The Ranchers: Destiny Bay Romances Boxed Set vol. 1 (Destiny Bay Romances - The Ranchers)

by Helen Conrad

  “No,” she said quickly. “No, I didn’t come back to find my father.”

  At least, she hadn’t thought that was why she’d been so obsessed with coming back here. Now that Doris had put it in words, she wasn’t so sure. “Did you…did you know him very well?” she ventured.

  Doris shook her head emphatically. “My mama didn’t have the highest regard for that man. You probably don’t remember, but she wouldn’t even let me go over and visit with you and your family that last year you were in town. The next year, I went away and lived in the Bay Area for a while, and when I came back, he had left.”

  “Oh.” She felt a pang of disappointment, but she made a face and pushed it flat. Which was just as well. Something in her had shied away from even thinking about her father for years. In planning to come back, she had never once considered that he might be here. But now that Doris had brought the subject up, thoughts began to tease her.

  She had always said that she didn’t miss her father, that her mother was all she needed. The memories of that last year she knew him were full of arguments and hurt silences. She’d loved him, of course, and he had never been unkind to her. But he’d never tried to contact her either, in all these years since her mother had taken her away. That, and loyalty to her mother, had kept her from wanting to see him.

  But her mother was gone now. Meeting her father might be interesting. What if she found him? Would that help take care of this deep, dark emptiness she felt inside? She shrugged those thoughts away and turned back to her cousin.

  “If you don’t have room for me,” she said, “maybe you know someone with a room to rent out for a few weeks. I would certainly be willing to pay. And to help with housework, or whatever, if that would make a difference.”

  It was at that moment that a little light had appeared in Doris’s eyes and she had looked over at the table where Joe Carrington was having a late afternoon snack of biscuits and gravy.

  “I wonder...” she said softly, speculatively. Her brown eyes studied Joe, then shifted and gazed at Carly for a moment with a frown.

  “All I need is a place to sleep,” Carly was saying. “I plan to spend most of my days sitting out in the sun and smelling the good clean earth.”

  “Smelling what?” Now Doris was pretty sure her cousin really was tetched. She made a face and shook her head. “Roots,” she muttered. She looked back at Joe and a faint smile tickled her lips into a mischievous curl. “Oh well,” she said with a short laugh. And then she turned back to Carly, all business.

  “What would you think about staying on a citrus ranch with two cute little kids to look after?” she said.

  “Kids?” Carly looked around and noted the man Doris was staring at. He looked big and attractive. The last thing in the world she needed was another man in her life. “I don’t know about kids. I’ve never—“

  “There’s nothing to it. The kids are adorable. And they haven’t had a good woman to look after them for almost two years now. That’s when they lost their mom. And it wouldn’t be awkward or anything, because Joe’s mother lives with them, too. She’s kind of an invalid, but...”

  A widower with two little motherless children. Carly frowned, pretty sure this was a situation she wasn’t experienced enough to cope with. “I don’t know, Doris—“

  “Don’t be ridiculous! It’ll be a piece of cake.” She reached for a slice of pie and thrust it in front of her cousin. “You just sit here and eat this. I’ll go on over and ask Joe if he wants you.”

  “Doris!”

  But Doris was gone and Carly could only stare after her and wonder what it was she was getting herself into. Little kids. A man who had lost his wife. This was a far cry from scheduling briefings with analysts and taking constituents out to lunch. She didn’t have the slightest idea how she would manage it.

  But wait a minute. How hard could it be? Other women did this sort of thing all the time. Nurturing was supposed to be intuitive, wasn’t it? She was a woman; mothering should come naturally. Right?

  She glanced down at the piece of pie, tempted. For years now she had trained herself to be so careful of what she ate, knowing her tendency to gain weight easily. Rice cakes, fruit juices and thin slices of cold-water fish—that was what she lived on. Just one bite of that cherry pie and she was sure she would gain fifteen pounds. Pushing it away, she turned back to look at Doris and the man she was talking to.

