The Rancher's Baby Proposal. Barbara White Daille

Reagan found a reception committee waiting for him. At midafternoon, the sandwich shop wasn’t that busy, but the customers, the waitress and even Sugar herself had greeted him the moment he’d walked in.

      As the crowd surrounded him, a wave of memories seemed to engulf him, too. These were all friends of his, friends of his folks’ and, for a moment, it felt like the old days before he’d left Cowboy Creek. For another, longer moment, he wished he could turn back the clock, change history, erase some of the things he had said and done...

      Except for becoming a daddy. He would never regret having his son.

      The crowd all welcomed him home, asking friendly questions he felt grateful he could answer with simple responses. He spoke to everyone in turn, shook hands with the men and gave hugs to two older ladies who had been good friends with his mom.

      Then he made his way to a booth in the back of the room. The waitress, Layne, followed. As he slid onto a seat, she rested one hip against the tabletop. He had gone to school with her and her brother, Cole, though he had been ahead of them both.

      “You’d have thought you all knew I was coming,” he said.

      “We did.” She grinned. “Sugar had a call from Jed. He said he had run into you at the hardware store.”

      And no doubt had hung around to listen in on his conversation with Ally.

      He laughed, shaking his head. “I should have known. Things haven’t changed much since I left for school.” The older man probably had business to take care of in the store. It might even have required him to spend some time in the next aisle over from where they had met. Either way, it wouldn’t have mattered. He knew Jed had been friends with his parents since long before he’d been born. And there was no denying the man always kept an ear to the ground about anything that went on in town.

      “No, things don’t change much here,” Layne agreed. “Except for getting married and having kids, most of us are living the same lives as when we graduated from Cowboy Creek High. Not like yours.”

      If she only knew. And she would know soon enough.

      The whole town would hear about it when he brought his brand-new son to the ranch. They all would learn he had been made a fool of by a woman who, as it turned out, was looking for a good time, not a husband. Not a baby—not even her own.

      He would have Sean with him now, except when he had headed to Cowboy Creek yesterday morning, he didn’t know what condition he would find the house in. He also didn’t know whether he’d be able to find someone to watch the baby while he took care of putting things to rights.

      On his arrival, he had discovered the house dusty but livable and, better luck, had solved part of that last concern. His quick trip to the hardware store for some basic supplies might have given him an answer to the other part.

      “Speaking of babies—” Layne said.

      He started, wondering if she’d read his thoughts.

      “—my brother married Jed’s granddaughter Tina—I don’t know if you knew—and they just had their second baby. His other two granddaughter’s are married now, too. And did you hear about Shay O’Neill?”

      All three of the names she’d mentioned were familiar to him from school—inevitable in Cowboy Creek, as there was only one grade school, one junior high, one high school. “No, nobody mentioned Shay. What’s up with her?”

      “She’s trying to outdo us all.” Layne laughed. “She had triplets.”

      “Triplets?” He shook his head in wonder and thought about Sean. He couldn’t begin to imagine taking care of more than one baby at a time.

      Layne slipped her order pad from her uniform pocket. “What can I get you?”

      “I’ll wait. Ally Martinez is meeting me here. But you probably know that already, too.”

      She laughed in acknowledgment before walking away. Just as she disappeared through the doorway into the kitchen, the front door of the shop opened, and Ally entered.

      Her long dark curls tumbled down almost to her waist and bounced as she walked toward him. She had never been tiny, and she had filled out more in the years since he had last seen her. With her gleaming dark eyes, rosy cheeks and snug orange T-shirt, she gave the bright pink seats and decorations in the sandwich shop some competition. He recalled her hanging around the schoolyard in grade school. He had been a couple of years ahead of her. Even that long ago, she had always acted larger than life—and been the life of the party.

      Thinking of Sean, he frowned. Maybe Ally as a babysitter wouldn’t be such a good influence on a preteen or a teenager...but a one-month-old? What could it hurt? Besides, even if she accepted the offer he planned to present to her, he and the baby wouldn’t be here long enough for her to make much of an impact.

      “Hi.” Sounding a little breathless, she took the booth across from him. “I got here as soon as I could.”

      “Hope you didn’t have to rush.”

      “No rush. No more than usual, anyhow. My papa says I never run at half speed when I can take it up to full.” She laughed. “But I’m running behind now because, just as I was leaving, one of the customers came to the register with a big order.”

      Since they had met up at the store, she had slicked something on her lips, shiny and red as cherry candy. Suddenly, he felt an urge to lean across the tabletop for a taste.

      Whoa, Nelly.

      He’d been away from women too long. Or not long enough.

      Sex wasn’t supposed to be on his radar for a good while into the future. Preferably, at least not till Sean turned twenty-one. He tried to think back to his school days and the younger Ally, when the few years’ age difference between them seemed to be a much wider gap.

      “Is something wrong?” she asked. “You’re frowning.”

      “No. Nothing’s wrong. I’m just trying to decide what to have. To drink.”

      Layne returned to the booth, and they each ordered sweet tea without the sweet and a wedge of lemon.

      Ally sat fiddling with an armload of gold bracelets she wore on one wrist. She hadn’t had them on at the store, he’d noticed...then wondered why he’d taken note of her bare, tanned arm in the first place. Anyhow, she probably didn’t want the bracelets to get damaged while she was stocking shelves.

      “We have the same taste in drinks,” she said a moment later.

      “I guess we do.”

      They made small talk until their teas arrived. Ally’s quick drink left the straw candy-tipped from her lipstick. She smiled at him. “So, how has the big, bad city been treating you all these years? Well enough, I guess, or you would have been home again before now.”

      “Houston did treat me well, I have to admit.” The woman he had met just before graduation was another story. “Going to school there was a good experience, one I don’t regret. But I’m not in Houston anymore. I’ve got a job outside San Antonio, sales manager for a distributor of farming equipment.”

      She blinked those big dark eyes. “Why would you be selling farm equipment, when you have a ranch right here to come home to?”

      “It pays the bills.”

      “Oh.” His curt reply had thrown her. It didn’t keep her down for long. “Well, I can certainly see the benefits of that.”

      He hoped so. Just as he hoped this meeting would benefit them both. But he wanted to lead up to his idea slowly. And he didn’t want to say too much about the past. If he had his way, neither Ally nor anyone else in Cowboy Creek would learn what happened between him and the woman he’d loved and had thought loved him, too.

      He grabbed his tea glass. He had skipped the straw and now took such a long swallow, ice cubes clattered against his front teeth.