The Maverick's Ready-Made Family. Brenda Harlen

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СКАЧАТЬ am happy,” Catherine agreed.

      “And I’m glad that Cody turned out to be the real deal,” Antonia said, and meant it.

      She was genuinely thrilled that her friend had everything she’d always wanted—both professional success and personal happiness. But seeing the vibrant glow on Catherine’s face, Antonia couldn’t deny that she felt a twinge of something that might have been envy.

      She had no cause for complaint. She was content with her life, grateful that things had started to turn around at the ranch so that their finances weren’t stretched quite as tight as they’d been a few months earlier. But she was also conscious of the fact that, despite living with her father and her brothers and with a baby of her own on the way, she was alone.

      “I just wish you could find someone like him,” her friend said. “Someone genuinely wonderful and kind and smart and sexy.”

      “I don’t think there is anyone else like Cody.” But even as Antonia said the words, she realized that there was another man who at least came close. A man who doted on his son, who wasn’t afraid to get his hands dirty in the kitchen, and who had an easy sense of humor and a quick smile. A man whose mere presence made every nerve-ending in her body stand up and take notice.

      And then Clayton Traub walked into the restaurant with Bennett in his arms.

      Not just Clay, she realized, but his brother, Forrest, too. But Antonia knew there could have been a parade of men, all of them tall and handsome, and it still would have been Clay who drew her attention.

      “There’s someone out there for you,” Catherine insisted. And then, aware that her friend’s attention had wandered, she turned her head to see the two men making their way to the private dining room in the back.

      “Oh, my,” she said in a reverent whisper. “Or maybe there’s someone in here for you.”

      Antonia couldn’t blame Catherine for her reaction. The first time she’d set eyes on Clayton Traub, she’d felt the exact same way. And neither time nor familiarity had done much to dim her reaction. But she had learned to ignore the physiological response—most of the time, anyway.

      “I swear, the testosterone level in here just shot through the roof.” Catherine turned back to her friend. “So tell me—which one of those very sexy cowboys caught your eye?”

      Antonia felt her cheeks flush. “Neither of them.”

      “Liar.”

      “I do know them,” she finally admitted. “Clay and Forrest Traub. They’ve been staying at Wright’s Way.”

      “Now I know why you haven’t been coming into town very often. The scenery is obviously much better at the ranch than I remembered.”

      “They are nice to look at,” Antonia acknowledged.

      “Nice?” her friend scoffed. “Those are real vintage cowboys.”

      “How do you know?”

      “You can tell by the way they carry themselves—the strength, the confidence, the swagger.” She fanned her cheeks. “Those men have it in spades. And there’s just something about a man with a baby in his arms that somehow enhances his masculinity.”

      “Newlywed,” Antonia reminded her friend.

      “Newly and blissfully wed,” Catherine agreed. “But the ring on my finger hasn’t rendered me blind.”

      “Proven by the fact that you did notice the baby he was carrying.”

      Catherine winced. “His?”

      Antonia nodded.

      “Married?”

      She shook her head.

      “Then what’s the problem?” her friend demanded. “He’s a single dad, you’re a soon-to-be single mom—”

      “Yeah, and I can’t imagine why he wouldn’t be attracted to me.” Antonia’s dry tone was accompanied by a pointed glance at her round belly.

      “Are you kidding? Do you ever look in the mirror? You’re gorgeous, Antonia.”

      “And that’s why you’re my best friend,” she told Catherine. “Because you can actually say things like that with a straight face.”

      Catherine sighed. “Okay, tell me about him.”

      “I don’t know a lot,” she admitted. “Just that he’s from Rust Creek Falls, he came to Thunder Canyon in September and he has an adorable six-month-old son named Bennett.”

      “His brother’s the one who started that dog therapy group for veterans, isn’t he?”

      “Along with Annabel Cates, soon-to-be Annabel North,” Antonia clarified.

      “Love has definitely been in the air in Thunder Canyon,” Catherine mused. “And maybe, if you just took the time to breathe …”

      “I’ve got a baby on the way that I already love more than I ever could have imagined,” Antonia told her friend. “I don’t want or need anything more than that.”

      “Don’t you think it’s important for a child to have a daddy?” Catherine asked.

      “In a perfect world, of course,” she agreed. “But right now, I’m more concerned about being the best mother that I can be than finding a father for my baby.”

      “You’re going to be a wonderful mother,” her friend assured her.

      Antonia hoped she was right, but she had so many questions and doubts—and no one she could talk to the way she’d always been able to talk to her mother. Catherine was great, of course, but her friend didn’t have any experience when it came to pregnancy or childbirth, so she couldn’t know anything about the worries and insecurities that plagued Antonia.

      A mother’s worries never went away.

      Ellie Traub could attest to that. Even when her boys were grown—as all of hers were—she never stopped worrying about them. She’d had moments with respect to each of her boys, although Clayton had always given her more cause for concern—at least until Forrest had shipped out to Iraq, but that was something she wouldn’t let herself think about right now.

      Right now, she was focused on Clayton and her plan to get him back to Rust Creek Falls. The fourth youngest of her six sons and just as handsome as his brothers, Clay had done well in school, excelled at sports and had been popular with the girls. Maybe too popular.

      He was a hard worker, she’d give him that, and he’d happily toiled on the family ranch alongside his father and brothers. He’d also boasted a very active social life, dating a lot of women over the years, although not any one woman extensively or exclusively. Certainly he’d never brought anyone home to meet the family, and when he hit his twenty-ninth birthday, Ellie had begun to despair that he never would settle down.

      She’d only voiced her concerns to him once, at which time he’d confirmed that he was enjoying life too much to СКАЧАТЬ