those visits, Catherine acted as spokeswoman, educating the kids on each type of animal and their natural habitats and origins. It was something she loved to do when she got the opportunity.
There were stalls to house the outdoor animals during the harsh, cold winters and the entire barn was heated to keep everyone toasty while the snow flew outside and the temperatures dropped to subzero.
Today, as she checked food and water containers, petted and stroked each and every animal, her mind was a million miles away.
Pregnant.
She was pregnant.
Catherine admired Amanda her veterinarian business and Gabby for her commitment to troubled teens. At twenty-six years old Catherine hadn’t yet figured out what she wanted to do with the rest of her life.
All she’d ever really dreamed of was being a wife and a mother. She’d once believed that would happen with Gray Stark, one of the ranch hands whom she’d loved with every fiber of her being when she’d been a teenager. Then one day she’d awakened to discover that he’d left Dead River Ranch and her behind without a word of explanation.
It had taken her a long time to realize he wasn’t coming back, that whatever they’d shared was over and eventually she got on with her life. Thank goodness she hadn’t waited around for him. He’d been gone from the ranch for five long years.
She lowered her hand to stroke a small circle across her still-flat lower stomach. Pregnant. Be careful what you wish for, she thought ruefully as she headed back toward the gate. She’d gotten half her wish, but the timing couldn’t be worse.
She and the father of the baby had broken up two months ago and nothing and nobody would fix that particular relationship. She didn’t want it fixed under any circumstances.
An attempted kidnapping, a couple of murders and a dozen other crimes had created a houseful of distrust and wariness. Her father was on his deathbed and she and her sisters had been working hard in an attempt to locate their half brother Cole, who had been kidnapped over thirty years ago.
Now wasn’t the time for her to be an unwed mother, and yet that’s exactly what she intended to be. The minute she had seen the positive sign on the test she’d known she was going to have this baby.
She paused at the gate, nervously twirling a strand of her hair with one hand while the other moved to her stomach once again.
Despite the fact that she’d grown to hate the man she’d been dating, the scoundrel who had fathered the baby, she already loved the life growing inside her. This was her baby and there was no way she’d let Dirk Sinclair know anything about it. He’d shown his true colors and she didn’t want him anywhere near her or her baby.
A wave of light-headedness swept over her as she stepped out of the gate. She clung to the fence, waiting for it to pass, but it seemed to get worse.
Stress.
It was all too much.
Her head spun with memories of the night somebody had attempted to kidnap her little niece, Cheyenne, and the unsolved murder of the governess Faye Frick who had tried to intervene. Poor cook’s assistant Jenny Burke, murdered in the ranch kitchen pantry and her killer not yet found.
Flashes fired off in her brain of her father in his bed, looking like death as he drifted in and out of comas because of the cancer that ate at him. So much, there was suddenly too much spinning around in her head.
And now, in all the chaos and uncertainty, she was pregnant. Everything whirled faster and faster in her mind and then light-headedness overwhelmed her. She slumped to the ground with her back against the fence. She just needed a minute to rest. She’d be fine if she could just rest a bit, she thought as darkness claimed her.
* * *
He smelled her long before he saw her. Ranch foreman Gray Stark had a history with that distinctive fragrance of exotic spices and mysterious flowers. Catherine Colton had worn it for the year and a half he’d loved her, for the five years that he’d hated her and now for the past four years of his cold indifference toward her.
He only had to take a couple of steps out of the stable and he knew she was someplace nearby. The scent eddied in the air, rising above the smell of animals and hay and oiled leather.
She was probably at the petting barn. He glanced at his watch and noted that it was nearing dinnertime. He wondered if she knew how late it was getting.
Although his usual pattern was to avoid being anyplace where he thought she might be, he decided to walk over to the small barn and let her know that it was almost time to eat.
He knew she often lost track of time when she was tending to the ranch’s animals. She’d always loved the creatures of the earth and was a natural at nurturing all the ones in her care.
As he ambled toward the small barnlike structure, he steeled himself to see her. He’d believed he’d cast her out of his head, out of his heart in the five years that he’d been away from Dead River Ranch and working on a ranch in Montana.
Four years ago when his father, the former ranch foreman, had become ill, Gray had come back to Dead River Ranch and when his father had passed, Gray had become the new foreman.
In all that time there were moments he almost forgot that he’d once loved Catherine Colton, there were increments of time that he almost forgot the depth of her betrayal. But, seeing her always wrought myriad emotions in him, emotions that he consciously schooled to indifference.
She had no place in his life and he had none in hers. He’d learned that lesson when he’d been eighteen years old, a hard lesson that he was likely never to forget.
Any indifference he might have felt for her fled as he rounded the corner to the petting barn and saw her slumped on the ground against the fence.
Adrenaline roared through him as he raced to her side, his gun pulled and at the ready. Had she been attacked? He hadn’t been that far away in the stables and he hadn’t heard her cry out, hadn’t heard anything that would warrant action or warn of any danger.
It took only a quick assessment to assure him that she didn’t appear to have any wounds anywhere. He tucked his gun back into the holster, sat next to her on the ground and pulled her into his arms.
“Catherine?” Everyone around the ranch called her Cath, but when Gray had returned to Dead River Ranch, he’d decided he’d never call her by that affectionate nickname again. He also refused to call her Miss Catherine as all the other staff did. Cath had been a woman he loved. Catherine was just one of his bosses.
He felt the side of her neck, where her pulse was steady and strong. “Catherine,” he said louder, as if by the sheer strength of the command in his deep voice alone he could bring her around.
It worked. She drew a deep breath and slowly opened her eyes. For just a moment he was eighteen years old again and she was seventeen. Her indigo-blue eyes held sweet softness and her long blond hair spilled over his arm like a sheet of honey-colored silk. As if in a trance, her lush lips turned up in a smile of such pleasure it ached deep inside him.
Like a time warp, it was as if they were both momentarily trapped in the past, in a time when they’d loved one another more than anyone else in the world, in a
