Winning Over the Rancher

by Mary Brady

  She did so deserve to be mocked, but it was better than being thrown out.

  She scanned his face and the sincere expression warmed her and then she shivered harder. She didn’t know how much was cold and how much was mortification, but she took the camera. “Thank you.”

  Grateful to have a diversion, she started clicking photos of the stand of trees, of the clearing where the other cabins would be built, of the stream and forest, of the mountains against the blue sky. The more she shot, the more excited she became, and the colder, until her hands shook too much to get a decent picture.

  “Ready?” He held a hand out in the direction of the truck.

  When they were settled in the toasty cab he shifted to face her. “We checked into all the viable bidders’ backgrounds.”

  “Ah.”

  “Checking out candidates seemed prudent.”

  “And you’re still willing to give me a chance.” Awe and wonder filled her, and then her mind spun with the possibilities of what the investigator might have found. “I think I’m going to accept that for now, but I might never want to know what you discovered.”

  “To my family, you seemed the most…human I guess.”

  “I…um…try.”

  “They trust you and I’ve decided to listen to them.”

  “I had the feeling trusting me was difficult for you.” She drew her lips inward. “I won’t disappoint you, Baylor Doyle, because you’re a good man.”

  He lifted an eyebrow but didn’t say anything.

  “Thank you for everything.” KayLee closed her eyes briefly and imagined the happy feelings filtering down toward her baby. Everything that was good in her life, she tried to share with her unborn child.

  She noted his expression and tried to figure out what he might be thinking. “You could have given me such a hard time for opening my mouth about being attracted to you.”

  “Still might.”

  “Or take advantage of me.”

  “Still might.”

  It was her turn to laugh and she did and then faced the window when new tears formed in her eyes.

  “Do you cry all the time?” he asked.

  “Pretty much.” She sniffed.

  “Isn’t that normal?”

  “Normal? Nothing about me is normal, if normal is the way I was before I was pregnant.” Her breath steamed the window as she spoke.

  “Here.” He reached around and handed her a large soft hankie with a red-and-white paisley pattern, the kind she used to wear as a scarf, but this one was softer and the color had faded so much, it must have been washed a million times.

  She blew her nose and dabbed her eyes.

  “Thanks.” She tucked the hankie in the pocket of the jacket. She’d have to remember to take it out and wash it.

  “Amy cried for seven months straight before she gave birth to little Trey two years ago,” he said, his voice kind and soft and she so appreciated the gesture of comfort. “Good news, though, KayLee.”

  She sniffed again. “What’s that?”

  “Now she only cries when she’s sad.”

  “That’s good.”

  “Or when she’s happy.”

  She laughed again. Baylor Doyle made her laugh. Not much did these days and she loved him for it—well, liked him for it. When she pivoted in her seat, he was still facing her, arms folded, hat pushed back so golden curls framed his face.

  She had never seen anything that looked as good as he did at that moment. Trouble. Sexy and roguish at the same time. A bad boy. Deep trouble.

  “I can do this job and you will like what I’ve done.” She smiled and placed a hand on her belly. “Now, I need to get back to town and get some rest.”

  “The family will want to say goodbye before you leave.”

  When they got back to the ranch house, the Doyles, including three children, had gathered in the kitchen to see her off.

  Holly and Lance introduced their two-year-old daughter, Katie, and a five-year-old son, Matt.

  “Hi, Katie. Hi, Matt,” KayLee said. Katie grinned and hid behind her father’s leg. Matt stuck out his hand and she shook it.

  From the other side of the butcher block island Seth and Amy introduced her to their shy two-year-old son, Trey. Amy held the frail-looking boy in her arms, and he kept his head on her shoulder.

  Evvy hugged her, and Curtis shook her hand. “Thank you for working so hard on this project for us,” he said. This must have been where Baylor got his blue eyes.

  “Don’t be fooled by all this, KayLee.” With the sweep of his hand, Baylor included every Doyle in the room. “We all have our company manners on.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Holly shot back. “I’m always nice.”

