Colton Cowboy Protector

by Beth Cornelison

  “My grandson is well on his way to being a fine horseman and cowboy, Miss McCain,” Big J said, and flashed a smile that lacked the spark and full-wattage flirtation that was usually part of the old man’s arsenal. Jack gave his father a considering glance and saw other evidence of fatigue. His shoulders were a bit more stooped, his face more lined and his cowboy’s tan seemed a tad washed out. The engagement party had been a massive undertaking, but Jack was surprised by Big J’s apparent post-party fatigue. His father was widely known to be an unstoppable force of nature. Bigger than life and always the last man standing.

  Jack’s puzzling over Big J’s demeanor was sidetracked when Brett strode into the family room rubbing his belly. “Hey, y’all, when do we eat? I’m famished.”

  “After all you ate at the party? Where do you put it, you hog?” Greta gave her brother a playful jab.

  “I can’t help it. I’m a growing boy. Right, Seth?” Brett winked at his nephew, and Seth rolled his eyes.

  “Well, now that we’re all here, shall we go in?” Abra asked with a prim lift to her chin.

  “Go in?” Jack muttered to Brett under his breath.

  “Someone’s been watching too much Downton Abbey,” his brother returned quietly.

  Jack arched an eyebrow. “And how would you know?”

  Brett pulled a face. “I may have watched an episode or two with Greta. She monopolizes the TV in the family room on Sunday nights. The accents the women on that show have are kinda hot.”

  Jack gave his brother a slap on the back and a snort of laughter as he followed his mother, Greta and Tracy into the dining room.

  Speaking of hot... The wispy sundress Tracy had changed into for dinner stopped above her knees and gave a tantalizing view of her slender legs and porcelain shoulders. Jack had the stray thought that Tracy would have to show extreme care with her skin if she went out on the ranch in the scorching June sun. She’d burn quickly and—

  He shook his head. Tracy’s skin and the relative risks of sun exposure for her were not his concern. If he had his way, she’d be long gone from the ranch before the question of sunburn could be an issue for her.

  “Cousin Tracy, you can sit by me!” Seth said, patting the seat of the chair where Jack usually sat. His son blinked up at him. “Is that okay, Daddy?”

  Jack paused, his hand on the back of the chair. “Oh...uh, sure.” He pulled the seat out for her and helped her push up to the table before taking the only spot left, across the table from his son.

  After Maria brought out their dinner, the family bowed their heads to say grace. When the prayer ended, Jack glanced across the table, and his gaze met Tracy’s and held for a few lingering seconds. A pink flush filled her cheeks, and he felt his own body temperature rise.

  Clearly, his libido recognized that Tracy McCain was an attractive woman. But his head wasn’t ready to trust her.

  “Tell us about yourself, Miss McCain,” Big J said.

  His father’s voice broke the spell that had kept her staring back at Jack for long seconds. She jerked her attention to the end of the table as Big J passed a tray of roasted chicken and vegetables to her. Jack noticed that his father’s hand shook a bit, adding to his earlier impression that Big J seemed uncharacteristically worn out this evening.

  “I don’t know that there’s much to tell. I live in Denver, but I grew up outside of Colorado Springs and graduated from Colorado State with a degree in communications.”

  “Communications, huh?” Big J grunted. “And what are you doing with that degree?”

  “Well, nothing at the moment. My husband didn’t want me to work, and since his death, I haven’t had much luck finding a job.”

  Jack paused with the serving spoon of wild rice hovering over his plate as his eyes lifted to Tracy again. She was unemployed? That lent credence to his theory that she was after money.

  “You’re a widow?” Greta asked, her tone soft and sympathetic. “I’m so sorry.”

  “What’s a widow?” Seth asked, his mouth full of chicken.

  “It means her husband passed away,” Abra said quietly, when no one else spoke.

  “Oh.” Seth tucked into his dinner again, but Jack wasn’t sure his son understood his grandmother’s euphemism.

  When Seth picked his chicken leg up with his hands and took a big bite, Abra scowled. “You have a fork, Seth. Please use it.”

