Winning Over the Rancher

by Mary Brady

  “Yep. Love,” Abby whispered in her ear and walked out of the room.

  The sheriff spoke to KayLee. “You tell him, if I catch him driving that truck of his over a hundred again, I will put him in jail. Nothing that fast is reasonable and prudent.”

  “I will definitely speak to him about it, Sheriff.”

  KayLee drew in a sharp breath and the pain in her lower abdomen swelled.

  “I’ll leave you to it now, Ms. Morgan.” He nodded once and disappeared.

  In an instant Baylor was at her side. She wanted to be angry with him, but he hadn’t made any commitments to her that he had broken.

  “How did you know?” she asked.

  “Abby left me a message I couldn’t ignore.”

  “I love her. Why didn’t you return Lance’s calls? We didn’t know where you were—if you were safe or dead by the side of the road.”

  It sounded like the accusation it was. She didn’t care, she was owly now and anyone who wanted to tell her to be nice could take a flying leap.

  “I’m safe. I’m here now.” He tucked her hair behind her ear and searched her face.

  Her mobile phone on her bedside rang. It was Lance Doyle’s number. She glared at Baylor and opened her phone. “Lance, he’s here.”

  “Kick his butt for me.”

  “Count on it.”

  “I don’t know how you did it, KayLee, but we’ve already finished unloading a truckload of materials. The contractor says construction will begin again tomorrow morning early. KayLee, you rock.”

  She smiled. That was an awful lot of words all at once from Lance Doyle and she knew it was a thankyou and a well done. “Thanks. We’ll talk about it in a few days.”

  “Holly says she’ll see you tomorrow if you’re up to it.”

  She closed her phone. “He said to kick your butt for him. I won’t be doing that today, but I want you to you know it will happen.”

  He dared a small grin and she smiled back. “I hope you know how much it means to me that you’re here.”

  He sat on the edge of the bed and let her squeeze his hand as hard as she wanted to during the next contraction. When the pain eased, she kissed him long and hard and he kissed back the same. “I’m so glad you’re safe. Knowing my friend is out there gives me strength. Don’t do that to me again.”

  “I’ll try to keep in touch next time.”

  Somehow that wasn’t as comforting as she thought it should have been. How about “come live with me forever” or “I’ll never leave you.”

  Abby swept back into the room. “Enough alone time for you two. This woman needs her coach.”

  Abby sat on the opposite side from Baylor and when the next contraction came quickly she helped KayLee through it. “Baylor, I need you to leave now for a couple minutes.”

  He left the room. “Are you sure you want him here?”

  “I do, Abby.”

  Abby nodded. “Phyllis is going to do an exam. I think it’s time we get Dr. DeVane back in here.”

  KayLee smiled.

  With Abby on one side and Baylor on the other adjusting to her every mood, KayLee brought her child into the world.

  DR. DEVANE HELD UP the squalling infant for KayLee to see. She then put the child on KayLee’s chest for her to touch. “Welcome, MaryRose.”

  With her dark-haired beautiful girl and Baylor, she knew that was enough for right now.

  KayLee was reluctant to give her child up when Phyllis came to take her away. “We’ll only be gone a short while. I’ve got a nice warm place to give her a bath and for Dr. DeVane to examine her.”

  Abby and a new tech KayLee had never met cleaned up the room while KayLee rested. Baylor sat quietly holding her hand. His small act of assurance let KayLee drift off.

  When she awoke, she was alone and the lights were dimmed. She barely had a chance to collect any concern when the door opened.

  Phyllis and Abby breezed into the room.

  “I’m going to check you and make sure things are returning to normal,” Phyllis said.

  “And I have someone who wants her mommy.”

  When Phyllis declared KayLee progressing wonderfully, Abby placed her daughter in her arms.

  KayLee tugged the blanket down so she could look into her daughter’s face…her tiny nose, two chins, so much brown hair and the blue eyes of a newborn.

