A Baby Between Friends

“There’s one more thing that we haven’t covered.”

“What would that be?” For the life of her, Summer couldn’t imagine what there was left to be decided after their many conversations on the subject.

“We’re going to start acting like we’re a couple,” Ryder stated.

“You mean, as if we’ve fallen in love?” Things just kept getting more complicated with every conversation they had.

“It’s easier to go with that than it is to try and explain everything.” He leaned over and briefly pressed his lips to hers. “Besides, that’s what people are going to think anyway. We might as well go along with it.”

“Does that mean we’ll be openly affectionate toward each other?” she asked, liking the way his kiss made her feel warm all over.

“Yup. That’s what people do when they’re …involved.”

She frowned. “Do you think we can be convincing?”

“Let’s see…” he said.

KATHIE DENOSKY lives in her native southern Illinois on the land her family settled in 1839. She writes highly sensual stories with a generous amount of humor; her books have appeared on the USA TODAY bestseller list and received numerous awards, including two National Readers’ Choice Awards. Kathie enjoys going to rodeos, traveling to research settings for her books and listening to country music. Readers may contact her by emailing kathie@kathiedenosky.com. They can also visit her website, www.kathiedenosky.com, or find her on Facebook, www.facebook.com/Kathie-DeNosky- Author/278166445536145.

A Baby Between Friends

Kathie DeNosky

www.millsandboon.co.uk

This book is dedicated to my editor Stacy Boyd for allowing me to spread my wings and soar.

One

Ryder McClain’s temper flared as he stared at the five men grinning at him like a bunch of damned fools. Having spent their teen years together on the Last Chance Ranch, a home for boys that the foster care system had labeled lost causes, he loved all of them. In all ways except by blood, they were his brothers. However, at this moment, nothing would be more satisfying than to wrap his hands around their throats and throttle every one of them.

“I’m only going to say this one more time and then I expect you all to drop it,” he said through gritted teeth. “I brought Summer Patterson to the party tonight because she’s a friend who didn’t have any other plans. Period. There’s absolutely nothing going on between us.”

“Sure, if you say so, bro.” Jaron Lambert’s skeptical expression indicated that he didn’t believe a word Ryder had just said. “And I’ll bet you still believe in the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy, don’t ya?”

“I’ll give you all a hundred-to-one odds that the lady in question has other ideas,” Lane Donaldson said, rocking back on the heels of his handcrafted Caiman leather boots. A highly successful, professional poker player, Lane used his master’s degree in psychology to read people like an open book. In this instance, the man was definitely reading the wrong chapter.

“Yup. I’d say she’s cut you from the herd and getting ready to measure you for a saddle,” Sam Rafferty added, laughing. The only married one of his foster brothers, Sam and his wife, Bria, were throwing the party to celebrate the renewal of their wedding vows, as well as Bria’s pregnancy. “You might as well face it, Ryder. Your bachelor days are numbered.”

“You’re just hoping one of us will join you in the pool of the blissfully hitched,” Ryder said, blowing out a frustrated breath. “But as far as Summer and I are concerned, that’s not going to happen—now or in the future. Neither one of us have any intention of being anything more than best friends. End of discussion.”

Smiling, T.J. Malloy paused with his beer bottle halfway to his mouth. “Ryder, did you get kicked in the head by a bull at the last rodeo you worked? That might explain you not being able to see what’s as plain as your hand in front of your face.”

“Well, now, this makes things a whole lot easier for me,” Nate Rafferty said, smirking as he turned toward the dance floor where Summer stood talking to Bria and her sister, Mariah. “As long as you’re not interested, I think I’ll just mosey on over there and ask the little lady to dance.”

Ryder knew that his brother was baiting him, but without a second thought, his hand came down like a vise-grip on Nate’s shoulder. “Don’t even think about it, Romeo.”

“Oh, so you have staked your claim,” Lane said smugly.

