Rancher's Wife

Rancher’s Wife

Anne Marie Winston

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For Katrina… I love you, Bean

Contents

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

One

“Hello. My name is Angel.” Angelique Sumner Vandervere closed the door of the dark blue rental car she’d driven out to the Red Arrow Ranch. Smiling, she surveyed the child before her.

The small girl stood at the top of the steps fronting the porch on the big farmhouse. A disreputable white blanket draped over her shoulder and the thumb of the hand that clutched the blanket was tucked firmly in her mouth. Black curls tumbled about her shoulders and wide eyes regarded Angel solemnly. The fingers of her other hand brushed idly back and forth across the ruff of a scruffy-looking black-and-white dog. The dog wasn’t bothering to look friendly, Angel noted, watching his lip curl up to reveal shining white canine teeth.

The little one was dressed in a light cotton shift, perfect clothing for a hot July day in southwestern New Mexico. In contrast, Angel felt hot and grubby in her two-piece traveling suit.

“I’m here to visit Dulcie Meadows,” she said to the child. “Do you know her?”

The little girl nodded shyly from behind the thumb. Beside her, the dog gave a menacing snarl.

Enchanted, Angel ignored the animal and tried again. “Can you find her for me?”

A grin slowly spread behind the thumb but the child made no move.

Angel might have been exasperated but the little girl was so adorable she couldn’t summon up any irritation. The child looked to be about three, and a piercing pain smote her as she made the inevitable association. Emmie was five now, soon to be six. What Angel wouldn’t give to be this close to Emmie, even for a single minute!

Deliberately she pulled her mind back to the present, recoiling from the grief and regret. No sense in crying over what she couldn’t change, she told herself firmly. Digging into her purse, she withdrew one of the candies she always popped into her mouth when her flights took off and landed. “Would you like a piece of candy?”

The child nodded. The thumb stayed in her mouth as she reached for the candy with the other small hand.

“Beth Ann! No!”

The sharp masculine command made both Angel and the child jump. Angel’s hand jerked and the candy fell to the dusty ground. As she looked around for the source of the voice, a cowboy—a big cowboy—wearing a black hat, crossed the porch from a side door in two quick strides. Reaching for the little girl, he swung her protectively into his arms. Then he straightened and turned to face Angel as she stood, frozen in puzzlement and rising outrage.

“Get off my land,” he said, and his tone was deep and menacing. As menacing as the black brows that drew together over hooded eyes shot with dark flames of rage.

He was broad shouldered, deep chested, taller than she by several inches, even in her heels. She had to squash the involuntary leap of fear produced by his aggressive attitude. “I’m sorry if somehow I’ve offended—”

But he didn’t give her a chance to complete the sentence. Setting the child down, the cowboy stepped forward. One big hand shot out and snared her upper arm in an unbreakable grip. Before she could utter a protest, he was literally dragging her back toward her car. Behind him, the dog set up a sharp, vicious barking.

Angel stiffened her legs, seeking purchase on the rough ground, though all that did was ensure that the heels of her expensive leather pumps bumped and scuffed over the earth. Reality receded and the fear she’d succeeded in subduing for weeks suddenly rushed over her. The thing she feared more than anything in the world was happening.

The man—the faceless, nameless one from whom she was running—had found her.

Fear endowed her with exceptional strength. She leaned away, then slammed herself hard against him, banging her head painfully against his chin. He yelped and swore but his hands didn’t loosen. She twisted her body, wriggling and writhing in his grasp, but after the first surprised instant, her efforts appeared to have less than no effect.

“Let me go,” she gasped as he plowed to a halt beside her car. Her voice sounded breathless and ineffective, even to her.

“Get off my land,” he said again. He had both her arms now and he shook her after every few syllables as if to emphasize his words. “Nobody is taking my child away from me ever again. You can go straight back to Jada and tell her—”

“Day, stop!”

The familiar voice of her childhood friend was a welcome relief to Angel. This was all some sort of horrible mistake. She immediately relaxed her body. And was sorry a moment later as her determined attacker yanked open the door of the rental car and slammed her forcefully into the driver’s seat.

