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www.millsandboon.co.uk
For my parents,
Gordon and Lynn Nelson
Contents
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Epilogue
One
“Curly, get your fanny over here pronto! I need you.”
Sam Preston’s ominous words echoed in her head as Roni Daniels floored the accelerator of her aging Jeep and bounced over the cattle gap leading into the Lazy Diamond Ranch. Gravel spewed, and she grappled white-knuckled at the steering wheel, trying to focus sleep-blurred eyes on the narrow track. The cool April air of a Texas midnight blew her dark curls into a wild tangle, and she cursed the rancher for jarring her out of a sound sleep, for making her forget her usual hair clip and for hanging up before explaining what disaster prompted his preemptory phone call.
But in this part of Texas, when a neighbor hollered in the middle of the night, a real friend didn’t stop to ask questions. A real friend came a-running. Pronto.
Roni braked to a stop in front of the once-grand Preston ranch house. Her headlights revealed the peeling paint on the weathered siding, the sagging boards on the rambling porches. By contrast, all the outbuildings and barns were shipshape and letter perfect. But then, ever since his wife had left him five years earlier, Sam had cared more about the Brahma cattle he raised than his own comfort.
Vaulting from her seat, Roni raced up the front steps, her overactive artist’s imagination conjuring visions of bloody mayhem, severe bodily injury or—at the very least—alien invaders. It took something dire and desperate to make self-sufficient Sam Preston yell for help!
“Sam!” Roni flung open the screen door and skidded into the lamplit front parlor. She’d been coming in and out of the Preston place for most of her thirty-four years, tagging along after Sam and his older brother Kenny since she was “knee-high to a grasshopper,” as old Doc Hazelton liked to say. Now she looked askance at the explosion of boxes and suitcases and unidentifiable paraphernalia that turned the perennially tidy room into a combat zone.
Called out of town a few days ago, Sam had missed their usual Friday night with the other regulars down at Rosie’s Café. But the life of a struggling cattleman and aspiring rodeo stock supplier was erratic, and Roni hadn’t thought his absence anything unusual.
Apparently she’d been wrong. Very, very wrong.
“Sam, where are—”
A strident mewling from the rear of the house interrupted Roni’s call and raised the hairs on the back of her neck. Heart thudding, she hurried down the hall to the master bedroom, then cautiously pushed open the door.
She’d expected ectoplasmic demons or chain-saw killers. What she found was even more alarming—Sam Preston, dripping wet and wearing only a towel. Sun-bleached blond hair plastered the brow of his familiar, craggy face, but it was the unexpected glimpse of bare, well-muscled chest and lean horseman’s thighs that made Roni suck in a tiny involuntary breath. Then he swung to face her, and the struggling bundle he cradled in his brawny arms made Roni stop breathing altogether.
“Curly! Thank Jehoshaphat. Here!”
Sam thrust the squalling infant into Roni’s grasp and made a grab for the towel sliding dangerously south of his navel. Dumbfounded, Roni had no choice but to juggle the kicking, red-faced baby. The child—female by the pink color of her gown—was about a year old and sported the most extraordinary mop of russet-colored curls Roni had ever seen. She was also enraged, and heavy and strong enough to make holding her steady a struggle.
“Oh my God!” Roni automatically propped the baby against her shoulder, too astonished to give more than cursory notice to the dampness that immediately began to seep through her T-shirt. Startled by a new voice, the child broke off her caterwauling, unscrewed her rosebud face and looked solemnly up at Roni...with Sam’s very own bluebonnet eyes.
Shock slammed into the center of Roni’s chest, a piercing pain that was part dismay, part hurt mortification. How could he have kept something like this from her, from his very best friend in the world?
“Turn your back, Curly, so I can get on my skivvies.” As Roni automatically looked away, Sam rummaged in an old pine dresser for underwear, muttering, “Hellfire and damnation! All I wanted was a shower. After a two-hundred-mile drive with a screaming young’un was that too much to ask?”
Suddenly unsure of this new stranger, the little girl’s mouth quivered. Latching plump baby fingers into Roni’s curls, she buried her face in the disheveled mass and renewed her howls. Awkwardly, Roni patted the infant’s back while a lump of empathy thickened her throat. She felt as adrift and isolated and scared as the baby, but she had to know one thing.
“Is she yours?”
