Page 54 of A Baby for the Texas Cowboy
“Couples have started with a lot less,” Cruz said pragmatically. “You’re going to have a child together so you will need to get to know him better even if you don’t want to marry him. You’ll have to parent together. You’ve got half a year. Get to know him.”
“In the handful of days he’s back each month,” Tinsley scoffed, but her heart leapt in her chest. What was that? Hope? She didn’t want to hope. She needed to rely only on herself. She wouldn’t deny Anders time with their child, but time with her couldn’t be on offer.
“I have a feeling he’ll be around a lot more now,” Catalina said, taking a break from eating.
“I’m surprised he’s not here right now,” Cruz teased, “trying to get rid of us because it’s your bedtime.”
“He would be,” Catalina said. “But we lucked out because he flew to Montana today to see Kane Wilder about bulls. He’s thinking about going into partnership as a stock contractor and breeding bucking bulls with Kane and his family.”
Tinsley nearly dropped her glass of sparkling water. Dread washed through her.
Anders couldn’t be thinking of quitting the tour because of the baby. He couldn’t. He lived for the competition. He was top tier and thrived on the travel, the fans, the adrenaline, the challenge. He’d resent her, and he’d resent their child. She had to make him see that the baby didn’t mean that they both had to give up their dreams.
Chapter Fourteen
“Well, what areyour thoughts on the Fury Creek flight?” Tinsley asked Last Stand’s town matriarch, Minna Herdmann, and six of her friends ranging in age from mid-fifties to eighty. According to Minna, she topped them all at one hundred and two.
“Are you only pouring tastes from one flight?” Minna asked archly.
“I might be persuaded to let you try the Elizabeta flight, which has wines pressed whole cluster, but my goal is to tease you so that you come back in.”
Tinsley smiled enigmatically. It was Thursday, and she was trying to ignore the fact that Anders hadn’t returned from Montana before heading to one of his last few competitions of the season in New Mexico.
She shouldn’t care.
Instead she kept looking out the large window, expecting to see him swinging his body out of his truck and striding toward her. She had to get over that wish.
“At my age, I may not get a second chance,” Minna said drily. “August donated several cases of wine to my birthday last April, but that bus came barreling across the road and smashed his tasting room to dust, a tragedy of so many people being injured and two deaths.”
Tinsley had not even been in town a week, but many people who’d knocked on the windows of the tasting room in order to introduce themselves and proceed to interview her often referenced the accident.
“The tragedy would have been greater, but dear Asa saved the day again.”
“What?” Tinsley nearly jumped out of her skin. Minna had seemed so with it, but now she was referring to a dead man as saving the day.
“The statue, dear. I still have all my marbles. The truck that collided with the bus spun out of control and would have hit the library, but the statue stopped the truck.”
“A toast to Asa.” One of Minna’s friends picked up one of her taste glasses and held it high. “And yes, Minna, you will have another birthday celebration. It’s tradition.”
Tinsley smiled, charmed by the group and pleased that she’d opened the tasting room a few days early. This soft opening allowed her to practice for the tastings and engender some community goodwill. Offering a free tasting for Minna Herdmann and her guests seemed like a brilliant marketing idea.
August had shuddered and refused to come because she’d probably “box my ears.”
“Your funeral,” Axel had said.
Catalina claimed she had too much work training the cellar crew but left Tinsley with advice: “Keep your mouth shut or she’ll have you and Anders married by some archaic decree before the state was a state, and Anders won’t even have to be present. She knows everyone, and she knows what buttons to press. But she’s really funny.”
“Why would we come back in if we don’t know what we’re going to get, young lady?”
“Because you thrive on surprises.” Tinsley arched a brow. Then she smiled. “But since you are my first group and I am honing my pouring and tasting skills, I will pour y’all a surprise that is not on the tasting menu.”
“What is it?” one of Minna’s friends asked.
“That’s not how a surprise works.” Tinsley shook her finger slowly at them, her expression mock serious.
“I like her,” another friend said and looked pointedly at Tinsley’s left hand as she held the bottle of Pinot Noir Catalina had made when she worked in Oregon. It was her own label—Orphan Cowgirl Vines. August had rented a refrigerated truck and had hired a driver to bring all of Catalina’s stored wine to Texas so they could pour it and offer it at the tasting room.
The wine had arrived last night, and Tinsley had unloaded it with Cruz, who wasn’t working today.
