The Rancher's Hired Fiancee

by Judy Duarte

  “Since you won’t be leaving until mid-August,” Margo continued, “maybe you’d like to help with the high school dance recital. It’s on the last Saturday in July. I’m sure the young people would love to have some advice from a pro.”

  Had Catherine told Mary that she was a dancer? And a professional? Or had Selena Ramirez spread the word?

  Ray supposed it was okay that the news was out, but something told him they’d better go over their story again so they didn’t get mixed up and tell on themselves.

  “I’d love to work with the kids,” Catherine said.

  Now, wait a minute. Catherine was working for him. How was she going to schedule practices at the high school when he might have need of her? And what if…

  Well, what if she decided to stick around in Brighton Valley indefinitely? What would happen when he decided to end…her employment?

  Of course, that could become a problem whether she started volunteering in the community or not.

  Catherine placed a hand on his arm. “You don’t mind, do you, honey?”

  Had she read something in his expression? If so, he hadn’t wanted anyone to know he was a little uneasy about their future together in Brighton Valley.

  “Of course I don’t mind,” he said.

  The women chatted a moment longer, then Margo handed Catherine a business card with her contact information. “Give me a call sometime tomorrow, and I’ll schedule a meeting between you and the dance teacher at the high school.”

  At that point, Ray decided it was time to cut out. Who knew what else Margo had up her sleeve or what she might try to rope his pretty fiancée into?

  “Are you ready to go home?” he asked Catherine.

  “Yes, I am.” Then she slipped her arm through his and said goodbye to Margo.

  Five minutes later they were in his Cadillac Escalade and headed back to his apartment.

  “Something tells me you didn’t want me to volunteer to work with the dance recital,” she said.

  “It just took me by surprise, that’s all.”

  “Why?”

  He glanced across the seat and saw her studying him, her brow furrowed.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I’d hate to see you get more involved with the locals than you have to.”

  “Actually, I’d love to work with the kids. It will be a way for me to pay it forward.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  After a beat, she said, “I grew up in a family that was both large and dysfunctional. Music was my escape from the noise and hubbub. I would have loved to have taken dance or piano lessons when I was a child, but my dad was chronically unemployed, and my mom used to spend her extra cash on beer and cigarettes for the two of them. So there wasn’t any money available for the extras.”

  “So how’d you become a dancer?”

  “In high school, I chose every music, dance or drama class I could fit into my schedule. The teachers insisted I had a natural talent, and after a while I began to believe them. I also knew that an education was my way out of the small town where we lived, so I studied hard and landed a scholarship at a small liberal arts college in the Midwest.”

  “And from there you decided to go to New York?”

  “In a way. I met Jenn Walker at college, and she insisted that we try our luck on Broadway. But it was Miss Hankin, my high school dance teacher, and Mr. Pretz, the choral director, who convinced me that I could actually have a career doing what I loved.”

  So that’s what she meant by paying it forward. She wanted to encourage other talented students to reach for their dreams. He had to admire that, he supposed.

  “Do you miss it?” he asked. “Being on Broadway?”

  “Yes, although I was ready for a break.”

  Dan had mentioned that she was recovering from a bad relationship. And now that Ray knew her better, he was curious about the details. And about the guy who’d broken her heart.

  “Why did you need to get away?” he asked.

  She paused for the longest while, then said, “The man I was involved with turned out to be a jerk. So I wanted to distance myself for a while.”

  “From him?”

  “And from everything that reminded me of him.”

  She didn’t say any more, and he didn’t want to pry. After all, he’d had his own ways of shutting Heather out of his life after their split. So who was he to criticize someone else’s way of dealing with a bad and painful situation?

  After he pulled into the parking lot in back of the drugstore, he found a space and turned off the ignition.

  When Catherine reached for the handle to let herself out, he said, “Hold on. I’ll get it for you.” Then he slid out from behind the wheel, went around to the passenger side and opened the door for her.

  “I could have gotten it,” she said. “There’s no one around who’d see me do it.”

  “We don’t need an audience for me to be polite.”

  She graced him with a moonlit smile. “Then thank you.”

  A shade in one of the upstairs windows opened, letting a soft light pour out from the apartment over Caroline’s Diner.

  Apparently they weren’t entirely alone and unnoticed.

  As they started back across the dimly lit parking lot, Catherine’s ankle wobbled, and she reached for Ray to steady herself.

  As her fingers pressed into his forearm, setting off a surge of hormones in his bloodstream, he asked, “Are you okay?”

  “Yes. I stepped in an uneven spot and lost my balance.”

  “Those high heels look great on you, but it’s got to be tough walking in them, especially out here.”

  “Yes, it is.” Still gripping his arm, she looked up at him. And as she did so, their gazes met—and held.

  There it went again, that rush of attraction. And while he knew whatever they were feeling for each other was purely sexual, he couldn’t help basking in it longer than was wise.

  Then, as one heartbeat lapsed into a second and a third, he reached for her waist.

  “We’ve got an audience,” he whispered, making an excuse to hold her, to draw her close.

