The Ultimate Texas Bachelor

Brad leaned toward her intimately, looking sexy as hell. Every bit the intimidating bachelor he’d been on TV. “Maybe that’s the problem," he returned, grasping her by the shoulders. “Whenever I’ve kissed someone, it’s never once meant anything close to what it should.”

“What are you trying to say?” Lainey murmured, wishing she didn’t recall quite so vividly how passionately he’d kissed, or how tenderly he’d held her in his arms.

His gaze drifted over her. “It’s high time my kisses did mean something.”

He took her into his arms and kissed her deeply. She clung to him, kissing him back. Sensations swirled through her as his hands moved down her spine, working their magic.

The kiss turned sweeter, more tender. “Brad…we really shouldn’t do—”

“Do what?” he prompted lazily, kissing her again.

“This,” Lainey said, kissing him back.

When he finally let her go, she was so dizzy she could barely stand.

Dear Reader,

There is fiction, and there is real life, and when the two come together these days it is called “reality TV.” Like many of you, I have watched programs dealing with survival, business and home decorating. But it’s the programs about romance that fascinate me the most. Can someone really find the love of their life on a semiscripted TV show? Or is it all about the money and achieving fifteen minutes of fame?

I don’t know the answer to those questions, but I do know it was a heck of a lot of fun creating my own reality television show, Bachelor Bliss, and imagining what would happen if the ultimate Texas cowboy/ladies’ man, Brad McCabe, somehow got roped into signing up to appear on one.

I figured he wouldn’t find romance there. That would come later—after the experience of chasing fame and fortune had wreaked havoc on his life.

And I knew it wouldn’t be easy, either. True love never is. Which is why I paired Brad with an old high school classmate he had barely known existed. Someone with ambition of her own—journalistic ambition. For a private guy like Brad, that’s a worst-case scenario.

How did it all end? Well, to find that out, you’ll have to turn the page….

I hope you enjoy reading this romantic comedy as much as I enjoyed writing it. If you’d like to know more about this and other books, I invite you to visit my Web site at www.cathygillenthacker.com.

Happy reading!

Cathy Gillen Thacker

The Ultimate Texas Bachelor

Cathy Gillen Thacker

MILLS & BOON

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This book is dedicated to Joshua Douglas Gerhardt,

ultimate flirt and total heartbreaker.

Welcome to the family, little one.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Epilogue

Chapter One

“Come on, Lainey. Have a heart! You can’t leave us like this!” Lewis McCabe declared as he pushed his eyeglasses farther up on the bridge of his nose.

Aside from the fact she was here under false pretenses—which she had quickly decided she couldn’t go through with, anyway—Lainey Carrington didn’t see how she could stay, either. The Lazy M ranch house looked like a college dorm room had exploded on moving day. Lewis needed a lot more than the live-in housekeeper he had been advertising for, to bring order to this mess.

Lainey studied the nerdiest—and most technologically brilliant—of Sam and Kate McCabe’s five grown sons and wondered how anyone so rich could still be so out of step with popular culture. Where had he gotten those clothes, anyway? From some 1980s-style shop?

“What do you mean us?” she asked suspiciously. Was Lewis married? If so, she hadn’t heard about it, but then her knowledge was spotty at best since she hadn’t actually lived in Laramie, Texas, since she left home for college ten years ago.

The door behind Lainey opened. She turned—and darn near fainted at the sight of the man she had secretly come here to track down.

Not that she had expected the six-foot-three cowboy, with the ruggedly handsome face and to-die-for body to actually be here. She had just hoped that Lewis would give her a clue where to look, so that she might help her friend Sybil Devine hunt the elusive Brad McCabe down and scrutinize the sexy Casanova celebrity in person.

“Brad, of course, who happens to be my business partner,” Lewis McCabe explained.

“Actually, I’m more of a ranch manager,” Brad McCabe corrected grimly, shooting an aggravated look at his younger brother. He knocked some of the mud off his scuffed, brown leather boots, then stepped into the interior of the sprawling half-century-old ranch house. “And I thought we had an agreement, Lewis, that you’d let me know when we were going to have company so I could avoid running into ’em.”

