The Rancher's Unexpected Family

by Helen Lacey

  “I know,” he said wearily and rested a shoulder against a support beam. “I’m thinking positive...promise.”

  She smiled and the action struck him way down low. Everything she did affected him on a kind of primary, instinctive level. Her walk. Her talk. Her damned cute smile.

  “You’ll get the hang of this parenting thing,” she said, her hair shining like a copper penny. “I still get it wrong and I’ve had nearly twelve years of practice. Remember you need to be kind to yourself, too.”

  “Thank you,” he said quietly. There was an undercurrent of tension between them and he knew why. They’d parted badly the previous afternoon and hadn’t spoken since. “I want to apologize for what I said to you yesterday...you know, about Jaye and the race. I was out of line.”

  She shrugged. “Forget about it.”

  Cole nodded. “What time did you want to go into town with Maisy?”

  “Around ten,” she replied. “If that’s okay.”

  He nodded again. “I’ll make sure she’s ready.”

  Cole watched as she nodded and then headed back to the house. Once she was out of sight he returned inside. Maisy was on the couch, eyes cast downward, headphones on and clearly not in the mood for any kind of conversation. He told her what Ash said about their trip and she shrugged a shoulder in response.

  “You don’t have to go,” he said. “If you don’t want to.”

  “Beats hanging around here,” she said.

  “Don’t forget you have to keep up your schoolwork,” he reminded her, ignoring the contempt in her voice. “A couple of hours a day should do it.” He knew she had a geography assignment due in two weeks. “Nancy offered to homeschool you while we’re here, so you can catch up your classes with the other kids if you prefer.”

  Maisy shrugged again. “I might.”

  Cole pushed aside his frustration and managed a smile. “Okay, how about breakfast?”

  She made a sound that was almost an agreement, so he nodded again and headed for the kitchen. Once breakfast was done and the dishes cleared away, Maisy took off for her room and Cole dropped onto the sofa and called his parents. His mother answered on the third ring and they chatted for a while and when the call ended he didn’t feel quite so alone. Zara Quartermaine was a calm, loving parent who adored her children and husband. Cole was incredibly grateful for his parents and hoped he’d be as good a father as his own was. If Maisy would let him. He thought about Deanna and tried not to be resentful that she’d excluded him so completely from Maisy’s life. If he’d known she was pregnant, things would have been very different. Deanna obviously had her own reasons for keeping her pregnancy a secret, but he knew he would have been there for them both. Maybe he would even have married her. Not that there was much sense in trying to rewrite the past.

  It was the future that mattered.

  All he had to do was get through the next few weeks and do whatever he needed to do to connect with his daughter. And to stop giving Ash McCune parental advice. So, maybe she was overprotective, but she had her son’s best interests at heart. And it was none of his business.

  Nothing about Ash was his business. Not her green eyes or bright copper hair, or the way she swayed when she walked or the husky sound of her voice.

  He just had to remind himself of the fact every time she was in a two-foot radius.

  Easy.

  * * *

  Maisy was surprisingly talkative on the way into town and Ash was happy to keep the conversation flowing. There was one subject that appeared off-limits though—her father—and Ash was relieved that she didn’t have to talk about the man. Or think about him. He’d taken up way too much of her thinking time over the past forty-eight hours.

  “We could have taken the rental car,” Maisy said and scowled. “It has air-conditioning. And comfortable seats.”

  Ash tapped the steering wheel. Uncle Ted’s battered green pickup was in worse condition than her old truck, but while hers was being repaired, it would have to do.

  “A second-class drive is better than a first-class walk.”

  Maisy rolled her blue eyes. “I can’t drive, so I wouldn’t know.”

  “I drove my first truck when I was twelve,” Ash said, eager to keep the conversation going. “My stepdad taught me how to drive.”

  Maisy stared directly ahead. “My mom was going to teach me,” she said, her voice suddenly quieter. “You know, before she...got sick.”

