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Except for him, Dan Dawson…a notorious flirt who asked everyone out.
“You know, Ashby, I could help you. I mean, I could help you find a husband.”
She almost tripped. “Excuse me?” Could this day get any worse?
“I know what your problem is.” He shrugged.
That brought her up short. “My problem?” she gritted through clenched teeth.
He grinned, then winked. Dan Dawson and winking was a lethal combination. Ashby might be immune to Dan’s shallow charm, but she wasn’t dead.
“Ash, you know what I’m talking about—you keep refusing to go out with me.”
“I’m looking for a man who wants to get married. We both know that isn’t you.”
DEBRA CLOPTON
was a 2004 Golden Heart finalist in the inspirational category, a 2006 Inspirational Readers’ Choice award winner, a 2007 Golden Quill award winner and a finalist in the 2007 American Christian Fiction Writers Book of the Year. She praises the Lord each time someone votes for one of her books, and takes it as an affirmation that she is exactly where God wants her to be.
Debra is a hopeless romantic and loves to create stories with lively heroines and the strong heroes who fall in love with them. But most importantly, she loves showing her characters living their faith and seeking God’s will in their lives one day at a time. Her goal is to give her readers an entertaining story that will make them smile, hopefully laugh and always feel God’s goodness as they read her books. She has found the perfect home for her stories writing for Love Inspired and still has to pinch herself just to see if she really is awake and living her dream.
When she isn’t writing Debra enjoys taking road trips, reading and spending time with her two sons, Chase and Kris. She loves hearing from readers and can be reached through her Web site, debraclopton.com, or at P.O. Box 1125, Madisonville, Texas 77864.
Her Baby Dreams
Debra Clopton
What does the Lord require of you? To act justly
and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your
God.
—Micah 6:8
To Heidi Clopton my very first and dearly loved
daughter-in-law. You are a jewel!
Special thanks and acknowledgments go to editorial assistant Elizabeth Mazer for all you do in the process of getting my books ready for the readers; to my agent Joyce Hart, who is always there for me; to all those who work behind the scenes at Steeple Hill—from artwork to shipping and everything in between, your efforts are greatly appreciated. Most important, special thanks to my gifted editor Krista Stroever for your honesty, tireless hard work and inspiration.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter One
“Come on, Ash, just climb up here and we’ll be on our way.” Dan Dawson patted the handlebars and grinned at her with that mesmerizing smile of his, and expected that to be enough.
Ashby Templeton stared across the now dusty bicycle at the too-handsome-for-his-own-good cowboy, and wondered what terrible, horrible deed she’d done to deserve this kind of punishment.
The cowboy fully expected that just because he asked with a smile, she would comply!
Arms crossed, she held her ground. Despite the power of that smile, she was not going to climb up there to teeter precariously as he pedaled the bike. It had nothing to do with being difficult. It had to do with ability. She just couldn’t do it.
Far too used to getting his own way with those midnight-blue eyes, Dan batted them once more while patting the bars again. “We’re losing, Ash. Why did you sign up for this race if you weren’t going to cooperate?”
She wasn’t ready to answer that, either. This left her with a blank stare as her only defense against the cocky slant of his smile. Dangerous stuff for anyone to witness. Still, she held her ground.
“It’s supposed to be a fun race, done as a team,” he continued. “That means one of us has to ride and one of us has to pedal. C’mon, hop on now and we can still make a decent showing. Haven’t you ever seen Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid?”
Feeling the sting of humiliation, Ashby stalked away from him down the country road, wishing with all her might that she’d had a normal upbringing. This! This fiasco was her blue-blooded mother’s fault.
Ashby could not tell Dan Dawson that in her world, knowing how to host a dinner party was considered “essential” information. Riding a bike was something the gardening crew did to get to work. She had to say something, though. She spun toward him, met his gaze and knew she would rather limp barefoot and bleeding across that finish line than admit the truth.
