A Baby in the Bunkhouse (19 page)

Her emotions in turmoil, Jacey bit her lip. “You might say that. I gave my notice.”
But only after he took steps to ease me off the ranch and out of his life.

“I thought you were happy here.”

So had Jacey. She pretended to study the extensive grocery list in her hands. “It's complicated.”

“Love usually is.”

Jacey shot Rafferty's dad a sharp look.

He tightened his hands on the wheel and spared her an understanding glance. “You think I didn't know? I'd have to be blind not to see the sparks between the two of you. And for the record, Rafferty hasn't been this happy in years.”

That's what she had thought. Sighing wistfully, Jacey steeled herself against further heartache. “It was never going to work anyway,” she said sadly. For once, the Christmas music on the truck stereo did nothing to lift her sagging spirits.

“Why do you say that?”

Jacey studied the Christmas lights on the houses at the edge of town. “I'm a city girl. I don't ride. Don't even want to learn.”

“So? His mother never rode, either. Horses scared her. Same for cattle and any other critters she might come across out on the ranch. The kitchen and home were her domain and she loved every second of it. And Rafferty loved her, as did I.”

Jacey took a deep breath and pushed back the tears she felt gathering behind her eyes. “Well, then, I guess I'm not ambitious enough for him.”

Eli frowned in disagreement. “How can that be true, given how many different dishes you're going to be making over Christmas, just to ensure that everyone has their favorite food?”

“That's different.” It was so much fun it didn't even feel like work.

“Is it? Every other cook we've had—aside from my wife—]has set out a very brief, pedestrian menu, and if the hands didn't like it, that was just tough. You go out of your way to cook extraordinary meals.”

“But it's not my profession.”

“Then maybe it should be.”

Jacey didn't want to admit how tempted she was. “I can't continue working on the ranch, and be around Rafferty, knowing he wants me gone.”
It would be just too painful.

Eli turned into the grocery-store parking lot and began looking for a space. It wasn't easy—the lot was full. “So you're just going to give up because it's easy?” He finally eased into a space.

Despair filled Jacey's voice. “You can't make someone love you.”
As much as you might want to do so.

“Nor can you stop on a whim,” Eli countered sagely. He turned off the engine and patted her hand paternally, once again becoming the father she'd lost, way too young. “I'm not sure what has gone on here, but I know a misunderstanding when I see one, Jacey,” he murmured. “Whatever my son meant to say to you, whatever he was trying to accomplish, it's not what he ended up doing. The only question is, what are
you
going to do about it?”

 

J
ACEY THOUGHT
about what Eli had said, while the two of them did the holiday marketing. By the time she got back to the ranch and put the groceries away, she knew what she had to do. Find Rafferty Evans. Give him a piece of her mind. And see where they went from there….

“He went riding,” Gabby said.

Curly added, “He's back now.”

“Check the stables,” Red advised.

Jacey drew a deep breath and settled the sleeping Caitlin into the Pack 'n Play she kept in the bunkhouse. She tucked the swaddling blanket around her slumbering babe and straightened. “You fellas mind watching Caitlin for me for a few minutes?”

Smiles all around. “Be happy to, Jacey,” Curly said.

Red grinned. “You know we love her.”

“We love
you,
” Stretch emphasized, to a rumble of masculine agreement.

Jacey felt a lump in her throat the size of a walnut. This right here, she thought, was Christmas. Now, if only she could extend that joy….

“I love you fellas, too,” she said softly. So much she didn't know what she was going to do if she couldn't be a part of the bunkhouse camaraderie anymore. Figuring it was now or never, she headed for the stables but was thwarted again.

“He went up to the ranch house about fifteen minutes ago. Check there,” Hoss told her.

Jacey turned around and marched back to the house.

Eli was doing what he did most afternoons—he was napping on the sofa.

Rafferty was not in the kitchen, living room or study.

Heartbeat accelerating, she headed back to his bedroom.

Knocked.

