The Rancher and the Redhead Read online

  “Good God.”

  The dismay on Sam’s face was so comical, Roni laughed aloud. Impulsively, she laid a hand on his bare shoulder and came up on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. “You’re a good man, Sam Preston, and I’m a fiend to tease you when you’re so exhausted. I’ll go, but I’ll check on you first thing in the morning, okay? Maybe Krystal can recommend some names for the housekeeper’s position.”

  “Uh, Curly?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You want a cup of coffee or something? Or how about a beer?”

  Roni frowned. “Do you know what time it is?”

  “We could turn on the late show and shoot the breeze for a while. Anything happen down at Rosie’s I should know about?”

  “I’ll tell you tomorrow. I’m going home to bed.”

  “Uh...do you have to?”

  Brown eyes narrowed, Roni gave Sam a searching look. Could what she spied darting behind his brilliant blue gaze be...fear? Not Sam Preston, the man who could coolly face down a maddened Brahma bull and never bat an eyelash. Not strong, silent Sam, the bulwark of the community, the man who’d taken his wife’s walking out on him because she couldn’t stand small-town life with such quiet dignity, he’d earned the admiration of the whole county.

  Roni’s lips quirked, and her respect for little Jessie’s feminine wiles went up several notches. Was that really big, bad Sam Preston quaking in his bare size twelves at the thought of being left at the mercy of one tiny little girl?

  “You don’t really want to watch the late show, do you?” she asked, holding back her laughter with difficulty.

  “Have a little pity, will you, Curly?” His lean cheeks heated with consternation. “What if I don’t hear Jessie cry? You know what a hard sleeper I am. And what if she gets sick during the night? I’d just have to call you again.”

  Inspecting her paint-stained nails, Roni gave an airy reply. “I could always take my phone off the hook.”

  Sam’s expression turned sour. “You’re going to make me beg, aren’t you?”

  She did laugh then. “No, I think I’ll reserve that pleasure for when you’re really desperate.”

  “Then you’ll stay? Just for tonight? So I can find my sea legs?”

  Having already made an emotional connection with Jessie, Roni’s answer was a foregone conclusion, but she wouldn’t let Sam off that hook that easily. “Well...if it’ll make you feel better.”

  “Oh, it will.” Relief made his deep voice husky. “You don’t know.”

  “I can guess.” She chuckled. “I’ll even take the bed in her room. There’s one condition, though.”

  “Anything.” At her devilish look, he added hastily, “Within reason.”

  “You know, Sam,” she mused, running a goading finger down his hair-dusted breastbone, “another woman might try to take advantage of this situation. Having you over a barrel could be very...profitable.”

  He caught her wrist, shaking his head in warning, his own grin twitching the corners of his mouth as the familiar give-and-take of their usual teasing reasserted itself.

  “If you play with fire, lady, you might get burned. So spit it out. You want a trade? Okay, I’ll pick up the tab at Rosie’s for a month. How’s that?”

  “Penny ante,” she scoffed. “Up the stakes a little, you cheapskate.”

  “I’ll see that the fence down on the south boundary line between our places gets patched.”

  “You were going to do that anyway.”

  He shook her arm gently, growling, “So what do you want?”

  “Diablo.”

  Thunderstruck, Sam stared, his sandy eyebrows lifting in surprise. “Hell, I’m not going to give you my prize stallion!”

  “I just want to ride him.”

  “Uh-uh. No way. He’ll break your neck.”

  “I ride as well as you do!” she protested, tugging free of his grasp. “Well, almost.”

  “Look, Curly, I value your hide too much to risk it atop that devil.” Sam perched his fists on his lean hips and glowered down at her. “And don’t tell me all those years in New York art school and then working out in L.A. didn’t take the edge off your skills, because I won’t buy it. You’ve got to have a little common sense about such things.”

  “Any second now,” she warned darkly, “I’m liable to burst out in a chorus of ‘Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better.’”

  “Curly, I swear—”

  She laughed suddenly at his exasperation. “Relax, Sam, I won’t press you if you feel that strongly, but one of these days, me and Diablo...” She winked at him. “Until then, I’ll just have to make my own fun getting you riled up.”

