A Groom For Gwen. Jeanne Allan

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      The man met her eyes, his gaze clear and steady. “I’ll stay as long as you need me. I always do.”

      Rod Heath’s eyes had been shifty, looking everywhere but at her. Gwen wanted to believe Jake Stoner. She had no choice but to believe him. “All right,” she said slowly. “When can you start?” Please, she thought, let it be now.

      He held out his hand. “Soon as we shake on it, Ma’am.”

      She didn’t want to shake hands with him. She didn’t want to touch him. The realization disconcerted her. She’d shaken hands with thousands of men in the course of business. Shaking hands with Jake Stoner was no different. Slowly she accepted his extended hand. An electric current zipped up her arm as his work-roughened palm closed around hers. Jake Stoner was more than the hunk Prudence had labeled him. He was overwhelmingly male. Gwen retrieved her hand. If she knew one thing, it was that Jake Stoner spelled trouble. And he worked for her.

      He gave her an odd look, but said only, “I’ll get my gear.” Then he laughed softly and nodded across the room.

      Gwen followed his gaze, and her breath caught in her throat. She’d left Crissie with Prudence’s receptionist while she consulted the lawyer. Now the child lay sprawled on the floor, sound asleep, one arm curved around an enormous yellow dog.

      The dog opened his eyes. One blue eye and one brown eye stared at Gwen. She stood very still, not daring to breathe. Crissie sucked contentedly on her thumb, her head resting on the cowboy’s saddle. Gwen prayed her niece wouldn’t accidentally annoy the dog in her sleep. Quietly she asked, “Whose dog is that?”

      “Mine.” A burly man turned from his conversation with the receptionist. “Mack won’t hurt her. He loves kids. My wife took off for California with my boys. She isn’t coming back and refused to take the dog. I can’t take care of Mack, so I have to take him to the pound. Too bad, really. He’s a good dog, but almost five years old. People want puppies.”

      Gwen gave the huge dog a second look. “What is he?”

      The man shrugged. “Near as I can figure, part husky, part golden retriever, and maybe some mastiff or Great Dane. He’d make a good watchdog for your little girl. He’s housebroken,” the man added quickly.

      Gwen walked toward Crissie. The dog raised his head, giving her a fixed look. “You’re sure he’s friendly?”

      “Oh, sure, he won’t hurt you.”

      “Move, Mack. I need to wake up Crissie. Be a good dog, Mack.”

      The dog slid out from under Crissie’s arm and rose to his feet. He gently nudged the sleeping girl. She opened her eyes and giggled. “Mack tickles.” She stood up. “Look, Gwen, he likes me. The man said he can come home with me.”

      “He’s been fixed. I got his shot records, his bowls and most of a bag of dog food out in the pickup,” the man said hopefully. “I sure hate to think of ol’ Mack getting put down. People want puppies.”

      “So you said.” Gwen had no intention of taking the dog.

      “Mack’s my new bes’ friend.” Crissie hung on to the dog for dear life.

      Gwen eyed the dog dubiously. He seemed to like Crissie, and he might be protection for the young girl. Gwen glanced at Jake Stoner. And for her.

      His mouth twitched. “I’ll get Mack’s gear out of the truck.” As he passed Gwen, he said in a voice pitched for her ears alone, “With a dog of that size, you won’t have to worry about me attacking you in your bed.”

      So he wasn’t just a cowboy. He was a mind reader, too.

      Mack sat in the back seat with Crissie as they headed east out of Trinidad. After eating his ice-cream cone in two gulps, the dog had covetously eyed Crissie’s cone, but to Gwen’s relief he hadn’t snatched it from the little girl. Gwen decided to overlook Mack’s licking the ice cream residue off Crissie’s face. Crissie hadn’t minded. The child had wholeheartedly adopted the dog. Maybe keeping him wouldn’t be a total disaster.

      “Kids on a ranch can get lonely.” Jake Stoner read her thoughts again. “The dog’ll make a good playmate and watchdog. You didn’t make a mistake taking him, Ma’am.”

      “If the dog doesn’t work out, I’ll take him to the dog pound myself.” Out of the comer of her eye she saw the amused skepticism on his face. “I will. And don’t call me ma’am.”

      He laughed. “You’re stuck with the dog and you know it. I don’t recall you ever got around to telling me your name.”

      “Gwen Ashton.”

      “Ashton. Your family been ranching around here long?”

      “No. I inherited the ranch from a client of mine.”

      Ah.

      Gwen heard a wealth of meaning in the simple response. “There’s no ‘ah’ about it. I don’t care what you’ve heard, Bert and I were friends. Nothing more.”

      “I haven’t heard anything. Why don’t you tell me?”

      She didn’t need to explain anything to an employee. “I’m a Certified Public Accountant. I worked for a firm up in Denver, and became acquainted with Bert when I started doing his taxes.”

      Glancing at the puffy white clouds piling one on top of the other over the dark mesa to the south, Gwen thought again how the stark beauty of this countryside went a long way toward explaining how Bert Winthrop, so conscientious about caring for his livestock, could set new standards in lackadaisical when it came to the paperwork involved with running his ranch. All the tax preparers who’d washed their hands of him probably never left their sterile cubicles to breathe deeply of the country air.

      “He left you his place because you showed him how to get out of paying the government what he owed?”

      “He left me the ranch because I love it as much as he did.” Beside the road sunflowers turned their faces to the sun. “I love the beauty and I love the history. I loved hearing Bert talk about his family pioneering out here on the high Colorado plains. They homesteaded and survived grasshopper plagues, Indian scares, bank failures and the ‘Dust Bowl’ years when the drought was so severe most of the topsoil blew away. Generations of Bert’s family were born, lived, and died on the ranch.” Gwen smiled reminiscently. “Until I met Bert, I never thought before about history as being someone’s uncle or aunt or grandfather. Some of his family actually came out here by way of the Santa Fe trail. Some fought in a Civil War battle down in New Mexico. Did you know there’d been a Civil War fight out here? I didn’t.”

      “The battle of Glorieta Pass.”

      “That’s right. And one of his ancestors hauled freight from a foot in New Mexico to a place up north of here on the railroad.”

      “Ft. Union to Granada.”

      “You must be interested in history, Mr. Stoner.”

      “I’ve picked stuff up.”

      “I never realized how fascinating it could be. Some of Bert’s relatives kept journals, СКАЧАТЬ