The rustle of denim and the rasp of a zipper accompanied Sam’s deep voice. “Thought I could handle one night on my own. How the hell was I supposed to know—”
“Sam!” Pivoting on her boot heel, Roni held the child protectively against her heart and glared at him. “Is she yours?”
“What?” The sharpness of her voice froze him in the process of snapping his jeans, and he frowned, puzzled. Then his blue eyes widened. “Hell, no! I mean, well—yes, I guess you could say that.”
“Make up your mind!” The baby’s wails fired Roni’s indignation. “I never thought you were the kind of man to cat around with no thought to the consequences, Sam Preston. Honestly, how could you be so irresponsible?”
A deep flush crept up beneath Sam’s tan, starting at his bronzed nipples and racing all the way to his earlobes. He snapped his jeans, his square jaw working. “Don’t you go flying off the handle at me, Veronica Jean! She’s not mine.”
Roni’s hands tightened reflexively around the sobbing baby as if to defend her against his callous repudiation. “She has your eyes,” she accused hotly. “And you just said—”
“My cousin Roy from Abilene—the one who was killed last year on the oil rig—Jessie’s his daughter.”
An instantaneous spurt of disgraceful relief filled Roni, quickly masked by total confusion. “Then what, why—?”
“Jessie’s mother, Alicia, had a toxic reaction to some medication last week. She went into shock, and there was nothing they could do.”
Roni stared at him in blank horror, the baby’s cries filling her ears. “She...she’s dead?”
At his curt nod, Roni sat down heavily on the side of the unmade king-size bed. Sympathy welled within her, and she instinctively rocked her body in time with little Jessie’s hiccuping breaths. “Oh, Sam, I’m so sorry!”
His expression softened into lines of weary sadness, and he cupped his large palm over the infant’s soft burgundy-red curls in an attitude of tender protectiveness. “I made the arrangements. The funeral was Saturday. The neighbors were keeping Jessie, but there’s no other family except me, so I...well, I’m taking her.”
“Oh, Sam!”
His wide mouth tightened with belligerence. “What the hell else was I supposed to do?”
“Oh, Sam, you lunkhead! You misunderstand me.” Roni caught his hand. “Of course you have to take her. I wouldn’t have expected less.”
He hesitated, then sat down beside Roni and gave her fingers a grateful squeeze. “You don’t think I’m addled?”
“Hardly. We’ve been friends since before I could walk, and if there’s one thing I know, it’s that Sam Preston can be counted on to do the right thing.”
“My judgment might be a bit cloudy right now.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, lines of fatigue making him look much older than his thirty-seven years. For the first time Roni saw how tired he really was. “It’s been a hell of a week.”
“I can imagine.” Roni stroked Jessie’s damp forehead, crooning. “Poor little thing. Poor Jessie. And poor Sam.”
“I’m okay.”
“Remember who you’re talking to, buckaroo?” Roni’s coffee-brown eyes were gentle. “You may come across tough as old rawhide to the rest of the world, but I know your heart is made of molasses taffy. So you want to be a father, do you?”
His mouth twisted. “Seems I got no choice. But I swear I had no idea you had to be Dr. Spock, Mother Teresa and an octopus all rolled together to take care of one little baby girl! And if I don’t get out there first thing in the morning and help Angel load those bulls for the Ferguson shipment, the Lazy Diamond is really going to be up the creek.”
Roni nodded, fully aware that the life on a working ranch never ceased. Angel Morales, Sam’s cow boss, ran the day-to-day care of the herds. Angel gave the cowboys who lived in the handful of cottages and trailer homes scattered around the Lazy Diamond their daily riding orders while his wife, Maria, cooked for the hands, but it was Sam who had to meet the demands of owner, general manager and ranch foreman every day.
Sam ran a hand through his damp hair and turned pleading eyes to Roni. “I’m telling you, Curly, I’m frazzled. You gotta help me!”
“Me? In case you forgot, I don’t know any more about babies than you do.”
Roni couldn’t prevent a grimace at the memory of her on-again, off-again relationship with filmmaker Jackson Dial. It had been an eight-year, coast-to-coast stint in self-inflicted misery, which she’d finally put to an end two years earlier when she’d returned to her little hometown of Flat Fork to lick her wounds and pursue her career as a free-lance illustrator. Thanks to Jackson’s no-commitment policy, she was single, childless and well on her way to becoming an old maid. Although Sam had listened to her cry in her beer about all of that on innumerable occasions, apparently desperation had made him forget she was as limited in the parental experience department as he was.
