Judy Duarte - Rock-A-Bye Rancher

Damn. She really was nervous.

“Daniela,” Clay said over the drone of the engine, thinking he’d make light of it, tease her a bit to get her mind on something else. But when she opened her eyes, her gaze pierced his chest, striking something soft and vulnerable inside. Without warning, the joke slipped away, and compassion—rare that it was—took its place. “Hey. Don’t worry. Roger was flying before you were even born. He’s got a slew of commendations from the air force. He’ll get us to Mexico and back before dinnertime tomorrow.”

“That’s nice to know.” She offered him a shy smile, then slid back into her frozen, sculptured pose.

According to Martin, the senior partner in the firm and Daniela’s boss, she was a bright, capable attorney. But she was clearly not a happy flyer.

Damn. This was going to be a hell of a long trip if she didn’t kick back a little and relax.

Moments later the plane took off, heading for Guadalajara. Once they were airborne, Clay offered her a drink. “It ought to take the edge off your nervousness.”

“I’m not big on alcohol,” she said.

“How about a screwdriver?” he pressed. “Orange juice with just enough vodka to relax you?”

She pondered the idea momentarily. “All right. Maybe I should.”

He got up and made his way to the rear of the plane—just a couple of steps, actually—and fixed her a drink from an ice chest Roger had prepared. He poured himself a scotch and water, too, then returned to his seat. “It’s a pretty day. Take a look out the window.”

She managed a quick peek, but didn’t appear to be impressed.

“How long have you been working for Phillips, Crowley and Norman?” he asked.

“A little over a year.”

He wondered what age that would make her. Pushing into the late twenties, probably. Hell, she wasn’t much older than Trevor would have been. And he suspected she was probably the same studious, bookworm type as his son. College-educated folks usually were.

Clay and his son hadn’t had a damn thing in common—other than a love of flying the King Air and the Bonanza they’d owned before that. And though there’d been a bond of sorts, the two of them had butted heads more times than not.

Maybe if Clay’s old man had stuck around long enough to be a father to him, it might have helped Clay know how to deal with his own son. But Glen Callaghan had been a drifter. Clay’s only other role model had been Rex Billings, a gruff and crusty cattleman who used to hang out at The Hoedown, a seedy bar on the outskirts of Houston where Clay’s mom worked as a waitress. When his mom was diagnosed with terminal cancer, the old cowboy took her and Clay in, letting them live at his place.

Never having a family of his own, Rex hadn’t quite known what to do with a ten-year-old boy, but he’d given it his best shot, teaching Clay how to be tough, how to be a man. There was never any doubt that Rex had come to love Clay, even though the words had never been said. And when Rex died, he left the Rocking B Ranch and everything he owned to the young man who’d become a son to him.

Clay had done his best to turn the cattle ranch into a multimillion dollar venture. And over the past twenty years, that’s exactly what he’d done. He’d become a hell of a businessman. But in the long run, he’d been a crappy dad.

He’d tried his damnedest to teach Trevor the things a boy ought to know, the things Rex had taught Clay: to be tough; to work hard; to suck it up without grumbling.

Trevor used to complain that Clay never had time for him. But hell, if the kid had gotten his nose out of those books he carried around and quit carping about his allergy to alfalfa, they might have gotten along as well as Rex and Clay had.

But that didn’t mean Clay hadn’t tried to reach out to the kid in his own way. He’d suggested a fishing trip when Trevor turned sixteen, but that idea had gone over like a sack of rotten potatoes. He’d also asked Trevor to accompany him to an auction, thinking they could hang out a few days afterward. But for some reason, you’d think Clay had suggested they go to the dentist for a root canal.

Clay wasn’t sure what the boy had expected from him. But instead of having the kind of relationship either of them might have liked, they merely passed each other in the hall.

Of course, he’d meant to remedy that when Trevor got a little older—and a little wiser—hoping that after his son graduated from college, they’d find some common ground. He’d kept telling himself that things would be better between them—one of these days.

But one of these days came and went.

Clay tried to tell himself he hadn’t failed completely. He’d tried to make up for things in other ways, like buying Trevor a state-of-the-art computer system, paying for out-of-state tuition and allowing him to go on that international study abroad program that landed him in Guadalajara, where he died.

And there it went again. Full circle.

Thoughts of Trevor led to thoughts of his shortcomings as a father and the load of guilt he carried for not doing something about it—whatever that might have been—when he’d had the chance. He did the best he could to shove the feelings aside, as Rex had taught him, forcing them to the dark pit in his chest.

What was done was done.

Clay may have failed Trevor, but he wasn’t going to let his granddaughter down—assuming the baby was a Callaghan. So he looked out the window, focused his gaze straight ahead. Shoved those feelings down deep, where they belonged.

Thirty minutes or more into the flight, Daniela had managed to finish her vodka-laced juice and had seemed to relax a bit—until they hit an air pocket. Then she paled.

“Sorry about that.” Roger glanced over his shoulder and caught Clay’s eye. “Better fasten your seat belts, folks. It’s going to be bumpy for a while.”

The pilot nodded toward the windshield at the dark gray sky ahead. Roger planned to fly around the storm. And he’d warned Clay earlier that it would be a bumpy flight, although there was no reason to suggest they would be taking any unnecessary chances. Clay was, however, determined to get the baby out of Mexico and back to the States as quickly as he could, so he would have agreed to any risk Roger was willing to make. Still, he hated seeing Daniela so uneasy.

Under normal circumstances, with any other attorney, he would have been annoyed. But there was something about Daniela that made her different. And it wasn’t just her gender and her youthful beauty.

Okay, maybe it was.

Clay had never been one to chase after younger women. He preferred someone with maturity, someone who wasn’t interested in settling down.

Hell, he’d never even married his son’s mother. He and Sally had met at the feed lot and had a brief but heated affair. There hadn’t been much emotion involved. Of course, there never was on Clay’s part, and he always managed to find a lover with the same no-strings philosophy. Sally hadn’t seen any reason to get married, either, which was a relief.

As the plane hit another rough spot, he stole a glance at his traveling companion. Distress clouded her expression, the contradiction of competent attorney and frightened passenger intriguing him. Hell, he couldn’t sit idly by and watch her come apart at the seams—no matter how much he enjoyed looking at her.

“It shouldn’t be much longer,” Roger said.

The plane bounced again, causing Daniela to nearly drop her drink.

“Finish it,” Clay told her, and she quickly obliged. He wondered if she assumed his order had been due to safety reasons, but it didn’t matter. He was just hoping she’d consume enough alcohol to feel more at ease. So far, it didn’t seem to be working.