  When Phyllis left, KayLee looked pleadingly up at Abby.

  “He’s on his phone. I’ll send him in when he’s finished. In the meantime, let’s see how hungry MaryRose is.” Abby grinned.

  After a sharp rap, Baylor opened the door and motioned Abby out into the hallway. KayLee couldn’t hear what they were saying, but she could see that Abby was upset.

  When Abby turned toward KayLee, there was no difficulty hearing her words. “Go in and tell her. She at least deserves to hear it from you.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  WHAT BAYLOR HAD TO TELL her was that he had to leave. There was an emergency in Denver and he didn’t say what kind, but she was sure it had nothing to do with the job at J&J Holdings and they both knew he wouldn’t be explaining to anyone in St. Adelbert anytime soon.

  Whatever his secret was, KayLee knew it was not about her, though she knew Baylor well enough to know at least some of the pain she saw in his face was for what he was doing to her.

  She let him leave without protest.

  She allowed nothing and no one to eclipse the joy that met her daughter on the day of her birth.

  A week later, she sat on the edge of her bed, staring into the tiny crib where MaryRose slept peacefully. No one had ever adequately described to KayLee the feeling of being a parent. She could not get enough of gazing at her daughter, awake, asleep, crying, feeding and especially when her daughter stared back at her.

  When she looked at MaryRose, she had no regrets about her past. She missed Baylor and the hole he left in her heart had not lessened, but even he, especially he, would tell her the baby had to come first.

  The doorbell rang. “It’s me, KayLee,” Abby called up the stairs. They had an agreement, Abby would let herself in. It was easier.

  Abby had been a great helper the first twenty-four hours. And good as their word, Cora and Ethel had added a few features to her apartment. There was a rocker in her room in front of the windows overlooking the street and the mountains beyond. There had been a new fluffy robe with matching slippers and nursing nightgown laid out on her bed when she arrived home. There were pink decorations added to the nursery. And every few days, they placed fresh cut flowers on the dining room table.

  So much food poured into the house that when she was full and her freezer was full, she had to start insisting people come over to visit and help her eat.

  But the dark loneliness always woke her from a deep sleep or snuck in when her daughter was napping—there was a space in her life that refused to be filled.

  No one had heard from Baylor.

  “Hi,” Abby whispered, although it seemed MaryRose could sleep through anything. Must be from bouncing around for months totally at the mercy of another human being.

  KayLee hugged Abby and they went into the kitchen.

  “My mother finally called,” KayLee said over a cup of tea. “Says she is excited to be a grandmother and she’ll come and visit soon.”

  “And your dad?”

  “Still honeymooning, but Chad’s parents sent a baby gift and a request that I bring MaryRose for a visit sometime in the undefined future.”

  Abby frowned. “I’m sorry.”

  They sipped their tea and enjoyed the warm breeze coming in the window near the table.

  Well wishes had showered KayLee from all directions, even from Mrs. McCormack, the wife of the dreadful man in the diner.

  When she was up to it, she had as many places to go and people to see as she could possibly want if she were looking for distraction. There was even an elderly couple who would celebrate their seventy-fifth wedding anniversary this summer and had invi
ted KayLee and MaryRose to the party.

  There were tired times when she wondered if she was cut out to be a mother, but the encouragement of the other women helped soothe those particular jangling nerves.

  Abby finished her tea, washed, dried and put her cup away. “Well, this villager has come to scrub your kitchen floor and to clean your bathroom.”

  “But I—”

  Abby held up a hand. “Before you protest, hear me out.” When KayLee nodded she continued. “I expect quid pro quo. Next to cleaning my refrigerator, and I noticed you have already done yours, I hate scrubbing my kitchen floor and cleaning the bathroom.”

  KayLee nodded again. “I’ll be there after Christmas to clean yours.”

  “It would be a little bit of heaven.”

  While Abby worked, KayLee stared into her cup and wondered if the tea leaves in the bottom would tell her if a certain rancher would come back into her life. When the tea leaves told her nothing, she realized the pain at his absence did not lessen as time passed.

