The Rancher and the Redhead by Suzannah Davis Read Free Book Online

Roni’s face, but she held his gaze unwaveringly. “I—I think I just proposed, Sam.”
    â€œI’m not in the mood for your teasing, Curly.”
    â€œI’m dead serious.”
    Sam rose abruptly. Roni’s warm brown eyes seemed huge in her pale face, and he was suddenly struck by how pretty she was, even disheveled with her dark hair curling about her shoulders, and how absolutely right she looked, cradling a baby to her bosom. Carefully he lifted Jessie from Roni’s arms, then laid the sleeping child down in the middle of his king-size bed and propped pillows on either side of her. He knew that Roni had risen and was watching him closely.
    â€œI should get busy assembling her baby bed.” The pieces of the white Jenny Lind bed he’d brought back from Alicia’s apartment in Abilene still lay stacked in a heap in the front parlor among the other debris of Jessie’s arrival.
    â€œShe might sleep better,” Roni agreed cautiously.
    He knew they weren’t really talking about baby beds. “Come on. I need a beer.”
    With Roni trailing after him, he stalked into the kitchen, pulled open the refrigerator door and reached for a dark brown bottle. “Want one?”
    She shook her head, moving about his kitchen with easy familiarity, automatically putting away the forgotten sacks of groceries. She set the kettle on the stove and opened a box of herbal tea.
    â€œI’d rather have this.” Though she tried to keep her voice light, he could hear the strain in it. “And it’s rather unflattering, you know, for you to be so flabbergasted. Hadn’t you ever thought that you and I—that we...”
    â€œNo,” he said flatly, twisting open the beer bottle. “I hadn’t.”
    She threw a tea bag into a mug and turned to him with a belligerent tilt to her chin. “Well, how...how very unchivalrous of you. All the same, it makes perfect sense, if you’ll just think.”
    â€œSense?” He snorted. “Curly, you’ve gone loco.”
    Her cheeks brightened again, but she went on doggedly. “It’s the solution you need for Jessie, Sam. We both adore her. Together we can make the kind of home she deserves, and frankly, there are worse ways to start off married life than by being good friends.”
    â€œI don’t know what to say.” He shook his head, dazed. “You’d do that for Jessie?”
    â€œI’d do it for me. I’m sick of living alone.”
    Sam heard the plaintiveness in her tone and realized he’d been too caught up in his own concerns to see that his ever-upbeat pal was struggling with her own brand of loneliness. Straddling a kitchen chair, he took a drink of his beer and stared down at the bottle. “I’ll admit it’s no picnic for me, either.”
    â€œI’ve always wanted a home and a family, and I know you have, too. But things just haven’t worked out as either of us planned.” Sighing, she leaned her trim hips against the kitchen counter and warmed her hands around her mug as though fighting off a chill. She was silent a long moment, gazing down into the steaming liquid. “I suppose in a way I’ll always love Jackson, but he couldn’t give me what I truly wanted and needed.”
    â€œI know that.”
    â€œBut you can, Sam.” She lifted her eyes, and her words were earnest. “If Jessie is your second chance at that kind of life, she’s my first and last chance. I want her, more than anything I’ve ever wanted. I know we could be the kind of parents she needs and bring her up right with love and security.”
    â€œYou wouldn’t be getting much out of the deal.”
    â€œThat’s where you’re wrong. We’d be a family. That’s more than enough.” Catching his skeptical glance, she set her mug aside and persisted. “Neither of us is getting any younger, Sam. Just think of it as a