Billionaire's Baby Bind

She’d sort of hoped that he wouldn’t be as good-looking as she remembered. But that wasn’t the case. In fact, his thick blond-brown hair looked even thicker today and his jaw was strong and clean-shaven. His green eyes were intense and she couldn’t look away from him.

She told herself her interest in him was just because he was so different than the other men around the ranch.

If he had a pair of Wrangler jeans and some worn ranch boots she wouldn’t be interested in him at all. But the fact that he had a Pearl Jam T-shirt on and a pair of faded jeans that clung to all the right spots was the only reason she was even vaguely attracted to him.

She noticed his mouth was moving and she thought she wouldn’t mind it moving against hers. But then she realized he was speaking when Cara, who’d come out of her stall as well, looked at her oddly.

“Sorry about that. What did you say?”

“I was just saying that I’m sorry if just showing up messed up your schedule. I do appreciate you being available on my timetable,” he said. “If you need more time to get ready I can wait over there.”

She shook her head. He was being so reasonable. But she just had a bee in her bonnet when it came to this guy. Well, to all men who came from the city. She wished he wasn’t so darn appealing. That maybe his voice would be soft or odd, but of course, he didn’t have some silly city voice. Instead, his words were like a deep timbre brushing over her ears and her senses like a warm breeze on a summer’s day. Since it was Texas, October wasn’t too cool, but it was fall and she missed summer.

But with him... Dammit. She had to stop this.

“I’m ready. Cara, will you show Mr. Brady to his horse?” she asked her apprentice, who was watching her with one of those smirks only a teenager could manage.

“Sure thing, Ms. Holbrook,” Cara said sarcastically.

“You can call me Will,” he told Cara.

“Ms. Holbrook, can Will call you Amberley?”

That girl. She was pushing Amberley because she knew she could. “Of course.”

“Thanks, Amberley,” he said.

She told herself that there was nothing special about the way he said her name, but it sent shivers—the good kind—down her spine. She had to nip this attraction in the bud. Will was going to be here for a while helping Max St. Cloud investigate the cyberbully and blackmailer Maverick, who’d been wreaking havoc on the local residents, particularly the members of the Texas Cattleman’s Club, releasing videos and other damning stories on the internet. Will was the CTO of the company, so he was more of a partner to Max than an employee, and rumor had it they were old friends.

“No prob,” she said. “How’d you end up here in Royal?” Amberley asked Will while Cara went to get his horse.

“Chelsea Hunt and Max go way back. So she asked for our help to try to find the identity of Maverick.”

Maverick had been doing his best to make life hell for the members of the Texas Cattleman’s Club. He’d been revealing secrets gleaned from hacking into smartphones and other internet connected devices. He’d made things uncomfortable for everyone in Royal.

“I like Chelsea. She’s smart as a whip,” Amberley said. And she seemed to really have her stuff together. No shrinking violet, Chelsea was one of the women that Amberley looked up to in Royal. She lived her life on her own terms, and Amberley was pretty sure that if Chelsea liked a guy she didn’t have to come up with reasons to avoid him...the way that Amberley herself had been doing.

Cara came back with Will’s mount and Amberley went back into the stall and saw her faithful horse, Montgomery, waiting for her. She went to the animal and rested her forehead against the horse’s neck. Montgomery curved her head around Amberley’s and she felt a little bit better. She had always been better with horses than people.

And normally that wouldn’t bother her. But it would be nice not to screw up around men as much as she just had with Will. She didn’t enjoy feeling like an awkward country bumpkin.

* * *

Will hadn’t expected to feel so out of place in Texas. He’d been to Dallas before and thought that the stereotype of boots, cowboy hats and horses was something from the past or in the imagination of television producers. But being here on the Flying E had shown him otherwise.

Amberley was cute and a distraction. Something—hell, someone—to take his mind off Seattle and all that he’d left behind there. All that he’d lost. To be honest, coming out here might have been what he needed. His baby girl was sleeping with her nanny watching over her, and he was someplace new.

