A Family, At Last

USA TODAY bestselling author Susan Crosby brings you a story of complex family ties and a couple brought together by one adorable little girl in the newest installment of her Red Valley Rancher miniseries!

When Karyn Lambert appears on Vaughn Ryder’s doorstep, claiming to be his little girl’s aunt, he can hardly turn her away. Instead, the guarded rancher invites her to stay, and soon they’re engaged in a battle of the sexes, each trying to prove how good they are with little Cassidy…as well as fighting the raging attraction that blooms the instant Karyn steps over the threshold!

For years Vaughn has been focused only on being the perfect father. Now the bubbly personal shopper has taken hold of his heart, and he wonders if they might be able to create the perfect family for Cassidy—and each other. Not just out of blood connections—but out of true love….

He crouched, bringing himself eye to eye with her. “I thought you were going to bed.”

“I wanted to finish this first.”

He turned the pad around. “Is that how you see me?”

“Do you find fault with it?” Oh, he was so close. Close enough to steal a kiss before he could back away, if she dared.

“You make me look younger than I feel.”

“A little bit of gray at the temples doesn’t age you.” She brushed at the gray with her fingers, then let them drift over his ears and down his jaw.

He drew a quick breath. “We can’t do this,” he said roughly, capturing her hand, holding it.

“Do what?”

“Any of this. It’s too complicated. We barely know each other.”

He was right, of course. What had gotten into her? It would be crazy—

“When we have the test results and know what we’re dealing with, then we can make conscious, thought-out decisions,” he added.

“You talk too much, cowboy lawyer.”

He laughed softly and stood. It was obvious he wanted her. She hadn’t overestimated him, not in the sketch and not in her mind.

She didn’t want him to reject her, nor did she want to confuse their situation, so she got up from the chair and left, not looking back once, knowing he watched her, excited by the idea.

And hopefully leaving him wanting more.

Dear Reader,

A Family, At Last is the second book in my Red Valley Ranchers series, and features another Ryder brother, Vaughn, who is about as opposite of my heroine as anyone can be. Does that stop them from falling in love, or do their differences enhance the relationship?

Since this is a romance novel, the answer is clear, but how they get there, how they learn to embrace each other’s differences, is the fun part. Plus, at the heart of the story is six-year-old Cassidy, who was doing fine with just her father but who blooms when Karyn Lambert comes into her life.

I love these kinds of transformations, whether adult or child. I hope you do, too.

Susan

A Family,

At Last

Susan Crosby

www.millsandboon.co.uk

SUSAN CROSBY believes in the value of setting goals, but also in the magic of making wishes, which often do come true—as long as she works hard enough. Along life’s journey she’s done a lot of the usual things—married, had children, attended college a little later than the average co-ed and earned a BA in English. Then she dove off the deep end into a full-time writing career, a wish come true.

Susan enjoys writing about people who take a chance on love, sometimes against all odds. She loves warm, strong heroes and good-hearted, self-reliant heroines, and she will always believe in happily-ever-after.

More can be learned about her at www.susancrosby.com.

With gratitude to Mary & Jim Rickert and Mark Estes

of Prather Ranch, who believe in running a humane

operation, because it’s good for the animals, the land

and the people, and who were so generous with their

time and expertise.

And to my Lunch Bunch—

Lori, Nancy, Sheryl and Virginia. We’ve shared it all!

Contents

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

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter One

Karyn Lambert took yet another look at her rearview mirror. No doubt about it. She was being followed. Maneuvering her Beetle through heavy 6:00 p.m. traffic on Santa Monica Boulevard, she changed lanes—and so did the black SUV that had been tailing her since she’d left Disneyland an hour ago. And now, as she was pulling up at Sprinkles Cupcakes to pick up a well-earned red velvet treat, she had to make a decision. Go to the bakery’s cupcake dispenser as planned and see if the guy in the SUV followed—or lose him in traffic?

Karyn inched past the bakery. All the street parking was taken. She weighed the risk of the parking garage nearby and rejected it after another quick glance at her mirror. Headlights and Christmas lights created a dark, distinctive silhouette of the driver.

