by Mary Brady
Lance grinned, but shook his head to silence Seth. They both knew. This wasn’t going to be easy no matter how it went down.
“This is business, guys. No matter what we think of her as an individual, it has to be a business deal. When the project is complete, you all can adopt her if you want.” He wouldn’t care. He’d be gone.
“We’ll have to trust you to give her a fair chance.” Seth must have been finished because he walked away.
Lance stared at Baylor for a response.
“It might not even be fair to give her a chance.” Baylor restacked the papers on the desk blotter.
“She’s good people, Baylor, and you know it.”
“And if we give her a two-week trial and she fails, it might spoil her chance of getting a job before her baby is born.”
“She’ll do a good job and we’ll keep her on.”
“If I didn’t think you had a chance of being right, I wouldn’t have called her back.”
Lance nodded, got up from the chair and followed in the direction Seth had gone. His boot heels clomped down the hall, through the mudroom and outside. His brothers had gone back to the never-ending string of chores necessary to keep a ranch running and the animals healthy.
Baylor spread the papers and sorted them into piles for filing. Now that he had made the decision, he was going to throw himself at the situation as if it were a worthy stallion needing some tender loving care to be a great stallion. Not that “tender loving” was anything he planned on aiming at K. L. Morgan.
Tempting, though.
Tempting. That was crazy thinking. If he let crazy thinking rule him, unintended consequences happened.
He had finished tucking away the last papers when he looked up to see K. L. Morgan standing in the doorway with her flimsy coat draped over one arm and her hands folded together in front of her as if in apology.
He rose quickly from the chair and made a gruff coughing sound to cover his laughter at his sorry old self.
“Come in,” he said when she didn’t enter the office.
She stepped inside. “I ruined whatever chance I had at making a great impression, didn’t I?”
He hadn’t realized how melodious her voice was, but in the small office, it made the air vibrate.
“Is your life ever dull?”
She shrugged and stepped up to the desk. “You’ll undoubtedly find out, so I might as well tell you, I met your Sheriff Potts.”
Baylor studied the molding around the ceiling, trying his best to bury a smile. Unintended consequences, he thought. “He called.”
“I’d hoped he wouldn’t snitch on me. Damn.”
He snapped his gaze to hers. “Don’t let my mother hear you say that word. Darn and heck are all right if you’re highly provoked, but damn, hell and crap are over the top. Have a seat, please.”
Radiating confidence and poise, she draped her coat over the back of the chair and sat down across the desk from him. He couldn’t deny his brother’s assessment that K. L. Morgan inspired admiration for her courage under fire—but that didn’t mean he had to be taken in by it. He scowled and retook his seat.
“Oh, darn.” She raised her brow in question.
He gave a slight head nod of approval and she curled her hands together on her lap. “How much did the sheriff tell you?”
“He said he found you and we should be expecting you soon.” He paused for dramatic effect. “And then he laughed.”
“How did he know I was coming here? I don’t remember telling him.” She thought for a moment. “When he left, I didn’t even know.”
“He knows people. That’s why he’s so good at his job and that’s a reflection on our judgment as well as yours.” He paused. He was about to tell this woman she could hold the family’s future in her hands, and Sheriff Potts’s positive assessment of her had made that decision easier to live with.
“He is so kind to just have laughed at me.” She studied her fingers for a moment. “Is it too late to start over?”
“Do you think it would help?”
Alarm spread across her face, and then when she realized he was chiding her, she smiled a smile as bright as a sunny day in the Bitterroot Mountains, and he felt that smile all the way down to the toes of his Sunday boots.
She relaxed her hands on her knees. “I think at this point, it would only muddy the waters.”
“My family thinks you’re the best choice for this project.”
“Okay.” She waited for him to explain.
“But they’ve left the choice up to me.”
“I realize I’m not what you expected and that it’s a stretch for you to consider me for the job, but if you do give it to me, I will give you more than you asked for.”
More than he asked for…
“I’m willing to go along with my family and give you a chance.” She sat up straighter and he continued. “Two weeks. After two weeks, if things aren’t working out, you would be paid for your time and, of course, we’d pay you for your designs.”
He watched her closely.
“You won’t be sorry.” Her words indicated her delight while her face showed her focus on the future.
“That’s what my family tells me.”
She nodded her head once. “Now tell me why your family puts so much stock in your opinion.”
Her green eyes, the color of leaves in the light of sunset and rimmed with dark lashes, were highlighted by the merest touch of makeup.
“Because I’m the youngest brother?”
She nodded again.
“Fair enough.” The Doyles knew so much more about her than she suspected. It seemed right she should know more about them. “My older brothers wanted no part of college. They were happy working the ranch and their wives were happy with their husbands and their lives. My parents could read the writing on the wall, but my brothers would rather ignore the signs the ranch was faltering.”
She listened as though she were gathering facts without passing judgment. He found himself liking KayLee Morgan more and more, at the same time telling himself it wasn’t his job to like her.
As he told her about his family sending him to Montana State University in Bozeman and why, she barely blinked.
