“Perhaps we could talk about the things that Maggie will need,” Hadley said, hoping Liam didn’t notice the odd squeak in her voice.
“Candace started a list. She said she’d get what we needed as soon as you arrived.” His lips curved in a wry grin. “She didn’t want to leave me alone with the baby.”
“Why not?”
“It might seem strange to you, but I’ve never actually held a baby before.”
Hadley tore her gaze away from the likable sparkle in Liam’s arresting eyes. She absolutely could not find the man attractive. Hadley clasped her hands in her lap.
“Once you’ve held her for the first time, you’ll see how easy it is.” Seeing how deeply the baby was sleeping, Hadley decided this might be a great opportunity for him to begin. “And there’s no time like the present.”
Liam started to protest, but whatever he’d been about to say died beneath her steady gaze. “Very well.” His jaw muscles bunched and released. “What do I do?”
Going balls-out on a twelve-hundred-pound horse to chase down a fleeing cow required steady hands and a calm mind in the midst of a massive adrenaline rush. As a world-class trainer and exhibitor of reining and cutting horses, Liam prided himself on being the eye of the storm. But today, he was the rookie at his first rodeo and Hadley the seasoned competitor.
“It’s important that you support her head.” Hadley picked up the sleeping baby, demonstrating as she narrated. “Some babies don’t like to be held on their backs, so if she gets fussy you could try holding her on her stomach or on her side.”
Hadley came toward him and held out Maggie. He was assailed by the dual fragrances of the two females, baby powder and lavender. The scents filled his lungs and slowed his heartbeat. Feeling moderately calmer, Liam stood very still while Hadley settled Maggie into his arms.
“There.” She peered at the sleeping child for a moment before lifting her eyes to meet Liam’s gaze. Flecks of gold floated in her lapis-blue eyes, mesmerizing him with their sparkle. “See, that wasn’t hard.”
“You smell like lavender.” The words passed his lips without conscious thought.
“Lavender and chamomile.” She stepped back until her path was blocked by an end table. “It’s a calming fragrance.”
“It’s working.”
As he adjusted to the feel of Maggie’s tiny body in his arms, he cast surreptitious glances Hadley’s way. Did she remember him from her days of barrel racing? He hadn’t seen her in ten years and often looked for her at the events he attended, half expecting her name to pop up among the winners. At eighteen she’d been poised to break out as a star in the barrel-racing circuit. And then she’d sold her mare and disappeared. Much to the delight of many of her competitors, chief among them Liam’s on-again, off-again girlfriend.
“I almost didn’t recognize you this morning,” he said, shifting Maggie so he could free his right arm.
Hadley looked up at him warily. “You recognized me?”
How could she think otherwise? She’d been the one who’d gotten away. “Sure. You took my advice and won that sweepstakes class. You and I were supposed to have dinner afterward.” He could tell she remembered that, even though she was shaking her head. “Only I never saw you again.”
“I vaguely remember you trying to tell me what I was doing wrong.”
“You had a nice mare. Lolita Slide. When you put her up for sale I told Shannon Tinger to buy her. She went on to make over a hundred thousand riding barrels with her.”
“She was a terrific horse,” Hadley said with a polite smile. “I’m glad Shannon did so well with her.”
Liam remembered Hadley as a lanky girl in battered jeans and a worn cowboy hat, her blond hair streaming like a victory banner as her chestnut mare raced for the finish line. This tranquil woman before him, while lovely in gray dress pants and a black turtleneck sweater, pale hair pulled back in a neat ponytail, lacked the fire that had snagged his interest ten years earlier.
“We have a three-year-old son of Lolita’s out in the barn. You should come see him. I think he’s going to make a first-class reining horse.”
“I don’t think there will be time. Infants require a lot of attention.”
Her refusal surprised him. He’d expected her to jump at the chance to see what her former mount had produced. The Hadley he remembered had been crazy about horses.
“Why’d you quit?”
Hadley stared at the landscape painting over the fireplace while she answered Liam’s blunt question. “My parents wanted me to go to college, and there wasn’t money to do that and keep my horse. What I got for Lolita paid for my first year’s tuition.”
Liam considered her words. When was the last time he’d been faced with an either-or situation? Usually he got everything he wanted. Once in a while a deal didn’t go his way, but more often than not, that left him open for something better.
Maggie began to stir, and Liam refocused his attention on the baby. Her lips parted in a broad yawn that accompanied a fluttering of her long lashes.
“I think she’s waking up.” He took a step toward Hadley, baby extended.
“You did very well for your first time.”
Unsure if her tiny smile meant she was patronizing him, Liam decided he’d try harder to get comfortable with his niece. Strange as it was to admit it, he wanted Hadley’s approval.
“Would you like a tour of the house?” Liam gestured toward the hallway. “I’d like your opinion on where to put the baby’s room.”
“Sure.”
He led the way across the hall to the dining room. A long mahogany table, capable of seating twelve, sat on a black-and-gold Oriental rug. When he’d overhauled the house six years ago, bringing the plumbing and wiring up to code, this was the one room he’d left in its original state.
“It’s just me living here these days, and I haven’t entertained much in the last year.” The reason remained a sore spot, but Liam brushed it aside. “When my grandfather was alive, he loved to host dinner parties. Several members of Congress as well as a couple governors have eaten here.”
“When did you lose him?”
“A year and a half ago. He had a heart condition and died peacefully in his sleep.” Grandfather had been the only parent he and Kyle had ever known, and his death had shaken Liam. How the loss had hit Kyle, Liam didn’t know. Despite inheriting half the ranch when their grandfather died, his brother never came home and Liam dealt with him only once or twice a year on business matters.
“I remember your grandfather at the shows,” Hadley said. “He always seemed larger than life.”
Liam
