Free A Rancher's Love by Capri Montgomery Page A

it did, but…oh well. Hindsight right? I learned my lesson at the ripe old age of nineteen I realized that what I had been looking for with Danny was somebody who would love me since my parents didn’t. And I realized that I couldn’t look for love to define me. I had to make my own way; be my own person, otherwise I was just another version of my mother. She, instead of looking for love, looks for money. She’ll marry a checkbook in a heartbeat. And on some level I felt like her, not that I wanted his money, but I wanted love and I thought he was the only way…giving myself to him, being with him…I thought that would buy me love. So, I grew up,” she nodded. “I grew up fast and I realized I didn’t want to have to wait on anybody else to fill the void in my life. I put my career in focus and I made my own way. I found my own path and while that didn’t bring me love it brought me life. For the first time in my life, as an adult, taking care of myself, I felt alive.”
    “Zoe, I’m so sorry.” He brushed his fingers against her cheek.
    “Don’t be; I survived. And thanks to all the craziness in my life, and Bambi,” she laughed. “I found you. I think if we ever have children I’m going to tell them that Bambi brought us together.”
    He laughed about the deer being the cause of their meeting each other, but he stopped when he realized she had started talking about children.
    “Don’t freak out,” she held up her hand to calm him. “I’m not saying I want kids, or that I have to have them. Just, if it happens you know it could be a pretty cool story.”
    “We didn’t use any protection, Zoe. Are you on the pill?”
    “No,” the softness of her voice conveyed her uncomfortable feeling. She shook her head. “But I’m sure I won’t get pregnant. It was our first time.”
    He scowled at her. It wasn’t that he wouldn’t mind making a baby with her. He had always wanted children, but he couldn’t believe her words. “You do know you can get pregnant even on your first time; right?”
    53

    A Rancher’s Love ~ Capri Montgomery She shook her head no. “Danny always said I couldn’t. The condom he had in his glove compartment broke on our first time.” She shivered. “That was really weird.”
    “It broke because it was in a hot car. Hell, didn’t anybody talk to you about sex?”
    “No,” the sheer innocence in her voice made him want to reach out and hold her close, to shelter her, protect her. She didn’t seem to have much of that sheltering and protecting in her life. “My mother never talked to me about anything. Some of the girls at school told me some things. They told me about how to give a blow job,” she giggled. “And then I got older, when I was with Danny, I started researching some things online, but the site I found even said that it wasn’t likely to happen on the first time.”
    He sighed and shook his head. “Honey, something not being likely to happen and something not happening are two entirely different things.” She was so innocent and somewhat naive. She knew what her body liked, but she knew nothing about the realities of sex. Hell, his mother had given him the sex talk when he was seven, right before his father told him if he knocked some girl up he was going to be a man and marry her no matter what his plans were they were going to change because marriage was going to happen whether he wanted it to or not.
    “Well, I don’t think you need to worry. But if I do get pregnant and you don’t want it I’ll take care of it.”
    He wrapped his hands around her arms and pulled her away from her leaning against the counter position. “What do you mean you’ll take care of it?”
    Her eyes widened. “I just meant that I’d have options, you know. I can’t afford to be a single mother right now. And when the condom broke with Danny he told me about a doctor who could fix things if…”
    her voice trailed off and he imagined that was because his face probably