Книга - The Rancher’s Christmas Promise

The Rancher's Christmas Promise
Allison Leigh


His long-lost daughter…Ryder Wilson’s determined to make a home for the baby his late estranged wife left on a stranger’s doorstep. Local lawyer Greer Templeton is there to help. It’s enough to make Ryder propose a marriage of convenience. But does love factor into his Christmas promise?







“We believe the infant girl under our protection is your daughter.”

With that, rancher Ryder Wilson’s world turns upside down. But he’s determined to make a home for the baby his late estranged wife left on a stranger’s doorstep. Local lawyer Greer Templeton is there to help, after growing attached to little Layla during the search for her daddy. It’s enough to make Ryder propose a marriage of convenience. But does love factor into his Christmas promise?


Though her name is frequently on bestseller lists, ALLISON LEIGH’s high point as a writer is hearing from readers that they laughed, cried or lost sleep while reading her books. She credits her family with great patience for the time she’s parked at her computer, and for blessing her with the kind of love she wants her readers to share with the characters living in the pages of her books. Contact her at allisonleigh.com (http://www.allisonleigh.com).


Also by Allison Leigh (#u6f77f426-278a-59ec-b803-b508f02132bf)

Show Me a Hero

Yuletide Baby Bargain

A Child Under His Tree

The BFF Bride

One Night in Weaver...

A Weaver Christmas Gift

A Weaver Beginning

A Weaver Vow

Fortune’s Homecoming

Wild West Fortune

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


The Rancher’s Christmas Promise

Allison Leigh






www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


ISBN: 978-1-474-07825-2

THE RANCHER’S CHRISTMAS PROMISE

© 2018 Allison Lee Johnson

Published in Great Britain 2018

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

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www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


For my family.


Contents

Cover (#u44db5ba8-3785-5294-a75f-193497499ae2)

Back Cover Text (#u86716495-fcbb-57c2-9c9f-f085d75dc2f4)

About the Author (#u04552683-be77-54db-9b50-37bc123fa4ee)

Booklist (#u3ce064b5-4149-5615-96d8-7b47b4c3b5a4)

Title Page (#u9b17b50b-3df7-50ff-ba31-0b1be1180599)

Copyright (#u876d9d2c-9698-5217-a904-e87ba2f9d282)

Dedication (#u71fac7f3-257a-587e-92cb-1b8d7cc6d7de)

Prologue (#u8a0a97b0-1134-5658-9b23-3313dcc327f0)

Chapter One (#u0256498c-df5c-513e-8ab4-2a97e3213e0f)

Chapter Two (#uae50d02e-499c-505e-8c1b-f3e517f06891)

Chapter Three (#u75983e37-9b0d-5c6c-ae74-122e42c57f73)

Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)

Extract (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)


Prologue (#u6f77f426-278a-59ec-b803-b508f02132bf)

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Ryder Wilson stared at the people on his porch. Even before they introduced themselves, he’d known the short, skinny woman was a cop thanks to the Braden Police Department badge she was wearing. But the two men with her? He’d never seen them before.

And after the load of crap they’d just spewed, he’d like to never see them again.

“We’re not kidding, Mr. Wilson.” That came from the serious-looking bald guy. The one who looked like he was a walking heart attack, considering the way he kept mopping the sweat off his face even though it was freezing outside. March had roared in like a lion this year, bringing with it a major snowstorm. Ryder hadn’t lived there that long—it was only his second winter there—but people around town said they hadn’t seen anything like it in Braden for more than a decade.

All he knew was that the snow was piled three feet high, making his life these days even more challenging. Making him wonder why he’d ever chosen Wyoming over New Mexico in the first place. Yeah, they got snow in Taos. But not like this.

“We believe that the infant girl who’s been under our protection since she was abandoned three months ago is your daughter.” The man tried to look past Ryder’s shoulder. “Perhaps we could discuss this inside?”

Ryder had no desire to invite them in. But one of them was a cop. He hadn’t crossed purposes with the law before and he wasn’t real anxious to do so now. Didn’t mean he had to like it, though.

His aunt hadn’t raised him to be slob. She’d be horrified if she ever knew strangers were seeing the house in its current state.

He slapped his leather gloves together. He had chores waiting for him. But he supposed a few minutes wouldn’t make much difference. “Don’t think there’s much to discuss,” he warned as he stepped out of the doorway. He folded his arms across his chest, standing pretty much in their way so they had to crowd together in the small space where he dumped his boots. Back home, his aunt Adelaide would call the space a vestibule. Here, it wasn’t so formal; he’d carved out his home from a converted barn. “I appreciate your concern for an abandoned baby, but whoever’s making claims I fathered a child is out of their mind.” Once burned, twice shy. Another thing his aunt was fond of saying.

The cop’s brown eyes looked pained. “Ryder—may I call you Ryder?” She didn’t wait for his permission, but plowed right on, anyway. “I’m sorry we have to be the bearer of bad news, but we believe your wife was the baby’s mother, and—”

At the word wife, what had been Ryder’s already-thin patience went by the wayside. “My wife ran out on me a year ago. Whatever she’s done since is her prob—”

“Not anymore,” the dark-haired guy said.

“What’d you say your name was?” Ryder met the other man’s gaze head-on, knowing perfectly well he hadn’t said his name. The pretty cop’s role there was obviously official. Same with the sweaty bald guy—he had to be from social services. But the third intruder? The guy who was watching him as though he’d already formed an opinion—a bad one?

“Grant Cooper.” The man’s voice was flat. “Karen’s my sister.”

“There’s your problem,” Ryder responded just as flatly. “My so-called wife’s name was Daisy. Daisy Miranda. You’ve got the wrong guy.” He pointedly reached around them for the door to show them out. “So if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got ice to break so my animals can get at their water.”

“This is Karen.” Only because she was a little slip of a thing, the cop succeeded in maneuvering between him and the door. She held a wallet-sized photo up in front of his face.

Ryder’s nerves tightened even more than when he’d first opened the door to find these people on his front porch.

He didn’t want to touch the photograph or examine it. He didn’t need to. He recognized his own face just fine. In the picture, he’d been kissing the wedding ring he’d just put on Daisy’s finger. The wedding had been a whirlwind sort of thing, like everything else about their relationship. Three months start to finish, from the moment they met outside the bar where she’d just quit her job until the day she’d walked out on him two weeks after their wedding. That’s how long it had taken to meet, get hitched and get unhitched.

Though the unhitching part was still a work in progress. Not that he’d been holding on to hope that she’d return. But he’d had other things more important keeping him occupied than getting a formal divorce. Namely the Diamond-L ranch, which he’d purchased only a few months before meeting her. His only regret was that he hadn’t kept his attention entirely on the ranch all along. It would have saved him some grief. “Where’d you get that?”

The cop asked her own question. “Can you confirm this is you and your wife in this picture?”

His jaw felt tight. “Yeah.” Unfortunately. The Las Vegas wedding chapel had given them a cheap set of pictures. Ryder had tossed all of them in the fireplace, save the one the cop was holding now. He’d mailed that one to Daisy in response to a stupid postcard he’d gotten from her six months after she’d left him. A postcard on which she’d written only the words I’m sorry.

He still wasn’t sure what she’d meant. Sorry for leaving him without a word or warning? Or sorry she’d ever married him in the first place?

“You wrote this?” The cop had turned the photo over, revealing his handwriting on the back. So much for vows.

Ryder was actually a little surprised that it was so legible, considering how drunk he’d been at the time he’d sent the photo. He nodded once.

The cop looked sympathetic. “I’m sorry to say that she died in a car accident over New Year’s.”

He waited as the words sank in. Expecting to feel something. Was he supposed to feel bad? Maybe he did. He wasn’t sure. He’d known Daisy was a handful from the get-go. So when she took a powder the way she had, it shouldn’t have been as much of a shock as it had been.

