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“I can manage.” He pulled out one of the three pillows that gave the necessary roundness to his flat belly. “Go back to the party, but stay away from the punch. Somebody spiked it.”
“So what else is new?” Cat mocked wryly. “Someone does that every year.”
“Yes, but this year you have a little one to think about.” His glance flicked to her stomach, concern and gentleness mixing in his expression.
Cat smiled softly in return, instinctively sliding a caressing hand over her belly, conscious of the slight flutter of movement within. “I think about him all the time,” she told Ty, then crossed to the feed room’s inner door that opened onto the barn’s wide alley.
When Cat stepped through the doorway, she found herself in the midst of a dozen cowboys, mostly single men, grouped together. A couple of Repp’s friends nodded to her. Cat smiled in response and cut through their circle in blithe unconcern, intent on locating her father.
An arm snaked out, hooking her waist and swinging her around. Her upraised hands collided with the wide chest of the ranch’s would-be Romeo, Dick Ballard. Her arms stiffened in surprised resistance.
“Hey, fellas, look what I caught me,” he called over his shoulder. “Didn’t I tell you I’d get lucky standing under this mistletoe?”
Cat shot a quick look overhead and saw nothing but the Christmas lights strung across a massive beam. “There isn’t any mistletoe.”
“It’s on my hat, sweetie. It’s on my hat,” he informed her with a cocky grin.
A year ago Cat would have laughed and planted a loud, smacking kiss on his lips, and everyone would have thought her a good sport. In the flash of an instant, Cat knew such an action would be held up to an entirely different light this year.
Thinking fast, she reached up and flipped off his hat. “Sorry, the mistletoe seems to be gone. Nice try, Ballard.”
A few of his friends chuckled in approval, but Ballard wasn’t amused. His expression darkened, a redness creeping under his tan.
His arms immediately tightened around her. “That’s what you think, sweetie,” he muttered and came at her openmouthed.
Cat twisted her head down and away. His mouth landed in her hair as she strained against his hold, struggling to get free. Binding her with one arm, he trapped her chin in his hand and forced her head up. Cat instantly clamped her fingers over his mouth and pushed his face away.
“Let her go, Ballard.” Ty’s barked order had his hand shifting from her chin to her arm.
“Don’t go getting all riled up, Ty. All I want is a little kiss,” he declared, his glance then sliding down to Cat. “And everybody knows she’s free with them.”
“I’m not as free as you think I am,” she snapped in a fury of temper.
Ty took one long stride forward, but before he could intervene, Chase stepped into the circle. An instant hush fell over the barn, electric undercurrents charging the air.
“How long have you been on the Triple C payroll, Ballard?” he asked with an iron coolness, his gaze locking on the cowboy, never once straying to Cat.
“About five years,” he replied with the belligerence of a man convinced he was about to be fired.
“Around here, Ballard,” her father began evenly, “it is always a woman’s prerogative to say no. And it is always a man’s obligation to accept it. It’s time you learned that.”
Without a word of anger or threat, he had switched everyone’s focus from Cat’s conduct to Ballard’s. Sensing the shift in attitude, the cowboy reddened visibly and released Cat, stepping back and bobbing his head in apology. “My mistake,” he said to her.
A moment ago her temper and sense of outrage would have had Cat responding with sharpness. But she knew at once that it wasn’t what her father would do.
Copying the levelness of his tone, she said, “We all make mistakes, Dick. Heaven knows I have.” Reaching down, she picked up his hat and handed it to him, conscious that people had begun turning away, losing interest in them.
Dick fingered the sprig of mistletoe on his hat band. “I guess this wasn’t such a good idea.”
“I wouldn’t blame the mistletoe,” Cat said quietly.
“I guess not.” He looked at her with a new measure of respect, then donned his hat and nodded to her, grinning with a ghost of his former cockiness before moving away to rejoin his compatriots.
When she walked over to her father, Cat saw the approval in his eyes, though he said nothing to her. It was Ty who asked, “Are you okay, Cat?”
“Of course.”
Still grim-lipped, he eyed the cowboy. “I’ve never liked Ballard that well.”
