A Rugged Ranchin' Dad

Stone knew exactly what he had to do. Letter to Reader Title Page Dedication About the Author Prologue Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Copyright

Stone knew exactly what he had to do.

He’d known for weeks.

He had to pick up the pieces of his life—and Dahlia’s, too—and he had to do it now. Tonight.

His life had broken apart one year ago, large pieces of it crushed beyond recognition. Even so, one piece, shining and pure, yet sharp enough to draw blood, a piece Stone could hold on to, was solid and it was real.

He was still deeply, hopelessly in love with Dahlia—and he’d do anything, absolutely anything—not to lose her.

Even if it meant he had to risk his heart all over again....

Dear Reader,

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Happy New Year!

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A Rugged Ranchin’ Dad

Kia Cochrane

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For Keith

KIA COCHRANE

reads anything she can get her hands on. “I love books with happy endings,” Kia says, “especially romances.” Kia, who has been writing since she was nine years old, was born and raised in Virginia and now lives in North Carolina with her husband, their white miniature poodle, their golden retriever and their new kitten.

Stone Tyler on Fatherhood...

I never thought much about faith—until mine was put to the test. You see, I blamed myself for my daughter’s death last year. And I promised myself that nothing—absolutely nothing—would harm my little boy. Not if I could prevent it.

But I went about it all wrong. I took control of Field’s life. I took away all the things that he cared about—just to keep him safe. But I forgot that kids need freedom as much as they need rules. And to be trusted nearly as much as they need to be loved.

I haven’t been a good father to my son this past year. Haven’t been much of a husband to Dahlia, either, to tell you the truth. But I’m trying to get past the grief and the guilt and to face the future with an open heart.

I just hope it’s not too late....

Prologue

Dahlia walked toward the beckoning white light. She felt warm all over—and, finally, at peace. She hadn’t felt this good since...well, since her hell on earth had begun twelve months ago.

The place was crowded. Everyone was lined up, waiting to get their wings, and to be escorted through the white gates. The guy in front of her wore brief bathing trunks, and he was carrying a surfboard, his shoulder-length blond hair still damp. He smelled faintly of salt and seaweed.

Dahlia sighed and glanced down at herself. She wasn’t much better. She had on worn, faded jeans and a soft blue denim shirt. Odd, she had always believed entering heaven meant wearing white.

She glanced at the sentinel beside the gate. He wore a long, beautiful robe of ivory silk. He also had wings and a glorious halo to go along with his leather notebook and pencil. Maybe you weren’t given white clothes until you passed through the gates.

Dahlia suppressed a sigh. What was taking so long? she wondered. She was filled with anticipation and excitement. Your loved ones were supposed to be waiting for you, weren’t they?

She bit her lower lip. Impatience was a trait she possessed in abundance, one that she wasn’t proud of, and she tried hard to rein it in.

She did permit herself a small, bouncing motion on the balls of her booted feet, hoping to relieve some of her stress. She hated waiting in lines, but comforted herself with the knowledge that this line would be her last one ever.

Finally, finally, she reached the man with the wings and the halo.

“Your name, please?” he asked briskly.

“Dahlia Tyler.”

“Ah, yes. Demise by being thrown from a horse.”

“Actually, Firelight didn’t throw me,” she gently corrected him. “The branch of a tree knocked me to the ground.”

“Ah, yes. Head injury,” he said, as though that explained everything. “My name is Basil, and I am the Chief Angel. Here is a ticket for your wings and halo at the end of the path.” He placed the ticket in her hand and immediately Dahlia found herself in a long white gown. Silk. Pure silk, she thought, running her hands over the material.

“Step through here, please.”

Dahlia studied the gate he was holding open for her. She wanted to get out of this white mist, and go through the gate. It was clear on the other side.

She could see stone pathways through beautiful green fields, could hear the sound of rushing water somewhere beyond the gate, and she wanted very much to go there. She needed to go there, where it was safe and warm—but where was...?

“Mom! Over here!”

And Dahlia saw her. Brooke. Her daughter, standing on the path. She was wearing the long white gown, wings and halo of an angel. She looked so beautiful, Dahlia’s heart ached. She hadn’t seen her little girl in such a long time.

Twelve months, to be exact.

Her little girl. Her precious baby—no, not her baby. Brooke always hated it when she called her that. Brooke was gazing back at her with big blue eyes, her long dark hair loose and free, a wreath of white flowers on her head.

“Mom, hurry! I’ve been waiting and waiting for you!” Brooke held her arms out with a joyous smile.

