What Happens at the Ranch...

by Christy Jeffries

  He spotted Rider King near some foliage outside the west colonnade, the gray felt Stetson he wore for “fancy occasions” making him stand out above everyone else. Grayson strode over to the older man and asked, “Sir, are you sure this will work?”

  “Not if Freckles catches me out here, it won’t.” Rider held out a circular tin of chewing tobacco to Grayson. “Want a dip?”

  “I don’t mean sneaking out here for a wad of chew.” Grayson tried to ignore the pounding in his temples. “I meant this plan today with me and Tessa.”

  “Considerin’ you haven’t found any other way to get her attention...” the old man started then shrugged. “I don’t see how it could hurt your chances none.”

  “But won’t Mrs. King be upset that we’re upstaging her award ceremony?”

  “It was Sherilee who thought of this idea in the first place, son. I’m just a good soldier who does what I’m told.”

  “Oh hell.” Grayson looked upward, hoping a freak thunderstorm would engulf him. But the April sky was a clear blue.

  Mrs. King walked up at just that moment and used her little purse to swat the container out of her brother-in-law’s hand. “Rider King, you know full well that tobacco products aren’t allowed on government property.”

  Rider jumped back. “Damn it, woman, I thought you were Freckles. That sounded exactly like the kinda thing she would say.”

  Mrs. King’s eyes darted back and forth between him and the half-empty tin. She sighed. “Carry on, then.”

  Grayson wanted to commend the older man on his well-played reverse psychology, but Tessa’s mother turned her attention to him instead. “It looks like all the camera crews are in position. Are you ready?”

  “I’m ready, ma’am. However, I do have just a few concerns about the execution of this particular strategy.”

  Mrs. King gave him a chilling look. “You changed your mind about Tessa?”

  “No, it’s not that at all. I love your daughter, ma’am, and I wouldn’t be here right now if I didn’t want to be with her.” Grayson waited for Mrs. King’s pursed mouth to relax before he continued. “Remember when Davis Townsend came out to the ranch to propose to Tessa? Wasn’t that your idea, too?”

  “Of course it was.”

  “Well, that didn’t work out so well. Why would this time be any different?”

  Mrs. King rolled her eyes. “What are you talking about? Davis did exactly what I wanted him to do and Tessa reacted exactly as I’d expected. She’d been dragging that breakup on for way too long and sometimes we just need to rip the Band-Aid off, if you know what I’m saying.”

  “So you knew she’d break up with him?” he asked, bewildered.

  Mrs. King’s sigh was one of exasperation. “Obviously. The trick was getting Townsend to bring his press secretary along. Tessa doesn’t mind the cameras when it’s for work. But she hates all that extra publicity just to show off.”

  “But then why are we...” Grayson started and Mrs. King swatted at the air, dismissing his confusion as if it was an annoying fly.

  “If Davis had truly cared about my daughter, he would’ve foregone the cameras and kept things private. But he wasn’t willing to step outside his comfort zone for her. But you, Agent Wyatt? You’re willing to make a real sacrifice. That’s the ultimate gesture.” Mrs. King looped her arm through Rider’s. “Now, let’s all get into position.”

  Grayson looked toward the sky again, wondering if there had in fact been a thunderstorm, because Mrs. King’s reasoning left him in a fall-out shelter of confusion.

  He should have been comforted by the woman’s faith in him and this plan. But no other mission had been as important to him as this one.

  He couldn’t lose Tessa for good.

  * * *

  “And none of this would have been possible if I didn’t have the loving support of my family behind me,” Tessa’s mother said into the eight microphones affixed to the podium. Shutters clicked all around them, and Tessa fought the urge to look around at the Secret Service agents hovering in the background to see if any of them might be Grayson.

  But he was long gone and her plan to get over him by diving into a charitable endeavor had backfired. Planning the fundraiser with Maddie and Mrs. Wyatt only made Tessa miss Grayson all the more.

  “Come on up here, kids,” her mom said, and Uncle Rider gave Tessa a nudge.

  What? This wasn’t part of the plan. The president was supposed to award her mom the medal, her mom was supposed to give a brief speech, and then they were supposed to meet in the West Wing reception area for light refreshments and some informal pictures. Nobody was supposed to be called onstage.

  Tessa’s eyes shot to Marcus who was already halfway to the podium with a sullen MJ in tow. Next, she looked at Dahlia and Finn, who were both refusing to make eye contact with her as they took turns pushing one another to the front of the pack. She finally got Duke’s attention.

  “What’s going on?” Tessa asked under her breath as they joined their siblings. “Mom never goes off script.”

  “Remember what Dad said the first time he taught you how to jump into an eddy in the Snake River?” Duke replied, but the crowd was clapping politely and he had to pause so that he could smile and wave to the cameras aimed in their direction. Her brother glanced at something behind Tessa and then finished, “Just tuck your knees up and roll with it.”

  Tessa barely had time to process his words when she felt herself being lifted into the air. An oomph escaped her lips as she bounced against a solid chest. Then she saw who that chest belonged to and all the air left her body.

