Daddy Wore Spurs (Mills & Boon Cherish) (Men of the West, Book 32) Read Online Free Page A

hospitable. Especially after that sexual taunt about inviting her into his bed. No telling what she was thinking about him now. Her impression of him had most likely slipped from cad to pervert. But why her opinion of him should matter, he didn’t know. Except that something about Mariah Montgomery got under his skin. He wanted to see approval in her eyes and a smile on those lovely lips.
    Cradling one of the mugs with both hands, she stood a couple of steps away, watching Harry feed. After a long stretch of silence, she asked, “Where did a bachelor like you learn how to feed a baby?”
    “My sister, Sassy, has two kids. A son, J.J., and a daughter, Skyler, born three months ago. And two of my brothers have small children.”
    “Playing with your little nieces and nephews is not the same as actually caring for them,” she said bluntly.
    Defending himself to this woman was definitely getting old, Finn thought, but he was going to do his best not to let his impatience show. Sparring with her wouldn’t help matters. “I’ve done more than just play with them,” he informed her. “I’ve babysat Sassy’s kids while she and her husband went out for the evening. So I know about bottles and diapers and those sorts of things.”
    “You, a babysitter? That’s hard to imagine.”
    Ignoring that jab, he said, “Sassy trusts me to care for her kids like they’re my own. And I’m glad to do it for her.”
    “So the two of you are close,” she said thoughtfully. “Aimee and I were that way once. But time and...other things caused us to grow apart.”
    The contents of the bottle had lowered to the point where Finn was forced to tilt it higher so Harry would ingest formula rather than air. She watched him make the adjustment, then seemingly satisfied that he knew how to feed a baby, she took a seat on the stool next to his.
    Using his free hand, Finn reached for the mug of coffee, then carefully leaned his head away from Harry to take a sip. The brew was stronger than what he was normally used to, but it tasted good. The long drive up here, coupled with the stress of meeting Mariah and the baby, had worn him down.
    After downing several sips of the coffee, he asked, “Do you have any other relatives living close by?”
    “No. Our parents divorced when Aimee and I were small, and ever since, our mother has lived in Florida near her parents.”
    “Do any of them ever come to visit?”
    A bitterness twisted her features. “Not hardly. Aimee and I were lucky to get a birthday or Christmas card from any of them. Now that I’m the only one left, it’ll be easy for them to forget they have family back here on a dusty ranch.”
    So Mariah clearly wouldn’t be getting any emotional support from that branch of the family. The idea bothered him greatly. Mariah was so young. She needed someone to embrace and encourage her through the loss of her sister and the transition it was making on her life. She needed a loving family surrounding her. But she had none.
    He said, “I guess you can tell that Aimee didn’t share much about her family life with me. But to be fair I didn’t ask her a lot of personal questions. We mostly talked about horses and the things we had in common. I thought we’d have plenty of time for family talk later. I never believed...well, that things would end up like this.”
    Over the rim of her mug, she regarded him solemnly. “After you left Reno did you ever try to contact her?”
    “Sure. I called several times. But the phone signal would break or she’d never answer. I even left messages on her voice mail, but she never returned them. I finally decided she wanted to put our weekend behind her. So I did the same.”
    She turned her head away and Finn could hear a heavy sigh swoosh out of her.
    “I should apologize to you, too, Finn. You were right. I wanted to think of you as a cad. I’d made up my mind even before you arrived that you were the one who’d left Aimee in the lurch. That was easier