  He doubted that was really the case, though. But he didn’t care. All he wanted to do right this moment was to extend the act they’d been playing a little while longer. To push for just a bit more of that heated rush.

  To maybe even push for another brief kiss…

  As his blood began to race, he didn’t think one that was brief would be quite enough.

  Besides, he told himself, a kiss from Catherine, albeit a phony one, just might help him forget all the crap Heather had put him through.

  Oh, what the heck. Who was he trying to kid? He wanted to kiss Catherine senseless—even if he’d pay for it later.

  So he lowered his mouth to hers.

  Chapter Four

  The last thing Catherine expected this evening was for Ray to kiss her goodbye while they stood in the parking lot behind his apartment.

  Not that she minded.

  In fact, as she stepped right into his arms, her heart raced in anticipation as if she’d been waiting all evening to get her hands on him.

  And maybe, somewhere deep inside, that’s just what she’d been doing, because the moment their lips touched, the kiss, which she assumed was also a thank you for a job well done, intensified.

  As tongues met, their breaths caught and desire sparked, turning something that began tender and sweet into something heated and sexual.

  Before long, Catherine wasn’t so sure who ought to be thanking or praising whom.

  In fact, right this moment, all she wanted to do was to kiss Ray back and let nature run its course. And if truth be known, she wasn’t doing this for the benefit of any neighbors who might be watching.

  No, her motive was a bit more selfish than that.

  Over the years, she’d kissed quite a few men—most of them her costars on stage. And not a single one of those kisses had come anywhere near to moving her as much as Ray’s did
.

  She supposed this was a nice perk that went along with the job she’d been hired to do.

  As the kiss ended, Ray placed a hand on her cheek. “You were great tonight.”

  He’d been great, too—especially right now.

  Somehow, she managed an unaffected smile. She’d planned to thank him and tell him it had been easy, yet as his gaze settled on hers and his fingers trailed along her cheek, she found it difficult to speak.

  On the other hand, his eyes were speaking volumes to her—if she could trust them. Maybe she was misreading something that was merely appreciation for affection.

  The acting was over for tonight, wasn’t it?

  Sometimes, when she really got into a role, she became the character she portrayed. Is that what was happening now? Had she actually become Mendez’s fiancée for the past couple of hours?

  If so, she’d better shake that role on her drive back to the ranch.

  “Well,” she said, finding the words to segue back to reality. “I guess I’d better go. I don’t want Dan and Eva worrying about me.”

  “I hate to have you drive back to the ranch this late at night. The road isn’t well lit, and some of those curves are tough to make in the daylight.”

  So what was he suggesting?

  “You’re more than welcome to stay in town with me,” he added. “We can call the Walkers and tell them you’ll be bringing the car back in the morning.”

  He wanted her to spend the night with him? She probably ought to be a little concerned by his expectations, yet she didn’t find the idea of a sleepover all that out of line. And she wasn’t sure why.

  The kiss maybe? The temptation to see where another one might lead?

  No, she needed to keep things a little more professional than that.

  “Thanks for the offer,” she said, “but I think I can make the drive without any problems. If I’d had more to drink than club soda, I might take you up on it.”

  Still, in spite of the decision she’d made, Catherine knew it wouldn’t take much of an argument from Ray for her to call Eva and tell her there’d been a change of plans. Her knees were still wobbly from the kiss. And the chemistry the two of them shared—on or off the stage—promised to be explosive.

  “Just for the record,” he added. “I’ll sleep on the sofa and you can have the bed.”

  “That’s tempting,” she admitted. And not only because she was tired and didn’t want to make the drive back to the ranch.

  “Then what’s holding you back?”

  The truth? Not trusting herself when her senses were still reeling from that last kiss.

  Instead, she said, “I don’t like to change plans after they’ve been made, but I’ll keep your offer in mind next time—assuming there’ll be another event we need to attend together.”

  “It’s going to take more than a couple of sightings for people to realize I’m engaged.”

  He was probably right.

  “So what’s next on the agenda?” she asked.

  “How about lunch tomorrow? We can meet at City Hall around noon, then walk a couple of blocks to an Italian restaurant that just opened up. The owner’s grandfather is a member of the city council, and I’d like to be supportive of a new local business endeavor.”

  “All right. I’ll see you then.”

  She started toward the parked minivan, and Ray followed. When she reached the driver’s door, he placed his hand on her shoulder. She turned, and as their eyes met, she sensed another goodbye kiss coming her way.

  “Just in case someone’s watching from one of the apartment windows,” he said, as he slipped his arms around her.

  Yet as their lips met, she had a feeling he would have kissed her a second time tonight, even if no one was looking down at them.

  And if that had been the case, she would have let him.

  The chemistry between them was much stronger than she’d anticipated, which might prove to be a real problem for her in the very near future.

  The handsome Brighton Valley mayor was paying her to keep the single women at bay—not to join their ranks.

  * * *

  Sofia, one of the younger Walker twins, had awakened with an earache. So Eva had needed her car to drive the child to the pediatrician, which meant Catherine’s only mode of transportation was one of the ranch pickups.

