Rancher Under the Mistletoe
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Joanne Rock
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One
Hope Alvarez scrubbed her hands in the utility sink at the Kingsland Ranch foaling barn, very ready to leave this workday behind her.
Turning the water on full blast, she rinsed off the grime as she calculated the pieces of equipment she still needed to collect from the birthing stall so she could pack up quickly. As a relatively new veterinarian, Hope would have normally enjoyed the sense of victory gained from guiding a first-time foaling mare through a high-risk delivery. The colt had given them all a scare when he’d first struggled to breathe, but he’d rallied quickly without even needing to be intubated.
Professionally speaking, it had been a good day. A great day, even.
Personally, however? Spending time in the place where she’d both fallen in love and gotten her heart broken sucked ass. It didn’t matter that the object of her one-time affections no longer lived at Kingsland Ranch and hadn’t since he’d left town without a word to her. Didn’t matter that Clayton Reynolds wanted to break up with her so much that he had moved off the grid to a remote part of Alaska to avoid her.
How was that for taking ghosting to a new level?
Just being here, in the same barn where she’d once waited out a thunderstorm with Clay by slow dancing between the stalls, was wrecking her head.
“Hope.” A male voice rumbled from behind, alerting her that the owner of her four-legged patients had followed her. “You can’t imagine how much your work here today has meant to us.”
Steeling herself for facing Levi Kingsley, Clayton’s half brother who didn’t resemble him physically yet shared so many of his mannerisms it was uncanny, Hope shut off the water before turning around. Levi had inherited the darker coloring of his Creole mother while Clayton had the same light brown hair and leaf-green eyes as their father, Duke Kingsley. Yet both Levi and Clay—born just months apart to different mothers—shared a way of dominating a room just by being in it. The focused gaze and squared-shoulder body language that quietly communicated they were in charge without ever being aggressive.
“I’m glad I could be here,” she assured Levi while she dried off, uncomfortable with extra praise for performing tasks that were clearly in her job description. “I’ll stop by tomorrow to check on the new dam and her baby. Until then, my assistant, Cassandra, will be on-site keeping an eye on things.”
Because even though Hope felt sure the new colt would be fine, she’d made arrangements for her assistant to remain at Kingsland for the next few hours to monitor the foal’s feeding. Hope refused to linger in this barn, where that slow dance during a rainstorm had led to an unforgettable encounter in the hayloft.
Now, she moved to retrieve her workbag so she could pack up her equipment. Levi followed her as she located her flashlight and twine near the tack room, the place where Clayton had twirled her under his strong arm during their long-ago dance.
“You saved the life of an extremely valuable mare—” Levi began.
“I would have treated a backyard pet just as carefully,” Hope pointed out, mindful that every animal she worked on deserved 100 percent of her focus and skill, not just the million-dollar breeding horses.
“Of course,” Levi acknowledged diplomatically as he handed her a box of exam gloves just outside the birthing stall. “But considering that your help was worth a small fortune to us today, my brother and I would like to pay you something more in line with that value. How about a stake in the colt? It’s sure to be a champion considering the bloodlines.”
“That’s kind of you, Levi, but I definitely don’t need any more than what my office will bill you.” Even though she was desperate to leave—the pillar near the birthing stall was the same pillar Clay had pushed her up against to kiss her breathless—Hope paused to pack the collected veterinary tools back into her bag in a way that would allow her to easily find them all again. Organization did not come naturally to her, but she forced herself to follow careful protocols in the work realm.
She was about to reenter the foaling area to retrieve the last of her gear when Gavin Kingsley emerged from it, holding her scissors and a roll of tail wrap.
Gavin—like Clayton—was a half brother to Levi and Quinton Kingsley. But unlike Clay, he’d been gifted with the Kingsley name since his mother had been briefly married to their father. Gavin was a former rodeo star turned horse breeder, and he’d recently married Hope’s high school friend Lauryn. Absurdly, Hope’s other close pal from childhood, Kendra Davies, had just moved in with Levi Kingsley. So there was little escape from Kingsley men in Hope’s life, even when she wasn’t actively paying house calls to Kingsland Ranch.
