The Rancher and the Redhead
Suzannah Davis

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.

But not yet, damn you.

One eye flew open. The angle of the morning sun falling through his bedroom window was a lot higher than it should have been. And there was something he ought to remember...Jessie!

Sam jackknifed out of bed. He was leaning over the empty playpen in the next room before the sleep cleared from his groggy brain, and for an awful moment of panic and guilt he thought he’d misplaced her. Then he heard baby gurgles and Roni’s soft laughter floating from the direction of the kitchen.

He took only a second to pull on jeans, then came up short in the doorway of the large country kitchen. Stretched out on the rag rug underneath the trestle table was a pair of long, long feminine legs and a shapely behind. She was decent only by the length of a man’s shirttail.

“Peekaboo, Jessie. Where’s Jessie?”

Roni peered around a chair leg at the little girl, who clapped and bounced on her diaper-clad bottom in delight at the game, then took off scrambling on all fours around the opposite side of the table. Roni came to her knees, too, stalking her prey with a mock ferocity that made the child squeal—just like a calf stuck in a fence, Sam thought.

Leaning his shoulder against the door frame, he grinned, remembering times past when he and Kenny and Roni had played much the same kind of game in this very kitchen, building imaginary forts and corrals in and among the chair rungs, fighting off savage Indians and rustlers with their trusty six-guns. Of course, at that time none of them had sported anything like the provocative candy-pink lace he glimpsed peeking from beneath the hem of the old white dress shirt Roni had slept in.

After an instant’s honest masculine appreciation, he dragged his gaze reluctantly to a more respectful perusal of the rich brown sleep-tousled curls spilling down the middle of her back. Though she liked to keep her mop ruthlessly clipped back and tidy these days, it was still more than clear why she’d earned her nickname. He’d teased her unmercifully about her mane one summer—at least until she’d bloodied his nose with an uppercut that had laid him out flat and taught him a valuable lesson about women.

Chuckling at the memory, he watched Roni creep after Jessie, poking her way through a litter of oat cereal “O’s” and discarded paper napkins. It was an amazement and a miracle to him that his childhood playmate was still such an important part of his life. He was selfishly glad she’d finally had the good sense to break things off with that no-good jet-setting scoundrel she’d been involved with and come home to Flat Fork where she belonged.

The mess he’d made with Shelly had made him gun-shy when it came to matters of the heart, and if it hadn’t been for Roni Daniels bullying him back into life, he surely would have become a hermit. Instead, over their Friday-night beers at Rosie’s, she’d cajoled him and talked him into reentering life while nursing her own bruised heart.

Sam didn’t know what he would have done without her, and now, here she was again, pitching in like the true pal she was, giving him her unequivocal support to a decision that no doubt half the county would consider as cracked as the Liberty Bell.

And, on top of that, she’d taken the early shift.

“Morning, you two.”

Jessie’s russet curls bobbed at the sound of Sam’s sleep-husky voice, and her blue eyes widened in recognition. Forgetting the game, she scrambled madly across the floor toward him with a squeal. “Da!”

She was irresistible. Sam bent and scooped the tyke into his arms as Roni sat back on her heels and eyed the duo.

“So what am I now, chopped liver?” she mock complained.

Sam grinned. “Sorry, Curly. Can I help it if women of all ages find me fascinating?”

Roni gave an indelicate snort. “You wish, cowboy.”

Hauling herself to her feet, she flicked her dark hair over her shoulders and straightened the oversize shirt. From the stains on the front, Jessie’s first breakfast in her new home had been a challenging experience. Ocher and peach-colored splatters dotted the fabric, but not quite enough to obscure the faint dark shadows of Roni’s nipples showing beneath the white cotton.

Sam frowned to himself. Now why had he noticed that? Roni was his buddy, like the sister he never had. Still, he wouldn’t have been much of a man not to appreciate the way the crests of her full bosom poked against...

“Ready for a taste?” Roni sashayed to the counter and lifted a cup in an invitation that slid in under Sam’s defenses and landed hot in his belly.

Hell, yes! He’d like to taste those impudent buds, lave them with his tongue right through the thin cotton until the fabric was wet and transparent and so was...

Roni was frowning at his lack of response. “Sam? Your coffee?”

Savagely, Sam reigned in his meandering thoughts. Jeez, he’d been without female companionship way too long when he started fantasizing about Curly! The last thing he wanted was to spoil their friendship with inappropriate lasciviousness.

“Uh, yeah. Thanks.” He shifted the chortling baby to the opposite shoulder and shook his groggy head. Yeah, that was it. He was still sleep-muddled. “You should have gotten me up sooner.”

She passed him a mug of steaming coffee, shrugging. “You obviously needed the rest. And Jessie and I have been getting acquainted. She’s quite a charmer.”

As if in response, the little girl nestled her cheek in the hollow of Sam’s collarbone and batted her long eyelashes at him in a look that was pure coquettishness. “Da?”

