The Rancher's Unexpected Family

by Myrna Mackenzie

  A bark had Kathryn turning to greet Blue, who was bearing down on her like a fast-moving tank. She dropped to her knees, which made the dog even taller than she was. Then she gave the evil-looking mutt a big hug. Blue’s teeth could take a chunk out of her if he was so inclined. Holt knew that he wouldn’t, but Kathryn couldn’t know that. She’d only met the dog once.

  “Hi, sweetie,” she said, receiving a slobbery lick for her troubles.

  Holt gave her a look. Too innocent, he wanted to say. If this didn’t end soon, she would surely make him crazy.

  “What?” she asked, a challenge in her eyes.

  He started to tell her that nothing was wrong. Instead, he faced her head-on. “I’ve seen men run when Blue comes at them, but you didn’t, not even that first time.”

  She shrugged. “I guess I figured that even if you wanted me gone, you still wouldn’t let your dog eat me.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “I know you think that I’m a bit naive, but I’m not. Not anymore. To prove it, here are the people in town who’ve won my respect and friendship.” She rattled off a small group which concluded with Jess, Nancy and himself. “These are the people I don’t know well enough to decide about yet,” she said, giving him another list. “And these are the people who make me uncomfortable.” There were only two people on that list, both of them bad. Then she raised one delicate, sexy brow. “Am I wrong?”

  “I’m thinking about it.” But her laughter rang out behind him as he walked away, and he couldn’t help but smile. Not that she would know it. His back was to her. He, however, knew one thing. Kathryn Ellis kept him on his toes. And when she challenged him she made him hot. Oh, yes, risky as it was, he was definitely going to kiss her again before she left.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “I NEVER knew this ranch was this big,” Kathryn said as Holt drove her around the perimeter and then down some of the interior roads.

  “Needs to be. Cattle need a lot of land, a lot of grass.”

  “And you have horses, too.”

  “Yes. Enough to do the jobs that can’t be done from a truck.”

  “When can’t you use a truck?”

  “If you’re trying to catch a runaway cow, the truck can go faster than a horse, but it doesn’t maneuver nearly as well and there are places it just can’t go. Driving a truck, you can’t cut back and change directions quickly enough to stay with a cow that doesn’t want to get caught. And a horse, once the cow is caught, is more sensitive to the movements of the animal than a truck driver can be. An ATV will do the job, but ATVs, like trucks, can stress the cows more than a horse will. Besides, a lot of cowmen just like horses. We like them on a personal basis, we like the history of them, we don’t want them disappearing from the ranch, so there are days, at least on the Double Bar C, when we take out the horses just because it’s the right thing to do. A prized truck is great, but a prized horse and a cowboy...that’s an unbreakable bond.”

  “Is that how you feel about Daedalus?”

  “He’s special,” Holt agreed, restraining his praise. He didn’t want to get sappy in front of Kathryn. The woman saw way too much.

  “I assume you’ll be okay with people riding your horses at the fundraiser?”

  “I thought that was a given.”

  “Good. Because I’d like to ride Daedalus. I’ve never really ridden a horse before.”

  He stopped the truck. “You’re kidding, right? I know what you said about being a city girl and not taking part in Larkville society, but this is Texas, Kathryn. Ranch country. That’s practically criminal.” He turned the truck toward home.

  She saw where he was headed. “Did I make you angry?”

  “Yes.”

  Kathryn sighed.

  “What?”

  “That’s your only response?”

  “You asked a question. I answered it.”

  “You’re angry with me because I haven’t ridden a horse before?”

  “I’m angry that no one, including me, knew that.” He pulled the truck up in the drive. “Come on,” he said, surprising her by taking her hand again.

  Her palm slid against his. She tried not to savor the sensation of touching Holt too much, but this had been one of her teenage fantasies—Holt holding her hand. It felt as good as she had imagined it would, as good as it had the last time they’d touched. And now things got worse. She felt hot. Shivery. All this just from Holt’s hand wrapped around hers. What would she do if he wrapped his arms around her and kissed her again?

