The Rancher's Unexpected Family

“Humor a pregnant woman,” she said, knowing that wasn’t fair.

“Just send me a list. I’ll do my part. And decide which parts I won’t do.”

With that, he walked away. For a few seconds, Kathryn wondered what she’d ever seen in him.

Other than that gorgeous body that could still make her squirm. When she woke in the middle of the night having the “Holt dream,” the one where he picked her up and carried her to his bed, the one where he came to her wearing nothing but an unzipped pair of jeans, the one where she finally got the chance to plunge her fingers into all that wonderful black hair, Kathryn knew she was going to have to be incredibly careful during her time here.

A man like Holt who could make a bloated, nearly-nine-months-pregnant woman feel desire was far too hot to handle. Good thing he didn’t have a romantic bone in his body.

CHAPTER FOUR

THE first place Holt went the next morning was to the hangar on the ranch where he kept his Cessna and his helicopter. There was really no reason to do this. Both were kept in pristine condition, and he wasn’t going anywhere. He didn’t have any cows to herd out of remote locations. And he had no emergencies to tend to.

While he’d been away, his ranch hands had done their best to keep the place going, but the Double Bar C was big. He had plenty of tasks stacked up. Good. He needed some sweaty, backbreaking ranch work to clear his head and keep away any distracting thoughts of Kathryn. What was it about the woman that made her so tough to ignore? Was it the combination of delicate woman combined with that tigress determination? Or the fact that he could tell that he intimidated her but she still held her own with him?

He swore. Did it even matter? No, it didn’t. Because he didn’t want it to. They were going to have the equivalent of a “ten-minute business relationship.” They were fire and ice, not a good combination. Plus, ranching was all he cared about, all he knew. It was what he was good at, and he wasn’t good at relationships. At all. Not that it mattered.

Don’t lose track of what’s important, he could hear his father saying. You ‘re in charge of the Double Bar C, the family’s legacy. When you’re away from the ranch, remember who you are. You represent the biggest concern in the area, and people will look up to you. You have a responsibility to the ranch, and through the ranch a responsibility to the family and the town. The ranch is the one thing that will never fail you. Don’t let anything interfere with that. Don’t get sidetracked or weak and make foolish mistakes with a woman the way I once did, son. Wanting a woman too much can kill a man.

Holt knew that his father had been talking about someone other than his mother—possibly his first wife—because he saw how his mother suffered for loving his father too much. Sometimes she cried; he remembered her telling him how his father had never really loved her and now he, her son, was becoming another cold, closed-off Calhoun male. She clung to him when Clay was away. He felt sorry for her, but her unhappiness only reinforced what his father had said. Giving in to emotion was a mistake.

That wasn’t happening. He’d already made some pretty foolish mistakes. He’d already run into his own weaknesses, and he wasn’t doing it again. He’d lost too much. But he didn’t want to think about that now.

With a growl, he headed out. Riding across the land, he breathed in the scent of new-mown hay. This was his world, where he could forget his mistakes and just be himself.

So, he buried himself in work, and for the first time in weeks he felt good. Riding up to the house at the end of the day, he knew once again that he was where he needed to be. Just him, a few men, the animals and the land. That was all he wanted.

But when he opened the door, Nancy was waiting. “Kathryn Ellis called three times. I finally gave up and gave her your email address. You might want to check it. She seemed to think there were things you needed to know.”

Instantly a vision of soft gray eyes came to him. Pink lips. Luscious breasts.

He fought that image. He reminded himself of the reasons he had to ignore those eyes and lips and breasts. Instead, he marched to his computer and downloaded her message, and the list she’d sent him. And the revised, longer list she’d sent. And two more lists: her part, his part, a timeline. Everything was color-coded. There were links to articles on communities that had built clinics, links to suggested fundraisers.

When he was done reading, Holt had to blink, he’d been staring at the screen so long. He was tired. He was also glad. Kathryn might be pretty and soft, and he might feel the urge to touch her whenever she was near, but she was a finicky list maker.

Good. That made her easier to ignore.

He didn’t bother answering. He had his own way of doing things, and he’d already decided what he would and wouldn’t do. One thing he wasn’t going to do was follow his blasted instincts and kiss Kathryn’s pretty pink lips. The irritating woman was clearly emotional about all this stuff, but he wasn’t an emotional man. Never had been. Never would be.

And that was final.

Kathryn paced the floor of her house. She checked her email, which meant that she checked nothing. There were no messages from employers and no response from Holt.

For an entire week, she had called. She’d sent emails. She’d even mailed him a letter, just to be safe. Nancy had been unfailingly polite, but she was clearly a “Holt woman,” loyal to her boss. She didn’t want to discuss him, and Kathryn understood that. She wouldn’t have discussed Dr. Cooper if someone had been trying to glean information on him.