Kitabı oku: «The Renegade Cowboy Returns»

Chapter One

“What’s past is prologue”

–The Tempest by William Shakespeare

The secret to Gage Phillips’s happy existence was ridiculously simple: stay far away from women, specifically those who had marriage on their mind.

He put his duffel on the porch of the New Mexico farmhouse and looked around. The rebuilding project he’d taken on for Jonas Callahan was perfectly suited for a man who gloried in solitude. Gage knew his formula for a drama-free, productive lifestyle seemed oversimplified to some people, especially ladies who wanted to show him how much better life could be in a permanent relationship with a good woman. Yet he was thirty-five and a die-hard, footloose cowboy—testament to remaining single being the best choice a man could ever make on this earth, besides finding the right career and spending hard-earned cash on a dependable truck.

He hadn’t always been die-hard and footloose. Fourteen years ago he’d been at the altar, and fourteen years ago he’d learned a valuable lesson: marriage was not for him.

His friends were fond of saying he was just too much of a renegade to be tied down. Gage figured they might have a point. Fatherhood had been a late-breaking bulletin for him. About a year ago he’d been delivered the news. What man was so busy traveling the country that he didn’t know he had a daughter?

Leslie, convinced by her parents not to tell him about his child so they wouldn’t have to share custody, made a midlife decision to invite him to Laredo to come clean. He was pretty certain Leslie had told him only because she was at her wits’ end with Cat—and because her teenager apparently was fond of making her mother’s new boyfriend miserable.

The situation was messy.

So it was time for a little escape. This desolate, dirt-as-far-as-the-eyes-could-see forgotten hideaway was also perfect for getting away from his other problem—the family. If anybody needed quiet and a place to plot his exit strategy from The Family, Inc., it was he.

“Excuse me,” a female said, and Gage jumped about a foot. “If you’re selling something, I’m not buying, cowboy. And there’s a No Trespassing sign posted on the drive, which I’m sure you noticed. And ignored.”

He’d whipped around at her first words and found himself staring at a woman of medium height, with a slender build and untamable red hair, eyeing him like a protective mother hen prepared to flap him off the porch. Maybe she was the housekeeper, getting the place cleaned up for his arrival. He couldn’t place her accent—perhaps Irish or Scottish. Either way, she seemed intent on him not getting past the front door. He plastered on a convincing smile to let her know he was harmless. “I’m not selling anything, ma’am. I’m moving in.”

She blinked big, glass-green eyes. “You have the wrong address.”

“This is Dark Diablo Ranch.” It was impossible to have the wrong address; there were no other houses around for miles. “Owned by Jonas Callahan of Rancho Diablo, right?”

She nodded. “It is. But Jonas never mentioned anything about anyone living here.”

He could see she wasn’t the kind of woman who could be swayed with easy charm. Probably didn’t trust strangers, which was a good thing. By the way her hand moved impatiently to rest on her slim hip, it was obvious she didn’t trust him, even with his pointed mention of Jonas’s name. A woman who had nice long legs like hers usually caught his eye. He loved tiny freckles, too. She had a light dusting on her pale legs and arms exposed by her green tank top. Even across her delicate nose… But she also had a healthy dose of ire clouding her brow.

Nope. This was not a lady one enjoyed for a night or two in the name of good sex.

“Sorry,” he said. “I’ve definitely got the right address, then. Looks like we’re going to be housemates.”

“I don’t think so.” She remained stubborn, not giving an inch. “There’s a run-down barn out back, and a small bunkhouse, which, though antiquated and not exactly a five-star hotel, will suit you. I’m going inside to call Jonas and tell him there’s been some kind of mix-up.”

“That’s a good idea,” Gage said. “Ask Jonas why he didn’t warn me about Lucy Ricardo being my bunk mate.” Gage shook his head, deliberately trying the lady’s patience. “He knows I’m not a fan of redheads. There’s two things in life that should be left well alone, and they both happen to be the same shade.” He grinned, a rascal in denim, determined to needle her. “That’d be a stick of dynamite and a redhead, ma’am, if I need to spell it out for you.”

