The Rancher Takes a Family

by Paula Altenburg

  Ranch life was going to be so good for the kids. He’d see to it. Lydia would never know anything else and New York would be a hazy memory to Finn within a year.

  Mac was the one who worried him most. He’d put a lot of thought into it. He wasn’t going to knock Lacey’s insistence that therapy was the way to go, but he believed the ranch could provide it equally well, and he had something in mind.

  “Want to go to the horse sale in Billings with me next weekend?” he asked.

  “I have soccer practice, remember?”

  “After that. You’re done by ten. Luke or Zack can take Mac home. We’d be in Billings by lunch. We can make a day out of it.”

  She stroked a finger along the sole of Lydia’s foot. The toddler’s toes curled in a flexor response, but Lydia was sliding fast into sleep and the response was instinctive, not conscious.

  “I’m going to be Mac’s teacher next year. It might not be a good idea for me to become too involved in his home life.”

  Yes, he could see how that might be a concern. But he could also tell that she was tempted. Maybe his thirty-three-year-old self could succeed where the idiot he’d been at eighteen had mucked everything up. “There’s no need for Mac to know.”

  “Why not take him instead?”

  “Because I’m selfish, I guess. I’d rather take a pretty girl with me.”

  She studied his face, then the sleeping child in his arms. “Selfish is the last thing I’d call you.”

  He was when it came to Lacey. He’d seen the look in the other man’s eyes when he caught them at the café together. Whatever their relationship was, it wasn’t casual. Not on Neil Pierce’s part.

  And Jake decided he didn’t care. He wanted this chance to get to know her again. To see how much of the girl he’d once dated remained, and in what ways she’d grown. So far, he liked what he saw.

  He had to do it without dragging Mac into the mix, however. If things didn’t work out, Mac shouldn’t be caught in the middle.

  “Come with me,” he said.

  Chapter Six

  Jake McGregor cradling a baby was a sight to behold.

  Lacey had assumed wrestling steers would be more his style—particularly after witnessing the way he interacted with his young nephews on their first day of school.

  Little Miss Lydia, whose cuteness was off the charts, was going to be coddled in a way her brothers would not. Talk about a double standard. Jake would pay for spoiling her in a few years.

  Blue—her stepfather—had made a similar mistake. Lacey and her mother had been princesses, given whatever they wanted, whereas Clayton—her little brother—had been made to work like a man.

  No wonder Clay refused to speak to them anymore. She’d done her best to stand up for him because their mother refused to see the emotional damage Blue was doing, but in the end, it wasn’t enough. Why did men have to be so hard on each other?

  Why hadn’t Jake stepped in to help Mac?

  What was she doing here with him when his life was a wreck?

  She’d been so in love with him once that it made perfect sense she’d be drawn to him now. The attraction remained. It was mutual, too. But they weren’t kids anymore and they both had responsibilities. Jake had a problem child on his hands and Lacey was going to be that child’s teacher. Under normal circumstances it might not matter so much.

  Right now, it mattered. A lot.

  She drew the lapels of her denim jacket together, even though the night was muggy and warm. The lazy waters of the nearby Tongue River kept the air flowing through the Wagging Tongue humid in spite of the drought.

  She’d wanted to see him tonight because she’d come looking for flaws. She had to stop crushing on him. He couldn’t possibly be perfect. Yet, so far, all she’d found was a frustrating ability to shut off his feelings that she’d already known of and still drove her crazy. It only added to his appeal—which kind of indicated the flaw wasn’t with him.

  The warm interest in Jake’s gaze fizzled away.

  “If you don’t want to, it’s okay to say no. I didn’t mean to push,” he said, his eyes steady on hers overtop of Lydia’s head.

  “I want to,” Lacey admitted. “But I’d feel too guilty. You should take Mac. Maybe do a little male bonding.” Don’t make the same mistake Blue did.

