Rodeo Rancher

“When?”

“About an hour ago.”

“What? You’re out in this weather?”

Cripes. Was she the only one who didn’t know snowstorms got this bad? She and Travis had been raised in southern Arizona, and she’d lived in Nevada for years and then California for the past year. She’d seen snow a handful of times in her life, but never a storm.

“I’m not out in it now,” she replied. “The car broke down.”

“But you just bought it before you left.”

“I know.”

“You didn’t buy used, did you?”

“No! It’s brand-spanking-new. I don’t know what happened. It just stopped running and the boys and I were stuck.”

“Stuck? Are you still in the car?” His voice had risen.

“No. We walked to a rancher’s house.”

“Whose house? What rancher?” Her older brother was fiercely protective of her and her sons.

“Michael Moreno.”

“Hold on.” She heard Travis talking to someone else. A second later he came back on the phone. “Okay. Apparently Michael’s a good guy.”

“That’s my impression.” A good guy, even if he was grumpy.

Travis sounded calmer, as though whoever he’d just spoken to had done a good job of reassuring him. “You can trust him.”

She sort of, kind of already did, even though he was obviously not at all happy to have them. Her instincts about people were pretty good.

“We’re going to stay here tonight,” she said.

“At least for tonight. This storm system is massive.”

“I had no idea. I usually check the forecast on my phone, but it’s been acting up.” Unease raced through her. Now that she’d heard Travis’s voice, all she wanted was to be with him. “Honestly, Travis, I didn’t know what I was heading into.”

She cupped the phone and her mouth with her hand so Michael wouldn’t hear her. “I was so scared, Travis. I will never drive in a snowstorm again.”

“This is a bad one. You and the boys stay put until this whole thing passes and I can come get you, okay?”

“Okay.” She exhaled. She would be able to relax soon. All of the trouble of the past two years would be over once they made it to Travis’s house. “Who’s there with you? Your new girlfriend?”

“Rachel. Yeah. I can’t wait for you two to meet. I love her, Sammy. She’s the one.”

“Oh, Travis. I’m so happy for you.” She was. Truly. “I’ve wanted this for a long time.”

It was just strange for Travis to have someone. Not just a girlfriend, but the one. He’d never talked about love before though he’d had plenty of girlfriends, even that phony Vivian he’d been so infatuated with. Thank God that hadn’t lasted.

But who was this Rachel? How had he fallen so hard so quickly? What was she like? Could Sammy trust her to love Travis as much as he deserved to be loved?

“I’m going to marry her, Sammy.”

Samantha choked. When she stopped coughing, she whispered, “Marry?”

“Yep.” Her brother had never sounded more certain.

“I’m happy for you, bro.” She was, but a tiny part of her knew that this changed everything.

She bit her lip. “Where will you live? In the house?”

“Yes, with her two children.”

Rachel had children? “But—” She’d thought the house would be a home for her and the boys.

“It will all work out, Sammy. We’ll make it work. You’re going to love Rachel and her girls,” Travis said, and his calm confidence soothed her even while she still worried. How on earth was it all supposed to work?

Sammy and her boys would never again have her brother’s undivided love and attention.

Well, wasn’t that the point you were going to make when you arrived at the house he bought for you? Weren’t you determined to pay him every cent he paid for that house, even if it took years?

Weren’t you the one who was going to finally fight for independence from every single man, even your brother?

Her father and her ex-husband had let her down. Depending on men sucked. Only Travis had been trustworthy.

“I love you, bro.”

“And I love you, sis. Tell the boys I love them, too.”

“I will. Bye.” She hated to hang up, hated to wait another day or two before seeing him, before moving to a happier home than this one seemed to be. But the house she was moving to with Travis would soon contain another woman and two more children.

She just didn’t know what to think.

Everything was topsy-turvy. Her ex had taught her some hard lessons about life. She would find a way to be independent, for her own sake and her sons’.

If the house didn’t work out, she would find some other place to live. After all, she was a hard worker and had a job to start next month.

Turning away, she found Michael watching her. “Is everything okay?” he asked. “Did you get through?”

