The Rebel Cowboy's Quadruplets

by Tina Leonard

  “No.” Justin shook his head. “My role is the innocent bystander.”

  “So what was Daisy doing in your bed?” She hated to ask but had to know.

  “Probably what any red-blooded female would want to do.”

  She sniffed. “Not any red-blooded female.”

  “You win. I think she may have had the wrong room.”

  Mackenzie gave him a cool look. “Daisy never, ever gets the wrong room.”

  “Really?” He perked up. “Thanks for the ego boost.”

  Her cool expression went straight to hard stink-eye. “None intended. Just fact.”

  “Truthfully, it wasn’t the most pleasant experience.”

  “I don’t think I believe you,” Mackenzie said sweetly.

  He put a hand over hers, startling her. “Enough teasing. You know very well I have as much interest in Daisy as I do in wearing wet socks.”

  His hand was so warm over hers, so strong. She nodded. “I know. I’m sorry. I have no business saying anything—”

  “Stop.” He squeezed her fingers lightly. “This is your ranch.”

  “Still, your personal life is your business. If you’re really staying, we should establish that up front. You don’t worry about my three new hands, and I won’t poke my nose into your business.”

  “Maybe I like your nose—” he lifted her hand to his mouth ever so slowly, kissed it “—in my business.”

  Her breath caught. His gaze held hers, mesmerizing yet somehow gentle.

  She pulled her hand away. “Listen, Justin. You’re going—now you’re staying. I don’t know what to think.”

  “I understand.” He got up and put his dishes in the dishwasher after rinsing them.

  Drat. He would be a dish rinser. She silently approved.

  “I’m going to hit the hay. By now maybe the fellows are asleep.”

  She raised a brow. “I can’t tell if you like them, or if you view them as carbuncles you have to deal with.”

  “You don’t have the corner on a little healthy jealousy,” he said, winking at her before closing the door behind him.

  Stunned, she sat glued to her stool for a second, then shot to the window. Justin walked across to the bunkhouse, his big shoulders visible in the darkness.

  Unless she was mistaken, that big man had come on to her in a big way. Almost like he’d decided to stay because of her. A feeling of warmth spread over her.

  “You like him, don’t you?”

  Mackenzie squealed and whirled around. “You scared me!”

  Suz got back on her stool, her spiky hair awry. “I couldn’t sleep. Decided to come get another piece of this cake. Carbs will do something for me, if not make me sleep, then wake me up enough to start filling out some college apps. By the way, I checked on the munchkins. Sleeping like lambs.” She cut the cake, glancing up at Mackenzie. “I don’t even have to ask if you like Justin. I can tell you do.”

  Mackenzie returned to her stool. “He’s a nice man. Can we talk about college? Where are you planning on applying?”

  “Everywhere and anywhere. I’ll have to take the MCAT first, the medical school examination.” Suz sighed as she ate her cake. “This, I missed.”

  “I have some money saved—”

  “So do I. Thank you, sister dear. But you don’t have to take care of me anymore. I’m a big girl, you know.” She smiled at her sister. “I love you for it, though. You just don’t always have to be mother hen.”

  “Mom and Dad left us money. They wanted you to have an education,” Mackenzie said softly. “You’ve never touched your part.”

  “I don’t need my part. I don’t need much to live on.” Suz looked around the kitchen. “If I never spent any of what you call my part, would we have enough to hang on to this place?”

  “Suz—”

  “Would we?”

  Mackenzie looked at her sister. “I know what you’re trying to do.”

  “You think you know what I’m trying to do.”

  “You’re trying to figure out how the girls can grow up here and have the same wonderful childhoods we did.” Mackenzie looked at her little sister. “We had good childhoods because Mom and Dad worked hard. It wasn’t about the ranch so much as it was about our parents. They loved us. They took good care of us.”

  “It was partially the ranch,” Suz said stubbornly. “And you’re not respecting the Hanging H when you talk that way. Mom and Dad built this up from nothing. It’s the heart and soul of who we are.”

