Just a Cowboy and His Baby (Spikes & Spurs) (17 page)

He drew her into his arms and shut his eyes. Any other woman would have thrown a fit and left him to sleep alone. He really had an angel in his arms just like Josh sang about.

***

Trace and Sugar were gone when she awoke at seven o’clock the next morning, but he’d left a pot of coffee on the counter. She wanted to be mad about the Ava woman, but she couldn’t. Gemma had a past too. She’d lived with her last boyfriend before they’d had the fight of the century and she’d moved out. So what right did she have to be mad because Trace had a past?

“But jealousy is a different matter. I can be bullfrog green with jealousy if I want to and it can even make me cranky,” she said.

She poured a cup and drank it as she pulled her cell phone from her purse. She dialed the beauty shop number in Ringgold and Noreen picked up on the first ring. “Hi, Gemma! You ready to sell me this shop yet?”

“Hell, no! I can’t wait to get home and back into the business. I don’t know whatever made me think I was cut out to be a rambler. I miss my roots,” Gemma said.

Noreen laughed. “Maybe when you start winning money hand over fist you’ll change your mind. I can only hope. I heard that you whupped the boys last night.”

“I did, but that don’t mean I’ll change my mind about home,” Gemma said.

“Suppose you want all the gossip?”

“I’m withering up and dying from lack of it.”

“Okay, Lucy and Tyson went to the courthouse and got married Monday morning.”

“What!” Gemma gasped. “And she didn’t even call me. Did she wear a pretty dress and have flowers and a cake afterwards?”

“Jasmine and Ace went with them. Guess Tyson is moving into her trailer out on the ranch and they’re going to keep working there as usual. I love that woman. She’s my savior. And yes, she wore a pretty blue sundress and Jasmine made sure she had white roses in her bouquet and Tyson was real handsome in his Sunday suit. And you knew that Jasmine and Ace are expecting a baby?”

“I got that news already and I’m still mad at Liz for getting my cards and hers all mixed up.”

“Here comes Slade’s aunt and granny, so I’ve got to go. You think real hard about selling me this business. I’m happier than I’ve ever been in my life, and I think I could get a banker to float me a loan,” Noreen said before she hung up.

Noreen Featherstone was another of Lucy’s stray puppies. Lucy had appeared at the Longhorn Inn a couple of years before, right after Pearl inherited it. She was on the run from an abusive husband and Pearl hired her to work at the Inn. Before long Lucy had formed a group somewhat like AA, only for abused women, and she was still running it. Lucy worked like an employment agency as well as a counselor to the women. When Gemma first started talking about doing the rodeo rounds, Lucy knew about a hairdresser looking for a job. So she and Noreen decided on a deal and now she was fixing hair and hearing all the local gossip in Ringgold while Gemma busted broncs.

“I don’t want to wait years and years. I want a baby now and I want a husband to hold me. I want one who’ll think I’m the queen of the universe. I want my cowboy and I want a baby and it ain’t happenin’ by Christmas this year because it ain’t possible. Hells bells, I’m out here busting my butt for a title when I should be back home chasing cowboys,” Gemma grumbled.

Her phone rang and she pushed the answer button.

“Gemma, guess what? Me and Tyson got married. I would have called you sooner but he planned a little three-day honeymoon. We flew to South Padre and had a cabin right on the water and it was fantastic,” Lucy said.

“Noreen just told me,” Gemma answered.

“Oops!” Lucy giggled.

“So tell me all about it,” Gemma said.

“I’m in love. I mean I’m really in love. I was married before but I didn’t even know this kind of thing existed. If you ever find it, grab hold with both hands and don’t let go. Words don’t even describe what I’ve got with Tyson. We are so happy and we’ve decided to stay right here on the ranch in my trailer for now, but later on Jasmine and Ace said we could build a small house anywhere we want. We’ve been looking around trying to decide where to put it.”

Gemma sighed. “I’m happy for you, Lucy. I really am. You aren’t going to stop your abused women meetings, are you?”

“There will always be abused women who need a helping hand. It’s helped me as much or more than it helps them, and Tyson doesn’t want me to quit my work. Got to go now. I’m making chocolate cakes for lunch today.”

Gemma groaned as the phone went dead. “Home cooking! I’d do murder for a chunk of Lucy’s chocolate cake.”

“Mornin’, sunshine,” Trace drawled as he and Sugar came inside. “What’s that about doing murder? Am I in trouble?”

“No, you aren’t in trouble. I just talked to the lady who’s leasing my beauty shop and found out my good friend Lucy got married. And then I talked to Lucy and I’m really, really homesick,” she said.

Trace sat down on the edge of the bed. “Are any of your friends and family coming to the finals in Vegas?”

