Harlequin Superromance January 2014 - Bundle 2 of 2: A Ranch for His Family\Cowgirl in High Heels\A Man to Believe In (28 page)

She preferred running—toward a goal if possible. And that was the problem. Until she had a goal, a written plan, she wouldn't be able to relax.

So instead she continued pacing, trying to order her thoughts.

Ellie didn't know what time she'd finally crawled into bed and fallen asleep, but she did know what time she woke: nine o'clock on the nose, when her phone rang. She rolled over in her unfamiliar bed to answer it.

“Hello, Ellie? How are you finding Montana?” her aunt inquired in her languid voice.

“So far, so good.” Ellie lay back against the pillows and pushed her hair away from her forehead with one hand.

“Have you talked to your mother yet?” Which was code for,
Have you told her you're pregnant?

“Not recently.” Nothing new there. She'd traveled the globe without much contact with her mother, and vice versa. She was actually closer to her aunt, which was rather sad, considering the fact that Angela wasn't going to win any Mother of the Year awards herself. But she was slightly less self-centered than her sister.

“What do you think of the house?”

“It's...rustic,” Ellie said, feeling it best not to mention that she'd found herself unable to imagine either her aunt or her uncle living there.

“I
know,
” Angela said on a groan. “I have some work ahead of me. Sorry about the lack of furniture.”

“There's enough for me,” Ellie said. “By the way, I can't find the employment records.”

“They should be there...somewhere,” Angela said absently, telling Ellie exactly how important such things were to her.

“I can't find the employees, either.”

“Really? Then who's running the ranch?”

“Good question.” Ellie rubbed her fingertips over her forehead. “Do you have any idea what's involved in running a ranch?” She was curious whether Angela had any inkling at all, or if they were both equally clueless.

“No idea. This is Milo's baby.” Angela spoke with tolerant affection and, indeed, she was devoted to her husband, who in return showed his love by giving her everything she wanted.

That said, Angela hadn't been all that broken up about her husband's retirement being delayed after he'd been named chief of staff three months ago, and Ellie understood why. Angela did not have a rural bone in her body. Milo, on the other hand, had appeared torn between accepting the job he'd always wanted and retiring to his ranch to take over operations. Ultimately, though, he chose the job he'd been striving for his entire career—and therein lay the rub.

There were a lot of unknowns about the Rocky View Ranch that needed to be addressed. Such as could it be more profitable? Was it being run well? Her uncle had put off getting immediate answers to those questions, leaving the existing management in place after the purchase, thinking he'd be there within a year to observe operations and make decisions. But now things had changed, and that was where both Ellie and the consultant came in.

“Milo's baby is beautiful,” she said to her aunt with a slight smile. “I'll find out what I can about operations, fill him in.” This was not her field of expertise, but employees were employees and efficiency was efficiency. And until she figured out her next steps in life, she'd have plenty of opportunity to observe.

“Exactly what we wanted, dear. You really are doing us a favor.”

Ha.
They were doing her the favor. Ellie was about to say something to that effect when the back door rattled, startling her.

“There's someone at the door,” Ellie said.

“Maybe one of your lost employees.”

“Maybe,” Ellie said. “I'll talk to you later.” She set the phone on the table as she passed through the kitchen to the back door, which rattled again as the tall dark-headed kid who stood outside knocked.

“Jessie wanted me to bring you this,” the boy said, holding out a box. Ellie automatically took it, noting that the bottom was warm just before the spicy pumpkin scent hit her nostrils full force and made her stomach roil. “It's a pie,” he added helpfully.

“Thank you,” Ellie said, looking around for a place to set the box out of olfactory range. “I'll, uh, just put it in the fridge.”

“It's warm. Jessie says it'll do something funny if you put it in the fridge before it cools.”

“Okay, then,” Ellie said, setting the pie on the counter as she tried to gain control over her stomach. “I'm Ellison Hunter.”

“Nice to meet you,” the boy said as if by rote. Someone had taught him manners.

“And you are?”

“Oh. I'm Lonnie. I live one place over.”

Well, that explained nothing. “Do you know where Mr. Feldman is?” she asked, noticing that the truck that had been parked next to the small house was now gone, although the long horse trailer was still there.

“No.”

“How about Mr. Madison?”

“Ryan? He's probably gone.” The kid kicked at the step, looking as if he wanted to escape.

Not yet.
“Gone, as in...”

“He had a rodeo this weekend,” the kid said as if that answered everything.

