Authors: Christin Jensen
The Cowboy's Secret Baby: BWWM Cowboy Pregnancy Romance (Young Adult First Time Billionaire Steamy African American)
The Cowboy’s Secret Baby
BWWM Billionaire Cowboy/Western Romance
Christin Jensen
Copyright 2015, Christin Jensen
All Right Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
…Synopsis…
Though only 22 years old, Clarice Saxe has showed natural artist talent since a very young age. Her talent is exceeded only by her beauty; long brown hair that glimmered with hints of golden sun kissed highlights, bedroom eyes and a curvaceous figure. Clarice bloomed early, and the treatment she received from boys, and the other girls in school, has made her ashamed of her beautiful shapely body and forced her to resort to making friends with animals rather than human connection.
Farris Croxton is a self-made billionaire, a brilliant businessman he has made his fortune young, and by the age of 23 he is now wealthy beyond imagination. His cowboy build, with strong, solid muscles and deeply tanned skin, combined with his shimmering brown eyes and sandy blonde hair, make him a desirable man. But he too struggles with human connection, though he longs for intimacy with his soul mate. His giving heart has been poured into the horses he has made his fortune raising, and considers himself well-off in all aspects, except for love.
When Farris commissioned a talented young artist to paint portraits of his prize winning horses, neither could have anticipated the instant connection they would feel upon meeting. The two young lovers find themselves caught up in the fascination that each brings, fearful of the emotional bond they suddenly share through a love for the animals and introverted lifestyles. Awkward in the ways of intimate human connection, the two embark on a journey of love and exploration together. Will the two cautious lovers continue to strengthen their bond, or will the future hold the end for their sudden deep connection?
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Table of Content
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Clarice Saxe looked out the window of the old Chevy pickup anxiously as her escort pressed the call button on the airport gates. The mechanical arm lifted, allowing the truck to pass through and she once again felt a pang of butterflies in her gut. Moments late, the pickup arrived at hangar 6 where a private plane stood waiting silently in the morning sun. From behind the cockpit, a tall man came strolling towards her, an awkward smile flashed across his lips as he approached. He was handsome, athletically built with sharply arms and sun kissed skin. From beneath his cowboy hat tuffs of sandy blonde hair made their way along his ear down the back of his neck. He gazed at her with sky blue eyes and extended his hand.
He’s not looking down
. Clarice thought to herself, puzzled, as the first thing most young men do is let their eye wander to her curvaceous breasts.
“Miss Saxe,” an airport rep approached her. “Allow me to help you get your luggage.”
The cowboy was immediately beside him. “Here, let me take that Miss Saxe.” He turned, handling the heavy luggage with ease. “Is this all you’ve got?”
Clarice walked beside him, “Yes, that’s all, thanks. I’m rather depending on Mr. Croxton’s offer of available laundry service.”
“I’m Farris Croxton, miss.” Shifting the luggage, he gave a nervous chuckle, “Never flown down here before. Glad for the opportunity.” He turned to her driver. “Thanks for getting Miss Saxe out here, sir, I appreciate your help.”
Within a short time, Clarice found herself being belted into the co-pilot’s seat of a six seat aircraft, Croxton was strapping himself into his own seat. She had never flown before, let alone in a tiny aircraft manned by a cowboy millionaire. He heart raced as he was cleared for take-off and headed down the long runway.
Later, in the clean, sweet-smelling cabin, Clarice just sat and stared at herself in the small dressing table mirror. Her teachers had insisted that her natural talent would take her places, but she had never expected places and people like this. Before this, she had always visited farms within easy driving distance of her home to sketch alpacas, llamas, sheep, and goats. (Clarice avoided sketching animals raised for meat; she felt too sorry for the poor things.) This was her first road trip – and what a road trip!
Then there was the puzzle of Farris Croxton. Could he possibly be as concerned for his animals as he had portrayed himself to be?
Men that handsome usually didn’t have rough, toil-worn hands
, she thought.
Was he trying to play some kind of game with her?
– Well, only time would tell that, Clarice finally decided. In the meantime, she had to stow her clothes and set out her painting supplies in the main room.
Meanwhile, in the kitchen of the Big House, Terence McGee and his wife Dina were waiting eagerly to meet the young artist their employer had talked about. “This artist girl could be just what Farris has needed to bring him out of himself,” Dina remarked. She and her husband had largely raised the boy after his mother died, and both were concerned about his future. Despite their best efforts, Farris Croxton had grown up with animal friends rather than human ones.
