The Rancher's Christmas Promise

by ALLISON LEIGH,

  “Well, what do you know!” He surveyed her pleasantly in return. “That’s exactly what I hope will happen between you and me. Now that we’re older and wiser, that is.”

  Twins Bridgett and Bess Monroe, there to assist with her two-month-old quadruplets, appeared behind her. “Hey, Chase.” Bridgett grinned.

  “Here to talk business, I bet?” Bess added, a matchmaker’s gleam in her eye.

  He nodded, ornery as ever. “I am.”

  Mitzy glared. She and Chase had crashed and burned once—spectacularly. There was no way she was doing it again. She folded her arms in front of her militantly. “Well, I’m not.”

  He stepped closer, deliberately invading her personal space, inundating her with his wildly intoxicating masculine scent. “Mitzy, come on. You’ve been ducking my calls and messages for weeks now.”

  So what? She gave him her most unwelcoming glance. “I know it’s hard for a carefree bachelor like you to understand, but I’ve been ‘a little busy’ since giving birth to four boys.”

  He shrugged right back, meeting her word for cavalier word. “Word around town is you’ve had plenty of volunteer help. Plus the high-end nannies your mother sent from Dallas.”

  Mitzy groaned and clapped a hand across her forehead. “Don’t remind me,” she muttered miserably.

  The sympathy on his face matched his low, commiserating tone. “Didn’t work out?”

  “No,” she bit out, “they didn’t.” Mostly because they had been even more ostentatious—and intrusive—than her mom. Telling her how things should be, instead of asking her how she wanted them to be. “Just like this lobbying effort on your part won’t work, either.”

  “I know you’d rather not do business with me, Mitzy,” he said, even more gently. “But at least hear me out.”

  Silence fell between them, as fragile as the still-shattered pieces of her heart. He rocked forward on his toes and lowered his face to hers. “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think it were crucial.”

  Mitzy caught her breath at the unexpected reminder of what it had been like to kiss him. Or how much the reckless side of her wanted to do so again.

  Just to see...

  “You could use a break,” Bess pointed out.

  Bridgett, who’d recently found her own happily-ever-after with Chase’s older brother, Cullen, agreed. “And you may as well get this talk over with. If—” she paused heavily “—that’s all it is.”

  That’s all it could be, Mitzy told herself bluntly. Since there was no way she was opening up her heart to this impossibly sexy cowboy CEO again. “Fine.” She ducked inside long enough to grab a fleece to ward off the chill of the November afternoon and hurried back outside. “You’ve got five minutes, Chase, and that is all!”

  * * *

  Five minutes wasn’t much, but it was better than what he’d had in a very long time. Plus, he had promised her late father he’d take care of Mitzy, and her quadruplets, whether she wanted him to or not.

  Chase followed Mitzy to the end of the porch on her Craftsman-style home, taking a moment to survey the recent changes in her. The birth of her four sons had given her five-nine body a new voluptuousness. Her thick medium brown hair was still threaded with honey-gold strands, but she’d cut it since he last saw her in town a month ago, and now it just brushed the tops of her shoulders. Her fair skin was lit with the inner glow she’d had since she was pregnant, her delicate features just as elegant as ever, and her lips soft and full and enticingly bare.

  Which meant she still favored plain balm over lipstick. A fact he had always liked...

  She bypassed the chain-hung swing and settled instead on a wicker chair. Acutely aware of how hard this was going to be for her to hear, he removed his hat, set it aside and took the seat kitty-corner from her.

  Resisting the urge to take her small hand in his, he leaned toward her, hands knotted between his spread knees. Looked her in the eye and got straight to the point. “Word on the street is that Martin Custom Saddle is in big trouble financially.”

  Anger flared between them, even as her long-lashed aquamarine eyes widened in surprise. “I think—as CEO—that I would know if that was the case.”

  She certainly should have, Chase thought reprovingly. “Have you been there recently?”

  Mitzy straightened. “I’ve been in touch with Buck Phillips—the chief operating officer—at least once a week.”

  Chase focused on the pretty pink color flooding her face. Matter-of-factly, he ascertained, “But you haven’t actually been to the facility where the saddles are made.”

  She ignored his question. Stood, walked a short distance away, then swung back to face him. “What’s your point, Chase?”

  He hated to be the bad guy. In this situation, he had no choice. Gently, but firmly, he said, “You can’t simultaneously run MCS—at least not the way your late father would have wished—and be Laramie County’s best social worker. And all the while care for four infants all by your lonesome to boot. No one could.”

  Mitzy stalked toward him. “I’m not trying to do all that. I’m on maternity leave from the Department of Family and Child Services for the next ten months. Maybe longer. I haven’t decided yet.” Ignoring the seat close to him, she perched on the porch railing. “And Buck Phillips is running the business side at the saddle company, same as always.”

  Noting the way the dark denim hugged her slender thighs, and the swell of her breasts beneath the snug-fitting black fleece top, he rose and ambled toward her. “Are you sure about that?”

  “Someone would have told me if there were issues. Financially, or otherwise.”

  Unless they were trying to protect her.

  Her lower lip slid out in a sexy pout. “The employees there are not just personally invested in the success of the company, they’re like family to me and each other.”

