Cowgirl Makes Three / Her Secret Rival: Cowgirl Makes Three / Her Secret Rival

Ivy, however, protested. “Make sure you yell at me when fifteen minutes is up. I have work. You’re paying me,” she whispered when she passed him on her way to escort another woman to the house.

“What exactly do they talk about, if you don’t mind me asking?”

She shook her head. “Nothing. The weather. The ranch, and…nothing.”

But there was an evasive, almost angry look in her eyes. Noah remembered how Mary Sue and the others smiled at him so brilliantly. All of them were, he realized, single. An unpleasant suspicion began to form, one that grew even more the day Sandra Penway came to visit.

“It’s good to see you, Noah.”

He glanced toward Ivy.

“And Ivy,” Sandra said, but she wasn’t smiling.

“Sandra.” Ivy nodded. She didn’t look any happier than Sandra.

“How is Lily? Where is that little cutie? She’s just a doll. She’s just an angel,” Sandra cooed. “Let’s go see her together, Noah.”

“She’s napping.”

“Oh.” Sandra looked perturbed. “Okay. Will she be up soon? I really want to see her. And, of course, she’ll want to see her daddy right away.” She held out her hand to Noah as if to lead him to the house. “You and I will just talk until your little girl wakes up.”

Suddenly Ivy banged her shovel onto the ground. “I apologize, Sandra, but Mr. Ballenger told me that we need to rebuild the floodgate that washed out after the rain. You know how it is. It’s a job that won’t wait.”

“You and Darrell and Brody can do it,” Sandra said.

Okay, that was just wrong, Noah thought. “I don’t ask my hands to do things that I won’t do,” he said. That was true, but there was only one floodgate affected. It wasn’t enough work for all four of them.

But Ivy obviously wanted the woman gone. And frankly, so did he. Noah stuck to his guns.

When Sandra had gone, he turned to Ivy. “Thanks.” But he had to know more. “You don’t like Sandra. Has she been mean to you?”

Ivy shrugged. “She doesn’t like me.”

“Why?”

She frowned.

“What?” he asked.

“Basically, I’d say she covets you and she thinks I’m in her way,” Ivy confessed.

Yeah, he kind of got the coveting part. “That’s pretty disgusting for her to mistreat you because she wants something.”

“Yes, but on the other hand, I’m not any better. I lied about the floodgate.”

He shook his head. “You kept me from having to play nice guy to someone who isn’t all that nice. So we’ll make your story true. Brody has plenty of other things he can do.”

“I didn’t mean to make extra work for you.”

But work felt curiously like…not work as he and Ivy dived into the messy job of rebuilding the floodgate. They hadn’t spoken much during these days when all the women had been visiting, so as he and Ivy worked in concert, he turned to her. “Are you okay with the women of the town now? Tight?” he asked, twisting his fingers together the way she had the day she had lied and told him that.

She shook her head. “They’re polite, but I’m not the reason they’re here. I’m just the conduit. They want to know about you. And…they ask a lot of questions about you and Lily. I don’t like that.”

“Because you’re uncomfortable talking about her.” He hoped he managed not to show how much that bothered him.

“No, it’s not that. The things they ask…they want to know what you and Lily do together, what you’re like with her, that kind of thing. I remember that day in the store. Some of them, even though they seem entranced by the thought of you peeling off your shirt, were concerned that you weren’t raising Lily right. I don’t like thinking that they might be spying on you. That’s not right. You’re a good father.”

“How do you know that?” She was never with him when he was with Lily. Her eyes were dark pools of pain when she discussed his daughter, and he knew that a lot of that was because Lily was so close to the age her Bo would have been had he lived.

“I hear it when you talk about her. I know it,” she said simply, staring into his eyes.

Noah stared right back. Emotion flooded through him, even though he didn’t want it to. She was the last woman he could be attracted to, and yet he was.

“You don’t know much about me,” he argued. “I was a skirt chaser when I was young. Then I met a woman who was spending a summer with her relatives in the next county. She was French, exotic, exciting and different from anyone I’d ever met. I fell hard, and her actions seemed to indicate that she loved me, too, but when summer was over, she left and married a well-connected diplomat with an Ivy League background. She just used me to hold boredom at bay for the summer, and she was amused that I had thought she would settle for a rancher.” A bit like the way the women of the town were using Ivy to get to him, Noah realized. He hated that.

