Книга - Her Stubborn Cowboy

Her Stubborn Cowboy
Patricia Johns


FAMILY MATTERSMackenzie Vaughn is determined to learn to run the Montana ranch she’s inherited—even if it means relying on Chet Granger. Years ago, the serious (and seriously handsome) cowboy broke up her relationship with his younger brother, and Mack doesn’t want to remember that heartache.Chet knows gorgeous, spunky Mack is off-limits. His brother would never forgive him, and Chet always puts family first…until he can no longer ignore his feelings. If Chet gives in to his heart, he’ll lose his brother and the ranch they share—if he doesn’t, he could lose Mackenzie forever.







In July 2016, the MILLS & BOON® AMERICAN ROMANCE® series will become the MILLS & BOON® WESTERN ROMANCE series. Same great stories, new name!

FAMILY MATTERS

Mackenzie Vaughn is determined to learn to run the Montana ranch she’s inherited—even if it means relying on Chet Granger. Years ago, the serious (and seriously handsome) cowboy broke up her relationship with his younger brother, and Mack doesn’t want to remember that heartache.

Chet knows gorgeous, spunky Mack is off-limits. His brother would never forgive him, and Chet always puts family first…until he can no longer ignore his feelings. If Chet gives in to his heart, he’ll lose his brother and the ranch they share—if he doesn’t, he could lose Mackenzie forever.


“Looks like you got a good start on the day.”

When Chet turned, he nearly collided with Mack. She sucked in a breath and looked up at him, blue eyes widened in surprise. Her lips parted, and he found his gaze moving down toward her mouth as if closing that distance would be the most natural thing in the world.

“Sorry.” He cleared his throat and stepped back. “So what brought you back here?”

“You know why. I inherited the ranch.”

“It’s more than that, though,” he said. “Most people would have sold it and taken the money.”

“Well, the timing was right. I hated my job and I missed air and rain and land and—” She blushed. “You always thought I was a city slicker, huh?”

“Yeah, maybe.” He shot her a grin.

“And I am. But even people in the city miss a connection with something real—”

He was real, and what he’d felt for her had been real, too, but she’d never recognized it.

Was this his second chance?


Dear Reader (#ulink_420a8979-2648-5e03-b2ee-38e468a6c2f1),

When my son went into the first grade, he wanted to know how to find a friend. I told him to stand still, be quiet and look around himself. There’d be the noisy kids, the funny kids, the in-your-face kids. But if he wanted a really good friend, he needed to wait until he saw the quiet kid by the wall. That’s the winner. Bonus points if the kid was carrying a book.

My husband and I found each other the same way. He was quiet, the kind of guy who stood back and looked around. He wasn’t flashy. He wasn’t a flirt. He was strong, honest and stubborn as all get-out. And he could take my breath away like no other! The guys on the periphery—the Chet Grangers of the world—are worth a second look. They’re the ones who have more to offer, and that depth of character is priceless.

It isn’t easy being a bookish type, but we don’t have to do it alone. Finding fellow readers and other wallflowers makes all the difference…even for writers.

If you’d like to connect with me, you can find me on Facebook under Patricia Johns Romance, or you could come by my blog at patriciajohnsromance.com (http://www.patriciajohnsromance.com). I love to hear from readers, and you’re guaranteed a reply. I’m another one along the wall—the observer, the mildly uncomfortable one. And if you’re interested in bonus points, I’m pretty much always working on a book!

Patricia Johns




Her Stubborn Cowboy

Patricia Johns





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


PATRICIA JOHNS writes from northern Alberta, where she lives with her husband and son. The winters are long, cold and perfectly suited to novel writing. She has a BA in English lit, and you can find her books in Mills & Boon Love Inspired and Mills & Boon American Romance lines.


To my husband, who inspires the romantic in me.


Contents

Cover (#u6b0cf73e-82e4-5ae0-80b1-c52c7558f62f)

Back Cover Text (#u220fca7d-ba0b-539f-84bc-af4bbb3ab516)

Introduction (#u2a48e6ae-3b12-5bb1-9461-589645632063)

Dear Reader (#u4a27c551-e435-5853-920a-2b8c7f9dbe4d)

Title Page (#ue98e96d3-d9f3-5c78-a3f2-93eb05fcb6fd)

About the Author (#u48f1511c-4d3c-5acb-b0e6-1fb2e54e145a)

Dedication (#u7e252560-5d84-5753-a634-07576b559a87)

Chapter One (#u1b6c1d91-5371-5be1-9b83-1e6d0775eb07)

Chapter Two (#ua8bf5bd7-29b0-5b4a-81ec-d1b4a4bbbdbe)

Chapter Three (#u6e9ee3a4-f4e1-5997-b8ef-7f9be0f7dc36)

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)

Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)

Extract (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)


Chapter One (#ulink_1d2335f9-ef78-5c9f-9172-17b29e581d64)

Chet Granger wanted her land, and Mackenzie Vaughn knew it. He’d offered to buy it from her grandmother multiple times over the years, and now that her grandmother had passed away, leaving the ranch to Mackenzie, she was waiting for the inevitable offer.

And she would refuse. That was a given. The last person in this county she intended to sell this land to was Chet Granger. They had a bit of a history together, and if anyone was going to benefit from this land, it wouldn’t be him. Business wasn’t supposed to be personal, but this time it was.

As a small white goat passed her, Mackenzie patted its rump and wiped the back of her hand over her moist forehead. The sun hung low in the sky, casting long shadows through pools of warm sunlight. The peeling red barn loomed behind, its shadow stretching out like a sleepy cat. Since arriving two hours earlier, she’d already managed to get what was left of her grandmother’s herd back into the barn. Then she’d noticed the goat waddling off toward the fence, wide belly swinging back and forth with each step.

“Come on now,” she urged. “Let’s go, goat.”

It had to have a name; she just didn’t know it. The other three goats were already inside the barn, but this one paid no mind to peer pressure.

This ranch had been a godsend when she was an angry teen caught in the middle of her parents’ acrid divorce. While her parents battled over who got what, she’d come back to her grandmother’s ranch—the one place she could count on not to change. It was here that she’d fallen in love for the first time, with Andy Granger. Chet was Andy’s older brother and had always been the more serious of the two. In fact, she’d had a bit of a crush on him at first, before Andy made his move and she realized that Chet hadn’t been interested in the least. He’d been concerned with the future of his family’s ranch more than with having much fun...so much so that he’d convinced Andy that Mack wasn’t worth his time. At least, that was Andy’s story. In spite of it all, a small part of her envied the Granger boys. When push came to shove, they chose each other, and the Granger family stood strong. Still, they stood strong against her, and that was one slight she wouldn’t forget.

“Come on,” Mackenzie coaxed, patting the goat’s rump again. “I have some nice fresh hay waiting for you.”

The goat didn’t seem the least bit interested in her offering, and it turned away again, trotting heavily along the fence line. Farther down the fence, a man sauntered up and leaned against the rail, gray eyes fixed on her in mild amusement. Mackenzie startled. He was tall, slim but well muscled. He rested his forearms over the top rail, big hands loosely holding a pair of work gloves. A cowboy hat sat on his head, pushed back so that the sun hit his face, illuminating the sandpaper of his stubble. He raised the gloves in a hello. He’d always been good-looking, but he’d lost his lean boyishness and hardened into a man since she’d last seen him. Chet Granger. The years had been good to him.

“Long time,” he called.

It certainly had been a long time, and in the few hours she’d been back, she’d been doing her best to avoid him. She’d known that wasn’t going to work for long, considering their ranches were side by side, their respective barns and houses no more than an acre apart. There had been a time when people liked the idea of being within shouting distance of a neighbor. This would have been a whole lot easier if they didn’t share such a difficult history.

The goat trotted up to Chet and poked a nose through the fence.