“Come on, Curly,” Sam begged. “You’ve got to know something—you’re a woman!”
Roni snorted. “Glad you finally noticed.”
“Aw, hell, you know what I mean.” Sam shoved fingers through his hair again and scrubbed a palm down his beard-stubbled face.
“I know you’re a chauvinist at heart.” Roni couldn’t hide a wry smile at his obvious distress. Then she took pity on him. “Well, to start with, she’s soaking wet.”
“What—again?”
Roni shifted the baby, now snubbing sibilantly, and plucked at her own sodden shirt. “And she’s done a fair job of drenching me, too.”
“Damn,” he groaned, reaching for the child. “I’m sorry, Curly.”
“Take it easy, cowboy. No use both of us getting wet. Find me a diaper and a dry shirt or something for her, will you?”
Nodding, Sam reached for a bulging diaper bag decorated with yellow ducks while Roni laid Jessie on the bed. Worn-out from crying, too tired to even crawl, the baby flailed halfheartedly, her fingers still tangled in Roni’s whiskey-colored locks.
But when Roni attempted to detach Jessie’s hold, the child would have none of it, whimpering pitifully. It occurred to Roni that Jessie’s mother must have had long hair, and the baby was finding some comfort in the familiar scent and texture. Her heart melted.
“All right, sweetie, you can hold on.” Ignoring the discomfort of pulled hair, Roni began stripping off the soaked gown and diaper, still talking softly. “Aunt Roni’s going to fix you up.”
“Here.” Sam tossed a clean sleeper on the bed and thrust a disposable diaper at her. “Maybe you can figure out how to keep the damn thing on.”
“I’ve changed Krystal’s youngest a time or two,” she admitted. Krystal Harrison was another longtime friend from high school. She and her husband, Bud, and their three little boys had welcomed Roni back to Flat Fork with open arms.
“I knew you’d been holding out on me,” Sam muttered. He watched uncertainly as Roni smoothed the diaper’s adhesive tabs into place. “Think she’s hungry again?”
“Tired mostly, but a bottle of something might help soothe her.”
Sam nodded again. “Okay. Be right back.”
By the time Roni pulled the dry sleeper onto Jessie’s sturdy little body, Sam had returned with a plastic baby bottle.
“It’s juice. Apple, I think. Mrs. Newton, the lady who was keeping Jessie, fixed a bunch of bottles and stuff to tide me over.”
“That was thoughtful of her.”
“Yeah. She and her husband have five kids of their own. It tore them up about Alicia, and they’re real attached to Jessie. Told me they’d keep her as long as I needed, but they aren’t well-off, and I couldn’t let Jessie be a burden on them. Besides, I felt it was important to get her settled here as soon as possible.”
Seating herself in an old platform rocker whose threadbare upholstery had seen better days, Roni offered the baby the juice. Jessie latched on to the nipple with a sigh, and her fine lashes drifted down against her plump cheeks, one hand still tightly clutching Roni’s hair. Roni set the rocker in motion, then looked up at the tall man watching her.
“Seriously, Sam, what do you mean to do? Taking on a baby is a pretty tall order for a bachelor.”
Jamming his hands into his front pockets, he bowed his head and stared at the floor a long moment. Roni saw his Adam’s apple bob revealingly. “When Roy died, I promised Alicia I’d always look out for her and the baby. I promised.”
At that simple, yet all-encompassing and life-changing statement, Roni’s heart turned over with both admiration and compassion. Simultaneously, a part of her couldn’t help but notice his casual, all-male stance. The way his lean hip cocked, stretching the denim of his jeans provocatively, might have made a more susceptible female’s libido jump into high gear. The thing about Sam was that he truly didn’t understand how potent he could be to the opposite sex. It was one of his more endearing qualities.
He looked up. “I’ll hire a housekeeper, I guess, though where I’ll get the extra money right now I don’t know. Maybe if I can beat Travis King out of that Wichita Rodeo contract...”
