Buch lesen: «The Bull Rider's Baby»

Chapter One

When Keeton West entered Convenience Counts store at seven in the morning, Sophie Cooper was the last person he expected to see. But there she was, running down the sidewalk, brushing a hand through her shoulder-length auburn hair. Not really auburn, though. Her hair had always been dark brown. The hint of red probably came from a bottle, but he liked it.

He even kind of liked her in a slim-fitting business suit, her high heels clicking on the floor as she walked through the door. She looked like an executive from some Tulsa high-rise office building, not the daughter of a wealthy rancher. She was a sleek and shiny European car in a world of pickup trucks.

He grinned at that comparison and watched as she hurried through the glass door at the front of the store. He thought about approaching her, and then reconsidered. Exhaustion must be getting to him or it wouldn’t have crossed his mind.

For the past two nights he’d gotten almost no sleep. And then this morning he’d gotten up early to head into Dawson for a few necessities. The baby in his arms had insisted on the supplies.

The problem was, he didn’t know what things a baby required. She cried, that’s about all he knew. And he knew in baby talk, crying meant something. Either she was hungry, needed changing or something else was wrong. At about two in the morning he started to think the last choice might be the correct one. After he gave her the last bottle he had, he was at a loss. A few hours later he found himself here, hiding from Sophie Cooper before he could ask the store’s proprietor for baby advice.

“Hey, Sophie, what has you out so early in the morning?” Trish Cramer leaned over the counter at the front of the store. She and her husband, Jimmy, had owned Convenience Counts for as long as Keeton could remember. And they’d always liked to keep tabs on what was happening in Dawson, Oklahoma.

There wasn’t a local paper, but the folks in Dawson had Jimmy and Trish.

“I’m just here to grab some breakfast.” Sophie grinned at them. She had a smile that could knock a guy to the ground.

She’d always been beautiful. The woman was even better than the girl she’d been years ago. If things had been different, she would have married his brother, been his sister-in-law. If everything hadn’t changed on a June night sixteen years ago, that is. But it had changed. Nothing could undo that night.

Keeton sighed and moved around the corner of the shelves he’d been standing in front of, out of the line of sight so that he wouldn’t be the first thing Sophie saw when she turned his way.

He peeked, though. Like a thirteen-year-old kid spying on cheerleaders when they’d stopped for a diet cola after practice. Yeah, he’d been that kid. And Trish had given him the eye then, the way she was now.

“You’re working on a Saturday?” Trish looked over the tops of her glasses.

“Do you need gas pumped?” Jimmy came around the corner of the counter, wiping his hands on a rag.

“No, I filled up last night. I just need to grab breakfast and go.” She stopped in front of the warming tray and eyed food that had been sitting under a heat lamp probably since the place opened an hour ago.

Breakfast pizza and a few egg sandwiches. He’d grab something for himself, once he figured out what a three-month-old baby ate for breakfast. He looked down at the mysterious creature cuddled up against him. For once the baby wasn’t crying.

He had to stop thinking of her as “the baby.” She was his baby. Lucy. She cuddled into him, trusting, even after just a couple of days of knowing him. His baby. He shook his head, the way he’d been doing since his ex-wife had dropped Lucy with him. A baby hadn’t been on his list of things to get.

But he had her, and he couldn’t imagine not having her. Although he could imagine getting a little more rest. He hoped sleep didn’t turn out to be a thing of the past.

“Honey, you’re always in a hurry.” Trish had moved closer to Sophie. “When are you going to settle down?”

“No time for settling down, Trish. Work keeps me busy.”

Trish laughed at that. “Well, that isn’t going to keep you warm when the winters are long. You need a husband.”

Keeton nearly groaned because when Trish said “husband” she shot him a look over Sophie’s right shoulder. He shushed the baby and repositioned her. Babies were heavy. He hadn’t realized how heavy a twelve-pound bit of fluff and spit-up could be until he’d spent a full day hauling one around.

“I think I’ll be fine. I’ve got a good furnace.” Sophie answered Trish on the husband issue. “I’ll just grab something off the shelf.”

