The Cowboy's Valentine

He stepped inside, bringing a gust of icy air with him. “You live here now. I don’t have any desire to walk in and take you by surprise.”

Her face heated as the possibilities of “surprise” sank in. “Well.” She took a step backward as he toed off his boots. “Thanks, but this place is really more yours than mine.” She realized they needed to set some boundaries with each other and it might as well start this morning. “Tell you what. During work hours, this place is yours. You should be able to come and go as you please and not worry about knocking.”

“It’s a ranch, Lacey. Not exactly a nine-to-five job.”

Did he always have to be so contrary?

“I realize that. But you have to admit, most days you come and go at regular hours. Let’s say...between eight and six, you’ve got free run of the place and I’ll work around you. The rest of the time, it just takes a knock. Okay?”

He gave a short nod. “Okay.”

She smiled. “Good. Now, do you want some coffee? I put on a pot and I shouldn’t drink the whole thing or I’ll be bouncing off the walls by noon.”

He looked surprised that she’d asked, and his face relaxed a little. “That would be good.”

“What do you take in it?”

“Cream and sugar.”

Same as her. Go figure.

She retrieved a mug from a cupboard while he put a lunch bag in the fridge. When he turned around he noticed her laptop on the dining table. “What are you working on so early?” he asked, accepting the steaming mug from her hands. The pads of his fingers brushed against her knuckles.

She withdrew quickly, alarmed that the thoughtless touch felt so intimate. “I’m sprucing up my résumé. Then I’ll log on to the Wi-Fi and start searching the job sites and boards. I’m a CPA. Surely someone between here and Great Falls could use my considerable accounting skills.” She waggled her eyebrows, trying to keep the mood light. Maybe he could at least give her points for trying.

“I could ask around.”

Another surprise. “Why would you do that?”

He took a sip of his coffee and looked at her over the rim of his cup. “The faster you get a job, the faster you can resume your old life.”

The whisper of intimacy disintegrated. “Harsh.”

“We both know you don’t really want to live here, Lacey. No sense pretending otherwise.”

He was right. But it didn’t mean she hated it entirely. “You realize that you give me crap for judging ranch life but you do the exact same thing with me? You’re just as prejudiced, you know.”

Quinn looked slightly alarmed at that assessment and put his coffee cup on the island. “What?”

“I’m just saying, that sure, I’ve made it no secret that this is not the life I’d choose for myself. But you’re judging me for that. Quinn, I respect that this is your home and your livelihood and you like it. But just because it’s not for me, and I know it, doesn’t make me less than you, okay?”

He stared at her for a long moment. “I just got schooled,” he admitted. “You’re right. I shouldn’t judge. You just...”

“Drive you crazy?”

“Yeah.”

“You push my buttons, too.” Their gazes connected and that strange intimate feeling happened again. She swallowed. “It must be because we’re so different. Oil and water.”

“I’m sure that’s it.”

Another heavy silence. Finally Quinn picked up his cup. “I need to make a few calls before heading out again. And you look like you need to get back to your work. I’ll see you later.”

“Sure.” She folded her arms around her middle, still a bit chilly. “Quinn, one more thing. Do you always keep it so cold in here? I woke up at five this morning darn near freezing.”

He stopped at the entrance to the hall. “I never thought about that. We keep the thermostat turned down, just keep enough heat on to keep pipes from freezing, really. I use a space heater in the office.”

“I don’t mind turning the heat down at night, though maybe not that far down.” She briefly considered an electric blanket, but that wouldn’t solve the entire problem. And she didn’t want to blast the heat in the whole house and run up a huge bill.

“I’ll speak to Duke about it, maybe get some programmable thermostats,” Quinn promised. “In the meantime, do you want me to light a fire for you?”

“I can do it. And I turned up the heat in these rooms anyway. Forget I mentioned it.”

He walked away to his office and she resumed her seat at the table. Even with the heat on, she was glad she’d put on warm leggings and the long sweater. Her coffee was gone before long so she got up and refilled her cup then went back to it.

She was just prettying up her margins and spacing when she looked up and saw Quinn at the end of the hallway, putting on his outerwear. He didn’t realize she was watching, and she let her eyes roam over his long, strong legs and wide shoulders as he put on his boots and jacket. Then his hat and a heavy pair of gloves...and her mouth watered.

