A Rancher's Vow Read online

  As long as all this honesty was going on, she would have to know everything, as well. Including the reason he’d proposed in the first place. And she would have to know soon. Then she might file for the annulment, Reed thought, wondering why the notion was so depressing.

  Reed turned his focus back to the family meeting.

  “Pa, it’s time you showed Chance and Bart that warning you’ve been keeping from them.”

  “What warning?” Bart demanded.

  Felice fetched the cigar box and Pa pulled out the missive and handed it to Bart.

  Both he and Chance were ticked to high heaven after reading the contents and hearing about the myriad calls from real estate agents following every bad-luck incident on the ranch.

  “This means someone is trying to ruin the Curly-Q to force you to sell,” Bart said. “We’re talking felony. Why the hell haven’t you gotten the sheriff’s department on this?”

  “No proof,” Emmett said.

  “Why didn’t you tell me, then?”

  “You were trying to get your kids away from one kind of crime,” Emmett said. “I didn’t think you would be willing to pull them into the middle of another.”

  Bart swore a blue streak even as the front door flew open and Alcina burst into the house followed by Josie. Both women looked a bit strange.

  “Alcina,” Reed said. “Is something wrong?”

  “Something’s wrong, all right.” Her eyes welled up and she appeared ready to cry. “I’ve been robbed!”

  Chapter Nine

  Alcina was fighting uncharacteristic tears when Reed strode to her and wrapped his arms around her.

  “Thank God you’re all right.” He grasped her by the shoulders and pushed her away to look deep into her eyes. “You are all right, aren’t you? You weren’t hurt?”

  “I wasn’t mugged,” she said. “It was the bed-and-breakfast. The place is in a shambles. The thief got about three hundred dollars. Thank God Daddy was already gone. I mean, I assume so, because his car wasn’t there. But I’m getting worried because I’ve tried calling him at home a couple of times and the machine answers.”

  “That’s because he was here until a little while ago,” Reed said.

  “Here?” She looked around, realizing for the first time that she wasn’t the only one who was stressed. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt business.”

  “You’re more important than business any day.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  Alcina couldn’t help herself. She threw her arms around Reed’s waist and wept. Reed tightened his hold on her. And she felt a hand steal up her back. His fingers caressed the soft flesh of her neck.

  In a moment, she shuddered and whispered, “I’m all right, really,” as she lifted her head.

  “We’re done here for now,” Bart said, rising from his chair. “We’ve got some big thinking to do. We can continue the discussion later.”

  Alcina sniffed and Reed dragged from his pocket a big linen handkerchief. Cupping her chin, he tilted her face and dabbed under both eyes.

  “Mascara’s running,” he said. “You look a little like a raccoon.”

  She frowned up at him. “But I wear waterproof…okay, you’re teasing me, right?”

  “Trying to put a smile back on that lovely face,” he murmured.

  His low whiskey tone sent shocks through her system. As did the fact that he was trying to make her feel better after she’d put him through the hell of a too-short couch and celibate wedding night.

  Emmett moved out of the room, his head turned away from her, making Alcina wonder what that was about. He was carrying a cigar box, mumbling to himself. She caught something about partners selling out…

  “Ahem!” Bart cleared his throat. “Maybe we’d better get over to the bed-and-breakfast to take a look.”

  Alcina nodded. “I would appreciate that.”

  “I’ll drive your car,” Reed told her.

  For once she found no reason to argue with him. She even let him open the passenger door for her and close it after she slid inside.

  On the other side of the yard, Bart and Chance and Josie all climbed into Chance’s shiny blue pickup.

  Reed waited until they were on the road to ask, “So the money is all that was missing, right?”

  “I think so. I didn’t take inventory. Then there’s the diamond, but Daddy probably has that. I won’t know until I can talk to him.”

  “What diamond?”

  “The one Reba found at the fire.”

  “Yeah, I heard something about that. She was looking for the owner, right?”

