In the back seat, Mac sat up and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. Lydia snored peacefully in the car seat between him and Finn. All Jake could see of the five-year-old was a tuft of red hair peeking over the jacket he’d wrapped himself in.
“Where are we?” Mac asked.
“Home.”
Mac peeked through the window. The burst of enthusiasm on his freckled face faded. “This is Grandma and Grandpa’s.”
Not anymore.
But Jake didn’t correct him. If he lived to be a thousand, he’d never recover from the gut-wrenching sounds the kid made as he cried in his sleep.
God, he was tired. He wanted food, a beer or three, and then, he wanted to crash in his own bed—alone—and not crawl out for a week. They’d spent the past four nights in hotels, he and Lydia in one bed, Mac and Finn in the other, although by morning, they were all bunking together.
Why me? he silently asked his dead sister for the thousandth time. Why name me as their legal guardian? What about him had made Liz believe he was capable of looking after three children?
Nothing, because she’d never expected he’d have to. She and Blair had needed to name someone not traveling with them and he’d drawn the short straw. At the time, they’d all thought it was funny. Now beautiful, redheaded Liz, with her weird sense of humor and huge love of life, was gone, and so were their parents.
Machu Picchu had been a life’s dream for their father. It was Liz and Blair’s birthday present to him.
Jake’s empty stomach clenched. He unbuckled his seat belt. “Help me get your brother and sister into the house,” he said to Mac. The poor kid was the oldest. He was going to have to man up and be strong.
Same as Jake.
The kitchen door opened.
Jake’s brother Luke, the middle McGregor, staged an appearance. Tall, broad-shouldered, with green eyes and dark hair, he and Jake often passed for twins—except Luke’s black-rimmed glasses gave him a more studious air, and his PhD in computer science meant he was a geek to boot. He wore jeans and a blue T-shirt and his feet were bare. His mussed-up hair hung a little too long in front. He had the whole absent-minded-professor image down pat.
Luke had hated everything about the Wagging Tongue Ranch when he’d left home for college. Jake figured Luke might last the summer here, but if he stuck around long enough to help get the kids settled in, then Jake would be grateful.
But Jake was the one who’d accepted this responsibility and he couldn’t ask his brothers to give up their lives. And he’d never, in a million years, let his sister or her children down.
“Hey, Mac,” Luke said, loping down the front steps and across the short patch of freshly-mown grass toward them. “We figured your uncle Jake had run off with you guys and you were all in Mexico by now.”
Jake hooked an elbow on the roof of the car, keeping one eye on the two sleeping rug rats and another on Mac. “No way. I’d have headed for Canada. It’s closer to New York.”
The kid couldn’t seem to stay still. He jiggled his hands in his pockets and dragged the toe of one sneaker back and forth in the dirt.
“C’mon, Mac. I’ll get Finn. You can carry Lydia. We’ll leave the suitcases for Uncle Luke,” Jake said. He opened the rear door of the car.
“Zack has sandwiches ready,” Luke interrupted. “How about you go grab one while Jake and I get the kids and the luggage?”
Mac looked at Jake, uncertain.
“Lydia first,” Jake said. He was in charge, and when he gave an order, he expected to be obeyed. The faster they all established the new normal, the better. He clapped Mac on the back. “You don’t want her waking up to Uncle Luke’s ugly face, do you?”
Luke looked like he planned to argue, and inside, Jake sighed. He was too tired to take this out behind the barn to settle, as they would have when they were younger, because tonight, there was a good chance Luke could take him.
They were going to have words about this later, though.
“She doesn’t seem to mind your face, and you and Uncle Luke look alike,” Mac said.
Luke laughed. Jake wanted to. Instead, he gave Mac his I-mean-business stare, and Mac clambered into the back seat to unfasten his baby sister. Jake was so, so tempted to help him, but he held back. Better to let the kid figure things out on his own.
Mac headed off for the house with Lydia.