He trailed off at the mention of his rival. There was bad blood between them. Though Sam never spoke of it, Roni knew it was due to King’s involvement in the auto accident that had taken Sam’s brother’s life more than a decade earlier. Now he shook his head, as if to clear it of painful memories, continuing with the subject at hand.
“And then there’s baby-sitters and day care. Other people do it. I can, too.”
Jessie had fallen asleep at last, and Roni set the unfinished juice bottle aside. When she transferred the sleeping infant to her shoulder, Jessie’s tiny sigh of contentment tugged at her heartstrings in a way that was as powerful as it was unexpected. Stroking the baby’s curls and inhaling the sweet scent of her skin evoked maternal instincts Roni hadn’t even been aware she possessed.
“Being a parent takes more than just meeting a child’s physical needs, Sam,” she said softly.
“I know that. But the little kid’s already been through more hell than most people face in a lifetime! Besides, I can’t turn my back on blood kin. I always regretted that Shelly and I didn’t have a kid or two. Well, Jessie needs a family, so I figure God’s giving me a second chance to be a father.”
His words made Roni swallow hard with sudden emotion, part genuine admiration for his determination and willingness to take on such a commitment, part pure envy that he should have such a rare opportunity to explore the trials and joys of family love. To cover an unexpected prickle of tears, Roni glanced down at the sleeping child. “Have you got a bed made for her?”
Sam pulled his hands free of his pockets and gestured toward the hall. “I put her playpen in my old room.”
Nodding, her composure restored, Roni rose carefully and followed him into the cluttered bedroom next door. The small lamp on the bedside table illuminated wall-hung bookshelves filled with high school athletic and rodeo trophies won by Sam and his brother. Sam’s parents had never really recovered from Kenny’s death. They were gone now, too, and apparently not even Shelly’s brief occupancy had made an impact on this old room. Now an ancient, but still-prized saddle sat on the desk and Sam’s rodeo and cattle breeding journals lay strewn on the twin bed and floor.
Roni laid the baby in the playpen, covered her with a crocheted blanket, then stood back. “She’s a beautiful child, Sam.”
Sam placed an arm around Roni’s shoulder in a familiar, companionable gesture. The heat of his body and the fresh scent of soap enveloped her as they gazed down at the sleeping infant.
“Yeah, she’s a heartbreaker, all right, and I’ll admit I’m smitten. I want to do what’s right for her, Curly.”
“I know you will.” Twisting the knob on the lamp, she led him from the room, leaving the door cracked behind them. Pausing in the hall, she gave him a mock-serious look. “You’re going to have to do something about that decor, you know. Little girls need frills and lace, bonnets and patent-leather shoes, baby dolls and kittens.”
“As I recall, Miss Tomboy, you never did.” Now that things were back under control—at least for the moment—Sam shot her a glance sparked with a glimmer of his usual laid-back mischief and gave a lock of her unruly hair a teasing tug. “Blue jeans and horses and hauling it around hell-bent-for-leather after the rest of us boys was the only thing that ever interested you coming up.”
“Could I help it if I was the only girl in a ten-mile radius? Besides, there’s an exception to every rule.” Despite their close friendship, there was a thing or two Sam Preston didn’t know about her and her intimate likes and dislikes. Inwardly amused, she made her tone mild. “And you might be surprised what catches a girl’s fancy.”
“I know I’ve got a lot to learn.”
“Oh, yes, indeed.” Roni counted items off on her fingers. “Ballet lessons, hair bows, kissing scratched knees, wiping tears, not to mention those talks when she hits puberty, buying her first bra and warning her about what boys are really after—”
“Good God.”
The dismay on Sam’s face was so comical, Roni laughed aloud. Impulsively, she laid a hand on his bare shoulder and came up on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. “You’re a good man, Sam Preston, and I’m a fiend to tease you when you’re so exhausted. I’ll go, but I’ll check on you first thing in the morning, okay? Maybe Krystal can recommend some names for the housekeeper’s position.”
“Uh, Curly?”
“Yeah?”
“You want a cup of coffee or something? Or how about a beer?”
Roni frowned. “Do you know what time it is?”
“We could turn on the late show and shoot the breeze for a while. Anything happen down at Rosie’s I should know about?”
“I’ll tell you tomorrow. I’m going home to bed.”
“Uh...do you have to?”
