Rodeo Rancher

Since his life had been turned upside down when he was barely fifteen. Ancient history. So why was it rearing its ugly head now?

Whatever the cause, he shouldn’t have let the children hear him criticize her.

He cracked his knuckles. “Sorry,” he murmured, knowing it was inadequate. He didn’t have much more to offer.

He glanced at the kids and realized only Mick was watching him. Lily was gaping at Samantha with openmouthed amazement.

And why not?

They didn’t often have visitors and rarely women, except for Karen, who was nothing like this woman with her skinny pants and pleather jacket.

Lily still stared. At only four years old, Lily barely remembered her mother. He kept a photograph of Lillian beside his daughter’s bed to remind her.

He guessed Lily would miss her mother’s touch most and, as much as he held and cuddled Lily all the time to try to fill that void, he could never be Lillian.

The walls crowded in on him. His breathing became shallow enough to concern him. He wasn’t up to this fathering and mothering of them, of being both parents to them 24/7.

Samantha Read made him feel every single deficiency he tried to ignore.

He wished to holy hell she hadn’t shown up on his doorstep.

Chapter Two

Samantha watched Michael come to grips with his emotions. She had to do the same with her own.

He didn’t talk much, but when he did, he packed a punch.

Her hands shook. How dare he? How dare he criticize the way she raised her children?

Since the day Jason had been born nine years ago, her life had been all about him. Then another gift, Colt, had come along five years ago and she’d doubled her efforts.

This man didn’t want them here.

Probably because of her talking. She knew she talked too much, but couldn’t control herself when she was nervous.

And she had been so nervous when they’d been caught in the storm.

Maybe that’s why his disdain hit hard.

Had she put her sons at risk? She didn’t know about snowstorms. She had little experience with this kind of weather.

“I didn’t know the storm was going to be so bad.” She glanced out the window, baffled by the savagery on the other side of the glass. “I’ve never been in a snowstorm before. I had no idea what to expect.”

Compelled to be honest, she added, “I should have stopped sooner, but we were so close to Rodeo. I thought we could make it to Travis’s house. I didn’t really know where else to stop once the storm started. I didn’t see a motel.”

“It got bad really fast, mister,” Jason said.

Jason. Her defender. She wished he didn’t have to take on that role. She’d told him many times not to, but still he looked out for her.

“It was just a few flakes of snow and we liked it.” Jason looked nervous taking on the big stern man, but he swallowed and continued. “Colt’s never seen snow in his whole entire life. Then, all of sudden, we couldn’t see anything except too much snow.”

“I was scared,” Colt piped up.

The man’s expression softened. He unbent enough to tell Jason and Colt, “I bet you were. I would have been, too.”

Ever the peacemaker, Jason said, “Don’t blame my mom. It came out of nowhere. She was brave.”

The man straightened and looked at her with a trace of chagrin.

Good. He should be ashamed. He was lucky she wasn’t one to hold a grudge.

Maybe she shouldn’t let him off the hook too quickly. She had the suspicion he felt worse that her children had heard him than he did about criticizing her in the first place.

He could fault her all he wanted. She didn’t care. She knew she was a damned fine mother.

She loved her children.

What was his problem, anyway?

He watched her steadily with eyes that were deep brown, almost black, and inscrutable.

Defiantly, she gave the same kind of direct scrutiny right back.

Not much taller than her own five eight, he made up for any lack of height with an impressively broad chest and developed biceps and thighs. Dark chocolate hair curled over his collar, matching his eyes.

She might have found him attractive if he didn’t grind his hard jaw, as though softness and compromise were dirty words.

Good God, just what she needed. She’d been exposed to enough inflexible men in her line of work. She’d left all of that behind. She didn’t need it here in Rodeo.

She glanced at her boys. They would make the best new start here that she could manage, even if it killed her. Her boys deserved no less.

In a month, she would start work at her new job in town and would work her butt off to be independent from everyone, even her brother.

She glanced back at the hard-edged rancher.

Maybe they shouldn’t have stopped here.

Dumb thought. They’d had no choice. If she hadn’t stopped, her children would have been dead by morning. This had been the only light visible through the storm.

