Lone Stallion's Lady (13 page)

T
he beer didn’t settle well in his stomach. Jordan had spent nearly an hour nursing his bottle and his frustration at the bar of the Branding Iron. Besides, he didn’t fit in with the blue-collar crowd that was beginning to get off work. Half a dozen mill workers and cowboys had sauntered in, laughing and joking, all wearing dirty jeans and relieved smiles that they’d put in their shifts for the day. Talking to each other and catching the barmaid’s attention, they filtered through the front door to take up their usual spots in booths, at the pool table, or here at the bar, already eyeing the television screen mounted high overhead in hopes of viewing the latest sporting event while thirstily tossing back brewskies and nibbling on peanuts before going home to the wife and kids.

Jordan caught a few grim looks cast his way from the men huddled over their drinks. Sour grapes, he thought. These poor working stiffs would never rise above their small-town roots and they were envious of a poor, sickly kid who had. They’d have manure and sawdust on their boots until the day they died. Jordan Baxter had gone from secondhand sneakers to Italian leather loafers.

The door banged open and Christina Montgomery, the mayor’s youngest and wildest daughter, flew into the bar. Several of the locals swiveled on their stools to check her out. Petite, curvy, and an outrageous flirt, Christina beelined for the bar. “I’ll…I’ll have a…” She looked at the bartender and shoved an errant strand of chestnut hair off her face. “A gin and tonic…no…just a…oh, it doesn’t matter, a diet soda, I guess!”

“That all?” the bartender asked, and Christina’s pouty lips pursed.

“Yeah, yeah, that’s all,” she said, lifting herself onto a bar stool and, noticing a few male glances cast her way in the reflection of the mirror, she shook out her mane of hair. Dressed in a blue dress with silver earrings dripping from her ears, she accepted her drink, took a sip and scowled.

Jordan saw her glance his way and offer him a cunning smile. He wasn’t interested and looked away, but Christina wasn’t rebuffed, just turned her attention to a young cowboy seated in a corner booth. His ears actually turned red as he blushed, but Christina didn’t stop there. With a walk that drew a man’s attention, she
took her drink and sauntered slowly to a table near the back of the room. The girl was pure sex and she knew it, flaunted it.

Her father, Mayor Ellis Montgomery, had a major problem on his hands whether he knew it or not. But it wasn’t really any of Jordan’s business.

He tossed a few bills onto the bar, slid off his stool and realized that he’d been so caught up in his silent anger at the Kincaids, he’d barely touched his drink. Well, he sure as hell wasn’t going to down it now. He made his way to the front door.

It opened in his face and two men he’d never seen before stepped inside. In an instant he recognized them as Kincaids. And twins at that. Tall and broad-shouldered, they both had the piercing blue eyes, dark hair, and arrogance that had always run deep in Kincaid blood. Probably a couple of Larry’s bastards.

“Excuse me,” the one with the less harsh expression said as they passed. He was dressed as if he planned to spend his afternoon at the golf course.
Get real, buddy,
Jordan laughed to himself,
there ain’t no country club here in Whitehorn.
The other one, in faded jeans and a shirt with rolled-up sleeves, didn’t say a word, just gave Jordan a cursory glance that made his blood boil.

Jordan couldn’t help himself. “Don’t tell me,” he said, “Kincaids.”

Mr. Nice Guy nodded and smiled. “Looks that way. Blake Remmington.” He extended his hand and added, “My brother, Trent.”

Jordan ignored the fingers stretching in his direction. “Just give the old man a word of advice. He can’t sell something that isn’t his.”

The hand fell. “Pardon me?”

“You heard me.”

“Who’re you?” The arrogant one was narrowing his eyes suspiciously.

“Garrett Kincaid’s worst nightmare.”

The twins exchanged glances, then smiled as if in on a private secret.

Jordan’s blood boiled.

“Are you the local town thug?” the hard-ass named Trent asked. “If you are, you’d better get some new threats.”

“Just give him the message.”

Trent looked ready to jump down Jordan’s throat.
Good. Take your best shot, bastard, I’ll have you up on assault charges so fast your head will spin.

The cooler one, Blake he’d said his name was, placed his hand over his brother’s arm, as if to restrain him. “Look, Mr…. Baxter, is it? I don’t know what your beef is, but peddle it someplace else, okay? We’re not interested.”

That did it. Jordan’s barely reined-in temper snapped. “You will be,” Jordan said, and shouldered open the door.

