Live-In Mom

by Paige, Laurie

  It took some getting used to, but this was the second female wrangler who had worked there. The gal from last year had gotten married and was expecting a child. She’d recommended her cousin Venita to take her place.

  Ty gave her an encouraging smile. She wasn’t like Elena’s new helper, the black-haired Venus who had returned his gaze as bold as the fox who lived in the woods on the ridge west of there.

  He went outside and gazed at the cattle. They were a new cross he was trying—a French breed mixed with Texas longhorn. He wondered if he could mix them with polled Hereford and produce a hardy breed with no horns. Or at least a bit shorter than those of the big brindle who’d nearly hooked the new kitchen hand.

  His body reacted as it had earlier, growing hot and heavy in his britches. She’d felt good in his arms, sweet smelling and womanly. He shrugged impatiently and walked on.

  Near the line of oaks that served as a windbreak, he paused to chat with old Martha, who was the general housekeeper for the ranch. She and her sister were married to his two best ranch hands and lived on the place all year.

  “Ty, you married yet?” Martha demanded, glancing up from her task, then going back to it without missing a sheet.

  “No,” Ty assured the nearly toothless matron, “I’m waiting for you to get rid of your old man.”

  “I’m gonna keep him, but my granddaughter…” She rolled her eyes and made clicking sounds with her tongue. “She’s one beauty, that one, just out of high school and looking for trouble.”

  “Martha wants to get the girl married off so she can quit worrying about her,” Mary, the sister, volunteered. She gave a cackle of laughter and went back to hanging clothes.

  Ty had bought Martha a dryer to go with the new washer, but the older woman insisted sunshine not only dried the bedclothes but “purified” them, as well.

  Martha bobbed her head, gray hair wafting around her merry face. She gave Ty a sly grin. “That’s right. Let the husband keep her busy at night, the children can keep her busy in the day, then she’ll be too tired to get into mischief.”

  Ty grinned, used to their ribald teasing. A picture of a slender backside and shapely legs clad in faded jeans came to him. “She didn’t hire on as the new cook’s helper, did she?” he asked, recalling dark, bold eyes. The new hand could be Hispanic.

  Martha sniffed eloquently. “She is educated,” she informed him. “She can type, and she knows computers.”

  “Give her a job in the office,” Mary suggested. “You need someone to help with the paperwork. Buck said you’ve been behind for months.”

  Nothing was sacrosanct among these women, he thought, feeling both irritation and affection. They’d worked at the ranch before his time. They’d probably be there after he was long gone. And they knew every damned thing that happened in the house or office.

  “Send her around. I might be able to use her for a while.”

  “Then you can give her a letter to recommend her so she can get a better job,” Martha said with evident satisfaction.

  “Right.” Grinning, he moved on, part of his mind overseeing the many operations going on around the ranch, part on the female who’d nearly gotten run down that morning.

  She’d looked familiar, but he hadn’t been able to put a memory to that piquant face. Nah, they’d never met before. He’d remember if he had. Carly Lightfoot. It didn’t ring any bells, but that face… damn, he could swear he’d seen it before.

  She had a small, sharp chin and high cheekbones. Her eyes were dark as obsidian. Her hair had fallen forward over her head when he’d hauled her across the saddle.

  He’d wanted to kiss her neck.

  In the kitchen, when she’d turned her back on him and continued to work as if her life depended on it, he’d had to fight a strong urge to take her into his arms and do just that.

  The delicate curve of that slender nape, or perhaps the way she held her head, had struck him as valiant and vulnerable at the same time. It reminded him of his son, Jonathan, who was also valiant and vulnerable…

  He shook his head, perplexed at his own thoughts.

  One thing for sure—he wasn’t going to get mixed up with a woman again, not in any serious way. The only good thing to come out of his former marriage had been Jonathan. The six-year-old was visiting his mother and her new, very rich husband at the present, but he lived with Ty the rest of the year.

  He wished his son were home, filling the empty rooms and long evening hours with his laughter and incessant questions.

