His Little Cowgirl. Brenda Minton

you can’t miss this ride. I know you’re at the top of the point standings.”

      “Bailey, some things are more important than eight seconds on a bull. Family is more important.”

      “I know that. But I also know what this world title means to you.”

      “I’m coming back,” Cody said. “Tonight.”

      He leaned to unhitch the RV from the back of his truck, aware that she stood next to him, her hands shoved into the front pockets of her jeans.

      “Fine, you can come back and we’ll talk.” Bailey backed up a step, as if wanting that distance between them. “We’ll work something out.”

      “Work something out?” He shoved the tongue of the trailer off the hitch and turned to face her. “You make it sound like we’re disputing over a property line and not a little girl with eyes like mine.”

      “Cody, I am sorry.”

      He shook his head and raised his hand to wave off her words. Instead of staying to argue, he got into his truck and pulled away. When he glanced into his rearview mirror she was walking across the lawn to the farmhouse where she’d grown up.

      And inside that house was a little girl he should have known about, a little girl who needed to know her daddy. He wasn’t going to walk away this time. Bailey Cross would have to find a way to deal with that.

      Bailey stopped on the back porch, lingering for a long moment in the breeze created by the overhead ceiling fan. Inside the house her dad and daughter were waiting.

      Driving down the road was the man who had given her that child and broken her heart. Her head was spinning like the blades on the ceiling fan.

      She’d forgiven him. She had really thought she’d forgotten. Instead it all returned in a heady flash of memory, including remnants of the pain she’d felt when he’d left her in Wyoming.

      After Meg’s birth she had done what she’d been taught—she’d pulled herself up by her bootstraps and moved on. As a single mother coping with lonely nights and an uncertain future, she hadn’t had time for wallowing in her mistakes.

      How was she going to deal with Cody Jacobs? Worse, how was she going to deal with the fact that having him back in her life had turned her emotions inside out?

      And then came fear. Would he take Meg away from her? Would his knowing about their daughter mean that holidays and summer vacations would be spent apart? How would she cope with sharing Meg?

      Bailey stopped the downward spiral of thoughts. She wouldn’t be sharing Meg with a stranger. Cody was Meg’s dad. He had rights.

      That assurance didn’t make her feel any better.

      She leaned against the side of the house, waiting for the world to right itself before crossing the threshold to face her dad. The dog lumbered up the steps and belly crawled across the porch. Bailey reached down and Blue nuzzled her hand as if the dog knew she needed to be comforted.

      “Thanks, girl.”

      When she walked into the kitchen, her dad was there, waiting for her. Bailey pulled a pitcher of tea out of the fridge and pretended that nothing had happened. Not that she’d get away with pretending. Her dad had probably heard the entire conversation through the open window.

      “Who were you talking to?” Jerry Cross was leaning on the counter, his afternoon meds in his hand. His skin had lost the healthy farmer’s tan he’d always worn. Now he just looked old and gray. And he wasn’t old.

      Every time Bailey looked at him and saw him wasting away in front of her, she wanted to cry. She wanted to explain to God that it wasn’t fair. She had lost her mom when she was ten. Now she was losing her dad.

      And Cody Jacobs’s RV was parked in her driveway.

      “It was…” She turned to see if her daughter was in the room.

      “She’s watching that goofy cartoon she likes.”

      “That was Cody Jacobs.”

      “Humph.”

      “He came to apologize.”

      “I guess he got more than he bargained for.” He coughed, the moment of breathlessness lasting longer than a week ago and leaving him weak enough that he had to sit at the kitchen table. “His RV is still here.”

      “He says he’s coming back.”

      Her dad looked almost pleased. “Good for him.”

      “Good for him? Dad, this isn’t good for me. It isn’t good for Meg.”

      “Maybe it’s good for me.” He wiped a large, work-worn hand across his face. “Maybe I need this, Bailey. Maybe I need to know that he’s here for you.”

      “He showed up to apologize. That doesn’t put him in my life. I don’t want him in my life. I don’t want to be his girl of the week. Isn’t that what the announcers on the sports channel call the women who hang on to his arm?”

      “We’ve both noticed a change in him since that bull trampled him last winter.” Once broad shoulders shrugged. “People change.”

      Bailey couldn’t agree more. She had changed. At twenty-two she had gone to Wyoming for a summer work program, starry-eyed and thinking that all cowboys were heroes. She had come home four months later, pregnant and brokenhearted.

      It had taken her more than a year to forgive herself and move on. She had struggled with the truth, that God’s grace was sufficient. She had grown and learned how to stand on her own two feet without dreams of a man rescuing her.

      Now she had a dad and a little girl who needed her. She had a farm with a second mortgage, back taxes seriously in arrears and medical bills piling up in a basket on the coffee table. She had horses that needed to be fed.

      “Dad, I have to get to work. You have to let me be an adult and take care of this myself.”

      Moisture shimmered in her dad’s brown eyes. “I know you can take care of things, Bailey. I only wish I could help you more.”

      She hugged him tightly, her heart breaking because of his continued weight loss.

      “Don’t worry, Dad. We have peace, remember?”

      “Peace.” He nodded as he whispered the word.

      Bailey walked to the back door. “I need to walk to the back pasture to check on that cow that didn’t come up this afternoon. Can you keep an eye on Meg?”

      “I’ll watch her.” He swallowed his pills before continuing. “He has a right to know his daughter.”

      “I know.”

      She knew, but she didn’t quite know how to deal with it, not yet. Cody now knew about Meg. It had to happen sooner or later. She wouldn’t have been able to remain out of the rodeo circuit forever. Avoiding Cody had meant avoiding people who could send horses her way for training.

      Maybe God had meant for it to happen this way, with Cody driving into her life when she had the least amount of energy to fight? And maybe, just maybe, he would meet Meg and then leave town.

      Chapter Two

      Bulls bellowed and snorted, the sound combining with the steady hum of the crowd and the banter of cowboys, medical staff and stock contractors. Cody leaned against the wall in a corner of the area that was almost quiet.

      “What’s up with you?”

      “Bradshaw, I didn’t know you were here.” Cody smiled at the guy who had been a friend for years. Rivalry had come between them a few times. And for a while Jason Bradshaw’s faith had driven a huge wedge between them.

      Cody hadn’t known what to do when his friend “found religion” two years earlier. They had gone from being drinking