“Ooph!” The air whooshed from her lungs and she fell forward over the steering wheel, gasping for breath.

“David Kincaid, you stop bullying Angel at once.” Dulcie’s voice came again, steely anger replacing the mild reproof in her tones. In her peripheral vision, Angel could see her friend hurrying forward, unceremoniously shoving the big cowboy out of her way. “If you would have asked before performing your caveman feats, you might have learned that she’s going to be my guest at this ranch.”

The big man merely folded his arms and stood where he’d planted himself as Dulcie helped Angel from the car. As he glared at her, the dark suspicion didn’t ease even a fraction. “You didn’t tell me you invited someone to visit,” he said to Dulcie. It was almost an accusation.

“I didn’t realize I needed your permission,” Dulcie countered. “I’m here at the Red Arrow, in which we share ownership, to do you a favor. You’d do well to remember it.” Unfazed by his grim expression, she examined Angel anxiously. “Are you all right?”

Angel nodded. “More or less.” She smiled wryly, hoping to defuse the tense moment. “Maybe I should begin again.”

Dulcie’s understanding grin highlighted her dark, sultry beauty. She stepped forward with both arms spread wide, mimicking surprise. “Angel, welcome to the Red Arrow. It’s great to see you!”

Angel laughed at the silly pretense, hugging her shorter friend. “It’s great to see you, too. As usual, it’s been too long.”

“Have you met my brother?” Dulcie’s courtesy had a distinct edge to it when she turned to wave a hand in the direction of the man who still stood behind her, unsmiling. “Angel, my brother, Day Kincaid, older than me by enough years to make him incredibly bossy. Day, this is Angel Vandervere. Angel is a friend of mine from high school. She doesn’t live around here anymore, and I invited her to spend some time with me while I’m at the ranch.”

Angel held out her hand and took a deep breath, determined to get past the awkward moment. Angel Vandervere, not her stage name, Angelique Sumner. Though she assumed Day Kincaid recognized her face from her movies, she was grateful to Dulcie for emphasizing her need for privacy. “It’s nice to meet you,” she murmured.

He didn’t take the offered hand, merely nodded his head once in a curt gesture. “How long will you be staying, Miss Vandervere?”

“I asked her to stay for two weeks,” Dulcie inserted before she could respond. Then the smaller woman addressed Angel again. “I apologize for my brother’s unfriendliness earlier. Day thought you were someone his ex-wife hired to kidnap my niece.”

She knew her eyes widened in shock. That explained his behavior. It didn’t excuse it, she decided, rubbing her arm where her elbow and the car door had had a forceful encounter. But it certainly did explain it. A bubble of slightly hysterical, relieved laughter rose in her throat and she hastily cut it short. After the strain and fear she’d been under for the past few months, she’d looked forward to getting away from L.A. and seeing Dulcie again. How hilarious! That she should be attacked the moment she set foot on New Mexican soil.

The urge to laugh died abruptly as a movement on the porch caught her eye. “I believe your daughter needs some reassurance, Mr. Kincaid,” she said. The sight of the little girl, who was now cowering behind one of the porch posts, lent a decided coolness to her tone. “You appear to have terrified someone other than me.”

“You should know better than to offer candy to a child you don’t know,” he retorted. “If she’s terrified, it’s your fault. Candy is an invitation most children can’t resist. If she takes it from a stranger who turns out to be a friend, then how am I supposed to make her understand it could be dangerous?” Without giving her a chance to reply, he turned away, walking over to lift his daughter into his arms again.

Angel stared at Day’s retreating back as he vanished into the house with the little girl. “Wow. He’s certainly prickly.”

Dulcie gave a rueful sigh. “That’s my brother—dripping with charm.” She gave Angel another concerned once-over. “Are you really all right? From where I stood, it looked as if he was being pretty rough.”

“He was, but I’ll survive.”

Dulcie seemed about to comment further, then apparently thought better of it. “I can’t believe you’re finally here. But you look tired. Why don’t I show you where your room is and you can rest until dinner?”

* * *

Midnight. And she hadn’t been able to sleep. Again.

