Harlequin American Romance November 2014 Box Set: The SEAL's Holiday Babies\The Texan's Christmas\Cowboy for Hire\The Cowboy's Christmas Gift (63 page)

“Like a caretaker.”

Carrie's heart warmed. “Yes, like that. We call it stewardship. Taking care of the land that takes care of us. Quinn's the main boss when it comes to all this, and we talk a lot about what I want to do to keep the cattle side as profitable as possible while maintaining the integrity of the land and the overall goals at the same time. I know we're employees, Duke, but we care. We really do.”

“I know that. Joe was very lucky to have you.”

“He taught us and then he trusted us. He would have done the same for you.”

Duke's body tensed slightly and he pulled away. Not much, but enough that she felt the withdrawal.

“Sorry,” she apologized softly. “I know you don't like to talk about him.”

“It's okay. Look, when I got here I was a little angry that in the end Joe got his way—he got me on the ranch just like he always wanted. I'm not so angry about that now.”

“That's good, isn't it?”

“In some ways.” He brushed a piece of hair off her face. “I'm certainly not sorry I met you.”

She got that delicious, weightless feeling in her stomach again.

His face sobered. “But I have regrets, too. I was selfish, Carrie. I was so bent on making my point that I overlooked the fact that he loved this place. I wish I'd made more of an effort to see him over the years. I can't fix that.”

“And you like to fix things, don't you?”

“I don't know. Maybe.”

She smiled and rolled to face him. “Oh, you do. It goes right back to the day you earned your nickname. Know what I think? I think you had to make a choice, and you followed in your dad's footsteps because buckling to the pressure to be involved in the ranch would seem like a betrayal to his memory. To your duty as his son.”

Duke sat up, the bedspread pooling around his hips. “Damn, Carrie.” He slid out of bed and pulled on his jeans. “I didn't stay over so I could be psychoanalyzed.”

“That wasn't my intention.”

He spun around, agitation marring his face. “Could you repeat that? I didn't hear you.”

How easily she forgot about his hearing problem. On the outside Duke appeared perfect. But he had scars. Physical and emotional. Regrets were like that. She should know.

“I said,” she repeated, well aware of his attention to her lips, “that I didn't mean to go all shrink on you. I just meant that you should give yourself a break. You can't be all things to everyone, Duke.”

He sat back down on the edge of the bed and sighed. “It's an underdog thing,” he admitted. “I might have liked my time here more when I was a kid. I know my dad did, even if he did choose the forces over farming. It's just that...I heard so often that if he'd only stayed home and not gone into the army, he would still be around. Like he'd let them down or failed them somehow. For God's sake, he
died.
That should have been sacrifice enough.”

And he'd rushed to defend his dad by following his example. Oh, what a loyal and tender heart he had underneath the steely strength. “Your dad would be proud of you. And I think Joe would, too. If he didn't believe in you, he would have set things up differently. I think he understood more than you realize.”

In a way, it hurt her just a bit that Joe hadn't told her—or Quinn—his plans in his will. They'd given the ranch years of dedication. They'd been more than employees. They'd been like family. Duke wasn't the only one to feel a bit manipulated.

“Anyway,” she said, changing the subject to something lighter. “Let's get some breakfast and head over. I'll give you a tutorial on grassland management.”

They got up and dressed, and Carrie quickly scrambled some eggs and made toast while Duke shoveled off the steps. When he stomped his way back in, he was frowning. “It's really coming down. Not a blizzard, but a good snowfall. The roads are gonna be slick.”

She scooped eggs onto a plate and handed it to him, then reached into the fridge for jam. “I wonder if it's just our elevation or if it's more widespread. It'll put a damper on all the Black Friday sales.” She laughed. “Not that I care. I like a good bargain as much as the next guy, but my idea of fun isn't cramming myself into a store full of crazy people.”

“What is your idea of fun?”

She took her plate to the table. “I dunno. I guess a hot cup of coffee while watching the snow is a good start. Going for a ride at sunset. Fishing in the creek and making a snowman.”

“You really are an outdoor girl, aren't you?”

She nodded. “Yup. Though I'm also partial to chick flicks and chocolate-covered raisins. I like to keep it simple.”

“I like that about you.”

Their eyes met, and she quickly looked down at her toast. She could get too used to this. Chemistry, yes, but she liked him. Liked him a lot.

