The Rancher Gets Hitched & An Affair of Convenience

by Cathie Linz

  “Fine,” she mumbled around a yawn, not really hearing him. “I’ll see you then.”

  “The kitchen is at the back of the house downstairs,” Zane added. “You can’t miss it.”

  “Mmm, good night.”

  As she closed the door in Zane’s face, the last thing she saw were his eyes. Finally she was close enough to see their color. They were blue.

  TRACY WAS DREAMING that she was being rocked by gentle waves in the Caribbean. She and Dennis were on their honeymoon. They had the beach all to themselves. The ocean was getting rougher. A storm was coming. She could hear the thunder. It rumbled over her as she bounced like a cork in the rough seas.

  “Wake up!” the thunder rumbled.

  She tried to call out but couldn’t.

  “Wake up!” the thunder rumbled again.

  Tracy opened her eyes to find a man looming over her in the semidarkness. Her scream was automatic.

  Afterward, she didn’t know which of them was more unnerved.

  “Damn it, you scared ten years off my life!” the man grumbled as he retrieved his hat, which had gone flying when she’d let loose her startled yodel. “All I was trying to do was wake you up. You were supposed to have breakfast ready ten minutes ago. I’ve got hungry ranch hands downstairs waiting to be fed.”

  Completely disoriented, Tracy blinked at him, trying to place her surroundings. Where was she?

  Then it came rushing back to her. She was at a ranch in Colorado. The one her aunt told her would be the perfect place for her to recover from the mayhem of her life. But no one could recover from anything at this ungodly hour! And the man staring with interest at the thin spaghetti straps of her nightgown was Zane.

  “What are you doing in here?” she demanded, pulling the sheet up to her chin.

  “I told you. I was just trying to wake you up.”

  “It’s too early. Come back later,” she moaned.

  “Listen, lady,” he growled as he hit the light switch on the wall, “I’m not running a health spa here. Last I heard, I’m the employer and you’re the housekeeper and cook. Which means you’re supposed to be downstairs making breakfast, not up here under the covers.”

  She groaned, then sat up in bed. “I guess this means breakfast in bed is out, huh?” Seeing his expression darken, she added, “I’m only kidding. I’m awake now. I’ll be downstairs in a few minutes.”

  Tracy waited until Zane left before crawling out of bed, only to stub her toe on one of her still-unpacked suitcases. Tears sprang to her eyes as she grabbed her foot and did a one-footed hop.

  This wasn’t how she’d planned on starting her new life. She felt like a fish out of water, a very sleepy, tired fish, and she didn’t like it Anger washed over her, mixed with the pain of betrayal. Dennis had cheated on her, and Zane had stolen several hours of sleep from her. The two crimes might not be at all equal in seriousness, but for the moment they marked both men as guilty in her mind. Guilty of being men too used to having their own way.

  “They should ban all males from this planet,” she declared darkly. “Now where did I pack my jeans?”

  In the end, Tracy had to wear beige linen slacks and a coral silk blouse. It was either that or risk having Zane come ranting back into her room. Her jeans must be in one of the bags still in the car.

  She found the kitchen with no difficulty. Turning on the stove did not prove to be as easy, however. Whenever she turned the knob, all she got was hissing gas.

  The moment Zane walked in the kitchen, she told him, “Your stove is broken.”

  “It’s not broken, you’ve got to light it with a match.” When she gave him a blank look, he swore under his breath and lit it himself. “Just make a batch of scrambled eggs this morning and some bacon.” He handed her a bowl of eggs and what looked like a pound of bacon.

  “Do you know what this does to your cholesterol level?” Tracy said in disapproval.

  “Just cook it,” he growled.

  She did, but not very well. The eggs were runny on top and burned on the bottom, while the bacon looked like cinders. Who could have guessed that making scrambled eggs and bacon would be so tricky? It was a good thing she’d brought a few cookbooks with her.