“Man Wearing Cowboy Hat, you are following the wrong girl.”

This was Karyn’s turf. She knew how to zip through the side streets of Beverly Hills efficiently. It didn’t take her long to leave the SUV in the dust and make a quick retreat to her Hollywood duplex, its garage tucked in the rear. She’d never been so grateful for that privacy before.

Grabbing her packages, she rushed upstairs to her unit, let herself in and slammed the door shut. She left the lights off, set down her bags on the kitchen table, then waited in the dark for fifteen minutes, going from window to window, peering through the blinds. Finally she turned on the living room light and sat on the sofa, her legs bouncing. Why would someone follow her? In the land of Hollywood-star wannabes, she was the least likely person to stalk.

Then again, maybe it was her imagination, a fanciful notion of her overtired brain. It was six days before Christmas, hell week in her line of work. She was exhausted, so maybe her mind was playing tricks on her.

Of course. That had to be it.

Shrugging it off, Karyn headed for the kitchen. The doorbell rang.

She froze.

When it rang again she stealthily made her way to the front door and looked through the peephole. She hadn’t turned on her porch light, but she could make out the silhouette. A man in a cowboy hat.

“Ms. Lambert?” he asked through the door. “I know you’re there. I just want a few words with you.”

Not a snowflake’s chance in—

“Please. I’m a lawyer. I’m looking for your brother, Kyle.”

Stunned, she covered her mouth with her hand and took an involuntary step back.

“Turn your outside light on and look through the peephole. I’ll show you my identification.”

“Why do you want Kyle?” she asked.

A beat passed. “He’s not in trouble, Ms. Lambert, but I also don’t want to shout personal information through your door. I don’t need much of your time.”

She flipped on the porch light. “Prove who you are.”

His driver’s license told a basic story. Name, Vaughn Ryder. Six-foot-one, 180 pounds. Lean and rangy, she thought. Brown hair, blue eyes. Thirty-eight years old. Organ donor.

“What else have you got?”

He held up a business card. Under his name was a list: ranch and farm contracts, conservation easements, estate planning, water and power rights. His address said Ryder Ranch, Red Valley, California, with a P.O. box, phone numbers and an email address. She couldn’t begin to imagine what a cowboy lawyer would want of Kyle, but she was curious enough to invite him in.

Karyn opened the door then stared for a few seconds. He was a cowboy all right, from his black hat down to his fancy stitched boots. A pristine white dress shirt with silver snaps was set off with a gorgeous bolo tie of silver and black. His black jeans were snug—

Definitely a man. And truly a cowboy, apparently, who matched his business card.

“Want to pat me down?” he asked, humor in his voice.

She struggled to look him in the eye. “What?”

“For weapons? I’d like to speak to you privately, and if you need to check me for weapons before you’ll invite me in, I’m okay with that.” He held his arms out, his briefcase dangling from one hand.

She took a couple of steps back and gestured him indoors, feeling heat in her face at being caught eyeing him. “You’ve been following me since I left Disneyland,” she stated, noting his graying temples and the intensity of his blue eyes as he swept off his hat.

“Guilty. Actually, I’ve been behind you since you first left here this morning.”

“Why?”

“I wanted to get a sense of your life. You shop a lot.”

She laughed at the wonder in his voice, and it felt good, breaking the tension. “It’s what I do for a living. I’m a personal shopper.”

“That pays enough to make a living?”

“Are you implying that I make money some other way?” Ice coated her words. “I assure you everything I do is aboveboard.”

“My apologies,” he said with sincerity. “I didn’t mean to imply that. Ignorance, that’s all. May we sit?”

She sat, forgiving him for not understanding her business, which encompassed much more than shopping. Her task list was even longer than those written on his business card.

“Why do you need a sense of my life?” she asked. “You said you’re here about my twin brother.”

“What I have to say involves you, but primarily Kyle, and he’s the one I’d like to speak to first. I’ve been hunting for him but haven’t come up with an address.”