Gemma’s eyes twinkled. “Every one of them, I’m sure. I have three older brothers and I’m the baby sister of the family. Plus there’s Ace and Wil, who are like brothers since they’re my oldest brother Rye’s best friends. You sure you want to meet them?”

***

The nurse wheeled the baby into room 312 and the woman pointed at the door. “Take it away. I do not want to see it.”

“But she is so cute. She’s got dark hair and…”

The woman raised her voice. “I said to take it away. I don’t care what it looks like and I will not touch it. I told the doctor to advise the whole staff not to bring that into my room and I want no visitors allowed in my room either. So go!”

The nurse wheeled the clear bassinet out into the hallway and eased the door shut. They’d said at the desk that she didn’t want to see the baby, but sometimes mothers did change their minds. It was instinct to love your child, wasn’t it?

“Still isn’t interested?” Dr. Joyce asked right behind her.

The nurse shook her head. “Help me to understand, Doc. How can a mother carry a baby nine months and not want it? This isn’t a rape case, is it?”

“No, but it was like a one-night stand from what I gather. She didn’t ever want children and her contraceptive failed.”

“We going to keep her here and put her up for adoption?”

Dr. Joyce shook her head. “She has hired a nanny who will take the baby home with her. Who knows? Maybe the nanny can help her change her mind.”

“I don’t think so. She looks pretty determined. Who is she?”

“A very determined woman who does not want children.”

They were barely five miles out of Cheyenne heading south when Gemma’s phone rang. She hit the speaker button and Trace’s voice came through.

“I just talked to my Uncle Teamer. He is so excited about me coming home that he’s made me homesick. I know how you feel now.”

“Call me back in half an hour. That’s Austin beeping in and she’ll talk thirty minutes.”

“BFF instead of phone sex. I’m hurt,” he said.

She started to say something but the line was dead. She pushed a button and said, “Hello, Austin.”

“Hello, yourself. Maddie just called and said you’re coming home for a few days. Is that true? And congratulations on winning last night, before we get started on the scoop on Trace.”

“Thank you, and there is no scoop on Trace. We’re both going home for the week between the Dodge City and Cheyenne rodeos. How is Rachel? I miss her so much.”

“She’s in love with that colt of Liz’s at the horse ranch. He comes straight to her when she gets into the pasture and she leads him all over the place. They have a language of their own. He’ll neigh and she’ll fuss at him in her baby talk, and Maddie says she’s going to grow up to be a horse whisperer,” Austin said.

“I’m missing too much of her growing up. Star lets her lead him without balking? Maybe she’ll be a jockey. Momma must be bustin’ her buttons with pride,” Gemma said.

“Oh, yeah, Maddie takes her lawn chair out there and plenty of water bottles. I think she and Rachel could pitch a tent and live in the corral with Star. But Rachel was in this week for her checkup and the pediatrician says she’ll probably be close to six feet tall, so forget about her being a jockey. She might be a trainer, but she won’t be riding in competition. Unless she decides to do bronc busting like her Aunt Gemma.”

“Nothing wrong with that either,” Gemma said.

“Okay, enough evasion. You are trying to skirt the issue of Trace Coleman. We’ve already looked him up on the Internet and seen a couple videos of him riding. He’s damn good. You’ve got some competition in that one. Now your turn. Tell me about him.”

“I’d rather talk all morning about Rachel. I can’t believe she’s two already. When are you having a baby sister or brother for her?”

“In eight months, but we haven’t told anyone else yet. And if you do, I’ll douse you with poisoned watermelon wine. I just peed on a stick yesterday and I’ve been busting at the seams to tell, but we’re waiting until Sunday when everyone is together. Baby is due in March.”

“Oh! Oh!” Gemma was speechless.

“Now about this bronc riding cowboy. Everything else has been said,” Austin told her. “So talk!”

“Shit!”

“What?”

“Jasmine got my blond-haired cowboy and my baby by Christmas. And I bet you got my next fortune. I can’t have a baby by Christmas, but I thought that I just might get one by spring and now you laid claim to that. I just can’t win. Someone is always too close to me when Liz tells my fortune and they wind up with my babies and my cowboys.”

“When did you sleep with him?” Austin asked.

“Who?”

“Trace Coleman, I guess. Or is there another cowboy that’s making spring babies with you?”

“I’m not pregnant. I told you, everyone else keeps stepping in front of me and getting my fortune. Is Rye ecstatic?”

“Oh, yes! He wants a dozen kids.”

“And what do you want, Austin?”

“To make him happy. I love kids. Didn’t realize it until we had Rachel, but she is so much fun. A dozen sounds like a good round number to me, especially since you won’t get on the ball.”

