Читать книгу: «For Her Child...»

Chapter One

Her father had gone and done it again.

Kara Dean Taylor strangled the wheel of her cherry-red Cavalier and splashed beneath the rusted sign proclaiming that she was indeed back home on the Tilted T Ranch.

Twice a year, every year—on the day he was married and the day his wife died—Pete Taylor got drunk and gambled away the Tilted T Ranch. Fortunately, everyone in Bootlick, Texas, knew Pete got a little crazy when he mixed drinking and poker. As soon as Pete sobered up enough to think straight, the new “owner” sold it back to him for a few extra bucks or a six-pack of beer.

But this time he’d lost the Tilted T to the one man Kara despised more than anyone who’d ever worn a pair of cowboy boots. Her father had lost the Tilted T to none other than Ty Murdock—and the sorry snake wouldn’t give it back.

The car was still rocking when Kara slammed out of it and strode toward the sprawling ranch house. A little of the fury subsided at the sight of her dad, standing in the open backdoor, a mile-wide smile on his face.

“Ah, Dad.” She fell into his embrace breathing in the familiar tobacco scent that puffed up from his shirt pocket. “Tell me I misunderstood on the telephone. Tell me you didn’t lose the ranch to Ty Murdock.”

Pete jutted a stubborn jaw. “He won it fair and square.”

“Ty Murdock doesn’t know the meaning of fair.” Even after six years, his name evoked all kinds of irrational thoughts. A vision of his laughing black eyes rose to mock her. “I can’t believe you’d give up our ranch without a fight.”

“Don’t know what else to do. He’s got the deed, signed clean and legal.” Pete shifted uneasily. “Things have changed around here some, Kara Dean. You’d know that if you lived closer.”

Her dad had been hurt when she’d left home only weeks after Mama’s death from the long battle with cancer. He hadn’t understood then, and he didn’t now. She’d let him down when they’d needed each other most, and she wasn’t about to let that happen again. This land was in his blood as well as hers, and Kara was determined to keep it for her son.

The thought of Lane, her five-year-old, brought a sense of foreboding. She was about to come face-to-face with the devil, and though he didn’t know it, Ty Murdock had the power to destroy her.

Patting her father’s back and stiffening her own, Kara headed into the house, eager for the sight of home. Leaning on the bar that divided the kitchen from the dining room, she closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, sucking in the scent of pine cleaner.

Pine? Her eyes flew open. Wait a minute. What was wrong with this picture? Where were the familiar scents of old leather and oil soap?

Cautiously she stared around the room. Gone was the familiar round table and spindle backed chairs. In their place stood a brand-new dining room set with a glossy oak finish and padded chairs.

“Dad!”

“I tried to warn you.” He touched her arm.

“Where is our stuff?”

“I moved it down to the trailer.”

“What are you doing living in the foreman’s trailer? Don’t tell me that double-dealing Murdock threw you out. I’ll strangle him with my bare hands. I’ll break both of his knees so he’ll never ride another bull. I’ll, I’ll…”

“Dump hot cocoa down my lap like you did in high school?”

Kara froze. Even with her back to the door, she recognized the deep, lazy drawl that haunted her dreams. Low and sexy, with the hint of laughter beneath the surface, the sound sent involuntary shivers down her spine. She clenched both fists and her teeth before turning to face the devil himself.

Pete held up a warning hand. “Hold on now, Kara Dean. Moving to the trailer was my choice. This boy may be a tricky poker player, but he wouldn’t throw an old man out in the cold.”

“It isn’t cold,” she said, perversely. “And this boy is a thirty-year-old man who stole our ranch.”

“Now, Kara, I’m not even twenty-nine yet. Don’t go making an old man out of me,” Ty teased.

She wasn’t prepared for the riot of emotion that swept through every cell in her body at the sight of him. There he stood, cocky as ever, one wide shoulder holding up the doorjamb. Cute little laugh lines bracketed the full lower lip she’d always found particularly sensuous. She stared at it for a moment, fighting the memory of what he could do with that mouth.