Yep, they were bastards, both of them.
Jordan couldn’t make his way out of this joke of a watering hole fast enough.

Outside, he breathed deep of the fresh air, then
squinted against the sunlight and tried to shake off the knowledge that he should have held his tongue. Warning the Kincaids was a mistake. It was better to strike first, be a coral snake rather than a rattler. No reason to tip his hand, such as it was, but running into Larry’s bastard twins, he’d been blindsided and wanted to lash out. He’d been foolish. Angry with himself, Jordan shoved his hands deep into his pockets.

Jaywalking, he cut through the park and zigzagged down a couple of alleys to his air-conditioned office. He instantly felt better. Here he was king. Lord of his particular castle.

“Hey!” His daughter Hope offered him a wink and a smile that melted the ice around his heart. “You okay?”

“Why shouldn’t I be?”

“I don’t know, but you look—” she lifted a shoulder “—bugged, I guess would be the best word. Let me guess, you heard more gossip about the Kincaids.”

She was teasing him, but he couldn’t keep from saying, “I just had the pleasure of literally running into a couple of Larry’s bastards.”

Her shoulders sagged a bit. “You’d better get used to it, Dad. Whitehorn isn’t exactly a metropolis.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” But it griped him just the same. “So, anything happening around here?”

“Not much, but what there was, I managed to handle,” she said, needling a bit. “I am capable, you know.”

“I know.”

Hope paused, squared her shoulders and from her
desk chair looked her father steadily in the eye. “I hope you do, Dad. Sometimes I wonder.”

“And why’s that?” he asked, barely listening as he flipped through the envelopes on her desk.

“Because you don’t seem to trust me.”

Jordan’s head snapped up. “It’s not about trust, Hope. It’s just that you’re young and—”

“And not as tough as you think I should be,” she filled in, sighing loudly. “Yeah, I know. The Baxter princess. Or heiress, or whatever it is you call me when you think I can’t hear you.”

“It just takes time.” It was a phrase that rolled easily off his tongue, one he used whenever they had this particular discussion, which they seemed to be having a lot more often lately. Frowning he eyed the return address of one of the legal-size envelopes in his hand. “You know that.”

“Yeah, yeah, ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day.’ ‘Patience is a virtue.’ ‘All good things come to those who wait.’ ‘With age comes reason.’ I’ve heard ’em all before.”

“Right,” he said, moving toward the door to his office. His interest had been caught by the envelope he’d shuffled to the top of the stack.

He closed the door and ripped open the envelope. As he scanned the letter from a relative of George Sawyer’s, the now-deceased lawyer who had drawn up the letter of intent from Jordan’s uncle Cameron, Jordan Baxter started to smile. He rested a hip on the edge of his desk and felt a steady flow of elation run through
his blood. At last there seemed to be some justice. The letter stated that while finally going through old papers that had sat in the attorney’s basement for years, this relative had discovered a box of old legal documents, including the missing letter from Jordan’s uncle, Cameron Baxter, willing Jordan the ranch and offering him the right of first refusal to any sale before Cameron’s death.

Jordan’s heart nearly stopped. He flipped over the page and saw the very document in question. Old and yellowed, smelling faintly of must, it stated all too clearly what Jordan had maintained for years.

His throat suddenly tightened as old emotions tore through him. Vividly he remembered his sixteenth birthday and his uncle Cameron promising him the Baxter place and handing him a copy of this very letter.

“Hot damn,” he muttered, his mind spinning out possible legal scenarios as he tried to wrest the old place back from the Kincaids. In the end even his uncle had screwed him over, selling the place to the Kincaids and telling Jordan he’d never even given him the document. Since Jordan’s only copy had burned in the fire that had taken his mother’s life, he’d had no proof to the contrary.

“Stupid old bastard,” he said, knowing that Cameron had somehow bribed George Sawyer to lie about the letter of intent, as well.

When Jordan had confronted his uncle about the sale of the property to the Kincaid family, Cameron had sighed heavily.

“What about the first right of refusal?” Jordan had demanded.

“I’m sorry, son,” Cameron had said, placing a fatherly hand on Jordan’s eighteen-year-old shoulders, “but I don’t remember ever saying I’d give you first option.” He’d spit a long stream of tobacco juice at the fence post near the old pump house. “’Sides, what could you do now, you’re just a kid. I know how you feel about the place, but the plain fact of the matter is, I’m about broke. Got to sell.”

