“Didn’t you say you were going to ride Dudley today?”
It was his day off. She had a day off, too, since she’d originally been scheduled to be out of town until Saturday. It was why she’d offered to help. It was the least she could do after he’d been kind enough to drive her back to Via Del Caballo.
“I was going to, but now I don’t know how I’m going to fit that in. Honestly, I don’t know how I’m going to do much of anything anymore.”
“You’ll need to hire someone.”
“I can’t afford to pay someone to watch her full-time.”
“Can’t your mom?”
“I’m sure she could, but not all the time.”
Cowboy came out of hiding, the dog shuffling forward and lifting his head.
It’s a baby, she told the dog, flashing him an image of a puppy. The dog wagged his tail.
“He likes you.”
She looked away, trying to hide her guilt. What would he say if she told him she talked to animals? He’d likely reach the end of his already frayed rope.
“He’s probably curious about Maggie.”
“I was worried he might get jealous.”
“Nah. They understand that babies are human puppies.”
“Are what?”
“Human puppies.”
His mouth opened and closed a few times. “I don’t know what’s more strange, that you just called my baby—” She saw him mentally stumble over the word. “That you called Maggie a puppy, or that I bet you’re right. I think they really do understand. Look at how he’s wagging his tail.”
Because she’d flashed Cowboy an image of a puppy and then another image of Maggie so the canine would understand...not that she could tell Wes that. Instead, she said, “When are you going to do a paternity test?”
“I don’t know. That’s something my mom is looking into. I think we need to find Maxine first.”
“Maxine. That’s the mom?”
He nodded. “I tried getting hold of her this morning, but she hasn’t called me back.”
She glanced down at the baby. She’d stopped suckling. “She’s sleeping.” She glanced up and smiled. “I think she liked listening to us talk.”
“Or she needed a woman’s touch.”
“Maybe.”
“Do you think she’d be okay in her crib for a nap?”
“I think you need to nap with her.”
“No time. I told my mom I’d work today even though she insisted I take the day off as I’d originally scheduled. But I know how much she needs my help. The yearlings all need their supplements. I’ve got a horse being shipped out later today. Horses to turn out.” He ran a hand through his hair. “It’s a full-time job.”
She’d been looking around his place as he talked, comparing it to the mansion on the hill. The two homes couldn’t have been more different. His mom’s house reminded her of a museum. Thick walnut furniture, gilded bric-a-brac, original artwork on the walls, all of it beneath vaulted ceilings framed with crown molding. This place was much more her speed. A few trophies on a mantel, the fireplace beneath ready for a match, based on the wood stacked on the grate. Photos next to the trophies. To her right a wrought-iron pot holder hung from the ceiling above the kitchen counter. Furniture worn but comfy.
“I don’t understand why you have to work so hard.” The question smacked of nosiness, but after seeing his mom’s place, Jillian didn’t get it. “Is your mom a miser or something?”
She’d pricked at an open wound, she could tell by his eyes. “It’s not like that.”
“Are you just really independent, then?” She was quick to add, “Don’t get me wrong. I admire that, but there comes a point when everyone needs a helping hand.”
He’d leaned forward, hands clasped, elbows resting on his lap. His green eyes narrowed. She had a feeling he mulled something over in his head, something important.
“She’s not allowed to help me.”
She couldn’t hide her surprise. “Not allowed?”
Another long stare. “If I tell you something, you have to promise me you’ll keep it to yourself.”
She nodded. “Of course.”
He took his time, framing his thoughts. “My family is wealthy. You know that.”
“Really,” she teased.
“Okay. I know.” He smiled. “It’s pretty obvious. But there’s a reason why we’re as rich as we are.”
She had a feeling whatever he was about to say, it was a kicker. Something about the way he clasped his hands, his fingers twining together, his foot tapping the ground lightly.
“We...our family, I mean. My father and his father before him, they all had to make their own way in the world before they were allowed to inherit the Landon fortune. If I don’t do the same thing, the whole thing, well, the majority of it, will be sold off and the proceeds donated to charity.”
She felt her hair brush her cheek as her mouth fell open. “That’s crazy.”
“But effective. It’s how we’ve held on to our wealth all these years.
She tipped her head sideways. “What do you mean by ‘make their own way in the world’?”
“I mean earn a small fortune of their own.”
“How much of a fortune?”
“A half a million dollars.”
“Are you serious?”
“It’s not as weird as it seems. It keeps the money out of the hands of family members who might squander it. My great-grandfather had an idea, you see. He thought that if his sons had to earn their own small fortune, they might be more appreciative of their inheritance. He’d watched a lot of great families go bankrupt thanks to one bad apple and he didn’t want that to happen to his. So he came up with this, and it’s worked so far. We’ve managed to increase our family fortune with each generation.”
She tried to assimilate what he said. “So let me get this straight. Your family is rich, but you can’t inherit any of that wealth until you make a small fortune of your own.”
His eyes brightened when he said, “Yes. Exactly.”
“Do you have to do it all in one shot? Is it something that accrues? What?”