“I got in a lot of trouble during the next year. Gillian was a hard lesson to learn, but I thought I’d mastered it. Then I met Pamala. She was funny and quirky and in love with ranching, I thought. So I bit. Two months after giving birth to Lily, she left. She went running off to the next lifestyle she fell in love with—acting—and she left Lily without a backward glance. So yes, I love my child. She comes before everything. And no, I’m not remarrying or letting anyone separate me from Lily. Now, maybe you know enough about me to say that I’m a good father, because some days I am.”

“And the other days?”

“I’m totally petrified, don’t have a clue what I’m doing and am scared to death that I’ll somehow damage her.”

Ivy reached out and touched his cheek. “You haven’t damaged her yet. I know damaged. She’s not even close. I don’t think you could manage it if you tried.”

Maybe not, he thought when they had both gone back to work, but he could manage to do something stupid with a woman again, and he was perilously close to doing that with Ivy. Thank goodness he was stopped cold by the thought that Lily would be hurt if he brought a woman into their lives and that woman left.

Because Ivy was going to leave. She might think she was through with modeling, but he saw the way she walked and looked. Even her cowgirl clothes had class. He’d found articles on the Internet about her adventures in Paris and Rome. When she was finally through mourning, that life would come calling again. So he couldn’t allow himself to be foolish.

A part of him wished he’d stayed firm and not hired her. But mostly he was glad he’d given her the job. While she was here, she made him smile; she made him think. And…she was so alone. At least this job would do one good thing for her by enabling her to pay off the taxes and sell her ranch.

Noah tried to pretend that he wouldn’t even notice once she was gone. He didn’t succeed. In fact, when Noah woke up in the middle of the night, Ivy was already on his mind. He’d been dreaming about her, and she hadn’t been wearing a whole lot in his dream. That couldn’t be good.

He sat up with a grunt, flipped on the light and rubbed his eyes as if to rub away the image of Ivy dressed in a short, tight white dress and boots, her blond hair floating around her face as she beckoned to him like a Siren calling him to both ecstasy and doom.

“Stop it, Ballenger,” he muttered. “Now.” If he was going to think about Ivy, he could at least avoid thinking about her in erotic ways. That would only complicate things.

Besides, now that he was awake and more in control of himself, what he kept remembering from this latest conversation with Ivy was how determinedly nonchalant she had been when she’d told him that the women in town didn’t like her, and how haunted she had looked when she’d told him that she knew Lily wasn’t damaged because…

He didn’t have to finish the thought. Ivy knew about damaged little girls. She’d been a virtual prisoner on her father’s ranch and she’d had no female friends. And yet, what he couldn’t escape was how polite she’d been to those women even though she suspected their motives. She hadn’t called them out. She’d accepted the fact that they had used her as an excuse to get to him. And she’d done it while holding her head high.

Those women were using her, dismissing her, and he knew all too well how it felt to be used and dismissed. He hated the fact that his child would suffer because a woman had decided to use him as a temporary toy, then had walked away. It still burned that he hadn’t been able to stop that from happening, that it still messed with his life and his child’s life.

Using people…the very subject made him fume, but this situation with Ivy was different from his own. This time he was forewarned. Maybe he could stop it from happening.

Stay out of Ivy’s business, Ballenger, he told himself.

But thirty minutes later he was still raging about the fact that he had played a part in this scenario, even if it hadn’t been by choice. It was his fault that those women were using Ivy.

“Dammit,” he muttered. Ivy had gone through enough. She was more alone than any person on the ranch. He and Lily and Marta had each other. Darrell and Brody had friends. Ivy had no one. She’d grown up in this town having no one. And now when she’d lost so much already…she didn’t deserve to be treated as if she didn’t even matter. He knew how that could mangle a person’s pride, and he wouldn’t wish that kind of humiliation on another person.

It made him want to lash out, but Ivy hadn’t done that. She’d patiently listened to the women as if she didn’t know what they were up to. She’d behaved much better than they had.