“Really.” She gave him a last annoyed look and went into the house, letting the screen door slam behind her. Gage sat on the porch, whistling to himself, leaning back on his elbows as he stared up at the jewel-blue New Mexico sky. He could hear her complaining to Jonas, and grinned as bits of dialogue confirmed to him that Jonas was verifying his story.

She wasn’t happy about it, either.

“You might have told me,” she said, her tone begrudging as she came back out, “that you’re here to do work for Jonas.”

“You didn’t seem interested in my curriculum vitae,” Gage said. “Better to let Jonas tell you. Funny thing, he didn’t mention you to me.” He gazed at her again, thinking how attractive she was, even for a redhead. “My name’s Gage Phillips.” He stuck out a hand, which she pointedly didn’t accept. Shrugging, he shoved it in his jeans pocket.

“I don’t need to know your name,” she said. “You’ll be staying in the bunkhouse, as my mother and I live here.”

Mother? He was going to read Jonas the riot act the next time he saw him. The ornery son of a gun had said nothing about a saucy female and no doubt equally prickly ma infesting his solitude. “My understanding is that the barn and the bunkhouse are fairly uninhabitable,” Gage said. “That’s part of the reason I’m here.”

She pressed her lips together, catching his attention. He thought she’d be really pretty if she ever smiled—not that she seemed interested in doing much of that around him. Very tantalizing, though. He gazed at her, wondering why Jonas would have left out telling him about this very luscious detail when he’d hired him. Jonas had specifically told him he’d be staying at the farmhouse. He’d never mentioned females.

“Wait a minute,” Gage said. “Where are you from?”

“Dublin, Ireland,” she said, her tone stiffer than an ironing board.

“You’re Jonas’s ex-fiancée,” Gage said, a light dawning. “I had an invitation to Sabrina and Jonas’s wedding, though I couldn’t make it over from Hell’s Colony in time. But I heard about you.”

She looked at him, not pleased. “Jonas and I are good friends, and nothing more.”

He laughed. “Cupcake, I get the whole setup now. Those damn Callahans. They want everyone to share their misery.”

“What are you talking about?”

Gage couldn’t wipe the smirk off his face. It was all so obvious. “You’re not a United States citizen, are you?”

“No. What does that have to do with anything?”

He shrugged. “You. Me. One house. It’s a setup.”

“I don’t think so,” she said, her voice subarctic. “There is no setup.”

“Sure.” He leaned forward on his knee. “How long are you planning to stay here?”

“Here? As long as I can.”

“And how long would that be?”

She sniffed. “I’m in the process of getting a green card.”

“So you want to stay a while?”

“Being in New Mexico has had a wonderful effect on my mother’s health. We’re hoping to remain here permanently, if possible. Mum and I have been traveling, and we’re getting to the end of my legal time here. Filing the paperwork has been a very slow process. But I don’t see what that has to do with you, or—” Her expression suddenly changed from ire to horror. “You think Jonas sent you out here so I could snare you into marrying me! Because I’m his ex-fiancée? You think I just need another man to make all my problems go away, and Jonas sent you as some kind of consolation prize.”

He smiled. “Don’t look so shocked, cupcake.”

She shook her head. “You’re dumb. I’m going inside, and I hope our paths cross very rarely.”

“Hang on a second.”

He didn’t think she’d stop, but to his surprise, she turned to look at him with all the misgiving she’d probably have when eyeing a coyote. “What?”

“What’s your name? I can’t just call you Irish.”

“My name is Chelsea Myers, but I prefer you don’t call me anything. Look.” She gave him a mulish glare. “I don’t believe Jonas would try to get us together—”

“You don’t know the Callahans all that well, then. They’re notorious for their practical jokes.”

“The two of us getting together would indeed be a joke. Jonas promised me I would have nothing but peace and quiet here for my writing. Peace and quiet is what I need, or I can’t work. Does that make sense to you?” She gave Gage a look that quite clearly said he was probably incapable of understanding much of anything. “So if you like brawling, loud music or wild nights with the ladies, you’ll need to go into town for all that.”

“Sure thing, sweetie.” He picked up his duffel and strode past her into the house.