Dang it all! Life had been good to him. The dark good looks that had turned her to mush when she was a teenager had only improved with maturity. He was lean and trim, and looked for all the world like the confident bull rider he was. And nobody alive looked better in snug old Wrangler jeans and a black Stetson than Ty Murdock.

He was cowboy beautiful, and she wanted to scratch his laughing black eyes right out of their sockets.

“So.” Hissing in a steadying breath, she curled her lip. “The bad penny returns.”

“I could say the same for you.” His mild answer added fuel to her anger. How dare he be calm and cool when she was forest-fire hot and ready to rumble?

“I belong here. This is my home.”

He smirked. The arrogant mule levered himself off the door and actually smirked, leaving no doubt that he was now sole owner of the Tilted T. With a flourish worthy of an all-round champion, he removed his hat and tossed it onto one horn of a particularly tacky set of deer antlers hanging near the backdoor. Then he sauntered over to the bar, slung one leg over a stool and sat down as if he owned the place.

Dang it all! He did own the place.

Kara backed around to the other side of the narrow bar and simmered. Ty Murdock had already stolen enough from her. He wasn’t getting this ranch, too.

The tension in the room, most of it from Kara, was thicker than a prairie dust storm. “You’re a thief and a cheat, Murdock.”

Ty braced one powerful hand on an equally powerful thigh, his lips tilting in a wry grin. “Well, howdy, Kara. It’s mighty nice to see you, too.”

On some subconscious level she knew Ty hid his true emotions behind a flippant attitude, but Kara was long past caring about his feelings. He wasn’t going to tease his way out of this one.

“You took advantage of my daddy.”

“He did no such thing,” her dad piped up from his spot at the same bar. “A full house beats a flush any day of the week.”

Kara’s ears buzzed and little gray spots danced before her eyes. Anyone else would have thought she was about to faint. Kara knew dang well she was about to commit a crime—murder. Trouble was, she didn’t know who to kill first, her daddy or that worthless piece of cow dung, Ty Murdock.

“Dad, please, if you won’t stand up to this bully, then let me do it.”

Kara regretted the words as soon as they tumbled out of her rapid-fire mouth. A dark flush suffused Pete’s face. She’d embarrassed him, wounded that confounded pride of his. Before she could apologize, Pete rose stiffly from the bar.

“I’m going down to the trailer. When you finish pitching a fit, come on down. Sally’s making dinner.”

He stalked out the door, letting it bang shut behind him. Kara blinked after him in confusion.

Who the heck was Sally?

“Want some coffee?”

Kara’s head snapped around. Ty held a mug in her direction, one eyebrow arched in question.

“I haven’t stocked up on Dr. Pepper—yet.”

Her mouth fell open. He remembered her favorite soft drink?

Between her father’s strange announcement and Ty’s unwanted friendliness, she felt as off balance as a drunk standing in a rowboat during a hurricane. Ty stirred a spoon of sugar into the mug before pushing it across the bar toward her.

Glad for an excuse to do something beside stare with her mouth open, Kara sipped at the hot brew, her mind working frantically.

This wasn’t the way she’d planned their meeting. He wasn’t supposed to stand across from her, calmly watching her over a coffee cup emblazoned with the words Cowboy Up and Ride. He wasn’t supposed to remember how she liked her coffee or what kind of pop she preferred. He was supposed to be the ogre who left her standing in the gravel driveway of the Tilted T crying her eyes out while he drove away to seek his fame and fortune on the bull-riding circuit. He was the cheating, lying womanizer who’d promised a future and then took up with rodeo trash like Shannon Sullivan no sooner than his dust had settled.

The memory of that morning was still as fresh as the taste of his coffee. She turned her mind toward it now, reliving the pain and anger, calling it back for ammunition.

They’d stood inside the open door of his battered old red pickup truck braced against a hard June wind. He’d held her while she cried, smoothing back the long blond locks that whipped around her tear-soaked face.

“I have to go, Kara,” he’d said. “The gossips in this town are just waiting for me to slip up, to show the Murdock blood. This is my chance to prove them all wrong and make something of myself. I need to be more than your daddy’s hired hand.”