“Wow,” she said when he was finished.
Her lips held the form of the last W as she explored the thoughts in her head, and it made him want to kiss those puckered lips—and to smack himself on the back of the head for thinking such a thought.
“So do you still want to work for us?”
“They have put a lot on you.” Deep concern dimmed the sparkle in her eyes.
“Someone has to take the reins and I can.”
She placed her palms on her knees and leaned forward. “Yes, I’d still like to do the job.”
He reached across the desk with one hand and when she put her soft hand in his, she gripped solidly.
“Welcome to the Shadow Range Eco Ranch project,” he said, and found himself sincerely meaning it.
Either he was a step closer to his dream and his quest, or he’d chased them out onto the far horizon. Whatever happened, he found himself wanting her to succeed for herself, as well as each and every Doyle.
“Now tell me what you think,” she said as she let go of his hand and sat back in the chair.
Baylor shifted. Tell her what he thought? That she’s hot or that he was already in trouble because he was beginning to see why his family wanted to hire and protect her?
“I like to think I’m an open-minded kind of person. I admit, your—”
“Pregnancy, sex, age?” She grinned.
“Once I realized you couldn’t be as young as you look, that was not even a consideration.
“As for your being female, you’ve met Holly, Amy and my mother and…they don’t balk at much.” An image of his missing sister pushed into his thoughts. She had one of her defiant looks on her face and her hands were balled into offensive fists. “And they’re tame compared to my sister, Crystal.”
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He could see KayLee wanted to ask about Crystal, but he wasn’t ready to talk to anyone yet because he had nothing of substance to say. So he hurried on. “Your proposal offers the most support and oversight—with the possible exception of a period of time when you will be otherwise occupied. If you are as good as you say you are, I expect this job will go well.”
She gave a heavy sigh of relief and a warm smile that a part of him wanted to interpret as sexy.
“I expect the same. If I could, I’d like to look around a bit, see the place I proposed the first cabin be built.”
“Now?”
“The sun shines. Isn’t that when I’m supposed to make hay?”
K. L. Morgan kept surprising him with her understanding of the situation. She might work out better, though, if he could pretend she was the mid-forties man he had expected.
“Do you have warmer clothes?” he asked.
She glanced down at her blue dress. “I have different clothes. Warmer, probably not.”
“Boots?”
She lifted a foot with a shoe meant for a city street. “This is the best I’ve got. The boots I have are not the sort you’re talking about.”
“I’ll find a warmer coat for you and we’ll mostly stay in the truck.”
“Do you think Holly and Amy might be willing to advise me on wardrobe shopping?”
“I think Holly and Amy would do anything you asked them to do.”
She blinked at him as if she were having a hard time believing what he said.
“KayLee, this is the St. Adelbert Valley. The Doyle women probably already have a place in mind for you to live, a trip to Kalispell for supplies planned and a crib to lend you. Believe it or not, you have already won the esteem of our sheriff. Most of the people here in this valley will need no more than that to welcome you and offer you whatever help they can give you.”
She studied her fingers for a long moment and then shifted her scrutiny to him. “I knew I wasn’t in California anymore.”
“This will sound like some sort of a threat, and it could be. With the exception of a few ornery ones, the people here will believe in you quickly and be loyal.”
“Accept me first, and I get to decide whether or not I break their hearts? Warning taken. I’ll be careful with them.”
He nodded. “I’ll get you a coat.”
Baylor escaped the office and headed down the hallway toward the mudroom, which was located at the side entrance to the house.
Was that tears he had seen in her eyes? Give him a couple cows having difficult calvings and a runaway mule. Those things he could handle.
He searched the closet for a coat that was big enough to fit around KayLee, but the first two he considered would have swallowed her up.
Now that he had made the decision to hire her, even if it was temporary, he’d do what he could himself to help her. The two of them could finalize the plans, scout out materials and hire laborers. There were locals chomping at the bit to have gainful employment. Calving was nearly at an end, branding and spring clean up would soon be under control, and there would more idle hands around.
The job in Denver was a chance of a lifetime, a stepping-off point to launch him in the world outside the small valley where he’d spent most of his life. If K. L. Morgan could get this job done, she could set him free. He held up a green kid’s jacket. He was getting closer.
If she couldn’t get the job done, she could end up tying him to this valley until the next chance of a lifetime came up. Yep, two once-in-a-lifetime chances. As if that were going to happen.
The lead he had on Crystal hadn’t panned out yesterday, but that didn’t mean the next one wouldn’t. She was in Denver—that much he knew.
“How about this one?” Holly reached around him and pulled out a work jacket. “I wore it when I was pregnant with Katie about this time two years ago.”
“Thanks.” He didn’t even want to guess how she knew what he was searching for in the closet. Made him crazy when he tried to figure things like that out about Holly and Amy.
“So, is she in or out?” his dad asked from the doorway of the mudroom.
“She gets a chance to try, and she wants a look around.”
“Yippee!” Holly clapped her hands together once and sped away, no doubt off to tell the others.