Dahlia started to run toward her, but Basil stopped her with a gentle, but firm, hand. “There will be a short delay,” he said quietly. “It has been brought to my attention—”

“Oh, no, please!” Dahlia cried. “Let me go through the gate now. I’ve waited so long for this,” she pleaded with him. She had to make him understand! “I want to be with my daughter. I haven’t held her or touched her in a year—”

“I am sorry, but there are rules, you know.”

Basil did look as though he regretted keeping her out of heaven, but why couldn’t he just let her go through the gate as planned? Why the delay? What had she done wrong?

“I’ve been standing in this line forever, waiting, waiting to be with my daughter.” Dahlia was close to tears.

Basil’s heavenly blue eyes rested gently upon her face. “It will only be three weeks,” he promised her.

Dahlia looked wistfully at Brooke, who was still waiting on the path. Then she nodded slowly. After all, she wanted to make a good impression. She took a deep breath and almost saluted. “All right.”

Basil looked pleased. “There is a man who is dangerously close to losing faith in himself. You are to help him find it.”

Oh, great! “Who is this man?” she asked.

Basil checked his list, then looked at her for a moment that seemed to stretch endlessly between them. “His name is Stone Tyler.”

Dahlia gasped. She’d never get into heaven now. There wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell to get Stone to believe in anything. Not after what had happened to their daughter.

“This is top priority,” he continued. “Stone Tyler is worth a little more effort.”

“Yes, I know he is,” Dahlia said softly. But she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t reach him. She’d tried and failed countless times before.

“Remember the power of love.”

Dahlia sighed at the trust she saw in Basil’s blue eyes. She peeked through the gate, but she could no longer see Brooke. Wearily she turned away.

Once again Basil stopped her with a gentle hand. “You have three weeks. If you do not complete your mission and return within the scheduled time, you may not go through the gate,” he warned.

“I’ll be here. I promise.” Dahlia looked at the ticket in her hand. “Do I have to give this back?”

Basil shook his head. “No, it is yours to keep.”

Dahlia stood still for a moment, frightened by the idea of leaving this place, and of the uphill battle ahead to restore Stone’s faith in himself. But she would do it.

She had to.

She’d do whatever it took to be with her daughter again.

Then she felt herself tumbling down, down, down....

Chapter One

Stone Tyler waited anxiously outside the hospital room while the doctor examined his wife. What in hell had he been thinking? Why had he spouted off about wanting to shoot Firelight? It wasn’t the horse’s fault that Brooke was dead.

He buried his face in his hands. If he hadn’t said all those things about killing Brooke’s golden palomino, then Dahlia wouldn’t have—

Guilt piled on top of guilt, like so many layers of dirt and grime.

He wouldn’t have shot Firelight. He wouldn’t have taken his rifle out to the corral and put a bullet in his daughter’s beloved horse.

He’d just been...frustrated. And angry.

At himself, mostly.

But why couldn’t Dahlia understand that the ranch was no place for Field? He didn’t want to lose his son, too. Why couldn’t she understand how much he needed to keep his surviving son safe—no matter the cost?

Why couldn’t she just let him do his job as a father? Sending their ten-year-old boy to a boarding school in San Antonio was not the end of the world. Stone hated the idea of not seeing his son every day, but Field could come home on weekends. Dahlia acted as though San Antonio was on the other side of the country, instead of only sixty miles from the ranch.

He glanced up when he heard footsteps. It was the nurse. “You may see your wife now,” she said. Her smile was reassuring.

He rushed to the door of Dahlia’s room, the past couple of days crowding his mind. The argument, Dahlia racing off blindly to save Firelight, the way he’d found her, unconscious, in the meadow, the coma she’d been in for the past thirty-six hours...

Relief crashed in on him, flooding him with memories. It hadn’t always been like this, Stone thought, as he hesitated outside the private room. Once there had been love and laughter.

Once he’d had a family. A whole family—with Dahlia, Field and Brooke.

Now it was breaking up all around him, and he didn’t know how to stop it from happening.

Stone entered the room, the scent of roses and carnations assaulting him from all sides, reminding him of the flowers at Brooke’s funeral.

And in the middle of the flowers, Dahlia lay still and silent in the white bed. But at least she was okay. The doctors had said so. All they’d been waiting for was Dahlia to wake up.

The doctor and nurse separated and let him pass between them, so he could bend over Dahlia’s bed. Stone swallowed slowly, taking her limp hand in his. “Dahlia,” he said quietly. “It’s okay. Everything will be okay now. I promise.”

He held his breath. He’d been talking to her for the past day and a half, hoping to get through to her. And then, a few minutes ago, she’d stirred and tried to open her eyes.

But what if she slipped back into a coma when she heard his voice this time? What if he was the reason she’d stayed unconscious for so long?

