Boot Scootin' Secret Baby

“My boots!” Letter to Reader Title Page Letter to Reader Prologue Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Copyright

“My boots!”

Jaycie burst through the doorway, thundering to the rescue of her prized cowboy boots.

Cub gaped at the small girl. He looked as stunned as if he’d been kicked in the head by a bull.

Alyssa met his gaze. “Congratulations, Cub Goodacre, you’re a father.”

All but one corner of his mind went numb. He didn’t know the first thing about children. He was a cowboy, damn it. No way could he be a—

“A what?”

“A father,” she repeated.

“My boots!” The toddler strained pudgy fingers toward the boots in his white-knuckled grasp.

“You mean this is—”

“Mine!” the child demanded.

“Yours,” Alyssa declared.

Joy rose to mingle with a pain so fierce it registered as heat in Cub’s chest. Despite the sudden stirrings of parental emotion, something in him shuddered.

A life-scarred loner like him had no business being a father....

Dear Reader,

This month, Romance is chock-full of excitement. First, VIRGIN BRIDES continues with The Bride’s Second Thought, an emotionally compelling story by bestselling author Elizabeth August. When a virginal bride-to-be finds her fiancé with another woman, she flees to the mountains for refuge...only to be stranded with a gorgeous stranger who gives her second thoughts about a lot of things....

Next, Natalie Patrick offers up a delightful BUNDLES OF JOY with Boot Scootin‘Secret Baby. Bull rider Jacob “Cub” Goodacre returns to South Dakota for his rodeo hurrah, only to learn he’s still a married man...and father to a two-year-old heart tugger. BACHELOR GULCH, Sandra Steffen’s wonderful Western series, resumes with the story of an estranged couple who had wed for the sake of their child...but wonder if they can rekindle their love in Nick’s Long-Awaited Honeymoon.

Rising star Kristin Morgan delivers a tender, sexy tale about a woman whose biological clock is booming and the best friend who consents to being her Shotgun Groom. If you want a humorous—red-hot!—read, try Vivian Leiber’s The 6’2”, 200 lb. Challenge. The battle of the sexes doesn’t get any better! Finally, Lisa Kaye Laurel’s fairy-tale series, ROYAL WEDDINGS, draws to a close with The Irresistible Prince, where the woman hired to find the royal a wife realizes she is the perfect candidate!

In May, VIRGIN BRIDES resumes with Annette Broadrick, and future months feature titles by Suzanne Carey and Judy Christenberry, among others. So keep coming back to Romance, where you’re sure to find the classic tales you love, told in fresh, exciting ways.

Enjoy!

Joan Marlow Golan Senior Editor, Silhouette Romance

Please address questions and book requests to:

Silhouette Reader Service

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www.millsandboon.co.uk

NATALIE PATRICK believes in romance and has firsthand experience to back up that belief. She met her husband in January and married him in April of that same year—they would have eloped sooner, but friends persuaded them to have a real wedding. Ten years and two children later, she knows she’s found her real romantic hero.

Amid the clutter in her work space, she swears that her headstone will probably read: “She left this world a brighter place but not necessarily a cleaner one.” She certainly hopes her books brighten her readers’ days.

Dear Reader,

Ah, the terrible twos. I remember them well—from my children’s toddlerhood, not my own. Me? I’m sure I was every inch an angel, unlike little boot scootin’ Jaycie Goodacre. Cub and Alyssa really have their hands full with that one, and I wish, as an experienced mom, I could give them some sage advice.

But honestly, I don’t recall either of my children being any more “terrible” at two than at one or at three or what have you. Maybe I’m seeing things through a sentimental haze—or maybe by comparison to their current preteen years, I have come to appreciate the open curiosity, the unbridled enthusiasm, the strident quest for self-determination...and the long afternoon naps of my children’s toddler days.

So, I think in the end the only advice I would give Alyssa and Cub is to love their child and each other and to savor these times—because before they know it, Jaycie will be asking for the keys to Daddy’s brand-new pickup truck!