“No, I haven’t.” Ryder’s jaw was clenched so hard that he wouldn’t be surprised if it took a crowbar to pry his teeth apart. “But Summer doesn’t need Nate’s brand of grief.” He thought the world of his foster brother, but Nate Rafferty had a love ’em and leave ’em philosophy that had left a string of broken hearts across the entire Southwest and then some. “No offense, Nate, but you’re the last thing she needs.”

“He’s got you there, Nate,” Sam said, nodding. The only two biological siblings of the group, Sam and Nate couldn’t have been more different. The older of the two, Sam had never even come close to having the wild streak that his younger brother Nate had.

Nate shrugged. “I can’t help it if I love the ladies.”

“You take your interest in women to a whole other level,” Ryder said, shaking his head in disgust. “Leave this lady alone and we’ll get along just fine. Cross that line and you and I are going to have one hell of a big problem, bro.”

He chose to ignore the knowing looks his brothers exchanged and, in favor of doing them all bodily harm, walked away. For one thing, he didn’t want to ruin Sam and Bria’s reception by getting into a knockdown, drag-out brawl. And for another, he made sure he never raised a fist in anger to anyone for any reason. He had been down that road once, when he was a teenager, and the results had damned near ruined his life. He wasn’t going to risk going down it again.

“Ryder?”

Turning at the sound of the familiar female voice, he watched the pretty blond-haired woman with the bluest eyes he had ever seen walk toward him. He and Summer had been best friends for the past few years, and although any man would be lucky to call her his woman, Ryder had avoided thinking of her as anything but his friend. Anything more between them and he would feel obligated to tell her the reason he had finished growing up at the Last Chance Ranch. That was something he didn’t care to share with anyone and why he didn’t intend to enter into a serious relationship with any woman. Some things were just better left buried in the past. Besides, he didn’t want to take the chance of losing the easygoing friendship they had forged by becoming romantically involved with her. He suspected she felt the same way.

“Is something wrong?” she asked, her expression reflecting her concern.

Letting go of his anger, Ryder shook his head as he smiled at the petite woman standing next to him. “No, I just got tired of listening to my brothers’ bull.”

She smiled wistfully. “You’re lucky. At least you have brothers to irritate you. I’ve never had that problem.”

Ryder felt as guilty as hell. As aggravating as his foster brothers could be at times, there wasn’t a doubt in his mind they would all be there for him no matter what—the same as he would be for all of them. They meant the world to him and there wasn’t a day that went by he didn’t thank the good Lord above that he had them in his life.

But Summer had never had anything like that. Over the course of their friendship, he had learned she was the only child of an older couple who, during her senior year in college, had been killed in the small plane her father owned. With their deaths, she had been left with no family at all.

“Yeah, they sure can be a thorn in my side sometimes.” As the last traces of his anger dissipated, he grinned. “But I guess after all these years I don’t have any other choice but to keep them.”

She laughed. “Good idea, cowboy. But seriously, your family is great. I know some of your brothers from seeing them compete at the rodeos we’ve worked, but I’d never met Sam’s wife and her sister. They’re very nice and I think it’s wonderful that you all have stayed so close over the years.”

When Ryder noticed Nate eyeing Summer like a fox sizing up an unguarded henhouse, he shot his brother a warning glare, then asked, “Have you had a chance to dance yet?”

“Only the line dances,” she answered, glancing at the dance floor Sam had his hired hands construct in one of the barns for the celebration.

“I thought I saw Sam’s head wrangler ask you to dance a little earlier,” he said, frowning.

“I suppose he was nice enough,” she replied, shrugging one slender shoulder. “But I wasn’t in the mood to dance then.”

“Well, if you don’t mind a cowboy with two left feet and the worst sense of rhythm this side of the Mississippi, I’d be honored to stand in one spot with you and sway in time to the music,” he offered.

Her eyes filled with humor. “I thought all Texas cowboys took pride in sashaying around the dance floor doing the two-step or the stroll.”

“You know me better than that, darlin’.” As the band started playing a slow, dreamy country tune, he shook his head in mock disgust and placing his hand to her back, guided her out onto the dance floor. “This is one Texan who doesn’t sashay, prance or shimmy anywhere. Anytime. Ever.”

