Lisa Jackson – The Millionaire and the Cowgirl (страница 8)
The kid grinned. “You were lucky.”
He couldn’t argue the point. “She left me this ranch.”
“So you live here now?” Her mouth rounded in awe and those blue eyes sparkled like sunlight on a mountain lake. “Wow, you are lucky.”
“You think so?” He glanced around, noticed the weather vane mounted over the roof of the stables—a running horse—as it turned with the wind. “I guess so. Anyway, I’ll be here for a while. Until Christmas.” Why did he feel compelled to tell her his life story? Probably the clarity of her eyes. And deep down, he’d always liked kids.
“What then?”
“I’ll probably sell the place.”
“Why?”
“It’ll be time.”
“If I owned it, I’d never sell it. My mom says it’s the best ranch in the valley.”
“Does she?” Kyle couldn’t help but be amused. An interesting kid, this Caitlyn Rawlings. Precocious, smart and, he suspected, a little cunning.
She was already walking backward toward the lane. “I gotta git. Mom’ll be callin’ over to Tommy’s if I don’t phone her first and tell her that I got there.” Whirling on her heel, she made tracks down the lane, and Kyle watched her go. Instinctively he knew she was a tomboy who caught grasshoppers, splashed in creeks, probably shot a .22 and built forts out of hay bales. He doubted if she ever played with dolls, dressed up in her mother’s old clothes or hosted a tea party. Yep, he thought, watching her slide between two strands of barbed wire and start running across the western acres, she was definitely Sam’s daughter.
“Well, look at you,” Grant said as he stepped through the screen door and eyed his stepbrother half an hour after Kyle had met Caitlyn. “If I didn’t know better I’d think you were an honest-to-goodness cowboy.”
“Right,” Kyle drawled, sarcasm dripping from the single word.
“Got any coffee?”
“Instant.”
Grant’s grin inched a little wider. “What? No espresso or cappuccino or whatever the hell it is you city slickers drink?”
Kyle snorted. He couldn’t argue. His day in Minneapolis had usually started with a double latte, though he wasn’t about to admit it here. But he had to concede that his damned cowboy boots pinched a little and his jeans, newly purchased at the local dry-goods store, were still stiff with sizing. “Look, insult me all you want. I’m just bidin’ my time until I can sell the ranch and move on. This is day one of the next one hundred and eighty.”
“Noble of you,” Grant observed.
“Who ever said I was noble?”
“No one. Believe me.”
“That’s what I thought.” He’d never been one to pursue noble causes, didn’t know why anyone cared. Oh, sure, he held a grudging respect for people who fought for something they believed in, but he wasn’t surprised when the fight backfired and the erstwhile heroes got their teeth knocked in. Kyle figured as long as he didn’t break any laws or step too hard on anyone’s toes, nothing else much mattered. His only regret, and one that he’d buried deeper than he cared to admit, was Sam. Seeing her again reminded him just how close he’d been to her. But that was a long time ago. They’d been kids. They’d been as wrong for each other then as they were now.
Grant hung his hat on a peg near the back door, then slid into a chair at the old maple table, the same ladder-back one he’d claimed as a kid, as Kyle poured them each a cup of the stuff he called coffee. “So you saw Sam again,” Grant said as Kyle handed him a mug that was hot to the touch.
“Yesterday. She was workin’ with that devil you inherited.”
“Only one who can handle him.”
“That so?”
“Sam’s become quite a horsewoman.”
Was there a note of awe in his stepbrother’s voice? For some unnamed reason Kyle experienced a jab of jealousy. Not that he had any reason to care. “I suppose she has.”
Grant took a long swallow of coffee and wrinkled his nose. “No one bothered to teach you how to cook.”
“Tell me about Sam.” Sitting on one worn, maple seat, he propped the heel of one boot on the chair next to him.
“She’s been a godsend. When Jim got sick, she took over. Stepped right into her dad’s shoes. He taught her everything she knows about ranchin’, which is one helluva lot, and when he died, she ran things here as well as at her own place.” He swirled the contents of his cup and frowned. “Kate depended on Sam to keep things going when she wasn’t around, even though she hired one guy—Red Spencer—as foreman. He wasn’t as sharp as Jim, and Sam helped out when she could. Then Red retired and everything fell on Sam’s shoulders. Kate paid her and tried to find someone else, but no one was as honest and straightforward as Samantha Rawlings. No one else really cared about the ranch and then…well, Kate died and Sam stepped in.”