“You can’t....” Karyn’s throat burned as memories assaulted her. Hot, painful tears pressed at her eyes with such suddenness and force she barely managed to get words out. “You can’t find him because he died, Mr. Ryder. He was killed in combat three years ago in Afghanistan.”

She sat there for a moment, trying to tamp down the emotions that were still raw and unfiltered, even after all this time, but especially hard at Christmas. When she couldn’t pull herself together, she hurried to her bedroom, shutting the door, leaning against it before falling on the bed, not caring that a stranger sat in her living room.

* * *

Vaughn stood automatically, then sank slowly into the chair when he realized she wasn’t coming right back. Kyle Lambert is dead. Relief swept through him first. His life had just gotten much easier. Then he recalled the fresh grief in Karyn’s eyes. He couldn’t imagine losing any of his five siblings. The pain would be overwhelming.

Of course, none of it mattered at all if Kyle turned out not to be the man Vaughn was seeking—or even the right Kyle Lambert. But seeing Karyn’s curly light brown hair was its own kind of validation.

Unable to sit still, Vaughn wandered the room. A table was stacked neatly with wrapped Christmas presents, a color-coded tag on each one, but otherwise her apartment wasn’t decorated for the holiday. On the wall were numerous paintings, mostly landscapes and floral themes. When he looked closer, he noticed Karyn Lambert’s signature in the corner.

There were no photographs of any kind, not of people or places or events, which he found odd. Most women displayed pictures.

After a while a door clicked open. Karyn came into the living room, her eyes still damp. She was an attractive woman, not Hollywood-slim but nicely curved, more girl next door. Her height was a mystery because she was wearing very high heels. He’d noted her sexy walk all day as he’d followed her.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“I knew he was a marine, but I didn’t know he’d passed away. I should’ve waited for my private investigator to dig deeper when I was given Kyle’s name. He was out of the state on a job, and I was in a hurry to get results. I—I’m sincerely sorry for how I handled this.”

“Dig deeper for what, Mr. Ryder?” she asked.

“Vaughn, please. Ms. Lambert, I believe your brother may have fathered a child with Ginger Donohue six years ago.”

She dropped onto the sofa, her eyes wide. “Kyle has a child? A piece of him is still here?”

“It’s a possibility. Since we can’t do paternity testing with your brother, we can do relationship testing with you.”

“I’m an aunt? Please tell me about— What’s the child’s name?”

“Cassidy.” He pulled out his cell phone and brought up a photo.

“Oh.” Karyn ran her fingers over the screen, tears pooling in her eyes again. “She’s so beautiful.”

“Yes.”

“She kinda looks like Kyle.”

And you, he thought. “Does the name Ginger Donohue ring a bell, Ms. Lambert?”

She shook her head. “I don’t understand. Cassidy is six? Why would this woman wait so long to come forward?”

“Are you sure your brother didn’t know?” Vaughn asked.

“I’m positive. He would’ve been there for his daughter, no doubt about it.”

“I don’t know why Ginger didn’t tell Kyle, since obviously he was alive for the first three years of Cassidy’s life.”

“So, something changed. Is it money? I was the beneficiary of Kyle’s death benefits, and I haven’t spent much of it. It should go to his daughter—”

Vaughn stopped her with a gesture. “Ginger walked out of Cassidy’s life two years ago.”

Karyn leaned back abruptly, staring at him but her gaze not really connecting, then a slow dawning of excitement came over her.

“When do I get to pick her up?” She looked around her space. “I’ll need a bigger place. Near a park. I’ll have to check out schools.” She smiled and looked directly at Vaughn. “Where is she now? When do I get her?”

He ignored her bubble of happiness. He had to. “If the testing confirms she’s Kyle’s daughter, you’ll meet her, of course, and be part of her life. But, Ms. Lambert, she won’t be living with you. I’ve been her father since the day she was born. I’m not giving her up.”

Chapter Two

“You’ve been her...father?” Karyn shook her head, confused. “I don’t— Did you know she wasn’t yours?”