“Hey there, Butter Cream.” The rancher eased between the rails of the fence and came over to her side, hopping twice to get his boot through. His shirt was rolled up to reveal strong forearms, tanned skin with a vein bulging as he scratched the goat’s ears. The animal tipped her head back and forth, lashes fluttering in enjoyment. Chet looked up at Mackenzie, those disconcertingly light eyes pinned on her. “Trying to get her back inside?”

He didn’t wait for the answer but strode off in the direction of her barn without a backward look, and the goat followed him with the quiet loyalty of a dog.

“Butter Cream,” she muttered to herself. That would be good to remember for the next time she had to plead with this particular critter.

Mackenzie had been in town all of a day, and she already knew that she was in over her head. Why she’d thought she’d be able to run a ranch on her own, she had no idea. When her grandmother had died, leaving her the ranch, she’d thought this was the answer to that sense of empty boredom inside her—and maybe it was—but she wasn’t entirely sure it was worth it, especially not if Chet was part of the package.

“So how come you didn’t stop by when you arrived?” Chet glanced over his shoulder at her as he pulled open the rolling door.

“I had things to do,” she said, annoyed at his casual comfort with her property. And it was hers now—all four hundred acres of it.

He laughed softly. “You have no idea how to run this place.”

He was right about that, but she’d never been one to back away from a challenge, and this one had been dumped in her lap with the subtlety of a truckload of bricks.

The goat nuzzled Chet’s leg once more and he bent to scratch her head again. “By the way, Butter Cream is due to kid in a week or two. So pretty soon, you’ll have baby goats and a pretty steady supply of goat milk. She’s a good producer.”

Mackenzie studied the creature, attempting to hide her surprise.

“As in more than one?” she asked.

“Definitely more than one.”

“I don’t need goat milk,” she said, before she could think better of it.

“Then sell it.” Chet gave the goat’s rump a solid pat, and she waddled through the door toward her stall without a bleat of protest. He made it seem so easy, and she suspected that she’d never have that kind of luck with Butter Cream.

“Do you want her?” she asked. “She seems to like you.”

“No, thanks.” He pulled shut the goat’s stall door and shot her a grin. “Do you have any idea how much trouble baby goats are? They’re like herding cats. They’re your problem.”

Great. She pulled a hand through her long blond hair. “You’re right, by the way.”

“About the goats, or about you not knowing what you’re doing?” His grin became teasing.

Mackenzie eyed him coolly. “Both, I’m sure.” She sucked in a breath. “The lawyer said that you’d been helping my grandmother out with running the place. He said I should talk to you if I had any questions.”

“Good advice.” Chet crossed his arms over his chest.

“So?” she said. “What’s the first step?”

“Your grandmother—rest her soul—sold off most of her cattle at auction a couple of years ago. That was her version of retirement. No ranch hands, no employees and just a handful of cows she could care for on her own. But you can’t keep this place going on fifteen head. You’ll need a good herd and some ranch hands who know what they’re doing, and you’ll have to be careful with that. If they think you don’t know squat about running this place, they’ll take advantage.”

Ranch hands were the least of her worries right now. Was he going to try to scare her off running this place on her own? No one had been more shocked than she’d been when she inherited this place. If anyone was going to get it, it should have been her father, and that fact had been rubbing at her conscience ever since the lawyer had called. She was the least qualified member of the family to inherit the biggest responsibility, and this was already affecting her relationship with her dad. She scuffed a boot in the dirt, her mind sifting through Chet’s words. She had no idea how she’d get this ranch rolling again, and right now she felt most thoroughly beaten. “In the meantime, what do I do?”

“Chores in the morning, chores at night. In between that, you fix everything that keeps breaking.” He glanced through the barn. “Looks like you got the cows in all right.”

The cows had taken care of themselves, trotting inside without a word from her when she opened the back barn door.

“I understand you’ve been paid for your time out of the estate,” Mackenzie said.

He nodded, silent.

“And you know how to run this place better than I do,” she went on. “I’m not sure what you’d want to be paid, but—”

“I don’t want to be paid.” He let the words hang in the air, then turned and walked back toward the fence. His boots clunked against the dry ground, and he lifted his hat and resettled it on his head without once looking back. She knew what he was after. He wanted to buy this place and send her packing. Still, he’d had a point about being taken advantage of by employees, something she hadn’t even thought of. She needed help.

“Chet!” she called.

He paused and finally looked back at her. “Yeah?”

She’d make him say it. She’d make him offer to buy the place, turn him down flat and get that out of the way. “So what do you want, then?”

“To be asked.” There wasn’t a hint of humor in his expression.

She blinked. That wasn’t what she’d expected. “Fine. I’m asking.”

“The whole thing.” He crossed his arms, meeting her gaze evenly.

Mackenzie muttered an oath under her breath and closed the distance between them. Was his plan to prove to her how little she knew about managing a ranch? If it was, then she’d just have to prove him wrong—learn everything she could from this frustrating man in spite of his reticence.

“Chet Granger,” she said with a resigned sigh, “would you be so kind as to help me with the running of this place until I can figure out what to do with it?”

“What do you mean, what you’re going to do with it?” he asked.

There it was. She’d piqued his interest. Maybe her father would want to buy her out, although besides being deeply hurt that his own mother had cut him out of the will, he hadn’t shown a lot of interest in this place.

“Obviously, I can run it or sell it. I haven’t decided what I’m going to do yet.”

“But you want to run it?” he clarified.

She nodded. “That was the plan.”

She had a lot of regrets that needed plowing over. She wanted a fresh start, and a ranch didn’t land in a girl’s lap every day. This seemed like the kind of thing she should take advantage of. She was hoping that her father could forgive this eventually—but if she were honest with herself, the philanderer had a little karma due.

“All right.” He fixed her with a direct stare. “But I put my ranch first. I help you out after I’m done with my own land.”

“Fair enough.” She held out her hand and he took it in his strong, rough grasp.

“I’ll come by after my chores are done in the morning.” He released her fingers, tipped his hat and then bent down to ease his body between the fence rails once more. Once he was on his side of the property, he added, “And I’m not doing the work for you. I’m teaching you how to do it yourself. But I’ll help you out for a bit while you build up the stamina. It’s harder than it looks.”

“Do you really think I’m searching for a man to take care of little ole me?” she asked wryly.

“Just being clear.”

“I’m not looking to get free labor out of you, Chet,” she said. “And I’ll pay you for your time. I won’t have it any other way.”

If she’d had anyone else to ask, she would have, but Mackenzie didn’t know anyone around here but the Grangers. When Andy broke up with her, he’d told her enough to make it clear that Chet had been at the core of it. She’d always sensed that Chet had never thought she was anything more than a city slicker, and he’d never approved of her wasting Andy’s time when he should have been thinking about more serious things like animal husbandry and crops.

Andy hadn’t cared about the ranch the way Chet had, and that had always chafed between the brothers, but she’d never thought that Chet would go so far as to break them up. That was a low blow—lower than she’d thought Chet was capable of. But then, her father had proven himself even lower, so perhaps she shouldn’t have been surprised.

Chet gave her a nod. “Good to see you again, Mack,” he said. “You look good.”

Then he turned toward his own property and walked across the field with that slow, rolling gait of his. She heaved a sigh. She needed to figure out how to run this ranch on her own or sell it to anyone but a Granger. And being beholden to Chet wasn’t even an option.

* * *

CHET’S SIDE KITCHEN window overlooked the field that separated his property from Mackenzie’s, and he stopped in front of the sink, casting his gaze over there in spite of himself. He pulled his eyes away and slammed a kitchen cupboard just to hear the satisfying bang.

Mackenzie Vaughn was back.

He hadn’t been sure if she would actually come and take possession of the ranch or sell it without setting foot on it again. Of course, he’d hoped for another chance to see her, but he’d never understood Mack very well. She’d been pretty and tomboyish with long blond hair and even longer legs. She hadn’t changed much in the past decade, apparently.

He’d thought the years had washed away the memory of her, especially when Chet took over the running of his family’s ranch. He’d been busy, focused on upgrading old machinery, so life had moved on...