Jake collected Finn. The five-year-old never opened his eyes. His head flopped on Jake’s shoulder and one arm dangled as if it were boneless. He resembled his mother so much it made Jake’s heart hurt.
Luke had opened the trunk and gotten out two of the suitcases. The yard light caught the scowl he directed at Jake. “Mac’s a kid, not a ranch hand. Go easy on him. The past few weeks have been rough.”
You think I don’t know how he feels? Having my whole world upended?
“He’s got five years on Finn and Lyddie’s a baby. He’s going to have to be tough for the both of them.”
“It’s our job to be tough, not his.”
Until you head back to Seattle, fancy-ass Dr. McGregor. Then it’s all up to Mac and me.
“They’re his brother and sister. He’s all they’ve got.” And it was better for Mac to feel useful. Maybe if he had a purpose he’d quit crying at night.
“You’re an asshole with serious control issues,” Luke said.
Jake held Finn a little tighter. He’d never felt less in control in his life. “And don’t you forget it.”
*
Wide-shouldered, narrow-hipped, handsome cowboys were a dime a dozen in Montana towns—schoolyards included, because thanks to all of that testosterone, their fertility rates ranked off the charts—but the child clinging to this one’s leg made him extra attention-grabbing, for sure.
It was the silent boy with an entire world of pain in his eyes standing beside him who had Lacey Anderson’s heart clenching tight. She hovered in the small entry of Marion Street Grand Elementary that looked out on the playground and tried to decide if she should interfere.
She understood why people who moved to new communities put children in school for the final few weeks before summer break rather than let them start fresh in the fall. It gave them a chance to meet their new classmates and form a few friendships. But nobody who owned an ounce of emotional intelligence could have done this to two young boys who’d just lost their parents.
It was exactly the kind of thing she’d expect calm, cool, and practical Jake McGregor to do, even though he had to understand how they felt because his parents and sister had been in that plane crash, too. The whole town of Grand was buzzing about it. There’d been a memorial service for the elder McGregors just this past weekend.
No one looking at him right now would guess. He could be delivering cattle to market for all the emotion he showed. Yet he had to be hurting. Lacey’s heart squeezed. His parents had been lovely people—his dad a little intimidating, perhaps, but his mother the warm, milk and cookies kind that Lacey had envied. The whole family was close. She’d envied that, too.
She’d dated Jake one glorious semester when she was a sophomore in high school and he was a senior. Already, at eighteen, he’d been a whole lot of cowboy—well-built thanks to ranching, with black hair and emerald-green eyes that he’d scored from an Irish gene pool. She’d been wildly in love. Even now, she felt a thrill and a tiny twinge of regret at the sight of him. Maybe more than a twinge.
But after five months of dating, she’d come to the conclusion that she was far more invested in their romance than he was. His graduation prom was what had ended things between them. She’d counted on it for weeks. She’d been so excited. She’d talked to him about her dress and how he’d need to rent a tux that matched the color. She’d hinted at corsages and her favorite flowers. She’d kept him informed of the parties their friends were throwing.
He’d blown it all off at the last minute because he and his father had to move cattle between ranges, leaving her stuck with a dress she couldn’t wear and parties
that weren’t hers to attend. Not alone.
So, because she’d been sixteen and she wasn’t perfect either, she’d gone with one of his friends. And his friend, as it turned out, hadn’t been much of a friend. He’d completely misread her intentions and she’d ended up breaking his nose.
Jake hadn’t given a damn that she’d gone to his prom with someone else. When she told him she was going—she’d really wanted to wear that gorgeous red dress—he’d shrugged it off and said nothing. Afterward, he hadn’t even asked about his friend’s broken nose. That was when she’d dumped him.
Sixteen-year-old girls might be self-centered, but cowboys were clueless.
She’d learned from her mistakes, however. She didn’t date cowboys anymore, and the reason stood right here before her. She wanted a man who could put her ahead of his horse.
