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Expecting His Brother's Baby
Karen Rose Smith
SHE WAS THE WOMAN HE' D ALWAYS WANTED BUT COULDN' T HAVE…Old and forbidden desires began to reemerge when Brock Warner returned to Wyoming to help Kylie run his family' s ranch. He hadn' t pursued her years ago because she' d been too young and achingly innocent–and then his brother had claimed Kylie for his own.OR COULD HE?Kylie' s failing marriage had ended with her unfaithful husband' s death. Now she was left only with bittersweet memories, an empty bank account and a baby on the way. Brock' s homecoming had her thinking back to the kiss they' d once shared. And had her wondering about what could have been….
Kylie’s hand pressed to her belly, and she was so very grateful for her unborn child.
Alex’s child.
Whenever she looked at Brock and felt things she shouldn’t feel, all she had to do was think about her baby. It was hard enough for one man to accept another’s offspring. In Brock’s case, it would be impossible. Whenever he looked at her, he probably thought about his half brother, Alex—the younger son, the one their father had loved.
How could she have such mixed feelings about all of it? How could she be grieving for Alex, but when Brock walked into the room she felt…touched in some way? Touched by an excitement, an electricity, a bond that had begun when she was seventeen and had never ended.
Had she loved Alex? Yes, she had. But she had to admit, Brock had always affected her…had always made her heart skip faster.
Dear Reader,
When I connect with someone either in friendship or in love, those bonds are lasting. My husband and I have been married thirty-five years. At our first meeting, did I know we’d be committed to each other for a lifetime? I feel I did. And he did, too. After a few months of dating, we certainly did. We had the same values, goals and dreams.
The hero and heroine in Expecting His Brother’s Baby met when Kylie was seventeen. Was she too young to fall in love? Although she buried her feelings for Brock, the roots stayed strong. But so many obstacles blocked their connection.
Can love conquer all?
I believe true love can.
All my best,
Karen Rose Smith
Expecting His Brother’s Baby
Karen Rose Smith
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
KAREN ROSE SMITH
read Zane Grey when she was in grade school, and she loved his books. She also had a crush on Roy Rogers and especially his palomino, Trigger! Around horses as a child, she found them fascinating and intuitive. Her BABY BONDS series set in Wyoming sprang from childhood wishes and adult dreams. When an acquaintance adopted two of the wild mustangs from the western rangelands and invited Karen to visit them, plotlines weren’t far behind. For more background on the books in the series as well as photos and info about the wild mustangs, stop by Karen’s Web site at www.karenrosesmith.com or write to her at P.O. Box 1545, Hanover, PA 17331.
Thanks to Gale Jacobs, who invited me to visit her
adopted mustangs and learn their stories.
With appreciation to Francee and Dick Shaulles.
Thanks for opening your home and ranch to us.
Your family embodies the meaning of ranch life.
We’ll never forget our visit.
With appreciation to Ken Martin, who knows and
understands the mustangs so well. Grey Face and his
band had to be part of this book.
For information about wild mustangs, visit
www.wildhorsepreservation.com. For adoption
information go to www.wildhorseandburro.blm.gov.
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
Epilogue
Prologue
Wild Horse Junction, Wyoming
Kylie Warner didn’t often compare herself to other women. She’d been a tomboy all her life, more comfortable on a horse than anywhere else. Function, rather than fashion, had always directed her clothing choice. But meeting this pert and sexily dressed waitress from Clementine’s—Wild Horse Junction’s watering hole—Kylie felt as if she’d let herself go. With her straight blond hair drawn back in a ponytail and her parka fitting snugly over her maternity outfit, she wondered what had happened to her sense of womanly pride since Alex died.
“I’m Trish,” the waitress said with a smile that looked more forced than genuine. “We can use the boss’s office. He went home for dinner.”
When Trish had called Kylie, she’d said she wanted to talk about boarding her horse at Saddle Ridge Ranch.
Since her pregnancy, Kylie hadn’t been able to take on training horses…or even giving lessons. After her baby was born, she was hoping to jump in again with both feet. Until she could, boarding horses would help keep Saddle Ridge from sinking deeper into debt.
At seven-and-a-half-months pregnant, she was driving herself hard, concentrating on the life growing inside of her, managing Saddle Ridge as well as working as office manager at Wild Horse’s temporary employment agency. No wonder she hadn’t gotten her hair trimmed in months or applied more than lipstick before she left the ranch every morning.