  One of Jake’s too infrequent smiles flared into existence, knocking a few of her brain cells out of alignment. When he’d walked across the soccer field that morning, and all the moms had stopped to admire him, he’d looked hot. The black hair, the green eyes, and the snug-fitting, broken-in jeans were a hard combination for any woman to resist. Toss in his smile, and the way he held a baby, and she’d crumble for sure.

  Handsome cowboys were as common as milkweed in Montana. Ones who’d take on three orphaned children and love them like their own, though?

  In her experience, those men were rare. Jake was showing real promise.

  “Believe me, there’s no need to feel guilty. The kid’s getting a horse out of the deal,” he said.

  “You’re buying Mac his own horse?” The surprises kept coming. “Does he even know how to ride?”

  “I’m not buying a horse for him to ride. I’m looking at one of the foals coming to the sale from an outfit in Texas. I figure it will give Mac something that’s all his to take care of. They can grow up together.”

  She wanted so much to say yes and go to Billings with him.

  Before she could give in to temptation, however, the baby let out one of those full-body sighs that said she’d passed out from exhaustion and was down for the count.

  “I should put Lydia back to bed,” Jake said. “Don’t go anywhere.”

  He cradled the baby’s head against his shoulder and rose with an air of experience that had Lacey’s hormones acting up. Why wouldn’t they be?

  She was over thirty. Plus, she’d taken up teaching because she loved children. She was ready for one or two of her own. And Jake was ticking the boxes.

  The screen door swung closed, leaving her alone on the stoop. A train rattled through Grand in the distance, the sound of the wheels on the tracks carrying so clearly up the river it might have been in the front yard. Only the lack of any vibration gave it away.

  She should never have broken up with him. She saw that now. She’d been a stupid, spoiled, immature girl who’d tried to get him to prove he loved her by catering to her every whim. She’d expected it because that was what the men in her life did. The way he’d looked at her—the way he’d given her his undivided attention—should have been enough. She hadn’t believed he’d walk away without looking back, but he had.

  The fault was hers. She hadn’t been ready for him.

  Now, he wasn’t ready for her. He had enough on his plate. She should step away, give him space, and see where things stood this time next year, when Mac was no longer her student and Jake had his home life in order.

  The baby monitor crackled. Jake had left it behind.

  “Sweet dreams, Lyddie.”

  The craggy, low tone of his voice crackled from the tiny speaker and trickled over her skin. Lacey could picture him as he stood over the crib, tucking a blanket around the little girl. It was obvious he’d forgotten about the baby monitor, because next, he began to sing. It was terrible, and off-key, and he didn’t know the words to the song.

  It was so, so incredibly sweet.

  “Hush, little baby, don’t say a word. Jakie’s gonna buy you…something or other. What the h-heck. Do you want a pony too, Lyds? A pony for you, and a pony for you, and a pony for you… Enough with the ponies. This is a working enterprise we’re running. Animals have to earn their keep. How about I buy you something useful, like a nice Brown Swiss heifer calf, instead?”

  How cute was that?

  She heard muffled movement, as if Jake were trying to be quiet while sneaking out of the room. Then, she heard a second voice—this one sleepy, stubborn, and with a querulous vibe to it.

  “I wanna sleep with you
.”

  Jake started out firm. “You know the rules, Finn. You have to stay in your own bed at night.”

  “But I can’t sleep. I heard people outside.”

  “That was me. I talk to myself.”

  “I thought you were talking to Mommy.”

  He sounded so hopeful, the poor little boy. Lacey’s heart broke a little. She should turn the monitor off and mind her own business, but now, she was invested.

  “No, Finn. It wasn’t your mom. We’ve talked about that, remember?”

  “I want my mom.”

  “I know you do, bud. And I wish I could get her for you, but I can’t. Tell you what. You can sleep with Uncle Zack.”

  “I don’t want to sleep with Uncle Zack. He takes up the whole bed and hogs all the blankets.”

