To Protect His Brother's Baby
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Linda Goodnight
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HarlequinChapter One
She wasn’t driving too fast. At least, she didn’t think she was, though Taylor Matheson’s mind had been somewhere else as it tended to be too frequently. Especially lately.
But suddenly, in a lightning bolt of awareness, she spotted a chicken.
In the road.
Right in the middle of the curvy, graveled road.
There was really nothing Taylor could do, but, being a tender heart, she slammed on her brakes anyway. Wrong move. The car skidded, fishtailed. A collision of bird and Toyota was inevitable.
The car slid to a stop. Dust flew. In her rearview mirror Taylor saw the little hen. Still in the middle of the country road, though she no longer happily pecked at gravel.
Feeling like ten kinds of awful, Taylor hopped out of the vehicle, hurried to the poor little hen and picked her up. As if the hen knew she’d met the guilty party, she pecked Taylor’s hand.
It hurt, but Taylor figured she had it coming.
“I won’t be mad if you won’t,” she said to the bird. “Poor baby. I’m sorry. Really, I am.”
As gently as possible, Taylor carried the wounded hen to the car, all the while eyeing the small, ramshackle farmhouse a hundred yards off the road.
“Did you come from over there?”
Of course she had. There was no other place nearby. Unfortunately.
Taylor was not too keen on encountering the old woman who lived alone in that run-down house, was rumored to hate people and could shoot your eye out at twenty paces. Flora Grimley.
The dozen or so no-trespassing signs posted for a good quarter-mile swath of the leaning, rusted, overgrown fence accented the woman’s dislike of human beings.
In the few months Taylor had lived in this tiny rural community of Mercy, Oklahoma, a town dangerously close to her family in Sundown Valley, she had thankfully managed to avoid her nearest neighbor. And her family.
Taylor did not like conflict. She’d rather leave than fight, and often did, which worked well for a travel blogger. Except her traveling days were over for a while. Which meant her livelihood was over. Unless she could think of some other job to do for the next few months...or years.
But Taylor refused to worry. Things had a way of working out. Take the ranch where she now lived. Her husband or boyfriend or ex-whatever-he-was may have been a faithless jerk, but he’d left her with a ranch. Sort of. Another thing she wouldn’t worry about.
She was actually having fun turning the house into a thriving little property.
The chicken squawked. Taylor stared down at her. This part was not fun.
About the time she decided to drive off and take the bird with her, the old woman appeared on the porch, toting the rumored shotgun that looked like a cannon to Taylor, and bellowed, “What are you doing out there? Trying to rob me?”
“No, ma’am,” Taylor yelled back. “Is this your chicken?”
“Did you kill one of my hens?”
“She’s not dead.”
Flora waved a bony arm. “Bring her up here and let me see.”
All this was said in the rudest, gruffest tone Taylor had heard since being terrified by the Wicked Witch of the West when she was seven. Flora Grimley looked scrawny, but was reportedly as tough as wet leather. And mean as a badger.
With dread in her chest but determined to do right by the hen who couldn’t help belonging to a mean woman, Taylor drove the rutted, weedy lane to the house and got out with the chicken.
“Her leg is hurt. Broken, I think.”
Flora grunted. “Put her on the porch. I’ll wring her neck and fry her up.”
“No!” Taylor drew the hen closer to her chest. The hen pecked her hand again. “She looks okay except for her leg.”
“What else am I to do with a one-legged chicken? She’s good for nothing now.”
“Shouldn’t we try to fix her?”
“Fix her? Why, that’s the silliest thing I ever heard of. The only way to fix a one-legged chicken is in the skillet.”
“I could try. I’m pretty good with animals.” Being raised in the country, she’d learned a lot. Although her sister Harlow had never let her do anything, she had watched and learned.
“Huh. Ridiculous.” The old lady stood, shotgun at her side, baggy dress loose and faded, with an expression Taylor thought might be consideration. “All right, then—take her. She’s worthless to me.”
