The Rancher and the Redhead Read online

  “Uh.” Robbed of his full head of steam, Sam rubbed his neck in consternation. “Jeez, Curly—”

  “Now what have you done to yourself?” She grabbed his hand to inspect the bloody scrapes on his knuckles.

  The gentleness of her touch contrasted with her sharp tone and left Sam feeling faintly unbalanced. “Uh, whacked it on the carburetor. It’s nothing—”

  “Shut up and get over here.” Dropping the towel, she flung open the medicine cabinet and grabbed a brown bottle of hydrogen peroxide. Holding his hand over the basin, she doused the wound, ignoring his indrawn hiss at the sting. “I haven’t got time for you to be such a baby.”

  Sam grimaced at the burning sensation on his skin. He was burning elsewhere, too, as his body responded to her semiclad and utterly delectable female form. He had a brief mental vision of himself bending her over the sink, slipping his fingers under the scarlet silk at her hips to explore an even silkier place. And her breasts, velvety globes nearly slipping from the sexy bra as she bent over his hand. All he’d have to do was reach out and... With a shudder, he searched for control, but Roni’s next sentence jarred him out of the fantasy.

  “I’ve got to get Jessie to Dr. Hazelton’s before his office closes.”

  A chill of alarm raced up Sam’s spine. “Jessie? Why? What—?”

  Finishing her first aid, Roni wrapped his hand in a towel. “She’s been cranky all day, and now she’s running a fever.”

  “A fever! How much? What’s wrong with her?”

  “Hundred and one. And that’s what I’m going to find out, just as soon as I can get on some clean clothes.”

  Roni’s pointed look made Sam feel like a jackass who’d just had a temper tantrum. He dared one last glance at the seductive curve of her cleavage, then began to back out of the bathroom.

  “Oh. Yeah, sure. Sorry. I’ll go with you.”

  “Why? Don’t you think I can handle it?”

  “Well, I guess...”

  “Guess?” She lost her temper. “Don’t you think I can manage a simple trip to the doctor by myself? Are you telling me you don’t trust me to be a good mother?”

  Her instantaneous transformation to fury amazed him. “No, of course not. I mean, sure you are—”

  “Well, then, get the hell out of my way and let me do my job.” With that, she kicked the door shut in his face.

  Sam stared at the wood and cursed himself for being every kind of fool. Yes, sir, all he had to have was a little patience, do a little wooing.

  And he was off to a hell of a good start.

  * * *

  “Come on, sweetie,” Roni begged. “Tell me what you want.”

  Jessie’s whimper bounced off the walls of the examination cubicle, and she squirmed on Roni’s lap, pushing aside the proffered pacifier. Her skin was burning up and her eyes looked glassy. She’d rejected a bottle, her blanket and her favorite rag doll in quick succession, and Roni was feeling frazzled and a little desperate.

  “I know you don’t feel well,” she crooned, smoothing Jessie’s thick russet curls. The baby arched against her grasp and whined softly, the sound breaking Roni’s heart. There was a real talent to keeping a sick child distracted until the doctor showed up. Roni grabbed a tattered personality magazine from a basket beside her chair. “Look, let’s read a story.”

  The rattle of paper and the colorful pictures caught Jessie’s attention. Roni turned the pages, pointing out the doggies and the diamonds and the devilish smiles of the rich and famous. Roni turned another page of the magazine, and her mouth twisted sourly. “Oh, look, Jessie, here’s a Hollywood snake.”

  Her finger tapped Jackson Dial’s handsome features. A slinky blond starlet graced the filmmaker’s arm as he made an appearance at some swank Los Angeles night spot. Roni pushed her hair out her face, feeling frumpy and tired and inadequate.

  She turned the page with a resentful snap. There was another failure to live down. Despite all her love and loyalty, she’d never won a commitment from Jackson. Now she had made a commitment with Sam, but couldn’t lure him to her bed. One hand tugging at her ear, the other tangled in a lock of Roni’s hair, Jessie settled against her new mother, and they both gave tired sighs.

