The Rancher's One-Week Wife (5 page)

“I hadn’t even thought about footwear,” she said, wondering how long it would take for her budget to recover from all of her unplanned purchases. She glanced down at her feet. “I know I can’t wear these heels and I don’t suppose flip-flops are suitable for helping you feed the orphaned calves, are they?”

He shook his head as he led her toward the back of the store, where boxes of boots were stacked on shelves from the floor all the way to the ceiling. “Not unless you want to risk a nasty cut or broken toes when one of them steps on your foot.”

“Not hardly,” she said, deciding that a financial headache was preferable to physical pain. Since she’d decided to stay the long weekend at Blake’s ranch, she supposed she had to go all in and as he so eloquently put it, “get her cowgirl on.”

A half hour later as she and Blake walked out of the store, Karly frowned at all the bags and boxes he carried. She knew she couldn’t really afford all the things she’d bought, but she hadn’t expected Blake to pay for her shopping spree. This was probably another obligation for him, because he was her husband. And the only reason she’d said yes was because her bank account wouldn’t let her reject his kind offer. But she seemed to be getting deeper into the role of a wife even though the whole point of this trip had been to finalize their divorce.

“You should have let me pay for all of this,” Karly said. If he had, she would have definitely gone with fewer and more economical selections. “I doubt the owner of the ranch will be all that happy about you putting my clothes on his charge account.”

“Don’t worry about it. He doesn’t mind me charging things on the ranch account. And, like I said, you’re my wife. If you lived with me, you’d be charging things all the time.” Grinning, he shrugged as he put the purchases onto the backseat of the club cab truck. “It’s one of the perks of being the boss.”

“There’s a difference between charging one or two items and loading up the account.” She pointed to the two boxes he added to the pile. “That hat was outrageously expensive and those boots alone cost more than I’ve ever paid for a pair of shoes in my entire life.”

“A good hat and a comfortable pair of boots are worth whatever price you have to pay for them,” he stated as he helped her up into the passenger seat.

“But I won’t be here that long,” she argued, trying to make him understand. “Something cheaper would have served the purpose just as well.”

She’d tried to tell him when he insisted she put them on that they were far too expensive. But when he gently wrapped his hand around her calf as he took her high heel off to put one of the boots on, her brain had short-circuited. Somewhere between her vocal cords and opened mouth her objection had turn into a gasp of awareness. His smile and the twinkle in his sexy brown eyes indicated that he’d noticed, but he didn’t comment as he worked the boot onto her foot and she couldn’t get her voice to work long enough to protest further.

He closed the door, walked around the front of the truck and got in behind the steering wheel. “Let’s get something straight. As long as you’re at the ranch and we’re still married, I provide for you. That includes the clothes and hat you’ll wear and the boots on your feet. There are some things that I won’t skimp on, no matter how expensive they are, because in most cases, you get what you pay for. Hats and boots are two of those things.” He surprised her when he reached over to cover her hand with his. “And don’t worry about me charging all of this on the ranch account. When the bill comes in, I’ll pay for it.”

The feel of his calloused palm on her skin and the memory of how his hands had felt on her body when they made love sent a shiver of longing straight up her spine. She tried her best to dismiss the reaction as nothing more than nerves. But as they continued to stare at each other, she knew it was going to take everything in her to keep from falling under his charming spell again.

She quickly slid her hand from beneath his and concentrated on what he’d said. “Blake, I appreciate that you feel it’s your responsibility to see that I have what I need,” she said, choosing her words carefully. “But I don’t feel right about you buying a whole wardrobe for me.”

He gave her a cursory glance as he started the truck and steered it out of the parking lot onto the street. “Why not?”

“If I had handled the divorce differently, you wouldn’t be in the awkward position of giving me a place to stay or feeling obligated to buy things for me,” she said, feeling guilty. For that matter, if she hadn’t been so impulsive and made promises she hadn’t been able to keep when they were in Las Vegas, neither of them would have found themselves in their current situation.

“Don’t beat yourself up over this,” he said, surprising her. “You did what you thought was best and it didn’t turn out the way you planned.” He stared straight ahead as he added, “It happens to the best of us.”

Her guilt increased when she realized he was talking about his own plans for them to live together as husband and wife. He had every right to be bitter about how she’d ended things, but instead he was treating her like the wife she’d never been to him. Suddenly, she was wishing things could have worked out differently—but she quickly squashed that traitorous thought. “I suppose you’re right,” she murmured.

