Page 7 of 40 and Flirting (with Disaster)
“You, my dear, are absolutely radiant.”
“Am I? I feel a little bit like I swallowed a beach ball and waddle better than most penguins.”
He laughed. “Nonsense. There’s nothing more beautiful than a pregnant woman.” He led her inside out of the sun. “The vet is due this morning, and I didn’t want to miss her,” he explained, though he’d already told Erin the same thing on the phone. “I appreciate you coming.”
Erin waved away the words and wandered over to the gate to Baby’s pen. “Is this the troublemaker?”
He chuckled. “Erin, meet Daddy’s Girl, or as I affectionately call her, Baby.”
Erin wiggled her brows, her focus on the sleek black mare with the bulging belly moving curiously toward her across the stall. “Daddy’s Girl, huh?”
“The minute I saw her wobbling around on shaky legs, fresh from her mother’s womb, I couldn’t call her anything else,” he admitted.
Erin grinned. “Some lucky woman would swoon if you called her that, you know.”
He swore a blush heated his cheeks; damn his Irish ancestors for passing down their redheaded complexion. Luckily Erin was focused on offering Baby her fingers for a sniff. “I would be the lucky one.”
Erin threw him a warm look over her shoulder. “And that right there is what makes you the most eligible bachelor in Gatlinburg.”
“Don’t remind me,” he groaned. Last year the city council held an auction for charity and solicited Jamie for a donation. At the suggestion of some of his (mostly female) staff at the Carousel, he’d offered a date night out on the town, purely platonic. Needless to say, he’d been dubbed “Gatlinburg’s Most Eligible Bachelor” ever since.
Erin never missed an opportunity to tease him about that.
“I’m too old to be the most eligible bachelor around,” he groused good-naturedly. He’d hit fifty-eight on his last birthday. Far too close to sixty for his liking.
“Hey.” Erin gave him a mock frown. “I’m proof age has nothing to do with anything when it comes to love.”
He’d guess she was somewhere in her midforties and having her first child. He didn’t know her full history, although he did know she’d been a widow for years before meeting Carter and marrying earlier this year. He guessed if she could have a baby, he shouldn’t give up on matters of the heart.
The image of a certain lovely woman walking away from him across the Carousel’s back parking lot flashed into his mind.
Don’t think about it, Worthington. It’s way too soon.
The one woman to interest him in forever, and she’d been married—emphasis on the past tense, thank God. Even so, a handful of months wasn’t near long enough for Iris Daniels to recover from the blow her husband had dealt her that night, the bastard. Jamie’s only consolation was that Kirk Daniels had left Black Wolf’s Bluff’s sexy-as-hell librarian open to the playing field, so to speak. Eventually, anyway. Jamie felt like he was chomping at the bit, but he’d sworn to give her time to heal before seeking her out. He of all people understood the importance of healing.
He cleared his throat. “You had some supplier issues you wanted to discuss?”
Erin took the hint and got down to business, intermingled with crooning and caresses for Baby. The mare ate up the attention until more crunching gravel outside signaled the arrival of the veterinarian.
As Baby pulled her head back into the stall and moved away, Erin threw a glance over Jamie’s shoulder. “I can go and leave y’all to it.”
He closed his phone on his notes, shaking his head. “We’ve still got to go over that change in the architect’s plan for the upstairs restrooms.” A jerk of his head indicated a bench nearby. “Why don’t you take a load off while I talk with the doc?”
“Don’t you mean harass the doc for answers she can’t possibly give you?” Dr. Everest asked, stepping into the dim light of the barn.
Jamie scoffed. “I haven’t been that bad.”
Laura Everest eyed him like he’d been replaced with an alien. “You haven’t?”
Behind her, Harris chuckled, quickly muffling the sound with his hand. Jamie did his best to look offended without laughing. Laura loved giving him a hard time. “I’m just worried.”
Shaking her head, the vet shot him an incredulous look as she arrived at Baby’s stall. “Right. Why aren’t you this worried when I come out to treat any other horse?”
Because Baby is special. “I worry,” he said again, voice gruff.
“About that one especially,” Harris said with a jerk of his head toward the favored one, who nickered as if she knew exactly whom they were all discussing.
“Don’t you have something you could be doing?” Jamie asked his ranch hand.
