Cassidy Harte and the Comeback Kid

This had to work.

He couldn’t imagine the alternative.

Zach had made mistakes—he would be the first to admit them. But he had paid dearly for them. Could he make it right with her? What were the chances that Cassidy would ever be able to find it in her heart to forgive him?

Well, he would just have to do his best. He had to do everything to make this work. To take this chance.

To see if somewhere inside this hurt, self-protective woman still remained any shred of the one person in the world who had seen something in him worth loving.

Cassidy Harte and the Comeback Kid
RaeAnne Thayne

www.millsandboon.co.uk

RAEANNE THAYNE

lives in a graceful old Victorian nestled in the rugged mountains of northern Utah, along with her husband and two young children. Her books have won numerous honors, including several Romantic Times Readers’ Choice Awards and a RITA^® nomination from the Romance Writers of America. RaeAnne loves to hear from readers. She can be reached through her Web site at www.raeannethayne.com or at P.O. Box 6682, North Logan, UT 84341.

To Angela Stone and her band of angels, especially Merrilyn Lynch, Dorothy Griffiths, Terri Crossley and Leslie Buchanan, for nurturing my family when I couldn’t.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 1

Forget bad hair days. Cassidy Harte was having a bad everything day.

The ancient commercial-grade oven had been giving her fits since lunch; the owner of the small grocery in town had messed up her order, as usual; and her best assistant had decided to run off to Jackson Hole with a hunky, sweet-talking cowboy.

And now this.

With a resigned sigh, she set the spoon down from her world-famous, scorching-hot chili bubbling on the stove and prepared to head off yet another crisis.

“Calm down, Greta, and tell me what’s happened.”

One of the high school students Jean Martineau had hired for the summer to clean rooms and wait tables at the Lost Creek Guest Ranch looked as if she was going to hyperventilate any second now. Her hair was even spikier than normal, her eyes were huge with panic behind their hornrimmed glasses, and she was breathing harder than a bull rider at the buzzer.

“He’s here. The new owner. A whole week early!” she wailed. “What are we gonna do? Jean and Kip took the guests on a trail ride before dinner, and there’s no one else here but me and I don’t know what to do with him,” she finished on a whimper.

Is that all? From the way the girl was carrying on, Cassie would have guessed a grizzly had ambled into the office and ordered a cabin for the night. “It’s okay. Calm down. We can handle this.”

“But a whole week early! We’re not ready.”

It was pretty thoughtless of the Maverick Enterprises CEO to just drop in unexpectedly like this. But the man hadn’t done anything in the usual way, from the moment his representative had made Jean Martineau an offer she couldn’t refuse for her small guest ranch in Star Valley, Wyoming.

All of the negotiations had been handled by a third party—the few negotiations there had been, since the company hadn’t so much as raised an eyebrow at Jean’s seven-figure asking price.

She turned her attention back to Greta. “We’ll just have to do our best. Don’t worry about it. Maverick has made it clear it wants the ranch pretty badly. The company has already invested buckets of time and money into the sale. As far as I know, it’s basically a done deal. Even if we tried, I don’t think we can possibly blow it at this late date.”

The girl still had the wide-eyed, panicky look of a calf facing a branding iron. “You know how much I need this job. If he doesn’t like the service here, he could still fire every single one of us after Maverick takes over. I don’t want to go back to making ice-cream cones at the drive-up.”

True. And Cassie would really hate to lose her job cooking meals for the guest and staff at the ranch. Finding a well-paying job she was qualified for in rural Wyoming wasn’t exactly easy. Especially one that included room and board.

She knew she could always move to a bigger town but she didn’t want to leave Star Valley. This was her home.

If she had to, she knew she could really go home, to her family, but the idea of crawling back to the Diamond Harte appealed to her about as much as sticking one of those branding irons in her eye.

Besides that, she loved working at the Lost Creek. These last few months on her own had been so rich with experiences that she couldn’t bear the idea of losing it all, just because some spoiled, inconsiderate executive decided to drop in on a whim.

She sighed. What a pain in the neck. He’d ruined her plans. With a twinge of regret she remembered the great menu she had planned for the new boss’s first night at the ranch—rack of lamb, caramelized pearl onions and creamed potatoes, with raspberry tartlets for dessert.

