The Rancher's Proposal (The Montana McGregor Brothers Book 3)

by Paula Altenburg

  As if to prove her point, Lydia’s sobs shifted to sniffles. She tangled her fingers in Posey’s ponytail and popped a thumb in her mouth. Her eyelids drooped, the damp lashes mopping her cheeks. Why hadn’t it ever occurred to him or his brothers that a twenty-month-old baby might need an afternoon nap?

  “Down,” Trixie said to her mother.

  Zack didn’t need an interpreter for that.

  Posey, untroubled, took Trixie’s hand. “Yes, sweetie, I’ll put her down in a minute. Let’s go have our lunch, shall we?” She looked at Zack. He read her hesitation. “Would you like to come inside while we get Lydia settled?”

  He really did want to, yes.

  But it was getting late, and despite his misgivings, he suspected Lydia might be in good hands for the first time in a month.

  “Thanks,” he said, “but I’ve got to go and give Mrs. Fitzpatrick a call.”

  Posey’s eyes warmed, indicating she’d gotten a solid grasp on his sense of humor. “Be sure to tell her I said hello.”

  He walked the half-mile home to the Wagging Tongue Ranch. He was in a good mood because he’d made Posey smile, he was enjoying the heat of the day, and summer would soon be in full swing. The world hadn’t stopped turning simply because a piece of his had imploded.

  The sprawling, two-story house occupied a slight rise overlooking the river. The house had an annex attached to the far left, which in the past, had served as a home for the older generation as the next one took over. His grandparents, however, sensing a new business opportunity, had opened the Wagging Tongue up as a dude ranch and lodged guests in it.

  But Zack’s mother had never been comfortable with strangers in her house, his grandparents had retired to Arizona, and the annex had been closed up for as long as he could remember. Liz had claimed it for a short period between high school and her move to New York. Jake had opened it up again for Luke so he had a place to store his computers and assorted electronics where Finn and Lydia couldn’t get their little fingers on them.

  For the past forty or more years, the Wagging Tongue ran a mixed operation. To the right of the house, a low dairy barn covered much of the landscape. The McGregors kept the milk cattle pastured close to home while beef roamed the badlands behind the ranch buildings most of the year.

  At the back of the dairy, a new anaerobic digestion biomass power plant sucked up another large chunk of land. For now, the power plant ran the ranch. In the future, Jake hoped to sell excess energy to the town of Grand.

  Jake and their dad had had such high hopes for the ranch. Liam McGregor always said it was his duty to prepare it for future generations and believed wholeheartedly in modernization. Zack agreed. But Jake wasn’t used to handling the finances. Their mother had been the accountant.

  Zack very much feared his brother had taken on too much too fast.

  *

  His fears were confirmed later that afternoon, during their visit with the lawyer.

  Grand, Cooper, and Nash occupied the entire second level of the brick building next to the county courthouse in Grand’s central downtown district. The conference room overlooked the boardwalk butting the Yellowstone River. Small sports fishing boats swirled in the river’s numerous eddies.

  Zack’s thoughts drifted along with the water as the lawyer ran through the farm’s assets and liabilities. Around a slight bend in the river, he could make out the flat patch of wetlands that formed the base of Grand Central Park—which was neither central nor grand.

  And then, he paid more attention to what the lawyer was saying.

  “Jake, fifty-one percent of the operation is yours,” George Cooper said from his seat at the head of the long mahogany table. Jake, seated on George’s left, nodded without even a hint of surprise in his manner, which meant he’d already known.

  Luke had taken the chair to George’s right. He was lost in his own little world.

  “Luke and Zack,” the lawyer continued, “you’ll each receive half shares of the remaining forty-nine percent.”

  Zack snapped to attention. Luke looked equally dumbfounded.

  The lawyer paused and consulted his notes before glancing around the table. “I’ll have to check on the terms of Liz’s estate, but I’d assume that the money your father allocated for her will now go to her children?”

  “Yes. Liz and Blair left everything to their kids,” Jake confirmed, giving another curt nod of his dark head. “The only other close living relative on Blair’s side of the family is his mother, and she made it clear she isn’t interested in anything her grandchildren might inherit.”

