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Both her friends were pregnant, and both of them were more beautiful than ever.
Bex felt a pang of affection, tinged, alas, with mild envy.
Hadleigh was farther along than Melody, her baby bump more pronounced. She’d married first, and she and Tripp had been eager to start their family.
All systems go.
Melody, running a close second, was just starting to show, a bit rounder than usual, her loose shirt disguising her pregnancy. If you didn’t know her, you’d never guess, but they’d all been friends since they were six years old, so Bex was attuned to every change. She was living this with them, sharing the experience in a way, and she couldn’t have been more pleased by their obvious happiness.
They really did glow.
They knew Bex felt slightly left out—there wasn’t much Melody and Hadleigh didn’t know about her—and they not only understood, they were also convinced her turn at marital bliss and motherhood would come. Soon.
When Bex’s own hopes flagged, these two never failed to notice and offer encouragement. She was so lucky to have them in her life.
That choked her up for a moment, brought the sting of tears to her eyes. Romantic flings, career highs, fun times—all those things came and went, but friendships like theirs were as permanent as bedrock.
She paused, took a breath and squared her shoulders.
“I brought dessert,” she announced cheerfully. “Don’t kill me, but it’s those puff pastries from Madeline’s. You guys can’t drink wine or coffee, so you need some sort of vice.” She paused, chuckling. Some fitness guru she was, she thought wryly. “One pastry won’t hurt.” This was true enough, in her opinion. One pastry wouldn’t do any harm. The problem arose when the rate of consumption ratcheted up to three or four tasty treats—or ten. Feeling cocky, she added, “Considering that I just ran eighteen miles, I can afford a reasonable level of indulgence.”
Motormouth,her inner moderator gibed.
“Give me that bag.” Hadleigh grabbed for it as Bex came up the steps. “I’m having mine before lunch, so no lectures on nutrition, please. And if Tripp has the gall to say a word—he has the metabolism of a shark, the rat fink—I consider it your solemn duty as my friends to drop him in his tracks.” Paper rustled as she peered inside the bag. Sniffed appreciatively. “Oh, dear heaven,” she lamented happily, in a near moan, nudging Melody lightly with one elbow as she spoke, “it’s the ones with lemon whipped cream.”
“Yep,” Bex confirmed with a twinkle. Judging by the current reactions, if she hadn’t surrendered the bag willingly, one or both of these watermelon smugglers would have tackled her for it.
Melody, feigning greed, made a comical effort to snatch the fragrant sack from Hadleigh’s hands, and Hadleigh, in turn, pretended to dodge the move.
“Hey, share and share alike,” Melody said with a grin. “If you think you’re going to snarf up my share right along with your own, sister, think again.”
Hadleigh laughed, still employing diversion tactics, an awkward endeavor under the circumstances, and Bex wondered if the third pastry, intended to be hers, would survive this good-natured tussle.
Hadleigh correctly read Bex’s expression. Yes, she was fit and yes, she ran a fitness empire, but she loved Madeline’s lemon-cream dreams as much as anybody did. “You can drink wine,” Hadleigh continued, cheerfully accusatory. “We can’t. Coffee?” She waved one hand in a dismissive gesture while holding the pastry bag just out of Melody’s reach with the other. “Gone. A distant memory.”
Bex had to giggle at her friend’s histrionics.
Hadleigh took in her friend’s trim figure with a mock glower. “Laugh if you want, Becca Jean Stuart, but one of these days, you’ll be pregnant and craving all kinds of things you can’t have, and we’ll be the ones rubbing it in.”
“Yeah,” Melody agreed staunchly, making another grab for the bag.
For all the joking around, a whisper of sadness brushed Bex’s soul.
If Will, Hadleigh’s older brother and the love of Bex’s life, had made it home from Afghanistan, everything would be so different.
She’d loved Will Stevens so much.
Maybe the phrase, “better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all,” was poignant, but it really didn’t offer much comfort in reflective moments like this one.
Tough up, woman,Bex told herself. Then, after a beat or two, when she could trust her voice again, she went on. “Once you two get a handle on dessert, what’s on the menu for lunch?” she teased. “I heard a rumor that we were going to eat an actual meal, and I could use some sustenance here.”
Hadleigh closed the bakery bag and rolled it shut with a little sigh of resignation. “I made spinach lasagna,” she answered. “Garlic bread, too. The guys will be here soon, so maybe we ought to fill our plates before they get back with the boys.”
“Boys?” Bex asked cautiously. Guys usually meant Tripp and Spence. Boys implied someone else.
