The Rancher’s Unexpected Nanny

by Jackson, Mary Sue

  “Down!” Devon demanded, flinging himself backwards.

  Geez, this kid was strong. “No way.” Cole gritted his teeth and glared at the door handle, wondering how to do this. He needed both hands to keep Devon in check.

  Where was that third arm when he needed it?

  “I've got you!” An older woman entering the bank gave him an indulgent smile and pressed the handicapped button. The door swung open by itself.

  Cole sighed and rolled his eyes heavenward. “You've got to be kidding me.” Then remembered himself. “Thank you, ma'am.” He swung his squirming son into a football hold and tried to square his shoulders. He needed to look respectable as he walked into the bank, after all. Not desperate. Not at the end-of-his-rope.

  No matter how much he felt like he'd been ridden hard and put away wet, he couldn't let it show.

  “Can I help you, sir?” The woman behind the counter of First Regional Bank barely looked old enough to drive. There was no way she would remember him, Cole thought.

  But her bland smile of greeting faltered when she saw his face. Cole felt that familiar twist in his belly and once again wondered just what he was doing back here in dusty, old Hope Springs, Texas. How was he supposed to build a future in a place that refused to let go of his past?

  He shifted Devon to his other hip and put on his best “aw, shucks” grin. “Hey there, darlin', I need to see somebody about opening an account and maybe getting a little loan?”

  The grin worked its usual magic. Her narrowed eyes widened, and she smiled right back. “Sure thing, Mr. Baker. Just have a seat right over there.”

  Cole nodded his thanks. It was on the tip of his tongue to ask her how she knew him, but he wasn't sure he wanted the answer. His reputation around this town was something he was actively trying to forget. It wouldn't do to remind people of it.

  “Down!” Devon squealed again; the novelty of being held like a football had worn off.

  “Are you gonna stay with Daddy?”

  “Stay with Daddy,” the toddler echoed with grave dignity, staring up at him with sober blue eyes.

  Cole blinked and swallowed. His son's face never failed to take his breath away, but moments like this, when he saw his own expressions mirrored back at him, were enough to make the whole world around him disappear. It was a kind of parental tunnel vision, and it always threw him for a loop.

  He let the bag drop to the floor in front of the open chairs that lined the lobby then flopped down without even looking around him. Trapping Devon between his legs, he asked, “Want my keys?”

  “Keys!” Devon nodded, chubby fingers grasping.

  Cole chuckled and leaned to the side to reach into his back pocket. And as he did, his shoulder bumped into something soft. And warm. And sweet-smelling.

  Something that hissed, “Hey! What the hell, Cole?”

  His stomach dropped down to his boots when he heard her voice. He didn't need to turn his head to know who he'd sat next to in his absent-minded haze. Even after all these years, his body was still keenly attuned to her presence.

  Cole handed his truck keys to his waiting toddler and then forced himself to drag his eyes upward.

  “Hey, Sammie,” he mumbled. “Sorry about that.”

  Samantha Jensen rubbed her shoulder and gave him a watery smile. Cole's tongue tied itself in knots as he took her in. Same silky blond hair, same cute little turned-up nose, but her gaze was direct now. And her body? Her body was all woman.

  After a long pause, she cleared her throat. “Cute kid.”

  Cole nodded, trying to cover up the fact that he'd been staring. Sammie Jensen was right here. In the flesh and only inches away from him. How many times had he rehearsed what he'd say if he ever saw her again, the pretty, brainy prom queen who'd broken his heart?

  But now that he finally had a chance, the only thing his whirling mind could come up with was, “Never thought I'd see you back in Hope Springs.”

  The smooth skin around Sammie's big blue eyes tightened. “Guess I could say the same for you,” she snapped and turned away.

  The back of Cole's neck heated. But before he could come up with a devastating retort, the bank manager appeared before him. “Sir? Come on over.”

  “Let's go, little dude.” He scooped Devon up with one hand, grateful the keys were still holding his little boy's interest, and the bag with the other, then followed the manager over to his desk. He managed to resist the urge to look back at Sammie.

