A Rancher's Vow Read online

  “Alcina Dale. It’s been a long time,” Reed said, the quiet certainty of his voice that she remembered so well thrilling her after all these years.

  He removed his pale gray Stetson to reveal neatly combed brown hair. Alcina’s mouth went dry. He still reminded her of a young Robert Redford—maybe not as pretty, but modestly handsome in his own right. He had that same dignity as Redford. That same quiet self-assurance.

  But as he gave her situation with Hope a once-over, his dignity cracked and he ineffectually tried to smother his laughter with a cough.

  Putting an embarrassed Alcina immediately on the defensive.

  She’d thought about this moment for a long, long time, ever since she’d returned to Silver Springs. She’d imagined the moment she would come face-to-face with her first infatuation, a man who, as history had proved, would only see her as his older brother’s high-school friend.

  She hadn’t imagined that she would be holding twenty-some pounds of wiggling trouble in her arms, that her dress would be streaked with sauce, that her hair and face would be as sticky as a mischievous little girl’s hands.

  Chagrined, she stiffly said, “It has been a while.” More than a dozen years. “Obviously, there was nothing here for you before.”

  Reed’s smile evaporated and Alcina realized he might have taken her wrong. She’d meant herself—that he wouldn’t have come back because of her. Instead, she feared, her words had come out sounding like a criticism of his motives, his father being near death’s door and all.

  Reed set his hat back in place. “I think I’d better tend to my family…and let you tend to yours.”

  “Family?” she echoed, even as Hope wrenched around in her arms and squealed to be let down. “You mean Hope…oh, no, she’s not mine. This is your brother’s child, Reed. Chance and Pru’s. She’s your niece. Hope, honey, say hello to your uncle Reed.”

  Alcina couldn’t help herself. The devil made her do it. She offered the sticky child to the middle Quarrels brother. Reed hesitated only a second before taking her. He certainly didn’t seem squeamish about having a child in his arms, Alcina realized.

  The two studied each other for a moment. Hope’s expression became as intent as her uncle’s, and Alcina was struck by a resemblance she hadn’t expected to see.

  And for a moment, her stomach fluttered as she imagined Reed holding his own child. Their child.

  Nonsense!

  She was a little old to have kids. At thirty-seven, her biological clock had almost run out of time. Besides, she had her status as the town spinster to uphold…even if the designation wasn’t exactly accurate.

  “So you’re Hope,” Reed said. “I’ve heard about you.”

  The little girl seemed as mesmerized by his smooth-whiskey voice as she was, Alcina thought. She clenched her jaw and told herself to stop salivating.

  Reed Quarrels had never been attracted to her. He’d preferred spunky little tomboys who sat a horse well and knew all about beeves.

  Suddenly shy, Hope turned her face away from Reed’s and shrieked, “M’ma!”

  “Mama’s coming, sweetheart!”

  Alcina noted that Pru and Chance were headed straight for them, other members of the Quarrels family following—Emmett, and Bart and his kids, Lainey and Daniel. A regular family reunion.

  One to which she didn’t belong.

  Knowing when she wasn’t needed, Alcina backed off unnoticed as Reed was surrounded. She headed for the house and a bathroom where she could clean up. Josie Walker, the Curly-Q wrangler and Bart’s woman, was coming outside, carrying a big basket of corn bread.

  Eyes widening, she asked, “What happened to you?”

  “Hope.”

  “Ah-h.” Josie nodded in understanding and looked past her. “So what’s the big commotion? Is that who I think it is?”

  “It’s Reed.”

  “I’m so glad. Bart said he’d show.”

  Alcina didn’t miss the inflection in Josie’s voice at Bart’s name—the woman was love struck. They would already be married if it weren’t for his kids, who were still getting over their mother’s tragic death the year before. Alcina admired the couple’s patience. Josie and Bart were doing the right thing, giving the kids time to get used to the relationship.

  Josie gave her a pointed look. “So, Reed’s back—why are you hightailing it in the opposite direction?”