Sammy would never admit it to the boys, but she’d been terrified.

Everyone stared at her. No one seemed to know what to do next.

The silence stretched, unnerving her. Her antsy inner neurotic raised her unwelcome head, just like clockwork. Sammy rushed to fill the space and stillness of the room...as she always did.

“Well, hey, you. What are your names?” She leaned forward to inspect the two cute little darlings, especially the girl, who stared at her as if she had two heads. You’d think she’d never seen a woman before.

Sammy loved children. Adored them.

“I’m Mick,” the boy said, his voice too loud in the quiet room. Was he overcompensating like her with her silly chatter? She guessed him to be about Colt’s age. He pointed to his sister, who peeked around him. “She’s Lily.”

Lily was maybe three or four. A beautiful child, her mass of unruly hair, dark chocolate like her father’s but shot through with red highlights, overwhelmed her delicate heart-shaped face.

“I’m so happy to meet you both. You’ve met my boys.”

To Michael, who watched her as though she were an exotic and not-too-welcome bird, she said, “My older son is Jason, and this little troublemaker is Colt.”

“Mo-om,” Colt complained, but smiled as she’d known he would.

“Is it real?” Lily asked.

Sammy returned her attention to the girl. “Is what real?”

“Your hair,” she whispered, clutching a doll to her chest by its mass of tangled hair.

Sammy laughed and squatted on her heels, beckoning to her. “You tell me. Does it feel real?”

Lily approached shyly and patted Sammy’s hair, then jerked her hand away as though stung.

“What? Is it bad? I’ll bet it’s a real mess. We’ve been on the road for days.” She was babbling again because Michael stared a hole through her. Cripes, she was just trying to make his daughter comfortable.

“It’s soft.” Lily put a couple of fingers into her mouth and spoke around them. “Pretty.”

“You think so? Winter static is not a woman’s friend.” She fingered the neckline of her sweater. “Watch this!”

Pulling the neck of her sweater up over the side of her head, she rubbed her hair with it.

She heard the rancher gasp. Oh, dear. What had she done wrong now? It was all good fun.

When she pulled her sweater back down, her hair stood on end on that side of her head. Her blond, almost white, hair was fine. Unless she used a lot of product, it tended to be wayward. In this dry Montana cold, it just wanted to float everywhere.

She hadn’t bothered styling it lately. They were on the road driving to Travis’s. Who on earth did she need to impress with perfect hair and makeup? No one.

In Vegas, she’d had to dress to the nines to impress her boss and his clientele. Not here.

Lily dissolved into the sweetest bundle of giggles, and Sammy laughed with her.

“Not so pretty now, is it?”

“No!” the child shouted, her straight little baby teeth gleaming.

She ran to her father, dragging her doll by the hair, and raised her arms to be picked up. He lifted her as though she weighed a couple of ounces. Lily whispered in his ear.

“Good, honey,” he murmured back.

Whatever she’d said mellowed him. A bit. Sammy liked the way he held his daughter.

“We need to get you settled in.” He glanced out the window. “You won’t be going anywhere for a while.”

“Dad, where are they going to sleep?” Mick asked.

His father sighed and seemed to weigh options.

“We have a spare bedroom,” he said, “Trouble is I’ve been using it to store junk and overflow. Sometimes, the kids play in there to keep the living room clear of toys.”

Samantha waited, not sure where this was going. Did he want them all to sleep on the sofa? That would be fine.

After coming to a decision, he said, “How about all of you take my bedroom? It has a king-size bed, so there’s room for everyone.”

Sammy had to be sure she was putting out this family as little as possible. Jason had been right to call her to task for barging into the house without invitation. She had an impulsive nature she seemed to spend most of her life curbing.

“I couldn’t possibly put you out of your room.” She cast her gaze about wildly. “How about if the boys share the sofa and I can camp out on the floor?”

“No. The three of you will take my bedroom.”

“But where will you sleep?”

“There’s a spare bed in Lily’s room.”

Lily popped her fingers out of her mouth. “Daddy, no! You snore.”

“It’s not that bad.”

Lily nodded so hard her hair flopped about. “Is bad, Daddy.”