  “And one of these days I’m going to throttle you.”

  “No, you won’t,” she retorted, smug. “Who else’ll baby-sit for you for free? You’re going to have to think about these things now.”

  “You may have a point.” He stifled a yawn.

  “Go to bed, Sam,” she said kindly. “I know where you keep your linens, and I can help myself. Remember, little children have a tendency to get up with the sun.”

  “I don’t need a second invitation. Good night.” He turned toward his room.

  Roni tugged at her damp shirt and wrinkled her nose. “Have you got something I can sleep in?”

  “In the bathroom cupboard. Watch out for that hot water spigot. It’s loose and cantankerous.”

  “I remember.”

  “And, Roni?”

  She paused at the bathroom door. A peculiar little stirring fluttered in her chest at both the solemnity and the affection she saw in his dark blue eyes. “Yes, Sam?”

  “Thanks.”

  Smiling, Roni shrugged. “Hey, what are best friends for?”

  * * *

  There was a newborn calf bawling outside, and sooner or later Sam was going to have to get up and see to it. He pulled his pillow over his ears and groaned.

  But not yet, damn you.

  One eye flew open. The angle of the morning sun falling through his bedroom window was a lot higher than it should have been. And there was something he ought to remember...Jessie!

  Sam jackknifed out of bed. He was leaning over the empty playpen in the next room before the sleep cleared from his groggy brain, and for an awful moment of panic and guilt he thought he’d misplaced her. Then he heard baby gurgles and Roni’s soft laughter floating from the direction of the kitchen.

  He took only a second to pull on jeans, then came up short in the doorway of the large country kitchen. Stretched out on the rag rug underneath the trestle table was a pair of long, long feminine legs and a shapely behind. She was decent only by the length of a man’s shirttail.

  “Peekaboo, Jessie. Where’s Jessie?”

  Roni peered around a chair leg at the little girl, who clapped and bounced on her diaper-clad bottom in delight at the game, then took off scrambling on all fours around the opposite side of the table. Roni came to her knees, too, stalking her prey with a mock ferocity that made the child squeal—just like a calf stuck in a fence, Sam thought.

  Leaning his shoulder against the door frame, he grinned, remembering times past when he and Kenny and Roni had played much the same kind of game in this very kitchen, building imaginary forts and corrals in and among the chair rungs, fighting off savage Indians and rustlers with their trusty six-guns. Of course, at that time none of them had sported anything like the provocative candy-pink lace he glimpsed peeking from beneath the hem of the old white dress shirt Roni had slept in.

  After an instant’s honest masculine appreciation, he dragged his gaze reluctantly to a more respectful perusal of the rich brown sleep-tousled curls spilling down the middle of her back. Though she liked to keep her mop ruthlessly clipped back and tidy these days, it was still more than clear why she’d earned her nickname. He’d teased her unmercifully about her mane one summer—at least until she’d bloodied his nose with an uppercut that had laid him out flat and taught him a valuable lesson about women.

  Chu
ckling at the memory, he watched Roni creep after Jessie, poking her way through a litter of oat cereal “O’s” and discarded paper napkins. It was an amazement and a miracle to him that his childhood playmate was still such an important part of his life. He was selfishly glad she’d finally had the good sense to break things off with that no-good jet-setting scoundrel she’d been involved with and come home to Flat Fork where she belonged.

  The mess he’d made with Shelly had made him gun-shy when it came to matters of the heart, and if it hadn’t been for Roni Daniels bullying him back into life, he surely would have become a hermit. Instead, over their Friday-night beers at Rosie’s, she’d cajoled him and talked him into reentering life while nursing her own bruised heart.

  Sam didn’t know what he would have done without her, and now, here she was again, pitching in like the true pal she was, giving him her unequivocal support to a decision that no doubt half the county would consider as cracked as the Liberty Bell.

  And, on top of that, she’d taken the early shift.

  “Morning, you two.”

  Jessie’s russet curls bobbed at the sound of Sam’s sleep-husky voice, and her blue eyes widened in recognition. Forgetting the game, she scrambled madly across the floor toward him with a squeal. “Da!”

