A Texas Soldier's Family

Chapter Three

The interior of the ranch house had not been updated in decades, was devoid of all furniture and was scrupulously clean. In deference to the closed window blinds, Garrett hit switches as he moved through the four wood-paneled downstairs rooms. Sighing, he noted, “Well, at least all the lights work.”

“Does the air conditioning work?” she asked, their footsteps echoing on the scarred pine floors. It was much hotter inside the domicile than outside. And the outside was at least ninety degrees, even as the sun was setting.

“No clue.” Garrett headed upstairs. There were only two bedrooms. One bath. No beds. Or even a chair for Hope to sit in while she nursed.

They headed back downstairs, Max still fussing. Worse, she could feel her breasts beginning to leak in response. “When was the last time you were here?” Glad she’d thought to put soft cotton nursing pads inside her bra, she opened up the diaper bag she’d slung over her arm and pulled out a blanket.

Garrett stepped out onto the back porch, where a porch swing looked out over the property. “Ah—never.”

Deciding her son had waited long enough, Hope sat down on the swing and situated Max in her arms. Waving at Garrett to turn around, which he obediently did, she unbuttoned her blouse and unsnapped the front of her nursing bra. Max found her nipple and latched on hungrily. “I was under the impression this was family property.” She shifted her son more comfortably in her arms and draped the blanket over him. As he fed, they both relaxed. “That your mother grew up on the Circle H.”

“She did.” Hands in his pockets, Garrett continued looking over the property, which was quite beautiful in a wild, untamed way. Overgrown shrubbery, dotted with blossoms, filled the air with a lush, floral scent.

He studied the sun disappearing slowly beneath the horizon in a streaky burst of yellow and red. “But she and my dad sold the place after my grandfather Henderson’s death, when she was twenty-three. They used the proceeds to start Dad’s hedge fund and stake their life in Dallas.”

It was a move that had certainly paid off for Frank and Lucille Lockhart. They’d made millions. Hope turned her attention to the collection of buildings a distance away from the house. A couple of barns with adjacent corrals and a rambling one-story building with cedar siding and a tin roof. Maybe a bunkhouse? “When did the property come back into the family?”

Garrett reached down and plucked out a long weed sprouting through the bushes and tossed it aside. “My dad bought it for my mom as an anniversary gift the year he sold his company so he could retire. They were going to fix the ranch up as a retreat. He purchased property in Laramie County for all five of us kids, too. So we’d all have a tangible link to our parents’ history here.”

Hope shifted Max to her other breast, glad they had the light from the interior of the house illuminating the porch with a soft yellow glow now that it was beginning to get dark. It was just enough to allow her to see what she was doing and yet afford her some privacy, too.

“I gather your dad also grew up in West Texas?”

Garrett nodded, his handsome profile brooding yet calm as he surveyed the sagebrush, live oak trees and cedars dotting the landscape. “On the Wind River Ranch, here in Laramie County. My parents bought that back, too. My brother Wyatt started a horse farm there.”

Max nursed quickly—a sign of just how hungry he’d been. When he was done, Hope shifted her sated son upright so he could burp, and used her other hand to refasten her nursing bra. “So you all have ranches then.”

“No.” Garrett paced the length of the porch, both hands shoved in the back pockets of his jeans. The action drew her attention to his masculine shoulders and spectacularly muscled flanks. Without warning, she recalled the feel of his rock-hard leg beneath her palm, the heat radiating from the apex of his thighs. Wondered what it would be like to be held against all that sheer male power and strength.

Then she pushed the disturbing notion away.

Oblivious to the lusty direction of her thoughts, he paced a little farther away. “My dad gifted me a house and a medical office building in town.” He chuckled when Max let out a surprisingly loud belch.

“It’s okay. I’m done,” Hope said.

Garrett turned to face her. Noting she had rebuttoned her blouse, he ambled toward her once again. “Sage received a small café in the historic downtown section of Laramie and the apartment above it.”

