Czytaj książkę: «The Cowboy's Way»

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Epilogue

Extract

Copyright

One

As he sat at Sam and Bria Rafferty’s dining room table after a delicious Christmas dinner prepared by his sisters-in-law, T. J. Malloy couldn’t help but smile. He listened to his foster brothers and their wives talk about what they had planned for the week leading up to the family’s annual New Year’s Eve party, which T.J. hosted at his ranch. And, as always, there was the usual good-natured ribbing and the laughter that always followed, as well as everyone making faces and funny noises to get a smile or a giggle out of the babies. Life was good and he was one grateful son-of-a-gun for the way everything had turned out.

Thanks to their foster father, Hank Calvert, T.J. and the other five men who had been placed in the man’s care when they were teenagers had straightened out their lives. In the process, they had bonded and become a family T.J. loved with all his heart. Now, he owned his own ranch, where he raised champion reining horses—a dream he’d had for most of his thirty-two years. And because he’d made several wise investments, he had more money in the bank than he could spend in three or four lifetimes.

Yup, he truly was a blessed man and he had the good sense to know it.

“Your turn, T.J.,” Bria said, smiling as she dished up slices of homemade red velvet cake. “What are your plans for the week?”

“Same as every year,” he said, smiling back at his sister-in-law. “I’ll spend the week training my horses and waiting for you all to show up on New Year’s Eve afternoon.”

Four years ago when he bought the Dusty Diamond Ranch and built his seven-bedroom house, everyone had decided that he would host the family’s New Year’s Eve gatherings. He had enough bedrooms to accommodate the entire family, and they could all bring in the New Year together without having to be out on the roads after celebrating with a few drinks. His brothers brought their wives or a date and once the kids had been tucked in for the night, they sat around and talked or watched a movie. It had become a tradition and one that T.J. looked forward to every year.

“Do you have a lady in your life who will be joining us this year?” Nate Rafferty asked, grinning from ear to ear.

Nate and Sam were the only biological brothers of the bunch, but they couldn’t have been more different if they had tried. While Sam was a happily married family man, Nate was wilder than a range-raised colt. He loved the ladies and seemed to have made it his mission in life to date every single woman in the entire southwest. But as rowdy as he was, Nate had the same sense of loyalty that had been instilled in all of Hank’s foster sons. Come hell or high water, Nate would be there for any one of them—the same as they would be there for him.

“T.J. does have a woman in his life, Nate,” Lane Donaldson said, laughing as he put his arm around his wife, Taylor. “But for some reason he won’t break down and ask his neighbor to join us.”

“You just had to go there, didn’t you, Freud?” T.J. replied, shaking his head in disgust. He should have known Lane would feel the need to comment. Having earned a master’s degree in psychology, the man knew exactly which buttons to push to get a rise out of any one of them. “She and her stallion are on one side of the fence and I’m on the other. And that’s the way it’s going to stay.”

That Wilson woman had been T.J.’s neighbor for close to two years, and he’d seen her only a handful of times. But his brothers constantly teased him about his “interest” in his ornery neighbor, even though all he knew about her was how careless she was with her horse. Hell, he didn’t even know her first name. And furthermore, he didn’t want to know it.

“You haven’t seen her since we put up that six-foot fence between your ranch and hers this past spring?” Sam asked, trying to dodge the glob of mashed potatoes his ten-month-old son had scooped off the highchair tray and tried to throw at him.

“Nope. I haven’t seen her or her stallion and that suits me just fine.” T.J. couldn’t help but laugh when little Hank landed the mashed potatoes right square on the end of Sam’s nose.

“Now that you have solved the problem of her stallion jumping the fence, what are you going to complain about?” Ryder McClain asked, laughing. His laughter immediately turned to a groan when his baby daughter, Katie, missed the burp cloth on his shoulder and “christened” the back of his clean shirt.

“Thank you, Katie,” T.J. said, grinning as he reached over to take the baby from his brother while Ryder’s wife, Summer, wiped off the back of his shoulder. “That shut your daddy up real quick.”

“You’d better watch out, T.J.,” Ryder said, grinning back at him. “You could be next. The smell of a clean shirt always seems to make my daughter nauseous.”