  She was irresistible. Sam bent and scooped the tyke into his arms as Roni sat back on her heels and eyed the duo.

  “So what am I now, chopped liver?” she mock complained.

  Sam grinned. “Sorry, Curly. Can I help it if women of all ages find me fascinating?”

  Roni gave an indelicate snort. “You wish, cowboy.”

  Hauling herself to her feet, she flicked her dark hair over her shoulders and straightened the oversize shirt. From the stains on the front, Jessie’s first breakfast in her new home had been a challenging experience. Ocher and peach-colored splatters dotted the fabric, but not quite enough to obscure the faint dark shadows of Roni’s nipples showing beneath the white cotton.

  Sam frowned to himself. Now why had he noticed that? Roni was his buddy, like the sister he never had. Still, he wouldn’t have been much of a man not to appreciate the way the crests of her full bosom poked against...

  “Ready for a taste?” Roni sashayed to the counter and lifted a cup in an invitation that slid in under Sam’s defenses and landed hot in his belly.

  Hell, yes! He’d like to taste those impudent buds, lave them with his tongue right through the thin cotton until the fabric was wet and transparent and so was...

  Roni was frowning at his lack of response. “Sam? Your coffee?”

  Savagely, Sam reigned in his meandering thoughts. Jeez, he’d been without female companionship way too long when he started fantasizing about Curly! The last thing he wanted was to spoil their friendship with inappropriate lasciviousness.

  “Uh, yeah. Thanks.” He shifted the chortling baby to the opposite shoulder and shook his groggy head. Yeah, that was it. He was still sleep-muddled. “You should have gotten me up sooner.”

  She passed him a mug of steaming coffee, shrugging. “You obviously needed the rest. And Jessie and I have been getting acquainted. She’s quite a charmer.”

  As if in response, the little girl nestled her cheek in the hollow of Sam’s collarbone and batted her long eyelashes at him in a look that was pure coquettishness. “Da?”

  Sam’s laugh was helpless. “I’m a goner, as you can see.”

  “Yes, indeed.” Roni cupped her hands around her own mug and gazed at him over the rim, her brown eyes serious. “Sure you know what you’re getting into?”

  “No.” The twist of his mouth was wry. “But I’m in over my head, and it’s too late now.”

  “Then I’ll help you all I can,” she said simply.

  Her unqualified generosity produced a suspicious thickness in his throat. “Thanks, Curly. I—I don’t quite know what to say.”

  “Just tell me what you want for breakfast, because I think that’s Angel’s old truck I hear coming down the lane, and you’ve got some bulls to see to.”

  “Damn! He’s here already? I’m running later than I thought.” He took a step toward the bedroom, hesitated as he realized he still held Jessie, then passed her off to Roni with an apologetic look. “Sorry. Can you stay a bit? Just until we get the livestock loaded.”

  “Relax, Sam. Everything’s under control.” Roni tickled the baby’s chin and was rewarded with a giggle. “You see to those bulls, and I’ll give Krystal a call about prospective housekeepers.”

  He shoved a hand through his hair and blew out a breath. “That would be a big help.”

  “Don’t worry. I’m sure Krystal and I will have something worked out by suppertime.” Roni bounced the baby on her hip, her smile complacent. “After all, Jessie’s a doll. How hard could it be?”

  Two

  “So what’s wrong with this one?”

  “Her nose is too long.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding.” Sam flung his pencil down on a list of crossed-out names and glared in exasperation at Roni over the charred crusts of their frozen pizza lunch.

  “Well, figuratively speaking, anyway,” she muttered, folding one of Jessie’s gowns and placing it in a plastic laundry basket with the rest of the baby’s clean things. “Mrs. Hawkins is the worst gossip in town. She’ll spend all of her time talking on the phone instead of looking after Jessie.”

  “Well, what about Laurie Taylor?”

  “She’s barely out of high school. Do you want all her randy boyfriends hanging around all the time?”

  Sam reared back in his chair, eyeing Roni with a degree of belligerence. In her paint-spattered T-shirt, cutoffs and bare feet, she didn’t look much older than a teenager herself. And when she was in one of her ornery moods—as now—Sam was of the opinion that what she really needed was a darned good spanking. “You suggest someone then.”