He nodded. “Ginger was pregnant when we met, but we didn’t get married until Cassidy was a month old. The birth certificate lists the father as unknown.” Vaughn walked to her front window and looked out. “I asked for years to adopt Cass, but Ginger put me off. Then she left. That’s why I started the search for the biological father. I want to legally make her mine.”

Karyn’s mind spun as shock piled atop shock. She hardly knew what to think, except that this woman, Ginger, must be the epitome of femininity to attract both Kyle, a regular guy, and this Vaughn, who was a cut above. Apparently neither man had seen her for her true self.

“We ran into a lot of dead ends because so many years had elapsed,” Vaughn said, his back still turned to Karyn. “An old roommate of Ginger’s provided the name Kyle Lambert as a possibility. After that it was a matter of connecting the dots, but I’m still not sure it’s your brother. We had a name. There are others of the same name and age around the country. Do you know if he lived in San Francisco seven years ago?”

“No, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t visit.”

Vaughn came back and sat down, resting his arms on his thighs and focusing on Karyn again. “I’m sorry for the pain this is causing you, reliving your brother’s death.”

“It’s never far from my mind, but now there’s joy, too, if Cassidy is his child.” She touched his arm. “I can see this is hard for you, too.”

“Harder for Cassidy. She was old enough to feel the abandonment but without any context to understand it. She used to ask about her mother, but it’s rare now. I have no good explanation to give her anyway. We just carry on. Fortunately, I have a big, generous family. She’s well loved.”

Karyn believed him. But now that the shock was abating, a hunger to know Kyle’s child took precedence. “I haven’t had dinner yet,” she said. “Would you like to join me?” She needed to do something normal—heat up a can of soup or leftover pizza, which was all she had on hand. They could talk more while they ate.

“I have a flight to catch. I’m already cutting it close.” He opened his briefcase then passed her a tube containing a swab. “You just scrape the inside of your cheeks,” he said, gesturing.

She eyed the item. “What about chain of custody?”

His brows went up. “Pardon?”

“One of my clients is a regular on Crime and Punishment, so I watch it every week.”

He smiled, which had been her goal. “You’re an expert then.”

“Absolutely. I know the way this is supposed to be done. The specimen should be collected by a neutral third party, like at a lab.”

“I can arrange for that, although this would be a civil case, not criminal, so the same rules don’t apply.” He sat back, more relaxed than he’d been earlier. “I’ll make a deal with you. If it comes back negative for Kyle as the father, we can redo it through every legal step.”

She thought that over. “I guess you’re just looking for the truth—not playing any games.”

“If you knew me better, that wouldn’t be a question. Plus, I’m an officer of the court. As an expert in, uh, television justice, you understand what that means.”

She smiled at his attempt to bring humor to the situation. “Yeah. Okay.”

Karyn felt awkward doing the test in front of him, not looking at him as she did so, then dropping the swab into the tube and passing it to him. He tucked it into a padded envelope then into his briefcase, their own chain of custody.

He stood, so she did, too. “No matter how this turns out, I enjoyed meeting you,” he said and headed to the door. “May I ask where you were going before you so effectively ditched me? Nice job of that, by the way.”

She smiled. “The ATM at Sprinkles for a red velvet cupcake.”

“They sell cupcakes from an ATM?”

“Well, that’s what they call it. It dispenses one at a time.” She shrugged. “I’d had a long day.”

His hand was on the doorknob. “You went to the happiest place on Earth.”

“I shopped there. Don’t get me wrong, I love Disneyland, but when you go inside to purchase gifts for clients and don’t even get to take one ride on Space Mountain, it’s not a fun trip.”

“I’ve never been to Disneyland.”

“Are you serious? You’ve never taken Cassidy? We have to correct that.”

The air between them felt heavy with sudden tension.

“Maybe we will,” he said finally. “Good night, Karyn. Try not to get too anxious waiting.”

“Fat chance.”

“I know.” He left.

* * *

Karyn wandered back into the living room to look out the window. She saw him walk up the street and out of sight. He must’ve parked where she wouldn’t be able to see him coming.

After a minute his car went past. He gave her a wave.

