The Rancher and the Redhead (9 page)

“Well, well. Who have we here?” Dr. Hazelton, sixty and stocky, bluff and balding, breezed into the examining room with a warm smile on his bespectacled face. “Hello, there, Veronica. What seems to be the trouble with little Jessie?”

“Doc.” Roni dropped the magazine and rose to her feet. Jessie took one look at the stranger and burrowed her face into Roni's shoulder. “She's running a fever and won't eat. I don't know what's the matter. I've done everything—”

Dr. Hazelton reached for his stethoscope. “Relax, Mother. You haven't done anything wrong. Little girls get the sniffles all the time.”

“But she's so miserable.”

“Hmm. I shouldn't wonder.” Dr. Hazelton pressed the stethoscope to Jessie's chest, then checked her nose and ears with quick, unruffled efficiency while keeping up a stream of conversation. “You don't look quite up to snuff yourself.”

“I'm working under a tight deadline,” she admitted, thinking about the unfinished cover. That she looked so haggard the doctor saw fit to comment on it, depressed Roni even more. What chance did she stand with Sam in this condition? She gave a wan smile. “It's taking me a while to get the hang of this mother thing, I guess.”

“Sam not helping you at all?”

She answered truthfully. “No, that's not it. He's wonderful with Jessie. Of course, he's really busy during the day right now culling the herd and picking out the prime bulls.”

“Going after that rodeo contract, is he?” Ignoring Jessie's protests, he placed her on her back on the examining table and checked her throat with a tongue depressor. “So is Travis King, I hear. They ought to work together.”

At the doctor's nod, Roni picked up the now-squalling baby to comfort, shaking her head. “Sam wouldn't hear of it. They don't get along.”

“Still? After all this time?” The physician clucked at the antics of grown men. “Foolishness. It was an accident that killed Kenny, pure and simple. They were all pretty good friends, too. Seems a shame to hold on to a grudge like that just because Travis was driving that night.”

Roni jiggled the sobbing baby. “Sometimes there's no talking to a man.”

“Well, you talk to that one of yours, missy, and see that he gives you a hand,” he ordered brusquely. “I see the first signs of maternal stress, and you're going to have your hands full for a few days.”

Roni's eyes widened in alarm. “What's the matter with her?”

“Now don't get all panic-stricken. Just allergies and two of the worst infected ears I've seen this spring.” He scribbled on a prescription pad and handed the paper to her. “But it's nothing antibiotics and some fever medicine won't help.”

“Oh, thank goodness.” The tension in her features relaxed a hair, but the hand she used to pat Jessie's back held a betraying tremble.

“You're doing a good job with her, Veronica,” he said, already moving toward the door and his next patient.

That bit of praise revived Roni's flagging spirits a smidgeon. Yes, motherhood was certainly one area that she could excel in, especially considering that her heart overflowed with love whenever she gazed at Jessie. In fact, she'd make sure she was the best mother in all of Flat Fork. She knew how important this contract was to the Lazy Diamond, and she was going to see that Sam was able to concentrate on business instead of this latest domestic crisis. If he never looked on her as a desirable woman again, at least he'd admire her for a competent partner and helpmate.

“Trust your instincts, and call me if you have any questions or if she seems worse.” Dr. Hazelton gave Roni an encouraging pat on the shoulder and a final word of warning. “Sometimes these things can be tricky.”

Prescriptions clutched in her hand, resolve firmly in place, she nodded to the older man. “Thank you, Doc. Don't worry, I'll take care of everything.”

T
ricky wasn't the word for it.

Neither was
fatiguing, frustrating
or
ego-sapping.
No, after five days of nursing a one-year-old infant with two red ears, Roni knew that there truly weren't words in the English language to describe how she felt, except perhaps the old Texas saw, “drawn through a knothole backward.”

