The Rancher And The Redhead

Feeling helpless in the face of such fury, her own frustration spilling over, Roni glanced out the bathroom window and caught a glimpse of Sam engaged in some task down by Diablo’s paddock. Appalled, her own fury ignited, due in part to her inadequacy at dealing with Jessie’s squalling, and in part to her incredulity at Sam’s callousness and utter carelessness. Still holding the struggling baby, she stormed outside.

Sam heard her coming and laid the cinch straps he’d been mending across the top rail of the paddock. Even Diablo, Sam’s ebony stallion, raised his elegant head from the hay bale he’d been investigating and pricked his ears toward the ruckus.

Pushing his straw cowboy hat to the back of his head, Sam frowned wearily and demanded, “Why did you pick her up?”

Roni stared. “What? She’s screaming at the top of her lungs! Are you out of your ever-loving mind?”

Sam winced at Jessie’s ear-piercing wails. “She’s been at it all afternoon. Finally figured she’d have to cry it out.”

“How could you?” Roni railed, struggling to hold the flailing child. “You don’t leave a kid alone like that. What if she’s sick? Or hungry? Or—”

“Dammit, Curly, don’t you think I’ve got sense enough to think of all that?” Sam’s dark glower was mute evidence that he was near the end of his own rope. “Little bit started up not ten minutes after you left and squalled the whole time the county caseworker was here. I tried everything, and not a damned thing pleases her.”

“That’s no excuse, Sam Preston,” Roni said, her tone accusing. “You left her!”

“Since all I did just seemed to make whatever it is worse, I thought I’d give her some space. Believe me, I could hear her just fine out here. I’m not a complete dunce.”

“No, just a heartless one!” Roni shouted to be heard over Jessie’s crying. “You can’t treat a baby like...like one of your damn cows. Of all the insensitive, moronic—”

“Curse it, that’s enough.” Sam’s expression was black as thunder, and his jaw thrust out at a militant angle. “You weren’t here, and I had to follow my best judgment—which was working just fine until you came along and got her started again.”

“I did no such—”

“Don’t try to second-guess me, Curly,” he interrupted brusquely, jabbing his forefinger at her nose. “When it comes right down to it, she’s not your responsibility.”

Sam’s harsh words landed like a physical slap and took Roni’s breath. She stared at him, feeling the color drain from her face. Hot tears prickled behind her lids. With a small cry that was barely audible above Jessie’s weeping, Roni turned and stumbled for the house.

“Curly, wait. I didn’t mean—”

Choking, Roni didn’t pause to hear the rest. Calling herself every kind of idiot, she tried to contain the hurt that bubbled over. The worst of it was that despite the affection and attachment for Jessie already blossoming in her unwary heart, Sam was absolutely right. She had no claim on the redheaded angel who was still making a devilish uproar. No bond of blood or commitment, and certainly no right—best friends or no—to instruct Sam on the upbringing of his new daughter. The knowledge left a bitter taste in her mouth.

“Roni, stop!” Sam caught her from behind just as she reached the back door, his expression stricken. “Oh, God, you’re crying. You never cry.”

“You’d better take her,” Roni said around a knot of tears in her throat. “I—” A sob stole whatever else she meant to say.

Cussing a blue streak, Sam shot a harried glance from side to side, then abruptly dragged Roni, still holding the baby, off the porch and toward his blue Ford pickup. Without further explanation he jerked open the door and thrust her inside. A child’s car seat sat buckled in the middle of the seat.

“Here, strap her in,” he muttered, then pushed Roni’s fumbling hands aside to perform the task on the screaming baby.

“Sam, what—? Please...” Distraught and unnerved, Roni tried to slip out past him, but he caught her, buckled her seat belt much as he’d done Jessie’s, then slammed the door.

“Stay put.” His mouth was grim as he came around to the driver’s side. “We’re going for a ride.”

“I don’t want to go anywhere with you!” Sniffling, Roni wiped her tears on the hem of her knit shirt and tried to glare at him. “What’s so all-fired important about taking a ride?”

“Read it somewhere,” he muttered, starting the vehicle. “Supposed to be soothing to cranky kids or something.” He threw the truck into gear and tore down the dusty drive as if all the demons of hell were after them.

“That’s if the baby has colic!” Roni shouted over the engine noise and Jessie’s continued bellows of rage.