Hope spread the blanket out on the seat of the swing and laid Max down so she could change his diaper. “So you’d all eventually settle here?”

He moved even closer, gazing fondly down at her sleepy baby. The tenderness in his gaze was a surprise.

“That was their plan,” he admitted in a voice so gentle it made her mouth go dry.

She drew in a breath for calm. Which, to her consternation, did not help.

She still was wa-a-a-a-y too aware of him. Still far too curious about the man who was proving to be such an enigma—all Texas military gentleman one moment, all tough, edgy alpha male the next. Telling herself to dial it down a notch, Hope cocked her head. “What’s your plan?” she asked bluntly.

His gaze dipped to her lips, lingered. “To sell both properties and move on.”

“Your mom said your tour of duty was about up.”

“Twenty-nine days. I saved my time off for the end, so I’m on R & R through the rest of it.”

“And then...?”

“I either reenlist and become a staff physician at Walter Reed in Washington, DC...”

She could see him doing that. And probably loving it. “Or...?”

“Head up a residency program at a hospital in Seattle.”

“Where your sister Sage is living.”

He nodded.

She could imagine him teaching, too. Having all the young female residents fall hopelessly in love with him. “Do you know what you’re going to do?”

“Still thinking about it.”

“But in either case you won’t be returning to Texas.” As his mother wanted.

His sharp, assessing gaze met hers. “No.”

“Not tied to the Lone Star State in any way?” Despite the fact he and his siblings had apparently all grown up in Texas.

He raised his brows. “Are you?”

Hope nodded, her heart tightening a little in her chest. “I’ve worked in enough places to realize Texas is my home. And where I want Max to grow up.”

Feeling oddly disappointed that it was a sentiment they obviously did not share, and at the same time determined to end the unexpected intimacy that had fallen between them, she finished diapering her son, then lifted Max into her arms. “Where are we going to bunk down tonight?” she asked, shooting Garrett an all-business look. “I assume your mom had some definitive plan when she suggested we come out here. Maybe a hotel in town, assuming there is one?”

Garrett reached for his cell phone. “I’ll give my mother a call, see if I can find out what her ETA is.”

Hope headed to the SUV to get Max settled in his infant seat, so they would be ready to lock up the house and go wherever they were headed next as soon as he got off the phone. To her relief, her little boy, exhausted from the chaotic activity of the day, was already fast asleep when Garrett came out of the house, informing her, “We’ve been directed to the bunkhouse.”

Why did she suddenly have the feeling that was not a good thing? Hope stood, her hands propped on her hips. “When will everyone else be here?”

His expression as matter-of-fact as his low tone, he answered, “Noon tomorrow.”

* * *

HOPE BLINKED. SHE could not have heard right! “Noon tomorrow?”

“My mother decided to stay in Dallas and handle some things there first.”

“Unlike me, you don’t seem all that surprised.”

He narrowed his eyes. “What are you accusing me of?”

She flushed. “Nothing.” She just knew that being alone with this sexy, virile man was not a good idea. “But,” she continued hastily, “under the circumstances, I think it would be better if Max and I went into town and stayed in a hotel.”

He choked off a laugh. “What? You’re worried I’m going to put the moves on you?”

Actually, she was worried she was going to lose all common sense and put the moves on him. But not about to reveal that, she crossed her arms in front of her and quipped wryly, “Dream on, Alpha Man.”

His eyes crinkled mischievously at the corners. “Alpha Man?”

Had she really said that? She must be punchier than she’d thought. Which was par for the course, considering she’d been lured back to work three months before she had planned and then, compounding matters, having to get up at the crack of dawn to take the six o’clock flight from Dallas to DC in order to be seated next to him on the return trip. Aware he was still waiting for an explanation, she lifted a hand. “It was an insult. A friendly one.” Hope bit down on an oath. She was just making it worse.

He laughed, his husky baritone like music to her ears, as he continued giving her a long, sexy once-over. “Sounded more like a compliment to me.”

He was twisting everything around, embarrassing her and putting her off her game. Indignant, she huffed, “Of course you would think that.”

