Page 41 of Her Cowboy Baby Daddy
“Agreed.”
Five minutes later, Hayley had opened and shut the last gate before they began traveling down a Forest Service logging road with led to the pasture where Hayley’s cattle would graze during the month of July.
“I never answered you about Lex’s party,” Hayley said after getting back into the truck. She still had almost half a donut left, but she closed the bag by rolling down the top. Enough. She wasn’t eating for two yet. “I’d like to go.”
Spence didn’t look at her, but the corner of his mouth turned up. “Good.”
He seemed satisfied and she figured it was because they were edging back to solid ground. She’d have to make sure she didn’t put them back on shaky ground until after she hired a permanent ranch hand, but she couldn’t think of anything she could do that would shake things up the way the sperm donor request had, so she could probably relax in that regard.
“I’m just going to say that I’m embarrassed about yesterday.” The candid statement made her feel better. Part of her initial work to overcome her shyness had been to articulate, even when it was difficult. Yesterday that strategy had done her no favors. Today she hoped it would. She would grab the proverbial bull by the horns.
“Don’t be.” He glanced her way, and his expression was surprisingly gentle. “From here on out, the situation is what we make it. Awkward, or congenial.”
Stop that, she growled at her hormones, who began perking up at the gentle look.You got your answer.
Not to the question we’re thinking about, her hormones whispered back.
Right.
Hayley let out a breath.
“You okay?” Spence asked.
“I was considering what you just said.” The situation was what they made of it. Spence was here, on the ranch, proving that he’d moved on. She would do the same. “I agree.”
Their gazes held before Spence turned his attention back to the road winding through the pines. “This road leads to a nice fishing lake. Minnow Lake. Have you ever been?”
“I’m not a fisherman, but yes, I’ve been to the lake. My friend Bella and I camped there once.”
“I’m guessing from your tone that it didn’t go well?” He had to admit to having a hard time picturing Bella Knight camping.
“It was like a cartoon,” she said with a laugh. “If it could go wrong, it did. No cell service, of course, so we couldn’t call anyone after the tent blew away.”
Spence shot her an impressed look. “You lost your tent?”
“We didn’t stake it down. We didn’t think we needed to. So the tent blew away when we got out to check the horses during the storm.” Now she gave him a look. “We rode in, packing our gear. Bella had never been horse camping, and I wanted to give her the full experience.”
“And you did.”
Hayley grinned at the memory. “Boy howdy,” she said softly. “The blowing tent spooked the horses, but they didn’t come untied, which was one of the only things that went right.”
“You can get hypothermia on a cold, wet night.”
“Which was why we headed home in the dark, leading the horses. We had rain ponchos. When we took them off after finally getting home well after midnight, they were steaming.”
“You guys were in high school,” he guessed.
“Yes. Junior year.”
“You went horse camping, lost a tent, walked miles through a storm at night to get home.”
“Yes.”
He frowned her way. “And then went to school and acted like, I don’t know, a couple of girls whose idea of roughing it was having to sit in a folding chair in the library instead of one of the comfy ones.”
“There was more to both of us than met the eye in high school.”
“I have firsthand knowledge of that. So here’s what I don’t get. You could take control of a situation, talk a cop out of a ticket, then drive hell-bent for election as soon as he was out of sight, but walked the halls of the school with your eyes cast down.”