At least neither of Hope’s friends knew about her relationship with Clay, or how he’d trounced her heart. Lauryn had been completely embroiled in her horse rescue that summer, while Kendra had been working at a public relations agency in Denver at the time. Kendra might have suspected there was more to her relationship with Clay, but she hadn’t pushed.
Gavin frowned at her now, nudging the brim of his Stetson higher with his thumb. “Hope, there must be a way you could put some additional capital to use at the new veterinary clinic—”
She was already shaking her head as she took the last of her things and zipped up her canvas bag.
“Honestly, I’m doing fine,” she assured them, uncomfortable with accepting a monetary gift. Doubly uncomfortable taking funds from Clay’s family. What if he found out somehow? She’d heard the Kingsley men had been searching for him in Alaska. Apparently they wanted to share their inheritance with him since their father had left both Gavin and Clay out of his will. Hope had been bracing herself for Clayton’s potential reappearance. And she had to admit the tension was taking its toll.
For now, she redirected his brother’s largesse. “I’m hosting a holiday gala before Christmas as a fundraiser for a new large animal clinic. The best way to help me is by attending.”
And bringing a slew of their well-to-do friends. As long as those guests didn’t include Clayton Reynolds, she’d be fine. Or so she hoped. The holidays were a rough time of year for her ever since her mother’s death on Christmas Eve nine years before. Hope’s decision to host a fundraiser this year had been an effort to distract herself during that time, but it had the distressing side effect of forcing her to think about seasonal themes, music and decor weeks before she’d normally be faced with all that relentless good.
Ignoring the hurt of old wounds, she shoved the last of her supplies into her bag and zipped up the compartments while the Kingsley men frowned at her. Levi’s phone buzzed at the same time one of the ranch hands entered the barn and called to Gavin. Sensing her chance for a quick exit, Hope backed up a few steps, heading for the side door closest to where she’d parked her truck. She grabbed her coat off a hook near the door but didn’t bother to put it on. After the close confines of the stall, she would welcome the cool air.
“Cass will call me if there are any problems with the colt,” she assured Levi and Gavin. “And I’ll check in tomorrow either way.” Lifting her hand in a wave, Hope shouldered open the sliding door.
Stepping out into the chilly November morning, she raked her fingers through her dark hair and pulled free the elastic tie that had kept the long strands out of the way while she’d coaxed the mare through delivery. She couldn’t wait for a hot shower and breakfast after the long hours with the first-time dam. Gavin’s call that the mare was going into labor had come shortly after midnight. While overseeing a foal’s birth was easily within the wheelhouse of the Kingsland staffers—Gavin included—this horse had some high-risk factors that had warranted her presence.
Opening one of the custom aluminum side panels she’d had installed on her pickup, Hope stuffed her duffel into its proper compartment and locked the box again. She walked around to the driver’s side of her truck and slipped her arms into the sleeves of the oilcloth coat she wore for her work. Now that she’d had a chance to cool off, the dampness in the air was quickly seeping into her clothes and making her shiver. She had just pulled the zipper all the way up when she heard the rumble of tires over gravel nearby.
Turning, she spotted a gray SUV that didn’t look like a work vehicle. Too sporty, for one thing, with chrome add-ons that served no practical purpose. Too clean for another. Even Hope’s truck was covered in dirt and dust, a by-product of driving into fields to tend animals in their grazing pastures or on locations where they’d been injured.
Those thoughts had just circled through her mind and started to reformulate into a logical conclusion that the driver might be an outsider when Hope caught a clear view of the person through the windshield.
The sight sucked the air from her lungs.
Stunned and breathless, she reached a hand out for something to steady her. Her fingers clenched the grab bar, locking around the cold metal in case her knees gave way. Because the face behind the wheel of that shiny SUV was one she hadn’t laid eyes on in three years.
Not since he’d vanished from her life without a freaking word.
