The Rancher's Bride

by Stella Bagwell

  Dusk had fallen when the last calf scampered through the downed fence. Harlan watched the little Hereford catch up with its mother, then stepped down from his mare.

  Pulling a pair of pliers from his pocket, he said, “I’m going to wire the fence back together for right now. And in a few days I’ll put up a metal gate.” He glanced up at Rose, who was still mounted on her horse a few feet away from him. “If you don’t mind, that is.”

  A gate. He’d be connected to her land. She’d be connected to his. It was almost like a marriage between them and that was far too intimate a thought for Rose’s peace of mind.

  “If you want to put up a gate, it’s all right by me. But before you tie those wires back together, you’d better let me ride through so I can head back home.”

  Turning his back to her, he jerked on the tangled barbed wire. “You just stay where you are. I’m not about to let you ride all the way back home.”

  Rose wasn’t used to a man giving her orders. Even her father had always asked and never told her what to do. Pushing off her hat, she wiped at the grit on her face. Her shoulders were drooping and her legs aching from long hours in the saddle. Pie’s coat was caked with dust and stiff with dried, salty sweat. Amos had already flopped down in the shade a few yards away. The dog’s feet were sore and his sides were heaving with exhaustion. It would be better for her and her animals to hitch a ride home with him. Still,

  she hesitated. “Harlan, you took me home last night. I don’t expect you to do it again.”

  Harlan hadn’t expected her to do a man’s work today, either. But she had. And Harlan knew he would never forget that she’d done it for him. True, she owed him money and didn’t have much choice in offering him the land and water. But she could have left him and Emily to deal with their own cattle.

  “You’re too tired to ride home,” Emily spoke as she reined the Appaloosa alongside Rose. “Besides, we’d like for you to stay and eat supper with us. Wouldn’t we, Daddy?”

  Supper? Harlan never really cooked much, and Emily didn’t know how. He couldn’t remember a time they’d had someone stay to share a meal. What was his daughter thinking?

  He glanced over his shoulder at Rose. “Sure, we’d like for you to stay,” he said with feigned casualness. “If you can stand to eat microwave food.”

  “We have a pizza in the freezer,” Emily reminded him. “Will you stay and eat, Rose?”

  Rose glanced over at the girl. She’d worked tirelessly today. And now she was looking at Rose with such a hopeful, eager expression that she couldn’t bring herself to say no.

  “I guess I could stay. If it wouldn’t be putting you to any trouble,” she said, then glanced at Harlan. He’d already turned his attention back to twisting the barbed wire together. She wished she knew how he really felt about his daughter’s invitation. But it wasn’t as if she was a girlfriend coming over for a dinner date, she assured herself. She’d simply be a dirty cowhand eating a slice of pizza with her neighbors.

  “Oh, it won’t be any trouble at all. It’s going to be great,” Emily said with a happy grin.

  As the three of them rode over the sage-covered hills toward the Flying H, Rose’s gaze kept drifting over to Harlan. His shirt was wet with sweat and covered with so much dust that it appeared more brown than blue. His legs were long in the stirrups and he sat in the saddle with the ease of a natural horseman.

  If Rose had learned anything today, it was that Harlan was as dedicated to his ranch as Rose was to the Bar M. She respected him for that and she was beginning to think he could be trusted up to a point. But he had the power to take her home away from her. She could never lose sight of that fact.

  Once they reached the barnyard on the Flying H, Emily tossed her reins to Harlan. “Will you take care of my horse, Daddy? I’m going to run ahead to the house and get things started in the kitchen.” She giggled sheepishly as she slid from the saddle. “It might need a little tidying up before Rose sees it.”

  “I would almost bet it needs a little more than tidying up,” Harlan said dryly and motioned her on. “Go ahead. We’ll be up to the house in a few minutes.”

  Rose watched the girl dash off toward the house. Harlan shook his head. “She’s excited about having you here,” he said. “I guess you can tell.”

  “I’m very flattered that she seems to like me,” Rose admitted.