  With effort, Chase ignored the urge to kiss her. “It takes more than good intentions to run a company, Mitzy,” he said quietly.

  She tilted her chin at him, a myriad of emotions running riot in her pretty eyes. “You don’t think I have it in me?”

  He came closer and perched beside her. Bracing his hands on the rail on either side of him, he murmured, “Your father had a passion for saddle making.”

  “I know that.”

  He knew this would hurt. Still, it had to be said. “And you don’t.”

  She gasped, indignant. Hands balled into fists at her sides, she bounded to her feet and swung on him once again. “I don’t need to have that same passion. All I need to do is keep everything exactly the way it was when he was alive, and honor him by carrying on his legacy. And we—the company and all its employees—will be fine!”

  Taking charge of a business was a lot more complicated than that. Clearly, though, she wasn’t ready to hear that.

  Help my daughter make it through the holidays, Gus Martin had said. The first, after my death, will be the most difficult.

  And with Thanksgiving almost upon them...

  Chase could see Mitzy was struggling. Even if she wouldn’t admit it. He tried again, even more gently this time. “The point is, darlin’, I’m interested in doing that, too.”

  Abruptly, Mitzy looked like she wanted to deck him. “Like you did when you worked for my dad? Before he was forced to fire you?”

  Of course she would bring up the business crisis that had precipitated the end of their engagement. Their breakup had ripped him up inside. Chase shrugged regretfully. “I admit, I was overly ambitious.”

  An even rosier hue flooded her high, sculpted cheeks. “You insulted him and everything he stood for with your plans to turn his artistry into a mass-manufacturing business.”

  Chase squinted. “I’m not sure your dad saw it that way.”

  You’re meant for bigger things, Chase. You’ll never be happy here...was what Gus had s
aid, when he’d cut him loose.

  And Mitzy’s father had been right.

  Then.

  Chase had since had time to reevaluate and reconfigure his earlier career plan to something much more laudable and practical. But, sensing Mitzy was in no mood to hear that now, if ever, he slowly rolled to his feet. “Regardless of the way I left MCS, I learned a lot from your dad when I worked for him, Mitzy. I also built my own company, McCabe Leather Goods.”

  Her expression both contemptuous and resentful, she scoffed, “Yes, I know. It’s the premier provider in the entire Southwest of all sorts of leather products. Everything from boots to saddles to leather interiors on pickup trucks and automobiles. And you did it by buying up lots of little entities and folding them into the one bearing your name!”

  So she had been following his rise in the business world, Chase noted in satisfaction. He met her level gaze. “Every one of those business units is better off, their employees happier and more financially secure.”

  Her expression guarded, she raked her teeth across her lower lip. “So what does that have to do with me?”

  “If your family business is in even half as much trouble as is rumored, you’re going to need help getting it back on track.”

  She rolled her eyes skeptically. “You’re volunteering?”

  Yes, although first I was drafted. “Your dad was always good to me, even after I stopped working for him,” Chase admitted, acutely aware of how much he missed Gus. And Gus’s beautiful, intractable daughter.

  Missed the extended family they might have been. “I’d like to repay his kindness.”

  Mitzy tilted her head at him, thinking. Seeming to know instinctively there was more to this than what he was letting on. Not about to tell her about the deathbed promises he had made, however, Chase waited for her to make a decision.

  Finally, she swallowed, let out a soft little sigh. Wearily, she asked, “Don’t you think it would be a little awkward under the circumstances?”

  He could handle awkward. Hell, he could handle anything if it got him back into her life, and her into his. Because actually getting to have a sit-down with her, brief as it might be, had shown him certain things had not changed.

  The sparks were still there.

  His need to protect her was stronger than ever.

  And as for the rest? Well, he guessed time would tell.

  Although he couldn’t imagine either of them ever being content to be just friends. Not after what they had once shared...

  From the first time he’d laid eyes on her when they were kids, he’d known she was something special. Not just because she was smart and pretty or kinder and more inherently compassionate than anyone he’d ever met. From the very beginning, she just “got” him the way no one else ever had.

  She hadn’t wanted to date him. She’d preferred to be friends. So, they started there, but by the time they were in college there was no denying their sexual chemistry. One thing led to another. Before they knew it they were a couple and then engaged. He’d expected to spend his entire life with her.

  Would have, if his need to tell it like it was, in business and in life, and her wariness of lasting love, hadn’t gotten in the way. But both had, so...

  Aware she was waiting, he shrugged with a great deal more carelessness than he felt. “We’re both adults, Mitzy,” he reminded her gruffly. “We can handle it.” He pulled out a business card, wrote his cell phone number on the back and pressed it into her hand. “So if there is anything I can do,” he said sincerely, resolved to keep his promise to Gus as well as atone for any and all mistakes he had made in the past. He paused to give her a long, steady look. “Anything at all, just pick up the phone and call.”

  * * *

  Two days later, Chase still hadn’t heard from Mitzy. So he did what he always did when he was trying to understand a woman. He went to see his little sister, Lulu, hoping she’d have the insight he lacked.