Maybe they did get along about as well as cats in a sack. But she was still woman enough to appreciate a fine male form and it was hard to find fault with Quinn’s.

She hurriedly glanced down at her monitor as Quinn looked back towards the kitchen. It wouldn’t do to get caught staring. They could hardly agree on anything. Heck, at Christmastime they’d argued about the correct way to mash potatoes, for heaven’s sake. If he had the smallest inkling she found him physically attractive...well, things were already super awkward around here.

“I’ll be back in later to grab my lunch,” he called, and he was out the door before she could reply.

Surly, she thought. That was the problem with Quinn Solomon. He was surly. It was hard to like a man who hardly ever smiled.

She wondered if he’d smiled more before his wife had died, and her heart turned over a little at the thought. Whether she liked him or not, losing his wife and the mother of his daughter had to be terribly sad. He must have loved her a lot...

She and Carter hadn’t had that sort of love. She’d thought they had, at first. But when put to the test, they didn’t have what it took for a successful marriage.

She pushed her glasses up her nose and focused on the spacing of her résumé. There was no sense worrying about a past that couldn’t be changed. The only thing she could do was look to the future. There were days when even that was difficult, but she had a clean start now. It was up to her to make the most of it.

She was in the middle of bookmarking employment sites where she could upload her CV when Duke blustered in. Without knocking. Ah. Big brothers. Funny. When Quinn had knocked, Lacey had felt she was imposing on him. When her brother entered without knocking, his sense of entitlement got on her nerves a little.

“You made it.” He shrugged off his coat and hung it on the hook.

“Yesterday, as a matter of fact. Thanks for noticing.” She sent him a cheeky grin, making sure to face him straight on. Duke’s hearing was compromised, and he often watched lips to fill in any gaps of clarity, especially if his head was turned a bit the wrong way.

“I was going to come over last night, but Carrie and I didn’t finish until late. By the time supper was over, we were tuckered out.” He’d removed his boots and came into the kitchen in his stocking feet. His face got this weird, soft, moony look about it. “Especially Carrie. I keep telling her not to overdo it, but she’s stubborn.”

Lacey liked Carrie a lot. The former foreman of the cattle operation, Carrie had fallen for Duke hard and fast when he’d come back to Crooked Valley. Now she and Duke were married and she was expecting his baby. Duke was so happy and protective, and Lacey was happy for them. Even so, their happiness and future plans did serve as a painful reminder of the life she would never have. The dream of an adoring husband and a house full of kids was long gone.

“Is Carrie feeling okay?” Lacey sat back in her chair and took off her glasses, putting them on top of her paper tablet.

“The odd morning sickness, but nothing major. And she’s tired a lot. Otherwise, she’s great.” He pulled out a chair and sat down, resting his elbows on the table. “I can’t wait for the ultrasound. We’ll get pictures and everything.”

It was like a knife to the heart, but Lacey never let on. No one except their mother knew that Lacey’d had to undergo surgery—the kind that prevented her from ever having children.

“I’m glad you’re so happy.” That, at least, was the truth.

“And you’re here. That makes me happy.” He grinned at her, his blue eyes sparkling at her. “I always love having a little sis around to torment.”

“Don’t get your hopes up. I appreciate the place to stay, but I’m not really interested in becoming a rancher. Gramps was crazy to split this place up the way he did.”

Duke tapped his fingers on the table. “I used to think that, too.”

“Well, you’re not me. I’m not a rancher. I belong behind a desk somewhere, working with columns of numbers. Not shoveling manure or whatever it is you guys do outside all day.”

Duke laughed. “I forgot you’re such a girlie girl.”

“Yes, well, you haven’t exactly been around much the last few years.” She realized that sounded a bit harsh, so she tempered it a little. “You were deployed, Duke. I don’t blame you in the least. But you must realize that life went on while you were overseas. We all went our own ways.”

She let him off the hook and smiled. “Anyway, I do really want to say thank-you for letting me crash. Losing my job was a big blow. I was living paycheck to paycheck and really couldn’t see how I could keep up with the rent on the town house.”