“Tate and his sons,” Hadleigh explained airily.
It figured, Bex thought, unsurprised. She was going to have to deal with Tate Calder twice in one day? Just one more indication that God had a sense of humor.
Cosmic complaints department? This is Bex Stuart and I—
Please hold for the next available operator. Your call is very important to us...
* * *
THERE SHE WAS.
Again.
Tate had spotted Becca right away, back at the park. With looks like hers, she would’ve been hard to miss. She was trim, compact, with the kind of curves that drew a man’s eye, even beneath baggy sweatpants and a faded T-shirt. And then there was all that silky hair, trying to fight its way out of a crooked ponytail.
At the time, he’d hesitated to say anything because he was rusty, to say the least, when it came to the whole man-woman interaction thing. Out of practice.
This particular woman stirred him, deep down, in ways he couldn’t quite explain, rational thinker that he was. She made him want to take chances again, live for himself as well as his children.
But what if he fell for Becca—Bex, as the others called her—and his young sons got their hopes up, let down their guard, started to believe they might have a mother again, only to see the whole thing crash and burn? Would there be survivors?
He had no choice but to be philosophical.
Like it or not—Tate both did and didn’t like it—he and Bex were face-to-face again.
The boys had both scrambled out of the truck the minute he pulled to a stop. He was grateful that they enjoyed visiting the ranch so much, and were distracted, as always, by the dogs and horses and all that space to run wild in. It meant the kids probably hadn’t noticed that their dad had been flash frozen before their very eyes.
Tate worked up a smile, acknowledging Tripp and Hadleigh and Melody and Spence’s existence with a slight wave of one hand as he approached them. Odd, how, just a moment before, he’d been so focused on Bex that she might’ve been standing all alone on the ranch house porch.
In fact, she might have been the only other human being on the planet.
Still, he was nothing if not a left-brained realist, and his attention had slowly widened, after that first weird instant, to include the others.
The cognitive dials in his head began to click, registering further details. Construction had started on the new house, for one thing.
Tripp and Spence looked like what they were—happily married men. Satisfied men, maybe even a little smug.
Their wives, he noted, were downright radiant, the way women tended to be when they were not only cherished by their husbands, but gloriously pregnant, too.
And all the time he was formulating these observations, his sons were tearing around the yard with the dogs, overjoyed, high on blue skies and green grass and every blessing in between.
Of course, part of this boyish exuberance was for his benefit; Ben and Adam had been actively engaged in a campaign for a furry friend of their own for quite a while now. Although Tate wasn’t averse to the idea—he’d always loved animals himself—they lived in a rented house, and the landlord didn’t allow pets. So for the time being, anyway, adopting a critter was out of the question.
In the meanwhile, Muggles and Ridley filled the canine-companion bill.
Tate shifted mental gears, centering himself in the now. It was a beautiful afternoon, Ben and Adam were healthy, balanced kids and they were having fun.
Plus, they had a decent meal to look forward to. Tate’s version of Saturday lunch was usually something along the lines of canned tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. He had the feeling that they’d get something a little more appealing from Hadleigh Galloway.
Inevitably, since Tate was flesh and blood, reasonably young and completely normal, his gaze strayed back to Bex. Ms. Stuart had looked two notches above terrific in her jogging clothes. Now, in a pair of well-cut jeans and a red sweater that showed off her feminine figure, she was downright distracting.
Just a few yards from the casual gathering on the porch, Tate almost froze again—so much for getting centered—but an amused, all-too-knowing glance from Tripp kept him moving forward.
“Hello again,” he heard himself say, his voice suddenly husky.
Damned if the Galloways and Hogans hadn’t evaporated once more, leaving him and Bex alone on the planet. He gravitated toward her, like a passing asteroid yanked into the orbit of some strange new sun, and then—then he literally collided with the woman, for God’s sake, right there at the top of the porch steps.
What the hell? he thought, but what he said was, “Sorry. I was thinking about the boys.”
Fool.
Flustered, Tate looked back over one shoulder, trying to lend some credence to his fib, and saw no sign of the kids or the dogs.
Bex pointed in the direction of the barn and said, “They went thataway.”
He gave a muffled laugh, realized he’d gripped Bex’s shoulders at some point, and that he was still holding her, as though he’d expected her to fall. He let go. “Thanks.”
After that brief expansion, the universe zoomed in again, with a swiftness that left Tate’s head spinning.
She smiled, which only increased the sensation, and her voice seemed far away. “Good luck catching up with them, though. All parties were moving fast. They could be in Canada by now.”