  So, after getting directions to the Brighton Valley City Hall, an ornate brick building that the town fathers had built nearly a hundred years ago, Catherine drove into town to meet Ray for lunch.

  As the beat-up old pickup chugged down Main Street, past Caroline’s Diner and the other quaint little shops, Catherine held tight to the steering wheel, looking for town square and the public parking lot Dan had told her about.

  Sure enough, it was right where he’d told her it would be. Once she’d found the automatic dispenser and paid for the two-hour minimum, she took the ticket back to the pickup. Then she crossed the street, entered the hundred-year-old brick building and made her way to a reception desk, where a middle-age woman with graying hair sat.

  “Can I help you?” the woman asked.

  Catherine offered a friendly smile. “I’m here to see Ray Mendez.”

  The woman’s pleasant expression faded. “Do you have an appointment?”

  “Not exactly. I came to have lunch with him.”

  “You don’t say.” The woman arched a brow, as if she found that hard to believe. “I’m not sure if he’s available. I’ll have to give him a call.”

  Did she treat every visitor this way?

  Catherine crossed her arms and shifted her weight to one hip. “Tell him that Catherine Loza is here.”

  The woman lifted the telephone from its receiver, then pushed an intercom button. When someone on the other end answered, she brightened. “Hello, Mayor. It’s Millie. There’s a young woman named Catherine here to see you.”

  Millie’s smile faded, and her eyes widened.

  “Your…fiancée?” She took another gander at Catherine, her expression softening. “Of course. I’ll tell her you’ll be right down.”

  Millie hung up the phone, then offered Catherine a sheepish grin. “I’m so sorry, Ms. Loza. It’s just that I had no idea he… That you…”

  “That’s okay.” Catherine lifted her left hand and flashed the diamond. “We haven’t told many people yet.”

  “Still, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude. It’s just that I was asked to screen his calls and his visitors.”

  “I understand,” Catherine said, realizing that Ray hadn’t been exaggerating when he’d said the single women in town were making it difficult for him to get any work done.

  Millie pointed to a row of chairs near her desk. “You can have a seat, if you’d like. But he said he’d be right down.”

  “Thank you.”

  Within moments Ray came sauntering down the hall, a dazzling smile stretched across his face. “Hi, honey. Did you have any trouble finding the place?”

  “No, not at all.”

  They kissed briefly in greeting, then Ray turned to the receptionist and said, “Thanks, Millie. I see you met Catherine. What do you think?”

  “I think the local girls are going to be brokenhearted, especially when they realize they can’t compete with the future Mrs. Mendez.” Millie chuckled. “And once word gets out, it’ll make my job easier. Now I won’t have to stretch the truth and come up with excuses for you anymore.”

  “I guess my engagement is a win-win for all of us.” Ray placed a hand on Catherine’s back. “Are you ready to go, honey?”

  “Whenever you are.”

  Ray took her by the hand, and after a two-block walk, they crossed the street to a small restaurant that offered curbside dining under the shade of a black awning.

  “It’s a nice day,” Ray said. “Why don’t we sit outside?”

  “That sounds good to me.”

  After Ray told the hostess their preference, they were led to a linen-draped table and handed m
enus.

  Ray held Catherine’s chair as she took her seat. Then he sat across from her.

  “I heard the manicotti was pretty good,” he said.

  Catherine scanned the menu, tempted to choose the pasta, but knowing she didn’t need the carbs when she wasn’t having regular workouts each day.

  “What looks good to you?” Ray asked.

  “I’d like the vegetarian antipasto salad—the oil and vinegar on the side. And a glass of water with lemon.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Yes, but I might try to steal a bite of whatever you’re having—as long as it’s high in carbs and covered in cheese.”

  He tossed her a boyish grin. “Be my guest.”

  Fifteen minutes later, after several of the townspeople stopped to say hello to the mayor and were pleasantly surprised to meet his “future bride,” the waiter brought out their meals.

  “Can I get you anything else?” the young man asked.

  “No, this is fine for now.” Ray glanced down at the lasagna he’d ordered. “I had no idea the servings would be this large. I’ll give you half of it.”

  “Oh, no you don’t. I just want a taste.”

  Ray cut off a good size chunk anyway, placed it on a bread plate, then passed it to her.

  It was, she decided, just the kind of thing that lovers and friends did while eating. Yet she hadn’t given their roles any thought when she’d asked to sample his meal.

  Were they becoming friends?

  Before she would even risk pondering the idea of them ever becoming lovers, she asked, “Do you have anything special on the calendar this week?”

  “There’s a community barbecue in the town square on Saturday afternoon. Besides having the best rib eye you’ve ever tasted, they’ll have a pie-eating contest and a line-dance competition.”

  That sounded like fun. “What’s the dress code?”

  “I suppose you’d call it country casual, with denim being the only requirement.”

  “I can handle that.” Catherine cut into the lasagna Ray had given her with a fork and took a bite. The minute it hit her mouth, she wished she’d agreed to split their meals.

  “Do you have any Western boots?” Ray asked.