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“A few.” Lindsay guarded her words, her gaze shooting from the girls to Wade and across to Stacy whose eyes had narrowed. She raised a finger and tapped her lips.
Please don’t say anything, Lindsay begged silently. She didn’t want Stacy to state the obvious.
Based on his easy rapport with the twins, Wade hadn’t put the pieces together. He didn’t see himself in the miniature versions of him right under his nose.
If she didn’t have an autistic child riding a horse that she was leading, Lindsay might have given in to the urge to run screaming from the pen.
“I want to ride next,” Lacey demanded.
“I want to ride next,” Lyric parroted.
Wade laughed and turned to Stacy. “Hi, I’m Wade Coltrane, the new ranch hand.” He held out his hand.
Stacy took it, a grin spreading across her pretty face.
At that moment, Lindsay could have scratched her friend’s eyes right out of her head.
She wanted to scream Hands off!
But she couldn’t. Five years ago, she’d made it clear that she didn’t want Wade in her life. Now that she had the girls, she had them to consider. And she didn’t want Wade back if the only reason was the girls.
Lindsay closed her eyes and counted to five. What the heck was she thinking? The girls were as much his as they were hers. He was bound to figure it out sooner or later. Better to tell him, let him get all mad and hope it blows over so she can get on with her life as a single mother.
But not now. Not here. And not in front of the girls and Stacy.
And did she really think he’d let it blow over? Let her continue on with full custody of their girls like their father never existed?
Her feet dragged in the dust of the pen as she led Whiskers in a circle.
The steady, ordered life she’d carefully constructed for the girls was about to change and she could do very little to stop it.
“Mommy, can I ride Little Joe?” Lacey called out.
“Mommy, can I ride Sweetie Pie?” Lyric asked.
Lindsay stared across the length of the pen, her gaze capturing Wade’s as realization dawned on him.
That look of utter shock could not be faked. He stared at her and then down at the girls. “These girls are yours?”
Chapter Three
A hundred questions barreled through Wade’s head. Lindsay had twin daughters? Who was the father? Where was he now? Did he live at the ranch with Lindsay? Where did Cal Murphy fit in the picture? Was Cal the father?
Wade stared at the tops of the girls’ heads. Lindsay had children.
Anger followed closely behind the shock. If Cal was the father, why the hell didn’t he step up to the responsibility of raising his own children? Why hadn’t he married Lindsay?
“Zachary, sweetie, the lesson is over for now.” Lindsay stopped the horse at the rail in front of Stacy and gave her a weak smile. “I’m sorry, Stacy, I just can’t do it today.” She reached up and hooked Zachary beneath the arms.
He clung to the saddle horn and grunted, his face wrinkling in a fierce frown. “Ride!”
Wade placed the girls on the ground and entered the pen with Lindsay. “Hey, big guy, let me help you down.”
The little boy’s eyes rounded and his gaze darted from Lindsay to Stacy and back to Wade.
When Wade reached up for him, Zachary let go of the horn and let Wade lift him off. As soon as he cleared the saddle, he reached for his mother.
Stacy took him in her arms and hugged him. “It’s okay, Zachary. Mr. Coltrane is a nice man. He just wants to help.” She looked across at Lindsay, her brows rising as if in silent question.
Lindsay shook her head. “I’ll see you the day after tomorrow at the fundraiser, right?”
“Right. I kinda have to be there.” Stacy laughed. “Seeing as I’m organizing it. And if you’re in town before then, call me, we can do lunch.” She held her thumb and pinky to her face like she was talking into a telephone and mouthed the words call me.
“Yeah, I will,” Lindsay lied. She loved Stacy, but the last thing she wanted to do was talk to her best friend about Wade Coltrane. Not yet, not when she didn’t know what to do or say. She led Whiskers out of the pen and toward the barn.
“Can I ride Whiskers now?” Lacey danced beside Lindsay out of range of the horse’s hooves.
“Not now. I have to get supper on the table. Maybe tomorrow morning when it’s nice and cool outside.”
Lacey’s face puckered in a frown. “But I want to ride now.”
“I want to ride, too.” Lyric caught up with Lacey and automatically reached for her sister’s hand.
“You can help me brush Whiskers. How about that?”
Both girls hopped up and down. “Yay! We get to brush Whiskers!”
Lindsay thanked God for the buffer her girls created, delaying the inevitable confrontation with Wade. “As long as you’re working here, and I’m not saying that it will last, you can bring in the horses from the pasture. They need to be fed.”
