The Rancher And The Redhead

by Leigh, Allison

  Matthew’s fingers tightened around the steering wheel. “The Double-C’s not mine alone. It belongs to all of us. Whatever kids we have will all inherit the land.”

  “Oh, I know that. Maggie told me all about it. But you’re the one who lives for the Double-C. It’s only natural that your children would feel the same.”

  “Maggie tell you that, too?”

  He felt the warmth of her gaze, but kept his own strictly on the road. “No,” she finally said. “I can figure some things out myself.”

  A faint buzzing sounded in his head. A warning. “Not everybody’s cut out for ranching. Sawyer couldn’t wait to leave,” Matthew told her, speaking of his older brother. Since when had that redhead tuned in to him this way? “As soon as he was old enough, he enlisted in the Navy. Jefferson was outta here by his eighteenth birthday. And Tristan—” He shook his head, thinking of his youngest brother, who made no secret of his preference for the ocean over the ranch. “Tristan’s busy designing computer programs, or whatever, raking in the dough down in California.”

  Only Dan, five years younger than Matthew, had stayed on at the Double-C. He would have been the perfect foreman, if he’d only agreed to it. But Dan hadn’t wanted to be that tied down. Not even to the Double-C. Instead, Matthew had ended up hiring Joe Greene a few years back. Joe did his job capably enough. But he wasn’t as good as Daniel would’ve been.

  “What’s your point?”

  “Only that you can’t assume that because I’m a rancher down to my soul, my kids—which I don’t plan to have, anyway—would feel the same way.”

  “Jefferson came back to it.” She leaned her head against the seat. “Maybe your other brothers will, too.”

  “I don’t think I’ll hold my breath.” Sawyer would rather swallow nails than consign himself to life as a rancher. Tristan felt the same. But that didn’t mean his oldest and his youngest brothers weren’t closely tied to the family’s home. They were. They had both come the minute Matthew had gotten word to them last year when Squire had had his heart attack. They’d dropped whatever they’d been doing and had come. Pure and simple. That’s the way it was with family.

  “What about you?” He decided it was time to turn the tables. “I don’t see you with a passel of kids hanging on your skirts.”

  “And go through the kind of misery Maggie’s going through? No, thanks.” She shook her head, but her eyes didn’t meet his, and he knew with a start of certainty that she was lying right through her lovely teeth.

  He didn’t know what disturbed him more. The fact that he read her so easily, or that she felt some need to hide whatever maternal urges she had.

  She suddenly straightened. “Look.”

  He followed her pointed finger and saw nothing unusual. No downed fence. No cattle loose. Just billowy snow, covering the fields and drifting across the road on the constant breeze. Another thirty minutes or so and they would leave Double-C land behind.

  “The antelope,” she prompted.

  He barely gave the trio of animals nuzzling a split bale of hay half a glance. “What about ’em?”

  She pushed his arm. “They’re pretty.”

  “They’re eating my hay.”

  “Well, they have to eat.”

  “So do my cattle.”

  Her lips twitched and she craned around in her seat to watch the animals as they left them behind. “It’s really beautiful here,” she mused. “No wonder Joe and Maggie came and stayed.”

  Matthew ignored the note of...of what...in her voice. Longing? “How’s Maggie feeling, anyway?” he asked. The sooner Maggie safely had her baby and things got back to normal, the better.

  Jaimie scooted around until she was facing forward again, and her faint smile faded. “Miserable. She has another doctor’s appointment on Friday afternoon. She says that everything is going fine. But she’s hardly eating. And what she does eat, ends up, well, coming up. I thought morning sickness was supposed to end after the first three months or so. Hers just seems to get worse.”

  Had Jaimie’s face always been so expressive? He shifted in the seat. “Maggie’s strong,” he told her quietly. “She’ll be okay.”

  “She’ll need someone to drive her to town.”

  “Joe—”

  “He’s not comfortable at the obstetrician’s office.”

  Matthew frowned, glancing her way. She looked like she’d just swallowed a mouthful of prune juice.

