Seduction on the Sand (The Billionaires of Barefoot Bay #2)(40)

“Here, give me the phone,” he said. “What’s the name?”

Isabella bayed again. “Wait, wait. I need to find out if she’s breech. Can you hold her legs open?”

He was on his knees, gloved hands reaching out with a surprising amount of tenderness, his face next to Frankie’s. “Like that?” he asked.

Why did her damn heart slip around like that? She hated him. He’d screwed her—or tried to. “Yes.

Let me reach in there.” She looked up at him, expecting a curled lip of disgust, but he looked at Isabella with sympathy, touching her gently.

After a moment, she found the back end of the kid. “She’s breech. I have to turn the kid.”

“You want me to call the vet?”

She shook her head. “We can do this.” She’d meant I can do this, but there he was, next to her, a partner, a friend, a lover... “An * who tried to steal my land.”

“Now, Frankie?”

She almost laughed, except Isabella was howling with pain. “Sorry. Later.” She pushed and prodded, sweat trickling over her face as she made careful, slow moves that wouldn’t tear the placenta.

The whole time, Elliott held Isabella’s legs. He talked to her and stroked her sweetly and, damn, if he didn’t calm the doe down between contractions and give Frankie a chance to turn the kid.

Suddenly, a yellow bubble appeared.

“What’s that?” he asked in horror.

Now she did laugh. “That’s the placenta. And inside there, look...” A tiny brown foot came out first, then the face of a very pretty goat. “There’s our first kid.”

Both of them were silent as Isabella pushed quietly, the wee baby sliding out with its gooey overcoat.

“And maybe not our last.”

The way he said it...whoa. She didn’t dare look at him, didn’t dare give away how that got to her.

“Most times there are two,” she said. “But there could be three or four or five. You ready, cowboy?”

The rest of a little brown goat plopped onto the hay, making both of them suck in a simultaneous breath.

“Would you look at that?” Elliott whispered, awe and a crack in his voice. “Even a goat birth is a miracle.”

She finally found the strength to look at him again, inches away, his expression all dark and tortured and pained. He returned the gaze, the two of them inches away but worlds apart.

“Frankie,” he whispered. “Is there any possible way you’ll accept a simple apology?”

She managed a smile. “No.” Then she turned back to Isabella. “But it looks like we’ve got another.

And this one’s coming out just as it should.”

Isabella seemed to calm after she had a chance to greet her new baby girl with mama licks, and then she relaxed for the next delivery.

Frankie gathered her towels and gently cleaned the kid and got her ready for the tiny warm bed she’d prepared. For now, though, she let the baby stay near her mama.

Elliott cleared his throat against the silence. “I guess you’ll never believe me if I tell you I was going to withdraw my offer.”

She patted the tiny kid’s head. “You’d guess right, then.”

He sighed. “Well, I was.”

Without answering, she laid a hand on Isabella’s leg, feeling it tense for the second delivery. She shouldn’t ask questions. She shouldn’t give an inch, because this was Elliott Becker, and he’d charm and flirt and tease and lie his way to forgiveness that she had no intention of giving.

“So why didn’t you tell me?” she asked, apparently unable to hear the rational voice in her head.

“I was going to, once I’d...undone my mistake.” He leaned closer, but she refused to look. “That’s why I didn’t...why we didn’t...”

“We did enough,” she finished for him. Enough for her to feel like they’d had sex and she’d offered him her body...and all the time, he’d known he was trying to steal her land. “Enough for me to be hurt.”

“I’m sor—”

She held up her hand and looked at him. “No amount of groveling in the world will allow me to trust you again.”

He closed his eyes as if the words had been a direct hit.

“I know this isn’t going to change things, Frankie, but—”

“Then don’t say it. Just...” She shook her head. “You really don’t need to be here.”



“I need to explain a few things to you.”

She exhaled slowly, peering down to see the next kid just starting to make an appearance.

“My friends, Nate and Zeke, we’re joining forces to build a baseball stadium and start a minor-league team here.”

Very slowly, she turned her head, the words flowing over her like a bucket of ice. “You wanted to build a baseball stadium on Nonno’s Dolce Vita?” Surely he heard the dismay in her voice.

“Actually, the stadium’s going to be over there, farther west. This land was for the”—he swallowed hard—“parking lot and access road.”

She actually laughed because, how the hell else should she react to that? “Why not the men’s room, while you’re so busy demeaning my precious legacy of land?”