“What have we got to lose?”

“Fine. Suit yourself.” Crossing her arms, Roni stared mulishly out the window and said nothing further.

Nearly thirty miles later, Jessie’s screams had turned to soft snores. Sam slowed to a more reasonable pace, made a U-turn and headed back toward the ranch.

“I didn’t mean it, you know,” he said finally.

Roni clamped down on her bottom lip to hide a betraying trembling, then forced herself to speak honestly. “It’s true anyway, and I apologize. I overstepped my place. She’s not my responsibility.”

“Roni, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.” Sam squinted against the orange globe of the sun resting on the western horizon and ran his free hand down his square jaw. “The way you’ve pitched in, you’ve got a right to say whatever you think.”

Roni stroked Jessie’s plump fist, taking care not to wake the sleeping baby. If Sam was offering an olive branch, she would be foolish not to accept it. “Neither one of us has any experience dealing with a little heifer as stubborn as this one.”

“She’s put me through the wringer, all right. It makes me wonder...” He fell silent.

Something in the tone of his voice made her glance at him sharply. “What, Sam?”

He sighed, bouncing his fist on the steering wheel. “If I’m doing the right thing. That social worker, Mrs. Veatch, asked some pretty tough questions.”

A trickle of fear made Roni’s voice querulous. “Like what?”

“Like if I’m ready to be a single parent. If taking Jessie, even with the best of intentions, is right for her.”

“What else would it be?” she demanded, her eyes growing wide with a premonition of disaster.

“Selfish.” Sam’s blue gaze flicked to Roni, then snapped back to the highway. “Am I doing this for myself or for her? Maybe Jessie deserves a real family, with a mother and father, somebody who can offer her something more stable than a cowboy’s life.”

“What are you saying?” Roni whispered. “You’d put her in a foster home?”

“That was one suggestion. But there are plenty of couples who’re dying to adopt. She could have all the advantages....”

“Give her up completely?” Roni couldn’t hide her dismay.

“It’s not something I’d do lightly. But, dammit, Curly, I just don’t know if I’m cut out for this, and Jessie needs two parents.”

Rather desperately, Roni said, “You might get married again.”

“Old bachelor like me?” Sam grimaced. “Not likely. And I don’t exactly have a sterling record in the marriage department anyway.”

“That wasn’t your fault,” she muttered, chagrined anew that her presence might have played a part in his failure to find another partner. And now Jessie could pay the price, as well. “And what about your promise to Alicia?”

A muscle worked in Sam’s lean jaw, and his eyes narrowed, picking out the turn to the Lazy Diamond. “I said I’d take care of Jessie. Finding a stable home environment where she can grow up secure and loved is the best way for me to keep that promise.”

“You don’t have to decide right now, do you?”

Her words were so strangled with tension that Sam glanced sharply at her.

“Do you?” she demanded, feeling brittle.

“No.” They’d reached the ranch house, and now he parked the truck and turned on the seat, meeting Roni’s anxious gaze across the top of Jessie’s car seat. “But I’m going to think on it hard.”

Roni slumped with relief, then hid her reaction by releasing Jessie from her harness. The exhausted baby was limp, her cherub’s mouth parted in the soft breaths of slumber and she made scarcely a murmur as Roni lifted her free. Sam had come around to the passenger side by this time and helped Roni climb out. His hand was warm on her upper arm, holding her still as he looked down into her face.

“I’m depending on you to help me figure this out, Curly. No matter that I’m already crazy about the kid, I’ve got to do what’s best for her in the long run.”

Roni caught a tremulous breath. “I know, Sam.”

He gave her arm a brief squeeze that was part thanks, part encouragement, and they went inside. Roni hadn’t made it halfway down the hall when the phone rang. The baby on her shoulder jumped, then begin to mewl fretfully. Sam cursed and hurried to the kitchen, catching the receiver up before the next ring. Gratefully, Roni sought out the platform rocker in his bedroom. Rocking and singing softly as daylight fled and the room grew shadowy, she was much relieved when Jessie gave a tired sigh and settled back down.

After a while, Roni heard Sam hang up, and when he appeared in the doorway a moment later, a peculiar expression etched his rugged features. “The Lord works in mysterious ways.”

She gave him a curious look. “What? Who was that?”

“Maybe the answer.”

