Free Cowboy in Charge by Barbara White Daille Page A

one of you.”
    “I manage. Normally, my shopping wouldn’t take this long, but we had a lot of extra food to buy.”
    “Told you Scott and I cleaned out the cupboards.” He frowned. “You look about ready to drop.”
    “I’m tired,” she admitted. Even as she spoke, she felt more of her energy draining away.
    “All right, then let’s get you back home.” He took the cart from her and went in the direction of the checkout counter.
    While she was grateful not to have to push the heavy cart, she missed having it to hold on to. With the way she felt now, she needed it to prop herself up. Slowly, she followed Jason and the kids down the aisle.
    No matter what she had said to Shay about Jason leaving soon, this everyday trip to the store had left her daydreaming of what it would be like to have him stay. Of what their life might have been like if he had never left. Their few days together had offered her a taste, a tease, the tiniest bit of temptation. But along with the daydreams had come a fear big enough to eclipse all the pleasure she had felt.
    She was getting too comfortable with Jason again. Becoming too involved. Being reminded much too poignantly of the boy she used to love.
    The boy who had stopped loving her.
    * * *
    J ASON GRIPPED THE steering wheel and listened to the wail of the baby in the backseat of his pickup truck. Somehow, in the small space the noise sounded magnified. As the noise increased, the truck windows seemed to shiver.
    Across the cab, Layne’s gaze met his.
    Earlier, as they had left her apartment for the grocery store, she had pointed out the kids’ car seats near the front door. She had strapped both Scott and Jill into those seats for the ride to the L-G. Now she had just finished settling the baby again for the ride home. Or tried to anyway.
    Jill’s screech rose a notch. He’d have sworn his eardrums rattled.
    “She’s hungry. I’ll have to feed her here,” Layne announced. She opened the passenger door and returned to the backseat.
    Though he tried to ease his stranglehold on the steering wheel, he could think of nothing else to do with his hands. Or of anywhere else to direct his gaze. With the truck in Park in the middle of the L-G’s lot, he couldn’t pretend a need to keep his eyes on the road.
    He shot a couple of quick glances into the rearview mirror to check on Scott. The boy sat running one of his toy cars along the restraining bar of his car seat.
    “Could you get me a cloth from the diaper bag?” Layne asked.
    He began to reach across the front seat for the bag, forgetting for a moment that he was strapped in place as securely as Scott was fastened into his car seat. He thumbed open the clasp of his seat belt and grabbed the bag. A second later, he reached back over the bench seat and held out the cloth to Layne.
    “Thanks,” she said. “Sorry about this.”
    Not as sorry as he was.
    In the past few days, every time she’d fed the baby, he had found a reason to move away—checking something on the stove, helping Scott with his motorway, flipping through the television channels at lightning speed.
    He wasn’t a man given to analyzing his emotions, but it had been obvious those previous incidents involved physical responses to the thought of seeing Layne half-undressed. Now...
    Now his reactions came from somewhere deeper, from something more, from knowing he couldn’t look at the woman he’d once loved and watch her nurse a baby that wasn’t his. And that was his own damned fault, because he could have watched her with his own child. But he had walked away from the chance. Had given up that right.
    “I don’t think we’ll be long,” Layne said. “My Jill’s a quick eater when she’s hungry. Aren’t you, sweetie? And Jason...” A hint of amusement laced her tone. “You can turn around now.”
    “I’m adjusting the heater,” he said, hoping she believed him. A second later, he turned halfway and settled back against the driver’s door.
    She