A Stranger in the Family (Book 1, Bardville, Wyoming Trilogy) Read online

  “Baseball?”

  “Yeah. Why does that surprise you?”

  “I don’t know.” Then he shrugged and she had a feeling the rest of his answer wasn’t going to be as honest. “Maybe I figured a kid around here would be involved in rodeo.”

  “Oh, he does that, too. But he really loves baseball.”

  “He’s on a team?”

  From her discussion of Pete’s American Legion baseball team, his questions led to other aspects of life on the Weston ranch. At one point they swapped places so she could work on Jezebel’s hooves and he could brush Snakebit.

  And all the while that she answered about the family, local schools, network of neighbors and friends, ranch routine, social activities available in the nearby town of Bardville, and the kinds of people who came through as summer guests, she wondered what on earth a stranger would find interesting in this.

  At the same time she felt an undercurrent of uneasiness coming from the man. A restlessness in his movements, a slight jerkiness in some of his questions. It reminded her of the way a young horse might react to a jump—eager to get to the other side, but dreading the actual jump.

  She’d thought letting him lead the conversation might answer her questions about him. Instead, it raised more. He hadn’t volunteered one piece of information about himself, and that was most unusual.

  Finished, she led the horses one at a time into their stalls while he gathered the various combs, brushes and picks. After she’d forced closed the stubbornly sticking stall door, he followed her into the tack room, handing equipment to her one by one as she put it away.

  “Thanks for helping.” She wished it had come out more naturally. There was no reason to be ill at ease with him. Cautious, yes, as she was cautious around most strangers. But this discomfort came from something much more elemental. And that was odd. He was attractive, but she hadn’t gone tongue-tied around good-looking men since high school. Besides, this man was more interesting-looking, with his dark brows, graying hair and angled face, than classically good-looking. Definitely interesting.

  “You’re welcome.” He sounded distracted. “Do your guests usually get involved with the routine around here?”

  “Sometimes.” She wasn’t going to tell him he wasn’t a usual guest. “It’s a matter of what the guests want from staying here—some want to be left alone and some want to join right in. Plus it depends on how much inexperienced help we can handle at any one time.”

  “That sounds fair.”

  She caught a glimpse of that lopsided grin again as she took the curry comb from him. It left her a little off-balance, and that made her next words more challenging than she’d intended.

  “You ask a lot of questions.”

  “Sorry.”

  “I have some of my own.”

  “Oh?” It was not an encouraging syllable.

  She didn’t let that, or his slight stiffening, stop her. “Where are you from?”

  “North Carolina, born and raised.”

  “That explains the drawl.”

  “What drawl?” he said in exaggerated perplexity, which she ignored.

  “Another question.” She also ignored his renewed tension, though it intrigued her. “Would you have cleaned out the stalls if I’d asked you?”

  “Sure,” he said a little smugly, holding out the final brush. “I didn’t bring it up until I saw they already had fresh straw.”

  Again he drew a laugh from her when she hadn’t expected it. Taking the brush, his hand connected briefly with hers, almost hot against the chilling air of evening. She stepped away, backing into the tack room wall.

  He reached out to her, but she’d easily steadied herself so his hands settled lightly on her shoulders, his thumbs not quite meeting where they brushed at the pulse in her throat, a pulse that abruptly pounded like a racehorse coming out of the gate.

  A brassy clang, strident for all its distance, made them both jerk. The movement brought her closer to him for an instant and tightened his hands fractionally before they simultaneously stepped apart, severing the connection.

  “That’s the call to supper.” Buoyed by her success in keeping her voice steady, she told herself that in another second she would meet his eyes without a qualm.

  “Good, because I’m definitely hungry.”

  The rough, low tone of his slow voice changed her mind. She wouldn’t look at him until they were in the house surrounded by her family.

  * * * *

  Boone Dorsey Smith considered the image in the mirror of the small bathroom off the main house’s back hall, where Cambria had directed him to wash his hands before supper.

