Heartsong (Singing to the Heart Book 2) by Sara Walter Ellwood Page A

good enough to raise him.”
    “I never said that.” He stepped away from Beau and put his hands in his jeans pockets. “We’re in this together. All my lawyer thinks is that it would be easier for us if I petition the court for adoption than for us to try to adopt him together.”
    “That doesn’t explain your appearance here at the ranch.”
    He shifted his feet, his hat hiding his face. “I consider the Lazy M my home as you do, Michaela. I...” His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed and met her gaze.
    Before he had a chance to tell her more pretty words that were nothing but lies, she said, “We aren’t friends. If your father and my sister hadn’t died, we wouldn’t even be talking to each other. Now you want to take Jesse away from me.”
    Micki spun away from Gabe. Beau shifted his feet, bumping into her, probably sensing her frustration. The last person she wanted to talk to was Gabe.
    She led the horse into his stall. Micki hoped Gabe would have gotten the hint and left. Her luck wasn’t that good. He leaned against a door of the stall next to Beau’s.
    Micki dragged her gaze up his body. Over his polished snakeskin boots, his long, muscular legs encased in faded denim, the T-shirt that covered a flat belly she knew was washboard solid. She’d seen enough pictures of his bare torso on the Internet to know--as if her memory didn’t already provide enough X-rated images on its own. With his arms crossed over his broad chest, his biceps bulged. A tattoo of his mother’s first name, scripted over a breast cancer ribbon and surrounded by an intricate border, peeked out from under the edge of the black cotton of his sleeve.
    She wasn’t prepared for the burst of heat shooting through her as fast as a brushfire in dry grass at high noon. The flash melted her insides into a wet, achy pool in her low belly.
    Not wanting him to know how he affected her, at least not in that way, she turned toward the wall. She grabbed a rake and opened the stall door farthest away from him. As she busied herself with cleaning out the empty stall, she said, “You know, I’m glad you’re such a jerk.”
    “Michaela, I have a plan that--”
    “You honestly think a conservative judge like Anderson will let you have Jesse?” she cut in, glancing up to find him standing by the door of the stall she was working in. With more force than required, she raked the manure and straw on the floor. Pausing, she fixed him with a glare and let him have the full weight of her frustration and anger. “You’re fucking delusional! You showed the world, and more importantly Judge Anderson, what kind of life Jesse would be exposed to if you were to adopt him.” She stopped and smiled. “Makes my small town life not so damn bad. Tom Fleming thinks I have a pretty good chance of beating you at your own game.”
    “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
    She came out of the stall and closed the door as if she had all the time in the world, which she didn’t. The animals needed to be taken care of; then she had to make an appointment for the neurologist in Brownwood for her mother. Later that afternoon, she had a job interview at The Lasso Café and Bakery. The job had opened up, and she couldn’t let it pass her up. Work in Bluebonnet Creek was hard to find, and she hadn’t decided whether she would stay at the ranch or not.
    But she’d be damned if she’d let him know any of it. When she faced him, she leaned on the rake. “Everyone in the county knows Anderson almost always sides with women in custody battles.” She paused and forced a confident grin she didn’t feel. “Besides, Anderson is no friend of Lemont’s, so that’s in my favor, too. Jesse will be better off with me. He’ll live here in his hometown, and I’ll be the one raising him. That’s more important than what you can offer: a revolving door of nannies, starlet flings, and groupie hookups.”
    His jaw ticked as he clenched his teeth and his dark eyes