The Rancher's Proposal (The Montana McGregor Brothers Book 3)

by Paula Altenburg

  “Sorry, Mac,” he said, hopping off the rail to land on the rough, concrete floor. “Say goodnight to your horse. It’s bedtime.”

  Mac, finally convinced that his foal was safe and sound, followed along without any fuss. When Zack checked on him twenty minutes later, he was curled up in bed in a ball on his side, his hands tucked under his pillow, fast asleep.

  Lydia was asleep too, nestled down in her crib.

  Finn’s bed, however, was empty. Zack found him spread-eagled sideways in Jake’s, taking up as much of the king-sized mattress as possible. Zack debated moving him, but in the end, left him where he was. Jake might or might not come home tonight. Either way, Finn was content and that was what mattered.

  Downstairs, Zack planted the baby monitor on the coffee table in the family room and gave Posey a call. It was after ten thirty, but the light he’d spotted in her kitchen suggested she was awake.

  She answered on the second ring.

  “Did you get a phone call from your ex-husband this afternoon?” Zack asked. A flash of lightning lit up the garden on the other side of the patio doors.

  “I figured Mac must have overheard. I tried not to make it upset him.”

  “He was worried enough to tell me about it.” Zack gave her a second to expand on that, but she didn’t. At least she hadn’t lied to him. Yet. “Please don’t say it was nothing. I won’t believe you.”

  Posey sighed. “He says he wants to see Trixie.”

  Given that her ex-husband had been violent he could understand why that would upset her, but he didn’t believe it was the whole story. “He’s her father. Do you have any legal reason to stop him?”

  “He gave up custody long before we moved here. He doesn’t want to see her. He’s after more money.”

  “What do you mean—more?”

  “We had a prenuptial agreement. He signed his parental rights away in return for a cash settlement with the divorce.”

  Prenup.

  That rang a bell. He’d thought she was joking when she’d told him he’d have to sign one. So there was a prenup, an uncle who managed her money for her, and an ex-husband she’d had to buy off…

  No one could make this shit up.

  “Exactly how much are you worth? Are we talking Vanderbilt wealthy? Or Walton family?”

  “Somewhere in between.”

  Zack fought off light-headedness. God, he was stupid. The signs had been there. How could he not have at least suspected?

  Instead, he’d immediately assumed she’d been robbed by a deadbeat ex-husband.

  He’d been sort of right.

  “Zack?”

  “Give me a minute.”

  “I tried to tell you about the money.”

  He was still processing that. Dan had tried to tell him, too. But, being the arrogant male chauvinist dumbass he was, he hadn’t gotten it.

  “I don’t give a damn about your money,” he said. He didn’t. It was hers. He’d sign a prenup that said so. Hell, he’d write it himself. “I do care about your safety.” That was something he cared about more than she could comprehend. What the hell was she doing living in rural Montana without a security system installed in her house—except for the deadbolt and chain he’d thought overkill right up until this very second?

  He’d take care of that first thing in the morning.

  The ex-husband, on the other hand, might prove to be even more problematic than he’d first thought. There was no way he wanted Posey—his beautiful fairy princess—for her money alone. Trixie, either.

  He couldn’t have either of them. They were Zack’s now, and he’d fight for them.

  “No one here knows who my family is or what we’re worth,” she said. “We’ve never flaunted our wealth. My father didn’t believe in drawing attention to it.”

  And yet her ex-husband had found out about it somehow. He’d faked an interest in Russian literature and made her a target. Their daughter had been a carefully calculated mistake. He’d used her to get money from Posey. He’d keep using her, too.

  The bastard knew what her weaknesses were, all right.

  Posey was sweet, she was kind, and she was so incredibly naïve.

  “Telling me you have your own money and telling me your money makes you richer than God are two different things. This isn’t a remote island off some third world country,” he said. “This is the United States of America. All anyone has to do is google your name. How long did you think you could keep something like that a secret?” He rubbed his forehead with the heel of his palm. “Everyone in Grand knows everyone else’s business.”

  “You’ve liked me for who I am since we first met. I didn’t want it to change how you feel about me.”

  The wistfulness he heard in her voice thrust a knife in his heart. “I love you, Posey. Nothing is going to change that. Tell me about the phone call.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  He loved her. She never got tired of hearing it.

  Better yet, when he said it so casually this way, as if it were something he took for granted, like breathing, she truly believed that he did.

  Her hands finally stopped shaking. “He said he regrets being forced to give us both up.”

  “Was he forced to sign anything?”

  “No. My uncle didn’t want me to give him anything. I insisted on it. A friend of the family was the judge who witnessed it, though.”

  “What do you think his next move will be?”

  “He’ll show up here. He’ll walk in as if this is his house and he owns everything in it. He’ll tell me how much he loves me despite my shortcomings. He’ll list my faults and all the ways I failed him. Then, when I offer him money to leave us alone, he’ll give me a number and say not even that amount would be compensation for everything I’ve put him through. He’ll expect me to double it.”

  “No matter how much you give him, he’s going to keep coming back.”

  “I’m not giving him any more money,” Posey said. She told Zack how much she’d already paid.