Tonight’s dinner was good, hearty fare—chili, corn bread, salad and Dutch-oven peach cobbler—but it was nothing spectacular. It would have to do, though. She didn’t have time to whip up anything else.

“You have to help me,” Greta pleaded. “I don’t know what to do with him and I’m afraid I’ll ruin everything. You know how I get.”

Cassie winced at the reminder. Two weeks before, the president of a fast-food chain from back east had rented the entire ranch for a family reunion. In the midst of a severe case of nerves, Greta had ended up accidentally short-sheeting his bed, leaving out towels altogether and overcharging his credit card by a couple of extra zeros. Then at breakfast she’d topped it off by spilling hot cocoa all over his wife.

“Where is the new guy now?”

“I left him in the gathering room. I didn’t even know which cabin to put him in, since that doctor and his family have the Grand Teton for another two nights.”

Their best cabin. Rats. “What’s left?”

“Just the Huckleberry.”

One of the very smallest cabins. And the one next to hers. She blew out a breath. “That will have to do. He can’t expect to drop in like this and have the whole world stop just for him. Check to make sure the cabin sparkles and then send one of the other wranglers up the trail after Jean. I’ll go out and try to keep him busy until she gets back.”

With a last quick stir of the chili—and a heartfelt wish that she were wearing something a little more presentable than jeans and a T-shirt with her favorite female country band on the front—she headed for the gathering room.

It didn’t matter what she was wearing, she assured herself. He was probably a rich old man who only wants to play cowboy, who wouldn’t notice anything but the ranch unless a stampede knocked him over. He had to be. Why else would his company go to so much effort to buy the Lost Creek Guest Ranch?

The ranch consisted of a dozen small guest cabins and the main ranch house that served as lodge and dining hall. The centerpiece of the split-log house was the huge two-story gathering room, with several Western leather couches set up in conversational groups, a huge river-rock fireplace and a wide wall of windows overlooking the beautiful Salt River Mountain Range.

At the doorway Cassie found the new owner standing with his back to her, gazing out at the mountains.

Okay, she was wrong.

This was no pudgy old cowboy-wannabe, at least judging by the rear view.

And what a view it was.

She gulped. Instead of the brand-spankin’-new Western duds she might have expected, the new owner wore faded jeans and a short-sleeved cotton shirt the same silvery green as the sagebrush covering the mountains. Dark blond hair touched with gold brushed the collar of his shirt and broad shoulders tapered down to lean hips that filled out a pair of worn jeans like nobody’s business. The long length of faded denim ended in a pair of sturdy, battered boots built more for hard work than fashion.

Whoa, Nellie.

By sheer force of will she managed to rein in her wandering thoughts and douse the little fire of awareness sparking to life in her stomach. What in the world was the matter with her? She wasn’t the kind of woman to go weak-kneed at a pretty, er, face. She just wasn’t.

Standing in a hot kitchen all day must have addled her brain. Yeah, that must be it. What other excuse could there be? She couldn’t remember the last time she had experienced this mouthwatering, breathless, heart-pumping reaction.

On some weird level, she supposed it was kind of comforting to know she still could. For a long time she’d been afraid that part of her had died forever.

Still, it was highly inappropriate to entertain lascivious thoughts about her new employer, tight rear end notwithstanding.

She pasted on what she hoped was a friendly, polite smile and walked toward the man. “Hello. You must be from Maverick Enterprises,” she said. “I’m Cassidy Harte, the ranch cook. I’m afraid you caught us by surprise. I apologize for the delay and any inconvenience. Welcome to the Lost Creek Ranch.”

Oddly enough, as soon as she started to speak, the man completely froze, and she saw the taut bunching of muscles under the expensive cotton of his shirt.

For one horrified moment, she wondered if he was going to ignore her. When she was within a half-dozen feet of him, though, he finally began to slowly turn toward her.

“Hello, Cassie.”

The world tilted abruptly, and she would have slid right off the edge if she hadn’t reached blindly for the nearest piece of furniture, a Stickley end table that, lucky for her, was sturdy enough to sustain her weight.

