Rancher Under Cover

by Carla Cassidy

  Funny thing was, she knew that if she closed her eyes and tried to imagine that man, he would be Randall Kane.

  “She was a kind woman,” he continued. “And she made me want to be a better man. She was going to school to become a social worker, but she also loved being a rancher’s wife and we spent a lot of time together caring for the livestock.”

  “Do you ever think about owning your own ranch again?” Caitlin asked.

  He hesitated a long moment before answering. “Never,” he said with what appeared to be a forced firmness.

  “That’s too bad. You’re so good with the horses, you could probably be very successful if you owned your own place.”

  “What about you? What do you see for yourself in the future?” he asked and she suspected he was intentionally turning the conversation away from himself.

  “My plan was always to eventually open a private practice and own a ranch somewhere near here. I can’t imagine urban living. I always wanted to be where I could have horses.”

  “Why haven’t you already done that?”

  She frowned thoughtfully. “When I was going through medical school, it was just easier to live here. I didn’t have to worry about cooking or cleaning. All I had to do was focus on getting good grades. Living here seemed to be the smart thing to do at that time. That’s the easy answer.”

  “And what’s the complicated answer?” he asked.

  “My father.” As always, thoughts of Mickey shot a stab of worry through her. “I worried about him being all alone if I moved out. I couldn’t stand the thought of him being lonesome.”

  She offered him a small smile. “Ridiculous, I know. But now that I have learned he has Esme, that he’s always had Esme as more than just his housekeeper, it will make it easier for me to make my own life someplace else.”

  “And I suppose you’re the white-fence-and-children kind of woman?”

  It was her turn to hesitate a beat before answering, her heart constricting a little. “I was before El Salvador. I wanted it all—the practice, the husband and a couple of kids. Since then that particular dream hasn’t really seemed possible.”

  “You’ll have that dream, Caitlin…the private practice, the picket fence, the man who loves you and all the children you want. You’re going to be fine, Caitlin.” His voice had the same soothing quality that he’d used with Molly.

  “Right, all I have to do is figure out where my father is and dodge the bullets of somebody who is trying to kill me. Other than that everything is going to be just fine.” She waited for him to tell her once again that everything was going to be fine and when he remained silent the worry that she’d fought against since waking that morning raised its ugly head and filled her with a horrible sense of foreboding.

  At that moment Esme returned, with Clint just behind her carrying in bags of groceries. “Clint, how are things going?” she asked the tall cowboy as he placed several bags on the kitchen counter.

  “Everything is going just fine, nothing for you to worry about. All the horses are in good shape. The addition of the oat hay in their diet is definitely making a difference.”

  “What about Molly?” she asked.

  “I believe she misses Randall,” he replied with an easy smile.

  “What makes you think that?” Randall asked.

  “Every time I step outside she raises her head like she’s expecting somebody in particular and when she sees it’s me she turns her back and faces the opposite direction.” Clint offered them a wry grin. “Typical woman, why cozy up to the number-two man when you really want the number-one man.”

  Rhett smiled and Caitlin could see that he was pleased at the idea of the horse missing him. “Maybe I’ll try to get outside this afternoon and spend a little time at the small corral,” Randall said.

  “I wouldn’t mind getting outside for a little while myself,” Caitlin said.

  “That’s not going to happen,” Randall said firmly.

  “Amen,” Esme murmured under her breath.

  Within minutes Clint was gone and Randall and Caitlin remained in the kitchen at the table. “Need some help?” Randall offered Esmeralda as she bustled to empty the grocery bags.

  “She never wants help when she’s putting away groceries,” Caitlin said.

  “I like things my own way,” Esme agreed. “I consider this my kitchen and I have a certain way of doing things, specific places where things belong.”

  “Ah, a woman who knows exactly what she likes,” Randall teased.

  “That’s right, and nobody gets into my pantry except me.” Esme exclaimed as she carried two of the plastic bags into the small room.

