The Ranch Stud

by Cathy Gillen Thacker

  This did not seem to surprise him. “Because of the closeness we’ve already achieved,” he guessed.

  And the fact I’m still not sure I can trust you. “Yes.”

  His eyes darkened with turbulent emotion. “What if we’ve already made a baby?”

  Then part of me will rejoice, and the other part will be scared to death. Careful to keep her emotions under wraps lest she become even more vulnerable where he was concerned, she replied, “If I am pregnant—” as we both suspect I might be “—then it becomes a lot more complicated.”

  “To the point where you are going to need me,” he said firmly as the timer on the iron went off, signaling the waffles were done.

  As she watched him tend to their supper, Patience wondered how she could have thought, even for a second, that Josh and Alec were the same man. When it came right down to it, the two were nothing alike. And it was more than just their looks or their physiques. Josh understood things about her that Alec never would have. Josh went after things with a ruthless singlemindedness that Alec had just not possessed.

  As they sat down to eat, she told Josh bluntly, “We can’t get married just because I might be pregnant. Or even because we both want to have a child.”

  He inclined his head in obvious disagreement and pinned her with a look. “I’ve heard worse reasons for couples getting together.”

  Patience took a bite of her waffle. “We’re not other couples. We’re us. And we’ve been foolish, Josh,” she said with a weary sigh. “Very foolish.”

  He lifted his gaze to hers. “Nevertheless, every child needs two parents whenever possible. And we’ll find a way to work it out,” he said with a quiet confidence that implied that together they could handle anything that came their way. “Whether we are married or not, or lovers or not.” He covered her hand with his own. “We’ll do it for our baby.”

  His comments hit home, forcing Patience to think about how hard it had been for her when her parents had died in the earthquake. Uncle Max had done his best, and he had filled her father’s shoes admirably, but he had never been able to do the things her mother would have done for them.

  Her brothers had seemed to cope with that better than she had, maybe because they were guys. But she had suffered from the lack of feminine advice on a variety of subjects and privately felt her broken engagement to Alec was proof of that.

  “Well?” Josh prodded as she looked down at their entwined fingers.

  Deep down, Patience realized she would not want to deprive her baby of a father any more than she wanted to deprive herself of a baby.

  His confidence in them as a couple was catching. A slow smile spread across her face. “Well, Uncle Max did advise me to dance with the one who brung me,” Patience said, grinning.

  “He advised us both that,” Josh concurred.

  Which meant they should appreciate the one they were with, in this case each other, Patience thought, instead of always wishing for what once was or could have been. Hadn’t she done that for too many years already?

  Josh pushed back his chair. “So maybe we should throw caution to the wind this once and follow Max’s wishes for us.” Taking her hand, he tugged her to her feet and drew her into his arms.

  “And do what?” Patience asked as Josh’s lips lowered slowly, inexorably to hers.

  “Make a go of it,” he said, kissing her deeply. “Not just for now, but forever.”

  PATIENCE CLUNG TO JOSH as he carried her up the stairs and into the master bedroom. “Feeling a little reckless tonight?” she teased as he lowered her gently to the mattress and followed her down onto the rumpled covers of the bed. She had to admit she was glad he was. For she was feeling reckless, too.

  He unbuttoned her blouse at record speed. His eyes were dark with love and longing. And though he hadn’t yet said the words to her—might never say the words— she felt them in her heart. “You inspire me,” he murmured, exploring the curves of her breasts with his lips and hands, then he straightened so Patience could help him off with his shirt, too.

  Her heart racing, she smoothed her hands across the brawny width of his shoulders and down his muscular chest. Smart or not, she found him irresistible. “Truth be told,” she said softly, “you inspire me, too.”

  Together, they kicked off their jeans. Patience was filled with the warmth of anticipation. “We’re dangerous together.”

  “It would seem so,” Josh murmured as they helped each other dispense with their remaining clothing. When they were naked, he took her into his arms and rolled so she was beneath him. With both hands, he brushed the hair from her face. “Regrets?”