Just enjoy it,
the voice inside repeated to her.

After breakfast Carrie quickly washed the dishes and put them in the drying rack. Duke stared out the window, and when she was ready to go, she put her hand on his arm. “We should get going,” she said.

“You might want to throw a few things in a bag,” he suggested, his face grim. “It looks bad, and we can go in my truck. I'll bring you home tomorrow, when the roads are better. Or you can take the day off....”

“I took the day off yesterday for the holiday, and there's still stuff to be done.” She frowned.

“Listen, if you don't want to stay with me, stay at the house. No obligation. I just don't want you driving back down here tonight. If the weather clears, I'll bring you back. I just think you should be prepared.”

“All right, all right.” She went to her room and threw a change of clothes and a basic bag of toiletries into a backpack. She'd driven between the ranch and home lots of times in bad weather and been fine. But then, Joe and Eileen had put her up lots of times, too. How was this different?

The answer to that was painfully obvious. One snowstorm and lines were already being blurred.

Chapter Ten

Quinn was already at the house when they arrived, a full pot of coffee brewed and a bag of day-old pastries on the counter. He raised an eyebrow when Carrie and Duke showed up together, but Carrie kept her cool and merely remarked, “Duke gave me a ride today in the storm.”

Whether or not Quinn believed her didn't matter. He went about his business, sitting at the kitchen table with a laptop while Amber sat opposite him, coloring with broad scribbles in a coloring book.

“Hey sweetie,” Carrie said, kissing Amber's blond head. It smelled like strawberry shampoo. “Whatcha coloring?”

“Flowers,” she answered, scribbling inside a patch of what appeared to be daisies.

“Pretty.”

“I brought her with me rather than drive all the way into town for day care. The roads looked slippery.”

“They were,” Duke said, handing Carrie a coffee fixed the way she liked. Carrie saw Quinn's gaze on the coffee cup and she felt exposed all over again. Or perhaps he wasn't thinking anything at all and she was just feeling guilty?

“I thought I'd give Duke a rundown on the plans for next year's pasture management,” Carrie said. “Unless there's something else you need done with the stock.”

“The boys were here first thing this morning and looked after things. I sent them home again. I figured Duke and I could handle what needed doing this afternoon.”

“Sure,” Duke answered.

“Want cookies,” Amber announced.

Quinn sighed. “Maybe later, okay, munchkin? How about some cartoons?”

She picked up another crayon. “Then cookies?”

“We'll see, okay?”

Carrie and Duke made their way to the office, where Carrie booted up the main computer and turned on the space heater. The snow was really piling up, and the coffee was hot and strong. “I know it can be a pain in the behind, but I love the snow. Especially the fluffy, big flakes like right now. It's kind of magical, don't you think?”

“There were a lot of years I didn't get to see snow,” Duke revealed. “A lot of years I wasn't home for holidays. I enjoyed yesterday. I think I'm going to enjoy being back in Montana for Christmas, too.”

She put in her password and waited while everything loaded. “Do you have plans?”

“Actually, I got thinking after yesterday's dinner. It was nice having Lacey here.” He pulled up a spare chair on casters and rolled his way to the side of the desk. “What do you think about having Christmas here, at the ranch? Would that be okay?”

It sounded so perfect that it was scary. “It's your ranch,” she said quietly. “You don't have to run it past me.”

He put his hand on her arm. “It's been more your home than mine, Carrie. I want to ask Lacey, and Rylan, and my mom and her new husband, and Quinn and Amber and you. I want to get a big tree and have presents and the whole nine yards. Do you know how long it's been since I had a Christmas like that?”

She swallowed against the lump in her throat. There was such yearning in his voice, whether he knew it or not. She suspected the last time he had a big family Christmas was probably right around the time she'd had one, too.

When her mother and father had been together, and it had been the three of them. Christmas morning had been quiet as an only child, but happy. And they'd always made a big breakfast and gone to church and then Carrie's mom had cooked a dinner, divided portions into tin plates with lids and delivered them to less-fortunate people who didn't have family to share the holiday with. People who had been forgotten or left behind.

She blinked against the tears that had formed in her eyes, and to her chagrin a few slipped over her lashes and down her cheeks.

“Hey,” Duke said softly, pushing his chair closer to hers and putting his hands on her knees. “I didn't mean to upset you. We don't have to do it. It was just an idea.”