  A sleepless night and disrupted day in which she hadn’t accomplished one stroke of work on her cover illustration hadn’t done much for Roni’s frame of mind, but it was the strange and stilted confrontation with Sam that had really put her into a state of blue funk. For a thrilling moment when he’d first burst into the bathroom, she’d thought all the tiptoeing and circling that they’d done the past week was finally at an end—and then he’d started shouting about his stupid chair.

  Roni groaned and mentally kicked herself yet again for panicking on her wedding night and refusing what Sam had so willingly offered. There she’d been, possessed of a man whom most women would agree was a stud, whose touch excited her incredibly, a man whom she knew would never hurt her, and one who’d made a public commitment to her—and she’d turned him down? On sober reflection, it was Roni’s opinion that she’d been a fool. A monumental one, at that.

  But it was a woman’s prerogative to change her mind, right? Only from the way he kept his distance, it appeared Sam had exercised that right, too. Okay, so maybe he’d decided that consummating what was for all practical purposes a business relationship was a bad move. She couldn’t fault him for listening to an argument she’d advocated.

  But things had changed. You couldn’t live intimately with someone without at least thinking about what it would be like to make love, could you? And the thought of making love with Sam left her breathless. Surely he felt the same tension? So why didn’t he do something about it? For God’s sake, she’d been standing in the bathroom practically naked, and he hadn’t even made a pass at her! In fact, he’d even shuddered at her touch.

  Did she repulse him to such an extent? Roni wondered miserably. What was the matter with her, anyway? Maybe she was simply missing some vital aspect as a woman, maybe she had some deficiency that kept her from attracting the right kind of man. Her spirits sank another notch.

  She had to accept that she’d blown what might be the only chance she was going to get with Sam. Well, so be it, then. If she was finding their agreement harder to live with than she’d planned, then that was her cross to bear. What she was going through was obviously a period of adjustment. Sooner or later, the heat she felt would die back down to the warmth of pure friendship. In the meantime, she wouldn’t embarrass Sam by panting after him like some moonstruck schoolgirl.

  “Well, well. Who have we here?” Dr. Hazelton, sixty and stocky, bluff and balding, breezed into the examining room with a warm smile on his bespectacled face. “Hello, there, Veronica. What seems to be the trouble with little Jessie?”

  “Doc.” Roni dropped the magazine and rose to her feet. Jessie took one look at the stranger and burrowed her face into Roni’s shoulder. “She’s running a fever and won’t eat. I don’t know what’s the matter. I’ve done everything—”

  Dr. Hazelton reached for his stethoscope. “Relax, Mother. You haven’t done anything wrong. Little girls get the sniffles all the time.”

  “But she’s so miserable.”

  “Hmm. I shouldn’t wonder.” Dr. Hazelton pressed the stethoscope to Jessie’s chest, then checked her nose and ears with quick, unruffled efficiency while keeping up a stream of conversation. “You don’t look quite up to snuff yourself.”

  “I’m working under a tight deadline,” she admitted, thinking about the unfinished cover. That she looked so haggard the doctor saw fit to comment on it, depressed Roni even more. What chance did she stand with Sam in this condition? She gave a wan smile. “It’s taking me a while to get the hang of this mother thing, I guess.”

  “Sam not helping you at all?”

  She answered truthfully. “No, that’s not it. He’s wonderful with Jessie. Of course, he’s really busy during the day right now culling the herd and picking out the prime bulls.
”

  “Going after that rodeo contract, is he?” Ignoring Jessie’s protests, he placed her on her back on the examining table and checked her throat with a tongue depressor. “So is Travis King, I hear. They ought to work together.”

  At the doctor’s nod, Roni picked up the now-squalling baby to comfort, shaking her head. “Sam wouldn’t hear of it. They don’t get along.”

  “Still? After all this time?” The physician clucked at the antics of grown men. “Foolishness. It was an accident that killed Kenny, pure and simple. They were all pretty good friends, too. Seems a shame to hold on to a grudge like that just because Travis was driving that night.”

  Roni jiggled the sobbing baby. “Sometimes there’s no talking to a man.”

  “Well, you talk to that one of yours, missy, and see that he gives you a hand,” he ordered brusquely. “I see the first signs of maternal stress, and you’re going to have your hands full for a few days.”

  Roni’s eyes widened in alarm. “What’s the matter with her?”

