The Rancher Next Door

“I think you just like looking at me.”

The humour left Rebecca’s eyes. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

If Trevor hadn’t struck a nerve, she wouldn’t be half this upset. “Someone’s got to.”

She tossed her head. “You can leave anytime now.”

“Not,” Trevor continued, answering the challenge in her golden-brown eyes, “before I do this.”

She had time to get away. They both knew it. Even as they both realised she didn’t really think he would do it. And it was the dare that had him stepping forwards and wrapping an arm around her waist. He heard her soft gasp of surprise – and delight? – as he cupped his other hand beneath her chin and tipped her lips up to his.

The first contact was brief, like the flash of a sparkler.

“What was that for?” Rebecca asked, dazed.

“Blowed if I know,” he murmured, bending his head once again.

This book is dedicated to

Lukas Frederick Gerhardt, the “Third Musketeer,”

and the proof that wishes do come true.

Welcome to the family, little guy.

The joy you’ve brought us is indescribable.

And one more thing: if your two older brothers try to

give you the business…you give it right back…

CATHY GILLEN THACKER

married her school sweetheart and hasn’t had a dull moment since. Why? you ask. Well, there were three kids, various pets, any number of cars, several moves across the country, his and her careers and sundry other experiences (some of which were exciting and some of which weren’t). But mostly there was love and friendship and laughter, and lots of experiences she wouldn’t trade for the world.

Dear Reader,

All parents want their children to be happy and have a good life. For Texans Luke and Meg Carrigan, this means marriage and a family. They didn’t plan to become involved in their offspring’s romantic lives, but, after years of watching their three daughters and one son lose in love, Luke has decided to become more proactive, and Meg is reluctantly putting in her contribution, as well.

Rebecca Carrigan, arguably the most headstrong and independent of the lot, is the fi rst to get the full attention of her parents when she comes back to Laramie to start her own alpaca ranch.

Rebecca tells Trevor McCabe there is no way she is going to date him, no matter what her matchmaking parents have – or have not – arranged. That’s fine with Trevor – there is no way he is going to date Rebecca, either!

Unfortunately, life has a way of happening when Rebecca and Trevor are busy making other plans. Before they know it, their lives and fortunes are hopelessly entangled, and their emotions soon follow suit.

I hope you enjoy this book as much as I enjoyed writing it. For information on this and other books, please visit me at www.cathygillenthacker.com.

Best wishes,

Cathy Gillen Thacker

The Rancher Next Door

CATHY GILLEN THACKER

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Chapter One

“I take it you’ve heard the rumors,” Luke Carrigan said as he ushered Trevor McCabe into the study of his Laramie, Texas home.

Who in the county hadn’t?

Tired of his three daughters’ well-known aversion to commitment, Luke Carrigan had vowed to take a hand in introducing them all to “suitable” men, in what Trevor figured was a vain hope they would soon settle down and have families.

What was it about their parents’ generation, Trevor wondered, dropping down into the wing chair Luke indicated, that made them think marriage was essential to a person’s happiness? He was content living the single life, and saw no reason to change his own circumstances.

“Don’t worry, that’s not why you’re here,” Luke continued.

Trevor held back a sigh of relief.

Luke sat down behind his desk. “I did want to talk to you about Rebecca, though.”

Trevor tensed. Luke’s second-to-oldest child had been two years behind him in school. The two of them had nothing in common then—or now. He vaguely recalled Rebecca Carrigan as a rah-rah type who had always been busy organizing something.

“She has a tendency to go off on—well, let’s just call them tangents.”

Trevor didn’t know what Luke was getting at, but he was willing to hear the noted family physician out and settled more comfortably in his seat. “Last I heard Rebecca was in Asia.”

“Actually, she’s been all over the world with the tour company she worked for.”

Trevor shrugged his broad shoulders. “That’s one way to travel the globe.”

“Don’t get me wrong. I’m very proud of how hard Rebecca has worked since she graduated college. Even more delighted with the staggering amount of money she has saved in the past six years.” Luke paused and looked at Trevor, his eyes full of parental concern. “What worries me is what she plans to do with it.”

