Home on the Ranch: Unexpected Daddy

by Pamela Britton

  “Hang on,” he said, jumping back up on the seat. Usually his dad drove in while he opened the gate. He hadn’t thought this out carefully, he admitted.

  “Get up there,” he told the team, clucking them into a trot. He hoped to block off the cattle’s escape route because escape they would despite the hay in the bed of the buckboard. Cattle weren’t the brightest bulbs on the tree.

  He managed to avoid disaster—just barely, though. Charlotte’s eyes grew wide when the cattle surrounded the buckboard instead.

  “Uh, Maverick, they won’t jump in here, will they?”

  “Get,” he told a mama and her baby. “No, you’re fine.” He made his way back to his seat, feeling better now that he had the gate closed. “Here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to pull forward a bit and I’ll show you how to open a bale.”

  “Wait. I’m going to feed the cattle.”

  He clucked the horses forward. “Yup.”

  “But what about you?”

  “I’ll be driving the buckboard. See, we don’t just toss all the hay in one spot. We throw it out a bit at a time. That way everyone gets to eat.”

  She nodded, but she didn’t look very reassured and it brought the smile back to his face. She clearly wasn’t thrilled, but she was game. He admired that about her. Actually, he admired a lot about her. It’d been all he could do not to wake her up last night and pick up where they’d left off. But he’d held off. He’d known with a certainty that defied explanation that she’d needed his physical presence more than anything else.

  “Okay, here we go.” He set the brake again, getting up and motioning for her to climb over the single layer of bales he’d put in the back of the carriage. “Use this to break open the bales, one at a time.” He flashed a pocketknife at her. “When they open you’ll see they break off into what we call flakes. You’ll toss two or three flakes out at a time about every ten feet or so. Like this.”

  He slit through the blue twine, the hay opening with a pop, cattle already lined up in preparation for a meal. They might not be smart, but they knew the drill.

  “See,” he said, tossing it out onto the ground, where it was immediately attacked. “Shove the knife into one of the other bales when you’re not using it. You never want to carry it in your hand when you’re feeding in case we hit a rut and you tumble and fall.”

  She surveyed the bales of hay, hands on hips, nodded and said, “Got it. No stabbing myself with the knife.”

  He loved her can-do attitude. “Here we go.”

  He climbed back into his seat, set the horses off, glancing back for the first minute or so until satisfied she wouldn’t fall off or feed too many flakes at one time. She handled everything like a pro, though.

  “Question,” she said after the first few minutes. “What’s the point of having them in this big pasture if you’re going to feed them?”

  “Good question. This time of year when the spring grass is dying off, we like to supplement with hay. It keeps the native grass around longer, which means we don’t have to irrigate as much. We try to conserve water as much as possible on the Gillian Ranch.”

  “Oh. That makes sense.”

  He pointed the buckboard toward a small rise. On the other side was the stock pond he’d shown her what seemed like years ago. It was full to the brim, the water running out of a spillway to their left.

  “That was easy,” she said, taking a seat next to him.

  “You did good.” He smiled as they crested the hill.

  “Oh, wow,” she said, having spotted the miniature lake.

  “I’m going to pull the horses in so they can drink.”

  “You’re going to what?”

  “Relax. The horses are used to it. We’re not going to float away or anything.”

  She didn’t look convinced, but he noticed she rubbed her arms.

  “Itchy?”

  “Yeah,” she said.

  “It’s the hay.”

  “Oh, great.”

  “Why do you think I had you do it?” he teased with a grin.

  She pretended to swat at him, but she smiled, and Maverick thought there was no better way to spend a day with someone out here on the ranch. The horses knew where they were going. They’d done it before dozens of times, their legs kicking up water as they splashed into the pond. He turned them left, before pulling them to a stop.

  “I’ve got to admit, Maverick, it’s pretty amazing out here.”

  Yes, it was. “When I was a kid I used to love coming here to swim. We’d make a day of it, my brothers and cousins. Sometimes, in the summer, we’d all race out here. There’s a swing in that tree over there. Lots of fun times diving off it, and a few bruises, too, when we landed wrong. It was a blast.”

  She stared across the water’s surface. A fish came up for air, sending ripples toward the shore. “Olivia is a lucky little girl.”

  “I’ll take good care of her, Charlotte.”

  She held his gaze. “I know you will.”

  He was leaning in for a kiss before he could stop himself, and she immediately returned it, and it made his whole body quicken. He pulled her closer, and before he knew it, things were moving faster and he pulled her into his lap as the ache to have her returned full force. She seemed less tentative today, more aggressive than passive.

  He pulled his lips away. “You’re killing me.”

  She drew back, peering down at him, her legs hanging off the back of the seat. “You never pressured me last night to, ah, well, to finish things for you.”

  “And I never will,” he said, trying to move her off him despite the ache in his groin.

  She refused to move, and when she peered around them, he knew what she meant to do. “No. That’s okay. We’re out in the open and I know how uncomfortable that might make you.”