Roni’s voice was soft, to avoid waking the child she cradled in her arms, but her tone was wry. “Spit it out, Sam. You know your laconic cowboy persona drives me bats.”

“About Jessie.” He crossed to where Roni sat and swept callused fingers over the tiny girl’s russet curls. “That was Mrs. Veatch. She says the Newtons have reconsidered. They’re missing Jessie like crazy and want to begin adoption proceedings.”

“No.” Roni’s heart lurched, and her arms tightened involuntarily around the child.

“Curly, we’ve got to be practical about this.”

“Cold-blooded, you mean?” Roni’s expression was fierce. “I won’t believe it of you, Sam. Tell me you don’t care about Jessie. I dare you.”

“I’ll be damned if I let my emotions cloud what’s best for her,” he said.

“See? You can’t deny it, because you already love her as though she was your own flesh and blood.” Gazing down into the sleeping child’s rosebud face, Roni felt a wave of emotion pulling her under, forcing her to admit the truth. She gave a small, breathless cry of surrender. “And so do I.”

Sam’s expression was suddenly full of worry and concern. He squatted down on his heels beside the rocker so that their eyes were on the same level. “Curly...”

“I want this child. You can’t give her away, Sam. I won’t let you.”

He groaned. “But we’ve got to think about what’s right for Jessie.”

“How about what’s right for you? For me?” Roni demanded.

Sam threw up his hands. “So what do you want me to do?”

Cheeks pale, Roni hesitated, then met his gaze. “The right thing. Marry me, Sam.”

Three

When Sam was seventeen, he’d been kicked in the head by a half-broken saddle bronc Kenny had dared him to ride. Roni’s words produced the same stunning sensation, the impression of falling endlessly until you hit the ground—hard.

“What did you say?” The huskiness of his own voice startled him.

Rosy color flooded Roni’s face, but she held his gaze unwaveringly. “I—I think I just proposed, Sam.”

“I’m not in the mood for your teasing, Curly.”

“I’m dead serious.”

Sam rose abruptly. Roni’s warm brown eyes seemed huge in her pale face, and he was suddenly struck by how pretty she was, even disheveled with her dark hair curling about her shoulders, and how absolutely right she looked, cradling a baby to her bosom. Carefully he lifted Jessie from Roni’s arms, then laid the sleeping child down in the middle of his king-size bed and propped pillows on either side of her. He knew that Roni had risen and was watching him closely.

“I should get busy assembling her baby bed.” The pieces of the white Jenny Lind bed he’d brought back from Alicia’s apartment in Abilene still lay stacked in a heap in the front parlor among the other debris of Jessie’s arrival.

“She might sleep better,” Roni agreed cautiously.

He knew they weren’t really talking about baby beds. “Come on. I need a beer.”

With Roni trailing after him, he stalked into the kitchen, pulled open the refrigerator door and reached for a dark brown bottle. “Want one?”

She shook her head, moving about his kitchen with easy familiarity, automatically putting away the forgotten sacks of groceries. She set the kettle on the stove and opened a box of herbal tea.

“I’d rather have this.” Though she tried to keep her voice light, he could hear the strain in it. “And it’s rather unflattering, you know, for you to be so flabbergasted. Hadn’t you ever thought that you and I—that we...”

“No,” he said flatly, twisting open the beer bottle. “I hadn’t.”

She threw a tea bag into a mug and turned to him with a belligerent tilt to her chin. “Well, how...how very unchivalrous of you. All the same, it makes perfect sense, if you’ll just think.”

“Sense?” He snorted. “Curly, you’ve gone loco.”

Her cheeks brightened again, but she went on doggedly. “It’s the solution you need for Jessie, Sam. We both adore her. Together we can make the kind of home she deserves, and frankly, there are worse ways to start off married life than by being good friends.”

“I don’t know what to say.” He shook his head, dazed. “You’d do that for Jessie?”

“I’d do it for me. I’m sick of living alone.”

Sam heard the plaintiveness in her tone and realized he’d been too caught up in his own concerns to see that his ever-upbeat pal was struggling with her own brand of loneliness. Straddling a kitchen chair, he took a drink of his beer and stared down at the bottle. “I’ll admit it’s no picnic for me, either.”