Brown eyes narrowed, Roni gave Sam a searching look. Could what she spied darting behind his brilliant blue gaze be...fear? Not Sam Preston, the man who could coolly face down a maddened Brahma bull and never bat an eyelash. Not strong, silent Sam, the bulwark of the community, the man who’d taken his wife’s walking out on him because she couldn’t stand small-town life with such quiet dignity, he’d earned the admiration of the whole county.
Roni’s lips quirked, and her respect for little Jessie’s feminine wiles went up several notches. Was that really big, bad Sam Preston quaking in his bare size twelves at the thought of being left at the mercy of one tiny little girl?
“You don’t really want to watch the late show, do you?” she asked, holding back her laughter with difficulty.
“Have a little pity, will you, Curly?” His lean cheeks heated with consternation. “What if I don’t hear Jessie cry? You know what a hard sleeper I am. And what if she gets sick during the night? I’d just have to call you again.”
Inspecting her paint-stained nails, Roni gave an airy reply. “I could always take my phone off the hook.”
Sam’s expression turned sour. “You’re going to make me beg, aren’t you?”
She did laugh then. “No, I think I’ll reserve that pleasure for when you’re really desperate.”
“Then you’ll stay? Just for tonight? So I can find my sea legs?”
Having already made an emotional connection with Jessie, Roni’s answer was a foregone conclusion, but she wouldn’t let Sam off that hook that easily. “Well...if it’ll make you feel better.”
“Oh, it will.” Relief made his deep voice husky. “You don’t know.”
“I can guess.” She chuckled. “I’ll even take the bed in her room. There’s one condition, though.”
“Anything.” At her devilish look, he added hastily, “Within reason.”
“You know, Sam,” she mused, running a goading finger down his hair-dusted breastbone, “another woman might try to take advantage of this situation. Having you over a barrel could be very...profitable.”
He caught her wrist, shaking his head in warning, his own grin twitching the corners of his mouth as the familiar give-and-take of their usual teasing reasserted itself.
“If you play with fire, lady, you might get burned. So spit it out. You want a trade? Okay, I’ll pick up the tab at Rosie’s for a month. How’s that?”
“Penny ante,” she scoffed. “Up the stakes a little, you cheapskate.”
“I’ll see that the fence down on the south boundary line between our places gets patched.”
“You were going to do that anyway.”
He shook her arm gently, growling, “So what do you want?”
“Diablo.”
Thunderstruck, Sam stared, his sandy eyebrows lifting in surprise. “Hell, I’m not going to give you my prize stallion!”
“I just want to ride him.”
“Uh-uh. No way. He’ll break your neck.”
“I ride as well as you do!” she protested, tugging free of his grasp. “Well, almost.”
“Look, Curly, I value your hide too much to risk it atop that devil.” Sam perched his fists on his lean hips and glowered down at her. “And don’t tell me all those years in New York art school and then working out in L.A. didn’t take the edge off your skills, because I won’t buy it. You’ve got to have a little common sense about such things.”
“Any second now,” she warned darkly, “I’m liable to burst out in a chorus of ‘Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better.’”
“Curly, I swear—”
She laughed suddenly at his exasperation. “Relax, Sam, I won’t press you if you feel that strongly, but one of these days, me and Diablo...” She winked at him. “Until then, I’ll just have to make my own fun getting you riled up.”
“And one of these days I’m going to throttle you.”
“No, you won’t,” she retorted, smug. “Who else’ll baby-sit for you for free? You’re going to have to think about these things now.”
“You may have a point.” He stifled a yawn.
“Go to bed, Sam,” she said kindly. “I know where you keep your linens, and I can help myself. Remember, little children have a tendency to get up with the sun.”
“I don’t need a second invitation. Good night.” He turned toward his room.
Roni tugged at her damp shirt and wrinkled her nose. “Have you got something I can sleep in?”
“In the bathroom cupboard. Watch out for that hot water spigot. It’s loose and cantankerous.”
“I remember.”
“And, Roni?”
She paused at the bathroom door. A peculiar little stirring fluttered in her chest at both the solemnity and the affection she saw in his dark blue eyes. “Yes, Sam?”
“Thanks.”
Smiling, Roni shrugged. “Hey, what are best friends for?”
* * *
There was a newborn calf bawling outside, and sooner or later Sam was going to have to get up and see to it. He pulled his pillow over his ears and groaned.