Prologue

To Jacob “Cub” Goodacre

Whereabouts: Unknown

Dear Cub,

Come home.

Didn’t you swear to me that when you’d won enough money bull riding to buy a ranch and settle down, you’d be back? Almost three years have passed since then, Cub. Your riding has made you darned near a legend. So, when will you come home?

I need to see you again. I need to look you in the eye and say the thousand and one things that I’ve stored in my heart since that horrible argument. A thousand things that can be distilled to only two—I love you, Cub Goodacre, and goodbye.

For so long I wanted you to come back so we could try to work things out. I can no longer hope for that. I’ve moved on with my life.

Though I realize I will always love you in that wild, intense way that so suits a reckless cowboy like you, I have to let go of the dream that we could ever become equal partners in a relationship. I want nothing less than that and you want—well, you want what you want.

You wanted someone to shelter and protect, someone to take care of. I wanted the chance to become my own person, a person respected for her hard work, intelligence and generous heart.

I am that person today. I’m a new woman about to begin a whole new life, to take another chance at making it on my own. And in a funny way—funny in that way that could almost break your heart—you. Cub, did help me to become this confident woman, ready to take on the world.

My one regret is that you don’t even know about the source of my inspiration, our two-year-old daughter, Jayne Cartwright Goodacre, or Jaycie as we all call her.

No. I take that back. I refuse to go into this new and exciting phase of my life with any regrets holding me back, tying me to you. That’s why I wish you would come back, for closure and so I can let you know about the precious life our brief love created.

Yes, I tried at first to contact you, to let you know about your child. I tried desperately. But you had taken to the rodeo circuit like fire through a dry patch. I had always just missed you and you just kept moving on. I knew when I did finally manage to get through to you and you returned my letters unopened that you were trying to pay me back. If you had just opened one of those letters you might have forgiven me and we might...

But that time has passed. I don’t want your forgiveness anymore. I don’t need it.

On the day of Jaycie’s birth, I only had to look in her eyes to know it was time to stop living for a man who simply wasn’t there for us and start living for myself, my daughter and our future.

What will I tell our daughter when she is old enough to ask about her father? I think this, Cub—that her father was a good man with a great capacity to love but a very narrow definition of what that meant. A man who did not understand that one partner could not grow tall and strong if always in the protective shade of the other partner. He thought he could save me from my own mistakes—and that was the biggest mistake of all.

What will I tell myself each evening when I kiss our baby good-night and climb in bed alone? That I am strong and smart and do not need you or anyone to smooth my path for me. I can make my own way and be a proud example for our child.

Alyssa Cartwright scrawled her name across the bottom of the page, then laid her pen aside and slumped back in her chair.

She blinked to clear the dampness from her eyes. She would not cry. This was a time for celebration, not tears. Tomorrow marked her very own independence day.

Slowly, she turned the pale yellow paper over to admire the other side, her first PR job for her new partnership with Crowder and Cartwright, Western Management Company. Yes, it had been a publicity flyer for her parents’ famous kick-off party for the Summit City Rodeo Days. But then, how better to prove her skill than by satisfying the people who doubted her capabilities most?

Both Yip and Dolly Cartwright had agreed that this was the very best flyer, bar none, ever done to announce their enormous barbecue. Of course they felt that way; not because their daughter had done the work, but because she had used their granddaughter, their pride and joy, as the model.

Alyssa swept one fingertip over the adorable picture of her baby, stroking the big black hat on Jaycie’s head. Her finger skimmed over the bandanna that fell over the baby’s bare chest and round belly, then brushed over the white diaper with cowboy-gun pins holding it up. Then she reached the boots. Cub’s boots.

He’d left those boots behind the day he, for all intents and purposes, walked out of their marriage. Alyssa traced the outline of the boots right down to the nick in the heel, the nick he’d asked her to have repaired. Asked? Make that told—just like he told her everything.