Trevor grimaced. “Dr. Carrigan, I really don’t think this is any of my business.”

“You may change your mind when you hear what my second-to-oldest daughter has planned.”

Trevor doubted it. Honorable men did not step in the middle of other families’ contretemps.

“You know that small ranch you’ve had your eye on?”

Trevor tensed at the mention of his neighbor to the west. The fifty-acre tract was definitely in his sights, along with the much larger property on the other side of it, The Circle Y. “I gather you’re talking about The Primrose?”

Luke dipped his head in acknowledgement. “Miss Mim is planning to sell it to Rebecca.”

Trevor swallowed a curse. His jaw set. “That can’t be right.” He and Miss Mim had an understanding.

“I’m afraid it is,” Luke replied. He didn’t sound happy.

Trevor forced himself to put emotion aside and think about this rationally. “Your daughter doesn’t have a background in ranching,” he pointed out. Growing up, she’d never been a member of any of the agricultural groups such as 4-H. She’d selected SMU instead of Texas A&M, where all the agricultural students went, for college.

Luke shrugged. “That won’t stop Rebecca. She wants The Primrose. She’s leveraging everything to get it. And that’s what has me so worried, the lengths to which she’s willing to go.” Luke paused before continuing. “I need someone who’s been there to talk some sense into her, make her realize that buying and starting up a ranching operation is no game. It’s grueling, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, work.”

And probably harder than anything she had ever done before, Trevor thought. He wondered how long it would take her to give up and sell out, like every other dilettante who had a romantic instead of practical view of the ranching life. Hell’s afire.

Trevor exhaled in slow deliberation. “What makes you think she would listen to me?”

“Nothing, except you’re her age and well respected in the ranching community.”

“Are you sure your daughter is planning to work the property? Or just reap the financial rewards? After all, Miss Mim has never actually managed it. She’s leased it out to me, and other ranchers who needed extra land to run their herd.” Trevor wouldn’t have a problem with Rebecca living “next door” if she continued the lease.

Luke tapped his fingers on his desk. “If the risky financial dealings she’s concocted with that San Angelo bank go through—and I have to tell you, right now it looks as if they will—Rebecca plans to breed alpacas.”

“Alpacas!” Trevor echoed, gripping the arms of the chair. “She plans to raise alpacas in the middle of cattle country?”

“That’s what she says unless someone can convince her otherwise. Which is why—” Luke leaned across his desk and looked Trevor straight in the eye “—since you’re going to be living right next door to her, I’ve summoned you.”

REBECCA CARRIGAN was just turning the corner onto the street where her parents lived when she saw Trevor McCabe driving away.

“I don’t believe it,” she muttered to herself as she squinted against the brilliant April sun. She had warned her father not to try and run her social life—or lack thereof— the previous evening, or interfere in her new career. Obviously, he hadn’t listened.

Which left her two choices. Ignore what she had just witnessed, wait patiently for Trevor McCabe to make his move and then shut him down.

Or give chase and set him straight.

Always one to take charge when opportunity presented itself, she drove past the big turn-of-the-century Cape Cod she, her two sisters and brother had grown up in, and followed the dark green, extended cab pickup truck through the center of town to the feed store.

Trevor McCabe parked his vehicle in front of the store, and before she could do the same, disappeared inside.

No matter, Rebecca decided, sliding her small yellow pickup truck into the last slot. She’d just follow him in and ask him to step out.

Keys in hand, leather carryall slung over her shoulder, she marched through the doors of the cavernous warehouse.

It was as busy as usual. Stacked sacks of feed took up the majority of space. The rest was occupied by shelves containing various home-veterinary supplies.

Half a dozen ranchers and hired hands stood at the cash register. Another five or six strolled the aisles, mulling over choices. In the middle of the action stood Trevor McCabe.

As always, Rebecca found the sight of the thirty-year-old rancher a little intimidating. It wasn’t just that he was tall—he had to be six foot four—and buff in the way that men were who made their living through physical endeavor. It was the tough-but-smart aura he exuded, the cynical I-dare-you-to-try-and-put-something-over-on-me gleam in his hazel eyes. He’d had the same confidence back in high school, and it had only grown more daunting since. Not that she was going to let that stop her. Rebecca stepped right in front of him and tapped the toe of her boot on the cement floor. “Could I have a word with you?”

