Ross stared at his sister. He should have known Victoria and Jess would want a baby, a brother or sister to go with little Katrina. But he’d been a bachelor for so long, thoughts of babies were in the same league as washing dishes—he just didn’t do them. That is, he hadn’t until— Isabella had walked into his life.
“A baby,” he repeated in wondrous fascination.
Victoria laughed at his dumbfounded reaction. “Yes, a baby. Isn’t it wonderful?”
Ross glanced at Isabella to see if she was as stunned by Victoria’s news as he was.
Isabella smiled at him, even while an empty hole was spreading inside her chest. How could she feel so happy for Victoria and still be so perfectly miserable? she wondered.
Rising from his seat, Ross went around the table, kissed his sister’s cheek, then shook his brother-in-law’s hand.
“This is the best news I’ve heard in a long, long time,” Ross exclaimed. “A new little Ketchum in the family!”
Jess shot him a wry look. “Sorry to bust your bubble, Ross, but he’ll be a Hastings.”
Everyone laughed, and for the next few minutes congratulations were offered to the happy couple and talk focused on the coming baby. But as the meal progressed, the mention of Noah Rider came up again and the conversation turned to the problem of solving his murder.
“Are you having any visions about this case?” Neal asked Naomi.
The older woman with her silver braids smiled at the handsome lawyer. “No visions. But I’ll let you know if I have any.” She inclined her head toward Isabella. “My goddaughter will help you find the killer.”
“That’s right,” Ross spoke up with happy confidence. “Isabella helped us flush out Steve. Maybe she can do the same on Noah’s case.”
Isabella looked around the table of people until her eyes settled on Ross. She couldn’t go on letting them all think she was going to stay on the T Bar K. Especially Ross. It wasn’t right. She had to speak out now. No matter how badly it hurt her.
“I—Ross, I’m not going to be here to help you with Noah’s case. I—I’ll be leaving tomorrow—when Mother and Naomi head back to the Jicarilla.”
Ross stared at her as though she’d just struck him in the face. She couldn’t leave. Not now. Not ever. He didn’t know exactly when he’d come to that conclusion, but it was there in his heart. And letting her out of his life was no longer an option.
“Leaving?” he repeated as though he wasn’t quite sure he’d heard her right.
She nodded, and the whole table went awkwardly quiet. Unable to keep holding his gaze, Isabella looked down at her half-eaten dinner.
Victoria was the one who eventually broke the silence with another question for the Apache visionary. “Naomi, do you envision your goddaughter leaving the ranch tomorrow?”
Isabella looked up and was surprised to see her godmother smiling as though a rainbow had just arced over the dining table. Naomi, she silently thought, can’t you see my heart is breaking? “No,” Naomi answered Victoria’s question. “I have not had any visions of Isabella leaving the ranch. I think it is meant for her to be here.” She paused and shrugged. “But maybe I need to do a bit of praying and chanting about it.”
Isabella groaned with embarrassment. “Naomi, how could you say such a thing?”
Ross didn’t wait for the other woman’s reply; he scraped back his chair and reached for Isabella’s arm.
“Don’t mind us, folks, just go ahead and finish your meal,” he said as he led Isabella away from the table.
Mortified, Isabella glanced back at the group of dinner guests and spotted several knowing smiles, especially on Naomi and Victoria.
“Ross, what—where are we going?” she asked as he led her through the kitchen, then out the back door onto the porch. “Your guests are going to think you’re crazy. That we’re both crazy!”
“We are. At least, I am, for not saying something before now.” He stopped midway in the warm shadows and pulled her into his arms. Isabella wondered if she should resist, then didn’t even try as his arms tightened and drew her against his chest. “I’m sorry if you think I’ve ignored you these past couple of days. But things have been crazy. I haven’t had a chance to draw a good breath, much less talk to you. But talk isn’t exactly all I’ve wanted to do,” he added, his hands roaming seductively against her back.
Her eyes were troubled as they lifted to meet his. “Ross, I don’t think you’ve neglected me. It’s not that. It’s…the other night…maybe you don’t understand what it meant to me. I’m not like the other women you’ve known.”
His lips twisted to a wry line. “That’s an understatement.”
“I, uh…I thought I could be. I thought being with you…that way…would be enough for me. But it isn’t. That’s why I can’t stay here any longer. I’d only wind up back in your bed. You’d be satisfied with that, but I wouldn’t. Don’t you see?”
He studied her face for long sober moments. “So you want to leave. Go to the Jicarilla and forget about me.”
Just hearing him say the words filled her throat with hot tears. Yet she knew she had to stand her ground with him. If not, she’d be following in her mother’s footsteps. “Not exactly. But—”
His hands closed over her shoulders. “You said I didn’t understand what the other night meant to you. Well, maybe you don’t understand what it meant to me. I can’t just let you leave, Bella. You’re a part of my life. I thought you knew that.”
She drew in a deep, bracing breath. “You haven’t exactly told me that.”
He grimaced. “I’m not good with words, Bella. Not when I need to be.”
Isabella tried to swallow away the pain that continued to choke her. “You don’t have to explain yourself. You made it clear from the start that you could never love any woman. I can’t expect you to love me.”
