The Rancher's Unexpected Twins--A Clean Romance

by Trish Milburn

  “No wonder that company of yours sends you all around the world to help people with their businesses,” Trudy said as she stacked the papers in front of her. “It’s a shame the same thing isn’t available to the small business owners who can’t afford expensive consultants.”

  Sunny kept thinking about Trudy’s observation as she went to Eileen’s for her first meeting as the new chair of the Fall Festival committee. It really was a shame that small communities didn’t have access to the same type of opportunities as cities, but that was how the world worked. Professionals migrated to cities because it was where they could actually make a living doing what they wanted. Not only were none of the Jade Valley business owners appearing on any billionaires lists anytime soon, but many of them were probably also barely getting by.

  By the time the festival committee meeting was over, not only did the festival have a new, flashier name—the Jade Valley Autumn Extravaganza—it also had a whole list of new activities, several additional volunteers, assignments made and deadlines set. Once Sunny got on a roll with ideas, she’d had to forcibly rein herself in before they had more activities than residents to coordinate them.

  When she reached her dad’s house and collapsed onto the couch, he chuckled at her.

  “I see the stories I’m hearing are true, that you’re working harder here than when you’re in LA.”

  “It does feel that way.” And yet, she was enjoying herself. It was one thing to bring an effective business plan to a multimillion-dollar company, but there was a different type of rush when helping those for whom her insights and hard work could mean exponentially more.

  Nothing was standing in her way of helping out the people she knew in Jade Valley whenever she had the time after going back to LA. The problem was she’d rarely have any spare time with work, helping her dad take care of the twins and looking for a home that was more suitable for all of them.

  Why did LA seem so far away in that moment? Like it was a place other people lived? That didn’t make sense when she’d paid her next month’s rent that morning.

  “What have you been up to today?” she asked, wanting to get her mind off her own confusing life.

  “The usual. Spoiling my grandkids, letting the TV rot my brain. And I made your mother’s corn bread to go with that stew you put in the Crock-Pot this morning. I’ll have you know my stomach has been rumbling for hours.”

  “Wait, you cooked?”

  He gave her a look that said she was being a smarty-pants, which of course she was.

  “How do you think I feed myself when you’re not here?”

  “Uber Eats?” She grinned at the very idea of Jade Valley having meal delivery of any sort other than pizzas from Little Italy, which had to be the smallest pizzeria in the country. There was room for exactly two people to stand in the little lobby of the takeout-and-delivery-only eatery. And even delivery didn’t extend beyond two miles outside the city limits.

  Her dad snorted, not even bothering with an answer.

  “The corn bread sounds good. I haven’t had it in a long time.”

  “Did you bring anything sweet home?”

  “I think we’ve all had about enough sweets since I’ve been back. I’m calling a moratorium on sugar.”

  “Now you’re just adding to my sad existence.” He tapped his cast.

  “The self-pity act really doesn’t suit you.”

  “It doesn’t, does it?”

  She shook her head.

  “I was so bored today that I also did the books,” he said.

  “Whew, that is bored.” Though keeping up with the financial bookkeeping for the ranch was not her dad’s favorite thing to do, it was a necessary evil.

  “You could ask Dean if he’d like to take that over.” She needed to start taking steps toward the ranch passing into Dean’s hands, because she kept expecting a call from Mike telling her that if she wasn’t in LA the next day she was going to be fired. And Dean might meet someone he liked and not want to be tied to a fake wife.

  No, she didn’t want to think about that possibility, or the reason she didn’t want to think about it.

  “Didn’t you have to tutor him in high school?”

  “In English, not math.” She was surprised by how much his question irritated her. “You should have more confidence in your foreman. If you let him, Dean could do a lot more.”

  When she caught the way her dad was grinning, for some reason she felt as if she’d walked into a trap. What a strange thought to have.

  “I suppose I should involve my son-in-law more in the decision-making since he’s family now.”

  “It shouldn’t have taken a wedding in the front yard and a marriage license for you to do that. He’s lived on this ranch longer than I have. I’ve looked at his ideas for diversifying, and I think they have a lot of merit. I added some of my own.”

  “That right?”

  She shared a couple of the smaller ideas, oddly not wanting to share all of the plans she and Dean had come up with together. She didn’t want to hear her dad possibly shoot them down or give him any reason to not want the ranch in Dean’s hands.

  “Sounds like you and Dean are a good team. That makes me happy. Your mom would be overjoyed. She used to tell me how nice it would be if the two of you grew up and fell in love.”

  Sunny sat up at this unexpected revelation. “She did? I never knew that.”

  “Of course she didn’t say anything to you. After all, you were still pretty young, too young to date. Not to mention kids are known to do the opposite of what their parents want.”

  A familiar sadness settled in the place in her heart left empty by the loss of her mom. That hole had company now, areas once filled with her brother’s laughter and her sister-in-law’s sweetness. She wondered if somehow her marriage to Dean had helped fill up similar holes in her dad’s heart.

