One Man and a Baby

“All packed,” Tia announced, helping him hook the strap of the diaper bag on his left shoulder since Ruthie was nestled against his right. “I’ll see you in the morning. At four or so.”

He grimaced. “I’m really sorry about this.”

“Hey, it’s not a problem. Drew gets up when you do, so I do, too. Besides, as I said, I need the practice.”

Rick smiled his thanks and left his sister’s house. Ten minutes later he pulled his pickup in front of the guesthouse for Seven Hills Farms. Ruthie pounded her rattle on her car seat, which he had strapped onto the backseat of his extended cab, and Rick turned around.

“Didn’t we talk about this?”

She cooed and gurgled and Rick shook his head, then shoved his way out of his truck and opened the back door that gave him access to Ruthie. She slapped his nose with her rattle.

“Didn’t Daddy tell you that you have to keep down the noise?”

She tilted her head in question, as he lifted her from the car seat. Perching her on his left arm, he reached inside to loop his fingers through the strap of the diaper bag and yanked it out.

Making his way up the steps of the small porch to the front door, he glanced around at the little Cape Cod house, thinking how perfect it was for him and Ruthie. There were two bedrooms on the second floor, so they could sleep in the same general area and he could hear her when she cried in the middle of the night. Gene had shown him a cozy green kitchen filled with appliances, a living room furnished with a comfortable overstuffed sofa and chairs and a den where he could put his computer and network into the farm’s system to do the books. Best of all, it was far enough away from the farmhouse that no one could see or hear what he did. A side road veered off Seven Hills’s main access route and brought him to the secluded guesthouse. He didn’t even have to pass the Meljac residence to get home.

That was another thing that had fallen into place with this job. Being so far away from the main house, there was no danger Ashley Meljac would discover Ruthie. It was clear from their meeting that morning that Ashley would like nothing better than to be rid of him. But he wasn’t going anywhere. Gene Meljac hadn’t precisely said that he was retiring, but he was showing all the signs. This time next month Gene could call, find everything running smoothly without him and realize he didn’t need to run the farm anymore. Then this job with the perfect house, far enough out of civilization where a man really could keep a secret, would be his.

He wasn’t letting some born-to-shop Paris Hilton wannabe run him off. Especially since he was absolutely positive that once she saw the real work of managing a farm she’d turn up her nose and hightail it to the nearest mall.

In fact, now that Rick thought about it, by this time tomorrow he intended to have proven to Princess Ashley that she didn’t really want to run a farm at all.

Chapter Two

Rick only had to open three doors in the convoluted maze of halls in the upstairs of Gene Meljac’s sprawling home before he found Ashley’s bedroom.

He flicked a switch as he stepped inside, lighting the two lamps on her bedside tables. Those, unfortunately, illuminated a ten-foot-tall tufted white leather headboard that led to yard after yard of crinkled pink material that looped around to create a canopy. A pink rosebud bedspread covered the small lump he assumed was Ashley. At least twenty pillows of varying shapes and sizes—and shades of pink—were scattered about on the bed to cushion her every move.

He shook his head. Wow. He’d certainly pegged this one right.

“Come on, princess,” he said, grabbing the thick rosebud comforter and yanking it off.

He instantly regretted that. The sight that greeted him took his breath away, and he couldn’t stop his gaze from traveling from Ashley’s pink-tipped toes, up her bare long legs, to the pink fur-trimmed hem of her tiny pink nightgown with some kind of top that looked like a fur-trimmed bra.

He sucked in some air. He should have left the cover on. But it was too late now.

“Come on,” he said, grabbing her foot to pull her off the bed but she was so silky soft he couldn’t get a grip. His hand slid from her heel to her toe and she giggled.

“Stop that!” She nestled into her pillow. “And come back to bed.”

Rick’s mouth fell open in shock, but his libido instantly decided joining her was a fabulous idea. He nearly slapped himself for even considering it. Never in a million years would he again be interested in another woman accustomed to creature comforts. Ashley might not be so spoiled as to abandon a child in favor of trips to the Mediterranean the way Jen had, but she was obviously pampered. All he had to do was look at the multiple doors on the right-hand wall. They undoubtedly led to a closet, dressing room and private bath, most likely with a spa. This suite was bigger than any bedroom in his parents’ home. Hell, this suite was bigger than any apartment he’d lived in since he’d struck out on his own. He didn’t want anything to do with another woman who needed an entire room for her clothes.