He held his ground, arms folded in front of him, biceps bunched. Again, that long steady appraisal. “Because I’m alpha?”

He definitely was not a beta.

She threaded her hands through her hair, wishing she’d thought to put it in a tight, spinsterish bun before he’d picked her up. “Can we end this repartee?”

His mother was right. They had been flirting. They were flirting now. Heaven help them both.

He leaned in and gathered her into his arms. “With pleasure.”

The feel of him against her, chest to chest, thigh to thigh, sucked all the remaining air from her lungs.

“What are you doing?” she gasped, wishing he didn’t feel so very, very good.

Wishing he hadn’t just reminded her of all that had been missing from her life.

He threaded his hand through her hair, let it settle tenderly on the nape of her neck. “What any alpha male would do in this situation.” Grinning, he bent his head toward hers.

Hope tingled all over. Lower still, there was a kindling warmth. Cursing the forbidden excitement welling within her, she whispered, “Garrett...for pity’s sake...you can’t... I can’t...!”

He laughed again, even more wickedly. His lips hovered above hers, so close their breaths were meeting as sensually and irrevocably as the rest of them.

“Kiss you and see if you kiss me back?” he taunted softly, stroking the pad of his thumb along the curve of her lips—top, then bottom. “Oh, yes, Hope Winslow, I sure as hell can.”

Not only can, Hope thought, as an avalanche of excitement roared through her. Did.

His lips fit over hers, coaxingly at first, then with more and more insistence. She told herself to resist. Tried to resist. But her treacherous body refused to listen to her heart, which had been wounded, and her mind, which absolutely knew better.

She had been alone for so long.

Had needed to be touched, held, for months now.

She hadn’t expected to be cherished as if she were the most wonderful woman on Earth. But that was exactly what he was doing, as he stroked his hand through her hair and, with his other palm flattened against her spine, guided her closer until her breasts were pressed against the unyielding hardness of his chest. Lower still, she felt the heat in his thighs and the building desire. And knew her life had just begun to get hopelessly complicated...

* * *

GARRETT HADN’T COME out to the ranch thinking they would be alone for one single second. Hadn’t figured he would ever act on the need that had consumed him since the second her bottom landed square on his lap, the softness of her breasts pushing into his face.

Oh, he’d known he wanted her from the instant he had seen her checking him out in the DC airport. She was just so gorgeous, so haughty and unreachable in that all-business way of hers.

Seeing she had an infant whom she cared deeply for, knowing she was irrevocably wedded to life in Texas while he was not, had added yet another reason he should keep his hands off.

He might have managed it, too, if she hadn’t been working so hard to curtail the attraction she so obviously felt.

Because Hope was right about one thing. Her denial had brought out the alpha male in him. Made him want to pursue her like she had never been pursued before.

That pursuit, in turn, had kindled his own raging desire. And then she had kissed him back, her tongue entwined with his in a way that could bring him to his knees and one day, hopefully, land them both in bed.

Luckily for the two of them she came to her senses and pushed him away. Breathing raggedly, she stepped back, a gut-wrenching turmoil in her low tone he hadn’t expected. “I can’t do this.”

Pressing her hand to her kiss-swollen lips, she shook her head. “I can’t lose everything because of one reckless moment. Not again.”

* * *

SILENCE FELL BETWEEN THEM, as awful and wrenching as her voice. Mortified, Hope yanked open her car door and climbed behind the wheel.

Garrett walked to the passenger side and pulled himself in beside her. “When did that happen?”

Hope concentrated on starting the engine. Driving, the normalcy of it, would help. She looked behind her, then backed up until she reached the gravel road that led to the barns. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

“And I shouldn’t have kissed you,” Garrett admitted gruffly, his big body filling up the passenger compartment the way no one else ever had. “But now that I did, and you kissed me back...”

He shrugged like a soldier on leave.

As if the fact that he had just returned from a war zone entitled him to something. Namely, a woman willing to have a fling.