  In a few minutes he’d meet his son for the first time. A life he’d helped create, though he hadn’t known it until sixteen years later.

  God, what if he said the wrong thing? What if he said something that would let everybody know before the time was right?

  You’re not going to just march in there and announce you’re the boy’s father, are you, Boone?

  No, I am not. For God’s sake. Cully, what kind of fool do you take me for?

  The kind of fool who takes action. Sometimes that’s needed, sometimes not. You don’t always know the difference.

  Thanks for the vote of confidence, Cully.

  You swear you’ll settle back, see what the situation is before you say anything?

  I swear.

  Swearing not to wade right in had been easy. Now he had to match his actions to the pledge.

  He wanted to do this right. No mistakes. That’s why he’d sought out Cambria. To find out more about his son, so he’d be less likely to make a hash of this first meeting.

  His groin pulsed with a faint reminder that maybe information hadn’t been his sole reason for seeking out Cambria.

  What the hell did he think he was doing?

  In the cabin he’d had an excuse. Maybe. He’d been tense from marathon sessions at Bodie Smith Enterprises the past month, trying to wrap up as much as he could. Then flying to Wyoming, picking up the car, driving out here. Meeting Irene Weston, the woman who’d been his son’s mother. But he’d gotten through that. When Irene had given him a final smile and left the cabin, he’d started to ease up on his rigid control, thinking he was alone.

  Instead he’d walked in to find a woman bent over his bed, sunlight adding gold and red to her light brown hair. Her position revealed long legs in snug jeans, suggested at the swell of breasts under a loose-fitting shirt. And the smooth, firm curves filled out the seat of her worn jeans, close enough to reach out and stroke...

  But what excuse did he have in the barn?

  Another couple of seconds and that gong wouldn’t have been any more than a whisper against the roar of hormones rushing through him.

  He’d gone there to mend fences and find out what he could about the boy they called Pete.

  He’d done that, and more. He’d watched Cambria Weston bend and straighten over the horses’ hooves. Listened to her soothing murmurs to the animals. Felt the brush of her fingers against his hand... And then they’d stood close enough that another step would have brought her softness fully against him. Until the gong had sounded.

  He wiped his hands on a small green towel hanging beside the sink and scowled at himself in the mirror.

  All right, so it had been a while since he’d had a woman. Between the demands of business and his disinclination for women who made it all too clear they’d be happy to oblige the owner of an up-and-coming company, he’d qualified as a trainee for the monastery—in deed, if not in thought—for a good many months.

  That didn’t mean he had to leap into action with the first attractive, interesting, challenging woman to come along. Especially not with this woman. He couldn’t risk his chance with his son for a woman he didn’t even know.

  Lord, his son’s adopted stepsister. What did that make her to him?

  Besides desirable.

  And—if he had any sense—completely off-limits.

 
* * * *

  Dinner started a little awkwardly.

  Irene was her usual cheerful self, and Pete remained absorbed in packing away as much of Irene’s cooking as possible. But maybe Ted wondered some of the same things about their guest as Cambria did because she noted he was even quieter than usual.

  As for Boone Dorsey, she wondered if his calm exterior really did hide a strong tension and if he really did keep directing the conversation away from himself, or if her imagination was working overtime.

  “Thanks for inviting me to supper, Irene. This is delicious. I’m sure I won’t be fed half as well when I start searching out the places the lady at the airport recommended.”

  “This early in the season not many restaurants will be open,” Irene said. “We’d be happy to have you take your meals with us as long as you’re here.”

  “Irene, I don’t—”

  “Thank you, Irene, I’d love to do that.”

  Cambria’s protest and Boone’s acceptance came simultaneously. Boone won. His deep voice kept going with barely a pause. “Of course, I’ll pay extra for meals. I know that’s not in the room rate.”

