His Texas Baby

A quick glance to his right revealed that Kitty was still standing in the same area he’d spotted her in a few moments ago. This time she was speaking to a woman who appeared to be a barn worker. Were Kitty’s horses also stalled in barn 59? Hell, any other time he would have been happy to share a training barn with the woman. And he’d promised her that they would remain friends. But seeing her pregnant had done something to him. His feelings were being yanked in all different directions.

He was trying to decide whether to go greet her or beat a hasty retreat to his office, when she happened to glance his way. Recognition instantly hit her face and she stared for a few brief seconds before turning her attention back to the barn worker.

If she’d given him a smile, a tiny wave, signaled him with some sort of acknowledgment, he would have gone on to his office and waited for a quieter moment to say hello to her. But her blatant dismissal caught him by surprise and sent him striding down the shed row until he reached her.

“I’ll get right on it, Miss Cartwright,” the barn worker was saying as Liam walked up to Kitty’s left shoulder. “Just let me know if you need anything.”

“Thanks, Gina. I appreciate you. Please remember that.”

As the tall, huskily built woman turned and hurried away, she nodded a passing greeting to Liam. Once she was out of earshot, Kitty turned and looked up at him.

“Hello, Liam.”

Even though there was a faint smile on her soft lips, he could see shadows in her blue eyes and he wondered if grief over losing her father had put them there or something else. Either way, the faint sadness in her gaze didn’t diminish her beauty. It struck him hard and jerked him right back to that night when their lips had met and he’d driven himself deep inside her.

“Kitty,” he greeted as he tried to stem the erotic memories. “How are you?”

Her smile wavered, but only for a brief moment. “I’m good. Very excited to be back at Hollywood Park. What about yourself?”

She was making an attempt to be cordial, but he couldn’t miss the impersonal tone in her voice. He’d not really known what to expect when they met again, away from the crowd of mourners at her father’s funeral. In all of his imaginings, it hadn’t been like this. Kitty had always been a soft, caring person, a woman who never said a cross word to anything or anyone. With him, she’d always been warm, open and straightforward. He wasn’t feeling that now. She was holding back a part of herself and that troubled him. Even hurt him.

“I got here yesterday with the rest of my crew,” he told her. “We’re just now getting the horses and ourselves settled.”

She nodded stiffly. “I wasn’t aware until this morning that we’d be sharing the same barn. Did you bring many horses this time?”

“Twenty,” he answered. There were eighteen training barns and enough stalls to house nearly two thousand horses on the track, he thought, and somehow he and Kitty had managed to wind up in the same facility. At this moment, Liam couldn’t decide whether that was a stroke of misfortune or a piece of good luck.

She looked away from him and swallowed and he used the opportunity to let his gaze slide down to her belly. The soft mound beneath her sweater somehow made her look more feminine and vulnerable and an odd little pang suddenly struck him in the middle of the chest. He wanted to reach out and pull her into his arms so badly he could very nearly taste it.

“Oh. I only brought half that many,” she said. “With Dad dying, some of our training got put on hold. A few of the three-year-olds that belong to Desert End still need gate schooling. I may have them shipped out here later for the latter half of the meet.”

Desert End Stables, Kitty’s home and training facility, was located just north of El Paso, Texas. Liam had visited the place a few times in years past. It was a beautiful horse farm that sprawled for miles over the West Texas desert. Willard had not only been a highly successful trainer, but also a noted breeder in the business. Even though Willard had a son from a former marriage, Liam had heard that Desert End and all its holdings, which would amount to a vast fortune in itself, had gone to Kitty. He supposed the old man had made that decision because Owen had never had anything to do with the horse business and worked as a Deputy Sheriff for Hudspeth County in Texas. Still, Liam had no doubt that Willard had made sure his son had received a fair share of inheritance in monetary form. From all he knew, father and son had gotten along well.

“I miss the hell out of Will,” Liam said suddenly, his voice gruff with emotion. “I can’t imagine how you must feel.”

She looked back at him and he noticed a glaze of moisture in her blue eyes. Maybe he shouldn’t have mentioned her father, he thought, but Willard had been a huge presence in both of their lives. His memory could never be ignored or forgotten. It simply wasn’t possible.

“Nothing has been easy since we buried Dad,” she admitted, her voice low and strained. “But everyone loses a loved one at some time in their life. This time it just happened to be me.”

Yeah. He knew all too well what she meant about losing a loved one. One minute he’d had a wife and a baby on the way, the next minute they’d been gone, wiped out of his life when the car she’d been driving through heavy fog had careened off a mountain highway. Since the tragic accident, no woman had caught his interest in any way. Until Kitty. Something about her had made him want again, feel again. And now, with her standing only inches away, she was reminding him that he was a red-blooded man, full of needs and desires.

“I’m sorry, Kitty,” he said lowly. “Really sorry.”

Her eyes blinked and then she turned her gaze toward the stall to her left, where a black horse was nipping at a hay bag. The nameplate on the stall door read Mr. Marvel and Liam remembered the colt as being one of Willard’s favorites. No doubt that everywhere Kitty looked, she was surrounded by bittersweet memories of her father.

Even so, she obviously had other things to think about and plan for, Liam concluded. Like the baby in her womb and the man who’d put it there. Could that man possibly be him? No! It couldn’t be. She wouldn’t be standing here like this, ignoring the obvious. She would have already told him months ago. Or would she?

Dragging in a heavy breath, he resisted the urge to give his head a shake. This was crazy, he thought. It felt like there was a fire in the barn and both of them were standing there, ignoring it as though nothing was wrong.