“How long does the rodeo last?”

“His part?” The boy screwed up his face. “Only a day usually, but it's a long drive home.”

It was Monday. A workday in her book. Perhaps the employees worked flex time. Ellie had no way of knowing, since there appeared to be no records on the ranch other than a file folder with tax information.

“Great. Well—” she held out a hand “—it's good to meet you.”

The kid grabbed her extended hand, pumped it once, hard, then released it. Ellie smiled briefly, waiting until the kid had started down the steps to the all-terrain vehicle parked near the front gate before rubbing her hands together to get the feeling back into the one he'd just crushed. The kid was almost to the bottom of the walk when he turned. “Hey, you might want to keep an eye out for Hiss.”

“Hiss?”

“He catches mice. He's harmless.”

“Hiss is a cat?” Ellie asked, wondering why she needed to keep an eye out for it.

“A snake,” Lonnie called, then with a cheerful wave got on his ATV and started the motor.

“Great,” Ellie muttered. “Thanks.” Mr. Madison was at the rodeo, Mr. Feldman was nowhere to be found and she needed to watch out for Hiss the snake. She couldn't say she was overly impressed with Milo's ranch operations so far.

Ellie stepped back into the kitchen, then instantly turned toward fresh air as the pumpkin smell hit her. Taking a deep breath and holding it, she went inside, picked up the box with the pie and opened the sliding door off the dining room. She set the box on the back-patio picnic table, then quickly went back into the house. The smell lingered, not as strongly as before, but enough that Ellie knew she'd be spending some time at the other end of the house.

The baby suddenly seemed a bit more real.

CHAPTER THREE

“I
T
WAS
BAD
,” Francisco said as he took the cup of coffee Lydia handed him. “Not as bad as right after he signed the sale papers, but I think he can't hold his alcohol as well as he used to.”

“If he's going to do this every time someone from the family comes to the ranch... Well, that isn't going to work at all,” Lydia said. “He's going to—” She abruptly closed her mouth as the bathroom door opened, and then slow footsteps came down the hall.

“Son of a bitch,” Walt muttered as he walked into the kitchen, rubbing a hand over his forehead. “Where's the truck that hit me?”

“The truck had a big Budweiser logo emblazoned on the side,” Lydia said as she folded a dish towel. “And you know better than to stand in the middle of the street in front of it. Sit down.”

Walt sat. He was a small guy, with a thin, wiry frame that had caused a lot of people to misjudge his strength in his younger days. “Who rescued me?”

Francisco raised a hand.

“I owe you.”

“Yeah, you do,” Francisco said. “More than that, you owe Jessie. It was bath night.”

“Sorry about that.” He raised red-rimmed eyes toward Ryan. “You're quiet.” Ryan shrugged. “Did you win?”

“Of course he won,” Lydia snapped. “The question is, are you going to keep doing this?”

“What?” Walt blinked at her.

“What?” Lydia propped a hand on her aproned hip and waved her spatula at him. “Drinking yourself into oblivion whenever the Bradworths show up.”

“That's not—”

“Bull. How do you want your eggs?”

“Scrambled.”

“How about you?” she asked Ryan, eyeing him carefully.

She had her mother radar on full force, having sensed something was off the moment he'd walked in the door with Francisco, twenty minutes before. There was no way he was telling her he'd had contact with the Montoyas. As far as he was concerned, that episode was over and done—unless, of course, his father did something stupid.

“I've got to get to the vet clinic pretty soon,” Ryan said.

“After you eat.”

“Scrambled,” he said. Another hard mother stare and then Lydia turned back to her eggs. Ryan scowled at Walt. “Francisco will take you home and then you'd better clean up—just in case this lady wants to talk to you.”

“Just like last time,” Walt muttered. When it'd taken Ryan a good day to calm him down after he'd discovered what Mrs. Bradworth had in mind for his ancestral home.

“I know what you're thinking,” Walt said in a grim voice.

“Yeah?” Ryan bit.

“You're thinking that it's stupid of me to stay at the ranch when it hurts knowing someone else owns it.” Walt placed his palms flat on the lace tablecloth. “Well, they might own the business, but I don't feel like they own the land. They don't know nothing about the land. That land is still mine.”

Lydia's eyebrows went up from where she was stirring the eggs at the counter behind Walt.

“I'm part of it,” Walt said. “I'm gonna die there.”

Lydia gave her head a shake and poured the eggs into the pan.