Angel leaned against the kitchen counter, waiting for a cup of tea to heat in the microwave. She’d hoped it might be different if she felt safe. Here, there would be no telephone calls with silence on the other end. Here, there would be no anonymous letters with carefully typed threats. Even her agent didn’t know where she was.

Her agent—holy smokes! Angel struck her forehead with the palm of her hand. She couldn’t believe she’d forgotten about Karl. She’d have to call him first thing in the morning.

She lifted the cup of herbal tea out of the microwave and wandered into the large, informal living room, shutting off the kitchen light and switching on a single small lamp as she went. The room was decorated in soft earth tones that suited its Southwestern motif. Tea in hand, she was about to sink into one of the comfortable-looking recliners when a display of photos on the rough beams of the floor-to-ceiling shelves caught her eye. Curiosity aroused, she moved closer.

The photos covered three shelves. The first one she examined was a black and white of a very small girl riding astride a somewhat older boy, who knelt on the floor as if he were the child’s pony. The children both had dark curly hair—the little girl’s reached nearly to her waist and she looked as if she was giggling. Dulcie and Day.

There were several more of Dulcie, school pictures in which childhood’s gamine charm clearly showed the promise of beauty. And there was an equal number of her brother. Day smiling and laughing, white teeth bared in a grin as he changed from boy to man. He looked so approachable. Was this really the same man she’d met earlier?

Slowly she moved on, examining the other pictures on the shelves. A second one was filled with even older photos. Kincaid parents and grandparents, stiff and unsmiling in formal photographs. The third shelf...

Baby pictures. Toddler pictures. Scene after scene of little Beth Ann as she grew from a tiny scrap of black-haired humanity into the sweet, shy tot Angel had seen today. Before she could sidestep it, the old hurt had reared up and grabbed her by the throat.

Emmie. She placed a hand across her mouth to prevent the sob that caught in her chest. If things had been different, she might have had a home like this, and these might be pictures of Emmie...her own precious child, who would be sleeping where she belonged, in her own little bed in her mother’s house.

But things weren’t different. She’d made a decision that she’d pay for every day for the rest of her life. Each time she remembered that her daughter belonged to another mother and father now, each time she remembered the wrenching agony of handing her two-month-old baby to its adoptive parents, each time that Adrienne O’Brien sent her the yearly report and photo that the private adoption had included, each time she saw someone else’s little girl, she would pay for her poor judgment.

Unable to look at the pictures for another second, she headed out of the living room. The darkness was absolute once she turned off the lamp. In L.A., nothing, but nothing, was as dark as it was here in Luna County, where people were outnumbered by cattle and a person had to drive miles to see the lights of a town.

She felt her way back to the kitchen in the dark and plunked her mug down on the counter. When the furniture had assumed a shadowy outline, she began to move back to her bedroom. But she wasn’t able to stop the flood of memories as easily as she’d turned off the light.

She hadn’t allowed herself to look back after the awful day when she’d given up her baby to a couple who could give her more than she could. Blindly, almost without forethought or care, she’d concentrated on the modeling and drama courses in which she’d enrolled. She’d been so focused on avoiding any time to think that she’d taken any role offered, from that very first commercial spot until she’d woken up one day to the realization that she was at the top of her profession, with an Oscar nomination to her credit and numerous glowing reviews.

What was she going to do if she followed through with her decision to stop acting? She moved into the dark hallway and felt for the banister at the foot of the stairs. People would say she was crazy, and maybe she was, but her desire for normalcy, privacy, for a life in which she was just another face in the crowd, outweighed anything else. Everything, perhaps, except her need to keep busy. To keep from thinking. Because if she had too much time on her hands, regrets about Emmie would consume her—

A large solid object barreled squarely into her, nearly bowling her over backward. She gasped and managed to bite back the scream that nearly escaped. Reflexively, she clutched at the object to keep herself from falling. Soft fabric. Hard muscle. Her palm scraped across a stubbled cheek. A man. Fear instantly closed her throat.

“What the hell...?”

Reason reasserted itself at the plainly bewildered tone in the masculine voice, a voice she recognized. Get a grip, girl, you’re safe here.