But one thing was certain. Everything that Daisy had told him had been a lie. From start to finish.

He might be an uncomplicated guy, but he understood the bottom line facing him now. “And you want to pawn off her baby on me.” He looked the dark-haired guy in the face again. “Or do you just want money?” He lifted his arm, gesturing with the worn leather gloves. “Look around. All I’ve got is what you see. And it’ll be a cold day in hell before I let a couple strangers making claims like yours get one finger on it.”

Grant’s eyes looked like flint. “As usual, my sister’s taste in men was worse than—”

“Gentlemen.” The other man mopped his forehead again, giving both Ryder and Grant wary looks even as he took a step between them. “Let’s keep our cool. The baby is our focus.”

Ryder ignored him. He pointed at Grant. “My wife never even told me she had a brother.”

“My sister never told me she had a husband.”

“The situation is complicated enough,” the cop interrupted, “without the two of you taking potshots at each other.” Her expression was troubled, but her voice was calm. And Ryder couldn’t miss the way she’d wrapped her hand familiarly around Grant’s arm. “Ray is right. What’s important here is the baby.”

“Yes. The baby under our protection.” Ray was obviously hoping to maintain control over the discussion. “There is no local record of the baby’s birth. Our only way left to establish who the child’s parents are is through you, Mr. Wilson. We’ve expended every other option.”

“You don’t even know the baby was hers?”

Ray looked pained. Grant looked like he wanted to punch something. Hell, maybe even Ryder. The cop just looked worried.

“The assumption is that your wife was the person to have left the baby at the home her former employer, Jaxon Swift, shared with his brother, Lincoln,” she said.

“Now, that does sound like Daisy.” Ryder knew he sounded bitter. “I only knew her a few months, but it was still long enough to learn she’s good at running out on people.”

Maybe he did feel a little bad about Daisy. He hadn’t gotten around to divorcing his absent wife. Now, if what these people said were true, he wouldn’t need to. Instead of being a man with a runaway wife, he was a man with a deceased one. There was probably something wrong with him for not feeling like his world had just been rocked. “But maybe you’re wrong. She wasn’t pregnant when she left me,” he said bluntly. He couldn’t let himself believe otherwise.

“Would you agree to a paternity test?”

“The court can compel you, Mr. Wilson,” Ray added when Ryder didn’t answer right away.

It was the wrong tack for Ray to take. Ryder had been down the whole paternity-accusation path before. He hadn’t taken kindly to it then, and he wasn’t inclined to now. “Daisy was my wife, loose as that term is in this case. A baby born to her during our marriage makes me the presumed father, whether there’s a test or not. But you don’t know that the baby was actually hers. You just admitted it. Which tells me the court probably isn’t on your side as much as you’re implying. Unless I say otherwise, and without you knowing who this baby’s mother is, I’m just a guy in a picture.”

“We should have brought Greer,” Grant said impatiently to the cop. “She’s used to guys like him.”

But the cop wasn’t listening to Grant. She was looking at Ryder with an earnest expression. “You aren’t just a guy in a picture. You’re our best hope for preventing the child we believe is Grant’s niece from being adopted by strangers.”

That’s when Ryder saw that she’d reached out to clasp Grant’s hand, their fingers entwined. So, she had a dog in this race.

He thought about pointing out that he was a stranger to them, too, no matter whatsort of guy Grant had deemed Ryder to be. “And if I cooperated and the test confirms I’m not this baby’s father, you still wouldn’t have proof that Daisy is—” dammit “—was the baby’s mother.”

“If the test is positive, then we know she was,” Ray said. “Without your cooperation, the proof of Karen’s maternity is circumstantial. We admit that. But you were her husband. There’s no putative father. If you even suspected she’d become pregnant during your marriage, your very existence is enough to establish legal paternity, DNA proof or not.”

The cop looked even more earnest. “And the court can’t proceed with an adoption set in motion by Layla’s abandonment.”

The name startled him. “Layla!”

The three stared at him with varying degrees of surprise and expectation.

“Layla was my mother’s name.” His voice sounded gruff, even to his own ears. Whatever it was that Daisy had done with her child, using that name was a sure way of making sure he’d get involved. After only a few months together, she’d learned enough about him to know that.

He exhaled roughly. Slapped his leather gloves together. Then he stepped out of the way so he wasn’t blocking them from the rest of his home. “You’d better come inside and sit.” He felt weary all of a sudden. As if everything he’d accomplished in his thirty-four years was for nothing. What was that song? “There Goes My Life.”

“I expect this is gonna take a while to work out.” He glanced at the disheveled room, with its leather couch and oversize, wall-mounted television. That’s what happened when a man spent more time tending cows than he did anything else. He’d even tended some of them in this very room.

Fortunately, his aunt Adelaide would never need to know.

“You’ll have to excuse the mess, though.”


Chapter One (#u6f77f426-278a-59ec-b803-b508f02132bf)

Five months later.

The August heat was unbearable.

The forecasters kept saying the end of the heat wave was near, but Greer Templeton had lost faith in them. She twisted in her seat, trying to find the right position that allowed her to feel the cold air from the car vents on more than two square inches of her body. It wasn’t as if she could pull up her skirt so the air could blow straight up her thighs or pull down her blouse so the air could get at the rest of her.

She’d tried that once, only to find herself the object of interest of a leering truck driver with a clear view down into her car. If she’d never seen or heard from the truck driver again, it wouldn’t have been so bad. Instead, she’d had the displeasure of serving as the driver’s public defender not two days later when he was charged with littering.

“I hate August!” she yelled, utterly frustrated.

Nobody heard.

The other vehicles crawling along the narrow, curving stretch of highway between Weaver—where she’d just come from a frustrating visit with a new client in jail—and Braden all had their windows closed against the oppressive heat, the same way she did.

It was thirty miles, give or take, between Braden and Weaver, and she drove it several times every week. Sometimes more than once in a single day. She knew the highway like the back of her hand. Where the infrequent passing zones were, where the dips filled with ice in the winter and where the shoulder was treacherous. She knew that mile marker 12 had the best view into Braden and mile marker 3 was the spot you were most likely to get a speeding ticket.

The worst, though, was grinding up and down the hills, going around the curves at a crawl because she was stuck behind a too-wide truck hogging the roadway with a too-tall load of hay.

Impatience raged inside her and she pushed her fingers against one of the car vents, feeling the air blast against her palm. It didn’t provide much relief, because it was barely cool.

Probably because her car was close to overheating, she realized.

Even as she turned off the AC and rolled down the windows, a cloud billowed from beneath the front hood of her car.

She wanted to scream.

Instead, she coasted onto the weedy shoulder. It was barely wide enough.

The car behind her laid on its horn as it swerved around her.

“I hate August!” she yelled after it while her vehicle burped out steam into the already-miserable air.

So much for getting to Maddie’s surprise baby shower early.

Ali was never going to forgive Greer. Unlike their sister, Maddie, the soul of patience she was not. Just that morning Ali had called to remind Greer of her tasks where the shower was concerned. It had been the fifth such call in as many days.

Marrying Grant hadn’t softened Ali’s annoying side at all.

Greer wasn’t going to chance exiting through the driver’s side because of the traffic, so she hitched up her skirt enough to climb over the console and out the passenger-side door.

In just the few minutes it took to get out of the car and open up the hood, Greer’s silk blouse was glued to her skin by the perspiration sliding down her spine.

The engine had stopped spewing steam. But despite her father’s best efforts to teach the triplets the fundamentals of car care when she and her sisters were growing up, what lived beneath the hood of Greer’s car was still a mystery.

She knew from experience there was no point in checking her cell phone for a signal. There were about four points on the thirty-mile stretch where a signal reliably reached, and this spot wasn’t one of them. If a Good Samaritan didn’t happen to stop, she knew the schedules of both the Braden Police Department and the Weaver Sheriff’s Department. Even if her disabled vehicle wasn’t reported by someone passing by, officers from one or the other agency routinely traveled the roadway even on a hot August Saturday. She didn’t expect it would be too long before she had some help.

