The Millionaire and the Cowgirl

“Sam…” He reached forward and touched her arm, his fingers grazing her wrist.

She reacted as if she’d been burned, drawing away and throwing open the door. A shaft of bright summer sunlight pierced the dim interior and a breath of hot, dry air followed along. Hurrying outside, she heard his footsteps behind her, new boots crunching on the gravel of the parking area, but she didn’t turn around, didn’t want to chance looking into his eyes and allowing him to see any hint of what she was feeling, of the bare emotions that surged through her just at the sight of him. Damn it, what was wrong with her? “I—I’ve been coming over here, doing my dad’s old job, acting as foreman ever since the last guy, Red Spencer—he’d been here for seven years or so, I guess, before Dad retired—anyway, Red took over for Dad when Dad couldn’t handle the job, but he left a couple of months ago. Moved to Gold Spur, I think it was, to be close to his son and daughter-in-law. Kate asked me to keep an eye on things and I agreed, but now that you’re back you won’t be needing me—”

“Sam!” This time his fingers found her wrist, clamped tightly and spun her around so fast she could barely catch her breath. “You’re rambling, and near as I remember, that’s not like you.”

“But you don’t know me anymore, do you?” she said, her anger, ten years old and instantly white-hot, taking control of her tongue. “You don’t know a damned thing about me, and that’s because it’s the way you wanted it!”

“For the love of—”

She yanked back her hand. “All the records are in the den.” Making a sweeping gesture toward the house, she kept walking to her truck. “It looks like your tractor might need a new clutch, there’s a buyer from San Antonio interested in most of your cattle, I’ve got a list of people who want Diablo—er, Joker—as a stud. The hay’s in early this year and—”

“And you’re running scared.”

“What?” She whirled and faced him, fury pumping through her bloodstream, hands planted on her hips.

“I said you’re—”

“I heard what you said, I just couldn’t believe it. You,” she said, eyes narrowing in silent, seething anger as she pointed a furious finger at him, “of all people have no right, no right to accuse anyone of running!” Throwing her hands into the air, she looked up at the blue sky with its smattering of veil-thin clouds. “You’re unbelievable, Kyle. Un-be-liev-a-ble!” Turning on a well-worn heel, she stormed to her truck, threw the rig into gear and ripped out of the parking lot, leaving Kyle in his fancy new boots, tight jeans and designer shirt to eat her dust.

“Is somethin’ wrong?” Caitlyn, sitting on the far side of the old pickup, pinned her mother with blue eyes so like her father’s as the truck sped into town.

Tar oozed on the shoulders of the old country road. Hot air blew threw the open windows, catching Caitlyn’s already tangled wheat blond hair.

“Wrong?” Samantha’s heart tightened as she shifted down for a corner. The sun was sitting low on the horizon and waves of heat shimmered from the asphalt, distorting the false fronts of the Western-looking buildings. Clear Springs paid homage to the latter part of the nineteenth century with its architecture.

“Yeah, you’ve been acting funny ever since you picked me up.” Caitlyn wasn’t having any of her mother’s double-talk.

“I suppose I have,” Sam admitted, remembering how Kyle had rattled her cage. She’d been still fuming as she’d retrieved her daughter from a friend’s house.

“Why?”

“I just saw an old…friend today. It took me a little by surprise.”

“So?”

Yeah, right. So? “And I have a headache.” That wasn’t a lie. From the second she’d laid eyes on Kyle Fortune, her head had been pounding.

“Your friend gave you a headache?” Caitlyn shook her head, still not buying her story. “You look mad.”

“Mad?”

“Uh-huh. The same way you looked last year when you found out that Billy McGrath had his birthday party and invited everyone but me and Tommy Wilkins.”

Sam’s blood boiled at the memory of that incident. “Well, that was wrong and Billy’s mother knew it was wrong and… Oh, well, it’s all water under the bridge now.” Samantha reached toward the dashboard and grabbed her sunglasses. At the time she’d wanted to throttle bratty Billy and his snob of a mother, who had decided that two kids out of a class of twenty-one weren’t good enough to attend the birthday swimming party. The two kids who were whispered to be illegitimate.