Her hair was bundled in a frizzy ponytail, and she couldn't remember how long she'd been wearing, sleeping and trying to paint in the same oversize T-shirt and cutoff shorts. To make matters worse, Sam's cattle transport truck had broken down the night before and he'd been forced to spend the night stranded halfway between Flat Fork and Wichita. Although it was almost suppertime, he still hadn't made it home. Which was perhaps all to the good, since Roni was sure her haggard appearance was enough to scare off any man.

“Please, Jessie, honey, take your medicine.”

Seated on the bed in the baby's nursery, Roni squinted her sandy eyes and poked a spoon loaded with pink syrup at the reluctant child. Jessie screwed up her rosebud mouth and swatted the spoon. Sticky pink spray splattered Roni, her shirt, the wall and the bed sheets.

“Jessie Marie Preston!” Surprise and frustration made Roni's voice harsher than she intended. She rose and plunked the child into her baby bed and raised the side with a violence that shook the whole contraption. “I've had quite enough of you, young lady!”

In stained gown and diaper, Jessie pulled to her tiny feet, clutched the plastic teething rail with her dimpled fists and let loose a howl of protest to raise the dead. Roni ignored her. She used the tail of her shirt to wipe the sticky droplets dripping down her chin, then stripped the splattered bedding down to the bare twin mattress.

Reaching for the medicine bottle again, she grimly refilled the spoon. Her stubborn daughter
would
take the prescribed dosage. Damned if she was going to let this hell of infected ears go on any longer than necessary.

“What's all the ruckus?”

Roni looked up to find Sam standing in the doorway, holding a tall glass of something iced and cool. He was breathtaking, his shoulders broad under his striped rodeo shirt, just a haze of golden stubble shadowing his jaw. Rested, relaxed, not a care in the world after a night of freedom—that's what his loose-hipped stance said to her in her exhaustion. And Roni couldn't have felt more put-upon and ill-used if he'd come up and kicked her.

“Where have you been?”

He lifted an eyebrow, a gesture that somehow censured her for her frowsy appearance and shrewish tone. “Trying to resurrect that engine. It's a no-go. I don't know what the hell we're going to do now.”

“Yeah, well, we've all got our problems,” she muttered, glaring blearily at the measurements on the spoon.

“Need some help?”

“No!” By God, this was her turf, and she was going to prove that she could handle it. Swiftly she tucked Jessie into the crook of her arm and stuffed the loaded spoon into her mouth. “There.”

Jessie gulped, gasped and gagged, and her eyes got panicky when she couldn't catch her breath.

“Hey, watch it!” Sam ordered, advancing into the room.

Alarmed, Roni jerked the child upright and pounded her between the shoulder blades. Jessie promptly threw up her supper of strained carrots and peas as well as the second spoonful of pink medicine—right in the middle of the twin bed mattress.

“Holy Jehoshaphat! What are you trying to do to her?” Sam shouted.

“Don't yell at me.” Roni grabbed a clean cloth diaper to dab at Jessie's chin while the child screamed out her fright. Her own lip wobbled. “I'm doing the best that I can.”

“To do what? Strangle her?” Setting his glass aside, Sam picked up a towel and covered the mess on the bed.

“Don't you dare criticize me.” Moisture prickled behind Roni's tired lids as she struggled to hold Jessie. “You don't know what it's like. She won't...and I tried to...and then she wouldn't...”

“Hey, get a grip, Curly.” He reached out a hand.

“Easy for you to say,” she half sobbed, half snarled, and jerked away. “Out gallivanting, enjoying yourself while I've been dealing with a sick child. She's still got fever, you know. And now I'm going to miss tomorrow's deadline.” Hot tears trickled down her cheeks, and her voice rose on a wail. “I've
never
missed a deadline....”

“I haven't exactly been out partying,” he said, defending himself.

“But you haven't been
here.
” She wiped her nose on her sleeve, and she and the baby sobbed in unison.

“Lord, you're dead on your feet, aren't you?”

“How astute of you to notice.” Her voice cracked with the attempted sarcasm.

“You need some help.”

She glared at him. “Bingo, cowboy.”