He peeled the youngest child off his thigh. “Here, Mac,” he instructed the oldest in a whiskey-soaked voice that set her backbone on fire despite her lack of interest in both hard liquor and cowboys. “Walk Finn to his classroom. He’ll be fine with Mrs. Penney.”
Lacey couldn’t take any more. The playground was teeming with tiny observers, and this wasn’t the kind of first impression these boys needed to make. They’d be eaten alive. MacKenzie, the older of the two Williams children, would be her student next year. Since Jake couldn’t figure out a better way to manage this situation, she’d have to step in.
She straightened her shoulders, lifted her chin, and summoned her brightest, let’s-all-get-along smile reserved for her most difficult parents and approached them. “Mr. McGregor.”
Jake looked up. Surprise, along with the morning sun, glinted off thick, jaw-dropping black eyelashes. Whether the surprise was caused by the sight of her, or from being called Mr. McGregor, she couldn’t be sure.
He slow-blinked. “Lacey. I didn’t know you taught here.”
His obliviousness stung. Population-wise, Grand didn’t live up to its name. She’d been away for a decade, yes, but word got around. Everyone knew she was back. At the very least, her name would have been on the staff roster included with the welcome packet when he registered the boys. If he hadn’t made the connection, then she’d broken the wrong nose way back when.
She upped her smile’s wattage. Her friend Mara would have warned him to run.
Instead, he smiled back.
And… it was her turn to blink. He might be hard. He might be out of touch with his feelings. But he was also so, so incredibly hot. Her hormones reminded her of why he was the first boy she’d ever allowed to reach second base. If he’d taken her to that prom, no doubt he’d have crossed home plate, too. She’d given it plenty of thought.
Teenage girls were so stupid.
She ignored him and held her hand out to her new student instead. “You must be Mac. I’m Miss Anderson. I’ll be your teacher next year. I’m so sorry I didn’t get to meet you the day your uncle brought you here to register.”
She’d been sick with a stomach bug making the rounds. She loved teaching, but hazmat suits should be standard issue in public schools.
Mac cast a quick glance at his uncle, as if seeking permission before taking her hand, and for a second, Lacey’s lungs refused to suck air. She’d seen that same look in her brother’s eyes too many times when they were young. Clayton had always tried too hard to earn their stepfather’s approval and she hated seeing that pattern already emerging in Mac.
She shook it off. Jake wasn’t Blue. He might be stern, and his priorities sucked, but he wasn’t cold. He could be warm and funny in private. The contrast was one of the reasons she’d fallen so hard for him.
The green eyes and black lashes had nothing to do with it.
His thick lashes lowered. A tiny frown puckered a wrinkle into the bridge of Jake’s nose, but it wasn’t directed at her.
“Manners, Mac. When a lady greets you, what do you say?”
“She’s a teacher.”
Mac said it with such a straight face that Lacey was confident he was yanking Jake’s chain. The boy was brave. She’d give him that. Jake’s expression, equal parts patient and forbidding, was intimidating as heck.
It seemed Mac thought so, too. His straight face shifted into a glower. “Pleased to meet you, Miss Anderson.”
The words came out crisp. Pleased te meetcha. No mistaking the New Yorker in him. He pumped her hand twice, long enough to be polite, before dropping it as if afraid she might give him cooties. In a few years, he’d be as handsome as Jake. The girls in his class were going to go nuts.
She regarded the redheaded saddle burr recently removed from Jake’s leg. His eyes were green, too—the same shade as his brother’s, although his lashes were dark red, like his hair. One front tooth was missing.
He was so cute.
Jake kept one hand on his shoulder as if afraid he might bolt. Lacey admired the precaution, because in her professional opinion, Finn looked like a runner. He didn’t want to be here and he didn’t mind letting it show. Mutiny oozed from his pores.
Well, this wasn’t her first footrace. She crouched down to his level, smoothing her skirt underneath her so that it covered her undies. “You must be Finn. Did you know that Mrs. Penney has a live rat in her classroom?”
