Page 27 of The Cowboy's Christmas Baby
Raiden Strong had drifted up behind her, close enough to join the conversation without butting in. “The dress isn’t all that’s beautiful. Looking good, Tate. Real good.” He smiled at her in a way that seemed harmless enough, but Miles didn’t like.
He liked Tate’s response even less. “Thank you,” she said, a light, pretty pink flushing her cheeks.
Damn.Miles had wanted to be the one who paid her that compliment and put that smile on her lips.
“If you get Iris into her pajamas, I’ll come tuck her in,” he said to her, even though this was supposed to be her night off and she was a guest. Anything to get her out of Raiden’s reach. The other man was too smooth. Too successful. Too attractive to women. All the things Miles used to be, and still was—except the gap between him and the competition had closed.
If Tate objected, no one would know. “I’ll tuck her in, too.”
She moved off, carrying Iris, her progress slowed whenever someone stopped her to say hello. She’d grown up in Grand, after all. The town wasn’t big, and it stood to reason that everyone in it would know her.
“That girl has taken to childcaring like a horse to a bucket of oats,” Freda remarked to no one in particular. “Which isn’t a real surprise, even if she was wild growing up, all things considered. She mothered that brother of hers as if she were twenty years older than him, not five minutes.”
“Iris does seem to like her,” Miles said. He was dying to ask questions about Tate but knew better than that. “It’s hard to believe she was wild.” Which was a complete lie. He had no trouble at all believing Tate had been a handful to raise. He hoped Iris was, too.
“Oh, please.” Freda’s eye roll and the laughter of the people around her—Raiden included—said they either knew he was lying or thought he was stupid. “The only reason that girl didn’t ride bulls herself was because she’d do anything to please her brothers and they drew the line.”
Tate riding bulls… That didn’t tax his imagination at all. But if she’d given up on the idea because her brothers had protested, then she hadn’t wanted it badly enough. It did make him wonder, though. What did Tate want out of life that she’d be willing to fight for? Did she have any idea? Or was she figuring that out?
“Her parents had nothing to say?” Miles decided that question was safe.
Freda sniffed. “Beau and Leslie Shannahan didn’t care what those kids did. Still don’t. They sold their son’s truck and equipment, pocketed the life insurance policy payout, and used the money to move to Florida. You’d think they won the lottery, not lost a son.”
“Grief makes people do strange things,” someone said. “I’m not defending them. Just pointing out that they’ve had some hard knocks and aren’t all bad. Plus, it’s easy to tell other people what they should do with their money when you have lots of your own.”
And…
That was Miles’s cue to move on, because the conversation was about to get heated. Everyone—including Miles, who was the newcomer here—knew that Freda’s son Dan had inherited a sizeable chunk of money along with the ranch, and that he was generous with family.
He moved around the room, from one cluster of guests to another, working his way toward Ryan and Elizabeth’s private suite without being too obvious about it. He snagged a sprig of mistletoe from the door of Ryan’s office when no one was looking. Elizabeth had likely placed it there as her idea of a joke. It sure wasn’t because any of the ranch hands wanted to catch Ryan under it. Frigga’s decree or not, he wasn’t the kind of man who’d kiss and make peace for a day, with his wife the only possible exception. He dropped the mistletoe into his jacket pocket.
The lights were dimmed when he tiptoed into the O’Connells’ private living room where Tate was leaning over the playpen, tucking a blanket around Iris, who was already asleep. Miles never got tired of watching his daughter. He couldn’t believe he’d been a part of making something—someone—so amazing.
“Hi,” he said softly to Tate, even though from his brief experience, there was little chance of waking up Iris. He’d carry her to the trailer later, and come morning, she’d never know she’d been moved.
Tate straightened. She turned and smiled at him, and his heart did one-armed side pushups. The way she looked at him, as if she were happy to see him—and the way he was now, not as some bull rider she used to admire—pumped him up better than any winning ride ever had. She lit up the same way for Iris, and he imagined her brothers, too, and anyone important to her.
She didn’t light up this way for Raiden Strong. He would have noticed.
“Hi,” Tate whispered back. “She’s asleep.”
“I see that.”
He gazed down at his daughter. He had to make up his mind. He could pursue Tate. He felt confident she’d be receptive. But if he got involved with her, and she wasn’t ready for anything serious, where did that leave him? Because he was ready for more. He’d been feeling that way already, which explained why he’d been skittering around the decision to head to Texas for Christmas even before Iris’s arrival, which had altered the stakes. His decisions now affected her, too.
Tate tapped his hand, which squeezed the playpen’s rail in a white-knuckled death grip. “You seem pretty tense,” she said. “If you’re worried about leaving Iris alone in a strange place, I don’t mind staying with her while you go back to the party.”
“Or,” Miles countered, testing the waters, “I could take Iris home while you stay and enjoy yourself. You look beautiful and there’s no reason for that dress to go to waste.”
Here’s where most women would say,I wore the dress just for you.
Not Tate.
“I’m only here because you invited me. Nobody said anything about me having to enjoy myself, too.”
This was why he found her so entertaining. Even her flirting was honest. Piecing together what she was being honest about was the challenge.
Challenge accepted. “Have you ever considered not completing a whole thought out loud? Because that statement would have worked best if you’d stopped after, ‘I’m only here because you invited me.’”
