A Baby in the Bunkhouse. Cathy Gillen Thacker

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      To no avail. The heavy rains, combined with the mud, had the wheels on the right side of the car sinking even lower. Jacey stopped what she was doing, not sure how to proceed.

      The cowboy got out of his truck.

      He stalked back, took a look and muttered a string of words she was just as happy not to catch.

      “You’re not stuck. Yet,” he said.

      Thank heaven for small miracles. Jacey flashed a weak smile.

      “Just give it a little bit of gas and keep backing up slowly,” he instructed.

      Jacey put her foot on the accelerator, pressed ever so lightly. The car didn’t move—at all.

      He frowned. “More than that.”

      Jacey pressed down harder. The wheels spun and the right side of her car sunk. She was stuck. Stuck in the mud on a lonely country road in Texas with a disgruntled cowpuncher staring at her as if he wanted to be anywhere else on earth.

      She knew exactly how he felt.

      Exhaling ferociously, he strode back to her side, while lightning flashed overhead. He stomped around to further examine the wheels on her tilting car then came back. “We’re not going to be able to get your vehicle out until morning,” he said as another clap of thunder split the air.

      Jacey had been afraid of that.

      “We can put you up in the bunkhouse.”

      She blinked. This whole night was getting more and more bizarre. “With…cowboys?” she echoed incredulously.

      “The cook’s quarters are unoccupied right now,” he told her curtly. “And they’re private.”

      Jacey faltered. Asking someone she didn’t know for directions was one thing, accepting lodging another. “I don’t know…”

      The cowboy seemed to have no such reservations. “What choice do you have? Besides sleeping in the car?”

      And they could both see, with the most necessary belongings of her life taking up every available inch of space in the car, there was definitely no room for that.

      It was only as Jacey was grabbing her purse and the small overnight bag she had planned to take with her into the lodge that she realized he hadn’t told her his name.

      As soon as she got her bearings after working her way out of the car, she thrust out her hand. “I’m Jacey Lambert,” she said with a smile.

      He reached out to swallow her palm in a warm, strong grip, and his gaze fell to her rounded belly. His polite but remote smile faded. “You’re pregnant.”

      “You just now noticed?” Jacey was approximately two weeks away from actually delivering her baby. She felt large as a cow.

      Irritation tautened his lips. “I wasn’t looking.”

      “Guess not.”

      They stared at each other in the pouring rain.

      He had a rain slicker on. She did not. And the water pouring down from the heavens was quickly drenching her hair and clothing.

      Evidently realizing that, at long last, he put an arm around her shoulders and hustled her toward his truck.

      “I hope you’re better at backing up a vehicle than I was,” she joked as he shifted his large capable hands to her waist and lifted her into the cab.

      He shot her a level look, a grimness that seemed to go soul deep in his eyes.

      “I don’t think I’ll have any problem,” he said as he climbed behind the wheel.

      “You still haven’t told me your name,” Jacey said after he successfully steered the truck past her car, and they proceeded rapidly toward the entrance of Lost Mountain Ranch.

      “Rafferty Evans.”

      “Nice to meet you, Rafferty.”

      Her greeting was met with silence.

      His mood was even more remote as he parked at a group of sprawling adobe buildings. They got out and walked the short distance across the pavement in the pouring rain—this time beneath a wide umbrella he’d plucked from behind the driver’s seat. When they reached the portal of the bunkhouse, he shook the umbrella out, closed it and set it just beside the door.

      Looking over at her, he said, “The hired hands are asleep. So if you could be as quiet as possible…”

      She nodded, incredibly grateful now that safety was upon her. She didn’t care if this handsome stranger had wanted to rescue her and her unborn child or not—he had.

      “No problem,” she told him just as quietly.

      The bunkhouse was a large, square building, built in the same pueblo style as the main ranch house.

      He held the front door for her and motioned her inside. She walked into a spacious great room, with a long wooden table and chairs on one side, a huge stone hearth in the middle—with a dying fire—and a grouping of overstuffed chairs, sofa and large-screen television on the other side. There were three closed doors on each side of the large gathering room that looked like the entrance to private bedrooms or quarters. All was dark and quiet.

      “Kitchen’s to the rear if you need anything. Help yourself,” Rafferty Evans leaned down to whisper in her ear.

      Taking her by the elbow, he guided her toward a door. Just as she had suspected, it opened onto a nice-size bedroom, with dresser, chair and private bath. A stack of clean linens sat on the end of the unmade bed.

      “I’ll see you first thing tomorrow morning,” he said.

      Then he turned on his heel and left.

      ELI WAS WAITING for Rafferty when he walked back in the ranch house. “Get everything all taken care of?”

      Rafferty exhaled, not surprised his dad had not gone on to bed, as directed.

      He hung his wet hat and slicker on one of the hooks on the wall and stalked into the kitchen. “Not exactly.” He got a beer out of the fridge, twisted off the cap and flipped it into the trash.

      He took a long pull of the golden brew before continuing, “The bridge is underwater—which, thanks to the fog, we weren’t able to see until we got right up on it. When we were backing up, the woman got her car stuck in the mud, so we’ll have that to look forward to in the morning.”

      Eli paused to take this all in. “Where is she?” he asked eventually, brows furrowing.

       As far away from me as possible under the circumstances.

      Rafferty took another pull on his beer, trying not to think how incredibly beautiful the woman was. “Cook’s quarters in the bunkhouse.”

      Eli did a double take and surveyed his son with СКАЧАТЬ