  He dismounted and slung the bridle reins from both horses over a nearby hitching post. “I’m beginning to think being around you has put some life back into her.”

  Rose was more than a little surprised by his words. “Oh, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that. Emily hardly knows me.

  “It doesn’t take Emily long to form an opinion about people. She makes friends much faster than I do.”

  Intrigued by his comment, she asked, “Do you have many friends around here?”

  Pausing by Pie’s shoulder, he looked up at Rose. “A few. I lost one of them when your father died.”

  “Yes. Well, I’m sorry for both of us,” she said quietly.

  Harlan thought she looked on the verge of exhaustion and he continued to study her face with concern. “Do you need me to help you down from your horse?”

  Embarrassed at letting her thoughts stray to him instead of the business at hand, she quickly slung her leg over the back of the saddle.

  “No,” she said to him. “I can make it.”

  Rose stepped down from the saddle. But as soon as her feet touched the ground, her knees immediately threatened to buckle. Panicked by the weakness and the weird tilting in her head, Rose grabbed for the nearest thing to her, which turned out to be the stirrup, and clung to it desperately.

  “Rose?” Suddenly he was right behind her and his hands came around her waist. “What’s wrong?”

  She dropped her head forward but it didn’t seem to help. Everything was whirling like a slow waltz. “I’m…feeling sorta…punchy.”

  With one hand on her forehead, Harlan pulled her back against his chest. “Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths,” he said against her car. “Don’t worry. I won’t let you fall.”

  She did as he instructed and quickly felt her strength begin to return. After a few moments she said, “I’m not going to faint.”

  “Good.”

  “You can let me go now.”

  “I don’t think so,” he murmured.

  Suddenly Rose’s heart began to pound as she became aware of his rock-hard body pressed against the back of hers, the feel of his warm fingers on her waist and forehead.

  “Why?” she asked in a voice gone hoarse.

  Slowly he turned her in his arms until she was facing him. “Because I’m going to kiss you.”

  Her senses had gone completely fuzzy. Not from exhaustion, but from the sheer impact of being in his arms. “I don’t want you to kiss me.”

  Harlan grinned and all at once he felt that nothing else mattered except touching her, tasting her. He knew it was crazy and he knew he’d probably hate himself tomorrow. But at this very moment he couldn’t resist her.

  “How do you know you don’t want me to kiss you?”

  Hoping it would clear her thinking, she sucked in a deep breath. “Because you’re a man.”

  His grin deepened. “Yeah,” he whispered and his brown eyes glinted down at her. “Thank God you came along and reminded me of that.”

  She needed to shake her head, to get the word no past her lips. But before she could do either one, his lips swooped down and covered hers. Stunned by the intimate contact, Rose stiffened and brought her hands up to push him away. But by the time her palms landed against his shoulders, she’d forgotten her intentions.

  His kiss was like rich whiskey, hot, potent and totally intoxicating. If she didn’t tear her mouth away from his, she’d soon be drunk. But how could she, when all she really wanted was to go on kissing him forever?

  Chapter Four

  It was Harlan who finally stepped back, separating the warm fusion of their
lips. For a moment Rose hardly knew where they were or why. She was breathless and quivering and too stunned for words of any sort.

  “I’m sorry, Rose.”

  She forced her eyes to open and look at him. His mouth was grim but the desire to kiss it again was still with her and she wondered faintly if all the pressure she’d been under lately had finally caused her to crack.

  “I took advantage of you at a weak moment,” he went on. “It was unfair of me. Not to mention ungentlemanly.”

  What was unfair, Rose thought, was this warm ache he’d created inside her, then left her with no way to soothe it.

  Numbly, she pulled away from his hold and turned toward Pie. “There’s no need for you to apologize,” she said in a voice that sounded strangely unlike her own. “It was just a kiss.”

  Just a kiss? It hadn’t seemed so to Harlan. His head was still muddled from the feel of her in his arms. And he suspected Rose was just as shaken as he. She just didn’t want him to know.

