The Rancher's Christmas Promise Read online

  “I hate August!” she yelled, utterly frustrated.

  Nobody heard.

  The other vehicles crawling along the narrow, curving stretch of highway between Weaver—where she’d just come from a frustrating visit with a new client in jail—and Braden all had their windows closed against the oppressive heat, the same way she did.

  It was thirty miles, give or take, between Braden and Weaver, and she drove it several times every week. Sometimes more than once in a single day. She knew the highway like the back of her hand. Where the infrequent passing zones were, where the dips filled with ice in the winter and where the shoulder was treacherous. She knew that mile marker 12 had the best view into Braden and mile marker 3 was the spot you were most likely to get a speeding ticket.

  The worst, though, was grinding up and down the hills, going around the curves at a crawl because she was stuck behind a too-wide truck hogging the roadway with a too-tall load of hay.

  Impatience raged inside her and she pushed her fingers against one of the car vents, feeling the air blast against her palm. It didn’t provide much relief, because it was barely cool.

  Probably because her car was close to overheating, she realized.

  Even as she turned off the AC and rolled down the windows, a cloud billowed from beneath the front hood of her car.

  She wanted to scream.

  Instead, she coasted onto the weedy shoulder. It was barely wide enough.

  The car behind her laid on its horn as it swerved around her.

  “I hate August!” she yelled after it while her vehicle burped out steam into the already-miserable air.

  So much for getting to Maddie’s surprise baby shower early.

  Ali was never going to forgive Greer. Unlike their sister, Maddie, the soul of patience she was not. Just that morning Ali had called to remind Greer of her tasks where the shower was concerned. It had been the fifth such call in as many days.

  Marrying Grant hadn’t softened Ali’s annoying side at all.

  Greer wasn’t going to chance exiting through the driver’s side because of the traffic, so she hitched up her skirt enough to climb over the console and out the passenger-side door.

  In just the few minutes it took to get out of the car and open up the hood, Greer’s silk blouse was glued to her skin by the perspiration sliding down her spine.

  The engine had stopped spewing steam. But despite her father’s best efforts to teach the triplets the fundamentals of car care when she and her sisters were growing up, what lived beneath the hood of Greer’s car was still a mystery.

  She knew from experience there was no point in checking her cell phone for a signal. There were about four points on the thirty-mile stretch where a signal reliably reached, and this spot wasn’t one of them. If a Good Samaritan didn’t happen to stop, she knew the schedules of both the Braden Police Department and the Weaver Sheriff’s Department. Even if her disabled vehicle wasn’t reported by someone passing by, officers from one or the other agency routinely traveled the roadway even on a hot August Saturday. She didn’t expect it would be too long before she had some help.

  She popped the trunk a few inches so the heat wouldn’t build up any more than it already had and left the windows down. Then she walked along the shoulder until she reached an outcrop of rock that afforded a little shade from the sun and toed off her shoes, not even caring that she was probably ruining her silk blouse by leaning against the jagged stone.

  Sorry, Ali.

  * * *

  Ryder saw the slender figure in white before he saw the car. It almost made him do a double take, the way sailors did when they spotted a mermaid sunning herself on a rock. A second look reassured him that lack of sleep hadn’t caused him to start hallucinating.

  Not yet, anyway.

  She was on the opposite side of the road, and there was no place for him to pull his rig around to get to her. So he kept on driving until he reached his original destination—the turnoff to the Diamond-L. As soon as he did, he turned around and pulled back out onto the highway to head back to her.

  It was only a matter of fifteen minutes.

  The disabled foreign car was still sitting there, like a strange out-of-place insect among the pickup trucks rumbling by every few minutes. He parked behind it, but let his engine idle and kept the air-conditioning on. He propped his arm over the steering column and thumbed back his hat as he studied the woman.

  She’d noticed him and was picking her way through the rough weeds back toward her car.

  He’d recognized her easily enough.

  Greer Templeton. One of the identical triplets who’d turned his life upside down. Starting with the cop, Ali, who’d come to his door five months ago.

  It wasn’t entirely their fault.

  They weren’t responsible for abandoning Layla. That was his late wife.

  Now Layla was going through nannies like there was a revolving door on the nursery. Currently, the role was filled by Tina Lewis. She’d lasted two weeks but was already making dissatisfied noises.

  He blew out a breath and checked the road before pushing open his door and getting out of the truck. “Looks like you’ve got a problem.”

  “Ryder?”

  He spread his hands. “’Fraid so.” Any minute she’d ask about the baby and he wasn’t real sure what he would say.

  For nearly five months—ever since Judge Stokes had officially made Layla his responsibility—the Templeton triplets had tiptoed around him. He’d quickly learned how attached they’d become to the baby, caring for her after Daisy dumped her on a “friend’s” porch.

  Supposedly, his wife hadn’t been sleeping with that friend but Ryder still had his doubts. DNA might have ruled out Jaxon Swift as Layla’s father, but the man owned Magic Jax, the bar where Daisy had briefly worked as a cocktail waitress before they’d met. He would never understand why she hadn’t just come to him if she’d needed help. He had been her husband, for God’s sake. Not her onetime boss. Unless she’d been more involved with Jax than they all had admitted.

