Chapter Two

      He knows!

      Heat flushed her face. The shuffling sounds of departing party-goers filled her ears. Shock stopped her breath cold in the back of her throat.

      Her once fondest desire and now greatest fear had both become reality in one ruthless flash of paper. And it was all her own fault The picture she’d used to launch her new career had accomplished what three years of prayers and tears and searching could not.

      Cub knew about their daughter. And now that he knew, everything she’d planned for her own future hung in jeopardy.

      A thousand questions flew through her mind, none of them lingering long enough for her to form any clear conclusions. What did Cub want? He’d said no wife of his would work in town; she could only conclude that went double for the mother of his child. Would he fight her for custody now that she had chosen to pursue a career outside the home?

      Her eyes darted to the creased picture of the precocious child with so many of Cub’s physical attributes and every ounce of his disposition.

      Surely, Cub hadn’t come here to try to take her child. He wouldn’t do that. Her heartbeat slowed to a heavy, thudding knell. Would he?

      She raised her chin and concentrated on looking self-confident. “I don’t think we should have this discussion without our lawyers present, Cub.”

      “Lawyers?” The paper crumpled in his fist and he lowered his outstretched arm. “Why the hell would we need lawyers to talk about you giving me my boots back?”

      “Boots?”

      She batted her lashes, trying to make all the pieces fit. Cub didn’t know diddly—at least not about their baby. He’d come here to lay claim to a pair of sorry old sod-kickers, not his one and only flesh-and-blood baby.

      Cocking her hip, she cupped one hand to her ear to compound her sarcasm. “Excuse me? But did you say...boots?”

      “Yeah, boots.” He shifted his feet, a quick grimace passing over his features when he did. “Don’t try to deny they’re mine, Alyssa. The proof is in the picture.”

      He held the photocopied flyer up again.

      Alyssa pretended to skim the page but her gaze quickly fixed past the picture to its real-life subject. Jaycie, riding high on her grandfather’s shoulders, giggled and waved a merry “bye-bye” to the thinning crowd. Meanwhile, every stride of Yip Cartwright’s long legs brought them closer to a confrontation with disaster.

      She did not have a minute to lose. She would tell Cub that she’d never gotten the annulment, that she wanted now to proceed with a divorce. And, of course, she’d tell him about his daughter, even make arrangements for the two of them to meet. Then, somehow, she’d find the strength to deal with the consequences of that meeting. But not now, not under these strained circumstances.

      “You’re right, Cub, those are your boots.” She edged sideways drawing his gaze like enemy gunfire, away from her approaching child. “I’m sorry I used them without your permission, but it isn’t exactly like I could have gotten your permission if I had wanted it, now could I?”

      “Well...”

      “I mean, it isn’t like you wouldn’t have just sent my letter back unopened, right?” She took another sidelong step, keenly aware that her father and her daughter were getting closer by the second. “You sent back every letter that ever reached you.”

      He glared at her, huffing hard through his nostrils as his lean cheek ticked in tightly reined anger.

      Good, she thought. She might not have known Cub well enough to make a life with him, but she did know this: if she made it clear enough that she did not want him here, he’d go.

      “I can’t believe that after all this time, you’d come way out here to pick and quibble over some beat-up old boots, anyway, Cub.” The night breeze lifted the layers of her hair as she spun on her heel and marched down the side steps of the brick porch. “It’s just too ridiculous. Why don’t I walk you to your truck and we can set a better time to talk?”

      He did not follow her lead.

      Her neck cramped as she twisted her head to cast a frosty look over her shoulder. “You did drive out in a truck, didn’t you? I don’t recall seeing a twin suspension, four-hoof-drive bull parked out—”

      “The only bull around here, Alyssa, darlin’, is what’s pouring out of those pretty little lips of yours.” He planted his big boots at the top of the stairs and folded his arms over the fresh cotton of his shirt.

      “Me?” She cursed the squeak of surprise in her forced response but thanked her lucky stars that was all that her voice betrayed.

      One more long look at Cub, from the set of his custom-made hat down the length of his bull rider’s body, filled her with far more than astonishment. “I don’t know whether to be flattered that you think I’m suddenly so sly that I’d dare to match wits with an old bull artist like yourself or just angry at the fact that you won’t respect my wishes and let me walk you—”

      “I ain’t a dog that needs walking anywhere, Alyssa.” Cub’s shirt rustled as he shifted his expansive shoulders.

      Jaycie’s laughter drifted above the clatter of lawn chairs and the murmuring crowd.

      Alyssa faced Cub, taking a step backward in hopes of coaxing him to follow.

      “What I think,” she said, taking yet another small step, “is that this is neither the time nor place for us to talk.”

      His lips twitched but he said nothing.

      “Let’s get this little one to bed, Ma,” Alyssa heard Yip tell her mother, Dolly.

      Drastic situations called for drastic measures, she thought. If she truly was a new woman, strong enough to stand on her own without Cub Goodacre, then she surely could be strong enough to stand up to him. “I’m not trying to walk you like a dog, Cub, but if you don’t stop being so stubborn about leaving, I may just grab you by your collar and run you off my ranch.”

      The thin scar along his deeply tanned jaw and neck shown pinkish red in the moonlight as he tipped his head to one side. He didn’t smile, but amusement tinged his tone when he ran one finger along the side of his thick neck and said in a gruff whisper, “Is that so?”

      Despite her anxiety, she couldn’t help noticing how his dark skin contrasted against the crisp whiteness of his stiff collar. Or how his sandpaper-and-velvet voice massaged her prickling nerves like warm fingertips over aching muscles.

      “That’s so.” The answer lacked the conviction she’d hoped for but it got her message across. She wasn’t the guileless child he’d once known. She was the woman in charge.

      Just over Cub’s