Baby My Baby (A Ranching Family) (5 page)

She snapped the pajamas through the air with one hard flick as if that would rid them of the baggage they came with, spun away from the orange crate and stuffed them into her drawer, slamming it shut so firmly that it set the clock on top of the bureau rocking back and forth.

Twenty minutes to twelve? She couldn’t believe it. And there she was, not even showered yet.

Enough mooning, she told herself, turning toward the bathroom that connected to her room.

She’d throw the clothes out later.

But somewhere in the back of her mind a little voice called her a liar.

And she knew it was right.

Especially when she took a detour and slid the crate into the back of her closet.

* * *

An hour later, Beth finally went downstairs, showered and dressed in a sleeveless, oversize chambray shirt with tails that reached nearly to her jean-clad knees, her hair freshly washed and fluffed. She intended to go straight out the front door and make her first stop Kansas’s country store to see if by some chance her old friend might not have had lunch yet and could be persuaded to join her. But she only made it as far as the bottom step before spotting Ash sitting in the living room watching for her.

She couldn’t believe it.

She’d never known him to actually free up time before, so she hadn’t really taken his threat to do it now too seriously. At the most, she’d expected that he might do business from his cabin at the lodge for a few days, popping up once or twice in the evenings before being called away again.

But there he was, in the middle of the day, with a cup of coffee in one hand, an open briefcase on the table in front of him, a file folder in his lap and papers scattered around as if he’d been there for a while already.

“Morning. Not that it still is. Have you been upstairs asleep all this time?” he greeted amiably.

But Beth was not feeling amiable about his being there. Nor was she going to admit that she’d been awake but crying over his old things. “What are you doing here?” she demanded ungraciously as she crossed to the living room.

“Exactly what I said I was going to do. My calendar is clear and I’m all yours.”

Her heart took a wild skip at that but she tamed it in a hurry. He hadn’t been all hers when they were married, he certainly wasn’t now. “This is crazy. You’re a busy man, I don’t need or want a shadow, so why don’t you just get in your car and—”

“I’m not going anywhere,” he told her with enough finality to end her rebuttal. He scooped all the papers into the file, deposited it in the briefcase and closed it with a loud snap that seemed to seal the end to the argument. Then he stood.

And she wished he hadn’t.

He had on a black T-shirt that smoothed across his broad shoulders and stretched so far around his biceps that the seams were strained. Gleaming against the mock turtleneck just below his throat he wore a talisman he was never without—a burnished copper eagle arrowhead hanging from a thin black cord. His stomach was perfectly flat beneath the taut knit, and when her gaze drifted down that washboard hardness she found a pair of tight, faded blue jeans.

No one could do for a pair of jeans what Asher Blackwolf could.

They rode low on his narrow hips and cupped his every bulging muscle like a second skin. Beth had always loved the way jeans looked on him, though she didn’t get to see the look often because he didn’t spend a lot of time dressed that casually. Maybe part of the reason she liked it so much was that those rare occasions meant she really did have him all to herself.

But she didn’t
want
him all to herself anymore, she reminded herself. She couldn’t.

“What’s on your agenda today? You looked as if you were headed out,” he said, drawing her attention away from his appearance.

“I have errands to run,” she answered, her words clipped and her irritation sounding.

“Great. I’ll drive.”

“
Shopping
errands,” she said, upping the ante. “You know, the kind of thing Miss Lightfeather does instead of you?”

He ignored the barb and repeated, “I’ll drive.”

“This is ridiculous. The things I have to do today will bore you to tears and they don’t have anything to do with the baby.” Well, that wasn’t exactly true, but the errand she needed to run that
did
have a connection to the baby was not one she wanted Ash’s company on—she needed maternity bras.

“You’re not getting rid of me, Beth.”

“There just isn’t a point to this,” she insisted, exasperated by his stubbornness. “How about if I agree to start sending you a newsletter? I’ll write once a week, tell you about every ache or pain or twinge I have, keep you completely updated. You’ll know as much about my heartburn as I do. It’ll be the same as being here, only you can go on about your business and so can I.”

