Page 36 of A Baby for the Billionaire Cowboy

She smiled up at him. “Thank you. If I did decide to leave, I’d probably have to sneak out in the middle of the night in order to get Avery away from your mama and Rhonda and their friends.”

“Please don’t do that.” He forced himself to laugh. “They’d only hunt you down and drag you back.”

“You’re probably right.” The dimple showed. “I guess I’m stuck here, and you’re stuck with me.”

Avery seemed to be sleeping deeply now, so Xander eased himself down to the couch. He leaned back and stretched out his legs. Something about holding a sleeping baby made him feel relaxed on a bone deep level. His eyes closed halfway, and he smiled at Daisy.

She put a hand to her chest and blinked quickly.

“What’s wrong?”

She shook her head. “Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Anyway... Let’s stop talking about me. Have you had any more thoughts on what you want to do with your life now that you can do anything?”

“I’ve been trying to think on it, but I have everything I want here at the ranch. The money is nice. It makes things easier. But I can’t think of anything big I want to do with it. I’m a simple man, I guess.”

“Hm. I’m not so sure about that.”

What did that mean? Xander wasn’t always good at figuring out other people, but as far as he was concerned, he was pretty straightforward. He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear otherwise.

Calico yawned and stretched. The cat rubbed her head against the baby’s side and settled down on Xander’s lap, purring. See, what more could a man want than this? A sweet woman, a sleeping baby, a purring cat. A couple of dogs waiting outside, and horses if he felt like riding.

“It’s been nice to have the cleaning people come every week,” he said, “and Bernajean cooking for TC’s crew if we don’t want to cook. That’s made Mama’s life a lot easier, and I got out of some chores too.”

Daisy tipped her head slightly to one side and appeared to study Calico. “What about an animal rescue? That is, I know you already rescue animals. But you could do it officially. Open an animal rescue.”

“I don’t know. Last Stand already has an animal shelter, plus the wild animal rescue Hallie and Julie run. Mia runs a German shepherd dog rescue. Jorie and Luke do a catch and release program for feral cats and rehab injured wildlife. We have a lot of animal lovers around here.”

“I guess so, but that doesn’t stop people from dumping more on you, right? You could specialize in rabbits and other small pets. Or horses?”

Tension crawled up Xander’s spine into his shoulders. “Maybe. I’ll think about it.”

He’d helped out at the animal shelter one summer when he was twelve. He’d wound up crying himself to sleep sometimes. The shelter did the best they could, but he’d hated seeing the abused animals come in, or the ones that were dropped off because they were sick or injured and the owners couldn’t—or simply didn’t want to—pay the vet bills. It still made him feel queasy to remember all that. Plus, if he opened a shelter, he’d have to work with other people. They’d held a big fundraiser for the wild animal rescue a few months earlier, and the evening was torture. Maybe he wouldn’t have to do fundraising though, if the family fund paid for everything.

“I’ll think about it,” he promised. “It’s a good idea. I just don’t know if it’s right for me.”

“Okay. I just think—” She broke off and shook her head. “Sorry. I think you’d be good at it, but I guess that’s not the point, is it? You’re supposed to be thinking about what youwantto do, not what other people think you could do or should do.”

“Yeah.” His shoulders loosened a little. “I never realized it would be such a tough question, figuring out what you’d do if you didn’t have to worry about money. Not that I’m complaining about having options. It just sometimes seems like everyone else has an opinion about how they’d spend our money, and I’m still doing what I’ve always done, mostly. It makes me feel like I should have bigger dreams.”

Daisy winced. “I didn’t mean to make you feel like that. There’s nothing wrong with being happy with a simple life, if you really are happy.”

“I am, pretty much.” The other things he wanted were right here on this couch, yet completely out of his reach. That was almost funny, but he wasn’t laughing.

“I’ve been trying to figure out how I want to live my life. How I want to support myself and the baby.” She grinned. “What I want to be when I grow up, I guess.”

“Those are important questions.”

She nodded. “So I did some research. Articles on work-life balance and career ambition. Trying to get a handle on... I guess the philosophy of work.”

“Did you figure out anything?” If Daisy did decide to leave the ranch, then he could tell her how he felt. He’d offer her anything if it would get her and Avery to stay with him. But if she had dreams, he’d want her to follow them. It wasn’t right that part of him hoped she didn’t have big dreams.

“It gave me a lot to think about,” she said. “For example, one article talked about ambition. If you’re ambitious, that’s fine, and if you’re not, that’s fine too. The problem comes when you’re being pressured to be ambitious, but you’re really not, or if you have ambition but don’t want to work hard enough to achieve it.”

“Huh. So are you ambitious?”

“I want to be useful. I’m not sure that’s the same as ambitious. I feel like if you’re going to be ambitious, you ought to have a specific goal you want to reach.” She scooted closer on the couch and tucked the blanket back from Avery’s face. “Anyway, I certainly don’t want to work all the time now that I have a baby. I want to work hard but leave the work behind when I come home.”

“That makes sense.” Xander wouldn’t have thought of that, since working a ranch meant you never left the work behind. They’d have to be careful not to ask Daisy to do any work in the evenings or on the weekends.

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