  Ash ignored the obvious opportunity to discuss Deanna and went with her intuition. “Uncle Ted wouldn’t mind if you practiced on this old girl while you’re staying at the ranch. You could go down to the back pasture behind the cottages. It’s a flat paddock without too many rocks. I’ll mention it to your dad. I’m sure he’d be okay with teaching you.”

  “Couldn’t you teach me?”

  Ash crunched the gears deliberately. “I’m a lousy driver. Your dad, on the other hand, is a former NASCAR champion, so much better qualified for the job than me.”

  Maisy shrugged and then twisted the handle on the tote in her lap. After a moment, she spoke. “My mom hated him.”

  Ash suppressed the shallow gasp and swallowed hard, keeping her hands rigid on the steering wheel. “Did she?”

  “She must have,” Maisy replied. “Otherwise she would have told him about me.”

  “I’m sure she had her reasons,” Ash said quietly, defending Deanna because she knew Maisy needed her to. “Sometimes, when you’re a mom, you have to make decisions about things. Sometimes those decisions are hard.”

  The teenager turned her head for a moment. “Whenever I asked her about him she said he was some rich and famous guy who wouldn’t have been interested.”

  “But he was,” she said gently. “He is. Don’t you think?”

  Maisy shrugged again and promptly faced the windshield. “My mom died. I had nowhere else to go. He had to take me. He didn’t have a choice.”

  The pain in the young girl’s voice was unmistakable and Ash yearned to stop the truck and hug Maisy close. But it was too soon. Small steps. She’d told Cole to have patience and she needed to take her own advice, no matter how hard it was to ignore the way Maisy’s voice quavered when she spoke, or that her young heart was clearly broken and she felt lost and alone. Ash knew how it was to feel that ache inside—she’d felt alone when her father left, and then a few years later when her stepdad bailed. And then Pete. Thank goodness she’d had her mother and Uncle Ted. But Maisy clearly believed she had no one and that Cole had somehow been forced into taking responsibility for her.

  “Sometimes, feeling like you don’t have a choice can make a person resentful,” Ash said quietly. “Other times, simply grateful.”

  “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “Sure it does,” Ash replied and decided to go a little deeper. “I was resentful when Jaye’s dad left me. But really grateful that being with him meant I had a son.”

  Maisy clammed up for the rest of the trip, but Ash was encouraged by their conversation. Within minutes Cedar River greeted her with a familiarity that warmed her through to her bones. With a population of a few thousand, the small town sat in the shadow of the Black Hills. Once known for its copper and silver mining, and being so close to Mount Rushmore, it was a popular tourist destination and a convenient place for commuters heading west across the border into Wyoming, or south toward Nebraska. O’Sullivans Hotel, upscale and the focal point of Main Street, was a destination that brought tourist dollars into the town. Three stories of sandstone and polished timber, with colored glass windows, it was flanked by smaller shops and retailers and had a large parking area out front. A few doors farther down they passed the museum and then the police station. Ash drove past and veered left, pulling into an empty parking space outside the Muffin Box café.

  They got out of the car and s
pent the next twenty minutes drinking chocolate-spearmint frappés, eating pecan and maple muffins and saying very little. Then she dragged Maisy along to the hardware store to pick up a few supplies, to the library to return a couple of books and the drugstore to fill a prescription for Uncle Ted.

  “Everyone knows you,” Maisy said, panting a little to keep up as they were greeted by a couple of elderly women outside the pharmacy.

  “I’ve lived here all my life,” she said and ushered the teen along the sidewalk. “So have my mother and my grandparents. And I give out a lot of parking tickets,” she said and grinned. “Come on, now let’s do something fun.”

  They headed to the beauty salon and got minipedicures, including glitter nail polish that was ridiculously purple, and was also one of the few girlie things Ash regularly indulged in. Maisy was wiggling her toes when they climbed back into the truck around one o’clock.

  “My toes look so cool. Thanks for taking me.”