  Suz gazed at her, unblinking. She never wore makeup. There were tats and piercings and hair dye but never makeup. And somehow her eyes were still so very expressive.

  “I know you’re right,” Mackenzie said, “and I love that you’re trying to honor our parents’ memory. But I think they’d want you to have your money for a rainy day. So you don’t have to take loans for college or medical school. For whatever you may need. Remember how hard Mom and Dad worked to build the Hanging H? They wouldn’t want you to struggle as hard as they did.”

  “Do I get any say in this? A vote?”

  “Of course you do.”

  “Good. Because it didn’t feel like it there for a minute.” Suz ate some cake, waved her fork. “I’ve lived in Africa for a year. I just don’t have needs like other people do. It’s hard to think about material things when I understand what people live without. And what I developed a great appreciation for was home.”

  Mackenzie sighed. “I haven’t even had a chance to see your Africa photos yet. Let’s leave this for another day.”

  “It’s not a decision that’s going to wait long. You’ve got four hands signed on. And Jade told me that you were planning on selling out by Christmas.”

  “I was going to tell you—”

  “I know. You were going to tell me when you quit mooning after the cowboy.”

  “I really was going to discuss it with you. I wouldn’t make the decision without you. But I didn’t know if you planned on coming home, Suz. Truthfully, I had no way of knowing if you would stay with the Peace Corps. Your letters sounded like you were so happy.”

  Suz waved a hand again. “This is why Daisy’s buzzing around here, trying to steal your man. She knows you’re weakening.”

  “I am not weakening!”

  “It’s clear I came home in the nick of time.” Suz carried her plate to the dishwasher, then, without rinsing, just placed it inside. She turned to grin at Mackenzie. “I know. Your pet peeve.” She pulled the plate back out and gave it a swift rinse before replacing it. “I don’t want to sell the family home or the ranch. None of it. I’d rather see you married to one of the three new guys than—”

  “Married!” Mackenzie shook her head. “You can forget that nonsense right now. I’m never going through that again.”

  “Speak in haste—”

  “It’s not haste. Marriage isn’t for me.” Not even to the hunky man who’d just kissed her hand. Luckily he was a rebel who had no interest in settling down.

  “One of us is going to have to run Daisy off for good,” Suz said darkly. “Remember when our folks passed, she was like a vampire, hanging around looking to suck the dollar bills out of this place.”

  “There are no dollar bills to suck. If we keep the ranch, we’re going to have to think of a way to make it profitable. It’s big enough that we could take in boarders,” she said, looking around the kitchen.

  “No!”

  Mackenzie blinked. “All right. No boarders.”

  “It wouldn’t be right. We have the babies to think of. I don’t want anybody around them that we don’t know.”

  “All right. Any other ideas?”

  “I’ll work for a couple of years, then apply to medical school.”

  “No!” Mackenzie said,
protesting as forcefully as her sister had about boarders. “That is not an option.”

  “We’ll think of something.” Suz drummed her fingers. “I can be very creative.”

  “That worries me.” Mackenzie could hear the wheels turning in her sister’s head.

  “Whatever we do, it has to be something that keeps Daisy from catwalking around here all the time, annoying the crap out of me.”

  “She really bugs you, doesn’t she?”

  “Yes.” Suz got up to look out the kitchen window. “She’s after Justin.”

  Mackenzie shook her head. “It’s doesn’t matter.”

  “It does. I can’t bear to let her win.” Suz giggled. “At anything. In fact, I like to see her lose.”

  “Suz!”

  “She deserves it.” Her sister laughed again. “You’re too tenderhearted. Be tenderhearted about our home, okay?” She kissed Mackenzie on the cheek and opened the kitchen door.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To see the three musketeers. They might be up playing cards or something. They look like the types that would have something going on in the wee hours. ’Night, sis.”

