Winning Over the Rancher

by Mary Brady

  Curtis picked up a pen and began to scribble his signature. When he finished a line, he positioned the papers in front of Evvy.

  KayLee couldn’t find any satisfaction in the problem not being of her doing because anything that involved her “new family” would be of concern to her.

  Her new family. She was so gone. These people were her job, her livelihood, her child’s future, not her family. Her mind was lost to her via pregnancy hormones, and she fervently prayed she’d get it back in time to be a good mother.

  When Evvy finished signing, she pushed the papers silently down the line for KayLee to sign. KayLee passed each set to Baylor to finish off the round.

  The dramatic signing of the contract, the event that would change her life and begin her future, ended quickly and the Doyle parents hurried away, Evvy leaning on Curtis’s arm, even before KayLee could rise from her chair to thank them.

  “Are they all right?” she asked Baylor when the footsteps faded away to silence.

  He stacked papers and put them in folders as if he were deliberating on what to tell her. When they were neatly tucked inside, he put one folder in the drawer of the desk and handed the other to her.

  “There’s a family concern,” he finally said.

  “I’m sorry to hear that. I hope things turn out all right,” she said when he didn’t embellish.

  His answer was to hand over the check for the down payment. She would divide this up between the expenses she would incur to get things started and the amount she would need to live on.

  While she stowed the check in her bag, Baylor spread out an enlarged set of plans containing the general scope of the project. “The building contractor you picked to get started with the site excavation and road work is a good choice. The owner, Allen Martin, hales from one of the ranches in the valley.”

  With her silence, she knew she was making a tacit agreement that they would ignore the elephant in the room, at least for now. Whatever was the matter in the Doyle family was none of her business. She tried to tamp down her concern for the Doyles and nodded in agreement with what he said about the area contractor.

  When she stood and leaned over the plans Baylor spun them so she could see them right side up and stepped around the desk to join her.

  “I have a few suggestions for materials suppliers,” he said after a few seconds of contemplation, “but we are going to have to go into Kalispell to take a look at what’s available to get started and how much will have to be special-ordered. It’s different here than in California. Not quite as many resources at hand.”

  “I welcome any suggestion you have. I’ll contact Martin Homes right away. I spoke with Mr. Martin last week to get an update on his schedule and he said he would make his arrangements based on, he said, ‘Whatever the Doyles need.’”

  It was Baylor’s turn to nod.

  “And after having been in the area less than two days,” she continued, “I realize it was not lip service. I’d like to get Martin Homes started as soon as possible.”

  “That would be good.”

  “I could use a little more enthusiasm,” she said quietly as if she might not want him to hear.

  He smiled broadly this time. “Great. I mean it would be great.”

  “Whew. I didn’t want to be the only one excited about getting started.”

  “I’m going to have to leave you to begin making your arrangements.” His smile disappeared and pensiveness took its place. “Use the phone here as much as you need. Stay as long as you like. I’ll be out in the calving barn and I’ll be back in when I can.”

  With that, he strode out and left her alone at the desk. KayLee wasn’t sure what she had expected—chatting, camaraderie, people who might spend time with her adding to their list of wants and needs.

  She tugged her list of contacts from her briefcase and studiously avoided feeling deserted. She’d do her job and make it look easy so the Doyles would be sure they had done their best in choosing her. Much of her life might be a mess, but in this one area, she knew what to do.

  She dragged the desk phone toward her and dialed Martin Homes. As she waited for Allen to come on the line, she suddenly found herself fighting the feeling that signatures on the contracts or not, if something dire happened in the Doyle family they might have no choice but to cancel the project.

  “HOLLY, I’M HERE,” Baylor called as he stepped inside the comparatively dim light of the calving shed and hung his jacket on a nail.

  “Are they on their way?” Holly called from inside one of the calving pens.

  “Yep,” he said and stepped around the wooden dividing wall. Holly’s back was to him. She was applying lubricant to help the heifer with a calf that might be too big for her to deliver on her own.