  “Maybe so,” he began slowly, “but I don’t normally go around kissing swooning women.”

  No, it was the other way around, Rose thought. He kissed and then the swooning began. But she wasn’t going to say such a thing to him. She didn’t want to talk about what had just happened between them. She didn’t want to think about it, either. She simply wanted to go home and forget about Harlan. For as long as she could.

  “I don’t go around kissing men of any kind,” she told him. “So we’re even.”

  Without waiting for a reply she reached to unbuckle the back cinch on Pie’s saddle. Harlan knew she wanted to end the matter and the more he thought about it the more he knew it would be wise to follow her wishes. One stolen kiss between them was more than enough.

  “Go ahead and unsaddle Pie completely,” he told her. “I want you to leave him here tonight.”

  The abrupt change of subject brought her head back around to him. “Why?”

  “He’s exhausted. He doesn’t need another long ride in the stock trailer. I have plenty of room to pen him separately from my horses. He can roll and eat and rest and you won’t have to worry about him.”

  Rose was too tired to argue with him. Besides, she had no intention of using Pie tomorrow. Not after the work he’d given her today.

  “Very well. I’ll come pick him up tomorrow after lunch.”

  “No. I have to go into Ruidoso tomorrow anyway. I’ll drop him by the Bar M for you.”

  She turned back to her horse and quickly slid the saddle from his sweaty withers. “There’s no need for you to go to that much trouble.”

  “It’s not nearly as much as you’ve done for me today.”

  His words came out softly and Rose’s hand paused on Pie’s shoulder. So he thought she was doing all this for him. But she wasn’t. She was doing it for herself, her family and her home. Or was she?

  Minutes later, after they’d tended the horses, Harlan and Rose walked to the house. They found Emily in the kitchen setting the small Formica table. The smell of baking pizza filled the warm room.

  Harlan showed Rose to the bathroom, then left her in the small room with its blue tiled walls and white fixtures.

  Quickly she filled the basin, soaped her arms and face, then rinsed the suds and loosened grime away with cool water. While she dabbed herself dry with a clean towel, she glanced in the medicine chest mirror.

  She was pale, and dark crescents of fatigue shadowed her eyes. Most of her hair had come loose from its French braid and was now curling about her face and shoulders in disarray..

  She leaned closer to the mirror and touched a fingertip to her lips. Harlan had kissed her. She was still amazed that he’d done such a thing. She couldn’t imagine that he might actually be attracted to her. He couldn’t really want her in the way a man wants a woman. Her mind refused to believe it.

  Back out in the kitchen, she found Emily struggling to cut up a salad. Rose quelled the urge to take the paring knife from the teenager and dice the tomato herself. Emily would never learn to do things in the kitchen if someone else did them for her.

  “What can I do to help?” Rose asked while noticing that Harlan was nowhere in sight.

  Dropping the knife, Emily took Rose by the arm and gently guided her to a chair. “Just sit. Daddy said you were feeling a little faint. Are you okay now?”

  “I’m fine,” Rose assured the girl, then wondered what Emily would think if she knew her father had kissed her. Would she be jealous, resentful? It didn’t matter, Rose told herself. Nothing else was going to happen between herself and Harlan Hamilton. “Besides, I’m not used to just sitting down while people around me work. Let me ice the glasses or something.”

  Returning to the salad makings, Emily shook her head. “Daddy said not to let you do anything. If he comes back in here and finds you on your feet, we’ll both be in for it.”

  Rose couldn’t remember the last time anyone had insisted she rest. Her family knew she pushed herself to the point of exhaustion. But so did the rest of her family. Rest was a luxury none of them could afford.

  Leaning back in the chair, Rose pushed the dust-coated strands of hair away from her face. “Do you like to cook?” she asked Emily.

  The girl shook her head. “Not really. Maybe I would if I knew more about it. But Daddy doesn’t cook much either, so he’s only taught me a few things. Like scrambling eggs and things like that. Do you know how to cook?”