She smiled. “Yes. It was good to talk to him. Thank you.”

“How long has it been since you’ve seen him?”

“Close to six months.” She rubbed her hands on her thighs and shivered.

He frowned. “I didn’t ask. Did your clothes get wet in the snow?”

“My pants are really damp.”

“Follow me.” He led her into his bedroom. “I’m a lot wider than you, but we can find something.”

He handed her a pair of gray sweatpants. “You can cinch these with the string at the waist. If that’s not enough, I’ll find you a belt.”

He also gave her a sweatshirt, which was faded but soft. “Layer this over your sweater to keep warm.”

Michael left the room. The pants were snug in the hips, but big in the waist. She managed to tie the string tightly enough to hold them up. She put on the sweatshirt and immediately felt warmer.

In the bathroom, she hung her pants over the shower stall to dry.

She joined him in the kitchen. “Thanks. That feels a lot better.” She stepped close to the counter. “We should probably start cooking, right?”

* * *

DAMN. SAMANTHA LOOKED good in his clothes. They weren’t the least bit feminine, but she made them so...and that was a problem.

Michael turned away from her to open the fridge door, resisting even the faintest hint of awareness.

“We do need to cook,” he finally said in answer to her question. Lighten up, Moreno.

He might not be able to control the situation, but he could control his reaction to it. “It’s better to have the food cooked before we lose power. It’ll keep longer than raw.”

“What’s all the meat for?”

“Chicken soup and meat loaf. The kids like both.”

“My boys would like that, too.”

So they weren’t vegetarians like her? Strange.

He got the proteins out of the fridge.

“That’s a lot of ground beef,” she said.

“I was going to make a couple of loaves. I’m not much of a cook, but I can handle the basics.”

“Would you mind if I check your cupboards to see what else there is?”

He spread one arm wide. “Have at it.”

He stood back, leaned against the doorjamb and crossed his arms while he waited.

He didn’t like having her in his kitchen, but maybe she could come up with more ideas to feed six people with his supplies.

She dived into the task, surprising him with what excited her. A tin of black beans nearly sent her into raptures. He almost smiled.

“You have spaghetti and canned tomato sauce. Your spices look old, but we can try to jazz it up a bit. How about one meat loaf and a pot of Bolognese?”

“We’re having bologna?” Mick asked. He stood behind Michael with the other children.

Samantha spun around. “Bolognese. Basically, beef sauce for spaghetti.”

Why didn’t she just say so? Awkward and unsophisticated beside her with her fancy words for meat sauce, he bristled.

“We’re hungry,” Mick said.

“You keep checking out the food,” Michael told Samantha. “I’ll make snacks.” He gave them cheese strings and granola bars.

“They need a fruit or veggie with that.”

He knew how to feed children, for God’s sake. He had two of them. The woman didn’t seem to notice that she’d butted in. She insisted they have apple slices spread with peanut butter. Health freak.

Not a bad idea, though. They carried their snacks to Mick’s bedroom.

She rummaged through his cupboards again.

“Barley!” she squealed.

“You get excited about strange things,” he said.

“I can use it to make a vegetarian soup for myself.”

He cocked his head. “You said your sons eat anything. Aren’t they vegetarians, too?”

“No. I’ve told them my philosophy, but they can eat what they want and make their own choices when they’re old enough. They eat all of my food, but if anyone offers meat, they eat that, too.”

Hell of a way to go about it. He taught his children his values and he expected them to follow. He didn’t give them choices.

He shrugged and moved on. No skin off his nose if she was a screwball parent.

“What are you comfortable making?” he asked.

“I love cooking soups. Do you want to make the meat loaf with half the ground beef and brown the rest for the spaghetti sauce?”

“Suits me fine.”

While he focused on the meat, she started pulling out every vegetable in his crisper—cabbage, carrots and celery.

“Do you have potatoes?”

“I’ll get them. How many do you want?”

“As many as you have.”

“I’ve got ten pounds.”

While she digested that, she chewed her bottom lip. “An entire bag?”

“Close to it.”

