Renegade Father by RaeAnne Thayne Read Free Book Online Page A

pleased to see Colt helping his very pregnant wife up the walk.
    â€œWhat did you do, call from the mailbox?” she teased when they were safely inside.
    â€œJust about. Aren’t cellular phones something?” He grinned and pulled her into a quick hug.
    When he released her, she turned to his wife. “No office hours today, Maggie?”
    â€œI don’t have any patients scheduled until this afternoon since I had my own appointment with Dr. Marcus.”
    â€œAnd what did he say?”
    â€œEverything’s fine. He moved my due date up to mid-April. It won’t be a moment too soon, as far as I’m concerned. I feel as big as one of those Herefords out there.”
    Annie smiled. Colt and Maggie had married just weeks after her divorce and in the time since, she had come to love Colt’s sweetly elegant wife almost as much as she did him. There was a bond between the two women, forged of shared pain and rare understanding.
    â€œYou look absolutely radiant,” Annie said.
    â€œEverybody always says that to fat old pregnant women.”
    â€œBecause it’s true.” It was. Maggie’s eyes were soft, serene, and her skin glowed with an inner tranquility that had to come from knowing her husband adored her and was thrilled about the child they had created together.
    For just a moment, Annie tasted bitter envy in her mouth. She hadn’t experienced that contentment with either of her pregnancies. Instead, she had known only that trapped, powerless fear.
    Dammit. She wanted to pinch herself, hard. Couldn’t she even be happy for two of her closest friends in the world over the upcoming birth of their child without this blasted self-pity taking over? She had two beautiful children, a ranch some men would kill for, and good friends like the McKendricks. Why couldn’t she let that be enough?
    â€œWhere’s Joe?” Colt asked.
    She swallowed the envy and poured coffee, black the way he liked it. Maggie, she knew, was staying away from caffeine for the baby’s sake, so she put water on to boil for herbal tea.
    â€œWe lost the roof on one of the hay sheds in the wind last night,” she answered. “The men are doing their best to patch it together. What about the Broken Spur? How did you fare in the storm?”
    â€œLost three calves but it could have been a lot worse.” He sipped his coffee. “Now suppose you tell me what burr Joe’s got in his britches about taking some fool job in Wyoming.”
    She busied herself rifling through the cupboard for the tea bags. “It sounds like a good opportunity for him.”
    â€œWhat does he think he’s going to find at some stranger’s ranch in Wyoming that he can’t get in Madison Valley?”
    â€œYou’ll have to ask him that,” she said quietly.
    â€œI’m asking you. What happened between you two?”
    â€œNothing.” She shut the cupboard door with a little more force than necessary. “Absolutely nothing. Why would you think that? Things are just fine between us.”
    Unless you count the way he couldn’t stand to touchher and the way he sometimes went out of his way to avoid even looking at her.
    â€œSo why is he in such a big hurry to leave?”
    She thought of those moments in the barn the day before and that rare vulnerability she had glimpsed in Joe.
    Would she be breaking a confidence to talk to Colt about it? No. Colt cared about Joe. The two men shared a friendship closer than blood. Maybe if he knew the truth, Colt wouldn’t push him to stay against his will.
    She almost laughed. Was she really going out of her way to defend Joe for taking a new job? Yes. She wanted him to stay, but she wanted him to find peace more. “He has a chance to start his own herd and to buy land of his own. I can’t match this Waterson’s offer, and I’m not sure I would even if I had the means.”
    â€œWhy the hell