“WE SHOULD BE LOOKING at our own yearbooks if we really want to laugh,” Emily said. She lay stretched out on her living room couch while Kate served her tea and graham crackers. She set the 1955 yearbook on the table and reached for the crackers. “This is the only thing I can eat lately,” she confessed, hiding the box under the couch. “If the kids find them, they’ll be finished in five minutes.”
“I think I can wait a few more years before looking at our pictures in the yearbook,” Kate said, moving her chair closer. “I didn’t really keep in touch with anyone but you and George. Are you sure you’re feeling okay?”
“I’m fine. I’m sorry about lunch, though. I was looking forward to—Elly, honey, don’t put that in your mouth.”
Kate reached over and pried a sandal from the three-year-old’s chubby fingers. “Elly, come sit with Auntie Kate?” She lifted the little girl onto her lap and gave her a hug before replacing the sandal on her fat bare foot.
“Mommy’s gonna have a baby,” the girl stated.
“Yes, she sure is.” Kate thought Emily looked awfully pale and uncomfortable. “What can I do to help you, Em?”
“Pull the baby out with your bare hands.”
“Why don’t I take the kids out to the ranch for a while instead?”
“Masochist,” Emily muttered, but she looked relieved. “You mean I could have a nap?”
“Sure. What are single friends for?”
“What about Gert? She might not want three little kids around.” Emily struggled to a sitting position.
“Four kids, counting Dustin’s son.”
“How old is he?”
“Eight or nine, I guess. Maybe he and John could play trucks or something. I think there’s a mud puddle behind the barn.”
“If I have this baby while you’re gone, you’ll have to keep the kids for three days,” Emily warned. “My mother-in-law may decide she could use a break, too.”
“Martha will know where to find her. Stay where you are,” Kate said. “The kids and I will be fine.”
“They have to wear seat belts in the car, and Elly has to sit in a booster seat.”
“No problem,” she promised, scooping the toddler into her arms as she stood. “They’ll have a ball and I’ll bring ’em home dirty so you don’t feel too guilty about my baby-sitting.”
“Guilty?” Emily chuckled, then winced as she tried to get comfortable. “Not a chance. Once in a while you career gals need a dose of how the other half lives.”
The next adult she saw turned out to be Dustin, who came around the ranch house as she stepped out of the car. Danny was next to him, a small shadow of his father whose mouth fell open when he saw a carload of children.
“You kidnapped the Bennett kids,” Dustin said. “Now what are you going to do with them?”
Kate unbuckled Elly’s car seat and lifted her out of the car. “I’m going to show them horses and cows and anything else you have around here. Emily needed a nap.”
He looked a little stunned as Jennie and John tumbled out of the car and grinned at Danny.
“Hi,” John said, his face split into a wide grin. He was an outgoing child, like his father. “I know you.”
“Danny,” he said, leaving his father’s side as John reached back into the car and retrieved a couple of Tonka bulldozers.
“I told John that you liked trucks,” Kate said, hoping Danny would take over and show off his play area.
“Yep.” But Danny didn’t budge. Kate exchanged an amused look with Dustin, who looked almost as surprised as his son that they had company.
“Come on, boys,” Dustin said. “I’ll show you the ranch.”
“What about us?” Jennie took her little sister’s hand. “Can we see, too?”
“Sure,” the cowboy said, moving closer. “We can all go together.”
Well, this was different, Kate mused. He was actually being nice. She didn’t know why she was surprised, since he had been kind when she’d been in love with him. Kind, gentle and very, very sexy.
Kate sighed and wondered if she should start dating that lighting technician the show had just hired. Maybe she needed to get out more, spend less time working. The problem was obvious, though. She’d never seen anyone like Dustin Jones in New York.
