Your Ranch…Or Mine?

“Since you’re here grilling me, I take it that Ben hasn’t supplied you with the answers to your questions?” he asked, raising one black eyebrow.

“No.”

“I’m sure he has his reasons for not telling you, and I’m not going to betray his trust.” He shook his head. “But I can tell you that he suggested I move into the house to watch over the place while he was in California visiting with you and your parents.”

“What about getting him to bet half of the ranch?” she demanded, not at all satisfied with his unwillingness to tell her what she wanted to know. “How did you manage that?”

“I had nothing to do with him putting up any part of the ranch. It was his idea and his alone,” Donaldson answered.

“I have a hard time believing that, Donaldson.” Unable to sit still any longer, Taylor rose to her feet to pace back and forth in front of the desk. “He bought this land sixty years ago with his first poker winnings. It was his pride and joy and when he and my grandmother married, they built this house and raised my mother here. In all that time, he never once considered risking any part of it. Why would he suddenly change his mind last fall?”

“You’ll have to ask Ben.” He smiled. “I haven’t heard from him in a couple of months. How is your grandfather? Is he enjoying his time in sunny California? Has he mentioned when he’ll be coming back to the ranch?”

Taylor stopped pacing and turned to face him. Her eyes burning with tears she refused to allow her nemesis to see, she took a deep, steadying breath. “Grandpa passed away about three weeks ago.”

Donaldson’s smile immediately disappeared. “I’m really sorry to hear that. Ben was a good man and the best poker player I’ve ever had the privilege to know. You have my deepest sympathy.”

“T-thank you,” she said, sinking into the armchair. Talking about her grandfather, knowing he was gone and that she had been powerless to stop the inevitable, was overwhelming.

“Here, drink this,” he said, handing her a glass tumbler as he lowered himself into the armchair beside her.

Lost in her misery, she hadn’t been aware that he’d risen from the chair behind the desk. “What is it?” she asked, looking at the clear liquid in the glass.

He gave her a sympathetic smile. “It’s just water.”

“Oh.”

“How did Ben die?” he asked softly.

“He had a massive heart attack,” she said woodenly. “He’d apparently known about his heart condition for quite some time, but didn’t tell anyone. When I learned about it, I insisted that he see the top cardiologist in Los Angeles. But it was too late. He went into cardiac arrest the day before he was scheduled for open-heart surgery.”

They sat in silence for some time before he commented. “I wonder why the poker federation failed to announce Ben’s passing last week at the tournament in Vegas?”

Finishing the glass of water, she placed the tumbler on the desk. “It wasn’t announced because they don’t know about it. He asked that his death be kept quiet until after his ashes were scattered here at the ranch.”

“Is that why you’re here now?” he asked. “To tell me you’re going to scatter Ben’s ashes?”

“No.” She determinedly met his questioning gaze. “I took care of his request yesterday evening at sunset.”

He looked doubtful. “If you were here yesterday, why didn’t I see you?”

“Because I know this place like the back of my hand,” she answered. “There’s a road two miles west of here that leads to the creek on the southern part of the ranch. Grandpa told me that if something happened to him he wanted his ashes released at sunset down by the creek where he asked my grandmother to marry him.” She stared at her hands, clasped tightly in her lap. “I’m sure you can understand that it was a private moment for me.”

“Of course,” he said quietly.

Suddenly feeling drained of energy, she hid a yawn behind her hand. “Now that you know about my grandfather’s death, there’s no reason not to answer my questions.” She gave him a pointed look. “Besides, I inherited the other half of the Lucky Ace Ranch and as the co-owner, that gives me the right to know everything. And the first thing I intend to find out is how you managed to swindle my grandfather.”

Two

Lane stared at Taylor for several long seconds as he worked to control his anger. He was still trying to come to terms with losing a good friend, as well as his partner in the ranch. The last thing he wanted was to be defending his integrity. But it appeared that was exactly what he was going to have to do.

