The Rancher's Bride Read online

  When she met Ryan’s gaze, his concern for the way she was looking—because that’s what it’d been, she suddenly realized—had faded. He didn’t look happy. Odelia, however, appeared oblivious to his discontent.

  “Hurry up and eat that oatmeal, dear,” she said. “Ryan’s going to give you a tour of the ranch.”

  And for some strange reason, Jorie lost her appetite.

  Chapter Six

  She looked about as happy to be with him as he felt, Ryan thought, walking her toward the all-terrain vehicle that looked like a kid’s toy. It was a miniaturized truck, right down to the bed in the back and the enclosed cab in the front. Its bright green color nearly perfectly matched the grassy backdrop. Though the sun was higher now, it was still early morning, the grass a deep green.

  “We’re not allowed to drive regular-sized vehicles down to the barn,” he said, hoping to break the ice by injecting a note of humor. “God forbid we gouge tracks into the virgin soil.”

  “How long have you known your fiancée?”

  “All my life.”

  And he had. Laurel was like a sister, someone who always seemed to be underfoot…which seemed like an odd way to think of his fiancée, he admitted to himself. But she was his best friend, which was why he’d agreed—

  He didn’t want to think about that.

  She was nodding as she slid inside the golf-cart-sized cab. She still wore the same outfit, and even though her slacks were supposed to conceal the shape of her legs he could still imagine the tanned length of them beneath the black fabric.

  Stop it.

  He slammed the door closed with more force than necessary. Accident. That’s all it was. His hand found the crown of his Stetson and lifted it, his free hand scratching his forehead before cramming the hat back down on his head.

  He was just a man in need of a little hanky-panky. Lord knows he wouldn’t get that from Laurel. Not now. Maybe not ever.

  That’s the life you’re signing up for, bud. Better get used to it.

  He rounded the vehicle to the driver’s side and reached for the door handle, causing his nails to bend back, a bolt of pain shooting up his fingers and into his arm. He jumped back and shook his hand to ease the stinging. “Son of a—”

  “You okay?” he heard her ask.

  No, he wanted to gasp. He was far from okay. Ever since she’d arrived he’d been on edge. Short-tempered. Maybe even rude. Ah, hell. All he knew was that he didn’t want to drive Miss Daisy around the ranch when what he really needed to do was get to work.

  He tried the door again. Thankfully it opened smoothly this time.

  “Let’s go.” And even to his own ears, his voice sounded harsh.

  “Good thing you don’t have false nails.”

  He glanced over at her.

  “It’s a form of torture when you bend them back if you have acrylic nails on.”

  The sun, which had climbed higher, caught the edge of her hair, setting it aglow.

  “Hurts for hours,” she added.

  “I’ll take your word for it.”

  Okay. Fine. So he couldn’t get the image of her on that bed out of his mind. So what?

  He started the engine, grabbed the gear shift on the dash and slammed it into gear. The vehicle lurched. They both about clocked their heads.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, his hand shooting out of its own volition and landing on her leg. It felt like touching an open wire. “Sorry.”

  Holy crap. What was that?

  He glanced over at her. She’d felt it, too. He could tell by the way she was looking to the left and then straight ahead and then right again—anywhere but at him.

  She coughed. Cleared her throat. “So tell me about her.”

  He didn’t want to talk about Laurel. He wanted to figure out why touching her made his whole body twitch with…something. Laurel was none of her business.

  Only it was.

  It was bad enough his mom had hired a helper. All right, a damn sexy-looking “assistant” as it turned out, but now that that woman was supposed to plan his wedding…

  This wasn’t going to be easy. Of course, he’d known that. The plain and simple truth was that he didn’t love Laurel, his fiancée. How the hell was he going to explain that? Laurel’s pregnancy was a secret only the two of them shared. Well, that complete jerk-off of a man she’d been involved with knew, but he’d run off. Laurel flatly refused to abort the pregnancy, and he didn’t blame her. The problem was Laurel’s dad. As old-fashioned as they come, Lyle Harrington would lose his mind if he found out his only child was pregnant, and that the jerk he’d specifically warned Laurel against dating, Thad Norton, had run out on her. So two weeks ago, while Laurel was crying in his arms over the whole darn thing, he’d come up with a scheme. He’d marry her. Temporarily, of course, because he didn’t relish the thought of being hitched to a woman he didn’t love. He could do it temporarily, at least until the dust settled, that he didn’t mind, and yet suddenly what had seemed like a good idea two weeks ago felt like a really bad idea now. A really, really bad idea.

  He glanced at Jorie’s legs again.

  “Laurel is…” he searched for a word “…loyal.”

  Crap. What kind of answer was that? Loyal. He made his fiancée sound like a damn dog.

  “Loyal, huh?” he heard her ask, a touch of amusement in her voice.

  He refused to look at her again, had to keep his eyes firmly straight ahead, hands locked on the steering wheel, jaw thrust forward to the point that it hurt.

  Relax.

  Yeah, right. Taking her out to look at the wedding venue was the first item on a long list of prewedding tasks that he’d have to muddle through, for Laurel’s sake. He just wished he didn’t feel like such a fraud.