“What are you doing?”

“If we’re going by Jonas’s rules, then I’m staying in here. He said nothing about a redhead with an attitude disturbing me on my own personal time-out. He said nothing about sleeping in a ramshackle bunkhouse or a caving-in barn. He said there was a quaint, newly furnished though spartan farmhouse I could live in while I create his horse program and rebuild this joint. And if you don’t mind, Miss Myers,” he said, his tone deliberately soft to let her know he did mind very much, “I abhor the sound of a TV, especially the soap operas you ladies love, and most particularly reality TV. When I come home at night, I want no bickering, no bossing and no busybodying interrupting my routine. Got that?” He glanced around, seeing the redheaded storm about to erupt, and spoke to forestall it. “Now, where’s Ma Myers? I’d like to introduce myself.”

“She won’t be here until tomorrow. She’s in Diablo helping Fiona Callahan pickle vegetables for the Fourth of July family celebration. Never mind about my mother,” Chelsea said. “We can’t both stay in this house.”

“There’s a barn and a bunkhouse,” he reminded her.

Her lips pressed flat again. “Mum and I will take the upstairs, you will take the downstairs.”

He glanced around, liking the look of the place. Jonas hadn’t been far off when he’d said it was almost new inside. He’d begun renovating the house first, then hired Gage to whip the rest of the ranch into shape. “Fine,” he said. “I leave early, come in late.”

“I couldn’t care less what you do.”

“I just don’t want to catch you wandering around in your nightie, sweetheart.”

“I promise not to wander around in my nightie,” Chelsea said, her voice oh-so-sweet, “if you don’t mind leaving your boots on the porch. The hardwood floors are new.”

She had him there. His own mother would have already read him the riot act—he and his brothers and sister had learned to leave their boots outside or in the mudroom from the time they were old enough to wear them. He’d be better off dealing with a scorpion in his boot than his mother catching him wearing them in the house. “Deal. Pleasure doing business with you, Miss.”

“Whatever,” Chelsea said, and went up the stairs.

He watched her climb, his mouth curving a bit at the sight of female hips swaying ever so enticingly. She was a mouthy little thing, but he didn’t mind mouthy so much. Mouthy could be tamed.

“One more thing I need to mention,” he called up the stairs.

“What now?”

“My daughter is arriving tomorrow, so she’ll be staying here with me.”

Chelsea appeared at the top of the stairs. “Daughter?”

Gage nodded. “Yeah. Cat and her mom have been having a bit of mom-daughter drama. Cat’s thirteen, so she and Leslie, my ex-wife, want a small break from each other.”

Chelsea’s eyebrows rose. “Small break? Like a couple of days?”

He shrugged. “Like the rest of summer vacation. Jonas said this was probably the perfect place for Cat and me to get to know each other better.”

“I see.”

Gage saw that Chelsea did in fact “see” and wasn’t pleased. “I don’t imagine a teenager will be much of a bother.”

Chelsea disappeared from view. He went into the kitchen to check out the grub in the fridge—he’d need to make a grocery run before Cat arrived.

He hadn’t been quite candid about his daughter. According to Leslie, she was a handful and they were always squabbling. Gage had offered to bring Cat out here for the summer to give mom and daughter a respite from each other, but he’d thought it’d be just the two of them.

Now it would be the four of them, one big, not-too-happy group.

* * *

CHELSEA WAS NOT HAPPY with Jonas Callahan, or the cowboy downstairs. Jonas was a fink for not telling her of his plans—he’d said Dark Diablo would be the perfect place to write and for her mother’s health, saying nothing about a man and his teenage daughter living with them. This Gage Phillips—a handsome man with scoundrel written all over him, from his easy grin to his dark brown eyes that twinkled with mischief—clearly had issues. “Marriage, indeed,” Chelsea muttered. “I’m not that desperate to be legal in this country. I’ll stick with the slow-as-a-turtle process, thanks, Jonas.”

She was going to kill the eldest Callahan like a character in her mystery novels.

