A Cowgirl's Secret Read Free

“There’s so much you don’t understand. Stay and maybe—”
    The elevator signaled its arrival with an elegant ding.
    Off stepped a feverish-looking Kolt, followed by his best friend’s mom.
    â€œHey,” Heidi said, an arm around Kolt’s sagging shoulders. “Knowing you’re sick, too, the hall is the last place I expected to find you.”
    â€œUm, yeah,” Daisy said, biting hard enough on her bottom lip to draw blood. Get on the elevator, Luke. If I can’t handle telling you about Henry, there’s no way I’m able to introduce you to your son.

Chapter Two
    Craving closure when he feared there was none, Luke drummed his fingers on a narrow black table holding white lilies with an overpowering scent.
    â€œTh-thanks for bringing him home,” Daisy said to a brunette soccer-mom type and a kid.
    Luke froze. Home? Since when did Daisy have a kid?
    â€œMom,” the boy mumbled, hugging her waist, “I threw up at practice.”
    â€œI’m sorry.” Skimming her hand over his head with a tenderness she’d never had for Luke, Daisy said, “Heidi, I can’t thank you enough for bringing him home.”
    â€œNo problem,” Heidi said, glancing from Daisy to Luke. “Everything all right?”
    â€œFine.” Daisy hugged the boy to her. When she turned toward her loft, the color had long since drained from her face. “I—I’ve got to go.”
    â€œSure,” her friend said. “But while I’m here, Toby lost this week’s craft supply list. Mind if I copy Kolt’s? I’m afraid if I ask their teacher again she’s going to land both of us in day camp detention.”
    Pouring on the speed, Daisy said, “I’m not sure where Kolt’s is. When I find it, I’ll call.”
    â€œSlow down,” the boy complained. “You’re gonna make me puke again.”
    Glancing over her shoulder to Luke, as he followed them, Daisy’s friend asked, “Are you sure you’re all right? I didn’t interrupt, did I?”
    â€œNot at all,” Daisy assured, practically shoving the boy into her loft.
    â€œOuch!” he complained. “Mom, you’re hurting me.”
    â€œI feel like I stepped into the middle of something. Want me to watch Kolt?” Eyeing Luke, Daisy’s friend said under her breath, “You know, in case you two need to talk.”
    It was on the tip of Luke’s tongue to admit just how weary he’d grown of even being in the same space as Daisy until the dark-haired boy glanced at him through eyes matching his own.
    Dawning, slow and building, spread through Luke, igniting both wonder and fury. No wonder Daisy was acting so skittish. For the past ten years, she’d hidden his son.
    Luke snagged her by her upper arm, not caring he’d caused her to wince. “We’d really appreciate you watching Kolt, wouldn’t we, Julie?”
    â€œY-yes, please,” she said. “Heidi, if you need me, we’ll just be down the hall.”
    â€œMom?” the boy—Luke’s son—asked. “Need help?”
    â€œNo, thank you.” Wearing a smile Luke knew from experience to be fake, Daisy said, “This will only take a second and then we’ll watch a movie.”
    With their audience safely behind the loft’s closed door, Luke dragged Daisy to the seating area in front of the elevator. “Talk.”
    She shook her head.
    â€œDamn you,” he ground out in a low tone, trying to keep it together if for no other reason than the last thing he needed was a nosy neighbor butting into a conversation ten years in the making. “Let me guess,” he said upon releasing her to push her into an armchair. “Your deep, dark secret you just couldn’t bear for anyone to know was that you were pregnant with our son?”
    Swallowing hard, she nodded.
    â€œYou’re such a coward, you caused