Ryan tamped down the twinge of alarm that had started to rise. Walt had never talked of dying before. “If you're talking about taking yourself out—”

Walt's eyes flashed up. “I didn't say I was going to die
soon.
Or that I was going to take myself out. Just that I'm never leaving my property.”

“In that case, play ball. Okay?”

“I'll do my best,” Walt grumbled.

“See to it.”

Fifteen minutes later Francisco escorted a muttering Walt to his pickup for the drive back to the ranch while Ryan hung around a few minutes to help his mother clean the kitchen. He figured, vet or no vet, it was the least he could do.

“I don't like this dying talk,” Ryan muttered as he closed the dishwasher and set the controls.

“You aren't his keeper, son.” Lydia brushed wisps of blond hair off her forehead. Despite the rather tumultuous life she'd led, his mother looked younger than her fifty years.

“Closest thing he's got,” Ryan said, wiping his hands on a towel and then hanging it to dry.

Lydian touched his shoulder. “I heard about Matt Montoya.”

Ryan sucked in a breath, wondering how his mom could mention Matt's name so casually. “Yeah.”

“How you doing with that?”

Ryan met his mother's eyes, so like his own. “I don't quite know yet.”

* * *

I
T
TOOK
A
good twenty minutes before Ellie could no longer smell pumpkin, nutmeg and cloves, even with the windows cracked open. The sad thing was that Ellie loved pumpkin pie—or rather, she had.

Finally she ventured into the kitchen and closed the windows, then took a cautious breath. All clear.

Relieved to have the kitchen back, she put the shiny new kettle on the burner to brew some of Angela's chamomile tea. She ripped open the packet, then quickly sniffed it to make sure the baby didn't object before dropping the tea bag in the mug.

Reality was definitely setting in. A reality she hadn't counted on and frankly didn't think she deserved. She'd planned her life so carefully, after all. Had dotted her
i'
s, crossed her
t'
s. Sacrificed. Stayed in and studied when other people went out during college. Worked overtime. Volunteered for assignments.

Sleeping with the handsome guy from Atlanta hadn't exactly been her usual modus operandi. Even flirting with him had been outside her usual code of conduct, since they were employed by the same company in different branches. But he'd been smooth and funny. Charming. Determined to get her to bed before she made her final consulting trip to Atlanta. And Ellie had enjoyed the journey.

He hadn't called after their hot night together. The pursuit had ended and Ellie had chalked it up to been-there-done-that. She'd indulged in a one-nighter and had enjoyed it...right up until the new regional manager, who would be overseeing her office from his Atlanta locale, was announced two weeks later. Nick Phillips.

That had been the first sucker punch. The second was when she'd discovered that Nick was now a newlywed. Ellie had been his last hurrah. Fine. He could have been more honest, but she hadn't been looking for a relationship.

And then she'd missed her period.

That was one too many punches. She could work for a man with whom she'd had a fling. The fact that he was now married made it easier. But she couldn't do that while carrying his child....

Ellie felt the familiar throb at the base of her skull at the thought. Anxiety and stress—a different kind of stress from the work-related kind that energized her.

She'd thrown up after reading her first pregnancy test, and not because of morning sickness. Another test, taken with hands that shook, gave the same result. And for the first time in her life, Ellie had no idea what to do or how to deal with the numb realization that her life would never be the same.

Denial seemed a viable option. Gallons of ice cream another.

Instead she had called Nick and told him the facts: she was pregnant and he was the father. He'd instantly offered her money, for medical costs, for support, for silence. The silence had been his utmost concern. Or perhaps she would consider a termination....

Ellie had made no promises, told him she'd think about the money, hung up the phone and then drafted her letter of resignation.

Never in her life had she reacted to a situation with her emotions leading the charge, but never in her life had she encountered a situation such as this. Or dreamed she ever would. The reason planners planned was to avoid these kinds of situations.

Ellie took her tea to the dining room table, sat with a notebook and started doing what she should have done from day one: writing down her goals and the necessary steps to achieve them.

Goal—
Her pen stilled. She briefly closed her eyes, then wrote
Have a healthy baby.

There. No more denial. She was pregnant. In seven and a half months she would be a mother.

Steps to achievement. One: seek prenatal care. Two: research pregnancy.

Ellie's pen hovered for a moment before she wrote:

Goal—Use time at ranch constructively to prepare for personal future.

She had no idea what her steps were there, so she skipped a few lines and moved on to the next item.

