good, but it wasn’t the job she needed. It was the man who’d placed the ad—former rodeo cowboy and present owner of one of the biggest spreads in north Texas—Colt Garret.
Kati’s heart did three back flips and a full Gaynor at the thought of the man who held her future in his hands, a man who’d held a special place in her heart for more than ten years. A man who didn’t even know she existed.
Nervously she brushed at the skirt of her only decent suit, flicking away an imaginary speck of lint. Kati hoped the mint-green skirt and matching jacket looked mature and sensible. More than anything she had to convince Colt that she was not as crazy as she was going to sound.
She swallowed the dry lump in her throat and, for the hundredth time, rechecked her appearance. Sensible white heels flat on the floor. Skirt carefully pulled over her slender knees. Pristine white blouse buttoned to the top. The entire rig was so totally out of character, if Colt didn’t hurry up the neat knot of hair would become a waterfall of dark, straight locks hanging down her back. And she’d be forced to kick off these pinching heels.
Where was he? Her gaze flicked anxiously from the fancy cowboy art hanging over the fireplace to the acres of lush green pasture visible outside the picture window and back to the solid oak entry. During their phone conversation, Colt had stressed his desperate need for a nanny. Under the circumstances that was exactly what she wanted to hear. But if the situation was all that urgent why hadn’t Colt met her at the door instead of that tattooed man who looked as though he’d stuck his finger in a light socket? And where was Colt now?
She twisted her foot, feeling the first warning twinge of a toe cramp. Just as she bent for a foot massage the study door flew open and a harried looking cowboy, cradling a screaming, flailing baby, charged into the room. Kati straightened suddenly, the cramp forgotten in a rush of emotion.
Even unshaved and rumpled, Colt was more gorgeous than she remembered. Her heart joined her toe in a vicious cramp.
Wide-shouldered, skinny-hipped, he wore a red Western shirt that accentuated his darkness. Faded Wrangler jeans followed the angle of long, muscled thighs. Above a pair of red-rimmed eyes the color of Hershey’s Kisses, his dark brown hair needed a trim.
He was tall and trim and gorgeous, and he stopped dead in his tracks at the sight of her.
“Are you Kati Winslow?” he asked above the din of the wailing infant.
So he didn’t remember her. That much, at least, was good. If he had any idea she’d once fancied herself in love with him, he’d never fall for this scheme.
“Yes.” She struggled to meet his gaze, worried that her too-wide eyes would betray the terror gnawing at her insides.
“Let me see your résumé.”
Willing her hand not to tremble, she gave him the paper and was surprised when he handed her the baby in return. While he examined the sheet, she sat down again, laid the fussy infant over her shoulder and gently patted his back. He was soft and warm and clean but squirming miserably. Within seconds, he burped loudly, heaved a shuddering sigh of relief, and snuggled into her neck, his little head lolling to one side in exhaustion.
Colt looked up, expression stunned. “You’re hired.”
“What?”
He nodded toward the baby. “He’s stopped crying. That’s good enough for me. You’re hired. Can you start right now?”
Kati batted her eyes, confused. “Right this minute?”
“I’m desperate.” Wearily he collapsed into a high-backed chair behind the desk and slumped forward, resting his arms on the polished top.
She hoped he was as desperate as she was.
Kati considered his bloodshot eyes and bent posture. His exhaustion was so complete that she actually felt sorry for him. But she couldn’t let her sympathy get in the way. For once in her life, she had to think ruthlessly.
“May I ask where the baby’s mother is?”
Colt scraped a hand over his whiskers. Out of his mind with exhaustion and, if he was willing to admit it, downright terror, he hardly knew where to begin. How had this happened to him, a die-hard bachelor without a paternal bone in his body? How had he come into possession of a three-month-old child?
“It’s a very long story, but if you’re willing to listen…” Colt glanced up. Through blurry eyes he saw her nod, so he plunged in, reliving the fateful day three weeks earlier when he’d opened his doors to insanity.
Within ten minutes after the nervous little messenger had appeared at his door, Colt had run the gamut of emotions from disbelief to pure terror. Pacing the length of his ranch-style living room, he’d stopped now and then to stare from the blue-wrapped bundle in the stranger’s arms to the papers in his own hands. His mind reeled with what he’d read there. Some woman he’d never heard of had sent him a baby to care for.
“How could anybody leave an infant in my custody? I don’t know anything about kids.” Colt shook the paper beneath the other man’s nose. “Just who is this Natosha Parker, anyway? I’ve never even heard of her.”
The messenger broke out in a sweat and hugged the door handle a little harder. Colt paused long enough to catch his breath, and the poor hapless man took that as an opportunity to escape before the big cowboy really lost it. He eased the door open, clearly hoping to Hannah that the wild-eyed rancher didn’t yank him backward through the keyhole.
“Beats me, sir,” he said, backing out the door. “All they told me to do was bring the baby out here to one Colt Garret.” He shoved the infant into Colt’s arms. “That’s you, and I’m outa here.”
He whirled and bounded across the concrete porch.
“Wait a minute,” Colt yelled at the retreating form. “ Who told you to bring the baby out here?”
The messenger didn’t wait around to answer. He crammed the ordinary-looking brown sedan into gear and hightailed it down the long driveway toward the gate, fishtailing beneath the Garret Ranch sign.
The baby, whose tiny form was strapped into a carrier of some type, chose that moment to awaken. A high-pitched wail rent the country quiet. Cole pivoted from the front window where a rising plume of dust was all that remained of the retreating sedan. He shoved a work-hardened hand through his hair, sending thick, brown waves in a dozen different directions, and stalked toward the hallway.
“Cookie, get in here,” he bellowed. At the sound of shouting, the baby jerked, his little arms flew straight up and he wailed all the louder.
Cookie, chief cook and general housekeeper for the Garret Ranch, scuttled in from the kitchen. Twigs of hair stuck out on his head like blackjack sprouts. A battleship tattoo, a result of one wild weekend in Hong Kong, sailed his arm from shoulder to wrist. A white chef’s apron covered the forty extra pounds of paunch around his middle. He was a scary sight, but the bachelor brothers of Garret Ranch didn’t care. He made a mean chicken-fried steak, and that was really all that mattered.
“What in blue blazes is all the racket in here, boss?” His voice, a startling replica of an air horn, made the baby cry even more.
“It’s a baby.”
“A what?” Cookie
