Page 61 of A Baby for the Texas Cowboy
“Cuts my healing in half, but really, Tinz.”
She frowned and then walked out of the apartment.
Anders was up, blanket wrapped around him, and at the top stairs when Tinsley ran up, light on her feet with four bags of ice.
“Still gotta be the tough cowboy,” she said softly, stopping right in front of him. He blocked her path, and while he liked her nearness, he didn’t want to verbally spar with her on stairs. He did something he rarely did: he backed away.
She noticed. Then she looked at the blanket and her mouth kicked up in a half smile.
“When did you get so modest?” she asked, kicking the door shut behind her. “Or do you just really like my taste in blankets?”
He fingered the wool. “I wanted to buy these for you,” he recalled. “You spit on my money. Wanted to split everything fifty-fifty.”
“That’s how I roll.”
It had bothered him before. It still did. When he took a woman out, he paid. And he definitely would take care of his wife and child.
Then he remembered Axel and August’s earlier words that he should get to know her. Kane had echoed the same sentiment when he’d gone to him to ask how he’d convinced his wife, Sky, to marry him after he learned that she’d had his baby without telling him. He’d learned he was a father when his daughter was already three years old.
Kane had shaken his head, uncharacteristically quiet. “Didn’t handle it at all well. I pushed and pushed to get my way and nearly lost her again. It wasn’t until I backed off and tried to see things from her perspective that we began to communicate.” Then in typical bro-man style, he’d clapped Anders’ shoulder, laughed and added, as if to take the sting out of such a personal admission, “Then I blew her mind with my skills in bed. Never underestimate the power of fantastic sex.”
Anders felt like that had been all he’d been good at with Tinsley. He didn’t know how to do the other stuff, but he had to learn.
“Why?”
“Why what?” she asked stalking past him to the bathroom where she ripped open each bag and dumped it in the tub. He had to fight to not help her. “Is that enough ice? Do you want to add water?”
He didn’t want any of it. He hated ice baths. And he didn’t want to be naked in front of her while his boys crawled back inside his body. But she had gone to a lot of trouble.
“Thank you.” He turned on the cold tap and watched it start to fill.
“I’ll get four more bags and leave you to it.”
She turned to go, but he caught her arm and then immediately stroked down her warm, taut flesh and tangled his fingers with hers. “Why don’t you want me to pay for anything?”
“I like to be independent.”
“What does that mean to you?”
“What?”
It was the first time he’d seen her look uncertain. Her long lashes veiled her eyes, and when she looked back up at him, she was wary.
“I want…” He paused. What did he want, really? “I want to raise our child with you. I want us to be partners. I want to know you. To understand you, and I want you to know me. Understand me.”
He saw her swallow and heard her fractured breathing.
Was she afraid of him? Tinsley Underhill. Whiskey. A woman he’d seen break up a brawl with four loudmouth cowboys. A woman who drove a Ducati like a speed demon on an errand from hell. A woman who’d tripled his brother’s whiskey sales in her first month. A woman who lived out of a backpack not much bigger than his for weeks or months at a time. A woman whose wit shut down arguments and had the aggressors apologizing. A woman who charmed men, women, children and dogs. A woman so beautiful she made his eyes melt.
“I want to know you, and I want to help with expenses.”
“I don’t need help.”
“I know. But I want to be the man you can rely on. I want to be the father our child trusts and knows loves him or her. I want us to be partners in raising our child, but also partners who build a life together. I want us to be a family.”
The cold water rushed into the tub, competing with the roaring rush of his racing heart.
“I want it all.” He met her whiskey-colored gaze, opening himself up for the first time. He felt a little sick to his stomach and it was hard to breathe, but maybe that was from his spectacularly stupid dirt plant. “I can’t do any of that without you, Tinz.”
