Free Cowgirl Come Home by Debra Salonen - Big Sky Mavericks 03 - Cowgirl Come Home Page B

Marietta was by getting her invested in the town, its hopes and dreams and by building a foundation for her new business.
    Bailey didn’t know it yet, but Louise had no intention of letting her daughter return to California. Ever. She needed Bailey here to watch over Oscar if this lump of hers turned out to be something serious.
    And she’d find out soon just how serious a health problem it posed. Now that Bailey was home, Louise could make the call she’d been putting off…as soon as she found a way of breaking the news to Oscar.

Chapter 6
    P aul had his index finger on the doorbell but changed his mind at the last minute.
    He hadn’t seen or talked to Bailey in three days.
    The first day felt right…natural. Like she probably needed some time to adjust and help her father get settled in his new reality. Just because he knew what he wanted didn’t mean she was anywhere near the same page, let alone on it.
    The second, he found himself thinking about her often…every five minutes or so. But he told himself not to push it. She was still healing, both physically and emotionally. Only a complete moron would show up with flowers and ask her to dinner.
    Besides, he didn’t give his secretary flowers often enough. She was thrilled…if a little suspicious of some new work he might have in mind for her to do.
    But Day Three arrived and nothing from Bailey. Not even a text. So, when the perfect excuse to call her fell into his lap—or kicked down a stall, as luck would have it—he decided to act.
    He listened for any kind of movement—or OC’s bellowing voice, but the Jenkins’s house felt too quiet to disturb. OC was either napping or not there.
    On a hunch, he dashed down the steps and walked to the window he knew to be the guest bedroom. He’d been inside the house when Louise hired him to build the ramp. For a brief moment, she’d considered moving OC to the front bedroom to put him closer to the kitchen. Paul had talked her out of it.
    “I guarantee he’ll be more comfortable in his own bedroom. When my grandpa got sick, Mom tried moving him to our house. Between depression and Gramp’s stubbornness, the man nearly wasted away before she took him back home.”
    From what Bailey told him, Louise had taken his advice.
    With hands bracketing his eyes, he pressed his face to the screen and peered inside.
    Sure enough, Bailey was stretched out on the bed, but she wasn’t practicing for the role of Sleeping Beauty. She’d rigged a lighted magnifying glass to the sort of table Jen had used to deliver breakfast in bed—back when she’d aspired to be homemaker of the decade.
    Clear plastic tubs filled with beads outlined the work surface. Bailey appeared to be wrapping a larger bead in fine silver wire.
    He held his breath a moment, caught by the way she lifted her chin to get her focus, the tip of her tongue barely poking between her lips. His male anatomy reacted as if he were seventeen again.
    “Cripes,” he muttered.
    Bailey looked straight at him. She froze as if he’d caught her doing something wrong then let out a sigh.
    “A peeping Paul,” she said, shaking her head. “Do you do windows or should I call 911?”
    Her hair was piled in a clip on top of her head. Escaped tendrils of light brown framed her face. No make-up today. Not even lipstick. But she looked as beautiful as the day she was crowned Fair Queen.
    He tugged on the inseam of his jeans to adjust for his sex-deprived body then stepped sideways where the window was open. “I tried calling. Twice.”
    She reached across the pillow to the bedside table and picked up her hot pink phone.
    “Dead,” she muttered. “I’ve got to change my service provider. It’s always roaming here. Sucks down my battery like that.” She snapped her fingers then moved her tray to a flat spot on the bed.
    “You could have called the house,” she said, reaching for the charger cord.
    “I didn’t know if OC was picking up or not.”
    She plugged in the