She had found out the hard way, however, through her ill-advised liaison with Max’s daddy, that woman was not her.

“That shouldn’t have happened, either,” she said stiffly, as the SUV wound past the damaged wooden fence to the lone building a distance away from everything.

She didn’t have to guess what it was.

A sign next to the door of the cedar-sided, tin-roofed building said Circle H Ranch Bunkhouse.

A bright red welcome mat stood in front of the heavy wooden door. Pots of flowers, a couple of small tables and some rough-hewn Adirondack chairs decorated the front porch. Lamps, emitting a soft yellow glow on either side of the entry had been turned on.

If the inviting exterior was any indication of the inside of the domicile, then Lucille had been right, they would be comfortable here.

Hope cut the engine and got out of the car. Quietly, she opened the rear passenger door, unfastened Max’s safety seat from the base of the restraint and lifted him out. To her relief, her sweet little boy slept blissfully on.

Garrett grabbed the diaper bag and went on ahead, to find the key that had been left beneath the mat. “Is all this because you’re working for my mother?” He reached inside and switched the interior lights on.

“Believe it or not—” Hope squared her shoulders as she passed “—working for your mother doesn’t include making out with you.”

* * *

GARRETT WAS PRETTY sure Hope hadn’t meant to say that. Any more than she’d meant to do anything she had the last fifteen minutes or so. Nevertheless, he was pleased to see her letting down her guard. He wanted to get to know the real Hope Winslow, not the sophisticated facade she showed the world.

He watched as she set the carrier holding her sleeping infant down. “I won’t interfere with that. Well, no more than I would have, anyway.”

She smiled at him as if they hadn’t just brought each other’s bodies roaring back to life. “Good to know, Captain.”

Together, they took a quick tour of the newly renovated bunkhouse.

The central part of the structure included an open-concept kitchen with a breakfast bar that looked out onto the great room, complete with a TV and U-shaped sofa and a large plank table with a dozen chairs plus an arm chair on each end. On each side of it was a hallway that led to three bedrooms. All six bedrooms were outfitted identically, with a queen-sized bed, desk, dresser and private bath. His mom had been right, Garrett noted. They all could be very comfortable here.

Except for the awareness simmering between Hope and him...

“I don’t understand why you think it would matter if we did become...closer. I’m not the one employing you—my mother is.”

Hope sighed, apparently appreciating his use of the least offensive word he could think of. “It would still look bad.”

“And that concerns you, how things look?”

“Yes.” Stepping closer, she slid him a surprised glance. “Doesn’t it concern you?”

He exhaled his exasperation. “Not really. Something is either right or it’s wrong. What we just experienced felt very right.”

Hope turned away as if they hadn’t just shared an embrace that had rocked his world. “It doesn’t matter,” she said, as if to a four-year-old. “Scandal management is all about appearances.”

Ah, appearances. The bane of his youth.

He moved close enough to see the frustration glimmering in her eyes.

Her elegant features tinged an emotional pink, she said, “I just started my own firm. Your mother’s scandal is the first crisis I’m handling, solo. It has to go well.”

Of course business came first with her.

“Or?”

She sighed, completely vulnerable now as she met his gaze, seeming on the verge of tears. “Or my reputation really will be ruined.”

That was almost as hard to believe as the way he was suddenly feeling about her, as if she might just be worth sticking around for. He moved closer yet. Seeing it was a tear trembling just beneath her lower lash, he lifted a thumb, gently brushed it away. “Over one job?” And one very long, satisfying kiss that had led him to want so much more?

She swallowed, stepped back. The tenderness he felt for her doubled.

“I made a mistake when I was working for my previous employer.”

He couldn’t imagine it being as calamitous as she was making it out to be. It was all he could do not to take her back in his arms. “What happened?”

For a second he thought she wouldn’t answer, then she apparently thought better of it—maybe because she knew in this day and age almost anything could be researched on the internet.