The door opened. Rafferty stood there, newly showered and dripping wet, a towel wrapped around his hips. Jacey swallowed around the sudden dryness of her throat. Fighting the urge to make love to him then and there, she pushed back her desire and strode past him. “I need to talk to you.” Ignoring the incredibly sexy way he looked, she shut the door behind her and whirled to face him. Deciding to get to the point, she stated bluntly, “I don't want to leave.”

A flicker of happiness crossed his face, then was replaced by an emotion she could not read. His eyes solemn, he returned softly, “I don't want you to leave, either.”

Jacey gulped. “I like it here.”

His lips curved into a smile. “I like you here.”

His teasing sent a spiral of warmth deep inside her. Deliberately, she kept her eyes locked with his. “Then why are you trying to get rid of me?” This much she had to know.

Rafferty looked confused again. “I'm not.”

Jacey sighed in frustration and trod a little closer. “Let's refresh. You just found a replacement chef for the ranch, an alternate place for me and my baby to live, and gave me an astounding five-figure check to ease my exit. I'd call that a pretty big hint, big guy.”

“Or an opportunity,” Rafferty corrected, gently clasping her arms. “I didn't want to be responsible for holding you back. I wanted to help you have everything you ever wanted, career-wise. So you wouldn't look back one day and think you had made a mistake taking a temporary job at the ranch and then never moving on again. I didn't want you to get three years down the road and regret getting off the career path you were on, or neglecting to blaze a new one, just because you were comfortable here.”

This was sounding a lot like Mindy, and not at all like Rafferty Evans.

Jacey licked her suddenly dry lips and fought the increasingly self-conscious flush in her cheeks. “And if you weren't trying to help me achieve the dreams I should be seeking, what kind of Christmas gift would you have given me?” she asked curiously.

Without hesitation, Rafferty walked over to his bureau, opened the drawer and took out a velvet jewelry box. Expression sobering all the more, he came back and handed it to her. “This is what I wanted to give you,” he said, his voice suddenly hoarse.

Jacey opened it up.

Inside was a platinum diamond engagement ring.

The gift she had been hoping he would present her with, the one that would make all her dreams come true.

“I wanted to ask you to marry me,” he continued, threading his hands through her hair and lifting her face up to his. “But then…I overheard you talking to your sister while you were wrapping presents, and realized I wasn't being fair. So I went another direction, hoping that if I sacrificed what I wanted and gave you what you wanted instead, it would all work out in the end.” His eyes lasered in on hers. “Hoping you'd know what I realized a long time ago—that we belong together.”

Well, at least he got that part right, Jacey thought. “First of all. Opening up my own business one day is a dream, but not one I want to pursue until Caitlin is a lot older. Right now, all I want to do is be on the mommy track, enjoy every moment of her pre-k years and cook for you and the guys. Maybe take some cooking classes now and then so I can really expand my repertoire. Second, and even more important…” Her voice caught a little. She forced herself to go on as she withdrew an envelope from her pocket and handed it to him.

“This was my gift.”

He opened it up. Inside was a card with a deliriously dancing Snoopy, and the hand-written note, “I.O.U. unlimited tender loving care—and holiday cheer—from this day forward….”

A smile spread slowly across his face. “There's nothing I want more, especially now that my Ebenezer Scrooge days are over.”

Their eyes met and held.

“I'm glad you like your gift.”

“I do,” he said gruffly.

“So.” She cleared her throat. “If this ring is a proposal of marriage—”

“It is.” His tone left no doubt about what he wanted.

Tears of bliss filled her eyes. “Then my answer is yes,” she replied just as resolutely. “I will marry you.”

They pledged their commitment to each other with a long, tender kiss.

Drawing back, Jacey looked deep into his eyes and said the words she had longed to express. “I love you, Rafferty Evans, with all my heart and soul.”

His voice turned low and gravelly. He pressed her tightly against him. “I love you, too, Jacey. So much more than words can ever say.”

He kissed her again. And again and again. And by the time they had finished, they knew that they were meant to be together.

Not just for now, but forever.

