Desire at Roosevelt Ranch

by Faber, Elise

  “Come here, kiddo,” Tilly said and hugged her tight. “Thank you for owning up to your mistake. That makes much more of a difference to me than one candle.”

  Jesse’s arms were around Tilly’s neck. “But the candles cost money.”

  His beautiful wife met his stare over Jesse’s shoulder. “They do, but I know how you can pay for it.”

  Jesse nodded and stepped back. “I’ll go home and get my piggy bank.”

  “No, kiddo. I want you to help me break down the boxes in the storeroom. My hands get so tired and I can’t fit them in the recycle bin by myself.”

  “I can do that.”

  “I’ll show you what to do.”

  Rex trailed Tilly, watching her explain the task to the little girl who’d just started first grade. Not even seven and yet so mature for her age already, so self-sufficient, smart, and capable—like her mama and aunties. She had great role models.

  Once Jesse got going on the boxes, Tilly came over to him and hugged him tight. “How are my two favorite boys?”

  “Missing you,” he said softly, handing over Jordan—because his brother didn’t get the copyright on J names in the Roosevelt household, and his son was as crazy about his wife as Kel and Justin’s kids were. It was probably why the twins had gotten into a rare disagreement, they tended to get very competitive over their Aunt Tilly.

  “It’s been a busy time,” she said. “I’m sorry I’ve been working so much.”

  He tugged her ponytail and went over to help Jesse with a box that was as big as her. “That’s what happens when your store is so successful that you need to open up three more locations.”

  Tilly blushed, and it was as cute now as it had been from the first moment he’d seen her. “I love you,” she murmured.

  “Meh,” he teased and folded the box for Jesse.

  “Thanks, Uncle Rex,” she said, wrestling it out the back door.

  “Should I—?” He started to follow her, but Tilly stopped him.

  “She’s fine.” A cheeky grin. “You forgot to kiss me hello.”

  “Hmm,” he said, tapping his chin. “Do parents do that? Especially very successful, very busy, fairly new parents?”

  “Shut up and get your mouth on mine.”

  He did as commanded, and as things were often the case now that he and Tilly had found their happy, now that they had crept in from the outside and firmly planted themselves into the center of their family, his kiss didn’t go as planned.

  Right when things began to heat up in all the right ways, he heard,

  “Ew, Uncle Rex.”

  “Yes, ew!”

  Jesse and Jax seemed to have finally found their common ground, and that was in the form of ew-ness. Ew-nity, one might say.

  Fine. He did say, which garnered him an eye roll from his wife, a snort from Justin, fresh “ew”s from the twins, and giggles from Abigail. Then, fresh from the ranch, Kelly joined them, her pregnant belly leading the way, because she and his brother was expecting another set of twins. The chaos of the kiddos’ greetings for their mother woke up Jordan, who began crying in earnest while Tilly walked and bounced him through the store.

  It was insanity.

  It was loud and decidedly not peaceful.

  It was everything he could have ever dreamed of.

  Rex crossed to his wife and kissed her soundly on the lips, scooping up Jordan and making silly faces at him until he settled down and demanded to be put down so he could join his cousins.

  They watched Justin’s brood encourage Jordan until he managed to crawl close enough that Abigail took pity on him and carried him the last bit of the distance.

  “I can’t wait to make another one of those with you,” he murmured.

  Tilly’s eyes softened. “Funny you should say that,” she said, lacing their fingers together. “We might not have had much time for kissing but . . .” She brought his palm to her belly.

  Holy shit.

  “You’re—?”

  She nodded, smile huge, and he bravely risked more “ew”s because the most important thing in the world in that moment was kissing his beautiful, incredible wife.

  “I fucking love you,” he said when they finally had to stop for air.

  Her cheeks were pink, her lips swollen, and she glanced around the shop that had gotten suspiciously quiet.

  “I think Justin took a hint,” she said with a laugh.

  “About time,” he said, laughing along with her. “Should we go rescue them?”

  “Probably.” Her mouth curved, her eyes mischievous. “But kiss me once more before we go.”

  Not one to deny his wife anything, Rex obliged.

  And then kept kissing her until the “ew”s returned.

  Roosevelt Ranch Series

  Disaster at Roosevelt Ranch

  Heartbreak at Roosevelt Ranch

  Collision at Roosevelt Ranch

  Regret at Roosevelt Ranch

  Desire at Roosevelt Ranch

  Did you miss any of the other Roosevelt Ranch books? Check out excerpts from the series below or find the full series here: amazon.com/gp/product/B07Q8VRK9Y

  DISASTER AT ROOSEVELT RANCH

  Book One

  (books2read.com/DARR)

  Using my back, I pushed through the swinging door and promptly stumbled to a stop.

  He was here. Rex was here.

  Stupidly, my heart raced. He’d changed his mind. He’d—

  The man’s eyes flicked to mine, completely unrecognizing and indifferent. My momentary burst of hope disintegrated.

  He was going to pretend not to know me? To not recognize me?