She couldn’t breathe suddenly. This must be what a heart attack felt like, this grinding pain in her chest, this roaring in her ears, this light-headedness that made the whole room spin.

Even with the sudden vertigo making her feel dazed and disoriented, she couldn’t take her eyes off him. In a million years she never would have expected him to show up at the Lost Creek Guest Ranch after all this time.

“Aren’t you going to say anything?” her former fiancé and the man who had destroyed her youth and her innocence asked her with that same damn lopsided smile she’d fallen in love with ten years before.

She gulped air into her lungs, ordered oxygen to saturate her brain cells once more. Still gripping the edge of the oak table, she finally forced herself to meet his gaze.

“What are you doing here, Zack?”

Zack Slater—ten years older and worlds harder than he’d been a decade ago—angled his tawny head. “Is that any way to greet me after all these years?”

What did he want from her? Did he honestly think she would embrace him with open arms, would fall on him as if he were a long-lost friend? The prodigal fiancé?

“You’re not welcome here,” she said, her voice as cold as a glacial cirque. She had ten years of rage broiling up inside her, ten years of rejection and betrayal and shame. “I don’t know why you’ve come back but you can leave now.”

Get out before I throw you out.

For just an instant she thought she saw the barest hint of a shadow creep across his hazel eyes, then it slid away and he gave her a familiar, mocking smile. “Funny thing about that, Cass. Welcome or not, I’m afraid I won’t be leaving anytime soon. I own the place.”

Her heart stumbled in her chest as instant denial sprang out. “No. No, you don’t.”

“Not yet, technically. But it’s only a matter of time.”

Owned the place? He couldn’t. It was impossible. Fate couldn’t be that cruel. She wouldn’t believe it.

“I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing this time,” she snapped, “but you’re lying, something we both know you’re so very good at. How stupid do you think I am? Maverick Enterprises is buying the Lost Creek.”

Again he offered nothing but that hard smile. “And I’m Maverick Enterprises.”

She wouldn’t have been more shocked if he’d suddenly picked up the end table still supporting her weight and tossed it through the eighteen-foot window.

Zack Slater and Maverick Enterprises? It wasn’t possible. Jean had done her research before she agreed to sell the ranch. She might be in her seventies but she wasn’t some kind of doddering old fool. According to the papers provided by the lawyer who had brokered the deal, Maverick had more investments than Cassie’s oldest brother had cattle—everything from coffee-houses to bookstores to Internet start-ups.

The one common thread among them was that each business had a reputation for fairness and integrity, things the man standing in front of her would know nothing about.

“Nice try, but that’s impossible,” she snapped. “Maverick is a huge operation, with its fingers in pies all over the West.”

“What’s the matter, Cass? You don’t think a money-grubbing drifter who could barely pay for his own wedding might be the one licking the apple filling off his fingers?”

She scowled. “Not you. You never had any interest in business whatsoever.”

“Sorry to shatter your illusions, sweetheart, but it’s true. Do you want the number to my office so you can check it out?”

In the face of his cocky attitude, her assurance wavered. This couldn’t be happening. He had to be lying, didn’t he?

“Why should I believe anything you say?” she finally snapped. “You don’t exactly have the best track record around here. I made the mistake of trusting you once, and look where it got me.”

He shifted his gaze away, looking out at the mountains once more. After a moment he turned back, his expression shuttered and those long, dark lashes shielding his vivid eyes.

“Would it help if I said I was sorry for that?” he asked quietly.

For what? For leaving her practically at the altar…or for asking her to marry him in the first place?

She gazed at him, words choking her throat like Western virgin’s bower around a cottonwood trunk. Did he honestly have the gall to stand in front of her and apologize so casually, as if he’d simply bumped shopping carts or pulled in front of her in traffic?

She thought of her oldest brother and those first days after, when Matt had walked around in a state of dazed disbelief. Of a tiny, frail Lucy, just a few months old, wailing shrilly for the mother who would never come back.

Of her own shock and the agonizing pain of complete betrayal, those days and months and years when she knew the whole town looked at her with pity, when the whispers behind her back threatened to deafen her.

Sorry? Zack Slater could never be sorry enough to make right everything he and Melanie had destroyed.