  Feeling lonely, old man? Yeah, he was. His thoughts returned to the woman.

  Something about her bothered him. He grimaced. Yeah, holding her, smelling her sweet scent, feeling her warmth cradled against his—those things were guaranteed to bother any normal male.

  Whatever it was, it had him thinking of her the rest of the morning. He stayed in a state of partial arousal the whole time. By noon, he was thoroughly disgusted with his lack of control.

  Had he expected to be immune to female charms forever? It had been over two years since his divorce, more than that since he’d been with a woman. He and his wife hadn’t been exactly lovey-dovey the last months of their marriage.

  His ex-wife had been rather lush, but this woman wasn’t. Carly. He said the name to himself, liking it.

  She was of average height and very slender. Her hips had curved nicely, though, below a waist that was tiny. And her breasts had felt damned good against his chest and under his hand when he’d accidentally touched her.

  A burning sensation zigzagged through him. Each time he recalled that incident, a flame of need shot deep into his abdomen. Yeah, it had been a long time since he’d had a woman. As a single father, he’d become a saint.

  Well, he didn’t have time to dwell on that fact. Right now, he had several thousand head of cattle to worry about.

  Carly trudged after Elena to the frame house. The main house was over the rise beyond a stand of trees, she’d learned. That was where Ty Macklin lived with his son.

  She and Elena had set out lemonade and cookies after lunch, washed the dishes, finished the preparations for supper and were free the rest of the day. The remuda wrangler, much to Carly’s relief, hadn’t been around to eat so far. One of the men had told them there were a few problems with the horses.

  Carly also learned there was another female at the house, a wrangler. In the bunkhouse, the men stayed in a big room off the dining room, each within his own parti tioned space, while the females shared the frame house. Except for old Martha and Buck, plus Mary and her husband, all the help was temporary.

  “Is it the usual practice to keep men and women separated?” she asked her partner.

  Elena shrugged. “It is at this place. At others, they don’t care. But I think it’s better this way.”

  “Better?”

  “Yes. With men and women away from their families, it gets very lonely. You understand?”

  “Yes. Of course.”

  Carly understood loneliness. Her parents had been killed in an accident. While they were changing a tire on the side of the road, another driver had run into them. Her mother had put Carly out of harm’s way well up the side of the bank, but then she’d gone to stand behind the car to talk to her husband while he jacked the rear wheel up.

  The eight-year-old orphan had been passed around from relative to relative until a maiden aunt, actually her great-aunt, had taken her in and raised her. Her life had been fine after that, but those three years of drifting around, of not having a real home… It had been a hard life for a kid.

  A tremor of emotion tore through her. Yeah, she knew about loneliness. Maybe that’s why she’d been an easy mark later.

  During high school and afterward, she’d worked as many jobs as she could and hadn’t had time for dates. After that, she’d been too busy starting her own business to see anyone. Then she’d fallen for a man who’d seen her as a quick way to get into business without working for it. Welcome to the real world.
>
  She shuddered, thinking of her narrow escape.

  Since then, she’d vowed to keep her eyes open, her heart shut and her nose to the proverbial grindstone. At thirty, she was no longer susceptible to the wiles of the heart… although Ty Macklin did make hers beat a little faster.

  All right, a lot faster. So what?

  Elena paused before a polished oak door. “Sheets are in this cupboard when you need them. Martha and her cousin do the laundry twice a week. I have a marker pento initial your things.”

  She excused herself, went down the hall and collapsed on the bed in her room. Carly perused the living quarters. The long, narrow room was decorated with sturdy, comfortable furniture. A lamp was mounted on the wall above a small chest of drawers that served as a night table. The curtains crisscrossed over window shades of the type Aunt Essie had liked, the pull-down kind with a tasseled string attached.

  Homesickness wafted over her.