  The jerk! The rotten—

  Except . . . there was something off about him. I squinted, trying to discern the change, but the tray was taking its toll on my arms. I tore my gaze away from Rex to practically hurl the dishes at my customers.

  “Anything else?” I asked, and was thankful when there weren’t any requests.

  Two seconds later, I was in front of Rex.

  Who wasn’t actually Rex.

  Oh, he was the right height and had the same square jaw and the same gorgeous, sun-kissed skin, but this man wasn’t the one I’d slept with.

  “Hi,” he said, his green eyes warm. They were a brilliant emerald and just as inviting as they’d been in the picture I’d seen on Rex’s desk. “Can I just sit anywhere?”

  My nod was jerky. “I’ll get you a menu.”

  Fingers brushed my arm—calloused fingers that felt both familiar and different.

  “You okay?”

  I forced a smile, my stomach churning. This could not be happening. “Just perfect—”

  And that was the moment I puked all over Rex’s twin’s shoes.

  —Get your copy books2read.com/DARR.

  HEARTBREAK AT ROOSEVELT RANCH

  Book Two

  (books2read.com/HARR)

  I navigated the minefield of toys as I made my way over to Max. I gave an internal grunt as I lifted the little—or not so little, anymore—monkey and tucked him back into bed.

  One hastily constructed barrier of pillows and blankets and stuffed Minecraft toys later, and I was heading back out of the room.

  I flicked the light off, started to leave—

  “Too dark, Mommy,” he murmured.

  A sigh. Back on it went. “Good night, sweetheart.”

  “Night.”

  This time I made it to the top of the stairs before a sound stopped me.

  It wasn’t the kids. No. This was more like . . . buzzing?

  I cocked my head and listened, then made my way to my bedroom, a growing pile of toys in my arms as I went.

  The door was open, and I walked inside, dumping the pile on the coverlet before stopping to pinpoint the sound.

  I felt my pockets for my cell. Not even two days before, I’d scoured the house for my phone, it somehow having fallen out of my pocket, ending up under the dresser. It had taken darn near fifty calls and a search of the entire h
ouse before I’d found it.

  Those locating apps were all well and good, but they couldn’t tell a person which room in a house their phone was. Which meant the app, for my day-to-day exploits, was pretty much useless.

  I hardly left home at all except for the kids’ activities and school pickup or drop off.

  Or if Rob needed something down at the station.

  And that was fine. My place was at home. The kids needed me, Rob needed me. It was just that sometimes . . .

  No. Don’t get sidetracked.

  My phone was in my pocket. The sound wasn’t coming from beneath the dresser.

  It was coming from the bed.

  I peered under, saw nothing, and I was reaching for Rob’s flashlight in his nightstand when I realized where exactly the noise was originating from.

  My hand slid between the mattress and box spring, jumping a little when the object buzzed against my fingers.

  “What—?” I pulled it out, saw it was an older-looking iPhone. Why was there—

  Then I saw the texts. An entire screen worth of them.

  And my heart froze solid.

  I’m heading to the hotel.

  Where are you?

  Don’t keep me waiting, honey.

  I need you.

  The question wasn’t why Rob had hidden a phone under his side of the mattress. It was why someone named Celeste was calling him honey and telling my husband that she needed him.

  Downstairs, I heard the garage door rumble open and close, the clink of Rob’s keys on the kitchen counter. “Miss?” he called softly up the stairs.

  My voice was gone, my throat tight. My eyes burned, and still, I held the phone. It wasn’t until I heard him walking down the hall to the bedroom that I sprang into motion.

  I shoved the phone back under the mattress and scooped up the toys.

  Rob stopped short in the doorway. “Oh.” He smiled. “I called you.”

  “Sorry, I was cleaning.”

  He touched my cheek, slid past me. “You don’t have to do that.”

  “It’s my job,” I said brightly, and if it was too bright then what did it matter anyway?

  My husband was moving toward the bathroom, already unbuttoning his shirt. “Is there a plate for me?”

  I turned, saw he’d paused, and forced a smile. “Yup. I’ll heat it up for you.”

  “Thanks, love.”

  “Of course.” I walked out of the bedroom but didn’t go downstairs.

  Instead, I hesitated in the hall, silent and waiting.

  And my gut tied itself into knots when I heard Rob’s footfalls across the carpet, the slide of his hand beneath the mattress as he pulled out the phone.

  —Get your copy at books2read.com/HARR.

  COLLISION AT ROOSEVELT RANCH

  Book Three

  (books2read.com/CARR)

  Haley

  “Just play already,” Haley muttered, fumbling with her phone. She’d stopped at an intersection on her way home from the hospital, and she just wanted to boy band love, okay?

  Exhaustion tugged at her brain, her eyes burned, and her shoulders ached. She was also very close to tears.

  She’d lost a patient that night.

  It hadn’t been her fault. It hadn’t been anyone’s fault. Sometimes those things just happened—accidents, everyone working frantically to pull someone back from the brink, a body failing—but that didn’t make losing a patient any easier.

  Her job was to save them.

  Life was such a fragile thing. As a nurse, she knew that firsthand. But she’d also left her job at the busy county hospital in California and returned home to Darlington, Utah because she was tired of seeing people die every day.

