It still puzzled him that she hadn’t flown to Paris at least. If she was truly as frightened to be alone as she’d said, she obviously needed to be back in Newport, living in the house he’d given her where she felt safe.
He’d already robbed her of a year and a half of her life if he counted their engagement period. After all she’d done for him, she had every right to get back to her world as soon as possible. The man destiny had handpicked for her was waiting somewhere out there…
The sooner she met him, the sooner she could start to make her own dreams come true.
Gabe must have been out of his mind to expect her to go abroad for half a year. Too caught up in his own selfish plans, he’d sent her off like a good little soldier, never seeing through that brave façade of hers.
It was time he faced reality.
What did it matter when his father learned the truth of everything? Tomorrow or six months from now, the result would be the same. The inevitable confrontation Gabe had been dreading would take place.
At least when the final break came, he would be able to take solace in the fact that his dream for a boys’ ranch was already a fait accompli.
A feat he couldn’t have accomplished without Stefanie.
With his mind made up to drive her to the airport in the morning, Gabe turned on his stomach, willing sleep to obliterate the pain.
To his chagrin, he wrestled demons for the rest of the night. When he couldn’t handle them any longer, he got up and took a cold shower.
Clover stood at the door, impatiently swishing her tail while he dressed.
“I know why you’re so excited,” Gabe muttered, already experiencing a yawning emptiness because after this morning Stefanie would no longer be here. Not ever again.
After putting on his boots, he opened the door to his bedroom. “Let’s go, girl.”
But his words were wasted on Clover who leaped ahead of him in pursuit of his prey, which happened to be a particularly breathtaking human being.
By the time Gabe reached the downstairs foyer, the dog had made the rounds of the ranch house and now stood at the front door barking. No doubt Stefanie was still asleep and would probably stay that way for some time.
Gabe checked his watch. It was quarter to six. Clover needed to go out. As he opened the door for her, he noticed that Stefanie’s blue Honda wasn’t standing next to the Explorer where he’d parked it last night.
Had he been so cruel to her, she’d left to avoid having to face him again?
Feeling as if someone had kicked him in the gut, he hurried outside to a chilly morning. The snow revealed Clover’s paw prints, but the predawn sky made it difficult to see details further away.
His dog ran ahead of him. Upon reaching the corner of the ranch house, she stopped and barked. When Gabe realized the intelligent animal was following a set of tire tracks belonging to Stefanie’s car, he praised Clover and took off after her.
To his relief, the tracks led around the back of the house. The barn and bunkhouse were the only other buildings set away from the main cluster, but they lay around a curve in the road, a quarter of a mile from view. Had Stefanie gone exploring, or was she lost?
If her intention had been to leave the property, thank heaven she hadn’t found her way out yet. Much as he wanted her gone from his life, he needed to know she was safe.
The interior of the barn could only be a few degrees above freezing. The lucky horses had been born with hairy coats. Stefanie had to make do with her parka, which she’d zipped to the chin.
Most of the horses stared at her through the openings in the slats while they calmly munched on hay. She stopped at the farthest stall to admire the handsome chestnut. He was huge. When she spoke to him, he backed away.
“Don’t be scared of me,” she said in a gentle voice, wondering at the horse’s reaction when she must look so puny to him. But she was the intruder after all.
“Caesar hasn’t been formally introduced. That’s why he seems offish,” a pleasant male voice spoke behind her.
“Oh!” Stefanie whirled around in embarrassment.
“I didn’t hear anyone enter the barn.”
A lean man she figured to be around forty with light brown hair and warm brown eyes stood there appraising her. He was of average height and very nice looking. Probably one of the hands.
“My name is Teri Jones. I’ve been waiting to talk to the foreman. Marva told me I might find him in here at this hour.”
A smile lit up his face, making him appear younger. “She was right. I’m Mack Whittaker.” He put out his hand, which she shook. “How can I help you?”
It seemed the old stereotype foreman portrayed in the Western films had done her a great disservice. She doubted her plan to go all helpless on Gabe’s right hand man would work.
Whatever she said or did now would determine whether she stayed on the ranch or not. Maybe honesty was the best approach. Enough honesty without giving everything away.
She took a deep breath. “I came to the ranch looking for a job. I’ve never been on a horse, let alone worked around them. But I’m willing to learn. I-it’s vital that I learn,” her voice trembled.
“Please, Mr. Whittaker— If you’ll just give me a chance, I’ll prove to you I’m a hard worker. I’ll do any task!
“The thing is, Mr. Wainwright knows how busy you are and didn’t suppose you had the time or inclination to take me on, even if you needed help. In fact h-he doesn’t know I came on my own to talk to you, so please don’t blame him. This was all my idea.”
He shoved his cowboy hat further back on his head. “Mind if I ask why you want ranch work when it’s so foreign to you?”
Relieved he hadn’t yet told her she was wasting her time she blurted, “Not at all— You see, I need to prove to myself that I can do something entirely different than I’m used to doing.”
By now his eyes were smiling. “And what is that?”
“You might say I’ve been a girl Friday.” In a way, it was the truth. He just didn’t know where she’d been a glorified dogsbody, or from whom she’d taken her orders.