  “Why do you think I don’t want you sleeping with me?”

  Lacey stared hard at the monitor and silently rooted for Jake to stick to his guns, even though he was losing the battle. She could tell because it was obvious he’d lost it before.

  “Tell you what,” he said, caving in. “You put your pajamas on and you can sleep in my bed until I come upstairs for the night.”

  She tried to envision Jake—who stood a few inches over six feet and possessed the air of a man who could stare down a charging bull without flinching—reasoning with a stubborn, naked five-year-old, and couldn’t. Yet there it was.

  It would be hilarious if not for the sad circumstances behind it.

  She hugged her knees. The night air dribbled over her legs. She’d just learned more about him from eavesdropping than she had in the entire five months they’d dated. He couldn’t carry a tune. He watched daytime talk shows. He was buying one of his nephews a pet that had no other purpose than to make the boy happy.

  And he was a huge softie who had a far better grasp of children and their needs than she’d given him credit for. He hadn’t gotten at all impatient with Finn. He’d dealt with the question about Finn’s mother with honesty, then steered the conversation in another direction. Best of all, he was about to let a little boy who missed his mommy sleep with him rather than go all macho and tell him to “be a man,” as she’d half expected.

  More movement crackled over the monitor, then the quiet rumble of indistinct conversation as he got Finn settled in, before finally, hurried footsteps on the stairs.

  “Sorry about that,” he said, easing the screen door shut behind him, wafting the soft, spicy scent of his aftershave in her direction. “Finn was awake.”

  He didn’t offer up anything more, so Lacey couldn’t say for certain whether or not he knew she’d been eavesdropping, but she didn’t think so.

  “I don’t mind,” she said.

  He didn’t suggest they go inside, which was fine. It was nice out here on the stoop—just the two of them under the stars, with the soft sounds of Lydia sucking her thumb in her sleep the only noise to disturb them. Normally Lacey had a tendency to try and fill any silence, but with Jake, she found she could sit and simply enjoy the peacefulness of the evening and his quiet presence.

  It had always been like this. He might not have been big on sharing his thoughts or his feelings, but the flip side was that he never seemed to get rattled. She’d dated a few boys after him, and in college there’d been one serious affair with a teaching assistant that she’d thought might lead to more, but she’d never quite found this same thing.

  How could she have forgotten this quiet sense of peace and contentment he seemed to create?

  Or had she simply chosen not to remember?

  He wasn’t going to ask her to go to Billings with him again, but that was okay. She had another suggestion.

  She reached for his hand and linked their fingers together. She gave his a squeeze. “How about you take Mac to Billings and let him pick out his own horse, then call me when you get home and come to my place for a late dinner?”

  “It’s a Saturday night. I’ll have to check with Luke and Zack first to make sure they don’t already have plans.” He scrawled heat across the back of her hand with the scratchy pad of his thumb. “Just so we’re on the same page. We’re making a date, right?”

  “We are.”

  “And we’re keeping Mac out of it? We don’t want him to know that I’m seeing his teacher?”

  “We don’t,” she confirmed. “In fact, we should probably keep things 100 percent to ourselves. No PDAs. Teachers dating parents—or guardians—isn’t something the school necessarily approves of.”

  She’d never dated a student’s parent before. It was weird to think of Jake as having kids. But he did. So he had to worry about Mac and she had to protect her reputation. She liked her job.

  “PDAs?” he queried.

  Oh, Jake… He should get out more. Instead, for the unforeseeable future, he’d be getting out less. “Public displays of affection?”

  “I see. I need to keep my hands to myself.” He nodded in agreement, as if she’d had a real reason to worry about him making a spectacle of himself. “Since we’re stressing over public opinion… Is there anything I should know about this other guy you’ve been seeing?”

  No way. They had enough strikes against them already. They weren’t going to add any more by comparing stories about the people they’d dated since high school. Even though Jake had never been the jealous type—that story about him waiting for Rob Leslie’s nose to heal was too ridiculous for words—no good would come out of it.

