Accidental Heiress

by Lauren Nichols

  “No problem,” she murmured, unreasonably hurt by his impersonal, businesslike tone. Maybe he was just tired, she thought, hating the fact that she needed to justify his rudeness.

  Although, now that she thought about it, his being tired didn’t make sense, since he’d turned in early last night. He’d been only fifteen minutes behind her, coming upstairs right after Ross left. But then, had he actually gone to bed?

  Casey frowned, searching her mind for a vague memory that skittered away even as it seemed to call to her. Something about Jess and...his not getting much sleep? Yes, that was it. He’d left his room sometime last night and driven off. That could account for his grumpy mood this morning, couldn’t it?

  She glanced over at him, wanting to ask about his midnight wanderings—where he had gone, and why. But a tiny voice warned her that, given his current mood, she’d be asking for trouble if she brought up the subject. A few minutes later, Jess finished his breakfast, rinsed his plate at the sink and, with a brief nod, walked back to the den.

  Great. Just great.

  Rising, Casey tossed the remains of her meal in the trash, part of her failing appetite the early hour, part of it Jess’s attitude. She hadn’t expected him to plop a tiara on her head and hand her a bouquet of roses, but a little gratitude for all she’d done might have been nice. The unappreciative jerk.

  So if she thought him so ungrateful, so undeserving of her efforts, why was she on her way to pack him a lunch, since he’d be gone all day? And why did she want his approval so badly?

  When Jess returned a few minutes later, Casey was putting a stack of sandwiches, fruit, and a thermos of black coffee into the cloth sack he’d used for their lunch yesterday. “I thought you might want some food, if you’re going to be gone for a while,” she said, dredging up a smile and taking one last shot at harmony. “It’s ham and cheese again. I wasn’t sure if peanut butter and jelly was anything you’d want, so—”

  Casey blanched as Jess brushed past her, strode to the key hooks beside the back door and swore a blue streak under his breath.

  “What?” she finally shouted, sick to death of his miserable mood, and hating the sting of tears behind her eyes.

  Jess whirled from the doorway. “I can’t find my keys!”

  “Well, yell about it!” she shouted right back. “That’ll get them into your hands a lot faster.”

  Jess strode out of the kitchen, yanked his denim jacket from the clothes tree and pulled it on. They both heard the unmistakable jingle of keys at the same time. His sullen expression faded only marginally as he snatched them from his pocket and grabbed his hat from the low hutch. Clumping to the door, he jammed the black Stet son on his head.

  Casey grabbed his lunch and tore after him, boiling-mad. She threw the bag on the hutch. “What’s wrong with you? Why are you acting like this?”

  “Like what?”

  “You know what!”

  “I already told you—I couldn’t find my keys. They’re always on the hook beside the back door, then they weren’t, and I got ticked, okay?”

  “No, it is not okay, because that’s not why you’re angry! Nobody gets this crazy over missing keys.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really. I don’t know what sin I’ve committed, but suddenly I’m the enemy again and I want to know why. Did I usurp your position in the kitchen? Did I make myself too ‘at home’? Did I put too much pepper in the eggs? Dammit, Jess, last night we were making some headway.”

  “That was last night, this is this morning. As for why, think about it. My brother—my only living relative, other than my aunt Ruby—is staying at the bunkhouse, I’m in debt up to my butt, and you’re humming and flitting around like June Cleaver after a big night with Ward. Well, sorry. I know it’s not your fault, but if it weren’t for you, my life would be a whole lot simpler.”

  “Wrong. You’d still have a brother who gambles without a thought for the consequences, and you’d be giving this spiteful little speech to someone else. We both know if Ross hadn’t borrowed the money from Dane, he’d have found it elsewhere.”

  Glaring, dark eyes churning with the very readable desire to throttle her, Jess yanked the door open. “What gives with you? One minute you’re a timid little mouse who’s embarrassed to admit she uses the bathroom like everyone else on this planet—the next you’re tearing into me like a steer on the prod. Who the hell are you?”