“Me? Liz and Colleen both are married. Talk to them. And Dewar could find a wife and help out there too,” Gemma argued.

“Trace Coleman?” Austin said.

“Is a bronc rider. Was ahead of me until last night. Might be ahead of me again. Looks like we’ll both make the playoffs if our luck holds. He’s sexy and a damn good rider. And you can meet him at the finals if we both make it that far and then tell me what you think of him,” Gemma said.

“Friend and foe?” Austin asked. “How do you handle that?”

“Friend outside of the arena. Foe inside it.”

“Sounds very complicated. Which one is best?”

“Pretty equal right now. Now let’s talk about Lucy and her getting married.”

“Liz has a girls’ night out planned for Tuesday. It’s a wedding shower for Lucy with no guys. It’s at her house, but believe me, we’re going to want a full report about what is going on with this new cowboy. Is Trace good in bed?”

“Good Lord!”

Austin laughed. “That good, huh?”

“On that note I’m telling you good-bye. I’ll see you real soon.”

“And Tuesday you are going to answer a bunch of questions, so get ready for it,” Austin said and hung up.

Gemma stared at the long stretch of highway in front of her and let her mind wander. The more she thought, the more complicated the situation became. Trace was hard as nails. She’d never have to worry about him letting her win a competition. He’d always give the ride a hundred and ten percent and when she did beat him, there would be no doubt that she did it on her own merits.

But then he had a soft side like when he sang that song as they were dancing. And the way he picked her up and carried her to the trailer and didn’t even balk at the threshold. The way he just seemed to know if she wanted to be touched and sweet-talked for a long time before sex or if she was ready and wanted it right then.

“Good grief! I think I’m actually falling for this cowboy.”

***

The miles ticked off slowly in Trace’s truck. Miles, all six hundred plus that they’d make before pulling into Dodge City, went by at a snail’s pace even though he was driving seventy-five miles an hour.

He wished that he was going home with her. He would have gladly changed his plans if she’d invited him, but she didn’t.

“I’d get along fine with her family and friends. We’re all ranchin’ and rodeo people, and I do like her a lot. Wonder if she was waiting on me to invite her to go to Goodnight with me?” he said aloud.

Sugar chose that moment to lick his hand as if she agreed with him.

“Well, I do like her. She’s independent as hell and speaks her mind. I betcha if she wanted an engagement ring for Christmas she’d step right up to the jewelry store window and point at the one she wanted,” Trace told the dog.

Sugar yipped once, shut her eyes, and put a paw over her nose.

“Some friend you are,” Trace said. “I thought we were going to visit to put in a few miles.”

Trace opened the console between them and rifled through the CDs until he came to a Rascal Flatts. When the second song, “This Everyday Love,” played, he chuckled out loud. The singer said that every afternoon he made a phone call to listen to the voice that warmed his heart.

“Hell, she don’t warm it,” he said aloud. “She sets it ablaze like an out-of-control Texas wildfire, but you are right, partner; I wouldn’t change a thing about her. Not even her fierce determination.”

Every song on the CD reminded him of Gemma in some crazy way. One song said that if he ever wrote the story of his life it would begin where she came into his life. And that he was born the day she kissed him and died the day she left him, but that he’d lived the time that she loved him.

“Does she love me?” Trace wondered aloud.

He had no idea what the answer to that question was, but down deep in his heart he knew that something would definitely die when the rodeo circuit was over and she went home to Ringgold. That’s where her family, her beauty shop, and her life were all located. His life was over two hundred miles away in west Texas on a ranch outside of Goodnight, and he was too invested in it to make a change.

“Love won’t conquer all, not even if Rascal Flatts thinks it will,” he said. “Things are so sizzling hot between us right now that it couldn’t last without burning up every emotion we have. Okay, okay, I’m analyzing out loud.”

***

It was almost dark when they reached the rodeo grounds at Dodge City and made arrangements to leave their trailers and Gemma’s truck there for a week. The place was empty and hollow sounding with none of the frantic energy that went on when a rodeo was set up on the grounds.

Every muscle in Gemma’s body ached from riding and driving for the past nine hours. What she’d give for a long soaking bath couldn’t be measured in dollars, but she’d have to make do that night with a shower in the trailer.

She bent forward and touched her nose to her knees when she crawled out of her truck. When it felt as if her backbone was as long as it was supposed to be and not scrunched up into six inches of space, she slowly straightened up. She raised both her hands in the air and leaned to the right as far as her tired muscles would let her and then to the left.

Trace watched the whole process from his truck as he fastened the leash to Sugar’s collar. Gemma moved like an exotic cat. No wonder she could sit a bucking bronc for eight seconds and then stand in the arena like a ballerina while she waited for the scores. His couldn’t blink for fear he’d miss her next move.