The most easygoing of the band of brothers, Ryder was also the most courageous. A rodeo bullfighter, he used to save bull riders from serious injury, or worse, on a regular basis. But since he’d married Summer and they had little Katie, Ryder had cut way back on his schedule and only worked the rodeos Nate and their brother Jaron Lambert competed in. T.J. suspected it was because Ryder wanted to make sure his brothers were well protected from the dangerous bulls they rode in their quest to become national champions. T.J. also knew Ryder would never admit that was the reason he hadn’t completely quit being a bullfighter.

“Will you be at the party, Mariah?” Lane’s wife, Taylor, asked Bria’s younger sister.

“Probably not,” Mariah said slowly. She paused as she glanced across the table at Jaron. “I’ve met someone and he’s asked me to go to a New Year’s Eve party with him at one of the clubs up in Dallas.”

Everyone looked at Jaron to see how he would react to Mariah’s news. The entire family knew the two had been attracted to each other practically from the moment they’d met. But Mariah had only been eighteen at the time and at twenty-six, Jaron had decided—and rightly so—that he was too old for her. Unfortunately, in the seven years since, Jaron hadn’t changed his stance and Mariah had apparently become tired of waiting on him and decided to move on.

“Congratulations on the new guy,” Jaron said tightly, breaking the awkward silence. “Have a good time.”

To the outward eye, his brother looked sincere, but T.J. knew better. By nature, Jaron was more reserved and quieter than the rest of the men, making it hard to figure out what he was thinking. But when he was pissed off, his voice took on an edge that was rock-hard, ice-cold and impossible to ignore. That edge was present now and T.J. knew Jaron was warning the rest of the men that he wasn’t in the mood for their affectionate teasing about Mariah, now or later. T.J. also knew every one of his brothers would respect Jaron’s need for silence on the matter.

“What about you, Nate?” T.J. asked, counting on the man to ease some of the sudden tension in the room. “Are you bringing someone this year?”

Nate shook his head. “I bought the Twin Oaks Ranch over by Beaver Dam a few weeks ago,” Nate stated proudly. “I’ve been too busy lately to think about anything but what I’m going to do with the place.”

“When did this happen?” T.J. asked, astounded. “I don’t recall you mentioning it when we were together at Thanksgiving.”

“I didn’t want to jinx it in case the deal fell through,” Nate said as he shoveled a big bite of red velvet cake into his mouth.

Nate’s superstition didn’t surprise T.J. one bit. Every rodeo rider he knew was superstitious about something. Even he’d had certain rituals he went through before he climbed on the back of a rank bucking horse when he competed.

“You’re finally putting down roots?” Sam asked, looking like he couldn’t quite believe Nate was serious.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, bro, but I never thought I’d see the day you settled down,” Ryder said, shaking his head.

“I just bought a ranch,” Nate said, grinning. “I never said I was settling down.”

“When do you move into your new den of iniquity?” T.J. asked, handing baby Katie to Summer for the rest of her bottle.

“I won’t be moving in for a while,” Nate said, taking another bite of the red velvet cake in front of him. He shrugged. “I’ve got some work I need to do on it first. I’m going to knock down a couple of walls to make a great room and the plumbing and wiring need to be upgraded. I also need to make a few repairs to the fences and maybe build a couple of new barns before I bring in livestock.”

“Just let us know when and how we can help and we’ll be there,” Lane said, speaking for all of them.

“I’ll do that.” Nate smiled at the women seated around the table. “And I’m counting on these lovely ladies to help out when it comes to decorating the house.”

T.J. raised an eyebrow. “Even the master suite?”

Nate shook his head as his grin turned suggestive. “I’ve got my own ideas for that.”

“I’ll bet you do,” Ryder said, voicing what the rest of the men were thinking.

“We can skip the details on your choice of decor for your bedroom,” Bria said, handing T.J. a slice of cake.

Everyone nodded their agreement and the rest of the evening was filled with talk about renovating Nate’s ranch house, causing T.J. to breathe a sigh of relief. If they were talking about something else, they weren’t teasing him about his neighbor. And that was just fine with him. The less he was reminded of the woman, the better.

Several hours later, after finalizing plans for when everyone would arrive for the New Year’s Eve party, T.J. left Sam and Bria’s for the hour’s drive back to his ranch. It had been raining all day, and by the time he reached the turn-off leading up to the Dusty Diamond’s ranch house, it had become an outright downpour.

He started to turn his truck onto the lane, but then stopped when he noticed a faint glow of red about a hundred yards up ahead. The best he could tell, it was the taillights of a car and he knew without a shadow of doubt that the creek had flooded out again, blocking the road. It only happened three or four times a year, but whenever there was a significant amount of rain, the slow-moving stream that bordered his ranch to the east turned into a raging river. With as much water as had fallen over the course of the day, the creek was probably a good twenty feet or so out of its banks on either side of the ravine.