“All of this hurrying isn’t good for your digestion,” Trish called out, the all-knowing voice of reason and common sense.

“Then I’ll take a pack of those antacids you have behind the counter to go with whatever I buy.”

Keeton pulled his hat down low and grinned at the comeback. One thing about Sophie Cooper, she wasn’t a wallflower. She’d slapped him once, years ago. He shook his head and reached for a jar of baby food because maybe Lucy needed more than bottles. When he got to the register, he’d ask Trish.

Click click of heels. He watched out of the corner of his eye as Sophie hurried in his direction. With a single step he moved back to the end of the aisle. She stopped in front of the few breakfast items on the shelves, frowning as she surveyed the options.

The baby in his arms whimpered. He bounced her a little, hoping to quiet her down. It had worked last night. He’d spent about an hour swaying back and forth in his living room, wishing he had real furniture and maybe the smarts to tackle his situation a little differently.

Smart would have been not marrying Becka Janson because he felt sorry for her. She’d played him good. She’d found out his winnings, his earnings and how much he’d invested in Jeremy Hightree’s custom motorcycle business and she’d latched on quick. At least he’d been smart enough for a prenup.

The baby in his arms wiggled, squirmed and let out a real cry. Sophie Cooper turned, her hazel eyes widened as she zeroed in on him and the baby. A smile trembled on her lips and her gaze shifted from the baby to him.

He tipped his hat and grinned, knowing charm and good looks weren’t going to mean a thing to the woman standing in front of him. Her attention wasn’t on him anyway. She looked at the baby, the coolness in her eyes softening, warming.

Man, she hadn’t changed much at all. She could still stop a guy in his tracks and make him forget what he wanted to say.

“Keeton West.” Her voice shook a little. “And a baby.”

He held the baby with one arm and cupped the two jars of food in his free hand. He knew his shirt had spit-up smeared on the shoulder and he hadn’t shaved in three days. He couldn’t think of a thing to say that wouldn’t sound ridiculous.

“Me and a baby.” Stupid. Pre-Lucy he would have winked and said something like “It’s been a long time.” Or, “Sophie, you’re as beautiful as ever.”

Instead he jabbered like the infant in his arms and echoed her like a fifteen-year-old with his first crush. Actually, he knew fifteen-year-old boys who would have done better.

If he’d had any sense at all he would have stayed in Broken Arrow. He had a nice little place on the edge of the city. But wanting his family land back—that had been his driving force for as long as he could remember. He needed to remember that was his reason for being here.

One thing stood between him and the biggest portion of that land. Sophie Cooper. She’d bought one hundred acres of land that used to be his family farm.

She smiled at the baby, not at him. “She’s beautiful.”

* * *

Next time Sophie would listen to that little voice that told her to run in and get a breakfast sandwich from the Mad Cow. But no, she’d been in a hurry and thought the local convenience store would be quicker.

Surprise, nothing was ever quick in Dawson. Or easy. People always managed to get in her business. If it wasn’t her family it was one of the locals trying to find out what she’d been up to, or trying to find a way to marry her off.

Today the problem happened to be Keeton West.

She had one hour to get to a meeting in Grove and then she had her other project to work on. And Keeton West had something dripping down the front of his shirt, very close to where it was unbuttoned at the throat. Very close to the silver cross and chain that he wore around his very tan neck.

She cleared her throat and stumbled back to the present. The main thing she didn’t want to discuss with him was land she’d recently bought.

The baby in his arms forced her to act, though. Maybe it had to do with being a Cooper. Or maybe she couldn’t run from biology. Even if she didn’t have children of her own. Was it her imagination or did she hear a very loud clock ticktocking in her ear?

The baby spit up again.

“Keeton, she’s sick.” Sophie grabbed a role of paper towels off the shelf and ripped them open. “Here, sweetie. Oh, that’s awful stuff.”