  Suz drifted out the door. Mackenzie watched her from the kitchen window. Sure enough, the bunkhouse door opened and shut with alacrity, and more lights went on inside.

  The new guys had no idea what they were in for.

  Mackenzie turned out the kitchen lights and went to check on her babies. Like Suz had said, they were sleeping like lambs. She loved her daughters so much. It felt as if her heart was tied to them in some way she couldn’t have explained to anyone.

  Maybe Suz was right. The Hanging H would be a wonderful place for the girls to grow up. Deep in her heart, she’d like them to have what she and her sister had as kids. Yet it cost money—a lot of money—to pay the bills at a ranch that wasn’t bringing in income. She’d been dipping into her own inheritance to cover expenses.

  The nursery smelled like baby powder and freshly laundered linen. She sat down in a rocker for a moment, enjoying the gentleness and peace in the room. In the soft glow from the night-light, Mackenzie thought life could probably never get better than this.

  She thought about Justin kissing her and about Daisy leaving his bedroom. He just didn’t strike her as a dishonest man. And Daisy could be such a finagler. Suz was right: Daisy had long had her eyes on the Hanging H acreage. Set on prime real estate, near to usable roads but back far enough from town to feel private, the ranch had intrinsic value for those who might dream of large homes designed in the new architecture. Not like their traditional home now, with its quaint rooms and hidden staircase and wide window views.

  This was home, full of happy memories and the misty patina of childhood dreams. The four men she’d hired would help her get the place back in shape to put on the market—there was no other way she could see to secure the future for her daughters, for Suz and even for Bridesmaids Creek. Maybe someone with money would buy the place, bring it back to its former glory, where it could once again give back to the community she loved so much.

  As for Justin, she was just too close to the past to count on a man Ty had brought here for the specific purpose of rescuing her. Ty thought she needed that, but she’d do just fine on her own.

  * * *

  “IT’S NOT GOING to work, fellows.” Suz stared at the four men lounging around the room, settled in leather recliners and on the huge circular sectional that, despite its age, still looked in good condition. Someone had been smoking a cigar, but Suz supposed it was likely that worse had been smoked under this roof.

  With the three new guys, anything could happen. They had a bit of a wild look to them, not too long out of the heat of a war zone. Justin was his cool-cucumber self. Suz eyed him, and he eyed her in return. She didn’t know the man well enough to say, but she had the feeling that cowboy wasn’t a smoker. “I get the plan. I even appreciate that you’ve taken the time to dream something up to try to help my sister.”

  This she directed at Squint, Frog and Sam, as she was pretty certain Justin hadn’t had any part in the idea they’d sprung on her. “My sister isn’t going to get married to one of you in order to have a father for her children. She has one of those, and he’s a louse, and I can tell you that even though you’re offering to sign away any financial or gainful rights to the ranch, Mackenzie will never stand at an altar again. At least not in the near future, and I believe she’s putting the ranch on the market as soon as you get the place fixed up. She mentioned something about wanting to be out of here by Christmas.”

  Sam glanced at Justin. “Do you have anything to say, or are you just going to sit there like a bump on a log?”

  Justin looked at his newfound companions but didn’t say a word. Suz supposed the question didn’t merit an answer, and, anyway, Justin wasn’t the type of man who would be pushed into any harebrained schemes.

  Marrying her sister off was certainly the most foolish scheme that had been floated. “Got any more practical ideas under those Stetsons?”

  Justin laughed, which she thought might be rude. Was he even trying to help her sister? At least the new guys were focused on the problem, which was dire.

  “Dig out your folks’ business model and records from the days of the haunted house,” Justin said, stunning her.

  “Well, Mr. Helpful, that’s not going to work, either. My sister thinks we’re moving. Not opening a business.”

  “Tell her it’s just for this last season. Sort of a goodbye to Bridesmaids Creek.” Justin’s gaze gleamed, his eyes intent, and she realized he’d been working on the problem all along, just waiting for the right time to spring it.