Ivy, you could teach those women a thing or two, he thought. And just like that, an idea came to him. A way to turn the tables and give Ivy the upper hand in a very public way, maybe even make up for some of the distress she must have been feeling these past few days. He couldn’t go back and rewrite his own history. He had to live with his failures, but maybe he could rewrite this situation. It was a good idea or…maybe not. It was three in the morning. By tomorrow he might decide it was the dumbest idea in the world.

Ivy was up at the house three days later wondering why Marta had asked her to come there. She fidgeted with the pretty braided belt she’d worn. The gold-and-teal scarf at her throat felt a bit too tight. Going to the house still made her uncomfortable, and she hoped she wasn’t being called because another woman had shown up. How many single women could there be in a town the size of Tallula? Ivy didn’t know, but it sure seemed as if all of them wanted Noah. She braced herself for another woman trying to use her as a front.

But only Marta was there. “I just need a little help with this dishwasher, and Noah says that you’re very good at fixing things,” Marta said.

In the distance Ivy could hear Lily’s whispery little singing. She blinked.

“She’s a quiet child,” Marta said. “She’ll play by herself for hours. You don’t have to worry about her.”

Ivy knew Marta meant that she didn’t have to worry about Lily coming out of her room, but what Ivy suddenly worried about was the other—the fact that Lily played alone for so long that she never met other children.

Like me, Ivy thought, then immediately quashed the thought. It wasn’t the same. Noah loved Lily. Ivy’s father hadn’t loved anything but his ranch. Still, the soft singing tore at Ivy’s heart.

She was almost glad when the doorbell rang, but she kept working. Marta called out to her, and, resigned, Ivy came out from under the sink. She washed her hands, then turned to see a plain, pleasant-faced woman looking at her.

“I need help,” the woman said. “Noah said you might help me.”

O-kay, this is different.

“I don’t understand,” Ivy said. “What do you need me to do?”

“Make me pretty.”

Ivy blinked. “Excuse me?”

“I don’t mean beautiful pretty. I just mean different from what I am. And not forever. Just for a night.”

“You want to be Cinderella…to…”

Attract Noah, Ivy thought.

“To make my first wedding anniversary special for my husband,” the woman said.

Suddenly Ivy couldn’t help smiling. She shook her head. “I’m sorry, but could you back up and explain this to me again? What did Noah say to you?”

The woman blushed, and Ivy saw that she wasn’t so plain after all. “He didn’t exactly say anything to me, but my Jimmie was at the feed and seed and Noah was there fielding questions about you. He told the men that when you first started working here, he was afraid that all the women would be starstruck. They had access to a super-model, and he figured that women would be showing up asking advice on fashion or hair or makeup and turning his ranch into a sideshow, but no one did that. And even though women have visited here and you’ve been polite, not one has asked you to share all the tricks you’ve learned or asked you to give them a makeover. He couldn’t seem to figure it out.”

The woman stood there staring at Ivy, her voice a bit breathless. Nervous breathless, Ivy concluded.

She smiled at the woman again even as she wondered why Noah had told that story. He liked his ranch peaceful and quiet and…ranchy, she thought, making up her own word to describe the usually male world of cattle and horses and the men who tamed and traded and watched over them. Surely he knew that at least some of the men would repeat this story to their wives and girlfriends.

“So…you’re the first?” Ivy asked with a grin.

“Looks that way. I’m Diane Revner, by the way.”

“Nice to meet you, Diane. I’m afraid I don’t remember you.”

“That’s because I’m five years younger than you, so we didn’t have any real contact at school. I know why the women haven’t asked for your help. They don’t want to admit that they don’t know everything or that you know more than them. They don’t want it to look like they’re nobodies and you’re somebody. But I’m not proud. Jimmie and I are having a special day. I want to look nice, and not just plain old beauty-salon nice. I want to look special for Jimmie.”

“I’ll bet he thinks you look special already.”

The woman laughed. “He says he does, but I want to do better. Just so you know, I can pay you. If you’re working for Noah, you must not be rich anymore.”

Some people would have been offended by that statement, but Diane hadn’t said it in a rude way, just a commonsense way. That simple fact—Diane treating her like a regular person, not an oddity or outsider—warmed Ivy’s heart.