A slight exaggeration, but still, she could not tell him. He arched a brow, waiting for her reply. More humiliation tangled inside her.
“If we’re going to finish at all, then we’d better stop talking and get moving,” she huffed. “I told you in town that I was going to walk. Walking together is a team effort, too.” She started walking again.
Fifteen feet farther on, hearing no sound behind her, Ashby could only assume he was standing in the middle of the road watching her, waiting for her to give in.
“This is just ridiculous,” he muttered at last, and rode up beside her within seconds. “What is the big deal? The other gals hopped up on those handlebars like good sports. That’s why when Applegate shot the starting gun, they tore out of there like good competitors do, and left us in their dust. That’s why everyone was laughing when you headed out at a fast trot behind them.”
“I did not trot.” She felt guilty about all that, but really, there was no need to get ugly. It wasn’t her fault that this truly was all she could do. How could she tell him that she couldn’t ride a bike? How could she admit that the very thought of climbing onto a bike flustered her so that she got this confounded vertigo? She glanced at him in her peripheral vision and picked up the pace. Trot, my foot!
He looped around ahead of her on the blacktop and came back toward her like a circling vulture.
“So why did you sign up?” He intercepted her gaze as he went by. “This was supposed to be a boy meets girl, girl meets the man of her dreams shindig. At least, that’s what I thought.”
“Man of her dreams—boy, they got that one wrong,” Ashby grumbled under her breath.
“What’s that?” He swooped around her, holding his legs out, his boot tips pointing straight up to the sky…. The cowboy was in a bike race wearing jeans, boots and a Stetson! And if she weren’t so put out by all of this, she’d say it was a little bit cute. Some of the other cowboys had forgone their standard uniform in favor of shorts. Their legs were as white as the silk wedding dress hanging in the window of her dress shop. Even so, they were probably far more comfortable than Dan, though he hadn’t even broken a sweat. Not so for her…It just wasn’t fair any way you looked at it.
She pulled a wayward strand of hair off her damp cheek and focused on what was really bothering her.
The vertigo.
“C’mon, Ash, spit it out. Why did you sign up?”
“I didn’t sign up,” she snapped, regretting it even as the words erupted from her lips.
“Ha! I was right.” He jerked the handlebars and again swooped back in her direction. “When the ladies announced they were adding this couples’ bike race to the spring festival, I told all the boys there was no way you’d be signing up for it. Of course, nobody disagreed with me.”
“What?” It was Ashby’s turn to twirl around to stare at him as he made the loop behind her. The world spun drunkenly, but she took a deep breath and let it settle down, while he continued as if he hadn’t noticed that her voice dripped with indignation.
“Yup. Imagine our surprise when you walked out there and got in the lineup.”
A knot formed in the pit of her stomach at Dan’s disheartening revelation. The cowboys hadn’t thought she would participate. They’d all automatically assumed she wouldn’t.
How could they presume such a thing? She’d moved to Mule Hollow almost a year ago specifically to find a husband. True, it wasn’t as if she was shouting it to the treetops. But this was a town that had advertised for wives for all the bachelors, so of course she’d expected that the cowboys knew any single girl moving in had hopes of marrying.
She swallowed, fighting to keep her expression neutral. She didn’t want Dan Dawson to have the satisfaction of knowing how deeply that remark hurt. There was absolutely no one who could want a baby more than she did. Want a warm, nurturing, lovable family. A family that would go on picnics together, that wouldn’t be afraid to get down in the grass and roll around if the notion struck. A family who would learn to ride bikes together…every last one of them. Of course, before she could ride bikes with her children, she was going to have to learn herself.
Ashby breathed through her nose and tried to regain her control. But it was hard, when all she could think about was that she was almost thirty years old. Thirty. That meant her biological clock was ticking on an accelerated timetable, and things were not looking good for the family she wanted so much.
