Page 46 of The Cowboy's Christmas Baby
Not something. Someone. He would have loved to invite Tate along, too, since this was her idea, not his, but she’d wanted to spend Christmas with Ford. He couldn’t say how Ford might want to spend Christmas, but it was safe to assume that whatever his preference, Tate played a big part. Ford had made it clear the night they’d had dinner together that he’d hand Miles his ass if he ever hurt her.
They managed to fit everything in his parents’ SUV. After that, it was a twenty-minute drive to their house. They had an hour to get settled before heading to his sister’s house for the traditional December twenty-third dinner. His mom always hosted Christmas Eve.
Anna and Neil lived in a Spanish-Colonial home with terra-cotta clay tiles on the flat roof and thick, white stucco walls. Carved wooden floors, high wooden beams, and small windows with sturdy wooden shutters completed the theme of a late nineteenth-century house built under a Mexican influence. Spanish was the family’s second language, and as familiar as English to him to the point where he often couldn’t say what people were speaking without stopping to think.
His arrival was usually greeted with excitement. Not today.
Anna flew past him to snatch Iris from her car seat before anyone else had a chance, as if she’d been lying in wait. Sydney was right behind her, proving women really did have some sort of built-in baby radar from birth.
Neil, Anna’s husband, hung back, knowing not to get in his wife’s way when there was a baby involved. Pax stood beside him, clinging to his leg, greeting the entire scene and everyone in it with a three-year-old’s heightened suspicion. His expression said he didn’t care for whatever was going down, and neither did he approve of having his mother’s attention hijacked by someone smaller and possibly cuter than him. His eyes shifted to Miles’s face and his grip on his dad’s leg tightened.
Miles, however, now knew what to expect. Rather than swoop in on Pax the way he normally would, he ignored him and spoke to Neil. “Merry Christmas.”
“Thanks. It’s going to be an interesting one.” Neil gestured toward the car where his wife, daughter, and mother-in-law were wrestling each other for possession of Iris, who might require some sort of crisis intervention before the evening was over. “You really outdid yourself with the gift-giving this year.”
“Wait until you see what’s under the tree for the kids Christmas morning.”
“If it’s a horse, you’re a dead man.”
Miles laughed.
His dad joined them on the steps while the men waited to find out who was the winner in the baby tug-of-war sweepstakes. Pax, by now, had grown tired of being ignored. He patted Miles’s knee. Miles crouched on his heels so that he was at his young nephew’s eye level.
“I have a pet gecko. His name is Larry,” Pax said. He studied Miles’s scarred cheek, then reached out to touch it. “He feels like you do.”
“Is that a fact?” Miles said.Yep, still ninety-five percent pretty.And the last five percent was a one-hundred-percent crowd pleaser for the right audience. “Why don’t you show him to me so I can see for myself?”
Pax, happy to be the center of an adult’s attention, took his hand and dragged him off to the family room, where Larry had the run of a terrarium that the American Museum of Natural History would envy.
Once Sydney’s fascination with Iris faded enough for Anna not to fear for the baby’s safety, and they’d finished a dinner of tapas, lentil soup, roast pork, and potatoes, they shared a dessert of fruit and sugared nuts in the living room, where Sydney and Pax got to open their pre-Christmas presents from Miles. He’d picked up candy from the local sweet shop in Grand, as well as two handmade toys. Pax got a wooden agricultural truck with enough intricate moving parts to create a serious choking hazard. Sydney’s anatomically correct baby boy doll sported real human hair, a lifelike silicone head and body, and was dressed in an outfit from Cloda Quinn’s store.
“That doll’s creepy,” Neil said, sipping one of the craft beer Miles had brought him from Hannah’s taproom. “If you left it in a hot car, someone would either smash your window in or call the cops on you.”
“You’re welcome,” Miles said.
He helped Anna and Neil carry empty plates to the kitchen while the grandparents kept the children entertained.
Anna was three years older than him and had been on the brink of exploding with questions for hours. She loved to give unsolicited advice—a trait she’d inherited from their father. Her ability to get straight to the point came from their mom.
“What do you know about Iris’s mother?” she asked, stacking plates next to the dishwasher.
Not enough for this conversation.
“She’s Texan.” He was pretty sure about that. “And she’s not coming back.” Ryan’s sources seemed confident enough to make him sure on that, too. The bloodwork might take another few weeks because of the holidays, but he didn’t need it. “I met her in a bar. We spent one unmemorable night together.”
“Fantastic.” Anna let her tone and the roll of her eyes speak her opinion for her. “Why are the news outlets reporting that some bull rider’s sister—Tate something-or-other—is Iris’s mother?”
Miles didn’t make the mistake of calling Tate the babysitter again. He didn’t need another schooling on that from his dad. Besides, it wasn’t true. He missed her. He wished she was here. It didn’t feel like Christmas without her.
Coming to Texas had been a mistake.
“Wishful thinking,” he replied, in response to the question. On everyone’s part, including his. “Tate’s been more of a mother to Iris than Tami”—one m and an i—“ever wanted to be.” Iris was nothing more than a meal ticket to her. He couldn’t forget how she’d walked out of his house, leaving an eight-month-old baby with a man she didn’t know a whole lot about, without a backward glance or show of regret.
Anna would not let it go. “Tate’s been a mother to Iris. What is she to you?”
Miles looked to Neil for assistance.Hey, man. She’s your wife. Help a guy out.
Neil shrugged, shut the dishwasher door, and backed slowly out of the kitchen as if they’d been confronted by an irate mother bear that showed signs of attacking.She’s your sister, pal. Leave me out of this. You’re on your own.