Lewis shot Lainey an apologetic glance. “Don’t mind him. He’s been in a bad mood ever since he got done filming that reality TV show.”

Lainey took the opportunity to gather a little background research. “Guess that didn’t exactly have the happily-ever-after ending everyone expected it to have,” she observed.

Brad’s jaw set. Clearly, he did not want her sympathy. “You saw it?”

Obviously he wished she hadn’t. Lainey shrugged, not about to admit just how riveted she’d been by the sight of Brad McCabe on her television screen. “I think everyone who knows you did.”

“Not to mention most of America,” Lewis chimed in.

Bachelor Bliss had pulled in very high ratings, especially at the end, when it had taken an unexpected twist. Which wasn’t surprising, given how sexy Brad had looked walking out of the ocean in a pair of swim trunks that had left very little to the imagination. He’d been equally appealing on the back of a horse, riding into the mountains at sunset, or dressed in a tuxedo while enjoying a night on the town.

The only thing she hadn’t liked was the sight of him kissing one pretty woman after another…and he had done an awful lot of that.

“You shouldn’t have wasted your time watching such bull,” Brad muttered, his scowl deepening as his voice dropped a self-deprecating notch. “And I know I shouldn’t have wasted mine filming it.”

Lainey agreed with him wholeheartedly there. Going on an artificially romantic TV show was no way to find a mate. “For what it’s worth, I don’t think they did right by you,” Lainey said.

Brad’s brow arched as if he dared her to go on.

Lainey gulped but held her ground. “The way they depicted you was not very flattering,” she continued bravely, knowing that if she was going to convince him to open up to her, he was first going to have to realize she did indeed believe he had gotten a raw deal. And more importantly, that she wanted him to be able to tell his side of things. Which, to date, he had not done.

“Gee.” His gaze clashed with hers. “You think?”

“I agree,” Lewis put in genially, seeming not to notice the sparks arcing between Brad and Lainey. “Those producers did make you look like a womanizing jerk with the attention span of a flea.”

Brad folded his arms over his chest, frustration coming off him in waves. “Maybe I am a womanizing jerk with the attention span of a flea,” he said.

Somehow, Lainey didn’t think so. For one thing, the McCabes—who were known for their honesty and integrity—would never have let him get away with that in real life. She knew he’d tried it as a kid, shortly after his family moved to Laramie, Texas, and had gotten reined in quickly, both by family and by the girls he had triple-timed. And for another thing, Brad had not appeared to be enjoying himself on the TV show as he tried to decide which of fifteen eligible women to take as his bride. Instead, he had seemed…impatient with the entire process. Restless. Except when with Yvonne Rathbone, the flame-haired beauty he had eventually paired up with. Then, he had seemed genuinely lovestruck. Until the end, anyway.

“And maybe you’re not,” Lainey countered calmly.

Not that her opinion was widely shared. Thanks to the brouhaha that had followed the finale of the eight Bachelor Bliss episodes featuring Brad McCabe, he had been a fixture in gossip columns and celebrity magazines. Everyone wanted to know why Brad had done what he had, but Brad wasn’t talking—at least not to the press.

And thus far, those close to him weren’t talking, either.

It was Lainey’s task to see what she could do about changing that, and letting the whole truth and nothing but the truth finally be known. Not that it looked to be easy.

She had heard from mutual acquaintances that Brad McCabe’s experience as the sought-after bachelor on Bachelor Bliss had turned him not just into persona non grata where the entire viewing public was concerned, but also into a hardened cynic. Judging by the scowl on his face and the unwelcoming light in his eyes as he swept off his straw cowboy hat and ran his fingers through his gleaming dark brown hair, that assumption seemed to be true.

The Brad McCabe that Lainey recalled from her youth had been two years ahead of her in school, cheerful and charming as could be. He had been more city kid than cowboy back then. Full of charm and life, always ready with a wink and a smile and a witty remark.

