Reunited With The Bull Rider. Jill Kemerer

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СКАЧАТЬ early thirties, he had a kind air about him.

      “Sure.” She hoped her lips were curving into what could pass as a smile.

      Pastor Moore gestured to Nash. “Amy Deerson, this is—”

      “We know each other.” Nash’s deep voice was firm, and its familiar timbre unlocked memories she’d thought long gone.

      She dared not look at him. Couldn’t handle whatever she would find in his expression. Regret? Sarcasm? Pity? Didn’t matter—her feelings for him were dead. She’d been over him for a long time—years and years. The shock of seeing him had sent her into a tizzy. That was all. In a few minutes, she’d be fine.

      “Good.” The pastor took a seat opposite her. “I’ve had such a strong feeling about you helping little Ruby.”

      Ruby. The girl’s name was Ruby.

      “Amy has been training for several months to be a mentor. She’s passed her background checks and is willing to devote the extra time you mentioned Ruby needs. And with none of our other trained mentors available to help at this time, well...it seems ideal. With your permission, I’ll tell her about Ruby’s situation. Or would you like to?”

      Nash brought his fist to his mouth and cleared his throat. He looked older, his face harsher than she remembered. And he’d filled out. Still wiry, but with more muscles in his arms and chest. Gone was the young cowboy she’d loved. In his place was a chiseled man.

      Their past flashed back. The day they’d met. Their first kiss. His big grin and slicing sense of humor. The future they’d planned. Oh, how her heart had overflowed for him. And then he’d disappeared, leaving her devastated.

      And now he was back. And she—out of all the women in this town—had been asked to spend time with his child when all she’d wanted was to marry him and be the mother of his babies? God, You wouldn’t be this cruel. This is a joke, right?

      “Pastor,” Nash said, “could you give us a moment, please?”

      “Of course.” He stood. “I’ll see how it’s going in the preschool room. Be back in a few minutes.”

      Amy straightened. She wanted to look away but didn’t. It had been ten years. She’d moved on. And the fact he had a daughter made it quite obvious he had, as well.

      “I didn’t know, Amy. I never would have agreed to come if—”

      “If you’d known I was involved.” She hated how snippy she sounded. And that his full lips and high cheekbones still made her chest flutter. His cropped brown hair gave him a maturity his previous waves had not. The laugh lines around his eyes were a kick in the gut. He’d been carefree, rising to the top of the professional bull riding circuit while she’d nursed a broken heart. And he hadn’t cared one bit.

      He hadn’t loved her.

      He’d loved someone else and had a baby with her.

      “So, she’s your daughter.” She was surprised she wasn’t yelling at him.

      “No.”

      No? What was he talking about?

      “She’s my little sister.”

      “I know that’s not true,” she snapped. “You’re an orphan.”

      “Yeah, about being an orphan.” He shifted his jaw. “Not quite.”

      * * *

      Nash had known moving back to Sweet Dreams was dumber than climbing on the world’s meanest bull while recovering from a broken rib, but he’d done both anyway. The bull hadn’t been nearly as scary as the thought of running into Amy. He’d been in town a mere week and already his worst fear had come true. Except this was even worse than running into her. This was...horrible...beyond bad.

      He’d loved Amy more than anything on earth. That’s why he’d had to leave all those years ago—to protect her.

      But now another female needed his protection. He would give Ruby all the love and normalcy he’d missed out on as a kid, and if it meant living in the same town as Amy, so be it.

      He just hadn’t planned on running into her this soon. In fact, he hadn’t put any thought into what he’d do when he eventually did run into her, which was inevitable in a small town.

      How could he tell her everything that needed to be said in a few minutes? It was hard to concentrate with her big coffee-colored eyes shooting knives his way, not to mention her long dark brown hair tumbling over her shoulders, reminding him of its silkiness. Creamy skin, curvy figure—she looked even better than when he’d left, and she’d been a knockout back then.

      “What do you mean, ‘not quite’?” Her clipped words told him loud and clear how hard this was for her. He owed her...so much.

      “I wasn’t an orphan. I lied to you.” It had been the only lie he’d told her. And it had torn them apart. She just didn’t know it.

      “I see.”

      He hesitated. “The pastor will be back soon, so I’ll give you the condensed version. My mother had me when she was fifteen years old. She was a drug addict and, at times, a prostitute. She told me she didn’t know who my father was—could have been any number of guys. I haven’t seen or talked to her in over ten years. In December I got a call saying she’d died of a heroin overdose. That’s when I found out I had a little sister.”

      The chaos of the past four months gripped his muscles in relentless tension. He shrugged his shoulders one at a time to relieve it, which didn’t work. Amy stared at him with a mix of disbelief and disgust.

      “How did you get custody of her then? Wouldn’t someone close to her, someone she was familiar with, raise her?”

      “You’d think so, right?” He flexed his fingers. “Needless to say, my mother didn’t leave a will. Ruby’s father is like mine—unknown. Our mother was turning tricks for drugs at the time and had no idea who he was. Believe me, the courts and I did our best to find out. We had little to go on. No one else wants the kid.”

      Amy’s face looked ready to crack into a million pieces. “Do you want her?”

      “Yes.”

      “A child isn’t a duty.”

      “Exactly.” He lightly thumped his knuckles on the table. “That’s what I told the judge when I petitioned to be her guardian. I couldn’t let her grow up the way I did.” He hadn’t meant to admit the last part. When they’d dated, he’d purposely not discussed his upbringing with Amy. He hadn’t wanted her to know the depravity of his youth. Since he’d moved to Sweet Dreams from Sheridan, Wyoming, when he was thirteen, hiding his childhood hadn’t been difficult to do.

      What did it matter now? He’d lost all rights with her the day he’d skipped town.

      “What do you mean?” she asked.

      He had to get back on track. “Ruby’s been growing up in a bad—I’m talking highly dysfunctional—environment. The night СКАЧАТЬ