How was a girl supposed to marry and have babies when the cowboys of Mule Hollow wouldn’t ask her out?
Except for him, Dan Dawson…a notorious flirt who asked everyone out. Her “friends” were definitely playing mud ball here. What could have possessed them to partner her up with him? It just didn’t make sense. They knew how much she wanted to settle down.
Sweat ran down her face and she pushed more hair off her sticky skin. Her mood deteriorated further as she watched Dan glide by again.
He made it look so easy.
Riding a bike, that is. As he got a little way ahead of her he let go and effortlessly pedaled down the yellow stripe, no hands.
Ashby walked faster. She would have jogged a little, except—well, there was that dizziness and the blister growing on her heel. And, well, she’d never been much of an athlete. Her mother hadn’t encouraged it when Ashby was growing up. She’d spent most of her days in frilly pastel dresses, sitting primly at one endless function after another. Ashby had learned to despise her blue blood long before she even knew what it was. She had actually forgotten until today that there had been a time when she’d really wanted to learn to ride a bicycle.
Dan circled back, and a picture of her as a child holding her nanny’s hand in Golden Gate Park watching other kids riding by flashed through her memory. She in her frills and patent leather Mary Janes.
“You know, Ashby, I could help you.”
She blinked hard and focused on the red ribbon off in the distance, signaling the route back toward town and the finish line of this five-mile nightmare.
“I’m almost afraid to ask what you mean,” she said. How long had they been out here? She checked her watch—just over an hour! It felt like days.
“I mean, I could help you find a husband.”
She almost tripped. “Excuse me?” Could this day get any worse?
“Hey, I’m good at reading people. I can usually tell what someone needs.”
She gave him the evil eye, clamping her mouth firmly shut. Why couldn’t a rabbit hole open up right then and there?
He shrugged. “I know what your problem is.”
That brought her up short. “My problem?” she said through gritted teeth.
He grinned, then winked.
Dan Dawson and winking was a lethal combination. He already looked better than any man alive had a right to. Add a wink…Ashby might be immune to Dan’s shallow charm, but she wasn’t dead.
She sucked in a couple of deep breaths as he pedaled slowly beside her.
“Ash, you know what I’m talking about. I have been trying to help you out for a year now. But how am I going to do that if you keep refusing to go out with me? You should give me points for persistence.”
“Hardly. Besides, how is going out with you supposed to help me? I’m looking for a man who wants to get married.” Going out with you would be a complete waste of time I don’t have, she almost said, but it sounded too harsh. Instead, she took a more diplomatic approach. “We both know that isn’t you.”
“But it would be fun.”
“And that is my point,” she huffed, dragging to a halt. “Why would I want to go out with you just to have fun?”
He stopped riding. “See, that right there. That is exactly what I’m talking about.”
She did not get this man.
“You need to loosen up, Ash. Live a little! You are never going to get a date if you don’t. Even a lonesome cowboy isn’t desperate enough to marry a gal so knotted up she can’t have a good time.”
“I…” Ashby swallowed hard, forcing herself to hold his gaze. “I can have a good time.”
He patted the handlebars, challenge in his eyes. “Show me.”
“No.” She refused to be goaded into trying something she would regret. Anyway, when she fell flat on her face, it would only add lack of balance to her apparently well-documented list of shortcomings.
No way. She resumed walking. Stalking, actually. Stalking wasn’t good. It made her far more aware of how much her feet were killing her. She was having to fight the urge to limp, and was afraid to think about the size of the blister that was building….
To her surprise, Dan hopped off the bike and started walking beside her, pushing it between them. “You are a puzzle, Ashby Templeton. Yes, indeedy, a real jigsaw.”
Ashby lifted her chin and didn’t take the bait.
“Does it get lonesome up there?”
She cut her eyes toward him. “Up where?”
“On that high horse you ride.”
“I don’t ri—” She glared at him.
“No use denying it.” He reached across the bike and pulled a piece of wet hair off her cheek.
