LITMIR.BIZ

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brown boots were expensive ostrich, and his green-and-white-striped shirt had a tailored look to it. Since she’d just written out the payroll, she knew exactly what the ranch was paying him for his services. It was a handsome amount, but not the sort that would support wearing a couple-hundred-dollar pair of boots in a cow pasture. The idea made her wonder if he’d come from a moneyed family. Yet if that were the case, he’d probably be working his own ranch instead of someone else’s, she decided.

      “If you’d like, we’ll drive over to Apache Wells, my grandfather’s ranch, some time soon, and I’ll introduce you,” she said after a moment. “Gramps always likes company, and I’ve not seen him in a while.”

      He glanced at her and she could see her invitation had surprised him. Frankly, she’d surprised herself. This past week, she’d done her best to keep the man pushed out of her thoughts. Yet each night when she’d climbed the stairs to her bedroom, she’d missed him at her side. Missed the warmth of his hands, the tender concern on his face. And later, in bed, she’d wondered what kind of lover he might be.

      “That’s sounds nice,” he said.

      For some reason the baby must have known her thoughts needed to be hauled back to order. He or she was doing flips and kicks, and Alexa unconsciously splayed her hand over the movement in her stomach.

      “You’ve been very busy this week,” she commented. “I’ve not seen you coming and going in the house.”

      He darted another glance at her, then frowned as he noticed her hand pressing against her abdomen. “What’s wrong? Are you hurting?”

      “No. Everything is fine. The little guy is just doing a tumbling act, that’s all.”

      His features relaxed. “Oh. So you know it’s a boy?”

      Alexa shook her head. “No. I’m old-fashioned. I want to learn the sex of the baby the natural way.”

      “Is that what you want? A boy?”

      Shrugging, she looked out the window. Whenever he talked to her about the baby, it made her sad. His interest seemed genuine, and she could only wonder why Barry couldn’t have been an honorable man, a father her child could have admired and looked up to. Instead, he’d been bent on acquiring power and money in ways that would no doubt eventually land him in deep trouble.

      God, she’d not really known the man at all. And yet all she had to do was look at Jonas and she instinctively knew he was a man who would never take his responsibilities lightly, that he would put others before himself. Or was she seeing only what she wanted to see? she thought doubtfully. How could she know such things about Jonas Redman? Was she fooling herself again? Still, she couldn’t deny a bond was forming between them.

      “I just want a healthy child,” she answered. “That’s all that matters.”

      “I suppose your doctor is in Santa Fe. Do you plan to go up there to deliver?”

      Alexa shook her head. “No. My doctor referred me to a good physician in Ruidoso. I wanted to be close to home when the baby is born.”

      Jonas nodded that he understood and then focused his attention on the two-lane highway winding through the pine-covered mountains. After several minutes passed in silence, Alexa was convinced his thoughts had moved on to other things, until suddenly he spoke again.

      “Alexa, I know this is none of my business, but I can’t help thinking about the baby’s father. Is he going to be around? I mean, when the baby is born?”

      A grimace tightened her features. “No. He’s been out of my life for—well, for several months now. He…It turned out he wasn’t ready for a wife and child. And it was easy to decide that I needed to move on.”

      “That’s too bad.”

      He sounded as though he truly was sorry that things hadn’t worked out for her, and Alexa was touched by his sincerity. Maybe since he’d gone through a divorce of his own, he understood how humiliating and crushing it was to discover that love wasn’t what you’d dreamed and hoped it would be.

      But she hadn’t really loved Barry. She’d pretended. She’d tried to convince herself that he made her heart beat fast, that he was the man she wanted to grow old with, share her dreams with. She’d believed living with a man that held a similar job to hers would make everything just perfect and happy. She’d been utterly wrong about that, about him, and so many other things.

      “Please don’t feel sorry for me, Jonas. I’m much better off without Barry in my life. He wasn’t good for me.”

      “If that’s the case, then why did you—”

      “Get involved with him?” Alexa finished for him. “That’s a good question. I thought he was a good man. But he turned out to be totally different than I’d first believed. Has that ever happened to you?”

      His expression grim, he stared straight ahead. “More times than you can imagine.”

      Ten minutes later they entered Ruidoso and, figuring Alexa had no interest in joining him at the feed store, Jonas offered to drop her off wherever she’d like.

      He left her at a small dress boutique on Main Street, then drove to Rogers Grain and Tack on the east end of town. As he maneuvered the truck through the traffic, he wondered what was wrong with him. He shouldn’t have asked Alexa about her ex-beau or whatever the hell the man had been to her. The guy was none of his business. Neither he nor Alexa had anything to do with Jonas’s reason for being in New Mexico. So why wasn’t he thinking about his job instead of about a pregnant ranching heiress?

      Because something about her reminded him of all the dreams and plans he’d once had for himself and Celia. Like the children they would have and making a little ranch into a fine place to raise them. Jonas had the little ranch now. But not the children or the wife. And he had no one to blame for that but himself, he thought grimly.

      Five minutes later, Jonas parked the truck in front of the feed store. As he stepped inside the store, a cowbell clanged above the door. To his immediate left, a middle-aged man with graying hair stood behind a long glass counter. Along the back wall, two cowboys were rifling through rows of hanging bits and spurs.

      “Afternoon,” the man behind the counter greeted. “Can I help you with something?”

      Nodding, Jonas explained why he was there, and the clerk motioned for him to step behind the counter and follow down a narrow hallway to the right.

      “The feed is in the back, in the grain room. You’re welcome to look all you want,” the clerk said as they passed through a wide wooden door. “Sales on the stuff are beginning to pick up. ‘Course, it always takes something new a while to catch hold. You know how some people are—-want to stick to tradition.”

      The grain room, as the clerk called it, was a huge, barnlike area with high ceilings and a wooden planked floor. Tons and tons of sacked grain, feed and seed were stacked to the rafters. Across the way, a pickup truck was backed up to a loading dock. A tall man with black hair and a handlebar mustache was standing to one side, while a worker loaded the truck with sacks of cooked oats, which were most commonly fed to racehorses.

      “Well, I manage the Chaparral for the Cantrell family,” Jonas explained to the clerk. “Quint’s considering changing the feeding program for the horses.”

      The clerk stopped in front of a particular pile of sacks and opened one that was already sitting on the floor. Reaching into the heavy paper sack, Jonas pulled out a handful of pellets and lifted them to his nose. They smelled fruity, and he figured the sweetness would please the horses.

      “Oh,” the clerk said in a friendly way, “you must be the new man Quint told me about. You come from Texas, he said.”

      “That’s right.” Jonas gestured toward the feed. “How much would a ton of this stuff cost?”

      “Don’t know. These days the cost fluctuates almost every day—what with the cost of fuel and all.

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