LITMIR.BIZ

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over a girl who probably never had loved him. He vowed on the spot to be the kind of man his dad had been— hardworking and clean-living. He would, of course, run the family ranch.

      Only there no longer was a family ranch. The bank fore-closed, and Jake—totally stunned and shaken—had tried to make some sense out of the shambles of his life. His old friends—especially the women—couldn’t understand why he avoided them or why he wasn’t hanging out at his favorite watering holes.

      To make a complete break with the past, Jake left Montana and went to Wyoming to find work, and he just happened to stop in a little town called Tamarack. While eating supper in a café he read the local newspaper and saw an ad for a ranch manager. That was how he met Stuart Paxton, and to this day Jake still considered it a miracle that Stuart had taken a chance on the transient, down-on-his-luck stumblebum he’d been four years ago.

      Jake’s most profound regret was that his parents, especially his father, had not lived to see the man he was today. He worked hard, he was physically strong and fit, he didn’t smoke, drink or chase wild women. In fact, the pendulum had swung so far in the other direction that Jake had become an antisocial loner. That was one reason he loved the Wild Horse Ranch; it was eighty miles from Tamarack, the nearest town, and he didn’t have to even set eyes on a woman unless he wanted to take that long drive, which didn’t happen often. His sex drive, once so outrageously out of control, was now banked and mostly forgotten. Jake questioned his wasted youth and wished he had it to do over again. He should have gone to college when Gloria broke their engagement. He should have behaved like a man, taken her rejection on the chin and gotten on with life instead of floundering in self-pity for so many years. All he could do, he’d finally decided, was to accept the way he had once lived and be proud of the way he lived now, sincerely believing that he had Stuart Paxton to thank for everything he’d accomplished.

      It was the reason he said quietly, “Stu, whatever you need, if I can help out, all you have to do is name it.”

      “Thanks, Jake. I knew I could count on you. Okay, here’s the situation. You’ve heard me mention my daughter Carly.”

      “Uh, sure, Stu. What about her?” Actually, Jake just barely recalled Stu talking about his daughter, probably because Jake simply hadn’t been interested enough to retain the memory. Stuart’s wife had died many years ago, and Jake did remember—vaguely—Stuart saying something about the difficulties of raising a daughter without her mother.

      “I brought Carly to the ranch a couple of times when she was a little girl, but then in her teens she decided she didn’t like it, so I didn’t force her to go with me when I went to Wyoming. She hasn’t been there for about fifteen years. Anyhow, this past year has really been tough on her—her divorce, you know—and, Jake, it breaks my heart to see her so unhappy. She’s trying so damned hard to pick up the pieces and start a new life that she deserves a medal. But I think she still can’t believe that a man could be as…as phony and despicable as her ex was.”

      Jake frowned. There was something Stuart wasn’t saying, Jake could hear the hesitation, the holdback, in Stuart’s voice. But Jake really didn’t want to hear any sordid details about anyone’s divorce—anyone else’s personal problems, for that matter, because he had more harsh memories of his own than any one person deserved—so he didn’t encourage Stuart to say more than he had. Instead, he murmured quietly, “What is it you want me to do?” He heard his employer draw a long breath before he spoke.

      “I’ve been thinking that a change of scene just might give Carly a whole new perspective. Jake, would you mind if I sent her to the ranch for a visit?”

      Jake’s whole body stiffened with instantaneous dread. It was all he could do to say something even remotely sensible. “It’s your ranch,” he mumbled.

      “But you’re running it, Jake. It’s your home, and if Carly’s presence would bother you in any way…”

      Jake had gotten his wits together—some of them, at least. “No, no, Stu,” he said, abruptly cutting in. “Carly is more than welcome here. Anytime.”

      “You’re sure?”

      “Positive.” Jake’s mouth was so dry he felt parched. The ranch was a strictly male society. Even the cook was a man. The house was old, rundown and not especially clean. Jake was the only person who used the house at all; every other man on the place slept in the bunkhouse.

      But Stuart knew all that, Jake thought uneasily. When Stuart came to the ranch, he used one of the four bedrooms on the second floor. There were boots and clothes in that particular room’s closet and bureau, things that Stuart deliberately left behind so he wouldn’t be hauling them back and forth between New York and Wyoming.

      There were no bedrooms on the first floor, which meant that Carly would be sleeping upstairs, same as Jake. It flashed through Jake’s mind that he could move into the bunkhouse during her visit, but he hated giving up his privacy so much that he immediately retreated from that idea. He needed his privacy, he could not live with a bunch of men. And the crew wouldn’t like it, either. Jake had never attempted to be buddies with his men, and if he moved into the bunkhouse now, everyone on the place would be uncomfortable.

      “I think Carly remembers some things about the ranch,” Stuart said. “When I brought her there as a child, my folks were still living, of course, so her memories could be more about her grandparents than about the ranch itself. But it’s a nice quiet place, Jake—which I think she needs right now— and she will own it someday, so there’s more than one reason why she should spend some time in Wyoming.”

      “Anything you say, Stu.” Jake marveled at the normalcy of his voice when his pulse was leaping around erratically and his palms were sweaty. Everything had been just about perfect for four years now, ever since he’d set foot on Wild Horse Ranch. A woman on the place—any woman—would change the very air they all breathed. The men smoked, chewed tobacco, spit and cussed wherever and whenever they felt like it. They told off-color jokes and made crude references to females in general, even though most of them were married or had girlfriends and would defend the reputations of their own women to the death, if challenged.

      But that was all stuff that Stuart knew, too, Jake thought. Stuart had grown up among cowhands, and there was one thing they both knew they could rely on. Cowboys might be tough talkers and hard as nails with other men, but they were respectful and often shy around a lady. Now, if the lady turned out to be not so ladylike, that was a different story, but the truth was that most cowhands—just like most men in any line of work—took their cue from the woman.

      Actually, Jake admitted with a knot of anxiety in his gut, it wasn’t the men he was worried about if Carly really did come to the ranch; it was himself. He liked the status quo. He liked eating in the cookshack with the crew and not having to worry about meals. How would Carly take eating with a bunch of strange men?

      Of course, there again Stuart knew the score, and Jake didn’t think it was his place to suggest that his employer’s daughter might not enjoy some of the routines on the ranch.

      “When, uh, do you think she’ll be coming?”

      “Probably in a week or so. I’ll let you know for sure.”

      “Do you want me to meet her plane in Cheyenne?”

      “No, I think I’ll hire a helicopter for the trip from Cheyenne to the ranch. I’ll let you know when everything comes together,” Stuart said.

      “Yeah, okay,” Jake mumbled. They talked a few more minutes, but when Jake hung up he couldn’t remember what they’d said. He really felt as though the life he had created for himself on this beautiful piece of Wyoming land was slipping away. A rational part of his brain told him not to panic or jump to conclusions. After all, Carly Paxton might be a perfectly nice person who would fit in so smoothly that no one on the ranch would even be aware of her presence.

      “Yeah, right,” Jake muttered with a dark scowl on his face. Getting up from the desk he’d been sitting at in the room used as an office in the house, he headed for the front door and stepped outside

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