  Rose thought back to the days when she’d been Emily’s age. Her mother, Lola, had been a very gentle, feminine woman who’d enjoyed doing all the traditional things like cooking and sewing. She’d insisted her daughters learn as much about homemaking as possible. Justine had always pointed out that she was going to be a nurse and therefore didn’t need to know how to make a pair of curtains or bake a pan of biscuits. Chloe, the tomboy of the three, had argued with their mother that making a good enchilada wasn’t going to win her a race at Ruidoso Downs. But Rose had been different. She’d enjoyed spending time in the kitchen or sewing room with their mother. Now that Lola was gone from their lives, those times were some of Rose’s most precious memories.

  “Yes, I like to cook,” she told Emily. “I help my Aunt Kitty prepare as many meals as I can.”

  “Your aunt lives with you?”

  Rose’s legs were aching. She stretched them beneath the table and rubbed her palms against her thighs. “Yes. She came to stay on the ranch when my mother became ill. They were sisters and very close. After Mother died, she decided she needed all of us as much as we needed her.”

  “That must be nice. We don’t have any relatives around here.” Emily dumped the diced tomato into a bowl of torn lettuce and placed it in the center of the table. “Some of my friends tell me I’m lucky because I don’t have to sit through boring visits from cousins and aunts and uncles. But I don’t think I’m so lucky. I think they are and they just don’t know it.”

  Rose watched the girl go back to the cabinets and quickly take down three bottle green glasses and fill them with crushed ice from an upright freezer. “Do you think you’d rather live back in east Texas? I imagine you have relatives there.”

  Emily shrugged. “I’d rather live here. I don’t remember much about our other place, except that there were lots of trees and grass and it got really hot in the summer.”

  Rose smiled. “It gets pretty warm here, too.”

  Footsteps sounded behind her. Rose glanced around to see Harlan entering the kitchen. He’d changed his denim shirt and was now wearing a faded red T-shirt. His dark hair was damp and slicked back from his face. The very maleness of him made something inside Rose quiver with anticipation.

  Harlan’s gaze met Rose’s and lingered for a moment, then moved on to his daughter. “Is it ready? I don’t know about you two, but I’m starving.”

  Before Emily could reply, the timer on the oven began to buzz. Harlan walked over and picked up a pot holder from the cabinet counter. Emily swiftly plucked it from his hands.

&
nbsp; “I’m cooking the meal tonight, Daddy. You sit down by Rose and let me do the serving.”

  With a wry smile, he pulled out a chair directly across from Rose. “Feeling better?”

  Rose didn’t know if she was feeling better, but she was quite certain she’d never feel the same after this night. Her head was still reeling from that kiss he’d given her and she desperately hoped her shaken emotions didn’t show on her face.

  “I’m okay.”

  Her eyes briefly met his, then skittered away to the opposite end of the room. Harlan knew she was probably feeling awkward about their kiss. But hell, he was feeling pretty foolish himself. He hadn’t kissed a woman since his wife had died. He hadn’t wanted to. Until now. Until Rose.

  “You worked too hard today,” he said, unaware that his voice had softened.

  He sounded truly concerned for her and Rose found it impossible to stop her heart from warming toward him. He had problems of his own. He didn’t have to care about her. But he seemed to anyway. Or was she only seeing things that didn’t exist? “I didn’t work any harder than you or Emily,” she countered.

  “Emily has the stamina of youth, and I’m a man.”

  Her eyes drifted back to his face and her heart gave a sudden lurch. This sexy man with his dark hair and brown eyes had kissed her tenderly, passionately and for a brief few moments she’d actually felt like a woman desired. And that was a new and scary feeling for Rose.

  “I’m not a weak woman. It’s just that—the heat has been so bad and the past couple of weeks I’ve rarely had time to draw a good breath.”

  Emily placed the pizza, which she’d already cut into slices, on the table, then took a seat down from the adults. “Rose, I’d be glad to come over to your place and help. Couldn’t I, Daddy?”