  Not for the first time, she almost confessed everything to him. He would no doubt be angry and hurt, but wouldn’t it be even worse the longer she waited?

  “What did you think about what she said?”

  He shrugged. “Probably that she was getting ahead of herself.”

  Sunny watched as a familiar cloud of sorrow came over her dad’s face.

  “As you got older, she didn’t say anything because she knew you were probably going to leave and find your life somewhere else.” A sigh filled a few moments of pause. “I wish she could have seen how beautiful and happy you looked on your wedding day.”

  “I’m sure she did,” she said before she could think that saying so was a bad idea, in a way adding to the mountain of lies. But in a way not. After all, she hadn’t been unhappy on her wedding day, but any outward happiness simply hadn’t been for the reason her dad assumed.

  And yet when Dean joined them later for dinner, she found herself laughing and smiling and feeling as if they were a real family. She realized everything about Dean made it easy to slip into that mindset, and if she didn’t guard against it she might end up getting hurt by her own plan.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  DESPITE TELLING HERSELF she needed to make more moves toward convincing her dad to sign over the ranch to her and Dean, perhaps as a wedding gift and solid acknowledgment of Dean as a part of the family, more than just the ranch foreman, she kept avoiding it. Every time she said she’d start the next day, she ran into a mental wall of how to do so without it being painfully obvious what she was doing. And without guilt gnawing at her.

  Instead, she focused on work—for her job, taking care of the twins, helping out her dad and the various local irons she had in the fire. To her and her dad’s surprise, the first travel piece and associated special menu night at Trudy’s had gone over amazingly well, so much so that Eileen had asked her to do a series of talks at the art center with photos of the same locales. Sunny didn’t know if people were really interested i
n Thailand, the article topic that Maya had chosen to run first, or there weren’t many other local entertainment options. Whatever the reason, her first presentation at the art center was packed, as well.

  On top of all that work, she also found herself repeatedly going back to the master document she’d made of marketing and business strategy ideas for the ranch. She’d be in the middle of driving down the road or feeding the twins and another idea would pop into her head. She’d get so excited about it that by the time she had her laptop in front of her again, she couldn’t type up everything fast enough. Dean was going to have to have help implementing even a fraction of what they’d mapped out.

  She tried not to give too much thought to how every time she pictured someone else, perhaps a female someone, helping him make those ideas become reality, her mood soured.

  There were times when she thought perhaps Dean was having similar thoughts, but she always ended up attributing it to her imagination giving more meaning to simple kindnesses than was there. No doubt the forced proximity of living in the small house together wasn’t helping in keeping imagination and reality separate.

  She should be thankful for nights like tonight when she had space to herself while Dean was at her dad’s house for a poker night with Billy, Carlos, AJ, Dean’s dad and Tom Rifkin. It had started out as an effort to alleviate some of her dad’s boredom but had turned into a battle for bragging rights that was likely to go late into the night.

  She’d decided to decline the half-hearted invitation from her dad in favor of quality time with her niece and nephew and then some quiet for knocking out a chunk of quality work for her actual job. Hopefully it would prevent unwanted questions from Mike about when she was going to ever make an appearance in her LA office again.

  But she kept getting drowsy. Granted, lying stretched out on the couch with the laptop propped against her upturned legs didn’t help. Neither did the sound of rain on the roof that had started a few minutes before. She kept shaking her head and blinking, determined to stay awake long enough to get through a proposal for a potential client in Norway.

  Norway, land of long, cold nights perfect for curling up next to a fire with a good...book...and...

  She jerked awake, grabbing for her falling laptop. Only it wasn’t falling. Dean had his hands on it, lifting it from her lap to the coffee table. When his gaze met hers, she realized how close he was. Too close, so close she could feel his breath. And he didn’t look away or put more distance between them. Instead, he slowly lifted his hand and pushed some strands of her hair off her forehead.

  His fingers barely touched her skin, but she was nevertheless vividly reminded of that kiss they’d shared on their wedding day. Had that kiss opened up something within her that now saw Dean as a man, an attractive man, instead of only a friend she’d known all her life?

  “How did poker night go?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper. This moment seemed to demand quiet, as if speaking normally would break some sort of magic spell.

  “Your dad cleaned us out.” Dean also spoke softly, and she looked at his lips before she could think to stop herself.

  When she lifted her gaze to his, her breath caught. And as he started to lean closer, she could not find a single word to stop him.

  She didn’t want to stop him.

  It was a light kiss, soft, tender, what she had expected at the wedding instead of the very real kiss she’d received instead. For the space of a heartbeat she thought she sensed him about to deepen the kiss, but instead he broke contact and offered a little smile.

  “I think it’s time you go to bed and get some sleep.”

  You, not we.

  “Oh yeah.” After he stood to his full height and stepped back, she quickly swung her feet to the floor and grabbed her computer to her chest like armor. “Sorry I fell asleep in your space.”

