The Way To A Rancher's Heart

Though Jase’s body thrummed with need and had since leaving her, he hoped she wouldn’t. He feared he wouldn’t be able to resist her.

With those laughing green eyes and that sassy mouth, she’d teased him into remembering the pleasures a man could share with a woman. Bewitched him into forgetting the hurt that was inevitable if he allowed anyone to get too close. For the length of an afternoon he’d let go of the memories, the fears.

He heard the door open softly and tensed, knowing it was Annie. Her scent reached him first, that subtle, feminine fragrance that teased his senses.

“Jase?”

He prayed for the strength to send her back to her room. But when he looked at her, he knew the prayer was wasted.

There was no way in hell he could send her away. Not now.

Dear Reader,

Welcome to Silhouette Desire, the ultimate treat for Valentine’s Day—we promise you will find six passionate, powerful and provocative romances every month! And here’s what you can indulge yourself with this February….

The fabulous Peggy Moreland brings you February’s MAN OF THE MONTH, The Way to a Rancher’s Heart. You’ll be enticed by this gruff widowed rancher who must let down his guard for the sake of a younger woman.

The exciting Desire miniseries TEXAS CATTLEMAN’S CLUB: LONE STAR JEWELS continues with World’s Most Eligible Texan by Sara Orwig. A world-weary diplomat finds love—and fatherhood—after making a Plain Jane schoolteacher pregnant with his child.

Kathryn Jensen’s The American Earl is an office romance featuring the son of a British earl who falls for his American employee. In Overnight Cinderella by Katherine Garbera, an ugly-duckling heroine transforms herself into a swan to win the love of an alpha male. Kate Little tells the story of a wealthy bachelor captivated by the woman he was trying to protect his younger brother from in The Millionaire Takes a Bride. And Kristi Gold offers His Sheltering Arms, in which a macho ex-cop finds love with the woman he protects.

Make this Valentine’s Day extra-special by spoiling yourself with all six of these alluring Desire titles!

Enjoy!

Joan Marlow Golan

Senior Editor, Silhouette Desire

The Way to a Rancher’s Heart

Peggy Moreland

MILLS & BOON

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PEGGY MORELAND

published her first romance with Silhouette in 1989 and continues to delight readers with stories set in her home state of Texas. Winner of the National Readers’ Choice Award, the Golden Quill, the Texas Gold and a finalist for the prestigious RITA Award, Peggy’s books frequently appear on the USA Today and Waldenbooks bestseller lists. When not writing, she enjoys spending time at the farm riding her quarter horse, Lo-Jump. She, her husband and three children make their home in Florence, Texas. You may write to Peggy at P.O. Box 1099, Florence, TX 76257-1099.

This book is dedicated to my editor, Lynda Curnyn,

with heartfelt thanks for all the guidance and support

offered to me…and my apologies for forcing her

to learn a new language, Texas-ese. Thanks, Lynda!

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

One

There was tired, then there was tired, the boot-shuffling, butt-dragging, bleary-eyed kind of exhaustion that followed too many nights without enough sleep and too many days filled with nonstop activity. Jase Rawley’s current physical state fell into that latter category.

After parking his semi-rig and trailer filled with stocker calves he’d hauled from Kansas to Texas beside the loading chute attached to his corral, he trudged wearily through the inky darkness to his equally dark house in the distance. Once inside, he toed off his cowboy boots by the kitchen door, left them there for easy access the next morning, then tugged his shirttail from the waist of his jeans and headed down the hall to the master bedroom, unbuttoning his shirt along the way. At the side of his bed, he stripped off the shirt, leaned to set the alarm on the bedside table for 6:00 a.m., then, all but limp with exhaustion, fell face-first across the king-size bed. He was instantly asleep.

Three hours later he awakened to the irritating electronic beep of his alarm clock. Groaning, he made a fist, whacked it against the alarm, then buried his face against the mattress again. He inhaled deeply, wearily, weighing the pros and cons of putting off unloading the calves for a few more hours. But the rich, nutty smell of coffee brewing had him slowly lifting his head again.