His expression said he was annoyed with her, but he merely tilted his head and stared at her out of the corner of his eye. “I’ll drive,” he repeated yet again.

The way he’d angled his chin had given her a view of the fading bruise left by Jackson’s punch, and the sight of it made her feel slightly guilty. It cut short the argument that was bubbling inside of her. He wouldn’t be around long anyway before something called him away, she reminded herself. “Oh, fine. But don’t say you weren’t warned.”

For the second time that day she spun on her heels, heading for the door ahead of him. But his legs were much longer than hers and they reached the door at the same time, with Ash bending over her to open it before she could.

Did he think being pregnant made her incapable of opening a door for herself, for crying out loud? But more than the courtesy, what irked her was that when he got that near to her she could smell his after-shave and it went right to her silly head.

“How about some lunch?” he asked as they walked to his car.

“I’m not hungry,” she snapped, because it was true. The man irritated her so much she’d lost her appetite.

“Hungry or not, you need to eat. You’re skin and bones,” he decreed as he held the car door for her, too. “It looks like somebody better pay some attention to what you’re doing to yourself and my baby.”

Beth merely glared at him as he ordered her to buckle her seat belt and closed the door.

Their first stop was at Margie Wilson’s café, where Ash canceled Beth’s order of a sweet roll and coffee and instead insisted she be brought a turkey club sandwich, a salad and a glass of milk.

Beth seriously considered letting the food sit there and rot, but by the time it arrived, her appetite had returned, too, and she ate.

Besides, it was served by Margie Wilson herself, who always fussed over her, and Beth wouldn’t have hurt the other woman’s feelings for the world.

“I see she carries more weight with you than I do,” Ash observed when the café owner left them alone after actually persuading Beth to drink some of the milk he’d ordered.

“Margie is a nice lady. And I’ve always felt bad that my father didn’t do right by her.”

Ash’s eyebrows rose in curiosity as he chewed a bite of his hamburger.

Beth wasn’t fond of sitting in silence, so she elaborated. “Shag kept company with her for years. Not openly. He believed that it was wrong for Linc, Jackson or me to ever see him with a woman other than our mother—”

She stalled a moment, thinking that she understood that notion now, because she didn’t at all like the idea of her child seeing Ash with another woman.

Or of her seeing him with one, either, for that matter...

She pushed the thought and the feelings that came with it away and went on. “But everyone in town—including me and my brothers—knew that Margie had back-door visits from Shag for years. We all thought that eventually—probably when we were grown—he’d marry her.”

“But instead he took up with the mysterious lady friend in Denver,” Ash surmised, fitting a piece of the puzzle.

“Ally Brooks,” Beth confirmed. “At least that’s who we think she is. He never referred to the woman he spent time with there as anything but his ‘lady friend,’ so we don’t really know for sure. It’s just a good bet since he left her an equal share of the house, the ranch, the oil rights, all the stocks and bonds and other assets. We all figured we’d finally get to meet her at the funeral, but you know about that.”

“Mmm,” Ash said as he swallowed. “I know it hurt you that the orders in his will were for you and your brothers not to be notified of his death until after he was already buried in Denver.”

“It didn’t
hurt
me,” she denied, raising her chin in the air, because a Heller never admitted to such a thing. Even if it was true.

Ash just shook his head as if he knew better and something about it saddened and aggravated him at the same time.

But rather than go into it, Beth launched into small talk about this Ally Brooks person not answering any of Jackson’s attempts to contact her to buy her out of the ranch.

That managed to fill the time until they finished eating and she could finally put her attention into her errands.

Saying goodbye to Margie Wilson, Beth headed up Center Street at an energetic clip. She greeted Elk Creek’s citizens, gazed in windows and basically did her shopping. And as she did, she tried hard to ignore Ash.

But having him along was a pain in the neck.

It was as if he didn’t know what to do with himself and this leisure time. He merely followed her like a shadow, not even looking around, and driving her absolutely to distraction with his overbearing coddling.