She popped the trunk a few inches so the heat wouldn’t build up any more than it already had and left the windows down. Then she walked along the shoulder until she reached an outcrop of rock that afforded a little shade from the sun and toed off her shoes, not even caring that she was probably ruining her silk blouse by leaning against the jagged stone.

Sorry, Ali.

* * *

Ryder saw the slender figure in white before he saw the car. It almost made him do a double take, the way sailors did when they spotted a mermaid sunning herself on a rock. A second look reassured him that lack of sleep hadn’t caused him to start hallucinating.

Not yet, anyway.

She was on the opposite side of the road, and there was no place for him to pull his rig around to get to her. So he kept on driving until he reached his original destination—the turnoff to the Diamond-L. As soon as he did, he turned around and pulled back out onto the highway to head back to her.

It was only a matter of fifteen minutes.

The disabled foreign car was still sitting there, like a strange out-of-place insect among the pickup trucks rumbling by every few minutes. He parked behind it, but let his engine idle and kept the air-conditioning on. He propped his arm over the steering column and thumbed back his hat as he studied the woman.

She’d noticed him and was picking her way through the rough weeds back toward her car.

He’d recognized her easily enough.

Greer Templeton. One of the identical triplets who’d turned his life upside down. Starting with the cop, Ali, who’d come to his door five months ago.

It wasn’t entirely their fault.

They weren’t responsible for abandoning Layla. That was his late wife.

Now Layla was going through nannies like there was a revolving door on the nursery. Currently, the role was filled by Tina Lewis. She’d lasted two weeks but was already making dissatisfied noises.

He blew out a breath and checked the road before pushing open his door and getting out of the truck. “Looks like you’ve got a problem.”

“Ryder?”

He spread his hands. “’Fraid so.” Any minute she’d ask about the baby and he wasn’t real sure what he would say.

For nearly five months—ever since Judge Stokes had officially made Layla his responsibility—the Templeton triplets had tiptoed around him. He’d quickly learned how attached they’d become to the baby, caring for her after Daisy dumped her on a “friend’s” porch.

Supposedly, his wife hadn’t been sleeping with that friend but Ryder still had his doubts. DNA might have ruled out Jaxon Swift as Layla’s father, but the man owned Magic Jax, the bar where Daisy had briefly worked as a cocktail waitress before they’d met. He would never understand why she hadn’t just come to him if she’d needed help. He had been her husband, for God’s sake. Not her onetime boss. Unless she’d been more involved with Jax than they all had admitted.

As for the identity of Layla’s real father, everyone had been happy as hell to stop wondering as soon as Ryder gave proof that he and Daisy had been married.

Didn’t mean Ryder hadn’t wondered, though.

But doing a DNA test at this point wouldn’t change anything where he was concerned. It would prove Layla was his by blood. Or it wouldn’t.

Either way, he believed she was his wife’s child.

Which made Layla his responsibility. Period.

The questions about Daisy, though? Every time he looked at Layla, they bubbled up inside him.

For now, though, he focused on Greer.

It was no particular hardship.

The Templeton triplets scored pretty high in the looks department. He could tell Greer apart from her twins because she always looked a little more sophisticated. Maddie—the social worker who’d been Layla’s foster mother—had long hair reaching halfway down her back. Ali—the cop who’d shown up on his doorstep—had blond streaks. And he’d never seen her dressed in anything besides her police uniform.

Greer, though?

Her dark hair barely reached her shoulders and not a single strand was ever out of place. She was a lawyer and dressed the part in skinny skirts with expensive-looking jackets and high heels that looked more big-city than Wyoming dirt. She’d been the one who’d ushered him through all the legalities with the baby. And she was the only one of her sisters who hadn’t been openly crying when they’d brought Layla and all of her stuff out to his ranch to turn her over to his care. But there’d been no denying the emotion in her eyes. She just hadn’t allowed herself the relief of tears.

For some reason, that had seemed worse.

Ryder had been uncomfortable as hell with so much female emotion. Greer’s most of all.

He’d rather have to deal with the general animosity Daisy’s brother clearly felt for him. That, at least, was straightforward and simple. Grant’s sister was dead. Whether he’d voiced it outright or not, he blamed Ryder.

Since Ryder was already shouldering the blame, it didn’t make any difference to him.

Now Greer was shading her eyes with one hand and holding her hair off her neck with the other. Instead of asking about Layla first thing, though, she stopped near the front bumper of her car. “It overheated. I saw steam coming out from the hood and pulled off as soon as I could.”

He joined her in front of the car. He knew the basics when it came to engines—enough to keep the machinery on his ranch running without too much outside help—but he was a lot more comfortable with the anatomy of horses and cows. “How long have you been sitting out here?”

“Too long.” She plucked the front of her blouse away from her throat and glanced at the watch circling her narrow wrist. “I thought someone would stop sooner than this. Ali’ll think I’m deliberately late.”

The only heat from the engine came from the sun glaring down on it. He checked a few of the hoses and looked underneath for signs of leaking coolant, but the ground beneath the car was dry. “Why’s that?”

“We’re throwing a surprise baby shower for Maddie today. I’m supposed to help set up.”

“Didn’t know she was pregnant.” He straightened. It was impossible to miss the sharpness in Greer’s brown eyes.

“Why would you, when you’ve been avoiding all of us since March?”

“Some law that says I needed to do otherwise?” He hadn’t been avoiding them entirely. Just...mostly.

It had been easy, considering he had a ranch to run.

She pursed her bow-shaped lips. “You know my family has a vested interest in Layla. At the very least, you could try accepting an invitation or two when they’re extended.”

“Maybe I’m too busy to accept invitations.” He waited a beat. “I am a single father, you know.”

If he wasn’t mistaken, her eye actually twitched.

She’d always struck him as the one most tightly wound.

It was too bad that he also couldn’t look at her without wondering just what it would take to unwind her.

He closed the hood of her car with a firm hand. “You want to try starting her up? See what happens with the temperature gauge?”

He thought she might argue—if only for the sake of it—but she opened the passenger door. Then he had to choke back a laugh when she climbed across and into the driver’s seat, where she started the engine. Her focus was clearly on her dashboard and he could tell the gauge was rising just by the frown on her face.

She shut off the engine again and looked through the windshield. “Needle went straight to the red.” She climbed back out the passenger side.

“Something wrong with the driver’s-side door?”

She was looking down at herself as she got out, tweaking that white skirt hugging her slender hips until it hung smooth and straight. “No, but I don’t want it getting hit by a passing vehicle if I open it.”

He eyed the distance between the edge of the road and where she’d pulled off on the shoulder. “Real cautious of you.”

“I’m a lawyer. I’m always cautious.”

“Overly so, I’d say.” Not that he hadn’t enjoyed the show. She was a little skinny for his taste, but he couldn’t deny she was a looker. He pulled off his cowboy hat long enough to swipe his arm across his forehead. “I can drive you into town, or I can send a tow out for you.” He didn’t have time to do both, because he had to be back at the ranch before the nanny left or his housekeeper, Mrs. Pyle, would have kittens. “What’s your choice?”

* * *

Greer swallowed her frustration. Considering Ryder Wilson’s standoffishness since they’d met, she was a little surprised that he’d stopped to assist at all.

As soon as she’d realized who was driving the enormous pickup truck pulling up behind her car, she’d been torn between anticipation and the desire to cry what next?

It was entirely annoying that the brawny, blue-eyed rancher was the first man to make her hormones sit up and take notice in too long a while.

Annoying and impossible to act on, considering the strange nature of their acquaintance.

All she wanted to do was ask Ryder how Layla was doing. But Maddie had been insistent that none of them intrude on him too soon.

