Rancher of Her Own (9781460384848)

by Daille, Barbara White

  When Jed had come up with his plans for the renovation, Tina accepted responsibility for hiring the contractors. Andi agreed to hire the folks who would take care of the food, flowers and whatever else the hotel needed for wedding receptions and other events. Jane...well, he knew what Jane was handling, along with her primary job of driving him crazy with wanting her.

  She sat a few seats away from him at the center table in the dining room. The wrought-iron fixture above the table gave her already shiny hair an almost metallic glow. High-tech hairstyle to match her high-tech toys.

  “Pete?”

  He started. The raised voice and the stares from a couple of the others at the table made it apparent Jed had spoken to him more than once. “Sorry, boss. Just making a mental note to check on Starlight when I leave here.” It was the best he could come up with.

  Andi sat in the chair beside his. She smiled at him. “I’ll have to take a walk out to the stables to say hello.”

  On her visits to Garland Ranch, she spent a lot of time around the barn and the corral—certainly more than Jane ever had. While he couldn’t call Andi a friend, at least they had a cordial relationship. And now, unfortunately, they had more in common than an interest in horses. Recently widowed, she was a single parent, too, with a son a couple of years younger than Rachel and a newborn daughter.

  When the conversation shifted, she turned to him and said quietly, “Eric’s getting big. It’s been such a short time since our last visit, but I already see so many differences in him.”

  “They sure grow fast, don’t they?”

  “They sure do. And Rachel,” she murmured, “is getting prettier by the minute.”

  “Don’t let her hear you say that. I’ve already got a diva on my hands.” It took all his effort to force a grin.

  His daughter had taken the chair on one side of Jane. On Jane’s other side, Sharon sat holding his son. Eric wrapped his chubby hand around Jane’s long silver chains and gave them a tug, the way he reined in his toy pony-on-wheels. The way Pete himself had touched that chain just the day before, though with more restraint.

  “Stop, Eric,” Rachel demanded. “You’ll break Jane’s necklace.”

  Instead, his son reached out with his free hand, as if wanting Jane to take him into her arms.

  “I said stop, Eric.”

  Pete looked at his daughter.

  “He’s not—” Jane began.

  “Rachel,” he said quietly.

  After a quick glance at him, she mumbled “Okay, Daddy” and slumped back in her seat. The set of her mouth told him she was gearing up for a pout.

  Evidently, Sharon noticed the warning sign, too. “Much as I hate to break up the party, some of us need to leave.” Gently, she uncurled his son’s fingers from the necklace. “Eric hasn’t had his nap, have you, sweetie? And, Rachel, come along. You’ve got to help me get some vegetables ready, or your daddy won’t have any supper.”

  “I’m good with vegetables.” All smiles now, Rachel looked at Jane. “You can come, too. I’ll let you snap the beans. That’s the most fun part.”

  Jane smiled. “I—”

  “You run along,” he told Rachel. “Go with Sharon, the way she asked you to.”

  “Maybe another time, Rachel,” Jane said. “I need to visit with Andi.”

  As Sharon left the room with the kids, he swallowed a relieved sigh, happy to have her create some space between his family and Jane. He turned to Jed. “I plan to be up in the northeast pastures with the boys most of tomorrow.”

  “Fine,” his boss said.

  “Fine with me, too,” his other boss said. Jane’s mouth curved into a half smile as if she somehow knew the effort it took to keep his expression blank. “I’ll be in Santa Fe anyway.”

  “For our final fittings,” Tina reminded him.

  “Right.” His daughter needed to go along. “I’ll make sure Sharon has Rachel over here on time tomorrow morning.”

  Not quite as happy now, he left the dining room.

  He and the bride-to-be had agreed it was a good thing Andi’s later arrival meant postponing the trip to Santa Fe until the weekend. This eliminated the need to excuse their kids from school. With Rachel’s graduation so close, he and Tina both knew how she would react to the idea of missing out on anything.