  Her fingers pleated the edge of the blanket and she looked out the side window. “His pickup is one of those dinky kinds, you know that. Maggie would be uncomfortable the entire drive and she shouldn’t drive herself. You know how she gets dizzy and lightheaded.” She glanced his way, a glint of challenge in her eyes. “I thought I’d better, um, you know...drive her.”

  His thumb slowly tapped the steering wheel. He had an appointment on Friday that couldn’t be rescheduled, with the owner of a bull he’d been wanting for more than a year, or he would simply offer to take Maggie himself. Save himself some downed fence, no doubt. “You have a lot of experience driving in ice and snow?” He smiled faintly. “Doubt you had much of that in Phoenix.”

  “No. But we had dust storms and rain.”

  Big deal. Matthew held the thought.

  “Look,” she offered calmly. “I’m a perfectly capable driver. I even drove a cab for a while.”

  His eyebrows shot up.

  “I did.”

  He could just envision her behind the wheel of a big yellow taxi cab. “For how long? One day? Two? Until you ran over a stop sign or something?”

  “For six months.” Her dark green eyes snapped at him. “And I never hit anything.”

  “You saved that up for me, did you? Thanks. I’m touched. So what other talents are you hiding?”

  “One of these days you’ll take me seriously,” she warned.

  He looked at her. Her hands were folded primly in her lap, that outrageous, citified bracelet of hers twinkling in the sunlight.

  She was a waiking, talking temptation for him to forget all the reasons why he shouldn’t get involved with her. For one thing she was a good ten years, and then some, younger than he. For another, she was Joe’s sister. She was an employee. And last, most important, she would get hurt, sure as God made little green apples.

  All of which were fine reasons, he told himself as the list raced through his head. And none of which kept his hand from lifting and skimming down her oh, so tempting velvety cheek.

  “Oh, sweetheart, I take you seriously. Don’t you ever doubt that.”

  Chapter Three

  Three hours later, Jaimie was still breathless.

  It wasn’t fair that he could simply level her with a single touch to her cheek. She hadn’t been able to think straight since then—not while he’d rapped out a confusing array of orders at the feed and supply store, not while they’d swung through the supermarket where he purchased an enormous amount of staples considering how brief the list was, and certainly not while he’d been busily choosing clothing for her at the Western-wear store.

  He’d pointed her toward the boots he considered appropriate. He’d insisted on finding her a suitable pair of work gloves. He’d even talked her into choosing a cap and a wonderfully soft, warm scarf. But when he’d headed for the thermal underwear, she’d put her foot down. If she ever wanted to sleep again at night, she knew she couldn’t do it while wearing long johns that he’d chosen.

  Then they’d almost had another set-to when it came time to pay the bill. But Matthew, in his usual high-handed manner, had simply told the clerk to charge it to the Double-C. That had been that. The clerk had ignored the cash clenched in Jaimie’s fist and had cheerfully handed over the purchases.

  And now, here they were. Sitting in an unpretentious café colorfully decorated with a multitude of big red hearts, while love songs streamed continuously from the jukebox in the corner, and she still couldn’t think straight. She wondered what kind of mush she would be reduced to if she
ever managed to get him to kiss her.

  She caught him looking at her over the top of his red, laminated menu, and hastily looked down at the matching one she held in her own hands. What on earth was she dreaming about? If there was a man on earth immune to “female managing,” Matthew Clay was it. He would act purely on his own decisions. And nothing else. Matthew considered her a nuisance. An absolute hazard on the ranch. No matter how hard she tried, no matter what she did, the only thing she usually earned from him was “The Look.”

  She shifted on the unyielding seat and folded the menu. Her eyes automatically veered toward Matthew, and she determinedly looked out the window beside them instead. She touched her finger to the cold glass. It was dark outside now. Other than the stop light at the corner and the occasional passing vehicle, mostly all she could see were their own reflections.