“When she gets well, I’ll bring her back.”
“No, you won’t. She’ll never lay another egg. She’s worthless. Take her.”
“Yes, ma’am. Thank you, ma’am.”
Flora Grimley’s faded gray eyes narrowed. “What’s your name, girl? I don’t know you. What are you doing messing around out here on my road?”
“Taylor Matheson. I’m your neighbor. I live on the farm about a mile that way.” She tried to motion with her thumb but didn’t want to disturb the now-calmed chicken.
“You the gal living in that roaming cowboy’s place?”
“Yes, ma’am. I’m his wife...er...widow.”
“Widow?” For a second, Taylor thought she spotted a flicker of sympathy. Just as quick, the faded eyes sharpened. “I’m not a bit surprised he’s dead. Good-for-nothing cowboy always sneaking around doing things he ought not to.”
That was Cale, all right. A good-for-nothing sneak. He’d fooled her, lied to her and humiliated her in the worst possible way.
The ache in Taylor’s throat expanded until she could say nothing in return.
“Men,” Flora barked. “They should all be shot. Especially men like him, spouting his Jesus-talk, which in my books is about as bad you can get. Using religion to manipulate people. Liars, hypocrites, the lot of them. No good for nothing.”
Although she’d never heard Cale mention Jesus except to take His name in vain, Taylor had to take exception to the woman’s generalization. “My grandpa is a fine Christian man. He practices what he preaches.”
“Then, he’s as rare as teeth on that hen. Or he’s got you boondoggled. Probably that. You look the type.” Flora’s bony finger motioned toward Taylor’s car. “Go on. If you’re going to whine about her and make me out the villain, take that worthless chicken and go.”
“If she lays eggs again, I’ll bring them to you.”
“No use lying. Now, get off my property.”
Flora Grimley whirled around, stomped inside the house and slammed the door.
Still shaking, but feeling relieved that the hen had been spared the death penalty, Taylor drove the rest of the way to the ranch house she now called home. It was the only thing she’d gotten out of her short-lived marriage that turned out not to be a marriage at all.
“What a fool I was.” Fool, fool, fool.
Her belly gyrated, a reminder that the ranch house wasn’t the only thing she’d gotten from Cale.
“I won’t regret you.” She patted the rapidly expanding mound. “But I do regret your daddy. Flora Grimley is right about him.”
When the people of tiny Mercy, Oklahoma, population 232, had learned she was a widow and pregnant, they had welcomed Taylor like a lost daughter and helped her get started at the ranch. Most of them anyway. In five months, she’d turned the abandoned ranch into a little farm. Again thanks to the locals’ generosity and advice.
Raised on a ranch, she knew how to plant seeds and care for animals, although her sisters had done most of the work. They considered her inept, useless, the baby sister who needed mothering after her terrible injuries in the car crash that killed their parents.
Taking the hen into the kitchen, Taylor placed her on the countertop to begin her exam.
She didn’t like thinking about the car wreck, but the memory pushed in on her at odd times. She’d moved all over America and still the tragedy followed her. She’d been in that car. Her sisters hadn’t. They didn’t know what really happened that rainy night.
Taylor had only been eight when the accident occurred, but she’d never told another person, especially not her sisters.
Sometimes holding the truth inside hurt so much that she couldn’t catch her breath. To combat the feeling, each time the memory raised its ugly head she headed off on her next travel adventure. Nothing like a new place and a blog deadline to take her mind off things better forgotten.
“Don’t think about it. Focus.” With gentle hands, she explored the hen’s body, which was mostly feathers, and found no injury other than the broken leg.
“And to think Flora wanted to fry you. Poor thing.” She stroked the red head. “I can fix you. I watched Harlow and Monroe—they’re my big sisters—patch up animals all my life.” And she could learn about anything from the internet.
In minutes she’d splinted and wrapped the hen’s lower leg and carried her out to the chicken pen to a wire crate.