To Ashby’s horror, her pulse went ballistic. She stepped away from him and the bad choices he represented. Their rejections because she wasn’t “good enough” still stung, but she had a major weakness for bad choices. Brad. Carlton. Steven…She’d been such a fool. Wasted so many years. But no more. “Look,” she said, glaring at Dan. “I have no problem with you hopping on that bike and riding off into the sunset. I’d welcome it, actually.” Yes, she would.
“Nope, wouldn’t be right. If you’re going to insist on walking, then I walk, too.”
Ashby dug deep for clarity. Focused on her friends. Friends who had better run the other way when they saw her coming. She might have been brought up to be a lady: calm, cool and collected—but even a lady had her breaking point.
Chapter Two
Dan had never met a more bullheaded woman. Ashby beat the competition hands down.
He slid her a glance. It was obvious her feet were killing her. Her pace had slowed over time, and when she thought he wasn’t watching, she was limping on her right foot. Crazy woman.
So get on the bike already and let him do the work. What, he wanted to shout out, was the big deal?
He took a deep breath. The woman had a way of getting under his skin, and had from the first day they’d met. He could count on his left thumb the number of women who’d ever turned him down for a date. That woman was limping stubbornly beside him right now.
“Look, I know your feet are killing you.”
She scorched him with a glare that warmed his blood. Yanking the bike to a halt, he watched her increase the distance between them. Yes, sir, there she went with her perfectly blunt-cut hair swinging and swaying in perfect time with each step she took. Everything about her was perfect.
Which was precisely her problem. She was just too perfect.
Still, did she honestly think she was too good to ride on the handlebars of his bike? When he’d signed up, he’d been expecting to draw some high-spirited gal as a partner, and spend a pleasant afternoon on this little escapade. Boy, was the laugh on him.
Could Ashby not see the potential in the whole game?
Standing in the center of the blacktop, exactly halfway along the course, he watched her struggle.
It just didn’t make sense. None of it. Not the limping, or the refusal to get on the stinkin’ bike. He ought to throw her over his shoulder and haul her into town kicking and screaming.
But that wasn’t his way. He hung his head and gathered his wits as he tried to come up with a new strategy. One that didn’t require losing his temper, since he didn’t allow himself to lose his temper, ever. Especially with a female. He refused to follow in his father’s footsteps.
But the woman was hurting herself for no good reason.
He shouldn’t be surprised. She’d been Miss Prim from the moment she’d first shown up in Mule Hollow. Beyond perfect, like an airbrushed cover girl. Most of the cowboys around town had taken one look at her and figured she was out of their league.
Dan, never one to be accused of a lack of confidence, thought he’d do her a favor and break the ice, so he’d asked her out. Maybe that way the other wranglers would see she was approachable.
He’d just been trying to help her out.
Imagine his surprise when the woman turned him down. One flat no, and she’d sashayed off, high heels clicking on the plank sidewalk.
Worst part of the scenario was that this had taken place in front of Sam’s Diner, with a herd of cowboys watching from the shadows inside.
The very idea that she’d refused to go out with him sparked a challenge in Dan. He’d decided right then and there he was going to get a date with her if it took a year. It was the principle of the whole thing.
Of course that was before he’d realized the ramifications of their interaction.
Little did she know it, but she’d sealed her fate that day. He felt bad about the fact that asking her out in public had backfired as it had. Dan had been kidded and teased no end, because of the brutal way she’d shot him down. He could feel sorry for himself, but a little teasing never hurt anyone. Then again, he suspected Ashby wouldn’t feel the same way. This woman was all business when it came to dating. It was all about finding a husband. She had no idea that because of that day in front of Sam’s, unless something drastic happened, she was done. When a cowpoke got turned down by a gal, the slang expressions in certain cowboy circles was no longer that he’d gotten axed, but that he’d been “Ashed.”
Of course, to the fellas it was harmless joking.
