And Cowboy Makes Three

Why was this happening? Jo had to know there was no possible way any variation of this scenario would turn out well.

Angelica mumbled unintelligible words under her breath, quietly venting her frustration with the situation, but her throat closed around her air and it came out sounding like she was choking on carbonated soda.

So much for remaining incognito.

Now the whole town would know she was here. And she knew she wouldn’t be welcomed back with open arms.

Especially not after what she’d done to Rowdy.

Even as a teenager, Rowdy had been popular in town. And from what she’d seen today, with everyone cheering and all those young ladies bidding for some time with him, that hadn’t changed.

Rowdy was one of Serendipity’s favorite sons.

Angelica...wasn’t.

She hadn’t been well liked, nor had she been understood. No one in town other than Granny, Jo and Rowdy had ever given her a fair shot.

Now everyone would think she’d captured Rowdy at auction in some underhanded fashion that was unfair to the rest of the crowd.

And the fact that she’d shown up in town unmarried and with a baby?

This was so not going to work out well for her.

Oh, why had she ever come home to Serendipity at all?

She turned in time to see Rowdy digging in his heels, his cowboy boots raising dust. His brow was deeply furrowed and his lips were set in a hard line.

Yep. Not happy to see her.

Surprise, surprise.

Jo, however, wasn’t taking Rowdy’s reluctance as an answer. The more he balked like a mule, the harder she pulled. She stopped in front of a gaping Angelica and dropped the rope into her hand, pressing a sealed envelope into her palm at the same time.

“This particular letter is addressed to the both of you,” Jo informed them, pointing to Granny’s unmistakable script on the front of the envelope.

Angelica and Rowdy.

Angelica folded it in two and shoved it into the back pocket of her jeans without another look. Her mind was turning so fast she was getting dizzy. She couldn’t get her head around what all this meant.

Buying Rowdy at auction before the auction even started. Leaving a note for the two of them.

What part did Granny have in all this? Was she the one who’d put out the funds to keep Rowdy off the auction docket? Had she been conspiring with Jo?

It looked like it. But why?

“I had Chance prepare a special meal for you two in the picnic basket in the far corner of the green by the southeast bench,” Jo instructed.

Angelica nodded, but not because she’d needed the directions. She already knew where the picnic basket was. She’d been the one toting it, for crying out loud. Toby’s baby carrier had been left near the basket, as well, and her sedan was parked on the street just beyond the bench.

She should have realized something was off when Jo didn’t insist on taking her basket right into the center of the chaos. Jo wasn’t the type to live any part of her life on the outskirts. She wanted to dive in and be smack in the middle of everything.

“Talk to each other,” Jo suggested in a no-nonsense tone. “Don’t let the past eat you up before you figure out where the present is taking you. Work it out. And don’t forget to read what is in that envelope.”

Then she turned and headed back to the podium without one more word of explanation.

* * *

Work what out?

Surely Jo should know Rowdy and Ange were far beyond mending fences.

Rowdy growled and yanked at the lasso, pulling it from Ange’s hand. He realized only afterward that he’d probably left a rope burn on her palm as he struggled free of the noose, but if Ange noticed she didn’t complain or alert him to the fact. It irked him that he felt a moment of remorse for giving her a second’s pain.

Not when she’d given him a lifetime’s worth.

He stood up to his full six-foot height and straightened his shoulders. He wasn’t the tallest man at the auction, but at her five-foot-four-inch frame, he had plenty of height to glower down at her.

His chest burned with fire but his heart incongruously froze solid as anger sluiced through him like an ice storm in Antarctica.

Ange pushed her hoodie back and whipped off her ball cap, shaking her long blond hair out of their confines. Tilting her chin up, she met his gaze head-on.

It wasn’t the expression of someone who was sorry for what she’d done. She still maintained the same solitary determination as ever, ready to run roughshod over anyone who stood in her way.

He wouldn’t be a sucker twice.

She opened her mouth to speak, but he dug in before she could say a word.

“Ange,” he ground out, his low voice sounding like sandpaper as he leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest, steel walls clamping down around his emotions. No way was he letting her in this time.

“Rowdy,” she said, testing his name. She held out a hand to touch his arm but he grunted and twisted away.

But not before he realized she had a baby in her arms.

A baby.

“Rowdy,” she said again.

His frown deepened at the sound of his name on her lips. It had been such a long time. Her voice was so familiar...and yet, then again, not so much.

He lifted the lasso and shook it under her nose.

“What did you just do?”

Rowdy’s eyes briefly settled on the tightly swaddled infant in Ange’s arms and then he flicked his gaze to her unadorned left hand. He was reeling with shock to see Ange suddenly back in Serendipity after all this time, especially with a baby in her arms.

Why had she come back?

And why now?