“I went in with Price Wellman and bought us a ranch,” he told her the day they’d arrived back from their short honeymoon. Then he’d said, “I’ve rented us a house to stay in until the deal goes through and we can build our own ranch house.”

Two months later, he told her, “Price got busted up bad in a bull-riding wreck. He can’t throw in with us on the ranch.”

What Alyssa had seen as an opportunity for her to contribute to the marriage and to Cub’s dream he had seen as another time to tell her how he saw things. “No wife of mine will have a job in town, especially not waitressing for love-starved cowboys. A good bull rider makes good money, darlin’. I know I promised I’d quit if you’d marry me, but looks like I got to take on one more season, maybe two. Then we can buy us a ranch outright and be set.”

She’d tried to tell him a thing or two, like the fact that she suspected she might be pregnant, but he didn’t give her that chance. She’d never stood a chance, for that matter, when Cub took her in his arms. They’d made wild passionate love that night and in the morning, he’d left a note telling her to get the boots repaired and saying he’d call later.

She wasn’t there to take his call, or any of his calls until he tracked her down at her parents’ home.

Alyssa shut her eyes to blot out the memory of the horrible argument they’d had then, of the terrible threat she’d made to nullify their marriage, the threat that led Cub to tell her one last thing.

“Everything I’ve done, I’ve done for you and the good of our future. If you can’t see that, then I guess I’ve let you down. I guess you have a right to want to be rid of me. You do what you have to do. You get your rich, famous daddy to pull strings and get a paper that says our marriage isn’t real. I’ll abide by the law of it, even if I never accept it in my heart. And I will promise you this—I’m coming home to you, Alyssa Goodacre, coming home a success, worthy of a woman like you, or I ain’t comin’ home at all.”

The words rang just as clear in her mind as they had when he first spoke them, and cut just as deep. Alyssa swallowed hard and turned her attention to the picture again. Cub hadn’t come home and though she doubted he would ever show his face in Summit City again, some part of her hoped—

Well, why else would she use his boots on his daughter in an advertisement every rodeo rider haunting this part of the circuit would see? Why else would she pen her farewell to him on the back of one of those flyers?

She plucked the paper up from the writing desk and went out onto the balcony just off her bedroom.

The stars twinkled above in the black velvet of the South Dakota sky. The brisk wind thrashed at her hair. She drew in the crisp scent of late summer and gazed out at the bustling preparations still in full swing for her parents’ barbecue tomorrow evening.

Tonight, she thought, she still lived at home, still felt like the gangly child who could never learn the riding and roping tricks that were her parents’ stock-in-trade. Tonight she was still the girl who had one time disobeyed her father’s edict “Love any boy but a cowboy, marry any man but a rodeo man,” and had paid the price with her heart, her future and her self-esteem.

But come tomorrow that would all be behind her. Tomorrow, she would set herself on the path that would lead to success and financial independence. In a few months she’d have the money to move with her child into their own home. Nothing was going to stop her from building a terrific future. Especially not the past.

She lifted the paper; it cracked in the wind once, tore away from her fingers and went sailing into the night. She watched it somersault away, then whispered one last time the words she hoped her husband would someday hear, so she could finally close this chapter in her life. “Come home.”

Chapter One

Y‘all Come!

Summit County Rodeo Days Kickoff Celebration

Bar-B-Que

Yahoo Buckaroo Western Ranch and Rodeo

Museum

Home of legendary rodeo show people, Yip and

Dolly Cartwright

Cub Goodacre narrowed his eyes at the flyer taped in the grimy front window of the Summit City Feed and Grain. His gaze skimmed past the particulars of the event—he knew how to get to the ranch, knew the glorified “goat roast” raged from early afternoon until the big fireworks shebang just after dark. He also knew that the invitation, extended to any and all with a love of the rodeo and ten dollars to spare for a ticket, did not include him.