Terence McGee shook his head. “That boy is smarter about business than he is about people. – Look! There they come now.” Watching through the kitchen window, the couple saw a bosomy young girl talking animatedly to their employer/protégé.
A moment later, Clarice Saxe stood in the big room, listening to introductions. “This is my farm manager, Terence McGee, and his wife, Dina, our housekeeper,” Farris Croxton was saying. “These folks virtually raised me while Dad was building our breeding reputation.”
“I’m so pleased to meet you.” The girl had a buxom figure, but she obviously had made no effort to enhance her looks. Her clothing was utilitarian, and she wore no makeup. –
Maybe that’s all for the best,
Dina thought to herself.
She can snare our boy before he knows what he’s about.
Both McGees were anxious to have a new mistress of the house.
Farris seated the young lady with grave courtesy, and they both began making inroads into Dina’s good cooking. “Since Terry’s my manager,” he explained to Clarice, “we’ll have to talk a little business before pleasure.” He looked over at the older man. “Has anything happened that I need to know about?”
“Francis Bellarmine came by to have a look at Warrior,” Terry replied. “He was well impressed with what he saw; I think we can make a sale.”
“Great!” Farris turned to Clarice. “You’ll have to watch Warrior go through his paces tomorrow. I’ve got some video of him, too. I want you to capture his personality for me. Warrior’s real sociable, and he’s going to make a great hunter, which is what Bellarmine is looking for.”
“Do you have any foals you can show me this evening?” Clarice asked, forking up some more green beans. “I’d really love to start out studying little horses so you can show me how their muscles move.” She nodded to the Currier and Ives calendar on the wall. “I’ve grown up looking at those; I need to see how a horse really works.”
Terry burst out laughing. “Yea, I’ve never been able to decide if those old print makers had lousy engravers or lousy artists. They sure put their horses’ muscles in the wrong place.” He turned to Farris. “It’ll stay light out fairly late tonight. Why don’t you take her to see Bolivia and Courier after dinner? – Courier’s just four days old,” he explained to Clarice, “and a right old time Farris and I had delivering him. I’ve got high hopes of the little fellow.”
Farris snorted. “I should hope so. He’s one of the few foals for whom I’ve paid a covering fee.” Turning to Clarice, he explained. “I have enough good stallion bloodstock so that generally I’m the one charging the covering fees, but Chaz’s Chance over at Valencia Station has a blood line too good to pass up. Had to take Bolivia 40 miles to get her covered.”
Clarice looked back at him censoriously. “It’s a good thing mares don’t mate for life, like some animals do,” she reproved.
“But, you see, horses are different about sex than people are,” Farris explained defensively. “To them, sex is just a natural function for breeding; it doesn’t mean love. – I want you to capture the real love between horses; all of them care about each other. You can see it in their faces.”
“I’m glad you realize that.” Clarice was relieved by his vehemence. “All the animals I’ve painted care for their own kind – and even for other species on occasion. If they’ve been treated right, they also care for humans. – You’re right; sex doesn’t seem to have anything to do with love, except for the species who mate for life.”
“You’ll want to be careful around Bolivia tonight, Miss,” Terry warned. “Horses are big animals and protective of their young. You let Farris do all the handling.”
Now Dina spoke up. “Miss Clarice is a sensible girl, Terry,” she reproved gently. “She’ll do alright. She’s the first young lady I’ve seen without painted and glued-on long nails.”
Clarice waved one of her unadorned hands dismissively. “That stuff is for office workers and ladies of leisure,” she told them. “My hands are my tools; I need them in shape to be useful. That’s a nice little kitchenette you have in the guest cabin, Mrs. McGee,” she continued. “I can clean up there after painting. My paints are all chalk or water based, so there won’t be any nasty oil or turpentine. Anyway, I’ll be sketching a while before I start painting.” She didn’t tell them that her Mother had already called to find out when she’d start sending half her pay home.
“Well, aren’t you a practical little lady,” Dina exclaimed. “Farris, why don’t you take her out to see Bolivia and Courier now, and I’ll go pop a piece of my peach pie into her little refrigerator for her to eat before she goes to bed.”