Clayton Reynolds had come home.
Caught without an easy escape, Hope knew she had no choice but to brazen out this meeting. She’d have to ignore the old anger about his disappearing act. Swallow the resentment about how he’d treated her and pretend the wounds he’d inflicted didn’t still flare up from time to time. Because obviously a man as cold and callous as Clayton Reynolds didn’t deserve to see how he’d crushed her.
Digging her heels in, she braced herself to face him. Get this meeting over with. Shove it behind her.
And then put Clayton in her rearview mirror for good.
Fate had a twisted sense of humor.
Clayton could only shake his head at the timing of his arrival in Silent Spring, Montana, that couldn’t have been worse. Because what were the odds that he’d not only come back to Kingsland Ranch to face the family who’d disowned him three years ago, but that he’d also have to confront the woman who’d delivered her own knife to his back?
Maybe Fate wasn’t just twisted. Today, she seemed downright sadistic.
He slowed his rented SUV as he neared Kingsland Ranch’s biggest barn, recognizing he couldn’t just drive past Hope Alvarez standing beside her pickup as a few snow flurries began to fall. They’d made eye contact. She knew that Clay had noticed her. To continue on his way to the Kingsland Ranch main house after he’d spotted her would be pure cowardice. But damn, he’d not been prepared for the sensory overload of seeing her again.
Fat white snowflakes swirled around her pretty face and shiny black hair, her bulky lavender-colored jacket not doing a damned thing to hide her generous curves. She was petite, but her powerhouse presence made him forget that until he had her underneath him...
Something that wouldn’t happen again. No matter that she looked like an R-rated Snow White with her pink cheeks and rosebud lips pursed into a frown. Just looking at her brought back a visceral reminder of her citrus and cinnamon scent.
Steering the luxury SUV into the space beside a sleek burgundy-colored work truck with her name stenciled in black on the door, Clayton told himself to keep things light. Say hello and move on. He was only in town through Christmas because he’d told Quinton Kingsley he would at least listen to what his half brothers had to say. After that, Clay would return to Alaska where he belonged. His work in wildlife biology suited his solitary nature well. Even when he’d been living off-grid, he’d been able to develop a research project on the impact of the shifting tundra ecology on North Slope species. Work he would continue in the New Year.
For now, however, he shut off the engine on the SUV and stepped out of the vehicle. Even before he turned to face her, he could feel the weight of Hope Alvarez’s dark-eyed stare. Briefly, the old hungers stirred, his body reacting to her nearness the way it always had. Then he tamped down the heat with a reminder of how things had ended between them after a ten-week affair.
“Hello, Hope.” The gravelly pitch of his voice was low and intimate.
Not nearly as careless as he would have preferred. But then, he’d never been a man with a talent for game playing and artifice. He locked gazes with her over the hood of the SUV as he walked around it.
Moving closer.
“Clayton.” She folded her arms across and assessed him coolly.
So different from his other, happier memories of her, when she’d had her head thrown back, gasping his name while he sent her over the edge. How many times had those visions kept him warm on a cold night in the Arctic tundra?
“I’m here to meet with my brothers.” He’d never been a man of many words, yet it seemed important to stress the point that he’d returned for family reasons—not to bother her. He recalled all too well that she hadn’t ever wanted to see him again. She’d been very clear about that. “I’m going to be working with them through Christmas.”
“Levi and Gavin are both in the foaling shed.” Hope pursed her lips, as if weighing how much to say. Or maybe she simply regretted having to speak to him any more than necessary. “One of their mares had a rough delivery last night.”
“Is she okay now?” His gaze flicked toward the freshly painted gray barn. Oversize pine wreaths hung on the sliding doors, the bows of their red ribbons fluttering lightly in the breeze.