  “I have a rule that I do one really fun thing every month,” she explained.

  Maisy’s mouth twisted in a wary half smile. “I like that idea. But it’s kinda hard to have fun with him watching my every move.”

  “Your dad?”

  “Cole,” she said, almost as though it was an automatic correction. “He’s not my... I mean, yeah, he is my father. But that’s not like being a dad.”

  “It’s not?”

  Maisy’s scowl was back. But she spoke again. “I mean, a dad is someone who’s there from the beginning. Who gets to see you being born and then grow up and then teaches you how to ride a bike and throw a baseball and—”

  “Drive a car?” Ash suggested, eyes directly ahead.

  She heard Maisy’s reluctant shrug. “It’s different, that’s all.”

  “I only had my dad for the first ten years of my life,” Ash said quietly, almost to herself. “And I’d trade those years to have him walk back into my life now, and for him to get to really know me now, and for me to know him.”

  “Not if he was forced, you wouldn’t,” Maisy said and let out a shuddering breath. “Not if he could walk back out at any moment.”

  Heat burned behind Ash’s eyes and she blinked. Maisy’s fears seemed raw and uncomplicated, and Ash experienced a deep ache inside her chest. As a foster parent, she had heard pain and sorrow countless times. She’d soothed crying children, she’d listened to stories of neglect and abuse, she’d hurt all over for each and every one. And yet, Maisy Quartermaine, with her defiant scowl and bad manners, made her ache deep down in a place Ash believed she kept hidden from the world. It was bone-deep. Soul-deep. Deeper than any child had ever delved, other than her son.

  “I don’t think he’ll do that.”

  “You don’t know him. Neither do I,” she added, her voice so soft it was almost a whisper. “I already lost my mom.”

  Her next words were unsaid, but Ash could feel them vibrating in the space between them. She stayed silent for the remainder of the trip home, sensing it was what the young girl needed. When she pulled up outside the barn, Maisy was quick to get out of the truck and sprinted toward the cabin. Ash stayed in the truck for a moment, tapping her fingers on the steering wheel, drawing in long breaths. Finally, she got out of the truck and walked into the barn. Cole was there, as she knew he would be, bent under the hood of her old pickup. She looked around for Jaye, spotted the upturned milk crate and figured he was up at the house.

  Cole pulled out from under the hood and looked at her, wiping his hands on a cloth. He looked her over. Up and down. Without pretense. Without camouflage. Just one smooth, burning look, which spoke volumes. The intense awareness between them had nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide.

  “You’re back?”

  Ash stared at him, long and hard. Everything about him was acutely masculine. Riveting. Compelling. Mind-blowing. He was a wrecking ball. And she felt as though she was standing directly in his line of fire. Without any ability to get out of the way.

  “She doesn’t hate you.”

  He frowned and his head tilted sideways a little. “What?”

  “Your daughter doesn’t hate you,” she said again and took a deep breath.

  “She said that?”

  “Not in so many words. She’s just terrified that she’s going to lose you.”

  And I’m terrified, too.

  Of wanting him. Of letting herself want him. Because she knew where that would lead.

  To heartbreak.

  Chapter Five

  Cole stared at Ash and absorbed her words. Obviously, she’d had a breakthrough with Maisy. He wanted to be pleased. He wanted to be grateful. But strangely, he felt a little numb. Being around Ash was messing with his usual good sense. He didn’t do messed-up. He pushed back the burst of resentment that kernelled in his chest.

  “Lose me?”

  She nodded and stepped closer. “Like you’ll change your mind about having her in your life...or realize you don’t really want to be her father.”

  “That’s crazy,” he said quickly. “I would never—”

  “Fear isn’t rational. Particularly in a teenager.”

  Cole dropped the cloth in his hands. “So, what do I say to her?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing?” he repeated. “But isn’t that—”

  “She needs to come to you with this.”

  “What if she doesn’t?”

  “She will,” Ash assured him.