“Bolivia?” Farris spoke softly from outside the stall half-door. “I’ve brought a friend to see you and little Courier. May we come in?” He spoke just as though the horse understood him. Maybe she did, for she looked up at him and then sat down next to her infant.
Clarice looked over into the stall. The dying sunlight revealed a bronze-brown horse with a white blaze on her face. Beside her, apparently sleeping, a little brown horse with just a tiny rope of mane lay on the clean straw.
Farris opened the half-door and went in. “You stay out there and prop up your sketchpad on the barrier. I’ll see if Bolivia will let me wake up her baby and articulate his limbs.” He sat down on the floor beside the big horse and gently held a carrot toward her. This movement awakened little Courier, who tottered over to nurse.
“Horse birthing takes plenty of time,” Farris told Clarice while stroking Bolivia’s long face as she finished her carrot. “Little Courier doesn’t look it, but he came in at 70 pounds. Bolivia had to rest awhile before she finished the birth process.” Now Clarice had started sketching the colt as he nursed.
“Such a sweetie,” she remarked. “I can see why his Mommy worries about him.” Bolivia had turned her head to groom the foal as he suckled.
“Oh, Bolivia’s always crazy about her foals,” Farris assured her, running a hand through the horse’s mane. Clarice found herself sketching all three of them, but her pencil started focusing on the man.
When Farris stopped the golf cart outside Clarice’s guest cabin, he turned and looked at her. “Go unlock the door and turn on your porch light. We can sit on the swing and see what you’ve got.”
Obediently, Clarice hopped out and retrieved her door key.
That girl’s a corker even from behind,
Farris thought,
but somebody’s convinced her to be ashamed of herself.
The porch light snapped on, bright in the twilight. “Come on up and sit down,” Clarice called. “We’ll see whether I can do the job you wanted.”
Farris bounded up the stairs. He was really excited to find someone who seemed to share his empathy with horses, and he was anxious to see what she produced. Sitting down beside her, he took the tablet she handed him.
“Courier hasn’t really developed a personality yet,” Clarice told him apologetically as he examined the first few sketches. “All I could get was love for his mom and happiness at seeing you. – It was great the way you articulated his little legs for me, though. Bolivia really trusts you to let you do that.”
Farris smiled. “She ought to trust me. I helped birth her, too, and have even ridden her on the steeplechase course. She’s a real jumper when she’s not pregnant.” He continued to flip the pages. “You’ve got her down right, too. Bolivia’s a social horse, really; I wouldn’t have her isolated if it weren’t for little Courier. As it is, she’s got friends within neighing distance.”
Then Farris turned another page. “Good God!” He stared at the image before him.
Clarice looked down at the notebook. “Oh, I’m so sorry. I forgot what I was doing. That’s your private face I captured.”
Farris stared over at her brown eyes and concerned face under the pulled-back, mouse colored hair. “You know,” he remarked, “nobody but the McGees would recognize that portrait. Everybody else would think you were idealizing me.”
“That’s because you don’t want everyone to know you have those sorts of feelings,” Clarice explained kindly. “I’ve picked up that sort of private moment before. It’s a hazard any artist faces, but apparently I’ve got a really bad case. My subjects got really snotty about some of my efforts in Life Drawing Class.”
Not to mention what Mother said
, she silently added.
Farris was still trying to work out what she was saying in his mind. “So you often see things other people don’t want you to see,” he reiterated, staring at her. “That’s a pretty neat gift. I expect subconsciously you’ve trained yourself to see through people. It’s a self-protection device that comes through in your art.”
“What do you mean self-protection?” Clarice realized she was almost gasping. Nobody had ever bothered to notice what SHE was feeling before.
Farris waved his hand deprecatingly and turned to face her on the swing. “I’ve been trying to figure you out ever since I met you. Somebody wants you to feel ugly and worthless; that’s the only explanation for the way you look.”
“The way I LOOK?” She reared back in the swing, staring at him with wide eyes.
Farris closed the tablet and simply stared at her. “Look, if you hadn’t slipped into my private space, I wouldn’t mention this, but the facts are obvious. –You’re really a pretty girl, and yet you make yourself look like a flour sack – a flour sack with special love of animals.” He shook his head. “Look, I’m an animal nut myself, but you aren’t doing yourself much less the animals any good.”
Clarice burst into tears. “It’s these damned ‘hooters’,” she sobbed, pointing down at her large breasts. “No girl stacked the way I am can expect any man to look at her face, much less think about her intelligence.”