  It had been years since she’d felt it or allowed herself to think about the home where she’d finally found happiness. She wished she could see her great-aunt once more and listen to her practical advice on life. But Aunt Essie was gone, and Carly was on her own. She didn’t like being rootless, yet she hadn’t wanted to stay in Chicago. She’d find her place in the sun soon.

  She rose and took another quick shower, then dressed in blue slacks with a long-sleeved sweater of blue and beige stripes. The days were warm, but the nights were chilly in this area.

  Elena was in the living room when she returned. “The stew should be done now. You can eat any time you’re ready. We often go outside when the weather is nice.”

  They watched the news on TV. Later she went with Elena to the ranch dining room. Carly had thought she was too tired to eat, but smelling the stew, she realized she was ravenous.

  When their plates were heaped to overflowing, she and Elena grabbed glasses of iced tea and headed outside. Fifty yards from the bunkhouse, a path opened into a meadow beside the river.

  Picnic tables, their benches already filled with chatting workers, dotted the area.

  A wolf whistle sounded behind Carly as she and Elena headed for the river. Glancing around, Carly realized the whistle was for her. She kept her chin up and tried not to look self-conscious.

  Elena chose a quiet spot beside the swiftly flowing water. She and Carly sat on the grass, their backs against two boulders.

  “Did you take those other painkillers?” Elena asked. She’d given Carly two pills at lunch and two for later.

  “I forgot.” Carly dug the tablets out of her pocket and washed them down with a swallow of iced tea.

  “You’ve been a true lifesaver today. I really appreciate it,” Elena told her. “It would have taken me much longer to do all the work by myself.”

  Carly waved her thanks aside. They ate in silence.

  When she’d finished every last bite, she sighed and leaned her head on the rock. She may have had softer pillows, but none had ever felt so welcome as this one, she mused, smiling at her naive concept of what ranch work really meant.

  She heard Elena stir, but didn’t open her eyes. She didn’t think she could. She was so sleepy. Someone might have to carry her to bed. A picture of Ty Macklin came to mind.

  Not him, she warned herself. Not the boss.

  He was a man to turn a woman’s heart with his laughter and teasing ways. With a failed marriage behind him, he probably wasn’t looking for a permanent connection any more than she was. Who knows? Maybe they would be good for each other.

  Isa had said he’d been drinking a lot back when his marriage was going to hell in a hand basket. Carly wrinkled her nose in distaste. That was one problem she’d steer clear of. She didn’t need involvement with someone who couldn’t handle his life better than that.

  Besides, he had poor taste in women if what Isa had said about his wife was true. The woman had been a blond beauty, spoiled, petulant and out for what she could get. She had given Ty a really rough time. Maybe he’d deserved it.

  “Where is your family?” Elena asked, sitting again af ter taking their plates and forks to the kitchen.

  “I’m it,” Carly said, opening her eyes and watching the river, feeling rather melancholy about life. “My parents are dead. I was raised by a maiden aunt.”

  “You had no brothers or sisters?” Elena asked, her brown eyes warm with sympathy.

  “I had a foster brother while I was growing up. Brody is my family now.” She grinned affectionately, thinking of the other orphan her great-aunt had taken in. He was older than she was and quite protective. He’d threatened to break her former fiancé’s handsome nose until she’d told him the jerk wasn’t worth it.

  The sound of laughter, male laughter, delivered in a baritone with a slight grittiness, brought her wide-awake. She glanced over her shoulder. Ty Macklin stood by one of the tables, talking to some of the cowboys. He had a full plate in his hand.

  His eyes met hers. Gazing into them was like being engulfed in a pure blue sky. All day, she thought irrationally, she’d wished for the hours to speed by as she worked; now she wished time would stand still—

  “Elena, introduce me to your friend,” a cheerful male voice demanded, bringing Carly’s attention to the immediate present with a neck-jarring snap.

  A young man stood in front of them, his feet braced apart, his shirt open down the front although the air was cooling rapidly. He had his hands tucked into his hip pockets while he brashly surveyed her with open appreciation.