  His hat sat on the table where it joined the wall right beneath the window. She wanted to pick it up, run her fingers around the dark brown brim. She wanted to put it on her own head and kiss him. Because it seemed safer, she stared back at the window and clasped her hands in her lap. Just in case they got any crazy ideas. She saw him raise his long, blunt-tipped fingers and rake them through his dark blond hair with the distinctive hat-band mark, riffling the thick strands.

  The waitress, a young woman in jeans and a bright yellow sweatshirt shouting Explore Yellowstone! approached and filled Matthew’s coffee mug, then waited, her order pad and pencil poised.

  Jaimie turned in time to see Matthew’s eyes skim up the waitress’s shapely hips. “I’ll have the special,” she announced brightly, completely unaware of what the special was. As long as it drew the woman’s eyes toward her and away from positively ogling Matthew, she didn’t care.

  Matthew’s eyes swiveled to Jaimie. She could have kicked him for the faint smile playing at the corners of his lips, as if he could read her like a book. The waitress snapped her gum and turned her attention back to Matthew.

  “With a baked potato on the side,” Jaimie added.

  The waitress glanced at her, uninterested. “The special comes with a baked potato,” she said, extremely polite. “You want two?”

  Jaimie could’ve sworn she heard Matthew snicker. “Yes.” She shook the bangs out of her eyes. “I want two.”

  Raising her penciled brows slightly, the waitress made a production over writing that down. “Anything else?”

  “Iced tea.”

  The waitress had already turned her attention to Matthew.

  “With lemon.” Jaimie looked at the container of sugar sitting between the salt and pepper shakers on the other side of Matthew’s hat. “Fresh lemon. And artificial sweetener,” she added.

  “Want to order dessert now, too?”

  Jaimie looked the waitress right in the face. “No, thanks.” She smiled deliberately.

  The waitress eyed her. Blew a bubble. Dismissed her. “What’ll you have, honey?” she asked Matthew.

  Honey. Jaimie rolled her eyes and looked back at the window, only to catch Matthew watching her. The amusement in his eyes was clearly reflected in the window. His dimple flashed briefly and then he was quietly giving the waitress his order.

  “I’m surprised you went for the special,” he said when the waitress had plunked a glass of iced tea next to Jaimie’s flatware. “I never figured you for the chicken-fried steak type.”

  Chicken-fried steak. Well, at least it wasn’t something she detested. Like liver and onions. “Really. And just what type did you figure me for? Oh, wait. Sushi probably.”

  He leaned back against the booth, stretching his arm along the back and his legs beneath the table. “Probably.”

  “Sure, I love my fish raw.” She gave a mock shudder. “Give me a break.”

  “Hey, I don’t have anything against sushi,” he said. “Of course, we don’t have too many restaurants ’round here that cater to it.”

  “So what’s your favorite food? Steak, I’ll bet.”

  “It’d be blasphemous if I didn’t like steak.” The corner of his lips lifted. “But my all-time favorite is liver and onions. Lots of onions. You might remember that, the next time you want to drive somewhere.”

  Jaimie barely contained a shudder. A real one. Wouldn’t you know it. But if it put a smile on Matthew’s face, she figured she’d better bone up on the fine art of cooking liver.

  The waitress reappeared with salads and a sashay for Matthew that a blind person could’ve noticed.

  Matthew bit back a chuckle at the darts shooting from Jaimie’s eyes. “Some reason you don’t like the waitress?”

  She lifted her shoulder. “Don’t be silly.” She stabbed the cherry tomato dead-on with her fork and juice squirted.

  “Bull’s-eye,” Matthew murmured, turning his attention firmly to his own plate. He would do well to concentrate on his meal instead of the way her eyes seemed to deepen or lighten depending on what emotion she felt at any given moment

  For a moment she was blessedly silent while she attacked the lettuce on her plate. “How long have you been in charge of the Double-C,” she asked a few minutes later.

  He stifled a sigh. She was the talkingest woman he’d ever met But it wouldn’t kill him to have a civil conversation with her. If only to remind himself that he knew how to exchange small talk with a beautiful woman. Small talk was harmless enough, after all. And maybe it would keep his thoughts off other things. Like the way her throat rose, creamy and long, from the neck of her shirt.