  “I’ve known Laurel my entire life,” he said, feeling Jorie’s gaze on him. He could picture her blue eyes perfectly. They were the blue of a peacock feather—iridescent, striking, mesmerizing. Funny, he couldn’t recall the exact color of Laurel’s eyes at all.

  “So were you high school sweethearts?”

  Ryan’s fingernails dug into the foam that covered the steering wheel. “Something like that.”

  She didn’t need to know the details. All he had to do was deliver her to the barn, maybe leave her there. She could walk back to the office, he thought, pointing the vehicle toward the top of a small hill.

  Okay, so that might not be the polite thing to do, but he felt as jumpy as a flea in a vet’s office.

  “Oh, wow,” he heard her gasp.

  He’d crested the top of the hill where the view was one he’d seen at least a thousand times before, and yet for some reason this morning he saw it through new eyes.

  “It really is something, isn’t it?”

  The sun, still low on the horizon, painted the barn orange and pink and deep red. The metal roof had a patina that blended seamlessly with the colors; it added to the warmth of the picture. The colors of fall, he thought, suddenly hankering for pumpkin pie and apple cider.

  “You’re very lucky to live here.”

  The longing in her voice caused him to turn his head and stare at her profile. He slowed down before he could think better of it, and as they coasted to a stop a few hundred feet away, he’d have been blind not to spot the sadness in her gaze.

  “I’ve never known any other place,” he replied.

  They came to a stop. Her blue gaze met his own. No. Not sadness…pain.

  “Every kid should grow up in a place like this.”

  He knew then that she had not, that memories of her childhood were painful, and that as a youth she had longed for wide-open spaces and an old barn to play in.

  And apparently, you’ve developed psychic abilities in the past half hour.

  He scof
fed at himself, pressed the accelerator again. “Come on. I’ll show you the inside.”

  * * *

  IT WAS JUST an empty barn.

  Four-inch-wide timbers threw back the sound of Jorie’s heels as she walked into the middle of the cavernous space.

  “This used to house my great-great-grandfather’s cows.”

  She refused to look him in the eye, still felt the remnants of…whatever it was she’d felt back in his ATV.

  “It’s much bigger on the inside than I thought it would be.” And there would be ways to improve it. Already her mind was spinning, which was good, because the last thing she wanted to think about was Ryan Clayborne and the strange fission of energy that had danced between them earlier. The ceilings were high, so much so that she wondered if there hadn’t been an attic ages ago.

  “Did there used to be a hayloft here?”

  “Yes. When we renovated the barn for weddings we took it out. Mom wanted high ceilings for the ambience.” He stressed the word ambience, doing his best to imitate his mom’s voice and failing.

  “I like it,” she said.

  Her voice echoed off the concrete floor, her gaze hooking on the gray aggregate. That would need to be changed, too. Maybe some brown stain on the floor, something that would blend in better. And maybe a chandelier. That might seem strange, but she would bet it would look good. Nothing fancy, just something that could be decorated with flowers or jewels or whatever a bride might like.

  “Any chance we could add some more windows?” It wasn’t superdark inside, but it was bad enough. The place resembled a mortuary more than a wedding chapel. “More natural light would really brighten things up.”

  She heard his “Hmm” as he contemplated her question. “I don’t see why not. ’Course, you’d have to clear it with my mom.”

  “Is there power?”

  She finally gained the courage to look him in the eye again only to immediately wish she hadn’t. Every time her gaze ensnared his own, something tickled her stomach, a something that made her skin sprout goose bumps and made her think she’d lost her mind, a something that had multiplied tenfold when he’d touched her earlier.

  Hello. You’re here to check out this place for this man’s wedding.

  “No. We bring in generators if we need light.”

  That must really add to the ambience. She almost said the words out loud, making a mental note to tell Odelia the sound of generators humming in the background was not romantic.

  “Okay, I’ve seen enough.”

  She heard the footfalls of his boots on concrete as he fell into step behind her. She really didn’t like the man. He was cocky and so full of himself she found herself wanting to get under his skin because…because…well, just because.

  “We’ve got some work ahead of us,” she said after slipping inside his mini truck vehicle, whatever it was called.

  It felt as though she sat next to an elephant. That’s how aware she was of him, and it was ridiculous, too. How could you not like someone and yet be aware of him? Aware, aware. As in exquisitely conscious of his dark good looks. Of how his eyes brought to mind warm seas and fields of bluebonnets. Of how razor stubble already sprouted upon his chin, and how she wanted to see if it felt like sandpaper if she rubbed it. He smelled. That was the worst part. She kept catching the same whiff of masculine essence that she’d noticed yesterday and it made her want to scream in anger, not at him, but at her. He was her boss’s son. And engaged. She had no business having lusty thoughts about him, yet she’d had exactly that. Last night. Just before he’d awoken her in bed. His legs had been entangled with her own—at least in her dream—because when she’d opened her eyes, it’d been the sheets, not—

  She cut the thought off.

  “Do you know how much your mom is willing to spend on upgrades?”

  “You’ll have to discuss that with her.”

