Harlequin Superromance January 2014 - Bundle 2 of 2: A Ranch for His Family\Cowgirl in High Heels\A Man to Believe In (42 page)

Ryan leaned his shoulder against the trailer. What could he say after she'd shared her situation?

Nothing.
He hoped she could understand that.

“Okay, I do have a few things on my mind, but the truth is...there are confidences involved.” He hated answering like that, but didn't know what else he could say. “I really can't talk about it.”

Ellie considered his answer for a moment, her green eyes narrowing slightly. “So you asked me to come along with you as a distraction from...whatever?”

Ryan let out a soft snort. “Sounds kind of crummy put that way.”

“I don't think so. In fact, I totally understand.”

He smiled slowly, and for the first time all day, it felt genuine. And a moment later Ellie smiled back. They hadn't shared one damned confidence, but somehow it felt as if they had. And he was grateful that she could let the matter alone.

“You want to grab something to eat before we head home?” he asked. “There's a steakhouse at the edge of town where we can grab a late lunch. Or we could stay for the rest of the rodeo.”

“Let's get out of here.” He wanted to leave and she saw no reason to stay. But she really, really wanted to know what was eating at him.... She hoped it wasn't a certain old man back at the ranch, because she had a very bad feeling about his future.

* * *

W
HILE
THEY
WERE
at the restaurant, Ryan was able to do the impossible and push his father and his brother to the back of his mind and focus on Ellie.

“You're kidding,” she said, grimacing at the menu after he'd explained that Rocky Mountain oysters were not freshwater shellfish. “Testicles?”

“An acquired taste,” he said.

“Do
you
like them?”

He considered the question and then said, “I don't think I'll answer that.”

“You
do
like them,” she said, pointing her finger at him. “What do they taste like?”

“Chicken?” he said, and Ellie laughed. “Order them. Find out.”

“I don't think so,” she said primly as the server approached. She smiled up at the kid, dressed in Wrangler jeans and a checked shirt. “What do you recommend?”

The kid stared at Ellie for a moment, seemingly lost in her rather dazzling smile...as was Ryan. “Uh...” Ryan knew it was coming, had experienced the phenomenon himself, and sure enough, the kid's voice broke as he answered. “The, uh, chicken-fry steak is really good and so is the, uh, pork-chop sandwich.”

Ellie raised her eyebrows at Ryan over the menu. “I'll have the chicken fry. Half portion.”

“You can take the rest home,” Ryan pointed out.

“Full portion,” she amended. “With salad. Blue cheese dressing.”

The kid wrote furiously, apparently spelling out each word in its entirety. “And for you, sir?”

Rocky Mountain oysters?
Ellie mouthed silently.

Ryan smirked at her before saying, “I'll have the same as the lady.”

“I don't know about you Westerners,” she said as the kid walked away. “Testicles on the menu?”

“No worse than heart, liver or brains. The organ meats have their own special charm.”

“If you say so.” Ellie grimaced before she smiled at him again.

Ryan noticed that since arriving in Montana, she'd developed a few freckles across her nose, making him wonder how much time she'd spent indoors in her old life...the life she was going back to.

“Speaking of charm, when is our boy George showing up?” he asked.

“Within a week. His contract got extended at his previous job.”

“Once he got extended for a year, I hear.”

Ellie's eyebrows rose. “Really? That must have been lucrative.”

Ryan lifted his beer. “George is industrious...and he likes to fire people.”

“So you've said.”

Ryan debated about continuing, then figured he had to do what he could when he could. “I'm worried about Walt. It would kill him to get fired, and you could do something about that.”

The look that crossed Ellie's face told him that she'd expected him to mention Walt once George's name came up. So she'd been thinking about the old man, too. And apparently not in a hopeful way, judging from her expression. She shook her head. “I can't. And neither can you. It's up to Walt.”

“He's an old man. All he wants to do is to die on his property someday.”

