The Rancher's Unexpected Twins--A Clean Romance

by Trish Milburn

  Her dad snorted. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised to see you since I saw your husband ride out early.”

  “He’s a man who loves his job and this ranch.” Might as well remind her dad of that fact whenever the opportunity arose. She’d have to figure out the timing of the demise of her relationship at some point, but starting that the day after her wedding seemed like a bad idea.

  After breakfast, placing the twins in their playpen on the porch and making sure her dad didn’t tumble going down the front steps because he insisted on going to the barn before I go crazy in this house, Sunny parked herself in one of the porch chairs and opened her laptop.

  She’d decided to ease local readers into the travel series by writing about a trip she’d taken by train across Australia. As she started writing, she lost herself in memories of the trip. So much so that she didn’t even hear her dad’s approach until she noticed him at the bottom of the porch steps.

  “That work of yours must be interesting because you didn’t freak out once watching me walk back from the barn.”

  She stuck her tongue out at him. “I don’t freak out. Pardon me for being concerned and not wanting you to break any other bones.”

  “Sassy.”

  “It’s in the genes.”

  He huffed then climbed his way carefully up the steps. Sunny made the difficult decision to not even get up out of her seat, but she was ready to toss her laptop and fly to his aid if he showed the slightest wobble.

  The fact that he didn’t seem quite as tired doing so as he had when she first arrived was a good sign. Still, he seemed glad to sink into the chair next to hers and reach into the playpen so Lily could grab his tanned, calloused finger.

  “How’s the prettiest girl in the world?” he asked his granddaughter.

  Sunny gave a dramatic sigh. “I remember when you used to ask me that. Now I’ve been usurped.”

  “Yep, you have.”

  Sunny fake punched her dad on the arm. He laughed, which caused Lily to giggle too.

  “You’ve got someone else to tell you that you’re pretty now,” he said.

  She didn’t respond, thankful that at that exact moment Liam tossed his little ball out of the playpen and she had the excuse to get up to retrieve it.

  “Toys stay in here with you, little man,” she said, then ruffled his fine hair, which elicited some of those delightful baby giggles.

  “What are you working on?” her dad asked, thankfully not noticing anything amiss with her not responding to his previous comment. “Where will you be jetting off to next?”

  “I’m actually writing a travel article for Maya. She suckered me into doing a series of travel pieces.”

  “Not sure how many people will read those around here.”

  “You might be surprised.”

  He shrugged, and she suddenly found herself hoping that the issues her features appeared in sold in record numbers. But it was entirely possible her dad was right. Oh well, if she inspired one person to travel internationally, it would be worth the effort.

  After she finished the rough draft of the article, she tackled a bit more of her work, then made sure the twins were safely inside before heading into town to pick up a few grocery items. Before going to the market, however, she stopped in to see Trudy and grab a strawberry milkshake.

  But when she stepped into the kitchen, she was just in time to see Trudy slam a pan against a metal prep table.

  “That woman is going to be the death of me.” Trudy turned around and startled when she saw Sunny.

  “Oh sorry. Didn’t realize I had an audience.”

  “Let me guess. Alma?”

  “That obvious, huh?”

  “I can’t imagine anyone else who would bring out that kind of reaction in you.”

  “Well, I don’t think she’ll be satisfied until she runs me out of business.”

  “Judging by the amount of people in the dining room, I don’t think there’s much chance of that.”

  “It looks much different at dinnertime.”

  “And Alma’s doesn’t?”

  “She somehow got interviewed for a travel magazine, and they said she was the owner of the only restaurant in town.”

  “Do you think Alma would outright lie like that?”

  “Well, she didn’t correct them at least. And evidently the magazine editor’s nephew is Josh Carlson, and he has a hunting and fishing cabin about an hour from here. I don’t know what she said or did, but he’s going to be playing there on Friday night.”

  Josh Carlson was a Wyoming celebrity after he won one of those singing reality shows a few months back. No doubt the whole county was going to try to cram into Alma’s dining room because Jade Valley didn’t get many celebrity sightings.

  “Okay, then we have to think of something even bigger and better.”

  “A lovely thought, dear, but how can I beat having a rising country star playing in my dining room?”

  Sunny gripped Trudy by her shoulders. “You do remember that business consulting is what I do, right? And that I’m very good at it?”

  “What do you have in mind? Because I’m all ears.”

  “I don’t know yet, but give me a bit of time to do some brainstorming.”

  “I don’t want to intrude on your honeymoon period.”

  “You’re not. Dean was out working bright and early this morning as usual.”

  “Well, that man could use some lessons in how to take a break and enjoy himself.”

  Sunny’s face heated.

  “Ranch work waits for no one, newly married or not.”

  “I suppose that’s true. Stupid cows.”

  Sunny laughed and imagined Dean would laugh at Trudy’s response too.

  “You sure you have time to do this?”

  “For you, yes.”