  A tear slipped down her cheek and she angrily wiped it away. She wasn’t pregnant anymore and she shouldn’t be crying over things she could not change.

  As the days passed, KayLee and Abby shared many cups of tea and each of MaryRose’s accomplishments. The ranch project went well and by the end of the second week of her daughter’s life, she had made the arrangements with Curtis and Lance Doyle to sell her enough land, in her daughter’s name, to finish the initial cabins and start the next pair. And she had celebrated her daughter’s first smile.

  By the time MaryRose was three weeks old, KayLee had agreed to redesign the town hall to help ease some of the burden on the gymnasium. Since Cut-Rate Airlines, by all accounts, had been a smashing success, she had tentatively agreed to direct a new play in the fall.

  Her daughter met the three Doyle children for the first time and the mothers agreed MaryRose had been fascinated and very pleased to make their acquaintance.

  On a bright, warm Sunday afternoon, Abby and Kyle came up to KayLee as she was about to take MaryRose for a stroller ride.

  “You could use a break,” Abby said. “Program my number with a special ring and don’t answer anyone else’s calls. MaryRose, Kyle and I will be busy for three hours, so go in the house and pump and then go away and leave us alone.”

  KayLee didn’t want to take her friend up on the offer, but after she saw how tickled Kyle was to be able to help with the baby and how proud Abby was of him, she knew she had to go. And MaryRose did love to stroller ride and to look at people’s faces, especially children.

  With the vision of the three of them happily heading down the sidewalk, KayLee headed out, by herself for the first time since giving birth, to the ranch to inspect the progress of the cabins.

  She ignored the normal ring of two phone calls, bypassed the ranch house and drove out to where the outside of the first cabin was almost completely finished. The inside, with its naked beams and exposed wiring, was a different story, but that would change in the near future.

  Her phone rang and she read the screen by reflex. Lance.

  The man had grown downright loquacious toward her since they sort of bonded over the delayed supplies and his missing brother.

  “Hi, Lance.”

  “Thought I should warn you, Baylor is here. He’s come to collect his things.”

  She hadn’t expected that, now Abby’s urgent need to take MaryRose made more sense. “How’s he look?” Not the question she really wanted to ask.

  “Loaded for bear.”

  “Does that mean mad?”

  “And then some.”

  “So he knows what I did?”

  “On his way out there now.”

  “Good.” She closed her phone. Lance had told her at one of their visits to the bank, he didn’t think Baylor would take to her bailing the ranch out.

  He’d have to live with it. She’d had to live with a lot since he was gone. She wondered if she could speak to him without wanting to touch him and decided she could. In fact, it would be best if she kept her distance.

  She stepped out of the cabin to see he was almost there. Big man, blond hair blowing in the wind, Stetson probably on the seat of his truck. Jeans telling of solid muscles and the open V of his shirt giving a glimpse of the blond curls that she knew created their own V over his tight belly. Showdown time.

  “Hi, stranger.” She smiled in a friendly manner. Let him fire the first shot.

  He took her arm and led her back inside the cabin.

  He slammed the door with a backward kick and lowered his mouth to hers. All the feelings she thought she could keep bound up slipped past her control and she snaked her arms around his neck and pressed her body against his.

  She hadn’t felt these things in the weeks, not since they last made love in her apartment before he disappeared the first time. She welcomed the rushes and the swell of need.

  He let her go and stepped away.

  “We can’t take your money.”

  “I’m not giving it to you.” She clenched her hands into fists to try to dissipate some of the fire that burned inside her. “My daughter and I own a quarter of your family ranch.”

  He closed in and took hold of her upper arms. “Lance told me about your deal. You can’t do that.”

  She smiled up at him. When he didn’t let go and flee, she kissed inside the open V of his shirt. “How does it feel to be saved for a change?”

