Page 41 of His First Baby Rodeo

What was he doing, getting involved with her? And how could he have allowed himself to cross the emotional line that had been crossed last night? Because he couldn’t lie to himself about that — last night had been completely different from anything the two of them had shared previously. It had been about the fact that she’d seen something very personal about him, and his gratitude to her for that. Always before, they’d been brought together by the powerful chemistry they shared, but this time had been something even more than that.

Was he even going to be able to walk away from her now?

Things would have to end between them, of course. This had never been a situation with any long-term potential. She was ten years younger than he was, she was Jeff’s little sister, she wanted marriage and family and he wanted his life on the rodeo circuit — none of those things spelled possibility. They had been lying to themselves by allowing themselves to believe that even a temporary arrangement could come to anything good.

“What do you think, kids?” El asked. The buoyancy in her voice felt impossible to Mac. He had no idea how she was doing it. “Do you want to help collect eggs from the chickens this morning?”

“I do,” Brody said. “Phoebe is afraid of chickens.”

“Well, that’s okay, Phoebe,” El said. “You and I will hang out and watch and the boys can get the eggs. How does that sound?”

Phoebe nodded. El glanced at Mac. “You ready to do this?”

He had no excuse. It wasn’t like he could blame his need to rest his arm. They were talking about retrieving eggs from a chicken coop. Literal toddlers were about to help with it. Mac wanted to put some distance between El and himself, to take some space to think about everything that had happened, but there was no reasonable way to do that.

“Let’s get to it,” he said, trying to make his voice sound hearty.

They made their way out to the chicken coop. El and Phoebe were laughing together at some joke Mac hadn’t heard, and he admired the way she’d been able to put an obviously shy little girl at ease. Brody, meanwhile, had run ahead.

“You’d better go after him,” El told Mac. “If he gets to the chickens first, he’s probably going to start going for the eggs without waiting for any instruction or supervision.”

“Right,” Mac said, lengthening his stride and pulling away from El. It was the excuse he had wanted — they were doing the chore together, but at least he didn’t have to walk with her and be consciously aware of the awkward fact that he had no idea what to say to her.

He caught up with Brody at the chicken coop. The boy was eyeing it thoughtfully, clearly laying out his plan of attack.

“Have you done this before?” Mac asked. Talking to the kid was a little more comfortable than an awkward silence with El would have been, but not a lot more. He had never been comfortable with kids. He had no idea how to relate to them. Whenever some youngster had come his way after a competition, begging for an autograph or wanting to ask him a question, he’d felt ill at ease. He was good at dealing with fans, but that skill only applied to adult fans. Kids were different.

And this kid wasn’t even a fan of his. He doubted Brody knew who he was, apart fromDad’s friend.

“I can do it,” Brody said. He started to reach for the coop.

Mac caught him gently by the wrist. “We want to be careful, though,” he said. “If you scare the chickens, they might peck your hand.”

Brody’s eyes widened. “Really?”

Mac cursed inwardly. He wasn’t trying to scare the kid. “Only maybe,” he said. “And it would only be a little scratch, but we’d rather not have that happen, right?”

“I don’t want them tobiteme.”

“Okay. Can I show you how to get the eggs without that happening?”

Brody hesitated, then nodded.

“It’s pretty easy,” Mac said. “We just need to move slowly so we don’t scare them. Let’s first give them some seed, and that will get them to stand up and show us where the eggs are.” He pointed to the seed. “Want to scatter some of that in there?”

Brody seemed to have slowed down enough to be cautious now. He took a handful of seed and scattered it carefully inside the coop.

“There you go,” Mac said. “They’re starting to get up now, see? Do you see any eggs in the nests?”

“There’s one!”

“Okay. Reach in nice and slow and take it out.”

Brody began to creep a hand in with agonizing slowness.

Mac chuckled. “You can go a little faster than that,” he said. “Watch me.” He reached into the coop with a steady hand and scooped an egg out. “Think you can do that?”

Brody hesitated. Then he reached back in, closed his hand gently around one of the eggs, and pulled it out. He held it up gingerly to show to Mac.

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