But he did. He loved her utterly and completely. If he hadn’t known it before, he’d certainly known it when he’d seen her racing across the mesa, clinging desperately to Juggler’s side.
“Bella, I was so wrong when I said that to you. I didn’t understand—” he stopped as a groan of regret slipped past his lips. “I thought I could control my heart. I thought I would never have to love anybody unless I wanted to and I’d chosen not to.”
“Because you were hurt,” she said softly. “Because some woman with a career turned her back on you.”
His eyes widened. “You figured that out?”
She nodded somberly. “You more or less spelled it out with some of the remarks you made after we first met. And then Victoria mentioned something about you not liking career women.”
With another groan, he dropped his hands and turned slightly away from her. “Linda was a reporter for the Aztec newspaper. But she had high aspirations that didn’t include me. I just didn’t know that until a television station in Denver offered her a job writing the evening news.”
Isabella tentatively touched his arm. “You must have loved her very much to have let her taint your life all these years.”
He twisted his head toward hers, his expression wry. “The way you let Winston Jones taint yours?”
All of a sudden, his question peeled a veil from her eyes. He’d been hurt by a woman who’d wanted nothing but a career. And she’d been hurt by a man who was incapable of loving anyone. She’d once believed that Ross was like Winston Jones; he wanted only the pleasure of a woman’s body. But now she knew better. That was all in the past. And this was their future he was talking about. Their future together.
With a little cry of joy she stepped forward and slid her arms around his waist. “Ross, that woman—the one who hurt you—I could never be that way. I love you! And if it means keeping us together, I can give up my job. That is…if you love me.”
“Love you? Bella, I adore you. Absolutely adore you. That day you were nearly killed—everything became clear to me. And I’m not talking about Steve now. I’m talking about myself and how I feel about you. I coul
d see just how important you are to me. And I could see that I couldn’t possibly survive without you in my life.”
She trembled with hope. “Are you trying to say you want to marry me?”
His hands slipped into her long hair. With his fingers cradling the back of her head, he angled her face up to his. The position prompted her eyes to focus on his lips and she realized she was just now learning what physical hunger was all about.
“You’re the only woman I’ll ever want,” he whispered huskily. “Say you’ll marry me…soon! In the next few days!”
Ross wanted to marry her! Her, the half Apache daughter that Winston Jones had never wanted. Emotion overtook her, making it impossible for her to utter one word.
“Isabella, what is it?” he asked anxiously as he spotted tears building in her eyes. “Your job?”
She shook her head back and forth. “No. I mean, yes, I’ll marry you! And for you, I’d give up my job. I’d give up anything for your love.”
The fact that she could love him so unselfishly overwhelmed him, and he buried his face in the side of her hair.
“Never! I would never ask that of you.”
Love, pure and sweet, began to pour through Isabella like a never-ending spring, and she knew it would always be that way for this man who now held her so tightly to his heart.
“If that’s the way you feel, then I’ll practice in Aztec,” she told him. “That way I’ll only be a few minutes away from you.”
He eased her head back and gave her a lopsided grin. “I like the sound of you working only a few minutes away. But that isn’t going to help your people on the Jicarilla. And that’s the very reason you became a lawyer in the first place.” His fingers stroked her cheek as his eyes promised a lifetime of love no matter what obstacles they faced. “What if you drove up to Dulce—say, a couple of days a week, then worked the remainder of the week in Aztec? How would that be?”
Laughing with sheer happiness, she snuggled her face against his chest. “Fine. Until we start to have our children. Then I’ll gladly cut my caseload way back.”
Smiling, he folded his arms across her back and rested his chin on the top of her head. “A few minutes ago, when Victoria and Jess announced they were going to have a child, I realized I wanted the same thing to be happening to us. Imagine—Ross Ketchum, a husband and father. When word of this gets out, my reputation will be ruined.”
Laughing, Isabella reached for his hand. “Let’s go tell them we have more news to celebrate tonight.”
She made a move to tug him down the porch, but he stood in his tracks. “We’ll go in a minute,” he promised as his hand came up to tenderly smooth the stray hairs from her forehead. “Right now, I want to tell you just how happy you’ve made me.”
“And I’m going to make you even happier by trying to find out who killed Noah Rider,” she promised him.
He brought his lips down to hers and pressed a tempting kiss against the moist curves. “You’re going to be far too busy with your honeymoon to be playing private investigator, my little darling. I’m calling my brother, Seth, the Texas Ranger, to come up here. If anyone can get to the bottom of this thing, he can.”
Smiling seductively, Isabella slid her arms around his waist. “A Texas Ranger, huh? Well, it sounds like I’d just be in his way. So that means I’ll have more time to devote to my husband.”
Behind them, the door leading from the kitchen to the porch opened and Victoria stepped out into the small shaft of light coming from the doorway.
“Hey, you two,” she called, “do you need a referee out here?”
Chuckling, Ross led Isabella down the porch to where Victoria waited, and as the three of them rejoined the rest of the family, he realized the party had only begun.
ISBN: 978-1-4592-3307-2
HIS DEFENDER
Copyright © 2003 by Stella Bagwell
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† Twins on the Doorstep
†† Men of the West
* Heartland Holidays
His Defender Page 22