The Rancher's Unexpected Family

by Myrna Mackenzie

  No, that wasn’t right. It wasn’t him. She was the one who had to convince him to help her. Winning others’ cooperation would be a big part of her job if she ever managed to get a job in her field. This was her proving ground.

  Kathryn forced herself to look straight into Holt’s eyes. “Don’t you care about the people of the town?”

  He didn’t answer that, but his brows drew together in a scowl.

  “I see them,” she said. “Every day. People who come to Dr. Cooper with serious, frightening problems.”

  As if she’d said something offensive, his expression turned colder. Without thought, she shoved her hand out and blindly touched his shoulder. Instantly, his muscles flexed beneath the pads of her fingertips. Her hand tingled, her heart took an extra beat. Kathryn jerked back as if she’d touched fire.

  The look in his dark eyes was deadly. “Don’t make the mistake of thinking I’m going to discuss my feelings.”

  No, she could see that would be a mistake. “I won’t, but—”

  He raised one dark, sexy brow, and Kathryn had to work to stay focused. “But what do you think will happen if people don’t have a clinic or a doctor in Larkville?” she continued.

  “It’s not something I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about.”

  “Of course not. You’re clearly an incredibly healthy man.”

  He blinked, as if she’d said something shocking when all she’d said—did he think she was ogling him?

  Most likely. Women would. She had in the past, and if her circumstances and her life and her entire world hadn’t turned out the way it had... No, no, no.

  “I only meant that you’ve obviously not spent a lot of time in doctors’ offices,” she said a bit too quickly.

  He didn’t respond.

  “But there are people who need regular treatments or who need help quickly. If a doctor isn’t nearby, they may put off going at all. They might even die. Think about that.”

  He frowned at her. “I’m thinking,” he said. And clearly what he was thinking wasn’t anything good. Why, oh, why was Holt the man she had to work with in order to get this thing done?

  * * *

  Holt felt as if he’d been kicked in the gut. By something a lot bigger and more lethal than this fragile woman standing before him. Kathryn wasn’t just looking for a favor. He was used to doing small favors. Like it or not, they were part of the ranch’s role in the community. But Kathryn wanted more than a small favor. She wanted him to ask for favors, and that wasn’t his style. The thought of opening himself up that way, begging, burned him like fire. What’s more, for a minute he had thought she’d wanted him to discuss his feelings. And he definitely wasn’t that guy. He worked, he did his duty, but discussing what he felt—or did not feel—was for other men. Actually, indulging in those deeper emotions was for other men, too.

  Still, he looked down into those pretty eyes and realized he could no longer ignore her request for a favor. His father, Clay, had died of pneumonia when he’d refused to see a doctor until it was too late. And his friend and former ranch hand, the one he’d been with these past few months...what if Hank had gone to the doctor and found his cancer sooner?

  Holt swore beneath his breath.

  Kathryn wrapped her arms around her abdomen as if those slender arms could protect the child inside. That single movement made him remember things, feel raw inside. He didn’t like that one bit.

  But as if his swearing had unleashed something in her, she changed before his eyes. “Okay, I get it. You’re never going to help.” Her eyes flashed fire, and suddenly she didn’t look so fragile anymore. She looked a bit like a miffed tigress. “I hate to say this, Holt, but sometimes I don’t like men very much.” With an accusing look, she swung her head and turned to go, her blond hair catching on the pale pink collar of her blouse, exposing her long, slender neck. And whether it was her tigress ways or that beautiful neck, a jolt of physical awareness shot through him.

  Don’t notice that, he told himself, trying to ignore the instant heat that her innocent manner and her movement had called forth in him. Don’t think of her that way. Kathryn was a woman on a mission, a woman dedicated to passionate causes, and a woman with a baby on the way. She wasn’t in the market for anything short-lived or based on physical chemistry alone, while he wasn’t open to anything more. He didn’t get involved with women who wanted too much from him. After Lilith, he especially didn’t get involved with pregnant women. The fact that Kathryn was both passionate and pregnant made her radioactive. A woman to steer around, not get close to.

  And yet, here he was, thinking about the long, naked column of her neck and trying not to think about any more of her naked. Holt wanted to swear again. He held back.

  At that moment, Blue, Holt’s German shepherd mix, wandered near. Blue was big and slobbery with a torn ear. He looked like a dog who could eat humans just for fun, and most people kept their distance when they first met him.

  Kathryn bent over and held her hand out to him so he could sniff and make up his mind about her, then rubbed him behind his ears just as if he was a cute little puppy. Blue looked as if he was in ecstasy.

  “He’s a killer,” Holt said, disgusted with Blue, but mostly with himself.

  “I can see that. You trained him to go for the throat?”

  Holt raised one brow. “I trained him for a lot of things. Right now he seems to have forgotten all of them. I guess you’re better at schmoozing than you thought.”

  She glanced up quickly and evidently noticed him staring at her. A delicious pale pink climbed her throat, making him want to groan.

  Kathryn quickly looked at Blue. “No, he just likes to be rubbed.”