He chewed on his lip. “I guess I could put all of you in Mick’s room and he could bunk with me in mine.”

“No, Dad!” Mick yelled. “Sometimes I can hear you even from my room. I won’t be able to sleep!”

His cheeks turned red. “If I wake you up, I’ll come out here to the sofa.”

“Da-a-ad. No.” Mick looked miserable.

Clearly frustrated, Michael said, “Back to the original plan. You’ll all take my bed. I’ll sleep on the sofa.”

“I can’t let you sleep on the sofa while I take your bed.” It just didn’t sit right with Samantha.

“You sure like to argue.”

“I do not!”

A smile kicked up the corners of his lips. Okay, so maybe he had a sense of humor.

“Thank you,” she conceded. “We would appreciate it.”

The girl whispered something in her father’s ear.

“Lily wants to know,” he said, “if she can show you her bedroom.”

Samantha felt herself light up like a birthday cake. She loved her boys fiercely, but she had always wanted a little girl. “I’d love that.”

In Lily’s room, Sammy managed to keep her distance from Michael. Despite his rough-edged, stoic manner, she found him attractive.

Of all of the men who’d made passes at her in hotels, motels and gas stations on the drive out here, why did she have to feel a frisson of desire for this grumpy old man?

Old was maybe unfair. He wasn’t much over forty, but he seemed older, as though he’d started to give up.

The mauve bedroom had twin beds, both covered with duvets in shades of pink and ivory. Someone had decorated the girl’s room with love. Only one of the beds was made, and it was covered with piles of clothing.

“It’s all clean,” the rancher said when he noticed her studying the clothes. “I leave it there after it’s washed for Lily to pull out what she wants.”

He sounded defensive. Maybe he thought she was judging him.

Samantha had noted how messy the place was. Maybe she was judging. If so, she needed to back off. She didn’t know a thing about this man’s life.

There didn’t seem to be a woman here. Where was Lily’s mother? He hadn’t said anything when she’d mentioned his wife, but the man had not looked happy.

Something had happened.

None of your business, Sammy. Keep your concerns and your opinions to yourself.

If his wife wasn’t here, Samantha suspected the guy was probably run off his feet managing this ranch and taking care of two children.

As a way to thank him for letting them stay, she said, “I can put it all away if Lily will show me where it belongs.”

He frowned at her use of the word belongs, as though she’d been criticizing him. She hadn’t, but she could see how she might have appeared to. She was going to have to walk on eggshells with him.

“Here.” Lily patted the unmade bed against the near wall. “I sleep here.”

“Thank you, Lily. I figured you did. You would drown—” she gestured to the clothing “—in this stuff.”

She tickled Lily’s tummy and the child giggled. Lily turned to her father and wrapped her arms around his leg. So shy. Maybe she wasn’t used to getting a lot of attention.

Lily lifted the scruffy doll by the hair and said, “This is Puff.” She hugged her close.

Puff was an untidy, poor-looking doll, but Samantha oohed and aahed over her.

Michael smiled, but it looked grim. Samantha couldn’t get a grip on who he was.

“Boys,” she said, “go get your knapsacks and take them to Michael’s room.”

He gestured down the hallway. “Back here.”

Jason and Colt returned with their knapsacks and dropped them where Mick told them.

“This is Dad’s bed,” Mick said a little too loudly. He looked like a small version of his father, with adorable dark eyes framed with long lashes and brown hair curling over his collar and onto his forehead.

The boys tossed their bags onto the bed without concern. For them, a bed was a bed was a bed. For Samantha, it was different. This was the rancher’s bed. She didn’t know him, probably wouldn’t be here long, and yet the intimacy of using his bed felt strange.

When he said, “I’ll get fresh sheets,” she breathed a sigh. Yes. That would make her feel better, help cut through this surreal sense of intimacy.

“Come see my room,” Mick yelled to the boys and they ran out.

“Mick,” Michael started, but the boys were already gone. “Sorry. Mick doesn’t moderate his voice level very well.”

“He yells a lot,” Lily said.

She followed her father to a cupboard down the hallway. They returned with clean sheets, pillowcases and pillows.

Samantha helped Michael strip the bed even though he told her not to. She needed to help. Now that she was here, she realized how much she was putting him out.

