The Rancher Takes a Family

by Paula Altenburg

  “I know you do, bud. But I’ll have to do. I’ll be home as soon as I can.” His heart was pounding so hard it pulsed against the top of his head. Lacey, upright beside him, slid her hand into his.

  Luke’s voice crackled a command over the line. “Stay right where you are. No need to disrupt everyone’s night. Finn will be fine. He’s already stopped howling.”

  If he’d wanted Jake to stay put, he shouldn’t have called. Now Jake had to see for himself. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

  He tossed the phone on the bed and began searching the floor in the dark for his shorts.

  “You can turn the light on,” Lacey said. “But you might want to think this through. Are you sure rushing home is the right thing to do?”

  Jake found the light switch, then his shorts. His underwear was under the bed. How that happened, he couldn’t imagine. Well, maybe he could.

  “Who are you, and what have you done with Lacey?” he asked.

  “I’m serious, Jake.” She was all mussed from sleep, her eyes drowsy in the low light from the lamp, the sheet pulled up prim and proper as she tried to go schoolteacher on him. “Finn needs to figure out that not everyone he loves is going to leave him.”

  He had no choice in the matter. “This isn’t about love. This is about security. He’s afraid the people who take care of him are all going to disappear.”

  “He’s not going to feel more secure by you rushing home to him.” She tucked the sheets tighter under her arms. She was on her knees in the middle of the bed. “You’re teaching him how to control you. You already let him sleep with you.”

  “How did you—” Jake might not be as smart as Luke, but it didn’t take long for him to figure out how she knew that. “The baby monitor.” He had to remember to turn that damned thing off, too. He dragged his half-buttoned shirt on over his head and jammed his arms in the sleeves. He’d meant it when he said he wanted their being together to be about the two of them and nothing else, but it didn’t mean he got to delegate responsibilities at home. “I’m sure you mean well, but I think I know my own nephew. A few courses in child behavior don’t make you an expert.”

  He should not have said that.

  Lacey sucked in a breath—whether from anger or hurt, he wasn’t sure.

  “I never said I’m an expert. I’m telling you what my experience has been. I’ve had students starting kindergarten who suffered from severe separation anxiety.”

  But those children’s parents weren’t dead.

  He had the sense to keep that thought to himself, though. He leaned across the bed and kissed her, then kissed her again, a little slower and with a lot more regret. He traced a finger from the base of her throat to the edge of the sheet wrapped over her breasts.

  He gave the sheet a light tug. “I’ll make this up to you. I promise.”

  “Jake! This isn’t about me. There’s nothing for you to make up. I want you to think this through. That’s it.”

  Everyone thought they knew what he should do. Why couldn’t he make up his own mind? What was so wrong with the decisions he made?

  He kept that to himself, too. He wasn’t ending their first evening together on a fight.

  She followed him from the bedroom to the front door, the sheet draped toga-style around her. Half of it dragged on the floor. In the small entry that faced the darkened living room and a shadowy glass garden door, he stopped for one last goodbye.

  He wanted her so badly—not for a night here and there, but as part of his life—that his whole body ached with it, and he couldn’t have her. Not yet. Not the way things currently stood. Not when he couldn’t give her the attention she deserved.

  She caught his cheeks between her palms and pulled his face down to her level, then kissed him, the soft tip of her tongue teasing the underside of his lip. The sheet slipped to the floor.

  And okay. Maybe Finn could wait a few minutes longer.

  He backed her against the wall, gripped the cheeks of her ass in his hands, and lifted her until she could wrap her legs around him. She had one hand inside his shorts and her fingers around him. He supported her weight with one knee while he helped her unzip his fly. His shorts bunched at his thigh, but at least he was free. She rubbed her palm up and down the underside of his erection. He fumbled a condom from his wallet and handed it to her, dropped the wallet, then lowered his foot to the floor. With both hands holding her, he ran his thumb along the damp crease between her legs while she got the condom on him.