Wade’s eyes narrowed as if he could read her mind and knew she was stalling. “We need to talk.”
No, we don’t. She led Whiskers into the barn and tied him to the outside of his stall, completely ignoring the man she’d left standing in the barnyard. Out of the corner of her eye she could see him watching her and her skin twitched, her heart beating ninety-to-nothing, the mind-numbing, breath-stealing sexual attraction she’d always felt toward Wade still palpable and real. When he turned and walked toward the pasture to bring in the horses, she breathed a sigh and vowed to make quick work of brushing Whiskers so that she could get to the house before Wade.
She had to talk with her grandfather. Wade Coltrane couldn’t work at the Long K Ranch. After he discovered the girls were his, he’d be impossible to avoid. At least if he lived in town, they’d only meet when he had his scheduled visitation.
Lindsay grabbed two hard-bristled brushes and a curry comb, handing the brushes to the girls. “Stand on either side of his head so that he can see you. I don’t want him to spook and kick you.”
Lacey ducked beneath Whiskers’s chin and brushed as high as she could reach. Lyric spent her time petting the horse’s soft nose, the brush forgotten in her other hand.
Meanwhile, Lindsay removed the saddle and blanket, storing them on the saddle rack before hurrying to the feed bin where she scooped up a bucket of sweet feed. She was hooking the bucket to the inside of Whiskers’s stall when Wade led two horses into the barn.
“Where do you want them?” he asked.
“The sorrel mare is Sweetie Pie, she goes in the end stall. Little Joe is the bay, he goes next to Sweetie Pie.” Lindsay turned to the girls. “Okay, I’ll finish up. You two go on up to the house and wash your hands. You can help me cook dinner.”
“Can we have macaroni and cheese?” Lacey asked, her blue eyes sparkling so much like Wade’s in the light shining in through the open barn door.
“I thought you wanted grilled cheese sandwiches.”
Lacey bounced up and down. “We want macaroni and cheese now.”
“Yeah, macaroni and cheese.” Lyric took her sister’s hand, grinning.
“Okay.” How could Lindsay refuse when they looked so eager? “But you have to eat your green beans, too.”
Both girls shouted, “Yay!” Then they handed their brushes to Lindsay and ran for the door.
Lindsay realized her mistake as she stood with the brushes in her hand, alone in the barn with Wade. She grabbed Whiskers’s bridle and led him into the stall, closing the gate behind her. Taking her time, she finished currying the horse, while she held her breath, willing Wade to go back out to the pasture. As soon as he left, she could escape to the house and have that conversation with her grandfather.
She must have groomed the horse twice before she realized she had stalled long enough. Lindsay slipped the bridle from Whiskers’s head and ducked out the stall door. The barn was empty. Wade had left. Sweetie Pie nickered from her stall, wanting her feed.
“Can’t you wait until Wade feeds you?” Lindsay called out softly.
Sweetie Pie nickered again and Little Joe added his protest, stomping his foot in the hard-packed dirt.
“Really? You can’t wait? But I can’t stick around. I can’t do this now. I’m not ready.” Her heart banging against her ribs, her body tense with the urge to flee, Lindsay looked from the horses to the open barn door. She sighed, grabbed two buckets and scooped up sweet feed—one for Sweetie Pie and one for Little Joe—and hung them inside their stall doors.
Still no sign of Wade or the other horses he was supposed to bring in. “You got lucky this time,” she muttered to herself, heading for the barn door. “He’s going to corner you sooner or later and will want to know the truth.”
“Truth about what?” Wade rounded the corner of the barn door, leading a dappled gray gelding and a golden palomino mare.
Lindsay’s face burned. “I wasn’t talking to you.”
Wade smiled, his blue eyes twinkling just like Lacey’s had only minutes before.
Lindsay’s chest tightened. That smile had gotten her into more trouble than she could have ever imagined five years ago. It still had the effect of turning her knees to rubber.
Granted, he looked different. No longer the clean-cut soldier who’d come home on leave. He sported a dark, neatly trimmed beard that made him look even more dangerous and…sexier than ever.
“I always liked it that you talked to your horses.” He didn’t move, he and the horses more or less blocking Lindsay’s escape route.
“I understand them and I like to think they understand me.” She shrugged, wishing she had made her run for the house when she’d had the chance. This conversation reminded her of others equally as intimate in the setting and content.