He recalled when a back corner of the structure had been overhauled for pregnant mares, keeping them out of the general population as they got closer to foaling. Hell, he’d helped install the extra padding in the birthing stall with his own two hands. Clay had always been more comfortable actively involved on the ranch than hanging out with his father, who preferred to bark orders into the phone from his home office. Clay’s inclinations had continued in his wildlife work, where he took the jobs that involved tracking wolf packs or tagging a struggling reindeer herd over the administrative tasks. Although since moving to the North Slope and going off-grid, he was more apt to study Arctic foxes and polar bears.
“The dam is doing well. The colt needed some intervention at first but now he seems—” Her attention shifted to a spot behind his shoulder. “Uh-oh.”
“What is it?” Turning, Clayton glimpsed Levi and Gavin Kingsley striding side by side down the short incline from the barn. He hadn’t seen Levi in three years since he’d left Silent Spring. Clay hadn’t spent time with Gavin in far longer than that. The last he knew, Gavin had been a rodeo star who resented their father as much as Clay always had. There’d been a time when he and Gavin had been close, bonding over their shared status as the “lesser” sons Duke Kingsley distanced himself from. Duke had never had much use for either of them, finally omitting them from his will altogether.
Clayton had made peace with that fact since he hadn’t much use for his father either. Then Quinton Kingsley had doggedly tracked Clay to his home in Galbraith Lake on Alaska’s North Slope. After a very rough start to that conversation when he’d learned that Quinton had fathered a baby with Clay’s stepsister, McKenna, Clay had listened to Quinton’s request that the four brothers divide the Kingsley legacy evenly between them. Well, evenly aside from the fact that Quinton also wanted to abdicate his shares in Kingsland Ranch to Clay. Clayton hadn’t agreed to any of it, but he had promised to spend some time with his half siblings to work out a compromise.
But only until the end of the year.
“I should have already gotten underway,” Hope muttered, reaching for the door handle on her pickup.
“Wait a minute.” Clayton palmed the door reflexively, unwilling to watch her leave when he’d purposely stopped here to get this first meeting behind them. “Since we’re both going to be in Silent Spring for the next few weeks, maybe we should figure out how we can...” Avoid each other? He hated to be flat-out rude. But he also guessed she didn’t want to run into him any more than necessary. “...minimize chance encounters.”
She sucked in a breath before huffing it out again in a white cloud between them. She gave him a tight smile.
“Trust me, I’ll make every effort to stay out of your way—”
The rest of her clipped words were drowned out by a hearty greeting from Levi. “Clayton. Welcome home, brother.”
Handshakes that turned into slightly awkward, back-slapping hugs were exchanged with his siblings, with Hope watching them from her wary dark eyes. Clayton felt plenty of misgivings himself, unsure where he really stood with his half brothers. He hoped the next five weeks would give him the lay of the land. And he sure as hell wished that he would be able to do his fact gathering about the Kingsleys without the distraction of having Hope around.
Levi’s gaze hopped from the rented SUV to Clay’s wrinkled travel clothes. “We didn’t know when to expect you or we would have prepped a better welcome.” Then, Levi’s focus returned to Hope. “Although we were pretty busy this morning with a foaling mare. Hope saved a colt that wasn’t breathing. It was touch and go for a while.”
“Just doing my job.” Hope managed a half smile, but Clayton could see that she was antsy to be underway.
Interestingly, she seemed even more uncomfortable with the praise from his brother than she’d been at seeing Clay again. He remembered that about her. She’d never been one to seek a spotlight, preferring to work in the background. They’d shared that in common, and he’d been drawn to her quiet work ethic.
Before Hope could bolt, Gavin thumbed the brim of his Stetson higher and turned toward her. “Hope, as soon as you walked out of the barn, Levi thought of the perfect way for us to thank you for rescuing Jewel’s colt.”
She shook her head, dark hair swishing against the jacket she wore over a long-sleeved black tee. “That’s really not necessary—”
Levi cut in, clearly committed to rewarding the savior of the ranch’s newest quarter horse. “Kingsland Ranch will donation match whatever funds you raise at the Christmas gala for your new veterinarian offices.”