“I beg to differ with you,” she murmured, placing her hands on his biceps when he rested his at her trim waist. “I’ve seen you when you’re dancing with a two-thousand-pound bull. You have some pretty smooth moves, cowboy.”

“That’s because it’s my job.” He shrugged and tried to ignore the warmth of her soft palms burning his skin through the fabric of his chambray shirt. “If I don’t get those old bulls to dance with me, a bull rider gets run over.”

“Don’t you have a degree in ranch management?” she asked. “I would have thought you’d be content to stay home and run your ranch instead of traveling around the country playing chicken with a bulldozer on hooves.”

“Yup, I’m a proud graduate of Texas A&M.” He put himself between her and a couple enthusiastically two-stepping their way around the dance floor in an effort to keep them from bumping into her. “But I have a good, reliable foreman I pay quite well to check in with me several times a day. He gives me a full report on how things are going, I tell him what I want done and he sees that it’s taken care of. That frees me up to be out on the rodeo circuit saving knuckleheaded bull riders like Nate and Jaron.”

As Summer gazed up at him, she frowned. “I don’t think I’ve ever asked, but why did you choose to be a rodeo bullfighter instead of a rider?”

“One time when our foster dad, Hank, was teaching us all to rodeo, one of the training bulls got loose and tried to mow down Jaron. I didn’t have a clue what I was doing, but I jumped in the arena and put myself between the two of them to keep that from happening. It turned out that I was pretty good at distracting a bull and getting it to chase me.” He shrugged. “I’ve been doing it ever since.”

“In other words, you like being a hero,” she said, smiling.

Laughing, he shook his head. “Nah. I’m in it for the adrenaline rush, darlin’.” It was an easier explanation than admitting that he had always felt compelled to protect others from danger at the risk of his own safety.

When the song ended, Ryder led her off the dance floor and after finding an empty table for them, made sure she was comfortably seated before he went to get them a couple of drinks. He frowned as he made his way to the bar. His arms still tingled where she had rested her hands, and for the life of him, he couldn’t figure out why. That had never happened before. Had his brothers’ ribbing put ideas in his head about Summer?

As he continued to ponder the strange sensation, he looked up to see his brothers watching with no small amount of interest. They all wore the same sappy, know-it-all grin, making him want to plant his fist in all of their guts.

Ryder was extremely grateful that their foster father had instilled a strong sense of family among the boys he helped guide through their troubled teenage years. As Hank Calvert always told them, once they were grown they would appreciate having each other and a little bit of history together that they could look back on since none of them had any other family to speak of. And that’s the way Ryder felt…most of the time. But at other times—like right now—having brothers could be a real pain in the ass.

As Summer waited for Ryder to return with their drinks, she absently watched the dancers form a couple of parallel lines and begin to move in unison to a lively tune. She couldn’t get over how much she was enjoying herself. Normally she turned down all invitations from the men she worked with, no matter what the occasion or the circumstances. But Ryder was different. They had been best friends from the time she took the job as public relations director for the rodeo association southwestern circuit, and for reasons she couldn’t explain, she trusted him. He was honest, didn’t play the games that most men did, and despite his above average height and muscular build, she didn’t feel at all threatened by him.

Of course, that might have something to do with the way he had run interference with some of their more aggressive male coworkers when she first started working for the rodeo association. From the day they met, Ryder had made it a point to remind all of them that she was a lady and should be treated as such. He had shown her nothing but his utmost respect, and it hadn’t taken long before they had developed an easy, comfortable relationship. And not once in all the time she had known him had he indicated that he wanted anything more from her than to be her friend.

Unfortunately, she couldn’t say the same for a lot of the men she knew. Most of them fell into two categories—blatant flirts who made it clear what they wanted from a woman, and the seemingly harmless type who lured a woman into a false sense of security before revealing their true hidden agenda. It was the latter group that was the most dangerous. The flirts were easy to spot and, once rebuffed, usually moved on to set their sights on another female. But the men with hidden agendas were nothing more than predators hiding behind a facade of sincerity.