Bracing his palms against the mattress, he lifted himself higher, sniffing the air. “Sis,” he murmured almost reverently as he heaved himself from the bed and to his feet, “you’re a saint.”

With his nose lifted high like a radar device, guiding him to the coffeepot, he padded his way down the hallway, still dressed in the jeans and socks he’d slept in. A yawn took him as he stepped into the kitchen, and he closed his eyes, giving in to it, as he passed by the island, rubbing a wide hand over his burly chest. “Mornin’,” he grumbled as he drew a bead on the coffeemaker and headed for it.

“Good morning. Would you like your eggs fried or scrambled?”

He froze at the question, then slowly turned, focusing in on the woman who stood on the opposite side of the island calmly rolling out biscuits. Above a pert nose sprinkled with a light spattering of freckles, bright, cheery green eyes met his, while full lips curved upwards in a not-normal-for-this-time-of-morning smile. Brown hair, the color of roasted chestnuts, spilled over slim shoulders and framed an oval, youthful face…a face that looked nothing like his sister’s.

“Who the hell are you?” he asked in dismay.

Her smile widened and she wiped a palm across the bib of her apron as she rounded the island. “Annie Baxter,” she said and held out the hand, now free of flour. “I’m your new housekeeper and nanny.”

He stared at the flour streaks her hand had left on the apron’s bib, the T-shirt and cut-off jeans the apron didn’t quite hide, then moved his gaze farther down to the length of long, tanned legs beneath the apron’s hem, the bare feet, the toenails painted a putrid shade of blue. Slowly he lifted his gaze back to hers, without making a move to accept the hand she offered. “Housekeeper?” he repeated dully.

Her smile turned curious. “Well, yes. Your sister hired me. Penny Rawley?” she offered helpfully, as if hearing his sister’s name might prod his memory. “You were aware that she planned to hire someone, weren’t you?”

He gulped, then swallowed, remembering, vaguely, a conversation with his sister a couple of weeks earlier in which she’d told him she was moving out. He seemed, too, to remember her saying something about hiring someone to take her place in his home. But he hadn’t taken his sister seriously. Had thought she was bluffing. She had more than once over the years. Penny had always lived with him. Had ever since their parents had died more than fifteen years before. He hadn’t thought she’d really leave. Ever. Hadn’t even considered the possibility. Penny was a fixture, a solid rock of dependability that he’d relied on heavily since his wife’s death two years before.

“Yeah,” he said and swallowed again. “I seem to remember her mentioning something about that.” Realizing she still held her hand extended, he closed his fingers around hers and slowly pumped her hand.

“Whew,” she said, laughing softly. “That’s a relief. I thought, for a minute, that either you or I were in the wrong house.” She withdrew her hand to move back to the opposite side of the island. “Penny told me that you’d be returning today, although I didn’t realize it would be quite this early.”

“I decided to drive straight through,” he murmured, still having a hard time absorbing the fact that Penny was gone and had left a stranger in her place. “How long have you been here?”

“Six days. Penny hired me on Monday, stayed until Thursday to make sure I had settled in well and the children had accepted me, then she left.”

And Jase knew why his sister had cleared out before he’d returned from his trip. If he’d been home, he never would have allowed her to take the first step out the front door…at least not without him first putting up one hell of a fight. “Did she say where she was going? How she could be reached?”

“Well, of course she did,” she replied, as if surprised by his question, then wiped her hands across her apron again and turned to the desk behind her. Snagging a pad between the tips of a flour-dusted finger and thumb, she turned and held it out to him. “She said that she was staying with Suzy for a couple of days. You do know who Suzy is, don’t you?”

He frowned at her skeptical tone, though he could hardly blame her for questioning him. Not when he hadn’t even known that his sister was planning on moving out or that she was hiring him a new housekeeper and nanny. “Yeah,” he grumbled. “I know Suzy.” Tearing off the top piece of paper, he stuffed it into his jeans pocket, then tossed the pad on the island before heading for the coffeemaker.

“You never did say how you liked your eggs,” she reminded him, dropping plump rounds of dough into a pie tin. “Fried or scrambled?”