Michael shook the clean fitted sheet over the bed just as Lily threw herself onto the mattress. It fluttered down on top of her.

“Lily—” he started, but Samantha cut him off with a smile and wave of her hand.

She smoothed the sheet over the girl and said, “Mr. Moreno, I appreciate that you’re letting us use your bed, but we can’t possibly sleep here. There’s a terrible lump!”

A tiny giggle emerged from beneath the sheet.

“Help! It moves,” Samantha squealed. “Your bed has a moving bump!”

Lily giggled a bit more.

“It’s a beautiful big bed,” Samantha went on, “but I’ll squish this wriggling bump flat if I lie on top of it.”

Lily giggled loudly now.

Samantha laughed and looked up at Michael to share the joke, only to see a look of pain cross his face.

What was he thinking? What had Samantha set in motion with her joke?

She didn’t like sadness, hated what it brought up in her. She couldn’t get away from it quickly enough.

Grasping at any distraction, she picked up Lily and set her on the floor. “We’d better get this bed made.”

She and Michael finished making the bed and lined the headboard with three pillows.

Michael carried his pillow and an extra quilt to the sofa in the living room.

Samantha dropped her purse onto the bed. It was all she’d brought in with her. Her suitcase had been too heavy to drag through the snow.

She joined the boys in Mick’s room. He had bunk beds and a spare single bed across the room. It was a lot of sleeping space.

“This is a great room for having sleepovers. Do you do it often?”

She felt Michael’s presence behind her in the doorway.

Mick looked past her toward his dad. He wrinkled his small brow. Another lock of hair fell onto his forehead. “Dad, have I had friends for sleepovers?”

“No.” The single word was as curt as his tone, effectively cutting off the conversation.

What had she been thinking? Mick was still small, quite young for sleepovers. She kept making mistakes here left, right and center. Though why else would he have so many beds in his room?

Michael reached for something on the blue bedside table. “C’mere, Mick. You forgot again.”

“Aw, Dad, do I hafta?”

“What do you think?”

Mick pouted but stood still while his father fitted what looked like hearing aids into his ears.

“How’s the level? Good?”

Mick nodded and said, “You guys want to see the playroom?”

They all ran out of the room with little Lily trailing behind, still dragging her unfortunate doll by the hair.

Sammy stared after them.

Once she was alone in the room with Michael, the silence stretched. Strange, she could usually talk to anyone, but this taciturn man intimidated her with his silence.

She rushed to fill it. “How old are your children?”

“Mick is five and Lily’s four. Yours?”

“Jason is nine.” He nodded as though he’d already figured that out. “Colt is five.”

Silence fell.

“Mick has hearing issues?”

“Yeah. It’s why he yells. He forgets to put his aids in every morning unless I remind him. He doesn’t like them. He’s just being stubborn, I think.”

She nodded.

The silence between them stretched. Sammy’s inner neurotic raised her head again. No. Nope. Not saying anything this time. When she rushed to fill the void, she ended up saying the most inane things. People tended to take her less seriously than they should because of it.

Words clogged her throat, begging to be released.

“Why do the rooms have so many beds if they don’t have friends over?”

“We—I thought maybe they’d want to someday. It just hasn’t happened yet.”

We? He and the children’s mother?

She tried to gloss over the awkwardness of the moment. “Maybe after they start school.”

“Maybe,” Michael said, and changed the subject.

“We’d better take a look at the food situation,” he said.

Oh, yes, food. “We’re putting you out a lot, aren’t we? I’ll make sure the boys don’t eat too much.”

He waved a hand. “I have plenty of food in the freezer.”

“Why?” she blurted before realizing it was an impertinent question. She tended to shop for fresh food every day.

“This is the third bad storm in two months. Meteorologists predicted a bad winter this year, and they were right. I like to be prepared.”

He left the room and headed for the kitchen. She followed, interested in what he might have. She’d sensed his disapproval of her vegetarianism.

“Earlier in the week when I heard we were likely to be snowed in again, I put in an extra supply of stores. Wasn’t expecting company, though.”

Her hackles rose. “I’m sorry. If I could have stopped at a motel I would have.”