  For about three seconds.

  What was she doing here? The answer became clearer when another manager approached her and the two shook hands. So, she was opening some kind of account, too. But why?

  For all his bitter memories, there were two things he'd always admired about Sammie Jensen: her brains and her desire to get the hell out of this tiny town. Hope Springs was barely more than a wide spot in the road. What would bring her back here long enough to make her need to talk with the bank?

  “Mr. Baker?”

  Cole jumped. He turned back to the man behind the desk and tried to look like he'd been paying any attention at all to what he'd said. “Yeah? Sure. Course.”

  “Fish?” Devon asked from the floor.

  Cole shifted in his seat. “Uh, hang on, bud.”

  “You understand what I'm saying, right?” the manager cut in. “The bank considers you a credit risk and—”

  “Fish!” Devon demanded, his face reddening.

  Swearing under his breath, Cole started searching the diaper bag for Devon's snack cup full of Goldfish crackers.

  “Sir!” The manager leaned forward. “I'm saying we can't go through with setting up the line of credit until you can provide proof of stable income.”

  “FISH!!” Devon wailed.

  “What?” The whole of Cole's focus was on getting the snack cup open before his son went nuclear. “I don't understand. I'm giving you all the money I have right now. There's no stability…” He trailed off, feeling the tips of his ears heating up. Here it was, his worst fear confirmed. How was he supposed to be a good daddy with no bank account? How was he supposed to be a good daddy if he couldn't get this…stupid…cup…OPEN?!

  With a frustrated growl, Cole leaped from his chair and slammed a hand on the manager's desk. “Listen up you smarmy, little—”

  “Cole?”

  At the sound of Sammie's voice, Cole snapped his mouth shut before the rest of his foul-mouthed rant could escape. At the same time, the snack cup lid clicked open. Cole breathed a sigh of relief and knelt to hand it to Devon.

  “What?” he grunted at Sammie.

  “Can I talk to you?”

  Cole looked from Sammie back to the bank manager. There was something in her voice that caught his attention. And even though he hated himself for it, he wondered what she wanted. “Yeah. Sure.” He looked back at the manager again. “Will you excuse us?”

  The manager's mouth fell open at being dismissed from his own desk, but after a few minutes spent squirming under Cole's glare, he announced he was taking his lunch break.

  Cole smirked, but his smirk fell away when he turned back to Samantha and saw her face. His heart jumped and tugged in his chest, as if it wanted to be closer to her. He leaned in. “You doin' okay, Sammie?”

  Sammie's shoulders relaxed. She leaned in, too, mirroring Cole's pose.

  And Cole felt it. That connection they'd shared was still there, even after all these years. It hadn't been enough to keep them together—high school tribes were too brutal and closed off for their small-town version of Romeo and Juliet to ever have a happy ending—but it had been what drew them together in the first place. She might have been a stuck up snob back then, but Cole had always loved listening to what she had to say. She made him feel like he was…more.

  “I've definitely been better,” she said, glancing down at Devon and smiling again. “What's his name?”

  “Devon,” Cole said with a burst of pride. “He makes my life interesting.”

  “I
bet you do, don't you, Devon?” Sammie cooed. As she bent down, the neckline of her smartly tailored blouse fell open just a little. Just enough for Cole to take in creamy skin and a glimpse of lace.

  He swallowed and looked away. Yeah, his body still knew Sammie Jensen, that's for sure.

  “So are you…” She glanced at his naked left hand.

  “No.” He shook his head. A little flicker of guilt flared in his belly, the way it always did when he thought of Julie. “His mama passed.”

  “Oh, I'm so sorry, Cole!” Sammie's slim hand landed on his arm as if by accident. They both froze.

  After a beat, she pulled it away, but Cole could still feel the ghost of her touch on his skin. “How are you managing to get by with a kid at home?” She was leaning forward a little too eagerly. Cole got the feeling she was dancing around asking him for something, but for the life of him he couldn't think of anything he had that Samantha Jensen would need.

