Colton's Cowboy Code

by Melissa Cutler

  “I’ll have the oatmeal and a fruit cup.”

  That wasn’t enough. Not nearly. When his brother’s now ex-wife had been pregnant, she ate her weight in food every day. “I’ll have the Paul Bunyan flapjack stack, the sausage omelet with the cheese grits, and a side of bacon.” He winked at Hannah, whose eyebrows were pinched as though she were onto his plan. “Working on the ranch builds up quite an appetite.”

  When the waitress left, he folded his hands on the table. “Let’s get right to this interview. Lucky C—that’s the name of my family’s ranch—needs a new accountant.”

  “I know what your family’s ranch is named. Everybody round these parts knows the Coltons, which is why it doesn’t make any sense for you to post the help wanted ad the way you did, anonymously, discretion required.”

  On top of everything else, she was smart as a whip. Smart, proud, stubborn and a great dancer. Her list of attributes was getting unwieldy.

  “What are you smiling about?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “You’re quick. I can already see you’ll do a great job for the Lucky C.”

  She frowned at his compliment. “You’re patronizing me. You don’t even know my qualifications.” From her massive purse, she pulled a page of substantial, pricey stationery from a folder. Her résumé.

  “I’m not patronizing you. I put the ad in the classifieds because I need an accountant. You answered the ad and I’m a pretty good judge of character. Something tells me that you’re perfect for the job.”

  “I am, but first, tell me why you did what you did, with the anonymous classified ad. Your family’s ranch is huge and prosperous. If you need an accountant, you could have the best in Oklahoma, none of this cloak-and-dagger baloney.”

  He could tell she wasn’t going to let him off the hook. “My father’s getting up there in years and his memory isn’t what it used to be. I’ve done what I can to help him—we all have—but it’s time we bring in a qualified professional. I made the ad anonymous because my father’s in denial about what’s happening to him and I didn’t want to alert the Tulsa gossip hounds, not after everything our family went through last month.”

  That was only a half-truth, but the real reason he’d wanted to hire an accountant wasn’t going to cut through her pride, so he had no remorse for feeding her a line, not when her and their baby’s well-beings were at stake. The real reason he’d put the anonymous ad in the paper was because he’d been planning to hire an accountant to take a look at the ranch’s books on the sly, without his father and brothers’ knowledge, and to help him crunch the numbers for the horse breeding business plan he was going to lay out for his family to consider investing in. But Hannah needed more than a part-time temporary job on the sly.

  She set a hand on his forearm, her face pinched with worry. Her nails were trimmed to a short, practical length but were well-manicured and glossy, as though she’d used clear polish on them. “What happened last month? Is everyone okay?”

  That surprised him all over again. The local news had done a thorough job raking his family through the public eye. “You mean you didn’t hear?”

  Her concerned look deepened, darkening her eyes. “No. Last month was the worst of my life. I was just trying to survive.”

  She was just trying to survive. He gripped his knees hard, holding himself back from scolding her. You should have contacted me. I would have taken care of you. I would have taken care of everything.

  Brett wasn’t ready for fatherhood, and truth was, it’d take some time for that change in his life to sink in, but nothing was going to stop him from doing the right thing by Hannah and the baby. That’s what Colton men did and that’s what Brett was going to do—for the rest of their lives.

  Marriage? Maybe. If that’s what Hannah wanted, what she needed in the long run, then his code of honor depended on making that offer to her. But not yet. Not when he wasn’t sure she’d even agree to come live at the ranch once she heard what happened there the month before. He’d just have to find a way to convince her despite everything, because there was no getting around the truth about the trouble at the Lucky C. She’d find out soon enough. “Our house was robbed and my mother was attacked.”

  Hannah gasped. Her grip on his forearm tightened. “Is she...?”

  He set a hand over hers and squeezed. “She’s alive. In a coma. The doctors aren’t sure she’s going to make it, but we have to hold out hope.”

  Brett’s relationship with his mother was the most complicated in his life. They’d never seen eye to eye and clashed more often than they were at peace. His deepest regret was that their last words to each other were angry, cruel. She wasn’t an easy person to love, but she was the only mother he had and the thought of losing her hurt him something awful.

  Hannah turned her hand over and threaded her fingers with his. “I’m so sorry. Did they catch the man who did that to her?”

  “Yes. They have a suspect in custody. If you accept my job offer, and I sincerely hope you will, I want you to know that the ranch is safe. You don’t have to worry about that.” God, he hoped that was true. But there was no need to worry Hannah with his private doubts that the police had captured the man responsible for the assault, not when there was no evidence beyond his gut telling him that there was more to the robbery and attempted murder than everyone else thought.

  Mistrust—or was that her pride rearing its head again?—pushed through her worried expression. “I don’t remember you making me an official offer yet.”

  Their food arrived in a clatter of plates on Janice’s massive serving tray, the smell so delicious that Hannah’s stomach gurgled like crazy.

  “I was just about to. Come work for the Lucky C, Hannah. It’s what the ranch needs, and it’s what you need, too. I’m prepared to compensate you with a competitive salary, health insurance, housing—”

  “Housing? Isn’t that a little unusual?”