“Get up!” he yelled, resisting the urge to smack her butt to get her moving. “You want to run the farm, fine. Then I’ll teach you to run the farm. But that means you have to get up!”

She shifted on the rosebud sheets. “What?”

“Today’s the day you start learning to run the farm, remember?”

Her eyes popped open. She bolted up in bed, saw him, glanced down at herself and screamed.

“No one’s here,” he said frantically searching the room until he found a frothy see-through pink thing that he assumed was the “cover-up” to her little pink nightie. He scooped it up and as he released it to toss it to her, the pink fur tickled his palm. His blood began to hum through his veins. Wild thoughts scampered through his brain. Luckily he was smart enough to ignore all of it.

“So screaming won’t do any good. Besides, I’m here to get you for work, not for what you apparently offered somebody last night.” He shook his head. “I’ll bet you have some dreams in that getup.”

She snatched her cover-up in midair. “My dreams are none of your concern.”

“Except your dream about running this farm.” He crossed his arms on his chest. No matter what his percolating hormones thought, he didn’t intend to deviate from his plan to get rid of her. Not even for the various and sundry fun and games that automatically sprang to mind just looking at that nightgown.

“Now get up.”

She tied the belt of the pointless robe. “In case you haven’t noticed, I am up.”

He looked at his watch. “Great. And only twenty minutes after everybody else is in the barn.”

She gaped at him. “What?”

“What do you think? Horses sleep until noon? Fat chance. Kiss your late nights goodbye, sweetheart.”

She drew a breath. “If farm managers have to get up at—” she peered at the digital clock on her bedside table “—four-thirty! Are you insane?” She jumped out of bed and stormed over to him.

Rick forced his eyes away from her legs only to find himself staring at her breasts, then the long column of her neck, then her blazing green eyes.

“I’ll get up at five.”

“All rightie, then. When your dad calls I’ll tell him you must not want to learn because you refuse to get up when everybody else does.” He turned and strode toward her bedroom door.

“You wouldn’t!”

He faced her again. “I would. You think a farm is a big game?” he asked, motioning around the room. “With your pretty pink foo-foo stuff all over the place? But most of us live and die by whether or not this farm makes money and while I’m here, it will.” With that he pivoted toward the door again. “You’re in the barn in ten minutes or I’ll be telling your dad.”

He left the room and Ashley fumed. Not because he threatened her but because he’d had the audacity to come into her room. She ripped off her cover-up as she marched into her walk-in closet and searched for a pair of jeans suitable for a day in the barn.

He hadn’t merely come into her room, he’d come in and pulled off her covers. She glanced down at her basically see-through nightgown and groaned. It would probably take less than five minutes for her fetish for pretty nighties to get around the barn. She’d just handed Rick Capriotti the ammunition he needed to keep her from gaining the respect of the hands.

Damn! This was not at all how she had pictured this morning would turn out. She hadn’t exactly seen herself arriving at the barn, shaking hands with Rick and giving everyone in the barn a pep talk. She hadn’t even imagined herself and Rick Capriotti getting along. But she had envisioned some sort of compromise. This farm was her home and her heritage and she wanted to run it with the grace and dignity of a well-bred Southern lady. But right at this very minute, Rick Capriotti was probably robbing her of that chance by telling everyone she wore a little pink nightie trimmed in fur that made her look like one of Santa’s off-season elves.

She took a breath, told herself not to panic and decided the only way to handle the gossip would be to meet it head-on. That was the lesson she’d learned when she came home after her marriage crumbled. For four long weeks every room she had walked into had suddenly gotten quiet. Then she had realized that if she would talk about her disastrous marriage, admit she lost half her trust fund and answer any questions, eventually the gossip would die, if only because the townspeople would have nothing to speculate about. They would know everything.

So, she’d spilled her guts to Ellen Johnson, wife of the diner owner, who usually acted as hostess, and it worked like a charm. Within a week, everybody knew her story, and bored because there were no unanswered questions, they moved on to the next gossip topic.

