Page 48 of The Cowboy Takes a Nanny
Falling for? Boomer sensed his mood and shifted restlessly.
“You in here, brother?” Jack called from the stable door.
“Yeah.” Leo really didn’t want to talk with Jack right then, but he figured there wasn’t much choice. “What are you doing here at this hour?”
“Just taking a minute to escape the wedding preparations. Those women!” Jack shook his head, but his brother was grinning. “What’s up? You’ve got a face as long as a wet week.”
“Nothing.” He sure wasn’t going to talk to his brother about this. Not this brother. Maybe he could talk to JD. Giving up on grooming the fidgety horse, he left the stall and put the brush back where he’d found it.
“Yeah, right.” Jack paused and peered at him. “Is everything alright with Mia? Ella and Benny?”
“Yeah, everyone is fine. Too fine.”
Jack’s smile expanded into a knowing grin. “So, you’re finally willing to admit that Miss Ella has gotten under your skin.”
Before he knew it, he found himself confessing. “Yeah, but it will never work. She’s from a rich English family. She’s a Lady.”
“So what? If you’re into her, and she’s into you …” Jack paused, “And I’ve never seen anyone take to a kid as if it were her own like Ella has with Mia.”
“You don’t know the half of it.”
Jack frowned at Leo’s muttered words. “Sounds like there’s more to that story.”
“Yeah, there is, but it isn’t my story to tell.” Leo let out a long sigh, “Let’s just say she’s way out of my league.”
“Oh, and Liberty isn’t out of mine?”
Leo stared at his brother. His confident devil-may-care brother whose fiancée was an A-List actor. “Does it bother you?’
“What, that my intended is a movie star?”
“Well, yeah.”
“Not anymore.” Jack sighed, “It did at first. Then it didn’t. And now it definitely doesn’t.”
Deep down Leo was hurt and not sure he was ready to just forgive, or maybe it was he didn’t know if he could forget. He didn’t even know if she’d shared all the puzzle pieces. His swirling thoughts were driving him mad, and he really didn’t want to talk about it. Leo thrust past his brother, “Gotta get back.” Leo left Jack standing in the walkway of the stables and headed back toward the house and his empty bed.
*
Ella felt like she’d not had a wink of sleep, but as the sun was shining in through the window she realized she must have dozed off at some point. Jarred out of her exhaustion, she jack-knifed up to peer into the crib.
“Benny?” She was out of the room and racing down the stairs before she’d uttered the last syllable of his name. The house was utterly empty, and panic had Ella’s throat in a vice-like grip.
“Oh my god, please, please.” She raced back up the stairs and straight into Mia’s room. Bent double Ella sucked in air, trying to get hold of herself. How could this happen? Spinning, she ran, barely registering her state of undress and lack of footwear as she raced back down the stairs and out into the freshly fallen snow until she reached the spot where her car was parked. And Leo’s was not. Chest aching, she forced herself to stop.
Of course, Leo had the kids.
It was fine.
From the corner of her eye, she spotted one of the ranch hands leaving the stables. She waved him down and called out. “Is Leo over there?”
Even from a distance she could see the shocked look on his face, and she recalled she was dressed only in sleep shorts and a tee. “Ah no, I think he’s over at JD’s. I saw his truck there earlier.”
“Thanks,” Ella called even as she turned and made her way barefoot through the thin layer of snow covering the path, shivering with both cold and reaction.
She spent next to no time on her morning bathroom routine, and reached for yesterday’s clothes, dragging them on over her shivering body. Back at the front door, she shoved her freezing feet into socks and boots before snatching up her keys and running out to her car.
Thankfully the snowfall wasn’t enough to make driving dangerous, but she resisted the urgency racing through her and drove carefully to Evie and JD’s. Her erratic heart beat plummeted when she saw no sign of Leo’s vehicle. Hopefully Evie or JD would know where he was, and where the children were. Where Benny was.
