After a short wait, the three of them were handed the largest hunk of cotton candy Austin had ever seen. They ate it sitting on a bench surrounded by jealous pigeons, and Austin was surprised to find that he was just as hungry for the sugar as Lea was. Once, Sara reached out and brushed cotton candy off of his face, licking the sweetness off her fingers. The sight of it made Austin tremble a little as if he had been hit with a sudden electric charge. It was tempting to get some cotton candy stuck somewhere a little more interesting, like, say, his bottom lip, but he decided to stop with the treat altogether instead.
By the time the three of them made their way back to his truck, it was dark, the lights of the fair still in full swing twinkling merrily behind them. Lea was more asleep than awake, her arms thrown around Austin’s neck as he carried her down the dirt road.
The ride home was mostly silent, neither he nor Sara wishing to wake Lea, who was snoring softly in the back. It wasn’t an uncomfortable quiet, though. Instead, it was the easy kind of silence that usually happened between two people who knew each other really well.
Austin had felt that way rarely in his life, and certainly not in a long time. Had he been the kind of man inclined towards giddiness, he would have felt that way now. As it was, he couldn’t help smiling as he guided his truck down the dark roads, humming a half-forgotten tune to himself and thinking about how quickly life could change.
He was so distracted by his own thoughts that he didn't even notice the car parked in front of his house at first. It was Sara's murmur of confusion that drew his attention to it, and even then, he had a hard time believing what he was seeing. He shook his head, hard and fast as if that might clear it of his mirage. When his eyes refocused, the car was still there, and now there was a man leaning up against it as well. Under his breath, Austin let out a string of curse words so foul that Sara blushed, and he was glad of Lea's continued slumber.
“What?” Sara asked, her brow furrowed with worry as she angled her body towards him. “What’s the matter? Who is that guy?”
“It’s my dad,” Austin said in a hoarse, disbelieving voice. “And I don’t have a clue what he’s doing here.”
Nine
"Austin?" the man who was both familiar and a stranger called out tentatively. It made Austin want to turn the truck back on and drive away as fast and as far as he could go. Instead he opened the door of the truck to unbuckle Lea and motioned for Sara to get out as well.
“Austin?” came his dad’s voice again, a slight tremor to it that Austin didn’t remember from when he was a kid. “Look, I know it must seem strange to you, me showing up out of the blue like this, but—“
“No, Pete,” Austin interrupted, his jaw working as he marched Lea past the man he had once called Dad with Sara trailing behind him. “Not until I get my family inside.”
Pete nodded, then kept his head bowed respectfully. Austin returned the gesture with a grimace as he took the porch steps two at a time. He was acutely aware of how close Sara was behind him, as well as the fact that he had just referred to her as family, but those were things he didn't have the capacity to deal with at the moment.
Right now, there was a ghost waiting on his porch, one that needed to be sent away.
“Austin?” Sara said in a low, strained voice as he shut the door behind him. “Is this okay? Is there anything I can do?”
"Take care of Lea, will you?" he asked in return, handing her over and smoothly dodging the second question altogether. "I won't be out there for long."
The front room was dim and full of shadows with only a table lamp shining, but the darkness didn't stop Austin from seeing the doubt in Sara's face. He took a deep breath, cracking his knuckles and rolling his neck in a losing battle against his agitation. When he glanced at Sara again, she was still watching him intently, an unbelievable calm in her eyes now.
“I’ve got it,” she said, nodding her head so that her blonde waves bounced. “So there’s one thing you don’t need to worry about. And if you need anything, you know exactly where I’ll be.”
Austin nodded and started back to the door, swallowing hard as he stepped out on the porch, shutting the door carefully behind him.
“Austin,” his dad said, clearing his throat in a way that made Austin cringe.
It was the same thing Austin did when he was uncomfortable and trying to figure out what to say. The idea that the two of them had anything at all in common made him feel vaguely ill.
“I wasn’t sure if you were coming back outside,” Pete continued.
"Yeah," Austin said gruffly, his hands in his pockets as he stared pointedly out into the yard instead of looking at his estranged father's face. "Neither was I."
"Mind if I ask you why you did?" Pete asked nervously, his voice actually shaking a little.
“You can ask,” Austin said, finally looking at his unexpected visitor grudgingly. “But that doesn’t mean I’ve got much of an answer for you. I guess I just wanted to know what you think you’re doing here.”
“Right,” Pete sighed, his entire body deflating with the sound. “I guess I deserve that.”
“You guess?” Austin asked incredulously, his eyebrows rising in disbelief. “I haven’t seen you since I was twelve, Pete. I didn’t know you even knew where I was, so, yeah, you showing up is a bit of a surprise.”
“And I deserve that, too,” Pete said, lifting his chin a little defiantly. “Because I was a bad man when you knew me and an even worse father.”
“Am I supposed to think that’s changed?” Austin asked, folding his arms in front of him.
There was a small part of him that wondered if he was being immature—if the right thing to do was to forgive and forget. Then he remembered how hard it had been for his mother to raise him and his sister on her own, and he wondered if maybe he wasn't being hard enough on the guy.