And that was exactly how she’d handle the nightie scandal. She would address it head-on.

Ten minutes later she was in the main barn, striding down the cement aisle that separated the two long rows of stalls. When she stepped into the office, Rick glanced at her, looked at his watch, then smiled. “You had thirty seconds to spare.”

Not about to be baited, she returned his smile. “I didn’t shower.”

“Most of us don’t before a day of mucking stalls.”

Her pretty smile collapsed. “Mucking stalls!”

“What? You think you’re going to start at the top?”

“I am the top! I own this farm.”

“Let’s get something straight. Your dad owns the farm or I wouldn’t be here and you wouldn’t be putting up with me.”

Toby Ford walked into the office, carrying the morning paper and a cup of store-bought coffee, and wearing a flat tweed cap that made him look like the epitome of the English gentleman that he was. Though he was close to forty, his boyish face and rakish charm reminded Ashley of someone her own age.

“Morning, Miz Meljac,” he said, taking off his hat, and not meeting her gaze. From his awkwardness Ashley guessed Toby was the first person Rick had told about her nightgown, and the place she’d have to start with damage control.

She straightened her shoulders. “No need to be so formal, Toby, since it’s clear you probably know more about me this morning than you knew this time yesterday.”

Toby peeked at her. “Excuse me?”

“Oh come on, now. If we’re all going to work together, we might as well be honest.”

“About what?” Toby’s eyes widened.

Ashley glanced from Toby to Rick, who was smirking, and then back to Toby again. “He didn’t tell you anything…about…well, this morning?”

“I just got here,” Toby replied at the same time that Rick said, “A gentleman doesn’t tell what he sees in a lady’s bedroom.”

Ashley’s eyes narrowed.

This time when she spoke she had to ungrit her teeth. “Mr. Capriotti felt it was okay to come into my bedroom to wake me this morning.”

Leaning back on the old-fashioned wooden office chair that sat behind the gunmetal-gray desk, Rick linked his hands behind his neck. “Let me ask you something, Toby. If you had a laborer who wasn’t on time for work, what would you do?”

Toby shrugged. “Fire him.”

“My point exactly.” Rick turned his gaze on Ashley. “So you had a choice, sunshine. Get your butt down to this barn or get fired. Since I suspected you didn’t know that rule, I did you a favor by waking you.”

He rose. “Let’s go get you set up to do some mucking.”

“Mucking?” Toby gasped.

“Sure.” Rick smiled at Toby. “Isn’t that how you started most hands when they came to that big farm you ran in England?”

“Well, yes.”

“But I’m not really starting here,” Ashley said, turning her smile on Toby. “Right, Toby? I’ve been around my whole life.”

“Yet, you’ve never mucked a stall,” Rick said.

She took a breath. “No. But I’m fairly certain I have the principle down pat.”

“You probably do,” Rick agreed. “But if you really want to become the boss over people who have been here for the decades you were only riding the horses they cared for, you have to let them see that you don’t think you’re better than they are. That you understand what it’s like to work.”

She held his gaze. More than anything else she wanted her workers’ respect. They would become like family to her, if only because they would be the people she spent the most time with. She needed what Rick was offering her. The chance to prove she believed they were all equal. Family.

He was right. She had to do this.

“Let’s go.”

Ashley wasn’t in the shower until six o’clock that night. The hot water that sluiced over her was like a soothing balm to muscles that ached from the strain of manual labor.

She pressed her face into the steady stream of hot water. Even her cheeks were tired. Her hair smelled like manure. Her legs were so overworked that her thighs quivered. Her hands had blisters.

She looked down and tears filled her eyes. Her hands had blisters. Real blisters. No matter how much she had enjoyed the camaraderie of the farmhands with whom she worked, she couldn’t muck stalls again tomorrow. Not unless she wanted to get blisters on top of her blisters and she did not. Somehow or another she had to get out of mucking tomorrow without giving the employees the impression she thought she was better than they were. Because if she couldn’t she might as well quit…

She squeezed her eyes shut and groaned. That was what Rick wanted. He wanted her to quit! It made sense that he would be trying to get her to give up before she was trained so that when her dad came home in February he’d be the only one in the running for her job.