“You’ll be with your friends, Esther, but they can’t hurt you if you’re inside this cage. Okay?” She’d decided on Esther because the biblical queen had survived some tough times, just like the hen.
Promising to check on her later, Taylor unloaded the car and set to work in the kitchen. With the travel blog floundering due to inactivity, she needed another form of income. Milly and Walt at the Mercy Mercantile had given her an idea.
Taylor was full of ideas. That was part of her wanderlust. It also got her in a lot of trouble.
But that didn’t matter. She landed on her feet, even when those feet were swollen and no longer able to climb rocks or hike thirty miles in the heat.
She’d find a way. She always did. She’d make a life for her and baby, and someday, when her courage was strong and she’d proven herself to be something more than a flaky, gullible, inept kid, she’d drive her baby eighteen miles to meet the rest of the Matheson family. Until then, phone calls would have to do.
When anyone asked about the baby’s daddy, she’d play the sad widow and hope no one ever discovered what she’d done.
Wilder Littlefield blinked his eyes against the fatigue pulling at him like lead hands. As his truck lights swept the two-lane highway, he leaned over the steering wheel and squinted into the growing dusk.
“Want me to drive the rest of the way?” This from Pate Allbrook, Wilder’s fellow rodeo cowboy and usual traveling buddy. Sharing expenses made the paychecks stretch further. Sharing the wheel let each of them catnap the many miles between rodeos.
“We’re nearly to the cutoff to my place, but I’m too beat to go farther than that. You can take my truck on to your house.”
Pate lived in Sundown Valley, the next town over. Wilder figured he might be able to stay awake long enough to drive the eighteen miles and back, but he was powerfully tired.
“What about your trailer?” Toted along behind the big diesel pickup was a combination living quarters and horse trailer bearing the steady horse that helped Wilder win. Without Huck, he was just a guy who could throw a rope.
“Won’t take long to unhook first. Then take my truck. Go home, get some shut-eye, see your woman and then bring it back. I won’t need a vehicle for at least three days. I’m planning to sleep that long.”
Pate chuckled. “I hear that.”
Wilder rotated his neck and shoulders as they drove through the tiny whistle-stop of Mercy, past the still-open Mercantile, a shuttered post office and a few houses lit from within. Although a number of citizens ran businesses out of their homes, the town proper rounded out with a senior citizen center, a water office that also housed the town council, two churches, a gas station–bait shop next to the Mercantile, a sometimes-open burger joint and a surprisingly large school.
In two minutes flat, he left the town behind and aimed the truck down a gravel road past Miss Grimley’s place. The old woman stood in almost darkness on her porch, broom in hand.
As his lights swept over her, Wilder tapped his horn in greeting. She glared at his truck and shook her fist.
“Friendly sort, isn’t she?” Pate asked.
“The Lord’s working on her. She almost waved.”
Pate grinned. “Always the evangelist.”
Wilder took some teasing for his deep faith, although the teasing was gentle. Cowboys respected a man with strong beliefs. Many of them shared his faith.
Cowboys. He’d never wanted to be anything else, and for the first time since he’d hit the pro rodeo circuit at eighteen, Wilder was on track to make the National Finals this year. A few more rodeos, a few more wins. Only the top fifteen ropers would make it, and he aimed to be one of them.
He was past thirty years old. Time was no longer on his side. Neither was his bruised and battered body. With his prime quickly fading, it was this year or never. He knew it with a deep-down, uneasy certainty.
He was scared to even think about what he’d do if he didn’t make it. He had plans, a dream for the future, all of which rested on a big payout this year.
Rounding the final curve, his ranch house came into sight.
“Home, sweet home,” he murmured.
Man, he was tired. Though he only returned to his Three Nails Ranch a few times a year, usually when a rodeo brought him close enough, tonight the small country cottage looked as good as a mansion. Someday, he’d be able to come home and stay forever. He sure looked forward to that day.
Pate shifted in the passenger seat. “Say, Wilder, is someone staying at your place?”