  “You are, Mommy,” the red-haired boy beside her said. “Can I have pie now?”

  Curtis laughed. “You keep it up, boy,” he said to the child. “You never know what you’ll get by asking.”

  “Thanks, a lot, Dad.”

  “So, can I?” Matthew patted his mother on the arm.

  Holly made a fierce face at her father-in-law and was met with grandfatherly innocence.

  “After dinner, sweetie. If you’re hungry now I’ll get you an apple.”

  “Me, too,” Katie cried and jumped out into the open.

  While the other children romped, blond, curly-haired Trey sat quietly in his mother’s arms and seemed to get more attention than he needed. KayLee knew she’d be like that. The first-child syndrome.

  “I’m glad you’re going to work for us,” Evvy said from the table where she had taken a seat.

  “Me, too,” said Amy.

  “We all are,” Holly added, as she washed an apple at the sink.

  The brothers and sisters-in-law all looked to Baylor.

  He shook his head. “Yes, we all are.”

  “Is she your girlfriend, Uncle Baylor?” Matt asked, accepting an apple slice from his mother.

  “She’s going to build more houses here on the ranch,” Holly said to distract the boy.

  “Wow. Real houses.”

  “Cabins. Seven of them.” KayLee loved the boy’s enthusiasm.

  Lance leaned down and nudged his son with an elbow, and Matt giggled. “Maybe we’ll have to get you a hammer to help.”

  The boy’s eyes lit up.

  The simple exchange between father and son exacerbated a yearning inside KayLee, a tearing at her heart that almost took her breath away.

  Her nuclear family consisted of her mother, herself and sometimes her father, and they never filled the kitchen or any room with gales of laughter and teasing.

  She wanted for her child what the Doyles’ children had.

  “You okay?” Baylor asked beside her.

  KayLee smiled. “You all seem to have so much fun as a family. I was thinking about being a family to my child.”

  Holly patted KayLee’s hand. “You’ll do fine.”

  “Thank you, Holly.” She knew this was small talk, but she hoped anyway that Holly was right.

  Trey suddenly coughed and both his parents gave him their complete attention. Seth put one hand on Trey’s back and Amy put one on the boy’s chest and whispered something into the boy’s ear. Trey shook his head and smiled, a tiny smile that held—distress.

  A hard, deep twinge squeezed KayLee’s chest, and dread flipped on like a switch. There was something going on with the youngest Doyle. Something seriously wrong.

  Baylor took her elbow. “You must be tired. I’ll see you to your car.”

  WHEN BAYLOR FINALLY GOT K. L. Morgan on her way back to town, he paced the porch. The taillights of her small Ford retreated and he wondered if he was going to lose his mind in the next few weeks.

  When the tiny red specks blinked out, he stepped off the porch and headed toward the barn to saddle Blue Moon. There were chores to be done that had been delayed by the meeting and he’d volunteered to do this late-afternoon round by himself because he didn’t feel like discussing a certain woman at the moment. />
  It was bad enough he’d gone mad and let his guard down long enough for her to slip inside. He remembered how sexy she had looked with the sunshine in her hair and the ranch on her mind. Darlin’, even in jest. He wasn’t just mad, he was a stark raving lunatic.

  The barn door gave its usual comforting low groan as he slid it aside and Blue Moon nickered as Baylor approached in the dim light. Blue was a cow horse and a good one and no horse on the ranch, or in the county for that matter, could cut pairs or help bring a restless unwilling cow in labor into the calving shed like Blue could.

  When he finished saddling his horse, Baylor paused to lean his forearms on the old, ride-worn leather.

  The sound of KayLee’s laughter had blended with the rest of the family’s as if it had always been there. Once when she had looked up at him, her long curling hair had tumbled over her left eye and he had wanted to tuck it behind her ear.

  He straightened.

