The Rancher's Unexpected Family

by Myrna Mackenzie

  “Johanna said you had business and political contacts that no one else in town has. Is that true?”

  “It may be. But it’s irrelevant.”

  “I’m sure you’ve heard why I’m here.”

  He knew what he’d heard. The town already had a clinic, so...

  “Why don’t you just spell it out?”

  “I’m trying to get a new medical clinic built in Larkville. And lure a permanent doctor here. To do that, we may need the help of influential people.”

  “Johanna’s the mayor. She has political contacts.”

  “She’s the mayor of a town of less than two thousand. Her influence is limited. Your family name is known by people in high places.”

  “I don’t suck up to them. I don’t ask favors. Ever.” He glared at her.

  “I’m not asking you to—to prostitute yourself,” she said, all prim and librarian-like. Her eyelashes drifted down, just a bit before she righted them. Her slender hands were in tight fists. She was clearly nervous. Because she was determined to drag a yes from him or because he was out-and-out scaring her?

  Holt wanted to let loose with a string of blue curses. He was rotten at situations like this, at dealing with women with expectations. He’d learned from his mother, his father, from his former fiancée, Lilith, that needing, caring, wanting too deeply, expecting too much, came with a hefty price tag. Emotion could cripple. He knew that. He’d paid that price before and was still paying it. So while he was used to doing all kinds of favors as the owner of the Double Bar C and he did them willingly, he kept things cut and dried, light, easy, uncomplicated by emotions. And he didn’t ask for favors himself. He was pretty sure based on what he’d heard that Kathryn Ellis was asking him to break several of his unbreakable rules. Be the giver, not the recipient. Remain in control of the situation at all times. Never let emotion enter into a deal.

  “You’ll have to be more specific than that,” he told her. “Just what are you asking me to do?”

  “I want you to help me get the clinic off the ground. I want you to help me get funding.”

  “Which will most likely mean prostituting myself, as you put it.”

  “Not necessarily. Some people will give out of the goodness of their hearts.”

  “For a clinic that will only benefit one very small town.”

  “It’s your hometown.”

  “It’s not their hometown. You’re talking about people who have a million life-or-death causes pounding on their doors every day.”

  Kathryn blinked. She bit her lip. “I suppose that’s true, but...you’re Holt Calhoun. You could convince them.”

  The way she said that made it sound as if he could do anything. And no one knew better than he did how wrong that was. Pain sliced through him like a razor. Easy. Devastating. He slapped the flat of his hand against the porch post. “Dammit. Lady, I may not know much about you, but you obviously don’t know me at all.”

  She looked to the side as if he’d embarrassed her. Maybe he had. Tact wasn’t his strong suit. And frankly, he didn’t care.

  “We need a doctor,” she said. “I work part-time in Dr. Cooper’s office. He’s moving to California to be near his son, and then there’ll be no one. And the clinic, if you want to call a two-room building with an examination room the size of a closet a clinic, is crumbling.”

  “I’ve heard that it’s slightly outdated.” But only in passing when Wes, his foreman, had gone in for some minor treatment.

  “It’s more than outdated. It’s inadequate, and once Dr. Cooper leaves, we’re never going to be able to lure another doctor here to work in such a tumbledown facility.”

  “I see. But Austin is only forty miles away and there are doctors there.”

  She crossed her arms. It made her ample breasts more noticeable, and also emphasized her heavily rounded belly. She was a pretty woman, a delicate one, and her pregnancy only seemed to emphasize that delicate beauty. He could have slapped himself for noticing any of those things. “In an emergency, forty miles might as well be four hundred,” she pointed out.

  “I see, Ms. Ellis. You’re concerned about the trip to the hospital.” He did his best not to think of another situation, another pregnant woman. Anger, dark and reckless, filled his soul.

  “Stop that,” she said. “Stop pretending you don’t know my name. And this isn’t for me. I’m due to deliver in a matter of weeks. By the time the clinic is built...if it’s built,” she emphasized, turning those big, plaintive eyes on him, “I’ll be long gone.”

