The Rebel Cowboy’s Quadruplets

Okay, he could go check on the little mother for the price of lunch. But then he was heading out, with a “Sorry—this job doesn’t fit the description of my talents,” or something equally polite.

He was going to kick Ty’s butt hard, over the phone, which wouldn’t be nearly as satisfying as doing it in person. He’d driven a day out of his way to apply for what he’d thought might be bona fide employment.

He walked into the den, guided by the baby cries. Mackenzie glanced at him from the sofa. “Don’t be scared—they’ll calm down in a moment,” she said, but he was anyway, unable to stop staring at the four white bassinets, three babies tucked into them like pink-wrapped sausages working free of their casings. Mackenzie held a fourth writhing baby close to her chest, and Justin realized she was nursing.

Holy crap. She had four babies. He backed up a step, belatedly removed his hat. “I’m not scared. I’m something else, but I’m not sure I can identify the emotion.” He looked at the three squalling babies, clearly deciding they all wanted their mother’s attention at once. “What can I do?”

He hoped she’d say nothing, but instead she pointed him to a bottle. “If you’re sincerely asking, Holly’s next in line.”

Holly? He glanced back at the baskets. Tiny nameplates adorned the bassinets, which for some reason reminded him of the carved beds of the seven dwarves. Only Mackenzie was no Snow White under an evil spell, and he was certainly no handsome prince.

But the lady did need help; that much was clear. She was in over her head by any reasonable metric, whether it was the ranch (which she probably would lose, if he were a betting man) or these tiny babies (which would require an army of assistants that he figured she couldn’t afford—again, no hard bet for a man who liked betting on sure things). This would only take an hour, he figured, and an hour he certainly did have, damn his torn PCL.

Justin studied the nameplates to make certain he picked up the right baby. Holly, Hope, Haven and Heather. All chosen, no doubt, to go with the Hanging H of the ranch, which was sort of a hopeless exercise because they’d all get married one day and their last names would change. To Thomas or Smith or whatever. Then he remembered that Mackenzie’s last name was Hawthorne, and she must not have ever changed her name when she got married.

If she’d been married.

Gingerly he picked up Holly, who had a pretty annoyed wail going, grabbed one of the bottles off a wooden tray and slipped it into her mouth. Oh, yeah, that was exactly what she wanted—food—and what he wanted—golden silence.

“Thank you,” Mackenzie said. “They all decide they want to eat at once, every time.”

He sank onto a sofa, carefully holding the baby. “My brothers and I were the same. It lasted through our teens and drove our parents nuts.” He glanced at the other two babies, who were now occupying themselves with listening to the adult voices in the room. “I guess these are all yours.”

She smiled, and he noticed she had very shapely lips. He avoided staring at the blanket at her breast, not wanting to catch an accidental glimpse of something he shouldn’t see. He was a gentleman, even if he found himself at the moment feeling like a fish out of water.

“They’re all mine.” She smiled proudly at her children. “We’re still working out some things, but the girls are coming along nicely now. They have a little better routine, and the health issues are more manageable.”

He turned his gaze back to Holly so the doubt wouldn’t show on his face. The overgrown paddocks, the sagging gutters and the chipping paint stayed on his mind. These four children—was the father totally useless? Did he not care about the state of his property? Or these four sweet-faced babies? Not to mention the sexy mother of his children.

“Their father is in Alaska,” she said, somehow reading his thoughts. “Working on an oil rig. And when he’s not working, he’s otherwise engaged. We don’t hear from him,” she said. “Not before the divorce or after. I’d been on a drug to help me get pregnant, and he was unpleasantly surprised by the results.” She put a now-content baby into the empty basket marked “Heather,” diapered her, kissed her and picked up Hope. “This one was born with lung issues, but we’re slowly getting past that. And Holly has struggled with being underweight, but time has been the healer for that, too.” She smiled at Justin, and he saw how beautiful she was, especially when her face lit up as she talked about her children. “So tell me what kind of work you do, and we’ll see if our needs match.”

He held in a sigh, wondering how to extricate himself from this dilemma. He could help this woman and her brood, but he didn’t want to. Justin glanced at the four babies. They had calmed some as they were getting either bottles or a breast—there was a thought he had to stay away from.

Mrs. Harper bustled in with a tray of food for him and took the baby he was holding. “I heard you say that you need to talk business. I’ll feed this one, and you eat. Your plates say you’re from Montana, so you’ve come a long way to talk about work. I know you’re starved.”

No, no, no. He needed a job, but not this job. And the last thing he wanted to do was work for a woman with soft doe eyes and a place that was teetering on becoming unmanageable. From the little he’d seen, there was a lot to do. He had a bum knee and a bad feeling about this. And no desire to be around children.

On the other hand, it couldn’t hurt to help out for a week, maybe two, tops. Could it?