  Now he left her standing by herself and ran both hands through his hair. She almost smiled at the familiar gesture, but she seemed to have lost her mirth.

  “KayLee, there is no guarantee you will ever get your money back.”

  “Baylor! There are so many things in my life that did not come with a guarantee attached. My parents for starters, my marriage…you. You know before you disappeared again, I actually found myself wishing MaryRose was your daughter.”

  He captured her with his blue eyes and didn’t blink. “I started wishing you’d let me be her father.”

  KayLee couldn’t get air into her lungs. He stood there under the raw beams of the soon-to-be loft and looked like a man who knew the ache of a heavy burden.

  “But…” he continued.

  KayLee kicked aside a chip of stray wood with the toe of her shoe, and her breath came rushing in on a wave of disappointment. “There is always a but between us, isn’t there.”

  “It’s up to me to make sure my family stays together even if it means…”

  “To hell with your own life?”

  He didn’t say a word. She knew he didn’t really want to fight with her, and she didn’t want to fight with him. There were only a few people who Baylor fought with and that was more out of…brotherly love.

  She suddenly realized the source of his pain.

  “It’s your sister, isn’t it? She is the only person who can rip your heart out and stomp on it.”

  “That’s not exactly true.” He pivoted until his back was to her.

  “Me?”

  “You.” He’d said it so quietly she almost didn’t hear the word. That one word gave her hope.

  “I’ve kept my part of the bargain.”

  “You did and that makes you the best friend anyone could have. I abused that friendship and you let me.”

  She dropped her head. There was no denying it. “That’s apparently what I do. I play for security points and to be secure, I need people’s approval.”

  “And that’s when you stomp all over my heart. Don’t let me do that. Don’t let anyone. Punch. Kick. Spit. Do what you have to do, but don’t let a single one of us take advantage you.”

  She marched over and punched him hard on the arm.

  With a gentle laugh, he rubbed the spot and then reached out for her.

  She backed away to keep her brain functioning. “I don’t know what’s happening with Crystal, but I would never, ever tell you to desert your sister or to give up on her or whatever it is you think I might do to stand in your way
.”

  “It’s not that.” He stared up at the naked rafters.

  She circled around him and stared at him until he relented and looked at her. “I want to know what it is because I’ve learned something, Baylor Doyle. I loved you. I was willing to give up all I’ve been given here in St. Adelbert, all the security and approval in the world, if it meant MaryRose and I could spend our lives with you because without you the rest had so much less meaning. So tell me. What is it? You owe me that much.”

  The sound of the wind and the creaking of new lumber filled the space. “She’s an addict,” he eventually said with the sharp edge of pain in his voice. “I arranged for her to enter a rehab program.”

  “I’m so sorry. Is she doing all right?”

  He barked a rough sound. “She had thanked me and praised me even. Told me how much she loved and appreciated my making the arrangements. And she didn’t even bother to show up at rehab.”

  She wanted to touch him, to hold and comfort him.

  “That was the call I got at the clinic the night MaryRose was born. If I could have talked to her alone, if I could have gotten her to go to the rehab facility with me, but there always seemed to be someone around and she was always trying to get rid of me.”

  She wanted to tell him it wasn’t his fault, but she let him talk.

  “She’s on the edge, KayLee, and someone has to be there to bring her back before it’s too late.”

  He spun away and walked out of the cabin.

  BAYLOR LEFT KAYLEE with a shocked look on her face. She could be crumpled to the floor by now and there was nothing he could do to fix that. She was healthy and well off here in the valley and that’s where she needed to stay.

  That she had loved him in spite of all their pledges of friendship only…

  Clouds had crowded out the sun while he was in the cabin with KayLee, and rain threatened to fall. As he covered the ground between the cabin and the house, he hoped, chicken that he was, that KayLee would stay out of sight until he was gone.

  She was what they would call some kinda woman. Her defiance about helping out had poked a hole in the head of steam he had built up and he hoped for her sake and her daughter’s she had made a wise choice about buying into the ranch.