way.
“If you had any manners, you’d either move or hand me a towel.”
He smiled and crossed his arms, leaning his backside against the counter. His posture challenged her to come closer, to prove that there was nothing left between them.
Fine then. She’d show the insufferable cowboy just how completely immune to him she was.
Armed with his betrayal and six years of heartache, she marched right up to him and leaned to the left, taking care not to touch him. He shifted slightly, bringing their bodies into alignment. Suddenly she was nose to chest with the man she hated more than anyone on earth. And he smelled delicious. Her pulse kicked up a notch. Here was the warm, woodsy scent that had lingered on her skin and on her clothes and in her mind long after he was gone.
She gritted her teeth against the tide of feeling that threatened. “Give me that dang towel, Murdock.”
“Give me the towel. Give me the ranch,” he mocked softly, his mouth so close to her hair that she felt the heat of his breath. “Is there anything else the queen desires?”
He was strong and warm and masculine and, oh, so familiar, even after all this time. For the briefest moment she felt herself being drawn by his charm.
His hard, cowboy’s hand snaked up her back, caressing as it went. Sensation as warm as butter melting on sweet corn flowed through Kara’s veins. Just when she would have leaned into his chest, he tugged at her ponytail and dropped his hand. The quiet rumble of his chuckle tickled her face.
Kara jerked away, breaking contact with his body. How dare he toy with her! And why on earth had she responded like that?
Not caring if the coffee spill ever got wiped up, she marched around the counter away from him. If he thought he could charm her into forgetting what he’d done, he could think again. Once she might have folded, but now she had her son to consider.
“You haven’t changed a bit, Murdock,” she said in a distressfully breathless voice. “You’re still the selfish little boy you always were, thinking you can charm your way in or out of anything. Well, I’ve got news for you this go-round, cowboy. You can saddle up and ride right on out the way you came in. Just put the deed to the Tilted T on the table as you leave.”
He struck a casual pose, his face unreadable, though Kara suspected he wasn’t nearly as unmoved as he pretended. “Sorry to disappoint you, honey, but this old cowboy ain’t going nowhere.”
“Then, I’ll take you to court.”
“You don’t have a leg to stand on. This place was in your father’s name.”
“Dad intended for my son to have the Tilted T.”
“Maybe. But, if you really thought he could take over someday, you would have had him living here all his life. A boy raised in the city can’t run a ranch.”
“I’m teaching him.”
“How? By showing him reruns of Gunsmoke? By letting him ride the plastic pony at Wal-Mart?”
“I’ll have you know Lane can ride as well as I could at his age.” And every time he mounted a horse, Kara’s heart broke to think of how his own father’s cheating had robbed her son of the opportunity to grow up on horseback the way she had.
Ty shoved away from the counter and stalked toward her. “What about his father? Maybe he has plans for the boy.”
Kara shivered inwardly at the thought, the secret raring up like a spooked stallion. “Lane has had no contact with his useless excuse for a father since the day he left. He has no say in Lane’s life. Never has, never will.”
Ty whistled softly. “Sounds like a bitter divorce.”
“So bitter that neither Lane nor I carry his father’s name. Lane is mine and mine alone.” Now was as good a time as any to break this bit of news. “We’re both Taylors. And Taylors have always owned this ranch. That’s why I’m not leaving here until you give it back.”
“Well, darlin’,” he drawled, laughter returning to his eyes as he hooked both thumbs in his pockets and tilted back on his heels. “I hope you packed your toothbrush, because you’ve got a long stay ahead of you.”
Chapter Two
Out of long habit Ty dumped the remains of his coffee into the sink and rinsed the cup, then turned it up on the counter to drain and repeated the action with Kara’s cup. Ten years of living out of the back of a camper had taught him that no one else would come along to do his chores. If he made a mess, he cleaned it up. The mess he’d made a long time ago was what had brought him back to Bootlick and the Tilted T. Trouble was, he’d stepped in a bigger mess as soon as he’d hit the place.
Nobody could have been more surprised than he to hold the deed to the ranch where he’d spent his summers during high school and college. He’d come back hoping to buy a place of his own, all right, but he hadn’t thought it would be the Tilted T. Ty knew Pete’s predilection for gambling, but he’d fully expected to return the deed as soon as the old man sobered up. That’s when Pete hit him with the truth. The ranch was sinking in a cesspool of debt, and if Ty didn’t take it, the bank was going to. Ty knew how devastating such an action would be to a man with Pete’s pride. Telling Ty had been hard enough. To have the whole county know he’d failed would bring the old rancher to his knees. To have his daughter know would kill him.
After three days of arguing and studying the ledgers, Ty saw Pete’s reasoning. With the money he’d put aside from his winnings, Ty could settle the debts and put the ranch back on its feet, and it would belong to him lock, stock and barrel. Pete only asked three things in exchange: that he be allowed to stay on as permanent foreman, that the agreement would remain their secret and, the toughest part of all, that Ty would have to take the backlash from Kara without telling her the truth.
Kara. A vision of her furious green eyes stabbed at him. They’d loved each other once, when they were too young and foolish to make good choices, and he felt a tug of regret that they couldn’t even be friends. Fact of the business, he’d felt more than friendship when she’d bumped up against him, smelling like an April morning. Kara had fanned an ember he’d thought long dead, and he’d had to fight the urge to hold her and explain.
He leaned an elbow on the counter and stared into the metal sink. Though he hated looking like a horse thief, Ty’s loyalty to the man who’d taught him everything he knew about ranching and all he needed to know about being a man was too strong to turn back now. To save Pete’s pride he would swallow his own and let Kara think the worst of him. He shook his head in self-mockery. She already did.
The good folk of Bootlick wouldn’t be surprised either that he hadn’t returned the Tilted T like all Pete’s other drinking buddies. They’d always expected the worst from him, too. He knew they’d pointed fingers and gossiped when he’d gone off on the rodeo circuit. “Just like his good-for-nothing daddy,” they’d most likely said. In the back of his mind dwelled the nagging worry that they were right.
For years he’d never stayed in one place long enough to see the seasons change. What if he couldn’t settle down? What if his daddy’s rambling blood was too strong to overcome? One thing for certain, taking over the Tilted T would force him to find out the truth about himself once and for all.
With