  Things were not going well. She saw him shaking his head, his face slightly amused, as though he couldn’t imagine Carly doing a real day’s work. He glanced her way, saying something to Doris, and the scorn in his gaze stung, making her sit up straighter, making her fingers begin reaching for that nonexistent cigarette again.

  He was going to turn her down. Her pride rose, and she swung her legs around and slid off the stool. A moment before she hadn’t been sure she wanted this job. Now it was a challenge she couldn’t ignore. Maybe it was time to plead her own case.

  Joe watched her coming toward the table and he knew his first instincts had been right. This woman wouldn’t last a week in the country. She’d break a nail and be on the phone to the paramedics. It wouldn’t be worth the effort.

  He had to admit she was attractive, in an angular sort of way. She was too skinny but she walked nice, all smooth and gliding. He might have said she moved like a cat, if only she weren’t so darned bony.

  “Hi.” She stopped and looked down at him, slipping off the dark glasses to reveal eyes as crystal blue as winter frost on a mountain pond. “I’m Carly Stevens.”

  She held out her hand and he took it, noting the perfect, crimson nails, just as he’d thought.

  “I’m Joe Carrington,” he said slowly, looking her over, his eyes cynically hooded. “Nice to meet you, Carly.”

  “I can tell you’ve got your doubts about me,” she said bluntly, moving her hands to her hips. “You’re turning me down, aren’t you?”

  Doris gasped. “Now, Carly, Joe doesn’t know—“

  She glanced down at Doris and put her hand on her cousin’s shoulder, pressing gently. “Doris, why don’t you go on back to work? Let me talk to the man.”

  Doris looked from Carly to Joe and back again, then slid out of the booth, shaking her head. Carly slid in to take her place, her long, silky hair fluttering in behind to settle around her shoulders.

  Joe watched her hair come to rest and noted how her hands reached up automatically to straighten her collar with a little tug. She looked good and she knew how to look even better. She was just a little too sure of herself for him. A little too self-aware. So she thought she could use her feminine charms to talk him into this, did she? He felt the muscles in his neck tighten. What did she think he was, some hayseed she could manipulate whenever she felt like it? His eyelids drooped and he waited for her to speak first.

  She flattened her hands on the shiny red surface of the table and took a deep breath. Staring straight across the table, her smile was friendly but reserved. “I understand you need someone to stay at your house and take care of your two children,” she said coolly. “I need a place to stay, and I’m willing to do the work.” She shrugged and her porcelain chin rose slightly. “It seems to me there is a logical link between those two situations. Don’t you agree?”

  Her smooth, no-nonsense tone usually worked just fine with other congressional aides and the pages, but Joe Carrington seemed to be made of sterner stuff. Instead of answering, he merely grinned, slow and sassy.

  “Are you one of those big-city feminists?” he asked. “What do you want to hang around our little backwater town for?” His eyes narrowed as a thought occurred to him. “Unless you’re hiding out. Is that it? Are you running from something?”

  Carly blinked, stunned. Was that really how she came across? That hurt, and some of her reaction was evident in her voice when she replied. “I was born in this town, Mr. Carrington. I think I have as much right to be here as anyone.”

  He frowned. Either she was playacting, or she wa
sn’t really as hard as he’d thought. “Hey, look, I’m sorry. I...”

  Looking up, she met his eyes and caught something strange there as he studied her, some sort of shock of connection. She looked away quickly. She wasn’t sure if she were going to get this job or not, but just in case, she wanted to make sure he didn’t make any mistakes about her intentions.

  “Well, you can see that I’m from the city. And you can see that I’m not usually looking for this kind of work.” She paused, wondering why she was trying so hard to get a job she wasn’t even sure she wanted, why she was trying to convince a man who was definitely getting on her nerves to let her into his life.

  “I’ll be perfectly straight with you. I’m not going to be here forever. I’ve taken an indefinite leave of absence from a career position in the city, a position I have every intention of returning to eventually. And yes, I’m running from something, hiding from something.”