  “Right. Well, she gave it to me to give to Pru, only Pru didn’t want to be responsible because it’s so valuable and the kids are into everything—”

  “So when did Reba give it to you?”

  “On the day she died,” Alcina said with a shiver.

  Sighing, she laid her head back against the seat, thankful that Reed didn’t ply her with more questions.

  The way the brothers responded to her crisis made her feel warm inside. They were all working together to resolve what had happened to her, just like a real family.

  After doing a walk-through to see if he could find any clue to the thief’s identity—unfortunately, there was nothing—Bart admonished Alcina for not locking her doors. Alcina promised that would never happen again.

  Seemingly in a protective mode, Reed seconded the promise.

  To Bart’s suggestion about installing burglar deterrents on her first-floor windows, Alcina just listened. She didn’t want to feel as if she was back in New York City with its record for crime, for heaven’s sake. She had no doubts this had been a one-time happening.

  Even so, Bart said he’d file his own official report with the local sheriff’s department and called to get a deputy out to talk to her. The man arrived within a half hour, and while Alcina gave her statement, she noticed Pru arrive. After the deputy left, she and Josie and the brothers Quarrels helped Alcina get the place back in shape.

  When the others were getting ready to leave, Reed asked, “Do you want to spend the night here? I’ll sleep in any bed you designate.”

  “Not tonight,” she said. “I’m still too spooked, I guess. I wouldn’t be comfortable. Let’s go back to your place.”

  “I didn’t think you found the trailer all that comfortable.”

  “I don’t. But at least I feel safe there.”

  Where, maybe by some miracle, they’d share the lumps of his only bed.

  “All right,” Reed agreed, “but I have some things to take care of on the spread.” He glanced out the window where his brothers were getting into Chance’s pickup. “Gotta go.” He started backing off from her. “I won’t be back at the trailer until dark.”

  Alcina followed him. “I’ll run a few errands then and meet you there later. What time would you like dinner?”

  “Around seven…seven-thirty. You’re really gonna cook for me?”

  “I am your wife, remember.”

  He arched his eyebrows. “Hmm, I guess your cooking supper is a start.”

  Then he gave her a quick kiss on the cheek and raced out the door just in time to jump in the back of the pickup that was already pulling away.

  And Alcina realized that Pru was still there.

  “So how did it go last night?”

  “Didn’t.”

  “Uh…what happened?”

  Despite her embarrassment, Alcina explained. It would be a sad day if she couldn’t confide in her best friend.

  “You can’t let this go on too long,” Pru said.

  “I want to feel like it’s more than business with Reed when we make love. I want him to care for me.”

  “The blind leading the blind.”

  “What?”

  “Reed may not be madly in love with you…yet…but I saw how he was looking at you. He was worried. He cares. He’s teetering and it’s up to you to topple him.”

  “He’s no
t a tree, for heaven’s sake. He’s a man.”

  “Right. You have that going for you. He’s only a man.”

  IF THE WAY to a man’s heart was really through his stomach, Alcina was ready to topple Reed with succulent roast loin of pork, mouthwatering oven-crisped potato chunks, garden-fresh green beans with a butter-lemon sauce and almond slivers, and the pièce de résistance, homemade apple pie. Which admittedly she’d baked at her own home. The trailer oven was hardly big enough to hold the main meal.

  As if that wasn’t enough ammunition, she’d dressed up the trailer, making it more homey, more romantic. Candles glowed from every niche possible, including from the table that she’d covered with a pretty patterned cloth and a basket of fresh flowers.

  And she’d dressed in a simple, low-cut, long-sleeved taupe knit dress that flowed from the hip to her calves. The material clung so closely to every curve that normal underwear was out of the question. Seamless panty hose would have to do, but the trailer was so tight that she feared she’d catch the nylon on something. Better to wait until she was finished getting everything ready, then put them on.