  He thrust inside her, careful and slow, until she was writhing and panting and pleading for more. He quickened the pace, losing himself in the blissful sensations. She was so hot and tight, and despite this being their third round of the evening, he didn’t think he could hold out.

  Luckily for him, she couldn’t, either. She arched her back into the wall, pushing against him and taking him deeper, then froze. Her fingers bit into his shoulders. She cried out his name as tiny, inner muscles squeezed around him. Orgasmic pulses of pleasure rippled the length of his erection. He shuddered as he came with her, groaning against the side of her throat.

  He held her, a ragdoll in his arms, her head resting on his, both of them leaning into the wall for support, until his brain cells regrouped and his vision returned.

  Her chest rose and fell against his. The room was hot and dark, and filled with the raspy sounds of their breathing. His shorts had dropped to his knees. His shirttail was bunched around his waist in the front. It covered his bared ass behind him. Sweat dampened the fabric across his shoulders. A swath of Lacey’s long hair stuck to his cheek.

  He couldn’t believe what he’d done. He’d had women in his truck. And in motels, because he was a single man who’d lived with his parents up until six weeks ago. He’d even had women outdoors. But never, not once, up against a wall when there was a bed only a few feet away.

  Or in such record time. He didn’t know whether to be embarrassed or proud.

  “That,” Lacey whispered huskily, her breath tickling his ear, her arms limp around his neck, her legs still encircling his waist, “was incredible.”

  She sounded content, so he went with proud.

  He carefully separated them and lowered her to the floor. It took a few minutes to dispose of the used condom. When he returned to the front door, she was waiting for him under the harsh glare of the overhead light. She’d pulled on her tank top, going braless beneath it, and the sky-blue, frilly panties he liked. She’d fastened her mass of tousled hair into the same sloppy topknot from a few hours ago. The blunt tips stuck out from under the elastic in every direction.

  As much as he wanted to, he didn’t dare kiss her goodbye again. A fourth round wouldn’t entirely be out of the question and he was already late getting home. His watch said it was creeping on toward two thirty.

  Which also meant the third round really had been far too fast.

  “I’ll call you tomorrow,” he said. Because a phone call would make up for everything.

  Right.

  “You’d better.” She jabbed a finger into his chest. “Because tag. You’re it.”

  *

  Jake tiptoed into the barn, one hand covering the beam of his flashlight, to find Luke in one sleeping bag with a sweaty-haired Finn in another beside him. Both of them were out cold, most likely from exhaustion.

  He parted his fingers to let out a little more light as he searched for the third camper. Mac hadn’t been allowed to sleep in the stall with his horse, so he’d spread his bag in front of the wooden gate.

  He was awake.

  “Hi, Uncle Jake,” he whispered.

  “Hey.” Jake hunkered down on his heels next to his nephew. It had to be upsetting for Mac, too, when Finn cried for their parents. At least now he had a distraction. “How’s Thunder?”

  “Finn scared him by being such a baby. I told him if he didn’t knock it off, he didn’t get to pat him.”

  Did Mac know he sometimes cried in his sleep, too? If so, it was plain he
didn’t plan to admit it.

  Jake flicked the thin beam of light into the stall. The foal was curled up with its long legs tucked underneath it and appeared to be sleeping as soundly as Luke and Finn. All was good here. He should have listened to Lacey. And to Luke.

  He wasn’t about to admit anything, either.

  “Thunder seems fine,” he said to Mac. “Mind if I sleep in the house for the rest of the night?”

  “Nope.” Mac settled into his sleeping bag and closed his eyes.

  Jake checked in on Lydia, who was asleep on her knees in her crib, with her diaper-padded butt in the air. How she could sleep like that without hurting herself was one of life’s greater mysteries.

  He crawled into his own bed, which was yawningly spacious, and slept like the dead.

  He woke up starving. All he’d had for supper was pie.

  Not that he was complaining.

  The bright crack of light separating the twin curtain panels warned he’d likely missed breakfast, and the house rule was that anyone who wasn’t at the table when food was served, or who wasn’t working, had to fend for themselves.