“Before this goes any farther, let me set you straight, Ms. Scott,” he said, wondering how he could still find her attractive when he was angry enough to bite nails in two. “I have never been a cardsharp, nor will I ever be. I take my poker games very seriously and I can guarantee you that I don’t have to cheat to win. I pit my skill against other players’ and I’m good enough to be quite successful at it—just as your grandfather was.”

“But he had more years of experience than you are old,” she insisted. “How could you possibly beat him unless the game was rigged?”

“I know this is probably hard for you to believe, but your grandfather and I had a lot in common,” he stated. “We had a mutual respect for the game and for each other as worthy opponents. I’m sorry if you can’t accept that I had the skill to beat your grandfather, but I wouldn’t cheat at cards any more than Ben would have.”

Suddenly needing a drink, he rose to his feet, walked over to the credenza and poured himself a shot of bourbon. Downing the amber liquid in one gulp, he let the warmth spread throughout his chest before he turned to face her.

“The day I won an interest in this ranch, I had the better hand.” He shook his head. “We could have played another day and he might have come out the winner. That’s the game and a chance you take any time you sit down at a poker table.”

“I realize that there’s always a risk of losing,” she said, sounding a little less confident. She hid another yawn behind her delicate hand then continued, “But my grandfather was arguably the best poker player in modern history. He could tell at a glance what his odds of winning were and how much he could safely wager. He would have never bet half of the ranch if he hadn’t been certain he would win.”

“And because of his miscalculation that makes me guilty of cheating?” Lane demanded.

She yawned yet again. “He wouldn’t have risked—”

“I think we’ve adequately covered that already,” he interrupted. He took a deep breath in an effort to cool the fury burning in his gut. She wasn’t listening and he was tired of beating his head against a brick wall trying to convince her of his innocence. “Look, it’s past midnight and we’re getting nowhere. Let’s put this discussion on hold until tomorrow morning.”

She stared at him for a moment before she finally nodded and rose to her feet. “That would probably be best.”

“Where are you staying?” he asked. “I’ll drive you to your hotel.”

Looking suspicious, she asked, “Why?”

“You’re too tired to be behind the wheel of a car,” he stated flatly.

“I’m staying right here,” she said, her stubborn tone indicating that hell would freeze over before she budged on the issue. Resigned, he followed her out into the hall.

“I’m assuming that you have a bedroom you used when you visited your grandfather?”

“My room is the one with the lavender ruffled curtains and bedspread at the opposite end of the hall from the master suite,” she answered. She started toward the kitchen. “I’ll just get my overnight bag from the car.”

“Give me your keys and I’ll get it for you,” he said, holding out his hand.

Even though she had made him angry enough to want to forget his manners, he couldn’t ignore the code of conduct his foster father had taught him and his brothers about how a man was supposed to treat a woman. When a woman had something that needed to be carried, a man stepped forward and took care of it for her—no matter how small or lightweight the object was. No excuses.

“I can get it,” she insisted, taking a set of keys from the front pocket of her jeans.

He took them from her and tried to ignore the tingling sensation that streaked up his arm when he brushed her fingers with his. “You’re tired and it’s probably heavy,” he said through gritted teeth. “Go on upstairs and I’ll leave it outside your door.”

“It’s the blue backpack on the front passenger seat,” she called after him as he left the house. She said something else, but instead of turning back to ask what it was, he continued on to the little red sports car parked by his truck.

At the moment, it was better to put a little distance between them. If he didn’t, he couldn’t be certain he wouldn’t lose his temper and tell her what he thought of her and her ridiculous accusations—or grab her and kiss her until they both forgot that she was a lady and he was trying to be a gentleman.

He stopped short. Where had that thought come from? He would just as soon cozy up to a pissed-off wildcat than to get up close and personal with Taylor Scott. She might be one of the hottest women he’d seen in all of his thirty-four years, but she represented the kind of trouble that a man just didn’t need.