“You’re about ten years too late.”

Zack winced inwardly at the bitterness in her voice, though it was nothing more than he expected. Or than he deserved.

He wanted to kick himself for blurting that out so bluntly. He should have slowly worked up to his apology, waited until she had time to get to know him again before he tried to explain away the decisions he’d made that summer.

But since the moment she had walked into the vast room with its cozy furniture and spectacular view, his brain seemed about as useful as a one-legged chicken and he had to fight with everything inside him not to reach for her.

And wouldn’t that have gone over well? He could just picture her reaction if he tried to pull her into his arms. Knowing Cassie, if he tried it, she would probably scratch and claw and aim a knee at a portion of his anatomy he was fairly fond of.

She said he was too late for apologies, for explanations. He hoped not. He really hoped not, or all his work these last few months would have been for nothing.

Before he could answer, she drew herself up with the unconsciously sensual grace that had been so much a part of her, even as an eighteen-year-old young woman just growing into her body.

Eyes glittering with fury, she faced him. “I don’t know what kind of scam you’re trying to pull here, Slater. But I’ll warn you, Jean is not some feeble-minded old lady to sit by and just let you waltz in and swindle her out of the ranch she has loved all her life. And even if she were, you can bet, I’m not. Jean has people who love her, who look out for her. Whatever twisted scheme you’ve come up with, you won’t get away with this.”

At that, she stalked out of the room, her wildflower scent lingering behind her.

He blew out a sharp breath. So much for a warm welcome. Not that he’d expected one. But then, he’d never imagined Cassie would be the first one to greet him when he arrived, either. He’d thought he would at least have had a little more time to prepare for the shock of seeing her.

She had changed.

What had he expected in ten years? Time didn’t stand still except in his entirely too-vivid imagination. There, Cassidy Harte had remained as fresh and innocent as she’d been at eighteen, when she had stolen his heart with her mischievous smile and her boundless love and her unwavering loyalty.

That Cassie—the one who had haunted his dreams for so long, through the dark months when he had nothing else—had worn her hair long, in a sleek ponytail he used to love to pull from its binding and twist his fingers through.

Sometime during the long years since, she had cut it off. He wondered when, and felt a little pang of loss he knew he had no right to.

Her hair was still as dark and luxurious as it had been ten years ago—as glossy and rich as fine sable—but now she wore it in a sexy little cap that, on any other woman he might have called boyish.

There was nothing remotely boyish about Cassidy Harte, though. From her high cheekbones to her full lips to her body’s soft, welcoming curves, she was one hundred percent woman.

Her eyes were the same. Blue as the spring’s first columbine, fringed by long thick lashes that didn’t need any kind of makeup to enhance their natural beauty.

Ten years ago those eyes would have softened when he walked into a room, would have lit up with joy just at the sight of him. Now they were hard and angry, filled with a deep betrayal he had put there.

This had to work.

He shoved away from the couch and turned back to the mountains, looking out at the magnificent view with the same yearning he imagined was in his gaze when he looked at Cassie.

It had to work. He couldn’t imagine the alternative.

He had made mistakes—he would be the first one to admit them. But he had paid for them, and paid dearly. Could he make it right with her? What were the chances that she would ever be able to find it in her heart to forgive him, after the hurt he had caused her?

Slim to none, he figured.

He rubbed a hand over the ache in his chest. He would just have to do his best. No matter how tough, how seemingly insurmountable the task might seem, he had to do everything he could to make it work.

No matter the risk, he must take this chance.

To see if somewhere inside this hard, angry woman still remained any shred of the one person in the world who had seen something in him worth loving.

Chapter 2

It was true. All of it.

To her shock and dismay, it turned out he was telling the truth this time. By some sadistic twist of fate, Zack Slater was indeed the CEO of one of the most powerful companies in the West—and the man who would be signing her paycheck from here on out.

What kind of warped sense of humor must Somebody have to mess up her life so completely? Just what, exactly, had she done to deserve this?

She tried to be a good person. She didn’t lie, didn’t cheat on her income taxes, didn’t swear—much, anyway. She obeyed the Golden Rule, she was kind to the elderly and small children and she really made an effort to go to church as often as she could manage. And for all her effort, this is what she got?