  “Jesus,” Zack said. “He’s burned through that already?”

  He thought the amount she’d named was a large sum. She loved that about him.

  But she could write a check for that figure tomorrow and it wouldn’t make a dent in her annual income. For her, this was about freedom and protecting her daughter. Continuously writing checks wasn’t accomplishing either objective. She’d made a mistake writing the first one—as her uncle had predicted—and she was done doing that.

  “You have the papers he signed that give up his parental rights to Trixie?” Zack asked.

  “I do.”

  “If I have the county sheriff examine them, he’ll agree they’re legal and will stand up in court in Custer County?”

  “Yes,” Posey said.

  “Good enough for me.” Zack was quiet for a moment, as if thinking. “Luke usually rolls in around three in the morning. When he does, that will be me knocking on your front door. I’m coming over and spending the rest of the night.”

  Zack was as good as his word.

  She heard a soft knock on the door at quarter past three. She’d been waiting for it. She hurried down the stairs to let him in. Seconds later, she was in his arms.

  “I never meant to involve you in this,” she said.

  He kissed her. “I was involved from the day we went to the zoo. The law’s on your side. The next time you have trouble like this, you come to me first.”

  “He’s counting on me not fighting him.”

  “Good. That means he’s counting on me not fighting him, either.”

  That made no sense to her, but she didn’t care. Zack was here, and when he was, her whole world was right.

  She wore a light camisole and a pair of bikini panties. The fall air left the house colder at night and she shivered. Zack ran his hands over her buttocks, cupping her cheeks. He shrugged off his jacket and tossed it over the stair railing.

  “Let’s get you into bed and warmed up before we wake
Trixie,” he said.

  She held his hand as they tiptoed up the stairs and past Trixie’s room. Posey peeked in. Her daughter was sound asleep on her back in her crib, her arms and legs flung wide.

  “What is it about little kids that they need to take up as much available space as they can?” Zack whispered. “Finn sleeps like that, too.”

  Posey tugged him into her darkened bedroom and half-closed the door. Everything was okay now that he was here with her.

  “You take up more than your fair share of the bed, too,” she said to him.

  “Because I like to make sure I’m touching you. That way you can’t get up without me knowing you’re gone.” He took hold of the hem of her camisole and peeled it over her head. His work-roughed palms found her breasts and she sucked in a breath, enjoying the light, scratching sensations. “I mean that in a non-creepy, non-stalker way, mind you.”

  He made her laugh even while he was turning her on. His fingers trailed to her panties. Seconds later, those were gone, too. She undid the button on his jeans and eased down his zipper. He was hard in her hand.

  “I love it when you touch me like that,” he said.

  He kicked off his jeans and they stumbled to the bed. She didn’t give him time to get his shirt off. She had her legs around his waist and then, he was inside her. She arched her back, taking him as deep as she could with each thrust. He swallowed her soft cries of pleasure as she came underneath him.

  The bed rocked as Zack withdrew, then stretched out on his side next to her. She curled against his chest, easing her knee between his thighs, enjoying the intimacy of sharing her bed with him. He was long, lean, and muscular, his body rapidly becoming familiar. There wasn’t an ounce of extra weight to be found. Every inch of him was solid muscle. She knew because she’d explored.

  She yawned. The light from the hall spilled through the chink in the door and across the foot of the bed. He tugged the sheets and blankets over them. He could take up as much space as he liked. She had no problem with him making sure they were touching. She wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

  She began to doze off.

  “We’re getting married,” he said, jerking her from the brink of sleep. “There’s going to be a prenuptial agreement. We’re going to live on whatever income we earn together. I want you, not your money. I want Trixie too, so you’re going to have to let me adopt her.”

  He wanted them both.

  He was also making plans for their future together.

  She was wide awake now and beginning to process what he was saying. “You expect me to give you my daughter?”

  “As if you’d ever do that. No. We’re going to be a family. I expect you to share her with me. She’s going to be loved exactly the same as the five or six sisters we give her. Have I mentioned how much I love women? Because I’m planning on filling a house with them. I’m fine with boys too, of course, but for every one of them, we have to try for two girls.”

  She could never love him more than she did at this moment. He’d known from the moment she’d told him about her childhood how much she’d longed for her own family. Now he was offering to fulfill all her dreams.

  He had a tendency to go to extremes, however. She couldn’t imagine a better father for Trixie, so she’d consider allowing him to adopt her, but as for the five or six sisters…

  She wanted them, too.

  “You’re crazy,” Posey said. They couldn’t both get carried away.

  “But crazy in a loveable way, right?” He became serious. “I’ve lost two women who meant everything to me. You think I don’t know what they were worth or how they deserved to be treated?” He ran his palm over her hip. A delicious shiver ran down her thigh in response. “You think I don’t know that you and Trixie are worth a whole lot more than money? Let me ask you a question. If the situation was reversed and your ex-husband had the money—put yourself in his shoes—how much would it take for you to give Trixie up?”

  She didn’t even need to think about it. “There’s not enough money in the world to make me do that.”

  “Exactly. He never fought for her. I plan to. I’d never give her up, either.”