As she followed the brunette in the short black skirt down the hall to the saloon’s office, the hairs on the nape of Kylie’s neck prickled. Something about Trish Hammond’s demeanor seemed…off. Kylie’s hand protectively went to her tummy. The fingers of her other hand gripped her purse tighter.
This is about boarding a horse, she scolded herself. Relax.
Yet once she stood inside the small cluttered office and Trish Hammond closed the door, her uneasiness grew. Squaring her shoulders and lifting her chin, she looked the waitress in the eye. “You have one horse to board?”
Trish’s red blouse clung to her breasts as she gave an offhanded shrug. “I never exactly told you I had a horse to board. I just said I wanted to talk about it. Really, I had another reason for asking you here. I have something you might want. It belonged to your husband.”
Trish opened her cowhide purse, the same shade of red as her boots, and extracted something shiny.
Kylie felt suddenly queasy as she recognized the belt buckle. Alex had several of them that he’d won at rodeos. Bull riding had always been his passion…and it had killed him.
Her mouth went dry. Her heart raced. Her worst fears, which had gnawed at her over the past couple of years, had also urged her to hide her head in the sand. Yet she knew she had to play this out. She knew she had to finally face the truth.
Taking the buckle from Trish, she turned it over and saw the engraving on the back. Alex had been dead for four months, but he still had the power to hurt her. The date on the belt buckle was April, the month before she’d gotten pregnant.
When she lifted her gaze to Trish’s, she knew this was the woman who’d been calling the ranch and hanging up whenever Alex wasn’t home. This was the woman who had been her competitor and she hadn’t even known it. It had been Trish’s initial on the note on the cocktail napkin Kylie had found when she’d sorted through Alex’s clothes.
Why had Trish called her here? To humiliate her? To see for herself the woman Alex had married, yet betrayed? Kylie could attack. She could sling accusations. She could show how much she was shaken by this proof that Alex had cared for someone else, maybe as much as he’d cared for her, perhaps even more. But she knew anything she did or said could affect her baby. She could gain satisfaction for a minute, but anxiety from words flung in pain would last a lot longer. Her hands trembled and she wouldn’t let Trish Hammond see that.
Whatever Trish’s reasons for needing this confrontation, Kylie wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of a scene. She laid the buckle on the desk. “If Alex gave that to you, then he wanted you to have it.” She turned to leave.
Obviously Trish had wanted to get a much bigger rise out of her because she asked, “Didn’t you mind sharing your husband?”
Fury rocked Kylie. She didn’t think she’d ever been this angry in her whole life. But she also knew her life with her son or daughter was more important than any hurt this woman could inflict.
Still, she couldn’t keep the fierceness from her voice. “I believed in the vows I made. I tried to hold my marriage together, but I couldn’t do it alone.”
As tears burned her eyes, she turned her back on the other woman and left Clementine’s quickly. Outside she blindly made her way to her small blue pickup at the edge of the parking lot. Rooting for her keys, she finally found them as she tried not to think…tried not to feel…tried not to remember.
However, as she climbed into her truck and turned the ignition switch, she did remember—the weeks at a time Alex had gone on the road following the circuit, the nights of loneliness, the days of chores and finally facing the fact that Saddle Ridge was sinking deeper and deeper into debt and her husband wouldn’t listen to her about it.
Backing out of her parking space, she veered toward the lot’s entrance and Wild Horse Way. Once on the road she turned on the heater, knowing she was too cold inside for the warmer air to do any good. Tears began falling then as she relived her decision to leave Alex if he didn’t go to a counselor with her. Before he’d left for his last rodeo in Las Vegas, they’d argued. He’d accused her of getting pregnant on purpose to keep him at home more. She’d insisted their marriage didn’t stand a chance unless they tried couples’ therapy. That had been the main reason for her wanting to take the job at the temp agency. Not only to earn more money to pay for the bills, but to pay for counseling so they could put their marriage back together and maybe start over.
As she avoided a pothole in the road, tears fell harder. She increased her speed outside of town. Her heart hurt so badly she knew it might finally break. Picturing the satisfaction in Trish Hammond’s eyes as she’d handed Kylie the belt buckle, Kylie couldn’t hold in the sobs that broke loose now.