Sam’s laugh was helpless. “I’m a goner, as you can see.”

“Yes, indeed.” Roni cupped her hands around her own mug and gazed at him over the rim, her brown eyes serious. “Sure you know what you’re getting into?”

“No.” The twist of his mouth was wry. “But I’m in over my head, and it’s too late now.”

“Then I’ll help you all I can,” she said simply.

Her unqualified generosity produced a suspicious thickness in his throat. “Thanks, Curly. I—I don’t quite know what to say.”

“Just tell me what you want for breakfast, because I think that’s Angel’s old truck I hear coming down the lane, and you’ve got some bulls to see to.”

“Damn! He’s here already? I’m running later than I thought.” He took a step toward the bedroom, hesitated as he realized he still held Jessie, then passed her off to Roni with an apologetic look. “Sorry. Can you stay a bit? Just until we get the livestock loaded.”

“Relax, Sam. Everything’s under control.” Roni tickled the baby’s chin and was rewarded with a giggle. “You see to those bulls, and I’ll give Krystal a call about prospective housekeepers.”

He shoved a hand through his hair and blew out a breath. “That would be a big help.”

“Don’t worry. I’m sure Krystal and I will have something worked out by suppertime.” Roni bounced the baby on her hip, her smile complacent. “After all, Jessie’s a doll. How hard could it be?”

Two

“So what’s wrong with this one?”

“Her nose is too long.”

“You’ve got to be kidding.” Sam flung his pencil down on a list of crossed-out names and glared in exasperation at Roni over the charred crusts of their frozen pizza lunch.

“Well, figuratively speaking, anyway,” she muttered, folding one of Jessie’s gowns and placing it in a plastic laundry basket with the rest of the baby’s clean things. “Mrs. Hawkins is the worst gossip in town. She’ll spend all of her time talking on the phone instead of looking after Jessie.”

“Well, what about Laurie Taylor?”

“She’s barely out of high school. Do you want all her randy boyfriends hanging around all the time?”

Sam reared back in his chair, eyeing Roni with a degree of belligerence. In her paint-spattered T-shirt, cutoffs and bare feet, she didn’t look much older than a teenager herself. And when she was in one of her ornery moods—as now—Sam was of the opinion that what she really needed was a darned good spanking. “You suggest someone then.”

“Agnes Phillips,” she said promptly.

“What?” His chair legs hit the floor with a smack. “She’s so old, she creaks when she walks—or rather, shuffles.” Sam gestured to where Jessie sat on the kitchen floor, babbling to herself and playing with an assortment of pots and wooden spoons. “She couldn’t keep up with the little trickster here for ten seconds.”

Roni merely shrugged. “Then you’ll just have to keep looking, won’t you?”

Sam scowled, rubbed his palms down his sweat-stained jeans and began to roll up the cuffs of his long-sleeved chambray work shirt with every evidence of severe irritation. Punching cows since dawn hadn’t done much for his mood, and Roni’s stubbornness wasn’t helping.

“We’ve been interviewing for three days now, Curly. We’re no closer to hiring anyone than when we started, and the county welfare worker is due out here at three to see how everything’s going. What am I going to tell her?”

“That you’re still interviewing applicants. No one expects miracles in just a few short days.”

He grimaced sourly. “Yeah, but at the rate we’re going, we’ll run out of Flat Fork residents before I find a suitable housekeeper.”

Roni bristled. “I can’t help it that you’re so darned picky.”

“Me? You rejected the most promising candidates out of hand.” Sam ticked off names on the list. “Davina Hodge is too strict. Mrs. Rambles is too wishy-washy. Cloretha Glover has bad breath.”

“Well, you can’t settle for just anyone as Jessie’s primary caretaker. This decision is too important to rush.” Finished with her chore, she plopped the laundry basket down beside the door. “Besides, I told you my deadline for the Artbeat cover illustration isn’t for three weeks, so I don’t mind helping out.”

“But you can’t camp out here indefinitely,” he argued.

Her lips twisted with wry humor. “I know I’m not much of a cook, but I didn’t realize I’d worn out my welcome already.”

“Hey, even incinerated pizza tastes good after a morning vaccinating calves—” He saw her expression and added hastily, “Not that I’m complaining. I appreciate all you’re doing.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“Well, uh—” He shifted uncomfortably. “Aw, hell, Curly! What’re folks liable to say, seeing as how you’ve practically moved in with me?”

“Oh, for crying out loud!” She rolled her eyes in disgust. “They’ll say that I’m just helping out a buddy until he gets this daddy thing under control. Since you’re so busy catching up on the work that accumulated while you were away, it’s simply more convenient for me to sleep here, and easier on Jessie, too.”

“I just don’t want you to catch any guff—”

“The only thing I’m liable to catch is a backache from that lumpy twin bed in Jessie’s room. And maybe ptomaine from all the prepared food we’ve had out of your freezer. Don’t cowboys ever eat salad or fresh vegetables?”