Of course, she didn’t have to stay here. She could tell Jonas the deal was off. Her laptop was portable; she could write anywhere, couldn’t she? But truthfully, her mother would be comfortable here. They’d spent several months traveling, seeing the sights on a once-in-a-lifetime journey together. Dark Diablo was an ideal setting for her mother to rest for a while.

“I’m not leaving. Jonas wouldn’t try to fix me up,” she said to the open laptop where her protagonist, Bronwyn Sang, hung helplessly from a steep cliffside that the ruthless murderer had pushed her over. Bronwyn would have to dangle a little while longer, unfortunately. In the meantime, Chelsea was determined to keep so much distance between herself and Gage that he’d never even see her.

She was too ticked to write now. A nice, cold swim in the creek Jonas was so proud of was the answer. Hearing a truck door slam before an engine started and left the property—safe, for the moment!—Chelsea tossed on her emerald-green polka-dotted bikini, grabbed a towel and flip-flops and headed out. Exercise was what every writer needed to clear her head, and if Bronwyn was ever going to be rescued so she could live to fight another day, Chelsea had to get her boiling-hot emotions refocused.

In other words, she had to forget about the fact that Gage Phillips, in spite of all the “No” signs flashing all over him, was so devil-may-care, so bad-boy, that of course her hormones had noticed—she’d have to be dead not to. He was the call of the wild she’d always dreamed of, a Texas man, big and strong, and Chelsea recognized her downfall when she saw it.

If Jonas hadn’t lobbed temptation into her lap on purpose, then he was the king of coincidence. Gage was right: the Callahans were pranksters, and they loved matchmaking.

But sexy, dark-eyed, dark-haired Gage from Hell’s Colony, Texas, was in no danger from her.

* * *

GAGE STARED AT the bikini-clad redhead as she floated on a plastic raft in the shallow end of the creek. Great. Just great.

She was one hot lady. Too hot to be his housemate.

He sat down on a boulder and took off his hat, mopping his face with his red bandanna. Okay, he had three options for the temptation that lay before him.

One. He could cannonball into the water and tump her off the raft, thereby setting up total frigid conditions in the house they were sharing for the foreseeable future.

It was so tempting. In fact, it was the most tempting of the options on his short list. If she’d been any other woman, the wolf in him would have definitely been on the prowl.

There would be no freewheeling cannonballs with Miss Irish.

Two. He could clear his throat, call out that he was here so she wouldn’t think he was spying on her—which he was, at this point; all that almond-colored, slightly freckled skin could not be looked away from. Not to mention she had darling breasts and—

No. She’d think the worst of him, that he’d followed her or something. He hadn’t, but she would never believe it. He’d pulled his truck around to check out the barn and bunkhouse to begin making a repair list, and had found the creek Jonas had told him about. Jonas loved this part of the vast property the best, probably because bodies of water were scarce in most of New Mexico. But also, this one was special, private, and not full of rocks and stones and rough edges like the rapids where the kayakers loved to test their mettle. This was a quiet haven, and Gage could see why Jonas sought peace here.

Gage dared not call out to Chelsea. She had been distinctly displeased to see him.

The third option was all he had: turn around and walk away, pretending he’d never seen her in her green polka-dotted bikini. The vision of her languidly lying on that yellow raft was burned into his memory; he guessed it would probably haunt him for a long time.

Too bad. He turned to walk off unnoticed, glad he was able to do so.

Something cold and wet smacked him in the back, and he stumbled, surprised. A child-size football bounced onto the nearby dock Jonas had constructed.

Gage turned back, realizing that Chelsea, among her many other attributes, had perfect aim.

“You can at least have good manners and say hello,” she said.

He fished for words, wondering why he was so tongue-tied. “You seemed to be resting.”

“And you seem to be a Peeping Tom.” She rolled off the raft, wrapping her arms around it so she could float and look at him. “I thought you were going into town.”

“I am.” He resented the intimation that he’d been spying on her. He was, but he wasn’t. It was splitting hairs, and she was looking to split them. “I was making an initial run-through of the buildings to see where it might be best to start. I saw the creek. You’re not the only one who likes to swim. And I didn’t say hello because, quite frankly, I just saw you at the house, where you told me not to speak to you.” He shrugged. “Make up your mind.”