  She listened to the recap of his visit while making her own special brand of honey iced tea for the McCabe family Thanksgiving celebration they were having later in the day. “You didn’t even see the quadruplets?”

  Funny how disappointed he was about that. He’d never been what one would call a baby person, but he’d been hoping to lay eyes on the four infants the stalwartly independent Mitzy’d had via an anonymous donor and a fertility clinic, nevertheless. Keeping his feelings to himself, he shrugged. “Kind of hard to do when she didn’t even let me in the door.”

  His cell phone buzzed. Chase looked at the screen. Speak of the devil... Smiling, he strode a distance away. “Hey, Mitzy. What’s up?”

  “Are you busy?”

  She sounded stressed.

  “Not at all,” Chase said.

  Lulu grinned and shook her head, then sauntered out of the kitchen to give him privacy.

  “I’m headed over to Martin Custom Saddle,” Mitzy continued in the too-casual voice he knew so well. “Want to meet me there?”

  Luckily, his sister’s honeybee ranch was closer to town than his. “Be there in ten.”

  When Chase arrived, he expected her to already be inside the ten-thousand-square-foot production facility.

  Instead, she was sitting in the new custom eight-passenger luxury SUV she’d been driving around town, staring at the front of the one-story rectangular terra-cotta brick building emblazoned with her father’s name like she had never seen it before.

  Noticing his pickup truck parking next to hers, she shook herself out of her reverie and emerged from the driver’s seat. Her hair was swept up in a neat twist on the back of her head and she was wearing a burnished gold wool dress and heels that seemed more appropriate for a formal afternoon tea.

  As she neared him, he saw the diamond earrings she’d received for her college graduation glittering in her ears, and caught the whiff of her citrus and floral perfume. He also saw faint shadows beneath her eyes that hadn’t been there when he’d last seen her. Sensing her mother’s holiday visit was already doing a number on her, he asked gently, “Everything okay?”

  She squared her shoulders defensively. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

  He moved to stand beside her, wishing he could take her in his arms and not get chastised for trying to comfort her. “You look tired, I guess. A little on edge.”

  She flashed a wry, self-effacing smile and led the way toward the sprawling brick building. “Guilty—to all.”

  He moved swiftly to catch up with her and fell in step beside her, adjusting his strides to hers. He tucked his hands in the pockets of his jeans. Figuring the very least he could do was be a sounding board for her, asked kindly, “Babies giving you a hard time?” Maybe if she would actually allow him to assist her in some way, the way her dad had privately wanted, he would actually get to see them.

  “No. My four boys are sweet as ever.” Mitzy sighed. Her eyes took on a turbulent sheen. “It’s the rest of my family that’s putting me through the ringer.”

  The idea of rescuing her was a lot more appealing—on a soul-deep level—than it probably should have been. “Judith?”

  Her lower lip slid out in a delectable pout. “She and Walter—”

  Her mom’s fifth husband, Chase recalled.

  “—arrived in time for dinner last night. Along with four nannies.”

  Four again. Wow. But then that was Judith. She never did anything on the down low when the completely spectacular was possible. “One for each baby,” he guessed, noting how the sunlight brought out the honey-gold highlights in her hair.

  “Right.” Mitzy paused to punch in the security code. Failed. Then, releasing a frustrated sigh, she looked at her phone and tried again. This time the light turned green.

  She pushed open the door and, together, they walked on in.

  He caught a whiff of her flowery shampoo as she sauntered beside him. His bo
dy reacted, way too fast. Ignoring the pressure behind his fly, he asked, “You’re not happy about that?”

  Oblivious to the desire welling up inside him, Mitzy waved a dismissive hand and continued to look around as if she had never seen the place. Which was ludicrous. She’d been there frequently as a kid. When he briefly worked there, too. And in all this time nothing had really changed. There were a couple of offices and a break room near the front door. The rest was comprised of the twenty-nine different workstations needed to handcraft the custom leather saddles.

  It smelled the same, too. Like leather and dye and industrial-strength cleaner.

  Aware she hadn’t answered him yet, he turned back to her again. Even in the fluorescent lighting near the door, he could see she was pale.

  “This set of nannies is fine.” She looked over her shoulder at him, as she walked over to the main panel and switched on the rest of the lights in the facility. “I mean, they’re warm and gentle, not stern and impersonal like the first group she brought with her. And they’re just going to be here for the holiday weekend. They’ll all be leaving Sunday afternoon.”

  Chase studied her, befuddled over what was really bothering her. “Then what’s the problem?” he asked.

  * * *

  The problem, Mitzy thought, was that she should have come back here way before now. Instead, she’d neglected to do so, figuring time and the birth of her children would ease her grief.

  They had.

  And they hadn’t.

  Because being here at the warehouse-like workshop that her father had built over the course of forty-five years, in the very place that held so many bittersweet memories for her, was like a punch square in the solar plexus. Making her entire chest hurt to the point that it was hard to breathe. As images of her larger-than-life dad striding through the facility flashed in her brain, she remembered how he had called out to everyone, stopped to admire the workmanship even as he gently added suggestions for making the final product better. How he had charmed the customers and cared for his employees with the same loving familial attitude he exhibited toward her.