Lone Star Daddy (McCabe Multiples)

by Cathy Gillen Thacker

  “Then why were you kissing him?”

  Knowing it would be futile to deny they had been making out, just a little, Rose stated cagily, “Impulse. A bad one at that, and one that won’t happen again. So...to what do I owe the honor of this visit?”

  Poppy raised her glass of sparkling water in toast. “I finally got Trace Caulder to agree to adopt with me!”

  Everyone clinked glasses. Rose asked, “But you’re not planning to get married to the Lieutenant?”

  The thirty-five-year-old Poppy waved off the possibility. “It’s not really necessary these days. At least through the private agency we’re using.”

  No one knew better than Rose how hard it could be to raise a family as a single mother. On the other hand, she had all the McCabes behind her, helping out as needed. And so would Poppy, whose interior-design business was based in Laramie.

  Poppy tore her hunk of French bread into bite-size pieces. “I’m not cut out to be a military wife. And Trace doesn’t want to give up flying jets for the Air Force. But we’re best friends—”

  And lovers, whenever the good Lieutenant was stateside, Rose thought.

  “—and we both want a family, sooner rather than later,” Poppy continued, practical as ever. “So this is the best option for both of us. The problem is, the agency wants photos of me and Trace together that exemplify us as potential parents. And the last time we had any taken was at Lily’s wedding. Prior to that, it was Callie and Maggie’s double wedding.”

  Though, Rose thought, only one of their older twin sisters had actually gotten married that day.

  “We’ll all help you look,” Violet promised. Although the search was likely to produce an upsetting number of photos of Violet’s late fiancé, Sterling, and Rose and her ex-husband, too.

  Nevertheless, as soon as their meal was over, Rose put on a pot of coffee. Together, they all went through the pictures.

  “None of these are right,” Poppy said finally with a defeated sigh.

  “Maybe I have something on my computer of the two of you,” Rose told her, glad to move away from remnants of her disastrous romantic past, too.

  “Why don’t we all go through our picture files?” Violet suggested. “And get back to each other when we find more to choose from.”

  Anything, Rose agreed, to keep her mind off the unexpected turn her own life had taken and the mistake she had recklessly made. She’d had one relationship based on passion—and little else—that had crashed and burned. She wasn’t going to embark on another.

  * * *

  “SO YOU DO know who Rose has been dating,” Clint said to Gannon several days later when the two got together to repair a line of fence that ran between their ranches.

  Gannon chuckled and shoved a post-digger into the ground. “The question is, what is it to you?”

  Clint shrugged, trying not to think about the fact that Rose had been avoiding him like the plague, not coming out to his ranch once since he’d kissed her. Nor had she been the one driving the refrigerated truck back and forth from Rose Hill Farm. She had Swifty doing that for her. And for reasons he couldn’t quite fathom, her absence really irked him, knowing he was on her Out List. Just for making his intention of pursuing her clear.

  He set a new wooden post into the foot-deep hole, packed it tight with the displaced dirt, then turned to his happily married friend. “Let’s just say I don’t want to unwittingly repeat some other dude’s mistakes.”

  “I wouldn’t, either, if I were you.” Gannon moved on down the line to the next post in need of replacement. Using a crowbar and shovel, he worked it out of the dirt. “Although I don’t know what precisely those missteps were.”

  The way cleared, Clint used both hands to center a new wooden post squarely in the hole.

  “Just that she dumped him?” Clint asked.

  “Them,” Gannon corrected.

  “There’s been more than one?” Clint blinked in surprise.

  Gannon paused to wipe the sweat from his brow with one gloved hand. “Three or four, at least. But she dumped every one of them after one date.”

  Not much of a chance to succeed or impress.

  “Any idea why?”

  Gannon cut a strip of barbed wire from another weak post. “That you would have to ask her. Maybe the next time you’re putting the moves on her, you could bring it up.” He dropped the wire into the bed of the pickup truck with the rest of the metal, then added with a smirk, “I heard about the condiments on the shirts. Smooth.”

  Clint winced. Were he and Rose ever going to live that down? It seemed the twins had mentioned that incident to everyone in their preschool, who in turn had gone home and told their parents. Hence, a lot of the co-op moms had joked about it when they’d come out to work on the Double Creek blackberry patch harvest.

  Muttering under his breath, Clint took a turn with the digger. “You think Rose is mad at me about that?”

  “Only one way to find out,” Gannon drawled.

  Clint nodded his understanding. “I’m going to have to ask her.”

  Chapter Five

  Clint did not like being counted out before he’d even begun. He also didn’t like the way he had been wondering about Rose McCabe. The way she and her rambunctious trio of kids always seemed to be on his mind now.

  And there was only one cure for that, he knew. Remove the aura of mystery. Bring her—and the sparks they always seemed to generate—squarely into reality.

  So Saturday afternoon, when the day’s bounty was in, he drove the co-op truck to Rose Hill Farm, around to the loading dock in the back.