“There are six of us. Should we use half of them to make mashed potatoes to go with the meat loaf and bake the rest?”

“Yeah. We can always eat them cold tomorrow if need be.”

He stored the bag at the top of the stairs to the basement. He retrieved it and also snagged a rutabaga and a bag of onions.

He returned to the kitchen and came up short. It was strange to see a woman there and even stranger that he had to pass close to her to get to his own counter.

Careful not to touch her, he sidled past, feeling her heat nonetheless.

It was going to be a long night.

She asked, “Are you sure you’ll have enough food? We’re three extra mouths.”

Without a word, he opened the freezer door. Loaves of bread filled half of the space, with plenty of meat crowding the other.

“Living this far from town, I’m always prepared.”

“Hey!” she declared, reaching in as though she’d found a treasure. “Look at all of this spinach. Awesome! You said the kids didn’t eat greens.”

“For some weird reason, Mick likes the frozen stuff, so I keep plenty on hand.”

“May I use it?”

“Of course.”

They worked side by side for an eternity, or so it seemed to Michael. Every time he had to pass her to get into the fridge, or to retrieve a pot from a low cupboard, he held his breath.

She was almost as tall as him, maybe only a couple of inches shorter. He wasn’t used to that. Lillian had been a little bit of a thing.

The first time they brushed arms, he just about jumped out of his skin.

He wasn’t the skittish type, not usually. He might not be attracted to this woman, despite her beauty, but he also wasn’t used to having a woman in his kitchen. Other than Lillian’s friend Karen, that is, who came around more often than he liked under the guise of helping him with the children.

Things were getting complicated there. All Michael felt for Karen was a small level of affection. He’d known for a while now that she was expecting more from him than he wanted to give.

She’d been good to him, and he felt nothing other than gratitude. It made him feel ashamed...and guilty.

Samantha brushed past him again. He glanced her way sharply, but she wasn’t doing it on purpose. The working area of the kitchen was just too damn small for two people who didn’t know each other.

The harvest table took up pretty much all of the room, but at least there would be plenty of space to seat everyone at dinnertime.

Earlier, when she’d pulled her sweater up over her hair for Lily’s benefit, she’d revealed a trim waist and perfectly tanned tight flesh. His libido had performed a tap dance worthy of Gene Kelly.

It had been two and a half years since he’d been with a woman. Once Lillian had become too weak for intimacy, all he’d done was hold her.

Maybe sometime in the two years since her death he should have slept with a woman. But who? This was a small town. Everyone knew everyone else and all of their business.

He suspected the town might already think he and Karen were having relations, even though he’d been careful to set boundaries there.

Did his physical discomfort matter? In the space of a silly heartbeat, Samantha had won over his daughter. That had been clear when Lily had whispered, for his ears only after that trick with her hair, “I like her, Daddy.”

That was good enough for him, even if he did find her ditzy and too beautiful.

She puzzled him. Without a speck of self-consciousness, she’d messed up her own hair, just to break the ice with Lily.

In his experience, beautiful women cared too much about their appearances. His mother had. So had his baby sister.

Michael strengthened his defenses and set his confusion aside. The power could go out at any time and there was a lot to do.

Between the two of them, they managed to make the meat loaf and put together one pot of chicken soup and another of spaghetti sauce.

Samantha had made a small pot of barley soup for herself and had used the steak to make a larger one of beef and barley.

Michael had also boiled and mashed potatoes—more potatoes than he’d seen in one place since he was a child with his mom, dad and Angela around.

“Oh,” Samantha breathed, breaking into his thoughts of the past. Good thing. He didn’t want to go there.

“I just had a thought,” she said.

“What?”

“If the power goes out and we have to conserve diesel, how will we heat this up? How will we cook the pasta?”

“Camping equipment on the fireplace. I have a kerosene camp stove I can use on the back porch as well as a barbecue I can cook just about anything on.”

Samantha looked curious and engaged, as though the details truly interested her. “How about if I make things easier by boiling the spaghetti now and mixing it with the sauce? Then we can reheat in one pot.”

Opening the door of the refrigerator, she said, “I saw some Monterey Jack in here. I can add cheese to the pot to make it tasty.”