Finally, she caught him staring and said, “What?”

“Hungry?” he asked hoarsely.

“Starving, but there are no vendors. It’s kind of spooky to be here without all the sparkle and fizz, isn’t it?” she answered.

He nodded. “Pack a bag and let’s go get a motel room for the night. We’ll get pizza delivery or room service or whatever you want.”

Her eyes lit up. “With a Jacuzzi in the room?”

He nodded. “If we can find a room with one.”

“I’d eat bologna and cheese sandwiches if I could have a Jacuzzi tonight,” she declared.

“We’ll have to bring Sugar with us, but I’ll take her pillow and she’ll be happy in the bathroom,” he said.

“She can sleep with us for all I care. I just want to soak the soreness out of my body.”

“Then La Quinta it is,” Trace said with a brilliant smile.

Half an hour later they were checked into a Jacuzzi suite. The door opened into a sitting room with a sofa, two chairs, and a plasma television the wall. And right there to the right of the cozy seating arrangement was an enormous Jacuzzi.

“Yes, yes, yes!” Gemma said. “I’m not even going to be nice and say you can get in first.”

“That’s right sweet of you,” Trace said. “Only this ride is going to be a tie, my lady. That thing is plenty big enough for both of us.”

She raised an eyebrow and hurried through an archway in the bedroom area. The king-sized bed looked softer than clouds, but it would have to wait until later. She cocked an ear toward the living area and couldn’t hear water running so maybe Trace had changed his mind about sharing the tub. She heard him plop down on the sofa and start talking to Sugar.

“Dammit!” she swore under her breath.

Snippets of how they’d spend the last night they’d have together had flashed though her mind all day. None of them involved him sitting on the sofa watching television while she lazed in a Jacuzzi all alone.

She dropped her purse and duffel bag on the floor beside the bed, stripped out of all her clothing, and padded naked and barefoot to the tub. She turned on the water, adjusted it, twisted her ponytail into a messy bun, and secured it with a clamp she’d dug out of her purse.

The water was barely ankle deep when she sat down in it and leaned her head back on a rolled towel, but the faucet was spitting it out with such force that it wouldn’t take long to fill completely.

“Comfortable?” Trace asked from the sofa where he and Sugar had collapsed.

“It will be when it’s full. Shuck out of those clothes and come on in,” she said.

When she heard a boot thump she slid one eye open to watch the show. Trace kicked off the other boot and caught her staring, flashed his most brilliant smile ever, and opened up his laptop.

“Dammit, Trace! You can check your emails anywhere. Jacuzzi suites are not free. I know you paid high dollar for this room,” she grouched.

His grin got even bigger when he hit a few keys and suddenly music came floating out of the tinny speakers on the computer. Blake Shelton was singing “Hillbilly Bone,” and Trace turned it into the sexiest damn strip song in the whole world.

He undid his belt buckle to the beat of the drums, and Gemma couldn’t even blink for fear she’d miss something. It took so long to unzip his jeans that she thought she’d die before he finally got them undone. And during the whole process, his dark eyes never left hers. He peeled his britches down to his ankles and kicked them to one side and then pulled his shirt up to reveal abs that a weight lifter would commit homicide for. The song ended at the same time he was totally naked, wearing nothing but a smile.

She crooked a finger, motioning him to get in with her. Still staring right into her eyes, he leaned forward and kissed her hard without touching her anywhere else. Her whole body begged for more, more touching, more kisses.

“Honey Bee” by Blake was playing when he finally slid into the water. His toes came to rest against her thigh and he wiggled them in a gentle massage. How in the hell toes against her leg could turn her on was a mystery, but not as great a one as how the water kept from boiling.

He pushed the button and the water began to bubble, sending massaging jets against her back. The sensation of his foot against her skin, the bursting bubbles on her back, and the vision of the fine dark hair on his chest matted down with water sent delicious warmth through her body.

“I really will be your honeybee.” He grinned.

“We never had our talk.”

“We’ve got weeks and weeks to figure this out,” he answered.

She nodded. “New game rules.”

“You’re going to let me win at Vegas?” he asked.

“Hell no!”

“Then I get to call the game rules for this Jacuzzi. Only one body part can touch the other one. My foot on your thigh for two whole minutes, moving any way I want it to move and then it’s your turn,” he said.

She grinned. “I can live with those rules. Your two minutes are up, so it’s my turn.”

She rose up in the water just as “Angels Fall Sometimes” began to play. She started a very slow dance, bending at the waist to brush a kiss across his lips without touching another part of his body. When Josh sang about her bringing pieces of heaven every day to his life, Gemma kissed Trace again—with more passion and lingering all the way through the lyrics about him not being afraid to dream high with her by his side.