He didn’t want her bending over to try on the shoes she was shopping for to wear to Linc and Kansas’s wedding. He didn’t want her carrying a single bolt of cloth in the fabric shop where she needed material to make a dress for herself. In the drugstore he didn’t want her reaching to the top shelf for the shampoo she needed. He didn’t even like her walking as fast as she walked and he wanted her to stop and rest every hour on the hour.

And opinions! The man had an opinion on everything.

The heels on the shoes she wanted were too high. She shouldn’t have the clasp on her watch fixed, she should just buy a new one. The flowered pattern on one fabric was too big, while the dots on another were too bright.

Even the lace she wanted for Kansas’s gown was deemed not elegant enough and he’d picked out another, more expensive one and paid for it himself to make sure he got his own way in that, too.

By the time they reached the maternity shop at five, Beth was ready to punch him herself and it occurred to her that their marriage might have ended a lot sooner if he
had
spent more time with her.

“I need to go in here alone,” she told him in no uncertain terms, not happy to find his interest apparently piqued for the first time as he peered in the window that displayed not only maternity clothes but also Elk Creek’s only selection of baby furniture.

“I don’t know why,” he said, dismissing her claim.

“Just please wait out here.”

“Give me one good reason?”

“What I need in here is none of your business.”

“Seems to me this is the only place we’ve been today that
is
my business.”

“Look,” she said, anger ringing in her voice, “I’ve put up with you and your ideas on everything today, but this is where I draw the line. What I need in here is
underwear
and I don’t want an audience when I buy it.”

The corners of his mouth crept up into a maddening smile. “I’ve been with you when you bought
underwear
before, Beth,” he said, mimicking her. Then he bent so close to her ear that she could feel the warmth of his breath against her skin and added, “I’ve even seen you in it, remember?”

Oh, she remembered all right. Things she didn’t want to remember. Like plunging, lacy red teddies and sheer black sets that left nothing to the imagination. Unfortunately, she also remembered where wearing them led....

But those days were long gone. She ignored the heat she could feel in her face. “I have a right to some privacy.”

He chuckled at that and she wondered why it was that she’d never noticed before how annoying he could be. He might be glorious to look at, standing there with that snow-dusted black hair, his gorgeous face relaxed with amusement and his arms crossed over his broad chest, but he was still insufferably smug. If he were one of her brothers and this was fifteen years ago, she’d have doubled her fist and landed a right cross to that washboard stomach of his.

But he wasn’t one of her brothers and it wasn’t fifteen years ago and she’d never let him know he was getting to her. In any way.

“Never mind. I’ll do this when I get rid of you.” She took a step away from the shop door, but that was as far as she went before his hand caught her arm and stopped her.

“You’ll go a long time needing underwear that way,” he warned, still apparently amused by her.

Then he did the most horrible thing. His thumb rubbed slow, sensuous circles against her bare skin and red-hot sparks skittered all the way to her stomach.

It was the first time he’d touched her since the night she’d decided to get a divorce. And it was not heartening to discover there was still power in even such simple contact.

She meant to tear her arm away indignantly. But somehow the best she could do was shrug out of his grip.

“Come on,” he said, as if he’d been left completely unaffected. “I’ll look at baby furniture and you won’t even know I’m in the same store.”

Oh, she’d know all right. But for some reason she didn’t even want to think about, she was suddenly, uncomfortably aware of just how tight her regular bras had become. In fact she felt as if her breasts might burst right out of the cups. She definitely needed new bras. Right now. Whether he was there or not.

“Fine,” she muttered. “But you’d better steer clear of me.”

“Absolutely,” he assured with so much laughter in his tone she really did want to hit him.

But instead she yanked open the store’s door and marched in ahead of him.

The shop took up two storefronts—one for the maternity clothes and the other for baby furniture and accessories like car seats, booster chairs, mobiles and just about anything else mother or child could need. Three-quarters of the wall between the two sections had been cut away at the center so though there was a separation, most of each store was visible to the other.