  The trouble now was, he didn’t like his daughter spending the day with Jane or the way even Eric seemed to have taken such a shine to her.

  Maybe they’d somehow picked up on his feelings about the woman. Almost against his better judgment, he found himself drawn to her. And with every minute they spent together, his willpower took more of a beating.

  * * *

  THE NEXT AFTERNOON, Jane eyed herself critically in the triple mirror at the bridal shop in Santa Fe.

  “You look great,” Tina told her.

  Tina and Rachel had already completed their fittings, and now the three bridesmaids would be taking their turn. Bright colors weren’t her thing, but even she had to admit the royal blue halter-top gown didn’t look bad with her dark hair.

  She laughed. “I guess I’d never have stood a chance of getting you to agree to a black-and-white wedding.”

  “Not with Ally around,” Tina assured her.

  “You’ve got that right, chica.” The maid of honor looked stunning in a hot-pink, off-the-shoulder gown, but she tossed her long black curls and gave a theatrical moan. “I wanted to wear purple and orange.”

  “And I put my foot down about that.”

  “Stomped it down, you mean,” Ally grumbled.

  They all laughed. As they waited for the seamstress to return to the fitting room, they continued talking about the upcoming wedding.

  Jane’s attention drifted to one corner of the room, where Rachel and Robbie were sitting far enough away to prevent their overhearing the conversation. A game board lay open on the floor between them, and Rachel seemed to be explaining the rules to Robbie.

  She smiled. Sharon had brought Rachel to the Hitching Post early this morning, and the little girl had sat beside her at breakfast. In the ranch’s big SUV, Rachel had worked her way to a seat next to Jane, too.

  Watching Rachel made her think of Rachel’s daddy and the way he acted every time she was around the child. What could he possibly have against her talking to his daughter? He seemed as strict with the girl as her own father had been with her. Maybe for that reason alone, her sympathy went to Rachel.

  Still, she couldn’t deny she had other feelings for Pete. The memory of his touching her hand and her hair sent a pleasurable tremor down her spine. To her dismay, when she caught sight of her reflection in the mirror, her cheeks had turned pink.

  Beside her, Ally leaned closer to the mirror and adjusted the bodice of her gown. “I think I’m going to give up eating this week.”

  “Then you’d have to come back for another fitting,” Tina reminded her.

  “Oh...that’s true. Maybe I’ll just skip desserts.” Ally glanced at Jane.

  Glad for the chance to redirect her thoughts, Jane laughed.

  They had planned to have dinner here in Santa Fe. Before the ride, they had all met for a quick lunch in town. At SugarPie’s, Cowboy Creek’s bakery and sandwich shop, the two of them had learned they shared a love of sweets.

  “You’re on your own with that idea,” Jane said. “The other day, I thought about sacrificing dessert and realized I’d rather give up my main course—although I’m not sure about that now, either. Paz’s cooking is too delicious. And I can’t wait to get to SugarPie’s again. Sugar’s corned beef sandwich is as good as any New York deli’s.”

  “Is it enough to make you stay in Cowboy Creek?” Tina asked.

  Jane laughed. “Sorry, nothing’s that good.”

  “Speaking of giving up,” Andi said,
“have you fired your assistant yet?”

  She froze for a moment, then pretended to be inspecting her dress more closely in the mirror. “No, I haven’t. Why?”

  “I’m not so sure Pete likes taking orders from you.”

  “First of all, Andi, I don’t give orders. And he’s fine about doing things for me.”

  “Maybe he’d like to do even more for you,” Ally murmured.

  “Watch it, girl, or I’ll steal your dessert tonight.” Jane looked at all three women and settled her gaze on her cousin Tina. Unlike Andi with her teasing and Ally with her over-the-top ideas, quiet, reserved Tina could always be counted on to tell the truth without embellishment. “What’s going on?”

  Tina smiled. “I think Andi means Pete’s distraction when Jed was talking to him in the dining room yesterday. Ally was probably taking a wild guess about what Pete wants.”