  From the corner of her eye, she saw the other men watching them, the younger ones grinning, the older ones with a frown of disapproval. Undercurrents that she didn’t understand ruffled her composure. She took a firm grip on herself.

  Elena shook her head. “Go away, Rodrigo.”

  Carly was surprised at the rebuke in Elena’s tone. As an observer of human nature, she was at once interested in the young lothario, wondering what he’d done to draw the older people’s ire.

  “Then I will do it myself,” he announced grandly. “I am Rodrigo Diaz.”

  “I’m Carly Lightfoot.”

  Rodrigo plopped down on the grass. “I haven’t seen you before today. You’re new in this area?”

  “Yes.”

  “Don’t trouble yourself with this one,” Elena broke in. “He is a flirt. He comes on to all the girls.”

  He laid a hand over his chest. “Elena broke my heart long ago. I console myself as best I can.”

  Carly grinned. She could see he was a flirt, but a harmless one. Mostly he was full of himself, as her great-aunt would have said. He was good-looking and confident of his charm, but in an easygoing way. She liked him. “Are you a cowboy?”

  His chest puffed up a bit. “I am studying land management.”

  “Oh.” She was impressed. “So what do you do?”

  “Soil testing. Spraying. Fertilizing. The pastures require care all year long.”

  Elena stood. “I’m going to talk to Martha.”

  When she left, another young man came over. He helped with the horses and was learning to be a blacksmith. His name was William, and, like her, he was new at the ranch.

  The two young men showed off for her, trying to outboast each other and impress her with the importance of their respective positions. She laughed at their antics.

  Once, when she laughed, she saw Ty turn his head toward her. He hadn’t glanced her way since that first moment until now. He finished his conversation with the older men and came over.

  “It’s time to go in,” he advised. “In case you want another piece of pie for a bedtime snack, you’d better get it.”

  Rodrigo looked toward the open door to the kitchen, then back to her. It was obvious he was torn by his desire for a treat and his determination to stay with her.

  She made it easy for him. “I think I’ll go to my room and read for a while.”

  “I’ll walk with you,” Ty volunteered, stopping the same words obviously on the lips of the younger
men. “I want to explain about your hours.”

  The flash of surprise on the other two faces confirmed her suspicion that the hours on a ranch were those necessary to get the work done. Ty wanted to see her alone.

  She felt a tiny surge of uneasiness at going off into the twilight with him, but couldn’t detect any emotion in her boss’s face as they walked across the grass. However, he looked rather grim as he went into the kitchen to wash and store his dishes.

  She cleaned her plate and glass and walked toward the frame house. Ty followed behind. The other workers were silent until they’d departed, then she heard the murmur of a dozen conversations start up behind them.

  At the patch of lawn in front of the house, he stopped her. “Your behavior is inappropriate,” he said.

  Astonishment was her first reaction. “I beg your par don?”

  “Those are young guys and they’re lonely. They were raised in a stricter culture than we have here. When Elena went over to the other women, you should have, too.”

  “You don’t say,” she murmured, her hackles rising. He might be the boss, but he had no right to tell her how to act.

  He cast her a glance that would have turned a coyote to stone. “Your staying with them was provocative. When you laugh and talk with them alone, they think you’re giving them the green light.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding. In case you people haven’t noticed, these are modern times. Besides, I’m hardly the type to drive men wild,” she scoffed.

  One dark brow—an enticing contrast to the tawny hair—rose sarcastically at this statement. “You’re sexy as hell…and you damned well know it.” If grimness came in degrees, he looked close to the nth stage of it.

  “Well,” she said, taken aback by his declaration. He thought she was sexy. As hell! Peering into his eyes, she saw no signs of it in his expression.

  He folded his arms across his chest. Fascinated, she watched the play of muscle under the flesh and recalled how strong he’d felt when he’d held her for those moments out of eternity.

  “I want you to stay away from the men,” he announced.

  The delicate bud of pride that had sprouted when he said she was sexy withered under his fierce glare. He acted as if she were some Lolita out to drive men mad with desire.