Her Guardian Rancher. Brenda Minton

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СКАЧАТЬ bottle held close to her mouth. Emma took the ketchup bottle from the girl and set it on the counter before reaching into her apron for a pencil. She jotted down notes and ended the call.

      “Is everything okay?” Lily, still wide-eyed, asked.

      Duke came around the corner. “Lily, why don’t you give Emma room to breathe? There are a couple of tables you can clear.”

      Lily moved away, reluctant, with slow steps and a few backward glances. Emma managed a quick smile for the girl before glancing up at her boss. He towered over her at six foot six. With his shaved head and his goatee, he used to intimidate her. Now she knew him to be a gentle soul.

      “My grandfather seems to be in custody at the Braswell Police Station,” she explained, still numb.

      “I didn’t know Braswell had a jail.” Duke took the towel she was wringing the life out of and tossed it on the counter. “Is he okay?”

      “Yes, I guess. He ran someone off the road. I guess I’ll know more when I get there.”

      “Do you want me to give you a ride or find someone to drive you?” His deep voice rumbled, reassuring her.

      “No, I’m good.”

      “If you’re sure. But call us later and let us know that you’re okay.”

      Emma nodded, still in shock, as she headed out the diner.

      * * *

      The city police station of Braswell, Texas, was located on Main Street, between the Clip and Curl Salon and the Texas Hill Country Flea Palace, a fancy name for a store that sold everything from secondhand canning jars to old books. Emma parked her old truck in front of the police station and reached over to unlatch the car seat where her daughter, Jamie, dozed, thumb in mouth and blond curls tousled. Her eyes, blue and wide, opened as Emma worked the latch. She grinned around her thumb.

      “Hey, kiddo, time to get up. We have to bust Granddad out of this place.”

      Jamie giggled, as if she understood. But at three, Jamie understood things like puppies, kittens and newborn calves. She didn’t understand that her favorite person, other than her mommy, was getting older and maybe a little senile. She also didn’t understand bills, the leaking roof or the desperate need to buy hay for winter, which was nipping at their heels in a big way.

      The farm her grandfather had bought and moved them to when she’d lost her parents wasn’t a big spread, not by Texas standards. The fifty acres had provided for them, though, supplementing her grandfather’s small retirement. It had been a decent living until her grandfather’s pension had gotten cut, and then they’d had medical bills after Jamie’s birth. Emma had been forced to sell off most of her horses, all but a dozen head of cattle and get a part-time job. The economy and the drought had dealt them a blow the past few years.

      All things work together for good, she kept telling herself. All things, even the bad, the difficult, the troubling.

      Unbuckled, Jamie reached for Emma and wrapped sweet little arms around her neck. Emma grabbed her purse and reached to open the door of the truck. It was already open, though. Daron McKay was leaning against it, December wind blowing his unruly hair. His dark gray eyes zeroed in on Jamie and he unleashed one of those trademark smiles that might charm a woman, any woman besides Emma. Any woman who had time for romance. If her favorite top wasn’t in the rag pile, stained with throw-up, and if her daily beauty routine consisted of more than a ponytail holder and sunscreen, a woman might give Daron a second look.

      But a woman going to bail her grandfather out of the city jail didn’t have time for urban cowboys in expensive boots, driving expensive Ford trucks and wearing... Oh goodness, what was he wearing? It smelled like the cologne counter at the mall, something spicy and Oriental and outdoorsy, all at the same time. The kind of scent guaranteed to make a woman want to drop in and stay awhile.

      No! She’d done this once before. She’d believed Andy, that he would help her, fix her life, make things all better. And he didn’t. When things had gotten tough, he bailed. He hadn’t been prepared for reality.

      “Go away, Daron.” Emma pushed past him with her daughter, because she was decidedly not the woman who wanted to lean into him and stay awhile. She didn’t have time for anything other than reality.

      Daron McKay was a nuisance and he’d been a nuisance for three years, since he got back from Afghanistan. He’d involved himself in her life because he’d come home and Andy hadn’t. But Andy had left her long before then and Daron just didn’t understand.

      Andy had left her here alone.

      Alone, broke and pregnant. Of the three she could handle alone. Other than with her granddad, Art Lewis, she’d been that way most of her life. Her parents had died in a car accident when she was ten. Art had been the only one willing to take her on.

      Now, eighteen years later, the tables had turned, and she was taking care of her granddad.

      “I can’t go away.” Daron followed her, reaching his arms to her daughter. Jamie, not knowing any better, went straight to him. He’d been hanging around for three years. Her daughter thought he was the best thing ever.

      “Why can’t you just go away?” she asked, knowing she shouldn’t. “And how did you know?”

      The wind, strong and from the north, whipped at her hair, blowing it across her face. She pushed it back with her hand and gave the man next to her, who towered over her by nearly a foot, an angry glare. Not because he was a bad person, but because he was always there. Always catching her at her worst, when she felt weak and vulnerable. He’d been in the waiting room the night Jamie was born. He’d been there when Jamie had the croup. He was always there. Like he thought they needed him.

      He’d brought groceries, bought Christmas presents, provided hay for their cattle. He was kind. Or guilty. Maybe he was both. She didn’t know and she really didn’t have the time or energy to figure him out.

      She did know he wasn’t the least bit fazed by her attempt to push him away. “I heard the call on the scanner. And I can’t go because I’m carrying Jamie. And she happens to think I’m amazing.”

      He smiled down at her and added a wink that made her roll her eyes.

      “That makes two of you,” Emma quipped, barely hiding a smile as she averted her gaze from the too-sure-of-himself rancher with his Texas drawl, sun-browned skin and sandy curls.

      He laughed off the comment. “Yep, me and Jamie, we think I’m pretty amazing.”

      “It’s time for you to cut the strings and realize I don’t need you, Daron. I’m not your problem. You don’t owe us anything. We’re taking care of ourselves.”

      His smile faded and he glanced away, his gray eyes looking a lot like the clouds rolling over the horizon. “I’m here. Like it or not.”

      “I think you’re upset that you’re here instead of Andy. You are upset every time you take a breath. You have to let it go.”

      “He was a friend.”

      She looked at Jamie, then shook her head. “I’m not doing this again. We can’t go back. I can’t help you soothe your guilt. You have to let go.”

      “Your СКАЧАТЬ