He knew the ranch inside and out—knew enough to understand where and how to make changes, and what to put on hold. He’d taken a couple of the older outbuildings down, he told her, before they blew down in the next bad storm and caused injury to people or animals. He was painting the barn because Gert said a well-kept barn made a ranch look prosperous. The Bennett children had visited ranches before, of course, but horses and cows were a pretty good show no matter how many times they’d been seen before.
“This is so cool,” John said, when they reached Danny’s digging hole. He eyed the large area of dirt tracks and drying mud. “What are you making?”
“A lake. And a river. And a fort.”
“I brought my dozers,” the younger boy said, dropping them in the dirt. “Can I play?”
“Yeah.” Danny smiled, still shy but recognizing a kindred spirit. “Sure.” He looked over at Dustin. “We’ll stay here.”
“Nowhere else, right?”
The boy nodded, and Dustin turned to John. “It’s very important, John, when you’re on a ranch, to stay where you say you’re going to stay.” He pointed to the bunkhouse. “That’s where Danny and I live, so you boys can go in there if you want.” And then he turned and showed John the main house. “Mrs. Knepper—Kate’s grandmother—lives there and there’s a path to her kitchen door.”
“That’s where I’ll be,” Kate interjected, “with your sisters.”
“I know her,” Jennie said. “She’s the oldest lady in town.”
“That’s right.”
“Nowhere else,” Dustin said. “The barn and the outbuildings and the corrals are off-limits unless I’m there with you.” He smiled down at the younger boy. “Your mom would be real mad at me if anything happened to you and I don’t want her yellin’ at me, okay?”
John laughed. “Okay.”
Dustin turned back to the girls. “Do you want to see the new calves?”
And that was that, Kate realized. The boys stayed in their construction zone while Dustin led the girls past several small barns toward a fence line that held his new stock. He showed them the calves and let them name the newest one. There was a breeze, though it was getting near the hottest part of the day.
“I’d better get the girls inside to see Gran. She’ll be wondering where I am.”
“I think she saw you,” he said. “She doesn’t miss much.”
“We’ll go get lemonade and birthday cake,” Kate told the girls. But she looked up at Dustin. “Are you going to join us?”
“I have work to do.” But he held her gaze and for one odd and crazy moment she thought he was going to bend down and kiss her. She knew he wanted to and she wondered if she would protest if and when he did it.
Of course not. She felt the familiar flutters in the pit of her stomach when he looked at her like that, as if he wished they were alone and horizontal. She’d seen that look before. And when she took the girls’ hands in hers and walked them to see Gran, she wondered if she’d had a similar yearning expression on her own face.
DUSTIN CHECKED ON the boys, then went into the barn to work on the tractor. He’d told Gert he was sure he could get it started again. He was pretty damn good at fixing machinery, knew grasslands from years of studying and reading, and could train a horse to do just about anything a man required it to do. But when it came to women—when it came to this woman—he was so damn frustrated that he might as well make it easy on himself and just ride off into the sunset…alone.
Kate McIntosh was driving him crazy and she’d only been around for, what? A couple of days? Danny talked about how pretty and nice she was, Gert rattled on with “Kate said” this and “Kate did” that. The woman was about as useless as teats on a b
ull, with her fancy little computer and designer clothes and big eyes looking around the ranch as if she would know how to do it better.
He’d better remember that she’d left him. She’d never explained, never said goodbye. And he’d gotten stubborn. And proud. Too proud to go to her and tell her he loved her, that he cared more than he’d said. And after her dad died, she’d left for college and never looked back, not at Beauville and not at the man who wasn’t good enough for her.
He’d never been good enough for her, which rankled. He was a hell of a lot better a man than she’d given him a chance to be. Oh, he’d heard about her fancy career in New York. Read the article in the newspaper a couple of years back that even had a picture of her and one of the characters on the show, a toothy actor with a big head of blond hair who was supposed to be a big star.
Dustin made a concerted effort to keep his mind on the tractor engine and off Kate. It bothered him that he still cared, still felt like an awkward kid when she was around.
But if she ever looked at him like that again, he was going to kiss her. Really kiss her.