“You know, I think I’d like to do this just for the fun of it,” Ivy said. “But I have to tell you, no one has ever asked me to help make them look pretty. I might not be good at it.”

Diane looked indignant. “You were a model!”

“That’s just luck, good genes and a lot of hard work. Putting makeup on someone is an art, but we’ll see what we can do. Can you come back tonight when I’m done for the day?”

“Are you kidding? Ivy Seacrest is going to give me a makeover? Even if I had something planned, I’d cancel!” Diane’s smile was infectious, so when the door opened and Noah walked in, Ivy looked up at him, a full-fledged smile on her face.

“Hel-lo,” he said, as if he’d never met her before.

“Sorry, Diane, I have to get back to work,” Ivy said.

“Not a problem. Thank you so much, Ivy. I’ll see you tonight. Bye. Noah, please don’t make her work late today. Ivy is going to work her model magic on me.”

When she had gone, Ivy looked up at Noah. “Want to tell me why you’re promoting me as someone who can fix up the women of the town?”

“Just seemed natural,” he said, his gaze steady and noncommittal.

“Natural?”

“You’re a model, you’ve got women trailing out here all the time, and they haven’t treated you right. Why not earn a little money off them? It would be justice of a sort. You make them look pretty—they help you pay off your taxes. Finally, someone in the town would be doing something for you.”

Now she saw. “Don’t feel sorry for me, Noah.”

“I don’t.”

“You do.”

He slowly shook his head. “I’m indignant that you haven’t been made to feel welcome, but then I didn’t exactly welcome you here, either, did I? So maybe I feel a little guilt, too.”

She frowned, opening her mouth to speak. He held up one hand. “But don’t mistake that for pity. You’ve handled all this with grace and dignity. You are, as you said, a strong woman. You’re also talented, with skills and experience. So no, I don’t pity you. And maybe I have my own reasons for doing this, too. I’ve been used before, as you know. Call it surrogate justice. Besides, there’s nothing wrong with you mixing things up a little so that you’re the one with the power.”

“It sounds as if you have evil intentions. Don’t you like the women of the town?”

“I like them fine,” he said, which told her nothing. “But I don’t like injustice or nonchalant cruelty.”

“You’re thinking of Lily and how her mother abandoned her.”

“I’m thinking of a lot of things. Besides, there’s nothing mean about this.”

True enough. “So you planted the idea of me giving fashion and makeup advice. You went into town just for that?”

He looked uncomfortable, but then he seemed to shrug off his discomfort and grinned. “No sin in going to town.”

No, there wasn’t. All her urges to sin were right here, contained in a totally masculine package. Still, she knew that Noah didn’t just goof off and go to town on a regular basis. Brody had made that clear to her. And so had her conversation with the women at the store.

“So…did you just take a scattershot approach or did you purposely target Diane?”

“You say that as if I harmed her. I just knew that she’s always had a few stars in her eyes. She reads all the fan mags, but mostly I chose her because she’s a nice woman. And she doesn’t have any interest in me or mine.”

Ivy laughed. “In other words, she won’t pretend to be visiting me while ogling you.”

He crossed his arms over his chest. “If someone says they’re here to see you, they darn well should do the right thing and show an interest in you, not show up under false pretenses. I knew Diane would find you fifty times more interesting than me.”

Warmth spread through Ivy. He wanted her to get some genuine attention. “Thank you,” she said.

“For what? Sounds as if you have an evening of work ahead.”

Maybe. The thought of opening a makeup kit made her hands shake. Despite the fact that she had loved modeling and it had been the first time she had ever felt as if she had a place in life…that life was a reminder of another time, one where Bo lived. She couldn’t go there. But, Ivy admitted, there would be some regret at being the person behind the scenes this time. Maybe even some envy.

That was wrong. Diane was sweet and excited and genuinely friendly. If even a hint of melancholy threatened, Ivy intended to slap it away. Diane deserved better than that.

“Da,” a little voice said. Ivy automatically turned toward the doorway, where Lily had crept in unnoticed. The little girl was staring directly at her, all big blue eyes and blond curls. She was clutching a teddy bear, holding him upside down tight against her side, her chubby little hands curled around him. She must have noticed Ivy looking at the bear, because she held him out with a huge smile. “Bunny,” she said.