  She was a hard nut to crack, this one. Far harder than her sweet, soft voice and kind smile suggested. He summoned his most charming smile onto his lips, hoping that a little buttering up would help his cause. “Maybe, but then again, I’ve never met an accountant as pretty as you, so I’d say this situation is mighty unusual any way you cut it.”

  Sure enough, the mistrust in Hannah’s eyes softened. And was that a hint of a smile on her lips? She poked her spoon through the air in his direction. “You can’t flirt with me if you’re going to be my boss.”

  “Then you’re accepting my offer?”

  “I said if.”

  He slid the plate of bacon toward her. When charming failed, bacon often had a way of coming to the rescue. “Eat.”

  Desire shone in her eyes, jogging another memory of the lust he remembered seeing on her face that night at the club, then later, at her apartment. He remembered the way her every emotion played on her face without artifice or pretense. At the time, he’d appreciated that quality of hers only because it had made her easier to seduce, then easier to bring pleasure to in bed. He supposed what he was doing this morning still counted as seduction, but now, he was wholly focused on her needs instead of his.

  To his relief, her fingers closed around a crispy slice of bacon. “I wasn’t going to eat your food, given your enormous rancher’s appetite, but that smells too darn good to resist. One little piece...” She crunched into the bacon, her eyes closing with the bliss of it.

  He watched her face, riveted anew by the ever-shifting nuances in her expression.

  Yet he forced his wayward thoughts aside. There would be time enough to marvel over Hannah, but he was a man on a mission, and he would not be deterred for anything. “Our chef cures and smokes her own bacon, harvested from our ranch’s livestock. I wake to the smell of it frying in the kitchen every single morning. You could, too.”

  Her eyes jolted open. “I’m not moving in w
ith you.”

  Time for the next step in his seduction. He liberally spread butter on his stack of flapjacks, then drizzled it with warm maple syrup. He sliced off a hearty wedge, then held his forkful across the table for her.

  She backed her face up, eying the flapjack bite suspiciously.

  “When was the last time you had pure maple syrup and real butter?” he crooned.

  She reached a finger out to his plate and swiped at a drop of syrup, then brought it to her tongue.

  Mercy. Just like that, Brett felt every one of the nineteen weeks of his self-inflicted abstinence.

  “You, Brett Colton, are as slippery as a snake-oil salesman.”

  He brandished the fork under her nose. “I prefer to think of myself as stubborn and single-minded. Not so different from you.”

  The suspicion on her face melted away a little bit more. She guided his hand toward her and closed her lips around the fork in a way that gave Brett some ideas too filthy for his own good.

  He cleared his throat, snapping his focus back to the task at hand. “When my parents remodeled the big house, they designed separate wings for each of their six children, but I’m the only one of the six who lives there full-time. Me and my father. My younger sister passes through sometimes, but you would have your own wing, your own bathroom with a big old tub, and plenty of privacy.”

  For the first time, she seemed to be seriously considering his offer. Time to go for broke. He handed her another slice of bacon, which she accepted without a word.

  “Where are you living now?” he said. “Can you look me in the eye and tell me it’s a good, long-term situation for you and the baby?”

  She snapped a tiny bit of bacon off and popped it into her mouth. “It’s not like I’m living in some abandoned building. I’m staying with my best friend, Lori, and her boyfriend, Drew. It’s not ideal. Actually it’s far from ideal—I mean, I’m sleeping on the sofa—but with the money from this job, I’ll be able to afford my own place.”

  “And until that first paycheck, you’ll live at the ranch.” He pressed his lips together. That had come out a smidge more demanding than he’d wanted it to.

  Their gazes met and held. “Are you mandating that? Will the job offer depend on me accepting the temporary housing?”

  Oh, how he wanted to say yes to that. “No. But you should agree to it, anyway. Your own bed, regular meals made by a top-rated personal chef, and your commute to work is down a set of stairs and along a short dirt road to the ranch office. The only traffic you might run into would be some overly excitable ranch dogs.”

  She popped the rest of the bacon slice into her mouth, then washed it down with orange juice. “I know why you’re doing all this, and I still don’t fully believe you about the reason you’re hiring an accountant on the sly, but I really am grateful for all you’re offering—the job and the accommodations. In all honesty, this went a lot better than I thought it would.”

  “The job interview?”

  “No, telling you about the baby. I thought you’d either hate me or propose to me.”

  Brett didn’t miss a beat. “I still might.”

  “Which one, hate me?”

  Leaning forward, he gave her a look full of commitment and honor. “Ask you to marry me. I haven’t taken that option off the table yet, either.” At the flush of pink to her skin, he added with a knowing smile, “For the record, I don’t think there’s a person on the planet who could hate you.”

  “There’s a whole congregation of them over on Grand Avenue and Fourth Street.”

  “That’s your church?”

  “The Congregation of the Second Coming. My parents’ church, not mine. And it’s more like a cult than a church, truth be told. Even before they excommunicated me because of the pregnancy, I was done with that place. I’m still a Christian, but I doubt there’s room for that church’s closed-minded judgment in the kingdom of heaven.”