Sam set his fists to his hips and glared back. “Then why the hell didn't you just say so? I didn't even know about your damned deadline. Am I supposed to be a mind reader or something?”

“You—you could have asked,” she said, hiccuping. “But I know how busy you've been.”

Sam's expression softened. “Not too busy for you. What were you trying to prove, Curly? Didn't we agree that this was going to be a mutual effort?”

Suddenly ashamed of her petulance, Roni ducked her head. “I—I'm just so tired, Sam. And I've got so much work to do.”

“And you apparently don't know beans about communication, either, lady. We'll have to work on that.” He lifted Jessie from her arms. The little girl magically quieted and gazed at her mother with guileless blue eyes. “But right now you're officially off duty.”

“But her medicine—”

“I'll handle it.” He smoothed Roni's hair back from her hot brow and kissed her forehead. “You get a shower and a nap, and then you can work on that commission, okay?”

“Uh, okay.” Punch-drunk, she blinked at him. How dare he try to be nice to her! He was the most infuriating, as well as the handsomest, man she knew. But here she'd failed again, at the one task she'd set for herself. A new wave of tears threatened.

“Now don't start that again,” Sam warned gently.

“I'm sorry, Sam,” she said on a little painful gasp. “I thought I could do it.”

“For crying out loud, Curly, even God needs a helping hand now and then. You go on. I'll hold down the fort.”

“But you must be tired, too.”

He gave her a lopsided grin. “It's a matter of degree, I'd say. Don't argue.
Git.
”

Roni got.

It was truly surprising what a bath, a sandwich and a brief nap could do to revive a person. When Roni entered her studio an hour later, she felt energized and even enthusiastic about producing a field of indigenous Texas wildflowers for the cover illustration. Grabbing up brushes and paints, she went to work with a will, focused so tightly, she barely heard the sounds Sam and Jessie made in the rest of the house.

When she daubed the final speck of russet into the heart of a Texas poppy and stepped back to admire the results, she was surprised to find it was well past three o'clock in the morning. But at least she'd finished. It took all she could do to lay out the shipping carton with a note asking Sam to put it in the mail the next day.

Yawning, she headed for bed, kicking off her shorts and tennis shoes just inside Jessie's door. She felt her way blindly in the darkness—and whacked her shin on the metal bed frame.

“Ouch!” Hopping, trying to suppress a whimper of pain, Roni reached for the bed and found nothing but air. Disoriented, she patted around until she found the small lamp on the bedside table and flicked it on. The soiled mattresses were missing—evidently moved out to air by Sam—and so was Jessie.

Too tired to think now, moving strictly on instinct, Roni stumbled down the hall to Sam's bedroom and peeked in. In the stream of light from the hall, she could see him sprawled out on the massive king-size bed, his bare chest and legs dark against the white sheet pulled over his middle. Miraculously, Jessie slept peacefully beside him, thumb in her mouth and bottom poked at the ceiling.

They both looked so relaxed, and the bed so delicious, Roni didn't even think. She crawled in beside her husband and daughter, gave a sigh and went right to sleep.

* * *

A cattleman's instincts usually woke him up before dawn, but as Sam surfaced from the haze of sleep, he knew that something was different this morning.

That something had warm silky skin and rounded curves and soft breasts, which at the moment were pressed against his side. Sam drew a careful breath, inhaling the fragrant scent of sleep-warmed woman, and opened one eye.

Jessie had rolled away during the night and was lodged against the headboard, snoring softly, her cheeks pink, but not the hectic fever red of the past few days. Roni, the sneak thief of sleep, lay snuggled against Sam's chest, the breath from her slightly open mouth wafting over his nipples, the hem of her cotton T-shirt shrugged up to reveal the long slender length of her legs and a glimpse of turquoise satin panties.

Sam swallowed and shut his eyes again with an inner groan. Fire stirred in his middle. It would be nothing to roll her beneath him and quench that fire once and for all. Dammit, it felt so right to hold her, as if she truly belonged in his arms. And somehow she must feel it, too, or else why would she have sought him out in her sleep?