 

T
HEIR EXUBERANT MOOD
only accelerated as Christmas descended upon them. And when at last Jacey sat down in the bunkhouse to open presents, and she saw what the cowboys had worked so hard to arrange, her heart filled with even more love. “A Global Positioning System for my car!” No wonder they'd had to go all the way to El Paso to have it installed in the dashboard. “Fellas! What a great gift!”

The cowboys grinned from ear to ear. “We don't want you getting lost anymore,” Stretch said.

“This way, wherever you are, you'll know how to find your way back to the ranch,” Hoss added.

“And don't forget the new stereo system, too, with the six-CD changer,” Curly piped in.

“No way I could,” Jacey gushed. She shook her head in admiration. “You guys outdid yourself.”

Red traced the Lost Mountain Ranch logo on their presents from Rafferty and his dad. “These new sterling-silver belt buckles are pretty fancy, too.”

Jacey agreed it had been a particularly thoughtful gift, as well received as the sturdy leather work gloves she'd given all the men.

Gabby winked. “Although, got to admit, the extra-fat bonus checks we got in our Christmas stockings are awfully nice, too.”

“What can I say?” Rafferty grinned, spreading as much joy as Santa himself. He wrapped his arm around Jacey, kissing her and the baby in her arms. “Jacey and Caitlin brought me back my holiday spirit.”

Six months later…

Jacey and Rafferty faced off in the suite that would soon be her former bedroom at Lost Mountain Ranch. She shook her head at the mischievous glint in her fiancé's eyes, scolded, “I don't think the groom is supposed to see the bride before the wedding.”

And he wouldn't have, if her sister hadn't gone off to get baby Caitlin into her white organza wedding-day dress.

Looking resplendent in a dove-gray morning coat and tails, Rafferty held a bit of greenery above her head. “The bride is not supposed to be standing beneath the mistletoe, either.”

Jacey flirted back shamelessly. “Especially in June. It's wedding season, Rafferty.”

“I know.” He regarded her with mock seriousness, even as he wrapped his free arm around her waist and drew her against him. “That's why we're getting married.” He chuckled as the petticoats beneath her full skirt swished. “'Tis the season to be jolly and all that….”

Jacey let out a tremulous sigh. “You're incorrigible.”

He misbehaved even more. “Your fault.”

Feeling like a kid, too, Jacey regarded him with exaggerated reproof. “And how is that, Mr. Evans?”

He kissed her lips gently. “You've given me the Christmas spirit to carry around in my heart all year round, Mrs. Soon-To-Be-Evans.”

Thinking to heck with tradition, Jacey wreathed her arms about his neck and kissed him back just as tenderly. “Who would have known…”

“Certainly not me.” Rafferty sighed his contentment. They were about to kiss again, when voices sounded on the other side of the bedroom door. They were followed by a knock. His arm still around her waist, Rafferty opened the door. Eli and Mindy stood there, not surprised at all to discover where the groom had happened to end up.

“Honestly,” Mindy said as she shifted her niece to her other hip. “Must you two look so deliriously happy all the time?”

“Your sister might start to think you and your daughter belong here,” Eli teased.

They all laughed.

Once Mindy had understood how right this was for Jacey, she had been as supportive and happy for her sister as everyone else.

“In any case, we thought you might be sneaking a little wedding cheer,” Eli said dryly.

Every bit as poker-faced as his father, Rafferty held the greenery aloft and claimed, “We're testing the mistletoe.”

“Then we'll let you have at it,” Eli returned, a glint of approval in his faded blue eyes.

Mindy smiled at them fondly, too. “Just not too long. The wedding guests are waiting.”

Jacey and Rafferty kissed again. Held each other tight. Finally, they drew apart, knowing it was time. “Ready to go out and make this official?” Rafferty asked.

Never more sure of anything in her life, Jacey nodded.

Hand in hand, they walked out to the lawn, where a sea of white chairs had been set up. With Mindy and Caitlin on one side of them, bearing witness, Eli on the other, Jacey and Rafferty committed to a lifetime of love and bliss. When the minister blessed their union, a cheer went up that echoed through the ranch. In that blissful moment, Jacey knew she and Rafferty had received the best gift of all—they had come home to each other, to love, at long last.