“But someday the Tilted T will be mine and we can share it. You won’t be anyone’s hired hand.” Tears flowed over the strong, competent hands that caressed her cheeks.

“Someday.” He kissed her trembling lips, his eyes suspiciously glassy. “But I’m already in my prime as a bull rider. If I’m real lucky I might get ten years in this business. You and I have the rest of our lives to be together.” His callused thumbs massaged the line of her jaw. “When my rodeo career is behind me, and I have some money in my pockets, we’ll turn the Tilted T into the finest ranch in east Texas.”

“If you love me, you’ll stay.”

“Kara, I do love you.” His voice was husky, thick with emotion. “That’s why I have to go. Please understand.”

But she hadn’t understood. Heedless of her pleading, he’d stepped up into the cab of the truck, started the engine and driven out of her life. She’d given him an ultimatum—her or the rodeo. In the end, he’d chosen the rodeo, and his daddy’s womanizing legacy, over her.

The agony of that memory was powerful enough to bring her to her senses. She would not be fooled by any man ever again. Especially not this man.

“This is my family’s ranch and I want it back.”

“Why?” His eyes narrowed as he studied her stormy expression. “If you cared about this place, why’d you move off to Oklahoma City and leave your dad to run things all by himself?”

She bit back the angry retort that simmered inside her. How dare he question her loyalty to this ranch? He didn’t know all the nights she’d cried herself to sleep inside the tiny city apartment with the unfamiliar sounds of sirens and traffic roaring in her ears. He couldn’t know how homesick she’d been, or how desperately she’d needed the comfort of home and family. Or how desperately she’d needed him.

“I had my reasons for moving to the city.” She gripped the warm mug so tightly she thought it might shatter.

“Yeah. I heard you got married.” Ty set his own cup carefully on the counter and stared down at it. “And divorced. Pete even showed me a picture of your son.”

Though nothing in his manner said he was even the least bit suspicious, Kara’s blood turned to ice water. She swallowed twice before trusting herself to speak.

“My personal life is none of your business.”

“It used to be.” He traced the lip of his coffee cup with a long, dark finger.

“That was a long time ago, Ty.” Before you chose the back of a bull over the woman you claimed to love. Before you allowed the rodeo groupies to share the love you’d promised to save for me. Before I had your baby all by myself.

She called up the image of a pale, trembling nineteen-year-old; saw her standing over the bathroom sink as the home pregnancy test revealed the truth. She remembered the smell of fried eggs the first time she’d suffered morning sickness; the taut, swollen feet, the aching back that no one offered to rub. And she recalled twenty hours of labor when no one came to reassure her or love her or to celebrate the arrival of her son. Kara Dean Taylor would never be that vulnerable again.

“You’ll have to pardon me if I’m not interested in waxing nostalgic.”

“What if I am?” His lips tilted upward, but his eyes remained serious, watchful. “We left a lot of unfinished business between us.”

Had they not been so sad, Kara would have found Ty’s unfortunate choice of words funny. Oh, they had unfinished business all right, but not the kind he might imagine. Most likely he was looking for another romp in the hay—literally—but Kara had learned her lesson in that department. The old adage about once burned, twice warned was true. In her case it was twice burned. Once by Ty and then by Josh Riddley, the man who’d been her husband only long enough to protect her son from speculation and to keep her daddy from knowing that his only child had failed him.

She’d fooled herself and Josh into believing love instead of desperation had brought them together. Josh had discovered the truth right away, just as she had discovered his propensity for alcohol-induced violence. In retrospect, facing Pete’s disappointment would have been easier than living with Josh, but after what she’d suffered to protect the secret, she wouldn’t hurt her daddy now.

Pete was old-fashioned. He would never have been able to hold his head up if the whole town knew his pride and joy, the perfect daughter, was an unwed mother. Josh had broken her spirit, but this sexy, handsome cowboy across the counter had done something much worse. He’d broken her heart.