Until he saw her again this afternoon, trying to sweet-talk a goat into cooperating, and it was as if those past ten years had just evaporated. Suddenly he was nineteen years old again, staring at the girl who made his stomach flip, knowing he couldn’t do anything about it. She had been Andy’s girlfriend, and there were lines he’d never cross. Except she wasn’t Andy’s girlfriend anymore.

The rumble of an engine came up the drive, and Chet ambled through the kitchen toward the front window. A brand-new blue pickup crunched to a stop on the gravel, and when the door opened, he blinked in surprise to see his brother. He hadn’t spoken to Andy in the year or more since their father’s death, and the sight of his younger brother made his throat tighten. After the funeral, they’d had a massive fight over the inheritance and things had been said—the kind of things that couldn’t be taken back. So what was Andy doing on his doorstep? Was this a friendly visit, or was he here to pick up where they’d left off?

Chet pulled open the front door and gave his brother a cautious nod. Andy, shorter than Chet by several inches, slammed shut the truck door. He was tall and well built—the family resemblance between the two men was unmistakable, except that Andy’s hair was auburn in a testament to their redheaded mother. He shuffled his boots in the gravel.

“Hi,” Andy said.

“What’s going on?” Chet asked. “I thought you weren’t talking to me.”

“Ida kicked me out.” Andy slapped his hat against his leg. “I was hoping I could stay here with you for a few days until I get things sorted.”

“What do you mean, kicked you out? The wedding is in two months, I thought.” In fact, Chet wasn’t even sure if he was invited. Ida had sent him the invitation, and he suspected she was trying to be diplomatic. That didn’t mean Andy wanted Chet anywhere near the event.

“We broke up.” Andy gave a weak shrug.

“What did you do?” Chet demanded.

“Can I stay here?” Andy asked, ignoring the question.

“Well, you’re here,” Chet said gruffly, which was as close to a yes as Andy was going to get. Andy grabbed a suitcase from the truck’s flatbed and Chet stepped back and let his brother through the door. “So what happened?”

“I asked if we could postpone the wedding a bit. It’s in two months, coming up so fast, and—” Andy’s face looked older now, more lined and haggard. “You were smart to stay single.”

Chet wasn’t so much smart as unlucky in love. He’d dated a few women over the years, but in a place the size of Hope, he’d known most folk all his life. A few new people moved in every few years, but most of them were older or with young families. You didn’t get a lot of available women putting up their shingles in a place like this.

Andy strolled toward the kitchen, and Chet followed. This was their family house—they’d both grown up in it—and treating it like a shared home was a hard habit to break. Chet had inherited the house, the barns and one hundred and seventy-five acres. His brother had inherited the other two hundred and twenty-five acres—mostly pasture—and their shares combined to make the Grangers’ four-hundred-acre total. Their father’s intention had been for the brothers to run the ranch together, except that Andy had never been interested.

“So it’s over, I guess,” Andy went on, opening the fridge and peering inside. “You don’t have much, do you?”

Over. His brother had been dating Ida for four years, and it was simply done? This was the first woman Andy had brought home whom the whole family really liked. He turned his attention to the fridge.

“What do you want?” Chet asked. “How about sausage and eggs?”

Andy shrugged his assent and headed to the battered old table, where he sank into a chair. Chet set to work in the kitchen. He grabbed the eggs and sausages from the fridge and moved around getting what he needed. Andy scrubbed a hand through his reddish hair, leaving it standing upright.

“So just like that?” Chet asked. “You sure this isn’t a fight? Cold feet?”

“She’s not the right woman.”

“You thought she was when you proposed,” Chet said. That had been before their father died and while everyone was still talking to each other. Andy had used their mother’s engagement ring. Made sense—Andy had always been close to Mom. Chet had been out on the land with their father, and Andy had seen a lot more of their mother before she passed away, something Chet had always felt a little envious of. Had he known their time would be limited...

“A lot changed in the last year,” Andy muttered.

A lot had changed, but truth be told, Chet had been slightly jealous of his brother’s good fortune. He’d fallen in love and was getting married. What better way to get over the death of a parent than by starting your own family?

“Speaking of that year,” Chet said. “I haven’t heard a peep from you.” He hauled an iron skillet onto a burner and turned it on.

“Well...peep.”

Chet rolled his eyes. He’d have to take what he could get. He’d missed his brother, gone over their fight over and over in his head, looking for some fresh insight into why they fought and how to fix it and always coming up empty.

“Dad should never have split the land up like that. It wasn’t fair,” Andy said. “Not that you’d notice.”

“You got more land than I did,” Chet retorted. “You got all the pasture. It’s worth a good chunk of change, so don’t go acting the victim like Dad didn’t remember you.”

The pasture was in Andy’s name, but Chet had been using it just as their father had used that land before him. Chet had always looked at the ranch as theirs—his and Andy’s—but it was no secret that Chet was the one to run the place and do the actual work. Andy was more of a silent partner, and Chet liked that setup just fine.

“I meant to talk to you about that,” Andy said, squinting. “I’m going to sell it.”

“What?!” Chet slammed a spatula on the counter and stared at his brother in disbelief. “You can’t do that!”

“Totally can,” Andy replied. “It’s in my name, and like you said, it’s worth a small fortune to the right people.”

“Yeah, but it’s our pasture,” Chet said. “Where are we supposed to graze two hundred and fifty cows if you sell it out from under us?”

Andy shrugged. “Maybe this isn’t a great time to talk about this.”

“No, this is a perfect time,” Chet said. “This ranch needs land. You know that. I can’t run the place without it.”

Andy pulled out his phone and punched away with two thumbs for a few seconds, then passed the phone over. “This is the development company that is interested in buying the whole lot—yours included—for more money than we’d ever get otherwise. We’d be rich.”

Rich. That was what Andy wanted—cash? Rich was when you had land under your feet that you owned free and clear. Rich was when you could stand outside at dawn and watch the sun rise over fields you owned as far as the eye could see. Rich wasn’t about a fistful of cash; it was about something deeper, more meaningful. It was about roots and history, being connected to the living expanse of something bigger than yourself.

“I’m not selling,” Chet said. “This is ours. This means something. The Grangers have been on this land for generations.”

“Then maybe it’s time to try something else,” Andy said. “Think about it. There are more opportunities out there than you even know about, and with that kind of money—”

“I don’t need to think about it,” Chet snapped. “I’m not selling.”

“Okay, then.” But there was something in Andy’s tone that Chet didn’t trust, the same vibe he’d given off when he was planning to do something he knew he’d get in trouble for when they were kids. More often than not, Chet waded in to try to fix it and ended up in trouble, too. But not this time. They were adults now, and the consequences went far deeper than a month of grounding.

“Are you selling no matter what?” Chet asked cautiously.

Andy nodded. “Yeah, I am. I love this town, too. I know you think I’m some unfeeling jerk. You’re not the only one with childhood memories in Hope. Our parents are buried here, so don’t go getting all high and mighty on me about family and land and all that garbage that you love to lecture me about. I don’t want to stop here. I only get to live once, and I don’t want to regret turning down that kind of cash. It could really open doors.”

Chet had no idea how life could get better than what he already had, but this had always been their problem. Chet loved this land, and Andy just wanted to get a few bucks to escape to the city. Andy wanted fun and Chet wanted stability. They’d never been able to see eye to eye, not even as teens.

“Then sell it to me,” Chet said.

“Are you willing to match their offer?” Andy leaned over and pressed another button, pulling up an email. The number was far larger than Chet could possibly get credit for. He felt his stomach drop.

“You know I can’t match that,” he said. “But I’ll give you what it’s worth, fair and square.”

“This is what it’s worth now,” Andy said, slipping his phone into his pocket.

“What are they going to do with all that land?” Chet asked.

“They’re going to make a resort, apparently,” Andy said. “There are all sorts of rich people who want to pay good money for a ranch experience, but they want to be comfortable at the same time.”