  Idiot. Stop it, she told herself as she tried to turn her attention back to more practical matters.

  Neither did she ask where they were going. It was obvious. Or so she thought. When they got to the barn, he went into what she guessed was a tack room and started looking around. “These will have to do,” he finally said, giving her a pair of boots that were, she guessed, about a size too big. “These were my mother’s, but as long as you can keep them on, they’ll be better than nothing.”

  Kathryn sat right down and put the boots on. She was going to ride a horse. Holt was going to show her how. She grinned at him. He smiled back, just a little. Her heart flipped around.

  Easy, she told herself. Don’t react. But the man was just too potent. She could see why Lilith had been upset that he couldn’t open his heart to her. A woman would do a lot to get a man like this to say the words she wanted to hear. None of that excused the heinous things Holt’s ex-fiancée had done. But it made Kathryn understand a little. And it made her very wary.

  * * *

  “You’ve been wanting to do this a long time, haven’t you?” he asked.

  “I never thought about it too much, but now that I am, I love anything that broadens my horizons. When you spend your childhood and marriage in a vacuum, every new experience is exciting.”

  Great. A ranch was, for all its acres, a pretty small microcosm. As Lilith had told him repeatedly, she craved the world. Fashion. Excitement. The theater. Anything that wasn’t a ranch. Soon enough Kathryn would have tried all there was to try on a ranch. And then?

  Then she’d do what she’d planned all along and head off to her new job that could only be done in a city.

  Holt saddled and mounted Daedalus. Then he motioned Kathryn over to the fence and held out his hand to her.

  She looked at his hand as if it was a rattlesnake. “I thought you were going to teach me to ride, not treat me like a baby.”

  “Learning to do anything requires baby steps,” he said. “You want to ride Daedalus, but he’s too much of a handful for a beginner.” Still, he knew that part of the reason he was doing this was because he wanted Kathryn behind him, her arms around his waist. And he wanted—for a few minutes, anyway—to stop waiting for her smile, which would be simple if he couldn’t see her face. The truth was that he was feeling seriously besotted. That was bad.

  In seconds, she had swung up behind him. He groaned inwardly as her hands circled his waist and she nudged up against him, her soft breasts against his back.

  “Now we’ll take a slow ride until you get used to the motion,” he said, trying to keep his voice from going thick.

  “Okay.” Her voice was a bit whispery. He knew she wasn’t immune to him. She had gotten into that kiss the other day with fervor. He was insane for torturing them both this way.

  “Let’s—let’s figure out which things we’ll do on the cowboy day,” she suggested.

  “Good idea.” Anything to take his mind off his very bad idea of having Kathryn riding behind him. Together they decided on a few events. Riding, of course. A little roping. Teaching riders to dally and tie on, which he had to explain to her were two methods of securing a rope to a saddle once you’d caught your cow.

  “Cowboys tend to be passionate about their favorite method,” he told her. “Some parts of the country favor one or the other. Here at the Double Bar C, we use the one that fits the situation. Is that enough events for the day?”

  “Not quite. How
about some fence mending?” she suggested. “And helping with that bridge you said you were going to repair.”

  “I’m going to fix the bridge before the guests show up.”

  “No. People will like it better if they know they’re doing a real job, not a made-up one. And since I talked you into this, it’s only right that you should get something back.”

  He had already gotten something back. He was pretty sure that just getting to know Kathryn was going to be the highlight of his days when he thought back on this summer.

  They agreed on a few more events for those who were less inclined to the ranching side of things: baking and jam contests, lessons in soap making and other artisan crafts that Holt knew some of the ranchers’ wives excelled at. And, of course, the minirodeo at the end of the day, followed by fireworks. But when Daedalus shied slightly at a bee and Kathryn tightened her hold on him, bumping up against him, Holt decided to put an end to this exquisite torture.

  “Now alone,” he said, switching things around so that he was on the ground and Kathryn was riding single. He led Daedalus around and showed Kathryn how to command the horse to do as she wished.