  Rose walked out to greet him. Except for the fringe of bangs across her forehead, her hair was drawn up in a clip on the back of her head. She was wearing jeans and a long-sleeved co-op T-shirt with the sleeves pushed halfway up her forearms. Her soft lips were bare of lipstick, and the color of exertion stained her cheeks. Although there was still a lot of energy in her movements, she looked a little tired around the eyes.

  And not at all pleased to see him.

  “Where’s Swifty?” she bit out.

  Wishing she weren’t so deliciously disheveled, Clint cut the motor and hopped down from the cab. “He had a barbecue to go to this evening. I told him I’d do the honors.”

  “You realize that means unloading the crates, too?”

  Pushing aside the desire to kiss her, he opened the rear doors of the refrigerated truck. “Just show me where to put them.”

  Wordlessly she turned on her heel, then stalked back into the barn, returning with a long wheeled cart similar to the luggage caddies used in hotels.

  As eager to get business concluded as she was so he could take things to a more personal level, Clint worked silently at her side. Together they were able to stack nine crates on the six-foot stainless-steel tray, then move it through the open barn doors and into an adjacent refrigeration room that seemed to comprise most of the barn.

  Inside was a bounty of other fresh-picked vegetables and fruits. Rose showed him where to stack the berries, then grabbed a second cart for herself. They shut the door and went back to the truck.

  Unloading took half an hour of repeated trips back and forth. Finally they were finished. Clint helped her close up and lock the back of the truck, then followed her out of the refrigeration room to sign off on the day’s delivery invoices. As they moved through the high-ceilinged, cement-floored building, he shortened his stride to match hers.

  “Where are your kids?” he asked, all too aware of how good she smelled. Like soap and the citrusy fragrance she favored.

  “With my family.”

  He tracked the loose strands of hair escaping from her clip and grazing the elegant nape of her neck.

  Oblivious to the growing pressure at the front of his jeans, Rose led the way past the display
area to a glass-walled office with her name on the door, then stepped inside.

  Using the figures she’d typed into her phone, she sank down into the chair behind her desk and completed an invoice. Rising, she met his eyes and handed it to him to sign, too. Their hands brushed in the process. Once again he was surprised at how soft and feminine and delicate her skin felt.

  She met his gaze with a rueful grin. “Saturday is always a tough day for me. A lot of co-op members come by to pick up their weekly orders.”

  Clint checked the invoice over and then scribbled his name. She tore off his copy, handed his over and put the rest on the inbox on her desk. He folded his up and slid it into the chest pocket of his shirt. “But you’re done now.”

  She nodded. “I close at four.”

  Which had been nearly an hour ago. Hence the building appeared deserted except for the two of them. Not surprised she was the last on the scene and probably the first to arrive, too, Clint walked with her back out of her office, past a line of checkout registers.

  Glad she seemed in no hurry to show him the door now that the work was done, he looked around in awe. “This is...”

  “Not what you expected?” she interrupted with a triumphant smile.

  “I was going to say very modern.” He gestured at the bank of computers and phones. “And a lot more high-tech than I would have imagined.”

  She walked over to a small break area. Denim stretched over her very fine derriere as she bent to look inside the glass-front cooler. Pulling out two bottles of flavored water, she straightened and tossed him one.

  Ignoring his immediate physical reaction to the succulent sight of her, he accepted the drink with a smile. “Thanks.” Resolved to think about something else, lest he be tempted to put the moves on her again, he inclined his head at the blackboard across one wall. It was filled with the names of local farms and the dates of the crops currently coming in. “Are these all your suppliers?”

  Rose sank down into a swivel chair and propped her feet up on the seat of another. “Yep. Although there’s always room for more.”

  He studied her fancy red cowgirl boots with a scrolling of roses and thorns up the sides. Which was pretty much a perfect depiction of the woman wearing them. Incredibly feisty and feminine, if you could get past the thorns. He settled in a chair opposite her and returned his attention to her face, trying not to notice all over again just how beautiful she was.

  “How did you get into this?” Savoring his rare time alone with her, he uncapped his bottle and drank deeply of the pomegranate-flavored water. “Last I heard, you were a pharmaceutical sales rep.”

  “I was.” Wincing, Rose pulled the clip from her hair. “Until the triplets were born and my husband and I divorced.”

  He watched as she ran her fingers over her scalp, freeing and loosening the cloud of silky curls, then let her hand fall back to her lap. “When was that?” he asked.

  “We separated a few months after I gave birth. The actual divorce came through when the triplets were one year old.”

  She seemed to have handled the split well, yet empathy stirred inside him nonetheless. “That must have been tough.”

  “Aren’t all divorces?” Though the corners of her luscious lips turned downward, she pushed on with her story. “But thankfully, since Barry surrendered all his parental rights and took a job elsewhere, at least I didn’t have a custody battle on my hands.”

  “Your ex was a damn fool,” Clint said gruffly. “Giving up you and those kids.”

  Rose flashed a wan smile and met his eyes, reluctantly accepting his sympathy. “After that, I decided to leave Dallas and return to Laramie.”

  “To be near your family,” he guessed, his heart going out to her all over again. He’d had his own disappointments. But nothing as traumatic as what she’d been through.

