Free Having the Rancher's Baby by Cathy McDavid

him too hard? “You okay?” she asked.
    â€œI’m sorry about the calf. I wanted to spare you. It was a pretty grisly sight.”
    He was right, but that hadn’t excused her emotional display in front of Cole and Josh—her stomach revolting, followed by a few moments of tears. This was hardly the first time she’d seen a deceased calf. They might think her too tenderhearted, or incapable of handling her job.
    At the corral, she and Cole stopped in front of the fence. The cow stood beneath the metal shade, staring into space and wearing—Violet was convinced—a forlorn expression on her pretty brown-and-white face. Some might accuse Violet of projecting her own feelings onto the cow. They wouldn’t be far off.
    â€œShe doesn’t appear to be sick,” Violet said.
    â€œNo,” Cole agreed. “Maybe there’s no explanation.”
    She’d heard that often enough from her own doctor when her babies hadn’t thrived. It didn’t help, then or now.
    â€œThank you.” She turned to Cole. “For thinking of me.”
    â€œI think of you a lot. And the baby.”
    Her curiosity got the best of her. “Do you?”
    â€œIn fact, I think about that night a lot.”
    As if it wasn’t hot enough outside already, her cheeks instantly heated beneath his intense scrutiny.
    â€œHmm. The sex.”
    â€œNot the sex.” He dipped his head. “Though it was good. Mighty good.”
    â€œCole, we can’t.” She moved away, putting some much needed distance between them.
    He stopped her with a gentle tug on her elbow. “What I think about is the talking. The holding. The sleeping in each other’s arms and waking up with you beside me. The smell of your hair and the softness of your skin.”
    She could feel her resistance slowly melting. He’d had that effect on her practically from the moment they’d met. It had required all her willpower to keep her intense attraction to him a secret those first few months.
    Then he’d appeared in the crowd one night at the Poco Dinero Bar. A night when her defenses had been particularly low after a call from her parents. He’d squeezed in next to her at the booth, then asked her to dance. He’d made her laugh. Forget her troubles. Kissed her senseless in the parking lot. The attraction she’d fiercely kept at bay had burst free.
    Today, like then, it hovered precariously close to the surface, barely contained. Cole was the temptation she craved and couldn’t resist, made all the more difficult by his fingertips caressing her arm.
    â€œThis can’t happen,” she insisted. “It won’t lead to anything good.”
    â€œWhat’s happening, Vi?” He inched closer. “Tell me.”
    â€œYou know.”
    â€œI do. I just want to hear you say it.”
    Her body yielded in response to his coaxing, and the desire to flee vanished. She could, quite easily, let herself sink into his embrace. She would, too, if he kissed her. History had proved how susceptible she was to him. His touch. His caring.
    â€œWe’re forgetting what’s important,” she said. “The baby. Our future. The decisions we need to make.”
    â€œI’m not forgetting. Far from it.” His hand slid up her arm. Tingles erupted in the wake of his fingertips.
    She lifted her chin and stared, captivated by his striking blue eyes. A man didn’t deserve eyes that gorgeous.
    A smile tugged at his mouth. A mouth she knew firsthand was skilled at many wonderful things, kissing being only one of them.
    She closed her eyes, drawing on the last of her slim reserve. “What if someone sees us?”
    â€œYou’re making excuses. No one’s around.”
    Where were Josh and Joey when she needed them?
    â€œI might be making excuses,” she said, “but they’re valid ones.”
    â€œDon’t you ever just go with the flow? Seize the