his black pickup and went around to climb behind the wheel.
“We’re going home, Li’l Bit. Maybe this week’s ad will find just the right nanny for you.” He drove along the wide main street of the small town in Clayton County, on the edge of the hill country. In minutes they were heading northwest along the highway on the way to his Triple B ranch.
His thoughts churned, and he glanced at the sleeping baby, feeling love wash through him. She was so tiny, so fragile, yet he loved her fiercely and didn’t want to give her up. His mother in Chicago would take Elizabeth, but he couldn’t bear to part with her. Frustrated, he struck the steering wheel with his fist.
An hour later as he neared home, he swung around a curve and saw a blue pickup up ahead, pulled off on the wide shoulder beneath the shade of a cottonwood. The pickup was jacked up, a tire lying on the grass beside it He put his foot on the brake to slow down. Turning to the baby, he said, “Li’l Bit, I may have to help my fellow man.”
Then Josh noticed the driver, who was bending over, the faded jeans pulling tautly across her backside as she pulled the tire up onto its tread and rolled it to the wheel. Instantly he recognized the yellow pigtail and the longest pair of female legs in Clayton County.
“Well, Li’l Bit, I guess I don’t have to offer my help. If I do offer, that self-sufficient cowgirl will take my head off.” About fifty feet away he pressed down on the accelerator and watched his neighbor, Mattie Ryan, squat down and put the spare tire in place. Tossing her long blond braid over her shoulder, she started to replace the lug bolts.
“Oh, hell. Old habits die hard,” he grumbled, and stomped on the brake to slow beside her and lower his window. “Hey, Mattie. Need help?”
She slanted him a look over her shoulder, her thickly lashed green eyes gazing at him solemnly. “Hi, Josh. No, thanks.”
“Okay,” he said, closing the window and accelerating once again. Down the road a ways he glanced in his rear-view mirror to see her pick up the flat tire and toss it into the bed of the pickup. “Now there’s a lady, Li’l Bit, who wouldn’t want an affair.”
His eyes narrowed as he pictured Mattie Ryan in his mind. Almost six feet tall, she was full-bodied, long-legged and as independent as a barn cat. And sour on men. He remembered vague rumors about her getting dumped by a boyfriend in college, but he wasn’t certain about details.
He and Mattie had grown up on neighboring ranches, established by their geat-gandfathers. Josh’s dad and Old Man Ryan were always battling each other, but they were civil to each other when out in public. Mattie’s mother died when she was ten years old, and Frank Ryan had raised Mattie like the son he never had. Mattie had to be around twenty-eight or twenty-nine. She had two younger sisters who had long ago left the area and never returned.
Now Frank Ryan was dead, and Mattie had her grandmother to care for and the Rocking R ranch to run. And he heard she had been having financial troubles lately because of her father’s illness and death.
Josh drove home mechanically, plans and possibilities involving his neighbor revolving in his mind.
Later that night he decided to give at least three weeks of thought to his ideas while he scrambled around trying to work and help his cook, Rosalie Benson, take care of Elizabeth at the same time. At the end of a week and a half, feeling desperate, he called and made an appointment with Mattie, telling her he wanted to discuss business.
As she was replacing a harness in the tack room of the barn, Mattie heard a car motor. She strode out of the barn in time to see a shiny black pickup approaching the house, a plume of dust dancing in the pickup’s trail. Her heart missed a beat while she clamped her jaw grimly. It was Josh Brand’s pickup. And Gran was in town and wouldn’t be in the house to let him in.
Feeling her long braid flop against her back, Mattie jogged toward the house as Josh’s pickup swept around the curve in front and disappeared from view.
With each step anger pulsed in her, because she could guess why he had come. His would be the fourth offer to buy her out since Dad died. She clenched her fists. She could run this ranch! Her daddy had raised her to take over when he was no longer able to run it As long as Gran was alive, she wasn’t going to sell, and she wasn’t going to lose her home because of bad weather or diseased cattle or a big loan. And not because of any man trying to coax her into selling. The day would come when she would sell, but it wasn’t now.
When she rounded the corner, Josh Brand stood on her porch with his hands on his hips while he waited for her to answer the door. Her pulse skittered, and she mentally swore. At twenty-eight she was six years younger than Josh Brand, and in all the years she’d known him he had never once seemed aware of her as a female. Nor were most other males in the county aware of her as a female. Which was quite all right. She had grown accustomed to the hurt when she had been thirteen and towered over all the boys her own age. But she hadn’t towered over Josh, and he had set her pulse racing in a manner she couldn’t control and didn’t like. Still did. He might not be aware of her, but she was too aware of him.
His black hair was caught behind his head with a strip of rawhide, and his wide-brimmed black hat was pushed back on his head His Kiowa heritage showed in his dark hair, eyes and skin, his prominent cheekbones, his imperious straight nose. Her gaze ran across his broad shoulders and down the length of his lean body. “Josh!” she called as she jogged toward the house.
Josh turned to watch Mattie,. She was graceful in a coltish way, her long legs stretching over the ground, her breasts swinging beneath the blue cotton shirt. He felt queasy, his stomach churning. The woman was an unknown quantity and formidable. Half the men in town were scared of her. She could be as forceful as her ornery dad, and for the hundredth time Josh wondered whether or not he was doing the right thing. His gaze ran over her in a practiced assessment. She was a lot of female and looked as healthy as his best horse.
Mattie took the steps two at a time, glanced up to see Josh’s eyes raking over her. Her anger rose another notch while a flush burned her cheeks. Self-conscious about her dusty work clothes, she clenched her fists. “Did you want to see me?”
At the top step she paused and looked up—a unique experience. She knew Josh was taller than she was, but she hadn’t been this close to him before and hadn’t realized exactly how much taller he was. His dark eyes studied her with an intensity that took her breath. The Brands were a tough bunch, and she suspected he was going to try to pressure her into selling the place by making her an offer that would be damned tempting.
She lifted her chin and stared back at him without blinking, wondering which one of them would blink or look away first. “Shall we go inside?” she asked.
“Any tune.”
They stood in silence, and she realized he was as aware of the contest of wills as she. She inhaled deeply. When his gaze dropped to her bosom, her anger soared, even though he had been the first to look away. She met his dark gaze again and thought she could detect a flash of amusement, but it was gone in seconds.
She reached for the door, and he bent down. For the first time she saw the baby carrier, a diaper bag and a sleeping baby. She knew he had a child and that he had lost his wife in a car wreck this past year, but she supposed he had someone to care for the baby. It startled her to see him carrying the baby with him.
“That’s yours?” she asked, and then realized how ridiculous the question was. “Well, of course, I guess it is.” She felt rattled and more annoyed than ever with him for causing her discomfort. “You wouldn’t