  “No,” she whispered, meaning it with all her heart even as she marveled over the wonder of finding him at all. “Well,” she amended mischievously after a moment as he worked his way down her throat, past her collarbone to the curve of her breast, “maybe one.”

  Stunned, Josh lifted his head. Seeing she was teasing, he grinned. “What?”

  Patience smiled as she rested her hands on his shoulders, then worked them all the way down his chest; she loved the smoothness of his skin beneath the mat of dark, downy hair. “That we didn’t get around to this sooner. Think of all the time we wasted.”

  “Hmmm.” Josh went back to nuzzling her neck with single-minded devotion, tantalizing deftly even as he explored. “A whole…what was it…twenty-two hours?”

  “Something like that, yes.” Patience gasped and arched her back as his teeth worried the sensitive lobe of her ear. She wanted to learn and experience every inch of him. She wanted him in her life. And she knew, if they tried hard enough, they could find a way to make everything work. And she sensed he knew it, too.

  He warned, only half teasing, “We’re going to have to make up for the lost time, you know.” Then he kissed her again, deeply, reverently this time, until she was weak with longing, dizzy with desire.

  Patience trembled as he slid a hand between her legs and found her sensitive core. She wanted him across her, covering her with his heat and his weight. “I know,” she said as she closed her hand around him, all of her waiting for all of him. She pressed herself close and touched her lips to his, whispering, “I’m looking forward to it.”

  PATIENCE SNUGGLED against Josh as the storm continued to rage outside. “What are you thinking?” He stroked her hair tenderly.

  Enveloped in the warmth of him, her body still humming contentedly with the aftershocks of their lovemaking, Patience cuddled close. It was odd. Many of her questions were still unanswered, but she had never been happier than she was at that moment. She had the feeling Josh felt that way, too. “That no one has ever been able to make me feel the way you do.” That for the first time in my life I am so close to having everything I’ve ever dreamed of having.

  Josh pressed a kiss on her temple and stroked a questing hand toward her back. Murmuring her pleasure, she surged against him, the softness of her body sliding across the hardness of his. She felt the response of his body and knew he wanted to make love to her again. “You are one incredible woman, Patience McKendrick,” he said softly.

  They kissed again, only to be interrupted by a brilliant flash of light and, one second later, a deafening clap of thunder that made them both jump. Patience shuddered as they drew apart. “Gosh, that was close!” she said.

  Another flash of lightning followed. Only this time as the thunder roared, the lights went out and stayed out.

  WITHOUT POWER, the house was pitch-black and deadly silent, except for the staccato sound of the rain pounding against the roof and windows.

  Swearing about the occasional inconveniences of living so far out in the country and having aboveground utilities to boot, Patience reached across Josh, groping for the phone. She pulled it into bed, punched in a few buttons, then held it to her ear. Immediately, she muttered her displeasure. “Problem?” Josh asked as Patience grappled with the bedside table and came up with a flashlight, which she immediately switched on.

  “The phone i
s dead, too. Since we have aboveground utilities this far out, when the electricity gets knocked out by a storm, often the phone service does, as well. Naturally, that makes it a little hard to report it, especially since our cell phone won’t work in storms, either.”

  “We’ve got a shortwave radio out in the ranch office next to the barns,” Josh suggested. He peered out the window. In the distance, he could see people coming out of the bunkhouse, flashlights in hand. He was already reaching for his jeans. “I’ll go ask one of the hired hands to notify the power and phone companies that our lines are down.” Pausing long enough to kiss her, he reasoned, “Good thing we have one more thirty-minute break left.”

  Patience started to get up. “I can go with you.”

  “No. It’s best you stay here,” Josh said. “There’s no use both of us getting soaked to the skin and the rain is still coming down pretty hard, and at an angle.” He whistled for Goldie. She came running.

  “Stay with Patience,” he instructed his dog. He turned to Patience. “She’ll watch over you.”

