Suzannah Davis - The Rancher And The Redhead

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For my parents,

Gordon and Lynn Nelson

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Epilogue

“Curly, get your fanny over here pronto! I need you.”

Sam Preston’s ominous words echoed in her head as Roni Daniels floored the accelerator of her aging Jeep and bounced over the cattle gap leading into the Lazy Diamond Ranch. Gravel spewed, and she grappled white-knuckled at the steering wheel, trying to focus sleep-blurred eyes on the narrow track. The cool April air of a Texas midnight blew her dark curls into a wild tangle, and she cursed the rancher for jarring her out of a sound sleep, for making her forget her usual hair clip and for hanging up before explaining what disaster prompted his preemptory phone call.

But in this part of Texas, when a neighbor hollered in the middle of the night, a real friend didn’t stop to ask questions. A real friend came a-running. Pronto.

Roni braked to a stop in front of the once-grand Preston ranch house. Her headlights revealed the peeling paint on the weathered siding, the sagging boards on the rambling porches. By contrast, all the outbuildings and barns were shipshape and letter perfect. But then, ever since his wife had left him five years earlier, Sam had cared more about the Brahma cattle he raised than his own comfort.

Vaulting from her seat, Roni raced up the front steps, her overactive artist’s imagination conjuring visions of bloody mayhem, severe bodily injury or—at the very least—alien invaders. It took something dire and desperate to make self-sufficient Sam Preston yell for help!

“Sam!” Roni flung open the screen door and skidded into the lamplit front parlor. She’d been coming in and out of the Preston place for most of her thirty-four years, tagging along after Sam and his older brother Kenny since she was “knee-high to a grasshopper,” as old Doc Hazelton liked to say. Now she looked askance at the explosion of boxes and suitcases and unidentifiable paraphernalia that turned the perennially tidy room into a combat zone.

Called out of town a few days ago, Sam had missed their usual Friday night with the other regulars down at Rosie’s Café. But the life of a struggling cattleman and aspiring rodeo stock supplier was erratic, and Roni hadn’t thought his absence anything unusual.

Apparently she’d been wrong. Very, very wrong.

“Sam, where are—”

A strident mewling from the rear of the house interrupted Roni’s call and raised the hairs on the back of her neck. Heart thudding, she hurried down the hall to the master bedroom, then cautiously pushed open the door.

She’d expected ectoplasmic demons or chain-saw killers. What she found was even more alarming—Sam Preston, dripping wet and wearing only a towel. Sun-bleached blond hair plastered the brow of his familiar, craggy face, but it was the unexpected glimpse of bare, well-muscled chest and lean horseman’s thighs that made Roni suck in a tiny involuntary breath. Then he swung to face her, and the struggling bundle he cradled in his brawny arms made Roni stop breathing altogether.

“Curly! Thank Jehoshaphat. Here!”

Sam thrust the squalling infant into Roni’s grasp and made a grab for the towel sliding dangerously south of his navel. Dumbfounded, Roni had no choice but to juggle the kicking, red-faced baby. The child—female by the pink color of her gown—was about a year old and sported the most extraordinary mop of russet-colored curls Roni had ever seen. She was also enraged, and heavy and strong enough to make holding her steady a struggle.

“Oh my God!” Roni automatically propped the baby against her shoulder, too astonished to give more than cursory notice to the dampness that immediately began to seep through her T-shirt. Startled by a new voice, the child broke off her caterwauling, unscrewed her rosebud face and looked solemnly up at Roni...with Sam’s very own bluebonnet eyes.

Shock slammed into the center of Roni’s chest, a piercing pain that was part dismay, part hurt mortification. How could he have kept something like this from her, from his very best friend in the world?

“Turn your back, Curly, so I can get on my skivvies.” As Roni automatically looked away, Sam rummaged in an old pine dresser for underwear, muttering, “Hellfire and damnation! All I wanted was a shower. After a two-hundred-mile drive with a screaming young’un was that too much to ask?”

Suddenly unsure of this new stranger, the little girl’s mouth quivered. Latching plump baby fingers into Roni’s curls, she buried her face in the disheveled mass and renewed her howls. Awkwardly, Roni patted the infant’s back while a lump of empathy thickened her throat. She felt as adrift and isolated and scared as the baby, but she had to know one thing.

“Is she yours?”

The rustle of denim and the rasp of a zipper accompanied Sam’s deep voice. “Thought I could handle one night on my own. How the hell was I supposed to know—”

“Sam!” Pivoting on her boot heel, Roni held the child protectively against her heart and glared at him. “Is she yours?”

“What?” The sharpness of her voice froze him in the process of snapping his jeans, and he frowned, puzzled. Then his blue eyes widened. “Hell, no! I mean, well—yes, I guess you could say that.”

“Make up your mind!” The baby’s wails fired Roni’s indignation. “I never thought you were the kind of man to cat around with no thought to the consequences, Sam Preston. Honestly, how could you be so irresponsible?”

A deep flush crept up beneath Sam’s tan, starting at his bronzed nipples and racing all the way to his earlobes. He snapped his jeans, his square jaw working. “Don’t you go flying off the handle at me, Veronica Jean! She’s not mine.”

Roni’s hands tightened reflexively around the sobbing baby as if to defend her against his callous repudiation. “She has your eyes,” she accused hotly. “And you just said—”

“My cousin Roy from Abilene—the one who was killed last year on the oil rig—Jessie’s his daughter.”

An instantaneous spurt of disgraceful relief filled Roni, quickly masked by total confusion. “Then what, why—?”

“Jessie’s mother, Alicia, had a toxic reaction to some medication last week. She went into shock, and there was nothing they could do.”

Roni stared at him in blank horror, the baby’s cries filling her ears. “She...she’s dead?”

At his curt nod, Roni sat down heavily on the side of the unmade king-size bed. Sympathy welled within her, and she instinctively rocked her body in time with little Jessie’s hiccuping breaths. “Oh, Sam, I’m so sorry!”

His expression softened into lines of weary sadness, and he cupped his large palm over the infant’s soft burgundy-red curls in an attitude of tender protectiveness. “I made the arrangements. The funeral was Saturday. The neighbors were keeping Jessie, but there’s no other family except me, so I...well, I’m taking her.”

“Oh, Sam!”

His wide mouth tightened with belligerence. “What the hell else was I supposed to do?”

“Oh, Sam, you lunkhead! You misunderstand me.” Roni caught his hand. “Of course you have to take her. I wouldn’t have expected less.”

He hesitated, then sat down beside Roni and gave her fingers a grateful squeeze. “You don’t think I’m addled?”