Hope turned and walked back out to her SUV. She lifted out the pack-n-play, handed it off to him, then pulled out a box of diapers and a bag of baby necessities. “I got involved with a British journalist reporting on a scandal involving the American ambassador’s son. Nothing happened between us during the crisis. But there was a flirtation that later turned into a love affair.”

He grabbed her suitcase and headed up the steps alongside her. No wonder she’d reacted the way she had when his mother accused them of flirting. “I’m guessing it ended badly?”

Hope set her things down in the bedroom farthest from the living area. She opened up the pack-n-play, erecting it quickly. “I wanted marriage and a family. Lyle didn’t. So we broke up. A few weeks later, he was killed in a motorcycle accident while on vacation with another woman. A couple of weeks after that, I discovered I was pregnant with Max.”

Although he felt bad for all she’d been through, he realized he liked her better like this, showing her more vulnerable side.

“Sounds rough. But you were happy about the pregnancy?”

Hope smiled softly, glowing a little at the memory. “I was over the moon.”

He could see that. And it was easy to understand why. She had a great kid.

Hope stroked a hand through her honey-gold hair. “My bosses, however, were not anywhere near as ecstatic.”

Hope went back to put a soft cotton sheet over the crib mattress. She bent over, tucking in the elastic edges, while he stood by, watching, knowing she had no idea just how beautiful she was, never mind what she could do to a man, just by being, breathing...

She straightened, her green eyes serious, as she looked up at him. “My superiors worried, even though I had already arranged for a nanny from a topflight agency to assist me, that a baby would interfere with my ability to manage crises.”

Her teeth raked her plump lower lip, reminding him just how passionately she kissed. “Plus, they were upset about the rumors started by some of my rivals that hinted I’d leaked confidential information to Lyle Loddington, prior to our affair. It wasn’t true. I never disclosed even a smidgen of confidential information about anything to him. But you know how people think, where there’s love, there is pillow talk...”

Pillow talk with her would have to be amazing. Not to mention everything that came before it.

With effort, he forced his mind back to the conversation. “So your employer fired you?”

“I was asked to resign.”

It was easy to see that still stung. He got angry on her behalf. “You could have fought it.”

He followed her back outside to the rear of her SUV. Together, they carried what was left of their luggage inside. “Yes,” she agreed, “but if I had I would have done even more damage to my reputation in the process.” He shut the door quietly behind them. “So I decided to use what I had learned and start my own firm—which would allow me to control the timing and length of my maternity leave—and go back to work when Max was six months old.”

“Which would have been three months from now.”

“Right. And I’m happy with that decision, even though I was persuaded to return to work a little earlier than I had planned. I like the way my life is shaping up, Garrett.”

Able to see she didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize that, he took her hand. “I’m sorry you had such a tough time.” Crazy as it sounded, he wished he had been there to support and protect her. To help her though whatever upheaval she’d had to face. It’s not something anyone should have to go through alone.

Her expression grew stony with resolve. “It was my fault. I was reckless. But I’m not going to be reckless again.”

Chapter Four

“You’re not planning to go back to work now, are you?” Garrett asked, a short while later. He opened up the fridge that had been stocked by the bunkhouse caretaker in advance of their arrival, brought out a big stack of deli meats and cheeses and laid them out on the concrete kitchen countertop, next to an assortment of bakery goods.

Hope set her laptop and phone down on the breakfast bar just long enough to grab a small bunch of green grapes and pour herself a tall glass of milk.

“No choice.” Ignoring his look of concern, she settled on a tall stool opposite him. Ten thirty at night or not, she had business to conduct. And she needed to do it while her son was sound asleep. “I have to check the message boards for the news outlets reporting on the scandal, to see how the news thus far is being received.”

Garrett spread both sides of a multigrain roll with spicy brown mustard, then layered on lettuce, tomato, ham, turkey and cheddar cheese. “There’s nothing you can do about the way people think.”

“Au contraire, Captain Lockhart.”

He grinned.

Too late, she realized that flip remark had been a mistake.

He thought she was flirting with him again. And she definitely. Was. Not.

Hope turned her attention back to the task at hand. Her mood flatlined.