Shaking his head at his own foolishness, he unlocked the Lexus and reached inside to get Taylor’s backpack. The light, clean scent of her perfume assailed his senses and reminded him of just how long it had been since he’d lost himself in the charms of a willing woman. The scent only added an unwelcome element to the level of his frustration and he cussed a blue streak when his lower body began to tighten. And it didn’t help matters one damned bit knowing she would be sleeping in the room directly across the hall from the one he had been using since moving to the ranch six months ago.

He clenched his teeth as another wave of heat surged through his body. How could he possibly feel this level of desire for a woman when she irritated the living hell out of him? For that matter, how had she managed to make him forget everything he’d learned in seven years of studying to become a psychologist?

He had known immediately that she was fishing for information and he’d successfully evaded answering her by turning the tables and asking questions of his own. He’d even found her interrogation mildly amusing. But what he couldn’t quite come to terms with was the fact that when she’d started making accusations, he had let her get to him.

Lane had played poker with men who made it a point of talking smack in an effort to throw him off his game, and not once had he ever let any of it affect him. For one thing, he recognized the insults as a psychological ploy and simply tuned the men out. And for another thing, they all had better sense than to cross the line and accuse him of cheating. But when Taylor made it clear that she thought he had swindled her grandfather out of his ranch, she had unknowingly touched on one of his hot buttons and he’d damned near gone off like a Roman candle in a Fourth of July fireworks display.

He was a psychologist specializing in human behavior. He had been schooled not only in how to be a patient and observant listener but also how to keep his emotions in check. The last thing a client wanted to see from his therapist during a session was a judgmental expression or outright shock when they revealed some of their darkest secrets. Those psychology tools had served him well over the years and he had used them quite successfully as a professional poker player to keep from alerting his opponents to the cards he had been dealt.

But when it came to Taylor, it was as if his skills didn’t even exist. All she had to do was look at him with those big green eyes of hers and his training seemed to go right out the window.

The first time he’d noticed his uncharacteristic reaction to her had been when she told him that she wanted the other half of the ranch. She’d looked him square in the eye and the passion and determination in her striking green gaze had sent a streak of heat straight to the region south of his belt buckle. He had even found himself wondering if she would be that passionate when he made love to her.

His body tightened to an almost painful state and he rattled off every curse word he could think of. He forcefully slammed the car door and locked it with the remote. As he walked back to the house, he glanced down at the small bag in his hand. She couldn’t have put much more than a few changes of clothes in it, indicating that she wouldn’t be staying more than a night or two. That suited him just fine.

The sooner she went back to California and left him alone, the better. Then maybe he could figure out what the hell had gotten into him and what he was going to do to get rid of it.

* * *

Well before dawn, Taylor rolled over in bed and glanced at the clock on the bedside table. She hadn’t been able to sleep more than a couple of hours and those had been filled with fitful dreams of the tall, dark-haired man sleeping in the bedroom directly across the hall from hers.

Deciding she couldn’t stand another minute of tossing and turning, she sighed heavily, threw back the covers and sat up on the side of the bed. How was she going to get Donaldson to sell her his interest in the ranch and leave the Lucky Ace for good? And why on earth did she find him so darned attractive?

She still wasn’t entirely convinced that he hadn’t somehow managed to cheat her grandfather in that poker game. But Donaldson had presented a compelling argument for his innocence and even though she knew how good her grandfather was at the game, she was starting to have her doubts. After all, he was human and as much as she hated to admit it, he could very well have made a mistake when he mentally calculated his odds of winning that fateful hand.

But what disturbed her the most about Donaldson was her reaction to him. The moment he’d approached her at the party to introduce himself, she had caught her breath, and she wasn’t entirely certain she had breathed normally since. She had never experienced that kind of reaction to any of the men she’d dated in the past, let alone one she had just met and didn’t trust.

Exhausted from the emotional roller coaster she had been on for the past three weeks and unsettled by her reaction to the man across the hall, she decided to do the one thing that always helped her put things in perspective. After a quick shower, she was going to start cooking.

Twenty minutes later, Taylor tied her damp hair back in a ponytail as she walked into the spacious kitchen. After washing her hands and starting the coffeemaker, she prepared to get to work. Checking the pantry and refrigerator for available ingredients, she decided on what she would make for breakfast then reached into one of the cabinets for a set of mixing bowls.