The very thought turned Chet’s stomach. But his brother hadn’t sold the land yet. Andy tended to talk big, and while he wouldn’t put it past his brother, he still had hope. Maybe Andy’s mind could be changed yet.

“Don’t jump into it,” Chet said. “I’ll buy you out if you let me. Just...” He sighed and didn’t finish the sentence. His brother knew exactly what this would do to him and ironically—or obliviously—still wanted a place to stay.

“I’ll think about it,” Andy agreed. “But you do some thinking, too. This could be good for us—really good. You’re always so tunnel-visioned, but if you gave this a chance—”

“I told you. I’m not selling.” Chet couldn’t help the sharpness to his tone.

They fell into silence for a few beats. It had always been like this when Andy was around. He managed to take a calm, serene day and turn it into an argument.

“So when are you going to apologize to Ida and go home?” Chet asked, changing the subject.

“I’m not.” Andy sighed. “It’s definitely over. She gave me back the ring, and I’m hiring movers.”

“I’m sorry,” Chet said gruffly. He felt a wave of sadness. He’d miss Ida. She’d been a great addition to the family.

Andy nodded somberly. “Hey, you remember that girl Mackenzie—the one I was head over heels for?”

“Yeah.”

“I should have married her while I had the chance,” Andy said, his voice low.

Those words sparked anger deep inside Chet. Andy hadn’t appreciated what he had when he had it. Mack had been sweet and gorgeous, smart and funny. She’d been the whole package, and Andy had started up with another girl behind Mack’s back. When Chet told Andy that he knew what was going on and that it wasn’t fair to either girl, Andy had agreed to choose between them. Chet had been sure that he’d land on the side of Mackenzie, but he hadn’t. He’d dumped Mack with little ceremony and carried on with some girl he’d met at the county fair. And now he was looking back thinking that he should have married Mackenzie? Mackenzie was lucky to have gotten away relatively unscathed!

“You’re an idiot,” Chet said. “You cheated on her.”

“I was an idiot,” Andy said. “I was also seventeen, and I’ve grown up since then. If I had a chance with Mack again, I wouldn’t squander it.”

What terrible timing. He didn’t have the stomach right now to tell Andy that Mack was back, mostly because he was pretty sure he’d clock his brother if he even mentioned going on over there to talk to her. But he couldn’t keep Mackenzie a secret for long. Still, some things could wait for another day. He had his brother back, and irritating though Andy was, Chet had been hoping for a reconciliation every single day for the past year. Family mattered. So did engagements, come to that.

“Ida’s worth some effort,” Chet said. “Four years. That’s a lot to throw away. Go grovel.”

“She said she’ll really miss you guys, too,” Andy said, turning away from the window. “Hey, but this is what lasts, isn’t it? We’re brothers. Women come and go, but we Granger boys stand together, am I right?”

“Yeah, until some development company comes along,” Chet said, bitterness edging his voice.

“You could make a fortune, too,” Andy said, sitting down as Chet put a plate of sausage and eggs in front of him. “Try something new, Chet. Take a chance. I want to do this together.”

He glanced out the window toward the house next door, the roof of which was just visible from where he stood. Mack was back and so was Andy, and they were already resuming the old roles they used to play. Andy was breaking hearts, Chet was holding together the ranch, and Mack was—

Mack was what, exactly? Mack, still as gorgeous as she’d once been, with that ornery streak and the defiant way of facing him down that made his mind go into dangerous territory. And there was still a very solid line between him and Mackenzie. Only this time it wasn’t about being too principled to make a move or about keeping the Granger family united. It was now about keeping his ranch. Because if he ticked off his brother this time, Andy had the trump card—he had a juicy offer to buy his land, and he didn’t need Chet for that.


Chapter Two (#ulink_80d9a3c6-eff0-5477-861f-ce77f27748fa)

The next morning, Chet got up earlier than ordinary and slipped out of the house to start his chores. He was eager to get outside again after an evening with his brother—at least, that was what he told himself. It would be ridiculous to get up an hour early to rush through his work so he could get to Mack’s place as soon as possible... Ridiculous, plain and simple.

That morning, he’d snuck around the kitchen like a ninja, not wanting to wake up his brother with the sound of cooking. Andy could get his own toast whenever he roused himself. The night before, they’d stayed up late, Chet listening as Andy made the case for selling their family’s land and starting fresh with some new venture. Andy had obviously put a lot of thought into this scheme, and his business degree hadn’t been wasted. There were statistics about profit and loss, land equity and... Chet couldn’t even remember all of it. All he knew was that he wasn’t selling, no matter how good the deal might be. This land wasn’t about cash; it was about roots, and Chet wasn’t about to be budged on that.

The chilly morning air mingled with the last dregs of his coffee. He drank it black and strong, the same way his dad used to take it. And when he pulled on his boots and dropped his hat on his head, he felt the same peace that flooded through him every morning. It was something to do with the smell of the barns and the sound of horses nickering before they could even see him. Or maybe it was the way the sun eased over the horizon as he lifted bales of hay into the back of the work truck—a twelve-year-old Chevy that was mottled with rust but still going strong. It was hard to pin down exactly what settled into his soul so perfectly, but this was the life for him.

He and Andy used to do chores together as kids, but there had been more than a few mornings when Andy was let off the hook—normally for a feigned stomachache—and Chet went out with his dad alone. He’d cherished that time. His father had been a quiet man who’d kept his own counsel, but when he and Chet would walk out to the barn together, his father would talk. Chet was the first to know about his mother’s cancer because his father had told him one morning in the field.

It wasn’t all heavy talk, though. His father would tell him stories about the Granger men who had come before him—working this very land under his feet. There was the grandfather who’d drunk himself into an early grave and a great-uncle who’d bought the most westerly section for ten dollars and a jar of preserves. One ancestor had been a ranch hand on this land and ended up marrying his boss’s daughter—Matilda Granger, if he recalled properly—and running the place for his father-in-law until the old man died. The ranch was then left to a Granger cousin instead. This land had been fraught with conflict and grit, and hearing the stories had made Chet feel as though he belonged with the rough group of men who had worked the land before him. As a kid listening to the family lore, he’d never imagined that he and his brother would be part of that Granger conflict, but remembering those stories now, he sensed the irony. Apparently, this land came with an ability to cause strife.

Chet’s chores went faster than usual, and after giving a few instructions to his ranch hands, Chet drove over to Mackenzie’s place. He didn’t know exactly what he was expecting today, but he was definitely looking forward to seeing her. This was different from before. She was a grown woman now, not a naive girl, and he found himself wanting to get to know her all over again. She was the same old Mack, and yet she was so much more now. Was it crazy of him to entertain these thoughts?

I’ll be her friend. I’ll help her out. That’s it.

That was what he kept telling himself, at least.

Mackenzie was waiting for him on the wooden steps. She cradled a mug of coffee between her hands, and her hair was pulled back into a ponytail so that her face was fully exposed. She looked more vulnerable that way, her blue eyes lighting on his truck as he pulled up. She put down her mug and waved.

“Morning!” she called as he turned off the engine and hopped out. “You’re earlier than I thought.”

“I got an early start,” he admitted. “I was pretty eager to get out of there. My brother showed up last night.”

“Andy’s here?” She frowned, and he wondered what that meant to her. She’d been pretty smitten with his younger brother back in the day. “What’s he doing with himself now, anyway?”

“He lives out in Billings,” Chet said. “Manages a car dealership.”

“And why did he come here?” she inquired, squinting up at him from her perch on the steps. She shaded her eyes against the morning sun.

“He, uh—” Chet cleared his throat. “He had a bit of a falling-out with his fiancée. He’s out here to cool off and I’m hoping they’ll patch it up.”

“He’s engaged.” It wasn’t a question, and she looked away when she said it. “I hadn’t realized that.”

Well, he had been. Close enough. Sometimes it was better not to nail down any definitions and give a couple the chance to fix things if they wanted to. He was still hoping his brother would change his mind.