And damn the consequences.
“SURE IS NICE HAVING children around,” Gert declared, leaning back in her chair. “I like the noise.” She watched Elly to make sure she didn’t fall off the kitchen chair, but she needn’t have worried. The little girl knew how to kneel on a chair and lean over a table to eat birthday cake. Being the youngest in the Bennett family must have taught her a great deal early on. Jennie was ladylike and kept a watchful eye on her younger sister while trying not to stare at Kate, who must look pretty darn glamorous to a five-year-old. Martha had been serious like that, too.
“I hope Emily gets some rest,” Kate said, looking for all the world like an anxious mother.
“Do you plan to have kids?” Gert knew it wasn’t politically correct to ask young women that question, but she thought she could ask her granddaughter just about anything. But then Dustin Jones came to mind and she thought, well, just about anything.
“Of course.”
“Well, what are you waiting for?”
“The right man.” She licked frosting off her fingers and moved the knife off the table.
“I’m glad you’re not one of those women who goes to, you know,” she said, lowering her voice, “one of those banks.”
Kate grinned. “I’d rather have a baby the old-fashioned way.”
“My mom’s having a baby,” Jennie said. “Any day now, she said, and she hopes it’s a boy so we’ll be even. You know, two boys and two girls.” She looked at Kate. “You think my mom’s okay?”
“How about if I call her in a little while and check?” Kate refilled the girl’s glass with milk. “I’d call her now but she said she wanted to take a nap.”
“Oh.”
“I don’t like naps,” Elly declared, frowning at Gert across the table. “Just babies do.”
Gert nodded. “I hope you’ll bring your new baby sister or brother out here to visit me.” She looked at Kate. “It’s not like you’re going to bring me any babies to hold in the near future. What kind of man are you looking for, anyway?”
Kate shrugged, looking for all the world like one of those television stars she wrote stories for. Such a beautiful girl, who would have beautiful babies. “The right one.”
“You’re not going to find him in New York City,” Gert grumbled. “There’re plenty of fine men right here in town. Right here on this ranch, actually. There’s one walking around out there—probably swearing over that old John Deere—who’d make a fine husband and a fine father.”
“I wonder who that could be.” Kate winked at Jennie, who giggled.
“This place needs kids, needs a family,” Gert sighed, knowing full well Kate wasn’t going to pay any attention to her advice.
“I’m going to take the kids home in a while, then I’ll come back to work on the book. Mom’s going to come back with me and we’ll bring dinner. Is there anything special you’d like?”
I’d like to give you the ranch. I’d like you to come home and take over, with your husband—a nice Texas boy. I’d like to watch a baby or two come into this world and call the Lazy K home.
“There’s still pizza left over from Saturday,” Gert said instead, reaching over to help Elly wipe her face with a “Happy Birthday” napkin. “We could have that. Or you could make one of your meat loaves.”
“Meat loaf it is,” Kate said.
“And we’ll invite Dustin and Danny,” Gert said.
Heck, no one had ever called her a quitter.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“YOU’RE NOT WATCHING the show today?”
“We’re taped three weeks ahead during the summer, Gran.” The all-too-brief summer break would end with frenzied attempts to complete story lines for the November sweeps, the all-important ratings war. And as soon as she returned, the meetings would begin and the next nine months of the show would be determined. The sponsor wanted something “different and trendy,” while the viewers resisted the new paranormal story line and wrote asking for more romance. Kate found herself wishing she spent more time on her own life instead of the lives of the fictional characters of Loves of Our Lives. It simply wasn’t as much fun as it used to be, when she was young and enthusiastic and more than willing to work eighteen hours a day. There had to be something more in her life, she knew, but what? And where?
Kate looked out the window and saw Danny and John heading their way. “Here come the boys. They’re going to want their share of cake and milk, or maybe sandwiches.”