“Sure. Lily will like that. She loves that cheese.”

She stopped what she was doing and became pensive. Seemed out of character for the woman. “Oh. It’s Lily’s cheese. Okay, let’s leave it for her.”

She put it back into the fridge almost reverently.

“She won’t mind if you use it,” Michael insisted.

Her smile looked a little sad. “I’d like it to be hers.”

Weird. What was wrong with the woman? Lily wasn’t going to die if she couldn’t have a piece of cheese.

She seemed adamant, so Michael reached past her for the cheese, calling, “Lily, come here.”

Samantha’s perfume floated around him like a soft cloud. He held his breath, grabbed the cheese and backed away from her.

Lily ran into the kitchen, cheeks flushed.

“What, Daddy? Hurry. I have to play.”

“Your Monterey Jack cheese. You okay if we use it in some spaghetti sauce or should we leave it for you to eat?”

“S’ghetti sauce!” She turned and ran to the back of the house.

“You have permission. Use it,” he ordered, dropping it into Samantha’s hands.

“Okay.”

“You like children? Especially girls?”

Her lips twisted, her smile rueful. “Oh, I do. I really do. I wish I’d had one. Don’t get me wrong,” she rushed on. “I love my boys to heaven and back. I wouldn’t trade them for anything. They are my heart. I do like little girls, though. I guess I just relate to them.”

What had that sadness been about with the cheese and Lily? Somehow he didn’t think she would have reacted in the same way had it been Mick’s cheese.

He didn’t want that kind of curiosity about her. The less he knew about the woman, the better.

Samantha started to chatter about everything and nothing and he wondered what the heck was going on. Something had made her nervous.

When she paused for a breath of air, he said, “You going to quit talking any time soon?”

She caught her breath and stared at him.

He hadn’t meant to sound harsh. It was meant to be a joke. He might not want her here, but he didn’t willingly hurt others. He was about to open his mouth to apologize when she burst out laughing.

“Travis says that exact same thing to me all the time. He says I’m long on air and short on content.”

Her smile, like sunshine bursting through heavy clouds, turned his guts to pudding.

Chapter Four

Abruptly, Michael turned away, jittery and resisting this woman with all his might.

He didn’t even know Samantha. She was a stranger and yet she was turning him inside out.

“I need to put that living room together. Who knows how much more time we have? Better to do it now than when we lose power. With the strength of this storm, we’ll lose it for sure.” Now he was the one babbling.

“Put the room together? What do you mean?”

“I’ll blow up air mattresses and haul out all of our quilts and extra bedding. We might be sleeping in front of the fire tonight.”

“May I ask you to do something first? Or I can do it.”

She was doing enough already. Her industriousness surprised him.

Why? What had he expected? That because she was beautiful, she’d be spoiled and temperamental? Well, yeah. That had been his experience.

He stopped and turned to face her.

“What is it?” he asked, wary.

“Can you vacuum before you put all of that on the floor?”

So she didn’t like his housekeeping. Michael stiffened. Tough.

Samantha placed slim fingers on his forearm. At her soft touch, he stiffened further and she dropped her hand.

“I don’t mean to criticize. It’s just that Jason has asthma. He’s growing out of it, but it still affects him. I don’t want to risk an attack when we’re stuck so far out here.”

Out here in the back of beyond, she means, he thought bitterly.

She must have guessed what he was thinking because she clarified, “In this storm it would take forever to get him to the hospital. It’s terrifying when he can’t breathe.”

“Fair enough.” He dropped what he was doing and got out the vacuum cleaner. Where a child’s health was concerned, he didn’t take chances.

In the living room, he started to pick up all of the children’s toys, but she interrupted him.

“Can we do something else first?”

He stilled, wary again. “What?”

“Follow me.”

Going into Lily’s room, she picked up an empty laundry basket.

“Children,” she hollered like a drill sergeant, startling him. The woman had a healthy set of lungs. “We need you in the living room.”

They ran after her. In front of the fireplace, she plopped the basket onto the floor.