Now, he appeared ready to bite her head off. His brother’s, too, as Brad surveyed them both with shadowed, sable-brown eyes.

Lainey swallowed hard and tried not to notice how nicely the blue chambray shirt hugged his broad shoulders and molded to the sculpted muscles of his chest, before disappearing beneath the waistband of his worn, dark blue denim jeans.

“Not that I expected to see you out here, in any case,” Lainey continued truthfully, forcing her eyes away from his rodeo belt buckle and gazing back up at his face. “Since word is you’ve been hiding out from just about everyone.”

“I’m not hiding.” Brad looked ready to kick some Texas butt. Hers, specifically. “I’m getting on with my life. And there are plenty of people in Laramie who know exactly where to find me.”

Lainey shrugged as another shimmer of awareness sifted through her, weakening her knees. “The press can’t seem to locate you.”

“And that’s exactly the way it’s going to stay,” Brad enunciated clearly, looking deep into her eyes. “I have nothing to say to them.”

Which was a problem as far as Lainey was concerned, as she was currently trying to fulfill her long-held dream of becoming a reporter.

“Brad figures too much has been said about him as it is,” Lewis confided to Lainey. Lewis tried to adapt some of his older brother’s inherent cool as he slouched against a low wall of moving boxes, but instead he knocked several over. They tumbled to the scuffed wooden floor with a clatter. Lewis scrambled to pick them up while Brad, shaking his head in silent exasperation, leaned forward lazily to lend a hand. “The past is over,” Lewis continued. “He’s looking toward the future. Which is why he agreed to start up this ranch with me—”

“You have to pay in half to be a partner,” Brad interrupted, looking irritated again. “I haven’t done that. Therefore I’m the ranch manager.” Brad turned back to Lainey. He looked her up and down suspiciously, from the top of her carefully coiffed chin-length blond hair, to her casual suede slides. “And you are…?”

It shouldn’t have surprised Lainey Carrington that Brad McCabe didn’t recognize her. Brad was two years older than she was. It had been a good ten years since they had run into each other in the halls of Laramie High School. And she hadn’t been back to Laramie much in the last couple of years since her parents died.

She touched the strand of pearls around her neck. Wishing for some odd reason that she was wearing something other than the demure, pale blue sweater set and knee-length khaki skirt, she smiled. “I’m Lainey Carrington.”

To Lainey’s frustration, Brad still had no clue.

“When I was in high school I was known as Lainey Wilson,” Lainey explained. “Greta Wilson McCabe, who runs the Lone Star Dance Hall—”

“Our aunt by marriage.” Lewis beamed.

“Right.” Lainey nodded. “Well, Greta’s my cousin.”

“Lainey was one of the princesses on the Homecoming Court, when she was a senior and I was a freshman,” Lewis explained. “I remember because the dress you wore for the parade…”

Had caused quite a scandal. Lainey felt herself flush bright pink.

Brad looked at Lewis and lifted a brow, waiting for him to finish.

Lewis started stammering and staring at the toes of his Birkenstock sandals. Obviously, he wished he had never started the story.

Figuring she might as well own up to it—Brad McCabe was going to hear all about it later anyway—Lainey put in dryly, “Suffice it to say, the dress I chose for the festivities was a little too ‘adult’ for the occasion.” She had picked it up at a secondhand shop in nearby San Angelo that was run by the Junior League. The black velvet dress had been beautiful, no doubt about it, and at ten dollars, quite a steal. But the plunging neckline, short clinging skirt and five-inch stiletto heels had been more suited for a sophisticated cocktail party than a high-school football game.

Lainey had known this, of course, even as she had accepted a dare from her friends to wear it. She had worked to disguise the deep V neckline, front and back, with an embroidered white-and-black silky evening wrap that she had worn with movie-star grandeur. Until a strong gust of Texas wind had ripped it off her shoulders and under the wheels of the junior-class float behind her.