“The money is held in trust. Every time I’ve won a purse on the cutting horse circuit, I’ve put some of it away. I was just about there when Bugsy bowed a tendon.”
“Bugsy?”
“The best cutting horse I’ve ever owned. We were well on our way to earning that half million when he pulled up lame, so I guess you could say buying Dudley was a last-ditch effort to find a replacement.”
“Good Lord.”
“So you see now why I have so much riding on that horse you picked out for me.”
“You’re going to try and win the Million Dollar Cutting Horse Futurity, aren’t you?”
He nodded his head. “On Dudley.”
Chapter Ten
She stared at him as if he’d lost his mind. There were days when he wondered if he’d lost his mind, too.
“And if you don’t win? What then?”
“I work for my mom for the rest of my life—not a bad proposition, really. She has some money of her own, and I’ll inherit that, but this—” he motioned with his hands at the house and the ranch outside “—when my mom passes, it’ll all be sold.”
“That’s barbaric.”
“It’s just the way it is. Everyone in the family grows up knowing about it. My dad has two brothers, but he was the only one of the three to earn his fortune. One of my uncles tried to challenge things when my grandfather died, but it couldn’t be done. Turns out my great-grandfather paid a lot of money to some really great attorneys. I guess my grandfather did the same thing. My uncle James tried for years to get his hands on our family’s wealth, but he couldn’t. Kind of sad, really, because it caused a huge rift. I don’t see my two uncles anymore. They refused to accept that they wouldn’t be simply handed everything, but see, that’s the beauty of it. My dad worked his ass off to make his fortune. I’ve been working hard at it, too, and I’m clo
se. One big purse is all it would take to tip me over the edge.”
“But surely your mom could help.”
“She could. She keeps telling me she’ll sell me one of her top prospects cheap, but that would be cheating. If I’m going to do this, I’ll do it without gaming the system...so to speak, even though my mother says it’s no different from my grandfather Edward being sold a piece of land by my great-grandfather cheap and then reselling it later for a profit.”
“She has a point.”
“Maybe. But my grandfather still had to raise the money to buy that land. The fact that it turned out to be along the route of a future railroad was a stroke of luck, so I don’t really look at it the same way.”
She was shaking her head.
“What?”
“You’re incredible.” She bit her lip, clearly trying to work out what she wanted to say. And she looked so pretty standing there in an ivory-colored sweater with a scooped neckline, not at all like someone who trained horses. “I admire the fact that you refuse to take the easy way out.” She glanced down at the baby in her arms. “Not with your daughter, and not with how you make your fortune.” She met his gaze again. “It’s rare to find a man with principles.”
Their gazes held, and Wes thought yet again how remarkable her eyes were. It was just the two of them in the room, and baby Maggie, but it seemed as though they were the only people in the world, in the whole universe, maybe. She looked away as if knowing he studied her thoroughly and didn’t want him to see too much.
“Yeah, I’m such a good guy I went and slept with a woman I barely knew.”
She looked up again, but he noticed she didn’t hold his gaze for long. “We all make mistakes.”
“But this mistake might affect me for the rest of my life.”
“And it might not.”
It was true. They would do a paternity test to confirm he was little Maggie’s father. Until then, who knew? Maxine was as flighty as a newborn deer. You never knew what she’d do. Witness how she’d dumped the baby in his lap—literally—something he would bet was a ploy. A way of getting his attention so she could get what she wanted out of him, which would be money, even though he’d explained to her over and over again that the money all belonged to his mom.
“The baby’s asleep,” she said softly. “I think we can put her down in her crib.”
“To be honest, I’ve been half afraid to lay her down. I don’t know anything about children. What if I do it wrong and something happens?”
Did he sound as panicked as he felt? Probably, because she shot him a reassuring smile. “Just don’t lay her facedown. You’ll see. Nothing will happen.”
He followed her to his room, where they’d set up the crib the evening before. What he wanted to do was crawl into bed and take a nap, too, but he couldn’t do that. Too much to do.
“There,” she said quietly, laying the child down. When she straightened, their arms brushed, and Wes was about to apologize, but the expression in her eyes when she looked up at him made all the words in his head float away. There was a softness there, the same kind of softness as when she spoke about her love of animals, but gentler and somehow sweeter. The window at the rear of his bedroom had the curtains half-drawn, but her eyes were still the most remarkable color he’d ever seen, and from nowhere came the overwhelming urge to kiss her.
She felt it, too. He saw her eyes dip down, her gaze coming to rest on his lips. He lowered his head as a pristine stillness filled the room, but that stillness shattered into tiny little pieces when their lips connected.
She moaned. He lifted his hand to the side of her face and angled his head. He felt her straighten, thought she might draw away, but she didn’t. She leaned into him instead, her mouth opening beneath his own. A million angels sang; a thousand church bells rang. That was what kissing her felt like. Never, not ever, had he experienced something so profound, so bizarre, so crazily, beautifully perfect as kissing Jillian Thacker.
“Knock, knock.”
They jumped apart.
“Anyone home?”
His mom. Oh, jeez. He swiped a hand over his face and shook his head. He saw Jillian brush at her hair, smoothing the angular cut. Had he run his hands through it? He couldn’t remember.