Keeton West and a baby. She tried to connect dots and couldn’t. She couldn’t imagine him with a child. And yet… She wiped the baby’s chin. The infant had his nose. She had his brother Kade’s nose. The thought ached deep down inside Sophie, in a place that had been broken and empty for a long time. It was the part of her heart that still missed Kade. Or what they might have had.

Pudgy baby arms reached for her and big eyes overflowed with tears that trickled down the little girl’s pink cheeks. Keeton held tight and Sophie put on a smile that said none of this hurt, none of it mattered. She had survived. She’d gotten past the pain of losing Kade. She was whole.

“Thank you.” Keeton’s voice was low and husky, his eyes sought hers. And she couldn’t look at him, not without seeing Kade. The resemblance shook her. The dark hair. The lean, suntanned features. The dark eyes that danced with laughter or smoldered with emotion. Ugh, she was so not able to deal with this.

When she looked at Keeton she remembered the night he pulled the bull rope for Kade. It was just one of the memories they shared. Common ground that she didn’t want to be on today.

“You’re welcome.” She stood there with a handful of smelly paper towels and nowhere to run to. “What are you doing back in town?”

“I’m here to get our land back.”

Oh. Well, she didn’t quite know what to say to that. “I didn’t know you had a baby.”

He grinned, and the ornery leaked back into his brown eyes.

“Yeah, neither did I until a few days ago. Long story but I divorced her mother about a year ago. Or her mother divorced me. And we didn’t see each other again until she showed up on my doorstep with what she called a ‘surprise.’”

“And where’s her mother?”

“On her way to South America with a bull rider she met a few months ago.”

“I’m sorry.” What else could she say? “What’s her name?”

“Lucy Monroe West.” He smiled down at the little girl. “And I don’t have a clue what I’m supposed to do with her.”

“You do what you’re doing. Hold her. Feed her. Love her.”

“And what do I feed her?” He shrugged a little and looked from Sophie to the baby. “I mean, food? Milk?”

“Formula.” Sophie reached for a box. “She’s little, Keeton. No food. Not yet.”

“Right, formula in a bottle.” He juggled the baby and the stuff he’d picked up, putting baby food back on the shelf.

Sophie wanted to take the baby. And she didn’t want to take her. She couldn’t get involved, not with Keeton. That would be a mistake. It would be stepping back into the past. She was thirty-five. She didn’t have time for the past.

She had a present to worry about. Her life today filled with too many matchmakers, not enough single men, work and her own projects. Life.

“I should go.”

“Right, and maybe we can catch up later.”

He smiled when he said it, because he didn’t mean it. Neither of them wanted to get together, to relive, to catch up.

“Well, it was good seeing you again.” She smiled and moved to slide past him.

“Yeah, it was.” He stepped back, the baby in one arm, a teddy bear diaper bag slung over the other and a loaf of bread balancing on top of the package of diapers he had managed to pick up.

The baby watched her, tears in watery blue eyes. For years Sophie had lied to herself. She tried to convince herself that growing up a Cooper, with a dozen siblings and an array of foster children in the home, she could live without babies. She’d had enough.

And it wasn’t true. She wanted a baby of her own. She wanted to hold the baby in Keeton West’s arms.

She grabbed a cola from the cooler section. Next to her, Keeton jostled the baby in his arms and nearly lost his hold on her.

Instinct took over. Sophie reached, the baby grabbed. Suddenly Sophie had the spit-up-covered baby in her arms and Keeton moved the diapers to his free hand.

“Don’t get too comfortable. You have to take her back,” Sophie warned. But the baby held tight to her shirt and whimpered. Sophie kissed the little forehead.

Keeton grinned. “But she looks perfect in your arms. Look at the red in her hair. You’re a match.”

“This isn’t…”

He winked then. “Yeah, I know it isn’t.”

She looked down at the tiny creature in her arms. Lucy smelled positively awful. And she was wet clean through. “You could have warned me.”

She held the baby out to him and he looked perplexed. And he looked as if he’d just rode in off the range with his faded Levis, washed-out blue, button-up shirt and dusty boots. Surprise, surprise, he didn’t have on chaps, or a gun in a holster on his belt. That would have been a little too Old West, even for Keeton.