  “Who doesn’t?” Had he really said that? Oh, yeah, he had. The startled look in her eyes left no question. The woman was shocked. Just yesterday he would have been glad. But today she had made him think about things he couldn’t ignore. He was going to say yes. The truth was that he couldn’t have anyone else on his conscience. He already had a whole lot to answer for, things he struggled not to think about every day, and like it or not, he was going to have to get mixed up in Kathryn’s passionate project and do a bunch of things he didn’t like.

  But two things he wouldn’t do. He wouldn’t expose his soul, his demons, that part of himself only he was privy to, by letting her know just how she’d talked him into this. And he wouldn’t let her be in control the way it had gone down with Lilith.

  Time to do a little creative backpedaling. Somehow.

  “I probably shouldn’t have made that last comment about Blue,” he began, not very smoothly.

  At his name, Blue’s ears perked up a bit, but he was still looking like some lovesick fool, slobbering all over Kathryn’s hand. What was it with the woman?

  “So you think I should help you get this clinic built?” he asked, stalling while he tried to think of some good idea. She was looking at him as if he’d been the one who’d slipped and maybe hit his head on a rock. And why not? The woman had been all but begging him to help her for days.

  “I do. I really do.”

  “How do I know you’re not just some Goody Two-shoes who gets fired up about causes and then drops them to move on to the next one? You just said that you weren’t staying.”

  “I’m not. I’m an urban planner. The jobs I’m looking for will be in cities and I have a baby to support, but I assure you that I won’t run out on this project.”

  “How do I know that you’re truly dedicated?”

  She raised that pretty chin. “You could try taking my word on it.”

  He shook his head slowly, almost sadly. “Kathryn, Kathryn, I’m a businessman. I can’t just take your word on things.” Even though he did that every day. But she couldn’t know that. And anyway, he didn’t really know her. There was a good chance she might bolt and he would be left with a mess on his hands.

  “And this project will take time away from my ranching duties. I might have to set a few things aside
. Like...”

  He paused.

  “Like...” she prompted.

  “Well, like Blue here. He’s used to me having time to put him through his paces. What if I don’t have time for that stuff?”

  She raised one pretty brow. “You’re telling me that the only thing holding you back is that you’re worried you won’t have time to exercise Blue?”

  The dog moaned when she said his name as if he’d been waiting for her to do that all his life.

  Holt gave him the evil eye. Which Blue ignored.

  “A man’s dog is his best friend.”

  “You have friends, then?” she asked, still in full tigress mode.

  Holt looked taken aback. “That seems like a snotty thing to say to a man when you’ve asked him to do you a favor.”

  She blushed that pretty pink that started somewhere beneath her clothing, and Holt swallowed hard. “You’re right. Of course,” she agreed. “What if—if you get bogged down and can’t take care of Blue, I could, er, put him through his paces?”

  “And you think it’s my duty to the town to take care of getting this clinic?”

  “Just to help. I’ll be doing a lot of it, too.”

  “Ah.”

  “Are you trying to intimidate me?”

  He shrugged. “Is it working?”

  “No.”

  “Good. Because I was really just testing you to see how dedicated you are. So you’ll do a lot of the work, you’ll walk my dog and you’ll—what?”

  Kathryn raised herself up to her full height. Despite being shorter than him and very pregnant, she somehow managed to look down her nose at him. “I’ll make sure that your town has a first-rate clinic, Mr. Calhoun.”

  He nodded, then turned to the dog. “What do you think, Blue?”

  The dog turned sad eyes on Kathryn and nudged closer, obviously hoping for more of that rubbing. Then to Holt’s surprise, Blue gave a little woof. That wasn’t like him. He was well trained, and he didn’t bark unless there was a reason to bark.

  Kathryn crossed her arms. “I suppose you’re going to tell me that Blue doesn’t think the clinic is a good idea.”

  Holt wanted to smile, but he managed to refrain. Kathryn Ellis was pretty cute when she was miffed. Why had he never noticed that before?

  “Not at all. Blue thinks I should sleep on what you’ve said and then I’ll give you my reply tomorrow.” If they were going to work together, he was going to call the shots. He wasn’t going to risk a repeat of Lilith.

  “I see.”

  She didn’t, of course, but he had to give her credit for being a good sport about the whole thing.

  “This isn’t a joke,” she said quietly.

  She was right. “No, ma’am, it isn’t. I’ll be in touch. Real soon. That’s a promise.” And for some reason he couldn’t fathom, he held out his hand. It was, possibly, the dumbest thing he’d done in a long time.

  Kathryn placed her hand in his and he closed his big palm around her much smaller one. As her skin slid against his, he was more aware of her as a woman than he’d been when he was undressing other women.

  Quickly, she pulled away. Good idea.

  Not like this business of him and Kathryn working together, he thought after she’d gone. That had bad idea written all over it. Unfortunately, he was already in. Now all he had to do was tell her. For real this time. Maybe he’d be lucky and she would decide he was a crazy man and find someone else to ask her favors for her.

  But he knew that that was a long shot. Kathryn was determined to get her clinic, even if she had to put up with a man like him to get it.

  Still, he bet it would be a long time before she would let him shake her hand again. That was a shame. And a blessing. At least one of them was thinking straight. It sure wasn’t him. Or Blue.