They’d all been wrapped around Layla’s tiny little finger and none more than Maddie, who’d been caring for her nearly the whole while before Ali discovered Ryder’s existence. Yet it was Maddie who’d urged them to give Ryder time. To adjust. To adapt. They knew Ryder was taking decent care of the baby he’d claimed, because Maddie’s boss, Raymond Marx, checked up on him for a while at first, so he could report back to the courts. Give Ryder time, Maddie insisted, and eventually he would see the benefit of letting them past his walls.

Didn’t mean that it had been easy.

Didn’t mean it was easy now, not dashing over to the truck to see Layla.

She didn’t know if it was that prospect that made her feel so shaky inside, or if it was because of Layla’s brown-haired daddy. She wasn’t sure she even liked Ryder all that much.

Yes, he’d been legally named Layla’s father and yes, he’d taken responsibility for her. But there was an edge to him that had rubbed Greer wrong from the very first time they met. She just hadn’t been able to pinpoint why.

“If you don’t mind driving me into town,” she managed, “I’d be grateful.”

The brim of his hat dipped briefly. “Probably should lock her up.” He started for his big truck parked behind the car.

She watched him walk away. He was wearing blue jeans and a checked shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Except for when he’d briefly swiped an arm over his forehead, he appeared unaffected by the sweltering day.

“Probably should lock her up,” she parroted childishly under her breath. As if she didn’t have the sense to know that without being told.

She retrieved her purse and briefcase from the back seat, looping the long straps over her shoulder, then warily lifted the trunk lid higher. The shower cake that she’d nestled carefully between two boxes full of work from the office amazingly didn’t look too much the worse for wear. It was a delightful amalgam of block and ball shapes, frosted in white, yellow and blue. How Tabby Clay had balanced them all together like that was a mystery to Greer.

She was just glad to see that the creation hadn’t melted into a puddle of goo while she’d waited on the side of the road.

She carefully lifted the white board with the heavy cake on top out of the trunk and gingerly carried it toward Ryder’s truck. Her heart was beating so hard, she could hear it inside her head. The last time she’d seen Layla had been at Shop-World in Weaver, when she’d taken a client shopping for an affordable set of clothes to wear for trial, and Ryder had been in the next checkout line over, buying diapers, coffee and whiskey.

Layla had been asleep in the cart. Greer had noticed that her blond curls had gotten a reddish cast, but the stuffed pony she’d clutched was the same one Greer had given her for Valentine’s Day.

It had been all she could do not to pluck the baby out of the cart and cuddle her close. Instead, after a stilted exchange with Ryder, she’d hustled her client through the checkout so fast that he’d wondered out loud if she’d slid through without paying for something. No. That’s what you like to do, she’d told him as she’d rushed him out the door.

But now, when she got close enough to Ryder’s truck to see inside, her feet dragged to a halt.

There was no car seat.

Definitely no Layla.

The disappointment that swamped her was so searing, it put the hot afternoon sun to shame. Her eyes stung and she blinked hard, quickening her pace once more only to feel her heel slide on the loose gravel. The heavy cake started tipping one way and she leveled the board, even as her shoulder banged against the side of his truck.

She froze, holding her breath as she held the cake board aloft.

“What the hell are you doing over here?”

She was hot. Sweaty. And brokenhearted that she wasn’t getting a chance to see sweet Layla.

“What do you care?” she snapped back. She was still holding the cake straight out from her body, and the weight of it was considerable. “Just open the door, would you please? If I don’t deliver this thing in one piece, Ali’s going to skin me alive.”

He gave her a wide berth as he reached around her to open the door of the truck. “Let me take it.” His hands covered hers where she held the board, and she jerked as if he’d prodded her with a live wire.

Her face went hot. “I don’t need your help.”

He let go and held his hands up in the air. “Whatever.” He backed away.

Nobody liked to feel self-conscious. Not even her.

She turned away from him to set the cake board inside the truck, but it was too big to fit on the floor, which meant she’d have to hold it on her lap.

Greer heaved out a breath and looked at Ryder. He wordlessly took the cake long enough for her to dump her briefcase and purse on the floor, and climb up on the high seat.

“All settled now?” His voice was mild.

For some reason, it annoyed her more than if he’d made some snarky comment.

Unfortunately, that’s when she realized that she’d left her trunk open and the car unlocked.

She slid off the seat again, mentally cursing ranchers and their too-big trucks as she jumped out onto the ground. Ignoring the amused glint in his dark blue eyes, she strode past him, grinding her teeth when her heel again slid on the loose gravel.

She’d have landed on her butt if not for the quick hand he shot out to steady her.

She shrugged off his touch as if she’d been burned but managed a grudging “thank you.” It figured that he could manage to hold on to the heavy cake and still keep her from landing on her butt.

She finally made it to her car without further mishap and secured it. The passenger door of his truck was still open and waiting for her when she returned.

She climbed inside and fastened the safety belt. Then he settled the enormous, heavy cake on her lap, taking an inordinate amount of time before sliding his big, warm hands away.

As soon as he did, she yanked the door closed.

The cool air flowed from the air-conditioning vents.

It was the only bright spot, and gave a suitable reason for the shivers that skipped down her spine.

She wrapped her hands firmly around the edge of the cake board to hold it in place while Ryder circled the front of the truck and got in behind the wheel.

His blue eyes skated over and she shivered again. Despite the heat. Despite the perspiration soaking her blouse.

Annoyance swelled inside her.

“I hope you have someone decent watching Layla.”

His expression turned chilly. “I’ve got plenty of things I needed to be doing besides stopping to help you out. You really want to go there?”

She pressed her lips together. If Maddie ever found out she’d been rude to Ryder, her sister would never forgive her.

“Just drive,” she said ungraciously.

He lifted an eyebrow slightly.

God. She really hated feeling self-conscious.

“Please,” she added.

He waited a beat. “Better.” Then he put the truck in gear.


Chapter Two (#u6f77f426-278a-59ec-b803-b508f02132bf)

“I knew you’d be late.”

Greer ignored Ali’s greeting as she entered the stately old mansion that Maddie shared with her husband, Lincoln Swift. She kicked the heavy front door closed, blocking out the sound of Ryder’s departing truck. Passing the round table in the foyer loaded down with fancifully wrapped gifts and the grand wooden staircase, she headed into the dining room with the cake.

The sight of a cheerfully decorated sheet cake already sitting in the middle of the table shredded her last nerve.

She stared over her shoulder at Ali. Her sister looked uncommonly pretty in a bright yellow sundress. More damningly, Ali was as cool and fresh as the daisy she’d stuck in her messy ponytail. “You have a backup cake?”

“Of course I have a backup cake.” Ali waved her hands, and the big diamond rock that Grant had put on her ring finger a few months earlier glinted in the sunlight shining through the mullioned windows. “Because I knew you would be late! You’re always late, because you’re always working for that slave driver over at the dark side.”

“Well, I wouldn’t have been late, if I hadn’t broken down on the way back from Weaver! Now would you move that stupid cake so I can put this one down where it belongs?”

“Girls!” Their mother, Meredith, dashed into the dining room, accompanied by the usual tinkle of tiny bells on the ankle bracelet she wore. “This is supposed to be a party.” She tsked. “You’re thirty years old and you still sound as if you’re bickering ten-year-olds.” She whisked the offending backup cake off the table. “Ali, put this in the kitchen.”

Ali took the sheet cake from their mother and crossed her eyes at Greer behind their mother’s back while Greer set Tabby’s masterpiece in its place.

“It’s just beautiful,” Meredith exclaimed, clasping her hands together. Despite her chastisement, her eyes were sparkling. “Maddie’s going to love it.” As she turned away, the dark hair she’d passed on to her daughters danced in corkscrew curls nearly to the small of her back. “It’s just too bad that Tabby wasn’t able to come to the party.”

