The Rancher's Secret Love (The Montana McGregor Brothers Book 2)

by Paula Altenburg

  He wondered what she’d done to her leg, because no way dancing had done that type of damage.

  He found the toolbox in the storage room where she’d thought it might be. Fixing her door meant he’d be late getting back to the ranch, but he couldn’t imagine Diana being okay with her husband doing it. Mara was a young, stunningly beautiful woman and Randy wasn’t dead.

  Luke didn’t know what old man McKillop was thinking either, because no matter what her age or appearance, a woman living alone should have a door she could lock.

  He examined the main entry to the warehouse. The latch wasn’t catching, but the knob seemed to work. He’d have to take the door off, adjust the hinges, and rehang it. The strike plate on the frame needed to be widened, too. He could file that down easily enough. He was looking at an hour for the entire operation.

  Well, it couldn’t be helped. Jake’s hired hand could keep an eye on things in the barn until he arrived.

  He snagged his phone from his back pocket and called Zack. “Hey. I’ll be a few minutes late. I’m doing Diana a favor.”

  Zack’s voice crackled back, the reception distorted, most likely thanks to the decrepit steel siding on a building dating back to Grand’s pioneer days. “Whatever. Did you get my fennel?”

  Luke made a rude comment as to what Zack could do with his fennel as confirmation. The signal dropped before Zack could rebut and he tucked his phone away, grinning to himself over how it had to be killing Zack not to get in the last word.

  He caught sight of Mara descending the stairs and his grin faded away.

  She’d changed her clothes. Now she wore a pink T-shirt—the color appeared to be trending—and a long, flowing, multi-hued skirt that swirled alarmingly around her ankles and couldn’t possibly be safe on that mobile contraption. Her flat sandals appeared practical, at least. Thick, chocolate-brown hair licked with highlights of toffee swung between her shoulders. A patch of white gauze covered an elbow.

  She reached the warehouse floor without any mishaps and Luke let out the breath he’d been holding. He was going to speak to McKillop’s son, Ian, about the condition this building was in and ask him to convince his tightwad father to fork over the money to make some repairs.

  She crossed the floor toward him, almost as if she were floating. The slight limp took nothing away from the dancer’s grace of her movements. Cool blue eyes, so striking against the warm, honeyed hue of her skin, settled on him.

  “How is your fixing my door doing Diana a favor?” she asked.

  Damn. She’d overheard.

  She was maybe five feet five inches, at least eight inches shorter than he was, and she had to look up when she spoke to maintain eye contact, but she’d managed to make him feel six inches tall. He scrambled to come up with an explanation she might believe.

  “Do you have any brothers?” he asked.

  Two finely-shaped eyebrows went up. Meanwhile her eyes narrowed, ever so slightly. “No.”

  “Trust me, if you did, you wouldn’t want one of them up in your business, either. You’d lie to them, too. It was a lot easier than trying to explain how I ended up fixing a door for a beautiful woman I only just met.”

  He’d thrown in the compliment for good measure, but it was sincere. Mara—he didn’t even know her last name—was an eye-catching blend of Latina, and judging by her blue eyes and high-boned features, northern European.

  Denise’s face flashed into his head. They’d parted ways barely three days ago, and already here he was, admiring another woman.

  Heat churned in his stomach. He’d wanted what his parents had. The closeness. The private jokes. The way they’d looked at each other when they thought no one was paying attention. He would never have had that with Denise. He knew it. Had likely always known it. Her coming to Montana and leaving again had proven as much. He felt a lot of anger, maybe a wee flare of relief because going back to Seattle was one less problem he’d have to deal with, but not one iota of heartbreak. Maybe he wasn’t cut out for permanent relationships.

  Mara was unimpressed by the compliment. She no doubt received better ones from men every day. “I’m not sure how you ended up fixing it either, yet here you are.”

  He’d started to reach for a screwdriver in the upper tray of the toolbox on the floor by his foot. The sarcasm made him pause and glance up. She was genuinely angry with him.

