This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales, is entirely coincidental.
RELAY PUBLISHING EDITION, MAY 2020
Copyright © 2020 Relay Publishing Ltd.
All rights reserved. Published in the United Kingdom by Relay Publishing. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Mary Sue Jackson is a pen name created by Relay Publishing for co-authored Romance projects. Relay Publishing works with incredible teams of writers and editors to collaboratively create the very best stories for our readers.
Cover design by Mayhem Cover Creations.
www.relaypub.com
Blurb
He didn’t find love.
Love found him.
Rancher Austin Flint has never been afraid to get his hands dirty. Renovating the ranch he lives on is a project he’s always dreamed of. So when his ex abandons their two-year-old daughter, Lea, for him to raise alone, Austin soon realizes that no amount of hard work will allow him to fix up his home and take care of his little girl: especially one who hasn’t spoken since her mother left.
As Austin struggles to come to terms with the realities of single parenthood, his reluctance to accept help waivers. And when his sister recommends he hire her speech pathologist friend, Sara Kilne, for the summer as a nanny, Austin feels like he has no choice but to let her into his life.
When he sees Sara for the first time, he immediately regrets offering her the job. For one thing, she’s breathtaking. But she also looks exactly like he suspected – a pampered city girl. The last thing he needs is some slick professional telling him how to look after Lea or even worse, distracting his heart…
As for Sara, this job couldn’t have come at a better time. Having found the strength to leave her domineering husband and demanding work at an elementary school, she’s finally ready to face the crossroads in her life head on; even if that means falling hard for the tough-as-nails cowboy.
Just as Austin and Sara begin to ease into a sweet and trusting relationship, Austin’s estranged father shows up and everything changes. Sara doesn’t trust his motives one bit and things between her and Austin grow decidedly chilly.
With the prospect of a new job luring her away and life at the ranch seeming less permanent by the day, Sara is forced to make a heartbreaking choice. If only Austin could find the courage to give into the love that’s been missing all his life…
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
End of The Rancher’s Tempting Nanny
Thank You!
About Mary Sue Jackson
About Leslie
Sneak Peek: The Rancher’s Marriage Bargain
Also by Mary Sue
One
Austin Flint squinted out from beneath the brim of his cowboy hat, the sound of his daughter’s curious shuffling offering a poignant soundtrack to the morning’s activities. He shut his eyes briefly and took in a deep breath, giving himself a moment to appreciate the feel of the sun on his face before coming back to reality.
“Morning’s activity,” he muttered, scoffing at his own thoughts. “What activity? I’m not getting anything done.”
And therein lay the rub. More now than ever before, Austin needed to be getting things done. At the same time, for the very first time, he wasn't just living for himself. He had a daughter to take care of now. It was one mean catch twenty-two, and one he felt ill-prepared for. He hadn't always led the easiest of lives, but suddenly becoming a single father right when he was trying to fix up the large expanse of land left to him in his grandparents' will was daunting. Truth be told, it scared him.
"Hold on, Lea!" he called, scanning the porch and seeing that his two-year-old little girl was toddling precariously close to an open toolbox. "Walk it back towards me a little bit, will ya? The things in that box aren't safe, but I've got a box of toys over here with your name on it. What do you say?"
Lea looked at him over one pudgy shoulder, wearing a look eerily similar to her mother’s. For a moment, he was sure she was going to ignore him, just as her mother would have. But then she turned back in his direction, her little feet unsteady on the warped porch boards.
"Which one do you feel like, little lady?" he asked hopefully, grabbing a couple of toys and holding them out for her to inspect. "Either one strike your fancy? This is your toy experience, Lea, and I want it to be tailor-made for you. You can have either one—or both, if you like. All you have to do is say the word."
He watched her face eagerly, hoping for some sign that she intended to answer him aloud. He was past the point of gently coaxing—he was now willing to bribe his daughter to speak to him. Not that it mattered any. Although she gave him a shy little smile, she didn’t speak a word, just headed for her toy stash with a look of determination.
He was woefully late to the game when it came to being a consistent part of his little girl's life, but he knew enough to realize that his daughter's lack of speech was a real cause for concern. Especially since she’d been such a chatterbox before her mother left her behind. Every day that passed without her so much as making a peep made him a little more nervous until he felt on the verge of crying almost all the time. He couldn’t help blaming himself, wondering if everything would be different if he’d insisted on custody from the start.
