Baby My Baby (A Ranching Family) (8 page)

And then, suddenly, there was a knock on the front door just before it opened and Kansas called, “It’s me.”

Beth was jolted out of her study of her former husband, and she struggled to find her voice through the tightness in her throat. “Come on in,” she answered, hoping her old friend didn’t hear the breathy undertone.

Her heart was racing; perspiration dotted her palms, and even knowing she was about to be caught in the act, she had trouble tearing her gaze from Ash. Instead, still staring, she turned on the cold water, dampened her hands and pressed cool, moist fingertips to her cheeks in an attempt to calm the color she knew flushed them.

“Where are you?” Kansas asked from what sounded like somewhere in the living room.

“The kitchen,” Beth answered, snatching one last glance of masculine magnificence before she turned away from the sink and tried to look nonchalant.

Kansas came through the swinging door with a jaunty stride. A serene smile brightened her face. “Hi,” she said, setting her purse on the countertop just inside the door.

Beth returned the greeting and took the few steps to the butcher block in the center of the room. She knew it was absurd, but she had the sense that her back was being scorched by the heat of the scene she’d been observing. “Have you had lunch?” she asked too eagerly.

“Just before I came. Linc and Danny brought burgers to the store so we could eat together. I’ll sit with you while you have something, though.”

But what Beth was really hungry for was not food and so she shook her head. “No, that’s okay. I’m sure you want to get back to work. Why don’t we just pin up that hem so you can?”

Apparently there wasn’t evidence of what had been going on in Beth’s mind moments before, because Kansas didn’t seem to notice anything amiss. “If you aren’t starving, that would work better for me. My sister is holding down the fort while I’m gone, but she has some other things she needs to do today, so I hate to keep her any longer than I have to.”

“Let’s go up and get to work, then.”

Kansas talked about the weather and her general store’s air-conditioning being on the fritz as they went upstairs, but Beth was concentrating on getting some control over herself.

In her room she tried to avoid the window as Kansas slipped out of her clothes and put on the dress, but somehow the sill was where she ended up perching, and more than once she stole glances down as Ash formed and fitted another shoe and Jackson looked on.

And though she hated herself for it, she had to fight a strong reluctance to leave that window and the sight of Ash.

But of course she forced herself.

While Beth pinned the hem, Kansas chatted about Danny and something funny the three-year-old had said. Beth barely heard her as her attention kept straying toward the window. Even though she couldn’t see out of it from where she knelt at the base of the chair her friend stood on, she was acutely tuned in to every sound. So much so that she even knew the moment the last nail was hammered into the last shoe and the horse was led through the squeaky paddock gate.

“I must be boring you to death,” Kansas said at about the same moment.

“No, no, I’m just a little drifty today,” Beth assured her, not really knowing whether she’d missed something important or not.

“Are you feeling okay? Do you have morning sickness or anything like that?”

“I feel great,” she answered, thinking that feeling hot and bothered and inappropriately aroused by the wrong man didn’t count. Then she added, “I never had any morning sickness, even early on, or I might have realized I was pregnant sooner.” But she didn’t want to say much more about her pregnancy, knowing it was insensitive in view of the fact that her friend couldn’t have kids.

Luckily she’d finished pinning the hem by then and so could change the subject naturally. “That’s it. We’re all set. You can take the dress off and get back to the store. I’ll have it finished by tonight.”

Kansas seemed in no hurry to get out of the gown and instead went to the cheval mirror in the corner to admire Beth’s handiwork for a few more minutes before actually changing out of it again.

To make amends for her inattentiveness, Beth asked a number of questions about how the preparations for the wedding were coming. The effort helped to finally get her own mind off Ash, so that by the time they headed back to the kitchen to get Kansas’s purse, she felt like herself again.

But it lasted only until they went through the swinging door and came upon Jackson and Ash.

The scent of clean, honest sweat was in the air and though Beth knew it was crazy, the fact that part of it came from Ash acted like an aphrodisiac on her, rekindling much of what she’d thought she’d conquered.