  He retrieved his work jacket from the nail and draped it over Holly’s shoulders. In her haste to fetch Seth, she apparently hadn’t bothered with a coat.

  “Thanks,” she said. “I lose my mind when it comes to Trey’s illness.”

  “Dr. Daley is meeting them at the clinic and the chopper will be here as soon as possible, weather permitting.” Baylor bent down and started scrubbing his hands and arms with the soapy water in the bucket on the floor outside the birthing pen.

  “God, I hope so.” She expelled a breath.

  Every Doyle worried about the youngest, and every one of them felt as helpless as the babe.

  “You look like you have things under control here.”

  Holly snorted softly in dissension. “She doesn’t think much of my assistance.”

  “The calf still okay?”

  “The calf is better than I am. Seems comfortable right where she is. Knows it’s cold and hard out here.”

  Baylor dried his hands and arms with a clean towel and hunkered down beside Holly. “Are we going to need the calving chains?”

  “Seth said the calf’s in good position but big and he left a message with the vet that we might need him today, but I hope not.” Holly stood, her teeth chattering.

  “Go, clean up. I got this.”

  A few minutes later, Holly was clean and dry, and she slipped her arms into the jacket. “I didn’t realize how cold I was.”

  Baylor made sure the calf was still all right. It was.

  “I always knew my brother was strong,” he said. “I had no idea he’d ever have to be this strong.”

  “Things happen so fast with Trey.” Holly spoke with gentle outrage in her voice. “Amy said it seemed that one minute he was playing and the next he was fighting for breath. I might be selfish, but I hope for all our sakes the doctors are able to do something definitive this time.”

  “He’s a strong-willed kid. I can’t see him doing anything except making it through all this and coming out the other side ready to rope a steer.”

  “Yeah. Roping a steer is the first thing Amy will want him to do.” She gave a short, appreciative laugh at his attempt to lighten the mood. “I’d settle for him being able to run and play the way he wants to.”

  They kept a silent vigil, eyes on the cow, thoughts with the sick child and his parents.

  The cow shifted and huffed and Baylor gave his attention to her.

  “Come on, girl. You can do it,” Holly crooned to the cow.

  Contractions came and went and there was no progress in spite of using more and more lubrication. He told Holly she didn’t have to stay but she couldn’t seem to abandon cow, calf and man. The cow was tiring and Baylor knew they were running out of time.

  “Chains?” Holly asked.

  “Got one more trick to try. I didn’t get this big for nothing.”

  “Your magic-towel trick.” Holly smiled. She left and came back with a stack of clean, dry towels.

  With the next contraction Baylor used a towel to grab one slippery calf leg and pulled, maintaining tension and pulling until he felt a shoulder “pop” through the pelvis, and then he relaxed when the cow did.

  He smiled as his spirit lifted. “This is going to work.” />
  “I am so not strong enough to do that,” Holly said as she leaned in to check the calf. “This pair is lucky to have you here.”

  “I got more brawn’s all.”

  “You get the papers signed?”

  “You mean do I have brains, too?”

  She nudged him on the back with her knee.

  “Yep, and she’s in the house making some arrangements right now.”

  “I like her.”

  “If that’s an invitation to talk about her, I’m going to ignore it.”

  When the next contraction started, Baylor tugged the second shoulder through. Then he rotated the calf to help the hips clear.

  Holly laughed. “You make that rotating-the-calf thing look so easy.”

  After the hips cleared, the calf slipped completely out. The soft mewling sounds indicated it was breathing.

  Holly untied the cow and the tired mother struggled to her feet to give instinctual attention to her offspring. The calf bleated his dislike of his new world.

  After a few more minutes, the calf began his struggle of trying to stand. He failed on his first try.

  “Nice job, little brother.” Holly patted Baylor’s shoulder.