  As for the identity of Layla’s real father, everyone had been happy as hell to stop wondering as soon as Ryder gave proof that he and Daisy had been married.

  Didn’t mean Ryder hadn’t wondered, though.

  But doing a DNA test at this point wouldn’t change anything where he was concerned. It would prove Layla was his by blood. Or it wouldn’t.

  Either way, he believed she was his wife’s child.

  Which made Layla his responsibility. Period.

  The questions about Daisy, though? Every time he looked at Layla, they bubbled up inside him.

  For now, though, he focused on Greer.

  It was no particular hardship.

  The Templeton triplets scored pretty high in the looks department. He could tell Greer apart from her twins because she always looked a little more sophisticated. Maddie—the social worker who’d been Layla’s foster mother—had long hair reaching halfway down her back. Ali—the cop who’d shown up on his doorstep—had blond streaks. And he’d never seen her dressed in anything besides her police uniform.

  Greer, though?

  Her dark hair barely reached her shoulders and not a single strand was ever out of place. She was a lawyer and dressed the part in skinny skirts with expensive-looking jackets and high heels that looked more big-city than Wyoming dirt. She’d been the one who’d ushered him through all the legalities with the baby. And she was the only one of her sisters who hadn’t been openly crying when they’d brought Layla and all of her stuff out to his ranch to turn her over to his care. But there’d been no denying the emotion in her eyes. She just hadn’t allowed herself the relief of tears.

  For some reason, that had seemed worse.

  Ryder had been uncomfortable as hell with so much female emotion. Greer’s most of all.

  He’d
rather have to deal with the general animosity Daisy’s brother clearly felt for him. That, at least, was straightforward and simple. Grant’s sister was dead. Whether he’d voiced it outright or not, he blamed Ryder.

  Since Ryder was already shouldering the blame, it didn’t make any difference to him.

  Now Greer was shading her eyes with one hand and holding her hair off her neck with the other. Instead of asking about Layla first thing, though, she stopped near the front bumper of her car. “It overheated. I saw steam coming out from the hood and pulled off as soon as I could.”

  He joined her in front of the car. He knew the basics when it came to engines—enough to keep the machinery on his ranch running without too much outside help—but he was a lot more comfortable with the anatomy of horses and cows. “How long have you been sitting out here?”

  “Too long.” She plucked the front of her blouse away from her throat and glanced at the watch circling her narrow wrist. “I thought someone would stop sooner than this. Ali’ll think I’m deliberately late.”

  The only heat from the engine came from the sun glaring down on it. He checked a few of the hoses and looked underneath for signs of leaking coolant, but the ground beneath the car was dry. “Why’s that?”

  “We’re throwing a surprise baby shower for Maddie today. I’m supposed to help set up.”

  “Didn’t know she was pregnant.” He straightened. It was impossible to miss the sharpness in Greer’s brown eyes.

  “Why would you, when you’ve been avoiding all of us since March?”

  “Some law that says I needed to do otherwise?” He hadn’t been avoiding them entirely. Just...mostly.

  It had been easy, considering he had a ranch to run.

  She pursed her bow-shaped lips. “You know my family has a vested interest in Layla. At the very least, you could try accepting an invitation or two when they’re extended.”

  “Maybe I’m too busy to accept invitations.” He waited a beat. “I am a single father, you know.”

  If he wasn’t mistaken, her eye actually twitched.

  She’d always struck him as the one most tightly wound.

  It was too bad that he also couldn’t look at her without wondering just what it would take to unwind her.

  He closed the hood of her car with a firm hand. “You want to try starting her up? See what happens with the temperature gauge?”

  He thought she might argue—if only for the sake of it—but she opened the passenger door. Then he had to choke back a laugh when she climbed across and into the driver’s seat, where she started the engine. Her focus was clearly on her dashboard and he could tell the gauge was rising just by the frown on her face.

  She shut off the engine again and looked through the windshield. “Needle went straight to the red.” She climbed back out the passenger side.

  “Something wrong with the driver’s-side door?”

  She was looking down at herself as she got out, tweaking that white skirt hugging her slender hips until it hung smooth and straight. “No, but I don’t want it getting hit by a passing vehicle if I open it.”

  He eyed the distance between the edge of the road and where she’d pulled off on the shoulder. “Real cautious of you.”

  “I’m a lawyer. I’m always cautious.”

  “Overly so, I’d say.” Not that he hadn’t enjoyed the show. She was a little skinny for his taste, but he couldn’t deny she was a looker. He pulled off his cowboy hat long enough to swipe his arm across his forehead. “I can drive you into town, or I can send a tow out for you.” He didn’t have time to do both, because he had to be back at the ranch before the nanny left or his housekeeper, Mrs. Pyle, would have kittens. “What’s your choice?”

  * * *

  Greer swallowed her frustration. Considering Ryder Wilson’s standoffishness since they’d met, she was a little surprised that he’d stopped to assist at all.

