So he had noticed. Her proud chin lifted. “I wasn’t cavorting with anyone associated with the ranch, if that’s what you’re insinuating.”
His expression looked like thunder. “I’m afraid you’ll have to forego any extracurricular plans for today. That goes for the evening as well. In case you’d forgotten, you’re riding with me to check the herd.”
“I know.”
“If there’s a serious problem, we might have to make camp for the night. I’ll come by the barn for you at eleven.”
She looked down at the tip of her boots to hide the joy those words evoked.
“I’ll be ready,” she said in her meekest voice.
After a pregnant pause, he strode swiftly down the hall toward his office.
Stefanie found she was starving and ate a huge breakfast, much to Marva’s satisfaction. When she’d finished a second cup of coffee, she returned to her room to grab everything she’d need for the outing. Then she headed for the barn on foot, aware of sore muscles with every step.
The boys had beaten her to it this morning. Mack had assigned each of them a job. Some were busy raking out the stalls. Others were learning how to adjust the automatic drip and fill the feed boxes with fresh alfalfa and timothy. Stefanie had been learning all the tasks along with them. She derived a lot of pleasure when Mack praised her for her work.
She chatted briefly with him and the boys before going to the tack room to hang up her cowboy hat and camera.
Clay followed her inside and shut the door. “Teri? Can I talk to you for a minute?”
For the moment they were alone. This was the kind of situation Gabe had warned her to avoid.
“Sure. Come on.” She reached for a bridle. “You can help me with Molly. I’m going to be riding her today and need to check her hooves.” Mack had taught Stefanie always to look for rocks or fungus before she ever mounted a horse.
Judging by the scowl on Clay’s face, he didn’t like the idea of them joining the others, but she’d purposely left him no choice.
He trailed her from the room to a stall halfway down the aisle. According to the foreman, Molly was the perfect little mare for Stefanie. Gentle, yet nimble with a lot of endurance.
“How’s Molly this morning?” She gave the mare a hug around the neck. The horse nestled closer.
“Say, I think you’re ready for some exercise.”
To Stefanie, the bridle was harder to put on than the saddle, but she finally managed it.
“There.” She let out a deep sigh. “Now, Clay, if you’ll steady her, I’ll start to check her feet.”
He grabbed the reins and hunkered down by her. In a hushed tone he said, “I’ve noticed you going out in your car a lot. I was wondering. Do you think you could find time this weekend to take me with you?”
She picked some gravel out of one hoof. “Mr. Wainwright told me he has arranged to take you guys into town once a week.”
“I know, but we’re not allowed to make any phone calls.”
“Then I couldn’t let you do that, either, Clay.”
“Just one? I have to talk to Mom!”
Not for the first time did Stefanie agonize over the possibility that his mother was Gabe’s lover. In case it was true, did Clay know?
“If it’s that important, why don’t you ask Mr. Wainwright to let you use the phone in the office? He’s a very understanding man. I’m sure he’ll say yes when you explain how urgent it is.”
“No.” He shook his head. “You don’t understand. He can’t know about it.”
At this point Stefanie couldn’t contain her curiosity. “Why not?”
“Because it would spoil everything.”
“What do you mean?”
“I want her to fly out here and surprise him.”
Stefanie closed her eyes tightly. “She’ll probably make plans to visit you before too long, won’t she?”
“Yes, but she needs to hurry!”
“Why?”
“I found out on the trip here that he and his wife just got a divorce.”
Aghast, Stefanie whispered, “He actually told you that?”
“Yeah. We talk about everything. He’s the best. Mom says the same thing. If she knew about the divorce, then they could get married right away. I’d give anything for him to be my stepdad. Will you help me?”
She rose to her feet on unsteady legs. “I—I tell you what, Clay. I’ll think about it and let you know.”
“Thanks for not saying no,” he muttered fervently.
“You’d better join the others now. We’ve both got work to do.”
“Okay. Talk to you later.”
After he walked off, she hugged the horse’s neck once more, attempting to stifle her sobs. What am I going to do?
In a few minutes she’d pulled herself together enough to finish her chores. Pain caused her to work like an automaton, raising Mack’s eyebrows more than once. At ten to eleven she carried an Indian blanket and saddle from the tack room to the stall.
The outing she’d been waiting for in breathless anticipation had been vitiated by a fifteen-year-old boy who was desperately attempting to put his broken world back together again.
Gabe had warned her that Clay was vulnerable. But she would wager not even Gabe knew to what degree Clay was counting on him for permanent security.
At this point the boy deserved to know Gabe’s intentions where his mother was concerned. Otherwise the troubled teen might act out in ways that would put his future at greater risk.
Stefanie had one fear—to hear Gabe admit that he was in love with Clay’s mother and planned on marrying her. But as horrifying as that reality would be, Stefanie had the moral obligation to broach the subject to Gabe who was legally responsible for the boy and felt great affection for him.
From what she’d gleaned listening to the boys talk, they came from Montana and some of the surrounding states like Idaho and Wyoming. Clay hailed from Rhode Island, which made him the exception. It took no imagination to understand how flattered he would be by Gabe’s attention.