  Haley was damned good at compartmentalizing, but sometimes things weren’t so easy to shove down.

  Sometimes those fuckers kept popping back up.

  Sometimes the cases hit too close to home—

  A horn beeped behind her and she jumped. “Shit.” Her phone still not cooperating, the poppy upbeat notes of her favorite boy bands remained silently trapped inside the technological device that never seemed to work correctly.

  Even though it was brand spanking new.

  Even though she’d gotten a complete tutorial from her brother-in-law, who had gone through all the troubleshooting with her.

  Even though the freaking tech from the phone store had personally tested the Bluetooth by coming out to her car and showing her how it worked.

  Technology. She repelled it.

  Or rather, she was technology’s kryptonite.

  Two minutes around her, and she destroyed even the most powerful device.

  “Yay me,” she murmured, dropping the phone to her passenger’s seat. Haley shouldn’t be fussing with it anyway, not while she was driving, but—a sigh—she’d really wanted to escape for the rest of her drive.

  Not to be.

  Checking for traffic, she pulled carefully through the intersection. Darlington was a small town, and signals were few and far between, but the roads at this time of the night were dark . . . and she’d had a deer jump right in front of her car once before.

  The car that had honked at her turned to follow her down the bumpy lane, headlights very bright in her rearview mirror, the front bumper just inside that bubble all drivers had.

  This one triggered her slightly-too-close alert but not the this-fucker-better-back-off alarm.

  Her lips curved.

  So, she might have gotten used to the more aggressive drivers of Northern California.

  The thought of her first months in San Francisco, of the busy roads, the huge buildings, the patient care that both challenged and devastated her, brought a smile to her face. For all the reasons she’d come home, Haley was still happy she’d left Utah.

  Small town life was . . . well, small.

  Or it had seemed that way before she’d left.

  Now she saw how much her world had expanded by being . . . well, herself. Having found herself, as cliché as that sounded.

  She’d left a little girl, never feeling like she could measure up, and had returned—

  Still feeling like she would never live up to her expectations. Ha. That was life for a girl. But Haley had come back with the understanding that she was the one setting impossible standards. Progress, yes? And she was a work in progress.

  Step one was realizing that not everything she did had to be perfect and exacting.

  Which was all well and good for her Pinterest attempts—cough—fails.

  It didn’t work as well for her patients.

  Hence the mental punch fest happening in her brain alongside the driving need for cheesy pop music to provide her with some escapism.

  Had she done everything right? What had she missed? What could she have done differently? Would any of it had made any difference?

  No.

  No, it wouldn’t have.

  Tears stung her eyes, and she blinked them away.

  If Haley hadn’t blinked at that moment, things might not have turned out as they did.

  But she did blink, right as two other things happened simultaneously.

  Music exploded through her speakers—the Backstreet Boys singing about the way they wanted it—and a deer jumped into the road.

  By the time her lids had flashed back open, the jar of pop-tastic noise accelerating the process to near inhuman speed, the flipping deer was directly in front of her bumper and definitely within her bubble.

  Frankly, it was firmly in the she-was-gonna-plow-it-down-and-make-a-deer-pancake zone.

  “Fuck!” She slammed on her brakes.

  Tires screeched. She braced for impact and then . . .

  The deer executed a leap that was fitting of a figure skater and jumped clear of her car.

  Haley sighed in relief. For a single heartbeat.

  Because that relief disappeared before the next.

  Her body was propelled forward as the driver who had been—and here came that damned bubb
le analogy again—following her too closely before, plowed into her from behind.

  And she didn’t even have time to snort about the dirtiness of that particular innuendo before the seatbelt yanked tightly across her chest. Pain shot up her leg as her foot compressed more firmly on the brake pedal, but before she could focus too much on the sensation, her head smacked against the top of the steering wheel.

  “Fucking bubbles,” she slurred as everything went black.

  —Get your copy at books2read.com/CARR

  REGRET AT ROOSEVELT RANCH

  Book Four

  (books2read.com/RARR)

  Henry

  Henry wiped down the final table. He was beyond ready to go home and crash after a busy Sunday evening cooking at the diner.

  He’d already flicked off the neon “Open” sign and dimmed the lights. The kitchen had been scrubbed and reset for the next morning’s breakfast rush, and he’d sent Tilly off about an hour earlier—she’d had a date, and Henry didn’t mind sweeping up or stocking the tables with all the necessities for the next day.

  Paper napkins, ketchup, salt and pepper, sugar. They weren’t what had been on the tables in the Michelin-starred restaurant he’d cooked at while living in New York five years before, but they were his childhood.

  His way of feeling close to his dad.

  God, he missed his dad.

  The bell hanging on the front door rang, and he mentally cursed at having forgotten to lock it.

  Beginner mistake.

  He’d worked half his childhood in the diner, had closed it down more times than he could count.

  And somehow, he’d forgotten to lock the front door.

  Hopeless.

  “I’m sorry, we’re closed,” he said, deliberately not looking as he reached to straighten a salt shaker that was slightly askew.