The Cowboy's Surprise Baby. Ali Olson

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СКАЧАТЬ cost me a small fortune. Your ma thinks I’m crazy, but there it is.”

      Amy hadn’t heard her father say so many words in one go since the time he’d lectured her on the dangers of peer pressure when she was a teenager. She’d always known her pop was partial to the riding school, and even though she worried about his health, she had to love his loyalty to the horses and the children.

      The mare under Amy’s hand snorted and shook her mane, as if trying to get Amy’s attention back on her where it belonged. Amy smiled. “I like this horse, Pop. What’s her name?”

      “Queen Bee.”

      Amy chuckled as the animal raised her head regally. The name fit her, certainly.

      “Be careful riding her, though. She had a run-in with a snake a while back and spooks easy. I don’t let the riding school kids take her out anymore.”

      Amy patted the horse like she was an old friend. “I can handle a skittish horse, Pop.”

      * * *

      JACK DROVE BACK to his family’s ranch in a state of disbelief. He had prepared himself for an ugly fight, or for no answer at all, but not this. A reconciliation? Maybe not quite, but it was at least a new chance for him and Amy.

      He also hadn’t been prepared for all the emotions he would feel when he saw her. He’d tried to be ready, but nothing he could have done would prepare him for the electricity that shot through him at the sight of her. She was as stunning as ever.

      There was also a sliver of fear, as if she was going to disappear again before his eyes, as if she had never been real in the first place.

      He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, full of nervous energy. He didn’t know what he could do to keep himself occupied until that evening, but he’d need to find something or he would go crazy waiting, wondering if it was all real, if she would be there when he arrived at the McNeal house at seven.

      Once his truck was parked in front of Stuart Ranch, Jack went immediately toward the barn, veering around the house. Indoors sounded stifling, and he knew it would be infuriating to pace around the living room watching the hand on the clock move with frustrating slowness, which he was sure would happen. Better to get onto a horse and do something under the clear cool sky rather than hole up inside.

      As he approached the barn, his brother Tom walked out with a couple of horses on leads. Jack went up to him, seeing an opportunity for distraction. “How can I help?” he asked.

      Tom gave him a curious look, as if he sensed something of Jack’s emotions. “I’m setting up for a group of students. They’ll be here in a half hour.”

      “Ages?” Jack asked, turning to go to the barn and get whatever else they might need for the riding lessons.

      “Under sevens,” Tom answered. “There’ll be about four kids total,” he added before Jack could disappear into the barn.

      Jack sighed. He should have expected such low numbers, but it was always a little deflating to be reminded how much it had dwindled. With more than one school in this tiny area, and the drop in population over the past few years, having any students at all was a stroke of luck. His father and Mr. McNeal had started their riding schools years ago when the high demand for lessons meant both schools could prosper. When their father was, if not young, at least spry, they had kids driving in from towns over an hour away. He loved teaching children how to ride, and it showed in the flourishing school he ran.

      Without his touch, the school had fallen off to maybe twenty students. If Spring Valley’s population had stayed steady, maybe they would be afloat even without Dad’s magic touch, but as the town dwindled, so did their business.

      Now they were at the point that the only reason they’d manage to pay the bills was Jack’s winnings from the rodeo and Tom’s determination to stretch every dollar. If Jack didn’t find a new partner soon, he didn’t think even Tom’s penny-pinching would save them.

      Still, the ranch had to run. It was their mom’s home—it was Jack’s future. Tom didn’t want the ranch, never had, but Jack always dreamed of turning it into a rodeo school when he retired with a good chunk of cash from his roping career.

      If they could somehow last that long. Something would need to change, but what and how?

      Jack pulled himself out of his reverie. It wasn’t helping anything, and he’d gone over it all so many times, but it always led to nothing. Now was the time to work, not think, so he grabbed a couple more of their gentlest horses and brought them out to the paddock where Tom was standing with the others.

      They looped the leads over a fence post and both went back for saddles. “Have a good drive?” Tom asked.

      Jack could tell Tom wanted to ask what had happened, knew Tom saw a change in him. And even though there was no reason to hide his reunion with Amy, that their date couldn’t possibly be a secret, he still felt a momentary desire to hide it, as if talking about it might make it all go away like a birthday wish or something.

      Tom was watching him, though, and he knew he had to come clean. “I went to see Amy. We talked and decided to go out tonight.”

      “Like on a date?” Tom asked, sounding a little surprised.

      “I guess so,” Jack answered, not ready to clarify more.

      He loved his brother, but talking had never been their strong suit, and it seemed strange to open up to him about the real history of his relationship with Amy and what this date could or could not mean. Heck, he wasn’t even really ready to think about all that, let alone talk about it.

      Tom seemed to understand, because he didn’t ask anything more, and soon they were guiding little kids around the paddock, each one practicing squeezing their legs to make their horse go and pulling on the reins to stop. The two youngest children, identical twins, could hardly manage enough force to get the horse’s attention, but the docile creatures listened to them with the patience of loving parents.

      Jack watched the twins with interest. Zach and Carter, Brock’s soon-to-be sons, had settled into Spring Valley comfortably and seemed more than ready to add Brock to their family. He’d seen the way their faces lit up around Amy’s brother. They loved him and from what Jack had seen, Brock clearly doted on them. Jack had always wanted a family, and it made his heart swell to think that a child didn’t need to be yours biologically in order to be family.

      Like the McNeal clan. All four children were adopted, and their parents loved every one of them as much as any parent could. If a couple were unable to have children for some reason...

      His mind balked as Jack realized he had drifted into territory he wasn’t remotely ready for. He had only seen Amy for a few minutes after ten years of complete silence from her—there was no way he should be thinking about them starting a family together. Heck, part of him was still dead sure dinner was a bad idea. The part that had never healed when she left the first time.

      He wasn’t ready to get hurt like that again, and thoughts like those would only make it worse.

      Still, he couldn’t help but watch the time tick by oh so slowly toward seven, and he did everything he could think of to speed it along.

      He hadn’t been this antsy for a date in a very long time. About ten years, in fact.

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