  “This gets easier every time I do it,” Grayson said into her ear as he turned toward the wall of lenses zooming in on them. He cradled her in his arms as reporters yelled out questions, but the only thing she could hear right that second was her pounding heart. And him. “But I have no problem practicing it over and over again until I get it right.”

  “What are you doing here?” Tessa tilted her head as she looked between Grayson’s face and the entire press corps assigned to the White House. She tentatively wrapped her arms around his shoulders for balance.

  “Well, I thought I could go back to my own life and you could go back to yours. But I was absolutely lost without you,” he said, and Tessa was glad he was holding her because her legs would’ve turned to jelly. “So, I’m making another daring rescue. Except this time, I’m rescuing myself.”

  Another wave of shuttering cameras peppered the air and she lifted her brow. “Isn’t this the part where you usually sprint us off to safety?”

  “I want them to look their fill and take as many pictures as they need.” Then Grayson kissed her, right there in front of her family, and the president and the entire world watching from home. When he finally pulled back, he stared into her eyes as though they were the only two people there. “I love you, Tessa King, and that’s not something I ever want to keep to myself again.”

  Tessa’s chest couldn’t contain all the pounding and excitement racing through her heart. She’d known that he cared for her, but she hadn’t thought he’d be willing to give up everything else in his life for her. “But what about your job?”

  “I transferred to the JJRTC to become an instructor. Apparently, the recruits seem to think that my unfounded celebrity status somehow means I actually know what I’m teaching them.”

  “And the notoriety?” She bit her lower lip.

  He hefted her closer to him. “You told me that being with you meant that I had to accept being in the spotlight. It’ll be a learning curve for me, and I can’t always promise that I’ll do or say the right things when the cameras are rolling. But I’d rather be by your side than anywhere else in the world. This is my way of proving it to you.”

  Tessa pulled his face to hers and kissed him again. “I love you, too, Grayson. I promise to hold on to you this time, t
o be your protector and to try to shield you whenever I can. If things ever get too overwhelming, we can always go hide out at the ranch.”

  Just when she thought her heart was going to burst, her family closed ranks around them, making the moment even more special because they were all a part of it.

  Uncle Rider tugged his cowboy hat lower on his head and asked, “So, who planned the exit strategy?”

  “Well, you guys told me I couldn’t bring the horses.” Finn threw her arms up. “So I thought someone else was planning it.”

  “Don’t look at me.” MJ shoved his hands into his pockets. “Sheriff Big Brother over there is still holding my driver’s license hostage.”

  Everyone began speaking at once and, as her family argued among themselves, Tessa asked Grayson, “Are you sure you know what you signed up for?”

  “Not really. When it comes to you and your family, I’m finding that all my rules and careful strategizing can easily be blown off course. You’re the only assignment I want, though, so it looks like I’ll just have to hold steady.”

  “Then let’s get out of here.” Tessa smiled at him before giving him another kiss.

  Grayson walked her through the Rose Garden, over the South Lawn and toward the Ellipse. “I didn’t want to leave any of the planning to your family, so I took the liberty of securing a transport vehicle for our dramatic exit.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “I love you, Agent Wyatt, but there’s no way I’m getting into another hearse with you.”

  He barked out a laugh and she felt his chest vibrate against her.

  “Don’t worry.” Grayson nodded toward the helipad. She turned to see the small green helicopter with the Buster Chop’s Chopper Rentals logo on the tail. “I got the next best thing.”

  * * *

  Look for Dahlia’s story, Making Room for the Rancher by Christy Jeffries

  The next installment in her new miniseries, Twin Kings Ranch, on sale March 2021

  Wherever Harlequin Books and ebooks are sold.

  Keep reading for an excerpt from The Child Who Changed Them by Tara Taylor Quinn.

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  The Child Who Changed Them

  by Tara Taylor Quinn

  Chapter One

  This is only a preliminary exam. It’s not like you’re fully committing to anything yet.

  The words replayed themselves in Elaina Alexander’s head as she sat, dressed again in the dark blue scrubs she’d worn to work. The physical exam she’d just had was the last piece of the preparatory testing, counseling and paperwork she’d been through on her way to starting a family of her own that afternoon. Now she was waiting for a consultation with Dr. Cheryl Miller, the ob-gyn at The Parent Portal fertility clinic.

  This is only a preliminary exam. It’s not like you’re fully committing to anything yet.

  She was nervous. Apprehensive on some levels. But she was most definitely fully committed. Cassie, her sister-in-law of almost a year, had only been trying to assuage Elaina’s qualms; she’d made the statement to comfort Elaina in an early morning phone call. Cassie’s words hadn’t quieted her inner turmoil any, but they’d proved to her how very much she needed to know that she’d passed all the initial steps and could be scheduled for her insemination, should she choose to fully commit to something.

  She and the team at The Parent Portal had talked about in vitro—about combining her egg and Peter’s sperm outside her womb, creating an embryo and then implanting it—but she’d opted to have Peter’s sperm injected. To have their baby created inside her body.

  After months of thought, talking with Peter’s brother, Wood, and Cassie, and after counseling, research and more thought, the doctor part of her, the analytical part had only one question left.