  The Rancher’s Second Chance

  Available August 8, 2019

  LeslieNorthBooks.com

  BLURB

  Chelsea Karnes has dreamed of moving out west to “wide open spaces” ever since reading her first cowboy romance at age ten. So when Chelsea gets offered a teaching position in an “alternative” elementary school in Texas she sees it as fate’s design and goes all in. Even hooking up with a cowboy on her preparation trip to find a place to live.

  After a childhood spent basically screwing-up everything he cared about, Parker Trent is now a careful man. He’s inherited a sizeable dairy farm from his father and prides himself on the purity of his milk and the purity of his dating record: he only dates tourists. But when his dairy farm’s accounts are called into question and his hot hookup from the summer turns up—pregnant—as the alternative school’s new kindergarten teacher, not only is his dating record broken, but his world is turned upside down.

  Chelsea is perfectly happy raising the baby on her own, but Parker refuses to fail at fatherhood. The more time they spend together, the more Parker is determined to show he can be the father their child needs. Recruiting himself to help with the school’s adaptive animal program—the program Chelsea happens to run—seems like a chance to show Chelsea that he means business when it comes to parenting and to get him back into her good graces after his less than excited reaction to their bundle of joy.

  But spending time with Chelsea has Parker longing to be more than just a father...for the first time in his life he’s wondering what it would be like to be a husband too.

  Grab your copy of The Cowboy’s Heir here.

  * * *

  EXCERPT

  Chapter 1

  Parker Trent leaned back in his chair, enjoying the cool slide of beer down his throat. Man, he’d needed that. He hadn’t been at Graham and Dun’s for a few weeks, although it felt like years since he’d just sat down and enjoyed a beer.

  Faint country music played around him while two bartenders made drinks for the other patrons. Despite Hudson being a fairly small Texas town, Graham and Dun’s had flourished. Maybe it was because a man could get a real beer on tap here instead of some shitty piss water from a can.

  “Haven’t seen you here in forever,” said a woman’s voice.

  Parker glanced over at Michelle, whose boobs were practically spilling from her shirt as she leaned toward him. Parker and Michelle had gone to school together. He knew her way too well to consider touching her with a ten-foot pole.

  “Been busy,” he replied. He wasn’t rude, but he wasn’t encouraging, either.

  Michelle decided not to take the hint. She slid into the seat next to Parker in a move that made her skirt hike up her thighs, showing enough skin that if Sheriff Deerborn were here, he might arrest her for indecent exposure.

  Gary, one of the bartenders and another former schoolmate, shot Parker an amused look. Everybody knew Michelle had had the hots for Parker since eighth grade and even sixteen years later, she hadn’t given up hope.

  “I heard the dairy’s doing real good,” Michelle drawled. She flipped her bleached blond hair over her tanned shoulder. “You been working hard, I’m sure.”

  “Mighty hard.”

  It wasn’t that Parker wasn’t attracted to women like Michelle, but he’d made a promise to himself not to date locals. The one time he had, it had ended badly for all parties. Since Hudson was a town that got a lot of people traveling through it, it was easy for Parker to find a beautiful stranger to share his bed for one night—maybe two, depending—whenever he got the urge, knowing that they’d never see each other again.

  Of course, that wasn’t the reason why he wouldn’t sleep with Michelle. After all, that rule hadn’t been in effect when she made her first play for him when they were just kids. But she was the kind of woman he couldn’t imagine wanting more than a night with—and he was sure that if she ever got her claws into him, she wouldn’t let go. Hell, she wouldn’t let him go even now and she’d never even had him, despite a decade and a half of trying. If he ever took her to bed, he’d probably wake up the next morning to find she’d moved herself right in.

  “You seem tense.” Michelle rose and began to massage Parker’s shoulders. “Ooooh, you’re so stiff! Lemme works these knots out.”

  Parker gently removed Michelle’s hands. His body protested, but luckily for him, he wasn’t controlled by what his cock wanted.

  “I’m flattered, darlin’, but not tonight. I gotta get back home here in a sec,” he lied.