Austin had never wanted to break up with Lea's mother, Caroline, but he hadn't had much say in the matter. When she had turned up pregnant, she had sort of lost it, deciding to move away from Wild Springs, Wyoming, and go someplace where she could start over fresh. Austin had made his objections known, but in the end, they hadn't amounted to much. He couldn’t force her to come back, and since she was providing decent care for Lea, there had been no guarantee he’d win a custody battle—if he could even get Caroline to come back long enough for a court case. Besides, playing nice with Caroline had meant she’d allowed occasional phone calls and visits. He'd had to content himself with only seeing his daughter a handful of times—cherished times.
But then he got a knock on the door of his grandparents' old house, on the land he'd been trying to fix up back into a working ranch. He had opened the door to find Caroline standing there with Lea and her things in tow, a harried look on his ex's face. She'd delivered a frenzied, frazzled speech about how she needed to move on to the next phase of her life and then turned around and walked away. Austin found out later that she had gone straight from his place to board a cruise ship, as disgusting as he thought that was. In with Lea’s clothes and toys had been the paperwork signing all of her parental rights away. The poor kid had hardly spoken since, and honestly, who could really blame her?
Lea reached for the stuffed moose Austin’s mom had gotten for her when she was born and then pointed at his ri
nging cell phone, a solemn look on her cherubic little face.
“Oh, thanks, sugar,” he said, glancing at his cell and seeing his sister’s name flashing across the front of it. “Look at you, already helping me keep my affairs in order. Pretty sure I won’t be able to tell my left foot from my right without your help, will I?”
He paused, waiting to see if this might be the thing she responded to, and then sighed, getting to his feet and putting the phone up to his ear.
“Is she there yet?” Rachel demanded. “She better not be because if you’re answering your phone with her standing there, that’s just plain rude.”
"Wow," he said, laughing. "Hello to you too, Rache."
“Hello,” she said quickly, giving off the impression that she wanted to get past the pleasantries as quickly as possible. “But she’s not, right?”
“No, she’s not,” he said with a sigh, referring to the speech pathologist Rachel had talked him into hiring as Lea’s nanny for the summer, who would be arriving on the ranch at any moment now. “But I’m glad you called. What’s this chick’s name again?”
“Ugh, seriously?” Rachel moaned. “Her name is Sara, okay? Sara Kline. Her grandparents used to have the piece of land across the way from Pop Pop. I only spent like, every summer with her until we were in our teens.”
“Oh, right, that’s it,” he answered with exaggerated relief. “You know I’m just messing with you, right? I’ve been around people before, Rache. I’m pretty sure I can handle meeting the new nanny.”
He had no actual desire to meet anyone new, let alone welcome someone into his home to care for his two-year-old kid. He tended to be of the old-school opinion that family problems were best kept in the family. When Rachel's old friend Sara had called up out of the blue, though, Rachel had been so convinced that it was meant to be that she’d refused to take no for an answer.
According to Rachel, Sara was looking to mix things up in her life, and that included an indefinite return to Wild Springs after resigning from the school where she worked as a speech pathologist. Rachel had basically demanded that Austin hire her. Never mind that he had a particular dislike for people who thought nothing of blowing up their lives to try something new, a la Caroline. That concern didn't seem to matter, nor did the fact that he didn't trust city girls to be able to hack it on the ranch. Rachel wanted her old friend hired, and Austin was simply too tired to put up a fight.
“Oh,” he remarked. “Speak of the devil. Looks like your friend is rolling up as we speak, and in a mighty fine car as well.”
"Don't call her the devil," Rachel snapped. "And be nice to her, okay? She hasn't had the easiest time of it. She really needs to feel welcome here."
“Hasn’t had an easy time, huh?” he echoed derisively, looking at her luxury SUV. “Tell me, Rachel, who has?”
“Just behave,” Rachel sighed. “If you won’t do it to be a decent human being, do it for me, okay?”
“Okay, little sister,” he said. “You know I’d do just about anything for you.”
Rachel agreed that indeed she did know that, and the two of them hung up, Rachel to go about her day and Austin to meet the new nanny/speech pathologist. She certainly didn't look like the kind of woman who would do well on a ranch with her full-length, soft pink dress and her wide sunglasses glinting in the sun. As he watched, she struggled to remove the biggest purse he had ever seen from her passenger side seat, running a hand through shoulder-length blonde waves as she did so.
“All right, Lea,” he said, taking her by her warm little hand and leading her towards the stairs. “Are you ready for this?”
“Hello!” Sara called, hurrying towards the pair. “It’s so nice to meet you, Austin. Or should I say to meet you again? I never know how to handle these situations where you met the person a lifetime ago. Would it be all right if I just said I’m excited to be here and left it at that?”
"Sure," he said uncertainly, already flummoxed by how fast she talked. "This here is Lea. She won't tell you hello, but I bet she's excited to meet you as well."