  How soon could she start monitoring her system for ovulation so that she could get her deceased husband’s sperm inside her? At thirty-four, she was far too conscious of time passing.

  As a woman who ached with the need to have her own family, and to honor the husband who’d died when she’d lived, she couldn’t get pregnant fast enough.

  The sun had been shining when she’d come into the clinic half an hour before, with a forecast of blue skies and sixty-five degrees in Marie Cove that March Thursday. The sterile, mostly white room in which she sat had a bit of a chill. Or she did.

  Refixing her long dark hair into a ponytail, she glanced for a time at her blunt-cut but perfectly healthy-looking fingernails.

  Ten minutes had passed since Dr. Miller’s PA had completed her exam and Elaina had been told the doctor would be with her shortly. A quick glance at her smartwatch told her what she already knew—though she had nothing specifically scheduled, her shift at the hospital started in an hour. Having recently finished her last year of residency, she’d taken on a full-time nuclear radiologist position at Marie Cove’s prestigious Oceanfront Hospital—something she’d been working toward for more than a decade. Being late wasn’t an option.

  Another five minutes passed. Elaina got up to pace the small room. Checked her watch. Her phone. Saw a work email indicating that Dr. Greg Adams, in the ER, needed her to do some imaging as soon as possible. He had an eight-year-old repeat patient who’d come in again that morning with symptoms that didn’t make sense with the medication she was on, and he wasn’t going to release her until he knew more. He was specifically requesting Elaina’s opinion.

  Quickly thumbing off a reply, scheduling the appointment as soon as her shift started, she thought about the child—a young girl with whom she was familiar from a chain of somewhat perplexing previous visits. But she didn’t spend any mental power on the doctor who’d sent the request. She and Greg, though they’d been friends with benefits for a time, had a good working relationship and that was all that mattered right now.

  The door opened and Elaina spun from her nonperusal of an impregnated uterine diagram to face Cheryl. And she knew the pronounced lines at the corners of the doctor’s eyes didn’t foreshadow the go-ahead Elaina wanted to hear.

  “What?” she pretty much blurted. And quickly followed it with “What did you find?”

  She’d deal with it. Yes, thirty-five was the first cutoff date for healthy delivery, and risk grew exponentially in women over thirty-five carrying children. But she had time, at least statistically, to fix whatever had to be fixed...

  “Have a seat,” Dr. Miller said, sitting at a black pad-topped stool in front of the monitor mounted on a wall by the door. Elaina didn’t want to sit.

  She wanted to read the screen, which she couldn’t see without standing over the doctor’s shoulder. But she trained her eyes on the doctor instead as she reclaimed the chair she’d vacated minutes before. They were both medical doctors. Professionals trained to maintain boundaries, no matter the news being delivered.

  Cheryl didn’t look at the monitor. Elaina’s personal information probably wasn’t even up there. The PA had clicked out of it when she’d left the room.

  And did it really matter, other than to distract Elaina’s immediate emotions from flooding all over her and onto the floor?

  “What we found, and what I’ve just confirmed—” Dr. Miller’s tone was measured “—is that you aren’t a candidate for fertilization.”

  Moving back a few inches, as though she could distance herself from the news, Elaina studied the woman who’d been a doctor twenty years longer than she had. Needing to know that she was wrong in her assessment.

  “Not a candidate?” she asked. What did that mean? They wanted her to just go away? Be done with the rest of her life’s plan?

  Dr. Miller shook her
head. “There’s no...”

  “Wait,” Elaina interrupted, not ready to hear the medical proof that backed up the doctor’s claim. She had to be fully braced and ready to believe that Cheryl could be wrong first. That medical science did get things wrong sometimes, if for no other reason than because of the human error involved in procuring that information.

  Dr. Miller watched her, as though she had all day to sit and wait.

  “I’m sorry,” she said as she snapped back to herself, appalled that she was wasting the busy woman’s time. “I...can you tell me, first, is it permanent? Are you telling me I can’t ever get pregnant?”

  When Cheryl Miller’s brows drew together, Elaina’s heart sank. Her stomach sank. “I know how badly you wanted to have Peter’s child,” the doctor said. “And only Peter’s child.” Dr. Miller had been at The Parent Portal back when Peter, and everyone he could talk into it, had donated sperm for the then fledging supply in the portal’s “bank.”

  At the mention of her dead husband in that moment—her first husband—tears sprang to Elaina’s eyes. He hadn’t been perfect, but Peter had been a good man. Dedicated to giving his all to the medical community.

  Dr. Miller had been present at one of Elaina’s initial visits, when they hadn’t been certain that Peter’s sperm was even still viable; her use of another donation had been discussed—and summarily dismissed. If Peter’s sperm wasn’t usable, she’d rethink the plan.

  “That’s why it’s a bit difficult for me to tell you that the reason you aren’t a candidate for fertilization is because you’re already pregnant.”

  Elaina knew she was not. “The lab mixed up samples,” she blurted out, too flummoxed to keep the thought to herself.

  “Your internal exam showed changes in the cervix and uterus that we see within the first few weeks, so we ran the urine test right away to be certain, which is why I’m a bit late getting in to see you. It’ll be another couple of hours before the blood test is back, but...”