fine, Alice,” Trace answered.
“How’s your granddaughter?” Kira asked.
The fifty-something woman grinned. “Best not get me started on little Emily. But she’s gonna have to share me soon because Carol’s pregnant again. A boy this time.”
Kira’s smile froze. “That’s wonderful. Congratulations.”
Alice eyed the couple. “You two should think about having a few yourselves.” Before they could answer, the waitress walked away.
Trace watched Kira fight her emotions as she took a drink.
“Alice didn’t know, Kira,” Trace said.
“I know that.” Kira wrapped a strand of golden-blond hair behind her ear, leaving the wispy bangs along her forehead. “Why did you need to see me?”
Okay this was all business. “A woman from the adoption agency called after you left.”
Her brown eyes widened. “So soon. What did she say?”
“I didn’t get to talk to her. Just a message on the machine. It just said that she’d call back again.”
“Darn, I wonder if she’ll call the office.” She glanced at him. “Did she leave a number where I could reach her?”
It hurt when she used the word “I” and not “we”. He pulled the paper from his pocket and slid it across the table. “I don’t think you should call her just yet.”
She looked hurt. “But I have to.”
“What are you going to tell her, Kira?”
She blinked at him. “We’re just talking to her, Trace. I don’t want to delay the process, it takes a long time. We’re probably just going to be put on a waiting list.”
“I still have to pretend we’re married.”
“You are married—to me.” She lost her attitude. “But as I told you the baby will be my responsibility.”
So she hadn’t changed her mind. He was to do nothing concerning the child. “We aren’t even living under the same roof.”
“I never asked you to move out in the first place.”
“You know why I did, Kira. We were headed for disaster.” He’d hated leaving, and if she’d asked him to stay just once, he would have in a heartbeat. Now, it was too late.
She sighed. “Please, just listen to what Mrs. Fletcher has to say, that’s all I ask.”
“Okay, I’ll talk with the woman. See what she has to say.”
“Really?” Tears flooded her eyes. “Oh, Trace, thank you.”
He raised a hand. “Don’t thank me, yet. I’ll agree to another home visit. Afterward we’ll see where we go from there. I can’t commit to anything more.”
She nodded. “Does that mean you’re moving back to the house?”
Before Trace could come up with an answer they were interrupted.
“Well, look who’s wandered in off the range.”
They both glanced up to see Jarrett McKane standing at their table. He was tall, athletic and good-looking. He knew it, too. Jarrett knew a lot of things, all you had to do was ask him.
Trace straightened. He didn’t want his half brother here. Not now. “Hello, Jarrett.”
“Trace.” His brother turned to Kira. “Hello, pretty sister-in-law.”
Kira smiled. “Hi, Jarrett.”
Grabbing a chair, he turned it around and straddled it. He glanced between the two of them. “You two look serious. There wouldn’t be trouble in paradise, would there? Kira, you just let me know if this guy isn’t treating you right and I’ll knock some sense into him.”
Kira shifted in her seat as she continued to smile at her brother-in-law. “Everything is fine, Jarrett, but thanks for asking.”
At their first meeting when Kira arrived in town, Jarrett had laid on his easy chair but it hadn’t taken her long to realize that Jarrett McKane was out for himself. He was attentive to his women though, but that was another problem, there were a lot of women.
Both brothers were handsome, but Jarrett had been the school sports hero and a college graduate. Meanwhile Trace had stayed and worked on the ranch with his father, going to college locally.
“Anytime.” He looked at Trace. “I need to talk to you about our arrangement. Could you come to my office?”
“Later. Kira and I are talking right now.”
“Seems like you could do that at home. Hell, you sleep in the same bed.” There was a wicked look in Jarrett’s eyes. “That’s right. It’s branding time so you sleep out with your calves.” He winked at Kira. “Makes for a lonely wife left at home.”
“And sometimes I sleep out with the calves, too,” Kira said, worried things might come to blows.
The brothers had never been close. Jarrett had been six years old when his mother died, and his father, John, remarried Claire, and a year later she had given birth to Trace. The distance had grown when their parents retired and moved to a warmer climate in Arizona. Now, both parents had passed away.
“My brother’s a lucky man to have you. Although I tried my best, he won you fair and square.” He winked at Kira. “But it’s still a long way to go before the score is even, bro.”
Later that afternoon, Trace rode toward the barn. After returning from town, he’d saddled up Thunder and went out to check the herd. He’d wasted the morning already when he needed to finish things before the roundup.
He rotated his tired shoulders, felt his eyes burn, a sure sign that lack of sleep had taken a toll on him. And confronting his brother hadn’t exactly made his day. He’d wanted to spend more time with Kira, but they hadn’t managed that, either. So far, they’d talked very little of what was most important to him: their marriage.
Trace climbed off his horse and walked him into the barn. The immaculately clean structure had been the result of too much time on his hands. Since moving to the bunkhouse, he’d tried to stay busy, and his already organized barn had gotten a complete sweep, with every piece of tack on the property being cleaned or polished.
It had been his sleep time that suffered. Even his fatigue hadn’t helped him on those long nights. He walked his stallion into the stall, removed the saddle and carried it to the tack room. On his way out, he ran into his foreman, Cal.
“Hey, Trace. What’s up?”
“You tell me, Cal,” he said. “How many men have you got for the roundup?”
The forty-one-year-old foreman, Jonah Calhoun, took off his hat and scratched his gray-streaked brown hair. A single man, he’d worked for the