  He straightened. “I thought you could use a helping hand.”

  “You aren’t helping me. You’re helping Diana.” Her gaze touched his face. “Either way, it’s not your problem. You were right. The landlord should fix it. Leave it for now and I’ll talk to Mr. McKillop.”

  She wasn’t angry. Hurt shone in her eyes.

  A lot of things had gone wrong in Luke’s life of late. He couldn’t blame a single one of them on Mara—who had her own problems, if her living conditions and damaged leg were any indication—so why was he being a jerk to her? Because she was a beautiful woman?

  Or because he’d noticed she was?

  “I apologize if I gave the impression I don’t believe you and Diana’s husband can be trusted alone together,” he said, wishing he didn’t sound so much like his brother Jake—as if he had a giant stick up his butt.

  “You don’t know me, so I understand. But you do know the O’Sullivans, which means you should know better. Randy’s a gentleman.”

  “True on both counts,” he conceded. “I really would like to fix your door, though. It might not make any difference to you, but I’d sleep better tonight.”

  Mara’s face was as expressive as it was stunning. Indecision flashed across it as if it were text in a book, and for the first time in days, an urge to laugh threatened. There’d be no misunderstandings with a woman like this.

  The urge to laugh died. It wasn’t as if he’d proven to be so great at reading women, so he shouldn’t jump to any conclusions about that.

  “Thank you, Dr. Pretty,” she said. “Yes, I would like the door fixed. How can I help?”

  Chapter Three

  “Dr. Pretty?” He could think of no better rebuttal.

  Her face turned the same shade of pink as her shirt. “Whoops. That just sort of slipped out. I had a doctor in the UK with that name and you look alike.”

  She was a terrible liar, but since Luke was in no position to cast stones, he let it slide. He didn’t know that he cared for being thought of as “Dr. Pretty,” though. In junior high he’d constantly been referred to by the teachers as that “cute little kid in 7C.”

  He’d been a cute little kid, alright. One with an older brother who’d taught him to lead with his left, because he’d had to fight his way through his first half of the school year. By Christmas holidays he’d grown six inches and the black eyes he’d handed out had dwindled to the occasional bloody nose. And also by then, the teachers had discovered he was smart, too.

  “Have you ever hung a door before?” he asked.

  Again, the expression on her face answered for her. It also warned him she was about to pretend that she had because she couldn’t tell he was joking.

  “Aleja de mi a los hombres machistas,” she muttered under her breath. Spare me from macho men.

  He struggled to hold back his grin. That was much better. “I’m kidding. I’m good.”

  She dragged one of the high-backed wooden chairs that lined a wall—he assumed they were for parents waiting for children—so she could watch while he worked. He hadn’t done this type of manual labor since leaving the Wagging Tongue Ranch for college thirteen years ago, and performance anxiety became an issue, but thankfully, like riding a bike, it came back, and he settled in. There was a lot to be said for working with his hands and he’d missed it.

  When he was finished, he opened and closed the freshly rehung door. It latched like a dream, if he did say so himself.

  Mara abandoned her station and came to stand next to him, admiring his work. She smelled nice. Like mock orange.

  “Let me pay you,” she said.
>
  Hell hadn’t yet frozen over, at least not to his knowledge. “What—I look like some kind of tinker to you? You keep your money, bailarina.”

  “A tinker, hmm?” She tossed her long hair, dropped one hand to her hip, and considered him with sass, beginning to pick up on his sense of humor. Then, she fired back. “No. You don’t look like that. Gracias, vejestorio.”

  The corners of his mouth trembled again. She’d called him an old geezer. Well, he’d been acting like one. And as for what she thought he looked like… He already knew the answer to that.

  Pretty. Just how a man wanted a woman to think of him.

  He should really be going. He was already late.

  “Where did you learn Spanish?” he asked, instead. She had an accent he couldn’t quite place.

  A bright smile lit the area around her, as if she’d been caught in a spotlight on center stage, sweeping him up in its glow and knocking him off his feet. Not much wonder she’d been featured in music videos. She had charisma.