If her reaction just now was any indication, she’d explode if she knew what was being said. Dan really felt guilty about the whole thing. He’d thought asking her out in public would break the ice, not shut her down.
For a natural fixer like him, that was hard to deal with. As a boy whose earliest memories were of his mother getting smacked around by his dad, the need to fix situations had become embedded in his emotional makeup. His approach to problems was a talent he’d happened upon by accident a few years later, living in a women’s shelter with his mom. All the occupants of which, like his mother, needed their confidence rebuilt.
He’d learned that when he smiled, women smiled.
It had first happened when he tried to make his mom feel better, and saw that his smile brightened her expression. But when he’d seen his smile cause a young woman with a black eye and a swollen lip to smile back at him, it had dawned on even a kid of six that a little charm could transform someone’s life. If only for a moment.
Dan had been blessed with a playful heart, and God had given him an unlikely path at an early age that he had followed into adulthood.
Things with Ashby weren’t entirely the same. He couldn’t explain it completely, but he’d unknowingly given her a bad rep, and he felt a need to repair it.
He’d tried telling the guys she’d been having a bad day but it had not convinced them. So he figured if she’d go out with him, like he’d planned originally, that it would redeem her in the eyes of the other cowboys.
Not so easy. She wasn’t cooperating for some reason. Despite this, they’d actually developed a relationship based on banter over the months of continued rejection—banter he found entertaining most of the time. Not today.
This day was going to add to the urban legend she’d become, and try as he might, there was nothing he could do.
Shaking his head, he pushed the bike forward. She didn’t have a clue this race could very well seal her fate for good.
Unless she changed her ways, Ashby Templeton would die an old maid here in Mule Hollow, surrounded by cowboys diligently searching for wives. And she wouldn’t even know why.
On Friday, Ashby walked into Heavenly Inspirations Salon knowing that something had to change. She just didn’t know what.
Was she the reason that her love life was nonexistent?
She still hadn’t completely forgiven her friends for setting her up in that horrible bike race with Dan Dawson two weeks earlier. What had they been thinking? It would go down in history as one of the worst days of her life. Honestly, they knew he was a thorn in her side. That she’d refused to go out with him several times over the past year. So why had they done it?
She’d told herself they’d acted with the best of intentions, however misguided they might be. Still, as she entered the salon, she could only shake her head that they were scraping the bottom of the barrel in an attempt to help her find a husband. They must really think her hopeless.
Lacy had called a meeting of the local ladies to discuss plans to attract more visitors to town.
“Hi, everyone,” Ashby said, scanning the full room. The matchmakers were all present. Norma Sue Jenkins, robust and good-hearted, grinned at her from where she and redheaded Esther Mae Wilcox were shelling peas in the corner. Adela, their partner in matchmaking, was sitting at the manicure table watching Sheri, co-owner of the salon, paint her own toenails.
It had been Adela who’d come up with the idea to transform her small town into a place that would attract and hopefully hold a generation of younger women. They’d hatched their “wives wanted” ad campaign, and had been matchmaking ever since. Lacy had come along first and opened her salon; others soon followed. Still more came to the festivals and weekend events held to mingle with the cowboys and enjoy the imaginative, sometimes outrageous things this group came up with for them to participate in. The bike race being a case in point. Today, feeling dread like a lead ball in the pit of her stomach, Ashby wondered what new idea was brewing.
“Hey, Ashby, you do not look so good,” Lacy said, sitting in the shampoo chair, thumbing through a salon supply brochure.
“You sure don’t,” Sheri agreed.
The room grew still as everyone paused and stared. “I’m fine,” Ashby said, and sat down in the chair by the door.
“You’re not still upset about the spring festival, are you?” Esther Mae asked. “I just can’t believe you didn’t let that cutie-pie Dan give you a ride on the bike. That was the whole reason for the race. Why, me and my Hank used to love to ride around like that.”