“If Gracie weren’t running a fever, she’d have brought the cake herself.” Greer glanced around. “Obviously Ali didn’t have a problem decorating without me. It looks like the baby-shower fairy threw up in here.” The raindrop theme was in full force. Silver and white balloons hovered above the table in a cluster of “clouds” from which shimmering crystal raindrops hung down, drifting slightly in the cool room. It was sweet and subtly chic and just like Maddie. Altogether perfect, really.

As usual, Ali hadn’t really needed Greer at all.

Meredith squeezed her arm as if she’d read her mind. “Stop sweating the details, Greer. You had a hand in the planning of this, whether you were here to help pull it together this afternoon or not. Now—” she eyed Greer more closely “—what’s this about your car breaking down?”

It was a timely reminder that she probably looked as bedraggled as she felt. A glance at her watch told her the guests would be arriving in a matter of minutes. Linc was supposed to be delivering Maddie—hopefully still in the dark about the surprise—shortly after that.

“The car overheated. I left it locked up on the side of the road.”

“How’d you get here?”

She felt reluctant to say, knowing the mention of Ryder would only remind them all of how much they missed Layla. “Someone stopped and gave me a ride to town. I’ll arrange a tow after the shower.” She dashed her hand down the front of her outfit and headed for the stairs. “I need to put on something less wrinkled and sweaty. Hopefully there’s more than just maternity clothes in Maddie’s closet.” She hadn’t made it halfway up the staircase before the doorbell rang and she could hear Ali greeting the new arrivals.

She darted up the rest of the stairs.

Even after more than half a year, it was hard to get used to the fact that Maddie lived in this grand old house with Linc. The place had belonged to his and Jax’s grandmother Ernestine. When the triplets were children, Meredith had cleaned house for Ernestine. Greer and her sisters had often accompanied her. Now, Jax no longer shared the house with Linc. Maddie did.

She entered the big walk-in closet, mentally sending an apology to her brother-in-law for the intrusion. She knew that Maddie wouldn’t mind. Not surprisingly, most of the clothes hanging on the rods were designed for a woman who looked about a hundred months pregnant.

She could hear the doorbell chime again downstairs and quickly flipped through the hangers, finally pulling out a colorful dress she remembered Maddie wearing for Easter, when she’d had just a small baby bump. The dress had a stretchy waist that was a little loose on Greer, but it would do.

She changed and flipped her hair up into a clip. If there’d been blond streaks in her hair, she’d look just like Ali. Tousled and carefree.

But Greer hadn’t felt carefree in what was starting to feel like forever.

She stared at her reflection and plucked at the loose waist of the dress. Maddie was pregnant. Now Ali and Grant were married. Considering how the two couldn’t keep their hands off each other, it was only a matter of time before they were starting a family, too.

But Greer?

The last date she’d had that had gotten even remotely physical was more than two years ago, so if she wanted a baby, she was going to need either a serious miracle or big-time artificial intervention. As it was, the little birth control implant she had in her arm was pretty much pointless.

From downstairs, she heard a peal of laughter. Turning away from her reflection, she headed down to join them. She might not feel carefree, but she was thrilled about Maddie’s coming baby. So she would put on a party face for that reason alone.

And she would try to forget that Ali had gotten a damn backup cake.

* * *

Ryder stared at Doreen Pyle. “What do you mean, you’re quitting?”

“Just that, Ryder.” Mrs. Pyle continued scooping mushy green food into Layla’s mouth, even though the little girl kept twisting her head away. “When you hired me, it was to be your housekeeper. Not your nanny.”

“That’s because I had a nanny.” His voice was tight. “Look, I’m sorry that Tina took a hike this afternoon with no warning.” At least the others who’d come before her had given him some notice. “I’ll start looking again first thing tomorrow.”

“It won’t matter, Ryder. Nobody wants to live all the way out here.” She finally gave up on the green mush and glanced at him. The look in her lined eyes was more sympathetic than her tone had been. “You need to give up the idea of a live-in nanny, Ryder. Or else give up the idea of a housekeeper. You can’t afford both.”

He could, if he were willing to dip into his savings. But he wasn’t willing. Any more than he was willing to take Adelaide’s money. She’d made her way on her own, and he was doing the same. On his own. But if he were going to continue growing this small ranch, he couldn’t be carting a growing baby around everywhere while he worked. “I’ll give you another raise.” He’d already given her one. “Stay on and take care of Layla. You’re good with her. I’ll hire someone to help with the housekeeping.”

“I don’t want to live out here, either.” She pushed off her chair, wincing a little as she straightened. “The only difference between me and Tina is that I won’t take off while your back is turned.” She grabbed a cloth and started wiping up Layla’s face. The baby squirmed, trying to avoid the cloth just like she’d tried to avoid the green muck. But Mrs. Pyle prevailed and then tossed the cloth aside. “You don’t need a nanny around the clock, anyway. You’re here at night.” She lifted the baby out of the high chair. “You can take care of her yourself. Then just get some help during the day. Preferably someone who doesn’t have to drive farther than from Braden, or once the winter comes, you’re going to have problems all over again.” She plopped Layla into his arms and hustled to the sink where she wet another cloth. “But it won’t be me. I have my own family I need to look out for, too. My grandson—” She broke off, grimacing. She squeezed out the moisture and waved the rag at him. “I won’t apologize for not wanting to be tied down to a baby all over again. Not at my age.” She sounded defensive.

“I don’t need an apology, Mrs. Pyle. I need someone to take care of Layla!”

The baby lightly slapped his face with her hands and laughed.

Mrs. Pyle’s expression softened. She chucked Layla lightly under the chin. “Maybe instead of looking for a nanny, you should start looking for a mama for this little girl.”

Ryder grimaced.

“There are plenty of other fish in the sea. All you need to do is cast your line. You’re a good-looking cuss when you clean yourself up. Someone’ll come biting before you know it.”

“I don’t think so.” One foray into so-called wedded bliss was one disaster enough.

The look in Doreen’s eyes got even more sympathetic. “I know what it’s like to lose a spouse, hon. Single parents might be all the rage these days, but I’m here to tell you it’s easier when two people are committed to their family. You’re still young. You don’t want to spend the rest of your life alone. I’m sure your poor wife wouldn’t have wanted that, either. She’d surely want this little mite to have a proper mama. Someone who won’t toss aside caring for Layla on some flighty whim the way Tina just did.”

He managed a tight smile. His “poor wife” had been exactly that. A poor wife. But not in the way Doreen Pyle meant. Abandoning Layla had been a helluva way to show off her maternal nature. Tina’s quitting out of the blue was a lot more forgivable. “Would you at least stay until I find someone new?” He had to finish getting the hay in before the weather turned. And then he and his closest neighbor to the east were helping each other through roundup. Then he’d be sorting and shipping and—

“I’ll stay another week,” she said, interrupting the litany of tasks running through his mind. “But that’s it, Ryder.”

Layla grinned up at him with her six teeth and smacked his face again with her hand.

He looked back at his housekeeper. “A week.”

“That’s all the time I can give you, Ryder. I’m sorry.”

A week was better than nothing.

And it was damn sure more than Tina had given him.

“I don’t suppose you could stay and watch Layla for another few hours or so?” As his housekeeper began shaking her head no, he grabbed the refrigerator door and stuck his head inside, so he could pretend he didn’t see. “Got a friend—” big overstatement there “—who needs help towing her car back to town. Broke down up near Devil’s Crossing.” He grabbed the bottle of ketchup that Layla latched onto and stuck it back on the refrigerator shelf. She immediately reached for something else and he quickly shut the door and gave Mrs. Pyle a hopeful look. The same one he’d mastered by the time he was ten and living with Adelaide.

Instead of looking resigned and accepting, though, Mrs. Pyle was giving him an eyebrows-in-the-hairline look. “Her car? Is this female friend single?”

Warning alarms went off inside his head. “Yeah.”