“Dahlia, open your eyes,” Stone said tightly, his fingers gripping her hand like a lifeline. That was exactly what she was to him. His lifeline.

The center of his universe.

But she was going to leave him if he sent their son away.

“Dahlia.” His voice was soft now, urging her to come back to him. “Dahlia, it’s Stone. Open your eyes and look at me.”

Her eyes opened and Stone looked into the violet-blue depths. The tip of her pink tongue slid out to lick her pale lips. “Stone,” she said as she felt around her shoulder area with her free hand, frowning up at him in bewilderment.

“What is it, sweetheart? Does it hurt?” The pounding of his heart seemed to reverberate until the floor shook beneath his feet.

“Didn’t I get my wings? Did they get crushed when I fell?”

There was a moment of hushed silence. Stone looked from his wife to the doctor.

“Your wife’s had a severe blow to the head, Mr. Tyler,” the doctor said quietly. “Give her some time.”

Stone swallowed nervously, his gaze moving raggedly over Dahlia’s face. Her head was bandaged, her blond hair spread out on the pillow. She was small anyway, but in the hospital bed she looked smaller and more helpless than he’d ever seen her.

“Stone.” Her voice was only half a whisper. “What happened to my ticket?”

“Your ticket?” he asked.

“The ticket for my wings and halo. Basil gave it to me before he sent me back to earth.” Her deep blue eyes, the color of the innermost part of a pansy, were fixed on him as she smiled. “He sent me back to help you,” she said clearly, and then her eyes fluttered closed.

“Doc—” Stone felt full-scale panic wash over him.

“Mrs. Tyler’s merely asleep.” The doctor’s voice was calm and reassuring.

But Stone felt anything but calm and reassured.

Apparently his wife believed she was an angel.

A week later, Stone signed all the necessary papers in order to take Dahlia out of the hospital and back to Lemon Falls and the ranch. According to the doctors, Dahlia was healthy enough to go home—even if she did still think she was an angel.

Stone turned as the nurse wheeled Dahlia out of her room. The woman smiled reassuringly at him. Different nurse, but the same smile of reassurance, he thought in exasperation.

“You ready?” he said to Dahlia, hoping she couldn’t see how uneasy he felt. “I put your suitcase in the car.”

She nodded, her blue gaze never leaving his.

He noticed how she sat quietly, without fidgeting. He wondered if Dahlia truly was strong enough to go home, or if her current demeanor was what the doctors meant by possible changes in her behavior.

As Stone guided his Ford Explorer through the heavy traffic in San Antonio, he kept stealing glances at his wife. Dahlia continued to sit quietly beside him, her hands folded primly in her lap. What was she thinking about? he wondered.

She’d always been so full of fire and energy and life, her excitement at the promise of each new day contagious to all those around her, and a positive influence even at the blackest of times.

But Stone barely recognized the subdued woman sitting beside him now, the woman she’d become this past week.

For days now, he had avoided the subject of angels with Dahlia. And he’d constantly reassured the rest of the family that all she needed was some rest. But this morning he had his doubts.

“You okay?” he asked her, as they drove out of the city. “We can stop—”

“I just want to go home and be with my baby.” Her voice was soft as it cut into his words. And his heart.

Stone’s breath caught in his throat. Had she forgotten? Didn’t she know that Brooke was—

“How is Field?” she asked slowly. “Really: How was he this morning?”

Stone was filled with sudden relief. She was talking about his son, not their daughter. Though Field was not Dahlia’s biological child, she’d been his mother for most of his life.

Stone stole another glance at her. The heavy bandages had been removed from her head this morning, replaced by a much smaller one. Dahlia’s hair, its shades of blond as varied as a Texas prairie, was pulled back in a ponytail, the soft bangs hiding most of the dressing.

But she looked so pale, he noticed with a sharp tug of guilt.

“He sounded okay when I talked to him on the phone,” Dahlia continued. “But Field keeps things bottled up inside.”

Like you.

That was one of the accusations she’d hurled at him before her accident, Stone remembered. And it was still between them, as solid and unrelenting as though the words had been carved in rock.

Dahlia turned in her seat and fixed him with her luminous, violet-blue gaze. “He told me you’d been reading and discussing The Three Musketeers with him before bed. That’s wonderful.”

“I always talk about books with him. What’s so wonderful about it?” Stone was more curious than defensive. He took his eyes off the road long enough to glance at her.

“You haven’t done that in a long time.”

Their gazes mingled.

Stone abruptly tore his gaze away. He inhaled and exhaled quickly. He’d been halfway hoping that Dahlia’s memory—the part that had to do with his so-called rejection of Field—wouldn’t return.