  For once, Alcina had let her hair down. She’d brushed and brushed it until it shimmered in waves around her face and shoulders.

  Now, if only she could do that figuratively with Reed—let her hair down, that was. He seemed to push her “bristle” buttons without even trying. She needed to learn to relax around him, make soft jokes rather than stiff censure when he managed to put up her back.

  Throughout her efforts to ready herself and the trailer, she’d had constant company, a companion she could talk to without having to edit herself. Temporary had dogged her every movement like a shadow, and she’d found herself responding to the mutt. Already attached to Temporary, Alcina hoped that Reed had accepted permanent responsibility.

  Adjusting the position of the flowers and candles on the tiny table for the umpteenth time, Alcina asked the dog, “What do you think, Temporary? Do you approve?”

  Temporary’s tail thumped the floor.

  But it was a man’s voice that said, “I approve.”

  An immediate warmth shot through Alcina despite the chill wind that swept into the space with Reed’s arrival. She turned to find him standing in the doorway, hat in hand, his expression bemused as he looked around at what had until now been a man’s domain.

  The dog bounded toward him as he said, “Honey, I’m home.”

  “Good. Now close the door, please!”

  The chill had swept her, and being half-naked with nothing at all separating the knit from her body, her flesh had responded quite naturally. Her nipples were tight buds, and she feared that Reed would notice.

  She couldn’t tell whether he did or not as he pulled the door closed behind him.

  Temporary was practically turning herself inside out for Reed’s attention. Sort of like she was, Alcina admitted, watching Reed hang his Stetson and jacket on a peg next to the door, then hunker down to give Temporary the affection the dog so obviously craved.

  Alcina could use some of that herself.

  And when Reed straightened and walked over to her, Alcina imagined she might just get it.

  Her pulse skittered as Reed reached out…then thunked in disappointment when he kept right on reaching past her to snatch a roll from the basket.

  “I’m starving,” he declared, biting into the roll. “Mmm, delicious.”

  “Then go wash up. Dinner’s ready.”

  “Smells good.” Then, before moving on, he murmured, “And so do you.”

  A thrill shot through her and she watched him walk away from her. Waited until he’d disappeared into the impossibly small bathroom. Then she set the butter and a dish with the beans on the table. After which she removed the platter holding the roast and potatoes from the oven where she’d been keeping them warm.

  Closing the oven door with her hip, Alcina found she couldn’t move forward. Some of the material of her dress had caught between oven and door.

  “Oh, no!” There simply wasn’t enough space to set down the platter.

  “Problem?” Reed asked as he came out of the bathroom.

  “I’m stuck.”

  “So, I’ll unstick you.” He moved behind her, saying, “If you dressed appropriately, this wouldn’t have happened.”

  Wondering how he thought underwear would make a difference—realizing she’d never gotten around to pulling on those panty hose—she said, “I always dress appropriately.”

  “For your place, yes. For the trailer, jeans and a T-shirt would do.”

  “I don’t even own a pair of jeans.”

  “Then you ought to think about getting some.” Directly behind her, he was practically breathing in her ear. As he cracked the oven door, he purposely ran a hand down her hip and thigh before freeing the material. “You’d look hot in a nice pair of tight, soft jeans. Especially here,” he murmured, touching her derriere.

  Alcina was hot. Correction, make that flaming!

  Reed’s intimate touch had scrambled her hormones and she feared that, if he told her to forget dinner and come to bed with him right now, she would.

  Only he didn’t. Trailing his hand around her waist, he circled her and slid into his side of the booth.

  Obviously, his hunger for food was the more urgent of his appetites, Alcina thought in disgust. Not that she wanted to do anything intimate with him if he was just performing his husbandly duty, of course. Nor if he was merely relieving those natural urges he’d talked about.

  Irritated that Reed had set her on edge so easily—worse, while he seemed to be enjoying himself immensely—Alcina took refuge in silence as she served the meal. She felt his gaze on her every moment.