And there she had been, her décolletage exposed nearly to the waist for all the world to see. A terribly embarrassed Lainey had had no choice but to finish the parade, sans wrap. When the floats had reached the stadium, the entire Homecoming Court had been whisked off the backs of their borrowed convertibles and onto the football field for the crowning ceremony during the pre-game festivities. The principal, seeing Lainey being walked across the field by a gawking football player, had been apoplectic, as had many of the other parents, at the amount of cleavage exposed. Lainey’s equally ostentatiously dressed mother was the only one who hadn’t thought it a big deal.

“You got suspended for violating the school dress code, didn’t you?” Lewis asked.

Lainey nodded, her humiliation complete. She hadn’t thought about any of this since Chip Carrington had taken her under his wing and made sure she knew what suitable attire was. Ten years had passed and she’d never worn anything the slightest bit risqué since.

Brad threaded his way through the boxes and furniture stacked here and there, and made his way into the kitchen. He pulled a soda can out of the refrigerator, seemed to think about offering one to Lainey, then didn’t. Probably, she figured, because he didn’t want to give her an excuse to linger.

She watched as he popped the top.

Wordlessly, Lewis walked over to the fridge and got out two cans of blackberry-flavored soda. Lewis brought one back to Lainey, still talking to Brad over his shoulder. “The reason you probably don’t recall any of this is that you had already graduated from Laramie High School two years before, and gone on to…well…”

“Flunk out of college,” Brad said, finishing yet another sentence Lewis never should have started.

Visibly embarrassed, Lewis pushed his glasses up on his nose again. He shoved a hand through his spiky, light brown hair. “Yeah. Guess you two have that in common, since you both were always in trouble back then.”

Only because she hadn’t had the guidance she needed, Lainey thought resentfully. “Well, not anymore,” she said firmly. “I have an eight-year-old son now.” She was a pillar of the community in the Highland Park area of Dallas. Or at least she had been, until she had agreed to drive out to the Lazy M Ranch, to see what she could find out for her friend, Sybil.

Brad and Lewis both glanced at her left hand, checking out the wedding and engagement rings she had recently stopped wearing. “I lost my husband, Chip Carrington, two years ago.”

“Sorry to hear that,” Lewis said.

Lainey nodded, even as she noticed the flash of sympathy in Brad’s eyes that disappeared almost as quickly as it had appeared.

“That why you’re looking for a job as a housekeeper?” Brad asked with a look of utter male supremacy.

Lainey didn’t even want to consider what her blue-blooded in-laws, Bunny and Bart Carrington, would think about her taking a position as a domestic. Financially, she didn’t need to, thanks to Chip’s trust fund. Emotionally, intellectually…well, that was something else. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could go on living a life that didn’t even feel like her own. There were too many hours in a day, not nearly enough for her to do—and with her son, Petey, needing her less and less… Not that loneliness and boredom were any excuse for what Sybil had asked her to do, or offered in return, Lainey chided herself. Even if such action was the gateway to the career she had always yearned for and had never had the opportunity to go for. At least not yet.

Aware Brad was waiting for her answer, she said, “I’m not here to apply for a job.”

Suspicion hardened the ruggedly handsome features on Brad’s face. “Then what are you doing all the way out here?”

Sybil had been right—this man had turned into quite a handful. “I was on my way back from Laramie and heard Lewis had bought a ranch out here. So I thought I would stop by and say hello.”

“And yet you two were never friends,” Brad stated suspiciously.

Lewis glowered at Brad, then turned back to Lainey. “I’m glad you stopped by and I’d be even happier if you’d agree to help me out here. Forget him.” Lewis indicated Brad with a telling glare.

Brad stepped between Lainey and Lewis. He gave Lainey a slow, deliberate once-over that had Lainey’s pulse racing before addressing Lewis again. “I’m merely pointing out I think it’s mighty peculiar that Lainey here stopped by out of the blue. After what? Some ten years or so?”

“What are you insinuating?” Lainey asked coolly, her soda halfway to her mouth, not sure whether she was angrier with Brad or herself for getting into this predicament. Surely there was an easier story she could have started with to jump-start her career!

Brad flashed her a crocodile smile that didn’t begin to reach his battle-hardened eyes. “That Lewis is not what you are in search of.”