  Patience smiled, snuggling deeper under the covers. “Or vice versa.”

  Josh grabbed his hat and jacket and headed out the door. No sooner had he shut the front door behind him than someone came out of the shadows. She had a long yellow rain slicker on, the kind all the ranchers wore. The collar was pulled up against her face, the Stetson low across her brow. He still recognized her immediately. It wasn’t a good feeling, knowing she had used this opportunity to see him.

  “Holly.”

  She stepped beneath the overhang. “We need to talk.” She glanced furtively at the house. “Where is Patience?”

  “Inside.” And Josh thanked his lucky stars for that.

  “Any chance of her coming down to join us?” Holly demanded, darting another look at the still, dark house.

  Josh thought of Patience snuggled beneath the covers upstairs, sleepy and replete from their lovemaking. Lovemaking he wanted nothing more than to continue throughout the night. “No, she will not come down here.” With a scowl, he demanded irritably, “What are you doing out here?” Holly’s showing up like this, shadowing him constantly, reminded him of the days he had lived with her. No matter how much everyone had told him it was for his own good, he had still felt like a prisoner then, and he was beginning to feel imprisoned now, both by his memories and all he couldn’t and would not ever share with Patience.

  “Three guesses,” Holly said with a disgruntled sigh that let him know this was not her choice, either. And suddenly Josh knew. Patience had been in her study a long time earlier this evening, and not just with her brother Cody, who had dropped by at one point for a brief, private chat.

  “Patience did something?”

  “You might say that,” Holly replied sourly, pulling the brim of her rain-soaked hat even lower across her brow. “She E-mailed a request for information on the death of Alec Vaughn, his father and anything on mob activity in the Yale area at the same time. Fortunately, we were able to intercept her request before it reached her newspaper data bank, but we figure it’s only a matter of time before she checks her computer again and figures out that the request was not received.”

  “Or figures out she’s looking at mob activity in the wrong area of the country,” Josh theorized grimly.

  “That, too.”

  “Oh, and one other thing. She decided to investigate me, too,” Holly stated unhappily.

  Josh swore silently. He had been afraid of this. Patience was as curious as the day was long. Worse, she was a journalist, which meant she knew how to research and had the resources to do so. “What do you want me to do?” he asked gruffly.

  Holly winced as the wind picked up to even stronger gusts. “I want you to either get Patience McKendrick to back off, or move on.”

  “Some choice,” Josh scoffed. “I can tell Patience everything and put her in permanent danger, or I can leave inexplicably and break her heart, in which case she would probably never recover, marry, or have a child.” He couldn’t bear to see that happen.

  Holly folded her arms in front of her and fumed. “I warned you not to come here, Josh. I told you it could only lead to heartbreak, yours and hers.”

  Josh stared at the lightning flashing across the sky. The storm seemed to be reaching behemoth heights, he thought as the next clap of thunder reverberated loudly throughout the black night sky. “You know why I had to do it,” he said tersely. It had been the only way either he or Patience would ever have had any peace. It was the only way to put Alec’s death and disappearance from her life behind them.

  “I know,” Holly said, for a moment looking almost sympathetic to his plight. “I even understand, Josh, but that doesn’t change anything. You still have a choice to make. And like it or not, it has to be made now, before any more damage is done.”

  PATIENCE WAS DRESSED by the time Josh came back inside. Flashlight in hand, she had been getting ready to go out and look for him. It was good she hadn’t had to go, she thought, because he was drenched to the skin. “Did you get on the shortwave and request to have the power and phone service restored?” She grabbed a towel from the upstairs linen closet and gently blotted the moisture dripping from his hair onto his face and neck.

  Josh shook his head, his expression so grim it alarmed her. “Not yet,” he said quietly as her heart skipped a beat.

  Patience swallowed. “Then what were you doing all this time?” she asked.

  Josh shrugged, looking for a moment as if he didn’t even know where to begin.