They fell silent for several minutes as Blake drove out of town toward the ranch. “Why don’t we start over?” he suggested, breaking the silence.

She frowned. “What do you mean?”

“There’s no sense wasting time pointing fingers or feeling guilty about what went wrong between us,” he said pragmatically. “We’ve both signed the papers already. So why don’t we forget the real reason for your trip to the ranch and look at this holiday weekend as a friendly visit? I’ll show you what ranch life is all about.” He laughed. “And you can look on your time here as one of those vacations people take just to play cowboy.”

Her chest tightened at his offer, at the consideration he was showing her. They both knew she was to blame for the entire fiasco and that he had been terribly disappointed with her decisions. But he was willing to put aside any hard feelings in order for her stay at the Wolf Creek Ranch to be more pleasant. If she hadn’t been so afraid that quitting her job and moving so far away from the city would turn her into her mother, she would have loved having this man for her husband.

“Thank you, Blake,” she said, blinking back tears. “I think I’d like that.”

“Then it’s settled.” His grin caused her pulse to flutter. “Let’s get back to the ranch so we can get started on giving you the ranching experience of your life.”

Three

T
he lingering shadows of night were just giving way to the misty light of dawn when Karly followed Blake out of the house and across the ranch yard toward one of the barns. Wearing a new pair of jeans, a hot pink T-shirt, her hat and a flannel-lined denim jacket he had insisted on buying her the day before, she stepped around puddles left by the thunderstorm that had popped up yesterday afternoon to keep from getting her expensive new boots wet.

The rain had prevented her and Blake from riding up to check on the herd of cattle in the upper pasture when they returned from the store and that had been just fine with Karly. It had given her a day’s reprieve from having to learn to ride a horse. It was probably too much to hope for that it would rain again today.

“How long does it take to feed the animals?” she asked when they entered the barn.

“It takes longer right now than it usually does because of the bucket babies,” Blake answered, opening the door to a room filled with large sacks of grain and assorted sizes of buckets. “But we’re usually finished in about an hour.”

She assumed the bucket babies he was talking about were the orphaned calves. When he set two pails with large nipples protruding from the bottom edge on a small table outside of the door, she understood why he called them bucket babies.

“Why don’t you use big bottles?” she asked. “Wouldn’t that be easier?”

He laughed. “Two reasons. One, we’d be stopping to refill the bottle every few minutes. And two, calves tend to be extremely enthusiastic when they eat. Holding a bucket can be hard enough when they get going. But holding a bottle would be damn near impossible.”

“How old are they?” she asked, when he started scooping cream-colored powder into each bucket. “If they’re still on baby formula, they must be quite young.”

“They’re almost four weeks old,” he said, adding premeasured jugs of distilled water to the buckets. He handed her a smooth wooden paddle. “If you’ll stir the formula, I’ll measure up the grain starter.”

“They’re already eating solids?” she asked, frowning. “Aren’t they a little young for that?”

He laughed. “You know what they say. Kids grow up real fast these days.”

She rolled her eyes. “Will you be serious? It was a legitimate question.”

“Sorry,” he said, continuing to chuckle.

“No, you’re not.” She couldn’t help but laugh with him.

“Not really. I just couldn’t resist.” As he shook his head, his charming grin sent goose bumps shimmering over her skin. “Calves usually start nibbling on grass out in the field when they’re a day or two old. But that’s when they have their mamas with them and are able to nurse whenever they want. Because these calves are orphaned and have to be fed on a schedule, we start them on a little bit of hay a few days after they’re born and grain starter about a week after that. When they’re up to eating about a pound or two of grain a day we start weaning them away from the milk replacer. That’s when they are about six to eight weeks old.”

“They really do grow up fast,” she said, marveling at how quickly the animal babies progressed.

While she stirred the calf formula, he went back into the feed room and began scooping grain into shallow pails. Glancing through the doorway to watch him, Karly decided that Blake Hartwell was without a doubt the most handsome, charismatic man she’d ever met. She was going to have to be extremely careful not to fall for him all over again.

That thought should have sent her speeding down the mountain as fast as the red sports car she’d rented could take her. But she had told him she would stay until the strike was settled and she’d already broken enough of her promises to him. She wasn’t going to add another, especially after he’d been so nice about everything that had happened between them.