“Helen never told you?” Mack’s grandmother had been very much alive when Andy had gotten engaged, and she’d had her own opinions about the relationship. Helen had declared Ida sweet but unsuitable, which Chet had never agreed with. Ida was good for Andy.

“You know Granny. She kept me on the need-to-know. I guess she didn’t think I needed to know that.”

Helen hadn’t wanted him to tell Mackenzie about Andy’s cheating, either. Helen’s son was Mack’s father, and he had been cheating on his wife for years—hence the divorce. Helen loved family fiercely, but not fiercely enough to cover her disapproval when it came to infidelity. She’d said that Mackenzie had enough to contend with in her parents’ divorce and she didn’t need to develop a complex over cheating men, to boot.

“Let sleeping dogs lie,” Helen had said.

“Except Andy isn’t a dog,” Chet had said pragmatically. Andy couldn’t just be chained up or taught to heel.

“Isn’t he?” Helen had fixed him with a demanding stare, and that was that. They’d agreed to never tell Mack about Andy’s cheating, and it looked as if Helen had taken that a step further and never mentioned him again, period. Helen was ferociously protective of her grandchildren.

“Yeah, Andy met Ida a few years ago and they’ve been dating for a long time. He finally asked her to marry him about a year—maybe a year and a half—ago. She’s this artsy yoga instructor, and she’s laid-back enough to deal with Andy. He can’t flap her. They’re good together.”

“I imagine they would be.” She nodded briskly and pushed herself to her feet. “Let’s get to work.”

Technically, his duty was done. He’d given her the pertinent information about his brother, and she could take it from there. But he wished that Andy didn’t have to be a part of this. When Chet learned that Mack was inheriting her grandmother’s ranch, all those old feelings for her had come back. And he wanted a chance to see her again without his brother in the mix. Maybe it would be a simple hello and that would be it, but Andy was supposed to have faded into the background of engaged bliss. He was supposed to be out of the picture.

As they made their way toward the barn together, Mackenzie stayed half a step ahead of him, and he wondered what had brought her out here, besides the inheritance. The last he’d seen of her was when she left the ranch after Andy dumped her. She’d given him this unreadable look, then gotten into the truck, and Helen had driven her to the bus depot. That was it. As far as Chet knew, her last memories of Hope, Montana, were of heartbreak—a heartbreak that Chet couldn’t even explain to her, because it would only hurt her worse. So why on earth would she come back?

The small barn closer to the house was normally where horses and smaller livestock were housed, but when Helen sold off her herd, she’d moved the remaining cows—her bottle-fed babies—into the smaller barn, leaving the big high-tech barn empty.

Mackenzie pulled the heavy door open, and it took all of her body weight to do it. She obviously wasn’t going to let him take the lead, and he liked that. The more seriously she took this, the better the chances of her succeeding on her own, and staying...

Was he hoping for that? He told himself that he didn’t want to be wasting his valuable time teaching someone who wasn’t going to stick around, but it went deeper than that. He wanted her to stick around. The minute he saw her yesterday, something had sparked to life inside him that had lain dormant for a long time.

Chet followed Mack inside the barn and looked around, impressed. Mackenzie had mucked the barn out that morning—it was obvious by the smell of new hay. The cows knew their way to the pasture, and they were already gone, as were the goats, who would never allow themselves to be left indoors in summer weather. The stalls were clean—a few details missed here and there, but an admirable job for a first-timer. This was several hours’ worth of work, and he looked over at Mack with new respect.

“Let me see your hands,” he said.

Mackenzie blinked at him twice, then held them up—gloves on. He laughed softly and plucked the gloves off. She held her arms straight, palms down, as if he’d asked to inspect her nails. He took her slender wrists and turned them over so that he could get a look at her palms. They were red with blisters—a sign of hard work. Her soft skin wasn’t used to this, and even through the gloves, she’d gotten some punishment.

“That’ll hurt,” he said, his voice low. She bent her head, looking down at her skin, and her hair shone warmly in the dim light. He could smell the fragrance of her shampoo, in spite of the barn aroma around them. He pulled his mind back from those details. He needed to keep this strictly friendly if he knew what was good for him at the moment.

Mackenzie closed her fingers over her palms. “I’ll toughen up.”

She pulled her hands back, and Chet cleared his throat.

“Looks like you got a good start on the day,” he said.

“I was up early, too.” She cast him a wry smile. “I remember Granny used to say that the animals needed to be clean and dry. I saw to that. Also, they looked antsy, so I let them out.”

“Did you find the feed bins?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“That’s fine while they can graze. But they’ll need food overnight. You’ll have to know how to mix it—especially for the herd, when you get one again. Basically, Helen was using a mix of chopped hay, corn silage, soybean meal and some fruit rinds that she’d been getting from a grocery chain for next to nothing. It’s just recycling for them. It takes a bit more to separate it out, so they charge a minimal amount...”

Mackenzie followed him as he walked down the aisles, pointing out how the place would work differently with a larger herd. He loved this stuff, and he found himself rambling about feed control, disease testing and signs of a sick animal. Cows had been his life for as long as he could remember. He’d grown up next to them, and while he worked on instinct a lot of the time, ranching was a science and it was absolutely teachable. It didn’t hurt that his student was so attentive and pretty...the soft scent of her wafting through the other smells and taking him by surprise when she stepped past him.

“I’ll have to give you a walk-through of the big barn,” he said, and when he turned, he nearly collided with her, and they were suddenly barely an inch apart. She sucked in a breath and looked up at him, blue eyes widened in surprise. Her lips parted as if she were about to say something, and he found his eyes moving down toward her mouth as if closing that distance would be the most natural thing in the world.

“Sorry.” He cleared his throat and stepped back. The thing was, this wasn’t his “turn” with Mack. Mack was a woman, not a hand towel, and the fact that he’d felt things for her back when she’d been dating Andy didn’t mean anything. People felt things all the time, and they didn’t act on them.

“So what brought you out here?” he asked, mostly to change the subject.

“You know why. I inherited it,” she said simply.

“It’s more than that, though,” he said. “I mean, you only visited for a couple of summers, right? Most people would have sold it and taken the money.”

She moved a coiled hose aside with her boot. “The timing just all came together in the right way. I hated my job. I’ve been working at an insurance company that paid pretty well, but the job was just soul sucking. I missed air and rain and land and—” She blushed. “You always thought I was a city slicker, huh?”

“Yeah, maybe.” He grinned.

“And I am. I admit it. But even people in the city miss a connection with something real...”

He was real, and what he’d felt for her had been real, too, but he’d never let her see that. Family was real, too, as were irritating younger brothers who moved in on every available woman.

“And these city slickers go to resorts to find it?” he asked drily, his mind back on the sales proposition his brother had shown him. What a load. Connecting with the land wasn’t quite so sterile as some people hoped.

“Maybe,” she said with a shrug. “But when I got the news that Granny had died and left the entire ranch to me, I just had to try it, you know. I don’t think this is a chance I’ll get more than once in my life, and I think Granny left it to me for a reason.”

“Helen was like that,” he agreed. The old woman hadn’t done anything without praying on it, as she put it. “But when you left, things weren’t...exactly on great terms.”

“Andy, you mean,” she concluded.

“Yeah, Andy. We Grangers don’t hold pleasant memories for you, I’m sure.”

He couldn’t quite decipher her expression. “What makes you think that my most meaningful memories were with Andy?”

She meant her grandmother, of course, and Chet nodded. “Good point.”

“I mean, he was my first real love, and that’s special, but I wasn’t going to walk away from a chance like this because I happened to date a boy the next ranch over.” She shrugged. “That would be stupid, wouldn’t it?”

* * *

AFTER THEY CHECKED on the animals in the field, Chet provided the promised walk-through for the big barn. Chet was helpful and informative. That in itself was suspicious. Why would Chet, the man who’d never thought her good enough for a Granger, put his valuable time into her ranch unless he had an ulterior motive? He’d offered to buy this property repeatedly over the years, and she had to wonder if his interest in keeping up her land was more selfish than he was letting on.