“Not if we can help it.” Her dismissal of his concern and return to her normal teasing made him relax, and his lips twitched. “But maybe I could force some down if it’s accompanied by a nice, thick T-bone steak.”

Her brown eyes lit up. “You offering to grill them?”

“Yup.”

“You’ve got yourself a deal.”

On the floor, Jessie had abandoned her spoons and sat rubbing her eyes and fretting softly. Scooping up the baby, Roni cuddled her close. Jessie immediately stuck her thumb in her mouth and buried her other fist into Roni’s hair in what was fast becoming a familiar habit. While the child seemed to be settling in, she alternated periods of normal behavior with listlessness or extreme irritability—a sure sign that she was grieving for her missing mother. And all the more reason to provide a loving and dependable daily caretaker as soon as possible, Sam thought.

“She’s tired,” Roni said.

“Want me to rock her?”

Roni dropped a kiss on the baby’s forehead. “No, I’ll do it. But since you’ve got to hang around to meet the caseworker, I’m going to run home for a change of clothes while she’s napping.”

“Sure. Take as much time as you need.” Sam nodded, guilty that his new status as dad was disrupting Roni’s routine. Despite her protests to the contrary, he knew that her career was booming and that her schedule was fairly tight. If he didn’t hire someone soon, Roni’s work would suffer and then he’d really be wallowing in the guilt.

Not for the first time, he wondered if he’d made the right decision. A flock of butterflies seemed to have taken up permanent residence in his belly at the enormity of what he was doing. But he’d promised Alicia he’d take care of her daughter, and he was a man of his word.

“I won’t be long,” Roni said, settling the tired baby against her shoulder. “I’ll pick up the dinner fixings and give Krystal a holler, too. Maybe she can think of someone else who might be interested in the housekeeper’s position.”

Picking up the list again, Sam stared at it gloomily. “And anyone whose name isn’t Mary Poppins need not apply.”

Laughing at his morose expression, she turned and headed for Jessie’s room. “Don’t worry, Sam. I’m sure the perfect solution is right under our noses. It’s simply a matter of finding it.”

* * *

Two and a half hours later, Roni pulled her Jeep into Krystal Harrison’s sunny driveway. She felt rather breathless after her quick trip home. Since her widowed mother, Carolyn, had married hardware store owner Jinks Robinson and moved to Austin, Roni had the tiny Daniels homestead to herself, but today the house had seemed more silent and solitary than usual.

She’d lingered only long enough to check her mail and pick up clean clothes, then headed to the tiny Flat Fork post office to express a piece of advertising art that should have gone off two days earlier. She followed a stop by the library to pick up the latest child development and parenting guides with a visit to the Winn-Dixie for groceries. One more stop to pick Krystal’s brain for potential housekeepers, and then she could be on her way back to Sam’s place. Roni anxiously hoped that he’d managed to hold down the fort without her.

A trio of towheaded wild Indians erupted from the carport of the single-story brick ranch house that matched its neighbors in this small, tree-lined subdivision.

“Aunt Roni!”

“Hey, Mom. Aunt Roni’s here!”

“Did ya bring us anything?”

Roni reached for the packs of sugarless bubble gum Krystal’s boys had come to expect, then hastily tucked the hem of a scarlet silk-and-lace teddy back out of sight in her tote bag. No use giving the little rascals any embarrassing fodder for their question mill. After all, if a gal had a secret hankering for flimsy underthings, it was nobody’s business but her own.

In a town where the pace of life was slow and casual, Roni didn’t have much call for the slinky, sexy dresses she’d worn when she’d been continually on Jackson Dial’s arm. But just because her working attire was jeans and T-shirts, and her going-out attire was clean jeans and a T-shirt, didn’t mean she’d lost her love of feminine frills altogether. In a small, churchgoing town like Flat Fork, however, it was better to keep one’s scandalous predilections private.

“Hello, boys. Yes, here you go.” Stepping out of the Jeep, Roni passed out gum to Kevin, Kelly and Karl amid a profusion of thanks. “Where’s your mother?”

“In the backyard,” Kelly replied. “She says to come on back.”

Roni grinned and ruffled the third grader’s fair bangs. “Thanks.”

“You gonna come watch me play tee-ball Saturday?” four-year-old Karl demanded.

“I’m sure going to try, partner.” Roni walked through the carport into the spacious backyard littered with an assortment of balls, bats and toy trucks. Krystal, a petite blonde with a short wedge haircut, hailed her from a lounge chair on the brick patio.

“You’re just in time for something cool,” she said, pouring a tall glass of ice tea from a plastic pitcher on a nearby snack table. “It’s the lull before the suppertime, homework and ‘oh-Mom-do-I-have-to-go-to-bed-now’ storm.”