  “Oh, sorry.” He gave her a chagrined look and earned another frown when he wiped his greasy hands on the cloth napkin.

  “Can I help you cut your meat?” Tracy offered, reaching for his knife.

  Jack opened his mouth to tell Tracy that Seth could cut his own meat, but Seth beamed up at her and nodded. “Sure. Thanks.”

  Where was his I-can-do-it-myself son? Seth had insisted on cutting his own meat since he was three years old. Jack watched, fascinated, as Tracy doted on him—helping serve him rice and peas, cut his meat and tuck his napkin in his lap—and Seth soaked up the coddling.

  “How did your husband die?” Greta asked.

  “Greta!” Abra scolded in a hushed tone.

  “If you don’t mind my asking...” Jack’s sister added.

  Jack had impertinent questions of his own. He needed to know more about Tracy and her history, her family connections, if he was to be prepared to protect his son.

  Tracy flashed Greta an awkward smile, obviously uneasy with the question. She stared at her plate a moment, idly rearranging her English peas before answering.

  He recalled their conversation in the stable earlier today. He was shanked the second night he was in jail...

  “Car accident,” she said quietly.

  Jack’s pulse kicked at the lie. Or was what she’d told him in the stable the lie? Either way, he’d caught her in a deception and intended to confront her about it. Later. He didn’t want Seth to be a witness to any story she might invent to weasel out of the snare she’d caught herself in.

  “How awful. I’m so sorry.” Greta, seated on their guest’s left side, placed a comforting hand on Tracy’s wrist.

  “Wait,” Brett said, screwing his face in a frown of confusion. “Didn’t Laura die in a car accident? And she was your cousin, right?”

  Tracy turned her face toward Brett, and the color leaked from her cheeks. “Yes.”

  Jack kicked his brother under the table, and Brett cut a side glare back at him. Jack had told Seth his mother had died right after he was born, and Brett’s thoughtless comment threatened to expose the white lie. Clearing his throat and sending his brother a meaningful look, Jack said, “But that was a long time ago. Let’s not talk about that now, huh?”

  Tracy sent him a curious frown. “Not that long ago. Six months. Wh—”

  “So, Greta, have you had any luck breaking that new colt we bought at the auction last month?” Jack asked, eager to change the subject before Seth caught on. The fact that he’d nearly been caught in a lie of his own didn’t escape Jack, even if he could justify the disinformation he’d told Seth as being in his son’s best interests.

  “Jack,” Greta said through clenched teeth, her manicured eyebrows dipping low in disapproval. “You interrupted Tracy.”

  He waved a fork toward their guest. “Oh, sorry,” he said, though his tone contradicted him. “You were saying?”

  Tracy gave her head a shake. “Forget it.” She seemed glad to have the topic diverted from her, and faced Greta. “You train horses?”

  Greta arched one scolding eyebrow at Jack, but nodded to Tracy. “I do. I work with the more difficult animals on the ranch and recently started taking clients who want a kinder method of training. I use operant conditioning and positive reinforcement instead of punishment and have had great success with even the most spirited animals.” A grin tugged her cheek. “That’s how I met Mark. He was a client.”

  Tracy smiled politely. “How wonderful.”

  “Did you ever see the movie The Horse Whisperer, Miss McCain?” Abra asked.

  Tracy nodded. �
�Beautiful cinematography.”

  “I agree. Well, our Greta does much the same thing Robert Redford did in the movie.” Abra gave her daughter a formal smile. “The term horse whisperer is more of a colloquialism than an official term, but you get the idea. Yes?”

  “Sure.”

  “Can you ride a horse, Miss Tracy?” Seth asked, tugging at her arm.

  “Well, I rode a pony at a fair when I was a kid, and I went on a trail ride once in Rocky Mountain National Park with my family as a teenager, but I’m not sure that counts.”

  “It’s something,” Greta said.

  At the same time, Brett chuckled. “Hardly.”

  Tracy divided a grin between the two for their differing opinions. “Anyway, I haven’t been on a horse in probably ten years or more, so I guess my answer is no.”