“Sounds like she walks on water.” This time Kyle was certain he’d heard a hint of reverence in his stepbrother’s voice.
“Don’t tell her that.”
He twisted his cup in his hands. “Or else you’re half in love with her.”
Grant grinned and ran a hand through his short, sandy brown hair. “Me? No way, and I pity the poor fool who is. She’s one mule-headed lady. I like my women a little bit less short-tempered.”
“Oh, yeah, right.” Kyle wasn’t convinced and didn’t bother hiding his feelings. Grant had been a bachelor for years, but he wasn’t immune to women—especially the smart, good-looking kind. Like Sam. “I met her kid today.”
“Caitlyn?”
“Mmm. She was here less than half an hour ago. Looks a lot like her ma.”
“Yeah. Same temperament, too. Kinda has a way of weaseling her way into your heart.”
“Like Sam does?”
Grant grinned and his eyes glinted. “Why would you care?”
“I don’t.”
“Well, speak of the devil,” Grant said at the sound of a truck roaring down the lane. A plume of dust followed the old Dodge as it rumbled to a stop near the house. “I think I’d better see how she’s gettin’ along with Joker.”
“The devil horse? Not too well, if yesterday’s exhibition was any indication.”
“You want to try a hand with him?”
“Hell no. The farther I am from that mean bastard, the better I’ll like it. If Kate hadn’t seen fit to let you have him, I would have probably sold him to the glue factory,” Kyle said, but a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.
“Sure.” Grant finished his coffee, but his eyes never left the window and Sam’s truck.
“Look, I have to live here for the next six months, but I don’t think there was anything in my legacy about risking life and limb trying to train some self-important stud how to follow on a lead rope.”
“I assume you’re talking about the horse and not about me.” Grant was still staring out the window, and Kyle let his own gaze follow as Samantha hopped to the ground and blew her bangs from her eyes.
“Take it any way you want,” Kyle said. “You know, she looks mad enough to spit nails. I think I’ll go check on my horse.”
“Chicken.”
Grant reached for his hat. “You bet. I made a promise to myself years ago that I would never sit around and be chewed out by a woman before ten in the morning. It starts the day off on the wrong foot.” His eyes narrowed as he rammed the hat on his head. “You know the saying about someone getting a bee in her bonnet? This may just be a guess, but from the looks of her, I’d say Samantha has a hornet’s nest in hers.”
Samantha slammed the door of her pickup. Her jeans were tight and black, her shirt faded denim with the sleeves rolled to her elbows, as if she were ready for a fight. Her lips were compressed into a firm, determined line. Before Grant could walk out the back door, she stormed in, the screen door slapping shut behind her.
Kyle felt a smile stretch across his face, though he wished he could hide his amusement, because if looks could kill, he’d have dropped dead the second she swung her furious green gaze in his direction.
“Mornin’, Sam,” Grant drawled.
“Mornin’,” she offered.
“I was just leavin’.”
“Wait. I was gonna call you,” she said, laying a hand on Grant’s arm—so friendly and intimate it made Kyle’s teeth grate. “What do you want to do about Joker now that Kyle’s back?”
“I’ll move him in the next week or so. No hurry. By that time I assume he’ll walk docilely up the ramp into the trailer.”
Sam couldn’t help but grin, and Kyle felt an unwanted kick in his gut. How many times had she, a tomboy of seventeen, trained that smile on him?
“I guess that’s up to Kyle. He’s in charge now.” Her smile faded and was replaced by her original expression, the one plastered on her face as she’d marched grimly to the porch. Tiny white lines pinched the corners of her mouth, a deep furrow was wedged between her eyebrows and the skin over her cheekbones was stretched as taut as a hide ready for tanning as her gaze landed full force on Kyle again. Some of the starch seemed to leave her for a second before she said, “I just came by to pick up some of my things. Now that Kyle’s here, it doesn’t make much sense for me to hang around.”
She breezed past Grant.
“Samantha? Wait a minute. You’re not giving up on Joker, are you?”
“Maybe Kyle can handle him.”
“In his dreams,” Grant replied.