“It's not his property, Ryan.”

His mouth tightened. There was no logical argument he could make, but the fact was that in Walt's mind it was still his and it would destroy him to have to leave.

“Is there any chance you can be merciful to an old man?”

“It has nothing to do with mercy, Ryan. It has to do with reality.”

Ryan set his beer down.
Way to destroy a mood, Madison....
Not that the mood was important. It wasn't as though it was going anywhere. He met Ellie's eyes and she smiled that cool smile that told him fun and games were over. She was a woman who'd made decisions about hiring and firing for a living—she wasn't one to be swayed by sentiment, but that didn't mean he wasn't going to try.

“I really care about Walt.”

“I know, Ryan.”

And that was that. Subject closed. The server came and plopped salads down in front of them. Ellie picked up her fork, met Ryan's eyes then put her fork down again. “I won't make promises I can't keep,” she said. “It's not something I do.”

Ryan took in a long breath, then exhaled slowly. “And I guess I can't ask you to.”

* * *

D
AMNED
W
ALT
.
Even when he wasn't there he managed to inject surliness into the moment. But maybe it was for the best. Maybe she'd been enjoying her time with Ryan just a little too much.

No, she'd definitely been enjoying it too much.

They solemnly finished the dinner that had started out so well talking about the rodeo and Ellie's garden. Safe topics. Boring topics. Good old Walt. If anyone was going to keep her grounded in reality, it was that old coot.

After dinner they walked silently out to the truck. Ellie put her take-home box in the cooler, then a few minutes later Ryan put the truck in gear and pulled out of the parking lot onto the highway that led back to the ranch in a two-hundred-mile straight shot. They rode for long moments in heavy silence and Ellie wondered if it was better to stay locked in her own thoughts or to make some kind of mindless conversation. It was Ryan, though, who broke the silence.

“What happens if you can't find a job in your field?”

“Good question,” Ellie murmured, thinking this was her punishment for holding the line with Walt.

“Do you have geographical considerations?”

“Excuse me?”

“Will the father be involved with your child?”

Ellie laughed before she could stop herself. “Hardly.” When he looked over at her, she said, “He's married.” Ryan's expression instantly shuttered and he turned his eyes back to the road. “That was a quick judgment,” she murmured.

“I'm not judging you.”

“Yeah. I think you are, but it's my fault for dropping the information like that. Although I don't know how to pretty it up.”

“Did you know he was married?” Ryan asked after several silent miles.

The sudden question surprised her, as if he was looking for a way to exonerate her from whatever judgment he'd made. “Would that matter?”

“No.”

“No, as in there's no excuse for getting involved with a married man?”

“No, as in I understand that things like this happen.”

“Do you?” she asked in a disbelieving voice.

He glanced over to meet her eyes and she could see how very serious he was when he said, “Yeah. I do. Better than you might think.”

“Has it happened to you?” she asked.

“Not to me, personally.”

Ellie let out a sigh and let her head fall back against the headrest. “He wasn't married at the time. He was engaged and got married two weeks later. We lived in different cities. I didn't know about his fiancée.”

“Sounds like a stellar kind of guy.”

“He had a few positive traits,” Ellie said. If he hadn't, she wouldn't have slept with him, but the negatives far outweighed the positives now. “And I didn't do due diligence.” She looked out the window. She would never make that mistake again.

* * *

E
LLIE
FEEL
ASLEEP
about fifty miles from home. There hadn't been much to say after the explanation of her situation—it didn't seem like the time to shift awkwardly into chitchat about the rodeo or the scenery.

When he'd asked her to come along with him yesterday, his hope had been that they could distract one another. Well, it'd worked. He was now distracted, wondering what kind of an asshole would sleep with a woman while engaged. No, wait. He knew the answer to that because he was closely related to a guy like that.