  Waiting until they were eating, she finally broached what she figured to be a safe subject. “Did you ever get to finish the discussion with your father and brothers that I interrupted this morning?”

  “Nope. We decided that now was not the time to make any fast decisions. We all have some thinking to do first.”

  He gave her the short version of what had been going on when she’d walked in.

  “So all the terrible things that have been happening on the ranch haven’t been bad luck at all.”

  “Nope. Someone is trying to drive us out and get hold of the land,” he said darkly.

  “Have you talked to the authorities?”

  “We haven’t gotten that far. I suspect, though, that Bart will want to handle it.”

  “So, you have any suspicions about who might be doing this to you?”

  “A couple. Cesar Cardona is looking for his next acquisition. And Vernon Martell has already made Pa an offer that he refused outright.”

  “Odd…”

  “What is?”

  “Cardona and Martell,” she said. “Reba’s funeral. Did you notice Cardona didn’t show, and after escorting Reba to the wedding?”

  “That is odd. You would think that he would at least have paid his respects.”

  “They did have a fight the day before and he went home without her, but—”

  “Over what?” Reed interrupted.

  “The diamond Reba found. He was acting like she shouldn’t be trying to give it away. Like he wanted it.”

  “The very same diamond that’s now missing?”

  Alcina frowned. “We don’t know that. Daddy did say that he’d take it and put it in a safe-deposit box for me.”

  “About Reba’s funeral, what were you going to say about Martell?”

  “Just that Vernon Martell was the last mourner to leave the grave site. And that he put a rose on her coffin.”

  “Reba always had lots of admirers.”

  “So Pru said.” She shook her head. “I don’t even know where I was going with this. It’s just that you mentioned the two of them and the funeral came to mind.”

  “But there doesn’t seem to be a connection.”

  “No.” Her mind on the consequences to the Curly-Q, she asked, “All the bad things t
hat have been happening around the spread—is the family corporation in trouble?”

  “Big time.”

  “Enough to break up?”

  “That’s a distinct possibility,” Reed admitted. “Not that it’s what I want.”

  Then what would happen between her and Reed? Alcina wondered, stunned and trying not to panic.

  Reed would have to go elsewhere to find work. And they didn’t have the kind of relationship that would make her comfortable giving up her bed-and-breakfast to follow him blindly. Somehow, she’d never considered that she might have to face this possibility.

  Appetite gone, she picked at her food.

  “Now Pa’s being a real pain,” Reed said, the discussion not seeming to have affected his appetite. “He’s up and disappeared.”

  “Disappeared?”

  “To worry us, I guess. Make us wonder if something happened to him.”

  “How do you know it hasn’t?”

  “He’s a master at manipulation,” Reed assured her. “He’s made us think he’s been dying all this time…” He snorted in disgust. “When no one goes looking for him, he’ll come home on his own. He did drive one of the pickups out when we were cleaning up your place. But he didn’t even say a word to Felice. He just took off. It won’t surprise me to find him in his own bed in the morning, though.”

  “I hope you’re right.” Alcina frowned. “I haven’t been able to get hold of Daddy, either. Not that I’ve tried since I got here, of course, which was early this afternoon. Unfortunately, I don’t have a cell phone.”

  “Me, neither. But if you’re worried, after supper we could go to the house to try tracking him down.”

  “Oh, I’m probably stewing over nothing. Daddy is an adult, after all. He has his own life. It’s just strange that he wouldn’t have gone into work right from here. It’s not like him to vary his routine much. I’m sure I’ll get him in the morning, though, either at home or at the bank.”

  Then maybe she could convince her father to do something to take the financial pressure off the Curly-Q. She would insist on it. If the brothers had extra time, they could work out a solution. Together.

  “Whatever pleases you,” Reed said.

  Alcina decided that he was pleasing her by respecting her worries and her wishes. Maybe Pru was right in thinking they merely needed some up-close-and-personal time to seal their relationship.