  The maid of honor rolled her eyes.

  “Why should his distraction have something to do with me?” Jane said. And why did even the thought of it make goose bumps race down her bare arms? “He’s probably got a lot on his mind. He’s told me—more than once—how busy it is on the ranch around this time.”

  She had mentioned that to her grandfather and suggested he have one of his other cowhands help her, but Jed didn’t seem at all concerned about her tying up his manager’s time. Instantly, she had made up her mind to ditch her guilt over taking Pete away from his job. If only she could just as easily ignore that she enjoyed spending that time with him.

  Tina nodded. “That’s true—the ranch is busy. But I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it. We have plenty of staff.”

  “And now there won’t be any guests at the hotel for a while,” Andi said.

  Despite Tina’s protests, Jed had insisted on blocking out the coming two weeks on the hotel calendar. He’d said that, other than dealing with the contractors, he wanted the bride-to-be free to focus on the wedding and her visit with Jane and Andi and their parents.

  Jane smiled. “I’ll remember that in case Pete says something about his workload. And I already told him if he didn’t want to help, he could send a replacement.” Which had led to their conversation about a bubble bath and his eventual declaration, Honey, I’m not shy about anything.

  Even thinking about that made her breath catch. Just how could he prove that claim? And, given the chance, would he?

  “That’s my point,” Ally said with a grin. “Maybe he does want to help.”

  “Ally,” Tina said warningly.

  “What? Come on, chica. Marina’s been out of the man’s life for a couple of years now. And you might not drop in at Cowboy Creek’s hottest—and only—nightspot, but I do, and I can tell you there’s never a sign of Pete at the Cantina.”

  “Sounds like a man ready for some female companionship.”

  Andi was only taking a turn at teasing, Jane knew. But she couldn’t tease her cousin back or even get upset. Not when she looked at the dark circles beneath Andi’s eyes. Not when she thought of all her cousin had lost. Andi, younger by just a few months, had been widowed less than a year ago, soon after she and her husband learned she was pregnant with their second child.

  “Seriously,” Andi asked Tina, “what happened with Pete and Marina?”

  Jane looked in the mirror and adjusted the hem of her gown. The last thing she wanted was to give any of them the idea she cared about Pete. Being around the man only added some fun and a few fantasy-provoking moments to her life. That would soon end when she left the ranch. Still, that didn’t stop her from remaining tuned in to the conversation.

  “Nobody knows exactly what made them break up,” Tina admitted. “Pete doesn’t say much about it.”

  “We know one of the reasons things didn’t work out with them, though. Marina,” Ally emphasized, flipping the ends of her hair, “is more of a drama queen than I am.”

  The other two women laughed. Even Jane couldn’t keep from smiling.

  “And you know Pete,” Ally went on. “He’s such a straight-up, private kind of guy. Maybe he could handle Marina’s drama when they were alone, but he sure hated it when she started playing out her scenes in public.”

  That sounded like more than just a private person’s need for a quiet life. It seemed to be the reaction of a man who didn’t want to deal with a flamboyant wife and who resented that wife’s successful career.

  “And that’s it?” Andi asked Tina.

  “Just about. Since their divorce, Marina hasn’t come back to town.”

  “Not even to see her kids?” Andi’s voice broke.

  Jane frowned. Andi was still grieving over the loss of her husband. She certainly didn’t need to be upset by thoughts of Pete’s virtually motherless children.

  She recalled what he had said about his ex-wife. Considering his attitude, she could see why the woman might not want to be around him.

  Between his interruptions when she talked to his kids and his teasing over her perfectionism—a trait she preferred to call “attention to detail”—she should have found him irritating.

  Instead, the challenge of their verbal sparring was rapidly turning into something more. There was just something about him, about his love for his kids, about his soft laugh and his rough yet gentle hands, that made her want to be near him.

  For her own peace of mind, she ought to fire the man. Instead, she thought again of the way he’d pressed her hand and stroked her hair.