Kara let the rich, sweet coffee linger on her tongue and warm her suddenly cold lips. Some women just have a knack for choosing the wrong men time and time again, and Kara Dean Taylor was one of those misguided fools. It had taken two failures to convince her, but that was enough.

Kara tossed back another shot of coffee. “Let’s get one thing straight, Murdock. There is nothing unfinished between us.”

For emphasis she clunked the ceramic cup onto the countertop. A bit of the dark liquid splashed out. Sliding off the bar stool, she circled the bar and headed into the kitchen. Ty stood directly between her and the paper towels. The twinkle in his eye said he had no intention of moving out of the way.

“If you had any manners, you’d either move or hand me a towel.”

He smiled and crossed his arms, leaning his backside against the counter. His posture challenged her to come closer, to prove that there was nothing left between them.

Fine then. She’d show the insufferable cowboy just how completely immune to him she was.

Armed with his betrayal and six years of heartache, she marched right up to him and leaned to the left, taking care not to touch him. He shifted slightly, bringing their bodies into alignment. Suddenly she was nose to chest with the man she hated more than anyone on earth. And he smelled delicious. Her pulse kicked up a notch. Here was the warm, woodsy scent that had lingered on her skin and on her clothes and in her mind long after he was gone.

She gritted her teeth against the tide of feeling that threatened. “Give me that dang towel, Murdock.”

“Give me the towel. Give me the ranch,” he mocked softly, his mouth so close to her hair that she felt the heat of his breath. “Is there anything else the queen desires?”

He was strong and warm and masculine and, oh, so familiar, even after all this time. For the briefest moment she felt herself being drawn by his charm.

His hard, cowboy’s hand snaked up her back, caressing as it went. Sensation as warm as butter melting on sweet corn flowed through Kara’s veins. Just when she would have leaned into his chest, he tugged at her ponytail and dropped his hand. The quiet rumble of his chuckle tickled her face.

Kara jerked away, breaking contact with his body. How dare he toy with her! And why on earth had she responded like that?

Not caring if the coffee spill ever got wiped up, she marched around the counter away from him. If he thought he could charm her into forgetting what he’d done, he could think again. Once she might have folded, but now she had her son to consider.

“You haven’t changed a bit, Murdock,” she said in a distressfully breathless voice. “You’re still the selfish little boy you always were, thinking you can charm your way in or out of anything. Well, I’ve got news for you this go-round, cowboy. You can saddle up and ride right on out the way you came in. Just put the deed to the Tilted T on the table as you leave.”

He struck a casual pose, his face unreadable, though Kara suspected he wasn’t nearly as unmoved as he pretended. “Sorry to disappoint you, honey, but this old cowboy ain’t going nowhere.”

“Then, I’ll take you to court.”

“You don’t have a leg to stand on. This place was in your father’s name.”

“Dad intended for my son to have the Tilted T.”

“Maybe. But, if you really thought he could take over someday, you would have had him living here all his life. A boy raised in the city can’t run a ranch.”

“I’m teaching him.”

“How? By showing him reruns of Gunsmoke? By letting him ride the plastic pony at Wal-Mart?”

“I’ll have you know Lane can ride as well as I could at his age.” And every time he mounted a horse, Kara’s heart broke to think of how his own father’s cheating had robbed her son of the opportunity to grow up on horseback the way she had.

Ty shoved away from the counter and stalked toward her. “What about his father? Maybe he has plans for the boy.”

Kara shivered inwardly at the thought, the secret raring up like a spooked stallion. “Lane has had no contact with his useless excuse for a father since the day he left. He has no say in Lane’s life. Never has, never will.”

Ty whistled softly. “Sounds like a bitter divorce.”

“So bitter that neither Lane nor I carry his father’s name. Lane is mine and mine alone.” Now was as good a time as any to break this bit of news. “We’re both Taylors. And Taylors have always owned this ranch. That’s why I’m not leaving here until you give it back.”

“Well, darlin’,” he drawled, laughter returning to his eyes as he hooked both thumbs in his pockets and tilted back on his heels. “I hope you packed your toothbrush, because you’ve got a long stay ahead of you.”