Page 59 of Her Cowboy Baby Daddy
“Why couldn’t he come?” A question she wished she hadn’t asked.
“He’s going fishing.”
Hayley blinked at him.Fishing?
“I see.” Spence had every right to go fishing, but the lack of notice, combined with his insistence that he’d finish the corrals, made the timing seem suspect. It also made her gut twist. She didn’t want Spence to fall for her, but she didn’t want a life without him either. How unfair was that?
“He’s leaving this morning. Staying out a day or two. He said he’d finish the pipe corrals after he got back. He didn’t think you were in a big hurry.” Henry folded his hands over his chest and regarded her, as if trying to determine what Spence saw in her.
That was her imagination. Or guilty conscience.
“Is he going alone?”
“I guess so, because Reed is taking Lex back to Bozeman today and they said something about Spence hiking in.” His face brightened. “Yes. He’s probably alone. Cade didn’t go, and I saw Audrey and Daniel before I left.”
Everyone accounted for.
“I appreciate him sending you to take his place.”
“He said there was some fencing to be done? Posts to be replaced along a boundary fence?”
“Yes. Connor and Ash should be here shortly. My alfalfa is ahead of yours. They’re going to start swathing.”
“Don’t,” Henry said before leaning down to scratch Remy’s back. The pig lifted her snout and swayed with pleasure.
“Why?”
“We’re going to get squalls tonight or tomorrow.”
“But the weather—”
“Trust me,” he said softly before standing straight and patting the side of his hip. “Rheumatism doesn’t lie. I’ve lived with it long enough to read the signs.”
“I believe you.”
“A couple of days won’t hurt.”
Haley nodded. The hollow feeling that had started when Henry got out of his truck seemed to intensify with each passing second, even though this was how things probably needed to be.
So why was she having problems accepting it?
“I know I’m a poor second to Spence when it comes to manhandling stuff,” Henry said, “but I’m still pretty strong. I can do whatever needs done.”
“I have no doubt,” Hayley said.
“Fencing is kind of my thing,” Henry admitted with a half smile. “If I lined up the fences I’ve made or repaired over the years, well, they’d probably cross the country.”
“I’m glad you came,” Hayley said, as she made an effort to see things without shades of emotion. The problem that had kept her up for most of the night—how to work with a guy who’d confessed developing feelings for her—had been solved, thanks to Spence’s sudden yen for a fishing trip. He was either giving them the breathing room they needed, or he was upset enough at being shut down to not show up, despite saying he would.
Hailey went with the former, because she’d believed Spence when he’d said once he made a commitment, he kept it.
So why not believe that in the relationship sphere?
Because he’s starting to mean way too much to you.
Her stomach knotted. She knew how these things went—everything felt possible in the starry-eyed beginning, and then reality began to set it. Good intentions went by the wayside. She’d seen it, what... twice herself? Five times with her mom. Seven, if she counted the two guys that Reba hadn’t managed to marry before they broke up. And her dad had chosen to remain single rather than risk heartache again.
Yeah. Not going there.