BRAD HAD BEEN HOPING—in direct contradiction to the knot in his gut—that Lainey Carrington’s sudden appearance at the Lazy M had been innocent in nature. The look on her face, when he voiced his suspicion, told him it was anything but.

Yet another female he couldn’t trust.

Why did that surprise him?

Was it her angelic beauty that had him wanting to believe he could trust her? Her fair, perfect skin and the ripe peach hue blushing across her high, elegant cheeks? The silky cap of neatly arranged honey-blond hair around her oval face? The straightness of her pert, slender nose and the determined set of her feminine chin? Or was it the enticing curve of her bow-shaped lips and the warmth in her long-lashed, forest green eyes? Brad couldn’t say for sure what it was that attracted him to her so fiercely. All he knew was that he had been around beautiful women all his life and been chased by more than he could count, but none had stopped him dead in his tracks the way Lainey Wilson Carrington had. None had made his heart stall in his chest, to the point he felt frozen in time. Like this moment was something he would always remember.

Which was maybe why he should continue giving her a hard time. To keep the walls up and prevent himself from succumbing to such cornball sentiment. Brad gave her his kick-butt glare. “I’m still waiting for that explanation.”

“Maybe you should back off,” Lewis said, looking ready to rumble for the first time Brad could remember. That didn’t surprise Brad—something about Lainey, some inherent sense of vulnerability, had brought out the knight in him, too, before he had come to his senses.

Lainey turned to Lewis with a reassuring smile. “I don’t mind explaining what brought me here.” She drew a breath and turned back to Brad. “I stopped by because I wanted to talk to Lewis about the computer-software video games his company puts out. I heard some of the companies used kids to focus-test new products before they are actually marketed and that Lewis had built a new facility in Laramie for his company, McCabe Computer Games. I wanted to know if it would be possible to have my eight-year-old son, Petey, participate in a trial of a new computer game. I thought it might be a fun thing for him to do this summer while school is out. But when I arrived and saw the chaos, and realized Lewis was in the process of interviewing household managers, I knew that it wasn’t a good time to be stopping by after all.”

Brad’s gut told him that as truthful as Lainey was obviously trying to be, she was also leaving out some mighty important parts. The deliberate omissions were what concerned him most. “And you have no interest whatsoever in me,” Brad surmised.

The color on her cheeks deepened self-consciously, even as her chin lifted a challenging notch. “Why on earth would I be interested in you?”

Brad answered her with a lazy shrug. “The same reason everyone else in America is. Because I am the villain du jour.”

Lewis added, “You wouldn’t believe how many people—folks the family hasn’t heard from in years—have called up, wanting the inside scoop on what happened with Brad on that TV show.”

Lainey flushed and didn’t meet Brad’s probing gaze. Another sign, Brad thought, that she was nosy as charged.

Lainey defended herself with an indignant toss of her head. “Believe me, I had no idea you were out here, Brad McCabe. Never mind in such a cantankerous mood!”

Not one to take an insult lying down, Brad narrowed his eyes at her. “What is that supposed to mean?” he demanded.

Lainey glared at him, sipped her drink, and didn’t reply.

“I think that’s pretty clear.” Lewis stepped between Brad and Lainey. “She’s telling you that you’re rude.”

Brad wasn’t about to apologize for that, darn it all. “I don’t want company,” he announced bluntly. Hers or anyone else’s.”

Lewis arched his brow. “Fine by me. Then leave. ’Cause I want to talk Lainey into helping me out here.”

Lainey sighed and tore her gaze from Brad’s. “I told you, Lewis. I am not in the market for a job as a housekeeper. I need to be at home with my son this summer.”

Lewis was undaunted. “Your son could come to work with you. Test out new games here at the ranch and at my company’s new facility in Laramie. He’d have a blast!”

It was all Brad could do not to groan as Lainey hesitated, clearly tempted.

“I’m not asking for much. I just need help getting settled,” Lewis continued persuasively. “All of my stuff unpacked and organized, along with Brad’s.”