Shifting slightly, he explored the fantasy, drifting his fingertips across the ruffled mass of her whiskey-brown curls, down her shoulder in a feather's caress, softly, softly stroking the luscious curve of female flesh. He felt like a thief himself, stealing sensations while she slept on, but he could no more refrain himself than stop the flow of the Flat Fork River.

He grazed his knuckles across the crest of her breast, watching in fascination as the nubby tip contracted, poking against the soft cotton knit with a will of its own. Almost imperceptibly, her breathing accelerated, but still she didn't stir. Emboldened, he let his palm cup the heavy weight, thinking that nothing had ever fit his hand so well.

Would they fit as well in other places? The question nearly drove him wild, and he groaned aloud.

Roni jumped, awake yet not awake, her newly acquired mother's instincts on instantaneous alert. Lifting herself with a hand splayed in the middle of his chest, she blinked owlishly at Sam. “Huh? What is it? Jessie—?”

“Shh. She's all right.” His voice was husky, and he didn't dare move, for the tight bud of her nipple pressed against his palm like a burning brand. “Go back to sleep.”

“Uh-huh.” Happy to take the suggestion, she shifted, fitting her head into the crook of Sam's shoulder and resting her updrawn knee on his thigh with a voluptuous sigh of contentment.

Sweat popped out on the back of his neck, and he gritted his teeth with the pleasure/pain of pure arousal. But she was oblivious, unaware what her innocent embrace was doing to his overloaded circuits, and he'd be the world's worst kind of heel if he took any further advantage. After a tortuous moment, her breathing evened out again, and he gently eased her onto her back and climbed out of bed.

He was so excited, he could barely walk, and he sucked in air, willing his body into compliance. Not sparing her a look—all it would take to send him straight back to bed again—he headed for the coldest shower he could find.

* * *

Later, after Sam returned from his early-morning chores and a furious gallop on Diablo that was meant to pound the devil out of them both but hadn't, he found both his girls still fast asleep. He had no doubt it was the best thing for them, so he packed up Roni's artwork as her note requested and decided to take it on into town to the post office.

And since the transport truck wasn't good for much more than salvage now, he was going to have to lay it on the line down at the local bank, and there was no point in putting off the unpleasant task.

It was worse than unpleasant. It was downright humiliating.

“I'm sorry, Sam,” Jack Phillips said as he saw Sam out of his office a couple of hours later. “The directors are adamant. Until you're able to make some payment on the principal, we just can't extend you another loan. Wish there was something more I could do.”

“I appreciate it, Jack.” They shook hands at the plate glass entrance. Sam started to turn away, then had a thought. “If I land that contract with Buzz Henry at the Wichita rodeo, would they consider it then?”

“Well, now, that would be different,” Jack said thoughtfully. “A signed contract might shed a whole new light on the subject. Any chance of it happening?”

“Let's just say that I'm doing my damnedest,” Sam drawled.

“Good luck, then. And let me know.”

“Right.” Nodding, Sam donned his hat and went outside. The hot May sunshine beat down on the sleepy streets of Flat Fork with the early promise of sweltering summer. The chime of the Methodist church bells sounded eleven, but only a few dusty trucks and a handful of cars moved up and down the tiny business district that hadn't changed substantially in fifty years.

The orange sign above Kelly's Pharmacy was a reminder for Sam, and he dug into his pocket for the scrap of paper with the prescription number of Jessie's medicine. Since most of the pink stuff was currently decorating the nursery's walls, he figured he might as well get the refill while he was in town. With the truck out of commission, no help at the bank and himself fresh out of ideas, it wasn't as though he had anything better to do.

The inside of the drugstore was dim and cool and smelled faintly of antiseptic. Sam approached the rear counter, coming up behind a tall cowboy dressed in an ebony shirt and jeans with his left arm in a white sling.

“You know why cowboys ride bulls, don't you, darlin'?” the cowboy was asking the pretty blonde behind the cash register.