkled up like caterpillars inching across his forehead. “That’s a fine woman,” he said, and bit into his chicken.
“Yes, sir, she is.”
“A mighty fine hostess,” App mumbled as he chewed.
“Yes, sir.” Dan watched Ashby as she zipped here and there, making certain everyone was taken care of. He hadn’t realized how this would look to most folks…as if they were a couple. But that was exactly how all the cowboys were taking it. Everyone, that is, except Lance Yates. The cowboy had been lingering around Ashby all evening, and Dan didn’t like it at all.
Not that he had any claim to Ash, but there was just no sense denying that his feelings for her were far deeper than he was comfortable with. He had pushed for this relationship. He’d been obsessed to learn more about her, even after he knew how much she wanted children. Even knowing how he felt about having children of his own.
As he and Applegate watched, Lance stepped up and started talking to her.
“Competition,” App said, glaring at him. “Thar’s a man that knows a prize when he sees it. Ain’t you gonna get over thar and stake your claim to her?”
Dan shifted uncomfortably. Ashby wanted kids. Lots of kids. The knowledge repeated in his head like a chant. “She has free will, App. This isn’t the gold rush,” he snapped as his temper flared.
Applegate grunted in disgust and walked off, leaving Dan to deal with his growing bad mood. It was true he was madder than a penned-up bull and spying Emmett standing off under a tree didn’t help. Now that man needed a kick in the pants.
“What are you doing all the way over here by yourself?” Dan asked after stalking across the lawn. His mood had gone darker than a stormy night with a tornado coming. The fact that Emmett wasn’t taking advantage of the opportunity this “festive” event provided added to Dan’s irritation.
The cowboy
looked miserable. “I can’t help it, Dan. My insides are all twisted up and, well, look at me. I’m not much to look at, and just look at her.” His voice went all milky and Dan turned to look at Stacy.
She was with the toddlers in the shade of an oak tree across the yard. She was a pretty woman, in a gentle, almost fragile way. Just then, she glanced at them.
“Emmett, unless you go over there and do more than stare at her, this is all the two of you are ever going to have. Your opinion about your looks isn’t important right now.” Dan was calming down. The frustration he’d been feeling about his own situation subsided a bit as he focused on Emmett and Stacy. “Look at her, Emmett. The woman likes you. She doesn’t send those sweet little glances she keeps tossing your way to anybody else.”
That got the man’s attention. “You don’t think so?”
“I know so, man.” Dan grinned at Emmett. “Look at her….” She was watching the kids again. Emmett turned from Dan to Stacy. “There ya go. Watch—not me. Her. Now wait for it. Wait for it….” Stacy glanced Emmett’s way and their gazes locked. “Bingo,” Dan whispered. “What’d I tell you? You are the man, dude.”
Emmett turned all patriotic, with his red face, white teeth and sparkling blue eyes. Dan glanced from the blushing cowboy to the blushing object of his affection.
“Now get over there and have a conversation with that woman.”
Emmett mumbled something that Dan couldn’t decipher, but it must have been agreement, because he started walking Stacy’s way. Dan watched as he came to a halt about four feet away from her. She turned toward him and he snatched off his hat and held it in a death grip. Just as Dan was thinking things were going right, finally the cowboy nodded, then walked away. What? Dan saw the confusion on Stacy’s face, and Dan wasn’t sure Emmett understood how hard this was for her.
It wasn’t as if she needed some cowboy to toy with her like that. Even unwittingly. Dan resolved to have a serious chat with Emmett after the barbecue.
“You can’t fix everything, Dan.”
Ashby’s voice startled him, and he swung around to find her holding out a plate to him. “I thought you’d like some food. This is your party, after all.”
He took the plate because it gave him something to do. She glanced over his shoulder toward Stacy. “They are going to have to find their own way, Dan. You can only do so much.”
“I’m going to have a talk with—”
Ashby’s eyes flashed. “She is not your responsibility, Dan. She is a grown woman you have helped, but she is not your problem. If she and Emmett are going to fall in love, then they’re going to have to do it without you orchestrating their every move. And both of them are going to have to come to that realization.”
She had a point, and he knew it. “You’re right,” he grumbled. “I still don’t like it. I mean, look at them. If he’d just come to his senses it’d be so much easier.”
She smiled. “Aren’t you the guy who’s so sure God has a plan?”
“You’re right,” he said. She’d just sweetly put him in his place. “Thank you, Ash.”
“You are very welcome. I mean, I get it. I think when I marry—if I marry—my husband will have to tell me that very thing when it comes to overprotecting my children. Not that I agree with most of the way my mother raised me…but I can understand wanting the best for your children. That’s kind of how I see you now, protecting Stacy. Maybe not as a parent as much as a big brother. But she’s going to do just fine, Dan.”
He nodded. Ashby was right. But his mind had snagged on Ashby and the if she’d used in context with her eventual marriage.
That if bothered him. Here he was the one telling her she needed to wait, and now when she threw out the word if he got all bent out of shape. Again Dan felt as if he’d lost control of his good sense where Ashby was concerned. But he couldn’t let his own longings trump hers. She deserved every good thing she wanted in life. She deserved a houseful of babies if that was her dream, her heart’s desire. And if he couldn’t give them to her, then he had to be man enough to let her get on with her life. A man who loved a woman would do that…and he loved Ashby more than he’d ever known it was possible to love someone.