Anxious to leave him, but not wanting him to know just how he affected her, Lindsay strode forward and reached for the dappled gray gelding. “Come on, Stormy. You’ll be wanting your feed.” When her hand touched Wade’s, that same old shocking electric current coursed through her veins, headed directly south. Heat flared throughout her body, igniting a flame she’d thought burned out five years ago.
She jerked the reins from Wade’s hand and practically ran for Stormy’s stall. Why did she have to be so aware of this man? He’d broken her heart more than once, hadn’t she learned her lesson?
After she got Stormy into his stall, she shoved the latch closed and turned to run for the house.
Before she could take two steps, Wade had the mare’s stall door closed and he’d spun to face her.
Lindsay sidestepped him, but he didn’t let her pass, grabbing her by the arms.
“Look, Lindsay, I’m not here to start something between you and me. I know that’s over. I’m just here because I need a job.”
Where his fingers curled around her arms her skin tingled, reminding Lindsay of the last time he’d held her. The magic of their lovemaking and how much she had wanted to be with him always. The depth of all that emotion pressed against her chest, making it impossible for her to breathe, much less talk.
Her eyes blurred and she realized in horror that she would cry if she didn’t get away from him. And no matter what she did, she refused to cry in front of Wade Coltrane. She’d done enough crying over this man and, as her grandfather would lecture, Kemps don’t cry.
Forcing air past her vocal cords, she said, “I don’t want you here, no matter what your reasons.”
For a brief moment, a sadness so deep it almost hurt her to see flashed in his blue eyes. Then it was gone and his hands fell to his sides, his lips firming into a straight line. “I understand. And I hope you’ll understand that I work for your grandfather.” He spun on his heels and walked out of the barn.
Lindsay stared at his back, anger replacing sadness and the lingering waves of lust of a moment ago. “How dare he talk to me that way?” She pushed her sleeves up and stomped toward the house. Her grandfather would see it her way and fire Wade Coltrane’s butt quicker than he could say I’m sorry.
When she reached the house, the girls waited in the kitchen clean and ready to start cooking supper. Her grandfather was nowhere to be found.
Damn.
WADE FED the horses and turned them back out to pasture before he grabbed his worn, military duffle bag from the truck and headed for the bunkhouse to clean up. Frank beat him there, his booted feet propped on the footboard of his bunk.
“Surprise, surprise,” Wade muttered to himself. Out loud he asked, “Where are the other hands?”
“Out with Old Man Kemp, shoring up the cattle chutes, gettin’ them ready for roundup. Why do you care?”
“I care because I work here and, if they need help, I should be out there.”
“They’ll be back any minute for supper. Lindsay sure can rustle up some fine grub. Not only is she good-lookin’, she’s a good cook. Everything a man could want in a woman.” Frank stuck a hay straw in his mouth, his gaze narrowed as if waiting for a rise from Wade.
Wade tamped down the anger quick to rise when Frank made mention of Lindsay in any way. He ignored the guy and stared around the bunkhouse. “Which bunks aren’t taken?”
“Those.” Frank jerked his head past his bunk to the ones where thin mattresses lay bare on the bed frames.
Dorian’s gaze followed him as Wade moved past. “Hear you used to live on the ranch.”
Wade found a wooden footlocker beside the bed, opened it and shoved his duffle bag into it without unpacking. “You heard right.” He unbuckled the lock on the bag, grabbed out a shaving kit, towel and clean clothes.
“Prior Army?” Dorian asked.
“Yup. What about you?”
“Same. Did some time on active duty.” Frank crossed his arms behind his head. “Why come back to this podunk town?”
“Needed a job.” Wade gathered his things and straightened.
Wade could care less about Frank and his past but, as a new hired hand, he had to try to fit in, even if he didn’t plan to stay long. As soon as he had the evidence he needed, he’d be gone from the Long K Ranch. “What’s your story?”
Frank shrugged. “Same.”
The bunkhouse door opened and two men walked in shaking dust from their cowboy hats.
The first guy, a short, grizzled older man, with a scraggly white beard and skin as tough as leather, tossed his cowboy hat onto the first bed. He held out his hand to Wade. “Roy Kingery, folks call me Dusty.”
Wade smiled, shook hands with Dusty and introduced himself.
The second man, tall, thin as a rail and with facial features as gaunt as Abraham Lincoln, strode in, head down, still wearing his cowboy hat. He didn’t say anything, walked straight to his bed and unlaced well-worn leather chaps.
Dusty jerked his head toward the tall lean man. “That’s Billy Moore. He don’t talk much, but ain’t a man who can out-rope, outride or outshoot him in the county.”