  Zack, who sat on Jake’s left, rubbed his palms along the smooth armrests of the leather conference room chair, still trying to recover. She wasn’t interested in her grandchildren, period. From what Zack had seen she chose to drink to deal with her grief over the loss of her only child, but he kept his thoughts on that to himself. Everyone was struggling and dealing as best they could.

  It pained him to see the strain spreading on Jake’s face as the terms of their father’s will were explained. Zack knew him too well. Jake wasn’t worried about giving up half of the ranch. He was worried about his brothers inheriting half of a significant debt, because any insurance settlement would have to go toward the money set aside for the children.

  After the meeting with the lawyer, outside on the street, the brothers split up. Jake had to go to the school to pick up the boys, which meant Zack had been traveling with Luke. He walked with Luke to the car, parked in a lot a few blocks away.

  Zack worried about Luke too, but for a far different reason. Luke didn’t talk much. He never had, but they’d always been close and known each other’s minds. Zack had no idea what Luke was thinking these days, other than that he had a whole lot of anger balled up inside him.

  “What’s your take on the situation?” Zack asked once they were in the car.

  Luke rolled down his window, allowing the heat to escape, and checked the side mirrors and the backup camera, then reversed out of the parking space. The car bounced over a speed bump as he cut the tires to the right. He shifted to first and headed out of the lot onto Yellowstone Drive. Zack caught a whiff of barbecued ribs from the Grille, a restaurant the McGregors used to eat at as a family on special occasions. The owner’s wife was a friend of their mother’s.

  “I have no take at all,” Luke replied. “Dad planned to live to be a hundred. He probably thought we’d end up sharing maybe five or ten percent of the ranch at most, not forty-nine, and Jake shouldn’t have to pay for his mistake. The ranch is Jake’s.”

  Zack thought the same thing, but it changed nothing. Jake was a borderline workaholic fast turning into a surly old man. He couldn’t manage the ranch, the debt, and the kids by himself without accelerating the process. Maybe their inheriting that forty-nine percent was a blessing. Who was to say their mother hadn’t played a part in how things were divvied up, too?

  Zack got why Luke wouldn’t want to stay in Montana. He was smart. Like, Mensa smart. He had a promising career back in Seattle. Denise was there, too. Maybe they’d get back together.

  Whereas Zack? He hadn’t cared much for life in Helena, Montana. It had been exciting at first, but at the end of the day, big cities weren’t for him. He didn’t mind accounting, he liked working with numbers, but he wanted some space around him, especially after sitting in an office all day.

  “The ranch might be Jake’s, but Jake needs us,” Zack said. “Are we going to step up?”

  Luke looked at him. Green eyes went blank. Black-rimmed computer glasses poked out of the breast pocket of his white cotton shirt. He’d worn office attire for the meeting and he looked like such a nerd.

  “Of course we are.” His tone implied the question didn’t need to be asked and he was mildly insulted it had. “We’re here, aren’t we?”

  “Yes, we are.”

  “And we’re going to make the best of it.”

  Zack nodded, relieved. The car trundled over the bridge that spanned th
e Tongue River and turned onto Tongue River Road. Seconds later, they were closing in on Posey’s house.

  “Let me out so I can pick up Lydia,” he said.

  Luke slowed, hooking a left into Posey’s drive. He braked, nudged the gear into park, and reached for the keys to turn off the engine.

  “No need to wait for us, the stroller is right there.” It huddled in a corner between the garage and the side of the kitchen, looking as if it had lost its best friend. “We’ll walk home,” Zack said.

  “Suit yourself.”

  Luke left him in the yard.

  Zack faced the house. Here was hoping the crazy cat lady hadn’t packed up both girls and fled the state. He didn’t really believe that was likely to happen, but the odds of dying in a plane crash in Peru hadn’t been high either, so he couldn’t rule it out.

  The garage door, with the kitchen entrance on the other side of it, was locked, so he climbed three steps to a porch that ran the length of the house and led to the front door. The porch was in reasonably good shape, although it had a few spongy boards that gave under his weight, and it could use a fresh coat of paint.