  “It’s okay. I shouldn’t have come back so late.”

  Instead of telling him that he did not have to coordinate his schedule with hers, she simply stood, said good night and barely kept herself from running to the bedroom, then barricading herself inside. Not to keep him out but to put up barriers that would at least force her to think while removing them if she was tempted to go out and kiss him some more.

  * * *

  DEAN STOOD STARING at the door, halfway wanting Sunny to come back out and halfway wanting her to stay safely on the other side. He’d only had one beer at Jonathon’s, wanting to have a clear head for poker—not that it had done him a lot of good—so he couldn’t even blame alcohol for that impulsive kiss.

  No, it had been entirely his attraction to her combined with how much he had to constantly hold himself back from revealing it. To be honest, he was surprised she’d never scolded him for the kiss at their wedding. Maybe she’d thought it better to pretend it hadn’t happened at all.

  When he’d come home tonight to find her lying along the couch where he normally slept, illuminated only by a single light spilling out from the kitchen, his ability to keep his distance had cracked. But judging how quickly she’d retreated to the bedroom, he’d be lucky if she didn’t wake up in the morning and start divorce proceedings. Considering he didn’t think they were any closer to his gaining the ranch and her convincing her dad to move with her to California, this whole fake-marriage thing might have been for nothing. Well, nothing other than making him want her even more than he had before.

  Buzzing drew his attention but he quickly realized it wasn’t his phone since it was in his pocket and not vibrating. He spotted a lit-up screen on the couch. He picked up Sunny’s phone and saw the message was from her boss. Why was the man texting her after eleven at night? Well, he could just wait until the morning for a response. He placed the phone on the coffee table and sank onto the couch, then ran his hand over his face.

  His lips still tingled from where they’d touched Sunny’s. He wondered if she’d once again pretend that the kiss hadn’t happened. Or would she wake up in the morning upset with him for acting outside the boundaries of their agreement?

  A part of him wondered if he should just spill the truth about how he felt. What’s the worst that could happen? She was planning to leave Jade Valley for good anyway.

  You might not ever get to talk to her again.

  Maybe that would be the healthier outcome. If there was no true future for them, then cutting all ties would make it easier to move on. All those hours in the saddle riding the ranch’s acreage had given him a lot of opportunities for self-reflection. He hadn’t had to fork over hundreds or thousands of dollars to a therapist to figure out that the reason he’d never had a lasting relationship with any other woman was because he was still attached to Sunny. When she drove away the final time, that attachment needed to have been severed.

  That or he had to muster all his courage and confess his feelings in the tiny hope that some of them might be reciprocated.

  * * *

  THE MORNING AFTER Dean kissed her, Sunny went into full avoidance mode because she still didn’t have a clue how to act around him. Had he been caught up in another moment as a result of them living together, the same as she had? Or did he harbor actual feelings for her? When she thought about asking him outright, the thought of either answer made her nerves spasm all throughout her body.

  So she did what she always did when she didn’t want to face difficult-to-navigate situations—she threw herself into work, even more so than she had before.

  It seemed every day she was being asked for advice from someone new. Even a former classmate, Matt Lyons, had insisted on buying her lunch at Trudy’s and had agreed to help out with the building of some decorations for the festival in exchange for her advice on how he could best market his wooden carvings. She’d ended up spending a good three hours at Trudy’s, well beyond the lunch rush, helping him map out a plan because she was so impressed with his work. He’d been so thankful he’d offered he
r one of his pieces. She’d chosen not to examine too closely that a box containing a carving of a cowboy astride a horse, a birthday present for Dean, now sat beside her suitcase in Dean’s bedroom.

  Dean seemed to be on the avoidance train, as well. He always left early in the morning, but he was coming home later each evening too. He evidently was catching up on miscellaneous upkeep in the barn or so she’d heard from her dad, who’d given her a curious look that seemed to ask why a newly married man was avoiding going home. She could have used the opportunity to tell her dad things weren’t going to work out with Dean and she wanted her remaining family to move to California with her, but it was too soon. She was beginning to think that her dad’s passing comment about Dean only gaining access to the ranch through marriage to her had only meant sometime in the distant future when her dad passed away.

  Her impulsive actions really were making her feel like an idiot now. Still, she had to salvage the original plan. She and Dean needed to talk about what steps they should take when, how she might get her dad on board with the transfer of the ranch, but she kept putting it off whenever Dean came home and looked so tired each night.

  But she couldn’t put it off any longer. She didn’t like the new, distant wariness between them since that soft kiss had sent her emotions and any semblance of coherent thought reeling. Had caused her to miss him at the same time she was actively trying to avoid too much time together. She was not someone who was often confused, but that was exactly what she felt when she thought about Dean.

  When it started to rain yet again, she decided to make a big pot of chili and thick grilled-cheese sandwiches. And she texted Dean to let him know so that he wouldn’t spend extra time finding things to do that kept him away from his own home. Their avoiding each other was making that kiss into more than it had been.