  “Now don’t get all panic-stricken. Just allergies and two of the worst infected ears I’ve seen this spring.” He scribbled on a prescription pad and handed the paper to her. “But it’s nothing antibiotics and some fever medicine won’t help.”

  “Oh, thank goodness.” The tension in her features relaxed a hair, but the hand she used to pat Jessie’s back held a betraying tremble.

  “You’re doing a good job with her, Veronica,” he said, already moving toward the door and his next patient.

  That bit of praise revived Roni’s flagging spirits a smidgeon. Yes, motherhood was certainly one area that she could excel in, especially considering that her heart overflowed with love whenever she gazed at Jessie. In fact, she’d make sure she was the best mother in all of Flat Fork. She knew how important this contract was to the Lazy Diamond, and she was going to see that Sam was able to concentrate on business instead of this latest domestic crisis. If he never looked on her as a desirable woman again, at least he’d admire her for a competent partner and helpmate.

  “Trust your instincts, and call me if you have any questions or if she seems worse.” Dr. Hazelton gave Roni an encouraging pat on the shoulder and a final word of warning. “Sometimes these things can be tricky.”

  Prescriptions clutched in her hand, resolve firmly in place, she nodded to the older man. “Thank you, Doc. Don’t worry, I’ll take care of everything.”

  Five

  Tricky wasn’t the word for it.

  Neither was fatiguing, frustrating or ego-sapping. No, after five days of nursing a one-year-old infant with two red ears, Roni knew that there truly weren’t words in the English language to describe how she felt, except perhaps the old Texas saw, “drawn through a knothole backward.”

  Her hair was bundled in a frizzy ponytail, and she couldn’t remember how long she’d been wearing, sleeping and trying to paint in the same oversize T-shirt and cutoff shorts. To make matters worse, Sam’s cattle transport truck had broken down the night before and he’d been forced to spend the night stranded halfway between Flat Fork and Wichita. Although it was almost suppertime, he still hadn’t made it home. Which was perhaps all to the good, since Roni was sure her haggard appearance was enough to scare off any man.

  “Please, Jessie, honey, take your medicine.”

  Seated on the bed in the baby’s nursery, Roni squinted her sandy eyes and poked a spoon loaded with pink syrup at the reluctant child. Jessie screwed up her rosebud mouth and swatted the spoon. Sticky pink spray splattered Roni, her shirt, the wall and the bed sheets.

  “Jessie Marie Preston!” Surprise and frustration made Roni’s voice harsher than she intended. She rose and plunked the child into her baby bed and raised the side with a violence that shook the whole contraption. “I’ve had quite enough of you, young lady!”

  In stained gown and diaper, Jessie pulled to her tiny feet, clutched the plastic teething rail with her dimpled fists and let loose a howl of protest to raise the dead. Roni ignored her. She used the tail of her shirt to wipe the sticky droplets dripping down her chin, then stripped the splattered bedding down to the bare twin mattress.

  Reaching for the medicine bottle again, she grimly refilled the spoon. Her stubborn daughter would take the prescribed dosage. Damned if she was going to let this hell of infected ears go on any longer than necessary.

  “What’s all the ruckus?”

  Roni looked up to find Sam standing in the doorway, holding a tall glass of something iced and cool. He was breathtaking, his shoulders broad under his striped rodeo shirt, just a haze of golden stubble shadowing his jaw. Rested, relaxed, not a care in the world after a night of freedom—that’s what his loose-hipped stance said to her in her exhaustion. And Roni couldn’t have felt more put-upon and ill-used if he’d come up and kicked her.

  “Where have you been?”

  He lifted an eyebrow, a gesture that somehow censured her for her frowsy appearance and shrewish tone. “Trying to resurrect that engine. It’s a no-go. I don’t know what the hell we’re going to do now.”

  “Yeah, well, we’ve all got our problems,” she muttered, glaring blearily at the measurements on the spoon.

  “Need some help?”

  “No!” By God, this was her turf, and she was going to prove that she could handle it. Swiftly she tucked Jessie into the crook of her arm and stuffed the loaded spoon into her mouth. “There.”

  Jessie gulped, gasped and gagged, and her eyes got panicky when she couldn’t catch her breath.

  “Hey, watch it!” Sam ordered, advancing into the room.