A fist seemed to grip at his heart and slowly it began to twist, tightening its searing hold with every beat For almost three years, he’d stayed clear of the Summit City Rodeo Days and the painful memories it evoked. Now fate and his long-left-empty dreams had dragged him right back here to the scene of his proudest triumph and greatest devastation.

He blew out a long puff of warm air through his nostrils. His gaze dropped to the caption below the photo in the center of the yellow paper.

“You bet your boots, I’ll be there, pardner!”

“Not me, kid,” he muttered to the pint-size cowboy wanna-be peeking from under a black hat. “So just keep your boo—”

He froze smack-dab in the middle of turning his back on his past and the invitation to ride hell-for-leather back into it.

My boots. His lips moved but no sound came. He leaned down to get a better look at the black leather and snakeskin boots they’d let some diaper desperado use as a plaything.

His boots. No doubt about it. He could tell they were his by the jagged notch in the right heel. He’d left those damaged boots behind the last time he’d left Summit City.

He set his jaw and clamped his hands on his hips. The cool fabric of his faded jeans chafed his legs as his senses pricked up. He inhaled the crisp fall air and glared at the boots until he almost expected to burn a hole in the paper.

This picture could be the work of only one person—the only person he’d trusted with his favorite boots, the same person he’d trusted with his heart. She’d kept both of them.

Her image flashed like heat lightning scoring through his thoughts. Despite the years and the world of hurt between them, he still pictured her as she looked on their first date. Her strawberry-blond hair, pulled back in a single thick braid, fell from the crown of her head to square between her shoulder blades. He could even see the faint freckles sprinkled over her blushing cheeks and the sincerity and adoration shining in her hazel eyes.

How quickly that adoration had hardened to accusation, he realized in one flickering moment. He hadn’t seen her face during their last, hateful argument, but he didn’t have to. He’d heard the depth of her disappointment with him, the anger he’d hoped to avoid by leaving as he did, coming full force through the telephone lines.

His blood pounded in his veins like the thundering hooves of a bull gone loco. Cub forced his gaze back to the taunting advertisement. His cheek ticked as he struggled to control any outward show of the wild rush of emotions spinning in his chest, fighting to kick free.

This poster, this picture, this personal hell of his were all the work of one woman—Alyssa Cartwright.

The fancy logo at the center bottom of the paper confirmed it. Crowder and Cartwright Western Management Company, with a local address.

This had to mean she still lived in Summit City—probably still lived under her parents’ roof, and under their thumb. And that meant she would probably show up at the rodeo.

I promise you this—I’m coming home to you, Alyssa Goodacre, coming home a success, worthy of a woman like you, or I ain’t comin‘ home at all. His own words jeered him from his callow past. He’d become a success by most men’s measure of the term, and now he’d finally come back to Alyssa’s home, but there was one thing he couldn’t claim. His time alone and a cruel trick of fate had taught him this: he was not now, nor could he likely ever be, worthy of the only woman he would ever ask to share his name. A man like him could only let her down and hurt her.

He hadn’t come back to Summit City to prove something to Alyssa, though that dream had died hard. He’d come here now to prove something to himself.

Cub thought of the two rides he had remaining before he walked away from the rodeo forever—provided he could still walk by then. He shifted his weight to his right hip, then winced at the lingering pain from his last punishing ride. Two rides, win or lose, stood between him and walking away from bull riding like a man. If he didn’t make those rides, he’d feel like a total failure. He’d failed as a son, as a protector, a champion, and a husband; he would not fail at the one thing he did right and that meant making those two rides.

Two rides. And Alyssa was going to be in the stands watching his next one.

How the hell was he supposed to concentrate with that on his mind and all these feelings he’d thought he’d buried churning up in his gut?

He couldn’t.

So, he had just ten days to either get that gal out of his system or buffalo her into avoiding the rodeo on the night he rode. That meant that one way or another he had to see his ex-wife—and he’d prefer to do it on his own terms. But how?

“Cub?”

The sound of his name shot through his cluttered thoughts, making him flinch. Jerking his head around, he found a young girl standing beside him on the sidewalk.