  “It’s not any bother to add a plate, but you’ll have to settle that with Cambria.” Irene dismissed the practicality with a wave toward her stepdaughter. From the corner of her eye, Cambria was aware of the look Boone shot her, but she didn’t return it as Irene continued. “Now, if there’s anything you need in your cabin, you just let us know, Boone.”

  “I appreciate that. The cabin looks great. All the comforts, thanks.” He chewed a bite of mashed potato, then added, “There is one thing—I know you said cell phone reception wasn’t good right here, but I didn’t see a landline phone when I was stowing my gear.”

  Irene was shaking her head, even as she passed him more green bean casserole. “The guest quarters don’t have phones.”

  “No phone?”

  Cambria had to hide a smile. If the man sounded that bereft without a phone, no wonder he looked stressed. Though how he expected to get much rest she couldn’t imagine, since she’d spotted a laptop computer, portable printer and other accoutrements of a traveling workaholic when she’d swept out of his cabin.

  “No, but you’re welcome to use the phone in the den. That’s where you can watch TV, too. We don’t pick up many channels, but Cambria donated her movie collection and player when she moved back from Washington, D.C., so we do have that.” Irene turned to Pete. “Remember to leave the phone for Boone’s use, you understand?”

  “Aw, Mom...”

  “No, no, that’s okay, Irene.” Boone’s quick reply made obvious his discomfort at the idea of using the phone in the main house. “I, uh, if I need a phone, I can go into town.”

  “There’s no need for that.”

  “No, really, it’s okay. I’d probably need to hook in my portable fax, too. And that would tie up your phone forever. So, I’ll find someplace in town”

  “Truth to tell, I don’t believe there is anyplace,” said Irene with a smile. “So that’s all settled, Boone.”

  Cambria bit back a grin as he mumbled his thanks. Clearly, Boone Dorsey was trying to figure out how Irene had managed to both outmaneuver him and leave him obligated to say thank you. He wasn’t the first.

  “Where’d you get the name Boone, anyhow?” Pete asked, making his first real contribution to the conversation now that he’d finished a second full plate of pot roast, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole and stewed tomatoes.

  “Pete.”

  “It’s okay,” Boone said over Ted’s soft reproof. “It’s what you might call a, uh, a family name.”

  Pete cocked his head at him. “You’re related to Daniel Boone?”

  “Hard to say. Now, I don’t want to malign the dear departed’s reputation, but my grandma used to refer to him as Darling Danny. And,” he added slyly, “my grandfather was away an awful lot to have had eight children.”

  “Yeah? But— Wait a minute, how old was your grandmother?” Pete demanded.

  Amid the general laughter, Boone grumbled about having folks ruin his tales with math and history. But he grinned across the table, and Pete grinned back.

  Cambria barely heard Irene say that she wanted Pete to get to the barber before Pete’s hair got so long he’d be taken for Daniel Boone.

  A shiver of uneasiness crossed her skin. She couldn’t explain it, but there was something about this man... She had avoided focusing on their guest since coming in from the barn, but now she did.

  He was attractive. Charming. He drew out Irene and Ted and Pete one by one with questions, just the way he had drawn her out in the barn. And said nothing about himself.

  He didn’t fit the mold of their guests, that much was certain.

  The conversation she’d paid little attention to hit a lull and Cambria impulsively demanded, “How long are you planning to stay?”

  Boone raised a brow, but answered readily enough. “I was thinking a month.”

  Everybody stared at him. Most guests stayed a couple of nights on their way cross-country, looking for a resting place between Mount Rushmore and Yellowstone Park. Occasionally they’d stay as long as a week, or even two. But a month? That had never happened before.

  “Most jobs you can’t take that much time off,” said Ted mildly.

  “I’m pretty much my own boss.”

  Cambria found her voice. “A month? Why on earth would you stay here a month?”

  “Cambria,” Irene murmured in reproach. “Boone, we’d be happy to have you with us a month, or longer if that suits you.”

  “Thank you, Irene. I’ve been needing some rest a long time. This seems a quiet place.”