“Sorry.” He didn’t look it. “Do me a favor, hold her for a second. Just give me a chance to get this to the counter.”

“You know I will.”

She spotted toaster pastries with blueberry filling and knew exactly what she’d be having for breakfast. With the baby in one hand she grabbed the box and tried to pretend she wasn’t a grown woman buying breakfast food that came in a box and contained more sugar than most cookies.

“On a health-food kick?” Keeton grabbed a container of baby wipes. “Let me pay and I’ll take her back.”

“Why is it I think you’d hit that door running if I gave you half a chance?” Sophie followed him to the cash register and almost parked herself between him and the door. “I go first.”

She put her breakfast on the counter and with her free hand dug in her purse for cash. Keeton dumped his groceries next to hers. He also took the roll of paper towels, and the used ones still wadded up in her hands. Those he tossed behind the counter into a waste basket.

“I’m buying.” He grinned. “I always told you I’d take you to dinner someday. Looks like I’m buying your breakfast today.”

“You really don’t have to.”

“I owe you.” He nodded at the front of her jacket, now soaked and with a trail of spit-up down the front.

The baby turned into her shoulder and started crying. She rubbed her face back and forth on Sophie’s collar. Baby slime. And goo. And she didn’t have time to go home and change.

“Keeton West, you never answered.” Trish grinned at the infant. “Where’d you get that pretty baby?”

He grinned, and Sophie applauded his silence. If he said anything it would be all over town by the end of the day. Or by lunch.

Trish came around the counter, maternal and an obvious choice to hold the squalling infant clinging to Sophie’s collar.

“It’s a long story.” Keeton dug his wallet out of his pocket and tossed a couple of bills on the counter.

“Well, we’ve got time for long stories, don’t we, Jimmy?” Trish touched the baby’s back. “My goodness, she stinks.”

“Yeah, I ran out of diapers.”

Warmth spread down Sophie’s front before Trish could take the baby. Now it wasn’t just the back of the baby’s sleeper that was soaked.

“Uh-oh.” Keeton grabbed the bags Jimmy had set on the counter. “Guess she’s wetter than I thought.”

“Is she yours?” Trish wouldn’t let go.

Sophie handed the baby over to Trish, who obviously didn’t care if the infant soaked her clothes. Now that her hands were free, she reached into Keeton’s groceries and pulled out her toaster pastries and the can of soda.

“These are mine.” Sophie pointed to the baby. “That’s yours.”

“Is she yours?” Trish pushed on, leaning to kiss the baby’s cheek. “My goodness, she’s warm. Do you have anything to give her for this fever?”

“Sick and wet, my lucky day.” Sophie headed for the door. “Have fun, Keeton.”

Keeton, carrying the baby girl and his bag of groceries, caught up with her as she got into her car.

“Wait.”

She sighed and stuck the key in the ignition. “What?”

“I want to talk to you about our land.”

“Our land?” She knew exactly what he meant, but she didn’t have time for this. Besides that, she had plans for that land.

“You know what I mean, Sophie. You bought the one hundred that joins up with the twenty I bought. A corporation bought the land on the other side of the road.”

“So you’re here to buy back West land?”

“That’s why I’m here. That farm meant everything to my granddad, even to my dad, before…”

Yeah, before. She looked away, thought about hollow expressions, loss, giving up. The Wests had sold out to the Parkers, and then the Parkers had split the land up, sold it and moved to Kansas last year.

“Soph, I want to buy it back.”

“Keeton, I don’t have time to talk.”

He leaned in, holding the baby that still hadn’t been changed. She cuddled against his shoulder, crying as he tried to continue the conversation. “We need to talk.”

The stench of the messy, wet baby proved to be more than Sophie could take. She shook her head and moved to get out of the car. Keeton backed up, his words drifting off as she reached for the baby. “We have to change her before we continue this conversation.”

“I can manage.”

She took the baby from him and placed her on the backseat of the car. “Give me a diaper. And you’d better have plenty of wipes. And hand sanitizer.” She gagged a little just thinking about what was waiting for her.