She lifted Layla out of his arms. “Well, go rescue your lady friend. And give my suggestion about a wife some thought.”

He let her remark slide. “Thank you, Mrs. Pyle.”

“Not going to change my leaving in a week,” she warned as she carried the baby out of the kitchen. “And you might think about washing some of the day off yourself, as well, before you go out playing Dudley Do-Right.”

* * *

He hadn’t showered, but he had washed up and pulled on fresh clothes. And he still felt pretty stupid about it.

It wasn’t as if he wanted to impress Greer Templeton. Not with a clean shirt or anything else. And it damn sure wasn’t as if he was giving Mrs. Pyle’s suggestion any consideration.

Marrying someone just for Layla’s sake?

He pushed the idea straight out of his mind and shifted into Park at the top of the hill as he stared out at the worn-looking Victorian house.

The white paint on the fancy trim was peeling and the dove-gray paint on the siding was fading. The shingle roof needed repair, if not replacement, and the brick chimney looked as if it were related to the Leaning Tower of Pisa. But the yard around the house was green and neat.

Not exactly what he would have expected of the lady lawyer. But then again, she worked for the public defender’s office, where the pay was reportedly abysmal and most of her clients were supposedly the dregs of society.

He turned off the engine and got out of the truck, walking around to the trailer he’d used to haul Greer’s little car. He checked the chains holding it in place and then headed up the front walk to the door.

The street was quiet, and his boots clumped loudly as he went up the steps and crossed the porch to knock on the door. The heavy brass door knocker was shaped like a dragonfly.

If he could ever get Adelaide to come and visit Braden, she’d love the place.

When no one came to the door, he went back down the porch steps. There was an elderly woman across the street making a production of sweeping the sidewalk, though it seemed obvious she was more interested in giving him the once-over.

He tipped the brim of his hat toward her before he started unchaining Greer’s car. “Evenin’.”

The woman clutched her broom tightly and started across the street. A little black poodle trotted after her. “That’s Greer’s car,” the woman said suspiciously.

He didn’t stop what he was doing. “Yes, ma’am.”

“What’re you doing with it?”

“Unloading it.”

She stopped several feet away, still holding the broom handle as if she was prepared to use it on him if need be. “I don’t know you.”

“No, ma’am.” He fit the wheel ramps in place and hopped up onto the trailer. “I assure you that Greer does.” He opened the car door and folded himself down inside it.

Maybe Greer—who was probably all of five two or three without those high heels she was always wearing—could fit comfortably into the car, but he couldn’t. Not for any length of time, anyway.

He started the car, backed down the ramp and turned into the driveway. Then he shut off the engine, crawled out from behind the wheel and locked it up again before sticking the key back into the magnetic box he’d found tucked inside the wheel well.

The woman was still standing in the middle of the street.

He secured the ramps back up onto the trailer and gave her another nod. “If you see her, tell her she’s got a thermostat problem.”

“Tell her yourself.” The woman pointed her broom handle at an expensive black SUV that had just crested the top of the hill. “Bet that’s her now.”

He bit back an oath. He still didn’t know what had possessed him to haul Greer’s car into town for her, particularly without her knowledge. And his chance of a clean escape had just disappeared.

The SUV pulled to a stop in front of Greer’s house. The windows were tinted, so he couldn’t see who was behind the wheel, but he definitely could see the shapely leg that emerged when the passenger-side door opened.

It belonged to Greer, looking very un-Greer-like in a flowy sort of dress patterned in vibrant swirls of color that could have rivaled one of his aunt’s paintings. Half her hair was untidily pulled up and held by a glittery pink clip.

He still knew it was her, though, and not one of her sisters. No question, considering the sharp look she gave him as she closed the SUV door and approached him. “You hauled my car here?”

“I suppose there’s no point in denying the obvious.” He watched the big SUV pull around in the cul-de-sac and head back down the hill. The identity of the driver was none of his business. He wondered, anyway. “Boyfriend?”

She frowned. “Grant. And why did you haul it?”

No wonder the SUV had turned around and left. “You’d rather have it still sitting out on the side of the highway?”

“Of course not, but—” She broke off, looking consternated, and only then seemed to notice that they had an audience. “How are you doing, Mrs. Gunderson?” She leaned down to pet the little round dog. Ryder wasn’t enough of a gentleman to look away when the stretchy, ruffled neckline of Greer’s dress revealed more than it should have.

“Just fine, dearie. Oh, Mignon, don’t jump!”

Mrs. Gunderson’s admonishment was too late, though, because the dog had already bounced up and into Greer’s arms.

He was actually a little impressed that the fat Mignon could jump.

But he was more impressed by the way Greer caught him and laughed.

He had never heard her laugh before. Not her or her sisters. Her chocolate-colored eyes sparkled and her face practically glowed.

And damned if he didn’t feel something warm streak down his spine.

“You probably need a new thermostat,” he said abruptly.

The dog was licking the bottom of her chin even though she was trying to avoid his tongue, but she didn’t put Mignon down. “How do you know?”

“Because I checked everything else that would cause your overheating before I towed it back here.” He stepped around the two women. “And think about keeping your car key in a less obvious hiding spot,” he advised as pulled open the door to climb inside his truck.

Greer’s jaw dropped a little, which gave Mignon more chin to lick. She set the dog down and trotted after him, wrapping her fingers over the open window. “You’re just going to leave now?”

His fingers closed over the key in the ignition, but didn’t turn it. “What else do you figure I should do?”

Her lips parted slightly. “Can I pay you for the tow at least?”

He turned the key. “No need.”

“Well, I should do something.” She didn’t step back from the truck, despite the engine leaping to life. “To thank you at least. Surely there’s something I can do.”

The “something” that leaped to mind wasn’t exactly fit for sharing in polite company. Particularly with her elderly neighbor still watching them as though they were prime-time entertainment.

He said the next best option that came to mind. “Next time I need a lawyer, you can owe me one.” He even managed a smile to go with the words.

Fortunately, it seemed like enough. She smiled back and patted the door once. “You’ll never collect on that.” Her voice was light.

“One thing I’ve learned in my life is to never say never.” He looked away from her ringless ring finger. “Where’d that dog go?”

Greer looked around, giving him a close-up view of the tender skin on the back of her neck. She had a trio of tiny freckles just below the loose strands of hair. Like someone had dashed a few specks of cinnamon across a smooth layer of cream.

He focused on Mrs. Gunderson, who was skirting the back of his trailer, calling the dog’s name. “Mignon, get out from under there, right now!”

Greer had joined in, crouching down to look under the vehicle.

He figured if he revved the engine, it might send the fat dog into cardiac arrest. He shut it off again and climbed out. “Where is he?”

“He’s lying down right inside the back tire.” Mrs. Gunderson looked like she was about to go down on her hands and knees. “Mignon, you naughty little thing. Come out here, right now. Oh, darn it, he seems to have found something he thinks is food.”

“Why don’t you get one of his usual treats?” Greer suggested.

“Good idea.” Mrs. Gunderson set off across the street once more.

If he’d hoped that her departure would spur the dog to follow, he was wrong. He knelt on one knee to look under the trailer. “Come ’ere, pooch.”

Mignon paid him no heed at all, except to move even farther beneath the trailer.

Greer crouched next to him. The bottom of her dress puddled around her. “He doesn’t like strangers.”

Ryder slid his hand out from beneath the soft, colorful fabric that covered it. “He wouldn’t like getting flattened by my trailer, either.”

“He’ll come out for his treats,” she assured him.

“Since he looks like he lives on treats, I hope so.” It would take the better part of an hour to get home and he’d probably already used up Mrs. Pyle’s allotment of patience. If the treat didn’t work, he’d have to drag the little bugger out.

“She’s actually gotten him to lose a couple pounds.”

