Read Cowboy Secret (The Dalton Boys Book 4) for Free Online

deserve that much, don’t you think?”
    She gulped and finally nodded. “Yes.”
    “Your pregnancy…all normal? Were you sick? Bedridden at all?”
    “No. I worked through it, teaching third grade.”
    He gave a nod and moved to the next question. “Did you find out his sex or was it a surprise?”
    She met his gaze. The hurt there ripped her last thread of control away and guilt flooded in. Had she really been wrong about Beck? The man before her would have stepped up, but he was somehow different now.
    The old Beck would have tried to make jokes and downplay the seriousness of the situation. This Beck…he was as serious as a heart attack.
    “I knew he was a boy,” she said at last. “I thought it best for planning. I didn’t have much money to spend and...”
    He ripped his hat off and shoved his fingers through his hair. Then he stomped ten steps away. “Dammit,” she heard him mutter.
    For the first time, she wondered if he would have liked to know the sex or be surprised. Asking right now seemed like a very bad idea, though. “Is there anything else you’d like to know?”
    “How did you go into labor? I mean, were you at work? Home?”
    At him wanting to know, her heart gave a tiny, happy squeeze. “Home.” She laughed at the memory. “I’d just gotten out of the shower when my water broke.”
    “How’d you get to the hospital?” His dark brows were storm clouds hovering over his narrowed eyes.
    “There wasn’t another man, if that’s what you’re asking.”
    He pushed out a breath. “So you drove yourself?”
    “A nice neighbor took me.”
    “How long were you in labor?”
    “Nineteen hours.”
    “Nineteen…Jesus.” He sat abruptly on a hay bale, leaned forward and dropped his head into his hands. The despondent pose shouldn’t make her pulse race, but it did. Beck Dalton was a gorgeous man.
    She crossed the barn to stand before him. “I had an epidural. I’d wanted to go natural and had taken all the classes, but in the end, I was a wimp.”
    He shook his head, his hands rasping against his unshaven jaw. The noise raised goosebumps all over her body. “Not a wimp. You did what was best for you.”
    She blinked. “Yes, I did. Every step of the way.”
    When he raised his gaze, his eyes were bright with unshed tears. “I really was an ass, but I still should have been there. I would have supported you through everything, Sabrina.”
    They stared at each other while dust motes swirled hectically in the air currents moving through the barn.
    “I wasn’t there, but I am now. And you’re going to let me do this. My way.”
    There didn’t seem to be any use in arguing with him. He was like hundred-year-old oak with roots delving into the molten core of the earth. Besides, all the fight was gone from her.

 
    Chapter Three
     
    The air was as thick as Momma’s famous homemade chocolate pudding. No breeze cut across Paradise Valley, and Beck felt as though he were choking to death.
    He ripped off his shirt and hooked it on the saddle horn. Then he dug in his back pocket for his handkerchief. With jerky movements he knotted it around his throat to catch some of the sweat pouring off him.
    His brothers were in similar states. Right before a huge storm, the weather got unbearable like this. Hank and Cash were up ahead, herding cattle back toward the rest of the brothers. Manny and Pa stood ready with all the equipment needed to check each cow.
    The hoof rot was bad this year. After all the rain they’d had, it was no wonder. Beck hadn’t seen such a thing in Dalton cattle since he was a young’un. Too young to really understand that sick cows meant a failing ranch.
    Now he took it seriously. And as of this morning, they had two more mouths to feed.
    “Get control of your horse, Beck,” Kade snapped.
    “I got him. You know this one’s frisky.”
    “Like his rider, seems to me.”
    Beck’s head snapped up. “What’s that mean?”
    Kade spat a sunflower seed he’d been