  That got his attention. “Let me get this straight. You want to build a clinic in a town you don’t even intend to live in. Why?”

  “I have my reasons. They don’t matter. They’re not the point.”

  And she clearly wasn’t going to share them. That was okay. A man like him who never shared his innermost thoughts couldn’t blame someone else for holding back. Still, now that they’d slid past the topic of her pregnancy, he could deal with reality. He wasn’t the answer to anyone’s prayers and he never had been. Head down, he ran the ranch and he did it well. He did what was necessary. But he never strayed beyond that. He couldn’t.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. And a part of him meant that most sincerely. “But it’s not happening. I’ve been away from the ranch for too long.” For reasons he wasn’t prepared to discuss. “And despite the fact that I have a top-notch foreman and crew, there’s a truckload of work to be done. I’m not who you need, and I don’t have the time, the inclination or the ability to help you.”

  “Not even if we’re talking life or death?” she asked, emphasizing that fact again. Something in her eyes told him that he’d disappointed her. Well, nothing new there. He was an excellent rancher, but he was also a master at disappointing people who expected him to care too much.

  “You’ve been led astray if you were told to expect this kind of help from me,” he said. “I confine myself to small favors, to the doable. I’m no miracle worker.”

  He stared coldly into her eyes, doing his best to ignore the fear and pain there, the slide of something—a tiny foot, a hand?—across her belly or how she automatically placed her palm over that place.

  Her gray eyes pleaded with him, but she said nothing. A sudden, vague memory of a young girl looking at him as if she expected him to answer all her prayers flashed across his memory and was just as quickly gone.

  His phone rang, and he deliberately put it on speakerphone. Anything to fill the silence. His foreman, Wes, said, “Holt, that cow with bloat needs seeing to or we’re going to lose her. The vet’s in the next county and you’re the best one to handle something this complicated.”

  “I’ll be there in five.” Holt clicked off. He turned to Kathryn. “I have to go,” he said. Not I’m sorry, or Excuse me. The sudden defeat in her eyes made him want to say those words, but that might have given her hope for something that just wasn’t going to happen. He wasn’t the savior she had hoped he would be, and he wouldn’t pretend otherwise.

  Her shoulders slumped. She turned toward her rusting car, then turned back. “Off to work a miracle, Holt?” she asked, throwing his “I’m no miracle worker” comment back at him.

  “Off to do what I know how to do,” he said. “I don’t promise what I can’t deliver. Ever.”

  And miracles of any kind were well outside his realm. As he had learned only too well.

  Not waiting for her to leave, he strode to his truck. As he drove away in a cloud of dust, a pair of gray, hopeful eyes taunted him.

  This time he didn’t hold back. He let loose with a string of blue language. Ms. Kathryn Ellis didn’t know how lucky she was. Women who got involved with an unbending, emotionally stingy man like him lived to regret it. As he’d been told before.

  CHAPTER TWO

  OKAY, dealing with Holt wasn’t going to be simple, Kathryn thought, back at home. If there was anyone else... But the mayor was adamant that he was the only one in a town this size who had the kind of influence she
needed. The Double Bar C was known nationwide. The Calhouns had their fingers in many pies, and Holt was the one who oversaw all of that.

  None of that would mean a thing, though, if the man didn’t agree to lend a hand. What to do? What to do? And why did it matter so much?

  Because she was determined to turn her life completely around and this was the first step. I came back to my parents’ empty house despite the bad memories because I had no money or work, Kathryn reminded herself. Most of her life had been like that, running from one bad situation and one place to another. But with a baby on the way, she had to do more, to take a stand and become the kind of person a child could depend on. The next time she left somewhere she was going to do it the right way, having left something good behind her, because there was something good ahead of her.

  Helping to build this clinic offered her a chance to leave this place on a positive note. On a more major note, it would allow her to use her heretofore useless degree in urban planning and beef up her skimpy résumé. Overseeing the project was the kind of thing that might put a gleam in an employer’s eye and finally help her provide a secure future for her and Baby Ellis.