Did the jerk's bride know that he'd knocked up another woman? Ryan's hunch was no. Which left Ellie in the same position as his mother—raising the kid alone. Except that Ellie had more financial resources than his mother had had, and he sincerely hoped that she had demanded child support from the father.

Ryan's fingers tightened on the wheel and he made an effort to relax them. He'd bet that Charles had never once thought that lack of paying child support would come back to bite him in the ass as it was now, thanks to Lydia having had enough. Maybe he should take the deal...except it would kill him to take money from the Montoyas. And again he wondered if his brother was somehow involved, egging Charles on, making certain that he would receive his full inheritance.

Ellie stirred in her sleep, the coat she'd draped over herself slipping into the seat beside her. Ryan automatically reached over and pulled it back over her. The gut-level attraction he felt toward her was subtly shifting into protective mode now that he knew her circumstances, which was a good thing...if he could keep it there.

She was sexy. She was off-limits.

She was probably going to fire Walt.

* * *

E
LLIE
WAS
AWAKENED
the next morning by the landline ringing in the living room. She glanced at the clock and groaned. Eight o'clock. After lying awake last night for most of the night, fighting regrets while telling herself she'd done the right thing, all she needed was a blasted phone call a few hours after she'd fallen asleep.

She cleared her voice, picked up the phone, said hello.

“Hello?” The voice was deep, pleasant, masculine. “George Monroe here. I wanted to let you know I'm available to start work immediately. I'd like to discuss preliminaries with you today after I set up, then start my observations day after tomorrow, if that can be arranged.”

“Set up?”

“I bring my own mobile home to the ranches. That way I have a base to operate from without putting out the owner.”

“Then I guess I'll see you later today, Mr. Monroe.”

“George.”

“George. See you then.”

Ellie hung up and then ran a hand through her hair as she wondered how this evaluation process was going to play out. If Walt was fired, then Ryan was going, too, and regardless of what was happening between them, Ellie hated to think of him leaving the place he'd put so much into. He was qualified and adaptable. Francisco was staying no matter what. He did his job well and he had an attitude of quiet professionalism that Angela would respect. Ellie was personally going to see to it that he still had a job when George was done. But Walt... He was his own worst enemy. He was also providing quite a decent—and perhaps necessary—block between her and Ryan, who'd barely said a word to her after she'd confessed the paternity of her child. He said he wasn't judging her, but she definitely felt judged.

All for the best, really.

George arrived two hours after his call, pulling a sleek travel trailer behind his shiny black dual-wheeled pickup truck. He pulled to a stop in front of the house, where Ellie met him, and indicated with an engaging smile that he thought the best place for his trailer was in the shade of the bunkhouse. Ellie agreed, although she'd actually have preferred to not have him so close to the main house. It was interesting how living on the ranch for only a matter of weeks had changed her perspective on privacy. Just having him here gave her the uncomfortable feeling that her space had been invaded.

As George set up, Ellie retreated to the privacy of the backyard where she watered her flowers and pulled the newly sprouted weeds for nearly an hour as she convinced herself that she was being unfair to Milo's consultant, swayed by Ryan's obvious distaste for the man. Okay, so his teeth were overly white, but even Ryan had admitted that the guy knew his stuff, he just had a tendency to make sweeping changes. She'd do what she could to counteract that tendency. Being in a field that was loaded with specialists, Milo had high regard for experts, so George's recommendations might ultimately trump hers, but Ellie could be persuasive, so hopefully—

“Hello?”

Ellie's head jerked up at the sound of George's voice. He stood on the other side of the garden gate, smiling at her. “All set up,” he said. “I was wondering if you might have a few minutes for some preliminaries. I have iced tea if you'd like to sit in the shade while we talk.”

Ellie considered his invitation for a moment as she gathered her gloves in one hand, thinking it was odd that she had the instant impression that he was the one in command here—or at least the one who thought he was in command. She met his eyes, smiling slightly as she said, “I'd like to clean up first. Shall we meet in the main house, say in half an hour?”