“What about Carter? Doesn’t he pay you any alimony?”

She nodded. “Yes, but it’s not much. Carter’s alimony is peanuts, really. He’s got his own troubles. I wouldn’t ask him for anything more.”

“You’d be within your rights. He walked out on you and left you with everything—including all the debt.”

As Lacey thought about how to answer her brother, she got up and poured him the last cup of coffee from the pot. She put it down in front of him and then put her hand on his shoulder.

“It was a mutual decision, Duke,” she said softly. “It just wasn’t working. We were both unhappy.” She didn’t feel like mentioning that the debt Duke spoke of was mostly due to her and all her medical tests and treatment that weren’t covered by her insurance. “I just want you to know that I appreciate the chance to stay here while I figure out what’s next.”

Duke smiled down into his coffee.

“What?”

He looked up and his eyes crinkled around the edges. “You sound like me a few months ago.”

She knew Duke wanted her to take on her third of the ranch. If she did, and if they could convince Rylan to take on his third, the ranch stayed as is. But if they didn’t...well, Duke would either have to find a way to buy them out of their thirds, or the place would be sold. It was an annoying thing, what their grandfather had done in his will. And it would have been much easier to brush off if Duke hadn’t decided to stay on.

“I’m not taking on my third, Duke. I’ll help you in any way I can, but not that.”

Duke took a long drink of his cooling coffee. “Well, there’s lots of time to think about it. What are you doing today?”

His whole dismissal sent out a message of “give me time to change your mind” and she ignored it. “I’m sending out my résumé, seeing if I can find any leads to a new job. It’s not an ideal commute to Great Falls, but spring will be here soon and the bad weather is mostly done. I can do it for a while, until I build up some financial reserves. And who knows? Maybe I’ll find something closer.”

“Have you seen Quinn yet?”

She raised an eyebrow. “Of course I did. He was the welcoming committee.” She smiled saucily.

“Oh, great. You weren’t too hard on him, were you?”

She gave him a swat. “So much for family loyalty. What about how grouchy he might have been to me?”

Duke’s frown deepened. “Was he?”

“Of course not.” No matter her issues with Quinn, she wouldn’t put Duke in the middle of it. He relied on Quinn too much. She wasn’t here to stir up trouble.

“Hey. If I had one reservation about you staying at the house, it was that you’d be sharing space with Quinn. I know you don’t get along. I don’t know why, but you don’t. I’m hoping you can coexist peacefully.”

“We’ve laid out some ground rules.” She sat back down at the table.

“Well, try not to kill each other. This place doesn’t run without him.” Duke raised his cup, drained what was left of his coffee, and stood. “Thanks for the coffee. I’d better get back.”

“Anytime. This is your place, after all.”

“No, it’s yours. For as long as you want it, Lace.” He put his hand over hers on top of the table. “I mean that. I wasn’t around a lot, definitely not when you were going through some rough times. I’d like to be there for you now.”

The backs of her eyes stung and she nodded through blurred vision. “That means a lot, Duke.”

“Right. Better be off.” He went down the hall and put on his gear again. “Oh, Lace?”

She looked up.

“Maybe next time you can have some cookies to go with that coffee? Carrie’s on a ‘no sweets’ kick with the pregnancy. And somehow her kale chips just aren’t cutting it for me.”

She couldn’t help but smile. “I’ll see what I can do,” she replied. “Now go, so I can find a job, will you?”

With a wink he disappeared.

Lacey turned her attention back to the document on the screen but didn’t really focus on it. Instead she was thinking about what Duke had just said, and thinking about how it felt to be here. It felt good. It felt...right. Somehow being with family, having that support, was exactly what she needed.

She just had to be careful not to get too used to it, or use it as a crutch. This time she was making her own decisions and standing entirely on her own two feet. At least if she relied on herself, she wasn’t being set up for disappointment.

* * *

JACK, ONE OF the regular hands, was out with the flu so Quinn spent the rest of his morning mucking out stalls in the horse barn. It was a job he actually enjoyed. The slight physical exertion kept him warm and he usually talked to the horses as he worked. Even the scrape of the shovel on the barn floor had a comforting sound to it, and he worked away with the radio playing in the background, just him and his thoughts.

