Baby My Baby (A Ranching Family) Read Online Free

the divorce was final. What they were going to do now...
    Ash let his head hang down between his shoulders as the impact of the news washed over him the way it had been every few minutes since he’d found out.
    She was pregnant...
    Was she happy about it? Unhappy about it? Did she resent that the baby was his? Was that why she wanted to exclude him—so she could try forgetting it was his child at all?
    No doubt about it, there were questions he needed answered.
    Linc had assured him he’d try to reason with her about seeing him. But whether or not his former brother-in-law convinced her to agree to it, Beth Heller was going to see him today. She could do it willingly, or she could do it unwillingly, but she was going to see him.
    Because the one thing he wouldn’t do was accept her orders to ignore the bombshell she’d dropped on him.
    He pushed off the sink and went back into the room where one double bed, a small table with two chairs and a bureau with a TV on top of it filled the space. His suitcase was open on the rack at the foot of the bed and as he bent over it to get a clean shirt, he caught sight of Beth’s letter out of the corner of his eye.
    His teeth clenched at just the thought of it, but rather than taking his shirt out the way he’d meant to, his hand reached to the letter.
    He’d read it a dozen times since finding it in the mail that had accumulated while he was gone, but for some reason he was compelled to open it and read it yet again.
    It was just like her, he thought, feeling a dull ache in his jaw from muscles that tightened in anger.
    She didn’t want his help.
    She didn’t need it.
    She had everything planned out. Everything under control. Everything taken care of.
    He was superfluous.
    Excess baggage.
    No, she hadn’t said he was superfluous or excess baggage. Not in so many words, anyway. But he knew it was what she was telling him.
    But, damn it, this baby was his, too. And he wasn’t going to be written out of its life before it was even born. Or after, either, for that matter.
    He sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the words on the white paper.
    In a few months you’re going to be a father... Once more that wave of shock and awe and disbelief washed through him.
    They were going to have a baby.
    He and his beautiful Beth...
    Ash’s eyes pinched closed in rejection of that thought that had come on its own and he shook his head the way a dog shakes off water.
    She wasn’t his Beth anymore.
    They were divorced and he had no claim on her.
    Or did he? The baby changed things, that was for sure. It tied them together despite the legal severing of their marriage.
    But did it give him claim to Beth again?
    Probably not.
    Not that he wanted claim to her again.
    They’d been right to get divorced. Somehow they’d lost that precious spark that had brought them together. She went her way. He went his. And every now and then they met up. Usually accidentally. Or coincidentally.
    Or in bed...
    But he was better off not thinking about that.
    He still held the letter, and once more he focused on the impeccable handwriting on the crisp white stationery, hating the words that were there. Not for their message of the baby, but for what they conveyed about Beth not needing him.
    It didn’t surprise him. Why should this be any different?
    But he couldn’t help wishing that just this once it had been.
    Deep down, in a secret place he didn’t want to acknowledge even to himself, he envisioned the letter he wished he’d received. We’re going to have a baby and I need you by my side. I want you...
    He blew out a wry, mirthless sigh at the very thought.
    Not Beth Heller. The earth could open up under her feet and she wouldn’t holler for help.
    She was the damned most self-sufficient person he knew. And the stubbornest.
    Not that anyone would think it to look at her. She was so thin, so fragile looking, with that alabaster skin and those wide blue eyes the color of Colorado columbines.