Sara swept her sunglasses off of her face, perching them absentmindedly on the top of her head, and knelt down so that she and Lea were on almost the same level. She stuck out her hand again, her expression as serious as if she were meeting the Pope, and waited for Lea to do the same. A moment of hesitation later, Austin's daughter did just that—which left him more than a little bit surprised.
“It truly is a pleasure to meet you, Lea,” Sara said, her voice soft and lilting. “I’ll tell you a little secret. I don’t have many friends here in town and I would very much like it if we could become friends. Do you think we could do that?”
To Austin's surprise, Lea nodded her head, and vigorously, too. She looked up at Sara with wide, shining eyes, and Austin was forced to admit that having a girly girl around the ranch could be a good thing. Even at two, Lea’s tastes were very clear—and very…pink. Rachel had never been much for girly things. Maybe it wasn't such a bad thing for Lea to have a woman to look up to who liked the same things she did.
There was something else he had to admit to himself, too, and that was that Sara Kline was the most beautiful woman he had seen in a long, long time. The problem was, he wasn't interested in meeting a beautiful woman at the moment. This woman presented the potential for distraction, and with everything else he had on his plate, that was the absolute last thing in the world he needed.
When Sara finally stood up again, it was on legs that were shaking from more than just the prolonged squatting. Asking Lea if the two of them could be friends had been a gamble, and she was lucky it had paid off. She needed this job too much to get off on the wrong foot before she'd even had a chance to get started. If things didn’t work out for her in Wild Springs, she didn't know what she was going to do with herself next.
She’d never intended to come back to the little town after her grandparents had passed away, but life had a funny way of changing when you weren’t looking. “Pulling the rug out from under you,” her mother always called it. And that was exactly how she felt, now that she was twenty-eight years old and recently divorced.
That’s what my whole life has been, she thought to herself as she smiled nervously at Austin Flint. A long line of rugs getting pulled out from under me.
“So, is this your first stop in town?” Austin asked conversationally, the fixed stare of his deep green eyes making her want to squirm. “Or did you take some time to reacquaint yourself with some of the sights before coming by?”
“No,” she said brightly, wondering if the mention of “sights” was meant as a dig at the tiny town. “No stops. Not unless you count stopping for gas.”
What she wasn't telling him was that the guy working the counter at the station had asked her why she was in town—and when Austin's name had come up, the guy had started talking all about Austin's sad history. Sara's heart went out to the man who had apparently not seen it coming when his ex had walked out…much less when his ex had come back with kid in tow. She couldn’t imagine the strength it must have taken for him to fold a child into his life while trying to relaunch a ranch. Most men probably would have thrown in the towel altogether…but the attendant had also mentioned that Austin was seriously stubborn. A good thing for him, certainly, considering all he had to handle. But it was also a warning sign to her. She had just left one stubborn, unreasonable man behind in the form of a very angry ex-husband. She wasn't keen on walking directly into the life of another one, but she needed the job badly enough to do it anyway, at least for now.
“So,” Austin continued, setting his cowboy hat aside and running a hand through his hair. She was embarrassed to realize she was staring at the way the muscles in his arms rippled with the easy movement.
“So?” she repeated, forcing herself to look him in the eye. “What’s on your mind?”
"I'm just curious how it feels being back," he said, a little bit awkwardly, she thought. "I'll be honest; I've never been away long enough
to know. Must be kind of nice to get the chance just to start over when you want to."
Sara nodded, making sure to keep her smile plastered to her face despite the way her heart was clenching inside. She knew he wasn't trying to be insensitive; it was just that his read on the situation couldn't have been further from the truth. She wasn't just flippantly dismissing her old life in favor of a new one. She was running away from a bad, borderline abusive relationship that she sometimes thought had taken root when she was still a little girl, watching her father verbally kick her mother around just for sport.
Wild Springs had been the only place she could think of to go when everything in her life had turned into a complete disaster. Bad enough she had walked out of a marriage that was just over two years old. But when she’d lost her temper with one of her more difficult students, she had walked into school and handed in her resignation the next day. If she wasn't able to trust herself with the students, then she didn't want to be around them at all.
“Sorry,” Austin said, clearing his throat pointedly and glancing down at his little girl. “I didn’t mean to pry…”
“No,” she said quickly, mustering another smile and then shooting Lea a little wink for good measure. “It’s a good question. And to answer, I’m not sure I’ve decided how it feels, but so far, the best word I can think of is that it feels like home.”
He nodded, satisfied with the answer, and turned back to smooth a strand of Lea’s hair out of her face. As for Sara, she could only wish that what she had just said was actually true.
The Rancher’s Tempting Nanny Page 1
