Cowgirl Makes Three / Her Secret Rival. Myrna Mackenzie

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СКАЧАТЬ it. It’s over, she thought. What was she going to do?

      She stopped and looked out over the land, at the barns and outbuildings, the machinery and fences. She could almost hear her father saying, “The land will never let you down.” Maybe not, but it had stolen her life. His obsession with ranching had cost her a childhood, a father and her mother’s life.

      Still, standing there gazing at Noah’s ranch, one much larger and more successful than her city-bred father’s had been, she remembered helping pull a calf, feeding cattle in winter. She still knew how to do these things. And doing them would pay her way out of Tallula again. If she could just make it happen.

      Turning toward the house again, she remembered Noah’s last words. It’s not happening.

      “Maybe not, Noah,” she whispered. “But it won’t be for lack of trying. You haven’t seen the last of me.”

      Noah stared out the window, watching Ivy’s retreating back and feeling like the biggest jerk on earth. She walked away tall and proud, but he’d seen the stark disappointment in her eyes before she’d gone.

      Not that that changed anything. He’d lived on this ranch all his life. It had been his since his father’s death five years ago, and he had hired and fired a number of people during that time. Ballenger Ranch was what he would leave to his little girl when he was gone, and two-and-a-half-year-old Lily was the most important part of his world. He couldn’t gamble with the ranch. He needed good, solid people working here.

      Not someone who would hate the lifestyle and fly away at a moment’s notice, leaving him in the lurch. He needed someone committed to ranching, and he knew all too well about people who weren’t cut out for this life. He had a child with an absentee mother who was living proof of that.

      It was his duty to protect his child from more cut-and-run people. So, much as he felt bad for Ivy’s financial difficulties, much as he admired her for having the guts to ask him for this job again once he’d turned her down, he still couldn’t deny that she didn’t belong here.

      While they’d been talking, he had been assessing. She was thin, almost fragile looking. Whether it was because of years of enforced model thinness or something else, he didn’t know.

      What he knew was that fragile didn’t play well on a ranch.

      “You could give me a test,” she’d said, with those big blue-violet eyes practically snapping. Modeling wasn’t an option anymore, she’d said. She’d reached up as if to touch her face, and he’d seen that her small nose bore a crease; her lips looked as if a part of them had been erased at one edge. He didn’t know where she’d gotten those scars, but the scars didn’t seem to matter to his body. Everything male in him had made him want to look closer.

      And that, above all, let him know that she didn’t belong here. She wasn’t built for this life, and he couldn’t survive mucking things up with a woman again. His soul just couldn’t handle that kind of damage anymore. But more important than that, there was Lily to consider.

      His daughter and the ranch were his world now. Forever. Both of them came before any needs or desires of his. Anyone who came here had to pass his Lily test. They couldn’t negatively impact his world. So no, he couldn’t allow himself to be swayed by a pair of pretty, blue-violet eyes or long legs or sun-kissed blond hair.

      But he hoped that Ivy found some sort of work soon. He hoped she made enough money quickly. Then she’d be gone, and that would be a good thing, because he didn’t trust himself to run into her in town and not appear interested.

      That night after dinner he took Lily from Marta, his housekeeper babysitter, and went onto the porch to watch the sun going down. Brody, his foreman, was walking toward the house.

      “I just got back from an errand in town. Word on the street is that Ivy Seacrest applied here today as a ranch hand,” Brody said. The man’s interest looked to be more than casual, and Noah remembered that Brody and Ivy were somewhere near the same age.

      “Forget it, Brody. I’m not hiring Ivy so that you’ll have something prettier to look at than cows or the other hands. She’s not coming back.”

      And Noah continued to think that right up until the moment he walked into his barn the next morning and found Ivy pitching hay into one of the horse stalls.

      “Good morning, Noah,” she said.

      Ivy’s hair was a color that defied description. Strands of honey were mixed with palest tan and pure blond, making a man want to look closer and let the strands slip between his fingertips. Her eyes were eager, her smile bright. Noah felt as if he’d been punched in the chest, so aware of the woman was he. He wasn’t even going to allow himself to let his gaze drop to the way her pale blue shirt and denim jeans fit her curves. The fact that he was noticing any of this at all was bad news.

      “Good morning, Ivy,” he said. “Now, if I could just have my pitchfork back, I’ll point you toward the door. I meant what I said yesterday.”

      Her smile froze. Her shoulders slumped just a trace before she caught herself.

      “It was worth a try,” she said. “I won’t bother you anymore.”

      Too late, he thought. She was already bothering him. He was already thinking about her and worrying about her. It was a sickness, this fear that he would make another misstep with a woman.

      Which didn’t change a darned thing. “Not a problem,” he said. “I admire your tenacity. I wish you luck.”

      She handed him the pitchfork, and even through the rough gloves she wore he was aware of her slender hands, those long fingers.

      “You could have let her try,” Brody said, coming up behind him once Ivy had gone.

      With a swift turn of his body, Noah faced Brody. “I did that once. I let Pamala try to play at being a rancher’s wife. And where is she now? She’s in California, playing at her new role of wannabe actress. She didn’t even care enough about Lily to say goodbye. What am I going to tell my child when she wants to know why her mother never comes to see her? You think I want to expose her to more of that when Ivy is cut from the same cloth as Pamala was?”

      Brody’s face paled, but he didn’t drop his gaze.

      “You can’t live your life letting your mistake with Pamala color everything you do.”

      Of course, Pamala had not been his first or only mistake with a woman, but that was none of Brody’s business.

      “Watch me,” Noah said. “Ivy’s not working here. I’ll get the women in town to put some basic supplies together so that she’s fed and clothed. But I am not giving her a job. And that’s final.”

       No matter what she did or said, she was never going to be a part of Ballenger Ranch.

      Chapter Two

      SHE HAD TOLD NOAH that she wouldn’t bother him anymore, so why was she out here repairing a section of fence?

      Ivy wrestled with her conscience. She acknowledged that simply trying to stay out of the man’s way while still attempting to impress him with her ability to do the job was pushing the limits. But what could she do? СКАЧАТЬ