The Rancher's Unexpected Family

A short time later his phone rang. It was his sister Jess. His other sister Meg and his brother, Nate, would probably have been in on the call, too, but Meg was living in California now and Nate was still overseas with the army.

“I heard that Kathryn Ellis went out to the ranch today,” Jess said. “What did she want?”

He hesitated. “Mostly I think she just wanted to pet my dog.”

“I doubt that,” Jess said, laughing. “Secretive as ever, Holt? Are you going to help her with that clinic?”

“Haven’t decided yet.”

“Did she give you her reasons for wanting to build it?”

Oh, no, he wasn’t going there. Jess didn’t know exactly how much their father had suffered or about the nightmares that kept him awake at night about their father’s last days. She certainly didn’t know the horrors that his friend Hank had faced and she knew nothing at all of what had gone on between himself and Lilith. “We discussed a few things,” he said.

Jess sighed loudly. “You are the most frustrating man. Some day someone is going to get you to open up and talk.”

“I talk.” They saw each other frequently. But he also kept things to himself, kept things from the rest of the family, as he always had. That was his duty and right as the eldest. He knew that, just as he knew that Kathryn Ellis was not a part of his destiny.

That didn’t mean he could keep her waiting forever. By tomorrow she would be pacing the floor and she wouldn’t care two hoots about why he was going to help her. She’d just be glad that he was finally saying yes. He hoped.

CHAPTER THREE

THE next day after work Kathryn returned to her house with the almost-peeled-away white paint and the tilting porch where some of the boards were rotted through. Her parents hadn’t been able to find a buyer for the house when they divorced so it had sat here neglected and forgotten. She supposed she should be grateful that neither of them was interested enough to object to her staying here. Otherwise, she’d be out on the streets.

She freelanced at the local newspaper and did odd jobs around the clinic a few afternoons a week, but this afternoon she had nothing. The inactivity unnerved her. Not having a full-time job or any solid plan for the future scared her to death, so after lunch she tried to dredge up a positive outlook, donning her I’m-planning-for-the-future attitude. She sent off a few résumés the way she did every day even though she hadn’t gotten any nibbles.

Still, she was determined to move forward. So after lunch, she moved out onto the rickety porch swing with a pen and paper and began work on her doctor/clinic list. She tried not to think about the fact that Holt had promised her an answer today and that the answer might be no. She also tried not to remember how it had felt when he’d held her hand. Sensation had ping-ponged through body. And it had been much hotter than anything she’d felt in high school.

“The man is impossible,” she muttered. He could have given her his answer yesterday. That made her think that the answer was going to be no and he was just trying to come up with a way to let her down easy. This was almost like a repeat of high school, with her wanting something from him she couldn’t have. The only difference was that this time she didn’t daydream about him bending her back over the hood of his car and kissing her with wild abandon.

I don’t, she insisted as a hot sizzle went through her. “Because that would be completely inappropriate for an about-to-burst pregnant woman.” Not to mention stupid and totally disastrous for someone like herself. She’d learned a lot of lessons during these past few years of being married to a man who was controlling, judgmental and inclined to bursts of cruelty, but the most important went something like this. Don’t get too close to imposing, hard-to-deal-with men like Holt. James was a larger-than-life, brooding type just like Holt. People admired him and told her that still waters ran deep, but what she’d found was that behind that tough, quiet facade was a man with no soul and a lot of pent-up anger. Faced with that kind of man again, she knew to run. A woman who had been naive enough to fall for a man who hurt her would have to be ten kinds of stupid and something not very admirable if she did it again. But she wouldn’t let that happen.

Maybe she could do the entire project herself.

A groan escaped her and she closed her eyes at the impossibility of it all. These kinds of opportunities didn’t drop in everyone’s lap. This was her ticket to security for her unborn baby, herself and the people of the town who needed good medical care—yet she was already flailing because, once again, she couldn’t win over Holt Calhoun.

The sound of boots on pavement made her open her eyes.

As if her thoughts had conjured him up, Holt was crossing the street, heading toward her house. Dressed in jeans slung low on his hips and a pristine white shirt open at the throat, he was like some bronzed cowboy god with that dark hair and chiseled jaw. Instantly and against her will, her body reacted. When his gaze met hers, Holt nodded hello. Without waiting for her to invite him onto the porch, he simply stepped up as if he was used to doing what he wanted and going where he wanted. He probably was.

She struggled to stand so that she would be at less of a disadvantage. Unfortunately, her unwieldy body defied her.

Holt held out a hand as if to stop her. “No need. I just came to tell you not—”

“Holt? Is that you?” A woman’s voice had them both looking toward the road. Kathryn peered around Holt to see Mrs. Best, a retired schoolteacher and one of Dr. Cooper’s regular patients staring up at Holt as if she adored him. “It is you.” She sounded delighted. “I haven’t seen you since you came home, but I’ve been meaning to call.”

“Good morning, Mrs. Best.” Holt’s voice was utterly polite, but after his atypical teasing bout with Blue yesterday he had retreated back to strong, silent cowboy mode.

“How nice to see two of my former students together in one place,” the woman said. “I don’t often, you know. Kathryn was from my last class just before I retired. I remember you had such a crush on Holt back then. It was so cute.”

Kathryn wanted to find a place to hide, a tall order at this stage of her pregnancy. She felt her face heating up. “I was very young,” she said. She wanted to add the words and stupid, but it probably wouldn’t do to antagonize Holt when he hadn’t given her an answer yet. After all, her goal was to build a clinic, not marry the man. And—fingers crossed—if he said yes, maybe the time spent together would clear away the last skeletal vestiges of his attraction for her. Because she now saw that he was a lot like James. Maybe she’d even been attracted to James because of her leftover crush on Holt. Sweeping him from her soul would be freeing. “I’m not a teenager anymore,” she told both Mrs. Best and Holt. “Not so naive.”

