Page 42 of Her Cowboy Baby Daddy
“Go figure,” she said lightly. “Storms. Locked sheds. Snakes. Cops. None of that bothered me. A popular kid? Froze me up.”
“Why?”
She considered. “I think,” she said slowly, “you have to experience shyness to understand, and I don’t think you will understand.”
He smiled at the windshield. “No. I can’t claim shyness as one of my attributes.”
“That was one reason I asked you to be... to donate.”
There. Charging at the issue head-on. If Spence was surprised, he didn’t show it, but she sensed that he was.
“There’s some research indicating that shyness might be genetic, and I thought I’d give my kid a fighting chance.”
“Where did you inherit your shyness from?”
“Well, not my mom, obviously. I think my dad was shy. He never went out much. Seemed to like staying on the ranch, minding his own business.” She smiled a little. “He was a really good dad.”
“I liked him,” Spence said. “I’ve never met your mom.”
Hayley rolled her eyes. “She’s... impressive. Looks ten years younger than she is, but it’s all genetics. She’s barely had any work done.”
“She grew up in Marietta?”
“Barely. She left at sixteen to try modeling. She ended up back in Montana at nineteen, working at a big resort in Big Sky. She met my dad there. He was a wrangler during the summers. My grandpa was running the family ranch, and Dad was... let’s see, how did he put it? He was discovering why he would be happy holed up on the Lone Tree for the rest of his life. And he was. After Mom, of course.”
Spence pulled to a stop in front of a gate with a sign that stated, “Private Property, Stay on Road.” The sign below it said, “Close Gate.”
So she did.
“We’re not staying on the road,” she said, pointing to a barely visible track that led over a hill. “Follow that.”
Spence touched his finger to his hat. “Yes, ma’am.”
Chapter Eight
As Spence followedHayley’s driving instructions, he thought about her and Bella Knight dealing with a blown-away tent and a storm in the middle of the night. To the casual, self-centered high school observer, the two girls could have been neatly pigeonholed into the book-smart, no-practical-skills niche. He’d discovered that wasn’t true in Hayley’s case; she’d used a rock to break the hasp of the equipment shed and free him. There’d been an account in the local paper’s News of Record about minor school vandalism, and he’d wondered at the time if anyone on the planet would have suspected Hayley Parker.
After the rescue, he’d started to look at her differently. The thing was, she hadn’t looked back, so he’d done what he thought was the gallant thing at the time and let her be, even though he’d been intrigued by the side of Hayley that she hid so well.
Come to find out, she hadn’t wanted to be left alone. Teen years sucked.
The tree that had fallen on the fence was a monster, crowned out at the top and probably four feet around. Some of the branches were red and showing signs of beetle infestation, so it might have been the old timer’s time to go. It would have been nice, though, if it had fallen the other direction, and if it hadn’t taken another younger tree down with it. Two trees. Messed-up fence. It was a good thing that Hayley wasn’t putting cattle in this section for a few weeks.
“We aren’t getting this fixed today.”
“I didn’t expect to.” Hayley lifted the chainsaw out of the truck bed.
“Are you good with that?” he asked as she put on hearing protection.
“I’ve had some experience.”
Another Hayley-ism that would probably startle their classmates.
“What?” she asked, and he realized he was staring.
“Just having a ‘book and its cover’ moment.”
She laughed and, for the first time since he’d arrived at the ranch, he felt the mood give a little. Good.