“Such good children. We’ll give them all lunch before you take them home,” Gran said, looking as content as could be in her easy chair, a stack of old newspaper clippings on her lap. The girls sat nearby on the couch, a pile of Kate’s childhood books stacked in between them. Elly was almost horizontal, her eyelids half-closed as her sister pretended to read a story aloud. “I should call Elizabeth, too, and see how she’s holding up.”
“I can’t believe she hasn’t had that baby yet and made you a great-grandmother.” Kate scribbled the ingredients for meat loaf on a piece of scrap paper. She could bake potatoes and pick up a fruit salad from the deli section of the supermarket. Gran would want green beans. “Maybe we should ask them for dinner, too.”
“Call them,” Gert said. “See what’s going on out there. We can have ourselves a little party.”
“Sure.” It was better than Dustin as the only adult male at the dinner table. She really should grow up, Kate mused. She should get over her hopeless attraction to denim-clad men in cowboy boots. She should get over the undeniable sexual pull she felt every time she was within ten feet of Dustin Jones.
“Honey, do you see yourself living here someday?”
“Maybe,” Kate said, looking out the window again. “After I’ve saved enough money.”
“Having extra money is a good thing, don’t get me wrong, but it won’t buy happiness, never will,” she declared. “This is a good place to raise children. Edwin and I did just fine. We didn’t have much, but we managed.”
“Your family was rich.” She’d heard her grandmother’s stories of growing up in the middle of a proud and prosperous ranching family, one of the oldest in the county if not the state, but Gert had been quiet about her first marriage. “What happened?”
“I was disinherited after I eloped with Hal,” she said. “It was quite a scandal at the time. And my father wasn’t the easiest man to get along with. He never got over my marrying that man, but my mother helped me out from time to time without my father knowing. Even after Hal died of influenza one winter, my father wouldn’t let me in the house.”
“That’s terrible, Gran. What did you do?”
The woman smiled. “Oh, you’ll know soon enough, when I get to that chapter.”
“By the way,” Kate said. “I thought I’d teach you how to use the computer. Don’t frown at me like that. You can learn how to turn it on and turn it off and open your own file.”
>
“I’d rather talk while you type. It’s faster that way and, after all, I’m ninety years old and not getting any younger.” She set the clippings aside and struggled to her feet. “I’ll help you with lunch, and then later we’ll go back to storytelling. Katie Couric isn’t getting any younger either.”
“Okay.” She turned back to the window. Dustin had joined the boys and had stopped walking to listen to something John had to say. Danny still had that shy grin on his face, an expression that tugged at her heart. The boy was too quiet, though, with secrets behind that shy smile and those dark eyes. “I found out Danny hasn’t always lived with his father.”
“No. I think Dustin is real new to fatherhood, but he does it well.” She stood beside Kate at the window and looked out. “He’s a fine-looking man,” she said. “A girl could do worse.”
“If a girl was looking,” Kate amended.
“You’re looking,” her grandmother declared. “At him.”
Yes, she was. And looking was safe enough.
Safer than touching. Or standing too close. Or, heaven forbid, kissing. She might as well be eighteen again, because she felt as awkward and curious as she had nine years ago. “You’d better start watching what you say. He’s heading here with the boys.”
“Good,” her grandmother said. “We’ll ask them for supper and you can show him what a good cook you are.”
“I’m not auditioning for him, Gran.”
“It’s a start.” The old woman ignored her. “Make a fresh pot of coffee, Kate. And let’s see what the man wants.”
THE MAN WANTED KATE, of course. Simple biology, Gert figured. Mix the two of them together often enough and something would happen—such as Kate staying in Texas, and Dustin taking over the ranch permanently. Kate would be a good mother to that little boy. Heaven only knew where that “Lisa” woman was. Gert had asked a few questions, put two and two together. A few years ago a Lisa Jones had rented a garage apartment from the cousin of one of the ladies from church. She’d owed some rent, and the cousin had once commented that Lisa was “bad news all around.”
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