  Considering his strained relationship with his daughter, Cole wasn’t convinced. “How do you know that?”

  “Instinct,” she replied. “Intuition. A gut feeling. Experience. I just know that she will. She wants to love you, Cole. She wants to trust you. But she’s scared.”

  He took a step closer. “Of what?”

  “Of letting someone in,” she replied. “Of letting you in. Because loving someone is scary. It makes us vulnerable. It makes us susceptible to loss and grief and no one wants to feel those things, particularly a child who is hurting as much as Maisy is. She lost her mom and, frankly, neither of us knows what that feels like.”

  His insides ached at the thought that Maisy was in so much pain. “Did she talk about Deanna?”

  “A little. She misses her mother. But it’s more than that—it’s a fear of being left again. A fear of you leaving her.”

  He’d never considered that to be a possibility. Maisy had made known her reluctance at being a part of his life since the first time they’d met. He’d believed her behavior was triggered by anger and resentment. But fear? The very notion his child was afraid twisted him up inside.

  “I’ll never leave her,” he said quietly. “No matter how difficult things get.”

  “Exactly,” Ash said and nodded. “It’s a test, you see. She’s pushing you away expecting you to bail. Every time she scowls, every time she calls you Cole, every time she disagrees with what you say—it’s all a test. A test to see how far she can go, to find her limits. To see if you’ll set boundaries.”

  “She has boundaries,” he remarked. “She has curfew. She has homework. She isn’t allowed to date yet or use her phone after nine o’clock at night.”

  “And are there consequences if she does?”

  It was a valid point. One he was forced to consider. “Well...no.”

  “So, no suspended allowance? No TV ban? No requirement that she comes straight home from school every afternoon?”

  He shook his head, cluelessly wondering where she was going with the conversation.

  “Don’t you see,” she said. “She needs reassurance...not with words, with actions. The only way to do that is to make sure there are consequences. If she gets home late, then she’s grounded for a week. If she uses her phone when she’s not supposed to, take the phone away. If you do that, s
he’ll—”

  “Hate me even more,” he said, cutting her off.

  “No,” Ash responded. “She won’t. Because she doesn’t hate you. But she needs to know that you’re serious about being her father. If you set boundaries, if she knows there are consequences when she misbehaves or breaks a rule, then she’ll know that you’re in this for the long haul. Then she’ll trust you.”

  Cole stared at her. She was breathing hard and her cheeks were bright with color. There was so much passion emanating from her in that moment. And she wasn’t being critical, even though he had a knee-jerk reaction to being told what to do or how to act.

  “So, tough love?”

  “Yes,” she replied. “With consequences.”

  Cole couldn’t resist the urge to move in closer. Her hair was pulled back in a clip and a few wayward locks had escaped. His hand tingled with the temptation to reach out and tuck the strands behind her ear. He could almost feel the silky tresses between his fingertips. Almost hear her sigh as his thumb slid softly across her earlobe. And then, before he could talk some sense into himself, he was doing exactly that. Touching her hair. Feeling her skin. Hearing her soft sigh as the space between them disappeared and suddenly they were so close, barely a whisper of air separated them.

  “Like,” he said, tracing his thumb across the skin below her ear, “if we kissed right now, there would be consequences?”

  Her eyes darkened. “Sure. I’d have to hit you over the head, remember?”

  Cole laughed softly. “I knew I’d regret saying that.”

  “That’s the damnable thing about integrity,” she said and smiled. “Sometimes it jumps up and bites you on the behind. That being said, you should probably stop doing that right about now.”

  “I should,” he said, keeping his hand where it was. “I know.”

  But he didn’t. Cole moved his hand a little lower, gently cupping her neck and drawing her closer. Heat rose and swirled between them and even though they weren’t quite pressed against one another, he experienced an intense surge of desire and longing for her. Perhaps the most intense of his life. He was unused to it. And suddenly unsure of what he should do. Crazy. He always knew what to do when he had a beautiful woman in his arms.