“No. Of course not.” Never. He’d let a friend house-sit once only to return to the biggest mess he’d ever seen. His house had become party central, complete with trash, old food and empty cans and bottles. He’d needed a week to clean it all up again. Since then, no one stayed at his place.
“Then why are the lights on?”
Wilder blinked, squinted, blinked again. Was he in the right place?
His house, which he’d left locked and empty, looked different. The broken gate he’d never gotten around to fixing now hung straight and was painted a bright blue. There were pots of sunny yellow flowers on either side of a blue front door. And a goat roamed the front yard.
Wilder Littlefield did not own a goat.
Sure enough. Someone was in his house.
“Take my truck and go on home,” he said to Pate.
“Not on your life, pal. I’m not leaving until you check this out. There’s a woman in there, I’m pretty sure.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Flowers on the porch. A blue gate and door. Frilly curtains in the windows. Come on. Would you have done that?”
“No.”
“Me neither. Could be one of your girlfriends come home to roost.”
“You know better.”
“You might be strait-laced, but you’re still a man and the ladies like you.”
“Not that much.” Nobody, not one woman he’d ever dated, and there weren’t that many, had ever come close to making him feel domestic.
The idea that he might accidentally fall in love and consider marriage scared him mindless. So he never dated a woman more than twice. Hard-and-fast rule. Marriage, kids and whatever came with them were not in his future. Too risky. He would not become like the stranger who’d fathered him.
Horses, yes. Wife and kids, no.
“I’ll unhook the trailers and put Huck away while you have a look.” Pate grinned as if he thought the matter amusing. “Holler if you need help.”
“Go home. I’ll have whoever this is packed up and out of here in ten minutes. Then, I’m sleeping until Sunday.”
He considered calling the county sheriff but changed his mind. Anyone who painted blue doors and planted flowers was no threat to a man who handled 500-pound steers for a living.
Slinging his duffel over one shoulder, Wilder marched up to the front door and stuck the key in the lock.
Someone had some explaining to do.
Taylor happily banged pots and pans in the tidy yellow kitchen. She’d painted the walls herself and sewn the ruffled print curtains for the window over the sink. A touch of robin’s egg blue to the pantry door matched the front door and gate. The place had been so lifeless when she’d arrived, but now it was bright and cheerful.
Though Cale had made her miserable, his sweet little house made her happy. She worried about the failing travel blog but tried to look on the bright side. She had a home. Granted, the home wasn’t exactly in her name. Yet. She’d figure that part out later.
Cale had specifically told her that no one knew about this ranch but him. She hadn’t questioned it at the time, so besotted was she with the handsome, confident bull rider, but after his death she understood. He hadn’t told his wife. This ranch was his hideaway for his mistresses. Plural. And she was one of them, although she hadn’t known.
“Don’t think about that.” She bounced her palms against her temples. “Block, block, block.” She was adept at blocking. She’d drowned out her sisters’ voices for years.
Busy behind the kitchen island with her latest project, she turned the music up on her phone to drown out negative thoughts. With earbuds in, she didn’t hear the door open, didn’t know another soul was anywhere on the property until movement in the doorway between kitchen and living room caught her attention.
She looked up. And gasped. The spoon in her hand clattered to the floor.
“Who are you? Get out of my house.”
A cowboy of considerable size, with shoulders as wide as a door, stared at her from very brown eyes. He wasn’t particularly handsome, not like Cale, but he had a boatload of rugged masculine appeal. Even the bump on a nose that had obviously been broken at some point added to his manliness.
In faded jeans, scuffed boots and a white T-shirt, he looked relaxed but weary, a duffel bag slung over one shoulder. As if he had a right to invade her home.
She was alone, far from the nearest neighbor—Flora Grimley—who probably wouldn’t help her anyway.
“Your house, you say? Since when?” The cowboy had a ragged, husky kind of voice that made the hair on Taylor’s arms tingle.
“Since my husband died and left it to me.” Sort of. Cale had told her about the ranch. He hadn’t exactly handed over the deed. And Cale wasn’t exactly her husband.
