The Rancher's Surprise Baby

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“We better get out of here while the getting’s good.”

He didn’t take her hand, and she had a ridiculously hard time not reaching for his. That was it—she needed to go home and get a good night’s sleep. Maybe she’d wake up and not feel on the edge of throwing caution to whatever wind happened to blow by.

They stayed quiet as they walked back to where he’d parked his truck. She opened her door and hopped in before he could open it for her. Best to leave her sudden attraction to Ben back there in their dark hiding place. If he wasn’t interested, she sure didn’t want to make a complete fool of herself. Not in a town the size of Blue Falls, anyway. Somehow someone would be able to read the truth on her face and she’d never hear the end of it. Worse, town matchmaker Verona Charles would move the potential pairing to the top of her matchmaking list regardless of Mandy’s or Ben’s feelings about getting together.

When the quiet stretched too long for her comfort, she said, “Well, I think the streamer antics have finally worn me out. I’ll probably conk out before my head hits the pillow.”

“Looking forward to some sleep myself.” He didn’t even glance toward her and sounded more distant than he had a few minutes before.

Maybe he was simply as tired as she was, but it was also possible that he was concerned she’d felt more in that up-close-and-personal moment than he had and perhaps expected something from him. She didn’t force any further conversation, instead leaning her head back against the seat and staring out the window. Before the lights of Blue Falls even faded into the darkness of ranch country, she felt herself drifting and her eyelids drooping.

* * *

MANDY JERKED AWAKE when something shook her. Had she been having a bad dream? About to fall out of bed? Movement out of the corner of her eye startled her so much that she jumped and in the process banged her elbow.

“Ow!” She rubbed the offended body part as the truth settled in her mind. “Oh, jeez, I fell asleep?”

“Vandalism is tiring.” Ben smiled a little, relieving the awkwardness that had settled between them as they’d left town.

“Yep. That excursion will probably last me another decade. Thanks for taking part in my temporary insanity.”

“I’m blaming the pigeon.”

She laughed. “That excuse expires at midnight.”

“I’m going to expire before then.”

“Me, too,” she said as she clasped the door handle. “Good night, Ben.”

“Wait.”

Her heart leaped, but then she saw him reaching for the rifle.

“I’ll walk you to the door.”

That sounded very chivalrous. Part of her wished it had romantic overtones, but she’d picked up enough of who Ben was in the last several hours to know it was instead his need to make sure she was safe before he left. Of course, that was nice in and of itself. She needed to focus on that and not on the part of her that was disappointed.

They walked side by side up to the porch. When she passed her frog statue, she thought about how he wasn’t who she wanted to kiss tonight. Just a few more minutes and she’d be safely inside her house, away from her sudden abandonment of good sense. One didn’t end the day by kissing the person who wrecked your car earlier in the day, especially when you’d known that person forever and would likely know them the rest of forever.

“You know how to use this?” he asked.

She eyed the rifle. “Only in the vaguest of terms.”

Somehow she managed to pay attention to the instructions, enough that she was confident she wouldn’t, in fact, shoot off her foot. That had to be an A plus for effort, considering how much her senses were demanding she ignore his actual words and instead focus on the warmth coming off his body, his undeniably male scent, the deep rumble of his voice, the memory of how it had felt to be pressed close to him with his strong arms around her.

“Got it,” she said too suddenly, judging by the startled look on Ben’s face. “Sorry, but Cinderella is about to turn back into a pumpkin.”

“I know I’m a guy, but I’m pretty sure Cinderella wasn’t the one who turned into a pumpkin.”

“Whatever—it sounded better than ‘poorly dressed, mistreated orphan girl.’”

Ben’s amused smile caused a fluttery feeling inside her, as if she’d swallowed a migration of butterflies who’d taken up square dancing.

“I’ll see you in the morning,” he said.

“Yep.”

Yep? Really? She supposed that was better than the other thought that had been near the tip of her tongue—that he might as well stay over since it was only a few hours before he had to be back here. Instead, she gave him a nod and stepped inside the house. She resisted the urge to bang her head against the wall, instead storing the gun safely in the corner.

She finally let out a long breath and sank onto the couch when she heard Ben start his truck. As the sound of the engine retreated into the night, an aloneness she’d never felt since moving to her own piece of land descended. The night surrounding her tiny house seemed darker, quieter, more filled with potential danger.

How could she feel so different from when she’d gotten up that morning? She was the same person with the same job, the same home. And yet as she sat there, there was no denying that something had changed within her sometime since she’d looked up at the sound of her car being crunched.

And she wasn’t sure what she was going to do about it.

* * *

WHEN BEN REACHED the porch of his family’s home, his sisters were sitting in two of the rocking chairs in the dark.

“Thought maybe the mountain lion had eaten you,” Sloane said.

He leaned against one of the porch supports. “Glad to see you were so concerned you decided to lounge out here with a glass of lemonade.”

“What? I’ve got two other brothers.”

“Sloane!” Angel said and kicked at her older sister’s foot.

“What? He knows I’m just giving him a hard time.” Sloane looked over at him. “Seriously, though, did you find the mountain lion? I’m not about to bring any more kids out here to camp in tents if it’s still running around.”

“I didn’t see him, but there were tracks. He’s not a small animal.”

“Did you follow the tracks in the dark?”

He shook his head.

