Chapter Three
Daisy-Mae
After primping my hair for entirely too long—even though I knew it would just go flat anyway—I stand at my garden gate at twenty minutes past the hour waiting with a pastry box in my hand and a travel mug of coffee. West’s red Chevvy pulls up a beat later.
“Mornin’.” He tips his hat and climbs out of the truck to open my door, then he seems to take pity on me and helps me in by propping his hands under my ass. “Sorry. She’s a beast.”
I gasp in shock. “West Winchester! I know I might have put on a little baby weight, and sure, I may have just one giant ass now instead of two pert little cheeks, but didn’t your mama teach you not to insult a lady?”
West blinks as if I’ve just grown an extra head. “Oh hell, Daisy. I didn’t mean you! I meant my truck.”
I laugh and set my butt on the seat before thrusting the pastry box toward him.
He takes it with a confused look on his face. “What’s this?”
“Breakfast,” I say with a smile. “I’m just messing with you, West. I know you meant your truck.”
“But I already ate.”
I shrug. “Well, strap it to your horse and have it out in the field while you tag steer or something.”
“I’d need two hands for that but thank you. I appreciate the gesture.”
He closes my door and heads around the front of the truck to the driver’s side, setting the box on the bench seat.
“I appreciate you coming all this way to get me.”
“I told you not to mention it.”
“Well, I’ll just pay you in baked goods then.”
“I’ll get fat and the cows will have to move me around the pasture.”
“You? Fat? The great West Winchester with the arm of steel?”
“Naw, come on. You’ll embarrass me. I haven’t been the ‘great anything’ since high school, and even then, I’m pretty sure that name only stuck because the boys knew I hated it.”
I smile and glance out the windshield at the flower-lined streets giving way to dry grass and pastures as West drives us toward the ranch. “I barely even remember those days, but I’ll never forget that thirty-yard touchdown that led our little team to State.”
“You and everyone else in this town,” he shakes his head. “But I didn’t play that game alone.”
“It was like magic,” I say and feel the need to clarify when his jaw tightens. “Watching you on the field, that is.”
His brows pinch together. “I don’t know about magic. I sure loved the feel of that pigskin in my hands though.”
“You don’t ever think about what might have been?” I ask, but immediately regret it when he frowns.
“No good wondering about what might’ve been. Besides, my daddy had my life all planned out since before I was born. And the only field that ever mattered to him was which one the cattle were in.”
“I don’t know if I ever told you this, but I was so sorry to hear of his passing. Your daddy was a good man. Your family is ...”
“Nosy, bossy, overwhelming?”
“Perfection,” I finish with a soft smile and rub a hand over my distended abdomen. “I always wanted a big family. But, I guess, it’ll just be the two of us. You don’t know how lucky you are to have them ... even with all their crazy.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right.” He looks a little chagrined as he focuses on the road. “So, you ever hear from Eddie?”
I have no desire to talk about my low-life, cheating, soon-to-be ex-husband with Red River’s most eligible bachelor, so I decide not to tell him about the divorce papers that landed in my lap earlier this week. “Nope.”
“Hmm,” West grunts and then hands me his phone. “Why don’t you put your number in there? Might make it easier for you to contact me if you need a lift to any of those baby appointments you gotta go to.”
I grin. “West Winchester, are you saying you wanna be my stand-in baby daddy?”
His panicked eyes dart from the road to mine and back again, and I swear, he turns the cutest shade of red. Who knew he was so easy to ruffle? “What? No. That’s not what I ... er ... that’s not exactly what I meant.”
“God, you are just too serious these days.” I shake my head and put my number in his phone, but I don’t exactly save it under Daisy-Mae. “When was the last time you actually had fun?”
“I have fun,” he grumbles.
“Roping cattle and beating up your brothers don’t count.”
“Fine. Then I don’t have fun.”
“That’s okay,” I say with a quiet sigh. “I don’t really have fun either, not since ...”
“Eddie?”
I don’t know why, maybe it’s my nerves, or maybe the idea of having fun with Eddie is so ludicrous that I choke on a laugh. “No. Eddie was a lot of things, but fun wasn’t one of them.”
“Maybe fun is overrated.”
“Or maybe we’re just old and cynical now, but I like to think I could still have fun ... with the right person.”
“I hope you find that, Dais,” West says, as we pull up to the Bed and Breakfast.
“You too.” I open my door before I can say something I’ll regret, like, “We could help each other find fun.”
West says, “So I’ll see you here at five?”
“I’ll be here.” I wave him off and head up the porch stairs. “Don’t forget to share those pastries.” I wink and slide my key in the lock, opening the front door.
“Quit fat-shaming me, woman,” West yells out the window before he drives off, leaving a plume of dust in his wake.
I watch his truck all the way to the end of the road.
Something tells me West and I could have a lot of fun.
My God, Daisy-Mae. What in the hell is wrong with you?
There is no way West Winchester is interested in me. He’s just being sweet, is all.
You weren’t even important enough for your mama or husband to stick around for.
That little voice twists the knife ever deeper.
Most days I’m chipper enough at blocking it out, but every so often, that doubt creeps in and reminds me I’m all alone in this world.
At least until my baby comes. Then, we’ll be our own little family, just me and him against the world.
I cradle my belly as I step across the threshold. “Come on, baby. We don’t need no one else. We’ll make our own fun, won’t we?”
He gives a little kick against my palm, and I take it to heart that he knows what I mean and he likes that idea a lot.