She should have raised a little hell when she had the chance.

Jean Martineau, steel-gray hair yanked back into her usual ruthlessly tight braid, frowned at her with concern in her snapping brown eyes. “I had no idea, Cassie. I swear I didn’t. The man who signed the papers went by William Z. Slater. Other than the last name bein’ the same, why would I have any reason to think for one minute that he might have anything in common with Zack Slater, the no-good drifter who caused Star Valley’s biggest scandal in years?”

Thank you so much for bringing that up again. Cassie pounded out more of her emotional uproar on the hapless ball of dough for the next morning’s sweet rolls. At this rate, the poor things would be as tough and stringy as cowhide.

“It’s not your fault,” she assured her friend and employer slowly. “I’m sure he concealed his identity on purpose.”

But why? That was the question that had been racing through her head all afternoon. If this whole thing wasn’t a scam—and apparently it wasn’t—why would Zack put himself to so much trouble to buy a small guest ranch that would probably never be more than moderately successful? It didn’t seem like the kind of savvy investment a fast-track company like Maverick Enterprises would make.

The ranch was geared toward families, with plenty of activities for all ages. Jean had the philosophy that children needed to be exposed to the history of the West, to what life was like on a real working cattle ranch, in order to preserve appreciation for the old ways.

To that end she tried to keep her rates affordable, well within range of the average family’s vacation budget.

Cassie would hate to see Zack come in and turn the ranch into some kind of exclusive resort for the rich and famous, like some of the other guest ranches in the area had become. It would be a shame, not to mention take a huge investment in capital.

But why else would he want it, especially when he had to know he wouldn’t be welcomed back by many of the good people of Star Valley?

And why all the secrecy?

Maybe for that very reason—if Jean knew he was the one buying the ranch, she never would have agreed to the sale.

Cassie pounded the bread one last time, wishing it were a certain man’s lean, masculine, treacherous features.

“I can try to back out of the sale, if it’s not too late.” Jean didn’t sound very confident. Her frown cut through her wrinkled, weather-beaten face like sagging barbed wire.

Cassie shook her head. “You won’t get another offer to match the one Maverick made for the ranch.”

“Well, I can get by without the money.”

Maybe, but both of them knew Jean wouldn’t be able to run the ranch much longer, at least not with the same hands-on approach she had always maintained. Some days her arthritis was so bad she couldn’t even raise her arms to saddle a horse.

“I can’t let you back out of the sale,” Cassie said gently. “Not on my account. I’ll find a job somewhere else. Wade Lowry is always after me to come cook for the Rendezvous Ranch.”

Jean touched her shoulder. “I’d hate to lose you. I wouldn’t be able to find anybody else with your gift in the kitchen.”

“I’m sorry,” she said helplessly. “I can’t work for him. Surely you understand that.”

Jean squeezed her shoulder, then stepped back to lean a bony hip against the table. “The past is past, honey. Nothing you can do to change what happened ten years ago. You got to move on.”

It was so much like the lecture Matt always used to give her, she wanted to scream. “Maybe I can’t change the past. But I also don’t need to have it thrown in my face every day when I go to work.”

“True enough. Can’t say as I blame you.”

Still, the disappointment in the feisty rancher’s eyes gnawed at Cassie’s insides. Guilt poked at her. Leaving right now in the middle of the ranch’s busiest season would create a bundle of problems. Jean would have to find someone else fast to fill her position, which meant she would have to take time from the ranch’s guests for hiring and training someone new.

She wavered. Maybe she could stick it out a little longer, just for Jean’s sake.

Then she thought about working for Zack, having to see him regularly. Ten years ago she had been nothing short of devastated when he jilted her. She had worked hard during the intervening years to get to this place where she had confidence again, where she could see all the good things about herself instead of constantly dwelling on what it was she had lacked that had driven the man she loved into the arms of her brother’s wife.

Seeing him all the time, working for him, was bound to undermine that confidence. She couldn’t do it. Not even for Jean.

“I’m sorry,” she said again.

Jean shrugged and managed a weathered smile. “We’ll just have to make the best of a bad situation. That’s all we can do. Now, it’s been a heck of a day. Why don’t you go back to your cabin and I’ll finish up here?”