Chet opened the front door and gestured her outside first. Her arm brushed against his taut stomach as she passed by him and back into the sunlight, the warmth of his body just a little too comforting for her liking. But then, she’d always been attracted to Chet. He’d been the silent, brooding sort, but as it turned out, connecting with a man like that was difficult, especially when his more outgoing younger brother was pursuing her like crazy. If Chet had felt anything for her at all, he’d hidden it well, and she’d let her feelings for him go when she’d started dating Andy. As it turned out, she’d done the right thing—he’d never thought she was good enough, anyway. She’d only have made a fool of herself, and no woman in her right mind courted rejection.

Granny had made this all seem a whole lot easier, and she’d hired and fired her workers without apology. She’d had some simple rules on this ranch—no booze, no sleeping around and no cursing within her hearing. She knew that ranch hands had a rare talent when it came to profanity. Far be it from her to tell them what to do on their own time, but if she was even around a corner, she expected them to clean up their language pronto. There was something about the sight of that slender woman with gray hair and gum boots that made the men stand up straighter and doff their hats. Every single ranch hand Mackenzie had ever seen around this place called her Granny “ma’am,” and while she wasn’t sure how exactly, she had the distinct impression the old lady had earned it.

Granny, I wish you were here to give me some advice...

Granny wasn’t, but Chet was. He’d have to do.

“Come on,” Chet said as he led the way to her truck.

“Where to now?” Mackenzie asked.

“The house. We’ll take care of those blisters.”

He got into the driver’s seat, and she felt a pang of annoyance. He was already acting as though he owned the place, but her hands were quite sore. A couple of blisters had popped. She’d let this one go. For now. But she wouldn’t back down, and she wouldn’t let Chet push her into any corners. This was her land now, and if she was forced to sell, she’d sell to anyone but him. On principle.

If there was one thing that her father’s infidelity had taught her, it was that men could lie. Before her father’s affairs came out, she’d trusted in a man’s good intentions, but not anymore. If her father could look her and her mother in the eye and tell them that he was so sorry, but he had to work late... It had been a painful lesson, but a valuable one. Men lied. Men looked out for their own interests, and a woman should never rely on a man to care about hers. Chet had wanted this land for a long time, and she doubted that would have changed just because she showed up.

As they bumped along the gravel road that led back up toward the house, Mackenzie watched the familiar landscape roll by. Out the left, low hills rolled out toward the horizon, cut off by a strip of trees. If memory served, those trees lined a creek that meandered through the pasture, complete with a swimming hole and a rope swing. To the right was the Grangers’ land, a wooden fence slicing between the properties. The place looked different now that it was hers, though. She felt as if she had to memorize it, figure it out, protect it from a Granger takeover.

When Andy told her about Chet’s dislike of her, that he thought that she wasn’t the kind of woman who would fit in with them, she’d been doubly hurt. Not only had her father lied to her face for years, but now Chet had been hiding his own bias. She’d never suspected that he felt that way in the few conversations they’d had, and she certainly didn’t deserve it. So now that she was the sole owner of this ranch, she couldn’t help but feel wary of other people’s devious intentions, Chet’s included. She’d be responsible for all of this, and that weighed rather heavily on her shoulders.

But this was better than her life in the city had been. What with all of her friends having left for other more exciting opportunities and working a job she truly loathed, even if it did pay moderately well, being responsible for something of this magnitude woke her up in a way she’d never experienced before, not even when visiting here. This was going to be hard—really hard—and somehow she knew it could also be worth it.

“So what happened between Andy and his fiancée?” Mackenzie asked. She’d been wondering what the details were ever since Chet had mentioned it when he arrived.

Chet shrugged. “I don’t know too much, but if I had to guess, I’d say it was Andy’s fault.”

Mackenzie chuckled at his bluntness. “What makes you so sure?”

“Ida’s great.” Chet glanced in her direction, one arm out the open window, drumming an absent rhythm on the side of the truck. “She’s good for him. She settles him down and makes him think. Ida isn’t the difficult type. And I know my brother. If there’s friction, it’s not because of Ida.”

The difficult type. Was that what Chet thought of her? And she absolutely could be, especially if he tried to manipulate her out of her ranch. Still, Mackenzie found herself feeling a tiny bit envious. Maybe Andy hadn’t been the right guy for her, but Ida had managed to earn Chet’s respect, and Chet wasn’t easily charmed. Granny had been the same way. She’d been hard to impress, but when she liked someone, that meant something. Perhaps Ida was just a better fit for the family in Chet’s eyes than Mack had been.

Difficult. She suppressed the urge to roll her eyes.

Chet looked grim as he drove, the tall, lanky bulk of him filling up that side of the truck. He smelled like hay and hard work, and she realized there were some issues between the brothers that Chet wasn’t eager to talk about.

“You and Andy always were pitted against each other,” Mackenzie said. She’d meant it as a joke, wanting to defuse the tension, but Chet didn’t even crack a smile.

“We’re just different.” He said the words low enough that she wasn’t entirely sure that they were meant for her. “Look, I should probably warn you. There’s a developer sniffing around, looking for land to buy up.”

“Oh.” Mackenzie raised an eyebrow, caught off guard by the sudden declaration. “Granny would have hated that.”

“Yeah.” The tension in his shoulders eased. “It’s not good for Hope. I just wanted you to know so that you could think it through before someone starts trying to sweet-talk you into a sale.”

How much were they offering, exactly? She had to admit she was curious. But the old guilt welled up inside her again. This was Granny’s ranch, and Granny hadn’t left it to her to sell it—of that, she was absolutely certain. Granny had loved this land. She would have known that if she’d left it to Mack’s father, he would have sold it without once setting foot on it again. Maybe that was part of why Granny had willed it to Mackenzie, in a hope that someone would love this place as she had.

Chet brought the truck to a stop in front of the house and put it into Park. “I care about this place. If that developer is successful and manages to buy up land around here, it would change Hope...take away some of the heart here. We’ve got to keep them out.”

“I can see that,” she agreed. She noticed that he hadn’t mentioned her selling to him yet. Maybe he was timing this, gauging her willingness to sell before he made his offer. “Thanks for letting me know.”

They were silent for a couple of beats, and she could tell he was still brooding about something.

“And if you could just be careful around Andy—”

“Careful?” She laughed. “Why?”

“Because he dropped himself on my doorstep last night, whining about the woman who was two months away from marrying him, and I don’t want to give him any ideas. I have every intention of sending him back home to Ida ASAP.”

Mackenzie frowned. What was Chet more worried about—the big developers or his brother’s broken engagement?

“What ideas, exactly?”

“Ideas about you.” The statement was loaded, and after he’d said it, silence and implication stretched between them. Andy was barely single again, and Chet thought she’d swoop in and scoop him up? It was insulting.

“Is that what you think of me?” she demanded.

“Excuse me?”

“You think I’m back here looking for romance?” Anger bubbled up within her. A woman inherited four hundred acres of Montana ranch land, and he thought she’d wander off after Andy Granger? “I’m here to run a ranch, and you and Andy can work out your family issues on your own. You and Ida can rest easy, Chet. I have no intention of selling out to some faceless corporation, and I have no intention of starting up with Andy again, either.”

“That’s good.”

Mackenzie wanted to reach out and smack this man, but instead she shook her head and smiled coldly.

“I think I’ll take care of my own blisters,” she said, hopping out of the truck.

“Wait—you’re mad?” Chet asked incredulously, leaning down and looking out the open truck window at her. “What just happened here?”

Just like a man, Chet had missed everything between the lines, and Mack turned back toward him in anger.

“I’m a grown woman, Chet. I’m college educated, and I’m the sole owner of four hundred acres. I’m no longer seventeen, and while this might shock you, I don’t need a man. I’m also not stupid. So you can stop standing guard and—”

Chet opened the truck door and slammed it shut harder than necessary. He leaned back into the open window and pinned her with an annoyed glare. “I’m not standing guard.”

He stalked around the vehicle and up the back stairs to her house.