  Michelle’s lower lip protruded. “How about another time?”

  Parker winced inwardly. “I don’t think so.”

  A flush climbed up Michelle’s cheeks, but with a huff, she stalked off. Parker let out a sigh of relief.

  “Give me another beer,” he said to Gary.

  Gary chuckled. “She looked like she was about to unbutton your Wranglers right then and there.”

  “Don’t give her any ideas.”

  Gary’s lips twitched as he wiped down the counter.

  Parker was prepared to leave the bar early if Michelle came back, but after ten minutes, it seemed as though she’d found other company for the evening. Good, he thought. I’m not done drinking for the night.

  Parker had finished his second beer and was wondering if he should have a third when in walked one of the most gorgeous women Parker had ever set eyes on.

  She was blond—Parker’s favorite hair color, he had to admit—and he could instantly tell it was natural. It fell in soft ringlets down to her shoulders. She had big blue eyes, her mouth red and full, and even her chin was pretty.

  Parker kept his gaze on the woman until she noticed him. Her eyes widened slightly, but to Parker’s amusement, her lips kicked up in a smile. No blushes, no faux modesty. When she walked toward him, her hips swishing, Parker knew his night would be improving immensely.

  The woman sat down next to him. A whiff of rose perfume made Parker’s body tighten with desire. She smelled as pretty as she looked. It made him want to see if she tasted sweet, too.

  “Can I get you something?” Gary said to the woman.

  “I’ll have your dark lager,” she said without hesitation.

  Parker cocked an eyebrow. Most of the women he met here seemed to think if they ordered anything darker than some hipster IPA, they were somehow not sexy enough. Parker had never understood that thought process. Now, this woman doubly intrigued him.

  “Put her drink on my tab,” Parker said. He held out his hand to her. “Parker. You are?”

  “I’m Chelsea. Thank you for the drink. It’s nice to meet you.”

  “Just Chelsea?”

  She smiled. “For now. You just Parker?”

  “For now,” he said, repeating her response.

  That smile of hers made Parker want to grab her hand and take her straight upstairs. It was handy that Graham and Dun’s was a part of a nice little hotel. Parker had taken advantage of that fact many times before, but he’d never wanted to with this much desperation.
<
br />   Parker couldn’t help but notice that Chelsea didn’t have a Texas drawl which meant she was definitely not from around here. Parker usually hooked up with buckle bunny types: women who followed the rodeo circuit and enjoyed themselves along the way. They weren’t always from Texas, but they usually screamed Southern, at the very least. But Chelsea—with her lacy white blouse, black jeans and high-heeled boots—didn’t look like any buckle bunny Parker had ever seen.

  Chelsea thanked Gary as he pushed her drink toward her. She took a sip and then sighed happily, a sound that went straight to Parker’s groin.

  “I’d heard that Texas has some of the best beer, but now I believe it,” she said.

  “We Texans are proud of our beef and our beer, probably in that order,” Parker said.

  Chelsea laughed. “I do love a good steak.”

  “So is that why you came to Texas? For some good food and drinks?”

  “Not quite.”

  “Well, now I gotta ask,” Parker said. “How’d you end up here? You don’t sound like a Texan.”

  “How could you tell?”

  “Darlin’, no Texas woman worth her salt wears those kinds of boots. It’s cowboy boots or bust. You ain’t got the look of a Texas girl, either.”

  Chelsea drew herself up, as if offended. “What kind of girl do I look like, Parker?”

  Parker leaned toward her so he could whisper, “You look like a woman who knows how to enjoy herself, that’s what.”

  Chelsea’s eyes sparkled. “You know all that from…what? My beer order?”

  “Nah, I have a sixth sense with people.” Parker tapped his temple. “People are easy to read, if you know what to look for.”

  “Then how about you tell me what I’m thinking right now?”

  When Chelsea went silent, waiting for his response, Parker laughed. He waved a hand at Gary. “Get me another beer, will you? I’ve decided I ain’t going home any time soon.”