about their day, and when she asked one of them where she could find
Ash, he pointed through the side door of the barn to the corral located
there.
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Carrying the tacos, she made her way through the pristinely clean
barn and out the door. Ash stood by the corral, presumably watching
one of the other ranch hands working with a lively young colt.
Her phone rang in her pocket, and she slipped it out to answer it.
“Hello?”
“Hey, it’s Allen. Mom would kill me if I forgot to mention it, and
I almost did. When she was looking at Lila’s ring, she thought that
one of the diamonds felt a little loose in its setting. You might want to
have a jeweler take a look at it. That’s it.”
“Are you on your way back?”
“About halfway there now.”
“Will you thank your mom for me? And thank you, Allen. You’re
very special to me.”
His deep, raspy laugh came through clear on the line. “It’s
because I’m just so fricking precious. You tell your man the news
yet?”
Over the knot of nervousness reforming in her throat, she said,
“I’m about to.”
“Oh! Good luck. Let me know how it goes. I promise, I won’t tell
anyone.”
“’Kay, love you.”
“Me, too, bye.”
She put the phone away as she made her way over to the side of
the corral where Ash stood. She removed the rings and placed them in
her skirt pocket.
When she looked up, Ash was watching her from across the
corral. His hat was pulled down low against the sun’s glare, so she
couldn’t see his eyes very well. She smiled nervously and waved as
she approached him.
“Hi. I brought you a snack. Teresa sent them for you.” She
wondered if he could even hear her over the lump in her throat. He
didn’t move from the spot where he stood, his boot hitched up on one
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of the pipe rails of the corral. He spoke indistinctly to the ranch hand,
who led the energetic colt from the corral back to the barn.
Ash seemed tense as she approached, and she wondered if
something had happened that morning to make him act this way. He
was taking over duties as foreman for Angel. Maybe he needed to
play it cool for the other ranch hands so they’d respect him. She could
understand that, to a point.
She sidled close to him, and he took the paper sack she offered.
He thanked her politely, looking out across the corral. No hug, no
kiss, he didn’t even look into her eyes. Wasn’t this taking “playing it
cool” a little far?
Nervously, she finally spoke when he said nothing else to her. “I–I
have some news to share with you.”
“Oh, yeah?”
A chill swept from her tailbone to her neckline at his cool tone.
“U–um, yeah.”
He looked down at the ground, so she couldn’t see his face. “You
can save yourself the trouble, Juliana. I already know your news.”
Stunned, she looked at what she could see of his profile. “You
already know? How? How could you know?” Doctor-patient privilege
applied to her test results, but she knew that people gossiped. She
couldn’t make the connection between the staff at Doctor Guthrie’s
office and the Divine Creek Ranch. That couldn’t be it. The only
other person who knew was Allen.
Ash quickly clarified for her. “You were overheard at Rudy’s. A
hand was there while you were there. He told me what he heard.”
“Oh.” He did know. Her heart raced wildly. He wasn’t happy
about her news. What did she say now?
“Seems you drew some attention to yourself.”
“Oh.” Damn it, was that all she could think of to say? Strong,
mouthy Juliana had left the building evidently.
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“It’s okay, Juliana. I understand how you must feel. But you gotta
remember we never made any real commitments to each other. Just
play it cool and do what you have to do.”
“I don’t understand.” Never in a million years would she have
guessed that would be his reaction to news that she was pregnant.
“I already know your news. You don’t have to explain yourself.
Take care of whatever yourself, and don’t worry about me. It’s not
that big a deal, okay? You’ll be fine.”
Whatever?
Her voice shook a little and cold shivers swept over her skin. “But
Ash, I needed to tell you. You needed to know how I feel.” This was
her fault for putting off telling him the obvious. Clearly, he didn’t
mean that he didn’t have feelings for her. She could see it in his eyes
whenever he looked at her.