Unable to ignore the fact that whoever was in the vehicle might need help, T.J. drove on until he reached the compact gray sedan sitting in the middle of the road. He could tell someone was still inside, and from what he could see of the slim form, that someone was female. Cursing the nasty weather, T.J. got out of his truck and jogged up to the driver’s side door.

“Is there anything I can do to help, ma’am?” T.J. asked as the woman inside lowered the window. She stopped halfway, and he wasn’t certain if it was to keep out the rain, or because he was the one offering her assistance. But he almost groaned aloud when he realized the driver was his archenemy, that Wilson woman from the neighboring ranch.

He hadn’t seen her since the last time her horse jumped the fence, back in the spring, when he’d had to take the stallion back over to the Circle W. It had been about the tenth time the horse had trespassed on Dusty Diamond land, and T.J.’s patience with the situation had come to a swift end. That’s when he’d had his brothers help him put up the six-foot fence between the two properties. The fence had eliminated the problem of her horse romancing T.J.’s mares and he had thought he wouldn’t have to deal with her again. Apparently, he’d been wrong.

“I was afraid of this,” she said, not looking any happier to see him than he was to see her.

T.J. wasn’t sure if she meant she had been afraid of not being able to get across the creek or she’d been afraid that he would be her only source of help. Either way, she wasn’t in the position of being choosy, and he wouldn’t walk away and leave her to solve the problem on her own. His foster father would probably come back from the dead to haunt him if Hank knew one of the boys he had raised had left a lady in distress to fend for herself.

“Even if it stops raining now, you won’t be able to get back to your ranch until morning,” T.J. pointed out. As he stood in the downpour, chilling water dripped off the back of his wide brimmed hat and ran down his neck. It was damned uncomfortable and he wasn’t inclined to mince words. “You’ll have to follow me to the Dusty Diamond. You can stay there tonight.”

She stubbornly shook her head. “We may be neighbors, but I don’t really know you and from our past run-ins, I’m not interested in getting acquainted.”

“Believe me, lady, I’m not, either,” T.J. stated flatly. “But there’s no way you’ll make it across forty feet of rushing water without stalling out or being swept down into the ravine. Then I’d be obligated to jump in and try to fish you out before you drowned. I’d really like to avoid that if possible.” He took a deep breath and tried to hold on to his temper. “Do you have anywhere else you can go?”

As she stared at him, she caught her lower lip between her teeth as if she was trying to think of somewhere—anywhere—she could spend the night other than at his place. She finally shook her head. “No.”

“Well, I’m not going to let you stay here in your car all night,” he said impatiently.

“You’re not going to let me stay in my car?”

From the tone of her voice, he could tell he had ruffled more than a couple of feathers.

“Look, I’m just trying to keep you from having to spend a damp, uncomfortable night in your car,” he stated. “But it’s your choice. If you want to sit out here instead of sleeping in a warm, dry bed, that’s your choice.”

When it dawned on him that she might be frightened of him, he felt a little guilty for being so blunt. He could even understand her reluctance to take him up on his offer. The few times they had come face-to-face, he had been angry. She probably thought he was an ill-tempered bastard. Unfortunately, he wasn’t doing anything now to correct that impression.

“Hey, I’m sorry,” he said, making a conscious effort to remove the impatience from his tone. “It’s dark, cold and I’m getting soaked to the bone out here.” He hoped the friendly smile he gave her helped to alleviate some of her fears. “It’s warm and dry at my place and I’ve got plenty of room.” As an afterthought, he added, “And all of the bedrooms have locks on the doors.”

She glanced in the rearview mirror at something in the backseat, then hesitated a few seconds longer before she shook her head. She sounded tired and utterly defeated when she finally murmured, “I don’t have a choice.”

“When we get to the house, you can park in the garage,” he offered. “There’s plenty of room and you’ll be able to stay dry getting inside the house.”

“All right. I’ll follow you,” she said, rolling up the driver’s side window.

He jogged back to his truck and started it up. Once he had it turned around and checked to make sure she wasn’t having any trouble doing the same, T.J. drove back to the lane leading up to his home. When he steered the truck around the ranch house to the attached three-car garage, he pressed the remote to raise two of the wide doors and parked inside. By the time he got out, the woman had stopped her older Toyota between his truck and the Mercedes sedan he rarely drove.