Quickly, he crossed to the door. “In here.”
His mom had never been one for actually knocking, not even when he was a boy. She stood by the front door, a big bag, one the size of a Western saddle, in her hands.
“We just put the baby down for a nap.”
He heard Jillian come up behind him. She must have gently closed the door, because he heard the snick of the latch. He saw his mom tilt a bit so she could see who stood behind him, but she was visibly disappointed to spot Jillian there.
“Have you heard from...her?”
No need to ask who “her” was. “No.”
He noticed his hands shook, and not because of the mention of Maggie’s mother. He wondered if Jillian had been similarly affected.
What the hell had just happened?
“I wondered whose car that was outside,” his mom murmured, heading for the kitchen table.
“Hello, Mrs. Landon.”
“Vivian,” his mom said over her shoulder. “Please don’t call me Mrs. Landon. It makes me feel so old.”
Fortunately, his mom must have missed the signs that he’d just been kissing Jillian, because he didn’t catch a “What have you been up to?” stare. Instead, she was busy unloading the contents of the bag onto the table.
“For goodness’ sake, what’d you get?”
She glanced back at him wryly. “What didn’t I get?” She held a package of pacifiers up. “Diapers, bottles, formula and out in the SUV, more stuff. Clothes and blankets and bath supplies. And a couple of bigger items. Playpen, stroller, high chair for later—”
“For later? Mom, we don’t even know...”
He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t need to. They were all thinking the same thing, even Jillian, no doubt. The woman he’d just kissed probably called herself a fool for allowing a brand-new dad to kiss her. What a mess.
His mom must have read something of what he was thinking in his eyes. “I don’t care whose baby it is, Wes. We need to take care of her.” Her gaze moved to Jillian, but only for a second. “I assume you fed her before you put her down for a nap?”
“We did,” Jillian answered for him. “I used to work for a day care.”
His mom nodded in approval. “I worried I’d come back to find the poor little moppet starving, with a wet diaper and crying up a blue streak.”
He resisted the urge to glance at Jillian, but he knew if he met her gaze, the memory of their kiss would come to the surface, a place where his mom might see it. He couldn’t allow that to happen. Last night he’d insisted he and Jillian were friends. Last night he’d thought they were friends. And now that kiss. It’d thrown another stick in the fire of his life.
“Come on,” his mom said. “You two help me unload the rest of the stuff while the baby sleeps.”
* * *
“I THINK SHE bought the whole store.” Jillian heard Wes mutter as he hefted another bag of...something out of the rear compartment.
“These look like groceries.” She was trying to keep cool. Trying to act as if nothing had happened. Trying to appear as if she weren’t inwardly screaming, Ohmygosh-ohmygosh-ohmygosh.
Wes shook his head wryly. “She does that from time to time. Buys me things so that I don’t have to.”
She’d kissed men before. Not a lot of them, but enough that she could compare her previous kisses with what it was like to kiss Wes. Not even Mr. Movie Star had caused the instant crescendo of want and need that Wes had aroused.
She looked up in time to catch Wes staring at her strangely. She quickly tossed off, “Isn’t that what moms are supposed to do?”
“I suppose so.”
Okay. Focus. “You’re lucky to have her.”
He paused with his hands on
another bag. “Do you have any family other than your aunt?”
“No.” She sucked in a breath, trying to convey without words that she didn’t feel sorry for herself. “And my aunt Linda died two years ago. Car wreck.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I love what I do for a living and I have my little house and all the animals in the world. I’m very blessed.”
Something had changed between them. No use denying it. He seemed to stare at her more deeply, more intensely, with more...understanding.
“You remind me of my mother.” He picked up the bag, the plastic rustling. “She said pretty much the same thing after my dad died.”
“Your mom is nice.”
And every bit as beautiful as Wes was handsome. She had her son’s blond hair, although hers had gone gray with age. She wondered if the resulting platinum color was due to good genes or a good hairdresser. Jillian couldn’t tell. She had eyes the same color as her son’s, too.
Eyes the same color as the baby.
That precious, adorable baby. The biggest reason of all she should not have, under any circumstances, kissed him back.
“She’s the best mom in the world.” He smiled as they headed for his front door. “She’s also nosy, pushy and convinced I’ve lost my mind with this whole cutting horse thing.”
He was trying to keep the conversation as normal as possible. She appreciated that. Jillian paused on the narrow porch that lined his home. Acres of green grass stretched up toward a highway hidden by rolling hills and dotted by cattle. In the distance the Santa Ynez Mountains sat brown and barren-looking compared to the coastal grasslands where they stood. She couldn’t hear the ocean, but she could smell it, the salty tang of it causing her to wonder if they could ride to the beach. The proximity to the coastline made the land worth an absolute fortune, but she understood why Wes worked so hard to make his way in the world. Money was immaterial compared to the beauty of this place. She would have done anything to keep it, too, maybe even race a few horses. Well, okay, maybe not that. Like Wes, she had her standards. They had that in common, too—their love of horses, and that kiss...
Kissed by a Cowboy Page 8