  She didn’t dare go out and ask the men how they liked the meal she’d made for them. So she stayed in the kitchen, trying to decide where she’d put the gourmet appliances she’d brought with her. She heard some muttered complaints from the other room, but didn’t pay any attention to them.

  There was no ignoring Zane when he strode into the kitchen. His face was as stormy as the sky had been last night.

  “I was told you could cook,” he said with remarkable calm, given his expression.

  “I can cook,” Tracy righteously maintained. One thing. Shrimp de Jonghe with angel-hair pasta. As for breakfast, Tracy rarely had anything more elaborate than coffee and a bagel with cream cheese. And she’d always bought that from a deli around the comer from her place.

  There was nothing around the comer in this neck of the woods, thought. Okay, so her first morning hadn’t turned out as she’d thought it would. No big deal. She had an MBA. She could figure this out. How hard could being a housekeeper and cook be?

  Turning her attention from Zane to the kitchen, she surveyed the mess she’d made. Bacon grease was spattered in a two-foot radius from the stove. Some of it had even hit her hand. She absently rubbed the spot while belatedly noticing that the eggs she’d broken into the bowl had left a slimy trail from the countertop to the kitchen sink four feet away.

  She’d looked for, but hadn’t yet found, the switch for the garbage disposal. Opening the window had gotten rid of most of the smoke caused by the burning bacon. For a minute there, she’d been afraid she’d set the place on fire.

  Seeing her wandering attention, Zane was hard-pressed not to yell at her in frustration. The kitchen hadn’t been in great shape when she’d started cooking, but now the place looked as if a bomb had hit it. He was on the verge of shipping her back to Chicago, when he reminded himself that he didn’t have a bunch of applicants standing in line. It was her or no one.

  Telling himself to be patient, Zane was about to speak when a new storm crashed in, banging the swinging door against the wall.

  Ten seconds later, the damage was awesome. The bowl from the countertop had flown across the room before smashing on the floor. The canisters Tracy hadn’t even noticed before now lay beside the ruined bowl, their contents strewn all over the kitchen.

  The air was filled with flour dust, making Tracy cough even as she asked, “What was that?”

  “My two kids,” Zane ruefully replied.

  2

  “YOUR KIDS?” Tracy repeated, her eyes glued to the empty flour canister still drunkenly spinning on the floor.

  “You knew I had kids, right?” Zane said in a defensive voice.

  She nodded slowly, still unable to comprehend how so much damage could be done in such a short time by a pair of little kids. “Aunt Maeve told me that you had two adorable and incredibly well-behaved children. I’m getting the feeling that she may have been exaggerating just a bit.” To put it mildly, Tracy thought as she gazed around the kitchen. The place may have been messy before, but now it looked as if it would qualify for disaster aid.

  Zane’s kids obviously weren’t the demure quiet kind and Aunt Maeve clearly hadn’t told her the whole story about this gig as a housekeeper. Her aunt had omitted a few important items—like the fact that Zane was sexy and his kids totally wild.

  “Lucky!” Zane bellowed, making Tracy jump in surprise. “Lucky is my daughter’s name,” Zane added before the kitchen’s swinging door whipped open, almost smacking Tracy in the face as a flourcoated child, dressed in jeans and a red T-shirt, galloped into the room, skidding to a halt in front of Zane.

  Not sure what to do, Tracy said, “How are you, Lucky?” and automatically held out her hand, more accustomed to meeting business associates than children.

  “This is my
son, Rusty,” Zane said, his voice filled with paternal outrage.

  “I’m sorry. I couldn’t tell.” Indeed, the little boy looked almost identical to the other child who’d just raced into the room. Both had short brown hair dusted white with flour, while each wore T-shirts and jeans spattered with egg.

  “They’re not identical twins,” Zane told her. “It’s not that hard to tell them apart.”

  Twins? He had twins. She’d seen the movie The Parent Trap so she knew how much trouble twins could be. The kitchen was proof that two kids could do the damage of five. “How old are they?”

  “Seven,” Zane answered.

  “And a half,” Lucky said. Or was it Rusty? No, it was Lucky. She could tell because Zane had his hands on his son’s shoulders and the comment had come from the other one.

