Winning Over the Rancher. Mary Brady
and when she put her soft hand in his, she gripped solidly.
“Welcome to the Shadow Range Eco Ranch project,” he said, and found himself sincerely meaning it.
Either he was a step closer to his dream and his quest, or he’d chased them out onto the far horizon. Whatever happened, he found himself wanting her to succeed for herself, as well as each and every Doyle.
“Now tell me what you think,” she said as she let go of his hand and sat back in the chair.
Baylor shifted. Tell her what he thought? That she’s hot or that he was already in trouble because he was beginning to see why his family wanted to hire and protect her?
“I like to think I’m an open-minded kind of person. I admit, your—”
“Pregnancy, sex, age?” She grinned.
“Once I realized you couldn’t be as young as you look, that was not even a consideration.
“As for your being female, you’ve met Holly, Amy and my mother and…they don’t balk at much.” An image of his missing sister pushed into his thoughts. She had one of her defiant looks on her face and her hands were balled into offensive fists. “And they’re tame compared to my sister, Crystal.”
He could see KayLee wanted to ask about Crystal, but he wasn’t ready to talk to anyone yet because he had nothing of substance to say. So he hurried on. “Your proposal offers the most support and oversight—with the possible exception of a period of time when you will be otherwise occupied. If you are as good as you say you are, I expect this job will go well.”
She gave a heavy sigh of relief and a warm smile that a part of him wanted to interpret as sexy.
“I expect the same. If I could, I’d like to look around a bit, see the place I proposed the first cabin be built.”
“Now?”
“The sun shines. Isn’t that when I’m supposed to make hay?”
K. L. Morgan kept surprising him with her understanding of the situation. She might work out better, though, if he could pretend she was the mid-forties man he had expected.
“Do you have warmer clothes?” he asked.
She glanced down at her blue dress. “I have different clothes. Warmer, probably not.”
“Boots?”
She lifted a foot with a shoe meant for a city street. “This is the best I’ve got. The boots I have are not the sort you’re talking about.”
“I’ll find a warmer coat for you and we’ll mostly stay in the truck.”
“Do you think Holly and Amy might be willing to advise me on wardrobe shopping?”
“I think Holly and Amy would do anything you asked them to do.”
She blinked at him as if she were having a hard time believing what he said.
“KayLee, this is the St. Adelbert Valley. The Doyle women probably already have a place in mind for you to live, a trip to Kalispell for supplies planned and a crib to lend you. Believe it or not, you have already won the esteem of our sheriff. Most of the people here in this valley will need no more than that to welcome you and offer you whatever help they can give you.”
She studied her fingers for a long moment and then shifted her scrutiny to him. “I knew I wasn’t in California anymore.”
“This will sound like some sort of a threat, and it could be. With the exception of a few ornery ones, the people here will believe in you quickly and be loyal.”
“Accept me first, and I get to decide whether or not I break their hearts? Warning taken. I’ll be careful with them.”
He nodded. “I’ll get you a coat.”
Baylor escaped the office and headed down the hallway toward the mudroom, which was located at the side entrance to the house.
Was that tears he had seen in her eyes? Give him a couple cows having difficult calvings and a runaway mule. Those things he could handle.
He searched the closet for a coat that was big enough to fit around KayLee, but the first two he considered would have swallowed her up.
Now that he had made the decision to hire her, even if it was temporary, he’d do what he could himself to help her. The two of them could finalize the plans, scout out materials and hire laborers. There were locals chomping at the bit to have gainful employment. Calving was nearly at an end, branding and spring clean up would soon be under control, and there would more idle hands around.
The job in Denver was a chance of a lifetime, a stepping-off point to launch him in the world outside the small valley where he’d spent most of his life. If K. L. Morgan could get this job done, she could set him free. He held up a green kid’s jacket. He was getting closer.
If she couldn’t get the job done, she could end up tying him to this valley until the next chance of a lifetime came up. Yep, two once-in-a-lifetime chances. As if that were going to happen.
The lead he had on Crystal hadn’t panned out yesterday, but that didn’t mean the next one wouldn’t. She was in Denver—that much he knew.
“How about this one?” Holly reached around him and pulled out a work jacket. “I wore it when I was pregnant with Katie about this time two years ago.”
“Thanks.” He didn’t even want to guess how she knew what he was searching for in the closet. Made him crazy when he tried to figure things like that out about Holly and Amy.
“So, is she in or out?” his dad asked from the doorway of the mudroom.
“She gets a chance to try, and she wants a look around.”
“Yippee!” Holly clapped her hands together once and sped away, no doubt off to tell the others.
“You don’t seem thrilled,” his dad said when Holly was out of earshot.
Baylor shrugged. “I’ll keep thrilled corralled up until we see how things go.”
“Fair ’nough.”
KAYLEE SLUMPED IN THE CHAIR. She should feel excited about this job, ecstatic even. All she felt right now was scared. She’d just promised to make a future for these people. This was more personal than any of the California projects had been. The good feelings must be on their way later.
She’d had things all mapped out in her mind even before she got here. She’d come to the valley, do the job, have a safe and snug place to raise her child for the first year or so, then move on and build her company…probably back in California.
Things had gotten complicated right off the bat, starting with the warm and fuzzy feelings she already had growing inside her regarding the people who lived in and around the town of St. Adelbert. The people at the Easy Breezy Inn had given her a room at ten o’clock in the morning without charging extra, so she could freshen up for her interview with the Doyle family. The gas station attendant at the self-service station had insisted on pumping her gas and washing her bug-spattered windshield and headlamps. That guy—Barry, he called himself—had worked really hard on those dried bugs.
Everyone here was eerily nice.
That gave her pause. Were they too nice? What if they were part of a cult or aliens from outer space?
Whoa! She stopped herself from thinking wild movie-making fantasies.
Worse, however, what if the time came for her to leave, and she still had no place to go, no prospective home? She could do it to her pregnant self, but could she force the itinerant life on a child?
And what if she didn’t want to leave the valley at all?
It had been easy letting go of California. When her husband died, her life there had simply evaporated.
She should have made