  Pru had a big mouth, Alcina thought. It was one thing when her best friend teased her about her schoolgirl infatuation. Another when she got other people into the act…though to be fair, Josie was the only one Pru had told. As far as Alcina knew, anyway.

  “I said hello,” Alcina said, voice stiff.

  “Uh-oh. Doesn’t sound like it went well.”

  “With Reed, it never does.”

  “We’ll have to work on that.”

  “Josie, don’t try to play matchmaker,” Alcina pleaded. “And if Pru comes up with any bright ideas about getting Reed and me together, I would appreciate your discouraging her.”

  “Oh, come on—”

  “I’m serious. You have enough on your plate to take care of, anyway,” Alcina said.

  Things were working out so well between Josie and Bart’s kids that Alcina figured it wouldn’t be much longer before the couple made their relationship official.

  “Let me give you some advice,” Josie said. “Real love doesn’t come around that often. And neither does a good man, as I very well know. So if you want Reed and you get a shot at him, take it. If you don’t, you’ll always wonder what might have been.”

  Josie had a point when it came to the good man part. But, as to her getting a shot at Reed…

  The man barely knew she existed.

  REUNITED WITH HIS FAMILY, Reed kept taking in Pa with disbelief. Emmett Quarrels was smaller than Reed remembered—they were about the same height now—and he’d lost weight in the past year. The shock of white hair and faded blue eyes were nothing new, but the sunken cheeks and sagging skin were, and they made him look older than his seventy years.

  “I knew you wouldn’t let me down, Son.” Pa’s declaration was followed by a dry cough that set Reed on edge.

  “Hey, I thought this was my wedding,” Chance complained.

  “Don’t be getting on your high horse here, Boy,” Pa said. “You know what I mean.”

  If Chance was angry, he wasn’t showing it. He and Pru were beaming in their happiness.

  “I meant to be at the church,” Reed told them both apologetically. “I really did. But there was something I had to take care of at the last minute on the Evergreen, so I started off late, and then I ran into a problem on the road.”

  “You’re here now, Reed,” Pru said. “That’s all that counts, right, sweetheart?”

  Chance flashed his teeth in a sincere-looking smile. “You bet, darlin’, that’s good enough for me.”

  The brothers threw their arms around each other in a manly hug. Reed was relieved that Chance accepted his regrets without questioning him about his actual situation.

  “Congratulations, Chance. Do I get to kiss the bride now?”

  “Only if you keep it short and sweet.”

  “Pru, welcome to the family,” Reed said, hugging her and giving her a quick kiss. “Finally.”

  Which was all he would say on the matter. Considering their daughter was nearly two years old, it was about time his brother made an honest woman of Pru.

  “Good to see you, Reed,” Bart said, slapping him on the back. “And it’ll be good working together again.”

  Together? Or would he be working for Bart?

  Another thing that ate at Reed, though he kept that to himself, as well.

  A few minutes of catch-up and his niece Lainey was agitating for photographs of the three brothers together.

  “Better be careful,” Reed’s sixteen-year-old nephew Daniel warned them. “Lainey thinks she’s an artist. She might make you do some weird stuff.”

  “You’re the weirdo,”
Lainey told her brother.

  Reed grinned. The siblings reminded him of Chance and Bart when they’d been kids.

  As Lainey painstakingly photographed them in several different poses, Reed’s attention wandered a bit. He kept musing on Alcina’s whereabouts.

  Always the proper lady with every hair in place, she’d shown him a new side of herself today. A side that had intrigued him. He’d remembered her as being prissy—actually, she’d gotten a little prissy earlier when he’d laughed at her. She’d been so natural with Hope, though, not worrying about her own finery. Seeing her like that had roused his curiosity.

  “Uncle Reed, you’re not paying attention!” Lainey complained. “You’ve got to smile.”

  Reed did his best to please her.

  One more photograph and Chance said, “Okay, that’s it for now, Lainey. We’d best get to the grub quick, before all those old bachelor cowboys who are normally deprived of good home-cooking get in line for seconds. Then we’ll starve to death.”