  But there was one more big reason. Despite her intent to slip quietly in and out of Larkville, she’d found that with her parents gone, the town was rather charming. She’d made a few friends, some of them her patients. She cared about them, worried about them and understood how scared they were at the prospect of losing their medical care. How could she not try to help? Still, even the best urban planner needed good people helping her. In this case, she had to get Holt’s help. How?

  Butter him up, she thought. Flatter him. Play to his weaknesses. Everyone had weaknesses, didn’t they?

  Kathryn splayed her hands across her belly as if communing with her child would help her focus her thoughts. “Play to Holt Calhoun’s weaknesses?” As if she knew what those were.

  Well, maybe she did, a little. During the two years she’d lived here, she’d practically stalked Holt. Other than football, he’d spent most of his time on the ranch. Cows, horses, dogs would be high on his list, she assumed. She hated having to brave the ranch again, but she had no choice. Where else would he be?

  “You can do this, Ellis.” Her words more bravado than fact. Still, she slipped on her maternity jeans, tennis shoes and a pink top and headed to the Double Bar C. When she arrived, she made a beeline for the stables. A bold move, because she was a little afraid of large animals. She might have lived in Texas, but her parents had been former city dwellers who hadn’t liked Larkville. Ranches hadn’t been part of her life. Too bad. She was on a mission to rewrite the future, and it all started here. She wasn’t running this time.

  A snorting, snuffling sound came from her right where a white horse in the corral was tossing its head. It was a beautiful animal. A gigantic animal. And it didn’t seem to be too sure about her presence.

  Kathryn tried to quiet her nerves. She’d come prepared, knowing that Holt’s animals would be a part of this. If she could make friends with this creature quickly, then when Holt finally showed up, he might think she was a natural cow woman, like her better, and he and she might bond over equine details. She had gone online just last night to find some interesting facts. She now knew that there were more than three hundred and fifty breeds of horses and ponies and she knew that horses could walk, trot, gallop and canter.

  But none of that mattered right now. Holt’s horse was looking at her as if she had horns and a red forked tail. Reaching for what she hoped would be her secret weapon, Kathryn dug into her purse and pulled a carrot from a plastic bag.

  “Here, boy.” She held out the carrot clutched between her thumb and forefinger. “Look what I have.”

  The horse lurched toward her a bit, and she jerked back, then stuck her hand out again.

  “Don’t. Do. That.” The deep voice was unmistakable. It came from the barn behind her. “Stop moving. Right now.”

  Kathryn froze. Holt walked up behind her, and she felt very exposed even though she was fully dressed. Seriously, the man exuded something masculine. He got attention.

  But, of course, she was supposed to be the one snagging his attention, not the other way around.

  “He doesn’t like carrots?” she asked.

  “He loves carrots.”

  “I—I see. Or, actually, I don’t.” She forgot to freeze and waved her hand around as she spoke. The horse followed with his head. He moved closer. Quickly.

  Kathryn jumped.

  Just then Holt stepped forward, gave a command to the horse and reached out and took her hand, forcing her to drop the carrot in the dirt. She looked at it with dismay.

  “Why did you do that?”

  “Because I assume you’d like to keep all your fingers. Horses have sharp teeth and massive heads. Daedalus is gentle, but he doesn’t know you or understand what you’re doing. He wants what you have, but the way you’re bobbing around, he’ll have to lunge for it, and his teeth might nip you. Or that big head of his might knock you on your rear.” Holt shook his head as if he’d had to explain to a child not to cross the street without looking.

  “I—” Kathryn felt herself blushing. “Thank you. I didn’t realize. I didn’t think, I guess.”

  “But you lived here in horse country.” His words were clipped. He looked as if he thought she was lying.

  “I only lived here two years, and we didn’t have horses. My father came here following a job and he...well, he liked his privacy. He didn’t like me making friends, so I didn’t have any reason to learn about ranch life.”

  “And yet here you are trying to feed my animal.”

  She raised her chin. “Just because I didn’t have horses doesn’t mean I don’t want to know more about them. He’s a spectacular horse. And this is a...it’s a lovely ranch.”