“Sounds good.” Roni flung herself down in a matching chair, smiling. Though she might complain about it, Krystal’s day-to-day family life was bursting with energy and her home full of love—something that Roni thought any woman would envy.

“I can’t stay but a minute,” she said. “I’m already much later than I thought I’d be, and Sam’s just about helpless when Jessie gets into her evening snit.”

Krystal handed the glass to Roni. “Seems to me he’d better learn to handle it if he means to keep her.”

“Oh, he does! You should just see how he melts when she bats her baby blues at him. It’s the cutest thing you ever saw.”

“Who?” Krystal smirked. “Jessie or Sam?”

Roni laughed and sipped her tea. “Well, both of them, I guess. She’s got a temper to match those red curls, but she’s a sweetheart. I swear she’s already calling Sam ‘Da-Da.’ He’s just wild to find a housekeeper so she can have some sort of routine, but so far, no luck at all.”

“None of the ladies I suggested were interested?” Krystal asked incredulously.

Roni shook her head. “Well, some of them were interested, but Sam’s so hard to please.” She explained who had been interviewed and the various reasons they’d been found unsuitable. “You don’t know of anyone else, do you?”

Frowning, Krystal hesitated. “I’ll have to think about it. In the meantime, I suppose Sam could enroll Jessie in Pharis Fitzgerald’s Mother Goose Day Care.”

“What? Drag that baby out of her bed at the crack of dawn every morning and leave her with a bunch of strangers until dusk? Out of the question!” Roni blushed at her own vehemence. “I mean, I’m sure Sam wants to keep her at home. She’s been through so many changes, you see, and she gets upset easily—”

“Sounds to me as though you don’t want to find someone to hire.”

“That’s ridiculous.” Roni brushed her curls out of her hot face. “I simply want Sam to find the best person for the job.”

“So you can get on with your highly exciting life, right?” Krystal nodded sagely. “You can’t fool me, Roni Daniels. You’re having a whale of a time mothering that baby.”

Roni laughed, unable to deny the accusation. “Can I help it if I’m a pushover for redheaded cherubs?”

“Got it that bad, huh? So tell me, how’s it really going? Everyone in this town is mighty interested in what’s happening with that baby...and you.”

“Me?” Roni blinked. “Why me?”

Krystal gave her friend a disgusted look. “You must be the only female in this town immune to Sam Preston’s sex appeal. Do I have to draw you a picture? You, plus Sam, plus one adorable orphan, emotions running high, close proximity—”

“Sheesh, Krystal, not you, too!” Roni took a long pull of her ice tea. “I’m just being a good neighbor.”

“And you never noticed that Sam Preston is one handsome hunk of raw masculinity?”

Roni fought back a mental flash of Sam clad only in a towel, and said loftily, “I admire Sam for a lot of reasons. He’s my best friend, after all.”

“Let me tell you, there are plenty of single ladies in this town who’d give their right arms to be in your shoes—especially Nadine Scott.”

Roni grimaced. Nadine was the new hospital administrator who’d gone out with Sam a couple of times. “Well, she can stop holding her breath. There’s nothing happening between her and Sam.”

“How do you know?”

“He told me. Said she’s too aggressive and wears too much makeup. I happen to agree.”

Krystal laughed and crossed her ankles on the lounger. “So that’s what you two talk about every Friday night. You dissect each other’s dates.”

“Not always. Well, sometimes,” Roni admitted grudgingly. “Sam warned me Tully Carson was a card-carrying chauvinist. Boy, was he right.”

“The way the two of you rip each other’s suitors to shreds, it’s a wonder you have any social life at all. And Sam’s going to need one now more than ever.”

“What do you mean?”

“While everyone applauds his good intentions regarding little Jessie, that baby’s going to need a mother. But the way things are, no eligible single gal can get to Sam because she has to go through you.”

Totally taken aback, Roni could only stare. “I—I never thought of that.”

“You have to admit that Sam’s one of the few genuinely nice men left around here.”

“Of course he is.”

“Not like Jackson.”

Roni’s lips twisted. “Certainly not like Jackson Dial.”

Krystal searched her friend’s expression. “You’re really over him, aren’t you?”

“After two years, the hurt fades. I could kick myself for sticking it out so long, hoping—” She shook her head.

“He’s got a new movie out, I see.”

“Yes, I know. Apache Tears. I actually did some of the preliminary sketches for the art direction. For free, of course. That’s Jackson’s style.” Shaking off the feeling of failure that remembering their relationship always evoked, she set down her glass and rose. “I’ve got to run. Call me if you think of anyone else who might want the housekeeper’s position, okay?”

Minutes later Roni sped down the two-lane blacktop toward the Lazy Diamond, chewing her lip in worry. Could Krystal be right? Had she been doing Sam a disservice by monopolizing his time, to the detriment of any other relationship he might develop? Sam was such a decent man, he deserved a woman who would adore him, someone unlike Shelly, who’d appreciate his strong ties to the land and the little community he called home.