That caught his attention. “Is it a real rat?” he asked.
And…she had him. “What other kind is there?”
“Those white ones with the red eyes.”
Lacey tapped her chin and pretended to think. “It has brown fur. I couldn’t tell you the color of its eyes, though. I wasn’t getting that close.” She shuddered, her disgust completely unfeigned. The kids might not mind rodents, but she wasn’t a fan. “Why don’t I show you where it is?”
“Mac will take him,” Jake interrupted.
Lacey tracked the length of his jeans from his knee to his hip, then from the hem of his gray Henley up an impressive expanse of chest. He blocked the sky like some dreary gray storm cloud. What was it she’d seen in him, again?
Her gaze collided with his and her brain backfired a few times. Oh, yes. Now she remembered. She used to really be into the tall, dark, and silent type. She’d mistakenly believed they had a connection on some higher level. That they could read each other’s thoughts. That they were perfectly in tune.
What a crock. Thank God she’d outgrown those ridiculous fantasies.
She knew better than to argue in front of children, however—a skill Tall, Dark, and Surly should learn.
“Do you know where Mrs. Penney’s classroom is?” she asked Mac.
“She showed it to me when Uncle Jake brought us to see the school.” He grabbed his little brother by the sleeve of his jersey. “Come on, Finn. Quit being a baby.”
She straightened and watched the boys pass through wide, double steel doors propped open to welcome the sun. Any minute now, the first bell would ring and there’d be a stampede.
Those poor, poor little guys. She folded her arms across her chest and rounded on Jake. He had a lot to deal with, but these were children. “You’re a little rough on Mac, don’t you think?”
Jake’s thoughts were a mystery, locked up tight from the world. And from her. If she’d overstepped, she couldn’t tell.
“He’s the man of the family now. He’s got to be strong. His little brother and sister will look to him for an example,” Jake said.
Lacey was speechless. How cold was that? Then, she found her tongue. “He just lost his mother and father. His whole world’s been destroyed.”
Jake’s jaw muscles tightened, signaling a direct hit on her part. He swallowed twice before he replied. “We’ve all suffered a loss. And we’re all coping as best we can.”
Tears of remorse bit at the backs of her eyes at the look on his face. She wished she could take the words back. She longed to apologize for being too quick to speak, but anything she said now would only make matters worse. He was proud. He wouldn’t want pity.
The playground had too many ears straining to hear, so
she dialed her sympathy back and kept her tone light and professional.
“I’m very sorry for your loss. I can’t imagine how hard it must be. Your parents and sister were lovely people. Your mother was always so kind to me. But Mac is a child and you’re the adult. You’re the one who’s going to have to be strong.”
Jake’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. His thick black lashes dipped to half-mast. “I have three children and two younger brothers all counting on me to lead by example. Believe me. I man up every morning.” He backed up a few steps. His gaze had a chokehold on hers. “I’ll be back to collect the boys after school.”
He tipped his hat and turned away. Those long legs carried him across the playground. A breeze flattened his Henley against his broad back, outlining ripples of muscle. Tight buttocks flexed with each stride.
Lacey hugged herself against the remnants of a regret she hadn’t known was still there. Not until today. If he’d been more in touch with his feelings, and she a shade less with hers, things might have been different.
But fifteen years had gone by. They’d grown up. Their lives had taken different paths and they didn’t know each other anymore. These days they were strangers—and she’d do well to keep it that way. Jake came with baggage, and if history offered up any lessons, number one was that he’d keep those bags tightly locked and off-limits.
The bell rang. Lacey followed the swarm of children inside, hurrying the last of the stragglers along like wayward sheep, and closed the heavy steel doors behind her.
Find out what happens next…
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More books by Paula Altenburg
A Sweetheart Brand series
Book 1: Her Sweetheard Brand
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Book 2: Branded with a Kiss
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Book 3: Branded by Firelight
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The Rancher's Proposal (The Montana McGregor Brothers Book 3) Page 17