  A short time later his phone rang. It was his sister Jess. His other sister Meg and his brother, Nate, would probably have been in on the call, too, but Meg was living in California now and Nate was still overseas with the army.

  “I heard that Kathryn Ellis went out to the ranch today,” Jess said. “What did she want?”

  He hesitated. “Mostly I think she just wanted to pet my dog.”

  “I doubt that,” Jess said, laughing. “Secretive as ever, Holt? Are you going to help her with that clinic?”

  “Haven’t decided yet.”

  “Did she give you her reasons for wanting to build it?”

  Oh, no, he wasn’t going there. Jess didn’t know exactly how much their father had suffered or about the nightmares that kept him awake at night about their father’s last days. She certainly didn’t know the horrors that his friend Hank had faced and she knew nothing at all of what had gone on between himself and Lilith. “We discussed a few things,” he said.

  Jess sighed loudly. “You are the most frustrating man. Some day someone is going to get you to open up and talk.”

  “I talk.” They saw each other frequently. But he also kept things to himself, kept things from the rest of the family, as he always had. That was his duty and right as the eldest. He knew that, just as he knew that Kathryn Ellis was not a part of his destiny.

  That didn’t mean he could keep her waiting forever. By tomorrow she would be pacing the floor and she wouldn’t care two hoots about why he was going to help her. She’d just be glad that he was finally saying yes. He hoped.

  CHAPTER THREE

  THE next day after work Kathryn returned to her house with the almost-peeled-away white paint and the tilting porch where some of the boards were rotted through. Her parents hadn’t been able to find a buyer for the house when they divorced so it had sat here neglected and forgotten. She supposed she should be grateful that neither of them was interested enough to object to her staying here. Otherwise, she’d be out on the streets.

  She freelanced at the local newspaper and did odd jobs around the clinic a few afternoons a week, but this afternoon she had nothing. The inactivity unnerved her. Not having a full-time job or any solid plan for the future scared her to death, so after lunch she tried to dredge up a positive outlook, donning her I’m-planning-for-the-future attitude. She sent off a few résumés the way she did every day even though she hadn’t gotten any nibbles.

  Still, she was determined to move forward. So after lunch, she moved out onto the rickety porch swing with a pen and paper and began work on her doctor/clinic list. She tried not to think about the fact that Holt had promised her an answer today and that the answer might be no. She also tried not to remember how it had felt when he’d held her hand. Sensation had ping-ponged through her body. And it had been much hotter than anything she’d felt in high school.

  “The man is impossible,” she muttered. He could have given her his answer yesterday. That made her think that the answer was going to be no and he was just trying to come up with a way to let her down easy. This was almost like a repeat of high school, with her wanting something from him she couldn’t have. The only difference was that this time she didn’t daydream about him bending her back over the hood of his car and kissing her with wild abandon.

  I don’t, she insisted as a hot sizzle went through her. “Because that would be completely inappropriate for an about-to-burst pregnant woman.” Not to mention stupid and totally disastrous for someone like herself. She’d learned a lot of lessons during these past few years of being married to a man who was controlling, judgmental and inclined to bursts of cruelty, but the most important went something like this. Don’t get too close to imposing, hard-to-deal-with men like Holt. James was a larger-than-life, brooding type just like Holt. People admired him and told her that still waters ran deep, but what she’d found was that behind that tough, quiet facade was a man with no soul and a lot of pent-up anger. Faced with that kind of man again, she knew to run. A woman who had been naive enough to fall for a man who hurt her would have to be ten kinds of stupid and something not very admirable if she did it again. But she wouldn’t let that happen.

  Maybe she could
do the entire project herself.

  A groan escaped her and she closed her eyes at the impossibility of it all. These kinds of opportunities didn’t drop in everyone’s lap. This was her ticket to security for her unborn baby, herself and the people of the town who needed good medical care—yet she was already flailing because, once again, she couldn’t win over Holt Calhoun.

  The sound of boots on pavement made her open her eyes.

  As if her thoughts had conjured him up, Holt was crossing the street, heading toward her house. Dressed in jeans slung low on his hips and a pristine white shirt open at the throat, he was like some bronzed cowboy god with that dark hair and chiseled jaw. Instantly and against her will, her body reacted. When his gaze met hers, Holt nodded hello. Without waiting for her to invite him onto the porch, he simply stepped up as if he was used to doing what he wanted and going where he wanted. He probably was.

  She struggled to stand so that she would be at less of a disadvantage. Unfortunately, her unwieldy body defied her.

  Holt held out a hand as if to stop her. “No need. I just came to tell you not—”

  “Holt? Is that you?” A woman’s voice had them both looking toward the road. Kathryn peered around Holt to see Mrs. Best, a retired schoolteacher and one of Dr. Cooper’s regular patients staring up at Holt as if she adored him. “It is you.” She sounded delighted. “I haven’t seen you since you came home, but I’ve been meaning to call.”

  “Good morning, Mrs. Best.” Holt’s voice was utterly polite, but after his atypical teasing bout with Blue yesterday he had retreated back to strong, silent cowboy mode.