Her Baby Dreams

“You need to loosen up, Ash. Live a little! You are never going to get a date if you don’t. Even a lonesome cowboy isn’t desperate enough to marry a gal so knotted up she can’t have a good time.”

“I…” Ashby swallowed hard, forcing herself to hold his gaze. “I can have a good time.”

He patted the handlebars, challenge in his eyes. “Show me.”

“No.” She refused to be goaded into trying something she would regret. Anyway, when she fell flat on her face, it would only add lack of balance to her apparently well-documented list of shortcomings.

No way. She resumed walking. Stalking, actually. Stalking wasn’t good. It made her far more aware of how much her feet were killing her. She was having to fight the urge to limp, and was afraid to think about the size of the blister that was building….

To her surprise, Dan hopped off the bike and started walking beside her, pushing it between them. “You are a puzzle, Ashby Templeton. Yes, indeedy, a real jigsaw.”

Ashby lifted her chin and didn’t take the bait.

“Does it get lonesome up there?”

She cut her eyes toward him. “Up where?”

“On that high horse you ride.”

“I don’t ri—” She glared at him.

“No use denying it.” He reached across the bike and pulled a piece of wet hair off her cheek.

To Ashby’s horror, her pulse went ballistic. She stepped away from him and the bad choices he represented. Their rejections because she wasn’t “good enough” still stung, but she had a major weakness for bad choices. Brad. Carlton. Steven…She’d been such a fool. Wasted so many years. But no more. “Look,” she said, glaring at Dan. “I have no problem with you hopping on that bike and riding off into the sunset. I’d welcome it, actually.” Yes, she would.

“Nope, wouldn’t be right. If you’re going to insist on walking, then I walk, too.”

Ashby dug deep for clarity. Focused on her friends. Friends who had better run the other way when they saw her coming. She might have been brought up to be a lady: calm, cool and collected—but even a lady had her breaking point.

Chapter Two

Dan had never met a more bullheaded woman. Ashby beat the competition hands down.

He slid her a glance. It was obvious her feet were killing her. Her pace had slowed over time, and when she thought he wasn’t watching, she was limping on her right foot. Crazy woman.

So get on the bike already and let him do the work. What, he wanted to shout out, was the big deal?

He took a deep breath. The woman had a way of getting under his skin, and had from the first day they’d met. He could count on his left thumb the number of women who’d ever turned him down for a date. That woman was limping stubbornly beside him right now.

“Look, I know your feet are killing you.”

She scorched him with a glare that warmed his blood. Yanking the bike to a halt, he watched her increase the distance between them. Yes, sir, there she went with her perfectly blunt-cut hair swinging and swaying in perfect time with each step she took. Everything about her was perfect.

Which was precisely her problem. She was just too perfect.

Still, did she honestly think she was too good to ride on the handlebars of his bike? When he’d signed up, he’d been expecting to draw some high-spirited gal as a partner, and spend a pleasant afternoon on this little escapade. Boy, was the laugh on him.

Could Ashby not see the potential in the whole game?

Standing in the center of the blacktop, exactly halfway along the course, he watched her struggle.

It just didn’t make sense. None of it. Not the limping, or the refusal to get on the stinkin’ bike. He ought to throw her over his shoulder and haul her into town kicking and screaming.

But that wasn’t his way. He hung his head and gathered his wits as he tried to come up with a new strategy. One that didn’t require losing his temper, since he didn’t allow himself to lose his temper, ever. Especially with a female. He refused to follow in his father’s footsteps.

But the woman was hurting herself for no good reason.

He shouldn’t be surprised. She’d been Miss Prim from the moment she’d first shown up in Mule Hollow. Beyond perfect, like an airbrushed cover girl. Most of the cowboys around town had taken one look at her and figured she was out of their league.

Dan, never one to be accused of a lack of confidence, thought he’d do her a favor and break the ice, so he’d asked her out. Maybe that way the other wranglers would see she was approachable.

He’d just been trying to help her out.

Imagine his surprise when the woman turned him down. One flat no, and she’d sashayed off, high heels clicking on the plank sidewalk.

Worst part of the scenario was that this had taken place in front of Sam’s Diner, with a herd of cowboys watching from the shadows inside.

The very idea that she’d refused to go out with him sparked a challenge in Dan. He’d decided right then and there he was going to get a date with her if it took a year. It was the principle of the whole thing.

Of course that was before he’d realized the ramifications of their interaction.

Little did she know it, but she’d sealed her fate that day. He felt bad about the fact that asking her out in public had backfired as it had. Dan had been kidded and teased no end, because of the brutal way she’d shot him down. He could feel sorry for himself, but a little teasing never hurt anyone. Then again, he suspected Ashby wouldn’t feel the same way. This woman was all business when it came to dating. It was all about finding a husband. She had no idea that because of that day in front of Sam’s, unless something drastic happened, she was done. When a cowpoke got turned down by a gal, the slang expressions in certain cowboy circles was no longer that he’d gotten axed, but that he’d been “Ashed.”

Of course, to the fellas it was harmless joking.

If her reaction just now was any indication, she’d explode if she knew what was being said. Dan really felt guilty about the whole thing. He’d thought asking her out in public would break the ice, not shut her down.

For a natural fixer like him, that was hard to deal with. As a boy whose earliest memories were of his mother getting smacked around by his dad, the need to fix situations had become embedded in his emotional makeup. His approach to problems was a talent he’d happened upon by accident a few years later, living in a women’s shelter with his mom. All the occupants of which, like his mother, needed their confidence rebuilt.

He’d learned that when he smiled, women smiled.

It had first happened when he tried to make his mom feel better, and saw that his smile brightened her expression. But when he’d seen his smile cause a young woman with a black eye and a swollen lip to smile back at him, it had dawned on even a kid of six that a little charm could transform someone’s life. If only for a moment.

Dan had been blessed with a playful heart, and God had given him an unlikely path at an early age that he had followed into adulthood.

Things with Ashby weren’t entirely the same. He couldn’t explain it completely, but he’d unknowingly given her a bad rep, and he felt a need to repair it.

He’d tried telling the guys she’d been having a bad day but it had not convinced them. So he figured if she’d go out with him, like he’d planned originally, that it would redeem her in the eyes of the other cowboys.

Not so easy. She wasn’t cooperating for some reason. Despite this, they’d actually developed a relationship based on banter over the months of continued rejection—banter he found entertaining most of the time. Not today.

This day was going to add to the urban legend she’d become, and try as he might, there was nothing he could do.

Shaking his head, he pushed the bike forward. She didn’t have a clue this race could very well seal her fate for good.

Unless she changed her ways, Ashby Templeton would die an old maid here in Mule Hollow, surrounded by cowboys diligently searching for wives. And she wouldn’t even know why.

On Friday, Ashby walked into Heavenly Inspirations Salon knowing that something had to change. She just didn’t know what.