A small light pierced the darkness as the man who’d bumped into her snapped on a tiny lamp standing on a table against the wall. Angel blinked in its sudden glow, assessing Day Kincaid as her eyes adjusted. She’d been too unnerved by his unexpected antipathy earlier to really look at the man. But in the lamplight she realized that he was...quite something to behold.

As she’d noted before, he was several inches taller than her model’s height. His face was rugged, craggy handsome beneath a thatch of dark hair quirking out in defiant waves all over his head despite a severe cut that revealed his ears. Handsome in a hard, weathered way that the picture-perfect actors she worked with could never achieve. High cheekbones cast deep shadows over the dimples in his lean cheeks. His mouth was partially concealed by a thick mustache, but she could tell that he wasn’t smiling. She was equally aware of his scent—a fresh masculine soap mingling with the unmistakable smell of healthy male vigor.

“What are you doing running around the house in the middle of the night?” His voice was deep and gruff and not particularly friendly.

She braced herself mentally. “I couldn’t sleep. I made myself a cup of tea.” She was annoyed at the timorous quality of her voice, but darn it, he’d scared her. Belatedly she realized she was still holding his forearm. She let go and stepped back a pace, straightening her robe.

Silver eyes the color of new coins watched her fingers pull together the gaping edges of her robe, then trailed down over the rest of her body before leisurely coming back to her face. She hadn’t noticed the unusual color of his eyes earlier today. They were striking eyes on a man or a woman. On this man... She became aware that they were inspecting her with a thoroughness that made her very conscious of her own lack of attire.

Angel held the silky fabric closed with one hand and summoned her poise. “If you’ll excuse me, Mr. Kincaid...”

“No.” He didn’t move.

She lifted her head, fixing him with a haughty stare, one eyebrow raised. “I beg your pardon?”

“I’m sorry if I hurt you today,” he said.

His tone was so grudging that she nearly laughed aloud as her momentary sense of alarm passed. “Dulcie made you promise to apologize,” she guessed, and was rewarded when he shifted his gaze to the floor.

“I really am sorry,” he repeated. “I’m not in the habit of treating strangers, especially women, like that, but I thought...it looked to me as if you were trying to kidnap Beth Ann.”

“I understand your concern,” she said. And she did. If she had thought someone was luring her child away, she’d have reacted in much the same manner.

“I doubt you do.” His voice was cool, yet she heard a thread of what sounded like desperation in it. “My ex-wife is Jada Barrington.”

Jada Barrington! Even in Hollywood, the woman’s reputation for excess and self-indulgence was legendary.

“I see you know her.”

“I know of her,” she stressed. “Believe me, we don’t frequent the same circles.”

He continued as if he hadn’t heard her. “She didn’t have the time or the patience to deal with an infant, but now she thinks I’m just going to hand over my child to her so she can play the role of devoted mother whenever she isn’t too busy.”

The bitterness and anger came through clearly, and she began to see why he was so abrupt with her. Jada Barrington was an actress who worked in television. While her current series was excellent and she had a large following, she was widely known to be a difficult actress to work with as well as a wild woman in her time offscreen. Angel had made her name in movies but Day probably equated them as the same brand of trouble. Perhaps he even thought Jada had sent her!

“You don’t—”

But he cut off her response. “I’m not telling you this to elicit sympathy. I’m telling you because now that you’re here, you’re as responsible as everyone else for Beth Ann’s safety. If you see anyone who doesn’t belong on this ranch at any time, you let me know immediately.”

So he didn’t suspect her of being in league with his ex-wife. In fact, he hadn’t mentioned her career at all. Which was just the way she wanted it. Dulcie must have given him his orders. She nodded. “I’ll only be here for two weeks,” she reminded him.

Then the concern that she’d felt since she’d seen the child’s pinched white face after the scene in the yard came back. “You know, Mr. Kincaid, behaving as you did in front of Beth Ann this afternoon can’t be good for her. You don’t want to make her terrified of strangers. Surely there’s some middle ground. Perhaps you could even stage some ‘safe’ experiences with strange people so that she doesn’t grow up fearing every face in the crowd.”

