The Rancher's Baby

Of course, he hadn’t realized that until it was too late.

Not that there was any fixing it. Not that there had been a choice. Cancer didn’t care if you were a billionaire.

It didn’t care if a little girl was your entire world.

Now all he had was a big empty house. One that currently had an invitation to a charity event on the fridge. An invitation he just couldn’t deal with right now.

He looked back up at Selena. Yeah, staying here for a few days was definitely more appealing than heading straight back to Jackson Hole.

“Okay,” he said. “What projects did you have in mind?”

* * *

He never said he didn’t like tea.

That was Selena’s first thought when she got up the next morning and set about making coffee for Knox and herself. Selena found it singularly odd that he never refused the tea. She served it to him sometimes just to see if he would. But he never did. He just sat there holding it. Which was funny, because Knox was not a passive man. Far from it.

In fact, in college, he had been her role model for that reason. He was authoritative. He asked for what he wanted. He went for what he wanted. And Selena had wanted to remake herself in his mold. She’d found him endlessly fascinating.

Though she had to admit, as she bustled around the kitchen, he was just as fascinating now. But now she had a much firmer grasp on what she wanted. On what was possible.

She had felt a little weird about him staying with her at first, which was old baggage creeping in. Old feelings. That crush she’d had on him in college that had never had a hope in hell of going anywhere. Not because she thought it was impossible for him to desire her, but because she knew there was no future in it. And she needed Knox as a friend much more than she needed him as a...well...the alternative.

But then last night, as they had been standing in the kitchen, she had looked at him. Really looked at him. Those lines between his brows were so deep, and his eyes were so incredibly...changed. Physically, she supposed he kind of looked the same, and yet he didn’t. He was reduced. And it was a terrible thing to see a man like him reduced. But she couldn’t blame him.

What happened with Eleanor had been such a shock. Such a horrible, hideous shock.

One day, she had been a normal, healthy toddler, and then she had been lethargic. Right after that came the cancer diagnosis, and in only a couple of months she was gone.

The entire situation had been surreal and heartbreaking. For her. And Eleanor wasn’t even her child. But her friend’s pain had been so real, so raw... She had no idea how he had coped with it, and now she could see that he hadn’t really. That he still was trying to cope.

He hadn’t come back to Texas since Eleanor’s death, and she had seen him only a couple of times. At the funeral. And then when she had come to Jackson Hole in the summer for a visit. Otherwise...it had all been texts and emails and quick phone conversations.

But now that he was back in Texas, he seemed to need to stay for a little while, and she was happy for him to think it was for her. Happy to be the scapegoat so he could work through whatever emotional thing he needed to work through. Knox, in the past, would have been enraged at the assessment that he needed to work through anything emotionally. He was such a stoic guy, always had been.

But she knew he wouldn’t even pretend there wasn’t lingering damage from the loss of his little girl. Selena had watched him break apart completely at Eleanor’s funeral. They had never talked about it again. She didn’t think they ever would. But then, she supposed they didn’t need to. They had shared the experience. That moment when he couldn’t be strong anymore. When there was no child to be strong for, and when his wife had been off with her family, and there had simply been no reason for him to remain standing upright. Selena had been there for that moment.

If all the years of friendship hadn’t bonded them, that moment would have done it all on its own.

Just thinking of it made her chest ache, and she shook off the feeling, going over to the coffee maker to pour herself a cup.

She wondered if Knox was still sleeping. He was going to be mad if he missed prime caffeination time.

She wandered out of the kitchen and into the living room just as the door to the guest bedroom opened and Knox walked out, pulling his T-shirt over his head—but not quickly enough. She caught a flash of muscled, tanned skin and...chest hair. Oh, the chest hair. Why was that compelling enough to stop her in her tracks? She didn’t even have a moment to question it. She was too caught up. Too beset by the sight.

Genuinely. She was completely immobilized by the sight of her best friend’s muscles.

It wasn’t like she had never seen Knox shirtless before. But it had been a long time. And the last time, he had most definitely been married.

Not that she had forgotten he was hot when he was married to Cassandra. It was just that...he had been a married man. And that meant something to Selena. Because it meant something to him.

It had been a barrier, an insurmountable one, even bigger than that whole long-term friendship thing. And now it wasn’t there. It just wasn’t. He was walking out of the guest bedroom looking sleep rumpled and entirely too lickable. And there was just...nothing stopping them from doing what men and women did.

She’d had a million excuses for not doing that. For a long time. She didn’t want to risk entanglements, didn’t want to compromise her focus. Didn’t want to risk pregnancy. Didn’t have time for a relationship.

But she was in a place where those things were less of a concern. This house was symbolic of that change in her life. She was making a home. And making a home made her want to fill it. With art, with warmth, with knickknacks that spoke to her. With people.

She wondered, then. What it would be like to actually live with a man? To have one in her life? In her home? In her bed?

And just like that she was fantasizing about Knox in her bed. That body she had caught a glimpse of relaxing beneath her emerald green bedspread, his hands clasped behind his head, a satisfied smile on his face...

She sucked in a sharp breath and tried to get a hold of herself. “Coffee is ready,” she said, grinning broadly, not feeling the grin at all.

“Good,” he said, his voice rough from sleep.

It struck her then, just what an intimate thing that was. To hear someone’s voice after they had been sleeping.

“Right this...way,” she said, awkwardly beating a path into the kitchen, turning away from him quickly enough that she sloshed coffee over the edge of her cup.

“You have food for breakfast?” he asked, that voice persistently gravelly and interesting, and much less like her familiar friend’s than she would like it to be. She needed some kind of familiarity to latch on to, something to blot out the vision of his muscles. But he wasn’t giving her anything.

Jerk.

“No,” she said, keeping her voice cheery. “I have coffee and spite for breakfast.”

“Well, that’s not going to work for me.”

“I’m not sure what to tell you,” she said, flinging open one of her cabinets and revealing her collection of cereal and biscotti. “Of course I have food for breakfast.”

“Bacon? Eggs?”

“Do I look like a diner to you?” she asked.

“Not you personally. But I was hoping that your house might have more diner-like qualities.”

“No,” she said, opening up the fridge and rummaging around. “Well, what do you know? I do have eggs. And bacon. I get a delivery of groceries every week. From a certain grocery store.”

He smiled, a lopsided grin that did something to her stomach. Something she was going to ignore and call hunger, because they were talking about bacon, and being hungry for bacon was much more palatable than being hungry for your best friend.

“I’ll cook,” he said.

“Oh no,” she said, getting the package of bacon out of the fridge and handing it to Knox before bending back down and grabbing the carton of eggs and placing that in his other hand. “You don’t have to cook.”

“Why do I get the feeling that I really do have to cook?”

She shrugged. “It depends on whether you want bacon and eggs.”

“Do you not know how to cook?”