  Casey glared back defiantly. “I’m whoever I need to be to get through the next three months with you. Now do you want the lunch I packed for you or not?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.”

  In three long strides, Jess was at the hutch, Casey dogging his footsteps. He whirled on her. “Something else you want to get off your chest?”

  “Yes. I’d like an appropriate thank-you for cooking your breakfast.”

  Jess’s disbelieving gaze met hers. “You want an appropriate—?” He threw an agitated hand in the air. “Well, golly gee, what would Ward Cleaver do?”

  Jess yanked her into his arms, molding her so tightly to his body that she could scarcely breathe as his mouth came down on hers in a hard, quick kiss that had her so shocked she barely had time to react until it was over. Then, suddenly, it was over, and he was yelling, “Thank you!” and grabbing his lunch and striding out the door.

  Casey stood frozen to the spot, still so stunned by his actions that she could barely think straight. She released a long, shaky breath. Only now were the sensations her brain had picked up during the kiss beginning to register. The smells of saddle leather and hay that clung to his denim jacket...the faint taste of coffee...the strong, almost incapacitating way he’d pulled her up tightly against him and held her there.

  A peculiar airy sensation fluttered below her navel, and Casey pressed a quick hand to her stomach to stop it. Amazingly, she hadn’t been frightened. Startled, absolutely—but not frightened. There’d never been a millisecond when she was in his arms that she feared his anger would push him into doing more.

  Tugging the top of her navy jogging suit back down over her hips, Casey walked numbly into the kitchen to start the breakfast dishes. All the while wondering if that kiss had happened because he was tired and ornery and she’d pushed him too far...or because he wanted to do it.

  How could he have been such an idiot?

  The question had battered him all day long. Jess squinted into the late-afternoon sun as he took the cutting horse through its paces, pointing the buckskin gelding at the steer he’d chosen, then letting the horse work the cut. A hundred yards away, Ross held the other cattle they’d chosen for auction in a tight little herd.

  Dammit all, that kiss wasn’t supposed to happen. Especially after yesterday, when he’d lost his mind and used sunburn as an excuse to touch her hair and hands. After that asinine move, he’d promised himself he wouldn’t lay a finger on her again; it was just too dangerous, with the two of them living under one roof. And why in hell did he want to touch her all the time, anyway? There were plenty of women in town who wouldn’t turn him away.

  But she’d smelled way too good, standing over him with those ridiculous home fries, the crotch of his jeans had kept getting tighter, and all his well-intentioned control had just snapped. Add to that Ross’s repeated advice that he take her to bed, and all he could think of was carrying her upstairs and pinning her to the mattress in the nursery.

  Which was really why he’d been such a bastard this morning.

  He hated the constant bickering between them. But as long as they kept arguing, he knew they’d be able to keep the situation between them a business arrangement, with Casey leaving at the end of summer and him going on with his life as planned. Because he wasn’t looking for another commitment, and something told him that if he ever slept with her, she’d make it out to be something big and important. She’d expect a ring, and he’d be in major trouble again, married to a city woman with expensive tastes he couldn’t satisfy.

  Jess reine
d the buckskin around to cut off the steer’s escape route, then shagged the animal on to the group Ross was holding. “That’s about it,” he said a minute later, bringing his horse alongside Ross’s bay. He tugged his grandfather’s pocket watch out of his jeans, noted the time, then put it back. “It’s almost four. Let’s hold ’em overnight in the corral, then truck them over to the auction tomorrow. Another day isn’t going to affect things one way or the other.”

  He regarded Ross for a moment, then asked a question he’d been considering most of the day. After this moming’s little fiasco, it was clear he needed another person in the house to make sure he didn’t screw up again where Casey was concerned. He couldn’t go on taking cold showers and midnight drives to curb that constant knot in his gut. “So are you ready to drop this bullheaded act of yours and come home?”