Forcing herself to look at the situation with brutal honesty, Roni had to admit that she’d grown to depend on Sam’s steadfastness, his lazy humor, the easy, accepting friendship. Since her return, he’d been her sounding board and her shield against loneliness. Now the realization that in her need she’d been depriving him of the chance to find someone special filled her with guilty remorse.

Krystal was absolutely on target. Sam needed a wife and a mother for Jessie, but he was unlikely to find one with Roni in the picture. If she really loved Sam as a friend, then the most generous thing she could do would be to step back so that nature could take its course—even if Sam ended up with someone like Nadine Scott. The image made her lips twist in distaste.

Swallowing hard, Roni pushed the sensation aside. Whatever happened, Sam had to be free to make his own choices. Just as soon as they settled the housekeeper situation, she’d have to start disconnecting herself from her dependency on Sam—for his own good. It was the right thing to do. So why, then, did the thought weigh so heavily on her heart?

Roni was still struggling with this quandary when she parked the Jeep at the ranch house. Juggling two brown paper bags of groceries, she started up the porch steps, only to be met by the sound of Jessie’s wails coming from the rear of the house.

She rushed to set her burdens down on the kitchen table, calling out as she went. “Sam, I’m back. What’s the matter with Jessie?”

There was no answer but the baby’s continued sobbing, and alarm raced down Roni’s backbone. She hurried to Jessie’s room, appalled to find her in her playpen, red-faced, alone and wailing as if her heart were broken.

“Oh, honey!” Roni’s heart tightened at the upsetting sight, and her anger blossomed. Where the devil was Sam? How could he have left the child all alone? Lifting Jessie into her arms, she tried to calm the baby. “Hush, Jessie. Roni’s here. It’s all right.”

The tiny girl clutched at Roni’s hair, arched her back and howled in earnest, giant crocodile tears streaming down her flushed cheeks.

“Come on now, sweetie,” Roni said.

A quick check found Jessie’s diaper dry, and an almost-full bottle in the corner of the playpen proved it wasn’t hunger that fueled the baby’s ire. Noticing the child’s hot cheeks and sweaty neck, Roni carried her to the bathroom for a cooling cloth. But the damp washcloth only infuriated the child even further, and she kicked and squirmed and screamed in a pure tantrum of ill-tempered misery.

Feeling helpless in the face of such fury, her own frustration spilling over, Roni glanced out the bathroom window and caught a glimpse of Sam engaged in some task down by Diablo’s paddock. Appalled, her own fury ignited, due in part to her inadequacy at dealing with Jessie’s squalling, and in part to her incredulity at Sam’s callousness and utter carelessness. Still holding the struggling baby, she stormed outside.

Sam heard her coming and laid the cinch straps he’d been mending across the top rail of the paddock. Even Diablo, Sam’s ebony stallion, raised his elegant head from the hay bale he’d been investigating and pricked his ears toward the ruckus.

Pushing his straw cowboy hat to the back of his head, Sam frowned wearily and demanded, “Why did you pick her up?”

Roni stared. “What? She’s screaming at the top of her lungs! Are you out of your ever-loving mind?”

Sam winced at Jessie’s ear-piercing wails. “She’s been at it all afternoon. Finally figured she’d have to cry it out.”

“How could you?” Roni railed, struggling to hold the flailing child. “You don’t leave a kid alone like that. What if she’s sick? Or hungry? Or—”

“Dammit, Curly, don’t you think I’ve got sense enough to think of all that?” Sam’s dark glower was mute evidence that he was near the end of his own rope. “Little bit started up not ten minutes after you left and squalled the whole time the county caseworker was here. I tried everything, and not a damned thing pleases her.”

“That’s no excuse, Sam Preston,” Roni said, her tone accusing. “You left her!”

“Since all I did just seemed to make whatever it is worse, I thought I’d give her some space. Believe me, I could hear her just fine out here. I’m not a complete dunce.”

“No, just a heartless one!” Roni shouted to be heard over Jessie’s crying. “You can’t treat a baby like...like one of your damn cows. Of all the insensitive, moronic—”

“Curse it, that’s enough.” Sam’s expression was black as thunder, and his jaw thrust out at a militant angle. “You weren’t here, and I had to follow my best judgment—which was working just fine until you came along and got her started again.”

“I did no such—”

“Don’t try to second-guess me, Curly,” he interrupted brusquely, jabbing his forefinger at her nose. “When it comes right down to it, she’s not your responsibility.”

Sam’s harsh words landed like a physical slap and took Roni’s breath. She stared at him, feeling the color drain from her face. Hot tears prickled behind her lids. With a small cry that was barely audible above Jessie’s weeping, Roni turned and stumbled for the house.