“I’m not complaining about that,” he said, as though there were other things he wanted to protest.

Like what?

He opened the refrigerator. “Come here and check everything out. What will your boys eat?”

“Anything.”

He looked at her skeptically. “Really?”

“Just about.” She studied the contents of the fridge’s shelves lined with ground beef, chicken and steaks. “You’ve got a lot of meat.”

She opened the crisper to find only root vegetables. Not a single salad green in sight.

“No greens?”

“Nope.” He sounded defiant. “I don’t eat ’em and the kids don’t want ’em.”

A loud bang at the back of the house startled her. Michael rushed down the hallway and opened a sturdy-looking exterior door. The storm door was banging against the wall of the house.

Michael latched it firmly and closed the door again. The gust of frigid air that had rushed in like an invader brought home to Samantha just how lucky she and the boys were to have found this refuge.

Grumpy guy or not, Michael had taken in three extra people who would need to be fed. It would behoove her to keep a generous heart and an open mind.

Mick stepped out of the bedroom where the children played. “Sorry, Dad, I guess I didn’t hook it properly when I came in this morning.”

Michael rubbed his son’s hair. “It’s all right. No harm done.”

When he returned to the kitchen, Samantha said, “Thank you.”

He pulled up short and looked behind him. Maybe he thought she was talking about closing the back door?

“I mean for taking us in,” she clarified. “For letting us stay here when you don’t want us here.”

When he opened his mouth to protest, she said, “It’s okay. I understand. We’re strangers. We’re an unexpected burden. When this is all over, I’ll make it up to you.”

She didn’t have a clue how. What on earth did she have to offer a man who seemed to have everything while she would spend the next few years fighting for control of her own life?

Chapter Three

Michael felt a distinct unease wash through him, a sense of shame that she knew he didn’t want her here.

He’d been raised to be hospitable, to share whatever he could. Had he become such a loner that he no longer knew how to extend a helping hand to someone in need?

Well, if he had, so what?

The naked truth was that he didn’t like strangers in his home.

He needed his solitude and his isolation. He didn’t want this violation of the safe distance he’d established between himself and everyone else.

He wasn’t mean-spirited or stingy. He was just hurting and his pain was nobody else’s business.

He couldn’t say that, though, could he?

Even as rusty as he was with etiquette, he knew he couldn’t just come right out and say, “I wish your car had never broken down near my home.”

He would do whatever he had to do to make them comfortable for the night, and then he would wish them well and go back to his quiet, unadorned life.

The lights he’d turned on earlier to dispel the gloom flickered.

The woman—Samantha—glanced around nervously. He’d rather just think of her as the woman. Giving her a name was too dangerous in the forced intimacy of the storm.

He would think of her as Samantha because he had to, but never the more familiar Sammy she’d offered.

“Does the power go out when it storms like this?” she asked.

“Usually. I’ve got systems in place. I have a generator that’ll kick in if we lose power, but I’ll use it conservatively.”

She tilted her head. “Why?”

“It runs on diesel, and we’ve been put on rations because of the last two storms. Gas stations were overwhelmed yesterday with everyone getting ready for this one to hit today.”

“There isn’t enough diesel around?”

“The county’s been cleaned out this winter. It’s been a bad one. Hence, the rationing.”

Samantha looked nervous. “What happens when it runs out completely? What if your generator stops working?”

“We go back to the way things used to be done. I have firewood. If the furnace cuts out, the house will stay warm for a while. Once it cools down, we can all bunk in the living room on air mattresses with quilts. We can cook with camping equipment. We’re good.”

He didn’t usually talk so much—he’d just made a speech, for God’s sake—but she seemed to need reassurance.

She relaxed fractionally. “Would you mind if I use your phone? Mine stopped working a while ago. Travis thinks we’re arriving tomorrow. I was pushing hard to get here today to surprise him. I need to let him know we’re close but safe.”

“Sure.” He pointed into the living room. “At the far end of the couch.”

He left the room while she made her call.

* * *

SAMANTHA DIALED TRAVIS’S NUMBER. When he answered, an out-of-proportion rush of relief left her dizzy. She hadn’t realized how much she needed to see her brother.