“I’ve always wanted a home and a family, and I know you have, too. But things just haven’t worked out as either of us planned.” Sighing, she leaned her trim hips against the kitchen counter and warmed her hands around her mug as though fighting off a chill. She was silent a long moment, gazing down into the steaming liquid. “I suppose in a way I’ll always love Jackson, but he couldn’t give me what I truly wanted and needed.”

“I know that.”

“But you can, Sam.” She lifted her eyes, and her words were earnest. “If Jessie is your second chance at that kind of life, she’s my first and last chance. I want her, more than anything I’ve ever wanted. I know we could be the kind of parents she needs and bring her up right with love and security.”

“You wouldn’t be getting much out of the deal.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. We’d be a family. That’s more than enough.” Catching his skeptical glance, she set her mug aside and persisted. “Neither of us is getting any younger, Sam. Just think of it as a practical solution to the problem. We both work at home, with flexible schedules, so Jessie’s needs could come first, without having to depend on housekeepers and day care. And you’ve been too damn proud to accept my offer to use my daddy’s pastureland. Married, we can combine our assets and build something permanent together for Jessie on the Lazy Diamond. It’s perfect. We’d all benefit.”

“I think you’re forgetting something.” Deliberately, he drained his beer, set the bottle down on the table, then rose and came to stand in front of her. “What about sex?”

She swallowed. “What about it?”

“Don’t play dumb, Curly.” He cupped her shoulders and let his thumbs trace the delicate line of her collarbone. “You know what I mean.”

“Can’t we cross that bridge when we come to it?”

Catching her around the waist, he jerked her up against him, bending to nuzzle the flower-fragrant crook of her neck. His unexpected touch evoked a shiver and a gasp from her, and he bared his teeth in a wolfish grin, muttering, “I think we just did.”

Her fingers grasped his forearms for balance. “You’re not going to scare me off, if that’s what you’re trying to do.”

He drew back, giving her a hard look, then pressed himself suggestively against her middle in blatant mimicry of the act they were discussing. “A man wants a willing woman in his bed, Veronica Jean, not a martyr.”

Her breathing accelerated, and she hesitated, licking her lips. “I—I’m not unwilling.”

That set him aback. Sam admitted to himself that he’d crowded her to show her just how asinine this idea of hers was, that he was no sexless eunuch to be dismissed out of hand, but her response was forcing him to see her in a new light. Damn, he knew she was a beautiful, desirable woman, but he’d never allowed himself to think of her like that. Those had been the unspoken rules. She was just Curly, who’d always been there for him. Anything else felt strange and unnatural, didn’t it?

Releasing her, he stepped back a pace, rubbing his hand over his nape in consternation. “We’ve never had those feelings toward each other, Curly.”

“Perhaps not. But we’ve got a lot more going for us than most couples—trust, dependability, a wealth of knowledge and history together. The other could evolve naturally, if we wanted it to.”

“And if it doesn’t?” he challenged.

“Companionship and mutual respect are important, too.” She shrugged uncomfortably. “And we’re both adults with no illusions about love left to shatter. As long as we’re both discreet, outside, er—friendships shouldn’t be a problem, if it came to that.”

He laughed harshly. “How very modern of you.”

She flushed again. “Look, making a stable family environment for Jessie is the prime consideration here, isn’t it? What’s to keep us from going on just as we’ve been doing the last few days?”

“You think keeping things platonic would work?”

“It has so far,” she pointed out with irrefutable logic. Then she smiled, a little tender, a little bemused, cajoling him into temptation. “Come on, Sam. Let’s do it for Jessie. We’re comfortable together, like a favorite pair of old boots. It wouldn’t be that hard. In some ways, we’re already like an old married couple.”

“You mean passion on the back burner, constant bickering and taking each other for granted?”

She chuckled. “Something like that.”

Sam’s lips twitched in an answering grin. She never fails to make me smile.

For an instant he resisted acknowledging a decision that he’d already made deep down inside. The alternative—giving up the baby girl who’d stolen his heart, and losing Roni’s respect—was unthinkable. And a part of him yearned for the connection and continuity of a family just as fiercely as Roni did.

Hell, she knew what she was getting into. Knew him for the lunkheaded cowpuncher and struggling rancher he was, knew small-town life and all that came with it. She’d taken her knocks, too, and wouldn’t expect rainbows and miracles every minute, nor would she light out at the first hint of rough going.