She sniffled. “I think it's a great idea. I just got sentimental, that's all.” She wiped her lashes and let out a shaky breath. “My mom loved Christmas. She decorated and baked and we delivered Christmas dinners to seniors and shut-ins. But that all changed when she got sick. I haven't had a good Christmas like that in so long. Joe always included me, but it was quiet and I think he always thought of the people who were missing.”

“I should have been here....”

“Life is too short for shoulds. I think Joe and Eileen would be happy that you want to do this. And your family, too. Whatever help you need, let me know.”

“You might be sorry you said that.”

“Maybe.” She smiled through her tears. Truthfully, she tended to dread the holidays. She usually volunteered to look after the chores so the other employees could spend the day with their families. As she'd said, Joe and Eileen included her, but it hadn't been the same. Since her mother's death two years ago, she hadn't even bothered with a tree at the house.

But first there was work to do. “Let's get started on this first,” she suggested, opening up a program. “I'll show you what we did last year, explain why we did it and our long-term plans. Then I'll start putting together a plan for this year. Once that's complete—not today, of course—I'll take it to Quinn and we'll go over it, make changes. In the spring we might tweak it again, after we do some soil testing.”

They got to work and the Christmas talk was forgotten, but only temporarily. Quinn came in later to say he was going to check on one of the horses that had a quarter crack and would they mind watching Amber for a little while. She offered to go instead of Quinn, but to her surprise Duke said he'd stay with Amber if two sets of hands would be better than one.

“You're sure?” Quinn asked. “She can be a handful.”

“We'll be fine. I'll have her reading and doing algebra before you get back.” Duke grinned in the disarming way he could and Quinn laughed.

“Okay,” he agreed, his tone implying, “You asked for it.”

Carrie and Quinn bundled up and trudged their way to the horse barn. She and Quinn examined the hoof and then checked on the other equine stock before heading back to the house. The snow still fell, the flakes smaller and harder now as they drifted along the sides of the path.

They were stamping their boots as they entered the house, and a delicious smell wafted from the kitchen to the foyer. It was followed by a gleeful giggle and clapping of hands.

“What's going on in here?” Carrie and Quinn walked into the kitchen and halted straightaway. The butcher block was covered in flour. Amber was standing on a dining chair and Duke had pinned a dish towel on her as a makeshift apron. She had flour on the tip of her nose and down one cheek, plus a smudge on her pink-and-purple top. Duke, to Carrie's shock, was wrist-deep in some sort of dough, a gigantic grin on his face.

“We're makin' cookies!” Amber's delighted voice piped up through the silence.

Quinn raised an eyebrow. “You are full of surprises, Duke.”

He laughed and kneaded the dough a little more. “I still have one or two up my sleeve. When a guy's single, and likes cookies, he learns how.”

“You haven't heard of a grocery store?” Carrie laughed. Amber was fairly hopping from one foot to the other, eager to get her hands messy.

“What's the fun in that?” he asked. He took his hands out of the bowl. Dough clung to his long fingers. “Okay, put your hands in and squeeze it around a bit. When it gets good and soft, we'll make it into a ball and you can roll it out with the rolling pin.”

With her tongue between her teeth, Amber started working the dough with her small fingers. After a few moments, Duke put his in the bowl, too, and the two of them laughed as they formed the buttery dough into a smooth ball.

“My fingers are dirty,” Amber announced, holding up her hands.

“Hmm, mine, too,” Duke answered. With an impish smile, he lifted his hand and began licking the dough off his fingers.

Amber giggled, Duke waggled his eyebrows and Carrie began the precarious fall into love.

Duke had taken Amber to the sink to wash her hands when the timer on the oven dinged. “Do you think you could take out the pan that's in there?” he asked Carrie, looking over his shoulder.

So that was what the smell was. Not the cookie dough, but a pan of mystery squares that were brown and spicy-looking. Carrie took a pot holder and lifted them out of the oven, putting them on top of the glass top stove. “I can't believe you had the ingredients for this,” she said, putting down the pot holder and inhaling the rich scent.

“Joe had a pretty well-stocked cupboard. I noticed the groceries when I was working around yesterday, getting dinner.” Duke spread flour on the butcher block in preparation for the dough. “It seems strange, this house being empty. It's like it's half lived in and half vacant, you know?”