As she absently stared at the dancers, a shiver slithered up her spine. Regrettably, she had learned that lesson the hard way. But it was one she never, as long as she lived, intended to forget.

“Would you mind if I join you, Summer?” Bria Rafferty asked, from behind her. “After that last dance, I need a minute or two to catch my breath.”

Turning to glance over her shoulder, Summer smiled at the pretty auburn-haired woman. “Please have a seat.” She looked around. “Where’s the rest of the clan?”

“Sam, Nate, T.J. and Lane are in a lively debate about the differences between breeds of bucking bulls and which ones are the hardest to ride.” Bria laughed as she pointed to the other side of the barn. “And Mariah and Jaron are arguing again about whether I’m going to have a boy or a girl.”

“What are you and Sam hoping to have?” Summer asked, smiling when Bria lowered herself into the chair across from her.

“I don’t care as long as the baby is healthy,” Bria said, placing her hand protectively over her still-flat stomach.

“What about your husband?” Summer was pretty sure she already knew the answer. “What does Sam want?”

The woman’s smile confirmed her suspicions. “Sam says he doesn’t care, but I think he’s secretly hoping for a boy.”

Summer smiled. “Isn’t that what most men want?”

“I think it’s because men want a son to do things with, as well as carry on their family name,” Bria answered.

“Not to mention the fact that females of all ages are a complete mystery to most men and they’d rather not have to deal with raising a child they can’t understand,” Summer added.

Grinning, Bria nodded. “Well, there is that.”

While one of her guests stopped to congratulate Bria on her pregnancy, Summer couldn’t help but feel envious. Nothing would please her more than to have a child of her own—a son or daughter to love and to love her in return. She had been so lonely since her parents died that she craved that sense of belonging again, that connection with a family. Having a child of her own would help restore some of those ties and if the plan she had come up with over the past six months worked, she would accomplish just that.

“When is your baby due?” she asked as the guest moved on.

“In early spring.” Bria glowed with happiness and Summer knew it had to be because she had just entered her second trimester. Ryder had mentioned that almost a year ago Bria and Sam had lost a baby in the early weeks of pregnancy—a baby they had both desperately wanted.

“It won’t be too much longer and you’ll know for sure whether you’re having a girl or a boy.” She hoped one day in the very near future to experience the joys of expecting a child herself and learning if she would be having a son or daughter.

“Sam and I have decided we don’t want the doctor to tell us.” Bria laughed. “But the closer it gets to having the sonogram, the more I think Sam is going to change his mind.”

“Why do you say that?”

“He keeps asking me if I feel like I’m carrying a boy.” The woman rolled her eyes. “Like I would know.”

“Men just don’t have a clue.” Summer marveled at the misconceptions some men had. “If there’s a bigger mystery to a man than a woman it has to be pregnancy.”

Grinning, Bria nodded. “Exactly.”

“Would you like for me to get you something to drink, Bria?” Ryder asked, returning to the table. He handed a soft drink to Summer, then set a bottle of beer on the table in front of the empty chair beside her.

“Thank you, Ryder. But I think I’m going to go see if Sam is ready to cut that humongous cake he insisted we had to have.” Bria rose to her feet. “I’m pretty sure he wanted to support the old saying that everything is bigger in Texas.”

Summer glanced over at the giant, four-tiered cake in the center of the refreshment table. “The cake is beautiful, but I have to agree with you. It’s definitely worthy of the axiom.”

“I hope you have plenty of room in the freezer,” Ryder added, chuckling as he pulled out the chair and sat down. “From the size of it, I’d say you’re going to have about half of it left over.”

Nodding, Bria flashed a smile. “I won’t have to make a birthday cake for any of you for at least another year. I can just thaw out some of this one, put a candle on it and sing ‘Happy Birthday.’”