  Ross sent him a broad, brash grin and adjusted the tan Stet son on his sandy hair. “Nope. I was actually thinking about it last night—even decided to give Gamblers Anonymous a call, not that I need it. The beds in the bunkhouse ain’t that comfortable. But then I walked smack-dab into all that homespun bonding and knew moving back in would be a big mistake. The first time I saw her at the house, she was in a towel—the second time, she was wearing your clothes. Looks like things are going according to plan.”

  Jess’s mouth thinned. “I told you, it’s not like that, and it’s not my plan. I don’t want to get married again, and that’s final.”

  Ross jerked back incredulously. “Jeez, who said anything about marrying her? You just need to keep our pretty little city girl happy so she doesn’t get all nuts and sell us out before I can scrape up enough money to pay her off.”

  A vague uneasiness moved through Jess. “What do you mean, until you can scrape enough money together?”

  Ross stilled in the saddle for an instant, then flicked a dismissing hand. “Is that what I said? Well, I meant until we get enough money.” Remorse filled his blue eyes, and Ross glanced down toward the rustling cottonwoods clustered beside the deep hole in the creek that bisected the property.

  “I know you think I don’t care about putting the ranch at risk, Jess, but that’s not true. I love this place. Maybe not the way you do, but it’s important to me.” Frowning, he clucked to his mount and began turning the dozen head of cattle toward ranch headquarters. “I swear I won’t let us lose it.”

  The days stretched into weeks, and the daytime temperatures climbed into the eighties. Casey took to wearing sunscreen and tank tops, courtesy of Hardy’s Mercantile and her meager wages. Her skin tanned anyway, her hair lightened, and she began noticing changes in her body. Her legs, while never heavy, became more toned, her waist and stomach tighter, firmer. She lost six pounds, but it was weight she didn’t miss. Her manicurist would have had a seizure over Casey’s neglected fingernails.

  Thankfully, there’d been no mention—and no repeat—of that frustrated kiss in the hall. By unspoken agreement, they’d simply decided to ignore it, label it a heat-of-the-moment mistake and get on with the business of running the ranch. Not that she was able to forget the hard, hot feel of his mouth on hers—and not that he didn’t intrude on her dreams far too often. But she knew the nights would be easier if they settled into a relationship that wasn’t quite friendship but was better than tolerance. And pretended there was nothing between them except two sheets of paper with signatures at the bottom.

  Still, the days were grueling. Her hands would never be the same after riding in the wind for miles, shoveling out the stalls in the stables and spreading new hay. Then there was branding time, and all the work that that entailed. While Jess and his men took care of the hot, dusty work of branding and vaccinating the stock and castrating the new bulls, Casey kept food and cold drinks coming. She also recorded dates and data in the ranch’s ledgers—information that, when compared to other years, would determine which mothers produced the best calves and a plethora of other facts.

  And they continued to ride fence. Moe Jackson’s rustling problem had turned out to be an isolated incident in which only two steers were taken, but the threat of big-time rustling was still a danger. There hadn’t been a serious hit in weeks. But ranchers in the tricounty area were still diligently patrolling their land.

  She’d been there a full month when Jess rapped softly at her door one night. “Your mother’s on the phone,” he said from the hall. “You can take it in the den.”

  Instantly alarmed, Casey put down the book she’d been reading, pulled her robe over her nightie and rushed down the stairs. Normally, she would have changed clothes. But she’d just spoken to her mother a few days ago, and it was rare for her mom to make long-distance calls unless there was an emergency. Something had to be wrong.

  Barefoot, Casey swept through the pocket doors to the den and grabbed the receiver. “Mom? Are you okay?”

  Her mother’s deflated voice came to her from thirteen-hundred miles away. “Paul’s seeing someone else. Someone younger.”

  Casey shook her head to clear it. She’d been so sure that something medical—and bad—had happened. “That doesn’t make any sense. He loves you. Who do you think he’s seeing?”

  “Rachel Lindquist.”

  “Rachel Lindquist from church?”

  Her mother sighed. “Yes. He bought her box lunch at the church social last night. Reverend Thatcher thought it would be nice to hold an old-fashioned event—something reminiscent of a more innocent time—and Paul bought Rachel’s lunch instead of mine.”