He walked over and opened her door. When she got out of the car, his breath caught. The times he had taken her errant horse back to her and knocked on her door to demand she keep the horse on her ranch, as well as during their conversation a few minutes ago in the dark, cold rain, he had been so frustrated, he hadn’t paid much attention to his neighbor’s looks. But he sure as hell noticed them now.

A few inches over six feet tall, T.J. didn’t meet many women who could look him square in the eye without having to tilt their heads back. But the Wilson woman was only four or five inches shorter than him. When their gazes met, he felt like he had been kicked in the gut.

She had the bluest eyes he’d ever seen and for reasons that baffled him, he wanted to take her long, strawberry blond hair down from her ponytail and run his fingers through the soft-looking, wavy strands. The woman wasn’t just pretty, she was heart-stoppingly gorgeous. He couldn’t believe he had missed seeing that before.

When she turned to open the back door of her car and reached inside, he briefly wondered if she carried an overnight bag around just on the outside chance she got stranded somewhere. But when she straightened and turned to face him, T.J. barely managed to keep his jaw from dropping. She held a blanket-covered child to her shoulder with one arm, while she tried to keep her grasp on her purse and a diaper bag with the other.

In the course of about three seconds several questions ran through his mind. First, he remembered that when he’d stopped to see if she needed help, she had been sitting in her car contemplating how she was going to get back to her ranch. Surely she wouldn’t have tried to cross the flooded road with her kid in the backseat? The realization of what might have happened if she had tried such a thing caused a tight knot to form in the pit of his stomach. Second, when he’d asked her if there was anywhere else she could go, she had told him there wasn’t. What would she have done if he hadn’t come along and offered her shelter for the night? Would she have tried to tough it out all night in the car with a child?

“Let me help you,” T.J. said now, stepping forward to take her purse and the diaper bag. Aside from the fact that it was just good manners for a man to help a woman carry things, the dark smudges beneath her eyes were testament to the fact that she was extremely tired.

“Thank you...Malloy.” She shook her head as she closed the car door. “I don’t know your first name.”

When he stepped back for her to precede him through the door leading into the mudroom, he did his best to give her a friendly smile. “The name’s T.J., Ms. Wilson.”

He suddenly realized that in the four years since he’d bought the ranch, he’d been so busy starting his breeding program and getting settled in, that he hadn’t bothered to get acquainted with more than one or two of the other ranchers in the immediate area. And the few times he had met up with Ms. Wilson, it hadn’t been under the best of circumstances. He had been pissed off about her stallion impregnating his mares and hadn’t bothered to introduce himself and, understandably, she hadn’t been inclined to give him her name or exchange pleasantries when he had put her on the defensive.

He felt a little guilty about that. Oh, who was he kidding? He felt downright ashamed of himself. No matter if he had been angry or not, he had better manners than that and shouldn’t have been so demanding.

“My name’s Heather,” she said as they walked into the kitchen. When he turned on the lights, she stopped and looked around. “Your home is very nice.”

“Thanks.” He set her purse and the diaper bag on the kitchen island, then shrugged out of his wet jacket before helping her out of hers. “Would you like something to eat or drink, Heather?” he asked, doing his best to be cordial.

“Thank you, but it’s late and if you don’t mind, I’d rather get my son settled down for the night,” she said, sounding as if she was ready to drop in her tracks.

“No problem.” Hanging their coats in the mudroom, he picked up the two bags and led the way down the hall to the stairs in the foyer. “Do you need to call someone to let them know where you are and that you and your little boy are all right?”

T.J. wondered where her significant other was and why he wasn’t with her. Any man worth a damn wouldn’t have let his woman go out alone on a night like this. In T.J.’s opinion, there was no excuse for the man not being on the cell phone at that very moment checking to see that she and their little boy were safe and going to be all right.

Climbing the steps, she shook her head. “No. There’s no one. It’s just me and Seth.”

When T.J. stopped and opened the door to the first bedroom on the second floor, he stepped back for her to enter. “Ladies first.” Following her into the room, he added, “If this isn’t to your liking, I’ve got five more bedrooms to choose from.”

“This is fine, thank you,” she said, reaching for her purse and the diaper bag as if she would like for him to leave.

When her hand brushed his, he felt a tingling sensation along his skin and quickly reasoned that it was probably a charge of static electricity. But he couldn’t dismiss the heat he felt radiating from her quite so easily.

