Cowboy Daddy. Angel Smits

the tires found purchase somewhere beneath the muck. She pulled on to the two-lane highway, the windshield wipers slapping out an even tune. She crept along, barely able to see more than a few feet ahead in the dark, wet night.

      Or through the damp in her eyes. She scrubbed impatiently at the stupid tears. This was so not her. Hormones. It had to be the hormones.

      That was it, she was sure. Miles sped by as she headed back to the ranch house. She had ten miles to pull herself together. She’d told her older brother, Wyatt, that she was going to Trina’s party, despite the painful news about DJ. She gasped as that pain returned. Oh, DJ. Please don’t die.

      Pretending she was okay had been a mistake. She’d been able to fake it until Lane walked in. Something about that man turned her inside out.

      Then the lights of Wyatt’s big ranch house appeared above the horizon. Awash in damp, broken only by the even beat of the wipers, the house had never looked more beautiful. Or more frightening.

      Several long minutes passed after she parked the car. Anyone inside would think she was waiting out the storm. They’d be wrong. She was waiting out herself.

      Lifting her chin, she started the car again, pulled slowly out of the drive. If she went inside, Wyatt would take care of her. She’d let him take care of her.

      And all her hard-won independence would be lost. She shook her head. Nope. Not going to happen. She floored the gas pedal and aimed the car back toward Dallas.

      * * *

      SLEEP. DAWN THREATENED as Lane stretched out on the battered picnic bench on the deck of his dad’s farmhouse. He’d closed his eyes just for a bit. He needed to rest before he hit the road and headed back to the bunkhouse for the day’s work.

      Dad was asleep at last, the alcohol finally claiming him. If Lane listened carefully, he could hear the low snore the old man always made when he was sleeping it off. Lane tuned it out. He didn’t need that reminder of his childhood intruding.

      The picnic bench was hard, but he didn’t care. This was his escape. His place. The backyard was empty and quiet. Peaceful. He focused on the outdoor sounds. The wind in the tall grasses. The creak of the useless windmill that had been there for a hundred years, not connected to anything for fifty.

      Damp heat had shimmered on the dawn horizon from last night’s rain shower as he’d wrestled his father out of the truck and into the house. Thanks to the downpour few critters were out, though a rabbit or two hopped through the brush.

      He listened now, picturing, pretending, just as he had as a kid, that this was how it was supposed to be.

      His body longed to sleep, but his mind was too full. And his heart? He ignored that bit of himself, seeing in his mind’s eye the hurt and anger on Mandy’s face. What was wrong with him? Why couldn’t he just stay away from her? Why did she have this...power over him? One wink, a single touch and he stopped thinking.

      She wasn’t that kind of girl. She was the forever kind. Not the cab of a secondhand pickup truck in the parking lot of a run-down bar kind of girl. But that’s what she’d nearly become last night.

      He mentally cursed, swearing that next time... Who was he kidding? He had no willpower when it came to Mandy. He just had to make sure there was no next time.

      Exhaustion nearly claimed him—until he heard the sound of boot heels on the deck’s wood planking. His eyes shot open and he tried to sit up, only to smack his shoulder on the old table. The long shadow reaching across the wood didn’t tell him who it was. He turned.

      Trina. What the hell was she doing here? He didn’t want to know. “Go away, Trina.”

      He settled back down and pretended he was going back to sleep.

      “Not a chance, cowboy.” She stomped over to him and he felt her shadow block the warmth of the rising sun. “What’d you say to her?”

      “Who?” He could barely pretend he didn’t know who.

      “Don’t try to play stupid. Mandy, that’s who.”

      “Nothing.” There hadn’t been much talking going on in that truck, but he wasn’t sharing those details.

      “You said or did something. She left.”

      That got his attention. He opened his eyes, squinted up at her. “What do you mean, left?”

      “Left. As in went away. Vanished. Gone. Bye-bye.”

      Trina hadn’t been the star of all their high school drama productions for nothing.

      “I’m not her keeper.”

      “No, you’re certainly not,” she snapped. “You’re her loser.” She turned and stomped back to the edge of the deck. Her footsteps stopped, and he knew better than to open his eyes and look—no one had definitively proven that one of Trina’s glares couldn’t kill.

      “So, you have no idea why she was here, do you?” she said softly. “No clue at all? Well, neither do I. But something was on her mind. That’s for sure.”

      Back at the bar Mandy had hinted that she had her reasons for coming back here. And Sam had filled in the necessary details about Trina’s new job in Chicago. “I thought she was here to see you off. You dragging another sap down the aisle, right? Matt’ll be pleased. No more alimony.”

      “You are such a jerk.” Her steps had the volume of a Mac truck hitting a VW bug. “What she sees in you is beyond me.”

      He heard a car door slam and the roar of an engine broke the morning’s semblance of quiet. “Me, either,” he whispered, glad she couldn’t hear him. Maybe she’d go find Mandy and bad mouth him enough that Mandy would finally give up on him. She needed to find someone else, needed to get on with her life, needed better than he could ever give her.

      “Damn.” He shot to his feet. He wasn’t getting any sleep. Might as well go to work where his pain came from physical labor.

      Maybe there Mandy would stop haunting him.

       CHAPTER TWO

      Five months later

      THE WAIL OF SIRENS in the distance barely broke through the cloud of pain engulfing Amanda. Her eyes closed. All she could see was the darkness that occasionally sparked with color as she clenched her eyelids tight with each contraction.

      “You’re doing great.” Her sister Addie’s voice came out of the darkness, bringing comfort with it. Safe, warm memories of home. Addie was as much a mother to Amanda as Mom had been. After Dad’s death, she’d helped raise all the younger ones in the family.

      As the contraction eased, Amanda opened her eyes a sliver. “Thanks for coming with me,” she whispered, managing to squeeze Addie’s hand that was curled in hers.

      “Of course.” Addie’s voice shook, and Amanda barely had time to wonder why before the muscles of her lower body went back into action.

      This time she couldn’t hold back the scream that ripped from her. Dear God, how did anyone survive this? She thought of her mother doing this six times. Had Mom been crazy? Amanda hadn’t thought so before but now...

      Again the pain eased, and her mind drifted to her nephew, her brother DJ’s son, who was turning nine today. “I ruined his birthday.” She didn’t have to explain who she meant to Addie. Poor Tyler. She thought she heard Addie laugh.

      “Oh, I don’t think so. Besides, the birthday was a mess long before you went into labor.”

      Addie might be right. With all the drama of the Texas Rangers and their brother DJ now recovered and showing up with Tyler’s missing mother—yeah, her going into labor was just a drop in the proverbial bucket of fun.

      Addie’s