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.
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.
Chapter Two
Just when Jake thought his life was beginning to sort itself out, the universe threw Lacey Anderson into the mix.
Seeing her messed with his hand-eye coordination so much that it took him two tries to get the key in the ignition of the ranch’s ancient Dodge Ram. He hadn’t known she’d moved back to Grand.
He could be grateful for one thing. If she hadn’t arrived when she did and gone all warrior princess on him, he might have loaded the boys in the truck, taken them home, and arranged for home schooling, like Zack had suggested.
Which would have done no one any good. Everyone needed to find their new normal. He just wished Mac and Finn were as easy to figure out as their baby sister. All Lyddie wanted was food and attention.
He’d had another reason for sending the two boys off to school, however. This afternoon he and his brothers were sitting down with the Wagging Tongue’s lawyer for the reading of Liam McGregor’s will. Jake was worried about it—not that he minded sharing an inheritance with his brothers, but rather, he was afraid their vision for the future wouldn’t match what he and Dad had been working toward. They’d invested heavily. Dad had been on the right side of sixty and in roaring good health. No one had foreseen this disaster.
He forced himself not to go back and check on the boys one last time to make sure they got settled. They had to learn to stand on their own. He distracted himself with wide hazel eyes, as stubborn and judgmental as he remembered, as he cut right onto Marion Street and left the school grounds behind him instead. Nostalgia, part bitter, part sweet, bit him on the ass.
He hadn’t thought about Lacey, or how she’d once broken his heart, in ages. She’d made such a big deal about going with him to his senior prom, but that sort of thing wasn’t his idea of a good time. She’d wanted the night to be special—for him, so she’d claimed—so he’d rented a tuxedo, planned a dinner for two, and cordoned off their mother’s garden at the back of the house for an evening of private dancing. His throat constricted. Liz had helped him set up the table and string tiny white lights.
Looking back, he could see that his mistake had been in telling Lacey he had to help his dad out, when in reality he was going to arrive at her house unannounced and whisk her away. Instead, she’d gotten all snippy about it, and rather than sitting home like he’d counted on, she’d gone to the prom with his former friend, Rob.
Jake owned it. He’d been a little too slick. Lacey wasn’t the type of girl to sit home and wait for a guy. Liz had tried to warn him of that. “She’s already bought a dress. She’ll want to have her hair done to go with it. She’s not going to be happy if you show up in a tux and she’s wearing sweats and her hair’s a mess.”
His eighteen-year-old self had been so confident it wouldn’t matter to Lacey. She was beautiful no matter how she was dressed, or what she did to her hair. She knew it, too.
His thirty-three-year-old self recognized what a dumbass that eighteen-year-old had been. Now that he had a few more relationships under his belt, he understood that women liked to reinforce their appearance with pretty clothes, fancy hairdos, and makeup, and that a compliment or two from him on their efforts wasn’t remiss. He freely admitted that, yes. He did appreciate the extra effort ladies put into it when it came to their looks.
But when it came to women, his real weakness remained warrior princesses. Lacey had broken Rob’s nose the night of the prom—served the bastard right—and never said a word about why, although it wasn’t hard to figure out. He’d been confident enough in her feelings for him, and enough in love with her, that he was going to get past the whole goddamned miscommunication fiasco no matter how angry he was, so he’d let it go. But only with her. Once Rob’s nose healed, Jake had kicked his ass. Rob left Grand shortly after and never returned.
And Lacey, who Jake had been so confident of, had dumped him.
Damn.
It still stung.
It didn’t help that she’d grown even prettier over the past dozen or so years. Her wide hazel eyes and the faint sprinkle of freckles on her perky nose that brought out the country in her hadn’t changed, but the overall package had matured in meaningful ways. She’d rounded out in all the right places. He liked her chestnut-brown hair tied up in a high ponytail that curled at the tip and swung back and forth when she moved. The cute, buttercup-yellow dress with the knee-length, swirly skirt managed to look schoolmarmish and sexy at the same time. Suede half-boots and long legs might have something to do with that. Not to mention the smile… He’d grinned back at her like he’d suffered some sort of brain trauma.
And she’d made Finn’s face light up for the first time since Jake broke the news that his parents weren’t coming home.