Trevor tipped the brim of his stone-colored hat away from his forehead and looked her up and down.

“Sure.” He started to take her elbow.

Rebecca backed away. Suddenly, the thought of having a private conversation with this very grown-up version of Trevor McCabe seemed risky as all get out.

“Actually, I’d rather talk here,” Rebecca said.

Trevor’s lips compressed. “I don’t discuss my private business in public.”

No surprise there, given the fact that he probably didn’t want everyone in town to know her father had just tried to convince him to make a play for her.

“Well, that’s too bad because here and now is the only way we’re ever going to converse.” All Rebecca wanted to do was set the record straight. Let him know she was definitely not interested in him—romantically or any other way, no matter how ruggedly appealing he had grown up to be.

Their eyes met and held. Electricity sparked between them with all the unpredictability and danger of a downed power line. Rebecca caught her breath, deliberately held it. And prayed and hoped she would get what she wanted from him—a promise he would never meddle in her life, at her father’s behest, or for any other reason. Independence mattered to Rebecca. She wanted Trevor—as well as everyone else in town—to respect and believe in her the way her family never had.

For a second, Trevor seemed tempted to hear her out but something—maybe it was the eyes of all the men in the feed store—had him doing otherwise.

“I don’t think so.” Trevor turned away.

Gosh darn it. What had her father said to him?

Unwilling to give up on this quest, Rebecca stepped closer. When he refused to acknowledge her, she tapped his arm. “I mean it, Trevor McCabe. You and I really need to talk.”

His bicep flexing enough to get her to immediately drop her hand, he swung toward her once again. He spoke, carefully enunciating each and every word. “As I said, I don’t think here and now is a good idea. I’d be glad to meet you later, however.”

Rebecca just bet he would.

The sexual heat in his eyes said he wouldn’t waste any time putting the moves on her.

She curled her fingers into a fist, to stop their tingling.

Noting he wasn’t going to budge on this, and that everyone in the building was definitely staring at the two of them, she felt her temper getting the better of her, and snapped, “Fine, have it your way. I’ll do all the talking.” Rebecca pointed a trigger finger at the center of his chest. “And you, cowboy, can listen.”

His brow arched. All conversation in the feed store had died.

Trevor had just dared her to go on.

Feeling the temperature between them rise, Rebecca propped both her hands on her hips. Perspiration gathered at her temples, on the back of her neck, in the hollow between her breasts. “I don’t care what my father said to you.” She paused to let the emphatic words hang in the air. “I am not—I repeat not—going to date you.”

He stepped in closer. Amusement glimmered in his eyes. “Is that so?”

Feeling as if she had picked the wrong man to humiliate, even if it had been by his choice, not hers, Rebecca angled her chin higher. “You can bet your cattle ranch, it is.”

Trevor rocked back on his heels, ran the flat of his palm beneath his jaw. “Well, that’s interesting.”

His rumbling drawl sent shivers over her skin. “Why?”

“Because I hadn’t planned to ask.”

Deep male chuckles surrounded them.

To her dismay, Rebecca felt her cheeks turn a self-conscious pink. “Then why did you even go and see my dad,” she asked, “if you weren’t willing to be part of his plan to get all of his daughters married off?”

A plan that Luke had told her started with her, since she was the daughter currently in so much “trouble.” Why did her father have a problem with her running a ranch anyway?

“If you want to know why I was talking to your dad this morning, ask him,” Trevor said.

“I’m asking you!”

Resentment sparked in Trevor’s eyes. He hooked his thumbs through his belt loops and rocked forward on his toes. “Well that’s too bad,” he said, lowering his handsome face to hers, until they were nose to nose, “because what was said was strictly between me and your father.”

Rebecca rocked forward on her toes, too. “But it was about me. Wasn’t it?”

To her mounting aggravation, Trevor said nothing.

A discreet cough made them both turn their heads.