He had a lot of thoughts, as it happened. Most days it was about what needed to be done at the ranch, or worries about being a good single dad to Amber as she got older. He already knew far more about Disney princesses and ballet slippers and hair ribbons than most dads. And it wasn’t that he minded. It was just...he knew Marie would have done a much better job. A little girl needed a mom. And Quinn wasn’t sure how to solve that, because he wasn’t really interested in getting married again.

Not when it had hurt so much the first time.

Thankfully he had Carrie and Kailey. Carrie was around even more now that she and Duke were married, and Amber loved spending time at Crooked Valley. Kailey was Carrie’s best friend and lived at a neighboring ranch. Between the two of them, they provided Amber with some great girlie time. On Sundays, too, they visited with Quinn’s mom, who lived in a little one-bedroom apartment in Great Falls. She’d moved there after his dad had died and she had a vital, happy life in the assisted-living complex, and help with the arthritis that sometimes made her day-to-day living a challenge.

Visits and special time were great. The girls were great. But they weren’t her mother, and Quinn couldn’t help but feel like he’d somehow let Amber down even though Marie’s death had been a freak accident. A heart defect that had gone undetected until it was too late. One morning she’d been laughing with him over breakfast. Two hours later she’d just been...gone.

At noon he ventured back to the house and lifted his hand to knock at the door, then pulled it back again. Lacey had said to come and go as he pleased, and he should. This was, after all, a working ranch. He was pretty sure she wasn’t going to be running around the house in her Skivvies at twelve o’clock in the afternoon.

The thought gave him pause, because he pictured her that way and his body tensed in a familiar way. Oh, no. That would be too inconvenient. He had no business thinking about Lacey Duggan in her underwear and even less business liking it.

He reached for the doorknob and resolutely turned it. He stepped into the foyer and heard a radio playing, heard a soft female voice singing along. He was transported back two years earlier, when he’d still had the perfect life, and the joy he felt coming home to a scene much like this one. There was the sound of something opening and closing, and the rattle of bake ware. The aroma of fresh-baked cookies reached him and his stomach growled in response.

After hanging up his coat, he wandered to the kitchen to get his lunch out of the fridge. He’d just go eat in the office, out of Lacey’s way. It was a lonely-sounding proposition but he realized that if he stayed in her little sphere of existence, they’d probably end up arguing. They always did.

“Don’t mind me. I’m just here to get my lunch.”

He forgot that she had music on. That she probably hadn’t heard him come inside. But he remembered now as she squeaked and jumped with alarm, jerking the spatula which held a perfectly round, warm, chocolate chip cookie. The cookie went flying and landed with a soft splat in the middle of the kitchen floor.

“Cripes, Quinn!” Her brows pulled together in annoyance. “Do you have to creep up on a person like that?”

She looked so indignant he had the strangest urge to laugh. “I wasn’t trying to be quiet. I came in like I always do. I guess you didn’t hear me because of the music.”

“Whatever.” She bent to pick up the cookie, which broke into pieces as she lifted it off the floor. She put the remnants on the counter and then went for a piece of paper towel to wipe the little dots of melted chocolate from the tile.

Quinn went to the fridge and took out his lunch bag. “Well, if it’s any consolation, they smell great.”

He turned around and headed back towards the hall.

“Where are you going?”

He paused and looked over his shoulder. “I was going to eat in the office.”

“Is that where you normally eat?”

He didn’t know how to answer. He usually grabbed his lunch, made himself a coffee, used the microwave if he had leftovers to heat. Today he had leftover spaghetti, which he’d planned to eat cold.

“I assume your lack of a fast reply means no. You normally use the kitchen, don’t you?”

He sighed. “Sometimes.”

“Truly, Quinn, I don’t want you to alter your routine for me. Pretend I’m not here.”

It was pretty hard to pretend because she was there, with her burnished curls caught up in a ponytail, her blue eyes snapping at him. He noticed, not for the first time, that she had the faintest dusting of freckles over the bridge of her nose. Duke was thirty, so that had to make her, what, twenty-eight or so?

