Cowboy Dad

“Mr. Tucker’s here.”

The man gave an unconcerned shrug and if she wasn’t mistaken, his sad eyes twinkled with the barest hint of amusement.

In the next instant, Jake burst through the door. A fine sheen of perspiration covered his forehead, and a lock of hair hung limply over his brow. Natalie couldn’t help staring at her boss’s uncustomary disheveled state.

“Oh.” He appeared taken aback to find her in his office. “You two have met.”

“Not exactly,” Natalie stammered.

“I inadvertently walked in on her,” the man offered. “We haven’t been officially introduced yet.”

He was smiling again, and Natalie flushed anew. Had he come into the office a minute sooner, he’d have caught her nursing Shiloh.

Jake combed fingers through his hair, restoring it to a semblance of its normal tidiness. “Natalie Forrester is our manager of guest services.” He indicated the man with a curt nod and a throat clearing. “And this is Aaron Reyes.”

Natalie forced her slack-jawed mouth to close. “How do you do,” she murmured when her wits returned.

“He was my sister’s husband,” Jake clarified.

He needn’t have bothered—Natalie knew the name. She’d heard it shouted, whispered, trashed and taken in vain plenty often during the last few years. But never once uttered with warmth or affection.

“I’ll leave you two alone,” she said and made a beeline for the door. Shiloh protested the bumpy ride with a soft cry.

“It was nice meeting you, ma’am,” he called after her.

“Same here.”

“Don’t go far,” Jake said before Natalie closed the door. “I’ll need you to show Reyes here to his quarters.”

“Yes, sir.”

So, he was staying. For eight weeks if he abided by the terms of the Tucker Family Trust.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Natalie muttered to herself. Aaron Reyes, husband of the late Hailey Tucker, had come at long last to Bear Creek Ranch to claim his inheritance.

Of all the men she could take notice of, it had to be the one her boss despised with every breath he drew.

“IF THERE WAS any way I could legally kick your ass off this place, I would.”

“I understand.”

Aaron didn’t take offense at Jake’s outburst. His former brother-in-law had a right to be angry at him for waiting until practically the last day to exercise his right to a share of the Tucker Family Trust. Jake didn’t, however, have any cause to be mad at Aaron for marrying Hailey. He’d loved his wife and treated her well. They’d been happy together for six months, would have been happy together for the rest of their lives if fate hadn’t intervened.

Whether it was their marriage or Aaron’s claim to his inheritance that infuriated Jake was irrelevant. Aaron had made an enemy the day he eloped with Jake’s younger sister—more than one enemy if Jake wielded the kind of power Hailey always said he did.

“You’ll receive no preferential treatment,” Jake continued through tightly clenched teeth.

“I don’t expect any.”

The two men squared off across an oversize oak desk, Jake sat behind it, Aaron in front of it.

“Everyone here works hard. Sunup to sundown. Longer if necessary.”

“My kind of hours.”

Jake snorted, then snatched a paper off his desk as if he just that second realized something needed his attention.

Aaron waited. He could play the game, had been prepared to do just that. For the longest time after Hailey died he’d had nothing to do with the Tuckers or the inheritance she’d left him, despite it being her wish he get to know her family and the ranch her grandparents founded.

A month ago, as the deadline for him to act approached, Aaron changed his mind. He was glad he did. Sparring with Jake made him feel truly alive for the first time since he’d knelt in that arena, an unconscious Hailey in his arms. She never woke up. The fall, a freak riding accident, had crushed her skull beyond repair. She died four hours later in a hospital bed, surrounded by people who loved her—and who disliked each other intensely.

“Breakfast is at 6:00 a.m. sharp. Lunch at noon.” Jake set his paper aside. “You’ll eat with the staff, not the guests.”

“Beats chowing on a can of refried beans in the back of my pickup.”

Jake gave a noncommittal grunt. “Dinner at six. Then you’ll be required to eat with the guests.”

“Really?” Aaron raised an eyebrow.

“Ranch policy. Not my personal one. The guests enjoy mingling with the hands.”

“And that’s what I’ll be doing while I’m here? Ranch hand?”

“Report to Gary Forrester in the morning. Before breakfast,” Jake emphasized.

“The man who directed me here?”

“Yes. He’ll decide your job.”

If Jake were in charge of assigning jobs, Aaron thought wryly, he’d probably pick head manure shoveler.

“Is Gary Forrester any relation to Natalie Forrester?”

“Her father. He oversees our riding stock, the stables and the wranglers, among other things.”

Aaron thought of the young woman he’d met earlier in Jake’s office. She’d done her best to downplay her natural prettiness. No makeup to accent intelligent blue eyes. She wore a stretchy headband that only half tamed a mop of wild blond curls, and baggy jeans and sweater that did little to hide a very female shape beneath.

He wasn’t interested in complicating his life with romantic entanglements but if he ever changed his mind, Natalie Forrester would be a woman worth tangling with.

“Do I talk to Ms. Forrester about paying for my room and board?”

“You don’t pay.” Jake ground the teeth he’d been previously clenching. “Members of the trust receive meals and lodging as part of the deal.”

Another man might have grabbed Aaron by the shirt collar the second he spotted him in the lobby and tossed him out on his rear. Not Jake Tucker. Settling disputes through a show of physical force wasn’t his style. Whatever efforts he employed to rid the ranch of Aaron—and he would employ them, Aaron was sure of it—were bound to be less direct, more subtle and cast no blame on him.

He’d tried the legal route soon after Hailey’s death. The courts sided with Aaron, holding up the terms of Hailey’s will. At the time, he hadn’t cared. He’d wished, in fact, the judge had ruled against him.

But a month ago, Aaron found a use for the income from his inheritance and a way to bring meaning to Hailey’s otherwise purposeless death.