The Cowboy and the New Year's Baby

by Sherryl Woods

“No problem. You two have a good day.”

  Hardy added his thanks to Kelly, then followed Trish, who was already out the front door and halfway to his car. He waited until he had the car started and the heater going before he finally glanced over at her.

  “Mind telling me what’s really going on?” he asked gently, determined to get to the bottom of her dark mood. Like Kelly, he was all but certain it had something to do with her brother’s visit.

  “It’s my problem. I’ll work it out,” she said stiffly, huddled by the door.

  Hardy decided to tackle it indirectly. “How did your visit go with your brother?”

  “Great. It was wonderful to see him.”

  He thought she sounded more glum than happy. “You two seem close.”

  “We are.” She actually managed a smile. “Dylan’s the oldest, and I’m the baby, so he’s always been outrageously protective of me. At the same time, he’s the only one who ever seriously rebelled against our father. He’s the only one who can completely understand why I left.”

  “And he’s going to keep quiet about where you are?”

  “He promised he would.”

  “Did he go back last night?”

  She nodded.

  “Is that what’s gotten to you? Are you regretting not going with him? Are you sorry you’re cut off from your family?”

  “No, absolutely not,” she said at once. “I mean, I wish Dylan had stuck around longer. He was great with Laura. She must really like men, even at her tender age. She settled down for him, just the way she does for you.”

  The observation left Hardy feeling vaguely disgruntled without totally understanding why. Surely he couldn’t be jealous of Laura’s uncle. Did he want to be the only male she responded to, just the way he wanted to be the only male in her mama’s life? Apparently.

  Trish gazed at him with blatant curiosity. “Dylan seemed to like you. Believe me, that has to be a first. He hasn’t had a lot of use for most of the men I know. What did you two talk about yesterday before I showed up?”

  “This and that,” Hardy said. He figured Trish would be mortified if she knew her big brother had subjected him to a cross-examination worthy of Perry Mason.

  “I suppose he demanded details about our relationship,” she said with a resigned sigh. “Dylan scared off almost every guy I ever wanted to date in high school with the macho big brother routine. Too bad it didn’t work on Jack. It probably would have, if Jack hadn’t been fully aware that he had my father in his corner.”

  “I wasn’t scared off, either,” Hardy assured her. “I just told him we were friends.”

  “So did I. He didn’t believe me.”

  “That’s his problem.”

  She slanted a look his way. “We are just friends, aren’t we?”

  It seemed to him she sounded a little plaintive, a little regretful. “That was our agreement,” he acknowledged.

  “And you always honor your word, right?”

  “Absolutely.” He glanced at her. She looked downright forlorn. “You aren’t having second thoughts, are you?”

  “About being friends? No, I suppose not.”

  Something in her tone alerted Hardy that she was not being entirely honest here. He decided it was worth pursuing. “Because if you were to change your mind, if you did want to go out sometime on a date, it would be okay with me,” he said in what was probably the understatement of his lifetime.

  He turned just in time to catch her frown.

  “You don’t have to sound so blasted thrilled about it,” she muttered.

  “Actually, I would be,” he said. “Thrilled, that is.”

  Her gaze narrowed. “You would?”

  He figured he was treading on thin ice here. She wasn’t exactly doing cartwheels over the prospect of dating him. He couldn’t afford to put his heart on the line, didn’t even know if he wanted to. He just knew things weren’t working out the way they’d been the past couple of weeks. There was too much sizzling tension in the air when they were together. The only way it was likely to die down was if they did something about it.

  “Sure. Why not?” he said as if it were of no consequence.

  She seemed to be struggling with indecision. “Okay, we could have dinner sometime,” she said at last, then hurriedly amended, “If Laura can come along, of course.”

  Hardy fought a grin. “She’s awfully small to be a respectable chaperone,” he pointed out.

  “That is not why…” she began, then let her voice trail off. “Okay, yes, I did think having another person along would keep things from getting, you know.”

  “Too intense? Too intimate?”

  “All of that,” she agreed.

  “Darlin’, something tells me things could get intense between the two of us in a room filled with half the town.”

  She regarded him glumly. “Yeah, I’m afraid of that, too.”

  Hardy would have chuckled, but something told him he ought to be satisfied to count his blessings. Trish finally trusted herself—and him—enough to go out with him. Now why did that make him so blasted nervous?

  He had perfected the art of dating by the time he was fourteen. He couldn’t even count high enough to calculate the number of dates he’d been on. Showing a woman a good time was as natural to him as breathing.

  But Trish was different. A date with her actually mattered. He didn’t want to blow it, didn’t want to come on too strong. Didn’t want to do anything from which there would be no turning back.

  Oh, he was losing it, all right. He was staring straight into something every bit as frightening as the jaws of death and preparing to jump right in. In fact, he was damned eager to jump in, which just proved what happened when a man lost track of the rules that had kept him free. Obviously, before this big date of theirs, he was going to have to brush off that rule book and take a refresher course or he was going to be in the kind of emotional trouble he’d spent a lifetime avoiding.