Max hadn’t batted an eye when Will had told him he needed to bring his daughter and her nanny along with him to Royal. His friend had known that Will was a dedicated single dad.

He had work to do, of course, but he’d ridden a long time ago and thought getting back on a horse might be the first step to moving on. From his wife’s death.

It was funny, but after Lucy’s death everyone had been comforting and left him to process his grief. But now that so many months had gone by and he was still in the same routine, they were starting to talk, and his mom and Lucy’s mom weren’t as subtle as they both liked to think they were, with their encouragement to “live again” and reminders that he still had a long life ahead of him.

Lucy had had a brain hemorrhage a few weeks before she was due. The doctors had kept her alive until she gave birth to Faye. Then they took her off the machines that had been keeping her alive and she’d faded away. He’d asked them to wait a week after Faye’s birth because he hadn’t wanted his daughter’s birthday to also be the day she’d lost her mom.

“You okay?”

“Yeah. Sorry. Just distracted,” he said.

“It happens,” she said. She spoke with a distinctive Texan drawl. It was so different from Lucy’s Northwestern accent that he... Hell, he needed to stop thinking about her. He was getting away for a while, helping out a friend and having a ride to clear his head. He knew he should let that be enough.

“It does. Sorry, I’m really bad company right now. I thought...”

“Hey. You don’t have to entertain me. Whenever I’m in a bad place mentally—not saying you are—but when I am, I love to get out of the barn, take Montgomery here for a run. There’s no time to think about anything except the terrain and my horse—it clears away the cobwebs in my mind.”

He had just noticed how pretty her lips were. A shell-pink color. And when she smiled at him her entire face seemed to light up. “Just what I need. Let’s do this.”

“Well, before we get started I need to know what your horsemanship level is,” she said. “We’ll pick our route based on that.”

“Summer camp and college polo team,” he said. “I stopped playing about three years ago. I’m a pretty decent rider and keep a horse at a stable near my home. But haven’t been riding much since my daughter was born.”

“Sounds like you might be a bit rusty but you’ve got some skills,” she said. “I’ll start ya out easy and see how it goes.”

“I’m yours to command,” he said.

“Mine to command? Not sure I’ve ever had anything with two legs under my command.”

He threw his head back and laughed. She was funny, this one. He wasn’t sure if she’d meant that to be a come-on, but there was something sort of innocent about her so he guessed not. She was very different from Lucy, his late wife. That twinge he always experienced at the thought of her colored the moment.

“Let’s start with a ride,” he said.

She nodded. “There’s a mounting block over there if you need a leg up. I’ll let you go first.”

“Thanks,” he said, leading his horse to the block and mounting easily. He shifted around in the saddle until he was comfortable. The horse she had him on was easily controlled and led and seemed comfortable with him as a rider.

“So why are you here?” she asked as she mounted her own horse.

He told himself to look away but didn’t. Her jeans hugged the curve of her butt and as she climbed on the horse there was something very natural about how she moved. As she put both feet in the stirrups and sat up, he realized she looked more at home on horseback than she had talking to him.

“Ah, I’m here to investigate all the trouble that Maverick is causing. I’m really good at tracking someone’s cyber footprint.”

She shook her head and then gently brushed her heels against her horse and made a clicking sound. “I don’t even know what a cyber footprint is.”

He laughed a little at her comment. “Most people don’t think about it, but with smartphones and social media apps, we all are leaving a trail that can be followed.”

“That makes sense,” she said. “You ready for a run or do you just want to take it slow and steady?” she asked as they left the barn area and reached the open plains.

The land stretched out as far as he could see. It was October, so in Seattle it was rainy and growing colder, but the sun was shining down on them today in Texas and the weather was warm. He lifted his face to the sun, taking a deep breath. It was a good day to be alive.