  “My brothers married well,” he said as he stepped away from cow and calf. Then, when he was sure the pair wouldn’t need any more help, he washed his hands and forearms.

  “It’s supposed to happen like this, Bay,” Holly said, indicating the new mother patiently licking her calf dry while it struggled up onto wobbling legs. “It did for Lance and I.”

  Baylor didn’t say anything. He could see the toll Trey’s illness had taken on his brothers and their wives, on his parents. Even Holly and Lance’s children knew there was something seriously wrong with their cousin.

  “I wish there was more I could do for the three of them,” he said as he dried off.

  “Me, too.”

  He put a hand on Holly’s shoulder and she stepped in and gave him a tight hug.

  “Hey, you two. If that’s all you got to do, I can take over.” Lance stepped into the pen and hugged his wife when she went to him.

  “’Bout time you got back.” Baylor reached into the bucket and pulled the unused birthing chains out to dry them.

  “I stopped at the Whispering Winds and dropped off a couple things I’d picked up in town for Bessie. So what’s up?” Lance pointed at the happy cow-and-calf pair.

  It was that moment Baylor saw KayLee. From the look of horror on her face, she had spied the chains.

  “Hello.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  KAYLEE SHIFTED IN the doorway of the steel-sided shed and then drew nearer to where the three Doyles seemed to stand guard over a mother cow and her newborn calf. A baby born with the use of the chains Baylor held in his hand? The thought made her shudder.

  No doubt about it, Montana was a different way of life than she had ever imagined.

  Baylor dropped the chains into a bucket with a splash of water. Holly and Baylor looked at her and she wondered again if she had done something wrong. But the Doyles wouldn’t have signed the contract if that were true.

  Would they?

  There was nothing to do but remove the doubt, by force if necessary. She ramped up her courage. “It’s none of my business, but since I’m…um…probably going to find out anyway…”

  “What?” Lance furrowed his brows.

  Holly’s shoulders slumped. “It’s Trey.”

  A chill gave KayLee goose bumps in spite of the warmth of the borrowed coat. She hugged her arms tightly around her. The boy whose parents doted, the one whose smile held the ghost of anguish, was in trouble.

  “What’s up?” Lance asked with a seriousness that belied the casual question.

  Holly glanced at KayLee before she spoke, apology in her expression. “He started having trouble breathing after breakfast.”

  “They left for town a couple of hours ago,” Baylor added as he dried his hands on a towel.

  Holly looked at the brothers and then again at KayLee. “We didn’t want to worry you.”

  “He’s so young. Bad things shouldn’t happen to one so young.” KayLee knew she had said the words, but they sounded tinny and distant to her, as if from inside a deep cave.

  She begged her knees to stop wobbling as she put a hand on a nearby metal railing.

  “The plan is to send him to Helena,” Baylor said, not taking his eyes away from KayLee, as if he were afraid she’d fall over or break apart if he looked away.

  And she might. She made ice fill her veins so terror could not and steel fill her legs so she would not give away how frightened she felt for the little boy and his family.

  “Helena is so far from here.” Five hours or so away. KayLee knew because she had verified her resources before she left California. They wouldn’t take a child all that way for a cold or the flu or any childhood illness. She remembered the looks on the boy’s grandparents’ faces and her heart squeezed until she was deathly cold.

  Holly stepped away from Lance. “It’s okay, KayLee. Come and sit down for a minute.”

  “I’m all right.” KayLee froze to the spot of hard-packed earthen floor. She had already shown these people she could be pitiful. She would not do that anymore.

  “Are you sure?” This was a demand of assurance from Baylor.

  “I’m sure. I’m so sorry.” The words sounded inadequate under the circumstances.

  If there were ever expressions of buried feelings, Baylor and Lance were poster boys. Their faces, even their demeanor, gave nothing away. She knew they were reluctant to supply details that would help her form a picture in her head of what could befall any child if bad luck had a hand.