  “We don’t need anyone to take care of us,” the boyish-looking little girl added with a belligerent thrust of her chin.

  “I can see that,” Tracy replied with a wry look at the mess they’d made in the kitchen. She’d felt bad at the havoc she’d created while cooking, but it was nothing compared to what they’d done, and in such a short time, too. “You appear capable of taking care of things pretty well all on your own.” Returning her attention to the twins, she said, “My name is Tracy and I’m the new housekeeper. I’m here to take care of the house and the cooking.”

  “Grandpa said your cooking was awful,” Lucky said.

  “Be nice,” Zane warned.

  “I was being nice,” Lucky protested with an innocent look in her blue eyes. “I didn’t even kick her or anything.”

  Kicking? They kicked? Tracy took a cautious step backward just in case.

  Seeing her retreat, Rusty laughed. “She’s scared,” he said in a voice that held a remarkable amount of disdain for a seven-year-old. Or even a seven-and-a-half-year-old.

  “Behave,” Zane said, his look reprimanding. “And apologize to Ms. Campbell for making a mess in here.”

  “It was already a mess in here,” Rusty pointed out.

  Zane’s look was stern. “You two made it worse. Now, say you’re sorry.”

  “We’re sorry,” the two children said in unison.

  Tracy could tell from the devilish gleam in their matching blue eyes that they felt no remorse for their actions. Instead, she detected a clear hostility toward her.

  Not the best way to start off her first day of work. But then that’s how her luck had been going lately.

  “And you’re going to help Ms. Campbell clean up in here,” Zane added.

  “Oh, Pa,” both children groaned in dismay.

  “After you go on upstairs and get cleaned up first.” Only after they’d galloped out the door and up the stairs, leaving a trail of flour-studded footsteps behind them, did Zane admit, “Sending them upstairs may not have been the brightest idea.”

  “That’s okay. Kids are kids.” Whatever that meant. She didn’t know what else to say. She was beginning to feel at a complete loss here. “When does their babysitter get here to take care of them?” she asked hopefully.

  “Babysitter?” He gave her a startled look. “There is no babysitter.”

  She frowned. “I’m no expert, but they seem a little young to be unsupervised. Or does your father look after them?”

  “Sometimes he does. But watching them is part of the housekeeper’s job. Your job.”

  This came as news to her. Another little detail her aunt had omitted. She’d told Tracy about the kids, but not that she’d be expected to take care of them. “Wait a second here. I thought housekeepers just took care of the house and the cooking.”

  “You thought wrong.”

  Tracy sank down onto a rickety kitchen chair, more than a little overwhelmed by this latest bit of information. “And your previous housekeeper did all this?”

  “Yes. No problem.”

  “Then you won’t have a problem getting someone else to do this job,” she said with a sigh. “I’m not sure I’m the right person for it.”

  “I’m not sure either,” he muttered. “But you’re all I’ve got.”

  She recognized desperation when she heard it. Giving him a suspicious look, she said, “Why don’t you tell me what’s really going on around here?” On a hunch, she added, “How many housekeepers have you had?”

  “Since when?” he hedged.

  “How about in the past year?” she asked, her confidence returning.

  “Several.”

  “How many is several? More than six, less than twelve?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And may I ask why they left?”

  “For various reasons,” he said.

  “Named Rusty and Lucky?” she astutely guessed.

  He shifted uncomfortably. “Look, maybe I should have told you more about my kids when you first came last night, but then you haven’t exactly been completely honest with me, either.” Lifting his head, he gave her a direct look, his blue eyes just a tad accusatory. “Telling me you can cook when it’s obvious that you can’t.”

  He had her there. “Okay,” she admitted, “so I may not have tons of experience at this sort of thing but I’m willing to learn.”

  “That’s what I’m counting on. Just for the summer. In September the kids are back in school and my dad can handle them after class. But I need you to promise that you’ll at least stay the summer.”

