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True Heart
Peggy Nicholson
They're on a collision course–againRancher Tripp McGraw knows that only the big ranches will survive in southwest Colorado, and he's determined to buy the Circle C, a ranch that adjoins his own. If he wanted to, he could foreclose on a loan and force Kaley Cotter to sell her spread to him.Newly divorced, pregnant by her ex-husband, Kaley has just returned to the Circle C, a ranch her family has held for four generations. Now her baby will be the fifth&3151;as long as Tripp doesn't succeed in buying her home out from under her.To make things even more difficult, nine years ago Tripp ended his engagement to Kaley without explanation, and both lovers felt abandoned and wronged.Two passionate, stubborn people heading for heartbreak once again.But maybe, just maybe, love is better the second time around….
“Kaley, you’re not cut out for this life,” Tripp told her.
“It takes a tough heart. That’s why I want you to sell out to me. You’re better off without this.”
“Better off with—”
The same thing he’d said in his kiss-off letter nine years ago! You’ll be better off without me.
She jerked upright in his arms. “Who the hell are you to tell me that?”
His tender half smile faded to bewilderment. “Hey, I’m just trying to—”
She brought her hands to his chest and shoved, arching her back against his hold. “That’s right! You’re doing this all for my own good. Taking my ranch from me. You’re such a considerate guy!” She shoved him again, but still he held on. For just a moment there—oh, she was such a fool to feel safe and loved in his arms! Nothing but her old longings betraying her—just as they’d betrayed her the first time all those years ago. It isn’t me he gives a damn about! Tripp takes what he needs for himself, then tells you he’s done you a favor!
Well, not this time, Kaley vowed….
Dear Reader,
Have you ever dreamed about living in the perfect little town? Some place small and friendly enough that people know your face. Where the menfolk tip their Stetsons at you when they drive by. Where the women remember if you take after your mama’s side of the family or your daddy’s.
A town just big enough that a few inquiring strangers wander through every year, then are beguiled by its warmth and charm into staying. A town rich in beauty, with snow-capped mountains looming on the horizon, and cattle ranches spreading out all around, and a white church on a hilltop perfect for storybook weddings.
Trueheart, Colorado, first took shape in my mind with the book Don’t Mess With Texans, when my heroine, Susannah Mack, hid out from her vengeful ex-husband there. I couldn’t resist revisiting the place in The Baby Bargain, to help widowed ranch owner Dana Kershaw find a new soul mate while she doubled her family.
And now, in True Heart, we return for the third time, when Kaley Cotter comes back to have her baby, save the family ranch—and rediscover the love of her life.
So welcome to my town—or welcome back! Slide into a booth at Mo’s Truckstop and order a steakburger and fries to go with your story. Or maybe you’ll want to try the new café in Trueheart, where Michelle serves cassoulet to the ladies, and French chili to the men—and it’s all from the same pot.
As always, thanks for reading!
Peggy Nicholson
True Heart
Peggy Nicholson
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To Christina Canham, fearless on the foredeck,
fearless in the kitchen, frequently admirable,
perpetually amusing. Closest to a little sister
I’ll ever have. Chrisso, how I’ll miss our
Girls’ Nights Out. Sail on, kid, but don’t be a stranger.
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
PROLOGUE
KALEY BOSWORTH DANCED straight out of the doctor’s office that afternoon and bought a double armload of sunflowers. And beeswax candles—every last tall, creamy-white fragrant candle that the florist had in stock. Fifty-seven, in all.
Now they stood in unlit readiness on the counters to either side of the door that led from her kitchen to the attached garage. From there they spread out over the other counters, the marble-topped central work island, the table in the breakfast nook. She’d even set candlesticks at the doorway to the butler’s pantry.
More candles beckoned the eye into the pass-through pantry, then on to the dining room, to its long, lace-covered mahogany table, where the remaining tapers stood in two silver candelabra. Between the candelabra on the table, she’d placed a cut-crystal punch bowl, filled to overflowing with the sunflowers, entwined with pink honeysuckle and roses from her own garden. Color and a blaze of light to match her mood.
The table was laid with their best sterling and china. Champagne stood iced in a wine bucket for Richard, along with a bottle of sparkling cider for herself.
All she needed was her husband to help her celebrate. Richard was only ninety minutes later than he’d said he’d be that morning—still well within his self-imposed margin of two hours, after which he’d usually phone to say that some case had delayed him and she shouldn’t wait supper.
But tonight he hadn’t called.
“So, any minute now,” Kaley half sang as she stood by a window in her darkened living room, hugging herself, bouncing on her toes with impatience as she peered down to the distant street corner.
Headlights knifed through the summer dusk with swift assurance. Streetlights rippled over a sleek, sliding shape—a dark blue convertible swung around the bend and arrowed straight for the house. “Yes!” Kaley snatched up a box of matches and ran for the back door.
She lit the first half-dozen candles, then, as their flames grew, she threw the light switch. She bit her lip as she heard the rumble of the garage door rising. Hurry! Another dozen candles leaped into flame, washing the walls in flickering gold. Hurry, hurry! She tossed a spent match in the sink, struck another, laughing breathlessly at her own foolishness—too many candles!
Yet, a thousand wouldn’t have been too many.