  Why was she behaving like a lovesick schoolgirl? Trish asked herself for the thousandth time as she dressed for her date with Hardy. She didn’t have his track record with dating, but she’d certainly been to dinner and the movies enough times that the thought shouldn’t have her palms sweating. She was as jittery as a teenager getting ready for a blind date. If she could have, she would have backed out, pleading a headache or anything else she could dream up.

  Unfortunately she knew that Hardy would see straight through any excuse she offered. After tonight, though, she’d rarely have to see him again. The work on the store was all but done. Hardy must have worked like a demon the night before to get the shelves finished and the floor polished. She had been astounded when she’d walked in that morning and seen the full effect of all their hard work. Tears had stung her eyes and she’d had to fight the urge to throw her arms around him and give him the resounding kiss he deserved. Fortunately she’d learned that kissing Hardy was seldom an innocent act. Her body always wanted to turn it into something more. She’d settled for giving his hand a quick squeeze, then walking around to do a thorough survey of the all-but-finished store. He’d watched her intently, his expression worried, until she’d finally turned back and beamed at him.

  “Oh, Hardy, isn’t it the most beautiful bookstore you’ve ever seen?”

  “I can honestly tell you yes,” he said wryly. “Of course, I probably don’t have nearly as much to compare it to as you do. To me it just feels real homey.”

  That was precisely the effect she’d been going for, so nothing he could have said would have pleased her more. A sudden vision of this being their home, with a cozy fire blazing, had her turning away as if he might read her thoughts.

  If ideas like that were going to be popping into her head, it was a good thing that their time together was drawing to a close, she concluded. What little work was left she could do herself. Tonight was to be a much-deserved celebration of sorts.

  And an ending, she added, feeling more depressed than she cared to admit.
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br />   She tugged on a pair of wool slacks that she could finally fasten around the middle, then pulled one of her favorite soft-blue sweaters over her head. She added an antique necklace with a scattering of tiny sapphires to dress the outfit up, then studied herself in the mirror. Casual enough, she concluded, and not bad for a woman just shedding the extra pounds she’d added with pregnancy. She was almost back to her old figure again, except for her breasts, which were fuller. She scooped her hair up into a loose arrangement of curls, held in place by little butterfly clips made of sparkling blue jewels.

  Finally satisfied, she went downstairs just as the doorbell rang.

  “I’ll get it,” she called out to Kelly.

  She opened the door, then froze, mouth agape, her breath caught somewhere deep in her throat. Hardy was wearing a Western-style outfit, all in black. If she’d ever hoped for a pure rebel in her life, he personified it.

  “You look…” they began in unison, then grinned.

  “Gorgeous,” he concluded.

  “Very handsome,” she said.

  And then they both seemed to run out of words, as if the importance of the evening ahead had finally sunk in.

  “You two have a lovely evening,” Kelly said, breaking the silence as she came into the foyer, holding Laura in her arms.

  “It’s just dinner and a movie,” Trish insisted.

  Hardy said, “We will.” He glanced toward the baby. “Is Laura coming?”

  Trish shook her head. “I decided she’d be better off right here. It’s a cold night.”

  “Besides, one of these days Trish will move out and take this little darling with her. I want every second alone with her I can get,” Kelly declared.

  Trish caught Hardy’s expression, watched it darken at Kelly’s words. He said very little until they were in the truck and underway.

  “You planning on moving on, after all?” he asked finally.

  “No, of course not,” she said, surprised not only because he’d misinterpreted Kelly’s remark, but because it seemed to bother him. “But I will have to find my own place one of these days. I can’t impose on Kelly and Jordan forever. We agreed I’d start looking as soon as the store is up and running.”

  It sounded to her as if Hardy breathed a sigh of relief.

  “You might have to build,” he said, his expression turning thoughtful. “There aren’t a lot of houses available around here. Families tend to stick close. If you decide to buy some land, let me know. I’ll drive you around. I’ve spotted a couple of pieces of property that might suit you.”

  “Why haven’t you bought one of them for yourself?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “Too much like settling down, I suppose. The bunkhouse suits me.”

  See, she told herself. There was absolutely nothing to fear from spending the evening with him. Hardy Jones was not a marrying man. How many times did she have to hear that before she got the message? And why did hearing it once more irritate her so?

  “You don’t need your own space?” she asked.

  “Not really. The place I grew up never felt much like a home, so I haven’t missed having one of my own. You can’t miss what you never knew. What about you?”

  “I suppose I always assumed I’d have a house one day, complete with a white picket fence and a rose garden like the one Janet has at White Pines. I never wanted the sort of huge mansion my folks have. It’s a showplace. In fact, I think the only reason they bought it was because they figured it would be photographed every time someone wrote about my father.”

  She sighed, then confessed, “The only place I ever felt really at home was at the little cottage they had at the beach near Galveston. My mother hated it, so she would send us kids off with the housekeeper for the summer. She and my father would pay us duty visits on weekends. They never arrived before dinnertime on Saturday and they were gone by noon on Sunday. I always laughed whenever she told a reporter about their weekend getaways as if they were some romantic little adventures she cherished.”

  “Do they still have that house?”