“There’s no reason that you would,” Pete said slowly, his eyes wide and disturbingly earnest. “But I’m hoping that you’ll give me a chance all the same. I never forgot about you and your sister. Never stopped caring about you two, either. I’ve been keeping track of you both.”
“Keeping track?” Austin asked with a disbelieving grunt. “What does that mean?”
“It means that I heard when you inherited the ranch,” Pete said with a shrug. “Heard about what went on with your little girl and her mother, too, and I wanted to offer my help, such as it is. I didn’t do a thing for you when you were growing up other than cause you pain. I’d like to be something better than that now.”
Before he could think to stop himself, Austin cleared his throat in the same way his father had done moments before. He had no idea what to make of any of this, and trying to figure it out was making his head spin. Lately he was just starting to feel like he could catch his breath a little, and now this?
“I don’t expect you to take any of what I’m saying at face value,” Pete continued, perhaps sensing Austin’s internal conflict. “But it would mean the world to me if you would just give me a chance to show you that I’m a different kind of man now.”
“I don’t know, Pete,” Austin said with a defensive shrug, noting with equal parts regret and satisfaction the way his dad cringed at his son’s use of his first name. “It’s not just me now. I’ve got a daughter to think about.”
“I know it,” Pete said eagerly, nodding so enthusiastically that his hat tilted slightly askew. “And that’s one of the reasons I’m here. I hate the idea that I have a granddaughter I don’t know. I hate it enough to put my cowardice aside and try and make amends. I would love to get to know her.”
Much as he wanted to, Austin couldn’t quite make himself meet his father’s eyes. He’d never even imagined having a conversation like this one. He’d been perfectly content to act as though his dad were already dead and gone, which meant that now he didn’t even have imagined confrontations to draw upon.
“I don’t know, okay?” he said finally when he could think of nothing more profound. “
I’m going to need some time to think this over.”
“That’s all right!” his dad said quickly, fumbling in his back pocket. He produced a card as if out of thin air and shoved it in Austin’s direction. “That’s better than I was hoping for. This has got all of my numbers on it. I just want you to know that I’ll be here for you if and when you need me. I won’t say I’ll be waiting by the phone, don’t want to put that kind of pressure on you, but I’ll be around.”
Austin had no more response to that than to all of the rest of it, but this time Pete didn't wait for a reply. Apparently the man didn't want to press his luck, opting to hurry to his car and ease himself behind the wheel with nothing but the tip of his hat for a goodbye.
“Good God,” Austin said to the night air shakily, reaching behind him for the side of the house to steady himself. “What on earth am I supposed to do now?”
“It’s all right, sweetie,” Sara said as she glanced over her shoulder at Lea. “Everything is going to be just fine.”
In truth, it was ludicrous to reassure the little girl, who was playing contentedly with her baby doll and seemed to have no idea that anything at all was amiss. Sara was really speaking to comfort herself, trying to convince herself that the scene unfolding on the other side of the blinds she was peeking through wasn't a big deal.
The problem was, she had never been very good at lying to herself. That, and it didn’t take a genius to see just how tense Austin was right now. She could see it in the way his shoulders were hunched up around his ears, his hands shoved so deep in his pockets it was a wonder they didn't shoot out the other side. She didn't like to think of herself as a nosy person, but she would have given just about anything to be a fly on the wall in the middle of that conversation. Not because she wanted to pry into his private business, but just so she could understand what he was going through—and how she could comfort him.
When the conversation ended, it was sudden enough that Sara practically face-planted on the carpet in her hurry to get away from the window. She had just enough time to settle down beside Lea before the front door opened and immediately shut again with a bang. After flipping the switch to turn off the porch light, Austin slumped against the door, his head tilted back and his eyes shut. Even across the room, Sara could see that his face was almost entirely drained of color.
“Daddy?” Lea asked, looking up again with sleepy eyes and hugging her baby doll to her chest, anxious in a way she hadn’t been before once she got a good look at the expression on Austin’s face.
"That's right," Sara said confidently, getting to her feet and patting Lea reassuringly on the top of her head. "Daddy's back inside, and I'm going to talk to him for just a minute, okay?"
Lea shrugged and looked at her doll’s face again, although Sara thought she glimpsed something uneasy there. Sara was careful to keep her own face still and free of worry as she approached Austin.
“You okay?” she asked neutrally, holding her arms down at her side in a non-threatening, non-judgmental stance.
“Why, because I slammed the door?” Austin demanded, clearly ready to pick a fight despite her best efforts to avoid one.
“No,” she said softly, concentrating on her breathing and willing herself not to take the bait. “Just...just because.”
Austin's eyes narrowed, and for a moment she was sure that an argument was unavoidable. But in the next moment his shoulders slumped, and he passed a hand over his five-o'clock shadow, a look of bruised disbelief on his face.
"I'm sorry," he sighed, looking at her with stormy eyes. "My frustration is not about you, and it's not fair to act like it is. God's honest truth is that I'm not sure if I'm okay or not."
"That's okay," she said gently, taking a step closer. Her hands were itching to reach out and smooth his brow, to move to his neck and help work out some of the tension there. Instead, she stood perfectly still, carefully maintaining the same loose, easy posture. The last thing she wanted to do was set him off when he was already so spooked.