  Having noted the huge quantity of food laid out, Reed thought that was a gross exaggeration. And, even though the brothers were the last to reach the buffet table, none of them would go hungry.

  Undoubtedly Chance was anxious to get back to his new bride and daughter, and Reed could hardly blame him.

  He admitted to a bit of healthy jealousy as he watched Chance rejoin Pru and kiss her as if they’d been apart for years instead of mere minutes. Somehow that kind of love had never come his way. Working six or seven days a week as he usually did, Reed doubted that he would ever have time to look for it, either. Maybe he was destined to be another old bachelor cowboy.

  The band started up as he filled his plate with Felice’s finest. Reed dipped his head in time to the music. He looked over to the dance floor as Pru and Chance stepped up, followed by two other couples. So much for his brother’s appetite, Reed thought, grinning to himself.

  His plate in hand, Reed was leaving the buffet, when he felt as if he was being watched. The short hairs at the back of his neck shot to attention. Warily, he turned to meet the gaze of a burly man with pale eyes and a white buzz cut. Then Reed realized the man was standing behind the makeshift bar. It was only the bartender, for pity’s sake.

  The man waved him over with one hand, lifted an empty glass with the other.

  Feeling foolish, Reed complied.

  “You must be brother number three. Hugh Ruskin—I tend bar over at the Silver Slipper.”

  Ruskin held out a hand heavy with expensive rings that Reed wouldn’t expect to see on a bartender. He gave the man a quick shake.

  “Reed Quarrels. That old saloon is still going, huh?”

  “A man’s got to have a place to quench his thirst, even in a small town like Silver Springs,” Ruskin said. “So what’s your pleasure?”

  “Whatever’s on tap will do.”

  Ruskin filled a mug. “I hear you’ve been working up in Colorado, running the show on some spread ten times the size of this one.”

  “For the past few years,” Reed agreed, wondering why he should be the focus of town gossip. “Though someone exaggerated the size of the Evergreen.”

  “Still, when you’re used to running a major operation like that one…”

  Ruskin was peering at him closely as if waiting for him to spill his guts. Say how unhappy he was to be back or something. Reed figured the bartender got some kick out of keeping his finger on the pulse of the town, having juicy tidbits to spread around to his patrons.

  Could the man really know about his hesitancy at returning? About the problematic dynamics between him and Bart? Or was he just fishing?

  Not about to fuel any gossip, Reed picked up his mug and sipped the head off the beer. “You know what they say…nothing like home.”

  Something flashed through the other man’s pale eyes. Something that unsettled Reed.

  And the bartender’s thumbs-up sign and his “Gotcha there, my friend,” seemed a little forced.

  Wondering about Hugh Ruskin—where he came from, what he was doing tending bar in a backwater town like Silver Springs—Reed saluted him with the beer and left the bar. Uneasy still, he made a mental note to ask Bart or Chance about the bartender later.

  In the meantime, he quickly scanned the crowd until he spotted Alcina, who was sitting at the end of a table under a couple of big cottonwoods. Her long fingers with perfectly manicured nails were worrying the stem of a wineglass as if she was distracted. The plate before her was half-empty and pushed far enough in front of her to indicate she’d finished eating.

  Her golden-blond hair was pulled up into a French twist, but fine wisps curled at her temples and down her long, elegant neck, which was circled by a single strand of pearls. He’d bet they were real, too. Her finely cut profile was free of the barbecue sauce that had decorated it earlier. A lovely woman, indeed, Reed thought appreciatively, not having seen her the last time he’d come home for a visit. The seat next to her was vacant.

  He hesitated, mulled over the advisability of the notion that struck him, and in the end, headed for her table.

  Listening to Reba Gantry, the flamboyant owner of Reba’s Café, who was waving around a half-empty whiskey glass—she could drink nearly as much as a man and often did—Alcina didn’t even notice his approach until he asked, “Mind if I join you?”

  She started, her gray eyes widening on him for a moment. Recovering quickly, she indicated the empty chair. “It’s your spread.”

  “Only by default.” He set down his plate and mug and slid into the vacant seat, where he got a better look at her finery. “You cleaned up real nice, but it looks like Hope ruined your party dress for good.”