“You’re a nice guy, Vaughn Ryder, cowboy lawyer,” she said out loud. “But if you think you’re going to make all the decisions and I’m going to go along with them without discussion, you’re crazy.” She’d already missed six years of her niece’s life.

She knew she was counting on being that sweet little girl’s aunt way too much to be healthy, but Karyn needed something to get her through Christmas, which was always a tough time of year for her.

Her stomach growled, reminding her she hadn’t eaten since breakfast, but the soup and leftover pizza didn’t appeal. In fact, nothing sounded good, so she went into her bedroom to get paper to wrap the presents she’d purchased today. She would drop them off in the morning to her clients, along with the ones stacked on her dining table.

She couldn’t wait to get them out of her house. They were a painful reminder of how little she had to look forward to with her trip home to visit her parents on Christmas, no longer a day that they celebrated. For a month she’d shopped for everyone else, but she hadn’t bought a single present herself to give. She didn’t even go through the motions.

Sometimes it just about killed her.

She’d finished the seventh of ten packages when her doorbell rang. She looked through the peephole, wondering if Vaughn had come back. Kind of hoped he had, actually, but it was a stranger.

“Who is it?” she asked.

“Delivery from Mr. Ryder for Ms. Lambert.”

Surprised and curious, she opened the door.

“Here you go,” a teenage boy said then took the stairs three at a time, hopping out of sight.

Karyn knew what it was without looking at the logo on the box. The incredible scents of chocolate and vanilla, and a hint of lemon, filled her head as she carried the box to the kitchen and opened it, finding a dozen cupcakes, three of them red velvet.

She found herself grinning as she peeled the paper off one and took a big bite, closing her eyes and savoring the treat, eating the whole thing before she picked up his business card and dialed the cell number listed.

“Vaughn Ryder,” he said.

“I devoured one. I expect it’s not the last I’ll have tonight.”

“I figure I owed you that much.”

She heard the smile in his voice. “Thank you. It was very thoughtful. I hope you got one for yourself.”

“Two. Red velvet and chocolate marshmallow.”

She waited a beat. “Vaughn? Would you do something for me?”

“If I can.”

Cagey. But then, he was a lawyer. “Would you give Cassidy an extra hug for me? For Kyle. She won’t know, but...”

“I can do that.”

Karyn heard the sound of a jet in the background and figured he’d arrived at LAX. “One more thing,” she said before letting him go. “If Cassidy is Kyle’s daughter, I’m going to want more than just to be a part of her life.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m not sure what my rights might be. You probably know better than I do, but I’ll find out. There was something in his will about heirs. I’ll have to look it up. Have a safe flight.”

She tucked the phone under her chin. Yes, a nice guy.

But she still wouldn’t cut him any slack when it came to Kyle’s daughter.

* * *

It was after midnight when Vaughn got home. Cassidy was staying with his parents, so his four-bedroom, two-story house seemed especially quiet. Each of Jim and Dori Ryder’s children had been gifted a piece of land on Ryder Ranch property on their twenty-first birthday, and Vaughn had chosen his without ever expecting to build on it. In fact, he’d never thought he’d live on the ranch after he’d left for college, anticipating law school then fulfilling a dream of life and work in San Francisco, his favorite city.

Funny how having a child could change so much.

Vaughn climbed the staircase, went into Cassidy’s room and switched on the light. The walls were painted her favorite denim blue. Rows of running horses were printed across her bedspread. She’d named every one of them. The only doll in sight was dressed as a cowgirl, a lasso in her hand and tiny red hat on her head.

A wall shelf holding framed photographs drew Vaughn. There was one of the two of them when she was a few minutes old, another when she’d sat her first horse alone at age two. A group photo of the entire family was tucked behind the others and was the only photo of her mother on display. The picture had been taken at a Fourth of July barbecue. Everyone had worn red, white and blue.

Vaughn slipped it out. He hadn’t put away Ginger’s photos after she left, but Cassidy had. Vaughn would find them hidden in various drawers upon opening them. He’d left them alone. Finally she’d stacked them in a box and handed it to him.