Overprotective Cowboy - Elana Johnson Page 0,5

with him. She couldn’t, and she knew it.

She could cut his paychecks and make sure he got the money in the right account. She could text him when he needed to meet with Ginger, as she also managed her best friend’s schedule around the ranch. She could endure his presence at ranch-wide lunches or dinners. She didn’t have to become friends with him, and she didn’t have to explain anything to him.

Satisfied in her resolve, which was very, very strong, Emma returned to the party and put her celebratory smile back in place. She told herself she’d be much better off alone, and that had been working for the past decade.

She hadn’t even dated anyone in that time, and no one around the ranch thought that was odd. Hope Eternal really was the best place for Emma, because she needed all the hope she could get. Maybe in another decade, once her daughter was an adult, Emma could consider letting a man into her life.

Until then, she simply had too many secrets she wasn’t willing to share with someone she was in a relationship with.

Ted’s eyes, intense and dark and full of questions, entered her mind. He’d want to know everything about her, and dang if she didn’t already want to tell him.

She wouldn’t, though. Emma hadn’t even told Ginger about her daughter, and she’d known the woman for thirteen years. She’d lived here at the ranch for ten, and her daughter would be eleven this winter.

A month later, Emma’s eleventh-year anniversary at Hope Eternal would be celebrated. Her mind flowed easily back to that time, and how incredibly difficult it had been to leave Missy behind that first time. Even now, when she went to visit on the weekends, sometimes Emma cried the whole way back to the ranch, despite the fact that Missy was whole and well and thriving.

You did what you had to do, she told herself as someone said her name.

She turned toward Jessica Morales, another woman who lived here in the West Wing with Emma and Ginger. “Right?” Jess asked.

Emma had missed the question entirely, and she shot a glance at Nick and Spencer, cowboys here at the ranch, who both looked at her expectantly. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t paying attention.” Her pulse rippled. Did they know about her daughter?

“I said the dip has a ton of dairy in it,” Jess said, and Emma’s stomach stopped swooping. “Right? Nick says he thinks he’s lactose intolerant, but he’s downing that dip like it’s made of veggies.” She grinned at the young cowboy, and Emma laughed too.

The sound filled the air with happiness, though Emma didn’t feel any of it coursing through her. She’d worked so hard to cover up the darker side of her life for so long that it happened naturally now.

No one who knew her would ever say she had a ten-year-old daughter she was hiding from a crime lord. Not only that, but Robert Knight had also been the parent of one of her second graders eleven years ago.

She’d have lost her job if anyone had found out about the relationship and resulting pregnancy. Instead, she’d quit, left town, had the baby by herself without anyone in her life knowing, and then left Missy with a couple in San Antonio.

“Lots of dairy,” she confirmed. “Sour cream, milk, mayonnaise.” She didn’t actually know if mayo was in the dairy family or not. It was made from eggs, so maybe not. No matter what, the dill dip was definitely not lactose-free.

Nick scooped up another dollop of it with a stalk of celery. “I’m taking my chances.” He grinned and took a bite of the celery and dip while Spencer shook his head.

“You just have a dill addiction,” Jess teased Nick, and he shrugged, not denying it. Spencer said something about Jess’s hazelnut addition, and they laughed again. Jess did eat a Nutella and banana sandwich almost every morning for breakfast, claiming that it had fruit, and it was almost like having toast with her coffee.

She was still tall and lithe, because she literally walked twenty thousand steps each day, while Emma went to sit behind a desk for the majority of her working hours. She did work in the stables in the mornings and evenings with the new foals that had been born in the past couple of weeks.

Other than that, if Emma didn’t wear a smart watch, she could go hours without taking a single step. It was also because of this that Emma