“Where are you going?” she demanded.

“I’m helping you with those blisters,” he retorted, turning flashing gray eyes onto her. “This is ranching lesson number one—you need people. You can never do this on your own. You’re going to need neighbors and you’re going to need to pitch in to help them, too, because one of these days, you’re going to get the flu, or you’re going to get your tractor stuck in the mud, or you’re going to lose cows through a broken fence... The potential emergencies are pretty much countless. So get off your high horse, get into that house and let me help you sort out your blisters, or tomorrow you’re going to be bleeding through your gloves!”

Mack stared at him, stunned. Without another word, he disappeared into the house, leaving Mackenzie outside. She had two choices—go in there and let him help her, or stomp off to the barn or somewhere and make some elaborate point about her independence. She looked down at her hands—they hurt. A little bit of nursing would be nice, she had to admit, so she blew out a sigh and headed into the house.

Chet seemed to know his way around well enough, his boots thunking against the kitchen floor as he paced about, gathering his supplies. He wrenched open a cupboard above the fridge and pulled out a first-aid kit. So that was where Granny had kept it. Good to know.

“Wash up,” he said and marched down the hall, his footsteps echoing from the bathroom. She did as he told her—not that she wouldn’t have washed her hands, she mentally noted with an eye roll. Then he came back, a bottle of hydrogen peroxide in hand. He deposited everything onto the table and pulled out a chair.

“Sit.”

“You’re a bossy one,” she said with a slight smile.

“Like you wouldn’t believe.” He pointed to the chair. “I said sit.”

Mackenzie gave him an arch look, then complied. He sat in the chair next to her and took her closer hand in his. He pressed his knees together and laid her open hand against the warm valley between them.

“These blisters are too big,” he said. “I’ll pop the ones that haven’t already with a needle, and after they’ve drained, we’ll disinfect it all and let it dry out.”

“That’s the secret?” she said.

“Yup.” He set to work, his hands moving more gently than she’d have thought possible. He pulled out a needle, and she looked away. Thank goodness he finished the job quickly enough. Her hands were still tender, but they’d heal up. She wasn’t the first person on the planet to get a blister, and she felt a little ridiculous getting this kind of attention for something so ordinary.

When he was through, Chet stood back up again.

“You’ll be fine,” he said. “But do me a favor and wait for me before evening chores tonight. You’re going to have to build up to this kind of work, and there’s no way around that.”

She could see that he was right, and she nodded mutely.

“And one more thing.” He pulled open the door and looked back at her, gray eyes boring into hers. “I wasn’t suggesting that you’d take advantage of Andy. I was saying that he’s not completely over you. Just...be careful.”

Andy was the boy who’d unceremoniously dumped her...the boy she’d always wondered about in spite of herself. He’d been her first big heartbreak, the one she’d always fantasized about running into when she looked fantastic and successful. And Chet was saying that he still had feelings for her?

Chet didn’t mention anything further, and she didn’t ask. He simply stepped outside, slamming the door behind him. She went to the window and watched him stride away from the house, hop up into his truck and drive off without so much as a backward glance.

She looked down at her newly bandaged hands. Chet had a point about needing neighbors. She couldn’t be responsible for even fifteen cows without someone else to lean on if the worst should happen. And it looked as if Chet wasn’t going to let her be choosy about whom she chose to lean on, either.


Chapter Three (#ulink_08be6d9c-251b-5945-94cf-a678bacc0bf9)

After a sunny morning, clouds had been rolling in all afternoon, sweeping across the landscape but so far leaving them without any rain. Montana needed the moisture, and like every other landholder in these parts, Chet had been watching the sky, hoping for more than an overcast day. This evening, he stood by the back door of Mackenzie’s barn as the cows filed inside, hooves plodding hollowly against concrete, and watched as Mackenzie closed them into their stalls.

He’d never seen Mack as much of a rancher in their youth. She’d always been the city girl visiting her grandmother’s ranch, but the past decade had changed a lot. Her teenage spunk had matured into a stubborn fortitude. The accidental flirtation that she’d never seemed entirely aware of had evaporated. She now seemed to know what she could make a man feel and her appropriate reserve made him only all the more drawn to her. She knew what she had to offer, and she wasn’t playing games. All of that potential had blossomed. If he’d been smitten back then, he knew that he could fall even harder now if he wasn’t careful.

The goats came in after the cows, and Butter Cream ambled in last of all, her belly less full and a tiny white kid in tow. Chet hadn’t seen the kid when they’d opened the pasture gates. It looked as if Butter Cream had taken care of things herself—a week early, at that. The baby was mussed up from having been licked by its mother, and Chet crouched down to do a quick sex check. The kid was a buck, and its belly was full of milk—an excellent sign. Butter Cream was an experienced mother, and she knew how to care for a kid without much intervention. She’d had only singletons in the past, though.

“She had her baby!” Mackenzie exclaimed, and she bent down, holding her fingers out toward them. Butter Cream let her approach, and the baby stretched to give her a curious sniff. “I guess you were wrong,” Mack said. “There’s only one.”

“I’m not wrong.” It was possible that the second baby was still inside and Butter Cream might need some help to deliver, but there was most definitely a second baby.

“Let me see...” Chet came closer. He and Butter Cream had a good relationship going, and she allowed him to feel her belly. It was still distended from pregnancy, but it was empty of babies. That meant there was at least one more kid outside in the field without its mother.

“What’s wrong?” Mack asked. “Is she going to have another one?”

“She already had it,” Chet replied. “And it’s out there somewhere.”

He jutted his chin toward the open barn door, and a gust of cold, damp air swept inside at the same moment, raising goose bumps on her arms.

“How do you know?” She rubbed her arms, her gaze flickering toward the door.

“I told you that she was pregnant with more than one. The other might not have survived, but there are times when a goat will accept one twin and reject the other. If it’s alive, it won’t be for long if we don’t find it.”

Mackenzie sobered and stood up instantly. “Come on, girl,” she said gently, herding Butter Cream toward the stall. “In your pen. Let’s go...”

When they reached the door, the wind was whipping through the long grass in ripples and sending up spirals of dust from the dirt road.

“Where would it be?” Mack asked, raising her voice above the sound of the wind, and she stopped to look around, holding her hat down with one hand.

“They were in the small pasture, right?” Chet asked. “The one beside the cows?”

Mack squinted, suddenly looking less sure of herself. “I think so.”

“Come on.” He headed for the truck. “We’ll drive over. It’ll be faster. But when we get there, we’ll have to search on foot.”

Mackenzie beat him to the truck, and by the time she slid into the driver’s seat, the first few fat drops of rain were hitting the dusty gravel like tiny bombs. The air smelled moist and good, but rain also meant that the lost kid was going to be even colder than it already was. He could only hope that Butter Cream had cleaned the baby off before abandoning it.

The truck lurched forward before Chet had even slammed the door shut, and Mackenzie glanced in his direction, then back at the road. The wind was blowing harder now, and the rain started to fall in earnest, hurtling straight into the windshield and blurring their vision, even with the wipers sloshing back and forth at full speed.

“I can barely see!” Mack said.

“There, there—” Chet pointed to the turn that would bring them to the smallest enclosed pasture, which was also closest to the barn, and she hauled the wheel left, the tires spinning in the newly created mud. As they pulled up to the gate, the truck dropped heavily at the front end, and the tires spun.

“What was that?” Mack exclaimed, leaning forward to look.

“Pothole. See if you can back up,” Chet suggested.

Mack put the truck into Reverse and hit the gas, but it made no difference. The tires spun again, but they weren’t going anywhere.

“Shoot...” Mack heaved a sigh, and for a moment, he thought he saw tears mist her eyes. He knew she wasn’t looking for sympathy, but he had the urge to put an arm around her—an urge he quickly quashed.

“Come on,” Chet said. “Let’s go look for the kid, and we’ll figure out the truck when we find it. I have some tricks up my sleeve yet.”

