Lisa Jackson - The Millionaire and the Cowgirl

Sam’s throat was suddenly dry as sand. She pulled into a parking space and told herself not to overreact, that Kyle was only here for six months, that even when he found out that Caitlyn was his daughter, it wouldn’t matter. He would be reasonable, wouldn’t he? He had to be. But what about Caitlyn? How would she feel about the man who was her father?

Samantha couldn’t lose her child. Not to anyone. Not even to the man who had sired her.

“What a mess.” With a snort of disgust, Kyle eyed the handwritten ledgers. The musty journal was spread open on the old oak desk that had been in this den for all the years he could remember. The oaken behemoth had belonged to Ben Fortune, Kyle’s grandfather and Kate’s husband, though Kyle couldn’t remember a single time he’d seen Ben sit in the timeworn leather chair. No, this ranch had been Kate’s haven from the fast pace of the city, but these damned journals were a mystery. Why no computer system? No link to the Internet? No modem? No accounting program? This wasn’t like his grandmother, a woman who had lived her life ahead of her time, who’d used a cell phone and fax machine as easily as she splashed on perfume. Kate Fortune had been connected by computer to all of her late husband’s companies, including factories as far away as Singapore and Madrid. Though she’d spoken the language of the wildcatters working for Ben’s oil company, she flew her own private jet. If any ranch out in the wilds of Wyoming should have a damned PC and modem, it was Kate’s spread. The lack of telecommunications just didn’t make sense. Unless Kate came here to get away from the rat race and preferred the leisurely pace that had worked for ranchers for decades.

The phone rang, and Kyle snatched up the receiver, half expecting to hear Samantha’s husky voice on the other end of the line. He tensed. “Kyle Fortune.”

“Well, whaddya know!” Grant’s voice boomed across the wires as Kyle settled back in his chair. “I heard a nasty rumor you were back in town.”

“Bad news travels fast.”

“Especially in this family.”

Amen, Kyle thought. The Fortunes had always been a close-knit lot, but ever since Kate’s death, Kyle had felt a newfound kinship with his cousins and siblings—a camaraderie born of shared grief for a loved one lost.

“Mike called and said you’d taken a company jet to Jackson, so I figured you’d show up sooner or later.”

“Just in time to get a look at that beast you inherited.”

Grant chuckled. “Fortune’s Flame.”

“Fortune’s Folly, if you ask me.”

“I’ll take him off your hands as soon as he’ll ride in a trailer. I know Samantha’s been working with him.”

“Seems as such.”

Sam. Why couldn’t he quit thinking about her?

“I suppose you know that Rocky’s thinking about moving out here?”

“Rocky? As in Rachel?”

“Your cousin and mine.”

Kyle hadn’t seen Rachel since the reading of the will in Kate’s lawyer’s office. Usually adventurous, with a quick smile, Rocky had been as sober as the rest of the family that day. Dark circles had shadowed her brown eyes and she’d nervously fingered the charm her grandmother had bequeathed her. She’d seemed lost at the time, but then they all had.

“So my horse is okay?”

“I ran into Sam as she was working with him. The stud looked full of the devil.”

“He is.” Grant chuckled.

Glancing out the window as twilight caressed the land, Kyle said, “Sam’s got a kid.”

“Yep.”

“Said the father was out of the picture. I didn’t know she’d been married.”

“Wasn’t.”

“So where is the guy?”

“Beats me. I never asked. Wasn’t any of my business,” Grant said. Unspoken but implied was the message and it’s none of yours, either.

Kyle heard the quiet reprimand in Grant’s tone but ignored it. “No one knows?”

“Well, I suppose Sam knows, and Bess, her mother. Some of the gossips in town try to point the finger at Tadd Richter. You remember him?”

“Yeah. Never met him, but heard he was a local hood.”

“He ran with a fast crowd, rode a big motorcycle, drank and was always in trouble with the law. His folks split up and he ended up in jail, or a juvenile home somewhere near Casper, I think. Anyway, Sam had hung out with him right before he left town and then…well, she turned up pregnant. Not that it’s any of your concern. She’s kept quiet about it all these years and I figure she’s got her reasons…. Anyway, I just called to welcome you to Wyoming.”

“Thanks.”

“It’s not a bad place, you know.”

“Never said it was.”

“But you weren’t too happy to have to move here.”

Kyle stared through the panes to the stand of aspen guarding the banks of Stiller Creek. “I don’t like being told what to do. Not even by Kate.”

“It won’t be so bad. You might find you like it out here, discover what it is you’re running from or looking for. You never know.”

“Nope, you never do.” Kyle felt his temper flare a little. Never one to mince words, Grant had let it be known that he hadn’t approved of Kyle’s rootless lifestyle in Minneapolis.

“Maybe you need to slow down a mite.”

“Maybe,” Kyle drawled, though his jaw tightened. He didn’t need a lecture. He knew that he’d thrown away a few years of his life, dabbling at this business and that, making a little money, sometimes losing a lot. Marrying the wrong woman. Working for the family and getting fired was the latest disaster. He didn’t want to be reminded of that failure, nor could he explain the restlessness that had chased after him since boyhood, the feeling that he couldn’t stay in one place too long. And, he suspected, six months in Clear Springs with Samantha living next door was going to be far too long.

“I’ll be by in a couple of days and see that you’re not mistreating Joker.”

“Yeah, more likely that stallion will be the end of me.”

“Or Sam will.”

Amen.

“She’s a bossy one. Likes to run things her way.”

“I figured that much out already.”

“Just remember, she might bug the hell out of you, but she knows a lot more about ranchin’ than you do.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“You do that. See ya tomorrow.”

Kyle hung up, scowled at the ledgers on the desk and slammed the book closed. Sam. He hadn’t thought about her in years, wouldn’t let himself, but ever since he’d set foot in Wyoming, he couldn’t get away from her.

“Damn it all to hell.” Rotating his neck, he winced as a vertebra near the top of his spine popped. Tadd Richter—what had Sam seen in that lowlife? And why did Kyle care? It was old news.

His coffee, bad instant stuff when it was hot, was now cold and looked as if it might gel. Kyle ignored the cup. The old chair groaned as he stood and walked to a cupboard where, once upon a time, Ben had kept his liquor. Empty. “Strike two.” No computer and no liquor, not in this den with its yellowed, knotty pine walls, faded prints of rodeo riders and braided rug tossed over an ancient plank floor. It was as if life out here in godforsaken Wyoming hadn’t changed in the past fifty years. “Thanks a lot, Kate,” he grumbled, though the ranch in summer had always held a special spot in his heart—a spot he’d rather not remember.

Jet lag hadn’t settled in and probably wouldn’t. The plane ride from Minneapolis to Jackson hadn’t been all that bad, nor had the trip out to the ranch in his hastily purchased, used pickup. No, it wasn’t the travel that bothered him so much as the feeling that he was being manipulated. Again. By his grandmother. From her damned grave.