Fire touched wick after wick as the garage door rumbled down. She set the candles in the breakfast nook ablaze. A scent of warm wax and honey wafted upward—incense of thanks and joy.
Two dozen or more to go; she’d never finish in time! Kaley knelt to light the candles on the floor as the back door opened.
“Huh?” Richard Bosworth stopped short in the doorway. “Good God, Kaley.” He frowned. “What’s all this?”
“Oh, this…?” She twinkled up at him. “Guess you’d call it a celebration.” Touching a match to another candle, she shared a smiling secret with its kindling flame. Kindling, yes—exactly so. Such beauty! Such a miracle!
“Looks more like a three-alarm disaster waiting to happen. Candles on the floor? Is that really necessary?”
She felt her smile tighten ever so slightly and drew a slow breath. “Ran out of counter space.” She backed away into the pantry, lit the candles on the sideboards.
He dropped his briefcase on a chair and followed. “What am I missing? It’s not our anniversary. Nobody’s birthday.” He paused in the door to the dining room, taking in the flowers, the lavish table set for two, the blue velvet dress she wore. She lit the tapers in the first candelabrum. The flames struck his fair hair to ruddy gold, picked out the chiseled planes of his handsome face.
Showed her his lips thinning and his eyebrows drawing together.
“So?”
“So…” She looked up at him over the flames that mirrored her inward glow. “Something wonderful happened today.”
“Yes, I gathered that. What?”
If only, just this once, he’d go along with her mood. Especially this once. “I’ll tell you, but first, if you’d open that bottle?”
“Dom Perignon,” he noted, lifting the bottle from the ice. “Whatever your news, isn’t this a bit over budget?”
He’d treated himself to two cases the year before, when he’d made partner at his law firm. And now it was her turn to rejoice. “For this occasion? I don’t think so.”
“Your department head—what’s the old bat’s name? Henley? She decided to retire,” Richard guessed. “You’re next in line for the job.”
“I am, but this has nothing to do with teaching. Nothing like that.”
“Then tell me. You know how I hate surprises.” He covered the bottle’s cork with a napkin, drew it with a deft flick of his thumbs. The soft pop promised bubbles, but something somewhere, had gone flat.
She held the crystal flutes for him to fill, biting her lip as she studied his impatient frown. He did hate surprises, much as she loved them. Her fault, this. She should have told him the instant he walked in the door. Now she stood torn between blurting out her news and waiting for a happier moment, perhaps after his first glass?
“Come on, spit it out.” He lifted his flute. “What should I toast?”
Why was she worrying? Once he’d heard… At least, once he’d gotten used to the idea… She rallied her smile. “Kiss me first?”
“That bad?” Still, he kissed her—a wary, closemouthed kiss, precisely measured. “Tell me.”
“Well…” She took a breath. “You know I had an appointment this afternoon, with my gynecologist.”
His eyes swept from the candles, to the flowers, back to her radiant face. No one could ever say that Richard was slow. He shook his head. “No.”
“Yes! I told him I was a week late. That’s unusual for me, so he tested and—and—” Her words jumbled into breathless, pleading laughter. Come on, share this with me. All the worries and setbacks she’d suffered through at his side, all the ambitions she’d applauded, the triumphs she’d celebrated. She’d been there for Richard every step of the way, and now couldn’t he just—
“Shit.” He tipped his glass back and gulped, blew out a breath, then smacked the flute down on the table.
She stared at the champagne splash marks darkening the lace, she ought to get a cloth and dab them dry before they soaked through and marred the perfect, polished mahogany beneath.
“I’m pregnant, Richard. We are. And you know how long I’ve been wanting this. You said once you made partner—”
“You’re on the Pill! How could this have happened? Did you stop without telling me?”
“Of course not! I’d never—”
“So you forgot—skipped a couple. Of all the careless, idiotic things to—”
“I didn’t! I didn’t forget a one.” She set down her own glass untasted. “I had that awful earache—five weeks ago, remember? I couldn’t get an appointment soon enough with my GP, so I stopped by a walk-in clinic and the doctor prescribed tetracycline.”
“So?” Richard turned his back on her to pace down the length of the table, then swung on his heel to glare. “What’s that got to do with—”
“Some antibiotics interfere with contraception. I never knew that, and the doctor didn’t tell me.”
“I’ll sue him. And the pharmacist, too—negligence pure and simple. By God, they’re going to regret—”
“Oh, no.” Shaking her head, she met him halfway down the table—clamped her hands over the forearms he’d crossed on his chest. “No. Maybe they were careless, but we’re not suing anyone. Not when the results were just what we wanted anyway.”
“Who says—”
“You said! I wanted to start our family the year I finished college, but you said we should wait. That our condo wasn’t big enough, remember? You said it was no place to raise rugrats.” She shook him gently, smiling pleadingly up into his face, trying to spark some warmth in return. “Then when we moved to our house on Cottonwood I asked you again. And you didn’t tell me no, Richard. You just said we should wait. That you were so close to making partner, that you needed all your concentration and energy to focus on that. That if I’d only wait till you made it, we’d be rolling in bucks and you’d have more time to help me with midnight feedings.”
“I never—”
“You did! That’s exactly what you said… So I did. I waited again.”
He twisted away from her to resume pacing, yanking at the knot in his tie as if it was strangling him.