  The clock warned him that, although it was late by his standards, it was too early to call Lacey and let her know everything was okay. He’d wait until after he’d eaten.

  The kitchen was empty when he wandered in. Zack had left three English muffin breakfast sandwiches stuffed with eggs, bacon, and cheese on the counter next to a note with his name scrawled on it, however.

  I took Lydia out for a walk.

  Jake picked up the note and turned it over, but that was the entire message.

  He wolfed down one of the sandwiches, then took another with him as he headed for the barn to see how things were this morning.

  Luke lounged in a folding lawn chair in the middle of the barn aisle between the split rows of stalls. He was on his laptop, Mac was in the stall with Thunder, and Finn was playing with kittens that some sadist—probably Luke—had trapped in an old cardboard box for his mauling pleasure. Feral cats kept the rodent population in the barns under control so the Wagging Tongue usually left them alone, but these kittens would likely end up at the local vet’s to be fixed. After that, they’d go up for adoption.

  “I can’t believe you came home,” Luke said, peering over the top of a pair of black-framed computer glasses he wore when he was working. His tone added you dumb jackass.

  Jake wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of being right, so he ignored him.

  “Hey, Mac,” he said to his nephew instead.

  Mac waved a hand at him over the stall rail. “Uncle Luke says we can take Thunder into the paddock later today and introduce him to the other horses.”

  Jake had no problem with that. Horses were social animals and the sooner the adults accepted the new foal the better for it, but since it didn’t appear to be suffering anxiety after being separated from its mates at the sale, even if socializing didn’t work out it should be fine.

  He moved on toward Finn, his real objective.

  Finn was a hard kid to figure out. Lacey was right, he could be manipulative, but at five, his career as a hustler was at least a decade away. Until then, Jake was picking his battles.

  He crouched down, planting one knee on the concrete floor next to the boy, and peered into the box. “Watcha got there, Finn?”

  “Kittens,” Finn said. He grabbed one by the neck and lifted it up to show him.

  Jesus, Luke. A little adult supervision could well save a life, over here.

  “Easy, bud. Not like that. Be gentle. You’ll choke it. Let me show you how to pick it up and hold it so you don’t hurt it.”

  Jake plucked it out of the boy’s hand and cradled it in the palm of his, checking it over to make sure it was okay. The kittens were small, their eyes barely open, and they had the fuzzy, new-kitten smell that tickled the nose. The one Finn had been loving to death had a soft, pale gray coat with white markings.

  Fortunately, kittens were tough. Once Jake was convinced Finn planned on being more careful, he let him be. The mother would take care of her babies once he got tired of playing with them—which, in Jake’s experience, wouldn’t take long.

  Everything was in order out here. He’d head back to the house and give Lacey a call. He tried not to think of how he’d come home for no reason when he could have spent the whole night and this morning with her.

  The baby stroller was parked by the front steps. Zack and Lydia must be back from their walk. Inside, a fussy Lydia gnawed on her fist as she rammed her makeshift walker into the wall. Watery green stuff dripped down both chubby legs from under her shorts and dampened the back of her blue, terrycloth tee all the way to her armpits. She reeked worse than an overflowing manure pit at high noon on the hottest day of the year.

  He covered his nose with his elbow. She’d had quite the explosion—which explained why Zack was throwing up in the bathroom under the stairs.

  Jake took a deep breath through his sleeve before lifting her from her walker. She scrunched up her face as if to say she couldn’t stand the smell, either.

  “Come on, Lyds,” he said, holding her at arm’s length in front of him. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”

  Then, he’d call Lacey.

  *

  Lacey grabbed the phone off the counter and answered on the first ring without looking because Jake had said he would call and it was now late afternoon. Talk about keeping a girl waiting.

  “May I speak with Lacey Anderson?”

  Lacey didn’t recognize the woman’s voice. A tiny tingle of alarm went off in her head.

  “Speaking.”