  He knocked. Two sets of footsteps pattered toward the door—a woman’s, and the lighter, faster steps of a child. The deadbolt shot back and the door opened a crack. Posey peered out, confirmed his identity, then she closed the door and unfastened the chain to let him in.

  City girl, without a doubt. No one else in Grand had a chain on their door. Most people outside of town didn’t bother locking them at all, at least not during the day.

  He took a good look around. Yes, he was nosy. Posey’s small entry harbored a set of stairs and a kitchen to his right. The living and dining rooms sprawled straight ahead. The garden peered through a set of sliding glass doors.

  Posey had dirt on the knees of her khaki leggings, suggesting she’d finished her gardening while he was gone. Her bare feet were slender, with elegant, red polish-tipped toes. He didn’t know why he took notice of them, but they caught his attention. She cuddled a pink-cheeked, tousled Lydia on her hip while Trixie, who appeared to have overcome her objections to sharing her mother, ran a toy shopping cart loaded with stuffed animals up and down the narrow hall. A children’s song played in the background. It had little to do with sailors, drunken or otherwise, but conveyed a clear message that fun was the word of the day.

  Zack concurred. He was all for having fun, especially after today.

  “How did naptime work out?” he asked.

  Posey’s smile was tentative, almost shy, as if she were trying it out. “Lydia woke up a few minutes ago. I was just about to change her diaper, but since you’re here…”

  She deposited his niece in his arms before he could dodge and evade. A familiar smell assaulted his nose, driven deeper into his nasal passages with every breath he inhaled. He tried not to breathe.

  “It can wait until we get home. Jake should be back by then,” he said.

  He averted his face and prayed his gag reflexes wouldn’t kick in. Beef stew and black coffee swirled in his gut and he groped for the door, eager to get fresh air in his lungs. He was less worried about losing his man card than his lunch, but he tried to be cool.

  “You don’t know how to change a diaper?” Posey asked.

  She sounded skeptical, as if maybe she suspected he was trying to manipulate her into doing an unpleasant task for him. He didn’t blame her because he wasn’t above it, but he didn’t want her to think that, so he tried to turn it into a joke.

  “Don’t judge me,” he said.

  “I can show you how, if you’d like.”

  The offer was made with kind intentions. He could tell. She had no idea the danger her bare toes were in by dragging this conversation on, however.

  “It’s probably best if Jake hones his skills. Luke and I are the backups. When we’re gone, it’ll all be up to him.” How long did kids stay in diapers?

  He fumbled the door open. The waft of fresh air didn’t help.

  “Wait,” Posey said. “Her diaper bag is upstairs. Let me get it for you.”

  Now she was just being cruel.

  He’d already started to sweat. Not a good sign. He eyeballed the distance between the front steps and the ditch on the far side of the road, wondering if he could make it. “Why don’t I get it from you later?”

  Posey finally took note of his desperation. She darted forward and he thrust Lydia at her. “The bathroom’s in there,” she said, pointing to a closed door on his left.

  He made it, although barely.

  After his stomach settled back into place, he splashed cold water on his face and wiped it on a delicate, lace-trimmed blue hand towel.

  Now that his lunch had departed, he could spare more thought to what remained of his man card. Here was hoping she really did have a good sense of humor. There was no other way for him to recover from this.

  Chapter Four

  Posey hovered outside the bathroom, unsure of what she was supposed to do in this situation. Politeness suggested she should be discreet and pretend nothing unusual had happened.

  Maybe it would be best if she gave him a few more minutes of privacy, too. She didn’t know what kind of mood he’d be in when he emerged, but in her experience, men didn’t appreciate having witnesses to moments of weakness. There’d been warning signs with Trevor in that regard that she should have heeded. She hadn’t seen any in Zack, at least not so far, but she was taking no chances.

  The tap was running. She heard him shut it off.

  She hugged Lydia a little tighter and seized Trixie’s hand, her heart pounding like mad. She should never have let a man she didn’t know into her house. This was supposed to be a safe zone for her and her daughter.

