The Texas Rancher's Family

by Cathy Gillen Thacker

  She knew she had hit a nerve with him. She’d had plenty of time to think about it, too. She shook her head, suddenly on the verge of tears. “That’s not the only reason,” she said thickly.

  He waited, steady as always.

  “I was afraid.”

  “Of what?” He continued to listen, and suddenly she felt a spark of hope.

  The tears came faster. “Of loving you with all my heart and you not loving me back. I was already depending on you so much. I knew I couldn’t bear it if I fell even deeper in love with you and you still ended up moving back to Philadelphia.”

  Suddenly, she was on his lap, her bottom on his rock-hard thigh. He wrapped his arms around her, held tight, and pressed a kiss on the top of her head. “So you pushed me away instead.”

  “Not consciously. But, yes. I did. As a means of self-preservation.”

  “And now?” he asked, his own voice rusty.

  “Now I miss you. I miss Heather. I miss the family we made. And I want it back.” Even if it means you never love me the way I love you. “I want us to be a team,” she told him fiercely.

  “I want us to be a team, too.” He wiped away her tears with his fingertips. “But first, I want us to be a couple. I want to share everything with you, Erin, good and bad. I want to know I can count on you, and I want you to know you can count on me. And I want to do all this because I love you and I have for a good long while.”

  Love! He’d actually said it? He loved her? Relief mixed with the joy spiraling through her. “Then why didn’t you tell me that the day I confessed how I felt?”

  It was Mac’s turn to confess. “I told myself it was because I didn’t want to put undue pressure on you or in any way muddle the business deal.”

  Her hands trembling, Erin prodded, “And now you know...”

  He ran a hand down her spine. “That I was afraid, too. Of putting my heart on the line, making another mistake, finding myself in another relationship where I was shut out of every important decision.”

  Guilty as charged. “I’m not going to do that, Mac. Not ever again.”

  Satisfaction gleamed in his blue eyes. “That’s good to hear.”

  Erin splayed her hands across his chest, reveling in the strong, steady beat of his heart beneath her palms. She looked deep into his eyes. “But you have to do something for me, too. If you need something and you aren’t getting it, you have to let me know.”

  He smiled wickedly. “Like this?” He bent his head to deliver a steamy kiss.

  Erin returned it with all her heart and soul. “Just like that,” she whispered, kissing him back with building passion.

  Finally, he lifted his head. Something sweet and intense passed between them. “Damn, but I’ve missed you, Erin,” he murmured.

  Her heart brimmed with happiness. “I’ve missed you, too, Mac.”

  He threaded his hands through her hair, his gaze as sincere as it was tender. “I don’t want to waste any more time. I want to be with you. I want to make a commitment that will honor what we have and do our family proud. So marry me, Erin.”

  Was there ever any question? When she loved him so very much? “Yes, Mac.” Erin wreathed her arms about his neck. “Yes!”

  Epilogue

  Six months later...

  An autumn breeze blew across the back porch as Mac and Erin snuggled in the swing, watching Heather, Sammy and Stevie play with their new puppy in the backyard.

  Homework and dinner awaited. And then one final play session with the puppy.

  But right now, the two of them had a very important decision to make. Erin handed the color wheel to Mac. “You have to tell me what you like.”

  “I think you know what I like.” He waggled his brows at her suggestively.

  Erin laughed and nestled closer into the crook of his arm, contentment flowing through her. “You’re right. I do.”

  Mac knew what she liked, too. So their lovemaking had taken on more depth, pleasure and meaning.

  “But we’re talking about our bedroom here,” Erin continued determinedly. “And I need to know what color you’d like the decor to be.”

  Mac’s brow furrowed. “What’s wrong with the way it is now?”

  Erin rolled her eyes. “Besides it being all pink and white, you mean?” And decidedly not masculine!

  Mac shrugged affably. “Heather likes it.”