There was a fine line between hero worship and love. No doubt many boys would straddle that line where Gabe was concerned. Clay had already crossed it.
What Clay didn’t know was that Stefanie had ten years on him.
Gabe checked his watch. It was time to get Stefanie. Since he’d met her on her way into the dining room earlier that morning, the hours had passed with painful slowness. He intended to find out where she’d been spending her nights.
If he learned she’d been anywhere near the Branding Iron, then it meant some jerk cowpunk figured he’d died and gone to heaven when he saw her walk in the place.
Until Gabe drove her to the airport, there was no way in hell he would allow her off ranch property again. If necessary, he’d keep the gate locked around the clock.
With the saddlebag in place, Gabe mounted his gelding and rode out of the paddock toward the barn. Before he reached the entrance, he caught sight of Stefanie’s gorgeous figure leading a saddled horse beyond the doors.
Mack knew that Gabe was taking Stefanie to inspect some heifers. He must have decided to help matters along.
Slowly Gabe closed in on her. She lifted her head. Beneath the rim of her cowboy hat, a pair of lovely brown eyes he still wasn’t used to focused on him, almost as if she were meeting him for the first time.
Neither of them spoke. A stillness had pervaded the atmosphere, catching him off guard. The next thing he knew she’d mounted the mare with her inimitable grace and was sidling over to him.
Anyone who didn’t know her the way he did would assume she’d been born in the saddle. Either she’d learned to ride earlier in her life and had never told him, or someone had been giving her lessons.
He knew for a fact it wasn’t Mack or any of the hands. That left one other possibility.
She’d been gone every afternoon and evening…
Pictures of some stranger with his hands all over her flashed through his mind.
All over the wife Gabe had never dared touch.
Like wildfire, unbridled jealousy raged through him till he felt faint from the force of it.
“Are you ready?” He knew his voice sounded harsh but he couldn’t help it. He needed physical exertion and lots of it before he would be able to calm down.
“Whenever you are.”
The little tremor he sometimes heard devastated him. He was learning to read her—the brave voice that covered her vulnerability.
“Stay with me,” he muttered.
“I’ll try.”
As he was to find out in the next hour, her try through forest and meadow exposed to the sun where the snow had melted into spots here and there, outdid most people’s best efforts.
Stefanie’s comportment in public had always been impeccable. A source of great pride to him. But watching her handle Molly in that elegant, feminine way of hers took that feeling to a much deeper level.
So far Mack had been unstinting in his praise of her hard work in the barn. Secretly Gabe was touched by her determination to do her share, even to the point of finding a way to take riding lessons behind his back.
Though he kept a sharp lookout for strays, his gaze traveled repeatedly to her exquisite face. Gone was the picture of serenity he’d taken with him from Newport. In its place she exhibited an intensity that brought out new dimensions in her character. And new beauty.
She sat straight in the saddle, never complaining whether he changed the pace from a walk to a canter. Much as Gabe hated to admit it, the man who’d taught her how to ride had done a superb job. Even if she were hating this, Gabe had an idea she would keep going as long as he did.
“Let’s head over to those rocks by the river. They’re fairly flat and dry. We’ll eat our lunch there.”
“I—I didn’t know you brought any.” She sounded relieved.
“Riding can take more out of you than you think.”
He’d given her an opening to admit she was tired and wanted to rest. Naturally she didn’t say anything. But she didn’t have to when he saw how hard she was trying to hide her stiffness as she dismounted by herself.
Gabe had learned to ride in his teens when his family let him and his brothers spend a month at a special dude ranch for VIPs in Colorado. Watching her now, he recognized all the signs of beginner’s pain. After three straight days of lessons, she had to be in hell.
“I’ll take care of the horses. You find us a spot to eat.”
Out of the periphery he followed her progress while he tied the reins to a nearby pine tree where the horses could graze. Each step seemed to cause her agony.
Tamping down a smile, he removed the saddlebag and carried it to the slab where she sat with her legs dangling over the edge. Without her cowboy hat, the short black curls gleamed in the afternoon sun. As fetching as she looked, he wanted to see the golden silk beneath.
The blood pounded in his ears. He wanted to see all of her as nature had made her.
“The river’s so swift!” she cried out at his approach.
“That’s because of the spring runoff. In another month it will calm down enough for me to enjoy the best fly-fishing on earth.”
Their gazes collided before she looked quickly away. He wondered if she was remembering anything about the evening when she found him on the shore in her father’s boat.
Gabe had been out fishing, mulling over plans for the ranch in his mind.
Her appearance seemed to come from out of the blue, literally. His heart kicked over because he thought she’d sought him out for no other reason than she wanted to be with him. It would be a first.
When he saw the envelope and realized she was on yet another errand for his father, he felt the same way he did when the boom of his sailboat unexpectedly knocked him into the ocean.
The feeling went much deeper than disappointment. From time to time Gabe had wondered if there might be something going on between her and his father.
Tormented by such unworthy thoughts, he’d always kept them to himself. But part of him lived in the secret fear that he might be jealous of his father’s power over her.