“Curly, wait. I didn’t mean—”

Choking, Roni didn’t pause to hear the rest. Calling herself every kind of idiot, she tried to contain the hurt that bubbled over. The worst of it was that despite the affection and attachment for Jessie already blossoming in her unwary heart, Sam was absolutely right. She had no claim on the redheaded angel who was still making a devilish uproar. No bond of blood or commitment, and certainly no right—best friends or no—to instruct Sam on the upbringing of his new daughter. The knowledge left a bitter taste in her mouth.

“Roni, stop!” Sam caught her from behind just as she reached the back door, his expression stricken. “Oh, God, you’re crying. You never cry.”

“You’d better take her,” Roni said around a knot of tears in her throat. “I—” A sob stole whatever else she meant to say.

Cussing a blue streak, Sam shot a harried glance from side to side, then abruptly dragged Roni, still holding the baby, off the porch and toward his blue Ford pickup. Without further explanation he jerked open the door and thrust her inside. A child’s car seat sat buckled in the middle of the seat.

“Here, strap her in,” he muttered, then pushed Roni’s fumbling hands aside to perform the task on the screaming baby.

“Sam, what—? Please...” Distraught and unnerved, Roni tried to slip out past him, but he caught her, buckled her seat belt much as he’d done Jessie’s, then slammed the door.

“Stay put.” His mouth was grim as he came around to the driver’s side. “We’re going for a ride.”

“I don’t want to go anywhere with you!” Sniffling, Roni wiped her tears on the hem of her knit shirt and tried to glare at him. “What’s so all-fired important about taking a ride?”

“Read it somewhere,” he muttered, starting the vehicle. “Supposed to be soothing to cranky kids or something.” He threw the truck into gear and tore down the dusty drive as if all the demons of hell were after them.

“That’s if the baby has colic!” Roni shouted over the engine noise and Jessie’s continued bellows of rage.

“What have we got to lose?”

“Fine. Suit yourself.” Crossing her arms, Roni stared mulishly out the window and said nothing further.

Nearly thirty miles later, Jessie’s screams had turned to soft snores. Sam slowed to a more reasonable pace, made a U-turn and headed back toward the ranch.

“I didn’t mean it, you know,” he said finally.

Roni clamped down on her bottom lip to hide a betraying trembling, then forced herself to speak honestly. “It’s true anyway, and I apologize. I overstepped my place. She’s not my responsibility.”

“Roni, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.” Sam squinted against the orange globe of the sun resting on the western horizon and ran his free hand down his square jaw. “The way you’ve pitched in, you’ve got a right to say whatever you think.”

Roni stroked Jessie’s plump fist, taking care not to wake the sleeping baby. If Sam was offering an olive branch, she would be foolish not to accept it. “Neither one of us has any experience dealing with a little heifer as stubborn as this one.”

“She’s put me through the wringer, all right. It makes me wonder...” He fell silent.

Something in the tone of his voice made her glance at him sharply. “What, Sam?”

He sighed, bouncing his fist on the steering wheel. “If I’m doing the right thing. That social worker, Mrs. Veatch, asked some pretty tough questions.”

A trickle of fear made Roni’s voice querulous. “Like what?”

“Like if I’m ready to be a single parent. If taking Jessie, even with the best of intentions, is right for her.”

“What else would it be?” she demanded, her eyes growing wide with a premonition of disaster.

“Selfish.” Sam’s blue gaze flicked to Roni, then snapped back to the highway. “Am I doing this for myself or for her? Maybe Jessie deserves a real family, with a mother and father, somebody who can offer her something more stable than a cowboy’s life.”

“What are you saying?” Roni whispered. “You’d put her in a foster home?”

“That was one suggestion. But there are plenty of couples who’re dying to adopt. She could have all the advantages....”

“Give her up completely?” Roni couldn’t hide her dismay.

“It’s not something I’d do lightly. But, dammit, Curly, I just don’t know if I’m cut out for this, and Jessie needs two parents.”

Rather desperately, Roni said, “You might get married again.”

“Old bachelor like me?” Sam grimaced. “Not likely. And I don’t exactly have a sterling record in the marriage department anyway.”

“That wasn’t your fault,” she muttered, chagrined anew that her presence might have played a part in his failure to find another partner. And now Jessie could pay the price, as well. “And what about your promise to Alicia?”

A muscle worked in Sam’s lean jaw, and his eyes narrowed, picking out the turn to the Lazy Diamond. “I said I’d take care of Jessie. Finding a stable home environment where she can grow up secure and loved is the best way for me to keep that promise.”

“You don’t have to decide right now, do you?”

Her words were so strangled with tension that Sam glanced sharply at her.

“Do you?” she demanded, feeling brittle.

“No.” They’d reached the ranch house, and now he parked the truck and turned on the seat, meeting Roni’s anxious gaze across the top of Jessie’s car seat. “But I’m going to think on it hard.”

