Cowboy, Stay with Me

Chapter Three: Baby Crazy

As the day wore on and Sean still hadn't shown up, Lucy grew increasingly edgy.

She kept finding chores to go do outside of the house and away from the stables.

She was just coming back from the tree house in the far northern pasture, restocking the first aid kit she stashed there, and she stopped cold when she saw the dreaded black pickup truck, glinting in the driveway.

Lucy gulped and shook herself.

Sean was probably in the stables talking to her father and grandfather and the ranch hands, so she ducked quickly through the back door of the house.

###

"Oh my God, Amanda, did you see him pull up? Is he-?" Lucy stopped dead in the doorway of the kitchen, however, her gaze colliding with a pair of big chocolate brown eyes.

"Sean!" She gasped, her hand immediately flying to smooth down her hair. She'd just been running outside and probably looked like a tornado had hit her.

Amanda and Martha exchanged discrete little smiles.

"Lucy, Sean here was just telling us about how a fugitive recently escaped a transport vehicle in the next county over and they think he might be moving through the area and hiding out in people's barns and stuff! Can you believe it?!" Amanda babbled, clutching her glass of ice tea nervously in front of herself as her eyes flicked between Lucy and Sean.

They were both staring at each other, virtually ignoring her.

"Oh my gosh, that's terrible." Lucy murmured.

Sean was leaning against the counter, enjoying a glass of ice tea with the ladies. He had straightened up when she'd entered the room, however.

He looked good, she thought helplessly.

"Lucy." He said her name softly and she took a reflexive step back from him. He was going to say something else and she didn't really want to hear what it was. It wouldn't be the thing she really wanted to hear, after all.

Rosalita started bawling loudly in the next room and Lucy had never been so relieved to hear a baby cry.

"I've gotta get that." She said, and hustled out of the room as fast as she could.

"Lucy!" Martha called after her in protest.

Sean gently touched her arm. "It's okay, Miss Martha, let me go talk to her. There are some things a man has to do on his own." And he bent down to kiss her weathered old cheek.

Martha beamed up at him. She loved it when he called her 'Miss Martha'.

Amanda hid her smile behind her glass.

###

"Well, I should probably get to work then." Sean said from behind her.

Lucy reluctantly turned around to face him, rocking the baby absently all the while. Rosalita was still fussy, even though she'd just been changed and fed. "Yeah, I guess so. I hope you catch your man before he hurts somebody or gets shot by a farmer."

Sean nodded, studying her face. "You look good, by the way. Happy." He gestured at her somewhat weakly. "You were always greats with kids."

She graced him with a small, noncommittal smile.

"I heard you graduated from Texas University at the top of your class. Congratulations, by the way." He told her in a low voice that still made her knees weak despite herself.

"Yeah, congratulations on getting your US Marshal badge, I know how much you've always wanted it." She nodded as if trying to convince herself of her own sincerity.