He’d asked Stefanie to marry him because she was the only woman he had ever truly desired. And maybe part of him wanted his ring on her finger in order to keep her and his father apart. A test, if you will, to see if the closeness between the two of them was something more than affection.
Gabe received the answer to that question when she’d shocked him by agreeing to the marriage contract. At that point he realized the bond between his father and Stefanie could be summed up in one word—ambition.
She didn’t want the father or the son. She wanted the office, the title, and everything that went with it. But she needed one or both of them to propel her on her way.
“Do you want me to help?”
Her voice with its hint of pleading jerked him back to the present. Since she’d come to Montana, he’d almost forgotten her true agenda behind this new persona.
Which brought him back to square one.
If her ambition had been that great, why had she followed him out here? In light of the seeming transformation in her, that question was starting to become a litany with him because he didn’t have an answer.
“You must be hungry.”
“I confess I am.”
Her eyes widened as he began pulling their picnic from one of the pouches.
“Marva knows how to do it right. Bless her heart, she made the sandwiches with sourdough. There’s fruit and chips. Help yourself.” He reached into the other pouch for their sodas.
After devouring half a beef sandwich she cried, “This is ambrosia.”
“Agreed.” He drank a whole can of cola without stopping for breath. “So,” he said when he put the empty can back into the pouch. “How long are you going to keep me in suspense?”
Color crept into her cheeks. “About what?” She quickly downed her drink.
“I’m impressed how well you’ve learned to ride, Stefanie. Who taught you? Where did you find him?”
“Her name is Pam Dankers.”
Once again she’d shocked him by coming out with a different answer than the one he’d expected. He listened to her explanation with a niggling sense of shame for being totally off base. Again.
“Her husband Hayden filled in for her yesterday. He owns a feed store and had to get one of his employees to cover for him. I paid her the going rate, but I’ve got to think of a really nice way to show them my appreciation.”
“If you’d like, you could invite them over to the ranch for dinner the night before you leave.”
She turned her head toward the river. “That’s very generous of you, but I don’t think it would be a good idea.”
“Why not?”
“I thought since your dad still doesn’t know where you are, that you’d hoped to keep him in the dark a little longer. This couple could ask questions. They might even recognize you. If they were to spread the word, it could eventually get back to your father. That’s all I’m saying.”
“I appreciate your being so careful, Stefanie, but in this case I’m not worried about it.” He handed her an apple, but she refused it. “Go ahead and ask them.”
“Thank you.”
“I thought you’d like to know Mack gives you highest marks for your work at the barn.” As Gabe had feared, his foreman was already showing signs of infatuation.
“That’s nice to hear.”
“He says you’re the hardest worker he’s ever seen. I was glad to hear it because Marva told me she could use some help in the kitchen.”
Stefanie’s head shot around. “Is there something wrong with her?” The concern in her voice sounded genuine to Gabe.
“I’m not sure. She’s probably picked up a bug. But now that you’ve learned the fundamentals of riding, I’ve decided you can split your time between the barn and the kitchen for the next week. If you were to offer to do the night setups for the next day, she could get to bed an hour ea
rlier.”
“Of course. I’ll be happy to help out.”
“Good.” He started putting everything else back into the pouches. “Just a word of caution—Mack’s concerned about Clay’s crush on you and feels you might be showing him a little too much attention around the other boys. Apparently this morning he went into the tack room with you and—”
“And what?” She rounded on him. Indignation had whipped fire into her cheeks. “He’s got a crush all right, but it’s not on me! I’m glad you mentioned him because there’s something vital you need to know.”
His brows knit in a frown. Clay was a complicated kid. “Go on.”
“He likes you a lot, Gabe,” she said in a quiet voice.
“That’s because you haven’t seen him angry yet.”
“I’m being serious.”
“So am I,” his voice grated.
She faced him squarely. “This morning he sought me out for a favor.”
“So Mack was right.”
“Only partially. Clay wanted me to drive him to town so he could phone his mother without your knowledge.”
He absently rubbed his thumb along his bottom lip. “I presume he gave you a reason.”
“Yes.” A haunted look crept into her eyes. “He wants her to fly out here right away.”
Gabe had already been working on that. But it meant Madelaine needed to be sober by the time she arrived.
“Why didn’t he tell me this himself?”
“You don’t know?” Her cry of exasperation resounded in the meadow. Something was going on here he needed to get to the bottom of.
“Know what?”
She rubbed her forehead. “Clay said you told him that you had recently d-divorced your wife.”
Oh, hell.
“That’s true,” he muttered at last. “I did.”
Her breathing grew shallow. “According to him, y-you and his mother are on very close terms.”
“It’s par for the course since I’ve been her attorney for two years representing Clay.”
“Apparently he thinks it’s more than that.”
“How much more?”
She got to her feet and looked down at him. “Do I have to spell it out for you? He wants you to be his new stepdad. The boy is desperate for her to get here and marry you before you find another woman to love. That’s the crush I was referring to,” she added in a quiet tone before climbing off the rocks.
Husband for a Year Page 9