She sucked in a breath and exchanged a look with him. Then they both pushed their hats more firmly onto their heads and pushed open their doors, hopping out into the hammering rain. Chet wasn’t sure what he expected of Mack out here, but she wasn’t waiting on him and beelined into the middle of the pasture. Chet stayed closer to the fence. They’d cover more ground searching different areas.

He was still frustrated, though. Ten years had passed and some things just didn’t change. Last night, Andy had called dibs—even though he didn’t know that Mack was back yet—and while that was a stupid way to decide anything, his younger brother also held all the cards. Chet shaded his eyes and looked toward Mackenzie, who was standing with her back to him, legs akimbo and hand still holding her hat securely on her head. She was somehow both softer and stronger at the same time. She’d gotten only more beautiful over the years.

A faint bleat caught his ear, and he nearly stepped on the tiny thing before he saw it. The kid was drenched with rain, even smaller than its brother back in the barn. It was chocolate brown and lay curled up in a pathetic little ball by a fence post.

“Over here!” Chet hollered, and Mack jogged toward them. The rain had wet her through, her shirt clinging to her body and rivulets of water pouring down her collarbones and sticking her hair into dark gold tendrils against her skin. Chet picked up the goat and it shivered in his arms.

“It’s alive—that’s a relief,” Mack said, wiping water from her face. “I think I saw an old blanket in the back of the truck—”

“Helen always kept one back there,” Chet said. “If Butter Cream won’t take her, you might just have earned yourself a bottle baby.”

Mack gave him an appropriate look of alarm. At least she could appreciate how much work was coming her way. They trudged back through the blinding rain toward the truck. The vehicle hung at an angle, the front driver’s-side wheel deep in a pothole. She stayed close to his side, the warmth of her body emanating against his arm, and when he looked down at her, he realized that Mack was oddly comforting—a comfort he hadn’t known he’d even needed.

Chet pulled open the passenger’s-side door, and between them both, they got the tiny goat wrapped in the blanket. It needed milk, and they didn’t have much time before it lost its strength, and that would be fatal.

“Go around and put it in Reverse,” Chet said, pulling Mack clear of another pothole as he spoke. She leaned into him as he tugged her to the side, her slight weight colliding with his chest. “Easy does it,” he said, boosting her back up. He didn’t dare let his mind go to the possibilities of her in his arms.

Mack met his gaze and a smile crinkled at the corners of her eyes. Just as quickly, she was out of his arms, and she hurried around the back of the truck to hop into the driver’s side. The rain came down in a steady sheet, and Chet was pretty sure that there wasn’t a part of him that was dry at this point, but it would be a while before he was back home, so it was better not to think about it.

Chet levered his body against the grate of the truck and shouted, “Now!”

The wheel started to spin and he pushed against the grate with all his strength. His boots slid in the mud, and he could hear the tires tearing into the side of the pothole. When it stopped, the truck sank even farther down. This wasn’t going to work.

Chet stood up and went around to the window.

“It’s no good,” Chet said. “We’re only digging deeper.”

Mackenzie locked eyes with him for a moment, then nodded. She reached for the bundled-up little goat and cuddled it close against her chest.

“I guess we’d better walk, then,” she said. “What’ll I do about the truck?”

He took her by the arm, helping to lift her back down to the ground. She bent her head against the rain, and he slammed the door shut behind them.

“This is why you have neighbors,” he said, raising his voice above the drum of the storm. “Andy and I used to get our truck out of potholes all the time. I just need some twine and a two-by-four. But first things first.”

They picked up their pace, rushing through the slanting rain toward the blurred shape of the barn. The road was slick with mud, and at one point, Mackenzie slipped, falling heavily against him. He caught her and kept a solid arm around her waist after that. She felt good in his arms—warm and slippery and soft. He wasn’t supposed to even entertain thoughts like these right now. He had bigger issues—like holding what was left of the Granger family together and not losing his ranch, both of which he’d fail at if he let his attraction to Mackenzie get in the way. Mack was a distraction he couldn’t actually afford.

“You were right about neighbors, Chet,” she said as they finally made it to the barn and ducked under the eaves. “I have no idea what I’d have done without you. I suppose I owe you one.”

She was so close to him that he could feel her breath and the way she shivered. She looked down at the tiny kid in her arms, and he was tempted to put his arms around her and warm her up, but he couldn’t guarantee that he’d stop there, so instead, he shot her a grin and said, “We’ll figure it out.”

A few ideas—none of which were appropriate—flitted through his mind, but he shoved them back. The more prominent thought right now was that he couldn’t get her truck out of that ditch without another body, and he knew exactly who he’d need to call. He ran his ranch on a skeleton crew—money being tight lately—and his own workers were tending to his herds right now. That left one person with nothing at all to do except sit around Chet’s house and feel sorry for himself...

He’d been hoping to keep Mack to himself for a little longer, but it looked as though he’d have to haul Andy out here and share some of that glory.

Blast.

* * *

MACKENZIE SAT CROSS-LEGGED inside Butter Cream’s stall, holding the tiny brown goat up to the mother’s teat. Butter Cream stepped away every time the kid’s little mouth made contact.

“Butter Cream, this is your baby,” she said firmly. “Come on now.”

She offered some hay for Butter Cream to eat out of her hands, but the goat sidled away again as the tiny kid tried to latch on. Mackenzie felt tears of frustration rising. The baby was hungry and bleated plaintively, a weak, wavering cry. She guided the kid’s head forward once more, and the barn door banged open, making Butter Cream startle and stumble forward, stepping heavily on Mackenzie’s hand.

“Ouch!”

Chet came inside, and behind him came his brother. She couldn’t get a clear look at Andy, who was the smaller man of the two, and she caught her heart speeding up. She hadn’t seen or heard from Andy Granger since the day he broke up with her, though she’d gone over what she’d say to him a hundred times if she ever got the chance. And here it was.

When Andy finally came up to his brother’s side, she was surprised to see that he’d changed quite a bit. He was still several inches shorter than Chet, but the years had made more of a man of him. His physique was still fit, although broader now that he was fully grown, and his red hair had darkened into something closer to auburn with a few strands of silver. Andy glanced around nervously, and when his gaze fell on her, he gave her a tentative smile.

“Mackenzie Vaughn,” he said, his voice low and warm. “Is it ever good to see you.”

She hadn’t expected that, and she pushed herself to her feet. “Hi, Andy.”

“It’s been a while.” Andy came up to Butter Cream’s stall, and Mackenzie opened the door, letting herself out.

“A long while,” she agreed.

Andy leaned in to give her a hug just as she was about to move away toward the barn sink, and they had an awkward collision and a back pat. Andy laughed uncomfortably.

“Sorry—should have warned you,” he said.

“It’s okay. I was going to—”

“Yeah, yeah.”

This couldn’t have gone worse, even in her most vivid imagination. In her mind, she’d always given him some searing comment about his inability to appreciate a good woman, but she couldn’t pull one together for the life of her. And suddenly it didn’t seem to matter so much.

“Chet, I think I’m going to have a bottle baby on my hands.” She turned to the older brother, who stood behind Andy with his arms crossed over his broad chest. His gray eyes were focused on her, and she felt a blush rise in her cheeks.

“I’ll get you a sterilized pail to start milking,” Chet said, and he tossed her a small teasing smile. He knew exactly how awkward this was.

“I can get that,” Andy said, his old charming smile coming back. “If you tell me where it is, I guess...”

“I’ll get it.” Chet cast his brother a flat look and strode off toward the back of the barn.

“So...” Andy said, once his brother was out of earshot. “I hear you inherited this place.”

“I hear you got engaged,” she countered.

“I did.” Andy laughed softly. “Unfortunately, we just broke up.”

Shaky relationships were Mackenzie’s forte, and she gave him a sympathetic smile. “I’m sorry about that.”

Andy shrugged. “We were together four years, so it’s complicated.”

“I imagine.” Somehow, when she’d pictured this scene over the years, she’d never included all of their respective baggage in the picture. This wasn’t about proving a point anymore.





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