Keeton handed her a diaper and wipes. And then he had the nerve to step back. She tossed him a meaningful look over her shoulder. “Get back here. I’m not doing this alone. You never send a man, or woman, in alone.”

“Right.” She heard him take a deep breath and he stepped close.

The diaper was every bit as bad as she imagined. Worse even. After taking it off and cleaning the baby with wipes, she handed Keeton the offending item. He gasped as she shoved it into his hand.

“Don’t think you get out of this completely.” She smiled over her shoulder at him before turning her attention back to the task at hand.

Keeton took another deep breath and hurried toward the trash. Sophie smiled at the baby. Lucy, blue-eyed and beautiful, smiled back. Sophie lost her heart. And it had been a long time since she’d done that. So long, in fact, she almost expected it to hurt. The heart was, after all, a muscle. She figured hers might be close to atrophy from lack of use.

But she wasn’t about to admit that to anyone. She also wouldn’t admit that she’d been telling God about her loneliness, thinking maybe He could show her a glimpse of His plan.

“Thanks.” Keeton grabbed a few wipes as she taped a new diaper in place. “For your hands. It’s the best I can do.”

She took the wipes and handed him the clean baby. Clean wasn’t really the best word. She needed a bath. Badly.

“I’d take her home and bathe her if I were you.”

Keeton looked down at his little girl. “Bathe her?”

“Yes, with water and soap. It’s a funny little custom most people enjoy daily.”

“Not funny. I don’t know how to bathe a baby.”

“You’ll figure it out. And you should run into Grove and get medicine for her fever. Maybe take her to urgent care. She does feel warm.”

“Great, a sick baby.”

“Probably just a virus. She’ll be fine. So will you.” She smiled at the sight of him holding the baby. “Daddy.”

“Daddy.” He looked down at his daughter, his expression downright wistful and a little confused. “I have a kid.”

“Looks that way.”

And then wistful disappeared, replaced by a look of total shock. “What am I going to do with her?”

“I’d say the same thing parents have done with babies for hundreds of years. Take her home and raise her.”

“I’m a bull rider. I’m on the road almost half my life. I’m living in a crash pad, not a home.”

Bull rider. That reminder had her getting back in her car, away from him, away from the tug on her heart and back into her shell. “Yes, well, I’d say you’d better make some improvements.”

“You could help me.”

“I did. I changed the nastiest diaper in the history of diapers.”

“Seriously, Soph, I need help.”

He sighed and her resolve to be strong, to not get involved, got a little weak in the knees. Not for Keeton, but the baby. “I’ll be around if you have a problem. I live in the old stone house, just a half mile from you.”

“Right, thanks. And don’t think I’ve forgotten the land. We need to talk.”

“Later.” She had slid behind the wheel of her car and now she glanced at her watch. She hated being late. She had five minutes to get to Grove for a meeting with a contractor.

“Dinner?” He leaned in, holding tight to Lucy.

“Nope. I don’t date bull riders.” She started her car and reached to close the door. He stood there, not moving as she’d given the indication he should do.

“I’m not asking you out. I meant we could talk business over dinner.”

Ouch. That hurt a little for some crazy reason. “Good to know, but I’m not accepting.”

“Fine, I’ll see you later. But we are going to talk about my land.”

“My land.” She backed out of the parking space. She had her own land. It wasn’t Cooper land. She’d saved money left in a trust from her grandparents. She’d saved residual income from her allotted fifty acres and the few oil wells still pumping. She had her own space in the world. Her own land.

Her own life that no one else was involved in. Unfortunately her land used to be West land. What had seemed like a great idea months ago now felt like a giant headache about to happen. Or heartache.

After years of being gone, she hadn’t expected Keeton to suddenly show up back in Dawson.

As she pulled out of the parking lot she glanced in the direction of Keeton’s truck. He stood next to it, strapping Lucy into an infant seat. Seeing her glance his way, he waved and then turned toward Lucy.

Kade’s brother. A bull rider. The last person she wanted in her life.