With water sluicing over from her hair to her neck and aching shoulders, she realized that even if it wasn’t Rick’s intention to get her to quit, he would still win when her dad came home. If he kept her mucking stalls instead of involved in what she needed to learn, he would remain the better choice to run the farm when her dad’s fixation with sailing turned into full-blown retirement next summer. Because she knew it would. She’d already accepted that her dad had moved on. Officially retiring was just the next step. He might come home in February after this three-month sailing excursion, but when he did, she suspected it would only be to pick a replacement.

And that meant there was no way she could let Rick win.

She stepped out of the shower, toweled off, blew her hair dry and brushed her teeth. But instead of sliding into the pair of pink silk pajamas—long pants and a shirt in case Rick decided to wake her again—that she’d laid out on the bed, she marched to her dresser and grabbed a pair of jeans and a clean chambray shirt. She pulled on socks and boots and even got out one of her old cowboy hats, deciding that it couldn’t hurt to look the part of the job she wanted, then she ran downstairs and out the back door to her SUV.

It was only about a quarter mile to the guesthouse. On a day when her legs weren’t still rubbery from exertion, she probably would have walked. But in order to assure that she didn’t crumble on Rick’s doorstep, Ashley drove, pulling her SUV beside his extended cab pickup, then dragging herself up the three steps to the wood plank porch.

A screen door protected the open front door of the living room. The glow from one of the end table lamps provided enough light that she could see no one was on the floral sofa. There appeared to be a lot of “stuff” on the floor, but nobody around.

She glanced down the hall and noticed the kitchen light was on and decided somebody had to be inside. Mustering energy she absolutely didn’t have, she lifted her hand to the door and rapped twice.

No one answered.

“Rick?” she called through the open screen.

No answer.

She knew he was in there. Only an idiot left a house with so many lights on. She frowned. Or maybe he was on the back porch?

Not about to walk down the three porch steps, around the front of the house to the side and down the length of the house to get to the back porch on her shaky, achy legs, she opened the door, stepped into the living room and nearly tripped over a little chair.

She peered down at it and frowned. It looked like a baby seat of some sort. One of those carrier things? Maybe a car seat?

Confused, she stooped down to examine it more closely and two seconds later she heard the sound of feet pounding down the steps. She glanced up to see Rick frozen about midway on the staircase.

Their gazes caught and held. The shadow of beard on his chin and cheeks said he hadn’t yet had time to shave, but his clean jeans and shirt, and slicked-back wet hair said he’d showered.

“I thought this house was mine, for my use.”

Ashley took a breath and rose. “It is. I’m sorry. I saw the lights and assumed you were home.”

He finished his walk down the stairs. “If you’ve come here to tell me that you’re done playing farmhand,” he said, scooping up the chair Ashley was now positive was some sort of baby chair and tossing it behind the overstuffed green sofa in the corner of the room. “Then I’m okay with you just walking into my house. If not—”

“If not what?” she asked, her eyes narrowing. “I seem to remember you coming straight into my bedroom this morning, without my permission, when there were no lights on…oh, and, in a house you don’t own.”

His face hardened. “You might own this one, princess, but you assigned it to me. It’s just like a rental. You can’t come in without my permission.”

“And you can’t come into my bedroom without my permission.”

He crossed his arms on his chest. “So, I guess we’ll just call it even?”

She smiled and strolled over to the floral sofa. “I don’t think so,” she said, pulling the baby seat from behind it. “What’s this?”

He didn’t say anything.

She held it up to inspect it. “I’m not a genius. I’m not even a woman who’s particularly familiar with babies, but I’m guessing this belongs to a baby.”

He still said nothing.

“And if you didn’t have a baby around here somewhere, right now you’d be saying something. Anything. Like maybe, yeah, it’s a baby seat. I bought it for my sister Tia for when her baby is born.”

“It’s a baby carrier. I bought it for my sister Tia.”

She smiled. “Too late. Too, too, late.” She took a breath, glanced at the seat again. “So where is she?”

“She?”