  “Oh.” Seth’s face fell in disappointment.

  A thoughtful look crossed Greta’s face as she stabbed a bite of chicken. “Ya know...I could take you riding tomorrow before I go back to OKC. Teach you a bit about horsemanship. It’ll be fun. I’ll show you the lay of the land.”

  Seth perked up. “Can I go?”

  “Sure!” Greta said, just as Jack shook his head.

  “Seth, I don’t...” He let his sentence trail off as all eyes turned to him with mixed degrees of curiosity, disagreement and disapproval.

  “You don’t—” Greta prompted him, then immediately finished for him “—have any good reason not to let him join us. I’ll keep a close eye on him.”

  “I know you will. I just...” He scowled at his sister and cast a disgruntled glance toward Tracy. When he hesitated, looking for a way to effectively deny Tracy access to his son, Greta swooped in.

  “All righty, then. Meet me at the stables tomorrow morning at seven. We’ll go out before it gets too hot. Then come back up to the house for a big ranch-style breakfast.” She shot Seth a querying look. “Think you can be up that early and meet us?”

  Seth glanced to his father, wide-eyed. “Daddy, what time do we get up?”

  The truth was Jack typically had Seth up before dawn to help with ranching chores, but he had a perverse notion to let his son sleep in tomorrow. “Pretty early, usually.”

  “Tell you what,” Brett said, then took a bite of biscuit and continued with his mouth full, “I’ll pick you up on my way to the pens and help you get Pooh saddled up.”

  “Thanks, Uncle Brett!”

  Jack shot his younger brother a frown that said Die! Brett answered with an innocent and bemused look. Clearly, Jack was alone in his mission to keep his ex-wife’s scheming family away from Seth.

  Fine. If his family was going to pave the way for Tracy to spend time with Seth, then he’d make himself available to monitor her interactions with his son. He wasn’t about to let a pretty face and sweet smile fool him. His son was his first priority, and he’d protect his boy from anyone who tried to threaten his happiness or the life Jack had with Seth.

  After dinner ended and the family moved to the family room to enjoy a glass of wine or a cold beer, Jack pulled Tracy aside for a private word. Even in the shadows of the small alcove where they stood, her pale blue eyes held a bright gleam of innocence that contradicted the motives he suspected were behind her visit to the ranch. Jack found that incongruity almost as annoying as his body’s reaction to her bright, penetrating gaze.

  He allowed his hand to linger on her soft skin, telling himself his grasp on her arm was to keep her as his captive audience until he’d said his piece. But a small voice in his head argued that he enjoyed touching her, standing close to her and seeing her eyes widen with anticipation when he hovered over her a bit too much.

  “Is something the matter?” she asked.

  “We just need to establish some boundaries, get some facts straight if you want to spend any time around my son.” He drilled her with a hard look, hoping to assert an air of authority, but holding her gaze sent a shaft of desire to his belly. Damn but she was delicate and beautiful. Captivating in a way that spoke to everything male in him.

  “What sort of boundaries?”

  “For starters...” He clenched his back teeth, desperately shoving the distracting thoughts down so he could deal with the threat she posed. Like the Trojan horse, she might seem desirable on the outside, but what lurked inside held the real danger. “You’re not to spend any time alone with Seth. I have to supervise any activity you do with him.”

  She rolled her eyes, expressing her opinion of his dictate.

  “I’m serious. If I get word of you going behind my back and seeing Seth on the sly, I’ll personally escort you off this ranch and have a restraining order filed within the day.”

  Her brow puckered indignantly. “A restraining order? Don’t you think that’s a bit excessive? I’ve told you I have no intention of harming Seth in any way.”

  “And I’ve said the truth of that remains to be seen. There are more than a few ways you could hurt him.”

  She huffed in exasperation and tried to leave. Jack blocked her, hating the tingle that shot through him when his chest and hips collided with hers. She took a step back and trembled visibly, her gaze now downcast. “Do you mind? I’d like to pass.”

  “We’re not done.”

  Her shoulders drooped, and she seemed to struggle for the fortitude to meet his eyes again.