Jordan had been thunderstruck. He’d swallowed hard, all his hopes and dreams sinking as fast as the lowering sun that had gilded the grassland and reflected in the windows of the old ranch house he loved.

“Tell you what I’ll do,” Cameron had said, “I’ll see that some of the money ends up in your hands, to pay for college.”

“No way. You promised. You signed a legal document.”

For the first time he’d seen the vein throb beneath the brim of Cameron’s dirty straw hat. “Then prove it,” the other man had said. “Find the damned paper and take it to a judge.”

“I will. I’ll go to George Sweeney. If he’s worth his salt, he’s got a copy.”

“I wouldn’t count on it,” Cameron had warned, and the hairs on the back of Jordan’s neck had prickled in premonition. Sure as shootin’, when he’d called the attorney late that night, George, not only Cameron’s lawyer but his poker buddy as well, had claimed no knowledge of any paperwork concerning the ranch.

Jordan had been beaten.

Until now.

A cold smile twisted his lips. Nearly thirty years later, Jordan Baxter studied the yellowed, musty-smelling document with his uncle’s signature scrawled across the bottom. His headache disappeared. Everything, it seemed, had changed when he’d ripped open this envelope. Justice and destiny had just met head-on.

He wasn’t a scared, poor kid from the wrong side of the tracks any longer. At forty-six he was a millionaire many times over and a man to be reckoned with. The Kincaids were about to learn that lesson.

It was about time.

He reached for the phone and dialed his own attorney. Yep, the Kincaids’s ship of fortune was just about to be turned into the wind. And Jordan Baxter was at the helm.

She was pregnant.

No question now, Gina thought as, seated on her bed in her room, she stared at the indicator strip. It was early morning, shafts of sunlight streamed through the open window, the sounds of the ranch filtered inside. Somewhere far off a rooster crowed, answered by a lark’s song. Squirrels chattered, a lonely calf bawled and an engine rumbled to life.

A few minutes earlier she’d locked herself in the bathroom, taken the test and waited for the results.

They were most definitely positive.

Now what?

Flopping back onto the bed, she experienced a gamut of emotions. Elation, happiness, fear, joy, worry.

A mother! Gina Henderson, you’re going to be a mother!
Her heart pounded in anticipation and she couldn’t stop a smile from toying with her lips.

The clock in the main hall struck seven, sending reverberating chords through the house. From the kitchen she heard the sound of voices and forced herself to her feet. With an odd mix of elation and dread, she regarded herself in the mirror mounted over her bureau. Twenty-seven and pregnant. That part sounded fine. Wait a minute, twenty-seven, pregnant and
unmarried.
There was the glitch.

Yet women had babies on their own all the time. Single mothers were a very viable part of society. Her hand rubbed the flat area of her abdomen. This wasn’t the way she would have chosen to have a child. No, she’d always embraced the fantasy of husband who worked nine-to-five, a Cape Cod-style house surrounded by a white picket fence, a dog and cat… Oh, well. Her apartment in L.A. was large enough for her and the infant and she had some money saved, so she could take time off after the birth. Later she’d move and go back to work with Jack and—

And what about Trent?

She sighed, picked up a brush and absently ran it through her hair until it crackled. Surely he deserved to know about his child. Eventually. Once things had died down here at the ranch and all the Kincaid half brothers
had settled. She’d go back to L.A., allow him time to get used to being part of this new piecemeal family and then, once she was through the first trimester of her pregnancy and the danger of miscarriage had diminished significantly, she’d call him with the happy news that he was about to become a father.

He had the right to know about the child; he didn’t have the right to tell her what to do about it. She glanced out the open window and saw Mitch Fielding and Rand Harding in one of the paddocks with some of the steers milling in the early morning light. Garrett, with Brandon Harper in tow, joined them and they all four were quickly involved in a discussion. Laughter rippled upward in the clear morning air and somewhere nearby the dog let out a sharp bark.

The lace curtains billowed and she thought fleetingly that this ranch would be a perfect place to raise a child. In her mind’s eye she saw a dark-haired boy racing through the fields, fishing in the creek, making forts in the hayloft, riding a spirited mustang on the deer trails that wove through the forested hills in the distance. Or maybe a cherub-faced girl with laughing blue eyes, wading and splashing in a favorite swimming hole, running in a field while trying to catch a butterfly, searching the creek for crayfish, learning to ride bareback with the help of her father…