  Erin looked down her nose at him. “Heather isn’t a grown man. And she doesn’t reside in the master suite. Tell me the truth, Mac,” she prompted seriously. “You’d rather have a more gender neutral decor.”

  He bent and kissed her forehead. “I don’t care what color the walls and bedspread are as long as I get to hold you in my arms every night.” He tightened his grip protectively and kissed her again. “And that’s already happening.”

  “I don’t deny that’s the most special part of my day, either,” Erin said. They’d been married three months now. And Mac had been home with her and the kids every night. What traveling he did happened during the day.

  Nights, he had declared, were for his family.

  The company had agreed.

  And now his meetings with his boss in the Philadelphia headquarters were via videoconference, from his Laramie office.

  Erin persisted, “But I want it to be a space we can both enjoy, in a color you would have picked out even if you weren’t married to me.” She pressed the wheel into his hands and fanned it out so all the colors were visible.

  Mac glanced down. Within seconds, he had selected a masculine blue-gray that Erin liked, too.

  “See?” she said happily. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

  He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Not at all. Just don’t ask me to look at any fabric.”

  Erin chuckled, knowing there were limits even for him. “I won’t.” She figured a nice paisley or plaid would do. “Besides,” she continued, working up to the real subject here, “it’s not like we’re all done with pink.”

  Mac shifted, so they were even more intimately ensconced on the swing. “Heather decided what she wanted her new room to be?”

  Erin nodded.

  Since her twin sisters had graduated from nursing school and moved on, to big city hospital jobs and apartments in Dallas and Houston, and Gavin had moved out, too, buying a town house close to the Laramie hospital, the ranch had quieted substantially.

  Now it was just her and Mac and their kids, and her brother Nicholas. “Heather’s going to move into Bess’s old room. And of course, paint it her favorite colors, fuchsia and pale pink.”

  Mac grinned. “So Angelica’s old room...” with the trundle bed, where he and Heather had first bunked “...will soon be a guestroom once again.”

  “Mmm.” Erin wrinkled her nose, happiness bubbling up inside her. “Not necessarily.”

  Mac noticed the deliberate mystery in her tone, and gazed at her.

  “It’s so close to the master bedroom. I think it would be a perfect nursery,” Erin said quietly.

  He blinked as the wonder of her words sunk in. “You’re...”

  “Going to have our baby in approximately seven months,” Erin choked out hoarsely.

  “That’s incredible.” A great big smile spread across his face, and he bent to bestow a tender kiss on her lips.

  Happiness flowed through Erin that their efforts to make a baby together had been so successful, so quickly. “I saw my obstetrician today. She said everything looks good.”

  Mac nodded in relief. “Do you think it’s going to be a girl or a boy?” he asked eventually.

  Erin spread her hands. “No clue. I guess we’re going to have to wait to find out.”

  And find out they did, seven months later, when twin girls were born.

  “Not fair,” Sammy and Stevie declared when they heard there were now three girls in the family and only two boys.

  Mac and Erin laughed at the good-humored complaint.

  Mac wrapped his two sons in his arms, while the girl
s in the family got better acquainted.

  He bent down and said, with a conspiratorial wink, “Just give your mom and me a little time, fellas, and we’ll see what we can do about evening up the score.”

  And two years later, when their son was born, they did just that.

  * * * * *

  Watch for Cathy Gillen Thacker’s brand-new series McCABE HOMECOMING, launching in May 2013, only from Harlequin American Romance!

  Keep reading for an excerpt from Rancher’s Son by Leigh Duncan!

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  Chapter One

  Sarah Magarity rose to her tiptoes on the stepladder. The large silver star atop the Christmas tree wobbled when her fingers brushed against it. As she wrestled the heavy ornament from the center post, it tipped, threatening to throw her off balance. For a second, Sarah saw herself lying on the floor, alone and injured, through the long holiday weekend. Normally hectic on a Thursday afternoon, the Department of Children and Family Services in Fort Pierce, Florida, had slowly emptied once the tech guys shut down the computers for a system-wide upgrade. Now only a tree that smelled more like plastic than pine stood between her and a much-needed two weeks out from under a crushing workload.