  She frowned. “With you four as ringleaders?”

  “Well, we all need jobs,” Frog pointed out. “And we’d like to stay here.”

  “I don’t get what’s in it for you,” Suz said.

  “Money,” Squint said. “And this place is nice. It’s kind of storybook.”

  “And you have your eyes on Daisy Donovan.” Suz noticed none of the three new guys seemed bothered by that pronouncement, but then Frog spoke up.

  “Not me. Not my type,” he said, his tone certain. “I go for the real wild girls.”

  Wilder than Daisy? Suz wrinkled her nose, suddenly aware that Frog was looking at her. Intently. Like he had something on his mind.

  He wasn’t suggesting that she was wild? What would make him think that? “Er—”

  “Look, Daisy’s a nice woman, I’m sure,” Justin said, “but you fellows best cast your nets elsewhere.”

  “Why?” Frog demanded, his face a bit crestfallen. “We’re not horning in on you. You’ve got a thing for the boss lady, anyone with one eye can see that—”

  Frog fell silent, dead silent, at Justin’s raised brow. Suz stared at the big man, ready to hear the truth. “Well, Cowboy? Do you have a thing for my sister?”

  Chapter Nine

  Justin found himself in the hot seat unexpectedly, and he knew it was best to get off in a hurry. “Don’t listen to our friends. I’ve learned they talk a lot but say little of importance.”

  “Maybe we talk a lot but say a lot of importance that you don’t want to admit,” Frog said.

  Suz was staring at him. “You’re not denying it, Justin.”

  “I don’t have to.” He met the eyes of each of his new friends, daring them to say another thing. They all looked away from him after a moment—except Suz.

  “O-kay,” Suz said. “Anyway, what we need to do is figure out how to get my sister out of her pickle. Get us out of our pickle,” she amended. “Any and all good ideas will be considered. For the sake of my nieces.”

  A sideways sensation hit Justin at the mention of those four tiny dolls. They deserved more than they were going to get out of life. He didn’t need little sister
to spell it out for him. Deadbeat Dad was long gone, and Mackenzie and her babies would be living off their wits. Suz was a different animal altogether, obviously a tough survivor. So was Mackenzie, but she had a soft edge to her. Soft, sexy, rounded edges.

  “Aw, he’s not going to step up to the plate,” Frog said, staring at Justin derisively. “So here’s my good idea. Marry me, Suz.”

  Suz blinked. Justin stayed out of this new twist. If Frog wanted to get tossed back into the pond on his head by Suz, that was no concern of his.

  “Marry you?” Suz scoffed. “I said come up with a good idea.”

  Justin laughed. “She has you there.”

  Suz got up. “Marriage isn’t the answer for anyone.”

  Justin crossed his legs. “You’re too young to be so cynical.”

  “Not cynical. Practical,” Suz replied.

  He thought she was adorable in a little sister sort of way. “I agree marriage is a bad idea.”

  “Yeah,” she said, looking at Frog. “Any woman who would marry a man named Frog needs to have her head examined.”

  Justin took pity on his new buddy. “Take it easy on the man. He’s just trying to help.”

  “Yeah,” Sam said. “Does anybody think that little Jade mama might be open to a date?”

  Justin shook his head. “You have to ask to find out.”

  “Anyway,” Squint said, “you’re all too chicken. Let’s head into town. Hunt up some trouble.”

  “We’re trying to solve the Hanging H problem,” Justin reminded the room at large.

  “Yeah, but I want to find that ornery little brunette with the loud bike,” Squint said. “I like my ladies loud and wild.”

  “If you go for Crazy Daisy,” Suz said, “you deserve everything you get.”

  “Looking forward to that.” Squint winked at them and went out the door. Sam looked disgusted, Frog surprised. Justin shook his head. “Let’s table this meeting. We’ll meet again when somebody has a real idea.”