The Cowboy Next Door by Brenda Minton Page A

new Wranglers and worn boots. His western shirt was from the mall, not the farm store.
    Contradictions. And she loved a mystery.
    â€œSo, tell me.” She waited, holding the baby in the crook of her arm, but dropping the diaper bag.
    â€œI grew up on a farm in a small town, Lacey. I wanted to live in the city, to experience life in an apartment with close neighbors.”
    â€œAnd you loved it?” She smiled, because he couldn’t have.
    He grinned back at her. “I did, for a while. But then the new wore off and it was just noise, traffic and the smell of exhaust.”
    â€œSo you came home because you got tired of city life?”
    â€œI came home.” And he didn’t finish, but she knew that he’d come home because of a broken heart. Sometimes she saw it in his eyes. Sometimes he looked like someone who had been broken, but was gluing the pieces back together.
    â€œYour parents are glad.”
    â€œI know they are.” He slipped the reins over the neck of the horse. “And Lacey, before you start thinking I’m one of those poor strays behind the diner, I’m not. Cindy didn’t break my heart.”
    He winked. For a moment she almost believed that his heart hadn’t been broken. For a fleeting second she wanted to hold him. To be held by a cowboy with strong arms and roots that went deep in a community.
    â€œI didn’t…” She didn’t know what to say. She didn’t need to know? Or she didn’t plan on trying to fix him?
    â€œYou did. Your eyes get all weepy and you look like you’ve found someone who needs fixing. I don’t. I’m glad to be home.”
    He was standing close to her, and she hadn’t realized before that his presence would suck the air out of her space, not until that moment. Her lungs tightened inside her chest and she took a step back, kissing the baby’s head to distract her thoughts from the man, all cowboy, standing in front of her.
    He cocked his head to the side and his mouth opened, but then closed and he shook his head. “I need to find Cody.”
    â€œOf course.” She backed away. “I’ll meet up with you later.”
    And later she would have her thoughts back in control and she wouldn’t be thinking of him as the cowboy who picked up those silly dog figurines and put them back on the shelf while she swept up the pieces of what had been broken.

Chapter Five
    L acey hurried away, ignoring the desire to glance over her shoulder, to see if he was watching. He wouldn’t watch. He would get on his horse, shaking his head because she had climbed into his life that way.
    She had no business messing in his life; she was a dirty sock, mistakenly tossed in the basket with the clean socks. She couldn’t hide from reality.
    Jay was the round peg in the round hole. He fit. He was a part of Gibson and someday, he’d marry a girl from Gibson. And Lacey didn’t know why that suddenly bothered her, or why it bothered her that when he looked at her, it was with that look, the one that said she was the community stray, taken in and fed, given a safe place to stay.
    The way she fed stray cats behind the diner.
    â€œHey, Lacey, up here.”
    She looked up, searching the crowd. When she saw Bailey, she waved. Bailey had a seat midway up the bleachers, with a clear view of the chutes. Lacey climbed the steps and squeezed past a couple of people to take a seat next to her friend.
    â€œI didn’t expect to see you here.” Bailey held her hands out and took the baby, her own belly growing rounder every day.
    â€œLong story.” Lacey searched the crowd of men behind the pens. She sought a tall cowboy wearing a white hat, his shirt plaid. She found him, standing next to the buckskin and talking to one of the other guys.
    â€œMake it a short story and fill me in.” Bailey leaned a shoulder against Lacey’s. “You okay?”
    â€œHmmm?” Lacey