  “You noticed that, did you? We spoke a combination of Spanish and Dutch at home. My father’s business took him all over the world, but we spent a lot of time in Central and South America.”

  “Drug dealer?” Luke deadpanned, because he’d really like another shot of her smile, and got his reward.

  “Close. He works in the oil and gas industry.”

  He couldn’t stop being nosy. “So, one of your parents is Dutch, then?”

  “My mother. My father is Mexican.”

  “Which makes you…” Exotic. Unexpected. Far too attractive.

  “American. I was born in Los Angeles.”

  He was well beyond nosy now, and yet, he persisted. “Grand must have come as quite a culture shock.”

  “I like it here.” A hint of sensuality slid into her smile. “More and more all the time.”

  The purpose of their prolonged conversation finally struck him. They were flirting.

  Guilt quickly stripped away any pleasure. He’d ended a relationship with the woman he’d planned to marry only three days ago. He’d promised Jake, who was arriving home tomorrow with three orphaned children, that he’d take care of things at the ranch. The memorial service for his parents had yet to be endured—he and Zack were still cleaning their belongings out of the house—yet here he was. Having a good time, as if he hadn’t a care in the world.

  “I’ve got to go.” Bewilderment flooded Mara’s magnificent blue eyes at the abrupt change in his tone and he tried again. “There’s a lot of work to do around the ranch with my brother Jake being away.” She’d made him forget about it.

  She made him forget a lot of things.

  “If you won’t let me pay you for fixing my door, then why don’t you at least let me take you out for coffee as thanks for helping”—her cheeks colored again—“with my groceries?”

  Luke wasn’t going to lie to himself. He was tempted. When he was an undergrad, if a woman like this had asked him out, he would have accepted without hesitation and thanked his lucky stars. That was before he met Denise, however, who was pretty and smart, and whose academic goals had aligned so completely with his. She’d also been five years older, with her future already mapped out, and he’d found that especially impressive since he’d had no idea where life after grad school would take him.

  The timing was bad. Really, really bad.

  But the way Mara fumbled over the reference to her fall was pretty cute. He also liked that she hadn’t offered any condolences over the “tragic loss your family has sustained,” as one neighbor had politely put it. He was so sick of hearing those words, or anything similar to them. She knew—she’d heard Diana ask him about it—but she minded her own business. In Grand, that was rare.

  Plus, despite the blow a damaged leg must have dealt to a professional dancer, and the questionable place she called home—he’d be speaking to the McKillops about that—Mara vibrated with life. She made him think of fire. She glowed, like the lick of flame on a red candle.

  He reached for the handle on the now fully functioning door. He’d like to think he was the kind of man who could resist temptation.

  “Why don’t I call you?” he hedged.

  The tiny touch of regret in her smile said she knew that he wouldn’t, but she’d play along.

  “You do that,” she replied.

  *

  The church basement was packed tight with people, white-clothed tables laden with food, and an air of festivity that seemed out of place, and yet oddly, came as a welcome relief.

  Luke stood close to the cafeteria-style window of the kitchen at the farthest end of the room from the stairs. His tie was too tight, and other than Liz and Blair’s New York funeral, the last time he’d worn a suit was to a colleague’s wedding last spring. He had Finn, his five-year-old nephew, by the hand. Mac, who was ten, stood beside him. Zack was working the room. They’d left Lydia at home with the teenaged girlfriend of one of the ranch hands.

  Jake, the poor bastard, had his back pressed against one of the round white concrete pillars with no means of escape. He had to bear the brunt of the condolences because he was the oldest and people knew him the best.

  Luke had always been the McGregor who didn’t really belong. Everyone in Grand had taken it for granted that ranching wasn’t for him and he’d be moving on, so that was what he’d done. He didn’t regret his education or career. He simply didn’t recall ever actively making the decisions himself.

  Maybe that was why Lydia’s pink bedroom bugged him so much.