He filled a mug with coffee and turned, gulping a swallow, praying that the caffeine would clear his brain, and he’d realize that this was all a bad dream. Something he’d imagined. Hell, a full-blown nightmare!

But when the strange woman didn’t disappear in a cloud of mist as he’d hoped, but kept right on cutting dough into rounds and dropping them into the pie tin, he muttered, “fried,” and headed for the door that led to the hallway. “I’ve got to make a few calls,” he called over his shoulder. “Holler when breakfast is ready.”

The first—and only—call Jase made was to Suzy’s house and to his sister.

He waited impatiently through four rings before his sister’s childhood friend answered.

“Hello?” Suzy mumbled sleepily.

“Put Penny on the phone,” he growled.

“Well, good morning to you, too, Jase,” she snapped peevishly, then dropped the phone with a clatter and yelled, “Penny! Phone! It’s the bear.”

Scowling at the nickname Suzy had tagged him with years before, he drummed his fingers impatiently on the top of his desk while he waited for his sister to pick up the phone.

“Jase?”

“What the hell were you thinking!” he shouted as soon as he heard her voice. “Running off and leaving these kids with a complete stranger.”

“Annie’s not a stranger,” she said defensively, then added, “Well, not totally, anyway. I interviewed her thoroughly and checked her background and references before offering her the position. She’s perfectly safe and more than capable of taking care of the children.”

“I don’t give a good goddamn if she’s Mary Poppins’s trainer. You get your tail back home where you belong, and I mean now!”

“I’m not coming home, Jase. I’ve already accepted a job in Austin.”

“You’ve what!”

“I’ve accepted a job in Austin. Quite a good one, in fact. I’ll be the executive secretary to the owner of a large computer security company.”

“Quit,” he said, tossing up an angry hand. “Resign. Do whatever you have to do, but you get yourself back here where you belong. I don’t want some stranger raising my kids.”

“Then you raise them!”

Jase jerked the receiver from his ear and stared at it, shocked by the anger in his sister’s voice, and even more so that she would defy him. Scowling, he slapped the phone back against his ear. “Is Suzy behind all this? Is she the one who put these crazy ideas into your head?”

A heavy sigh crossed the phone lines. “No, Jase. Suzy had nothing to do with my decision to leave the ranch.”

“Oh, that’s right, Jase,” he heard Suzy mutter in the background. “Blame everything on me.”

“Well, she’s usually the one who fills your head with these crazy notions,” he snapped irritably. “This isn’t like you, Penny. Running off half-cocked. Leaving the kids with a complete stranger. Hell! What if this woman doesn’t work out? What if she decides to up and leave? Who’s going to take care of the kids then?”

“You,” she informed him firmly. “They’re your children, not mine, and it’s high time you pulled yourself together and assumed your responsibilities as their father.”

He sprang from his chair. “I’ve never shirked my responsibilities as their father! I’ve provided for these kids, haven’t I? I’ve seen that they have everything they need.”

“You give them everything but yourself. Oh, Jase,” she said, suddenly sounding tearful. “They need you. Can’t you see that? They not only lost their mother when Claire died, they lost their father, too.”

After showering and dressing, Jase returned to the kitchen, still furious with his sister for abandoning him and sticking a stranger in his house without discussing it with him first. He heard the sound of his six-year-old daughter’s laughter from the hallway as he pushed open the swinging door. “What’s so funny?” he asked, pausing with a hand still braced against the door.

Four heads turned from the table to peer at him.

In the blink of an eye, Rachel was up and racing across the room to throw her arms around his waist. “Daddy!”

He dropped an awkward hand on her head and scrubbed, frowning. “Hey, dumplin’.”

She caught his hand and gave it a tug. “We’ve got a new nanny. Annie. She’s really cool.”

His frown deepened at the term Rachel used to describe the new nanny, suspecting that she had picked it up from her older brother and sister. “Yeah. So I hear.”