  “Mom, he probably didn’t know which one you’d—”

  “Yes, he did. I showed him the basket I’d planned to use, and I told him it would be full of his favorites—fried chicken, potato salad and apple cobbler. Casey, the pink-and-green plaid napkin I’d draped over the basket was so obviously mine...”

  Casey suppressed a sigh. She was right. Paul had seen those napkins on her mother’s table dozens of times during the past three years. He would have known. “All right...” she said slowly, buying time. “But sharing a box lunch with someone doesn’t mean he’s actually seeing her.”

  “Casey, a box social is a very intimate thing. It told the whole congregation that we weren’t a couple anymore.”

  Casey’s heart flooded with sympathy, because she knew her mother had been embarrassed and hurt by that. “Mom, hang up, and I’ll call you back,” she said gently. “This call’s going to get expensive for you.”

  “No, I’m all right,” she murmured wearily. “I just needed to vent a little. I was going to phone Lynn, but your sister’s got her hands full with the kids. I miss you, honey. I wish you could come home.”

  Jess walked inside, motioning apologetically to indicate that he needed something from the desk. Casey nodded for him to go ahead and kept talking. “I do, too, Mom. But I have obligations here.”

  “You shouldn’t have to do these things.”

  “And if Dane had ever taken a realistic glance at our bank balance, I wouldn’t be. For the moment, I have no other choice.” Casey blinked, stunned by the unexpected resentment she heard in her voice. Quickly she adjusted her tone. “It’ll be for only another two months or so, then I’ll be home. In the meantime, phone Paul and ask what’s going on.” She watched Jess leave the room with a farming tabloid that she knew listed stock prices, his boots soft on the hardwood flooring.

  “I...I know what’s going on,” Grace Hamilton was saying reluctantly at the other end of the line.

  And suddenly Casey knew what was going on, too. “You refused his marriage proposal again, didn’t you?” Her mother’s silence told her she’d guessed right. “Do you love him, Mom?”

  There was more reluctance in her voice. “Well... naturally, not the way I loved your dad, but...”

  Casey rubbed a tired hand over her forehead. It was almost as though her mother felt she wasn’t entitled to love more than one man in her lifetime. “But you do care for him,” Casey pressed.

  “Yes.”

  “Then call him. St
raighten things out while there’s still time.”

  A few minutes later, Casey hung up and walked hesitantly to the kitchen doorway. She wouldn’t bother Jess. She would just tell him she was through on the phone and go back upstairs. Jess looked up from the figures he was scribbling at the table, and Casey wondered fleetingly how he could see what he was doing. The only light in the room came from the range hood.

  “Sorry for the interruption,” she said without stepping inside. “You can have your den back now. Good night.” Turning, she started toward the foyer. Jess’s low voice stopped her.

  “I heard you mention going home soon. Is your mother all right?”

  Casey turned back, smiling wryly. “Well, yes and no.”

  Jess shoved his papers aside. “Want to talk about it? There’s coffee in the pot. I switched to decaf about an hour ago.”

  She almost refused. She wasn’t dressed for a cozy little tête à tête in a dimly lit kitchen with the range-rough rancher who’d begun to haunt her dreams. But the absence of bright lights, the frustration on his face and his eagerness to clear those papers away made her think he needed a break.

  Casey went to the coffee maker, started to pour herself a cup of decaf, then stopped. “My mother’s afraid she’s stalled the man she’s been seeing too long, and he’s found someone more agreeable. Unfortunately for her pride, this woman is a few years younger.”

  “Is it serious?”

  Casey finished pouring. “I don’t think so. I think he’s trying to send her a wake-up call. Paul Martin’s been in love with my mother for years. Sometimes I think he even had feelings for her when my dad was alive. But Paul just retired from his job, and he’s not getting any younger. He wants my mom to marry him.”

  Jess went to the cupboard for nondairy creamer, then pulled a teaspoon out of a drawer, returned to his seat and placed them on the table. “So she just picks up the phone, tells the man she loves him, and they live happily ever after.”