Distracted, she barely registered the upcoming pothole. As she hit it, her truck listed and fell to the right, banging onto the road. She lost control and, in horror, knew she was going to land in the ravine.
One prayer passed her lips. “Lord, keep my baby safe.”
Then the truck lurched sideways and fell sharply, throwing her against the door. When her head hit the steering wheel, a gray fog swept over her. Closing her eyes, she let it engulf her, relieved to escape the pain of a broken heart.
Chapter One
Panic gripped Kylie as Brock Warner entered her room Sunday afternoon. Unfortunately, her enforced stay in the hospital since Friday had given her too much time to remember her confrontation with Trish Hammond. All she’d been able to think about was her husband’s infidelity.
Now here was his half brother! How had he found out about her accident? Was he going to try to convince her to sell Saddle Ridge?
“What are you doing here?” Her emotions were so raw the question had just popped out.
Shoving his black Stetson higher on his forehead, Brock stopped beside the chair where Kylie sat. “Dix called me. He was worried sick about you.”
Her foreman shouldn’t have meddled. “I’m fine.”
“Don’t you just look fine.” Brock’s thick black eyebrows quirked up as he took notice of her sling, then the bruise on her forehead.
Her brother-in-law’s Apache blood was evident in the hue of his skin, the dark somberness of his eyes and the jet blackness of his hair. Brock Warner emanated a sensuality when he walked, when he talked and when he smiled, in a way she’d seen in few men. It had given her a jumbled, off-balance sensation when she was a teenager…and still did now. She remembered the night she graduated from high school, the night she’d kissed him and—
She stood, pride and courage taking over for her and her unborn child. “I’m sorry Dix dragged you here from…wherever you were.”
“Texas,” Brock filled in. “Between consultations.”
“When did you arrive?” she asked warily, her gaze taking in everything about him. She hadn’t seen him since Jack Warner’s funeral five years ago…when Brock’s new wife had accompanied him.
“I got in about an hour ago. Dix looked worn out, so I offered to come get you.”
Concern for Dix took away her annoyance at his interference. He’d been a friend of her father’s and had looked out for her in a quiet way since he’d gotten her a job at Saddle Ridge. They were both worn out. Trying to keep the ranch afloat without any outside help had been wearing on them long before Alex had died.
Brock’s gaze softened a bit as it slid from her loose blond hair to her maternity top. “I’m sorry about what happened to Alex.”
Brock had said that on the phone after he’d missed Alex’s funeral. He’d been doing whatever geologists did somewhere in Central America. Away from civilization, he hadn’t called his home in Texas for messages in over a week. When he finally had, he’d phoned her and learned about the bull-riding accident that had taken his brother’s life. By that time, though, Alex was buried and she hadn’t wanted Brock to learn the condition of Saddle Ridge. It was during that phone call she’d told him she was pregnant but managing perfectly fine.
“I’m sorry for your loss, too,” she said quietly, knowing Brock had cared deeply about Alex.
“The last time I talked to him he was in Utah. I should have kept in touch more often,” Brock said with real regret.
The crack in Kylie’s heart grew a little wider when she thought about the last time she had talked to Alex. After he’d left early for his last rodeo, she was sure their marriage had been over. With what she’d found out from Trish Hammond, it had been over long before that day.
A smiling nurse bustled into the room, cast an admiring look at Brock, then handed Kylie a few papers. “Here are Dr. Marco’s instructions. I understand he went over them with you this morning.”
Kylie studied the checklist. For the most part, she was supposed to rest for the next two weeks.
Brock took them from her hands. “I spoke with your doctor a few minutes ago. I told him I’d make sure you followed his recommendations.”
“What do you mean you’ll make sure? Go back to Texas, I don’t need you here. Dix should never have called you.”
“You should have called me long before this. One look at the place—” He shook his head. “There will be time enough for this discussion. Right now, let’s get you home.”
When Brock took her elbow, Kylie’s knees felt wobbly. She could smell the piney musk of his aftershave, feel the strength in his large hand. She had once dreamed of more than friendship with Brock Warner, but he’d dismissed her as too young for his consideration. He’d come home with a wife and that had told Kylie, more than anything else, that she’d never belong in his life.
Six months after that, she’d married Alex.
