The Rancher's Christmas Princess

by Christine Rimmer

  But she’d had other ideas. She’d agreed to hire the investigator, but she’d also decided to come straightaway to meet him. In the end, it was going to have to be her decision anyway. She didn’t want to dawdle over it, growing more and more attached to Ben as he grew more attached to her.

  Better to get moving on what needed doing, to...get it over with.

  She was a good judge of character and so far Preston had done nothing to raise any red flags with her. On the contrary, he seemed to her a solid, trustworthy man. A responsible man. When she’d asked the chatty motel owner about him, the woman had said he was gruff and not an easy man to know, that he’d only gotten more withdrawn after a “disappointment in love” two years before. Belle had wanted to ask the woman for details about that “disappointment.”

  But she hadn’t. It would have felt too much like gossiping. Still, after what Mrs. Seabuck had said about him, she’d worried he would be hard to know.

  And then she’d met him and found him much too easy to talk to. He hadn’t been gruff or withdrawn in the least, not with her anyway.

  She could find no excuse to keep the truth from him. She needed to follow through on her dear friend’s final request.

  Anne had wanted it this way....

  Anne.

  Just thinking her name brought a fresh surge of pain. Her friend had been gone for only ten days. Maybe she should have listened to her parents, waited for the investigator’s report at least.

  All she really wanted was to keep Ben with her, to raise him as her own.

  But that wasn’t to be. In the end, she was honor bound to carry through and do what Anne requested.

  How to get started, though? How to get the all-important words out of her mouth?

  Dear Lord, she still didn’t know.

  It was snowing lightly, the white flakes flying at the windshield out of the darkness. So beautiful. So cold.

  The land was bare and rolling with a silvery glow about it. Staggered, leaning fences lined the slopes to either side of the two-lane highway. Farther out, she could see the dark shapes of evergreens. The sky was endless—cloudy overhead, but clear far in the distance. On the crests of the mountain ridges way ahead, beneath the lowering dark clouds, she could see a band of cobalt studded with stars.

  “Here we are,” Preston said. Neither of them had spoken for several minutes. He turned the four-door pickup truck onto a smaller road. The lights of Marcus’s SUV beamed in through the rear window as the bodyguard swung in behind them.

  Thick evergreens, several rows of them on either side, lined the curving road. “Ponderosa pines,” he said. “They make a good windbreak.”

  The snow had stopped. They rode between the thick stands of dark trees. And then the road opened up. There was a rustic arched gate with a sign: McCade Ranch. Beyond the gate, she saw barns and sheds, pastures and corrals, the land rolling in the distance. Farther out, those craggy peaks poked into the sky.

  There were two houses facing off across a wide yard and circular driveway from each other. They were both two-story, of wood and natural stone, the smaller house seeming almost a miniature of the larger one. There were lights on in both houses. Nearer the barn, she saw another house, more rustic, like a cabin. There were lights on inside that one, too.

  Preston parked in front of the largest house. Marcus pulled in behind him and was at her door, opening it for her, before Preston could get there.

  She got out and went to meet Preston as he came around the front of the pickup. “Marcus will need to go in first, if that’s all right? To...have a look around.”

  Preston shrugged. “Whatever it takes.” He turned to the bodyguard. “Go ahead. It’s not locked.” Marcus went up the steps and disappeared inside. Preston offered his arm and she took it. They proceeded up the steps at a slower pace. “So...do we wait out here until he gives the okay?”

  She felt her cheeks redden. Really, all these security protocols did become tiresome. “It should be only a minute or two. And the good news is, once he gives the all clear, if you ever invite me back, he won’t insist on doing this again.”

  “You sure?” Blue eyes teased.

  “I promise.” Her gaze drifted to his mouth. It was a fine mouth, firm and yet well-shaped. She wondered what it might feel like pressed to hers—which was a completely unacceptable and inappropriate thing to be wondering.