Goal—Present Milo with understandable overview of ranch operations to enable him to make future ranch management decisions.

That was what he'd hired the consultant to do, but having another point of reference wouldn't hurt matters.

Steps to achievement. One: observe ranch operations on a daily basis.

She wasn't certain of what she would learn, since she was starting from ground zero, but it seemed like the logical first step.

Two: informally evaluate employee performance, goals, strengths, weaknesses.

Now, that she could do.

Three: observe operations at other ranches and compare to Milo's operation.

Again logical.

Four: meet with consultant.

There. Two goals set out in a businesslike manner. Three if she counted the one with no steps, but she didn't because a nebulous goal was more like a wish.

Feeling slightly more in control, she pushed the notebook aside and sipped her tea. This was a start. A good start. She had direction. She reached for the pen again, hesitated, settled her left hand on her abdomen before she wrote,
Research OBs. Make baby appointment.

* * *

F
INALLY
.

Ellie heard the truck approaching and pulled open the front room curtains to get a look at it, wrinkling her nose as dust wafted into the air. Whoever was cleaning this place needed a few lessons.

The red pickup pulled in between the small house and the barn, just as it had the night before, but this time she got a better look at the driver. Tallish, lean build, neatly dressed in jeans and a short jacket, ball cap over sandy hair.

He shot a quick look in Ellie's direction before he mounted the porch, and she instinctively stepped back even though he probably couldn't see her. As soon as he disappeared inside his house, Ellie slid her feet into her shoes and headed for the door, intent on intercepting him before he took off again.

The sun was out, but the air was crisp as she crossed the wide graveled area between the main house and barn. She hugged her arms around herself, wishing she'd grabbed a coat, but not wanting to turn back. She mounted the single porch step and crossed the creaking planks to the weathered six-paneled door, where she knocked once before rubbing her hands briskly over her upper arms. If this was what summer felt like in Montana, she didn't think she'd want to spend a winter here. She was about to knock again when she heard movement from inside the house, and then a second later the door opened and Ellie found herself face-to-face with a rather incredible pair of greenish-gray eyes in an angular, magazine-worthy face. No wonder Montana was so popular.

“Hi,” the guy said with a frown that made Ellie realize she'd been staring. “Do you need help with something?”

“Are you Mr. Feldman?”

The frown cleared. “Madison. Ryan Madison.”

Ellie extended her hand. “Ellison Hunter. I'm Angela and Milo's niece.”

Ryan took her hand briefly, then released it, but not before she'd registered how very callused his palm was. “Nice to meet you,” he said, sounding very much like Lonnie, the pie delivery boy. “I hope you enjoy your stay.” And that had been Jessie's line.

“Yes, about that... It's more than just a stay.” She sensed Ryan Madison taking a mental step back. After five years of working in human resources, she was pretty good at reading people, reading reactions. Most of the time anyway. She'd totally missed the boat with Nick and was now paying a very steep price. “I'm here to learn about the ranch.”

“Learn what?” he asked.

“How it's run.”

“Do the Bradworths have a problem with the way the place is run?”

“They don't know yet,” Ellie said matter-of-factly. “That's why I'm here. I'm sure everything is fine, but you can see where my aunt and uncle need to be brought up to speed before moving onto the property.”

“Of course,” Ryan said. His hand was still on the door, as if he wanted to be able to close it as quickly as possible. “What can I do to help?”

“I'd like to meet with all the employees, discuss their duties. Get to know the operation and work from there.”

Ryan nodded, but gave no answer.

“I'd like to start soon.”

His eyebrows lifted. “How soon?”

“Well, as soon as it's convenient.” She wanted something to do, something to focus on.

“Are you thinking today?”

“I was.”

“Fine.”

But she had a feeling it wasn't. “I need to get in touch with the other employees and don't have the means to do so. I can't find any records.”

“There are three of us. Francisco Garcia, Walt and myself.”

“Could you give me cell numbers?” she asked.

“I can for Francisco,” he said. “Walt doesn't have a cell phone.”

“Really?”

“Old school.”

She didn't like the sound of that. Old school was not usually the best practice when it came to business, but then Angela had said the place was about fifty years behind the times.

“I'll have him get hold of you,” Ryan said.

“That's what Mrs. Garcia said yesterday.”

“Jessie's kind of busy with the kids right now. Maybe it slipped her mind. I'll have Walt down here by the end of the day.”