  “Oh, I know.” Her hair was loose around her shoulders. She had a bit of hay stuck in it. He reached up and tenderly removed it. “I’m feeling brave this morning for some reason.”

  “But someone might see us.”

  “When was the last time someone bothered you way out here?”

  He shrugged. “Never. Or at least not in a long time.”

  “And I doubt it will happen now.” He saw her take a deep breath. “I’ve never felt more at ease than I do here, Maverick. Free. Maybe even a little crazy.”

  Still, he didn’t move, waited for her to be the instigator. And she was, her fingers pulling at the snap of his jeans, then the zipper. He lifted his hips, helping her to pull his jeans down. Never mind the boots. And to his surprise, her fingers grew more frantic the more naked he became. She undid her own pants next, sliding them off her legs, boots and all. She was standing above him, naked from the waist down, and he wondered if she’d change her mind, but she just smiled softly, slipping first one leg and then the other around him.

  They touched. Intimately touched. And he froze even though all he wanted was to slide inside of her.

  “I don’t have a condom with me.”

  “I’d be disappointed if you did,” she said with a husky voice. “Something tells me, though, that you’re not very sexually active. And I’m on birth control to regulate things. So I guess the bigger question is, do I need to worry?”

  “No,” he gasped because, damn it all to hell, he felt ready to explode. “No. It’s been...” He tried to think. “A long time for me.”

  “And this is a first for me.”

  A first for what? For her to straddle a man?

  But then he couldn’t think.

  She’d slid herself along the length of him and he didn’t think he could take it anymore. Last night, coupled with the realization that she trusted him enough to do something so brazen, almost finished him off right then and there. Instead, he leaned back against the seat, gasping when she did it again and again, her lips
finding his mouth, her hands cupping the back of his head as she kissed him with the same rhythm as she rode him.

  “Make love to me, Maverick,” she whispered against his mouth. “Show me what it’s supposed to be like.”

  Good Lord, she had him dying a slow death. Had him moving his hips up and down and kissing her and touching her more deeply than he’d ever touched a woman before. All too quickly they both cried out together, the two of them lost in a pleasure so deep all they could do was wrap their arms around each other, holding on for dear life as pleasure took them to a place they never would have thought possible.

  Reality returned far too quickly, though. Birds chirped. One of the horses had grown impatient, pawing in the water. A cow mooed in the distance.

  Dear God in heaven, what had just happened? That hadn’t felt like making love. That had felt different. Deeper than anything he’d ever experienced before, their hearts and minds and souls so in tune with each other it took his breath away.

  Was this what love felt like? he wondered. Something told him it was, and the thought scared him to death.

  Chapter 19

  They cleaned up at home. Maverick made them breakfast. Charlotte resisted the urge to glance at her phone, but it beckoned her. Like a scary movie she just couldn’t seem to look away from, she finally gave up and retrieved her cell phone from his bedroom.

  Ten missed calls. She winced, checked her text messages. There were five text messages, three from Rachelle, each sounding more and more frantic because she couldn’t find anyone to care for three kids pulled from negligent parents late last night. Two were from her boss, Mr. Rocha. One asking if she’d left the party already, another asking her to meet with him later in the week. She pressed the voice mail button, not surprised to hear Rachelle’s voice.

  “What’s the matter?” Maverick asked when she walked into the kitchen, where he was cleaning up.

  “I have to go to work.”

  She expected him to protest, and for a moment she thought he might, but he nodded. “Never a dull moment.”

  It hit her then just how badly she wanted to stay, to pretend for a little while longer that they weren’t two people with completely opposite goals in life—him to settle down on his ranch with a family, her to go out into the world and help as many kids as she could.

  “Dinner tonight?” he asked.

  Her stomach did this weird kind of spasm followed by a shot of adrenaline. More of what they’d done earlier? She wanted that. It surprised her how much, given everything in her past.

  “That would be nice.”

  He smiled, came forward. She lifted her head to meet him halfway for a kiss.

  Yes. She could definitely get used to this.

  “Thank God,” Rachelle said when Charlotte called her back. “I have been freaking out. Nobody is answering their phone.”

  “I’m sorry, Rachelle. My battery died. I just turned on my phone.”

  Liar.

  “Are you coming in? Because I am having a hell of a time trying to place these three kids. And, Charlotte, they’re in terrible shape. Filthy. I think one of them might have lice. I need help managing all three.”

  And so it went. They might be a small town, but they were always busy.

  It took her most of the day to get the three kids cleaned up and in new clothes. She called everyone on her list to see if they could take all three kids, but most of her foster parents were already full up, and three at one time was a lot to ask. She found herself remembering that young couple she’d met last night and, rolling the dice, decided to give them a call and ask if they’d considered emergency placement. To her surprise, they said yes.

  Dinner? That would never happen. It would take hours to get her new foster parents approved and the kids settled. So she sent Maverick a text message asking to reschedule. As she waited for his reply, she wondered if maybe it wasn’t a good thing that she would miss dinner with him. This was her life. This crazy, chaotic mess where personal needs took a back seat. So when he replied back that she should come over on Sunday, she told him she’d see how it went. It was a process to get people approved for emergency placement, as he well knew, and so she told him she couldn’t make any promises.