“Oh, honey, I’m so sorry.” Farris looked wretched. “I know big-breasted girls get a lot of ribbing from high school on, but most of them seem to LIKE it. Several girls I knew didn’t even make it through high school before they got married and had kids.”
“And you think they really liked that?” Clarice glared at him with tear-stained eyes.
“Honestly,” Farris stared back at his past, “I don’t remember seeing any of them again after they dropped out of school. – Of course, I’ve always lived on this big spread and have never gotten around much. – Thinking about it, I can see that early – sexual development – could be a problem.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” Clarice rasped. Her flood of tears had choked her; she grabbed the bottle of water out of her tote bag. “To make matters worse, I am a bastard. I inherited these damned ‘hooters’ from my mother, and she hates to look at them almost as much as she hates me.”
“Oh, Lord.” Farris knew what bastardy meant in a small community. “Does everybody know your status?”
“No,” she sobbed unsteadily, “Mother was smart. She got through high school and business school with her ‘hooters’ by using her knee and her nasty tongue. It was when she got a job in Nashville that she decided she had to accommodate her married boss. Luckily, Grandpa died before she knew she was pregnant, and she inherited the home place and the real estate business.”
“So you’ve never lacked for anything but love.” Farris knew how that felt. He had been raised that way himself, after his mother died in a car crash coming home from the hospital after birthing him. Dad had thrown himself into the world of horse breeding, and the McGees had raised Farris.
“That’s right.” Clarice sniffed, and her next words made Farris forget his own sorrows. “Mother blackmailed her married boss from the very beginning. She had a condom full of his semen in the bank vault, but she was a careful blackmailer – just demanded a moderate sum every month. When she came back home from Nashville, she called herself ‘Mrs. Saxe’ after a name she’d taken from the obituary column. I still don’t know precisely who my father was, but he left me a trust fund that started paying me an annuity five years ago.”
“Have you ever wondered if there was a reason your grandfather died so opportunely?” Farris asked. He was wondering about it himself
Clarice made a snuffling laugh. “I did wonder, until I heard folks in town talking about him. It’s a wonder the drunken old goat made it as long as he did.”
“Well, listen.” Farris stood up. “I’ll keep your secret. Lord knows you’ve had enough trouble. – I’d love to have that drawing framed sometime,” he continued, looking at the tablet he handed her, “but for my eyes only. – I’ll pick you up for breakfast at eight tomorrow morning, and we’ll go from there.” He just stood for a moment, looking down at her. “Whatever you’ve been in the past, Miss Clarice Saxe, you’re going to make yourself a wonderful name for yourself in this world.”
That night Farris could not sleep. He wandered up and down his moonlit room in the Big House, unable to think of anything but the girl who had drawn such a remarkable picture. Nobody had ever noticed his private feelings before. Once she had roused his anger, it had been hideously easy to draw out Clarice’s own secrets.
And what secrets they were! Farris had often felt sorry for himself, growing up with no mother and an obsessed, reclusive father, but Clarice’s agony outstripped his. Had he always been so blind to the emotions of the women and girls he had known?
Yes, he had been, Farris answered himself. He had been so busy covering up his own weaknesses with jokes and wisecracks that nobody else’s problems even registered with him. Of course, everybody had their secret problems. Farris had known that and had always been prudent enough to look the other way when evidence of some sort slipped out.
Now he found himself in a double bind, for a force other than his own emotions had suddenly made itself known. From the time he had gotten into the golf cart after visiting the stables, he had been forcibly trying to restrain an erection. Obviously, that was because never before in his life had he believed that any human female could understand his bond with animals.
Clarice had never been loved. Nobody had cuddled her when she was frightened, held her in his lap, or even touched her. The girl had been so frightened and turned off by men that it was a wonder she’d ever accepted his art commission. Now he knew this, and part of him wanted to sit up and howl. But she had given his prowling libido an idea.
Energized, Farris turned on his desk lamp and fired up his laptop computer. He knew about condoms, of course, though his only personal experience had been with ladies of negotiable affection who scorned anyone who didn’t ‘ride bareback’. Now he realized that for humans there was yet another layer of experience to sex. He could comfort his sad lady and take some comfort himself without causing either one of them any harm. All it would take would be a trip to a drug store far enough away so that nobody would recognize him.