Hired By The Cowboy. DONNA ALWARD
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made it seem easy, when it wasn’t—not at all. This was her future and her baby’s that she was tampering with. Alex, who hadn’t relied on anyone in years, was suddenly considering becoming dependent on a relative stranger for her security and wellbeing. There was nothing simple about that. The one thing that kept her even considering it was the lack of choices she seemed to have lately.
She stepped back, putting a few extra inches of distance between them. “What I mean is, this is all happening so fast.”
“I know that. Which is why I had an idea this weekend. How about a trial period first? You come up to Windover, stay a while, before you make your decision. If you decide it won’t work, I’ll bring you back here.”
When the strain evaporated from her face like magic, he knew he’d done the right thing.
“I think that is a very sensible approach,” she responded. Her eyes cleared of worry and she treated him to another one of her genuine smiles.
“I certainly don’t want to chain you to the place if you’re going to be miserable for the next…how many months? I thought this might be a way to test the waters.”
“Four months,” she replied thinly. Chained to the place? The place wasn’t worrying her half as much as being chained to him. And it would likely be more than four months. Once the baby came she’d need some time to recover; to figure out what to do next.
Suddenly her eyes narrowed. “How long a trial period?” She knew he was operating on a timeline, and a short one, and she didn’t want to feel pressed to make this decision in the first forty-eight hours, or some silly thing.
“I don’t know. No longer than a week.”
Her breath came out in a rush, but her words came out cautiously. “OK. A week I can do.”
“In that case, let’s get going.”
She lifted her backpack as he spoke, surprised when his hands took the weight from her. Her shoulder tingled where his fingers touched.
She’d forgotten his penchant for chivalry, which was surprising, since he was constantly polite. It was hard to get used to that in a man. Simply not what she’d been used to.
“Thank you.”
“Where’s the rest?”
She looked at her toes. “That is the rest.”
“This is all you’ve got?” He halted by the door of the truck, his fingers on the handle. “No suitcase?”
“This is it,” she said firmly. She would not, could not, get into a discussion of why her life was packed into a solitary bag. Someday she’d settle, find something permanent. Then she’d make the home for herself that she longed for.
Wordlessly he opened the door, helped her in, and put the pack behind her seat. Nerves bubbled up in her stomach. What on earth was she doing? This was crazy. Insane. She knew next to nothing about him.
He got up into the cab beside her and started the engine as she fastened her seatbelt. At least she’d had the foresight to do a bit of checking on him of her own. Saturday she’d hit the library and the computers there, looking up information on the man and his ranch.
Surprisingly, there’d been several hits to her query, and she had read with fascination articles regarding Connor and, more interestingly, his family. His father had been prominent in the beef industry, and under his hand the farm had flourished. The Madsen ranch had been around for over a hundred years. Now she understood why Connor was determined to make it through this crisis.
One hit had turned up a recent “spotlight” on Connor—he had done an interview on innovative breeding. His picture had come up beside the print, and she’d stared at it. He sure didn’t look like some creep, despite the oddness of his proposal. He was twenty-nine, sexy as the day was long, and apparently smart and well respected. Her eyes darted to the imposing figure beside her, concentrating on the road.
She wished she’d found something more personal—a vital statistics sort of thing. Where was his family now? He’d only mentioned his grandmother. What were his interests, his quirks?
The only way she could find out that information was to talk to the man himself. She wasn’t at all sure she could marry him, even if it were only a legality. She’d be stuck with him for the next several months. There was her baby to consider. She had to do what was right by her child.
Her hand drifted to her tummy as a current country hit came on the radio and Connor exited on to the highway. It was too early for her to feel the baby’s movement, but already her shape was changing and her waist was thickening. It was her child in there. She hadn’t planned on having children for years yet, and certainly not alone. But she was attached to this life growing inside her, knew that no matter what she wanted to be a good mother. How could she do that if she couldn’t even afford a place for them to live?
Alex stared out the window at the city passing by in a blur. A trial run was her best option right now. At least it left her a way to get out.
The lane was long and straight, unpaved, leading to an ordinary two-story house in white siding with blue shutters.
Alex stared at it, not sure what to think. She looked out both windows…there weren’t even any neighbors. No, wait. There. On that distant knoll to the southeast there was a speck that might have been a house. The land surrounding them was green and brown, spattered sparsely with trees. Basically empty. Isolated.
Beyond the house were outbuildings of various sizes. Alex, city girl, had no idea what they were used for beyond the basic “looking after cattle” umbrella. Another pickup sat in front of a white barn. To the side were tractors. Not the small, hayride sort of tractor she had been used to growing up in southern Ontario. But gargantuan monsters painted green and yellow. The kind she’d need a stepladder to get into.
Connor pulled up in front of the house and shut off the engine. “Here we are,” he said into the breach of silence.
“It’s huge,” she answered, opening the door and hopping down. “The sky…it seems endless.”
“Until you look over there.” He grinned at her, came to stand beside her and pointed west. Her eyes followed his finger and she gasped.
She had focused so hard on the house that she’d completely missed the view. It spread before her now, long and gray, a jagged expanse of Rocky Mountains that took her breath away. They were a long way away, yet close enough that she saw the varied shades, dark in the dips and bowls, lighter at the peaks, tipped with snow even in early June.
“That’s stunning.” Stunning didn’t cover it. Something in the mountains simply called to her, touched her deeply. Made her feel alive and strong.
“They keep me from feeling lonely,” Connor murmured, and she realized how close he was to her ear. There was something in his tone that touched her. All this space…and he lived here alone. Something about him in that moment made her realize that he had a gap in his life, an emptiness he wanted to fill.
She wondered what had put it there, but was in no position to ask. And she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to know the answer either. She sure didn’t want him to delve into her past, so she said nothing.
“Why don’t you show me the inside?” She changed the subject, pulling her eyes from the scenery and adopting a more practical air.
He grabbed her bag from the truck and led the way inside. She took off her sneakers, placing them beside his boots on the mat in the entry, and followed him past a living room and a stairway to a large, homey kitchen.
“You hungry? We should have some lunch.” He put her bag on an old wooden rocker and turned to face her. His jaw seemed taut with tension, and she realized that he was finding this as odd and uncomfortable as she was. Now, here, in his house, it became ever more clear that they were practically strangers.
“I