The Cowboy's Secret Baby: BWWM Cowboy Pregnancy Romance (Young Adult First Time Billionaire Steamy African American) by Christin Jensen Page A

her here to the house three or four days ahead of time – but that’s not the way it works when a baby’s coming, especially a first child.”
    “I guess that’ll have to do,” Farris grumped.  “Remember, though, I’m always up for sharing those expenses, whether Clarice allows my name on the birth certificate or not.”
    “I know that,” Pirtle assured him gently.  “Farris, I do know what happened to your mother and how upset you must be feeling right now.  We’ll take Clarice and the baby home either in an ambulance or a hired limousine, with all the personnel we can muster to see they arrive safely.”
    Farris sighed.  “Thank you, John, for not thinking I’m an idiot.”
    Again Pirtle chuckled.  “I’ve been a father before. – I just hope you can come down and be reconciled with Clarice after she’s delivered.”
    “This whole mess is all Marion’s fault, of course,” said Mrs. Myers, president of the local Women’s Club.  The club board had assembled in a local restaurant for a private dinner meeting.  “If she hadn’t been so uppity and so determined that poor little illegitimate daughter of hers was going to earn her a living, we wouldn’t be having all this nasty publicity and talk.”
    “Marion was all ready to sell up her home and business and up sticks to Kentucky when it looked like Clarice had snared that horse-breeding billionaire,” sniffed Mrs. Stone, who was the bookkeeper for the hardware store next to the realty office.  “I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the reason Croxton packed the girl off home. – He’d already gotten what he wanted from her, and he certainly didn’t want Marion.”
    “Oh, Farris Croxton’s still carrying the torch,” contradicted Mrs. Feeney, who lived closer to Sewanee than the other ladies.  “He bought Clarice that mangy looking chicken house and the worthless ground around it when our city fathers tried to pressure Professor Santana to make the girl move.”
    “He’s also keeping Dan Ferrell’s private inquiry agency running,” Mrs. Myers rejoined.  “No, I wouldn’t count Croxton out yet, but I do think young Clarice is a basket case.”
    “That’s what Marion’s tabloid friends would have us believe,” Mrs. Stone responded.  “Actually, Clarice has a good, solid business reputation locally, though of course lately that half-brother of hers, Angus Pirtle, has been shopping for her.”
    “Isn’t it just a hoot that Marion’s Nashville lover has turned on her, now that his wife is dead?” Mrs. Feeney reached delicately for the salt in the middle of the table.  “And the way he exposed that made-up name she put on the girl’s birth certificate! – I thought I would roll on the floor.”
    “Marion’s been milking Pirtle for money all those years. - I know where she got that fancy name, though.”  Mrs. Stone felt she had a gossip advantage, since she worked right next to Saxe Real Estate Brokers.  “You know she keeps a lot of those artsy-fartsy ‘coffee table books’ out where her clients can see them. - My little Missy was just dying laughing.  She had stepped into Marion’s office on her lunch break, and that picture Mr. Pirtle showed us was right there in one of those books!”
    “It’s a shame Clarice started going to those Nashville doctors, though.”  Mrs. Feeney was prominent in her local hospital auxiliary.  “I can’t imagine how they plan to get her up to St. Thomas on time.  First babies always come fast.”
    Clarice had carefully packed a small suitcase to take to the hospital.  She included several attractive gowns and a couple of nursing bras.  God willing, she was going to feed her own baby. – The bras would also take care of the problem of the ‘hooters’; a girl with big breasts apparently had to put up with complicated hardware for the rest of her life after puberty.
    Clarice wasn’t really scared; after all, this was a natural, normal process, and she could have an