Chapter Nineteen
On Friday Ashby rose early, left the shop in Rose’s capable hands and drove into the neighboring county to visit some of her custom suppliers. The three separate stops were scattered across two counties, giving her plenty of time alone as she drove. Time for contemplation and prayer. Her life was a mess. She needed serious guidance from the Lord.
At the party the day before, she’d realized she’d lost her footing. She no longer thought clearly where Dan was concerned.
How could she have thought he was like Steven? How had she believed she loved Steven in the first place?
Steven had no heart; Dan’s heart was huge.
She loved him.
Steven had been a selfish, cheating good-for-nothing. She now knew that Dan would never betray someone’s trust like that. The mistakes from her past had blinded her to what her friends and the matchmakers had recognized early—Dan had the kind of heart women searched for all their lives. That was what drew people to him in droves. He was kind, trustworthy, giving, tenaciously patient and abundantly compassionate….
And afraid.
Fear was the only explanation she could come up with for his uncertainty about wanting children. He loved children, and they loved him. She’d witnessed it firsthand. Watching him with the toddlers had caused her heart to free-fall past all her preconceived ideas about Dan.
She wanted children. Even if she found out, after she was finally married, that there was a medical reason that meant she couldn’t have a child, she would adopt. And she’d fallen in love with a man who wasn’t certain if he wanted children.
He hadn’t said he loved her, but she believed he did. What were they going to do? Could he seriously believe that he could harm a child? Was that what he thought?
Emotionally weary and disgruntled, she finally drove home, no closer to a solution to her dilemma than when she’d left that morning. God hadn’t given her any peace. Her head and heart were still in turmoil as she trudged up the stairs to her apartment. All the driving around in the world wouldn’t give her any answers. It was time to talk to Dan.
Dan was pacing his apartment when he heard Ashby in the hallway. He’d worried about her all evening. Ever since the barbecue he’d been trying to figure out how to tell her that he wasn’t going to be bothering her any longer. But he hadn’t come up with how to say something like that without alerting her to the fact that he loved her. He couldn’t tell her in one breath that he loved her and in the next that he should never have chased after her in the first place.
“Ashby, where have you been?” he asked the instant he yanked open his door. Startled, she swung toward him.
“I was on a business trip,” she said. “Are you all right?”
No. He rammed his hands through his hair and held back the need to pull her into his arms in relief, even as he wanted to fuss at her for not calling. And why would she do that? He had no claim to her. She’d just been taking care of her business—which wasn’t his business. He was out of his element here. In way over his head. If she wanted to stay out past dark, that was her prerogative. She was a grown woman—whom he loved, cared about and couldn’t help but worry about…. He was in big trouble.
“I’m fine,” he said. Taking a deep breath, he struggled to rein in his frustrations, thankful she was safe. “I was just getting worried about you. I stopped by to see you earlier and Rose said you’d gone to see some suppliers. She said you’d planned to be home before dark. It’s been dark for over two hours.”
“I was driving around.”
Relief was sinking in slowly. Calmer now, he realized she looked as upset as he felt. “You were just driving?”
She nodded. “I need to talk to you. Could you come in?”
“I think that’d be a good idea. I need t
o talk to you, too.” Dan felt as wobbly as when he’d tangled up dismounting during a bull ride and it had taken three bullfighters to get his hand loose from the rigging.
He waited beside her as she slipped the key in and unlocked her door. She smelled sweet as a spring morning, which didn’t help his wobbly legs one bit.
Inside, she immediately went around the bar into the kitchen.
He didn’t follow, choosing instead to keep the bar between them. He loved this woman, and now that he’d let himself admit it, he couldn’t stop thinking about it.
“Coffee?” she asked, starting to fill the carafe with water.
“Sure,” he said, needing the moment to get his wits about him. As she emptied it into the reservoir he realized her hand was shaking. “Ashby, you’re trembling. What is it?”
She set the carafe on the counter and turned to him, her expression pensive. “Why do you think you don’t want children?”
So this was it. She’d also realized the significance of their situation. He braced for what he had to do. “I’m not sure I’d be a good dad. It eats me up thinking about somehow snapping and—”
“Dan, you would never do that.”
The conviction in her voice sent a shaft of warmth through him. “But there is no guarantee. I have a temper.”
She looked surprised. “Most people do have some sort of temper. But I’ve never seen yours.”
“It takes a lot to get me riled up, but it’s there.”
She came around the counter and placed her hand on his arm. “Even if it is, you know how to control it. That doesn’t mean anything.”
It took every shred of strength he had not to give in, wrap his arms around her and forget his past. Forget how his father’s legacy haunted him. “I think it’d be best if I stopped hounding you like I’ve been doing. Then you can concentrate on falling in love with a cowboy worth marrying, like you told me you wanted from the start.”
She shook her head. “I can’t do that. I no longer want to look for someone to fall in love with. Dan, I love you.”
Her Baby Dreams Page 14