He clapped a hand on his thirteen-year-old son Clay’s shoulder, then dropped down onto the chair at the head of the table. He nodded a greeting to Clay’s twin sister, Tara, and pulled his napkin from beside his plate. He draped it across his thigh while carefully avoiding making eye contact with the new nanny. “Shouldn’t you kids be getting ready for school?” he asked gruffly.

Tara rolled her eyes dramatically, her newest way of expressing what a “dweeb” she thought her father was. “It’s not even seven yet, Dad. We’ve got lots of time.”

Jase reached for the basket of biscuits. “Don’t want you missing the bus,” he informed her. “I’ve got a trailer full of calves to unload and don’t have time to cart you kids’ butts to school.”

Tara tossed her napkin down and shoved back her chair. “Since when do you have time to do anything with us?” she snapped and stormed from the room.

Jase watched her leave, noting the hiking boots, the low-waisted, baggy-legged, faded jeans and the inch of bare skin her cropped T-shirt exposed. “Change into something decent!” he yelled after her. “No daughter of mine is going to school dressed like some tramp.”

He heard her sass something in return, but couldn’t make out her words. Scowling, he spread a heavy layer of butter over his biscuit and remembered his sister’s comments about him assuming responsibility for his kids. Well, he was responsible, he told himself. He had let go of a lot of things over the last couple of years, but he’d never let go of his responsibilities to his kids. To prove it, he asked, “Did you kids do all your homework?”

“Yes, Daddy,” Rachel said obediently.

As he took a bite, he angled his head to look at Clay, who had remained conspicuously silent. Butter dripped down his chin, as he gave it a jerk in his son’s direction. “What about you? Did you get yours done?”

Clay shoved back his chair. “Didn’t have any,” he mumbled and headed for the door and the hallway beyond.

Jase snatched up his napkin and wiped it across his mouth and chin. “I better not be getting any calls from your teachers,” he called after his son. He shifted his gaze to Rachel, who remained at the table, staring at him, round-eyed. “Well? Are you planning on going to school today, or not?”

“I’m goin’,” she replied quickly and slid from her chair. “Thanks for breakfast, Annie,” she said, giving the new nanny a shy smile. “It was real good.”

Annie graced her with a radiant smile in return. “I’m glad you enjoyed it. Don’t forget your lunch,” she reminded the girl.

Rachel sidled to the side of Annie’s chair, winding a finger through a pigtail. “Did you pack me a surprise like you did on Friday?”

Annie draped an arm around Rachel’s waist and hugged her to her side. “You bet I did. But don’t peek,” she warned, tapping a finger against the end of the child’s nose. “It won’t be a surprise if you do.”

A pleased smile spread across Rachel’s face. “I won’t,” she promised and skipped to the counter to collect her lunch sack. “See you this afternoon, Annie,” she called cheerfully as she raced for the back door.

“Not if I see you first,” Annie teased, waving.

Jase frowned, more than a little surprised by his children’s obvious approval of the new nanny—and maybe a little jealous, if he were willing to admit to the emotion. And now, with all the kids gone, only he and the nanny remained at the table and he wished he hadn’t been so quick to hustle them off to school. Uncomfortable with the silence that suddenly seemed to hum around him, he cleared his throat. “I guess Penny informed you of your duties.”

“Yes. She was very thorough.”

Unsure what else to say, he quickly slathered butter over another biscuit. “I’m outside most of the day, but if you should need anything, I have a cell phone in my truck. The number is on the wall by the phone,” he added, gesturing with the biscuit toward the wall.

“Penny explained everyone’s schedules to me and showed me where to find everything.” She propped her elbows on the table and leaned forward, studying him, her chin resting on her hands. “The children miss you when you’re gone.”

Feeling heat creep into his cheeks, Jase shoveled a forkful of eggs into his mouth. “I’m seldom away. When I am, it’s never for more than a week at a time.”

“Just the same, they miss their daddy.”

He cleared his throat again and reached for his cup, gulped a drink of coffee, then shoved back his chair. “I’ve got calves to unload.”

She kept her gaze on his face as he rose. “Do you plan to come in for lunch?”

He was tempted to tell her no, just to avoid being alone with her again, but thought better of it. It was a helluva long time until dinner. “Yeah. But you don’t have to cook. I can make a sandwich or something.”