  “She talks a good game, but she’s always been a pushover,” Caitlin said in amusement.

  Randall raised one of his eyebrows. “I’ll bet between your father and her you managed to get away with murder.”

  She grinned at him. “Actually, I think if you were to ask both my father and Esme, they’d tell you that I was a pretty good kid who didn’t need much discipline. Unlike you, from the stories you’ve told me about your childhood.”

  “I’ll admit, I could be a little bit of a hell-raiser as a kid. My father was always threatening to take me out to the woodshed. Fortunately we didn’t have a woodshed.”

  “And what about your mother? What did she threaten you with?” Caitlin loved hearing him talk about his past, the glimpses it gave her into the man he’d become.

  He grinned. “She wanted to pin me up by my ears to the clothesline more than a few times. The idea of me hanging next to a pair of her white panties on the line scared me a lot more than the threat of the woodshed.”

  Caitlin laughed. “I can only remember one time when my dad really got angry with me. I was about twelve and had ridden a horse too hard and hadn’t cooled her down before taking her back to the stables. When Dad found out he threatened to send me to boarding school where I wouldn’t have a chance to abuse a poor innocent horse. I was horrified that I’d abused the horse and even more terrified of being sent away from here.”

  At that moment the phone rang. Esme was still in the pantry and so Caitlin jumped up to answer.

  “Caty girl, what are you doing home?”

  As she heard the deep, familiar voice of her father, the laughter she and Rhett had just shared vanished and Caitlin burst into tears.

  Chapter 10

  Rhett stepped out of the kitchen to give Caitlin some privacy, but he didn’t go too far. He remained just outside the kitchen doorway where he could hear Caitlin’s side of the conversation with her father.

  Finally. Finally contact had been made and Rhett had no doubt that it wouldn’t be long now before Mickey showed up here. He should feel elated that his time here was nearly done, that his job was nearly finished, but he didn’t. He felt sick and sorry and dreaded what was to come.

  “You have to come home.” Caitlin’s voice was thick with emotion. “I need you here, Dad. Something awful has happened, bad things are still happening and we need to talk.”

  Rhett had no idea what Mickey replied, but Caitlin’s next words shot pain through his heart. “I was attacked, Dad,” she cried. “I was assaulted in the jungle and the man who assaulted me told me to tell my father his old friends said hello.”

  Rhett’s heartbeat seemed to stop. What? She hadn’t told him that. She hadn’t mentioned that the rapist had said something about her father.

  Had the words been said generally, the man knowing that the rape of a daughter would be any normal father’s nightmare? Or was the man specifically talking about Mickey? And if that was the case, what was the tie between Mickey O’Donahue and a band of renegades in an El Salvadoran jungle?

  “Where are you?” she asked. There was a moment’s pause. “Just come home,” Caitlin exclaimed. “Yes, okay. I’ll see you then.”

  The call ended and he heard Esme sobbing hysterically. He could only imagine how Esme must be feeling to learn in this way that the child she had raised, the woman sh
e loved as a daughter had been attacked, probably.

  There was tearful conversation and when there was nothing more other than silence, Rhett stepped back into the kitchen. Caitlin stood in Esme’s embrace, her cheeks reddened by her tears and her eyes holding a weariness of spirit that broke his heart.

  “Those animals,” Esmeralda said, her voice thick with anger, with grief. She released a string of Spanish curses. “I would kill those men if they were here in front of me.” She patted Caitlin’s back.

  “I know,” Rhett said. “And I’d be helping you kill them.”

  The grim smile Esmeralda gave him was one of firm approval, as if they were two warriors fighting the same enemy to save a precious princess.

  “Your father is coming home?” he asked.

  Caitlin moved out of Esme’s embrace and nodded her head. “He said he’d be home sometime tomorrow.”

  Rhett wanted to ask her if the man who had raped her had said anything else, but he didn’t want her to know that he’d been listening to her conversation.

