A Rancher's Pride(20)
He said nothing.
Suddenly, she sat upright, her back ramrod straight, her blue eyes blazing. “Let’s ask Becky her opinion.”
“You’re pulling my leg. She’s a four-year-old.”
Ignoring him, she waved to Becky and began talking as she signed. “Your Daddy wants to know—” Kayla eyed him for a split second. Sam glared.
“—do you want Aunt Kayla to stay with you?”
Before he could tell her what he thought of her lowdown tactic, the words were driven from his mind by Becky’s shriek of pleasure. She pushed the drawing aside and threw her arms around Kayla.
Kayla hugged her in return.
The child slid from her seat, her hands moving like the wind. “She’s saying, Can you stay?” Kayla told him. “Please, Aunt Kayla, can you stay?”
Watching his daughter bounce up and down in excitement made his chest hurt.
How could he agree to go along with Kayla’s idea?
His own unwanted reaction to her was bad enough. How could he risk letting her cement her relationship with the child? How could he just hand over to her every thing she’d need to have the judge take his daughter away from him?
He felt that muscle in his cheek twitch again.
“Look at her,” Kayla murmured, her tone neither pleading nor demanding, just daring him to see her side of things.
When he held his tongue, she added, “I’m not going anywhere, Sam. I’ll be here in town for the next six weeks, until the judge makes his decision. Let me stay at the ranch.”
He swallowed hard.
Okay, maybe that would be the best thing for Becky right now.
He wanted the best for his daughter, no matter what.
But there was no way he wanted to live in the same house with this woman. Not for any length of time.
“Let me stay,” she urged again. “For Becky’s sake.”
Chapter Six
In the backyard, Sam tossed another bag of feed into the metal storage shed he used for extra stock and wiped away the sweat running down his forehead. After a morning with Kayla Ward, he’d felt the need to come out here and work off some of his aggression. It had taken all afternoon, and he wasn’t sure he’d succeeded yet. Their showdown at the Double S had about pushed him to his limits.
Jack ambled over from the barn. “Tough day?”
Sam exhaled heavily. “You know it.”
“Looks like you’ve got yourself some company.”
“Yeah,” he growled. Briefly, he filled Jack in on what had happened in court that morning. “The woman refuses to take no for an answer. I shouldn’t have backed down. Wouldn’t have, if only she hadn’t played her trump card.”
“Becky.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Considering the situation…”
“No need to be roundabout with it, Jack. I’m stuck, all right.”
“Having her here might help your case in the long run. Buy you some time to get her to drop the idea of custody.”
“Yeah, I thought of that. And to find out just what lies Ronnie told her.” Ronnie had to be the one who’d convinced Kayla he wasn’t fit to be a father to his own child.
“You think your ex fed her a load of bull about you?”
Sam laughed bitterly. Jack hadn’t been around in Ronnie’s day. Even if he had been, Sam would have kept those kinds of troubles to himself. He hefted another bag of feed. “See this, Jack? A drop in the bucket compared to the amount of bull she slung around here.” He tossed the bag into the shed.
Maybe he could also buy enough time to defend himself against those lies. Although what Kayla thought about him, he didn’t much care.
What Ronnie had said to him—and didn’t say—bothered him a lot more. Not for the first time, he cursed her to hell and back. “She never even told me about the baby,” he muttered. “Being deaf?”
“Being born. Or even about her being pregnant before she left, for that matter.”
Jack’s jaw dropped.
Sam nodded grimly. What else was there to say?
He’d contacted Ronnie after she had left, but she’d turned down any of his last-ditch attempts to work things out. In these past two days, he’d realized why. She’d been more concerned about keeping him from finding out they were going to have a child. She’d succeeded in that, all right. And in making him what he was at this moment—a man who couldn’t talk to his own daughter.