  Two weeks of white, sandy beaches and a cell phone that didn’t buzz with a new crisis every ten minutes. Two weeks of gathering plants for her growing collection of tropical flowers. Sarah took a deep breath and braced herself against the wall. She could almost smell Hawaiian orchids and plumeria.

  Dreaming of ukuleles and fruity concoctions decorated with tiny umbrellas, she whistled a slightly off-key version of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” Carefully, she toted the star down the ladder. Her foot had barely touched the worn carpet when one of the doors at the main entrance swung open. Sounds of heavy traffic on U.S. Highway 1 blared into the office before the door swished closed. Silence, broken only by the noisy hum of an air conditioner, once more filled the room.

  “C’mon, Jimmy.” A voice whined over the warren of empty cubicles. “We hav’ta find someone pronto. It’s late.”

  Late for what?

  Sarah swallowed a groan. Whoever had arrived at four-thirty on Christmas Eve, they were late, all right. The holiday party for kids in foster care had ended at two.

  “Can I help you?” Sarah prayed the curvy brunette rounding the last of the partitions wanted nothing more than grocery money. A couple of ten-dollar gift cards, and not much else, remained in the emergency fund.

  “This is Jimmy Parker.” The woman’s plunging neckline dipped perilously low as she placed her hand square on the back of the little boy at her side and shoved. The child stumbled forward. “His mom asked me to drop him off.”

  Sarah mustered a smile for the pair of sad brown eyes that peered up from beneath a thatch of sandy-blond hair. The boy’s hollow gaze met hers only briefly before he looked away. When his focus dropped to a pair of tattered sneakers, Sarah hiked an eyebrow. She skimmed over high-water jeans, frowned at a shirt Goodwill would reject. Fighting a protective nature that made her want to wrap the little boy in her arms and make everything right in his world, Sarah stiffened her spine.

  The brutal truth was, a dozen kids just like this one walked into the DCF offices each month. She had a hundred more open cases in her file cabinet. She couldn’t give every child assigned to her the attention they deserved. Not and still keep her sanity. The situation was far from her idealistic dream of how things ought to work. But there were too many at-risk kids, too few dollars to go around and too few workers to do the job.

  Letting her eyes narrow, she faced the older of her guests head-on. “You’re too late.” She grimaced when a little more vehemence than usual crept into her voice. “The party was hours ago. You should have been here then.”

  Despite herself, Sarah glanced across the room at a whimsical mural of a sleigh propelled by eight flying porpoises. Were there any presents left? Not a chance. Every gift from Santa’s bag had been distributed into the eager hands of other kids who were just as needy as this one.

  “Party?” The latecomer’s dark eyebrows lifted. “Who said anything about a party?” The brunette chewed a wad of gum and swallowed. “I promised to deliver the kid, and here he is.”

  An uneasy feeling settled in Sarah’s chest when her visitor dropped a worn duffel bag to the floor.

  “Hold on a sec,” she ordered. “Maybe you’d better start at the beginning and tell me exactly what brought you here. I’m Sarah Magarity, the senior caseworker.” She paused for a look around. With no husband or children of her own to rush home to, she’d offered to keep the office open until closing time. A skeleton staff would report in on Monday and man the offices through the New Year. For tonight, though, she was it. “And you are?”

  “Candy. Candace, really, but everyone just calls me Candy.” The woman settled one hand on a cocked hip. “Candy Storm. And this little guy,” she said, tapping a bloodred fingernail on the boy’s head, “is James Tyrone Parker. Jimmy. He’s five. His mom was my best friend.”

  The implication sent Sarah’s stomach into free fall. She swept another look at the child who studied the stained carpet at his feet. “His mom is…?”

  “Yeah.” Candy blinked several times before patting the skin beneath lashes so long they had to be fake.

