Before dinner, she’d given Hayden permission to undo this marriage. His carefully chosen words… His guarded expression… She was certain he wanted out of their deal. And that certainty churned in her gut, hollowing her out.
The chill of the night only made her feel worse.
Roddy had left the light on outside the barn. It was a beacon as she crossed the dark ranch yard.
She entered the barn, closing the door behind her. The only light on inside was in the tack room. She headed there to prepare Mike’s baby bottle. A few minutes later, she carried a large bottle with a nipple cap into the calf’s shadowy stall. “Hey, baby. I bet you’re hungry.”
“I’m always hungry.”
Eve startled. “Hayden?” She fumbled with the flashlight in her jacket pocket and turned it on, aiming the beam in the direction of his voice.
Hayden sat in the stall with the calf’s head in his lap. Mike rolled onto his stomach, lifting his nose in the air and sniffing in Eve’s direction.
“What are you doing in here?” Eve was frozen in place. “You should be in bed.”
“I couldn’t sleep.” Hayden patted the straw next to him. “Come sit with me and feed him. Mike gets sleepy really fast when he’s full and then he conks out.”
“Just like a human baby.” Eve sat next to Hayden, close but not touching. She balanced the flashlight on the ground, so its beam was trained on the ceiling. And then she offered the calf the bottle, laughing when he eagerly accepted it.
A feeling of being needed filled her, a feeling of love for this small calf lifting her lips into a smile. “He takes to the bottle so well. It’s like he’s been here for days rather than a few hours. Is that normal?”
“It’s rare.” Hayden ran a hand down Mike’s back, stroking him as if he were a large dog. “He’s special.”
“Katie would agree.”
They fell silent while Mike drank his fill. Other than the occasional creak of a board or muffled sound from the other animals inside, the barn was quiet.
And then, Hayden spoke. “Evie, I think something has to change between us.”
Her breath caught.
Does he mean… Does he want this marriage to be real?
Eve pinched her arm in case she was dreaming.
But this was no dream. She shifted, trying to get a better look at her husband, the love of her life.
Hayden’s face was cast in shadow, so she couldn’t tell what he was thinking. “I don’t understand it. We were good friends before. Pretending to be married should be easy. And yet…”
And yet?
Hurt made an appearance, burning hope to cinders. “Hayden, you can’t think that just because you were practically a member of my family that we could pull off a fake marriage without any hiccups.”
“I can,” he said quietly. “I did.”
He has no clue that he’s my dream cowboy. None.
No awareness that the chemistry between them was rooted in a deeper feeling inside of her.
That didn’t make Eve feel any better. “Maybe… Maybe you shouldn’t kiss me.” Her heart mourned that statement. “You said no PDA without an audience. But now that we’re reassessing, maybe there should be no kisses.” Ever.
“Those kisses…” He left the words hanging between them.
And she let his unfinished sentence go unanswered. She needed to know what he was thinking.
“I like kissing you, Evie,” he finally admitted.
She couldn’t seem to find her breath. Her thoughts. Her words.