The Rancher's Surprise Baby. Trish Milburn

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       Chapter One

      Forget out of the frying pan and into the fire. Stepping out of the arctic air-conditioning of the Primrose Café into the suffocating heat of a Texas afternoon in August was like drilling a hole in the North Pole deep enough to fall straight into hell.

      Mandy Richardson hurried toward the edge of the parking lot, where she’d nabbed the last spot in front of Blue Falls’ oldest eating establishment and the hub of town gossip. In the time it took for her to pick up dinner for her mom and herself, she’d heard that Franny Stokes had gone on a blind date with a guy she met online through some dating site for senior citizens, Bernie Shumaker had launched his newest in a string of business attempts—wind chimes made from everything from silverware to driftwood this time—and Loren Whitman’s grandson had caught a fish so big that he fell out of their boat into the middle of the lake. To add insult to embarrassment, the fish got away.

      Honestly, a dunk in the middle of Blue Falls Lake would feel really good right about now. In addition to it being hot as blazes outside, her feet ached from being on them since early that morning. It’d been another busy day at A Good Yarn, the yarn and sewing shop her best friend, Devon, owned and where Mandy worked. The combination of the tail end of summer vacationing combined with it being the weekend of the local monthly rodeo had filled the downtown shops from the time they’d opened their doors at 8:00 a.m. Good for business but tiring. All she wanted was to eat her fried chicken, drink about a gallon of her mom’s homemade lemonade and prop up her poor feet. A foot massage would be fantastic, preferably one given by an incredibly hunky guy, but she figured that, sadly, wasn’t in her immediate future.

      The sound of squealing tires, followed immediately by a bang and the screeching sound of metal on metal, caused her to startle so much she fumbled the food containers she held.

      “No, no, no,” she said as she tried to maintain her hold, but all she managed to do was flick the bottom container open as it fell. The top one followed its twin to the newly paved parking lot. She’d swear she heard the chicken sizzle as it sat there amid a sea of splattered mashed potatoes and green beans.

      As she lamented the loss of her dinner, she glanced up to figure out what had precipitated it. That was when she noticed half of that metal-on-metal sound had come from her car. The other half belonged to the pickup truck all up in her car’s grille.

      “You have got to be kidding me,” she said as she shook her head slowly in disbelief. “I know I’m a good person. Karma, you took a wrong turn.”

      She looked down at the mess of food at her feet. She needed to clean it up, but first things first. As she approached her car, the driver’s side door of the pickup opened and the first thing she saw was a cowboy boot and the bottom of a pair of jeans. When the man stepped out from behind the door, looking dazed, she immediately recognized him. She’d bet her meager savings that there wasn’t a woman alive in Blue Falls—young, old, single, married or even half-blind—who hadn’t at some point in time given tall, blond, blue-eyed Ben Hartley a second look. And a third. And...

      Oh, stop thinking about how dang handsome he is and ask him why he decided to have his truck give your car an unwanted smacker.

      As she drew closer, he shook his head as if trying to clear it. Was he drunk? DUI seemed to be more TJ Malpin’s thing, not one of the raised-right Hartley clan.

      He glanced at where his truck had hit the car then up at her. His forehead wrinkled for a moment, as if he was trying to figure out who she was, before it seemed to click. Maybe he was drunk. Or high. Though neither of those options rang true at all.

      “Are you okay?” she asked, suddenly wondering if maybe he’d banged his head and given himself a concussion. He did have a red mark on the edge of his forehead.

      He pointed at her little compact. “Is this your car?”

      “Yeah. But you didn’t answer my question.”

      “I’m fine.”

      He didn’t seem fine. He seemed downright addled. As if trying to piece together what had happened, he looked at his truck for a moment before turning back toward her.

      “I know this will sound as if I’m off my rocker, but a bird made me do it.”

      For a long moment she just stared at him, wondering if the heat had cooked her brain so much that she was hearing things incorrectly. “A bird made you do it?”

      Several seconds passed before he seemed to realize the absurdity of what he was saying, but then he straightened and appeared more confident in the truth of it.

      “I had the windows down, and all of a sudden something hit me in the side of the head. I jerked the steering wheel without even thinking.” He rubbed at the reddened spot above his temple. “I think I swatted it. Right before the crash there were feathers in my face.”

      If her car wasn’t sitting there crunched, she’d have a difficult time deciding whether to laugh or call to have someone take him for a mental evaluation. But then a racket behind him drew her attention, and suddenly a pigeon flew out of the open window of his truck.

      “See, not crazy,” he said.

      She had to admit the pigeon looked almost as addled as Ben.

      “That leaves me with one pressing question,” she said.

      “How bad your car is damaged?”

      She glanced at her poor little car. “Well, yes, but more important, why in the name of all that’s holy you were driving with the windows down on a day like today.”

      “The air-conditioning went out halfway to town.”

      She couldn’t help the laugh that burst out of her. “Not your day, is it?”

      For a moment, he looked at her as if she’d taken leave of her senses, as if she’d been the one addled by a pigeon. But then he offered a hint of a smile. “Nope.”

      “Me neither.”

      * * *

      “A PIGEON? THAT’S THE story you’re going with?” Greg Bozeman asked Ben as he hitched up Mandy Richardson’s car to his tow truck. The little thing hadn’t stood a chance against Ben’s pickup. The truck had a nice dent in the grille, but at least it was still operational. Mandy’s car, not so much.

      “I can vouch for the pigeon story,” Mandy said. “Saw it fly out of the truck looking as if it’d had a few too many drinks at the Frothy Stein.”

      Greg laughed. “You’re not living this one down.”

      “If I didn’t have such a headache right now, I’d think of some snappy comeback,” Ben said.

      He СКАЧАТЬ