  “He was born with a heart defect,” Holly said softly. “They’re fixing the problems in stages as he grows.”

  KayLee crossed her arms over her chest above the bump of her stomach. “Will he be all right?”

  “He’s an intrepid little fighter and he couldn’t have better parents.”

  Holly retreated back into her husband’s embrace and Baylor stood near them as if in solidarity. When the other woman smiled, KayLee wanted to believe what she said.

  “It must be hard for all of you.” Her own deep terror kept her at a distance from the others.

  “Bay and I were talking.” Holly leaned into Lance as she spoke. “We’re sure he’ll come out the other side of this.”

  “I, um, have to go into town. Is there anything I can do?” The empty offer was all she truly had.

  “They’ll have called for the medical evac helicopter to pick him up, and they’ll all be gone shortly.” Baylor crossed the gravel-and-dirt floor toward her.

  She retreated a step. She wasn’t sure that human touch would not shatter her in this instant. She had worked so hard to learn to comfort herself in recent months and there was no way she was willing to give that up. “Of course, they’d send him where he could get the help he needs.”

  “He’ll do fine. He’s hardy pioneer stock from both sides of the family.”

  At the sound of a long, low moo, Baylor faced the cow and calf pair. The others followed suit. The calf was standing, having a first drink of what KayLee knew would be colostrum—first milk—from its mother.

  “You two did a good job here.” Lance closed in with his arm around Holly for a better look.

  Lance’s optimistic tone and Mother Nature’s show of how well she could get the job done offered KayLee well-needed encouragement.

  “Yep, Holly’s a good midwife.”

  “Thanks.” Holly smiled and pointed at Baylor. “But he did the hard stuff.”

  “I just finished up.”

  “Speaking of finishing things, we’ll leave you two to clean up.” Baylor smiled at Holly and Lance. “And do whatever it is you two do when you catch a moment alone.”

  Holly and Lance grinned at each other. Holly grabbed the damp towels and Lance grabbed the bucket.

  “We work,” Lance said very seriously as he
rubbed a hand on the thigh of his jeans.

  “Yep. I gotta get me some of that work.”

  Holly and Lance both glanced at KayLee and she felt her face glow more than usual.

  Baylor made a noise that sounded like a cross between a growl and a cough.

  “Ignore them.” He took KayLee by the arm and turned her toward the exit.

  She waved over her shoulder to Holly and Lance and promised she’d be back soon.

  Outside in the cold, the wind whipped her hair around and bathed her face with coolness. She took a deep breath of the air scented by the ranch. “No smog. No rich perfume. I like how it smells out here.”

  A gust of inopportune wind blew in at that very moment.

  “You like the smell of cow manure?”

  “Very funny. Not that part, but I’ve smelled worse in the city, much worse. At least you know what that stink is from.” She laughed at the disgusted face Baylor made and continued. “I like the smell of the trees, the fresh air—when we’re upwind from the barn, the wind that smells as if it’s come right down from the mountains and across the clean snow.”

  As they headed toward a rutted area, she leaned heavily into Baylor’s hand for support. She was never quite sure where her feet were these days and as they traversed the uneven ground, she was glad to have the help.

  Should she be making anything of that? she wondered. She hadn’t known him for long and she was already glad to lean on him. She mentally shrugged. She was pregnant, and heck, she’d take good help when she needed it and be glad of it.

  Although she worked hard to ignore it, with each step her awareness of him surged—his size, his strength, his male allure. What would it be like to have sex with someone like Baylor Doyle? She suspected there would be less soft groaning passion and more…what? A wild stallion came to mind and she put it swiftly away.

  “Trey is such a little man about things. I sometimes think it’s harder for his parents than for him,” Baylor said as they neared her car.

  Of course, he was thinking about the boy and she was thinking about sex with a near stranger. She was so demented.

  She forced herself to consider the boy and not the man. “I have a better idea these days of what you’re talking about. I can’t imagine anything going wrong with my baby.”