“Do you mind if I get myself a cup of coffee?” a deep male voice asked from close behind her.

Jumping, she almost dropped the bowls she held as she spun around to face Donaldson. Her heart racing, she took a deep breath. “I think you just took ten years off my life.”

“Sorry,” he said, hanging his hat on a peg by the door before pouring himself a mug of coffee. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I thought you heard me.” His deep chuckle sent a wave of goose bumps shimmering over her skin. “It’s kind of hard not to make noise in a pair of boots on a hardwood floor.”

Her heart skipped a beat as her gaze traveled the length of him, down to his scuffed cowboy boots. No man had a right to look that good so early in the morning.

Last night at the party, she had thought he was extremely handsome in his dark blue jeans, white oxford-cloth shirt and expensive caiman-leather boots. But that was nothing compared to the way he looked now. Wearing well-worn jeans and a chambray work shirt, he was downright devastating. With his dark eyes, black hair and a fashionable day’s growth of beard stubble, Donaldson had that bad boy appeal about him that was sure to send shivers up the spine of any woman with a pulse.

Disgusted with herself and her wayward thoughts, Taylor set the metal mixing bowls on the counter and reached for a carton of eggs. “Where’s my grandfather’s housekeeper?”

“Marie retired right after the first of the year and I just haven’t gotten around to hiring another one,” he answered.

She wasn’t surprised. The woman her grandfather had hired after her grandmother died had to be getting close to seventy. But on the other hand, she wouldn’t have put it past Donaldson to have fired the woman, either.

“I’ll have breakfast ready in a few minutes,” she said, cracking eggs into one of the bowls with one hand while she reached for a whisk with the other. “Why don’t you have a seat at the table?”

“What are you making?” he asked as he sat down at the head of the oak trestle table that had been in her grandmother’s family for over three generations.

“Blueberry and ricotta–stuffed French toast with blueberry syrup, link sausage and blueberries and cantaloupe covered with vanilla sauce,” she said, dipping extra thick slices of bread in the cinnamon-spiced egg mixture before placing them on the heated stovetop griddle.

“Sounds good, but isn’t that a little fancy for a typical ranch breakfast?” he commented. “You must really like to cook.”

She shrugged. “Since I graduated from the California School of Culinary Arts, then went to Paris for a year to study pastry, you might say I’m rather fond of it.”

“Do you have your own restaurant?”

Arranging the food on two plates, she shook her head. “No, I’m a personal chef. I’m mainly hired for dinner parties and other special in-home occasions, like graduation and anniversary celebrations.”

“That sounds like an interesting job,” he said conversationally. “Do you have many clients?”

Nodding, she poured vanilla sauce over the fruit. “When I first started, I registered with the personal chef association and they referred clients to me. Now the majority of the calls I get are referrals from clients or from people who have attended the dinner parties I’ve prepared.”

“You must be good at what you do,” he said, sounding thoughtful.

Taylor carried the plates over to the table and sat down. “I’ll let you be the judge.” She watched him eye the food in front of him as if he wasn’t sure it was safe to eat. Barely resisting the urge to laugh, she asked, “Is something wrong?”

“You made your opinion of me quite clear last night, so I’m sure you can understand my hesitation,” he said, giving her a deliberate smile.

“It’s true that I don’t completely trust you, but that doesn’t mean you can’t trust me.” She switched his plate with hers. “Now you have no reason not to try it.”

Picking up his knife and fork, he cut into the French toast. “What do you say we start over?” he suggested. “The least we can do is be civil to each other until you go back to Los Angeles.”

“I agree that being polite to each other would make negotiations for my buying your share of the ranch a lot easier,” she agreed, taking a bite of fruit.

“I told you last night I’m not selling. But you could always sell your half to me,” he said, taking a bite of toast.