  This impulse to be so open made her heart beat just a little faster. She was usually a very controlled person, and she didn’t confide in strangers. “But it’s not the law or anything like that. It’s purely personal, nothing that could hurt your kids in any way. Still, it does mean I won’t be offering any references. If you can’t take Doris’s word for my honesty, I guess we might as well hang it up right now. But I do need a place to stay, and I would like the job.” She spread her hands on the table again and looked at him hopefully. After all, what was she going to do if he turned her down?

  She looked damned appealing, gazing up at him like that. He frowned, just to make sure she realized he wasn’t a pushover, and thought it over. What would it hurt to have her come out for a couple of weeks? The kids needed someone desperately, and he...

  His jaw tightened and he swore silently at himself. What the hell was he thinking? He didn’t need anybody.

  “What do you know about raising kids?” he asked her softly.

  She lifted her chin even higher. “Not a thing.”

  He sat back as though that settled it, but she wasn’t ready to give up yet. “That doesn’t mean I couldn’t learn. After all, I was a kid once myself. And it wasn’t all that long ago.”

  He couldn’t tell her age. She could have been forty, or fourteen, with those long, slim lines and that flaxen hair. Her blue eyes had a weathered look, as though they’d seen too much, and yet her mouth was soft, the lips full and tender-looking. She was like no woman he had ever met before. She looked hot and desirable—and yet cool and distant—all at the same time.

  The thought that he might not be able to handle her flashed into his mind, but he shook it away with a short, silent laugh. He’d gentled untamed stallions and he’d conquered some pretty rough bulls in his time-he could handle a slick little city girl. Still, he had to admit, she had the look of someone who would probably do anything she set out to do, and do it well. But that didn’t mean she would be good at looking after his kids.

  “How old are you?” he asked.

  She drew back just a little, hesitating, as if the question was almost too personal for some reason.

  “I’m twenty-seven,” she said at last.

  “Ever been married?”

  “No.”

  A cynical impulse twisted his wide mouth. “Ever want to be?” he flashed at her, one eyebrow raised.

  She opened her mouth but didn’t know what to say. “I... I don’t know,” she finally said.

  “You don’t know? Twenty-seven and you still haven’t decided if you ever want to marry and have kids of your own?”

  But that was just the question, she thought, the reason behind all the other reasons that she had come all this way. She looked into his eyes and wondered if she could tell him that. Years of image-making, of being careful of every syllable she uttered, stood in the way.

  She’d told him her age, but that had been simple compared to this. She glanced around the room as though looking for help. She saw Doris, leaning on the counter and talking to an elderly man in overalls, his face tanned and lined from years in the sun. The huge old ceiling fan was spinning, making a slight chugging noise. A young mother was feeding her toddler ice cream in a corner booth, and he was laughing, ice cream running down his chin. The jukebox was playing soft and low, a fifties tune about the sea of love. A teenage boy walked in, his shoulders hunched slightly, apologetically, as though he weren’t yet used to his rangy new body.

  This could have been a scene from her childhood. Hardly a thing had changed. The sounds were right. The smells were right. She felt at home here in some irrational way she couldn’t explain. A wave of grateful affection swept over her and she looked back at the man across the table.

  “I don’t know,” she told him. “If you want to know the truth, that is what I came here to figure out for myself. Getting married is a big step.”

  His brown eyes darkened and a line appeared between his brows. “But a natural step for most people.”

  “Yes, but-“

  “You’ve got a career to consider,” he said.

  Carly hesitated. “Sort of,” she allowed. “But it’s more than that. I...”

  His voice hardened. “You left some poor jerk behind waiting for your answer while you came out to the country to ‘find yourself.’ Is that it?”

