Catch Me a Cowboy by Katie Lane

I’m assuming that James Earl gave you the trim.”
    She held out a short strand. “You call this a trim?”
    Knowing how sensitive women were about their hair, he backed off a little. “It’s not that bad—nothin’ a couple months won’t fix.”
    “More like a good year,” she grumbled. She shot a glance over at the kid, who was licking the chocolate from his fingers. In his other hand, he clutched a naked doll. The same one he’d had that morning.
    “I hate to tell you this, son,” Billy pointed at the doll, “but you need to change out toys.”
    The kid hugged the doll closer and yelled in his deep, baritone voice, “Mine.”
    Billy shrugged. “Suit yourself, but I’m only trying to save you some grief. You walk around with something like that for too long in Texas, and you’ll end up in morefights than one of those
Dancing With the Stars
dudes in a biker bar.”
    “Please don’t get him started,” Ms. Dalton said. “I’ve had enough screaming today to last me a lifetime.” She looked at the baby who rested against his shoulder, and her eyes widened. “She’s asleep.”
    “No foolin’.” He carefully laid the baby down on the mattress. “I guess I’m better with kids than I thought.”
    She stared at the sleeping child. “So where do you think they’ll go?”
    “Who?”
    “Jesse’s family,” she said.
    Billy shook his head. “I don’t know, but Sheriff Winslow probably will.” When she shot him a skeptical look, he realized his mistake. “Okay, so maybe he won’t know either, but I’m sure he’ll figure it out.”
    She reached out as if to smooth back the hair that had fallen over the baby’s forehead, but instead her hand just hung there for a few seconds before it dropped back to the mattress.
    “What do they do with homeless people in east Texas?” she asked.
    “We don’t have any homeless people in Dogwood. No one in their right mind would want to live on the streets in that humidity,” he teased. Although why he wasted his time trying to tease another smile out of her was beyond him. He had other things to worry about besides making Ms. Dalton smile, and he needed to remember that.
    “My pastor took care of things like that,” he said. “I remember him taking up a collection for a family that had run out of gas while traveling through town.”
    “You attend church?” Her voice betrayed her shock.
    “It was either that or get my butt warmed with my daddy’s belt. The hard pews and Pastor Miley’s hour-long sermon seemed like the least of two evils. Although once I grew up, I became nothing but a big ol’ sinner.” He winked at her. “You wanna do a little sinnin’ with me, Ms. Dalton?”
    For one split second, it looked as if she was actually considering it. Her head tipped to one side and those green eyes of hers slithered over his body like a slab of butter on a hot skillet. And he was feelin’ hot all right. Even though he had no intentions of touching the woman with a ten-foot pole, his nine-inch pole hadn’t gotten the memo.
    “I’m afraid I’ll have to pass,” she said in that throaty voice of hers. While Billy tried to get a grip on his body’s betrayal, she looked over at Brody, who was now slumped back in the corner with the Barbie cuddled close and his thumb in his mouth. “I guess it wouldn’t hurt anything to leave things like they are.”
    He blinked. “You mean let these kids live in your trailer?”
    “Why not?” She shrugged and looked down at the sleeping child. “They aren’t really hurting anything—although I’ll need to talk to the mother about leaving a little delinquent in charge of such a precious little girl. And the dangers of letting that delinquent play with a chainsaw.”
    “It didn’t have a chain on it.” The words popped out before Billy could put much thought in them, and Ms. Dalton’s eyes narrowed.
    “How did you—?”
    The tinny clang of feet on the front steps cut off herwords, and they both turned to