  And maybe that was why he couldn’t shake off his disappointment in Denise. She’d been the push behind his decision to remain in Seattle, and yet, when he’d asked her to move to Montana because it was something he had to do, she’d been opposed. She’d known today was the memorial service and she hadn’t called, either.

  He knew in his heart they were done, and yet, his heart didn’t feel broken. A little numb, maybe. He wasn’t exactly sure how he felt about anything, these days.

  Finn was having a hard time standing still. He grabbed Luke’s wrist in both hands and began to hang from his arm, knees bent and face tilted skyward. Red hair stuck up in the front. Wide, green, trademark McGregor eyes glared at him through a fringe of thick, dark red lashes.

  “I want to go home,” Finn announced loudly. He’d lost a tooth and he poked his tongue at Luke through the gap.

  “Shut up and quit being a baby,” Mac said, scowling at his younger brother.

  “We don’t tell people to shut up,” Luke intervened, using his quiet, I-mean-business, professor voice that terrified first-year undergrads.

  Mac, however, wasn’t an undergrad, and he didn’t scare easily. “If I don’t tell him to shut up, how is he supposed to know he needs to?”

  The question sounded so reasonable Luke was almost inclined to cede him the point.

  Almost.

  “I want my mom,” Finn cut in. The pressure on Luke’s arm and shoulder increased as he added more weight and a few extra bounces.

  “Shut up,” Mac said again, with added fierceness.

  Mac was proving to be an uncanny amount like his uncle Jake. He didn’t know how to express his grief, so he took the “be a man about it” approach. Luke found that a lot more troubling than Finn being a kid.

  Heads turned their way. Pity was thick in the air. Luke was at a loss as to how to deal with the situation. He could well imagine what everyone was thinking—that the McGregors didn’t know how to look after three orphaned kids.

  They could think what they liked. Luke had spotted a far greater danger. Weldon Scott, owner of the Running River property next to the Wagging Tongue Ranch, was weaving his way through the horde of people and appeared to be headed Jake’s way.

  Jake didn’t need that. Not today. He’d been holding up fine, but everyone had their limits.

  “Finn’s behaved himself all day. He’s tired and he’s bored,” Luke said to Mac. “I bet you are, too. We can’t go home just yet, but
you and Finn can load up plates with whatever you like from the tables and take them into one of those rooms.” One side of the basement had been partitioned and turned into rooms for Sunday school classes. “There are boxes of toys for Finn to play with. If you’d rather leave him by himself, that’s fine. I’ll keep an eye on him.” Finn couldn’t escape the church basement without someone noticing, and his uncles had all learned how important it was to know what he was up to. His impulse control ranked around zero.

  This time, Luke’s professor voice did the trick. Mac took his little brother by the hand and dragged him away. Finn, for his part, went willingly enough. Since Luke had just given them permission to load up on cookies and cake, something Jake would not have allowed, why would the boys protest?

  Luke could guess who’d be assigned bedtime duties tonight.

  He checked on Weldon’s progress across the room. Stopping to talk to some of Grand’s more prominent residents had slowed him down, but he was narrowing in on his prey. Luke couldn’t say for certain that he’d be so bold as to bring up buying the Wagging Tongue from Jake right here and now, but Luke wouldn’t put it past him. Weldon might be Diana O’Sullivan’s father, but she’d gotten her sweetness from her mother’s side of the family. Her father was all about business.

  Luke cut around a pillar and quietly squeezed past a group of his mother’s friends who were too busy admiring how well Jake was holding up with all the added responsibilities to take notice of him. He stepped in front of the Wagging Tongue’s neighbor.

  “Weldon,” he said.

  “Well, Luke McGregor. Or should I say, Dr. McGregor? It’s been a long time.” The two men shook hands.

  Weldon Scott was a big man, solid, but his muscle was slowly melting into soft thanks to advancing age. He had to be pushing seventy. He had a thick head of gray hair and a thin little black line of a mustache that came as a surprise when compared to the single, heavy, salt-and-pepper eyebrow separating his forehead from the rest of his face. He had the tanned and weathered complexion of a man who’d spent most of his life outdoors.