Читать книгу Daddy By Choice - Paula Detmer Riggs - Страница 8

It was hotter than hell the day Luke Jarrod returned to West Texas. Overhead the merciless sun beat down on the cab of his truck, while inside the air conditioner blasted ice from the vents.

Slouched behind the wheel, his eyes gritty from too little sleep and his shoulders stiff from too many hours driving without a break, Luke was sweating like a bridegroom with a .12-gauge shotgun at his backbone. Which was real appropriate, considerin’ he was about to become a daddy at eighteen.

It scared him some to think of his Maddy girl having a baby, her being so tiny and all. And only seventeen. Too damn young to know better, so he should have.

It had been opening day of the Whiskey Bend Stampede at the county fairgrounds when he’d first laid eyes on her. A bunch of ROTC kids from Whiskey Bend High School had been bringing in the flag, just like every other rodeo in every other town he’d seen that season. Strung tight and desperate for prize money to keep himself in tacos and his cutting horse, Cochise, in oats, he’d been standing with the more seasoned competitors in the dusty ring with his hand over his heart, watching the chicks twirling batons when his buddy Buck Mehan had dug an elbow into his ribs.

“Son,” he said, “were I ten years younger I’d be all over that little yeller-haired darlin’ in the third row, the one swishing all that glorious hair like there was no tomorrow. Man could die happy did he belong to her.”

Luke had never wanted to belong to anyone. Belonging meant obligations and responsibilities, two things he’d avoided for as long as he could remember. But one look at those slinky tanned legs and tight little butt sashaying past him, her itty-bitty skirt swishing this way and that, and he’d fallen about as hard as a man can fall without cracking wide open.

Her name was Madelyn Sue Smith, and she’d been flat-out adorable, her crazy little cat’s face lit with excitement and her eyes full of spirit. It had been high noon, and the sun had coated her honey-colored hair with shimmering gold. He’d never seen hair like hers, bunches of tousled curls all the way to her shoulders. It had been prettier than a palomino’s coat, which was just about the prettiest thing he’d ever seen. When they’d been together, he’d spent hours running his hands through all that glorious stuff.

Lord help him, he hadn’t intended to let things get out of hand. But she’d been so sweet, and her smile had taken the edge off the sadness that had plagued him from the moment his mother had abandoned him when he was only nine, taking the baby sister he adored and leaving him to cope with his father’s bitter rages.

His body stirred at the memory of the stolen hours they’d spent together in a cheap motel room near the fairgrounds. That last night he’d bought her flowers—white carnations with petals almost as silky as her skin—and made sure the sheets had been clean. She’d been a virgin, and he’d tried to be gentle.

A thousand times he’d played back that scene, the teasing flick of her tongue against his, the purr of need in her throat. The adoration and trust in her eyes when she’d told him she loved him. A thousand times these past eight months he’d taken out that memory, hoarding each flash of those river green eyes, each dimpled smile, the soft little huff of wonder when she’d explored his body for the first time. When she’d finally worked up the courage to touch him, he’d damn near come right up off the bed.

For the first time since quittin’ school at sixteen to join the junior circuit, he’d been reluctant to move on. Especially when she’d cried and clung to him like there was no tomorrow.

I’ll write every day, she’d promised between frantic kisses. And she had at first, four letters for every one of his, telling him over and over how much she missed him—and how she couldn’t wait for him to come back when the season was over with the engagement ring he’d promised.

The more she wrote about them getting married, the tenser he’d become. Hell, he’d just gotten old enough to drink legal in a few enlightened states. The last thing he wanted was a noose around his neck. Thing was, though, he’d promised, and like his old man always said, a Jarrod never broke a promise.

Bent a few, though. And it wasn’t like he’d been real specific about when the season ended.

What with one thing and another, he’d started looking for reasons to put off goin’ back. Things like not havin’ enough money to support a wife. Or even the prospect of a steady job. Hell, he had no education to speak of. Nothing but a talent for stayin’ glued to the back of a raging tornado in horseflesh for the eight seconds it took to put money in his jeans.

Since his father had remarried and started another family, he didn’t even have a home to offer her—not a real one, anyway. So he kept puttin’ off that long drive back to Texas. As the months rolled by, there’d been other dusty towns and inevitably, other girls. Soon he’d been impatiently scrawling a few lines on a postcard. And finally he’d stopped writing altogether.

So had she—eventually—which was why he’d been so surprised to see the letter waiting for him at his daddy’s ranch outside Wickenburg. Damn thing had followed him halfway around the country—Canada, too—forwarded so many times the envelope had been raggedy and smudged.

All the way from Arizona he’d been picturing her with a big belly. The more he’d thought about it, the more awestruck he’d become. That sweet girl was havin’ his baby. His. It humbled him as much as it scared him.

Sweat beaded under the band of his dress Stetson hat as he made the left turn that would take him to her place. What was done was done, he told himself as he pulled into the driveway of the ugly brown house. He’d had his fun. Now it was time to pay the piper.

But as he climbed down from the truck and straightened his shoulders, he realized he was glad she was pregnant. Maybe it wasn’t the best way to start out a lifetime with his lady, but he’d make it work. If it took him a lifetime, he was determined to show her just how much he loved her. His Maddy girl.