  How could she tell him she didn’t need his assistance? She could barely wait to see what he would do next.

  Chapter Five

  “As far as I can see, Jane and Pete are a mite slow at heating things up,” Jed complained to Paz. He stood leaning against the kitchen counter near where she was working.

  First Jane’s arrival and then picking up Andi and her kids at the airport yesterday had kept him from having much opportunity for a quiet chat with Paz. With all the girls in Santa Fe that afternoon, the two of them were taking advantage of the chance to catch up.

  “You expected to have a challenge, yes?” she asked.

  “Yes. But I didn’t know I’d have to work so hard at it.”

  He watched her shred another peeled potato. The potatoes would go into one of her specialties, a casserole that was always a hit at the Hitching Post’s Sunday brunches.

  She paused to look at him. “You knew Pete and Jane would need encouragement to spend time together.”

  “Encouragement’s not the word. A lasso and some baling wire might be in order here.” He shook his head. “Pete keeps trying to get out of helping Jane, and even Jane suggested I might want to replace him. And yet, I believe I’m seeing some progress.”

  “Of course that’s progress. If they push to get away from each other, that means they have a strong reaction. Right now, they think they don’t like what they’re feeling.”

  “Huh. And just what makes you so sure of this?”

  “It happens all the time on my programs.”

  He laughed. “Yeah, I’ll bet it does.” Paz wasn’t one to watch much television, but every weekday afternoon, she glued herself to the couch in her sitting room for the length of a couple of soap operas. He could understand that. The snippets he’d seen usually included as much action and excitement as any of the shoot-’em-up Westerns he preferred.

  “Pete and Jane will be together Friday night at the rehearsal and Saturday at the wedding,” she reminded him.

  “Yeah, I know. But meanwhile we’ve got this week to get through.”

  “Your idea to have him help her with her pictures is a good one.”

  He nodded. “It is, isn’t it? I’ll just need to come up with ways to keep that going.”

  “If that doesn’t work, tell Pete he should help out of respect for you. Later, he’ll be glad you brought
him together with Jane.”

  “That’s true,” he agreed, brightening. After all, those two were meant to be a matched set.

  They just didn’t know it yet.

  * * *

  IN A LULL after the Hitching Post’s busy Sunday brunch, Jane followed Tina to the kitchen to see what help they could offer Paz. Maria, this morning’s waitress, had already left for the day.

  Andi, in riding gear, sat at the kitchen table cradling her daughter.

  Tina was given the chore of loading the industrial-sized dishwasher, while Jane had the exciting job of folding the colorful napkins that were used in the dining room.

  “This is probably the only thing I can help with besides boiling water.” She loved her New York co-op and its bright and cheery kitchen, but she didn’t spend much time there.

  “You have to start somewhere,” Tina said as she went to the sink.

  “I suppose so.”

  “If Rachel can snap beans,” Andi said, “you might be able to handle it.”

  “Might? Thanks for the vote of confidence, coz.”

  Andi laughed.

  By the refrigerator, Paz turned to look their way. “You could stay here, Jane, and I would teach you to cook.”

  “Just like she’s teaching me,” Tina said.

  Paz waved her hand. “You know more than you think.”

  “That’s probably true, Abuela, but I’ve told you this before—you won’t leave your kitchen long enough for me to find out.”

  They all laughed.

  “Here’s another vote of confidence,” Andi said. “If you want to work on your domestic skills, try holding Missy for a while.”

  Before Jane could protest, Andi placed the infant into her arms. “You’re taking a chance,” she said. The mothering gene had skipped right over her and landed hard on her younger cousins. She loved their kids, but having a family wasn’t on her agenda at the moment. “I know less about babies than I do about cooking.”

  Andi smiled. “You could learn that, too.”

  Jane looked down at the tiny warm bundle in her arms. She kissed Missy’s soft cheek and inhaled the scent of fresh-washed baby blanket and powder. “She’s precious.”