  “Officially I was the foreman for eight years,” he said. “Then one day Squire up and said he’d had enough. Turned it over to me. Lock, stock and barrel.”

  “How long ago was that?”

  “Five years.” There was nothing interesting to talk about down that road. “What about your parents?” he asked.

  “My father died several years ago. He was only fifty-seven,” she said after a moment. “Mom followed a few years later.”

  He hadn’t known. Joe never discussed his family. Not even Jaimie until the first time she had arrived for a visit. “How old were you?”

  He found he really wanted to know, and it had nothing to do with passing the time until they could get out of this café that looked like a mad Cupid had struck it.

  Her shoulders shifted restlessly. As if she wished she’d never said anything. “Twenty.”

  “In college?”

  She nodded. Poked at her salad some more.

  “What were you studying?”

  Her mobile lips stretched into that slightly crooked, impish smile. The one that drove a jangling dart through his gut every time he saw it. “Sure you want to know?”

  “I asked, didn’t I?”

  “Men.” She glanced at him as if to gauge his reaction. “Just kidding. Actually, it was...ah, business administration. But only because I couldn’t decide what I wanted to study.” She set her fork down and returned his look with a tart one of her own. “I suppose when you were twenty, you had your entire life mapped out. Planned to the last detail.”

  “When I was twenty,” he responded smoothly, “and in college, my plans were to graduate, marry BethAnn Watson and double the Double-C.” He loved that surprised look on her sassy face. Loved it so much that he didn’t even wonder over his bringing up BethAnn.

  “What happened?”

  “I graduated and, in time, doubled the Double-C.”

  “To the marriage bit.”

  “Oh, that.” He realized he had finished his salad somewhere along the line. “She had her sights set elsewhere,” he said shortly. Elsewhere being his neighbor, good old Bill Pickett. Apparently the weeks and months of isolation on a ranch in the middle of Wyoming, which she’d whined and complained about with Matthew, had become more attractive when they’d been attached to Bill.

  “You must be joking!” Jaimie said, then colored.

  “No joke.” He watched her, entranced by the way her pink cheeks made her eyes seem even brighter. “She said no, and expected me to chase after
her.” He realized what he’d just admitted and sat back in his seat.

  “Obviously you didn’t go after her.”

  Obviously he was losing his mind to be discussing this. Next thing he knew, he would be telling her about the way BethAnn had wrapped her truck around a tree two winters after marrying Bill. “Why do you say that?”

  “Because you’re...alone.”

  God, he really didn’t like the direction of this conversation. And he really only had himself to blame. “Being single and being alone ain’t exactly the same thing,” he drawled slowly.

  Her eyes widened a fraction. But before she could comment, the waitress arrived to place a huge array of food before her.

  The baked potato sitting alongside the generous chicken-fried steak covered nearly half of Jaimie’s plate. The potato sitting alone on a side plate was even larger. He bit back a smile. “So what happened to the business administration,” he asked, drawing her somewhat shell-shocked eyes back to him.

  Her fork and steak knife were poised over the steak. “Hmm?”

  “Business admin.” he prompted. “You going to eat that second potato? I could use it.”

  She blinked. Looked from his lone bowl of chili to her own laden plate. Relief brightened her eyes and she slid the side plate his way. “Please. Help yourself.”

  He busied himself with removing the foil from the hot potato. “Now, what happened with college?”

  Her lively expression stilled. “I dropped out,” she said flatly. She waved her fork and a chunk of potato flew off, landing on the floor. “Add it to the list of things I’ve never finished,” she muttered.

  Matthew casually leaned over and scooped up the potato in his napkin before somebody slipped and fell. He straightened to see her viciously slicing through the steak. “Money?”

  “What?”

  “Was money the problem?”

  “Money’s always a problem.”

  The tide of red flowing up her neck told him she probably hadn’t meant to say that. Well, he knew how she felt, since for some reason he said things around her that he didn’t mean to say. He chopped up the baked potato and added it to the chili, searching for a safe topic. “Did you grow up in Phoenix?”