  “I think you and I should talk privately.” Sarah motioned toward a nearby cubicle. “Jimmy, I need you to watch TV or play with some toys while Miss Candy and I chat for a few minutes.”

  Without waiting for a response, Sarah took the child’s tiny hand in hers. His thin shoulders and bony frame raised troubling questions. When was the last time this kid ate? How long ago had his mother passed? Who had been taking care of him since then? And where?

  Her tone softened. “I think we have some cookies in the break room. Would you like some?” When Jimmy didn’t answer, she called to Candy. “Does he have any allergies?”

  The woman’s gum snapped and popped before she shrugged a vague “Nope?”

  As the child scrambled onto the couch near the bare Christmas tree, Sarah overlooked his soiled shirt and grimy fingernails, knowing that if she accused the parents of every unwashed youngster of neglect, the foster system would collapse under the load. Bruises or injuries were another matter, and she scanned the child for visible signs. Her breath eased at the sight of pale, but unblemished, skin. Relieved that the boy wasn’t in immediate physical danger—and thus, not really her problem—she clamped a heavy lid over the urge to take him under her wing.

  She couldn’t get involved. Not now. Not when doing so would ruin her plans for the holidays and dash her hope to rest and recharge. And, after five years with the DCF in Melbourne and two more in Fort Pierce, it was either that or quit. No, she shook her head, this little boy was Candy’s problem and he had to stay that way. At least until next week when her coworkers would be back in the office. Steeling her heart, she settled him in front of a cartoon video with a small plate of cookies and a juice box she took from the office refrigerator.

  “Okay, what’s this all about?”

  With Candy lagging behind, Sarah led the way to a cubicle where a line of red X’s across the bottom of the calendar marked the vacation days she had to use or lose according to DCF’s policy manual. She waved her guest into the only other chair in the cramped space and swung to her computer. She s
tilled. Until the IT department completed their work, no one could access the DCF database. Or learn whether Jimmy Parker already had a caseworker to look after him.

  With a sigh, Sarah pulled a yellow legal pad and a pen from a drawer and hoped Candy would quickly get to the point. Across the desk, the woman gave her a petulant look, her jaw jutting forward.

  “Millie, Jimmy’s mom, made me swear if anything ever happened to her, I’d bring the kid to Florida,” she said, with an accent from considerably north of the Sunshine State. “She said his dad owns a ranch somewhere near Lake Okeechobee. Jimmy’s named after him.”

  James Tyrone Parker.

  Sarah pursed her lips at the memory of a tall, broad-shouldered rancher with sun-bleached hair. She brushed a speck of dust from the desktop, chasing the image away. Surely there were thousands of Parkers in the hundreds of square miles bordering the largest lake in Florida. There were probably a dozen Jims and Tys among them. The odds against this little boy’s father being the same Ty Parker she’d run out of DCF’s offices last spring were practically astronomical. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to move the rancher’s name to the top of the list.

  “And where’s home, Candy?”

  “New York, of course.” The brunette slid one slim leg across the other. “Me and Millie met at a casting call for an ad agency when Jimmy was just a baby. We was both trying to break into movies.” She leaned forward, nodding the way people did when they had a secret to share. “It’s tougher than anybody thinks. Anyways…” Candy thrust her shoulders back until the fabric of her T-shirt tightened. “I got the gig and Millie didn’t, but we hit it off, you know? Millie, she didn’t have much acting experience. And the kid only made it harder. I’d babysit when I could, but eventually Millie gave up and took a job waitressing. That’s what got her killed. Some guy knifed her f’ tip money.”

  Candy studied the floor. “After Millie died, it wasn’t easy. I did my best by him, but it’s been three months, and the kid still asks f’ her. I took a job in Tampa over the holidays just so’s I could bring him to you. I guess you’ll take it from here.” She shrugged and uncrossed her legs. “I got a life, too. You know?”