Frowning, he asked, “Are you feeling all right?”

“I’ve felt better,” she admitted as she set the two bags on the bench at the end of the bed.

Without a second thought about the invasion of her space, T.J. walked over and placed his palm on her forehead. “You’ve got a fever.” Lifting the edge of the blanket, he noticed the sleeping baby’s flushed cheeks. “Both of you are sick.”

“We’ll be fine,” she said, placing the little boy on the bed. “I had to take my son to the emergency room. I was on my way back home when you stopped to see if we needed help.”

“What was the diagnosis?” T.J. asked, hoping the little guy was going to be okay.

“He has an ear infection.” She reached for the diaper bag. “They gave me an antibiotic for him, as well as something to give him if his fever spikes.”

“What about you?” he asked. “Did you see a doctor while you were there?”

She shook her head. “I’ll be all right. I’m just getting over the flu.”

“You should have seen a doctor as well,” he said, unable to keep the disapproval from his voice.

“Well, I didn’t,” she retorted as if she resented his observation. “Now, if you’ll excuse me—”

“While you get him settled in bed, I’ll go get something for you to sleep in,” he interrupted, leaving the room before she could protest.

When he entered the master suite, T.J. walked straight to the medicine cabinet in his adjoining bathroom. Taking a bottle of Tylenol from one of the shelves, he went back into his bedroom and looked around. What could he give her to wear to bed? He preferred sleeping in the buff and didn’t even own a pair of pajamas. Deciding that one of his flannel shirts would have to do, he took one from the walk-in closet and headed back to the room Heather and her son would be using.

“Will this be okay?” he asked, holding up the soft shirt for her inspection. “I’m sorry I don’t have something more comfortable.”

“I could have just slept in my clothes,” she said, covering the baby with the comforter. Turning to face him, she took the garment he offered. “But thank you for...everything.”

“Here’s something to take for your fever,” he said, handing her the bottle of Tylenol. He went into the adjoining bathroom for a glass of water, then handed it to her as he pointed to the bottle. “Take a couple of these and if you need anything else, my room is down at the other end of the hall.”

“We’ll be fine,” she said, removing two of the tablets from the bottle.

He stared at her for a moment, wondering for the second time since finding her stranded on the road how he could have missed how beautiful she was all those times he took her horse back to her. Even with dark smudges under her eyes, she was striking and the kind of woman a man couldn’t help but wonder—

“Was there something else?” she asked, snapping him back to reality.

Deciding the rain must have washed away some of his good sense, he shook his head. “Good night.”

When he left the room and closed the door, he heard the quiet snick of the lock being set behind him as he started down the hall to his bedroom. Under the circumstances, he could understand her caution. A woman alone couldn’t be too careful these days. She didn’t know him and until tonight, he hadn’t given her a reason to think she might want to change that fact.

“You’re one sorry excuse for a man,” he muttered to himself.

He’d had his mind made up that she was just a defiant, uncaring female who arrogantly ignored his pleas to keep her horse at home. It had never occurred to him that she was every bit as vulnerable and overworked as any other single mother. Of course, he hadn’t known about the kid until tonight. But that was no excuse for jumping to conclusions about her the way he had.

As T.J. took off his damp clothes and headed for the shower to wash away the uncomfortable chill of the cold rain, he couldn’t stop thinking about his guests down the hall. He didn’t know what the story was with Heather and her little boy, but it really didn’t matter. Whether she wanted to accept his help or not, right now she needed it. She and her kid were both sick, and since there didn’t seem to be anyone else to see to their welfare, T.J. was going to have to step up to the plate.

One of the first things Hank Calvert had taught him and his brothers was that when they saw someone in need, it was only right to pitch in and lend a hand. He had told them that life could be an obstacle and sometimes it took teamwork to get through it. And if anyone ever needed a helping hand it was Heather Wilson.

Of course, T.J. didn’t think Hank had ever run into anyone with as much stubborn pride as Heather. The woman wore that pride like a suit of armor and was a little too independent for her own good. He toweled himself dry, walked into the bedroom and got into bed. He lay there for several long minutes, staring up at the ceiling as he listened to the rain pelt the roof. Heather’s situation was a lot like his own mother’s.

Delia Malloy had been a single mother with all the responsibilities that entailed. She had done a great job of holding down a job and providing for their family of two while she raised him. T.J. would always be grateful for the sacrifices she had made. But when he was ten years old, they both came down with the flu. That was when his life changed forever.