  “I never knew how much fun this could be,” she said with a smile. “I wonder if fence mending will be as much fun.”

  Despite himself, he chuckled “You actually sound as if you’re looking forward to mending fences. Think of the unpleasant jobs I could have talked you into if I’d only known.”

  “Your loss. Too late now,” she teased as she made another loop around the corral.

  Eventually, though, the time came for her to get down. Holt held up his arms and she went into them. It was all he could do not to slide her down his body, but that trusting look in her eyes did him in. He had to behave, even though it was killing him.

  Her feet had barely touched the ground, however, when she rose on her toes and kissed him on the cheek. Just one kiss. Feather-soft. Sweet. Nothing sensual about it. But it was torture. Not touching her was torture. But so very necessary. He was starting to lose control around her, and wasn’t that one of Kathryn’s concerns? She wanted to be in control.

  “I hope you get that job you’re in line for,” he said as she put Izzy in her car. He meant it. If he spent too much longer with Kathryn, he was going to do something that was going to leave both of them filled with regret for a very long time. Even after she was gone.

  * * *

  Holt tried to put his head down and just work during the next couple of weeks. The fundraiser was scheduled three weeks from now and there was a lot to do to get the ranch in shape to receive visitors. He’d been in touch with friends and business associates in Texas, Illinois and New York, sending out as big a net as he could in the hopes of tempting one qualified doctor to tiny Larkville. All of that had to be scheduled around the regular ranch duties.

  Not that he was complaining about the work. Anything he could do to keep from thinking about Kathryn with her hands on him or Kathryn with her lips on him or just Kathryn was fine by him. There was something about the woman that just drove him mad, and he was pretty sure he knew what it was. During the time he had been taking care of Hank and since then, he had been without any intimate female companionship. Unfortunately, right now there was no other woman that he was attracted to even if he’d had time. But just as soon as all this clinic stuff was over and Kathryn and her baby were back where they belonged, he was going to have to do something about that. As it was, he was half-afraid he was going to grab her and kiss her—or worse—in public, and that wouldn’t be good for either of them.

  But while he was waiting, he was going to stay away and keep his mind off her as much as possible. At least that was the plan.

  Unfortunately, it was difficult to stick to. When he went to town for supplies a few days later, he kept wondering whether Kathryn was at the doctor’s office, the newspaper or at home, and how she was managing with the baby. Quickly, he tried to kick those thoughts from his mind.

  “Hey, Holt,” Gus said when he stopped at Gus’s Fillin’ Station. “I hear that pretty little gal of yours is creating quite a stir in the town. Got everybody buzzin’ and doin’.”

  Holt’s brain had frozen on the words that pretty little gal of yours. “You’re talking about Kathryn?”

  “Who else? I’ve never seen anybody go at anything with such fire. It sounds like a mountain of a job, but she’s always got a smile on her face. She smiles even while she’s askin’ you to do something, and before you know it, you’re saying yes and likin’ it, too.”

  “What exactly is she asking?”

  “Oh, you know, would I dress up like a cowboy in full gear for that cowboy thing she’s so excited about. And how much will it cost for me to fix her car so it won’t break down on the way to the ranch. And will I drive the bus she’s borrowing from the school district to bus any of the visitors who need bussing, because she knows she can trust me to get them there safe. And then, besides paying me to fix her car, she promised me cookies and kissed me on the cheek when I said yes, I would dress up and drive the bus.”

  “She did, huh?” Holt couldn’t help sounding grumpy. Or grumpier than usual. Even though it was dumb as hell to be jealous of Kathryn kissing Gus on the cheek. Gus was an old man...but he was a nice man. He had been on Kathryn’s list of people she liked. And age might not matter to Kathryn. It certainly wouldn’t matter to Gus...or any man for that matter. Kathryn was too damn pretty and she had that smile that made a man feel as if he might burst into flame without any fuel.