  “Everything is going to be fine when Mickey gets home,” Esme said firmly, as if there was no other alternative possible. “We’ll heal from all this and life will soon get back to normal.”

  Of course, Rhett knew that wasn’t true. Nothing was going to get back to normal when Mickey returned home. Rhett was going to rip Mickey away from the daughter who needed him and the woman who loved him. Sometimes his job stank, and this was definitely one of those times.

  The rest of the afternoon passed with the hands of the clock moving agonizingly slow. Caitlin was quiet, withdrawn, and Rhett didn’t attempt to break through the wall she’d put up.

  He needed to get some distance. It was time to start the difficult task of emotionally removing himself from her. He would have liked just once to hear her whisper his name, his real name, while they made love. He would have liked to hang around here until she’d healed completely, but he couldn’t do that to her.

  Tomorrow his real name would be a curse on her lips, she would hate him like she’d never hated before. He’d gotten close to her under false pretenses, lied to her about who he was and what he was doing here.

  What hadn’t been a lie was his desire for her each time he took her into his arms. What hadn’t been a lie was the depth of his feelings for her. But none of that would matter when tomorrow came.

  He’d called his boss to let him know what was going on, then had called the contact number he had for a couple of agents who were holed up nearby waiting for a pickup, to let them know it would occur the next day.

  He was told that nobody had been able to locate the whereabouts of Garrett Simms. It was unknown whether the man was still in the area or not, which kept him as a suspect in the shootings.

  If Rhett couldn’t discount him, then he had to consider that the man might have a score to settle with the O’Donahues. Still, only a coward would go after Caitlin, only a coward would shoot at an unsuspecting woman.

  After a quiet dinner Esme cleared the dishes from the table and then retired to her room, leaving Rhett and Caitlin alone on the sofa in the living room.

  “You’ve been quiet this evening,” he said.

  She offered him a tired smile. “I have a lot on my mind. At least I’m grateful to know my dad is okay. I was really starting to worry that something bad had happened to him.”

  “Did he say where he was?” Maybe the kindest thing would be to pick Mickey up now wherever he was and not allow him to come home at all, not take him here in front of Caitlin and Esmeralda.

  But Rhett knew how badly Caitlin needed to see her father, needed to feel Mickey’s arms around her, and he suspected his idea of picking Mickey up somewhere else wasn’t so much to save Caitlin and Esmeralda from pain, but to lessen his own pain in this whole ordeal.

  “No. I asked where he was, but he said it wasn’t important, that all that was important was that he’d be home sometime tomorrow. The number he called from wasn’t a number I recognized, but I think he said something about buying a new cell phone.”

  An untraceable throwaway, Rhett thought. Mickey hadn’t been stupid enough to call from a phone that could be traced. He obviously knew he was in deep trouble and was doing everything he could to stay under the radar.

  But he had to know he was taking an enormous risk in coming home. The fact that he was willing to take that risk spoke of his enormous love for his daughter.

  “Did he say what time he planned to arrive here?”

  She shook her head. “No, he just said he’d be home at some point tomorrow. And if you don’t mind, I think I’m going to call it a night, too.” She rose from the sofa and Rhett stood, as well. “You’ll be up later?” she asked.

  “Maybe it would be best if I stayed in the guest room,” he said. “I mean, I doubt if your dad would appreciate me sleeping in your bed.” Besides, it felt so wrong, to sleep beside her, to sink into her scent, the warmth of her, knowing that tomorrow he would betray her.

  She smiled tiredly. “Dad knows I’m a big girl. Besides, he’s going to love you, Randall, especially when I tell him how you’ve kept me safe from harm and how you’ve been here for me emotionally through everything.”

  Her words couldn’t have hurt him more if she’d taken a stake and driven it through the center of his heart. “Good night, Caitlin,” he said. She murmured a good-night and then he watched with a heavy heart as she climbed the stairs to her bedroom.

