Cathy Thacker - Lone Star Daddy

She met his gaze with a rueful grin. “Saturday is always a tough day for me. A lot of co-op members come by to pick up their weekly orders.”

Clint checked the invoice over and then scribbled his name. She tore off his copy, handed his over and put the rest on the inbox on her desk. He folded his up and slid it into the chest pocket of his shirt. “But you’re done now.”

She nodded. “I close at four.”

Which had been nearly an hour ago. Hence the building appeared deserted except for the two of them. Not surprised she was the last on the scene and probably the first to arrive, too, Clint walked with her back out of her office, past a line of checkout registers.

Glad she seemed in no hurry to show him the door now that the work was done, he looked around in awe. “This is...”

“Not what you expected?” she interrupted with a triumphant smile.

“I was going to say very modern.” He gestured at the bank of computers and phones. “And a lot more high-tech than I would have imagined.”

She walked over to a small break area. Denim stretched over her very fine derriere as she bent to look inside the glass-front cooler. Pulling out two bottles of flavored water, she straightened and tossed him one.

Ignoring his immediate physical reaction to the succulent sight of her, he accepted the drink with a smile. “Thanks.” Resolved to think about something else, lest he be tempted to put the moves on her again, he inclined his head at the blackboard across one wall. It was filled with the names of local farms and the dates of the crops currently coming in. “Are these all your suppliers?”

Rose sank down into a swivel chair and propped her feet up on the seat of another. “Yep. Although there’s always room for more.”

He studied her fancy red cowgirl boots with a scrolling of roses and thorns up the sides. Which was pretty much a perfect depiction of the woman wearing them. Incredibly feisty and feminine, if you could get past the thorns. He settled in a chair opposite her and returned his attention to her face, trying not to notice all over again just how beautiful she was.

“How did you get into this?” Savoring his rare time alone with her, he uncapped his bottle and drank deeply of the pomegranate-flavored water. “Last I heard, you were a pharmaceutical sales rep.”

“I was.” Wincing, Rose pulled the clip from her hair. “Until the triplets were born and my husband and I divorced.”

He watched as she ran her fingers over her scalp, freeing and loosening the cloud of silky curls, then let her hand fall back to her lap. “When was that?” he asked.

“We separated a few months after I gave birth. The actual divorce came through when the triplets were one year old.”

She seemed to have handled the split well, yet empathy stirred inside him nonetheless. “That must have been tough.”

“Aren’t all divorces?” Though the corners of her luscious lips turned downward, she pushed on with her story. “But thankfully, since Barry surrendered all his parental rights and took a job elsewhere, at least I didn’t have a custody battle on my hands.”

“Your ex was a damn fool,” Clint said gruffly. “Giving up you and those kids.”

Rose flashed a wan smile and met his eyes, reluctantly accepting his sympathy. “After that, I decided to leave Dallas and return to Laramie.”

“To be near your family,” he guessed, his heart going out to her all over again. He’d had his own disappointments. But nothing as traumatic as what she’d been through.

She nodded. “Obviously I couldn’t work outside the home at that point—and simultaneously give three infants the tender loving care they needed—so I reluctantly moved back in with my parents for a while, and paid our expenses with what was left of my savings and the child support Barry had been ordered to pay.

“As you can imagine, money was tight, but I still wanted to feed the kids well. So I started calling around to some of the farmers in the area, asking if I could bypass the wholesalers and middlemen and buy straight from them. Other people I knew asked me to do the same for them, which I did—for an upcharge.”

Smart, he thought, not really surprised, given that he’d never met a more energetic or enterprising woman than the one sitting next to him.

“About that time the whole Buy Local movement took off, so with the help of a loan from my parents, I purchased this property, rechristened it Rose Hill Farm and set up shop here. From there, it made sense to add a co-op to my already existing wholesale business.” Rose drew a breath that lifted and lowered the shapely lines of her soft breasts.

A jolt of pure heat went through him. Clint shifted in his chair, tempted to push the limits with her once again. “It’s bloomed into quite a business.”

“And not just in Laramie County.” Rose stood and strode over to throw her empty bottle in the recycling bin. “I’ve even started supplying the upscale Fresh Foods Markets in Dallas on a limited crop-by-crop basis, which benefits everyone.”

Finally seeing a way to steer the conversation where he wanted it, he stood, too.

“Even the guys you’ve been dating?” Clint asked, determined to find out who his competition had been. And more importantly, just why they had failed to win a pivotal place in her life. He didn’t want to make the same mistake.

* * *

DECIDING SHE’D SPENT far too much time alone with the handsome cowboy, Rose fished the keys off her belt and headed for the barn entrance.

As expected, Clint was right behind her. “Why do you care?” She threw the words over her shoulder.

He overtook her at the doorway and stepped out into the dwindling spring sunshine. Thanks to daylight saving time, it wouldn’t get dark for another two hours, but the skies were still a clear blue and the temperature—which had been in the high eighties all day—was now dropping. Which meant a very pleasant star-filled evening ahead.

She locked up. “I didn’t think you were into gossip.”

He lounged casually beside her, one brawny shoulder propped against the red siding. “Call me curious.”

Wondering how in the heck he could still look so darn good after being out in the field all day, she shot back, “Well, don’t be.” With five sisters and two parents prying into her love life, or lack thereof, she didn’t need any more questions.

He ignored her subtle gibe and pressed closer. Determined, it seemed, to know everything about her. Even as she vowed to continue to keep him at arm’s length.

“Then they were guys you’re involved with in a business sense.”

“No. Not at all.” Rose pivoted and began strolling across the yard, toward her bungalow. “One was a cardiologist. Another a computer programmer. The third an insurance agent.”

He fell into step beside her. “So what happened?”

Resisting the crazy urge to tuck her hand into his, she kept on going. “None of them could handle the kids—even during the thirty-minute predate get-to-know-each-other sessions. And the triplets didn’t like the guys, either.” Rose sighed as she mounted the steps to the front door of her house. “And that clearly wasn’t likely to change.”

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