Roni slumped with relief, then hid her reaction by releasing Jessie from her harness. The exhausted baby was limp, her cherub’s mouth parted in the soft breaths of slumber and she made scarcely a murmur as Roni lifted her free. Sam had come around to the passenger side by this time and helped Roni climb out. His hand was warm on her upper arm, holding her still as he looked down into her face.

“I’m depending on you to help me figure this out, Curly. No matter that I’m already crazy about the kid, I’ve got to do what’s best for her in the long run.”

Roni caught a tremulous breath. “I know, Sam.”

He gave her arm a brief squeeze that was part thanks, part encouragement, and they went inside. Roni hadn’t made it halfway down the hall when the phone rang. The baby on her shoulder jumped, then begin to mewl fretfully. Sam cursed and hurried to the kitchen, catching the receiver up before the next ring. Gratefully, Roni sought out the platform rocker in his bedroom. Rocking and singing softly as daylight fled and the room grew shadowy, she was much relieved when Jessie gave a tired sigh and settled back down.

After a while, Roni heard Sam hang up, and when he appeared in the doorway a moment later, a peculiar expression etched his rugged features. “The Lord works in mysterious ways.”

She gave him a curious look. “What? Who was that?”

“Maybe the answer.”

Roni’s voice was soft, to avoid waking the child she cradled in her arms, but her tone was wry. “Spit it out, Sam. You know your laconic cowboy persona drives me bats.”

“About Jessie.” He crossed to where Roni sat and swept callused fingers over the tiny girl’s russet curls. “That was Mrs. Veatch. She says the Newtons have reconsidered. They’re missing Jessie like crazy and want to begin adoption proceedings.”

“No.” Roni’s heart lurched, and her arms tightened involuntarily around the child.

“Curly, we’ve got to be practical about this.”

“Cold-blooded, you mean?” Roni’s expression was fierce. “I won’t believe it of you, Sam. Tell me you don’t care about Jessie. I dare you.”

“I’ll be damned if I let my emotions cloud what’s best for her,” he said.

“See? You can’t deny it, because you already love her as though she was your own flesh and blood.” Gazing down into the sleeping child’s rosebud face, Roni felt a wave of emotion pulling her under, forcing her to admit the truth. She gave a small, breathless cry of surrender. “And so do I.”

Sam’s expression was suddenly full of worry and concern. He squatted down on his heels beside the rocker so that their eyes were on the same level. “Curly...”

“I want this child. You can’t give her away, Sam. I won’t let you.”

He groaned. “But we’ve got to think about what’s right for Jessie.”

“How about what’s right for you? For me?” Roni demanded.

Sam threw up his hands. “So what do you want me to do?”

Cheeks pale, Roni hesitated, then met his gaze. “The right thing. Marry me, Sam.”

Three

When Sam was seventeen, he’d been kicked in the head by a half-broken saddle bronc Kenny had dared him to ride. Roni’s words produced the same stunning sensation, the impression of falling endlessly until you hit the ground—hard.

“What did you say?” The huskiness of his own voice startled him.

Rosy color flooded Roni’s face, but she held his gaze unwaveringly. “I—I think I just proposed, Sam.”

“I’m not in the mood for your teasing, Curly.”

“I’m dead serious.”

Sam rose abruptly. Roni’s warm brown eyes seemed huge in her pale face, and he was suddenly struck by how pretty she was, even disheveled with her dark hair curling about her shoulders, and how absolutely right she looked, cradling a baby to her bosom. Carefully he lifted Jessie from Roni’s arms, then laid the sleeping child down in the middle of his king-size bed and propped pillows on either side of her. He knew that Roni had risen and was watching him closely.

“I should get busy assembling her baby bed.” The pieces of the white Jenny Lind bed he’d brought back from Alicia’s apartment in Abilene still lay stacked in a heap in the front parlor among the other debris of Jessie’s arrival.

“She might sleep better,” Roni agreed cautiously.

He knew they weren’t really talking about baby beds. “Come on. I need a beer.”

With Roni trailing after him, he stalked into the kitchen, pulled open the refrigerator door and reached for a dark brown bottle. “Want one?”

She shook her head, moving about his kitchen with easy familiarity, automatically putting away the forgotten sacks of groceries. She set the kettle on the stove and opened a box of herbal tea.

“I’d rather have this.” Though she tried to keep her voice light, he could hear the strain in it. “And it’s rather unflattering, you know, for you to be so flabbergasted. Hadn’t you ever thought that you and I—that we...”

“No,” he said flatly, twisting open the beer bottle. “I hadn’t.”

She threw a tea bag into a mug and turned to him with a belligerent tilt to her chin. “Well, how...how very unchivalrous of you. All the same, it makes perfect sense, if you’ll just think.”

“Sense?” He snorted. “Curly, you’ve gone loco.”

Her cheeks brightened again, but she went on doggedly. “It’s the solution you need for Jessie, Sam. We both adore her. Together we can make the kind of home she deserves, and frankly, there are worse ways to start off married life than by being good friends.”