But there he was, standing in the same spot she’d been at the sink, washing his hands, and she had the awful urge to walk up behind him, wrap her arms around his narrow waist and do silky, sexy things to his bare back.

Greetings and small talk between Kansas, Jackson and Ash made her lack of participation unobtrusive as she struggled with the urge, but struggle she did.

Until Kansas invited them all to dinner that night.

“Sounds great,” she heard Ash answer before she could refuse.

“I have a Cattleman’s Association meeting,” Jackson declined as he unburdened the refrigerator of ice tea and the fixings for sandwiches. “But you all go ahead without me.”

“And that way you can bring the dress,” Kansas added, sealing the date before Beth could manage to utter a word.

“I can bring the dress by without your having to cook,” she said, belatedly trying to get out of what would be a social evening that coupled her with her ex-husband.

But by that point, Kansas wouldn’t hear of their not going to dinner, and she was locked in.

“About seven,” her soon-to-be-sister-in-law said as she slipped her purse strap over her shoulder.

Beth only smiled in answer, hoping it didn’t look as wan as it felt.

Goodbyes were said all around. When Kansas left, Beth felt as if she’d been abandoned to the wolves.

Silly thought.

“Have you had lunch?” Jackson asked her then.

Just the idea of sitting a few feet away from Ash and his naked torso while she ate a sandwich was an exercise in agony. “I ate before Kansas got here,” she lied to get herself out of it. She’d eat something after Ash was gone.

Ash was leaning his hips against the edge of the counter as he dried his hands and watched her. “What do you have planned for this afternoon?” he inquired, the first words he’d said directly to her.

“I’ll be up in my room hemming the wedding dress,” she answered in a hurry, hoping it would convince him to leave.

He nodded, pushed off the counter and went to the butcher block, where Jackson was building four enormous sandwiches. Ash swung a long leg over one of the bar stools there and the flash of his zipper as he did made Beth catch her breath.

“I guess we can shoe those other two horses, then,” he told her brother.

“Great,” Jackson said enthusiastically, clearly over his anger at his former brother-in-law.

Beth’s gaze had taken a rocket leap and landed in the hollow of Ash’s throat, where the arrowhead nestled against his skin. Hearing their plans, she wondered how she was going to get through the afternoon without gawking at him.

“I thought you were using preformed shoes,” she said peevishly to her brother.

Jackson’s expression told her he found her curt tone curious. “I have been. But the red mare has a bad foot and needs a special fit, and since we’re all set up and Ash is willing, we might as well do it for the other two, too.”

Dandy.

“Did you need me for something else this afternoon?” Ash asked her.

What flashed through her mind was not something she was about to share with him. “I’m hemming a dress,” she repeated.

“Then it shouldn’t matter if I work with the horses.”

Both men apparently knew something was going on with her and, hating that she was so transparent, Beth drew herself up into a ramrod-straight posture and shrugged as if they were imagining things.

“It doesn’t matter to me at all,” she lied again, turning to leave.

About the time her hand reached the door to push it open, Ash said, “I’ll go back to the lodge when I’m finished, shower and pick you up a little before seven.”

Beth bristled, ignoring the faint tingle of excitement that ignited deep inside her at the same time. “No, thanks. I’ll just see you there,” she said firmly.

“I don’t want you going out alone, late at night. I’ll pick you up,” he insisted.

“What could possibly happen to me? I’m only fifteen minutes outside of town.”

Ash looked at Jackson and said, “You know, she’s the most stubborn person I’ve ever met.”

“Ha! You didn’t know Shag very well then.”

The exchange that excluded her only got her back up more. “Let’s not be ridiculous about this. I’ll drive myself to Kansas’s house.”

“I’ll pick you up a little before seven.”

She rolled her eyes and took a breath, shoring up to really let him have it.

But then she realized that arguing with him left her in that kitchen all the longer.