  He almost growled, forgetting himself. Then he shook himself. Stupid. Gus was his friend, and Kathryn was an exuberant woman. Just because some people—like himself—were shallow and emotionally stunted didn’t mean that everyone else was.

  “Hey, Holt,” Gus said as Holt started to leave. He turned and saw Gus rubbing his neck and frowning the way people did when they were about to broach an uncomfortable subject. Holt quickly considered all the possibilities. Could be a money question. Was the station in financial trouble? Could be an animal question, but that wouldn’t make Gus uncomfortable and—

  “Hey, Holt, I...uh, I was reading a book on the history of Texas the other day. Thought you might like to borrow it.”

  Holt blinked. What the— A book? “Sure, Gus. That’d be real nice. Thanks.”

  Gus scowled. He looked incredibly relieved.

  As Holt went on his way, he wondered what that had been about. He and Gus had never had an exchange like that before. They’d never even discussed books or history. Mostly they talked about cars and guns. Maybe horses. But as Holt went about his business in town, a pattern quickly developed. Almost everyone he ran into that day offered him something: cookies, pickles, jam; Mrs. Best brought him a framed photograph of his daddy from when she and Clay were young. And everyone he met—after they had gotten past this awkward gifting stage—had some tale to tell him about how Kathryn had them eager to help her out. The town was a whole lot more excited about Kathryn’s cowboy day than they even were about football. That said a lot about the woman. And judging by the talk he’d heard, it sounded as if she was running herself ragged.

  Maybe he would stop by her place for a minute—just to make sure she didn’t have any color-coded lists she needed to send him. No point in her emailing him if he was here in the flesh, was there? It would save her some trouble.

  Unfortunately, his plan wasn’t as simple as it sounded. For a town this small, Kathryn really seemed to get around. She wasn’t at home, at work or at the SmartMart. He didn’t see her at Hal’s Drug and Photo, either. And he knew she wouldn’t be in the Saddle Up Bar or the Cattleman’s Association Hall. By the time he got to the town hall and ran into the mayor, Holt was starting to get worried. “Kathryn?” he asked tersely.

  Fortunately, Johanna was used to his ways, and being a woman who knew how to cut to the chase, she simply told him what he wanted. “At the park.”

  “Thanks.”

  She moved toward him.

 
; “You’re not going to give me anything, are you?” he asked.

  The poised, middle-aged, never nonplussed mayor actually looked a bit discomfited. “A bottle of wine?” she suggested.

  “Kathryn?” he asked.

  “Don’t be upset with her. She was just trying to give back, not make you feel uncomfortable.” She handed him the wine. He thanked her, somewhat awkwardly.

  “Don’t worry. I won’t make her pay for my embarrassment. Much.” He headed out again.

  Johanna cleared her throat and he waited. “She’s with Izzy.” The fact that she even felt compelled to mention it—did everyone in town know that he wasn’t good around babies? Had Kathryn told them? He didn’t think she would. But he put his head down and set off to find her, wondering what he would say to her when he found her. Telling himself to slap some self-control on before he did something stupid. Like back her up against a tree and mold his body to hers.

  Just before he read her the riot act for making people think—for some weird reason—that they needed to give him Christmas presents in the summer.

  Put a rein on it, Calhoun, he ordered himself and he thought he was doing pretty well. When he arrived at the park, he came upon an idyllic scene. The grass was green, the sun was shining, the baby was asleep on a blanket in the shade of a tree and Kathryn sat beside her, her blond head bent over a batch of papers on her lap. Holt tried not to notice just how small and innocent Izzy looked. Instead, he turned his attention to Katherine as he moved toward her. His steps were silent on the grass, and he was already standing next to the blanket by the time she noticed him there.

  For half a second he thought he saw something in her eyes that made him feel overly warm, but that was probably just his imagination. Maybe just his own wishful thinking because it was gone as soon as it had appeared. She smiled at him.

  “You caught me goofing off,” she said, her voice low to keep from waking the baby.

  He sank to one knee beside her and touched the edge of her papers with one finger. “Do you even know how to goof off? Looks like more lists.”