Quinn looked up from his laptop. “You could always move back in.”

But Duke shook his head. “Naw, it's not for me. This house needs something more.” Carrie watched his gaze move to Amber. “Like a family.” He took a moment to show Amber how to sprinkle the dough with flour and let her start rolling it out. “You know, there's no reason why you couldn't move in here, Quinn. It'd save you the drive and you'd be on-site.”

Carrie had thought the same thing in the weeks since Joe's sudden death, but hadn't brought it up. It wasn't her house to offer.

“Thanks, but I like to keep things as stable as possible. With the future of the ranch undecided, I don't want to move Amber and then have to maybe move again.”

Carrie watched as Duke smoothed out some of Amber's dough and sent her for the cookie sheet. “Keeping things familiar for her is probably pretty important.”

Quinn agreed.

Amber pulled on Duke's sleeve. “Can we cut them out now?”

Carrie stepped forward. “Can I help? I love making cookies.”

Amber beamed. “Yes, yes! You can help, Carrie!”

Carrie looked up at Duke. She'd seen him dressed in all sorts of ways, but right now, in jeans and a shirt with flour and little bits of dough stuck on his hands, he was irresistible. She was starting to see depths to him she hadn't even imagined existed. Depths that showed what a wonderful man he could be.

“It seems we don't have any cookie cutters,” she mentioned, wishing her words didn't sound quite so breathy.

“I don't expect they were high on Joe's list of baking priorities,” Duke answered, his gaze meeting hers. “But I thought this would work.” He held up a tiny juice glass. “The perfect size for shortbreads.”

Amber was looking up at him as if he hung the moon and stars. Carrie wondered if she gazed at him the same way.

“You girls can cut out the cookies, and I'll cut the squares. We're going to do something fun with them.”

As Carrie helped Amber cut out the cookies with the small tumbler, Duke took a knife and cut the squares into small cubes. The first pan of cookies went in and the timer was set, and then they went to work rolling the cubes of warm, spicy squares into balls while Amber rolled them in sugar and put them in an empty ice-cream container Duke had unearthed from a cupboard somewhere.

“Try one,” he suggested, and Carrie popped one into her mouth. It was a little like gingerbread, a little like cookies, soft and chewy.

“Those are delicious.”

Amber chewed on one thoughtfully. “I like chock-lit.”

They both laughed. “My mom used to make these around the holidays,” he said. “I called her and asked for the recipe. She didn't even have to look it up. Knew it by heart.”

He'd called his mom. Something inside her expanded, warm and happy. He was reaching out to his family, settling in here. Dare she hope that he'd hang around longer than just for the holidays?

“I invited her for Christmas. Just put it out there for her to think about,” he added. “I'm not sure if they'll come or not. But I'm hoping they will.”

“I'm glad,” she murmured, sneaking another ball and popping it into her mouth.

The first sheet of cookies came out and a second went into the oven. Amber was getting restless, so while Quinn kept working, they set her up at the table with two shortbread cookies and a glass of milk.

“I suppose now I get to clean up this mess.”

“I'll help. We can go over more of the cattle records after if you like.”

They ran water in the sink, put baking supplies away in the sparsely filled cupboard. “You went through a lot of Joe's supplies.”

He nodded. “I never really thought about it before. How he was just...here. Then gone. It must have been hard on you.”

She swallowed. “It was. I still miss him. It isn't the same without him here. Quinn and I know what we're doing, but it felt different when he was alive, having him at the helm.”

“He was a good boss, then.”

“He was a leader.” She grabbed a dish towel. “Quinn's a great manager. I can handle the cattle. But what we're missing is leadership.”

Leadership that Duke could provide. It wasn't all about knowing everything there was to know about ranching. It was bigger than that. It was being someone who could be trusted, who listened, who inspired confidence. Duke, whether he knew it or not, had all those traits. He was more like his grandfather than he probably cared to admit.

After the dishes were done, they retreated to the office again. They'd worked for a long time sorting through livestock records when Carrie looked out the window and started laughing.

The snow had let up a little, and Quinn and Amber had put on their gear and were outside attempting to build a snowman. So far Quinn had built an enormous bottom ball and was trying to get the second ball up on top of the first, only it wasn't budging. Amber's little hands were on the side of the huge orb, completely ineffectual.

Carrie looked over at Duke. “When was the last time you built a snowman?”