“You don’t seem thrilled,” his dad said when Holly was out of earshot.
Baylor shrugged. “I’ll keep thrilled corralled up until we see how things go.”
“Fair ’nough.”
KAYLEE SLUMPED IN THE CHAIR. She should feel excited about this job, ecstatic even. All she felt right now was scared. She’d just promised to make a future for these people. This was more personal than any of the California projects had been. The good feelings must be on their way later.
She’d had things all mapped out in her mind even before she got here. She’d come to the valley, do the job, have a safe and snug place to raise her child for the first year or so, then move on and build her company…probably back in California.
Things had gotten complicated right off the bat, starting with the warm and fuzzy feelings she already had growing inside her regarding the people who lived in and around the town of St. Adelbert. The people at the Easy Breezy Inn had given her a room at ten o’clock in the morning without charging extra, so she could freshen up for her interview with the Doyle family. The gas station attendant at the self-service station had insisted on pumping her gas and washing her bug-spattered windshield and headlamps. That guy—Barry, he called himself—had worked really hard on those dried bugs.
Everyone here was eerily nice.
That gave her pause. Were they too nice? What if they were part of a cult or aliens from outer space?
Whoa! She stopped herself from thinking wild movie-making fantasies.
Worse, however, what if the time came for her to leave, and she still had no place to go, no prospective home? She could do it to her pregnant self, but could she force the itinerant life on a child?
And what if she didn’t want to leave the valley at all?
It had been easy letting go of California. When her husband died, her life there had simply evaporated.
She should have made better choices. One of their so-called friends had even accused her of being responsible for Chad’s death.
What if it had been her fault Chad was unhappy and, who knows, that he’d had a boating accident? She couldn’t really fault that friend too much. Some days she blamed herself.
“I’ll be everything you need.” She stroked her belly and let herself feel the joy and peace her child brought to mind.
Baylor appeared holding a practical, warm-looking jacket. She hoped he hadn’t overheard her. He already had enough doubts.
The heavy work jacket he held suspended on the tip of one finger summed everything up. The jacket was nothing she would have ever given a second look at when she lived in California.
Her life was never going to be the same.
When Baylor smiled at her, even though it was a reluctant smile, she found herself wanting to leap up and run into his arms…but she was so not flinging herself into anyone’s arms. It wasn’t going to happen, wasn’t even a good idea. She and Chad had flung themselves at each other and look where that got her.
“Hey.” She pointed at the jacket and put on a cheery face. “That seems as if it will do the trick.”
He held the jacket for her and she slipped inside its warmth. “Hmmm. This feels nice.”
“’Bout the time you get used to the cold, the weather will change and you’ll be wishing to have it back.” He gave her a serious if-you-stick-around-long-enough look.
She’d get used to the weather, or at least, he’d never know about it if she didn’t. All he was going to see from now on was the upbeat side of her, the confident side of her she had used in her sales pitch. She hugged the jacket around her and spun in a slow circle, trying to affect comedy. “Ah, if they could see me now.”
; Another reluctant smile. He was so trying to be nice to her. “You mean the people in California wouldn’t appreciate your…ah…style?” he asked.
“Style?”
“Because, for the backside of Montana you look purty trendy.”
Yep, she thought, repeating the affirmative she’d already heard more than once in this state. Baylor Doyle was going to give her a chance, a harsh but fair one. Now, if she could live up to his and everyone else’s expectations… She shook off doubt and melancholy before they got a foothold. Upbeat. Stay upbeat.
“Très chic and ready to work.” And she felt better than she’d felt in a long time about anything except her baby, who at that moment seemed to leap to block a soccer goal or something equally emphatic. “Whoa!”
“Are you all right?” Baylor took a step toward her.
She held up one hand up and rubbed her lower ribs with the other. “Nothing to worry about. Sometimes the little one gives me a poke and it takes me by surprise, but I’m great. Better than great. Lead the way.”
He handed her a knitted cap, one like her grandmother might have made for her, with a fluffy yarn ball on top, and then he slid on his hat—a Stetson, that’s what they wore in one of Chad’s movies anyway.
She put on the hat he had given her and tugged it down until it pressed her hair snugly against her ears. Then he led her outside, where she got a spectacular view of the lay of the ranch buildings. To her left and back at the edge of a stand of pine trees sat a pair of log houses. His brothers’ houses, she assumed. Straight in front of her, but farther away, sat a barn and several out-buildings. Beyond the barn she could see corrals where horses were eating from a trough. Farther out were open snow-patched areas of what she supposed were grasslands, and of course, mountain peaks glistened in the distance.
Doyle land spread out beyond fifty-seven hundred acres. After leaving the rich farmland of southwestern Wisconsin that sold by the expensive acre and the precious square footage measured out in inches in Southern California, she wasn’t even sure she could conceptualize that much land owned by one family.
The seven cabins she would build for the Doyles would dovetail nicely with the two already there. Though the new ones would have more glass and decking, the existing ones had the charm of being more weathered and rustic-looking.