Outlaw Hartes

Even if she had been able to recall any other kisses, she had a feeling they would pale into nothingness anyway compared to this. She certainly would have remembered something that made her feel as if she were riding a horse on a steep mountain trail with only air between her and heaven, as if the slightest false step would send her tumbling over the edge.

She’d been right.

The thought whispered through her dazed and jumbled mind, and she sighed. She had wondered that day in her office how Matt would go about kissing a woman and now she knew—slowly, carefully, completely absorbed in what he was doing, as if the fate of the entire world hinged on him kissing her exactly right.

Until she didn’t have a thought left in her head except more.

She had no idea how long they stood there locked together. Time slowed to a crawl, then speeded up again in a whirling, mad rush.

She would have stayed there all night, lost in the amazing wonder of his mouth and his hands and his strength amid the rustle of hay and the low murmuring of horses—if she had her way, they would have stayed there until Christmas.

But just as she twisted her arms around the strong, tanned column of his neck to pull him even closer, her subconscious registered a sound that didn’t belong. Girls’ voices and high-pitched laughter outside the barn, then the rusty-hinged squeak of a door opening.

For one second they froze, still tightly entwined together, then Matt jerked away from her, his breathing ragged and harsh, just as both of their daughters rounded the corner of a stall bundled up like Eskimos against the cold.

“Hi.” The girls chirped the word together.

Ellie thought she must have made some sound but she was too busy trying to grab hold of her wildly scrambled thoughts to know what it might have been.

“We came out to see if you might need any help,” Lucy said.

Ellie darted a quick look at Matt and saw that he looked every bit as stunned as she felt, as if he’d just run smack up against one of those wood supports holding the roof in place.

“Is something wrong?” Dylan’s brows furrowed as she studied them closely. “Did…did something happen to the foal?”

She’d forgotten all about Mystic. What kind of a veterinarian was she to completely abandon her duties while she tangled mouths with a man like Matt Harte? She jerked her gaze to the stall and was relieved to find the pregnant mare sleeping, her sides moving slowly and steadily with each breath. In a quick visual check, Ellie could see no outward sign of her earlier distress.

She rubbed her hands down her skirt—filthy beyond redemption, she feared—and forced a smile through the clutter of emotions tumbling through her. “I think she’s going to be okay.”

“And her foal, too?” Lucy asked, features creased with worry.

“And her foal, too.”

Matt cleared his throat, looking at the girls and not at her. “Yeah, the crisis seems to be over, thanks to Doc Webster here.”

“She’s amazing, isn’t she, Dad?” Lucy said. Awe that Ellie knew perfectly well she didn’t deserve in his daughter’s voice and shining in her soft powder-gray eyes.

Finally Matt met her gaze, and Ellie would have given a week’s salary to know what he was thinking. The blasted man could hide his emotions better than a dog burying a soup bone. His features looked carved in granite, all blunt angles and rough planes.

After a few moments of that unnerving scrutiny, he turned to his daughter. “I’m beginning to think so,” he murmured.

Nonplussed by the undercurrents of meaning in his voice, Ellie couldn’t come up with an answer. She flashed him a quick look, and he returned it impassively.

“Are you sure you don’t need our help?” Dylan asked.

She wavered for a moment, suddenly desperate for the buffer they provided between her and Matt. But it was cowardly to use them that way, and she knew it.

“No,” she murmured. “I’d just like to stick around a little longer out here and make sure everything’s all right. Both of you should go on back to the house where you can stay warm.”

“Save us a piece of pie,” Matt commanded.

Lucy grinned at her father. “Which kind? I think there are about ten different pies in there.”

He appeared to give the matter serious thought, then smiled at her. “How about one of each?”

“Sure.” She snickered. “And then I’ll bring in a wheelbarrow to cart you around in since you’ll be too full to move.”

“Deal. Go on, then. It’s chilly out here.”

Dylan sent her mother another long, searching look, and Ellie pasted on what she hoped was a reassuring smile for her daughter. “It was sweet of you both to come out and check on Mystic, but what she really needs now is quiet and rest.”

“Okay.”

“But—” Lucy began, then her voice faltered as Dylan sent her a meaningful look.