  Trudy placed her hands on Sunny’s cheeks and for a moment she thought the older woman might kiss her. Instead, she walked over to a glass-fronted cold-storage unit and pointed at it.

  “Pick whichever dessert you want and you’re taking it home to have with that handsome husband of yours.”

  No matter how many times she heard Dean referred to in that way, it didn’t get any less strange.

  By the time she managed to leave the restaurant, she had acquired a lemon icebox pie in addition to the milkshake she’d come for in the first place. She’d also promised Trudy not only to come up with a great business plan to compete with Alma’s newest venture but also that she’d attend the next meeting of the Fall Festival committee to see if she could give them some winning ideas to bring in more attendees.

  She certainly was going to be busier than she’d expected while back in Wyoming. Maybe she could use all this time spent away from Dean as the beginning of the imagined fissure between them.

  As she sank into the driver’s seat of her rental car, she felt a bit nauseated. She looked at the milkshake but didn’t think it was bad, and she wasn’t lactose intolerant. But something wasn’t sitting right in her middle.

  She realized the sick feeling had hit right after she’d thought of the first step toward the dissolution of her marriage. It had to happen, but not before she secured what both she and Dean wanted and ensured that everyone was happy with the end result. She’d started this madness with the best of intentions and would do everything she could so that no one got hurt in the process.

  When she left the market, it had begun to sprinkle. By the time she reached the ranch, her windshield wipers were going full speed and she could still barely see. If she didn’t know the road from town so well, she would have likely missed the turn onto the ranch road.

  By the time she unloaded the groceries, she was soaking wet. She’d planned to take the twins back to Dean’s house with her, but her dad convinced her they’d be perfectly fine with him overnight same as t
hey’d been while she’d been in town. Still, she ignored her drenched state long enough to feed, bathe, diaper and clothe Lily and Liam, then place them back in the playpen next to her dad’s bed, where he’d agreed to let them stay rather than trying to carry them to their crib. She didn’t want to think about how they and her dad might all be injured if he tried that maneuver.

  “Call me if you need anything,” she said. “Please don’t try to carry them anywhere.”

  “I know, I know. Stop pestering me like I don’t have two working brain cells.”

  “I’m not. You have three.”

  He lifted one of his crutches as if he was going to hit her in the butt, causing her to laugh as she headed toward the door.

  By the time she walked into her temporary home, the rain had slackened to a drizzle again. She didn’t even hurry inside because what was the use? The only way she could be wetter was if she was under the surface of the river. She glanced down the road, wondering where Dean was and if he was every bit as soaked.

  Feeling chilled, she decided to take a hot shower after depositing Trudy’s lemon pie in the fridge. It didn’t feel any less weird to be standing naked in Dean’s bathroom a few minutes later, letting the stream of hot water drive away the chill. Thank goodness he wasn’t home.

  Already planning how she’d spend the rest of her evening, she stepped out of the bathroom rubbing her hair with a towel. And screamed when she saw someone an arm’s length from her. In the next moment, she realized it was Dean.

  “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you,” Dean said as he took a step back.

  She waved off his apology. “No need to apologize. I’m so used to living alone in LA that it was instinct to freak out seeing someone when I stepped out of the bathroom.”

  At least she had thought to take clothes in with her and hadn’t come out actually wearing a towel.

  “I wasn’t expecting you back so soon,” she said.

  “With the rain and nothing really pressing, we called it quits a bit early today.”

  If they were a real married couple, she’d assume he couldn’t wait to get back to his new wife. But they weren’t a real couple. Why did she feel a smidge of sadness at that thought? The wedding was over. She wasn’t supposed to have these wayward romantic thoughts anymore.

  “Guess you probably want the bathroom then. You look about like I did when I got back.”

  “I’ve been wetter. I’ve also been dryer.”

  She smiled and motioned him toward the bathroom.

  “I need to get some clothes first.”

  She realized he was asking if he could enter his bedroom.

  “It’s your house, Dean. You don’t have to ask my permission to go into your own room.”

  “I didn’t want to assume.”

  “It’s not like I have my unmentionables lying about. If I’m not in there, come and go as you please.”

  As Dean replaced her in the shower, Sunny distracted herself by warming up some leftovers that had been transferred from her dad’s fridge to Dean’s and toasting some rolls to go with them. When Dean joined her in the kitchen, she had to try very hard not to notice how the worn green T-shirt stretched across his chest. He should really wear a looser shirt, not one that made her wonder what he looked like without a shirt at all. She wondered if losing her mind was a consequence of lying.

  She deliberately turned her back to him to retrieve a glass of water.

  “What do you want to drink?”

  “Water’s good,” he said. “Is there anything I can do? I don’t expect you to prepare dinner for me, you know.”

  “Trust me—this was minimal effort. I even brought back a lemon pie from Trudy’s.”

  “I’m going to need you to go back to California soon or I’m going to have to buy bigger pants.”

  “Somehow I doubt that from someone who works as much as you do.”