  Not quite. But close. “That’s not important,” she said, waving the concept away with a flick of her hand. She was trying to be honest here, trying to get it right. “I did come back here to think and try to get my head together—“

  “Not important?” He cut in with the words, using them like weapons. There was something smoldering in his eyes and Carly frowned, surprised by it, not sure what to make of it. “Not important?” he said again. She had a feeling he was taking what she’d said the wrong way. She was trying hard to be honest, but it wasn’t working the way it should.

  A place to stay was slipping out of her grasp. What was she going to do if she was left with nothing? There was always the Rodeside Inn in neighboring Santanoma, but that wasn’t what she wanted. She had to stay in Destiny, to breathe it in, to be a part of it again. She was just going to have to try harder to convince this stubborn man.

  “What does it matter to you why I came?” she asked him earnestly. “I’m here. I’ll be here long enough to help you out, but not long enough to do any damage.” Sitting back, she gazed into his dark eyes with all her conviction. “I’d like to stay at your place. Why don’t we just try it for one night? Then, if you still can’t stand me...”

  Despite himself, he was smiling. “Who said I can’t stand you?” he asked gruffly. He leaned back in his seat and stretched, studying her. What the hell—why was he torturing her this way? She was certainly a damned sight better than the other women he had hired to take care of his children. He could see that right away.

  There was one hitch and it could be a killer. He was attracted to her. Who wouldn’t be? She was sleek and lean as a spring filly and just as nervous. Every time he let himself really look at her he felt a stirring inside. He hadn’t had that for awhile. What if…?

  Nah. No problem. He had kids and a ranch that took up all his time and responsibilities. He wasn’t about to go off the rails now. He could handle a little sensual buzz now and then. It might even be fun. Maybe this could work after all.

  “Who knows? Maybe I was wrong. It might just do you a world of good to come on out to my place and ‘find yourself.’”

  She blinked, not sure how to take this turnaround, not sure she liked his new mood. “Do you mean I can have the job?”

  He didn’t answer for a long moment, his gaze sliding over her face as though he were searching for something, some identity or some remembered feature.

  “I’ll give you a chance at it,” he said at last. “Let’s call it a probationary period.”

  “Great.” She looked at him expectantly, wondering why he didn’t look at all pleased. “When do I start?”

  He shrugged. “No time like the present.” He started to slide out of the booth.
“You got bags someplace?”

  “By the door.”

  “Let’s go. My truck’s outside.”

  He went for her bags and she went to the counter to say goodbye to Doris, not sure if she were elated or apprehensive. “I guess I’m off,” she told her cousin, giving her a hug.

  “Give me a call and let me know how you’re doing.” Doris wrote down her number on a slip of paper and pressed it into Carly’s hand. “You’ll be okay out there. The kids—well, they’ve had their problems, but then they haven’t had a mother for almost two years now. I’m sure you’ll be great for them.”

  Carly looked at her uncertainly, wondering if she shouldn’t take this opportunity to back quickly out of this deal. A horn sounded and she looked outside.

  “That’s Joe,” Doris said. “You’d best be going.”

  Carly looked at her and nodded. “I guess so.” She squeezed her hand. “Thanks.” And then she was off, running for the door.

  “She going out to Joe’s place?” the elderly man at the counter asked Doris.

  “That’s right.”

  The man shook his head. “A pretty little thing like that? Didn’t anybody tell her those kids are hell on wheels?”

  Doris shook her bead slowly, watching as the truck rode out of sight around the corner. “She’ll be okay,” she said softly, almost to herself. “Don’t you think?”

  CHAPTER TWO

  A MOTHERLESS CHILD

  The truck was a pickup, relatively new, not quite clean, but pretty comfortable. Carly clung to the seat, bouncing but determined not to let the man driving know that she couldn’t find the seat belt. Looking out the dusty window, she examined the town in a way she hadn’t been able to coming in on the bus. It was small but bustling, with stores and gas stations and a general feed supply, a city hall that could have used a coat of paint and a park where young mothers took their babies. What she saw didn’t look very familiar, but why should it? After all, it had been almost twenty years ago that she had moved away. Things changed in that length of time.