“You see all of these toys, books and clothes?”

They nodded.

“They all—every single last one—are going into this basket. Who do you think is going to pick them up?”

Colt emitted a long-suffering sigh. Michael watched Samantha bite her cheek so she wouldn’t laugh. Her kids knew her well.

“Us?” Colt asked.

“Yep,” she affirmed. “But there will be a reward.”

She turned to Michael.

“Do you have any cookies?”

He nodded. “A box of Oreos.”

Samantha clapped her hands. “Good! When you’re finished picking up everything, Michael will carry the basket to the back room and you’ll each get a couple of cookies.”

The kids jumped to the task.

Michael turned to her with one brow raised. “Bribery?”

“Works every time.” She grinned and returned to the kitchen.

All right. Again, fair. She’d gotten the kids to clean the room to allow him to vacuum for her boy.

Michael carried the full basket to the playroom, returned with another basket that they also filled, and gave the children their cookies.

He went back to the living room to vacuum.

While he did that, another new scent emanated from the kitchen. It smelled like biscuits baking in the oven. His stomach grumbled.

Samantha made a couple of dozen biscuits that came out as light and airy as any Michael had ever tasted, including Vy’s at the Summertime Diner in town, and that was really saying something.

For dinner, she insisted that they have a second vegetable with the meat loaf along with potatoes. She heated frozen corn in the microwave. She also added some to her bean-and-barley soup.

Michael called the children to the table.

“This is a huge table,” she said, running her hand along the oak grain.

“It’s a farm kitchen. Used to be the ranch hands ate in here with us.”

“Ranch hands? Where are they?”

“Slow time of year. Any who wanted to were allowed to go home for a month of holidays. The rest opted to ride out the storm in town. Violet at the Summertime Diner will find a way to cook meals even without power. They’ll be a lot tastier than mine.” His laugh sounded rusty.

Lily and Mick took their usual spots at the table. Michael directed Jason and Colt to the other seats on either side of the table and offered Samantha the one at the other end.

“You have your choice of food.” He outlined the menu for the kids.

“Can I have a little bit of everything?” Jason asked. “I want meat loaf, but I really like Mom’s soups.”

“In this house, you can have whatever you want and as much of it as you can shovel into your faces.”

The younger children giggled. Jason took him seriously.

It turned out Samantha’s children ate a lot.

She seemed embarrassed by it. Maybe because of his less-than-gracious welcome when they arrived? He didn’t like that their appetites bothered her, but at least she didn’t stop them from eating.

After dinner, they got out his air mattresses and inflated them. Jason manned the electric pump while Michael carted in wood and lined the walls beside the fireplace.

He sent Samantha to the linen closet for sheets and plenty of blankets. She made up the two double air mattresses into beds and added extra blankets to Michael’s quilt on the sofa just in case.

Michael built up a fire so there would be warm ashes in the grate if the power went out overnight.

Jason followed him to the basement to retrieve his camping equipment. He was a good kid, helpful and uncomplaining. Samantha had done all right with him.

They carried up his old pots and pans. Battered, they’d seen a lot of campfires and had stood in during power outages many times over the years.

He took out his battery-operated emergency lamps.

Fascinated by all of it, Jason asked question after question about how things were done around the house during a snowstorm.

“What about your animals? You have cows and horses, right?”

“The horses and some of my cattle are safe in my barn and stable. The rest are in pens around the property. I went out first thing this morning and gave them plenty of food and water to get them through the night.”

Arms loaded, they mounted the stairs to the main floor. Michael closed and locked the door behind him to keep the younger children out. “In the morning, if weather permits, I’ll go out and take care of them.”

Excitement lit Jason’s face. “Can I come?” he blurted, and then looked contrite. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have invited myself. It’s just that I like animals.”

“You can come,” Michael said quietly. The kid’s interest should be honored.

“Thanks.” The boy’s smile lit up his intelligent face. Michael guessed there was a lot going on under Jason’s polite exterior, more than met the eye. He needed a chance to grow and develop in his own ways.

Shortly after eight, Samantha sat on the sofa and rummaged in her big bag for something.