Page 26 of Roping Her In

“I’m not going alone,” he said. “Charlotte’s going to take me, and she’ll meet up with Beau and their kids at her brother’s house after.”

“And you think you’re going to be able to drive home with your arm in a sling?”

Jake usually liked this fiery, challenging side of Hailey, but right now he didn’t want to have this conversation in front of Beau, who currently rode three feet from him in the driver’s seat of his truck.

Hailey bickered at him from the back seat, and Jake rolled his head and looked out the side window at the bleak, wintery landscape. “I’ll catch a ride back with someone after church,” Jake said, praying with everything he had that Hailey would drop this. “Or call my brother. He lives in town.”

God still performed miracles, because she remained silent. A measure of relief stole through Jake, only amplifying when he saw the buildings at the epicenter of the ranch lift from the ground on the horizon.

Hailey had told him she’d use her time when she wasn’t needed on-call to do her homework or catch up on studying. Since Jake had been out at the cabin, he really had no idea what was going on in the birthing shed, but surely the other cowboys on-call could handle it.

“All right,” Beau said as the administration trailer started to loom closer and closer. “You’re coming to my house.” He looked over to Jake. “Hailey, do you want me to drop you off at Pete’s?”

“No, thank you,” she said, her voice suddenly holding ten times the kindness as before. “I should check in at the birthing shed and see if I’m needed there, and I can walk back to Pete’s afterward.”

Beau nodded, and Jake didn’t feel like arguing. If she’d been injured and he wasn’t allowed to go with her to the hospital, the first place he would go was the birthing shed as well.

Of course, he was the head veterinarian, and she was a vet tech intern who wasn’t even getting paid to be in the birthing shed.

He twisted and looked behind him to the back seat. “You don’t need to hang out there when you’re on-call,” he said. “Hartford will be there, and he’ll call you if he needs you to come over.”

She gave him a crusty look but nodded.

Beau pulled up to the birthing shed and put the truck in park. “All righty,” he said, and he looked over to Jake, with nothing but smiles for miles in his eyes and on his face.

Can he not feel this tension? Jake thought. It could shatter if he so much as breathed wrong.

“Will you please text me?” Hailey asked, a note of desperation in her tone. “So I know what’s going on?”

“Yes,” Jake said. “I’ll make sure everyone knows.”

Beau chuckled, and Jake threw him a furious look as Hailey got out of the truck. The moment she slammed the door, Jake asked, “What?”

“You’ll make sure everyone knows.” Beau shook his head and chuckled as he put the truck in drive and eased away from the birthing shed. “You never tell anyone anything, and you hate it when the spotlight is on you.”

Jake glared out the windshield, because Beau wasn’t wrong.

“But she’s real pretty, and she wants to know. So suddenly, you’re gonna make sure everyone knows how you are.”

“Stop it,” Jake said quietly. “It’s not like that.”

Beau’s eyebrows went up.

“It’s not.”

“Listen, my friend, I dated a ton over the years, and I know what it looks like and feels like when two people like each other.”

“She does not like me,” Jake said. “Trust me.” He wished the words coming out of his mouth were untrue, but he knew they weren’t. “She wanted the birthing experience, and she was the one on-call when I found that cow. That’s it.”

“Yeah, and then you got to lay in bed with her in front of a crackling fire for several hours.”

Jake’s jaw tightened and jumped. “It’s not what you’re thinking. I took four painkillers and basically passed out.”

“All right.” Beau made the turn onto the lane in front of the cabins, which was much smoother than out on the ranch. “But just so you know, there are no dating policies at Three Rivers.”

Jake sighed like Beau was utterly insufferable, which sometimes he was. Jake had seen him date plenty over the years, and one of the last events he’d attended at Three Rivers Ranch was Beau and Charlotte’s wedding, almost twenty years ago now.

Beau pulled in behind the SUV at his cabin and looked over to Jake. “And Libby and Chelsea are doing that Valentine’s Day dance this year.” He raised his eyebrows. “Maybe you could ask Hailey to that.”