  Alarmed, Roni jerked the child upright and pounded her between the shoulder blades. Jessie promptly threw up her supper of strained carrots and peas as well as the second spoonful of pink medicine—right in the middle of the twin bed mattress.

  “Holy Jehoshaphat! What are you trying to do to her?” Sam shouted.

  “Don’t yell at me.” Roni grabbed a clean cloth diaper to dab at Jessie’s chin while the child screamed out her fright. Her own lip wobbled. “I’m doing the best that I can.”

  “To do what? Strangle her?” Setting his glass aside, Sam picked up a towel and covered the mess on the bed.

  “Don’t you dare criticize me.” Moisture prickled behind Roni’s tired lids as she struggled to hold Jessie. “You don’t know what it’s like. She won’t...and I tried to...and then she wouldn’t...”

  “Hey, get a grip, Curly.” He reached out a hand.

  “Easy for you to say,” she half sobbed, half snarled, and jerked away. “Out gallivanting, enjoying yourself while I’ve been dealing with a sick child. She’s still got fever, you know. And now I’m going to miss tomorrow’s deadline.” Hot tears trickled down her cheeks, and her voice rose on a wail. “I’ve never missed a deadline....”

  “I haven’t exactly been out partying,” he said, defending himself.

  “But you haven’t been here.” She wiped her nose on her sleeve, and she and the baby sobbed in unison.

  “Lord, you’re dead on your feet, aren’t you?”

  “How astute of you to notice.” Her voice cracked with the attempted sarcasm.

  “You need some help.”

  She glared at him. “Bingo, cowboy.”

  Sam set his fists to his hips and glared back. “Then why the hell didn’t you just say so? I didn’t even know about your damned deadline. Am I supposed to be a mind reader or something?”

  “You—you could have asked,” she said, hiccuping. “But I know how busy you’ve been.”

  Sam’s expression softened. “Not too busy for you. What were you trying to prove, Curly? Didn’t we agree that this was going to be a mutual effort?”

  Suddenly ashamed of her petulance, Roni ducked her head. “I—I’m just so tired, Sam. And I’ve got so much work to do.”

  “And you apparently don’t know beans about communication, either, lady. We’ll have to work on that.” He lifted Jessie from her arms. The little girl magically qu
ieted and gazed at her mother with guileless blue eyes. “But right now you’re officially off duty.”

  “But her medicine—”

  “I’ll handle it.” He smoothed Roni’s hair back from her hot brow and kissed her forehead. “You get a shower and a nap, and then you can work on that commission, okay?”

  “Uh, okay.” Punch-drunk, she blinked at him. How dare he try to be nice to her! He was the most infuriating, as well as the handsomest, man she knew. But here she’d failed again, at the one task she’d set for herself. A new wave of tears threatened.

  “Now don’t start that again,” Sam warned gently.

  “I’m sorry, Sam,” she said on a little painful gasp. “I thought I could do it.”

  “For crying out loud, Curly, even God needs a helping hand now and then. You go on. I’ll hold down the fort.”

  “But you must be tired, too.”

  He gave her a lopsided grin. “It’s a matter of degree, I’d say. Don’t argue. Git.”

  Roni got.

  It was truly surprising what a bath, a sandwich and a brief nap could do to revive a person. When Roni entered her studio an hour later, she felt energized and even enthusiastic about producing a field of indigenous Texas wildflowers for the cover illustration. Grabbing up brushes and paints, she went to work with a will, focused so tightly, she barely heard the sounds Sam and Jessie made in the rest of the house.

  When she daubed the final speck of russet into the heart of a Texas poppy and stepped back to admire the results, she was surprised to find it was well past three o’clock in the morning. But at least she’d finished. It took all she could do to lay out the shipping carton with a note asking Sam to put it in the mail the next day.

  Yawning, she headed for bed, kicking off her shorts and tennis shoes just inside Jessie’s door. She felt her way blindly in the darkness—and whacked her shin on the metal bed frame.

  “Ouch!” Hopping, trying to suppress a whimper of pain, Roni reached for the bed and found nothing but air. Disoriented, she patted around until she found the small lamp on the bedside table and flicked it on. The soiled mattresses were missing—evidently moved out to air by Sam—and so was Jessie.