She gave him a long look. “Nothing’s changed. I just don’t like you watching me.”

“Believe me, I wasn’t planning on it.” He turned, hoping she didn’t have any more child-size missiles to peg him with. Jonas would have to stick him with the world’s most unfriendly female.

He was going to tell Jonas that, too, the first chance he had. Gage had every intention of letting his employer know that for perhaps the first time, the Callahan matchmaking magic had fizzled out big-time.

* * *

CHELSEA QUIT HIDING in the water and got back on her raft when she knew that Gage was truly gone. Exhaling, she went back to gazing at the sky.

He was annoyed with her now, and she was annoyed with him.

Neither of them wanted to share a house.

She closed her eyes, not as relaxed as she had been. It was going to be hard to plot a mystery when the Texas cowboy kept crowding red herrings and twists out of her mind. He was tall and big and strong, incredibly handsome, and if his back hadn’t made such a nice wide target, she wasn’t certain she would have been able to hit him with the small football.

He’d seemed pretty surprised, but not as surprised as she’d been.

Maybe it hadn’t been very nice to do it. They had to live in the same house together, so perhaps it was best not to let her Irish temper and red hair get the better of her, as her mother was fond of reminding her.

She rolled off the raft and swam to the dock, grabbing her towel as she stood in the shallows. “Hey!” she called after Gage. “Hang on a sec.”

He walked back, his eyebrows raised. Taking a deep breath, Chelsea wrapped the towel around herself and stepped onto the bank. “Listen, I don’t want to get off on the wrong foot here. I think it just caught me off guard that we’d be living—”

He’d been watching her as she spoke, listening, but her words stopped abruptly when he pulled a gun from his jacket, firing at the dirt to her left. Chelsea shrieked and jumped back, pinwheeling into the water, towel and all. Coughing, she rose to the surface.

He was staring down at something on the ground, then moved dark eyes to her. She pushed her hair out of her face.

“You…you crazy—” Chelsea took a deep breath. “You’re not living with me! I don’t care what Jonas says. I was here first.” She tread water, angrier than she’d ever been in her life. “I’m not living with a man who carries a gun on him as casually as a piece of chewing gum!”

Gage looked perplexed. “Why would you want to live with a man who didn’t carry a gun?”

She stared at him. “I don’t know. I don’t care! You’re crazy, and you’re not living with me. It doesn’t matter if you pitch a tent, but you’re not staying in the house.” She didn’t allow herself to think about his poor daughter, who had a maniac for a father. “Get out of my sight.”

She wanted to send a few more choice words after him, but he retreated so obligingly that she held her tongue. Jonas was going to get an earful! In fact, she was mad enough to drive out to Rancho Diablo and tick him off in person.

She swam to the bank, not bothering with pulling herself up on the dock. Her towel was soaked. She started wringing it out, muttering under her breath—and realized a three-foot-long snake was lying at her feet with its head shot off. The scream that erupted from her could have been heard in the next state as she leaped back into the water.

Chelsea was shaking badly, and was pretty certain she was sweating despite being in the creek up to her neck. She hated snakes! And that wild-eyed cowboy had shot the nasty creature and left her, no doubt snickering about how freaked out she’d be when she saw it.

No cowboy came to check on her.

She grabbed the float, which had become wedged in the shallows, and sat on it, looking around for more snakes. The stupid thing had probably been slithering to the creek for a drink, or to nest in the rocks.

Shivers crawled up her skin.

“Are you out there, cowboy?” she called timidly.

“Yes,” Gage answered, “but I’m not walking into your sight, Irish. Just want to make certain you’re not one of those hysterical females who can’t stand the sight of a little creepy-crawly.”

Little! He was having a laugh at her expense. Still, she owed him for shooting the snake. She probably would have stepped right on it. “I might be just a wee bit afraid of snakes,” she admitted.

“Nobody likes snakes. You did real well.”

She sniffed, surprised that he was offering her some empathy. “I take back what I said about you being a gun-toting freak, or whatever I called you.” She took a deep breath, still feeling goose bumps tighten her skin.