Page 14 of A Baby for the Billionaire Cowboy

Mallory frowned. “Other people would have?”

“My parents threw a fit. William called and texted dozens of times after I left. I finally blocked his number.” Daisy winced. “Then I muted my parents and brothers when they kept pestering me to reconsider.” It hurt that she wasn’t talking to her own mother during her pregnancy, but she hadn’t found another way to get them to stop. She’d already been scared and upset and queasy and exhausted from the pregnancy. Even now, she didn’t have enough energy to keep defending her decision over and over.

Maybe that’s why it felt so good to be with people who listened to her and thought she had the right to choose her own future.

Hallie gave Daisy’s shoulder a little rub. “That’s rough. I’m glad you had Rhonda, and I’m glad you found Last Stand. I came here to get away too.” She flashed a mischievous look at her friends. “Carly and Mallory couldn’t get away from here.”

“Hey, I got away,” Carly said. “Last Stand drew me back again. No regrets.”

“There’s nothing wrong with staying where you belong,” Mallory said. “You just have to figure out where that is.” She studied Daisy. “Do you think you found your place?”

Daisy realized she was rubbing her belly, which had become a habit when she was nervous. The baby kicked, and she smiled. “At least for now. I want to get through this pregnancy and figure out how to be a single mother. I like the work, but the most important thing is that I’m building job skills for the future. I don’t want to be dependent on any job again. My last boss was my... The father of my baby. That put me in an awkward situation.”

“For sure.” Carly wrinkled her nose. “In that case, I can see why you wouldn’t want to get involved with Xander, even if you might under normal circumstances.”

“And even if he was interested and not merely being nice,” Daisy said. “Besides, I don’t have the energy for a relationship, or the interest. I’m giving birth in a couple of months! That kind of takes priority.”

Although she’d had extremely high energy lately. And to be perfectly truthful, her libido had come roaring back along with the energy. Sex was one thing women typically didn’t have to avoid during pregnancy, but she and William hadn’t done it since she told him she was pregnant. She hadn’t thought much about what that meant, since she had so much else on her mind. She’d vaguely assumed it was a belated attempt to save something for the honeymoon, or perhaps a sign of respect for her pregnant body.

Now she had to wonder if Auntie Rhonda was right about William grooming her to be his perfect wife. Was that the only reason he’d been interested in having sex with her in the first place, to force her into marriage so he’d have a devoted servant for life? She winced at the thought. Maybe she wasn’t anything special, but neither was William. So there.

She looked at Carly. Daisy had been wanting to talk to her, and maybe now wasn’t the best time, but it wasn’t the worst. “You’re a lawyer, right? Can I talk to you sometime about parental rights?” Shoot, was that rude, asking a favor of someone whose time was worth a lot of money? “I mean, I can set up an appointment or whatever, or maybe you don’t take those kinds of cases but you can point me to someone who does...”

Carly’s gaze had sharpened. “Absolutely. No appointment needed and no charge. Are you thinking about trying to get child support?”

“The opposite.” Daisy had her hands around her stomach as if she could protect her child that way. “I want to make sure I’m the only one who has custody.”

“I see.” Carly grinned. “Then I hope the man tries to get custody, because I love a good fight. We’ll talk about it tomorrow. I’m sure we can work out something.”

Daisy shuddered with relief. Carly was sophisticated and worldly and tough, all the things Daisy wasn’t. She intimidated Daisy, but wasn’t that what you wanted in a lawyer?

She put on a cheerful smile. “Now can we please stop talking about my boring life and get busy with this wedding planning? If you like, I’ll take notes.”

She would be an excellent employee and an excellent friend, and maybe she’d find a permanent place in Last Stand. She liked her bosses and had a comfortable place to live, even if only one room of it was hers. She could build on this. She’d make a life for herself and her child.

So she couldn’t help noticing how cute Xander was. And she sometimes felt a tug deep inside—heart or libido, she wasn’t even certain—when she was around him. That was fine too. He probably didn’t even notice, given his focus on protecting her and the baby from any harm. She’d count her blessings and not hope for any more than she had right now.

Chapter Seven

Xander entered theoffice, grunted a greeting, and headed straight for the kitchenette. September and October were busy months on the ranch, what with checking the cattle to see which had been bred, selling some of them, and planting winter grazing crops. He and Josh had been spending most of their time in the fields for the last couple of weeks. Xander checked in with Daisy midmorning and late afternoon to see if she had any questions or needed help, but she was generally fine on her own or could get answers from Mama.

He’d never really thought about hiring someone to help with the ranch accounts, even after winning the lottery. He’d been doing them since he was fifteen. The work wasn’t hard, so why not keep doing it? But he had to admit, it was nice that things were getting done without him needing to do them. They’d caught up on the backlog from Mama’s vacation and were ahead on the winter work. Usually Xander got through September and early October working in the fields and then came back to tackle all the tasks waiting in the office. Now as soon as he dropped off notes, Daisy got them into the proper spreadsheet. He couldn’t imagine the office without her.

He poured himself a cup of coffee and leaned against the counter, rolling his shoulders to relieve the stiffness. His gaze lit on Daisy, as it so often did. Watching her body change with the pregnancy was fascinating. With the cattle, you didn’t know if one was pregnant without a preg check. You had to put on a long plastic glove, lube it up, and reach deep into the cow’s rear end to see if you could feel the baby in the womb below. He still got a thrill whenever he identified tiny hooves or a little head, but it was messy work. They’d bought an ultrasound wand with the lottery money, but you still had to insert that inside the cow to get a reading. Even with the long glove, you usually wound up with gunk on your clothes and definitely on your boots. He’d showered before coming to the office. He didn’t want to risk Daisy coming into contact with anything dirty while she was pregnant.

Horses might look extra-wide when pregnant. Sometimes with a cat you could feel the babies moving, when it was close to the birth. But most animals didn’t show pregnancy unless you were looking closely, and in many cases you couldn’t tell without an ultrasound. Daisy had only a single fetus, and it looked like she was trying to smuggle a pumpkin under her dress. One of the big ones from the county fair.

He figured he shouldn’t mention that to her. Pregnancy didn’t seem to be slowing her down much, but she had grumbled about her belly getting in the way and how much her back ached. Mama had been quietly buying Daisy new clothes to fit her changing form, a special cushion to add extra padding to her chair, and so forth. She claimed she got all the stuff from other women in town who didn’t need those things anymore, but Xander had seen the boxes come in from online orders.

Daisy pushed her chair back from her desk and stared into space. She had both hands on her belly.

Xander put down his coffee mug and strode toward her. “Is everything all right?”

She turned to him with a smile that made him feel like he’d been head butted by one of TC’s llamas. She really did glow.

“Everything’s great,” she said. “I’m just feeling the baby kicking. It never gets old. Well, I could do without his acrobatics in the middle of the night, but it’s so real now.” She blinked suddenly moist eyes. “I can’t tell you how grateful I am to be here, to be working here. I wasn’t sure at first, but I’m keeping this baby. I don’t know how I’d manage that if y’all hadn’t taken me in.”

“You work harder than any two other people, so I say we still got the best end of the deal.” He hated to think of her alone and broke, maybe giving up a baby she wanted because she was afraid she couldn’t support it. “You never thought about asking for child support though? I’m not saying you should, if you don’t want to, but if you wanted to, Carly would help you with the legal side of things. It’s only fair that the father should help pay for the baby.”

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