  “Agnes Phillips,” she said promptly.

  “What?” His chair legs hit the floor with a smack. “She’s so old, she creaks when she walks—or rather, shuffles.” Sam gestured to where Jessie sat on the kitchen floor, babbling to herself and playing with an assortment of pots and wooden spoons. “She couldn’t keep up with the little trickster here for ten seconds.”

  Roni merely shrugged. “Then you’ll just have to keep looking, won’t you?”

  Sam scowled, rubbed his palms down his sweat-stained jeans and began to roll up the cuffs of his long-sleeved chambray work shirt with every evidence of severe irritation. Punching cows since dawn hadn’t done much for his mood, and Roni’s stubbornness wasn’t helping.

  “We’ve been interviewing for three days now, Curly. We’re no closer to hiring anyone than when we started, and the county welfare worker is due out here at three to see how everything’s going. What am I going to tell her?”

  “That you’re still interviewing applicants. No one expects miracles in just a few short days.”

  He grimaced sourly. “Yeah, but at the rate we’re going, we’ll run out of Flat Fork residents before I find a suitable housekeeper.”

  Roni bristled. “I can’t help it that you’re so darned picky.”

  “Me? You rejected the most promising candidates out of hand.” Sam ticked off names on the list. “Davina Hodge is too strict. Mrs. Rambles is too wishy-washy. Cloretha Glover has bad breath.”

  “Well, you can’t settle for just anyone as Jessie’s primary caretaker. This decision is too important to rush.” Finished with her chore, she plopped the laundry basket down beside the door. “Besides, I told you my deadline for the Artbeat cover illustration isn’t for three weeks, so I don’t mind helping out.”

  “But you can’t camp out here indefinitely,” he argued.

  Her lips twisted with wry humor. “I know I’m not much of a cook, but I didn’t realize I’d worn out my welcome already.”

  “Hey, even incinerated pizza tastes good after a morning vaccinating calves—” He saw her expression and added hastily, “Not that I’m complaining. I app
reciate all you’re doing.”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  “Well, uh—” He shifted uncomfortably. “Aw, hell, Curly! What’re folks liable to say, seeing as how you’ve practically moved in with me?”

  “Oh, for crying out loud!” She rolled her eyes in disgust. “They’ll say that I’m just helping out a buddy until he gets this daddy thing under control. Since you’re so busy catching up on the work that accumulated while you were away, it’s simply more convenient for me to sleep here, and easier on Jessie, too.”

  “I just don’t want you to catch any guff—”

  “The only thing I’m liable to catch is a backache from that lumpy twin bed in Jessie’s room. And maybe ptomaine from all the prepared food we’ve had out of your freezer. Don’t cowboys ever eat salad or fresh vegetables?”

  “Not if we can help it.” Her dismissal of his concern and return to her normal teasing made him relax, and his lips twitched. “But maybe I could force some down if it’s accompanied by a nice, thick T-bone steak.”

  Her brown eyes lit up. “You offering to grill them?”

  “Yup.”

  “You’ve got yourself a deal.”

  On the floor, Jessie had abandoned her spoons and sat rubbing her eyes and fretting softly. Scooping up the baby, Roni cuddled her close. Jessie immediately stuck her thumb in her mouth and buried her other fist into Roni’s hair in what was fast becoming a familiar habit. While the child seemed to be settling in, she alternated periods of normal behavior with listlessness or extreme irritability—a sure sign that she was grieving for her missing mother. And all the more reason to provide a loving and dependable daily caretaker as soon as possible, Sam thought.

  “She’s tired,” Roni said.

  “Want me to rock her?”

  Roni dropped a kiss on the baby’s forehead. “No, I’ll do it. But since you’ve got to hang around to meet the caseworker, I’m going to run home for a change of clothes while she’s napping.”

  “Sure. Take as much time as you need.” Sam nodded, guilty that his new status as dad was disrupting Roni’s routine. Despite her protests to the contrary, he knew that her career was booming and that her schedule was fairly tight. If he didn’t hire someone soon, Roni’s work would suffer and then he’d really be wallowing in the guilt.