  Once she’d disappeared from his sight he blew a sigh of frustration and returned to the living room. Never had he dreaded a morning like he did now. Never had he considered that the luscious redhead he’d seen get out of her car the day she’d arrived home would get so deeply beneath his skin and into his heart.

  Her smile filled him with warmth, her tears moved him to despair and her courage awed him. If he’d wanted to settle down with one woman again it would be with a woman like Caitlin.

  Of course, that’s the last thing he wanted, he reminded himself. He would never forget the all-consuming grief of losing Rebecca. The scars of that loss were still deep in his soul. He refused to consider loving that deeply again.

  Too restless to sit still, he moved to the window and stared outside where shadows of dusk would soon deepen to night. Suddenly he needed to be out of the house. Besides, he wanted to check on Molly one last time before he left this place for good.

  He stepped outside and carefully locked the door behind him and reengaged the security system. He had a key to get back inside and knew the security code and was confident Caitlin would be safe with the door locked and him at the small corral.

  He took a deep breath of the cool night air and wondered how long it would take for his head to empty of Caitlin’s sweet scent. How long would he miss the sound of her voice? The feel of her warm curves snuggled against him as he fell asleep?

  She was the last thing he’d expected, the last thing he’d wanted in his life. He’d vowed after he’d lost Rebecca that he’d never care about anyone that deeply again. He’d never wanted to feel that kind of grief again, but Caitlin had found her way into his heart.

  “Hey, girl,” he said softly as he approached the corral. Molly’s ears pricked up and to Rhett’s surprise the horse took a couple of steps toward him and then stopped. No matter how much Rhett cajoled the horse refused to come any closer.

  But those couple of steps Molly had taken in his direction warmed his heart. If he’d only had more time here he was confident he would have had Molly taking apple slices from his hand. He could have worked with her until she trusted humans again.

  He walked over to the foreman’s cabin and sat on the small porch and his gaze went to the house, to the window of Caitlin’s bedroom.

  He knew now that like Molly, Caitlin had been traumatized and it was going to take time and a very special man for her to completely trust again.

  You could be that man, a little voice whispered in his head. With enough time he could help Caitlin through the t
rauma she’d endured, help make her whole again. She was already making great strides to healing and there was a part of him that wished he could be here to see her whole and completely healthy again.

  He hoped she would find a man who could love her the way she deserved to be loved, a man who would be patient and understanding. He wanted her to have her practice and her ranch. He wanted her to have the children he’d once wanted. Dammit, he wanted her happiness and, as he thought of the morning to come, his heart grew heavy.

  He remained seated on the porch while night fell completely and the only illumination was a silvery cast of moonlight that gave the grounds a ghostly appearance.

  His thoughts were troubled. For the first time since Rebecca’s death he questioned the path he’d taken in life. There was no question that he’d drifted into his current occupation and there was no question that he’d loved the work he’d done here at the ranch.

  He’d told Caitlin the truth when he’d said he’d never considered owning his own ranch again, but there had been a little piece inside him that had come alive with the thought.

  It was getting late and he knew he should go back inside, but he was reluctant to go back into the house, to crawl into bed next to the woman who would hate him by this time tomorrow night.

  Still, he couldn’t stay out here all night. It was possible Mickey would show up quite early in the morning. He started to rise and then froze as something caught his attention at the side of the house.

  A moving shadow?

  A figment of his imagination?

  His breathing went shallow as he reached down to grab his gun from his ankle holster. Had he seen somebody? He wasn’t sure. Maybe it had been nothing more than a dancing shadow made from the night breeze that stirred the nearby trees, but whatever it was, he intended to investigate.

  He moved silently, hugging the deeper shadows as he made his way toward the house. His heart began an unsteady rhythm as adrenaline flooded his system.

  When he reached the front corner, he gripped his gun firmly with both hands and turned to gaze down the side of the house.