He ate a bite of Mrs. Harper’s chicken salad, startled by how good it was. Maybe it had been too long since he’d had home cooking. He smelled the wonderful cinnamon aroma of apple pie, and his stomach jumped.

Mackenzie bent over to put the fed, diapered and happy baby she was holding back into the bassinet. He watched her move, looked at her smile, admired her full fanny and breasts—stopped himself cold.

He had no business looking at a new mother. He really had been on the road too long. Glancing around him, Justin took in the soft white-and-blue curtains, the tan sofas, the chairs in a gentle blue-and-white pattern that complemented the drapes. A tan wool rug lay under a blocky coffee table, the edges rounded and perfect for children who would be learning to pull themselves up in a few months.

Taking another bite of Mrs. Harper’s delicious meal, he focused on the food and not the homey atmosphere. That’s what was wrong: this felt like home. It could draw in a man who wasn’t careful, who wasn’t aware of the pitfalls.

Maybe Ty hadn’t sent him here because of Mackenzie’s ad. Maybe she simply needed a grievous amount of help, and Ty had known he needed employment.

He could do this job—or at least he was comfortable with the work he could see that needed to be done.

But he needed to know.

“So about your ad,” he said, and Mackenzie and Mrs. Harper looked at him curiously. “On the dating website.”

She shook her head. “What dating website? I didn’t advertise on a website. I talked to some friends about the position for ranch foreman.” She straightened. “Are you saying you came all the way here from Montana because you think I’m looking for a man?”

Chapter Two (#ulink_f37f100c-a6d0-51c9-afca-701409c73f1e)

Mackenzie planned to give Ty a piece of her mind at the first opportunity. A phone call to express her dismay at his ham-handed matchmaking was tops on her list.

The cowboy who’d clearly been sent on a mercy mission seemed supremely uncomfortable at the outraged question.

“I thought you were looking for help around here,” Justin said. “So, yes, I was under the impression you were looking for a man. Though not in the manner in which you may have mistaken.”

“Ty put me in a dating website, and you show up here. How would you feel if you were me?”

Mrs. Harper drifted from the room with a baby in her arms. Mackenzie was too upset to cool her temper.

“Probably grateful that one of my friends cared enough to reach out to try to get me some help. Incidentally, I haven’t seen the ad. Didn’t look.” He shrugged, dismissing it.

That was a man for you. It was all about the practicalities, when the mousetrap was perfectly clear to her. You didn’t live in Bridesmaids Creek and not know that people plotted to get you married. Always done lovingly in your best interests, of course.

Which was how she’d ended up married the first time—not that Tommy hadn’t been a sinfully gorgeous, totally lazy man more interested in pleasure than anything resembling work.

There was a lot of work to be done around the Hanging H, so named when one of the Hawthorne H’s had partially fallen off the sign. The name had stuck—though she knew very well that Daisy Donovan—one of the town’s most notorious bad girls—liked to say the ranch was called the Hanging H because the Hawthornes were barely hanging on. Mackenzie did need help, which would have been quite obvious to the handsome cowboy meeting her gaze without hesitation. Tommy might have been handsome in a hedonistic sort of way, but this cowboy had him beat for raw sex appeal.

“You’re right. If you’re here just for work, and not because of a matchmaking website, I’d like to talk to you more about the position.” She decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. Hazel eyes stared at her, unblinking. Justin didn’t look like he had romance on the mind. Broad shoulders complemented a trim waist, the sinewy body of a man who spent his time actively. He had a square jaw that hadn’t been shaved today—or maybe even yesterday—and shaggy dark hair that hadn’t seen a barber in many months.

All in all, the kind of man who would turn women’s heads.

“I’d be interested in hearing more about the kind of help you’re looking for,” he said.

She looked at her babies, tried to turn off the zip of sex appeal that was overruling her ability to think clearly. “Why would you want to work here? There must be a lot of ranches hiring.”

He nodded. “I’m sure I can find a job if this doesn’t work out. But Ty seemed to think you could use a foreman.”

“A foreman position would be a long-term proposition.” She looked at him, curious. “Somehow you don’t strike me as a long-term kind of man.”

“Things change.”

Okay. She’d noticed he had a bit of a limp, and there was probably a story to that. In fact, there was no doubt a story to Justin in general, but she wasn’t looking for a colorful background. She needed help here, and the fact was Ty’s reference counted for a lot. There was no doubting that Justin didn’t want to answer a lot of questions about himself, which was fine because she could ask Ty whatever she wanted to know. She could simply negotiate an open-ended employment offer with Justin.

“Yes, things do change. Thanks for helping out with the babies. If you give me ten minutes to get them settled and grab the books, I’ll go over the job requirements with you.”

He nodded. “Thanks.”

She gazed into his hazel eyes, seeing nothing there but appreciation for a chance of employment. No attraction, no flirtation; just level honesty.