Page 20 of His First Baby Rodeo

Mac turned to face her. She couldn’t be saying what it sounded like she was saying. “You’re not agreeing with him, are you?”

El sighed and wiped her hands on her apron. “It’s not my business to agree or disagree,” she said. “I’m not a doctor at all, and I’m certainly not yours.”

“Okay, but which one are you doing?” Mac asked her. “I mean, are you agreeing or disagreeing? You have an opinion about this, even if it’s not your business to have one.”

“Why are you asking me this, Mac? You’ve made it really clear that you don’t want other people’s opinions here. Why would I give an opinion about something you don’t want anyone to weigh in on? That would be setting myself up for failure in a big way.”

“Just answer the question,” he said. “It’s no big deal.”

“I think it’s a big deal. You’re mad at your doctor for weighing in on this, so how are you going to feel when your ranch hand does it?”

He opened his mouth to say that it wasn’t like that. She wasn’t just his ranch hand, and he certainly wasn’t asking her the question in that capacity. She was right about that. But then what? Was he asking her as a friend? They weren’t friends. They’d ridden out on the ridge together a few times, but even so, they hardly knew one another, and that wasn’t enough of a reason for him to be asking her something so personal.

Why did he care what she thought, anyway?

He supposed he had been sure that she would be just as appalled as he was by the whole thing. He’d thought she would be on his side immediately. But that didn’t seem to be what was happening, and that bothered him. He must have misunderstood her.

“I’m asking you,” he said. “It doesn’t matter that you’re my ranch hand. I want you to answer anyway, just because you’re the person I’m asking the question to, and isn’t that enough?” But he could tell by the way she was talking about it what her opinion was going to be, and he was already irritated by it. He was starting to regret having raised the subject with her at all.

“Fine,” El said. “I think you should listen to your doctor. Call me crazy.”

Of course she did. He should have known that was what she would say. “I know my body better than any doctor does.”

“Maybe that’s true. Maybe you do,” she said. “But doctors know a hell of a lot more than you do about what can go wrong in a person’s body. He’s seen injuries you haven’t even thought of. And if he says you’re vulnerable to that kind of thing, I think you should listen to him. That’s all I’m saying.”

“I just can’t believe you’re not on my side,” Mac said. “I thought you and I were the same in this way. I thought we understood each other.”

“What, because I said I felt weird about the fact that everyone I know is married and having children? That’s not the same, Mac.”

“Isn’t it?” he asked. “You’re telling me that if a doctor told you you’d better start having kids while there was still time, you wouldn’t be mad? You wouldn’t think that was overstepping?”

El glared at him. “I can’t believe you’d say something like that.”

“Ididn’tsay it!” Mac protested. “I was making a comparison. You’re the one who said you thought I should retire!”

“I only said that because you forced it out of me,” she said. “It’s not like I was going around thinking it. And I definitely never would have said it to you if you hadn’t pushed me so hard.”

“Well, I’m glad I did,” Mac said. “I’m glad I know what you’re really thinking.”

“Stir.”

“What?”

“The pasta’s clumping. You have to keep it moving.”

Mac turned back to the pot and stirred the noodles, but his anger and frustration remained. How hard would it have been for her to just tell him his doctor had been out of line? She knew that was what he’d wanted to hear. It was obvious. If he had communicated anything to her at all in the time they had known one another, it was the fact that he was tired of hearing this opinion from people and that he wasn’t planning on retiring any time soon. All she’d had to say was that he was right and the doctor was wrong, he thought grumpily. That was all he’d wanted to hear.

And besides, hewasright. There were so many more factors involved in when a person ought to retire than justage. He was at the top of his sport, for God’s sake. This thing with his arm was just a temporary setback — he would be crazy to let it stop him. There was no way he ever would.

When the meal was ready, the two of them sat down at the table to eat. It was a bizarre taste of domesticity. They were hardly speaking to one another, but they needed to eat and neither one of them wanted to see the food go to waste. They sat opposite one another at the table, each of them acting as if they were there alone, and Mac wondered whether this was what it would be like to be in a relationship — unable to get space from the other person even when you wanted to. If it was, he couldn’t see why people did it.

And anyway, it was helpful, because he wasn’t thinking anymore about how attracted to El he was. Who cared if she was hot? What was it to him if she looked great on horseback? At the end of the day, she was just one more person trying to tell him what to do with his life.

CHAPTER10

EL

The next day was Saturday, and El got up and took care of her responsibilities an hour earlier than she ordinarily would have. That way, she could get outside without crossing paths with Mac, which was a good thing because she had absolutely no desire to see or speak to him. She was intensely frustrated after the way dinner last night had gone.

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