“She makes each of us a dinner and a cake for our birthday,” Ryder explained as Bria walked across the barn toward her husband. “All of us that is except for Jaron. He’s crazy for her apple pie, so she makes a couple of those for him and sticks a candle in the middle of them.”

“I think it’s wonderful that you’re all so close,” Summer said wistfully.

Having spent the past several years alone on her birthday and holidays, she coveted Ryder’s family gatherings. She was sure if he had known, he would have insisted that she join them. But she hadn’t let on because she didn’t want that, hadn’t wanted to be reminded of all that she had lost. That was the main reason she had taken the job of the on-site PR person for the rodeo association. She was constantly on the move from one town to the next coordinating the many rodeos held throughout the southwestern circuit, and she was always so busy that she didn’t have time to think of how lonely her life had become. She was, however, glad that Ryder had invited her to his family’s celebration tonight. It made her more certain than ever that she had made the right decision to start her own family.

“Did your foster father celebrate with you all before he passed away?” she asked, curious to hear about how they had come together and bonded as a family.

“Bria made sure to include Hank and her sister, Mariah, in all of our get-togethers,” Ryder replied. “Family is everything to Bria and we all appreciate that. It helps us stay close and in touch with what’s going on with each other.”

Watching Ryder from the corner of her eye, she admired him and his foster brothers for the change they had made in their lives and the tight-knit bond they had formed. They might have been brought together because of their troubled youth, but with the help of a very special man, they had all learned to let go of the past and move forward. Through dedication and hard work, all six of them had become upstanding, highly successful men, and in the process, they had remained just as close, if not closer, than any biological siblings.

When Bria and Sam finished cutting the beautiful Western-themed cake, then invited their guests to have some, Ryder rose from the chair beside her. “I’ll go get us a piece of cake, then if you’d like we can dance a few more times before I take you back to the hotel.”

“That sounds like a pretty good plan, cowboy,” she said agreeably.

He had invited her to spend the weekend at his ranch, but she had decided against it, opting to stay in a hotel room in a nearby town instead. For one thing, speculation about their friendship had already surfaced with some of the other rodeo association contract personnel on the circuit, and she didn’t feel the need to supply the busybodies with more fodder for their rumor mill. And for another, she wanted to discuss her future plans with Ryder on the drive back from the party. Depending on his reaction, staying at the Blue Canyon Ranch with him could become a bit awkward.

An hour later, after congratulating the Raffertys once again on their renewed nuptials and Bria’s pregnancy, Summer let Ryder help her into the passenger side of his pickup truck, then anxiously waited for him to come around and climb into the driver’s seat. This was the part of the evening she had anticipated for the past two weeks—ever since making the decision to ask for his help.

“Are you cold?” he asked, sliding into the driver’s seat. “I can turn on the heater.”

“No, I’m fine. But thank you for asking.” There was a little nip in the evening air, signaling that autumn had arrived, but she had been too distracted to notice.

“I hope you had a good time,” he said, starting the truck and steering it down the long drive toward the main road.

“I really enjoyed myself,” she reassured him with a smile. “Thank you for asking me to attend the party with you.”

When Ryder turned onto the highway, he set the cruise control then turned on a popular country radio station. “You’ll have to come back for one of our birthday get-togethers sometime.”

“I’d like that,” she said, realizing she meant it.

They fell into a comfortable silence and while Ryder drove the big dual-wheeled pickup truck through the star-studded Texas night, Summer studied his shadowed profile. If she’d had any doubts about her choice before attending the party with him, watching him throughout the evening had completely eradicated them. Ryder McClain was the real deal—honest, intelligent, easygoing and loyal to a fault. And it was only recently that she’d allowed herself to notice how incredibly good-looking he was.

With dark brown hair, forest-green eyes and a nice, effortless smile, he would be considered extremely handsome by any standards. But combined with his impressive physical presence and laid-back personality, Ryder McClain was the type of man most women fantasized about. His wide shoulders and broad chest would be the perfect place for a woman to lay her head when the world dealt her more than she felt she could handle. And the latent strength in his muscular arms as he held her to him would keep her safe and secure from all harm.