“He’s still wider than he is tall. Reminds me of my aunt’s dog, Brutus.” He straightened and looked across the street, hoping to see Mrs. Gunderson heading back. Instead, she was just reaching the top of her porch stairs and he could feel the minutes ticking away.

* * *

Even though he didn’t say anything, Greer could feel the impatience coming off Ryder in waves. She stood, hoping that Mrs. Gunderson moved with more speed than she usually did. It was obvious that he was anxious to be on his way. “Your aunt has an overweight poodle?”

He lifted his hat just long enough to shove his fingers through his thick brown hair. “Overweight pug.” His blue gaze slid over her from beneath the hat brim as he pulled it low over his brow. “Adelaide spoils him rotten.”

She couldn’t help but smile. “A pug named Brutus?”

He shrugged. “She has a particular sense of irony.”

“I love your aunt’s name,” she said. “Adelaide.”

A dimple came and went in his lean cheek. “Coming from the woman who lives in that Victorian thing behind us, I’m not real surprised.”

She leaned against the side rail of the trailer. “Does she live in New Mexico?” Greer and her sisters didn’t know much about Ryder, but had learned that he’d lived in New Mexico before moving to Wyoming.

The brim of his hat dipped slightly. “She has a place near Taos.”

“The only place I’ve ever been in New Mexico was the Albuquerque airport during a layover.” She glanced toward her neighbor’s house. The front door was still open, but there was no sign of Mrs. Gunderson yet. “Did you grow up there?”

The dimple came again, staying a little longer this time. “In the Albuquerque airport?”

“Ha ha.”

His lips actually stretched into a smile. “Yeah. I spent most of my time in Taos.”

So she now knew he had an aunt. But she still didn’t know if he had parents. Siblings. Other ex-wives. Anybody else at all besides Layla. “What’s it like there? It’s pretty artsy, isn’t it?”

“More so than Braden.”

“Does your aunt get to visit you often?”

“She’s never been here. She doesn’t like to travel much anymore. If I want to see her, I have to go to her.” He thumbed up the brim of his hat and squinted at the sky.

“You’re anxious to go.”

“Yup.” He knelt down to look at the dog again. “My housekeeper’s gonna be peeved.” He gave a coaxing whistle. “Come ’ere, dog.”

“Your housekeeper’s Doreen Pyle?”

Still down on one knee, he looked up at Greer and something swooped inside her stomach. “Keeping close tabs on me?”

She ignored the strange sensation. “Braden is a small community. And I happen to know her grandson pretty well.”

“Dating him, are you?”

She couldn’t help the snort of laughter that escaped. “Since he’s not legally an adult, hardly. Haven’t even had a date in—” She broke off, appalled at herself, embarrassed by the speculative look he was giving her. She pointed, absurdly grateful for Mrs. Gunderson’s timely reappearance on her front porch. Her neighbor was holding something in her hand, waving it in the air as she came down the steps. “There’s the treat.”

And sure enough, before his mistress had even gotten to the street, Mignon was scrabbling out from beneath the trailer, practically rolling over his feet as he bolted.

Ryder straightened and gave her that faint smile again. The one that barely curved his well-shaped lips, but still managed to reveal his dimple. “Never underestimate the power of a good treat.”

Then he thumbed the brim of his hat in that way he had of doing. Sort of old-fashioned and, well, rancherly. He walked around his truck and climbed inside. A moment later, he’d started the engine and was driving away.

Mrs. Gunderson picked up Mignon, who was happily gnawing on his piece of doggy jerky, and stood next to Greer. “He’s a good-looking one, isn’t he?”

At least her elderly neighbor could explain away her breathlessness. She’d had to climb her porch stairs to retrieve the dog treats.

Greer, on the other hand, had no such excuse. “He’s surprising, anyway.” She gave Mignon’s head a scratch. “I’ve got to go call my dad before he drives out to haul my car that no longer needs hauling.”

Then she hurried inside, pretending not to hear Mrs. Gunderson’s knowing chuckle.


Chapter Three (#u6f77f426-278a-59ec-b803-b508f02132bf)

“Ryder Wilson towed your truck?”

Greer tucked her office phone against her shoulder. “Hey, Maddie. Hold on.” She didn’t wait for her sister to reply, but clicked over to the other phone call while she scrolled through the emails on her computer. It was Monday morning. She wished she could say it was unusual coming in to find fifty emails all requiring immediate attention. The fact was, coming in to only fifty emails was a good start to a week.

“Mrs. Pyle, as I explained to your son last week, Judge Donnelly has refused another continuance in Anthony’s case. He’s already granted two, which is unusual. Your grandson’s trial is going to be on Thursday and my associate Don Chatham will be handling it. He’s our senior attorney, as you know, and handles most of the jury trials.” After she had handled all the other steps, including negotiating plea deals. Which the prosecutor’s office wasn’t offering to Anthony this go-round.

Not surprising. It was an election year.

“I know Judge Donnelly.” Doreen Pyle sounded tearful. “I can’t be in court on Thursday. If I just went to him and asked—”

She shook her head, even though Doreen couldn’t see. “I advise you not to speak directly to the judge, Mrs. Pyle.”

“Then schedule a different date! You know how unreliable my son is. Anthony needs his family there. If his father would have told me last week, I could have made arrangements. But I have to work!”

Doreen Pyle worked for Ryder Wilson.

Greer pressed her fingertips between her eyes to relieve the pain that had suddenly formed there and sighed. The only adult Anthony truly had in his corner was his grandmother. “I’ll see what I can do, Mrs. Pyle. I’ll call you later this afternoon. All right?”

“Thank you, Greer. Thank you so much.”

She highly doubted that Mrs. Pyle would be thanking her later. “Don’t get your hopes up too high,” she warned before jabbing the blinking button on her phone to switch back to the other call.

“Sorry about that, Maddie.” She sent off a two-line response to the email on her computer screen and started composing a new one to the prosecutor’s office. She wouldn’t present a motion to the court until the prosecutor agreed to another delay. “You all recovered from the baby shower?”

“The only thing that’ll help me recover fully from anything these days will be going into labor. About Ryder—”

“Yes, he towed my truck.” She switched the phone to her other shoulder and opened the desk drawer where she kept her active files. “I suppose Ali told you?” She’d caught their father before he’d made a needless trip out to Devil’s Crossing but she hadn’t told him the finer details of who’d taken care of the chore.

She pulled out the file she was seeking and flipped it open on her desk. Anthony Pyle. Seventeen. Charged with property destruction and defacement. It was his second charge and he was being tried in adult court. Anthony and his grandmother had good cause for worry since he was facing more than six months in jail if convicted.

Greer doubted that his father, Rocky, cared all that much about what happened. He provided for the basic needs of his son, but beyond that, the troubled boy was pretty much on his own. Rocky had told Greer outright that Anthony deserved what he got. Didn’t matter to his father at all that the boy had consistently proclaimed his innocence. That the real culprit was his supposed friend—and the son of the man who owned the barn that had nearly burned down.

“Ali? No.”

Greer held back a sigh. If Grant had told his wife that he’d seen Ryder with her, there was no way that Ali would have stayed quiet about it. And the fact that Grant hadn’t told Ali just meant that he was still conflicted over everything that had happened with his sister.

“You know how news gets around,” Maddie said.

In other words, Mrs. Gunderson had told someone she’d seen Ryder towing her car, and that someone had told someone, and so on and so forth.

Greer forestalled her sister’s next question, knowing it was coming. “Ryder didn’t have Layla with him.”

“I heard. Did you know that his latest nanny quit on him?”

Greer’s fingers paused on her computer keyboard. Doreen hadn’t mentioned that. “That’s the fourth one.”

“Third,” Maddie corrected. “Ray has been keeping track.”

Greer spotted Keith Gowler in the hallway outside her office and waved to get his attention. He was one of the local private attorneys who took cases on behalf of the public defender’s office because they were perpetually overworked and understaffed. “Is Ray concerned?”