She smiled, cocking her head so that her stark yellow hair swung down to brush over her equally artificial-looking cleavage.

He racked his brain to think how he could know this pretty young thing. He’d had his wild days, for sure. His “every good ride deserves another” philosophy defined many a post-rodeo celebration. However, from the moment he’d laid eyes on Alyssa to this day he’d never done more than collect his winnings and drive on to the next rodeo—or back to see her, when they’d dated.

The brilliant sun warmed the broad back of his dark shirt. He searched his memory for any trace of this girl’s face but only one woman’s face had ever been etched in his being. Carved with a knife that cut so deep the scars would never heal, he thought, fighting down his gut response.

He forced his attention back to the breathless blonde. From the looks of her now, this girl couldn’t have been more than a teen in his own carousing days. And that was one line Cub didn’t cross.

On his own since he was sixteen, he knew how easily a young person, hungry for love and acceptance, might latch onto someone older, longing to connect for a week, a day, even an hour, just to pretend he belonged, that someone gave a damn about him. But the people hanging on the fringe of the rodeo cared only for themselves and the next good time; he had learned that the hard way himself with an older version of this gal.

He half winced at the anxious girl waiting so close that he could hear the rasp of her shirt against his sleeve with every heave of her breasts. “I’m sorry, I don’t recall meeting—”

“Oh, you don’t know me.” Her words rushed out like a brook undammed. “I’m a real big fan of yours. I recognized you by your hat.”

He touched his thumb and forefinger to the brim of his trademark hat. He’d spent his first prize money to have one like it custom-made in Austin, Texas—cattleman’s crown, Aussie brim—the kind that dipped down in front to always shade his eyes. He still had them made there, always in a deep smoked brown with a thin braided leather band, its ends hanging off the back just enough to whip in the air when he rode a killer bull.

“I was so excited when I heard you’d be riding here, especially since you haven’t ridden here in a while,” the girl gushed on. “But I knew you’d show up here to ride Diablo’s Heartbreak.”

At the mention of the bull he’d been dueling all season, Cub’s lips twitched into what passed for him as a smile. “Sounds like you are a fan.”

“How could I not be? I mean it’s so exciting how you and Diablo’s Heartbreak have been battling it out. One ride you show him who’s boss and the next he tosses you right on—”

“My assessment differs somewhat, ma’am. But I get your point.” He nodded his head, his jaw tight at the reminder that he had yet to really best the beast. “Now if you don’t mind, I’ve got unfinished business to attend to.”

“Oh.” She blinked as though she’d expected more. “Um, well, um, could you...could you sign this?”

He half expected her to offer her breast for his signature but when he glanced down he saw a flyer, just like the one in the window, and a pen thrust out toward him. He took the page and carefully lettered his name in his blocky penmanship that some cowboy once said looked like it had been spelled out with western cattle brands instead of written by a man.

“There.” He handed the flyer back to the woman, who clearly was not pleased.

Well, that was his lot in life—letting women down. He hadn’t been able to save his own mother from a life with an abusive no-account husband. He hadn’t saved his first lover from her self-destructive ways as a rodeo groupie. He’d meant to do better by Alyssa, thinking he’d spend his life sheltering and protecting her from the unpleasantness of the world, and he’d ended up letting her down, too.

The sun glared off the yellow paper as the woman dangled the flyer between them again. “I was thinking you could put the name of your hotel—”

He pointed at the flyer still snapping in the breeze. “Where did you get that?”

“They have stacks of them in the feed store.” She pointed with her thumb. “But, I thought maybe—”

“I know what you thought, darlin’ and I’m flattered,” he lied. In truth, he’d hardly heard a word she’d said and he didn’t give a damn anyway. Let her find some other cowboy’s buckle to polish. Or better yet... “Why don’t you find some local rancher to take care of you, darlin’, and not waste your time chasin’ after cowboys who won’t be here for you tomorrow?”