  “Come on, boy.” He led the horse out of the barn and climbed into the saddle. Without more than a touch of the reins on his neck, the horse knew they were headed to where the cows that would soon calve were kept in a small field adjacent to the calving barn. “We got work to do and I got a woman to not think about.”

  KAYLEE ARRIVED AT THE Easy Breezy Inn with only enough energy to flop on the bed. With the exception of the day she waited to hear if Chad was alive or dead, this had been one of the longest days she could remember.

  She would have thought growing up as a latchkey kid would have prepared her for life’s knocks. It wasn’t that her parents didn’t love her, but as soon as they thought she was old enough to see to her own needs, they weren’t there much of the time. With her mom’s rotating shifts as an aide at the hospital and her dad’s many different jobs, their hours were unpredictable.

  One of them usually showed up sometime in the evening. Her father always brought burgers or fried chicken and her mother brought tofu and sprouts. She was very young when she began to wonder why they ever got married in the first place.

  She wondered what kind of mother she would make. Would she grow tired or bored with her child?

  Her baby chose that moment to kick her and she laughed. “Oh, baby. Mommy will love you always. In fact, you might not be able to get rid of me. I’ll be a class mother. I’ll be a prom chaperone. I’ll move to wherever you go to college.”

  She thought of another baby, little Trey. She hoped the boy was all right. She couldn’t imagine having something happen to her child. “You’ll be happy and well, won’t you, little one?” It was a wish for her own child as well as for Amy and Seth’s son.

  The voice-mail signal from her mobile phone jangled.

  It could be Baylor calling to make sure she made it safely or to say good-night.

  She clicked on the single lamp, and checked her phone. Sharring and Hack the caller ID said, her attorney’s office.

  “Ms. Morgan, this is Randolph Sharring. I need to speak with you. I’m out of the office for the rest of the day. Please call me tomorrow morning.”

  She folded her phone and dropped her chin to her chest. She had engaged Randolph Sharring to help her through the maze Chad had left with his death. Three days ago she told Randolph she was leaving town for St. Adelbert. It seemed wise for someone in the world outside this remote valley to know where she was. She’d left a message on her mother’s voice mail but had no idea when that would be picked up. If she went missing, at least Randolph might eventually notice and call the police.

  What Randolph wanted, she had no idea. The last time he personally called her, it had been to tell her she was broke, totally and irrevocably. Maybe the creditors were after her again. She had little money or possessions to give up. Maybe they wanted blood.

  Well, if that’s what they wanted, Randolph would have to send them to St. Adelbert to get it.

  She took off the work jacket Baylor had insisted she keep until she got a good one of her own and hung it in the closet. She stuffed the hankie in the bag of laundry she had attached, by the plastic straps, onto a hanger.

  Shower and bed were all she had energy for and hopefully enough for that.

  The tub was old and had patches where the black of the metal beneath peeked through, but the water came out hot and fierce. She dawdled in the heat of the shower for as long as she could stand, which wasn’t long. Then she dried off with a rather thin towel and crawled gratefully into bed, where she tugged the brightly flowered quilt over her. Blessed sleep would take her to a new day.

  For the first time in months, maybe even a couple of years, she was going to drop off to sleep knowing things were looking up.

  She closed her eyes and Baylor’s face floated into view. What a great bedtime story. Then Chad’s face floated in. Soon, the two men began to carry on a dialogue about something she couldn’t quite hear.

  “But she’s damned cute.” Baylor’s words were the first to register.

  “Everybody in our circle was cute. Doesn’t count for much,” Chad replied as he took a sip of his favorite single malt scotch, which KayLee now noticed he was holding. “She used to be smart….”

  Randolph Sharring’s image appeared between Baylor and Chad and added, “Too bad.” He shook his head, a morose expression on his long, jowly face. “So sad.”

  An ex-friend of Chad’s, a groupie actually, named Farly Longwood appeared beside Randolph and pointed a finger at her. “Our Chad wouldn’t be dead if it weren’t for you. It’s all your fault,” he screamed.

  KayLee’s eyes flew open and the images fled.