Ivy’s heart flipped over. Her throat closed up. There was a pain in her chest, and yet…this was a child, an innocent child. She couldn’t run away and risk hurting Lily’s feelings. “His name is Bunny?” she asked, with the best smile she could manage.

“Not Bunny. Buh-ny,” Lily enunciated with a chuckle. “See? Bunny?” and she held out one hand palm up as if she was sure she had cleared everything up.

“Sorry,” Noah said, reaching out and swinging Lily into his arms. “She’s quick as lightning, and she sneaks off now and then. Come on, squirt, let’s go put Barney to bed.”

“Yes. Bunny ti-red,” Lily agreed.

“Oh, I see. Barney,” Ivy said.

Lily squirmed in her father’s arms and turned so that she was facing Ivy. “Yes!” she squealed. “Bye-bye.”

“Bye, sweetie.”

Noah carried her away, his long legs quickly taking them both out of view.

Ivy dropped to a chair and stared at her hands. She could hear Noah murmuring. She heard the little girl say, “Wuv you, Da. Wuv you, Mar-ta.”

Ivy closed her eyes. She concentrated on breathing, on not thinking of Bo. She should get up and leave. But she didn’t. When Noah came back, she looked straight up into his eyes. “Don’t even consider apologizing. This is your home. It’s Lily’s home, and she’s adorable. I’m the intruder. I’m the one with the problem, and if the tables were turned, I wouldn’t want to feel I had to apologize because Bo had acted the way a child acts. She’s a sweetheart, Noah. I recognize that. How could I not?”

“But it still hurts to see her.”

“It’s more than that.”

“Tell me.”

She hesitated, couldn’t find her voice for a minute. She wasn’t sure how to say the next thing, so she moved to the door, pulled it open and stepped outside, dragging in great breaths of air.

Noah followed on her heels, shutting the door behind him. “Ivy? Are you okay? Is there anything I can do? Anything?”

And that concern jarred the words loose. “I didn’t save him. What if I could have prevented it?” Her words came out in a choked whisper.

“You couldn’t have. You weren’t even driving.” So he had obviously looked up the story—or been told about it.

“But I knew Alden liked to gamble, and that included gambling that he wouldn’t get pulled over for speeding, because he liked to drive too fast. He laughed whenever I asked him to slow down. And even though it’s been two years, sometimes I still wake up at night and dream that I can live that day over. In my dream I’m not distracted by something else. I’m paying attention and I realize that Alden is in a mood and I keep Bo home. That’s all it would have taken. Something that simple. Just that one little decision. If—”

“Don’t,” he said, grasping her arms in his big hands. “You didn’t kill your child, Ivy. You weren’t driving,” he reiterated. “And your husband wasn’t listening to you.”

Ivy wanted nothing more than to listen to Noah, to lean into his big body and let him comfort her. He was right. She knew that. And yet he was wrong, too. When Bo had been born, she had promised herself that she would never do anything to hurt him. She had arrogantly believed that she was a much better mother than her own had been. And now she couldn’t trust herself. She could never risk having and losing a child again. How could anyone risk having that happen to them again?

Still, the incident today had changed things.

“I don’t want you to hide Lily anymore. This is her home, her ranch, her everything. I’ll be the one to make the adjustments. If our paths cross…well, I think I handled it okay today. I didn’t make her uncomfortable, did I?”

He smiled gently and tucked a finger beneath her chin. “You didn’t. She liked you.”

“How could you tell?”

“I just can. She talked to you. Usually she has to meet a person several times before her shy wears off.”

Ivy smiled a bit at that. “Well, I’d better get back to work. I take it that the dishwasher wasn’t really broken. That’s why Marta called me in.”

“Not broken, I don’t think. But I’ll check.” He turned to go.

“Noah?”

He turned back.

“Thank you.”

“What for?”

For not being angry that I have so much trouble being near your little sweetheart of a daughter. But there’d been too much emotion coursing through her this morning already. She’d been on the verge of throwing herself into his arms only moments ago. She needed to lighten things up.

“For going to the feed and seed and telling tales. I like Diane.”

“And you don’t mind the extra work after hours?”

“It won’t be work. And she’s only one woman.”

“Hmm,” he said.

“What does that mean?”