When he rejoined her in the wide barn aisle, he handed her the lighter pails with small amounts of grain starter in them and picked up the heavier buckets with the formula she had finished mixing. “Are you ready for your first lesson in the fine art of feeding calves?”

She nodded. “I guess I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.”

Other than the pony she’d ridden at the grocery store grand opening when she was in kindergarten, she’d never been around an animal larger than a cat or a dog and she was definitely feeling a little intimidated. Did calves have a tendency to bite? She didn’t remember hearing of anyone suffering a cow bite. But that didn’t mean anything. She knew absolutely nothing about livestock. And other than Blake, she didn’t know anyone else who did.

That was another reason that she’d gotten cold feet about their marriage. She’d not only feared quitting her job and finding herself feeling as displaced and resentful as her mother, she would have also been living on this ranch with animals large enough to squash her like a bug.

The first time she’d ever seen those animals in action had been in Las Vegas when she met Blake and he’d invited her to watch him ride in the rodeo events. After returning to Seattle and remembering what the huge animals were capable of doing and the injuries their actions caused, she’d known for certain that ranch life wasn’t for her. Yet, here she was doing the very thing that she’d feared—interacting with the beasts.

But when they reached the stall where the calves were, Karly couldn’t help but smile. The two bucket babies immediately started bawling and pushing at the gate as she and Blake approached, as if they knew their breakfast had arrived.

“They’re so cute!” she said, looking over the top board at the black calves. They seemed too little to do much damage. “Do they bite?”

Blake laughed as he set the two buckets of milk on a bale of hay outside of the stall, then took the pails of grain starter from her. “Cattle would have to have upper front teeth before they could do that.”

“They don’t have teeth?” she asked, doubtfully. She thought most all animals needed teeth to eat.

He shook his head. “They only have bottom incisors and a tough, thickly padded top gum, so it’s highly unlikely that one could bite you and cause an injury. And even if they tried it, which they aren’t prone to do, it would be more of a pinch than a bite.”

“That’s good to know,” she said when he opened the stall door.

“I’ll take care of feeding them the grain starter and then we’ll give them the milk together,” he said, entering the enclosure.

He was immediately accosted by the calves and she was amazed at how quickly the pair finished off the grain in the pails Blake held. “You were right about them being enthusiastic eaters,” she said, laughing. They reminded her of two rather large, clumsy puppies.

When he walked out of the stall to get the buckets of calf formula, he chuckled. “Just wait until they see these. They’ll be like sharks in a feeding frenzy.”

Karly opened the door to the stall for him and cautiously followed him inside. The calves nudged up against her as they looked for the buckets Blake held. One of them even took two of her fingers in its mouth and started sucking.

“Oh, my.” The calf hadn’t hurt her and she laughed as she pulled back her hand. “They really are in a feeding frenzy.”

Grinning, he nodded. “Just wait.”

He showed her how to hold the bucket and she immediately understood what he meant. The calf she was feeding started butting its mouth against the bucket as it sucked on the nipple.

“Why is it doing that?” she asked, frowning.

“It’s instinctive,” he explained. “Out in the pasture, calves butt their mother’s udder to help bring down the milk.”

The calves had the buckets drained in no time and Karly couldn’t help but wonder if they had to be on a four-hour schedule like human babies. “When will they need to eat again?”

“One of the other guys will feed them again in about twelve hours.” He put a couple of flakes of hay in the stall, then washed the buckets and put them into plastic bags. When he finished, he smiled. “So what do you think of your first ranch experience?”

“I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but I actually liked taking care of the orphaned calves,” she admitted as they walked out of the barn. “They were so cute and when they looked up at me with those big brown eyes, I couldn’t help but fall in love with them.”

“If I remember correctly, you said something similar to me when we were in Las Vegas,” he said, his voice low and intimate.

Karly swallowed hard as she gazed up at him. When they’d met, she had told him how much she loved his eyes. Gazing into the fathomless depths now, she found it hard to look away. Just as in Las Vegas, she felt as if she saw her future in the sexy warmth of his dark brown eyes and it took monumental effort to look away.

Blinking to break the spell, she gave herself a mental shake. That way of thinking was the exact reason she found herself in her current predicament and why she was facing the dissolution of their brief marriage instead of just ending a whirlwind affair.