Rebecca caught sight of a well-dressed thirty-something cowboy she didn’t recognize, lingering in the doorway of the warehouse, listening and watching all that was going on. Everyone else was looking at him, too, in the same way, which meant he was not known to people in these parts. The handsome blond-haired hunk lifted a hand in greeting to one and all and headed in their direction.

The stranger smiled pleasantly. “If it were me, I’d tell you everything you needed and wanted to know, and then some.” He swept off his hat and waved it at the crowd. “Vince Owen,” he introduced himself to one and all. “Trevor and I went to college together.” Vince clapped a hand on Trevor’s shoulder, grabbed his hand and shook it heartily. “Good to see you, buddy.”

Trevor nodded, the expression in his eyes unreadable. “Vince.”

Vince Owen turned to Rebecca. Charm radiated from him like light from the sun, as his gaze fastened on her face. “And you’re…?”

Rebecca smiled, switched her keys to her left hand, and stuck out her right palm. “Rebecca Carrigan.”

Vince clasped it warmly. “Good to meet you, darlin’. If you need anything, I’m at your service. I just closed on a ranch in the area—The Circle Y. You heard of it?”

Aware that Trevor had gone stone-still with something akin to shock, Rebecca paused. Ignoring the man who had given her so much grief in so little time—what did she care what Trevor McCabe’s reaction to the news was anyway— she asked Vince, “It’s right next to The Primrose, isn’t it?”

He nodded. “And one ranch away from Trevor’s Wind Creek Ranch, although I could be his next-door neighbor if I can snap up The Primrose, too.”

“I doubt that will happen,” Rebecca said politely, not sure she should say more until the papers were actually signed by her and Miss Mim.

“I agree with Rebecca.” Trevor gave Vince Owen a long, steady look. “Last I heard, The Primrose wasn’t for sale.”

Which showed just how much Trevor knew, Rebecca thought, a tad guiltily. Miss Mim had told her Trevor’d had his eyes on her place, too, for quite some time now. But that was neither here nor there.

Deciding she had wasted enough time, she tightened her hand on the thick strap of her shoulder bag and took one last look at Trevor. “I meant what I said. I don’t care what bill of goods my father tried to sell you about me needing a man in my life, Trevor McCabe.” She ignored the chuckles of all the men gathered around them. “I’m fine as is,” she continued stubbornly, holding Trevor’s testy gaze with effort. “There won’t be any connection—any private talks—between the two of us. And I’m sorry if my father misled you otherwise.”

Trevor flashed her a grin that was more of a come-on than an expression of mirth.

“You don’t look sorry,” he remarked.

Knowing this wasn’t a conversation that she would ever have the last word in, Rebecca merely rolled her eyes, turned and walked away.

AS TREVOR EXPECTED, Rebecca Carrigan had only to leave the warehouse before Vince Owen whistled. “That is one gal who needs a man to tame her.”

Trevor had an idea what that would entail in Vince’s opinion. Seething, he swung around on the man who had dogged his every step since the first day they’d met on the Texas A&M campus.

Trevor had vowed never to get tangled up in any of Vince Owen’s cutthroat antics, no matter how much or how often he was baited. It had been a promise that had been easy to keep—until now. “Don’t talk about her that way.”

Vince offered the perverse smile Trevor had come to loathe. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were sweet on her.” Vince unclipped his BlackBerry from his belt and checked the screen, before hooking it back on his waist. “Not that it matters.” Vince regarded Trevor steadily, his sick need to compete with Trevor as obvious and as powerful as ever. “Rebecca Carrigan is going to be mine before the month is out.”

Trevor doubted Rebecca would fall for Vince’s practiced lines, no matter how avidly Vince courted her. Although Vince would never show the sleazy side of himself to Rebecca. To Rebecca, Vince would be all Texas charm and helpfulness. Like a chameleon, Vince had a talent for blending in—when he wanted to be inconspicuous. Right now, however, Vince’s compulsive competitiveness had exposed his arrogance. Instead of making the friends he ought to be, Vince was making a statement about his own superiority to all the other ranchers in the feed store. A mistake in a place like Laramie, where folks didn’t let anyone’s head get too big for his or her hat.

“I think Rebecca just might have something to say about that,” Trevor said casually, walking over to sign for the special bags of organically grown grain he had ordered for his calves.