  His voice sounded gruff, as if he were angry about something. Maybe he didn’t like to discuss money.

  “I’ll work up a list of things I’d like to see done to the barn before your wedding.”

  There. She’d said it. His wedding.

  “Like what?” he asked.

  Though she’d just met him, she found herself feeling something that seemed an awful lot like disappointment that he was engaged.

  Ridiculous.

  “I’d like to stain the floor. Make it more natural. And I bet you’re using folding chairs for services. I’d like to get some old pews.”

  “Pews?”

  “You know, the kind in churches. They sell them off from time to time. You just have to keep your eyes out. It’d make it look more romantic—”

  “It’s a barn, not a damn wedding hall.”

  He sounded so annoyed she found herself glancing at him in surprise. He’d thrust his jaw forward, his hands gripping the steering wheel more tightly than he needed. She could see the white of his knuckles.

  “If you’re worried about the expense, you can relax. It’ll cost next to nothing to do what I want to do.”

  He glanced over at her, something that was a cross between amusement and annoyance on his face. “Believe me, the last thing we need to worry about is money.”

  Yeah, that didn’t surprise her. The house and property certainly suggested they were rich, but she’d learned over the years that looks could be deceiving, which is why she’d formed the opinion that maybe holding weddings on their property was a way to generate extra revenue.

  Apparently that wasn’t the case at all.

  “I just don’t want to see this turn into a three-ring circus.” His words came out quickly, as if he were confessing something to a priest.

  She exhaled, having not even realized she was holding her breath. “By ‘this’ you mean your wedding?”

  He nodded.

  “I see.”

  He slowed down. They were at the top of the small hill, the one that overlooked the main portion of the ranch. In the distance she could see his mother’s home, the covered arena where their office was and the various outbuildings. The grass beneath their vehicle seemed to breathe deeply and warm, moisture-laden air clung to her skin. She was used to Georgia’s humidity, but Texas humidity felt different. Hotter. Warmer. Thicker.

  “I want to keep this simple,” he said, causing her to look over at him again. “So does my—” she watched his Adam’s apple bob “—my bride.”

  “I take it you’re the kind of groom that wants to keep his distance from the wedding plans?”

  “Something like that.”

  “All right then,” she said, injecting as much enthusiasm as she could muster into the words. “I’ll keep you out of it, but I’m going to need to talk to your bride. What’s her name again?”

  “Laurel.”

  “Is there a way to get in touch with Laurel?”

  “My mom will give you that information.”

  His mother? Couldn’t he just rattle off a cell phone number? Not that she had anything to write with, but still.

  “Will she be around today?”

  He wouldn’t look at her. She followed his gaze. As far as the eye could see, there was grassland, so perfectly cropped it looked as if a bolt of multicolored green fabric had been rolled out upon the earth. In the distance, maybe a few miles out, the trees thickened up, a darker color that added texture to the scene. It was so perfectly beautiful Jorie found herself thinking no artist on earth could ever capture the essence of the place.

  How wonderful to grow up here.

  “I’ll have Laurel stop by the office.”

  The vehicle lurched. Jorie found herself reaching for something to hold on to. As they drove around the ranch, Ryan showing her the creek in the distance, and then explaining which pastures held cows, and which held the horses, and w
hich held the weanlings, whatever that was, she began to think she’d missed something back there, something important, something directly related to Ryan’s wedding.

  A wedding he didn’t want to be involved in.

  That wasn’t so strange. Sometimes a groom wanted nothing to do with a wedding. Yet Ryan didn’t strike her as the type. From what she’d seen in the past twenty-four hours, he was involved in every aspect of the ranch, but not this.

  The question was, why?

  Chapter Seven

  It wasn’t until Monday that Jorie finally met Ryan’s bride, though she was in the office for nearly half the day before she heard someone pull up outside of the arena. A quick glance revealed a brown-haired woman that Jorie was almost certain had to be Laurel. She waited, kept glancing toward the door. She’d spent the weekend observing two of the weddings Odelia had scheduled, taking notes. Actually, she’d worked throughout the entire weekend, half expecting to run into Ryan at some point. She hadn’t. This morning she’d heard his truck, had looked out the window and observed him driving away beneath an overcast and gloomy-looking sky, and immediately felt the urge to climb back under the sheets and cover her head.

  “Hello?”

  The word came from the other side of the door. Young and innocent sounding, and since the only person she was half expecting was…

  “Laurel?” Jorie called, pasting a smile on her face as she went to the door, although why the woman didn’t just come right on inside, Jorie had no idea.

  “Oh!” said a tiny brunette with the prettiest gray eyes she’d ever seen. The loud squeak of the door’s hinges reminded Jorie of a castle’s jail cell, although maybe that was just her own twisted imagination. “I didn’t expect the door to open like that.”

  “You must be Laurel.”

  The woman smiled, and Jorie admitted she wasn’t at all what she expected. For some reason she’d pictured a voluptuous blonde. Or maybe someone sleek and elegant with designer jeans and a two-thousand-dollar cowboy hat—if they made cowboy hats that expensive. The diminutive-looking brunette had a grin that wrinkled the corners of her eyes and lit up her face.