  She was not going to kiss this man. She hardly knew this man. This evening was not about kisses and she desperately needed to remember that.

  “Don’t look now, but here comes my father.” Preston’s gaze had shifted. He was looking out across the front yard. Which meant maybe he hadn’t seen her staring at his lips—she hoped. “Whatever he says, don’t believe a word of it.”

  She turned to look. A tall, rangy white-haired man with a thick, walrus-worthy moustache came striding toward them dressed in a pair of jeans that had seen better days and one of those waffle-weave shirts that looked like it doubled as his pajamas. He had bushy gray brows and a definite gleam in his eyes.

  “Preston,” he said, his voice deep and rumbling and full of good humor. “Where’s your manners? You bring a lady home, you know I need to meet her. It’s only right I give her warning about you.” The old guy’s mustache twitched. He gave Belle a wink. “I’m Silas. The charming half of the family.” He offered a leathery hand.

  Belle took it. “Arabella. Please call me Belle.”

  He enclosed her hand between both of his. His gray eyes twinkled down at her. “I heard about you. They say you’re a princess....”

  “Back it down a notch, Dad,” Preston muttered dryly.

  The door opened and Marcus emerged. “All clear, ma’am.”

  Silas patted her hand before letting it go. “A bodyguard. I can tell by that thing in his ear. And the lack of any facial expression whatsoever.”

  Preston appeared to be suppressing a groan. “Why don’t we go in?” He gestured at the open door.

  “Don’t mind if I do, son.” Silas gave a little bow. “But after you, Your Loveliness.”

  Belle grinned. She couldn’t help it. So often, people were intimidated by her background. Not Silas McCade. “Why thank you, Silas.” She led the way into a roomy two-story foyer. Wide stairs led to the upper floor. It seemed to her a sturdy, solid house. A house that could do with a woman’s touch—some brighter colors, different curtains. But still, it was a fine house. Clean and well-maintained.

  “Let’s go in the living room.” Preston helped her out of her coat and hung it on the hall tree, along with his own and that handsome cowboy hat he always wore. Then he gestured toward the open double door to her left. She went in. The McCade men followed. Marcus remained behind, near the front door. Preston told her, “Have a seat.”

  She did, on the sofa.

  Silas took an easy chair across from her. “A little whiskey would be welcome, son. You, Belle?”

  “Nothing right now, thank you.”

  Preston poured a drink, gave it to his father and sat down in the other easy chair.

  Silas started talking. About how he had the foreman’s cottage across the yard, about how it got lonely at the ranch on a cold winter night. “Nice,” he said, “to have a little feminine company around this old place.” He started in about the horses they raised. “Preston’s good with horses and our breeding program is one of the best in the state. But I’m what they call a natural. You heard about those horse whisperers? I can do them one better. I don’t even have to whisper. A horse just naturally wants to please me. They know what I’m thinking and they do what I want them to do without me having to breathe a word.”

  Preston advised softly, “Don’t let false modesty stand in your way, Dad.”

  “Never have. Never will.” Silas drained the last of his drink and stood again. “Well, I guess I’ve monopolized the conversation enough for this evening.” He gave a nod of his shining silver head. “Belle, it’s been a delight to meet you.”

  “And to m
eet you, Silas.”

  Now Silas seemed almost shy. “You come back again. Anytime. Often.”

  “Thank you.”

  He left them.

  Preston waited until the front door closed behind him. “No one quite like my dad.”

  “He’s a charmer, definitely.”

  “For God’s sake, don’t ever tell him that. He’s impossible to live with as it is.”

  “I doubt that. I’m guessing he’s good company. And that the two of you get along quite well together.”

  Preston looked at her levelly then. “Yeah, you guessed right.”

  She thought of her cousin Charlotte, her companion, who was back at their lodgings, with Ben. She counted on Charlotte in so many ways. They’d been together for four years. And they did well together, she and Charlotte. She imagined that Preston’s relationship with his father might be somewhat the same.