Vince followed. He leaned against the sales counter. “Oh, I’ll make her happy,” Vince stated, loud enough for everyone to hear. He paused to let his words sink in. “And before I’m done, I’ll bet you I get a ring on her finger, too.” Vince turned to the other ranchers gathered around. He removed his wallet from his back pocket, withdrew two crisp one-hundred-dollar bills. “Any takers?”

It was all Trevor could do to hang on to his temper. “We don’t make bets on the women around here,” Trevor said.

Vince looked around, obviously disappointed no one else was reaching for their money.

With a slimy smile, Vince slid his wallet back in his pocket. “That’s too bad for me—although it’s probably smart on you all’s part, because I’m going to win this wager.” Vince tipped his hat, looked every man there in the eye and sauntered out.

“We don’t need that element around here,” Nevada Fontaine, the feed store owner, grumbled in Vince’s wake.

No kidding, Trevor thought.

“How’d you get to be associated with him anyway?” The farm equipment salesman, Parker Arnett, asked.

“We were both in the Aggie cattle management program at the same time.” As much as Trevor had tried, there had been no avoiding Vince Owen.

Vince had set his sights on Trevor early on, and competed viciously with him ever since.

“You don’t seem to be friends,” fellow rancher, and esteemed head of the local rancher’s association, Dave Sabado, remarked.

Nor would they ever be, Trevor thought, as everyone looked at him. Trevor knew this was his opportunity to tell everyone the whole sorry story. How ugly things had gotten before he landed the top honors of his program at A&M, how he’d lost the affection and respect of the only woman he had ever been serious about in his life, how he had figured once he graduated he could say good riddance to the fellow-ranching student who had made him a target of the unhealthiest competition Trevor had ever seen, only to find out the hard way that Vince Owen’s obsession with besting Trevor was never going to end.

Unfortunately, that meant he’d be trashing another man’s reputation in public and Trevor made it a policy never to do that. So he figured it best he keep his own considerable resentment to himself. The men here were smart enough not to fall prey to men of Vince Owen’s ilk, anyway. “Vince has a history of buying and selling increasingly bigger ranches. No doubt his purchase of the Circle Y Ranch is just a temporary thing. He’ll make some improvements, stay just long enough to sell it for a profit, and move on.”

“And meantime?” Nevada Fontaine asked, signaling some of his help over to begin loading the feed Trevor had just purchased into his pickup truck.

“I plan to do my best to steer clear of him,” Trevor said, with a shrug.

“What about Rebecca Carrigan?” Nevada asked.

“I’ll keep her away from him,” Trevor said. No way was Vince Owen hurting Rebecca the way he had hurt Jasmine.

“If she hears about the bet Vince Owen just tried to make…” Parker Arnett didn’t need to finish the thought.

“She won’t, as long as none of us tell her about it.” Trevor looked each and every one of the men who had witnessed the attempted wager, in the eye. “Agreed?”

Slowly, the others nodded.

“Good.” Trevor breathed a sigh of relief. “’Cause there’s no use hurting Rebecca’s feelings.” And no use in putting her in the middle of the continuing clash between him and Vince Owen. She’d have enough to deal with when she found out the ranch she wanted to buy was not for sale after all.

Chapter Two

“What do you mean you sold the ranch to Rebecca Carrigan?” Trevor McCabe said, an hour later. He stood in the living room of the Primrose Ranch house, watching Miss Mim pack up the last of her cherished travel guides and books. The community librarian and veteran traveler was like a second mother to all the kids in Laramie, maybe because she’d never married or had children of her own. Trevor had grown up knowing he could confide in her. “You and I had an understanding.”

Miss Mim handed him the dispenser of packing tape. As always, she was dressed in an outrageously colorful outfit that clashed with her flame-red hair. Moving more like a twenty-year-old than the sixty-eight-year-old woman she was, she patted him on the arm, then pointed to the box. “I think the ‘understanding’ was more on your part, dear, than mine.”

Trevor bent to line up the cardboard flaps. The tape made a ripping sound as it left the spool. “What do you mean?” he demanded, pressing the adhesive on the box with the flat of his palm.