  Tracy realized she was in no position to criticize Zane for not elaborating about what he expected from a housekeeper. Even if he had given her a detailed job description last night, she’d been too tired to have paid much attention.

  He was right. She hadn’t been completely honest with him. She’d been so eager to get away from Chicago and experience life on a ranch that she’d glossed over her own shortcomings and hadn’t bothered checking out the details of the position herself, leaving it to her aunt to phone and say she’d take the job.

  But she was an intelligent woman. She could learn how to cook. It was simply a matter of following instructions, right? How different could it be from setting up a new program on her laptop computer? All she had to do was simply follow the instructions. And she’d brought enough cookbooks and cooking paraphernalia to choke a horse. She could manage this. She would manage this.

  Because the bottom line was she wasn’t about to fail here. Not after failing where her engagement was concerned.

  And while she was no expert regarding kids, even she could tell that the twins could benefit from a woman’s touch instead of being allowed to run wild. Especially Lucky. Growing up in an all-male environment had left the little girl looking and acting like a tomboy.

  Tracy had worked on an ad campaign for a line of girls’ clothing last year and worked with kids for that campaign. Lucky would look adorable in the B. Me clothing line—petite denim dresses and colorful hair bows. More importantly, Tracy was responsible for the ad campaign for Tyke Bikes, making them the hottest item on children’s Christmas lists two years ago.

  Everything she knew about kids she’d learned from those two campaigns, the only two she’d worked that had involved children. The rest of her accounts had covered the spectrum from wine to nuts—Spring Hill Winery to Pete’s Pistachios, to be specific—from bigticket items like motorcycles to small specialty items like a line of aromatherapy candles. She’d enjoyed the diversity and the new challenges.

  Diversity and new challenges. Well, the job of housekeeper on Zane’s ranch certainly was sure to provide both of those things in spades.

  While working on the B. Me and Tyke Bike accounts, she’d spent several weekends with focus groups of kids. Granted, most of them had been a little older, and a whole lot more civilized, than the two hellions who’d blown through the kitchen. But that was just a minor glitch. She’d use her marketing experience to sell herself to his kids. And to sell them on behaving themselves.

  With a nod, Tracy got to her feet. “Okay, you’ve got a deal. I’ll stay for the summer.”

  The flash of
relief on Zane’s face would have been easy to miss if Tracy hadn’t been watching him closely. But she had been watching him. It was all too easy to do so because he was the kind of man who demanded attention—not by anything he said or did but by his mere presence.

  With his chiseled cheekbones and lean build he was just too dam easy on the eyes. It was a good thing she’d sworn off men for the time being. Her life was complicated enough right now without falling for a sexy rancher with an attitude.

  She’d come out west to escape and do something completely different. She needed to rethink her life. She needed to clear her thoughts. She didn’t need to develop a thing for her employer.

  Studying her surroundings, instead of Zane, she decided she’d feel better once she’d restored some order to the place. The remains of scrambled egg were already congealing in the breakfast dishes. “Where’s your dishwasher?”

  “I’m looking at her,” Zane replied, with a pointed look in her direction.

  “So you’ve got a broken stove, no dishwasher, and—just a wild guess here—no garbage disposal, I suppose?”

  “We’ve got a hog named Beauty. She’s the garbage disposal.”

  A hog? They were big, weren’t they? Not small and cute like the little pig in the movie Babe.

  “Don’t worry,” Zane added. “Feeding Beauty isn’t part of your job.”

  “Thank heavens for small favors,” she muttered.

  “And the stove isn’t broken. It’s just old. There’s no pilot light, so you have to turn the gas on and light it with a match. Immediately. Otherwise the place fills with gas.”

  “And you don’t have a stove with a pilot light, or own a dishwasher because...?”

  This time he was the one who muttered. “Because I don’t have the time or the inclination to get new stuff.”

  She translated that to mean he hated shopping, a common male affliction she was accustomed to. In the world of advertising, her job was to make people want to buy things. “What if I did the shopping for you?”

  “I’m not made out of money,” he warned her.