  “I like it.” He stared her down.

  “I’d—I’d really like to know more about ranching.”

  “Just out of the blue like that? Planning to move to a ranch, are you?” He looked mildly amused. As if he was trying to keep from laughing.

  Oh, no. Did he think she was flirting with him, pursuing him?

  “No. I’m looking for a job in a city, but odds are my baby will be born here, and I want to be able to tell her a bit about her birthplace.” As she said the words, Kathryn realized it was true. She did want her child to know something of her history. Because that kind of anchor had been missing from her own life. Her parents had moved constantly. They’d never discussed their lives before she’d been born. They’d never talked much at all without arguing or criticizing their only child for being a disappointment. Her ex-husband had continued the trend. Control by ignoring or criticizing her. Or making her feel that she was being unreasonable or demanding. It had been an effective system. Kathryn had always fallen into line. This time had to be different. She couldn’t let Holt’s opinion daunt her.

  “So you want a history lesson and a tour. And you decided this when? This morning?”

  She took a deep breath. “I—no—yes—no. I made that up about thirty seconds ago,” she admitted, in part because Holt made her far too self-aware, but also because she just didn’t want to get in the habit of lying. Good mothers didn’t lie. And, oh, she really wanted to be a good mother.

  Holt shook his head again. “If you want a history lesson or information on how a ranch runs, I’ll point you in the direction of some books.”

  “I want more than that.”

  That had probably been the wrong thing to say. There was always the chance that he knew how big a crush she’d had on him when she was young. She hoped not, but the dark, fierce look in his eyes...the heat that rose within her...

  Kathryn took a step backward. She caught her foot on something, a rock or... Suddenly she was slipping.

  Just as suddenly, she wasn’t. Holt’s big hands were on her arms. He was pulling her upward, toward him. Her heart was thundering, her breath was erratic. And then she was free, standing on
her own. Trying to act as if she was perfectly fine.

  “I’m perfectly fine,” she said.

  A look of something that might have been amusement flitted across his face and then was gone. “Good. I was going to ask that in a minute.” Even though he’d had no reason to ask. She hadn’t even gotten near to hitting the ground. His quick reflexes and strong arms had seen to that. But his tone—was the darn man teasing her?

  “I—I assumed as much,” she said lamely, flustered, not happy that she was letting Holt get to her. But hadn’t she always? Had she ever seriously thought they could be a couple when she was a starstruck teenager? She must have been insane. He was the worst kind of man for someone like her. Too intimidating, entirely too physical. His very presence made her feel as if her brain had gone missing. And her plan to butter him up, to humor him? The one that had seemed so right his morning?

  It wasn’t going to happen. He wasn’t a man who craved adoration. If he had been, he would have scooped her up in high school and had all the adoration he could handle. She sighed.

  “What?”

  She forced herself to look straight into his eyes and not flinch. “I came here intending to schmooze you.”

  “I see. And how exactly were you going to do that?”

  She looked at Daedalus. “Nice horse,” she said weakly. “Nice hat.”

  He almost looked as if he wanted to smile.

  Kathryn sighed again. “I’m afraid I’m not very good at schmoozing,” she admitted. “I feel totally silly.”

  “Well, I’ve been told that I don’t know how to accept a compliment, so...”

  Yeah, it had been a bad, unworkable idea. “I should go.” Kathryn realized that she was still standing far too close to Holt. His sheer size, the breadth of his shoulders, was forbidding. He was quite possibly the most masculine male she could ever remember meeting.

  Not that it mattered. Even if she hadn’t been extremely pregnant, she was never going to allow herself to think of a man that way again. Especially not a man like Holt. He was the type who could swallow her soul and mangle it, when she had barely escaped her mistake of a marriage with her soul intact. Still, with her retreat she felt her grand plans evaporating. Holt wasn’t going to help her. She would have no project to her name, nothing to put on her résumé, probably no means of supporting herself and her child once the clinic closed. And her friends she wanted to help...that wasn’t going to happen, either. She was going to fail at all of that. Just because of this stubborn man.