Those, however, were unnecessary details. The point was, this ranch should have been hers because she was carrying Cale’s baby, who was technically Cale’s only heir that she knew of. So this big, muscled, not-so-scary cowboy needed to go away.
He dropped the duffel bag onto the tile and leaned a shoulder against the doorframe. Actually, he sagged against it as though he needed something to hold him up. “Your husband?”
Was the guy a parrot?
“Yes.”
Suddenly, another cowboy, this one smaller and wiry, again with noticeable shoulders, appeared behind cowboy number one.
Two strange men.
Taylor tensed. She reached for the cast-iron skillet still sitting on the stove. “Get out.”
“No can do.”
“She’s pretty.” This from cowboy number two, whose eyes danced with merriment as though he found the situation hilarious. Which it was not. “Looks dangerous. You gonna wrestle her down like a steer?”
The comment so incensed Taylor that she wielded the skillet higher and started around the island toward them. Her arm wavered. Cast iron was heavy.
With the island no longer between them, her body was now in full view. Both men dropped their gazes to her belly. Their expressions registered surprise.
Cowboy number two clapped a hand on the first man’s shoulder. “Wilder, Wilder, what have you done?”
The man called Wilder spun on his boot toward the other cowboy. “Pate, you know better. Go home. Shelby will be worrying about you. I don’t know who this woman is or what she’s doing here, but I’ll sort this out.”
Pate lifted both hands. “All right. I see you got some fences to mend or some such, so I’ll give you some privacy.”
“This isn’t what it looks like.”
“No?” Pate laughed softly. “If you say so.”
Wilder growled, “Get!”
“I’m getting, I’m getting.”
Pate, staring at Taylor as if she was some sort of alien, backed his way out of the room, still chuckling.
When the front door snapped shut, cowboy Wilder took a step closer.
Taylor moved behind the island again to put some space between them, although the cowboy looked capable of ripping the island out of the way if he so wished.
She hoped he didn’t want to.
But what did he want?
“Ma’am,” Wilder said in that husky drawl that tickled her ears and a spot behind her rib cage. “I’m not sure what’s going on here, but I don’t know you from Adam. You’re saying this is your ranch and your husband left it to you?”
Taylor’s back ached from standing over the counter all afternoon, but she was not ready to release her heavy weapon. “Yes. He did. So, I guess you must have been his friend, right? I suppose if you were wanting to bunk here for the night, you can stay in the barn and then be on your way in the morning.”
Knowing Cale as she now did, he probably didn’t have many decent friends. She’d make sure to lock the doors and brace them with a chair, like they did on TV. She didn’t know if that worked or not, but she’d feel better doing it.
The cowboy shook his head and emitted a soft chuckle.
“No, ma’am. I won’t stay in the barn. I’m staying in my bedroom, where I always sleep.”
“You will not.”
“Yes. I will.” His tone was calm and quiet but made of steel.
“You won’t. I’ll call the sheriff.”
“Call him. He’s an old friend.”
She blinked. “He is?”
“Yes, ma’am. Go ahead. Call him.”
When he put it that way, the last person she wanted involved was the sheriff. He’d evict her, maybe arrest her for impersonating a widow. Laurel Maxwell would print the police report in the county newspaper just like she had for years. Taylor’s family in Sundown Valley would find out and her dreams of returning home as a successful woman who could stand on her own two feet would die a humiliating death.
Before she could think up an adequate reply, Wilder—a cool name for a cowboy, she thought—planted both boots in front of her, looked her in the eyes and said, “I don’t know what loony train you’re riding on, lady, or what scam you’re running, but I’m Wilder Littlefield. I don’t have a wife. Never had one. Don’t ever want one. This property is mine. I am not your husband, but I am the owner of Three Nails Ranch.”
Taylor’s whole body began to tremble. This guy was lying. He had to be.
But why would he say such a thing if it wasn’t true?
And if he wasn’t lying, she was in real trouble.