“Well. Things do change, don’t they?” Mrs. Best asked, apparently realizing that she’d committed a faux pas. “It’s good that you’ve grown up. If you hadn’t, becoming a mama would probably have done the trick. It’s a real responsibility. As a teacher, I saw my share of bad parents. Don’t you be one.”

If Kathryn hadn’t been so scared of messing up as a mother, she might have smiled. Mrs. Best clearly hadn’t given up teaching when she retired. Fortunately, she turned away from Kathryn and focused on Holt.

“Holt, I really did need to speak to you,” she said. “I hate to mention this, but my fence that Clay built got damaged in the storm and if it’s not fixed just right Bitsy gets out. While you were gone, I asked that idiot handyman, Donald, to take care of it, and the next thing you know, my little dog was chasing cars in the road. I’ve had to keep her in the house since then. I should have known not to trust it to anyone but you.” She looked up at Holt as if she expected him to not only do something about her fence, but to restore world peace.

Holt only hesitated half a second. “I’ll take care of it, Mrs. Best.”

With a smile, the woman turned to go. “He’s so good to all of us,” she told Kathryn. “Just like his father.” For a second she looked as if she might pat him on the cheek. Maybe Holt thought so, too. He had a wary look in his eyes.

Kathryn managed to contain her skepticism. When Mrs. Best walked away, she raised her chin. “So you’re not as immune to requests as you seem.”

“Fixing a fence is easy.”

Maybe. Kathryn wasn’t sure it would be easy for everyone. “What did she mean when she said that you’re good to everyone?”

He frowned and shook his head. “Not important. Long story.”

And one he clearly wasn’t going to share with her. The man was certainly living up to that cowboy reputation as a rugged man of few words. It was such a cliché that she almost wanted to laugh.

Almost. Not quite. Holt was rugged, and staring up at him from her perch on the chair, she had to look up the entire length of his long, lean body. Pregnant as she was, she was still a woman, and despite her mistakes as a teenager and in her marriage, apparently not immune to Holt’s physical charms. She pushed herself to her feet to break the spell and change the view to something less dangerous.

“But you do still consider requests for help,” she prodded softly. She tried not to hope too hard.

“Depends on the request. Mrs. Best’s is something I can do myself. Yours involved begging my friends for favors. I don’t beg well. I don’t ask for things. Even so, I came to tell you yes.”

She blinked. She’d been prepared to argue more, even to plead a little.

“Just like that.”

“No. Not just like that. I still don’t like this any better than I did, but I’ll do it.”

“Why?”

“Don’t push it, Kathryn. If you’ve decided you don’t need my help after all, I’m better than fine with that.”

“No. I want your help. I’ll take it. You can’t back out now.”

His eyes narrowed. “I don’t back out. Ever. Once I’ve given my word, it’s golden. Understand?” The look he gave her might have killed a man. But she’d faced worse.

“Do you look at Blue like that?”

He looked taken aback. Then he gave her that maddening, half-amused expression. “Blue and I understand each other. Without speaking.”

“My apologies. I’m not a wonderful and psychic dog but a decidedly human woman.”

“Yes, I noticed. That you’re not psychic. And that you’re a woman.”

He wasn’t really even looking at her body. His gaze didn’t drop, but she felt as if he could see through her clothing. Kathryn felt hot. And bothered.

“Okay,” she rushed on, irritated that she couldn’t seem to control her reaction to Holt. “I’ll draw up some plans, all the things we need to do, and I’ll give you a copy so that you know your part and I know mine.”

“Why are you doing that?”

She looked up, blinking wide. “I like organization. I make lists.”

“No. You’re rubbing your back. You’re—you’re real pregnant.”

“Yes. I noticed.”

He didn’t smile at her sarcastic tone. “You should sit down. You don’t need to stand.”

Now he was making her mad. “Mr. Calhoun, I don’t care to go into the details, but know this. I have been ordered around all my life and I’m done with that. I’ve thoroughly researched pregnancy, and Dr. Cooper and I have talked. I’m a healthy woman, and I’ll let you know if I need to sit down.”

He raised that sexy eyebrow that had always driven her mad. “I wasn’t giving you an order.” His voice was low and somewhat mocking.

“I— Yes,” she stammered. “I understand that. My apologies for jumping to conclusions. Of course, you were just being polite.”

He didn’t answer her. But she didn’t sit, either, even though right now her legs were beginning to feel as if they wouldn’t hold her up any longer. Her back was aching, and if Holt hadn’t been here, she would have sat down, but the man had always made her feel weak. She had a bad feeling about what might happen if he knew that she was susceptible to him. It was very important that they keep things on a business footing during the remainder of her time in Larkville.

“Thank you for agreeing to help.”

“I won’t be available a lot of the time,” he warned her. “Now that I’m back at the ranch, I have duties.”

“We can meet there.”

“I don’t think we need to meet.”

And she certainly didn’t want to meet any more than was necessary, but …

“Humor a pregnant woman,” she said, knowing that wasn’t fair.

“Just send me a list. I’ll do my part. And decide which parts I won’t do.”

With that, he walked away. For a few seconds, Kathryn wondered what she’d ever seen in him.

Other than that gorgeous body that could still make her squirm. When she woke in the middle of the night having the “Holt dream,” the one where he picked her up and carried her to his bed, the one where he came to her wearing nothing but an unzipped pair of jeans, the one where she finally got the chance to plunge her fingers into all that wonderful black hair, Kathryn knew she was going to have to be incredibly careful during her time here.

A man like Holt who could make a bloated, nearly-nine-months-pregnant woman feel desire was far too hot to handle. Good thing he didn’t have a romantic bone in his body.

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