Tate struggled to regain his equilibrium. “That’s a definite possibility,” he agreed. “They’re both a little hyper.”
This was a routine, even mundane, conversation. So why did everything seem so awkward?
Bex appeared to be at ease, but that could’ve been an act, he supposed. The air around them practically pulsed with electricity, and if Tate knew one thing, it was that the invisible charge was flowing both ways. “Don’t worry about the kids,” she said lightly. “Mel and Hadleigh are both in mama-tiger mode, which means nothing bad would dare happen—not on their watch.”
Mel and Hadleigh? Oh. Yeah. He remembered who they were now. Two of the other people populating the earth, in addition to him and Bex and, somewhere in the immediate vicinity, his children.
Get a grip, Calder.
But a light breeze lifted Bex’s hair just then, and she had beautiful hair. It seemed to curl naturally as it fell past her shoulders, emphasizing her graceful neck.
She was right, of course. The boys were okay. The ranch was as safe as anyplace else, safer than many, and besides, the dogs would raise hell if they sensed danger.
“So, how was the run?” he asked.
He’d meant to sound simply polite, asking a casual question that didn’t reveal too much interest. The truth was, he wanted to know everything there was to know about Bex Stuart—which movies she liked, what kinds of books she read, the shape of her dreams, both waking and sleeping.
As she answered, something along the lines of, “Oh, it was fine,” he found himself wondering about her favorite colors, songs, scents, memories.
Was she a morning person or a night owl?
Did she talk in her sleep?
Despite all that, another part of Tate warned him to keep his distance, circumvent whatever emotional minefield might be lying in wait.
He was not, never had been, the impulsive type.
And yet...
And yet.
He sighed. Shook his head, hoping to break whatever spell he was under.
Trying to act like a grown man instead of a teenager on hormone overload.
How’s that workin’ for ya? he chided himself.
Not worth a damn, that was how.
Okay, yes, he reasoned doggedly, Bex was beyond hot, and it had been a while since—well, it had been a while. Still, the world was full of attractive, available females, and Mustang Creek, small as it was, had more than its share of them. He got lonely sometimes, and he’d planned on remarrying at some point, but he’d been in no particular rush.
After all, he was busy, raising two kids on his own, starting a business, not to mention building a house. In other words, life was already complicated enough without throwing a relationship into the mix. And he knew instinctively that, with Bex, there would be no half measures, no holding back, no taking things slowly.
And then there was the color of her eyes. Hard to describe, even if he’d had his wits about him, which he clearly didn’t.
Before now he would’ve said they were green, but in the slanting sunlight of early afternoon, they looked more gold. He noticed threads of gold in her hair, too, maybe artificial highlights, although he didn’t think so. There was a natural quality about her, a lack of artifice in both her manner andher appearance.
She was one of the only women he’d ever met that he would describe as striking. Hadleigh was very pretty, it went without saying, and Melody Hogan was truly beautiful. But Becca Stuart was more than pretty, more than beautiful.
He’d heard her story, or some of it, anyway. Tripp had told him about his best friend, Hadleigh’s older brother, Will. Bex had loved Will from the time she was young, and when he was killed in Afghanistan, she’d been understandably devastated. As far as Tripp knew, she’d been guarding her heart ever since.
Tate knew the feeling.
The best thing he could do now, he figured, was keep his mouth shut. Trouble was, he couldn’t seem to do that. “Rumor has it we’re going to have real food today,” he said, just to end the silence. “The boys won’t know how to act.”
“Yep. Hadleigh makes the world’s best spinach lasagna.” Bex’s lips turned up at the corners, as if she’d seen through his effort to lighten things up. He resisted the urge to kiss those lips—but just barely. She drew in a breath, blew it out audibly. “However,” she added, “you might be better off if you don’t mention the word spinach. I’m no parent, but kids are kids. If I were in your place, I’d just hand them a plate and stand back. Once they taste the stuff, they’ll dive in.”
Tate relaxed a little. “Good advice.”
His head was beginning to clear, but it wasn’t happening fast enough to suit him.
He was still bewitched, still awkward. If the two of them had been in kindergarten, he’d probably be shoving her off the playground swing or pulling her ponytail.
Moreover, he could see that she hadn’t been fooled by his effort at casual conversation; she knew he was off his game. But maybe she was off her own, just a little. Faint color had come into her face, and it wasn’t just because of the cool fall breeze.
Finally, Tate stepped aside. “I’d better round up the kids,” he said.
“I’m going back to town for more pastries,” she told him, dangling her keys.
That announcement startled him for some reason, and it must have shown in his face.