“Then where have you been all this time?” The teasing crept back into Sloane’s voice.

He considered brushing off her question, but that would just make her more persistent, like a dang mosquito buzzing around his ear, determined to draw blood. Better to tell her the truth. Well, partial truth. He wasn’t about to tell anyone about his unexpected reaction to Mandy, how he’d dang near kissed her as they’d hidden from Greg. She’d felt so good in his arms. Warm, soft, full of a zest for life.

“You remember that time Greg got me in trouble in high school?”

“How could I forget? Those pictures were epic. I thought Mr. Kushner was going to pop a vein.”

“Mandy may have given me a way to finally get some payback.”

“Okay, now I’m intrigued,” Sloane said.

He told them about the wrongfully delivered pink streamers and how Mandy had suggested they wrap Greg’s truck in them and how he, in an evident moment of insanity, went along with it. He mentioned how they’d almost been caught but skipped right over how he’d held Mandy in the dark, feeling her soft curves and her chest rising and falling against his, how he’d experienced the almost irresistible urge to drop his mouth to hers.

“I’d give good money to have seen Greg’s face when he saw that truck,” Sloane said.

“Heck, I’d settle just for seeing the truck.” Angel laughed.

Ben pulled out his phone and scrolled to the photo Mandy had sent him then extended the phone to Angel.

“Oh, my, that’s awesome,” she said before handing the phone to Sloane.

Sloane snorted. “I cannot wait to tease Greg about this.”

“Don’t tell him who did it.”

“I won’t, but probably half the town knows about this by now. People are probably hopping in their cars to cruise by to see it.”

“He may have it all off by now.”

“Trust me, a fair number of people would have gone to gawk before he managed to remove all that. You and Mandy did an excellent job.” She shook her head then looked up at him. “One thing I don’t understand, though. How did that prank on Mr. Kushner even come up in conversation?”

He shrugged as he took his phone back. “Don’t remember how we got on that topic.”

“Nice try but you’re lying.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Yep, you are, and I’m going to figure out what you’re hiding.”

“You live to annoy people, don’t you?”

“Side benefit of being part of a big family.”

He shook his head in annoyance. “Good night, Angel.”

Sloane just laughed as he headed inside. He wished he’d gone straight in when he arrived instead of confessing what he’d been out doing. This day just needed to end before the house caved in on him.

* * *

MANDY DRANK THE last bit of coffee in her cup as she stared out the window over her sink, which gave her a good view of the driveway. She wasn’t normally an anxious person, but waiting for Ben to arrive had her fidgety. She’d only been able to eat a piece of toast. There was probably a trip to Mehlerhaus Bakery in her future about midmorning.

She recognized how crazy it was to have a fear of morning-after awkwardness when it really wasn’t a morning after. There’d been no sex. Not even any nakedness.

No! She did not need to think about Ben and being naked. Not when he would be arriving any minute.

It had taken her forever to fall asleep the night before, but she’d had the hope that she’d wake up and feel perfectly normal this morning. That all the unexpected attraction to Ben had simply been an odd side effect of the crazy day before she’d had. Ha! The attraction had followed her into sleep, where she’d had dreams about things that could have happened in that darkened corner next to Greg’s shop if he hadn’t come close to discovering her and Ben.

Mandy’s face flushed and she splashed it with water for the umpteenth time that morning. Good thing she was a minimalist when it came to makeup—it only took her about thirty seconds to reapply it.

The sound of Ben’s truck sent her heart into overdrive. That was it. She would call Greg when she got to work and tell him she needed her repaired car, like, yesterday.

She dumped the last dribbles of coffee into the sink, rinsed the cup and placed it on the counter. After a deep, calming breath, she grabbed her purse and headed outside. She didn’t give him time to get out of his truck, stepping up to the passenger door as soon as he came to a stop.

“Good morning,” she said with perhaps too much enthusiasm as she pulled herself up into the truck.

Ben looked across the cab at her, the area between his brows furrowed. “You always this peppy in the morning? If so, I’m going to have to rethink my offer to drive you to work.”

“Grumpus.”

He just growled at her and proceeded to back out of the driveway.

“I appreciate you taking me to work. You won’t have to again. I’m calling Greg today to tell him I really need my car back.”

“I don’t mind,” Ben said as he pulled out onto the road. “I just didn’t sleep well.”

A pang of guilt hit her. “I’m sorry I dragged you out last night.”

“No need to apologize. It was actually the best part of my day.”

The guilt in her middle got shoved aside by a zing of excitement. Acting normal would be so much easier if he didn’t say things like that, even if he didn’t mean it in the way she’d like him to.

“Admittedly, it only had to clear a really low bar,” she said.

“True. Still, I wish I could have been a fly on the wall—or in the tree, I guess—while he was removing all those streamers.”

Mandy smiled at that image in her mind. “Heaven help us if he finds out we did it.”

She fidgeted when the conversation died. Normally, she didn’t have trouble chatting away with people whether they were friends, casual acquaintances or complete strangers. But the buzzy feeling she’d gotten around Ben since the previous day had her second-guessing everything she might say. The fact that it was still hanging around this morning after a night of sleep and several hours away from him had her feeling equal parts antsy, thrilled and confused. How could you go basically your whole life knowing someone without feeling more than a passing knowledge that he was good-looking and then one day, whammo, your heart rate refused to behave itself around him?