“But it’s not enough. I need to find out who I really am, how tough I really am. Can you understand that, Mr. Whittaker?”
His gaze played over her features. “The name is Mack. I believe I do understand. However, it’s hard to learn this business if you haven’t grown up around it.”
“But not impossible, surely!”
“That all depends on the person.”
“Would you be willing to take me on probation? I swear you won’t be sorry.”
His eyes squinted. “You say you’ve never been on a horse?”
“Only a pony, when I was a little girl.”
“Where was that?”
She swallowed hard. This was the part she hated, having to tell him a lie. “Flagstaff, Arizona. Please, Mack. Just pretend I’m a man. What’s the first thing you would tell me to do?”
“Muck out the stalls.”
“You mean get rid of the manure.”
“That’s right.” He chuckled. “And spread fresh straw around.”
“While the horses are still in there?”
Her question provoked a belly laugh. “No.”
He would never hire her. She’d lost her last chance. The thought of having to leave Gabe was so painful, tears filled her eyes before she could hide them.
“Hey—” He frowned. “I didn’t mean to make you cry.”
“You didn’t. It’s just that I wanted a job here so badly. Yet even I can see I’m the last person anyone would think of hiring. Forgive me for taking up your time.”
“Hang on there—” He called her back as she headed for the door. “You may not know anything about horses, but it’s obvious you came to me in all sincerity. I tell you what.”
With those four words, her heart rate started to accelerate.
“If you’re going to work for me, you need to buy yourself some clothes you won’t be afraid to get dirty.
While you’re at it, might as well throw in a pair of cowboy boots and warm gloves.
“Starting tomorrow morning at seven, you’ll spend time in here with the students getting used to being around the horses. Everyone’s learning how to feed them and keep the place clean.
“Each day after lunch, I’ll teach you how to ride. After two weeks I’ll make my decision whether to put you on the payroll permanently.”
Two weeks to be near Gabe.
The thought filled her with such intense joy, she wanted to throw her arms around the foreman’s neck. Instead she had to fight to restrain herself.
“Thank you, Mack. You don’t know what this means to me,” she murmured emotionally. “I’ll work so hard, you’ll never regret giving me this opportunity. Oh, I forgot to ask. Where do the hands sleep?”
“We have our own bunkhouse.”
“Is there room for one more?”
A ruddy color crept into his cheeks. It told her a lot about the mild mannered foreman. He was a hardworking cowboy who happened to be a gentleman. She imagined the combination was a rarity. Gabe had known what he was doing when he’d hired him to work around other people’s troubled sons.
“Don’t worry about it, Mack. I’ll find my own lodgings. See you at seven.”
She hurried out the door, anxious to drive to Kalispell for some serious shopping. In her eagerness to reach the car, she didn’t see the blur of brown and white fur until Gabe’s dog circled her legs, causing her to tip facedown in the snow.
“Clover!” A burst of laughter escaped her lips as the friendly collie began licking her face. They rolled around in the snow playing together for a few minutes.
When she turned on her back, it was a taut-faced Gabe she could see running toward her in thigh-molding jeans and a plaid flannel shirt. In the next instant he’d helped her to her feet.
Against a lavender sky, the black of his hair and searching green eyes leaped out at her, causing her to marvel all over again at his distinct male beauty.
“Are you all right?”
The deep timbre revealed he hadn’t been up very long. Maybe it was because he was winded that she thought his voice sounded anxious.
In her excitement to find herself alone with him, she was a little slow on the uptake. “I’m f-fine,” she rushed to reassure him. “We’re fine, aren’t we, Clover!” She reached for the dog like a lifeline so Gabe wouldn’t guess how his mere touch could melt her insides to liquid.
“What were you doing back here?”
She’d been waiting for that question with a certain amount of dread. When she raised her head to face him once more, only then did she notice he wasn’t wearing a coat. He must have left the ranch house in a big hurry.
“I wanted to talk to your foreman. Marva indicated I might find him in the barn if I got up early enough.”
Gabe’s jaw hardened, causing perspiration to break out on her hairline. “And did you?” he ground out.
Growing increasingly nervous, she moistened her lips. “Yes.”
His expression looked like thunder. “With what result?”
“H-he’s going to let me apprentice for two weeks,” she stammered. “If I pass the test, then he’ll let me stay on.”
An ominous silence followed.
Then he asked, “Doing what?”
“Mucking out the stalls.”
His head reared back while he muttered something she’d never heard come out of his mouth before.
Stung by his reaction she said, “Mack obviously has a lot more faith in my abilities than you do.”
A wintry smile broke out on Gabe’s face. His gaze made a bold assessment of her features and body, not missing a single line or curve along the way. “It wasn’t his faith in your abilities that got you hired, sweetheart.”
Gabe was angry. Angrier than she’d ever seen him. But for an infinitesimal moment she’d glimpsed the banked fire in his eyes as they’d swept over her.
Suddenly she was transported back to the time she’d gone searching for him in her father’s launch. When she’d found him, those green depths had sent out that same unmistakable glint of male desire at its most elemental level, thrilling her to the very core of her being.
