Page 54 of Her Cowboy Baby Daddy
A cheer went up from her team and a big hand appeared to pull her to her feet.
“We win.” Spence barely let her feet touch the ground before swinging her in a circle. He laughed, then gave her a hard kiss on the lips that she was too startled to return, but inside, she melted into a gooey puddle. She put a hand on Spence’s cheek, staring into his eyes as he smiled down at her, mesmerized by the intensity of his expression.
Then they were surrounded by the rest of their team, whooping and hugging and backslapping. Hayley hugged Lex and Audrey, but Jay held back after giving Spence a quick look.
Daniel ambled up, looking like a man with a back issue who shouldn’t be playing softball, and congratulated the team.
“Looks like we’re doing dishes,” he said to his players before jerking his head in the direction of the kitchen. “Let’s get to it. The sooner we do, the sooner the marshmallows will be roasted.”
Trenna gave Hayley a broad smile. She’d been a few years ahead of Hayley in school, and Hayley didn’t know her well, but she liked her.
“Nice. Work.” Trenna held up a fist, knuckles pointed toward Hayley, who tapped it with her own fist.
Soon everyone, the winning team and the losing, were covering dishes, shifting leftovers and cleaning the table. Cade managed to fill a plate before the food disappeared. After he finished eating, he and Reed started a fire in the old stone ring at the far end of the backyard, and Spence took advantage of the activity to pull Hayley aside.
“Nice hit,” he said.
Hayley gave him a look. He was so gorgeous, and she loved the way he kissed. And she couldn’t be doing that. It wasn’t part of the plan. In fact, it may well upset the plan. She was looking at a biologic time crunch and she needed to act while she could. If she allowed herself to slide down this slippery slope, then it might delay matters to a point that it was too late.
But what if he was the one?
What if he isn’t? Then you may well have wasted months you don’t have finding out.
Hayley felt the introversion coming on, as it still did in times of stress, and tipped up her chin. She wasn’t giving in to it. Wasn’t reverting.
“Thanks,” she said. “I had a good coach, you know.”
Spence’s smile started to do things to her that she was afraid couldn’t be undone if she didn’t take some immediate steps. She reached up to touch his face, smiling with an edge of sadness.
His eyebrows came together, and she quickly adjusted her expression. The man could read her, and she didn’t need that. What she did need was to get things back on track.
There were lines, and then there were lines. Kissing Spence was fine. Falling for him was not.
Hayley needed to get out of there before she crossed the wrong line.
*
Hayley took offbefore the marshmallow-roasting fire burned down to coals, telling the group that she had a few things to get done for the next day’s Farmer’s Market and slipping away before Spence had a chance to talk to her.
Spence sharpened a few willow sticks for the roast and told himself to let her go, because it was actually kind of amazing that she’d come in the first place, then found Lex and wished her happy birthday.
“I’m taking off for a bit,” he said. The party was over, except for the marshmallows. Her friends had headed back to Bozeman. Jay McClain had said his goodbyes and headed off to the Iron Mike’s, the salvage yard where he lived and worked, and Reed had taken Trenna back to her apartment in Marietta. That left Cade, the folks, and Lex, who could roast marshmallows without him.
“Going to find Hayley?”
He gave the girl a sharp look and almost made the mistake of asking why she thought that. She gave him a sidelong glance when he didn’t answer, looking so much like her dad that it was almost creepy, then said, “Sorry. None of my business.” Then she said, “Lissa and Avery”—who’d left half an hour before—“think you guys make a cute couple.”
“We’re not a couple,” he said.
“But you’d like to be.”
This time he bit. “What makes you think that?”
“Uncle Spence. I have eyes. You guys spend so much time trying not to look at each other that it was kind of, I don’t know, weird? And then there’s that lip-lock.”
“That was a victory kiss.”
She gave him anoh yeahlook. “Even without you kissing her, it’s obvious that you guys like each other.”