  It was the hospital in Billings. Lacey listened with growing panic. Her brother Clayton had been dragged around the arena after a fall while stunt riding. He was unconscious, with multiple broken bones and internal injuries, and he’d listed her as his next of kin. She should come at once. Clayton, you idiot.

  Stunt riding.

  He’d always tried so hard to win Blue’s approval. Even now, when the two men were no longer speaking, he couldn’t seem to let the need go.

  “I’ll be there as soon as I can,” Lacey managed to say.

  She didn’t want to go alone. The two-hour drive was beyond her. Her fingers felt numb as she tried to find Jake’s number in her contact list. Then she stopped. She couldn’t call him. Not for something like this. He was still dealing with his own family tragedy. He didn’t need her adding hers to it. They didn’t have the kind of relationship where they could lean on each other. They weren’t at that point.

  She found her friend Mara’s number and called her, instead.

  “I’ll be right there,” Mara said.

  While Lacey changed her clothes and found her purse, she began to wonder if calling Mara had been a mistake, too. How thoughtless of her. Her friend had broken her leg skiing last year, effectively ending a promising dance career. She’d been a backup dancer for one of the hot new pop stars coming out of LA. She might not want this reminder, either.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Mara said when Lacey brought it up in the car and tried to apologize for being so inconsiderate. “What are friends for? Do you think I’d rather you go alone? Besides, I’m fine.”

  Mara Ramos was one of the most beautiful people Lacey knew, both inside and out. She gave a whole new meaning to the word “chill.” She accepted everyone on their own terms. A Dutch mother and Mexican father left her with a combination of light blue eyes, dark hair, and warm, golden skin that guaranteed wherever she went, heads turned—men, women, and children’s alike. They’d met through a school program because Mara offered dance lessons at a group rate to students. Little girls had taken one look at her, felt the vibe she gave off, fallen in love, and signed up in droves.

  But why Mara chose to live in Grand when she could be anywhere in the world remained a mystery to Lacey.

  She’d once asked and all she’d gotten was a shrug and “I like the people here” for a response.

  Sinc
e Lacey liked the people here too, it was a good enough reason for her. She simply didn’t believe it was the main one.

  Mara drove with the speed and confidence of someone who’d maneuvered through traffic in major cities all over Europe and North America, not to mention a few third-world hotspots suffering from high congestion and a lack of respect for any rules. They made it to Billings in record time.

  When Lacey arrived in Clayton’s room, he was conscious. Bandages covered his limbs and his head. One arm was in traction. He took one look at her and got his back up to go with it.

  “Get the hell out of here,” he slurred.

  “Nice to see you, too,” Lacey said. “Although you’ve looked better.”

  She’d stopped at the nursing station and gotten a more complete report on his condition. He’d be out of commission for months, but at least he had insurance. She’d been prepared to help him out with that if necessary, but it wasn’t.

  Plus, there was a pretty blonde hovering in the waiting area who’d been trying her best to overhear what the nurse had to say. She’d looked anxious, and as if she’d been crying, and Lacey was willing to bet that for whatever stupid reason, Clayton had asked the nurses to turn her away.

  She helped herself to the single chair in her brother’s room. If he’d known they’d called her, he would have asked them to keep her out, too. But he was the one who’d listed her as his next of kin, so he could accept the blame for her being here.

  “Save your big sister lectures for someone who cares,” he said.

  The words came out garbled, but that was what she assumed he said, and she sighed. He was twenty-eight. She’d hoped he’d grown up since she’d last seen him, but it seemed he hadn’t.

  She stayed long enough to reassure herself that he was going to live. But he didn’t need money, he didn’t need help, and he claimed he didn’t need her. He refused to talk. There wasn’t much else she could do.

  “Don’t call Mom,” he said when she got up to leave. “I don’t want her and that asshole Blue here, either.”

  Lacey sympathized. Neither would she if she were in his position. But their mother should know that her only son was in the hospital, and Lacey hadn’t made up her mind as to whether or not it was her place to tell her.