“No. I’m almost done. You get some rest.”

Jean touched her shoulder again. “Good night, then,” she said, then hobbled from the kitchen.

After her boss left, Cassie quickly finished her prep work for breakfast, then turned the lights off and walked out of the kitchen toward her own cabin next to the creek.

She considered her little place the very best perk of working for the ranch. It was small, only three rooms—tiny bedroom, bathroom and a combined kitchen and living room—but all three rooms belonged to her.

For another few days, anyway.

The cabin was more than just a place to sleep. It represented independence, a chance to stand on her own without her two older brothers hovering in the wings to watch over her, as they had been doing for most of her life.

She was twenty-eight years old and this was the first time she had ever lived away from home. How pathetic was that? She had never known the giddy excitement of moving into a college dorm and meeting her roommates for the first time or the rush of being carried across the threshold of a new house by a loving husband or repainting a guest bedroom for a nursery.

She didn’t like the bitter direction her thoughts had taken. Still, she couldn’t help thinking that if it hadn’t been for Zack Slater, her life might have turned out vastly different.

She had just graduated high school when he blew into her life. She had been young and naive and passionately in love with the gorgeous ranch hand with the stunning gold-flecked eyes and the shadows in his smile.

To her amazement he had seemed as smitten as she. The fierce joy in his face whenever he saw her had been heady stuff for a girl who had never even had a serious boyfriend before.

Right from the beginning they had talked of marriage. He had wanted her to finish college before they married, but she couldn’t stand the idea of being away from him for four long years. She had worked for weeks to persuade him that she could still attend college after they were married, that he could work while she went to school since she had a scholarship. After she graduated, she would work to put him through.

Finally she had worn down his resistance. She flushed now, remembering. Maybe if she hadn’t been in such a rush, had given him time to adjust to the idea of settling down, he wouldn’t have felt the need to bolt.

But he did, taking her dreams—and her brother’s wife—with him, and leaving Matt a single father of a tiny baby.

What else could she have done but stay and try to repair the damage she had brought down on her family? If she had the choice to do all over again, she honestly didn’t think she would change anything she had done after he left.

She sighed and let herself into the cabin, comforted by the familiar furnishings—the plump couch, the rocker of her mother’s, the braided rug in front of the little fireplace. She had made the cabin warm and cozy and she loved it here.

Functioning more on autopilot than through any conscious decision, she walked into the small bathroom and turned on the water in the old-fashioned clawfoot tub, as hot as she could stand. When the tub was filled almost to overflowing, she took off her clothes and slipped into the water, desperate to escape the unbelievable shock of seeing the only man she had ever loved, after all these years.

Taking a bath was a huge mistake.

She realized that almost as soon as she slid down into the peach-scented bubbles. Now that she didn’t have her work in the kitchen to keep her busy, she couldn’t seem to fix her mind on anything but Zack and the memories of that summer ten years ago, memories that rolled across her mind like tumbleweed in a hard wind.

The first time she had talked to him—really talked to him—was branded into her memory. He had worked at the Diamond Harte for several months before that late spring evening, but she had been so busy finishing her senior year of high school that she had barely noticed him, except as the cute, slightly dangerous-looking ranch hand with the sunstreaked hair and that rare but devastating smile.

Matt liked him, she knew that. Her oldest brother had raved about what a way Zack had with horses and how he worked the rest of the ranch hands into the ground. And she remembered being grateful that her brother had someone else he could trust to run things, while he had so many other worries on his mind.

Melanie had been in the advanced stage of a pregnancy she obviously hadn’t wanted. Never the most even-tempered of women, her sister-in-law had suddenly become prone to vicious mood swings. Deliriously happy one moment, livid the next, icy cold a few moments later. Her brother definitely had his hands full, and she was grateful to Zack for shouldering some of that burden.

Then, in late May, the week after her high school graduation when the mountain snows finally began to melt, Matt had asked Zack to take a few of the other ranch hands and drive part of the herd to higher ground to graze. Because it was an overnight trip, they would need someone to cook for them, and Cassie had volunteered, eager for the adventure of a cattle drive, even though it would be a short one.