grateful smile warmed him in ways he hadn’t felt in years, sending heat coiling through his chest and to his lower regions as well.
Ah, hell! He couldn’t throw her out of the house, not when she was short on money and suffering from a broken heart. If she wanted to be his housekeeper for a couple of weeks, he’d have to grin and bear it. And take a helluva lot of cold showers.
“We’d better get the kids to bed and hit the sack ourselves,” he said more gruffly than he’d intended. “The Double S is in the middle of a roundup. Days start early around here.”
Her eyes brightened with wary interest. “A roundup? Can Melissa and I come along to watch? She’d love it.”
Wonderful! The hired hands would probably be watching Tasha instead of keeping their minds on their own business. He could only hope no one got killed stumbling all over themselves to impress Ms. Goldilocks and her little girl.
Including himself.
Chapter Two
“He’s beautiful.” Inhaling the scent of baby powder, Tasha forced away a sharp stab of envy as she held three-month-old Jason Bryant Swain in her arms for the first time. Never again would she hold a baby of her own. And that knowledge formed an ever present ache in her chest she knew would always be there.
Cliff had dropped off Tasha and the children at the Swain ranch house early that morning. She and her sister had visited, waiting until Jason was awake and fed and ready for his day. Meanwhile, Melissa and Stevie had turned the front porch into a makeshift jungle gym, climbing on the railing and leaping off the steps to entertain themselves.
Stroking the baby’s soft cheek, Tasha swallowed the raw sense of disappointment at fate’s cruel trick. “You did good, big sister.”
Ella fussed with Jason’s knit cap, motherly pride radiating from her like a lighthouse beacon. “It wasn’t all my doing. Bryant contributed a few good genes, too.”
“From your glow, I’d guess he’s contributing more to your health and welfare than just a few baby genes.”
Ella’s healthy complexion took on the rosy hue of a woman in love and her eyes filled with mirth behind her big round glasses. “Let’s say marriage and motherhood agree with me.”
A couple of inches shorter than Tasha, her hair a shade or two darker, Ella had always been the smart one in the family. Tasha had spent her adolescence envying her sister’s good grades and the respect she’d received from being smart instead of simply pretty. But Ella’s hasty marriage last summer to Bryant Swain had startled everyone in the family. Tasha was glad the relationship was working out. A claim she couldn’t make about either her too young marriage to Robert Reynolds when she’d learned she was pregnant with Melissa, or her recent botched engagement.
Definitely time for her to swear off men. Her judgment regarding the opposite sex left a lot to be desired.
“We’d better go,” Ella said, picking up a light jacket from the back of the couch and slipping it on. “The kids are itching to get out to where they’re branding the calves. If we aren’t careful, those two are likely to head off on their own.”
“All the way from New York, Melissa’s been asking when she’d get to see real cowboys.”
Ella laughed. “We’ll take the truck.”
“Thank goodness we don’t have to ride a horse.”
“I’m not quite ready for that yet.”
They went out the back way—leaving the door unlocked, Tasha noted—and called the children around to the side of the house where the truck was parked. Well-kept barns and outbuildings suggested the ranch was a prosperous enterprise, though Ella had said raising cattle was always a risky business financially.
“Learning to ride is one of my goals for this summer,” Ella said. “When I get good enough, I may even take up barrel racing.”
“Ella! You wouldn’t!” Tasha choked on a surprised laugh, but was unable to suppress a ripple of fear that sped through her. “You’ll get yourself killed.”
Her sister grinned at her. “Well, if not barrel racing, there’s a women’s mounted drill team. Maybe I could do that instead.”
From Tasha’s perspective, that didn’t sound all that much safer.
Shaking her head, Tasha strapped Jason in his car seat and stood back while Stevie and Melissa clambered into the rear seat of the truck with the baby.
Whatever had gotten into her sister, moving from New York to California and then without warning all the way to Montana? This was a nice enough place to visit for a week or two, no doubt peaceful in a way that would help Tasha put the disappointment of the past few weeks behind her. But she was a city girl. Horses and cows—and all that went with them—weren’t her cup of tea.
Still, as she thought of the Swain brothers, she had to admit there was something very appealing about the rugged, outdoor men who lived in the West.
But that didn’t mean she was going to get involved with her handsome employer.
Speaking of which, she’d better see if Ella had some recipes she could share. Last night it was pretty obvious tuna sandwiches and soup weren’t going to hack it for a man who expended thousands of calories rounding up little doggies all day. And she didn’t think her typical salad greens and cottage cheese would cut it, either.
She grinned at the thought. Wouldn’t her modeling friends and fashion designer colleagues get a kick out of seeing her now, in jeans and sharkskin boots, bouncing in a pickup along nothing wider than a rutted trail en route to round up a bunch of cows destined to be turned into hand-tooled leather jackets?
DUST AND DIRT rose fifty feet straight up toward a cloudless sky before dissipating in a slight breeze. The noise was astounding—bawling cows, squealing calves and cowboys shouting X-rated obscenities children shouldn’t hear. The air reeked of smoke and burning leather.
“Mommy, look what they’re doing!” Melissa made a dash for the pen where they were branding the new calves.
Tasha snared her daughter by the back of her jacket. “Oh, no you don’t, young lady. Don’t you go running off on your own. Those cows will trample you if you’re not careful. You are to stay right next to me like we’re glued together.”
“But, Mommy!” Melissa whined.
Stevie had already raced ahead and was climbing the wooden fence surrounding the pen. “Stevie!” Tasha shrieked, envisioning the boy toppling over and falling beneath the hooves of the agitated animals.
Ella slipped little Jason into a sling across her middle and cuddled her baby next to her. “Stevie will be fine. He knows to stay out of the pen.”
Tasha lacked her sister’s confidence. The entire scene was as chaotic as the New York theater district right after the Broadway shows released their audiences, spilling them out onto the streets and sidewalks all at once. No one seemed to be in charge of the choreography. Cowboys on horseback darted through the milling herd, ropes twirling over their heads. Clutches of cows and