  He was watching her.

  She met and held his gaze. It was so easy to do, to look at him. And it felt...good. Warm and exciting to be here with him. She hadn’t expected this. To be so attracted to him. As a rule, she was a down-to-earth, practical person, not prone to flirtations or easy infatuations.

  It probably wasn’t a good thing to be so taken with him, when you came right down it. It was hard enough to be calm and objective about the task before her without these sparks flashing back and forth between them.

  He said, “You’re so quiet, all of a sudden....”

  “Sorry. Just...thinking.”

  “About?”

  “I was...” Tell him. Tell him now. But her courage deserted her. “...wondering if you have this big house all to yourself?”

  “I do. My dad moved across the yard when I got back from college. He said it was a fine thing that I wanted to work with him. But the house would be mine one day and I might as well lay claim to it. He said the smaller house suited him. Doris, our longtime housekeeper, used to live in. But she remarried last year and moved to her new husband’s place. He’s got five acres not far from here. She comes in Monday through Friday to clean—here and across the yard at the old man’s place. She also cooks for us.”

  “How many hired men do you have here?”

  “We keep two hands on year-round, and then hire at least two more in the spring. There’s another house, the men’s cabin, with a living area downstairs and an open sleeping loft that holds six beds.”

  She remembered. “The cabin near the barn?”

  “That’s right. Doris cooks for the hands, too, Monday through Friday. Weekends, we play the meals by ear. It works out fine.”

  He would need a full-time nanny. Ben would change his life completely. He had no idea....

  In her mind’s eye, she saw him, suddenly, sitting in Anne’s lap, his blond head tipped back to smile at her adoringly, in those last days before she grew too ill to sit up.

  Anne.

  A sudden, hard wave of loss rolled through her. Her stomach knotted, her throat clutched and tears welled. She swallowed them down, blinked the moisture away.

  “Belle?” He was rising from his chair. “What happened? What did I say? What’s wrong?”

  She put out a hand. “No. Sit down. Please. It’s...all right. I’m all right. Honestly.”

  He sank back to the chair. “Why don’t I believe you?”

  Tell him. Tell him now. She opened her mouth to break the news.

  Chapter Three

  But Belle’s leaden tongue refused to form the words. She pressed her lips together over the silence.

  Preston was watching her, looking concerned as he waited for her to explain what the matter was.

  She got up and went over to the big window that looked out on the wide front porch. Outside, the sky was clear now. A light dusting of snow sparkled under the quarter moon. “The clouds are all gone. The sky is so beautiful, so thick with stars....”

  “That’s how it is in Montana. We’re closer to heaven here.” He said it so softly. And he was on his feet again. She heard him come toward her, his tread quiet but nonetheless charged with great energy, with purpose. He stopped close at her back. She felt his presence there acutely. A sense of that steadiness he possessed, of the density and power in his strong male body.

  She turned to him, her breath snagging in her throat at the look in his eyes. So tender. So...intent.

  How to tell him? How to say it? How to lead up gracefully to the moment when she handed over that final letter to him? It had been tucked within the letter Anne had written to Belle, in an envelope with his name on it. She hadn’t opened the envelope. That wouldn’t have been right. But she hoped whatever Anne had written to him, it might help him understand. She had it with her now, in the pocket of her skirt. All she had to do was bring it out, hand it over....

  But then, really, maybe it was too soon. Maybe she should wait a little, give herself more time to...

  To what? Any excuses she might have had not to tell him had dried up and blown away like dead leaves in the wind. She liked him. He seemed a fine man. His ranch looked to her like a good-size operation. The house was perfectly livable. And anyway, there would be plenty of money from Anne’s estate. Even if Preston’s personal finances were shaky—which they did not appear to be—Ben would never want for anything. His mother had left him everything she owned.

  She opened her mouth to tell all.