  “Oh, yes,” said Irene. “An excellent place to get away from stress. As Cambria can tell you. When she came back to us from Washington, she needed rest, too. She’s much better now, though—”

  Cambria was caught off guard by the turn of the conversational spotlight onto her.

  “—I do wish she wasn’t still so cynical,” her stepmother concluded.

  Boone looked at Cambria, dark eyebrows raised slightly as if asking for the rest of the story. She frowned at Irene, who smiled blandly and patted Cambria’s hand.

  And that, Cambria thought sourly, capped off this whole dissatisfying discussion, which failed to produce a satisfactory answer—or any answer—to why a man from North Carolina with a budget that stretched to luxury rental cars and top quality clothes, who had a reluctance to talk about himself and entirely too much appeal, would stay at a working Wyoming ranch for a month.

  Chapter Two

  A number of the people who stopped at the Weston Ranch Guest Quarters found themselves at loose ends at first. Some hadn’t wound down from everyday warp speed to vacation speed, and some never would because they scheduled their vacations as closely as air traffic controllers bringing in flights at O’Hare Airport.

  Boone Dorsey’s ends, however, weren’t just loose—they were frayed.

  Serves him right, Cambria thought as, shortly before eleven the next morning, she drove the ranch truck in from the back section and spotted their guest sitting on the corral fence. No one else was in sight, the corral was empty, and Boone Dorsey fidgeted as if that top rail had an electric current running through it.

  The smile that image stirred never reached full-blown because just then the truck’s wheels hit the rut where the back road met the open area encircled by the main house and various outbuildings on one side and a crescent of log cabins on the other. The jolt bounced her high enough to brush her hair against the cab ceiling. No springs, no springs at all. She just hoped the engine held out another couple of years.

  “Hey, Cambria.” Boone’s greeting came practically before she’d brought the truck to a stop. “Missed you at breakfast.” She’d decided to get an early start unloading irrigation pipe lengths for Ted. “Where is everybody?”

  “School, working, volunteering at the hospital.”

  “I could help.”

>   She arched a brow. “You have experience as a hospital aide?”

  “I meant around here. I could help you do, well, whatever you’re going to do now.”

  “I’m going to my cabin and taking a shower.” She saw her mistake too late to stop the words.

  Flame glowed in his eyes in a heartbeat. “I could—”

  She was sure he could, which was why she talked right over his response. “And I can manage that on my own, thank you.”

  She marched off, irked at herself for giving him the opening. She wasn’t interested in a little light flirting. She was even less interested in anything serious. Her reaction to him in the barn notwithstanding, she wasn’t interested. Period.

  If this man truly intended to stay a month, she’d have to set him straight. The sooner the better.

  Where the path branched down toward her cabin, she turned to him.

  “I’m going into town after I change. You want to come?” She didn’t bother to infuse any welcome into the invitation.

  “Yeah, I do.” He remained where she’d left him. “I’ll buy lunch.”

  “We’ll split.”

  She gave him no chance to answer, but went on to her cabin, closing off all errant images of what her shower might have been like under the circumstances she’d seen burning in his eyes.

  * * * *

  “I’ll drive,” Boone offered as Cambria came out in clean jeans, shirt, and her flannel-lined canvas jacket. The clouds had piled up over the sun and the prelude to summer they’d enjoyed recently looked about ready to end.

  She should take him up on that, just to save the gas in the four-wheel drive, but she’d seen the wary look he’d divided between the aging truck and the grit-coated, four-wheel drive, and it irked her.

  “No need.”

  “It’s no bother, and— ”

  She slid into the driver’s seat of the four-wheel drive, hooked the seat belt and cut across his words by turning the key. “Get in.”

  He extracted a leather briefcase from the back seat of his sedan before getting in the four-wheel drive. He barely had the seat belt in place when she let the clutch out with a jerk. She made no effort to evade the gravel road’s washboard areas or to slow to soften its potholes.