Her voice suddenly interrupted his thoughts as she said, “I’ll survive, Liam. Dad expected the best from me. I can’t break down on him now and ruin everything he worked a lifetime to build.”

“Kitty.” She sounded so crushed and weary that Liam could hardly bear it and before he could think about it, he placed a comforting hand on her forearm. “Is there anything I can do?”

She didn’t answer immediately and Liam supposed his offer didn’t mean much. After all, she had the means to hire the best people in the business to keep her stable working efficiently and her win rate at a high percentage. As for emotional support, he figured she had plenty of friends and distant relatives to share her problems with. She certainly didn’t need Liam. The idea left him feeling strangely flat.

“I don’t know,” she answered finally, then lifted her gaze to his face. “Do you think you could have dinner with me tonight?”

This area of the state was known for its earthquake tremors and for a split second Liam wondered if the ground beneath his feet was tilting. She’d never invited him to join her anywhere, at any time, and he’d always talked himself out of asking her for a date or anything even resembling one. The only reason they’d ever spent time in each other’s company was her father. In fact, Willard had once approached him about dating Kitty. The older man had believed that Liam and his daughter would make a fine pair, considering they both loved the same profession. But Liam had dismissed Will’s suggestion. At that time his wife’s fatal accident had still been fresh in his mind and he’d not been interested in dating anyone. And now—well, he still wasn’t interested. Not with the loss of Felicia continuing to haunt him.

He was trying to gather himself enough to respond, when she said, “If you have other engagements don’t worry about it. We can get together some other time.”

He shook his head as his thoughts raced around her motives and his schedule. “I have to meet someone at seven this evening,” he finally said. “But that won’t take more than fifteen minutes. Will seven-thirty fit your schedule?”

She looked strangely relieved, a reaction that confused Liam even more. If she’d needed to see or talk with him, all she’d needed to do was pick up the phone and let him know. Her wanting to have dinner with him tonight seemed strange and out of the blue. Yet the idea of spending time with her excited him more than he wanted to admit.

“Seven-thirty would be great,” she told him. “You can pick me up at my office. It’s at the opposite end of the barn. I’ve already posted my nameplate, so you shouldn’t have any trouble finding it.”

“All right. I’ll see you then.” Realizing he still had hold of her arm, he forced himself to drop his hand. “Is there anyplace special you’d like to eat? I’ll make reservations.”

“I don’t need special. Just anywhere simple and quiet.”

“Fine. Seven-thirty then.”

A tiny smile lifted the corners of her lips and the sight encouraged him. No matter the situation with this woman’s personal life, he wanted her to be happy. Especially with him.

“Yes,” she agreed. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a temperamental mare waiting for me to put on her blinkers.”

“Sure,” he told her. “I have work waiting, too.”

Kitty didn’t allow herself a second look at the man as he turned and walked away. She didn’t need to. His chiseled features, hazel-green eyes and streaked brown hair were all ingrained in her memory just as much as his tall, solidly built body. He might not be the most handsome guy she’d ever laid eyes on, but he was darn sure the sexiest. And six months ago that latent sexuality had been her undoing.

For days afterward, she’d blamed her reckless behavior on the wine she’d consumed at dinner that night. But deep in her heart she’d known two glasses of wine hadn’t made her fall into bed with Liam Donovan.

She’d first met Liam seven years ago, when she’d been nineteen and just beginning to travel extensively with her father. She’d instantly been smitten with the man, not only with his raw, sexy looks, but also with his training skills. And since that time, little by little, she’d come to learn more about who he was as a man.

Around the track, he had a reputation for being fair and honest, but also hard-driven. Kitty would agree he was all those things and more. He was an extremely private man, who rarely talked about his personal life, which in a way had always made him seem just that much more intriguing to Kitty.

It had been through an offhand comment from her father that she’d learned Liam had lost his wife and unborn child in a car accident a little more than six years ago, but Liam himself had never spoken to her about such things. With her, he’d only discussed training methods, auctions, sires, the pros and cons of different tracks and all the other zillion and one factors that went into racing thoroughbreds. But those discussions had been enough to reveal glimpses of the man and his way of thinking. She admired him, she was wildly attracted to him and she feared she was even in love with him. Fear being the key word. Because from what she could see, Liam Donovan was a demanding perfectionist and never would be an easygoing family man. Along with that, her father had admitted, long before he’d died, that he’d tried to talk Liam into dating Kitty and that Liam had refused. If he didn’t want to date her, it was a cinch there wasn’t a hope in hell that he’d ever fall in love with her.

Oh, God, why didn’t she just go home to Desert End and let Clayton take care of things here? There was plenty of work at the farm to keep her more than occupied. A barn filled with up-and-coming two-year-olds, along with a mix of older horses in training for races later in the summer.

But no, she’d chosen to come here. Because she’d known Liam would be here and she’d wanted to see him and be close to him again. Now she had to find the courage to tell him that he was going to be a father.

Swallowing the ball of emotion lodged in her throat, she turned to her left and entered stall number thirty where Blue Snow, one of her prize mares, was housed.

A slight grimace tightened Clayton’s features as he looked around at her. “Sorry, Kitty. You’d think by now she would let someone else put these things on her. But the more I tried the more worked up she was getting.”

“The last thing I want is for her to get hot and unsettled. So when she acts this way, just let her be and don’t worry about it,” Kitty instructed her assistant. “The time to start worrying is when she won’t let me put them on.”