“Come on. Let’s go back inside,” she said, in that funny voice she’d been using lately. She grabbed Lucy’s arm and urged her toward the door, leaving Ellie alone with Matt and the memory of the kiss that had left her feeling as if the whole world had just gone crazy.

* * *

Dylan clutched her glee to her chest only until they were outside the barn and she had carefully shut the door behind them, then she grabbed Lucy’s coat, nearly toppling her into the snow. She pulled her into a tight hug and hopped them both around in wild circles. “Did you see that? Did you see it?”

“What? Mystic? She looked fine, like nothing had happened. Your mom is really something.”

She gave Lucy a little shake. “No, silly! Didn’t you see them? My mom and your dad?”

“Well, yeah. We just talked to them two seconds ago.” Lucy looked at her as if her brain had slid out.

“Don’t you get it, Lucy? This is huge. It’s working! I know it’s working! I think he kissed her!”

“Eww.” Lucy’s mouth twisted in disgust like Dylan had just made her eat an earwig.

“Come on, Luce. Grow up. They have to get mushy! It’s part of the plan.”

Her mouth dropped open like she’d never even considered the possibility. For a moment she stared at Dylan, then snapped her jaws shut. “How do you know? What makes you think they were kissing? They seemed just like normal.”

Dylan thought of her mother’s pink cheeks and the way Lucy’s dad kept sneaking looks at Ellie when he didn’t think any of them were watching him. “I don’t know. I just think they were.”

She wanted to yell and jump up and down and twirl around in circles with her arms wide until she got too dizzy and had to stop. A funny, sparkling excitement filled her chest, and she almost couldn’t breathe around it. She was going to have a father, just like everybody else!

“I can’t believe it. Our brilliant plan is working! Your dad likes her. I told you he would. He just needed the chance to get to know her.”

She pulled Lucy toward her for another hug. “If your dad likes my mom enough to kiss her, it won’t be long before he likes her enough to marry her. We’re going to be sisters, Luce. I just know we are.”

Lucy still couldn’t seem to get over the kissing. Her face still looked all squishy and funny. “Now what?”

“I guess we keep doing what we’re doing. Trying everything we can think of to push them together. Why mess with it when everything seems to be working out just like we planned?”

* * *

As soon as the girls left the barn, Ellie wished fiercely that she could slither out behind them. Or hide away among the hay bales. Or crawl into the nearest stall and bury her head in her hands.

Anything so she wouldn’t have to face the tight-lipped man in front of her. Or so she wouldn’t have to face herself and the weakness for soft-spoken, hard-eyed cowboys that had apparently been lurking inside her all this time without her knowledge.

And why was he glowering, anyway, like the whole bloody thing was her fault? He was the one who kissed her. She was an innocent victim, just standing here minding her own business.

And lusting over him, like she’d been doing for weeks.

The thought made her cringe inwardly. So she was attracted to him. So what? Who wouldn’t be? The man was gorgeous. Big and masculine and gorgeous.

Anyway, it wasn’t like she had begged him to kiss her. No, he’d done that all on his own. One minute they had been talking, the next thing she knew he pulled her into his arms without any advance warning and covered her mouth with his.

She shivered, remembering. The man kissed like he meant it. Her knees started to feel all wobbly again, but she sternly ordered them to behave. She had better things to do then go weak-kneed over a gruff, distrustful rancher who seemed content to remain mired in a rut of tradition.

Still, he had unbent enough to let her treat Mystic, despite his obvious misgivings. He deserved points for that, at least. Of course, then he had completely distracted her with a fiery kiss that washed all thoughts of her patient out of her head.

But no more. She took a deep breath. She had a job to do here. The mare wasn’t out of the woods yet, and she needed to make sure Mystic didn’t lose her foal. To do it, she needed to focus only on the horse and not on her owner.

“I’d better take another look at Mystic to make sure the contractions have completely stopped.”

“You think she still might be in danger?”

“Like I told the girls, it’s too early to say. We’ll have to wait and see.”

With a great deal of effort, she turned her back on him and focused on the horse again. Somehow she managed to put thoughts of that kiss out of her head enough to concentrate on what she was doing.

She was working so hard at it, centering all her energy on the horse, that she didn’t hear Matt come up behind her until she turned to pick her stethoscope out of her bag and bumped into hard, immovable man.