  “Dylan has it now. He bought it from them, and he and my brothers go there every chance they get. I suppose it’s their bachelor pad. They invite me once a year, and I’m sure it takes them a month to clean up before my visit.”

  He grinned. “If they’re anything like the bachelors I know, it might take longer.”

  A few minutes later they arrived in Garden City. Hardy pulled up in front of an old hotel that had clearly been restored in recent years.

  “I hope this is okay. There’s a great little restaurant inside and there’s a dance floor.” He studied her uncertainly. “Sound all right?”

  The mention of the dance floor set her pulse to pounding. The prospect of stepping into Hardy’s embrace, of feeling his body pressed against hers rattled her so badly she could do little more than nod.

  He grinned. “Good. I’ve heard the band does all the old-fashioned stuff. I can’t promise you I can tell a waltz from a foxtrot, but I should be able to avoid stepping on your toes.”

  As they walked through the lobby, Trish’s gaze shot to the registration desk. Of course there would be rooms upstairs. Was that why he had brought her here? Was he expecting something more out of tonight than dinner and dancing? And what about the movie they’d talked about? Maybe he’d been hoping she’d agree to watching one in bed. How many other women had he brought here and seduced? The rat! The louse! She was about to snap out some sarcastic observation when he grinned at her.

  “You can forget about dragging me up to one of those rooms,” he taunted.

  “Me?” she all but sputtered, radiating indignation.

  His grin broadened. “Oh, I know exactly what kind of ideas popped into that head of yours, but I’m not going along with it. I promised you a quiet evening, no pressure, no need for a chaperone. I stick to my word.” He gazed deep into her eyes. “You can count on it.”

  Trish should have been relieved, should have rejoiced at the teasing declaration that she was safe with him. So why did she suddenly wish she could drag him straight into an elevator, up to a room and then strip his clothes off?

  Because he had cleverly planted the idea in her head, she realized, frowning at him. No wonder he was so successful with women. Every one of them probably thought the seduction had been their idea. Well, she knew better, and now that she did, she would be on guard.

  In fact, she had a few clever moves of her own. She knew how to drive a man crazy, and no one she knew deserved it more than Hardy. Dinner was going to be lovely, she was sure. But the dancing was going to be downright fascinating.

  Chapter Twelve

  Hardy knew he hadn’t mistaken the panic in Trish’s eyes when she’d spotted the registration desk and realized the implications of the fact that they were in a hotel. She’d jumped to an instantaneous conclusion that he’d brought her here to seduce her. That she thought so little of him irked him. At the same time, he’d thoroughly enjoyed teasing her about the wicked direction of her thoughts. She had been completely flustered when she realized that he’d read her mind and turned her conclusions topsy-turvy.

  Of course, now she seemed dead set on making him pay. Every time he asked her to dance, she made darned sure that she fit herself so snugly against him that every muscle in his body went rigid. Then she’d toss an innocent look over her shoulder and sashay back to the table as if she had nothing more on her mind than another bite of salad. Meantime, he was so aroused, he ached.

  They’d just returned to the table after their third slow dance, when he deliberately captured her gaze and held it. The muscles in her throat worked, and she seemed to be having difficulty breathing.

  “Having fun?” he inquired lightly.

  “Sure,” she said, her voice choked.

  The music slowed again. He held out his hand. “Care for another dance?”

  “Umm, not right now,” she murmured. “The salad will get…” Her voice trailed off as if she realized the absurdity
of what she’d been about to say.

  “Cold?” he supplied. “Hot?”

  “Soggy,” she said emphatically.

  “Nothing I hate more than a soggy salad,” he agreed. “We’ll wait till you’re finished then.”

  She toyed with the lettuce for the better part of fifteen minutes before finally eating the last little bite with obvious reluctance. She finished just in time for another slow tune.

  “Ah, perfect timing,” Hardy enthused. He stood up before she could make another excuse.

  This time, as if she’d sensed that his patience with her game had worn thin, she tried to remain a discreet distance away from him, but Hardy urged her in close, until their bodies were pressed intimately together once more. He was aroused before they took the second spin around the floor. In fact, there was so much heat being generated between them, the chef could have cooked their meals right there on the dance floor.

  He gazed down into Trish’s eyes and noted that her expression had shifted from alarm to something vaguely dreamy. Instinctively she snuggled a little closer.

  Check and checkmate, he thought with a hint of desperation. If they weren’t careful, this game was going to get wildly out of hand. And he was going to be cursing himself for that vow he’d made not to haul her upstairs to one of the rooms.

  Back at the table, he glanced at his watch. If they rushed, they could still make that movie. A darkened movie theater suddenly seemed a whole lot safer and more sensible than a dance floor, unless he intended to spend the rest of the evening being physically tormented. A good action movie, that was what they needed. That way if their blood roared, if would be from the adrenaline pumping through them, not lust.

  “What do you say we get out of here?” he asked before the subject of dessert could come up.

  Her startled blue eyes met his. “Now?”

  “We’ve been here longer than I realized. If we’re going to make that movie, we’d better hurry.”

  “We don’t have to go to a movie.”

  “Yes, we do,” he said urgently.

  Suddenly a knowing grin spread across her face. “Oh, really? Why is that?”