  As soon as she’d realized who was driving the enormous pickup truck pulling up behind her car, she’d been torn between anticipation and the desire to cry what next?

  It was entirely annoying that the brawny, blue-eyed rancher was the first man to make her hormones sit up and take notice in too long a while.

  Annoying and impossible to act on, considering the strange nature of their acquaintance.

  All she wanted to do was ask Ryder how Layla was doing. But Maddie had been insistent that none of them intrude on him too soon.

  They’d all been wrapped around Layla’s tiny little finger and none more than Maddie, who’d been caring for her nearly the whole while before Ali discovered Ryder’s existence. Yet it was Maddie who’d urged them to give Ryder time. To adjust. To adapt. They knew Ryder was taking decent care of the baby he’d claimed, because Maddie’s boss, Raymond Marx, checked up on him for a while at first, so he could report back to the courts. Give Ryder time, Maddie insisted, and eventually he would see the benefit of letting them past his walls.

  Didn’t mean that it had been easy.

  Didn’t mean it was easy now, not dashing over to the truck to see Layla.

  She didn’t know if it was that prospect that made her feel so shaky inside, or if it was because of Layla’s brown-haired daddy. She wasn’t sure she even liked Ryder all that much.

  Yes, he’d been legally named Layla’s father and yes, he’d taken responsibility for her. But there was an edge to him that had rubbed Greer wrong from the very first time they met. She just hadn’t been able to pinpoint why.

  “If you don’t mind driving me into town,” she managed, “I’d be grateful.”

  The brim of his hat dipped briefly. “Probably should lock her up.” He started for his big truck parked behind the car.

  She watched him walk away. He was wearing blue jeans and a checked shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Except for when he’d briefly swiped an arm over his forehead, he appeared unaffected by the sweltering day.

  “Probably should lock her up,” she parroted childishly under her breath. As if she didn’t have the sense to know that without being told.

  She retrieved her purse and briefcase from the back seat, looping the long straps over her shoulder, then warily lifted the trunk lid higher. The shower cake that she’d nestled carefully between two boxes full of work from the office amazingly didn’t look too much the worse for wear. It was a delightful amalgam of block and ball shapes, frosted in white, yellow and blue. How Tabby Clay had balanced them all together like that was a mystery to Greer.

  She was just glad to see that the creation hadn’t melted into a puddle of goo while she’d waited on the side of the road.

  She carefully lifted the white board with the heavy cake on top out of the trunk and gingerly carried it toward Ryder’s truck. Her heart was beating so hard, she could hear it inside her head. The last time she’d seen Layla had been at Shop-World in Weaver, when she’d taken a client shopping for an affordable set of clothes to wear for trial, and Ryder had been in the next checkout line over, buying diapers, coffee and whiskey.

  Layla had been asleep in the cart. Greer had noticed that her blond curls had gotten a reddish cast, but the stuffed pony she’d clutched was the same one Greer had given her for Valentine’s Day.

  It had been all she could do not to pluck the baby out of the cart and cuddle her close. Instead, after a stilted exchange with Ryder, she’d hustled her client through the checkout so fast that he’d wondered out loud if she’d slid through without paying for something. No. That’s what you like to do, she’d told him as she’d rushed him out the door.

  But now, when she got close enough to Ryder’s truck to see inside, her feet dragged to a halt.

  There was no car seat.

  Definitely no Layla.

  The disappointment that swamped her was so searing, it put the hot afternoon sun to shame. Her eyes stung and she blinked hard, quickeni
ng her pace once more only to feel her heel slide on the loose gravel. The heavy cake started tipping one way and she leveled the board, even as her shoulder banged against the side of his truck.

  She froze, holding her breath as she held the cake board aloft.

  “What the hell are you doing over here?”

  She was hot. Sweaty. And brokenhearted that she wasn’t getting a chance to see sweet Layla.

  “What do you care?” she snapped back. She was still holding the cake straight out from her body, and the weight of it was considerable. “Just open the door, would you please? If I don’t deliver this thing in one piece, Ali’s going to skin me alive.”

  He gave her a wide berth as he reached around her to open the door of the truck. “Let me take it.” His hands covered hers where she held the board, and she jerked as if he’d prodded her with a live wire.

  Her face went hot. “I don’t need your help.”

  He let go and held his hands up in the air. “Whatever.” He backed away.

  Nobody liked to feel self-conscious. Not even her.

  She turned away from him to set the cake board inside the truck, but it was too big to fit on the floor, which meant she’d have to hold it on her lap.

  Greer heaved out a breath and looked at Ryder. He wordlessly took the cake long enough for her to dump her briefcase and purse on the floor, and climb up on the high seat.

  “All settled now?” His voice was mild.

  For some reason, it annoyed her more than if he’d made some snarky comment.

  Unfortunately, that’s when she realized that she’d left her trunk open and the car unlocked.

  She slid off the seat again, mentally cursing ranchers and their too-big trucks as she jumped out onto the ground. Ignoring the amused glint in his dark blue eyes, she strode past him, grinding her teeth when her heel again slid on the loose gravel.

  She’d have landed on her butt if not for the quick hand he shot out to steady her.