She backed up until she butted against the horse and clutched her chest. “Oh. You startled me.”

A muscle worked in his jaw. “Look, Doc. I owe you an apology. I had no business doing that.”

She deliberately misconstrued his meaning. “Startling me? Don’t worry about it. Just make a little more noise next time.”

“No,” he snapped impatiently. “You know that’s not what I mean. I’m talking about before. About what happened before the girls came in.”

Heat soaked her cheekbones. “You don’t have to worry about that, either.”

He pressed doggedly forward. “I shouldn’t have kissed you. It was crazy. Completely crazy. I, uh, don’t know what came over me.”

Uncontrollable lust? She seriously doubted it. Still, it wasn’t very flattering for him to look as astounded at his own actions as a pup did when he found out his new best friend was a porcupine.

“You shouldn’t have,” she said as curtly, hoping he would let the whole thing drop.

Out of the corner of her gaze, she watched that muscle twitch along his jaw again, but the blasted man plodded forward stubbornly. “I apologize,” he repeated. “It won’t happen again.”

“Good. Then let’s get back to business.”

“I just don’t want what happened here to affect our working relationship.”

“We don’t have a working relationship, Matt. Not really. We’re running a school carnival together, but that will be over in a few months. Then we can go back to ignoring each other.”

“I’d like us to. Have a working relationship, I mean. And not just with the stupid Valentine’s carnival, either.” He paused. “The thing is, I was impressed by what you did for Mystic. Hell, who wouldn’t have been impressed? It was amazing.”

Okay, she could forgive him for calling their kiss crazy, she decided, as warmth rushed through her at the praise.

He rubbed a hand along Mystic’s withers, avoiding her gaze. “If you’re interested, I’d like to contract with you to treat the rest of my horses.”

She stared at him, stunned by the offer. “All of them?”

“Yeah. We generally have anywhere from twenty to thirty, depending on the time of the year. The ranch hands usually have at least a couple each in their remudas, and I usually pay for their care, too.”

She was flabbergasted and couldn’t seem to think straight. How could the man kiss her one minute, then calmly talk business the next while her hormones still lurched and bucked? It wasn’t fair. She could barely keep a thought in her head, even ten minutes later. How was she supposed to have a coherent conversation about this?

“What about Steve?” she finally asked.

“Nichols is a competent vet.” He paused, as if trying to figure out just the right words. “He’s competent, but not passionate. Not like Ben. Or like you.

“Don’t get me wrong,” he added. “Steve does a good job with the cattle. But to be honest, I’m looking for a little more when it comes to my horses. I can’t expect somebody to spend thirty thousand and up for a competition-quality cutter that’s not completely healthy.”

He smiled suddenly, and she felt as if she’d just been thrown off one of those champion cutters of his. “I’d like to have a veterinarian on staff who’s not content with only one tool in her toolbox. What do you think?”

She blew out a breath, trying to process the twists and turns the day had taken. The chance to be the Diamond Harte’s veterinarian was an opportunity she’d never even dared dream about. She couldn’t pass it up, even if it meant working even more closely with Matt.

“Only your horses?” she asked warily. “Not the cattle?”

He shrugged. “Like I said, Steve seems to be handling that end of things all right.”

Steve. She gave an inward wince. What would he think when she took the lucrative Diamond Harte contract from him? It would probably sting his pride, at the very least.

On the other hand, he had no qualms about doing the same thing to her countless times since she arrived in Star Valley. If she was going to run her own practice, she needed to start thinking like a businesswoman. They were friends but they were also competitors.

“Do we have a deal?” Matt asked.

How could she pass it up? This is what she wanted to do, why she’d traveled fifteen hundred miles and uprooted her daughter and risked everything she had. For chances like this. She nodded. “Sure. Sounds great. When do you want me to start?”

“Maybe you could come out sometime after the holiday weekend and get acquainted with the herd and their medical histories.”

“Okay. Monday would work for me.”

“We can work out the details then.” He paused for a moment, then cleared his throat. “And, uh, if you’re at all concerned about what happened here today, I swear it won’t happen again. I was completely out of line—a line I won’t be crossing again. You have my word on that.”

She nodded and turned to Mystic, not wanting to dwell on all the reasons his declaration made her feel this pang of loss in her stomach.

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