  She nodded. “Obviously I couldn’t work outside the home at that point—and simultaneously give three infants the tender loving care they needed—so I reluctantly moved back in with my parents for a while, and paid our expenses with what was left of my savings and the child support Barry had been ordered to pay.

  “As you can imagine, money was tight, but I still wanted to feed the kids well. So I started calling around to some of the farmers in the area, asking if I could bypass the wholesalers and middlemen and buy straight from them. Other people I knew asked me to do the same for them, which I did—for an upcharge.”

  Smart, he thought, not really surprised, given that he’d never met a more energetic or enterprising woman than the one sitting next to him.

  “About that time the whole Buy Local movement took off, so with the help of a loan from my parents, I purchased this property, rechristened it Rose Hill Farm and set up shop here. From there, it made sense to add a co-op to my already existing wholesale business.” Rose drew a breath that lifted and lowered the shapely lines of her soft breasts.

  A jolt of pure heat went through him. Clint shifted in his chair, tempted to push the limits with her once again. “It’s bloomed into quite a business.”

  “And not just in Laramie County.” Rose stood and strode over to throw her empty bottle in the recycling bin. “I’ve even started supplying the upscale Fresh Foods Markets in Dallas on a limited crop-by-crop basis, which benefits everyone.”

  Finally seeing a way to steer the conversation where he wanted it, he stood, too.

  “Even the guys you’ve been dating?” Clint asked, determined to find out who his competition had been. And more importantly, just why they had failed to win a pivotal place in her life. He didn’t want to make the same mistake.

  * * *

  DECIDING SHE’D SPENT far too much time alone with the handsome cowboy, Rose fished the keys off her belt and headed for the barn entrance.

  As expected, Clint was right behind her. “Why do you care?” She threw the words over her shoulder.

  He overtook her at the doorway and stepped out into the dwindling spring sunshine. Thanks to daylight saving time, it wouldn’t get dark for another two hours, but the skies were still a clear blue and the temperature—which had been in the high eighties all day—was now dropping. Which meant a very pleasant star-filled evening ahead.

  She locked up. “I didn’t think you were into gossip.”

  He lounged casually beside her, one brawny shoulder propped against the red siding. “Call me curious.”

  Wondering how in the heck he could still look so darn good after being out in the field all day, she shot back, “Well, don’t be.” With five sisters and two parents prying into her love life, or lack thereof, she didn’t need any more questions.

  He ignored her subtle gibe and pressed closer. Determined, it seemed, to know everything about her. Even as she vowed to continue to keep him at arm’s length.

  “Then they were guys you’re involved with in a business sense.”

  “No. Not at all.” Rose pivoted and began strolling across the yard, toward her bungalow. “One was a cardiologist. Another a computer programmer. The third an insurance agent.”

  He fell into step beside her. “So what happened?”

  Resisting the crazy urge to tuck her hand into his, she kept on going. “None of them could handle the kids—even during the thirty-minute predate get-to-know-each-other sessions. And the triplets didn’t like the guys, either.” Rose sighed as she mounted the steps to the front door of her house. “And that clearly wasn’t likely to change.”

  “So you quit dating.”

  As if it had been that simple! Figuring the only way to get him to back off was to lay it all on the line, Rose spun toward him. “Do you know what the divorce rate of parents of multiples is right now?”

  He shook his head.

  Unsure whether it was resentment or nerves prodding her to respond so emotionally, Rose told him the stark awful trut
h. “Over 70 percent.”

  “Well, that’s discouraging.”

  Tell me about it!

  Deciding not to go into the house after all, Rose went back to the wide steps leading up to her front porch and sat down. “If I couldn’t make it work with the biological father of my children, what are my odds of making something work with a guy who has no connection to them?”

  He shrugged and sat down next to her. “Depends on the guy.”

  Her heartbeat quickened at the unexpected compassion in his low tone. She thought about the kisses they had already shared, and how quickly he had rocked her world. “I suppose you’d be up for the challenge?” she queried dryly.

  An affable grin deepened the crinkles around his eyes. “Damn straight I would.”

  She shook her head. Sighed.

  “You don’t believe me?” he asked, cocky.

  Rose stood once again, eager now to have him on his way. “I believe you want to think you could handle what no other man has. But reality is quite another thing. And the bottom line is,” she said, lifting her chin, “I don’t want my kids getting hurt.”

  He got to his feet, too, his dark gaze skimming her intently. “Keep telling yourself that. You’re guaranteed to be miserable.”

  Finding his low, rumbling voice a bit too determined—and too full of sexual promise—for comfort, she returned, “Excuse me?”

  Folding his arms in front of him, he braced his legs a little farther apart. “You’re not afraid for your kids,” he stated with a smug smile. “You’re afraid for you.”

  “I am not.”

  He strolled toward her. “Then prove it,” he said, looking very much like he wanted to make love with her right then and there. “And go out with me.”

  Knowing it would be a dangerous proposition to have him that close to her—because she did desire him more than anyone who had ever come before—Rose shook her head. “That would never work.”