“So why’d your friend make you mad?”

“He didn’t…he just showed up unexpectedly and it surprised me,” she hedged, then tapped Caitlyn’s smudged nose. “I’ve got to stop at the bank and the post office, but then we can get an ice cream at The Freeze.”

Caitlyn’s eyebrows smoothed. “How about a sundae?”

“Why not?” Sam exclaimed as she passed the sign welcoming visitors to Clear Springs, Wyoming. Maybe it was time to celebrate. It wasn’t every day that her daughter’s father landed back in town. Oh, God, how would she ever tell him that he was Caitlyn’s dad? What would he do? Laugh in her face? Call her a liar? Be so stunned that his lying, silvery tongue would be finally stilled? Or would he see the naked truth with his own eyes and decide that it was time to become a father? If he wanted even partial custody, there was no way she could fight him. Against the Fortune family money and bevy of lawyers, she wouldn’t stand a chance.

Sam’s throat was suddenly dry as sand. She pulled into a parking space and told herself not to overreact, that Kyle was only here for six months, that even when he found out that Caitlyn was his daughter, it wouldn’t matter. He would be reasonable, wouldn’t he? He had to be. But what about Caitlyn? How would she feel about the man who was her father?

Samantha couldn’t lose her child. Not to anyone. Not even to the man who had sired her.

Two

“What a mess.” With a snort of disgust, Kyle eyed the handwritten ledgers. The musty journal was spread open on the old oak desk that had been in this den for all the years he could remember. The oaken behemoth had belonged to Ben Fortune, Kyle’s grandfather and Kate’s husband, though Kyle couldn’t remember a single time he’d seen Ben sit in the timeworn leather chair. No, this ranch had been Kate’s haven from the fast pace of the city, but these damned journals were a mystery. Why no computer system? No link to the Internet? No modem? No accounting program? This wasn’t like his grandmother, a woman who had lived her life ahead of her time, who’d used a cell phone and fax machine as easily as she splashed on perfume. Kate Fortune had been connected by computer to all of her late husband’s companies, including factories as far away as Singapore and Madrid. Though she’d spoken the language of the wildcatters working for Ben’s oil company, she flew her own private jet. If any ranch out in the wilds of Wyoming should have a damned PC and modem, it was Kate’s spread. The lack of telecommunications just didn’t make sense. Unless Kate came here to get away from the rat race and preferred the leisurely pace that had worked for ranchers for decades.

The phone rang, and Kyle snatched up the receiver, half expecting to hear Samantha’s husky voice on the other end of the line. He tensed. “Kyle Fortune.”

“Well, whaddya know!” Grant’s voice boomed across the wires as Kyle settled back in his chair. “I heard a nasty rumor you were back in town.”

“Bad news travels fast.”

“Especially in this family.”

Amen, Kyle thought. The Fortunes had always been a close-knit lot, but ever since Kate’s death, Kyle had felt a newfound kinship with his cousins and siblings—a camaraderie born of shared grief for a loved one lost.

“Mike called and said you’d taken a company jet to Jackson, so I figured you’d show up sooner or later.”

“Just in time to get a look at that beast you inherited.”

Grant chuckled. “Fortune’s Flame.”

“Fortune’s Folly, if you ask me.”

“I’ll take him off your hands as soon as he’ll ride in a trailer. I know Samantha’s been working with him.”

“Seems as such.”

Sam. Why couldn’t he quit thinking about her?

“I suppose you know that Rocky’s thinking about moving out here?”

“Rocky? As in Rachel?”

“Your cousin and mine.”

Kyle hadn’t seen Rachel since the reading of the will in Kate’s lawyer’s office. Usually adventurous, with a quick smile, Rocky had been as sober as the rest of the family that day. Dark circles had shadowed her brown eyes and she’d nervously fingered the charm her grandmother had bequeathed her. She’d seemed lost at the time, but then they all had.

“So my horse is okay?”

“I ran into Sam as she was working with him. The stud looked full of the devil.”

“He is.” Grant chuckled.