“Absolutely not. I love the Lucky Ace. It represents the best part of my childhood.” Irritated by his offer to buy her share, Taylor put her fork down to glare at him. “My grandfather knew how much this place meant to me and he intended for me to have it. I’m not selling it to you or anyone else.”

Donaldson calmly took a sip of his coffee. “Then before you go back to Los Angeles, we’ll have to work out an agreement on how I run the day-to-day operations and how often you want to receive dividend checks.”

“I’m not going back to L.A.,” she said, taking great satisfaction in the annoyed expression that came over his handsome face.

A forkful of toast halfway to his mouth, he slowly lowered it back to his plate. “What do you mean you aren’t going back?”

Her appetite deserting her, she rose from the table to scrape the contents of her plate in the garbage disposal. “I have every intention of making the Lucky Ace my permanent home.”

“What about your clients back in Los Angeles?” he asked, looking more irritated with each passing second. “And that backpack wasn’t big enough to hold more than a handful of clothes.”

“I informed my clients of the move over a week ago and arranged for another chef to cover the dinner parties I had scheduled,” she said, watching the frown lines on his forehead deepen further. “I sublet my apartment, stored my furniture, and the clothes I was unable to bring with me in the car, I shipped here. Those cartons should arrive sometime next week. I told you last night when you went out to get my backpack that I was here to run the ranch and would get the rest of my things from the car today.”

He suddenly got up from the table, walked over to scrape his plate, then reached for the hat hanging beside the back door.

“Will you be back for lunch?” she asked.

“No.”

“Then I’ll have plenty of time to clean my room this morning before I bring my things in from the car and put them away this afternoon,” she said thoughtfully.

“I’ll go over to the bunkhouse and see if I can get one of the men to help you with that,” he answered without turning around.

Before she could thank him for his thoughtfulness, he opened the door to walk out onto the porch then forcefully pulled it shut behind him.

“He took that better than what I thought he would,” she murmured as she started rinsing their dishes to put into the dishwasher. She wasn’t sure what she had expected, but Donaldson’s passive acceptance of her moving into the ranch house hadn’t been it.

Of course, she wasn’t foolish enough to think that he had given up trying to get her to sell her part of the ranch to him. But maybe now that he knew she was serious about living at the ranch, he was giving a little more thought to selling her his.

* * *

Lane rode his blue roan gelding across the pasture toward the barn at a slow walk. He had to find some way to get Taylor to sell him her share of the ranch. Or if that wasn’t something she was willing to do, at least get her to go back to Los Angeles and leave him the hell alone.

He could appreciate her sentimentality about the place her grandfather owned. But he had become attached to the property as well. For the first time in over twenty years he had a place he could truly call his own. It felt good and he wasn’t willing to give that up.

As he stared off across the land, he thought about the plans he had for the future. He’d made a fortune playing poker and having invested wisely, he never had to work another day in his life if he didn’t want to. But he didn’t consider playing poker or ranching actual jobs. Poker was a pastime. He enjoyed the challenge of competing with other equally skilled players and if he ever lost interest in it, he’d quit with no regrets. But ranching was a lifestyle, and up until six months ago, he hadn’t even realized how much he had missed it. That’s why he intended to improve the Lucky Ace by introducing a herd of free-range cattle, as well as start raising and training roping horses for rodeo.

But all that could change if Taylor insisted on living on the ranch and taking an active role in running it. That’s why he spent the entire day riding fence, repairing windmills and tightening gates, whether they needed it or not. Keeping busy helped him think. Unfortunately, he didn’t arrive at any conclusions other than that Taylor was just as stubborn about selling her share of the ranch as he was.

When he’d won half of the Lucky Ace last fall, he had fully intended to sell it back to Ben. But the old man had asked that Lane move in and oversee the day-to-day running of the ranch while he spent the winter with his family in California. Ben had told him they would talk again in the spring and Lane could let him know if he still wanted to sell the property back to him. It had seemed like a reasonable request and Lane had agreed. But the past six months had reminded him of his time at the Last Chance Ranch and he’d decided that he might have been a little too hasty about offering to sell his interest back to Cunningham.