  “Then you’re better off without them.”

  She drew herself up tall. “Thank you. Yes, I am.”

  “Take my offer, Hannah. Let me take care of you.” He clamped his teeth together, cursing himself for adding that last part. A strong, proud woman like her would chafe at such an old-fashioned notion.

  She picked up her butter knife and made swirls in the bottom of her oatmeal bowl. Brett held his breath, watching her.

  “I accept the job and the housing, even though ‘Pregnant with the Boss’s Baby’ sounds like a bad soap opera plot.” A conciliatory smile graced her lips.

  Relief swept through his system with the force of last week’s flash flood. “I don’t know, I think it has a nice ring to it.” Even as he said that, the truth in her jest hit him with a fresh dose of clarity. He was going to be a father. His future was going to include diaper changes, first steps, scraped knees and sleepless nights. Everything in his life was about to change, and he and Hannah would forever be linked by the life they’d created together.

  His attention raked over the mother of his child, who was worrying the edge of her napkin. “What’s bothering you now?”

  “What about your family?” she said. “You took all this so well, but what if they hate me? Or worse, what if they think I got pregnant on purpose to get at your money?”

  As much as he wished that her worry had no merit, she’d brought up an excellent point, because his family had no shortage of closed-minded judgmental attitudes, too. He’d been fighting for months to get them to see him in a new light, to prove to his brothers and father that he had turned over a new, more responsible leaf, so that they’d finally support the big plans he had for the family business. The last thing Brett needed was to add fuel to his brothers’ and father’s belief that he wasn’t fit to help run the Lucky C, and nothing said screwed-up, irresponsible rich boy better than getting a girl pregnant during a one-night stand.

  But facing the consequences of his misspent years and terrible choices was his problem, not Hannah’s, so he squelched the grimace he felt coming on at the thought of breaking the news to his father and siblings. “Leave them to me.”

  Chapter 3

  Brett stood at the edge of Vulture Ridge, at the very place where he’d watched the cow get swept away in the flash flood, his gaze absorbing the land that he loved, despite Mother Nature’s occasional cruelty. Today the sky was clear, but they’d had afternoon thundershowers every day lately, and this afternoon’s forecast was no different. Even now, at a few minutes to noon, the clouds were stacking up on the horizon.

  His eyeballs ached from a sleepless night of self-torment, with his conscience replaying every mistake he’d ever made. Every whiskey-soaked night, every morning of work he’d slept through—his past was littered with so much waste of money, time and opportunity that he could hardly believe that he kept being given more chances to get it right. That same life-changing bender of a weekend that had resulted in his car accident was now changing his life all over again. From this point forward and for the rest of his days, he would be beholden to a woman and, soon, a child. Somehow, he was going to become a man worthy of the charge—that he knew with absolute certainty.

  Before dawn, he’d walked out of his house determined to stop looking back, ready to face his future with eyes wide-open. With a straight spine and determination coursing through his veins, he’d saddled Outlaw and had taken off to the backcountry, long before Jack and the ranch hands had arrived for their workdays.

  He’d watched the sun rise over the prairie with an appreciation that reminded him of how he’d felt returning to the ranch after being released from the hospital after his accident—full of gratitude and hope. The longer he soaked in the views and scents of the backcountry, the land he adored, the more at peace he became with the new direction his life was going. Becoming a father was going to change a lot, but it wasn’t going to change everything.
He would always have this land, this Colton legacy. And now he had someone to pass it to. The realization brought a smile to his lips.

  The irony wasn’t lost on him that the very reason he couldn’t give up fighting for his rightful place in the Colton legacy was the very reason he was about to be back to square one with his family on that very topic. When his dad and brothers learned about Brett’s impending fatherhood resulting from a one-night stand, he was going to lose their trust all over again, along with whatever leverage he’d fought for over the past four months.

  When the alarm on his phone chimed, alerting him that it was almost time for the family meeting that his older brother Ryan, a detective with the Tulsa PD, had called in order to share the latest developments in their mother’s assault case, Brett’s resolve faltered for a split second. Nerves settled in his gut like stones. Ryan wasn’t the only one with news to share.

  A click of his tongue and a slight wiggle of a rein was all the direction Outlaw needed to turn away from the ridge and trot in the direction of the ranch buildings. Brett urged him faster, relishing the feel of unadulterated power in Outlaw’s muscles and stride. Brett knew that Outlaw loved this part, too, the wind in their faces and the open range at their feet as they shot across the plains, the sensations of speed and freedom potent enough for Brett to almost imagine it possible to outrun his past and his reputation.

  The circular driveway in front of Brett’s family home—the Big House, as it’d been called since long before Brett’s birth, and where now only he and his dad lived, and his mom before her attack—was crowded with vehicles, including his half brother Daniel’s truck and the farm truck that Jack’s fiancée, Tracy, liked to drive around the place. Even his brother Eric had deigned to make a rare appearance, by the looks of it. Greta, they’d already been informed, couldn’t break away from her job until the next day, when she planned to swing through the Big House for a short stay.