  She should have known he wouldn’t take no for an answer. When she told him she was working on Sunday, he swung by the office, Olivia in tow, a bag of what smelled like fried chicken in his hand.

  She could have kissed him.

  “Why don’t you go over there and play?” he asked Olivia, who had already spotted the tiny play area Charlotte had set up in a corner of her office for just that reason.

  “I could kiss you,” she told him, taking the bag from him.

  “I think I’ll take you up on that offer.” He bent and kissed her, but on the cheek, and she tried to contain her disappointment.

  “I don’t think I’ve eaten all day.”

  He slowly sank into the chair in front of her desk and she caught a whiff of his musky scent, the man no less handsome today in a denim shirt and matching jeans and a straw cowboy hat. She sat down, too, but this time the barrier of wood and glass did little to protect her from the pull of the attraction. She’d kissed that mouth. She’d touched those wide shoulders. She’d done other things, too, things she wouldn’t have believed possible a few weeks ago, but she had, and it’d been life changing for her.

  “Nobody should ever be so busy that they don’t have time to eat.” He took off his hat, the gesture so reminiscent of the first day she’d met him that the memory pricked her heart.

  “Welcome to my world,” she said, opening the bag and inhaling. Her stomach instantly grumbled. Just as she’d suspected. A box of fried chicken.

  “Thank you,” she gushed.

  Olivia must have found something exciting because she cried out, “Daddy!” and came running over. Well, as much as a one-and-a-half-year-old could run. It was a white plastic unicorn, rainbow mane and all, and she held it up to him.

  “Horz.” She smiled, waving it at him.

  He turned, giving the little girl his attention, and Charlotte’s throat grew thick. Good Lord, what was it about this man and this little girl that made her insides feel like a bowl of pudding.

  “Yes, it is a horse.” He swiped a lock of wispy brown hair away from her face. “Sort of. It’s called a unicorn.”

  She stared up at him in such a way that Charlotte could tell she was trying to understand his words. “Corn,” she said.

  “Un-i-corn.”

  “U-corn,” she repeated. Then she turned and ran off as quickly as she’d come.

  Charlotte could only smile.

  “Are you really this busy all the time?”

  She nodded. “We get kids at all hours of the day and night. Weekends and weekdays. Sometimes it’s just a temporary thing. Other times, like in Olivia’s case, it’s more permanent. Then there’s the follow-up visits, the wellness checks, court appearances, helping a new parent.”

  Like him.

  She didn’t need to say the words out loud, but she could see in his eyes that he remembered the dinner they’d once shared. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.

  “But surely you have some free time every now and then,” he said.

  Not even forty-eight hours and already she could tell her work life bothered him. “Of course I do. It’s just subject to change at a moment’s notice.”

  “So when will I get to see you again?”

  “This week,” she said. “I promise. We had three new kids to place this weekend. I’ll take some comp time tomorrow or the next day.”

  That seemed to smooth things over, and they talked about all the calls she’d gotten over the weekend. They discussed Olivia for a bit, and Maverick got up and left eventually. Charlotte watched him drive off and wondered if she might have found someone at last.
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br />   The thought came to her again when, later that week, they made love with an intensity that left tears in her eyes. Afterward, she found herself shaking and crying.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  She couldn’t answer at first, her mind so filled with conflicting emotions it was hard to figure out what she was thinking, much less feeling.

  “I guess I just never thought...” She buried her face in the crook of his neck and he pulled her up against him tight. “I never thought I would feel this way, that I could feel this way.”

  He slowly released her, leaning up on one elbow to peer down into her face, and there was such kindness there a sob caught in her throat all over again. He lifted a hand, stroking her hair.

  “He really did a number on you, didn’t he?”

  She nodded mutely.

  “And you had no one to turn to, no one you could trust, not even the people whose job it was to make sure you were okay.”

  She wiped at her eyes. “It’s why I do what I do.” She took a deep breath. “No one would believe me. My foster parents’ son was so good at convincing his mom and dad that he was a perfect angel, and then one night, when my foster mom and dad were out, he...he...”

  “Shh,” he said. “It’s okay. You don’t have to tell me.”

  But it was as if the words, once they started to flow, couldn’t be stopped. “I tried fighting him off, tried to scream. We were alone. Rodney was almost eighteen, old enough not to need a babysitter and to keep an eye on me, but I knew he had something planned. I begged them not to leave me, but they just brushed me off.” She felt another sob catch in her throat. “I gave up arguing and locked myself in my room, and I thought maybe they were right. Maybe I was just imagining the way he touched me and the look in his eyes, but then...”

  Even to this day she had a hard time talking about what he’d done to her.

  “Afterward he told me to clean up. Called me a slut and a whore and said it was all my fault he couldn’t keep his hands off me. And he just left me there, alone. I knew...I knew I wasn’t the one to blame, and when my foster parents came home, I told them what had happened. They brushed me off, told me their son would never do such a thing, and when they brought him down for questioning, he denied it all.”