Besides, for some reason, this new quest of his to be a conscientious father made him far more stubborn than she was, and she knew he would take this to the wall rather than give in. It was better for her to concede, she decided, and escape.

“Oh, fine. Have it your way,” she finally said ungraciously. Then she turned on her heels to leave.

But as she did, she knew that having Ash out by the barn, shoeing horses, was going to make for a long afternoon.

And she wasn’t looking forward to the evening, either.

* * *

By a quarter to seven that night Beth felt more in control of herself again. It helped that Ash had been gone more than two hours and that she’d taken a cool shower.

It also helped that she’d found a logical explanation for the even more intense attraction she’d been feeling toward him since his arrival in Elk Creek. Pregnancy hormones might well be causing these strange physical reactions, as well as her overly emotional state.

It was possible, she’d decided, that some biological quirk drew a woman to the father of the child she was carrying as Mother Nature’s way of uniting them in spite of whatever other circumstances might exist. And somehow, the thought that it was just one more thing to endure—like the weakening of her bladder—put a new perspective on it for her.

She’d just ride it out, she told herself. She’d use better judgment and common sense to keep a lid on it. And it wouldn’t be long, she was still convinced, before Ash left anyway.

With this new outlook, she felt sure that even the evening she faced could be passed with no more involvement than if she and Ash were any two acquaintances having dinner with another couple.

And the fact that she’d dressed up for the occasion had nothing whatsoever to do with her former husband. She’d merely felt inclined to celebrate this new lease on things with an airy halter sundress that fit loose enough to conceal her stomach, lacy espadrilles, and her hair gathered into a small cascade of curls at her crown. Everything worked together to make her feel cool and confident, and that was her goal, she told herself. Not to be attractive to Ash.

She was watching for him when he drove up, so she could forestall his coming to the door. This wasn’t a date, after all.

He was out of the car by the time she left the house and so he went around to the passenger side to open that door for her.

She said a cursory hello and let him take the wedding dress and lay it across the back seat while she got in the front.

Beth tried not to notice how good he looked as he rounded the car on his way to the driver’s side. He was freshly showered and wearing a pair of gray slacks and a crisp white shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows.

This was the Ash she was familiar with—casually chic, the businessman out for an evening with friends. It was less heady than the sight of him earlier today had been, though one whiff of his cologne as he joined her in the car did make her stomach flutter.

Hormones, she reminded herself. Nothing more than hormones.

He didn’t start the engine right away. Instead he turned in her direction, propped one elbow on his headrest and the other on the steering wheel, and took a slow appraisal of her from topknot to toe.

“You look wonderful tonight,” he said when he was finished.

“Thanks,” she responded as if the compliment didn’t matter, when in fact it secretly pleased her no end.

“There really must be a glow that comes with pregnancy because you seem all pink and healthy and—”

“Maybe you just never took the time to notice before.” The words were out before she had a chance to think about them, and before he could say anything she poked her chin in the direction of the key in the ignition. “Don’t you think we ought to get going?”

“Sure,” he said as if he didn’t quite understand her attitude in response to courtesy and compliments. He faced forward and started the car. “I spoke to my grandfather this morning,” he went on then, showing better manners than she had, she knew. “He’s missing you as his gin rummy opponent.”

Just the thought of Robert Yazzie softened her mood and made her smile. The old man was truly a gem. He’d kept her company, explained Indian customs, helped her to know where she could and couldn’t go on the reservation so she didn’t embarrass herself. He’d been more friend to her than in-law.

“I miss him, too. How is he?” she asked, hearing the distinct change in her own tone of voice.

“He’s the same—full of life.” Ash took his eyes off the road to glance at her. “You know, I was always a little jealous of what the two of you had between you.”

The last thing she needed was for Ash to flirt with her, and she refused to encourage it, so she merely confirmed what he’d said. “We did have fun together. You must be more like your other grandfather.” She hadn’t meant that to be an insult, merely an observation, but it had sounded pretty bad. She tried for a quick recovery. “I mean—”

“I know what you meant,” he said grimly.