  As they ate, they shared the details of their day like many married couples did over dinner. Sunny had to keep telling herself that if Maya was sitting across from her, they’d be doing the same thing. Only her gaze wouldn’t have kept drifting to Maya’s chest or her bare arms.

  “Be careful if you go to that festival meeting,” Dean said, drawing her attention back to something other than his distracting physique. “Give them half a chance and they’ll rope you into doing something.”

  “I’m only going to help them brainstorm a bit. Trudy said that attendance has been down the past couple of years and they’re hoping to draw more tourists as well as people who live a little farther afield.”

  After they’d eaten and Dean had washed the dishes while she put away what they hadn’t eaten, Dean retreated to his recliner. But instead of watching TV, he pulled out a spiral notebook and started writing something.

  “Don’t tell me you have secret aspirations of being a novelist,” she said as she sat on the couch with her laptop, aiming to finish up the article for Maya then start brainstorming ideas for Trudy.

  “Huh?”

  Sunny nodded toward his notebook.

  “Oh. My random ideas for what I want to do with the ranch someday.”

  “Can I see?”

  “Don’t you have enough to do already?”

  “I’m not going to go out and build cabins for you,” she said.

  He smiled and handed her the notebook. For the next few minutes, she examined all of his ideas and jotted down her own for ways to improve or expand on them.

  “This is pretty impressive,” she said.

  “Really?”

  She looked at him. “Why do you sound so surprised?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe because they’ve just been ideas floating around in my head for so long.”

  “But you knew you’d put them into practice at some point.”

  “Well, no, not if your dad didn’t agree to any of them. I even considered leaving and buying my own place, but I’d be starting from scratch and who knows when I’d be able to make any of the things in that notebook a reality.”

  His admission surprised her, and she didn’t like the tinge of defeatism she heard in his voice. It wasn’t like him at all.

  “Come here,” she said, patting the couch next to her.

  He stared at her as if not understanding English all of a sudden.

  Sunny pointed at him then pointed next to her, repeated the action again until he lowered the footrest on his chair and came to sit beside her. When she felt the warmth of his nearness and could smell the lingering scents of his soap and shampoo, she questioned the wisdom of her request. Also her sanity.

  She did her best not to allow those types of thoughts mental space and started going over her ideas for his greenhouse and cabin-rental plans, things that would make the cabins stand out from others in the area and how he should grow organic vegetables and maybe even flowers. He could provide supply to area restaurants as well as the tiny florist in town.

  “And you could take advantage of the growing popularity of the farmer’s market,” she said.

  “I thought of that.”

  He leaned closer to point at something in the notebook, but Sunny couldn’t have told anyone what it was because she was too busy trying to remember how to breathe.

  “I...uh...” Oh no, she was revealing too much with her inability to speak. “I had another crazy idea, something that would probably need to be implemented even farther down the road.”

  “Yeah?”

  Sunny made the enormous mistake of looking toward Dean at the same moment he looked at her. He was close, too close. And she did not imagine how his gaze dipped to her mouth. The memory of their kiss made her lips tingle.

  No, this wasn’t right. They were friends, ones who should not let their acting get out of hand so much that they did something that ruined that friendship.

  She jerked her g
aze back to the notebook, doing everything in her power to not reveal how fast her heart was beating.

  “What do you think of a small restaurant beside the river too? It wouldn’t have to be anything big because, realistically, there wouldn’t be enough business for a large place. But guests would have easy access to meals, and it could become known as a special-occasion place for locals and people in surrounding towns. Have a different type of menu than Trudy’s and Alma’s so you weren’t in direct competition.”

  “Sounds like a risky investment.”

  She looked over at him again, but this time she’d prepared herself for the fact that her husband was more attractive than she’d ever realized before. She supposed familiarity had blinded her to that fact.

  “I didn’t think you were risk averse.”

  “Just because I have ideas to diversify doesn’t mean I can do everything.”

  “You wouldn’t do it immediately. I never advise clients to implement too many improvements at once. You add one thing, then when you feel confident it’s going to be a success you add the next one, slightly bigger and more ambitious. The profits from the first steps fund the ones that come after.”

  Dean sat back and stretched his arm out along the back of the couch. The added distance between them allowed her to breathe a bit easier and her heart to slow a fraction.

  “I have other ideas too. Or do you not want to hear them?” she asked.

  “Doesn’t cost me anything to listen.”

  And so she outlined how she would implement both his ideas and hers, starting with the greenhouse.

  “Not only could you establish a brand for organic vegetables but you could expand that to also include beef. After those things are solid moneymakers, I’d start with a couple of cabins, see what the demand is. Gradually add more. Then come up with advertising campaigns that are themed—group stays for corporate retreats, wedding parties, reunions. Tied in with that could be hosting weddings and other special events. There’s plenty of space to add a building that could host all kinds of events. Or you could reverse the order and do the cabins first and use the income from those rentals to fund the organic efforts.”