She rose, too, and started gathering plates. “I don’t mind cooking. In fact, I really enjoy it. Is there anything special you’d like me to prepare?”

Jase snagged his hat from the countertop where he’d dropped it the night before and glanced her way as she headed for the sink, juggling dirty plates. He couldn’t help noticing that the bibbed apron she wore didn’t cover her rear end or hide the sway of a very delectably shaped butt. He cleared his throat yet again when his gaze lit on her bare feet, and heat climbed up his neck, burning his cheeks. “I’m not a picky eater,” he mumbled and tore his gaze away from what shouldn’t have been a erotic sight. “Whatever you put on the table is fine with me.”

She glanced over her shoulder and warmed his face even more with a smile. “Good. I’ll surprise you, then. Should I expect you about noon?”

Flustered, he rammed his hat over his head and turned for the back door. “Yeah, noon,” he muttered, and wondered if the surprise she had in store for him was anything like the one she’d secreted in his daughter’s school lunch.

Annie strolled through the small fenced area, studying the ground and the barely discernable rows that lay beneath the high weeds, enjoying the feel of the sun warming her skin. A garden, she thought dreamily. She could imagine rows of tomato plants, their branches sagging with fat, juicy tomatoes; cantaloupe vines crawling across freshly hoed rows, their plump, succulent rounds of yellow-and green-veined rinds peeking between the plants’ velvety, scalloped leaves.

Oh, how she’d love to plant a garden, she thought, sighing wistfully. It had been years since she’d worked a garden, dug her fingers in rich, fertile soil, feasted on a garden’s bounty. Four years to be exact. The summer before her grandmother passed away.

With another sigh, one filled with bittersweet memories this time, she walked on, deciding she might just ask her new boss for permission to clear out the weeds and plant a few vegetables. There was time yet before spring arrived fully.

She frowned as she thought of her new boss. Penny Rawley certainly hadn’t exaggerated when she’d said that her brother was a little reserved, perhaps might even appear a bit gruff. Gruff? She snorted at the mild description. The man was positively sour. Frowning all the time. All but growling at his children.

But, my, oh my, she thought with a lusty sigh, he was one prime hunk of man.

She shivered just thinking about the way he’d looked when he’d walked into the kitchen that morning, his eyelids still heavy with sleep, rubbing a wide hand over the soft mat of dark hair that swirled over a muscled chest. She wondered if he realized that the first button of his jeans had been unfastened. She wondered, too, if he realized how sexy she had found that glimpse of navel shadowed by dark hair, the equally dark V that seemed to point below the waist of his jeans and to the soft column of flesh that lay beneath a strip of fabric faded a slightly lighter shade than the rest of the denim.

With a delicious shiver, she leaned to pluck a bachelor’s button from the tangled weeds and straightened to tuck the bloom behind her ear.

“What are you doing?”

She jumped, startled, and turned to find her new employer standing behind her watching her, his arms folded across his chest, his hat shading his eyes. She huffed a breath. “Mercy! You might warn a person before you slip up on them unsuspecting. You scared a good ten years off my life!”

He narrowed an eye. “How old are you, anyway?”

She snatched the flower from behind her ear, sure that it was her foolishness that made him question her age. “Twenty-six.”

He snorted a disbelieving breath. “Try again.”

Mindful of the stickers that might be hiding beneath the tangle of weeds, she made her way carefully back to the gate. “I am twenty-six. If you don’t believe me, I can show you my driver’s license.” She reached the gate and opened it.

He stepped back, eyeing her suspiciously as she passed by. “You don’t look a day over eighteen.”

She chuckled, not sure whether to be pleased or insulted. “Thanks…I think.” Flipping her hair back over her shoulder, she tipped up her face to smile at him, having to squint against the glare of the sun to do so. “How old are you?”

He stared down at her a long moment, making her aware of the skimpy tank top she wore, the Daisy Duke cutoffs, her bare legs and feet. Then he dropped his arms from his chest, stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jeans and turned for the house. “Old enough to stay clear of young girls like you.”