Day’s expression would have been amusing if she hadn’t been the target of the ire apparent on his face. “If I need advice, I’ll ask for it, Miss Vandervere. Right now I suggest that you return to your room and get some sleep. We rise early and work hard around here. If you’re planning on spending any time with Dulcie, you’ll have to do the same.”

* * *

Late in the morning, Day parked his big pickup truck in front of the drugstore in Deming. He’d already been by the feed store, the grocery and the vet’s office on his round of errands. The faster he got back to the ranch, the happier he’d be. He wanted to ride out and check the fence in the northwest pasture before supper.

Supper. Last night, Dulcie’s guest had been seated across the table from him, and later he’d bumped into her in the hallway—literally. He might not be thrilled about the idea of having a guest on the ranch, especially while he was so worried about the custody suit Jada kept threatening, but he had to admit that Angel Vandervere was easy on the eyes. And when she’d come up against him fully in the dark house, he’d had a momentary fantasy of getting to know those lush curves intimately. She wasn’t really his type, but after seeing her, he wasn’t sure he could say what his type might be these days.

She was tall, taller than he normally liked his women, and she was a blonde. When he’d grabbed her yesterday, he’d been expecting blue eyes, but hers were brown...big and soft and intelligent-looking. Funny that he didn’t remember her at all. But he figured the timing had been wrong when she’d lived in Deming before. Dulcie had told him that Angel had moved there in the seventh grade. That would have been his first year of college, and he had to admit that on the rare occasions he’d been home, he’d been a lot more preoccupied with trying to get Corinne Cantler horizontal in his pick-up than he had been with checking on his younger sister and her giggly adolescent friends.

He shook his head, amused by the memory. Corinne was a waitress in a local restaurant now, and even though she’d been married to Buddy Alderson for nearly fifteen years, she still liked to flirt. In a better humor than he’d been since yesterday, when he’d seen a total stranger baiting his child with candy, he strode into the pharmacy and made his purchases. He had to wait for an antibiotic prescription that one of the hands needed for an infected cut on his finger. While he waited, he idly scanned the racks of magazines and newspapers near the front counter.

He always got a hoot out of the headlines in the tabloids. One rag proclaimed that a three-headed baby had been born to a couple in Pakistan. Another chronicled the life of a professional football player who was suspected of hiring an assassin to kill a fellow athlete. A third speculated on the whereabouts of some actress who had dropped out of the L.A. scene without a word. He glanced again at the grainy photo of the heavily made-up actress in a skintight black sequined gown that plunged far beyond decency, taken the night of the Academy Awards. Angelique Sumner had a truly incredible figure—

The salesclerk called to him that his prescription was ready, and he started to move away from the magazines. Then, drawn by some instinct that raised the hairs on the back of his neck in inevitable dread, he looked at the tabloid photo of the Sumner actress again.

Angelique...Angel. A sick feeling rose in the back of his throat as he realized that the world might not know where Angelique Sumner was, but he did. He’d left her sitting in his kitchen reading to his daughter. Through narrowed eyes, he compared the picture with his mental image of Angel. The woman he’d met hadn’t been bent on improving her looks, and if he hadn’t felt and seen her curves revealed beneath that clingy robe last night, he’d never have noticed her figure beneath the loose clothing she’d worn during the day. She’d had on no makeup that he’d noticed and her hair had been confined in a careless knot atop her head. Even so, he’d recognized a classic structure in the bones of her face and the fine, smooth skin. Yes, with makeup and that blond hair loose and curly, she would become the unforgettable beauty before him. Fury rose, a red mist that kept him standing in front of the magazines desperately trying to master his rage before he lashed out and destroyed anything within reach.

Dulcie. She knew how he felt about actresses! How could she have done this to him? If the press found out where their quarry was, his ranch would be splashed all over the country in one of these trashy papers, especially if his connection to Jada was recalled. The privacy he’d worked so hard to keep for Beth Ann would be gone in the time it took a mean bronc to throw a green rider. His teeth ground together and he grabbed the tabloid off the shelf, throwing it on the counter with the prescription. Suddenly he couldn’t get back to the Red Arrow fast enough.