  Patience’s inner warning system went on red alert. “What is it?” she asked softly. “Josh, you can tell me anything.”

  He hesitated in the act of unbuttoning his soaked western shirt.

  Patience began to get even more scared. “Josh—”

  He laid a hand across her shoulder. “We have to talk.”

  Patience began to help him with his shirt. “Okay, but first let’s get you out of these clothes.”

  “No,” Josh said in a voice that was so unexpectedly harsh it alarmed her. He turned tortured eyes to hers. “I have to say this and get it over with.”

  Patience’s stomach knotted up. “Okay.”

  “You know it’s been years since I’ve let myself get really close to anyone.”

  She nodded, panicking inwardly, but said calmly, “I gathered as much.”

  He swallowed. “There’s a reason I haven’t been able to be completely honest with you.”

  Patience was beginning to think that maybe she did not want to hear this from him. “So what are you telling me?” she joked lamely. “That you’re some sort of federal agent here on a sting operation?”

  To her surprise, Josh winced. “Not exactly.”

  At the seriousness in his low tone, the laughter vanished from her eyes, the happiness from her heart. And suddenly she knew that whatever he was, he was not a law officer. “Josh—”

  He held up a hand, stopping her before she could go on. “I haven’t committed a crime,” he told her soberly. “So you needn’t worry about that.”

  Patience gave a shaky sigh of relief. “That’s good to hear.”

  Josh wrapped a comforting arm around her shoulders. “Everything I’ve done, I’ve done to protect you. I didn’t want you to carry the burden of fear and tension I’ve carried all these years and am just now beginning to shed.”

  “That’s good, too,” she murmured, unable to shake the feeling that whatever it was he was about to tell her could easily destroy them both.

  Before Josh could say anything else, another flash of lightning forked across the sky, accompanied by a simultaneous crack of thunder so loud it had them both starting and instinctively ducking for cover. When they rose slowly and looked out the window, they saw it wasn’t the studio that had been hit but the foaling barn housing Mandy and her newborn foal, Impatience.

  FLAMES CRACKLED from the top of the barn, undiminished by the pouring rain. Fear raced through Patience. “Josh, that�
�s the barn where Mandy and her foal are!” she cried.

  “I’ll get them out.”

  With no regard for his own safety, he dashed across the yard in the pouring rain, Patience hard on his heels. Acrid smoke rolled from the jagged opening in the roof of the barn. The sounds of the mares and foals whinnying in terror filled the barn. In the distance, the hands were beginning to straggle out of the bunkhouse. Patience and Josh were much closer.

  “Stay outside! I’ll go in,” Josh said as the entire roof of the foaling barn caught and flamed.

  “No! We’ll never get all the mares and their foals out if I don’t help!” Patience pushed past Josh’s restraining arm, and, head down, stormed deeper into the barn.

  Together, they reached Mandy’s stall. Impatience was at the rear, cowering and mewling in terror. Mandy was kicking furiously at the front, trying to break through the wood.

  Josh used calming words to put her at ease as red-hot cinders poured down on them from overhead. He unlatched the stall. Mandy came barreling out, then reared again, whinnying in terror.

  Josh caught her by the bridle, and covering her eyes with a cloth, he jerked her toward the entrance of the barn. As Mandy headed toward the exit, Patience took over while Josh went back to get the quivering foal. Coughing and choking on the smoke, he gathered the foal up into his arms and followed Patience and Mandy out of the barn.

  Again and again, they went back inside. The hands raced to join them. Finally, all the animals were outjust as the sides of the barn were swept into the flames.

  IT WAS A GOOD TWO HOURS before they were sure all the fires were out. And though they were fortunate enough to get all their horses out intact, in the interim, five of the ten barns had caught fire, too, and suffered some sort of damage.

  Soaring Eagle and the hired hands helped Josh and Patience resettle all the horses in new quarters. Exhausted, Patience and Josh returned to the main house. Both were drenched, exhausted and covered with soot.