The Bad Boy's Baby (Hope Springs) Read Online Free Page A

Saloon—or the Triple S, as the locals called it—hair done in pin curls, wearing a dress that was tighter and shorter than she usually wore, along with bright red lipstick and a new, fiery attitude.
    All because Ricky told me I was boring before he dumped me. How stupid. That night, Cam Brantley had paid attention to her for the first time ever —and okay, part of that was because she’d been literally sitting three feet away—and she’d thought the sexy new look must be working.
    At first he’d barely glanced her way, and then he’d gone right back to talking to Heath. They were discussing their father and their half brother, and she couldn’t help eavesdropping—not that they seemed to be trying to keep their voices low enough to avoid being overheard.
    “Of course he’s ignoring the kid,” Cam had said. “He didn’t even raise us. Now he’s got another son with a woman half his age. The best thing that could happen to that kid is for Dad to stay far, far away.”
    “But Oliver’s mom isn’t exactly stable, either,” Heath had said. “I’ll try to take care of him when I can, but I’m probably not much better than Dad.”
    “You’d be way better than Dad. I’m the one who’s a mess. Which is why I don’t want kids.”
    “You might change your mind someday,” Heath said.
    “No, I won’t. If there’s one thing I can guarantee, it’s that I won’t ever put a kid through what we had to go through. The best way to make sure that happens is to never have a kid. Hell, if Dad and Mom never had me, they never would’ve gotten married, and think of how much better off the world would be.”
    Emma had winced at that. Yes, it was a harsh thought, but it was one she knew all too well. She’d been the reason her parents married as well. Whenever things were bad between them—which was pretty much always, and they hid it less and less as she got older—Dad would bring it up. How Mom had to go and get herself pregnant, even though obviously she hadn’t gotten herself pregnant. How he would give anything not to be trapped with her, with a kid.
    Mom just let him talk to her like that, and Emma could see that every time he said something harsh, it stripped away a little more of her self-esteem. It hadn’t exactly made Emma feel great about herself, either.
    “Hey,” Cam had said, turning fully toward her. “It’s Emma, right?”
    She’d nodded.
    “You were in a few of my classes, and you always had all the answers. Do you still?”
    The fact that he was staring at her, his gaze slowly moving over her body, made her heart skip a couple of beats. She’d crushed on him so hard in school, the bad boy she should know better than to want. She’d always thought he had a rough exterior but a deep soul. Whatever that meant. She gestured to the heavy-on-the-vodka drink she’d asked for and attempted a flirty grin, telling herself she wasn’t boring. She had on red lipstick and a short skirt, dang it, and Cam Brantley had noticed.
    “I do,” she said, then she asked Seth Jr. to pour Cam a shot—and to put it on her tab, telling herself it was such a nonboring, ballsy move.
    “You do,” he said, reaching for the tiny glass she slid his way. She got a little lost in the motion when he tipped it to his full lips, and she wondered what those lips would feel like against hers.
    He slid the cup back toward Seth, asked him to refill it and pour Emma one, too—on his tab this time.
    As she’d passed the shot glass back to Cam, he wrapped his fingers around it, catching hers, too, and an electric current traveled up from their touch and settled in her chest. “What should we drink to?” he asked.
    “Oh, I…” Honestly, she’d planned on dumping the shot into her drink when he wasn’t looking and maybe only taking another sip or two, since she was already feeling buzzed. But then she realized that Carefree and Exciting Emma tipped back shots, no worrying about things like too drunk or hangovers.