Page 17 of The Cowboy's Secret Babies

“Are you going to stand here and tell me you didn’t have a good time?” He could hear his voice drop. He could hear his own drawl. “Because that’s not how I remember it. Time after time after time, what I remember is you seeing stars.”

“Sure,” she agreed. He didn’t know when they’d come so close that they were standing just a whisper apart. “But so did you.”

That felt like another terrific kick to the midsection, and it left him winded.

It made the room seem to spin, and the last time he’d felt that way in her presence, well. That had led to a pair of twins.

The twins.That was what he needed to concentrate on.

He moved away, tossing his hat aside and running a hand through his hair.

“I don’t need to litigate a one-night stand,” he muttered.

“Maybe you should.”

“I’ll tell you what, Rosie,” he began.

“By all means,” she said in that snotty way of hers that he really should hate, and didn’t, “tell me.”

He couldn’t hate her, not even now, and that was concerning. He wasn’t happy with her, but that wasn’t the same thing. He didn’t knowthiswas. What he did know was that driving over here, he’d been a little too excited about the prospect of seeing her again, and he didn’t like to think what that might mean.

He focused on her. “You can bring out your big guns, scream yourself hoarse about the indignities you suffered that night. I support it. I came here to apologize for it. But how about we wait on that until we nail down a few other critical issues at hand.”

She didn’t like that. He thought there was little extra color in her cheeks as she folded her arms over her chest, but her voice was significantly less snotty when she spoke. “What do you want to nail down?”

“What do you think?” He frowned at her. “What’s going to happen here, Rosie? The secret’s out. Those are my kids.”

“What does that mean to you?” And she laughed a little bit as she asked that, but he thought that sounded more hysterical than anything else. “How are you going to have custody of them if you’re in a different city every weekend? How would that work? Are you going to drag them from rodeo to rodeo? Get a babysitter?”

“That’s how some folks do it.”

“You mean that’s how some families do it,” she corrected him. “But we’re not a family. So forgive me, but I’m not exactly in a hurry to hand my babies off to someone who, let’s be honest, I don’t know at all.”

It was his turn to not like the turn of the conversation. “You know me well enough.”

“I know stories about you from growing up. I know how you smile when you’re flirting. I know you get mean when things get intense.” Rosie lifted a shoulder, then dropped it. “So, you’re right. I do know you. That’s not exactly working in your favor when it comes to my babies.My babies,” she repeated, in case he didn’t get it. “I’m not denying that you’re their father, but they don’t know you.”

“Whose fault is that?”

“That doesn’t matter either.” She slashed a hand through the air when he started to argue that. “What matters—the only thing I can let matter now, in fact—is that. I didn’t mean for this to happen. Kind of like I’m betting you didn’t mean to get me pregnant in the first place. But here we are.”

“Don’t absolve yourself too quickly, darlin’,” Ryder suggested, and told himself the heat in him was temper. Not memories.

“Rule number one,” she shot back. “Don’t call medarlin’. You think I don’t know that’s the name you use when you can’t remember the name of the girl you’re with?”

“I always knew your name.”

“Right. That’s the hometown advantage, I guess?” She glared at him. “Don’t start mixing me up with someone else now, please.”

“That’s unlikely, Rosie,” he said, emphasizing her name. “Because as far as I know, you’re the only baby mama I have.”

“Rule number two,” she continued, her voice stern. “The boys come first. That’s the beginning and the end of everything. I mean it,” she added, because he must have made some noise or something in response.

“You’re laying down rules and I don’t know anything about my own children,” he said, after allowing himself a beat or two to simmer down a little. To remember that passion was what had caused this in the first place, so no need to let temper do the same. “You’re going to have to give it a little space, Rosie. And thank you for thinking I’m some kind of monster. I’m not going to rip them away from you.” He held her gaze. “I would never do that.”

He remembered being a little kid when his mother died. When he and his brother made it all worse, though that was a different core memory that didn’t need excavating just now. And he remembered when Zeke had first told him about Belinda, and how they’d all been afraid—even Harlan, who in those days had liked to act as if he was never afraid of anything—that she would be the kind of wicked stepmother they’d heard about in books and movies.

But she’d been Belinda instead. She was no replacement for Ryder’s mother and had never tried to be. What she was, in every conceivable way, was a beautiful addition.

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