“He needs you, Stone.” Her voice was gentle. “He needs his father now more than ever.”

“He’s got me.”

“But for how long?”

Stone shook his head slightly. He had no intention of rehashing old arguments. This was one discussion that’d had most of the tread worn off it already.

“Have you changed your mind about sending Field away?”

“We don’t need to talk about this now.” Stone tightened his grip on the steering wheel and kept his eyes on the road ahead.

Dahlia’s hand stole over to touch his, and he felt the warmth, the softness, of her fingers. Slowly, carefully, some half-forgotten feelings stumbled to life. His heart started to race like a freight train, blood rushing through him, giving him life and energy and this fierce awareness of the woman sitting next to him.

He gently squeezed her hand and held it on the seat between them. If only...

“Have you changed your mind?” she repeated.

And the moment shattered like superfine crystal.

It left Stone with a broken, empty feeling inside, and a sense of having something so very close within his grasp sliding free. He wanted to give her the world. He’d lay down his own life for her. But he couldn’t give Dahlia anything close to what she wanted from him.

“Damn it, Dahlia.” His voice was low and rough with emotion. “You make it sound as though I’m sending him away as some sort of punishment. It’s a good school,” he insisted for perhaps the one millionth time.

“He loves it on the ranch.” Still the same gentle voice.

Stone jerked his head around and met her steady gaze. “But Field is isolated from other kids his own age.”

“Then you haven’t changed your mind?”

He hesitated. He wanted to give her what she wanted. He wanted to make things right between them. But not at the expense of Field’s safety. He couldn’t take the chance.

“No,” he said with deliberate gentleness. “I haven’t changed my mind.”

“Just you wait and see.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” he demanded, his voice suddenly rough with exasperation—and with intense longing for the way things used to be between them.

Dahlia merely shrugged and smiled that calm, smug little smile of hers while entwining her fingers through his. Her touch was warm and possessive, and all thought literally flew out of Stone’s mind.

All he knew was her touch.

Her velvety-soft fingertips. Her delicately shaped fingers. Her small hand with the square-cut diamond ring and matching white-gold wedding band.

He remembered the day he’d put those rings on her finger. The day he’d promised to love and cherish and protect her for all their days on earth. He’d meant every word of it, too.

Only...he hadn’t been able to protect her.

Or their daughter.

Stone grew pensive and uneasy. How could Dahlia sit beside him so calmly after what had happened between them? His wife was not a calm person. She was warm, intense, playful, intelligent, willful, obstinate, impulsive, beautiful and impatient. But she was not, by any stretch of the imagination, calm!

Until this week. This week she was not only calm, but positively serene.

Like an angel.

Oh, Lord, he was losing it, Stone groaned from somewhere deep inside. The result of too little sleep, no doubt. And too much worry. But Dahlia had always looked like an angel—and now she was behaving like one!

“Dahlia, do you feel up to talking?” He asked the question gently because he didn’t want to push her. But he had a lot on his mind, and some of it needed to be said as soon as possible.

“You want to talk to me?”

There was such bewildered surprise on her face and in her voice, that he cringed inside. He remembered the requests for conversation, for some kind of emotional connection these past twelve months. Requests that had slowly turned to angry demands and then to tearful begging.

Then they just...stopped.

“I think we should talk about what happened,” Stone said slowly.

“About what happened?”

Stone kept his gaze fastened on the road ahead. “I wouldn’t have shot Firelight,” he told her quietly. “I was angry and frustrated, and said a lot of stupid things I didn’t mean. And I’m sorry. It’s my fault you got hurt.”

“I shouldn’t have ridden off that way, without even waiting to saddle her first.”

Stone felt her fingers curl up in his hand, the light scraping of fingernails against his flesh. He wanted so much to tell her how scared he’d been of losing her, how this week had been, to him, like stumbling clumsily out into the light after a year of sleepwalking through the darkness.

But he could wait and tell her that.

Right now he was enjoying the profound relief that she had forgiven him. The rest could come later.

He was especially enjoying the feel of her hand close and warm inside his. It had been a long time since she’d allowed him to touch her, to get this close, even for a moment or two. It had been months since they’d connected physically, in any way, shape or form.

That was mostly his fault, too.

Stone’s mind skated back through the years. He’d been thinking a lot about their marriage this week. He’d taken a huge personal risk by letting himself fall in love with Dahlia nine years ago. Devastated by the way his ex-wife had abandoned him, with no warning, no explanation, just cold, calculated betrayal, he had been unable to see love and marriage in his future ever again.

Until he met Dahlia.