  And he said, “Tell you what. Let’s go outside. I’ll show you the stables and we can look at the stars without a window in the way.”

  Belle realized she’d been holding her breath and let it out slowly. “I would love to see the stables.”

  They put their coats and gloves back on and he took her outside. The icy snow crunched under the heels of their boots as they crossed the yard, past the barn to the stables, which were large and clean and well-maintained. He explained his breeding program and the supplemental lights that made the stable bright enough to read the small print of a newspaper even at that time of night. The point was to trick the mares’ reproductive cycles into thinking it was spring come January. That way, the foals were born early the following year. And because all foals’ official birthday of any given year was January 1, a foal born early had significant advantage over foals born later in the year when it came to competitive activities like racing.

  His horses were healthy and beautiful. She admired his way with them, could see that he treated them well, noted the way they chuffed and nuzzled him, responding eagerly to the sound of his voice. She saw how they sought the touch of his hand.

  “You’re like my sister Alice,” she said as they were leaving. They stood under the bright lights suspended from the ceiling beams, the smell of hay and horses all around them. “Her horses love her.”

  “I read about your sister.”

  “On the internet, you mean?”

  He nodded. His eyebrows were burnished gold in the light from above. “I read that she raises Akhal-Tekes.”

  “Yes, she does.”

  “The most ancient breed on earth, a breed prized by Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan.”

  She was impressed. “You know the legend of the Tekes?”

  “I know horses. The Nez Perce Indians are currently breeding them with Appaloosas, did you know that?” She did know, but she kept quiet, hoping he might continue. And he did. “It’s an effort to replicate the legendary Nez Perce horse, which is believed to have originated from Akhal-Teke stock brought to the New World by Russian traders.” He touched her hair, the lightest breath of a touch. “A Teke is a loyal horse,” he said. “A sensitive, one-owner horse.”

  Belle watched his shadowed face so closely as he spoke. Why, oh why did she find it so difficult to tell him? Beneath the tough exterior he needed to make a life in such a rugged land, he truly was a fine man, a sensitive man. He would be a good father.

  Her throat was tight again, her eyes brimming. Because she knew what held her back.

  As soon as she told him, she would be out of time. Out of hope. A
ny faint dream she might have nourished in her secret heart that Ben could somehow stay with her...that dream was dying.

  She didn’t need to wait for any private investigator’s detailed report. Just being around him had told her all that she needed to know. He was a good man and he had a father’s rights. And once he knew, once he got over the shock and the disbelief that Anne had never said a word to him, never made any attempt to contact him after that one night they spent together, once he knew the truth at last, he would set about claiming what was his.

  She was going to lose Ben as she had lost Anne. There was absolutely no doubt about it now. She had known from the moment Preston walked into the diner that morning. It was just taking her poor, battered heart a little while to catch up with her mind.

  “Belle?” He looked stricken. “What did I say? I swear, I don’t get it. Whatever it is, whatever you want from me, you only need to say it.” He reached for her. She knew he would touch her tear-wet cheek.

  “Don’t.” She shoved his hand away, swiped the traitorous tears from her face. “Please. I...let’s go. Back to the house. We’ll talk. I’ll...explain.”

  He was silent. His expression changed, grew harder. Closed to her. He didn’t understand.

  But how could he? She’d told him nothing. Yet.

  Unspeaking, they turned for the stable door. He pushed it open for her. She went through, her head lowered, steps dragging. He followed, pausing, turning to secure the latch.

  She was aware, for a moment, of the ever-present Marcus, silent and watchful in the shadows not far away. But only for a moment.

  Because magic happened.

  Magic happened and the crushing weight of her unhappiness, of her terrible obligation, of her loss—all of that was lifted. She raised her head and saw the miracle that waited overhead.

  The sky was alive with melting, pulsing, vivid color. A concert of color.

  “Preston...” She didn’t even stop to think about the confusing mishmash of signals she was giving him. Automatically, she reached for his hand.