  Because Zack would always put family first, and she and Trixie were part of it now. She was so glad she’d come to Grand. They really had found their home.

  “I love you,” she said. “I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to say it.”

  The bed gently swayed as he rolled over to kiss her.

  “It’s nice to hear, but there’s no need to be sorry. I see it in your eyes and your smile,” he said. “I feel it. Although,” he added, “now that you’ve finally said it, we can set a date for the wedding.”

  *

  Zack oversaw the installation of a security system for Posey, using the company Dan recommended. He was taking no chances with her safety, or Trixie’s. Men like her ex saw their families as possessions. According to Dan, in their eyes, laws didn’t apply. They’d do whatever it took to reclaim what was theirs.

  He’d begun sleeping at her house, but he had responsibilities at the ranch, too. He had to be home before the kids got out of bed.

  “If he shows up, you call me,” Zack instructed her.

  He was fixing breakfast for Luke and the kids a few mornings later when his phone rang.

  “He’s here,” Posey said.

  He heard the catch in her breathing that said she was scared and trying not to let on.

  Just let him lay a hand on her.

  “Hang on, baby. We’ll be right there. Don’t let him in the house.”

  He called Dan first, then Jake in the biomass power plant where he was working. He’d insisted he go along, too. He thought Zack wouldn’t be able to restrain himself.

  Zack had no such concerns. He was a planner.

  Dan arrived at the same time Jake and Zack did. He parked his cruiser on the side of the road at the end of the drive.

  Posey was on the porch, the door to the house firmly closed behind her. A man stood at the foot of the steps talking to her. He turned toward them when he heard the sheriff’s car stop. He was top heavy, with a thick neck and broad shoulders like a football player, or maybe a wrestler. He was shorter than Zack but probably thirty pounds heavier. He wore a white crewneck sweater under a black pea coat. His tight black jeans screamed hipster—a look Luke, the college professor, managed to pull off with ease—but the short, suede Chelsea boots suggested this guy was trying too hard to be cool.

  So this was Posey’s ex.

  Jake studied the other man. “You think you can take him?”

  Zack had been tackling opponents bigger than him his whole life. He didn’t believe it would come to that, however. Deep down, this guy was a coward. He wouldn’t get into a fight he had the potential to lose, which was why he hadn’t gone up against Posey’s uncle over the prenuptial agreement.

  He’d rather beat women and children around.

  “There’s only one way to find out,” Zack said.

  Dan leaned out of the car window.

  “You let him throw the first punch,” he warned Zack. “Don’t make me have to arrest you.”

  “Sure.”

  Zack walked up the short drive to the house. The relief on Posey’s face at the sight of him was a reward all on its own. She wore black leggings, thick wool socks, and a long, loose-hemmed black sweater that contrasted sharply with the pale white blond of her hair. She looked so incredibly beautiful it was hard to tear his eyes off her, but he did.

  “Hey,” he called out, nice and friendly. Nonthreatening. He held out his hand. “You must be Trevor. I’m Zack. Posey’s told me so much about you.”

  The other man ignored the handshake Zack offered. “I don’t care who you are, this is none of your business. I’m having a private conversation with my wife.”

  “Sweetheart,” Zack chastised Posey, injecting indulgence into the endearment. Her anxious gray eyes warned him he might be enjoying this a little too much. “You never told me you were
still married.”

  “I’m not.”

  He regarded her ex-husband again. “Then it seems you’ve made a mistake. You’re having a conversation with my fiancée, not your wife. She doesn’t appear to be enjoying it, either—which makes it my business.”

  “Fiancée?” Trevor challenged Posey, dismissing Zack. “You’ve only been here a few months, yet you think I’m going to let some local cowboy you barely know play daddy to my daughter?”

  “Why not? He’s doing a better job of it than you ever did,” Posey said.

  Score one for Posey.

  Zack watched her determination grow in the way the soft gray of her eyes tempered to steel. She needed to do this. Knowing she had people on her team was helping her find her own strength. She’d been pushed past her limit and she wasn’t taking it, anymore.

  Good for her.

  “Quit being a bitch,” Trevor said.

  That crossed a line.

  “Hey,” Zack said. His self-control slipped a notch.

  “Butt out cowboy, or you’ll be sorry.”

  “I doubt it.” Zack kept a smile on his face and his tone light and friendly, but it took a great deal of effort. “See the county sheriff sitting there, watching us? And the guy standing next to his car? The one who looks like he bench presses horses? They aren’t here for my sake. They’re here for yours—because they both know how I feel about men who don’t know how to treat women and children. They feel the same way. So if you want to insult someone, or better yet, feel like taking a swing, let’s see you take one at someone who’d be more than happy to swing back. They won’t interfere until they have a reason to be concerned for your safety, and to be honest, they don’t care all that much about you. So go ahead. We’ll see who’s going to be sorry.”

  Trevor, however, wasn’t ready to back down. “I have a right to see my daughter. She took her out of Massachusetts without my permission.”

  “She can take Trixie wherever she likes. She has the paperwork to prove that you’ve terminated all parental rights.”

  Trevor’s chin rose. His hard eyes held a challenge. “It means nothing. The judge was a friend of her uncle’s.”