  Then, the common sense part of her brain kicked in, chastising her for overreacting. Eleanor had, indeed, vouched for Zack, and his brothers, too. She should take those few minutes he might need to pull herself back together, too.

  “I’m going to take Lydia upstairs and get her cleaned up,” she called through the door.

  His muffled response filtered through the chinks around the door frame. “Thank you.”

  “Come on, girls,” she said brightly, not wanting her paranoia to rub off on them. “Let’s go powder our noses.”

  It only took a few minutes to change Lydia’s diaper in the main bathroom upstairs. The little girl was so sweet, with her solemn green eyes and fluffy blond hair. What was it going to be like for her, growing up in a houseful of men?

  Posey recalled what Zack had said—“Luke and I are the backups. When we’re gone, it’ll all be up to him.”

  She’d only ever seen the oldest McGregor brother, Jake, from a distance, but he’d terrified her nonetheless. He looked so grim—a lot like her father and uncle. And she knew how much fun they’d been for a lonely little girl.

  The bathroom door groaned open downstairs. Posey couldn’t put off facing Zack any longer. She tugged Lydia’s T-shirt over her pretty green shorts and patted her well-padded bottom. “Let’s go see if your uncle is feeling better.”

  She picked up the diaper bag and slung it over her shoulder. If he was in a foul mood, she’d offer to keep Lydia for the rest of the afternoon so the little girl wouldn’t be affected by it. Unfortunately, she couldn’t keep her forever.

  Zack waited at the foot of the stairs. His face was pale, but otherwise, he seemed to be recovered. His sheepish expression made her wonder how old he really was. She’d thought he was closer to her age, but now she wasn’t so sure.

  “I’m really sorry about the weak stomach,” he said. “FYI, I also get sick on long car rides. Oh, yeah, and watching a Ferris wheel turn. I’ve never made it past the lineup. Feel free to make fun of me. Jake and Luke think it’s hilarious.”

  How unkind of them. She didn’t have siblings, but if she did, she’d hope they’d be more understanding.

  “I don’t think it’s funny at all,” she said.

  He didn’t appear bothered by it, or even
a little embarrassed, which in turn, left her a whole lot less uneasy. She wanted to ask why he’d line up for an amusement ride he already knew would make him sick—more than once, if she were to believe him—but it was best not to get too friendly. She had trust issues. She didn’t need her therapist to figure that out.

  “I found the first few diaper changes hard too, and Trixie was a newborn,” she added. “Lydia’s a toddler. That’s quite a difference in, um… the size of the contents. I can help out if you’re ever desperate again,” she volunteered, unable to stop babbling.

  She couldn’t say why she made the offer. Maybe she was testing her boundaries. Maybe she couldn’t listen to common sense.

  Maybe that was how she’d ended up in a bad marriage.

  Fun lit Zack’s face. “You might want to be careful of the promises you make. Luke works remotely so he’s usually in the house during the day, but my good luck in that department isn’t going to hold out forever. You could find us on your doorstep again a lot sooner than you’d think. Okay, Lyds.” He shifted his attention to his young niece, still safe with Posey at the top of the stairs. “We’ve got to get this show on the road. Your brothers will be home any minute and I want to hear all about their first day of school.”

  Posey kept one eye on her daughter as Trixie descended the stairs backward, crab-like, beside her. Once they reached the bottom, she transferred Lydia to Zack.

  “Bring her back anytime. She and Trixie didn’t get a real chance to play.”

  Zack flipped Lydia over his shoulder, letting her hang upside down by her belly while he held her heels with one hand. The little girl squealed as if having the time of her life. Posey was torn between a desire to remind him his niece was a baby, not a professional wrestler, and a prickle of sadness that Trixie’s father wasn’t willing to play with her like this.

  “She really did sleep all afternoon?” Zack asked.

  “She really did.”

  “And you’re sure she won’t be up all night, now?”

  If she was, it wouldn’t be because of an afternoon nap. Bedtime at the McGregor household must be an interesting experience. Somehow, Posey didn’t see it being very relaxing—not if the way Zack manhandled a baby was any indication.