Christmas gala? Clayton wouldn’t have pictured Hope—always so focused on her efforts in the field and the health of her animal patients—organizing a glitzy fundraiser. But then again, her commitment to the causes she cared about might be enough to drive her to great lengths. Even putting together the kind of event she wouldn’t normally attend herself.
“Donation match?” There was interest in her voice. She tugged the hem of her jacket, settling the quilted down fabric more firmly around her curvy hips as the snow flurries picked up speed.
Gavin nodded. “Kingsland will contribute the same amount you raise, dollar for dollar, to support the new large animal clinic. Advertising that ahead of time should help bring in some more attendees.” His gaze flicked over to Clayton. “Assuming, of course, Clay agrees with us. He’s an equal stakeholder now.”
Technically, Clay hadn’t signed the paperwork the family’s attorney had drawn up for him. But he wasn’t prepared to get into those details now. He felt the weight of Hope’s attention on him. Unwelcome, but still so damned arousing.
“A large animal clinic would be a welcome asset in Silent Spring.” He had no intention of crossing Hope while he was in town, so he wasn’t about to gainsay his brothers in this. “And Kingsland would directly benefit since it’s the biggest ranch in the state.”
Hope peered at him through the falling snow for a beat after he finished speaking. Weighing his words? But then she nodded once, as if she’d made a decision as she turned toward his brothers once more.
“In that case, I accept. Thank you—um, all—for the generous gift.” Reaching for the door handle on her truck, she pasted a smile on her face—one that Clay recognized was purely for show and not even a close facsimile of her real grin. “And now, I really do need to get going and check on some other patients.”
“Of course.” Gavin rushed to play the gentleman and take the door from her, a gesture that—in spite of everything that had gone wrong between Clay and Hope—might have made Clay bristle if he’d thought Gavin was hitting on her. But he’d heard that Gavin had tied the knot with the town sheriff’s daughter a few weeks ago. Even so, the more space between Hope and Gavin, the better for Clay’s peace of mind. “Let us know if there’s anything you need from us in advance for the fundraiser. Clayton would be a good contact for that since he’s our resident animal expert.”
“I don’t think—” Hope began.
“That’s not really true,” Clayton said at the same time.
Both of them had rushed to respond so quickly that Gavin and Levi exchanged a look.
“That is,” Clay continued, glancing at Hope framed in the partially open truck door, “I’m no more of an expert than either of you when it comes to domestic animals.”
“Good one.” Gavin rolled his eyes as he clapped Clay on the shoulder. “Don’t let him fool you, Hope. Clayton played a key role in developing a large animal research station on the Seward Peninsula.”
Guessing that arguing further would only raise eyebrows, Clay ground his teeth to refrain from reminding Gavin the needs of wild reindeer and caribou were a far cry from cattle and horses.
“I’d forgotten about that,” Hope mused aloud, her tone still sounding reluctant. “Maybe we can talk more when I check on Jewel and the new colt tomorrow.”
Surprised at the suggestion they spend time together, Clay’s gaze flew to hers. Something in her eyes related the opposite of her words, however. As if she was giving him fair warning of her presence on the ranch so he could steer clear.
And damn it, Clayton couldn’t deny the rush of disappointment he had no business feeling. Hadn’t he wanted to keep his distance from the woman who’d chosen to end things with him by letter instead of telling him to his face?
Recommitting to the plan to avoid Hope Alvarez, Clayton nodded and gave a fake smile of his own. “Sounds good. We can talk then.”
He was vaguely aware of the goodbyes said all around after that. He heard Hope’s engine fire to life before she pulled away from Kingsland Ranch. And somehow, he managed to agree to a meal with his half brothers so they could discuss possible next steps with the legacy Duke Kingsley had left behind.
But through it all, Clayton could only think about the extra warmth in his veins after seeing Hope again. He shouldn’t have a damned thing to do with the woman after the way she’d treated him. Yet the simmering need inside him told him very differently.
Three years hadn’t made a dent in his attraction to Hope. And the five weeks stretching out in front of him may as well have been five years when he thought about how tough it would be to resist the lure of a woman who drew him like no other.
