LITMIR.BIZ

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Chapter Three

      “Heard you and the baby were about to be released.” Eli Evans stood in the doorway of Jacey’s hospital room two days later. Hat held against his chest, he asked, “Mind if I come in?”

      Jacey smiled. “Please do. I owe you and your son and everyone at the ranch so much.” For the food and lodging, getting her car out of the mud, and most especially, for delivering her baby.

      Not that she’d seen or heard a word from the vet-school dropout who’d done the honors since the EMS had rushed into the bunkhouse and taken over.

      The sexy rancher hadn’t called. Hadn’t come by. Or sent flowers.

      And while technically she knew there was no reason Rafferty Evans should have, she’d privately hoped she would see him again. She thought they’d bonded during Caitlin’s birth, the way strangers who lived through an unexpected trauma together did.

      Obviously not.

      Rafferty wasn’t going to be around to see her through the transition into motherhood. He wasn’t going to help her ward off her overbearing older sister, Mindy, or be there to lean on in the days ahead. Even though for one brief, fanciful moment, Jacey had wished that were the case…

      Oblivious to her thoughts, Eli set a glass vase of flowers down on the table beside her hospital bed.

      “As far as the men are concerned, it’s the other way around,” Eli told her. “They haven’t stopped talking about that breakfast you made them.”

      Happy to be drawn back to reality, Jacey waved off the praise. “It was no big deal.”

      “To a bunch of hired hands who haven’t had a decent meal in months, it is. Which is why I’m here.” Eli paused to gently touch Caitlin’s cheek in the same way a loving grandfather might, then dropped his weather-beaten hand and stepped back. “I promised ’em I’d at least ask if you wanted a job as ranch cook.”

      Jacey blinked. Talk about providence! Loving the soft, sweet smell of baby, she held Caitlin closer to her chest. “You’re kidding.”

      Eli sobered. “No, Ms. Lambert, I surely am not. We’ve got fall roundup going on out there for the next five or six weeks. And seven men in need of three square meals a day. I understand you just had a baby and have got to have some time to recuperate. That you probably have a job elsewhere.”

      So he’d heard she had no husband to support her. That meant Rafferty had told him. Did Rafferty and his father also guess her options at the moment were severely limited, thanks to the unexpected loss of her job in San Antonio the previous week?

      No matter. Without warning, she’d found herself in need of new employment and a new apartment, since her previous place had come with the job. Unless she wanted to impose on her sister indefinitely. And Jacey really didn’t, given the unending stream of advice the terminally overprotective Mindy would no doubt be handing out on a daily, hourly basis. She had no other options at the moment. But this.

      “Actually,” Jacey cut in cheerfully, “I’m looking for employment as well as a place to live—temporarily anyway.” She couldn’t say she’d want to live in such isolation indefinitely. But right now it wouldn’t be a bad place to be while she figured out her options and looked for another position in her regular line of work.

      Eli worked the brim of his Stetson hat in his age-spotted hands. “Any way you could do this for us? We’d make it worth your while.”

      To Jacey’s shock, Eli named a salary on par with what she had been earning with the management company.

      Joy bubbled up inside her. “I could keep Caitlin with me at all times?”

      “Absolutely. We’d see you had everything the two of you need.”

      We. Abruptly remembering the Lost Mountain Ranch was jointly owned and operated, Jacey bit her lower lip. “What about your son? How is Rafferty going to feel about this?” Initially, he hadn’t wanted her on their property at all.

      Eli regarded Jacey with a look that told the new mom that her instincts were right—her presence as ranch cook wasn’t something Rafferty would desire.

      “You leave that to me,” Eli said.

      “I DON’T CARE how providential it seems. Taking the job as the Lost Mountain Ranch bunkhouse cook is a mistake,” Mindy told Jacey as she dressed her baby girl in her pink-and white going-home-from-the hospital outfit. “Because you know exactly what’s going to happen.”

      Jacey wrapped Caitlin in a matching baby blanket. “I’ll save money for a fresh start?”

      Mindy swept a hand through her cropped brown hair and turned her laser-sharp brown eyes to Jacey. “You’ll get too comfortable. Before you know it, you’ll be settling for what’s convenient and easy again, rather than holding out for what you really want.”

      Jacey handed Caitlin over to her older sister. As always, Mindy was nicely dressed, in an elegantly tailored shirt and slacks. “Look, I know you love me…” she began.

      Mindy cuddled her niece with familial love and tenderness. “And Caitlin, too.”

      “And want only the best for me,” Jacey continued, wishing her big sis were a lot less protective, now that they were both grown-up and headed down different paths.

      Mindy exhaled, exasperated. “I’m just telling you what Mom would have said if she were here.”

      Their late mother, Jacey was fairly certain, would have understood. After all, Karol Lambert had made her own share of sacrifices as she struggled to support herself and two small daughters after her husband died.

      But figuring it would do no good to say that to Mindy—who had reacted to their beloved mother’s death, when Mindy was nineteen and Jacey was eighteen, by focusing solely on setting goals and achieving them—Jacey kept quiet. Instead, she slipped into the adjoining bath to put on the gray and pink warm-ups she intended to wear.

      “You need to call Cash, tell him you and the baby are in trouble,” Mindy said.

      Eager for the time she’d actually be able to go out and run again, Jacey put on her socks and athletic shoes. Finished, she marched back out to confront her sister. “First of all, I’m thirty-one years old. I can make my own decisions. Second, I don’t have a clue where Cash is. And third, you know very well that he doesn’t want to be involved.”

      Mindy frowned. “Caitlin is his baby!”

      Jacey exhaled slowly and counted backward from ten. “Not in any way that counts,” she argued.

      Mindy’s jaw dropped.

      Wondering why her sister was so flummoxed—certainly not from the same old disagreement they’d been over countless times in the last nine months—Jacey pivoted in the direction of Mindy’s gaze. Suddenly, she understood. Rafferty Evans was standing in the doorway, bigger than life. Her eyes drifted over him as shock set in. She thought he had looked good rescuing her and delivering her baby. It was nothing compared to the way he looked this afternoon in a dark brown leather jacket, light blue shirt and jeans. His thick brown hair had been cut since she’d seen him last. The clean, rumpled strands were an inch and a half in length, slightly wavy.

      “Well, this explains part of it anyway,” Mindy drawled.

      Figuring it would do no good to tell her sister the situation wasn’t what it seemed, Jacey turned her attention to Rafferty.

      Reassuring herself she was immune to his studly presence, she demanded, “What are you doing here?”

      His mesmerizing eyes kept more private than they revealed. “I heard you needed a ride back to the ranch.”

      Her heart beat rapidly for no particular reason. “Your father said he was going to do it.”

      He sauntered in, the fragrance of soap and man

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