Jake almost missed the turnoff to the ranch and applied the brakes a touch too hard. He rubbed his thumbs on the cracked steering wheel. He didn’t know what to do about the boys. Neither did Luke or Zack, despite their constant barrage of well-intended but unsolicited advice. Luke wanted to put Finn in dance lessons. Zack thought Lydia should go to a sitter a few times a week and get to know other little girls.
Jake was okay with the sitter. That suggestion wasn’t half bad, even if Lydia wasn’t yet two and not exactly in need of a social life. But dance lessons for a little boy?
Come on. Luke’s fancy degree had turned him into a city slicker with overly progressive ideas for a small town like Grand. Signing Finn up for dance lessons meant they’d also have to teach him to fight.
Jake perked up a bit. There was a thought. Finn was a scrappy little guy, and kickboxing might be a good way for Mac to burn off some of his pent-up aggression, as well. The truck tires hummed on the pavement that curved along the banks of the Tongue River. Sunlight skipped across the water. Since Luke and Zack were always looking for ways to contribute, he’d ask Luke to check into kickboxing lessons for the boys. Zack could scout around for daycare options for Lyddie.
Not right away, though. Jake liked strolling into the house at lunchtime to be greeted by her pearly-toothed smile. The soft tuft of blond hair that stuck straight up on the top of her head made him laugh. The boys had both started out with blond hair like that too, so it was hard to say what color Lyddie’s would end up as. Red, like Finn and her mother? Or dark, like Mac and her dad?
Jake didn’t care. Either way, she was a doll.
The McGregors also needed a housekeeper. The problem with that one was money. Jake and his dad had recently expanded the business to include an anaerobic digestion biomass power plant, then installed a robotic milking system for two hundred head of dairy. What with funeral expenses and mounting lawyer bills, and five part-time ranch hands on the payroll already, there wasn’t a whole lot of loose change to spare. Liz and Blair had left a trust account for the care of the kids, but Jake wasn’t touching that. Luke and Zack, who’d never been too enthused about ranching anyway, would have to fill the housekeeping role for the summer.
Behind the ranch buildings, beef cattle roamed rugged terrain for miles. In the 1800s, the Tongue River had made a convenient watering hole for Wagging Tongue livestock. It meandered gently along a broad, flat plain before draining into Yellowstone River. These days, water for the ranch’s thousand-odd head of beef was diverted by pipes from the Tongue into large earthen storage tanks and troughs.
The Wagging Tongue kept its dairy cattle pastured closer to home.
Liz’s kids would be the seventh generation of McGregors to live here. Never mind that their last name was Williams. They’d be raised as McGregors. Their dad Blair didn’t have any family other than an alcoholic mother with too much money and too little interest in children. She’d been more than happy to hand the kids over when Jake arrived.
He loped up the front steps of the house, anxious to change into coveralls and get out to the barn. He heard thumping and banging on the other side of the door, so he eased it open with care.
Zack had fashioned a playpen out of an old crate, put casters on it, and Lydia was happily pushing it around the wide front entry that branched off the kitchen. Jake had to admit it was a clever contraption. She couldn’t knock it over, she couldn’t climb the stairs in the entry that led to the second level, she couldn’t reach the knobs on the gas stove in the kitchen, and yet she had freedom to roam.
She was also alone. He closed the door and assessed the situation. Luke was likely in the office he’d set up for himself at the back of the house. He’d made arrangements to work remotely for the summer and he kept business hours.
But where was Zack, who was supposed to be keeping an eye on her?
Lydia lost interest in her mini mosh pit the second she caught sight of Jake. Her arms shot above her head and her pink T-shirt rode up, showing off a muffin top.
“Up, up, up, up, up,” she chanted, all pucker-lipped, drooly-chinned, and imperious.
When it came to the men in her life, she had no favorites. All three uncles and her oldest brother were wrapped tight around her little finger, hers to command. The only anarchist was Finn, and even he came running if he heard her cry.
Her bare, chubby legs churned as Jake swung her high, and then blew raspberries on her belly to make her laugh. He patted her bottom. Her diaper felt suspiciously full. A sniff test confirmed it, and explained why Zack had gone rogue. Changing dirty diapers made him gag, the big sissy. He’d probably made a run for it the second he heard the truck pull into the yard.
The Rancher Takes a Family Page 2