Forcing herself to remember all the reasons why she had to stand firm in her decisions, she took a deep fortifying breath and attempted to change the subject. “Will my next ranch experience be breakfast?”

He stared at her for several long moments before he pointed toward the foreman’s cottage. “While you go inside and wash up, I’ll walk over to the bunkhouse and get something for us from the cook.” Without another word, he turned and walked toward a building on the other side of the barn.

As she watched him go, Karly knew she should leave the ranch as soon as she could load the car. But she also knew she wasn’t going to do that. For reasons she didn’t want to think about, she felt compelled to stay with Blake until the strike was settled. Maybe it was due to the fact that she really didn’t relish the idea of driving such a long distance. But more likely, it was the fact that every time she looked into his warm brown eyes she lost every ounce of sense she possessed.

Turning, she slowly walked to the house. Staying with him wasn’t smart and she anticipated more than a few awkward moments over the course of the next several days. But with few other options open to her and a budget that couldn’t really withstand a long stay in a hotel, she really didn’t have much choice.

Now all she had to do was be strong and resist falling under his spell again. Unfortunately, that might prove to be a monumental challenge, considering that it only took a look from him for her to feel as if she would melt.

* * *

When Blake finished saddling the gentle buckskin mare, he glanced over at Karly, who was sitting on a bale of hay by the tack-room door. She looked about as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. All through breakfast, she had questioned him about riding a horse. She’d wanted to know what would happen in a number of situations—all of which were highly unlikely.

She’d looked so darned cute as she interrogated him about riding that it had been all he could do to keep his hands to himself. But as much as he’d like to take her in his arms and reacquaint himself with his wife’s sweet taste, he resisted the temptation. Papers had been signed and it was just a matter of time before she went her way and he went his.

Besides, giving into his need for Karly wasn’t going to get him any closer to finding out what had changed her mind about them. That’s why he was going to do his best to ignore the fact that she still turned him on like no other woman ever had and concentrate on showing her the beauty of his ranch and the wonderful life they could have shared. In the bargain, he hoped to learn more about the woman he’d married and would soon let go.

“Karly, this is Suede,” he said, forcing himself to smile as he led the mare over to where she sat. “She’ll be your horse for as long as you’re here at the ranch.”

“She’s awfully tall,” Karly said, slowly rising to her feet. He noticed she was careful to keep him between herself and the gentle mare.

Trying not to laugh, he handed Karly the reins. “While you two get acquainted, I’m going to saddle Boomer.”

“You’re going to leave me alone with her?” she asked, sounding alarmed.

“Trust me, Karly,” he said, trying to make his tone as reassuring as possible. “If I thought there was even the slightest chance you would get hurt, I wouldn’t let you get anywhere near this horse.” Before he could stop himself, he reached out to cup her cheek with his palm. “I promise you’ll be just fine, sweetheart.”

As she continued to stare up at him, he felt the ever so slight sway of her body toward his. That was all it took to send his good intentions right out the window and before he could stop himself, he leaned forward to cover Karly’s mouth with his. Soft and every bit as perfect as he remembered, her lips molded to his and when her mouth parted on a soft sigh, Blake’s heart took off like a racehorse out of the starting gate. He couldn’t have stopped himself from deepening the kiss if his life depended on it.

Tracing her lips with his tongue, he slipped inside to reacquaint himself with her silky inner recesses. Every one of his senses sharpened and his lower body came to full arousal faster than he thought was humanly possible. Her taste and the tiny moan that she couldn’t quite stifle caused him to groan with frustration. They were in a barn holding a horse by the reins. Not exactly the ideal situation to start something he knew damn well he wouldn’t finish anyway.

When he felt himself fighting the urge to pull her into his arms and kiss her until they were both utterly senseless, he dropped his hand and took a step back. “You trust me, don’t you?”

Apparently as stunned by the intimate moment as he had been and just as reluctant to comment on that kiss, she stared at him for several long moments before she finally nodded. “Y-yes. But if you’re wrong about me and this horse, I swear I’ll come back and haunt you.”

He laughed out loud as much to relieve the tension gripping him as at the humor of her threat. Her quick wit was one of the things that he’d found so damn attractive about her. And he took her humor now as a good sign; she was becoming more relaxed with him again.

“If you want to score points with Suede, scratch her forehead and talk to her,” he said as he turned to go get Boomer out of his stall. When he returned, he was glad to see Karly had graduated to patting the mare’s neck.