  She sat up in the dark. That it had been a twilight musing between wakefulness and sleep did not make what they said any less plausible.

  She used to be smart…. Could she attribute those words to Chad? Had she heard him say such a thing or was it from her head alone? Too bad. So sad… That she used to have a brain? Is that how she interpreted the tone of Randolph’s phone message?

  Had she had everything and let it all go?

  Was it all her fault?

  CHAPTER FIVE

  A STUNNINGLY BRIGHT Tuesday morning sun against a stark blue sky greeted KayLee as she stepped out of the Easy Breezy and started down the broad, curbed street to take her morning walk.

  She strolled past a log-cabin gas station with a convenience store where she had bought gas yesterday. The man—Barry—waved at her. She passed the post office, a town square with park benches and an empty lot with a very old and dilapidated sign that touted the soon-to-be-built community center.

  Half an hour later she let herself into her room, placed a bowl of steaming oatmeal and a banana from the motel’s breakfast bar on the table and hung her warm borrowed coat on the back of the chair by the window.

  She ate her food and then called the ranch. When Evvy answered, she told the matriarch she had some business to conduct and would be later than she thought. Then she bucked up and called her attorney.

  “Randolph, please,” she said when the receptionist answered the phone. “It’s KayLee Morgan.”

  “I’ll see if he’s in.”

  KayLee waited. She was used to “I’ll see if he’s in.” It really meant “I’ll see if he wants to talk to you.” Most people in her previous life used the ploy.

  “KayLee—” Randolph sounded like his usual somber self. “You need to come back to California. Right away.”

  That was extremely enigmatic, even for Randolph.

  “I’ve started work with a client and I can’t leave now, Randolph.”

  “Apparently there is a letter for you.”

  “You’re speaking in riddles.” This wasn’t like the dot-and-cross Randolph she was used to.

  “Your husband’s attorney has a letter he says has to be delivered personally to you.”

  A letter from his creditors? Something regarding Chad’s death? Someone else blaming her?

  The accusing expression on Farly Longwood’s face popped into her head.

  Acid scalded the back of her thro
at. Chad’s death had been declared an accident largely because no suicide note had been found. What if this was…?

  “Who is it from?”

  “It’s allegedly from your husband personally.”

  “No,” she blurted out. Her husband had been driving his speedboat too fast and when he crashed, witnesses said it had burst immediately into flames.

  “KayLee, are you there?”

  Randolph’s stern tone brought her to her senses.

  “Do you know what it’s about or can you overnight it to me?” She had to know if Farly Longwood had been right. Was she somehow horribly complicit in Chad’s death?

  “He couldn’t say what it was about, but it seems as if it might contain your husband’s last wishes.”

  KayLee sat up and sucked in an involuntary breath as Randolph almost confirmed her terrifying suspicions. “Randolph, you don’t think… I have to know if Chad did this to himself on purpose. If he…”

  “Let’s not go there, KayLee. His attorney says he’s had the letter since a few weeks before Chad’s accident.”

  That had to be right after Chad found out he was going to be a father, she thought. “But what if it’s…”

  “It could be any number of things—information about his estate for instance, or a summary of his financials. But anything is purely speculative right now.”

  “You’re sure his attorney doesn’t know?” She sat back in the chair and propped her puffy feet on the edge of the bed. How could this secret letter be anything but bad news? What if it was some horrible genetic secret that might affect their child?

  “His official stance is he doesn’t know what’s in the letter.”

  “Why did he wait so long to let you know he had it?”

  “Apparently, there was a stipulation attached to the letter to give it to you six months after Chad’s death as long as you are not—”

  Now Randolph’s end of the phone line went silent.

  “Randolph? As long as I’m not what?”

  “Attached. As long as you are not attached to a new man.”

  She felt Chad reaching out from his watery grave, clutching at her. “And if I was attached?”

  “His attorney was to deal with the contents of the letter in a responsible manner. I assured him there was no way there was a man in your life.”