“So,” Austin said after a couple of uneasy moments of silence had passed. “That was my dad.”
“I heard,” she agreed with a nod. “And you weren’t pleased to see him.”
"Haven't seen him since I was a kid," Austin said again, cracking his knuckles angrily. For all of his bluster, though, he still looked to Sara like a wounded little boy, and it was enough to make her heart want to break.
“And you didn’t have any idea he was in town?” Sara asked with a small frown, glancing again at Lea as if to make sure she was still there.
“Not a clue,” he answered with a flummoxed shake of his head. “Not that that’s a surprise in and of itself. You have to understand, Sara, the only things I remember about that man are bad. He was hardly ever around, and when he was, it was only to cause trouble. He was a bad man and an even worse father. I'm surprised he even remembers he has kids."
Sara nodded slowly, the wheels in her head turning and taking her in a direction she didn't like. She wasn’t comfortable with being the sort of person who thought the worst of people, but something about this unexpected reunion made her uncomfortable. When she met Austin's eyes again, she could see that he felt it, too.
“I don’t know, Sara,” he said with a slightly defensive shrug. “He says he wants to make amends. Says he regrets not knowing me and doesn’t want the same thing to happen with his granddaughter.”
“And do you believe him?” she asked carefully.
“I don’t know,” he sighed, running a shaking hand through his hair. “I’m going to have to think on this one, figure out what I’m going to do.”
“That may be true,” Sara said, shifting her weight and turning to look at Lea. “But you don’t have to do it tonight. Go and play with your daughter, get ready to put her to bed. You’ve got time to sort this thing out.”
He nodded gratefully, his hand brushing against hers as he passed and causing her breath to catch in her throat. She was getting into dangerous territory here, stepping firmly over the line of where her professional relationship should end, but she couldn’t seem to help it. There was something about that little-boy-lost expression in his eyes that made her want to do whatever she could to help him.
“Hey, Austin?” she called suddenly, causing him to stop and face her, his head cocked to one side curiously. “Just be careful, okay? Remember that Lea comes first. You’ve got a good thing right here. Don’t let anything get in the way of that. I don’t think you would be able to forgive yourself if you did.”
Ten
Austin managed to set aside some of the tension and angst of the evening to put Lea to bed, carrying his mostly asleep little girl to her bedroom, shepherding her through putting on jammies and brushing her teeth, and then tucking her in tight. Afterward, he stood in her open doorway for longer than was his habit, watching as her thumb found her mouth and she sighed contentedly, smiling a little in her sleep.
Still, his muscles remained tight with all of the drama of the day as he returned to the front room, and no amount of cracking his neck seemed to make a difference. Not to mention the fact that Sara's words of warning were ping-ponging around his head. At this point, he could only hope she didn't have any more words of wisdom for the moment, because he was pretty sure he couldn't handle any more.
"Sara?" he said uncertainly, stopping in the front room with a frown. Here he'd been half-expecting some kind of fight, and instead, he seemed to be alone. The only sign that she had ever been there at all was the front door hanging partially ajar. "Where'd you go?"
“I’m out here,” came her reply from the front porch, her voice like a sweet song upon the evening air. “Enjoying the night. Care to join me?”
Austin hesitated for a second, looking around the room like he expected this to be some kind of trap. Then he shrugged and started for the door, smiling to himself despite the day’s strain. Whatever else she was, Sara didn’t exactly strike him as devious.
He found her sitting on th
e bottom step, two open beers sitting beside her, and her face angled up towards the sky. At the sound of his boots on the old wood, she looked over her shoulder, smiling at him softly and motioning with her head for him to join her. Even with all the stress and a feeling of fatigue that went bone-deep, he felt a stir of something dangerous when he saw the way she bit her lip before she looked away. Every time he thought he'd gotten used to how sexy she was, she'd do something else to make him feel all topsy-turvy again.
“To what do I owe this pleasure?” he asked, easing himself onto the step beside her and gratefully accepting the beer.
“I don’t know,” she said dreamily, leaning back and propping herself up on her elbows so that she could get a better look at the sky. “There’s just something about the stars here that I can’t get over. It’s like the sky is bigger here or something. I don’t think there’s any place in the world that feels this free.”
“I don’t guess I’ve ever thought about it,” he admitted, more intent on watching the way the starlight played across her face than on looking at the stars themselves. “But you might have a point.”
She laughed softly, sitting up a little more so she could take a long sip of her beer. When a bit of it dribbled down her chin, she shamelessly lapped it up with her tongue, and Austin felt a wave of heat that had nothing to do with the balmy evening air.
“So this was a big day, huh?” she asked, turning those lovely eyes back on him and watching him consideringly.
“Big?” he repeated with a chuckle. “I guess that’s one way of putting it.”
“Well, sure,” she said, sitting up straighter and shifting her body towards him so that her bare knee pressed against his thigh. “First with Lea going missing, then your dad showing up out of the blue? That’s a lot to handle by anyone’s standards, as far as I’m concerned.”
The Rancher’s Tempting Nanny Page 7