“I don’t know what to say.” He shook his head, dazed. “You’d do that for Jessie?”

“I’d do it for me. I’m sick of living alone.”

Sam heard the plaintiveness in her tone and realized he’d been too caught up in his own concerns to see that his ever-upbeat pal was struggling with her own brand of loneliness. Straddling a kitchen chair, he took a drink of his beer and stared down at the bottle. “I’ll admit it’s no picnic for me, either.”

“I’ve always wanted a home and a family, and I know you have, too. But things just haven’t worked out as either of us planned.” Sighing, she leaned her trim hips against the kitchen counter and warmed her hands around her mug as though fighting off a chill. She was silent a long moment, gazing down into the steaming liquid. “I suppose in a way I’ll always love Jackson, but he couldn’t give me what I truly wanted and needed.”

“I know that.”

“But you can, Sam.” She lifted her eyes, and her words were earnest. “If Jessie is your second chance at that kind of life, she’s my first and last chance. I want her, more than anything I’ve ever wanted. I know we could be the kind of parents she needs and bring her up right with love and security.”

“You wouldn’t be getting much out of the deal.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. We’d be a family. That’s more than enough.” Catching his skeptical glance, she set her mug aside and persisted. “Neither of us is getting any younger, Sam. Just think of it as a practical solution to the problem. We both work at home, with flexible schedules, so Jessie’s needs could come first, without having to depend on housekeepers and day care. And you’ve been too damn proud to accept my offer to use my daddy’s pastureland. Married, we can combine our assets and build something permanent together for Jessie on the Lazy Diamond. It’s perfect. We’d all benefit.”

“I think you’re forgetting something.” Deliberately, he drained his beer, set the bottle down on the table, then rose and came to stand in front of her. “What about sex?”

She swallowed. “What about it?”

“Don’t play dumb, Curly.” He cupped her shoulders and let his thumbs trace the delicate line of her collarbone. “You know what I mean.”

“Can’t we cross that bridge when we come to it?”

Catching her around the waist, he jerked her up against him, bending to nuzzle the flower-fragrant crook of her neck. His unexpected touch evoked a shiver and a gasp from her, and he bared his teeth in a wolfish grin, muttering, “I think we just did.”

Her fingers grasped his forearms for balance. “You’re not going to scare me off, if that’s what you’re trying to do.”

He drew back, giving her a hard look, then pressed himself suggestively against her middle in blatant mimicry of the act they were discussing. “A man wants a willing woman in his bed, Veronica Jean, not a martyr.”

Her breathing accelerated, and she hesitated, licking her lips. “I—I’m not unwilling.”

That set him aback. Sam admitted to himself that he’d crowded her to show her just how asinine this idea of hers was, that he was no sexless eunuch to be dismissed out of hand, but her response was forcing him to see her in a new light. Damn, he knew she was a beautiful, desirable woman, but he’d never allowed himself to think of her like that. Those had been the unspoken rules. She was just Curly, who’d always been there for him. Anything else felt strange and unnatural, didn’t it?

Releasing her, he stepped back a pace, rubbing his hand over his nape in consternation. “We’ve never had those feelings toward each other, Curly.”

“Perhaps not. But we’ve got a lot more going for us than most couples—trust, dependability, a wealth of knowledge and history together. The other could evolve naturally, if we wanted it to.”

“And if it doesn’t?” he challenged.

“Companionship and mutual respect are important, too.” She shrugged uncomfortably. “And we’re both adults with no illusions about love left to shatter. As long as we’re both discreet, outside, er—friendships shouldn’t be a problem, if it came to that.”

He laughed harshly. “How very modern of you.”

She flushed again. “Look, making a stable family environment for Jessie is the prime consideration here, isn’t it? What’s to keep us from going on just as we’ve been doing the last few days?”

“You think keeping things platonic would work?”

“It has so far,” she pointed out with irrefutable logic. Then she smiled, a little tender, a little bemused, cajoling him into temptation. “Come on, Sam. Let’s do it for Jessie. We’re comfortable together, like a favorite pair of old boots. It wouldn’t be that hard. In some ways, we’re already like an old married couple.”

“You mean passion on the back burner, constant bickering and taking each other for granted?”

She chuckled. “Something like that.”

Sam’s lips twitched in an answering grin. She never fails to make me smile.

For an instant he resisted acknowledging a decision that he’d already made deep down inside. The alternative—giving up the baby girl who’d stolen his heart, and losing Roni’s respect—was unthinkable. And a part of him yearned for the connection and continuity of a family just as fiercely as Roni did.

Hell, she knew what she was getting into. Knew him for the lunkheaded cowpuncher and struggling rancher he was, knew small-town life and all that came with it. She’d taken her knocks, too, and wouldn’t expect rainbows and miracles every minute, nor would she light out at the first hint of rough going.

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