Twenty-eight, with a career job behind her, married, divorced. Quinn was thirty-three, and he knew exactly how life could age a person so that numbers were insignificant. He tried to remember that Lacey had faced her share of troubles. Duke had made it plain that the family wasn’t too impressed that her ex had walked out on her.

He went back and put his lunch bag on the island, unzipped it and took out the plastic container holding his lunch. “Do you mind if I use the microwave?”

She rolled her eyes. “What did I just say?”

Saucy. At least she was consistent.

He popped the container in the microwave and started it up, then stood awkwardly waiting for it to beep. Meanwhile, Lacey finished removing the cookies from the pan and began dropping batter by the spoonful on the parchment.

His stomach growled again.

When his meal was hot, he took it to the kitchen table—no laptop in sight now—and got out his knife and fork. The pasta didn’t look as appetizing as it might have. He was an adequate cook only, but he was getting better. Trying new things now and again. The trouble was that by the time he got Amber from day care, he had to cook stuff that was relatively fast if they hoped to eat before her bath time.

He was nearly through when Lacey put a small plate beside him and a glass of milk.

“Uh, thanks,” he said, looking up. She was smiling down at him, and for the first time there was no attitude in her expression.

“I’d be pretty heartless if I didn’t offer you fresh cookies,” she said. “Besides, I don’t dare eat them all myself. I’m counting on you and Duke to eat the lion’s share.”

She went back to the sink and ran soapy water to wash the dishes.

Quinn bit into a cookie and sighed in appreciation. God, the woman knew how to cook. He’d realized that at Thanksgiving and then again at Christmas when she’d bustled in with all her bossiness. He and Amber had both enjoyed the home-cooked meals they’d shared here at the ranch. It had actually stung his pride a little when Amber asked if they could go back to “Uncle Duke’s” because Lacey was there and doing a lot of the family cooking along with their mother, Helen.

“They turn out okay?” Lacey called from the sink, her hands immersed in the water. “I didn’t have my recipe with me and went from memory.”

He bit back a sarcastic comment. Why did she push his buttons so? Instead he reminded himself that she’d gone out of her way to be nice. To be accommodating. “They’re delicious,” he replied honestly. “Maybe the best chocolate chip cookie I’ve ever had.”

She dried her hands on a dish towel, then grabbed a cookie and her coffee cup and joined him at the table. “Can I tell you a secret, Quinn?”

They were sharing confidences now?

“Um, sure. I guess.”

She bit into the cookie, chewed thoughtfully and swallowed. “I bake when I’m stressed. I think it’s a combination of things, from focusing on something other than what’s going on, to the process of making something and maybe even the aromas. They’re comforting smells, you know?”

He did know. He missed them around his place, and the absence of them sometimes made his chest ache.

“You’re stressed?”

She broke off another piece of cookie. “Of course I am. Know what they said when I packed up my desk at the office? ‘Oh, no, who’s going to bring us treats all the time?’ I mean, it’s been better up until a few months ago, but when Carter first left...”

Right. Carter. That was the bastard’s name.

“When Carter left it was weird, being all alone. We’d planned to be together forever, you know?”

His last bite of cookie swelled in his throat as a heavy silence fell over the table.

“Oh, God,” she whispered, and to his surprise she put her hand on his arm. “I’m so sorry. That was so thoughtless of me. Of course you know.”

He forced the cookie down and looked up at her. Her eyes were soft with sympathy and understanding and her hand was still on his wrist. Something passed between them, something that, for a flash, felt like shared grief. It was gone in the blink of an eye, but it had been there. He got the feeling that she understood more than he realized. Still, could divorce be as bad as a spouse dying? As bad as a child without a mother?

Lacey pulled her hand away. “I’m sorry,” she repeated. “It’s been so quiet here that I’ve talked your ear off. I should let you get back to work.”

He cleared his throat. “Yes. Thanks for the cookies.”

“Anytime. They’ll be in Grandma Duggan’s cookie jar if you find yourself snackish.” She gestured towards a stone crock that she must have unearthed from somewhere, now sitting on the counter next to the toaster.

“Will do.”

Quinn put the lid on his dish and shoved everything back in his lunch bag, then put it in the fridge, empty, where he’d collect it at the end of the day.