  “I told Seth his mother died shortly after he was born.”

  Her shoulders snapped back and fire leaped to her eyes. “So you said earlier today. But that’s—”

  “That’s the story you need to stick to. Telling him anything else will only hurt him. It will lead to questions about where she’s been, why she left, why—”

  “Why you lied to him?” Tracy interjected, her expression self-righteous.

  Jack stiffened, his hands fisting at his sides. “I was trying to protect him. I thought it would be easier on him to think his mother died than to know she’d abandoned him. That she willfully walked away from her husband and child and didn’t look back.”

  “What are you talking about? Laura tried to have a relationship with her son!” Tracy pressed her mouth into a taut line of disgust. “She tried to reach out to him, but you prevented her attempts to come back for visits. You wouldn’t let him come see her, either.”

  “She made her choice. When she left, she was dead to us.”

  “Dead to you, maybe, but you had no right to keep Seth from her!”

  Anger pulsed through Jack’s blood and pounded at his temples. “I had every right! I’m his father!”

  “And she was his mother!”

  “Not after she threw him away. She signed full custody over to me when she left, in exchange for a tidy settlement. Maybe you can’t buy love, but she certainly got paid well when she abandoned Seth.”

  Tracy looked away, her expression wounded.

  “She didn’t tell you that, did she? How she accepted a payout in exchange for her promise not to interfere with Seth or try to make any claim to him later in his life. She sold her right to my son, his inheritance and this ranch.” He paused, then nudged Tracy’s collarbone with his index finger. “And by extension, any right you or the rest of your family might have.”

  “I’m not after money. I just want to have a relationship with Seth. Why can’t you believe that?”

  The quiver of emotion in her voice chipped at the wall he’d erected. He could almost believe she meant what she said. Except...

  “I make a habit of not believing known liars.”

  She stiffened in umbrage and grated, “I’m not a liar.”

  “Oh? What really happened to your husband? Is he even dead? Because you did, in fact, lie earlier. Either at dinner or in the stable.” She blanched, and Jack gave her a smug grin. “Yeah. I caught it. You told me this afternoon your husband was killed in prison, stabbed by another inmate.”

  Tracy’s doll-like features crumpled, and she looked as if she might be ill. “He was. But I couldn’t very well say that at dinner
with Seth listening.”

  Jack folded his arms over his chest. “I see. So you plan to base this relationship you want with my son on lies? Can you see why I don’t trust you?”

  Her shoulders drew back defiantly, causing her small breasts to jut toward him. “I was trying to protect him from the ugliness of the truth! He’s too young to hear about such things as prison murders and shanks made from a sharpened toothbrush.”

  “And when he first asked about his mother, he was too young to know about a mother who could walk away from her family for purely selfish reasons.”

  Tracy opened her mouth, clearly planning to defend her cousin.

  “Don’t even start,” Jack said, stopping her by pressing a finger to her lips.

  Tracy jolted as if his touch had caused a static shock, drawing a sharp breath and flinching.

  Too late, he realized the mistake of his move. He, too, felt a crackle of something electric that briefly sidetracked his thoughts and caused a tremble deep in his marrow.

  Their gazes clashed for a moment, and he withdrew his hand, rubbing his thumb over the spot in his finger that still tingled.

  From the next room he heard Seth’s youthful laugh as Brett roughhoused with his nephew, and Jack recalled the point he’d been making. “I was there, not you. I was the one she divorced, the one she argued her case to, the one left cleaning up in her wake. I was the one who paid her settlement and stayed up nights with a colicky baby after she walked out. I have every right to determine what my son knows about Laura and what remains unspoken. You will not tell him anything that contradicts what he now knows about his mother. Or you will be removed from the ranch and Seth’s life if I have to carry you to the highway myself.”

  Tracy’s gaze flitted to his arms and chest, as if imagining him making good on his threat. She swallowed hard, and her feet shuffled slightly as she shifted her weight. He could see the pulse point at the base of her throat fluttering, and he was swamped by a primitive urge to taste the skin there. To suckle her neck, nip the skin and feel that rhythmic pulsing with his lips.