  She shrugged. “It’s not the end of the world.”

  “Some women would think so.”

  “Good thing I’m not some women.”

  Good thing, Reed agreed, digging into Felice’s homemade enchilada, Alcina interesting him even more than before. He realized how little he knew about her even though they’d grown up in the same town. Then, he hadn’t been interested in an older woman—to a teenage boy, three years difference in age had been a whole generation. Now three years was nothing.

  “We missed you at the church,” Reba said, taking a swig of whiskey and holding it in her mouth for a moment.

  “Something came up,” he said vaguely, swallowing a mouthful of posole. “Mighty fine duds there.”

  He admired the café owner’s ability to pull off wearing such an eye-popping rose-trimmed purple dress. Then, as he remembered, Reba had always had a natural flair for the dramatic.

  “You’re looking fine yourself, honey,” Reba said. “It’s real good to see you again.” She indicated the big man who sat next to her. “I’d like to introduce you to my dear friend, Cesar Cardona.”

  “Howdy,” Reed said.

  Cardona looked to be in his late forties, a quantity of silver lightening his thick dark hair and full mustache. Wearing a black suit, the short jacket trimmed with silver braid and silver and turquoise conchos, he was definitely Reba’s male counterpart, Reed thought with amusement.

  But Reed’s enjoyment faded when the café owner said, “Cesar is bringing new life and jobs to the area around Silver Springs. He’s a land developer—”

  “Let me guess,” Reed cut in, giving the newcomer a piercing stare. “Land of Enchantment Acres.”

  Cardona’s teeth flashed white against his sun-warmed skin. “So you’ve heard of us.” The meatiness of the hand he reached across the table was softened by a heavily jeweled watchband.

  Taking it, though reluctantly, Reed realized the raw power of the big man. “Saw the sign driving in. I can hardly believe Gonzalez sold. His family owned that land for nearly two hundred years.”

  “That land kept Luis Gonzalez poor.”

  “I guess it depends on your definition of poor,” Reed argued. “Being land-rich in God’s country in this part of New Mexico goes a long way to making up for the things a man can’t afford to b
uy himself.”

  Cardona shrugged and spread his hands. “Well, now Luis can buy whatever he wants.”

  “I wonder what that might be,” Reed muttered, stabbing his fork into the mashed potatoes.

  While Gonzalez’s spread had been small—little more than four thousand acres—ranching was the only life the man had ever known and he was barely fifty. What would he do with his days for the next twenty years? Reed himself couldn’t imagine working at anything but ranching, which occupied his whole being. When he got busy, he might not even get into town for weeks and never once miss it.

  As if she sensed his rising tension over the matter, Alcina veered the discussion in a slightly different direction. “Are the new properties selling well, Cesar?”

  “Like hotcakes,” the developer said, grinning. ‘I can’t get the houses built fast enough.”

  Suddenly losing his appetite, Reed asked, “So we’re in for how many new people in the area?”

  “I sold off nearly half the acreage to the VM Ranch, so there’ll only be about twenty new families—people who have always wanted a real piece of the West for themselves. I’m not raping the land if that’s what you’re worried about. I’m keeping properties at a minimum of a hundred acres.”

  “Sounds sensible,” Alcina said. “And good for Silver Springs.”

  Gut tightening, Reed didn’t say anything.

  Luis Gonzalez would never have sold an acre to Vernon Martell, a virtual newcomer to Silver Springs. The Hispanic ranchers in the area were tight-knit and didn’t sell their land to Anglos. Martell had gotten around that through Cardona, whose only loyalty obviously was to the almighty dollar.

  “Actually, I’m already looking around for another spread,” Cardona went on. “Got to plan ahead.”

  Reed didn’t like the way the man was looking around at the Curly-Q, as if he was already viewing it as a commodity and planning on subdividing it next.

  “The Curly-Q’s not for sale,” he said quietly but firmly. “So don’t go getting any ideas about this place.”

  Reed was dead serious, but Cardona laughed.