Page 60 of The Cowboy and the Baby

“Are you okay?”

I tipped my head back and expelled a long breath. It felt better, so I did it again. Irrational fears darted through my mind, no doubt goaded on by lack of sleep, and the whirlwind of change.

“Yes. I’m just . . .”

“Afraid?”

“Yes.”

“Of what?”

His curiosity was calm, natural. He slowed the truck as we pulled into the miles-long road that wound through hills until we arrived at the driveway, which was another mile until we reached the ranch.

“Of losing Lily. What if they barge in and?—”

“Take her?”

Hearing him say the words that finalized my nightmare made it sound ridiculous. He held no judgment in the tone, but I was irritated with myself over it. Did I have to be so over the top with my anxiety? Grandparents didn’t just stroll into an unknown house and whisk a newborn away.

“Ah . . . I guess?”

“Well, I can guarantee that won’t happen.”

“It seems silly when I say it out loud,” I admitted. “Normally, I’m not like this. I’m not so anxious and paranoid. I’m a normal human with a job and social skills and get good sleep and?—”

“—and you gave that up to raise a little girl who needed you,” he finished, “which is pretty amazing, if you ask me. So whatever you’re judging yourself for, you can stop now. No one else is.”

His words sank deep, and hard. I was judging myself over everything, and it wasn’t helpful.

“I love her,” I admitted quietly, wrapping my fist around the core of my anxiety storm. “I’ve only known Lily for a few weeks, but I love her with a ferocity that I didn’t know existed. And it’s scary, holding so much love. Because with that love comes the potential for loss. And with Naomi dying so unexpectedly . . .”

Tears choked my throat, so I let the words hang there. His warm touch hadn’t deviated from my shoulder, and it burned a trail down my arm as he ran it all the way to my hand, then clasped my fingers in his firm, calloused ones.

“You’re not alone, Noelle. We’re going to see this through with you, all right? You and Lily are going to be just fine.”

21

CADE

Noelle stood at the main window, staring over the porch, but seemingly far away. Two routine days had passed since she learned Sarah and Thomas would be coming, and her quietude increased with each hour. Tension hummed through her shoulders.

Outside, a bluebird sky stretched from horizon to horizon, filled with fluffy clouds and cold that breathed ice. Cody and Wyatt had gone into town to visit some friends, and I’d just returned from the barn.

I paused in the hallway, watching her. Her beauty would captivate any man, but there was something about her selfless disregard that drew me closer; the way she clucked over Cody and Wyatt in the mornings, and quietly put to rights an old and creaky house.

She was a magnet, and I her mate.

I just . . . didn’t know how to tell her. Three weeks had passed since I met her in the airport and helped her onto the plane, yet it felt like eternities.

She spun, probably sensing my heavy stare. Seeing me, she smiled, and that brightness was the last straw to my crumbling resolve. The plan to keep things distant and easy for her dissolved. She had a newborn to keep alive, a sister to grieve, a life to cobble together, and an impending invasion of her privacy from Lily’s paternal grandparents.

The last thing she needed was a rancher pawing over her.

Yet, I’d staked a claim.

“Hey, Cade.”

“Hey.”