No matter how furious he was, she had proof that he wasn’t totally indifferent to her physical presence.
Taking a calculated risk she said, “Since you have such grave misgivings where I’m concerned, I’ll save you the trouble of telling him he made a mistake in hiring me.”
On a burst of inspiration she sank her hand into the dog’s fur. “Come on, Clover. You can help me resign.” Without waiting for Gabe’s reaction, she started for the barn door.
Bless Clover’s heart, she stuck to Stefanie’s side like a new foal with her mother. Within inches of pulling on the handle, Stefanie felt a hand of steel on her arm before she was spun around.
As if she were so much fluff, Gabe practically dragged her away from the entrance. His mouth had thinned to a white line of fury. This time a thrill of fear darted through her body.
“You’re not going in there and quit the job he just offered you!” he said in an icy tone, his hands still gripping her upper arms. “Mack will want to know the reason why. When you tell him it’s because I don’t approve, he’ll think I don’t have confidence in him.
“Once trust is gone, he’ll leave, destroying the community I’ve spent the last year developing here. Hiring a good foreman is difficult at best. To find someone with Mack’s qualities is something of a miracle.”
Gabe’s rebuke would have hurt at any time. But it was the passion behind the words that made her realize she didn’t dare trifle with this world he’d embraced heart and soul. She didn’t have the right! Because of her own selfish needs, she’d put him in a terrible position.
It had been wrong of her to follow him to Montana. Totally and utterly wrong.
“I have no desire to undermine you, Gabe,” she whispered. “Mack’s given me two weeks. When the time is up, I’ll thank him for taking a chance on me. Then I’ll tell him I’m going back to Flagstaff where I belong.
“Now, if you’ll let go of me, I have some errands to run.”
Her words must have jolted him back to an awareness of what he was doing. In the next breath she was free of his firm grasp, the last thing she wanted.
“What errands?” The terseness of his question left another wound that wouldn’t heal.
“I need appropriate clothes to wear when I start my job in the morning. A-and there’s the matter of a place to stay. I should imagine the Branding Iron will let me make a short-term arrangemen—”
“The motel is out!” he cut in brutally. “For security reasons as well as practicality, everyone lives on the ranch. After the lifestyle you’re used to, I realize the old nursery hardly passes for a bedroom. But it’s exactly where you’ll be spending your nights until you leave.”
She turned away from him, afraid he’d see the happiness in her eyes. If only you knew, my darling, that I’m just happy to be near you.
Cupping her elbow in an impersonal manner he said, “I’ll drive you back to the house, then we’ll take the Explorer into Kalispell.”
If she understood him correctly, he was going to take her shopping. She could scarcely contain her excitement as she got in the passenger seat. But it was short-lived when he added, “Clay can come with us. I promised his mother to outfit him as soon as we arrived.”
On that note he shut her door and walked around to the driver’s side of the car. She derived pleasure from just watching him. He adjusted the seat for his long hard-muscled legs before getting behind the wheel.
“What about Clover?”
“She can follow us.”
The collie had run around to Stefanie’s side of the car again.
“But she wants to be with us. Look at her face, those sad eyes. She’s not even wagging her tail.”
Another unintelligible epithet escaped Gabe’s lips. “She’ll live.” He turned on
the engine and backed the car around.
“It’s obvious she adores you. How long have you had her?”
“After I bought the ranch, I made several visits to the pound looking for a trained animal that would make a good watchdog. I eventually brought Clover home with me.”
“She’s beautiful! How did she end up in there?”
“The first time I saw her, she was near death. Whoever the owner was had abandoned her. She needed a lot of help. The vet for the ranch didn’t think she would make it without constant nursing care. I decided she’d be a good project for the boys.”
Her eyes misted over imagining the love Clover must feel for Gabe because of his compassion and gentle care.
Throughout their short-lived marriage, Stefanie had worshipped the remarkable man sitting on the other side of the car from her, but he’d always kept her at a distance, never allowing her to see beneath the surface.
Since her arrival at the ranch, something miraculous had happened. Despite all his efforts to push her away, she’d been given a glimpse into his psyche—the core part of him that made him tick.
Though she didn’t know the underlying motive for his turning to this life, she recognized that he must have undergone an earthshaking experience. But there was one thing she’d already come to understand. Gabe’s goals were unique. He was another breed of man. How she loved him!
“Stefanie?”
She jerked her head around, surprised to discover they’d reached the front of the ranch house. “Yes?”
“Did you eat breakfast before you left for the barn?”
She shook her head.
He started to get out of the car. “I’m going inside to find Clay. Do what you need to do, then meet us back at the Explorer in ten minutes. We’ll grab a bite to eat in town.”
Normally Gabe helped her from the car. Not this morning. After calling to Clover who wasn’t far behind, they disappeared into the house before she’d had time to swing her feet to the ground.
By now the sun had come up over the horizon. The storm had blown itself out. Already the air was much warmer. It was going to be a beautiful day. She spied patches of ground where the snow was melting. Water dripped from the eaves.
Husband for a Year Page 6