  “Only that we aren’t seeing each other anymore.”

  The light stroke of Jake’s thumb slowed to a halt. “But you were still seeing him the night we met at the Wayside Café for coffee.”

  She was and she wasn’t. The distinction was a little too fine to explain. She’d worried that she might have hurt Neil, but as it turned out, she’d worried for nothing. His ego had taken a hit, but other than that, he seemed fine. Whenever they met up in the staff lounge at school, he treated her the same way he always had.

  “Does it matter?”

  “Grand is a small place, and if I’m cutting in on another man’s territory, I’d like to know what to expect if he and I ever bump into each other.”

  PDAs and now this. He was a throwback to the Old West. If she asked him, he could likely recite the cowboy code of ethics—his version, of course.

  He was also buying one nephew a foal and allowing the other to sleep with him. Her job was worth risking for that.

  “Another man’s territory… What century were you born in?” She gave him a friendly shove with her shoulder, tipping him against the stair railing, but only because he allowed it. It was like pushing a solid brick wall. He straightened one leg for balance, bracing his heel into the step. “I’m inviting you to dinner. You’re not planting a ‘sold’ sign on my lawn,” she added. “Besides, he accepted a teaching position in Billings for the fall and he’s apartment hunting right now, so bumping into him isn’t likely to happen.”

  The corner of Jake’s mouth twitched. “Then as long as Luke or Zack can keep the kids for me, dinner it is. I’ll be sure and leave the ‘sold’ sign at home.”

  “It’s late. I’d better be going.”

  She said it to be polite, because it really was getting late, but she could sit here with him and his dry sense of humor all night.

  He didn’t move either. Light filtered through the narrow window next to the door behind them to fall a few inches shy of where they were sitting. Her bare thigh was pressed against the rough denim covering his. She still clutched his hand. How much more encouragement did she have to throw his way?

  “I’d like a point of reference. The kids are upstairs in bed and might or might not be asleep. My brothers could be home any minute. On a scale of one to ten—how public would you rate this?” he asked.

  Her heart and lungs did calisthenics. “Maybe a three at the most. But only because there’s a slight risk of discovery.”

  “I’ll take that chance.”

  His free hand slid under her hair an
d cupped the nape of her neck. He bent his head. She closed her eyes in anticipation. At some point, she’d stopped breathing. His lips grazed across hers in a gentle caress that left her dizzy with need.

  And that was it.

  Cool night air carrying the faint scent of dry grass seeped into the space the trace of mint and spice had vacated. She opened her eyes, aching with frustration. Kudos to Jake. Tall, Dark, and Brooding knew how to grab a woman’s attention.

  “On the off chance next Saturday doesn’t work out…” he said. “How would you feel about going fishing on the Tongue with me tomorrow afternoon? Before you suggest I take the boys,” he added, cutting her off at the pass, “Mac and Finn are going swimming with Luke, and Zack called dibs on Lydia. I have no idea what those two are doing. But it’s Sunday, and as it turns out, my afternoon’s free.”

  Lacey hadn’t been fishing in years. She couldn’t claim it had ever been high on her list of fun things to do either, and if she had to worm her own hook, they might have a problem.

  But this might be some sort of test and she really, really wanted to pass. She’d also have an afternoon with Jake all to herself and she wasn’t missing out on that.

  “I’d love to,” she said.

  *

  Water swirled around Jake’s thighs, the frothy current that cooled the insides of his chest waders at odds with the unseasonable blistering heat of the day. He had his arms around Lacey, who was in the river almost up to her waist, on the pretense of teaching her how to cast. He’d brought along an old pair of his mother’s waders for her to use.

  “Hold your line down with your thumb like this,” he said, showing her how to press the line against the rod. “Swing the rod back like this”—he drew her arms back—“then release it like this.”