“Not that he’s said. We have no reason to think Layla’s not being properly cared for.”

“That’s probably why Ryder was anxious to get moving the other evening, then. Doreen must have been watching Layla.” And that was why she was upset about not being available for her grandson’s trial.

“She’s got a lot on her plate, too.”

Greer glanced at Anthony’s file. Despite the jurisdiction of the case, he was still a minor, which meant the case also involved Maddie’s office. “Did you get notice of the trial date?”

“Thursday? Yes. I can’t be there, though. Having another ultrasound at the hospital in Weaver and Linc will have kittens if I say I want to reschedule it.”

“Everything okay?” she asked, alarm in her voice.

“Everything’s fine, except I’m as big as a house and due in two weeks. And don’t you start acting as bad as my husband. He’s turned into a nervous Nellie these last few weeks. Driving me positively nuts.”

“He’s concerned. You’re having your first baby.”

“And I’m already thirty and yada yada. I know.”

Keith stuck his head in her doorway. “Got the latest litter?”

She nodded at him and glanced at the round, schoolroom-style clock hanging above the door. It had a loud tick and tended to lose about five minutes every few days, but it had been a gift from one of her favorite law professors what felt like a hundred years ago. “Listen, Maddie, I’ve got a consult, so I need to go. But I want to know more about the ultrasound. We’ll talk—”

“—later,” her sister finished and hung up. At least Greer and Maddie were almost always on the same wavelength. It was too bad that Greer couldn’t say the same about Ali.

She made a note on her calendar to call her. Maybe if Greer were the one to plan dinner next Monday, she’d get herself back in Ali’s good graces. The three of them usually tried to get together for dinner on the first Monday of each month, but their schedules made it difficult. And when it came to canceling, Greer had been the worst offender. The fact that next Monday wasn’t the first Monday of the month was immaterial. With Maddie ready to pop with the baby, this might be their only chance for a while.

Keith tossed himself down on the hard chair wedged into Greer’s crowded office. “How many assignments this week?”

She closed Anthony’s file and plucked a stack from the box on the floor behind her desk. “Too many. Take a look.”

“I won’t be able to take on as many as usual,” he warned as he began flipping through the files. “Lydia and I have set the wedding date next month.”

Even though she’d half expected the news, Greer was still surprised. It hadn’t been that long since the lawyer was moping around from the supposedly broken heart Ali had caused him when they broke up, before she met Grant. Then he’d met Lydia when he’d taken on the defense case involving her son. “Congratulations. You’re really doing it, huh?”

“I’d have married her six months ago, but she wanted to wait until Trevor’s case was settled. Now it is and we can get on with our lives.” He glanced up for a moment. “How’s the Santiago case coming?”

“Pretrial motions after Labor Day. Michael has the investigator working overtime.”

“I’ll bet he does. Because your boss wants the case dismissed in the worst way.”

“We’ll see.” Stormy Santiago would be the jewel in the prosecutor’s reelection crown. She was beautiful. Manipulative. And charged with solicitation of murder. “Don’s already prepping to go to trial on it.”

“I’ll bet he is. He gets her off and he’ll be onto bigger pastures, whether he’s best buddies with your boss or not. Mark my words.”

Greer couldn’t imagine Don wanting to leave their department, where he was a big fish in a small pond. “You think?”

Keith shrugged. He slid several folders from the stack toward her. “I can take these.”

It was up to her to ensure the assignments were correctly recorded and submitted to the appropriate court clerk. Between municipal, circuit and district courts, it meant even more paperwork for her. “Great. See you in court.”

Morning and afternoon sessions were held daily every Monday through Thursday, with Greer running between courtrooms as she handled arraignments and motions and pleadings and the myriad details involved when an individual was charged with a criminal offense. Occasionally, there was a reason for a Friday docket, which was a pain because they all had plenty of non-court details to take care of on Fridays. And increasingly on Saturdays and Sundays, too. Most of those days, Greer was meeting clients—quite often at the various municipal jails scattered around their region.

Such was the life of a public defender. Or in her case, the life of a public defender who got to do all the prep but rarely actually got to defend. It was up to Greer to prepare briefs, schedule conferences, take depositions and hunt down reluctant witnesses when she had to. She was the one who negotiated the plea deals that meant Don typically only had to show up in the office on Thursdays, when most of the trials were scheduled. She’d gotten a few bench trials, but thanks to Don and his buddy-buddy relationship with Michael Towers, their boss and the supervising attorney for the region, her experience in front of a jury was limited.

She also photocopied the case files and made the coffee.

But if Don were to ever leave...

She exhaled, pushing the unlikely possibility out of her mind, and sent off her message to the prosecutor. The rest of her email would have to wait. She shoved everything she would likely need into her bulging briefcase, grabbed the blazer that went with her skirt and hurried out of her office.

Michael was sitting behind his desk when she stuck her head in his office. “Any news yet on a new intern?” Their office hadn’t had one for three months. Which was one of the reasons Greer had been on coffee and photocopy duty.

He shook his head, looking annoyed. Which for Michael was pretty much the status quo. “I have three other jurisdictions needing interns, too. When there’s something you need to know, I’ll tell you. Until then, do your job.”

She managed not to bare her teeth at him and continued on her way. She didn’t stop as she waved at Michael’s wife, Bernice, who’d been filling in for the secretary they couldn’t afford to hire, even though she hopped up and scurried after her long enough to push a stack of pink message slips into the outer pocket of Greer’s briefcase.

“Thanks, Bunny.”

Greer left the civic plaza for the short walk to the courthouse. It was handy that the buildings were located within a few blocks of each other. It meant that she could leave her car in the capable hands of her dad for the day. Carter Templeton was retired with too much time on his hands and he’d offered to look at it. He might have spent most of his life in an office as an insurance broker, but there wasn’t much that Carter couldn’t fix when he wanted to. Which was a good thing for Greer, because she was presently pretty broke.

She was pretty broke almost all of the time.

It was something she’d expected when she’d taken the job with the public defender’s office. And money had gotten even tighter when she’d thrown in with her two sisters to buy the fixer-upper Victorian—in which she was the only one still living. She couldn’t very well start complaining about it now, though.

The irony was that both Maddie and Ali could now put whatever money they wanted into the house since they’d both married men who could afford to indulge their every little wish.

Now it was just Greer who was holding up the works.

She’d already remodeled her bedroom and bathroom when they’d first moved in. The rest of the house was in a terrible state of disrepair, though. But if she couldn’t afford her fair third of the cost, then the work had to wait until she could.

She sidestepped a woman pushing a baby stroller on the sidewalk and jogged up the steps to the courthouse. There were thirty-two of them, in sets of eight. When she’d first started out, running up the steps had left her breathless. Six years later, she barely noticed them.

Inside, she joined the line at security and slid her bare arms into her navy blue blazer. Once through, she jogged up two more full flights of gleaming marble stairs to the third floor.

She slipped into Judge Waters’s courtroom with two minutes to spare and was standing at the defendant’s table with her files stacked in front of her before the judge entered, wearing his typically dour expression.

He looked over his half glasses. “Oh, goody.” His voice was humorless as he took his seat behind the bench. “All of my favorite people are here. Actually on time for once.” He poured himself a glass of water and shook out several antacid tablets from the economy-sized bottle sitting beside the water. “All right. As y’all ought to know by now, we’ll break at noon and not a minute before. So don’t bother asking. If you’re not lucky enough to be out of the court’s hair by noon, we’ll resume at half past one and not one minute after.”

He eyed the line of defendants waiting to be arraigned. They sat shoulder to shoulder, crammed into the hardwood bench adjacent to the defendant’s table where Greer stood. After this group, there was another waiting, just as large.

Judge Waters shoved the tablets into his mouth. “Let’s get started,” he said around his crunching.

All in all, it was a pretty normal morning.

* * *

Normal ended at exactly twelve fifty-five.





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