Read Online Maverick (Star Valley Book 3) by Dahlia West - Free Book Online Page A

at the photo.
    “He’s got money, Leah.”
    “I don’t want money ! That’s the last thing I want.”
    Candace held up her hands in a placating gesture. “I didn’t mean it like that. I meant for the baby. He could help. With expenses.”
    Leah chewed her lower lip and tugged at her short, choppy hair.
    “But he has to know first.”
    “I could probably find his number,” Leah finally whispered. “On the internet. Or call the paper and—”
    “Leah, this is not the kind of thing you tell someone over the phone. You don’t just call a man up and say “Congratulations, you’re a daddy!”
    “Well, how do you know?”
    “I don’t!” Candace argued. “It just doesn’t seem right!”
    “I know! I know! I…know I have to tell him. I just…don’t see how .”
    Candace slapped the newspaper sharply. “Well, we know who he is and where to find him. Or at least, what city to look in. You can think of what to say to him on the drive down there. Call Mrs. Finley and ask for tomorrow off. We’re taking a road trip to Star Valley.”

Chapter Nine
    ‡
    A ustin stepped out of the hay barn to see a group of women standing on the front porch. Squinting in the sunlight as he wandered over, he saw Sofia and Cassidy standing with two others. If they were friends of Cassidy, he hadn’t met them before, a brunette and a waif-like blonde with a ponytail. They had cookies and lemonade and he could use some of both.
    As he mounted the porch steps, the blonde turned and something familiar about her made him stop in his tracks. It took a moment to recognize her, to realize she wasn’t one of Dakota or Cassidy’s friends. “What are you doing here?” he asked, thoroughly confused. He didn’t recall leaving her his number. Or, come to think of it, even telling her his last name. It was shocking to see her standing on his porch. “I don’t…um…”
    “Leah,” she said with a deep frown. “Leah Pierce.”
    “I know your name,” he said, and he did, that was true. Her first name, anyway. He still remembered it. He was just troubled by the fact that she was here at all, standing on his front porch. It felt like being trapped inside a dream in which he was back in school and it was finals week, except he’d never cracked open a book. He felt thoroughly unprepared.
    She looked wildly different, too. She had dark circles under her eyes and was quite a bit less…curvy…than he remembered. Her eyes were the same sparkling blue, though, and when he looked into them now she seemed…nervous.
    It was a little late to start feeling awkward, he thought, after the night they’d spent together.
    “What’s that?” he asked, nodding to her arm.
    She pulled out the paper, unfolded it slowly, and handed it to him. He saw his own face smiling back at him in black and white. “Candace saw this and read about you. And that’s how we knew where to look. We drove down from Cody.”
    Something about this was all fucking wrong. He had no idea what it was, but Austin didn’t like it, not one little bit.
    “Can we talk?” asked Leah. “Alone?”
    They headed across the driveway, toward the horse barn, side-by-side and walking slowly, out of earshot of her friend, Sofia, and Cassidy on the porch. She still seemed nervous, unsure what to do with her hands. They fluttered around her as though she had no control over them.
    “It’s no one’s fault,” she began rapidly. “Or it’s both our faults. Or…look, I don’t really care about whose fault anything is. It’s just that—”
    “Slow down there, rabbit. You’re tearing off and leaving me behind. Whose fault is what? Or isn’t, or whatever?” He watched her take a deep breath, shoulders rising.
    “I’m pregnant,” she said quietly.
    He stopped moving, boots scuffing the fine gravel. “ What? ”
    “I’m pregnant, Austin. That’s what I came to tell you.”
    “How can you be pregnant?”
    She sighed. “Well, we didn’t use a condom and—”
    “ You said it