“I know it’s a girl.” She pulled a tiny hair clip from a fold in the plastic padding of seat. “There’s no way in hell you’d put one of these on a boy.”

“She’s upstairs.”

Ashley’s aching muscles all but cheered with relief. “So, you and I are about to start a little bargaining session.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Oh, I do. The very fact that you slid this chair behind the sofa like I was some sort of ninny who would forget she saw it if you got it out of my sight, proves that you’re hiding your child.” She paused, tilted her head. “It is your child, right?”

He said nothing.

“You know,” she said, walking around Rick as if he were a thoroughbred at an auction. “I’m not that good at ferreting out information, but I bet if I called Rayne Fegan and I told her you had a baby in here, she could figure it all out.”

“Don’t.”

“So we are bargaining.”

“What do you want?”

“I don’t want to have to muck out stalls.”

“Your job can’t be on the table.”

“My job is the only thing I want on the table!”

“Forget it. If you really do get to be manager of Seven Hills, the people who work for you have to see you don’t think you’re above them.”

“Nice try, but one day of sweating and making friends with the staff got that point across. If you keep me mucking any longer I’ll know you’re just doing it so you don’t have to teach me the things I need to know.”

He shook his head in disgust. “Your dad told me he wanted you trained. Putting you through the paces is my first responsibility, whether you like what I do or not. If you really want to lead, you have to understand the people who work for you, how tired they get so you can balance their workloads.”

“So you weren’t avoiding training me?”

“No. What I was really doing was throwing you into the fire. If anything I expected you to accuse me of trying to get you to quit.”

Her eyes narrowed. That had crossed her mind. “Were you trying to get me to quit?”

“I don’t think there’s any trying about it. If you’re not cut out for the job, the work will force you out on its own.”

“If I hadn’t found this bargaining chip it might have.”

He said nothing and Ashley laughed. “I’ve got you and it’s really fun.” She tilted her head, thinking, then added, “The only thing I can’t figure out is why you need to hide a baby.”

“Because my dad’s election is in two weeks and Ruthie’s mother abandoned her. I don’t want my mistake to hurt my dad’s campaign.”

“Not buying it. Even if your baby’s illegitimate, single parent babies aren’t really big news anymore. Your having a baby wouldn’t hurt your dad’s election.”

Rick said nothing and Ashley sighed. “Okay. Here’s the deal. I don’t want you gone. I need you to teach me. But I can’t have you hiding at Seven Hills if you kidnapped that baby or something. You have to come clean with me.”

When Rick again didn’t answer, Ashley shook her head in disgust. “I guess this means you’re leaving.”

“I’m not leaving. Your dad hired me to do a job and I intend to do it.”

“Then I’m back to asking Rayne Fegan to look for the truth.”

“Can’t you just let this alone?”

“No, for all I know you’ve got Britney Spears’s baby in my guest house. I cannot let this alone. If you won’t leave, or tell me the truth, I’ll have no choice but to call Rayne.”

He drew in a ragged breath. “Ruthie’s mother is Senator Paul Martin’s daughter.”

“Oh!” Ashley said, picturing the gorgeous young woman who loved to get her face in the paper, flaunting her lifestyle to embarrass her popular, well-loved, conservative dad. “You and Jen Martin were…” She stopped and stared at Rick.

His face hardened. “Can’t see her with somebody like me?”

Quite the contrary. Ashley could easily see what Jen Martin saw in Rick. He was sexy. No. He wasn’t just sexy. He dripped sex appeal. Piercing blue eyes. Rippling muscles from real work, not hours at a gym. An attitude that all but screamed trouble. Yeah. She knew exactly what Jen saw in Rick. She just couldn’t quite see what Rick had seen in Jen.

“You tell Rayne I have a baby and it will take her about ten minutes to discover that Senator Martin’s daughter not only had a baby that she kept secret, but she also abandoned her. Then it won’t be me or Jen who suffers, it will be my daughter whose face will be splattered on front pages all over the country by people trying to unseat Senator Martin.”

Knowing he was right, and that this situation was more complicated than just a bargaining chip in their fight for a job, Ashley paced away from him. But before she could say anything, a cry issued from upstairs.