teenager wore low-rise jeans and a bust-fitting knit top that exposed her navel. If Rachel had a daughter her age, such revealing clothes would not enter her closet. Oh, who was she kidding? Fifteen years ago, she wore tight tops and leggings, much to Bill Brant’s irritation. In the succeeding years, her tastes had tempered to conservatism, like the warm black dress slacks and aqua sweater she’d dug from the motel closet this morning. Bill would label the clothes plain classy, pun intended.
“I’m here to see your dad and your grandfather.”
“I know.” Daisy leaned forward and whispered, “Dad doesn’t know about my column, okay?”
Before Rachel could respond, Ash McKee stepped into the entryway. His dark eyes locked on her, then swept over Charlie. “Bringing reinforcements?”
Without the Stetson, she saw he had beautiful hair. Thick and black and linear and scraped back in a style that pronounced his weather-toughened cheekbones, his long, graceful nose.
“Hello again, Ash.” She set a hand on her child for comfort. “This is my son, Charlie. I couldn’t get a babysitter so he’s with me today.” She tried a smile, failed as those eyes riveted on her face.
Daisy saved the moment. “Dad says you’ll be renting the guest cottage.”
“We haven’t decided yet, Daiz,” Ash interjected, shutting the door behind Rachel.
“But I thought you said—”
“Not yet.” While his eyes gentled on his daughter, his tone was resolute.
“What’s to decide?” she argued.
“So. Our company’s arrived.” A gray-haired, craggy-faced cowboy in a pearl-buttoned shirt rode around a corner in a motorized chair.
Tom McKee. The key to Rachel’s series.
A second, a blink, then his pale blue eyes widened, as if he recognized her, his pupils rounding to the outer edges of their irises before his surprise vanished. Puzzled and certain they had never met, Rachel stepped forward, held out her hand. She was here for the guesthouse.
“Rachel Brant, Mr. McKee. Pleased to meet you.”
“You the one phoned the other day?” he asked, giving her hand a light shake.
“Yes.” A knot formed in her throat at the sight of the strong, brave man. In that instant, she vowed to make him proud with her words.
“What story you digging for, Ms. Brant?”
Her cheeks warmed. “Today, we’re just looking for a place to live, sir.”
The old man stared at her with an intensity that had her shifting on her feet. Then he nodded. “Ash will show you around back of the house.” Decision settled, he glanced at his son, though Rachel knew it wasn’t, not entirely. Not from the line of the younger man’s shoulders beneath that denim shirt. She could have skipped pebbles across them.
“Come with me,” Ash ordered, and left the room without checking to see if she followed.
With a smile for Tom McKee, she and Charlie followed Daisy through the house to the kitchen. The girl murmured, “I’m so glad you’ll be staying here.”
Rachel wanted to ask about the whisper at the front door. About Ash not knowing of Daisy’s column.
They entered a deep kitchen sporting a horde of knotty pine cupboards, an ample work island in its center and a Sub-Zero refrigerator. To the right, a rectangular oak table stood gleaming with light flooding in from floor-to-ceiling windows that faced snowy evergreens. And everywhere, photographs of a red-haired woman. Upon the antique phone table, upon whatever wall space remained unclaimed by cupboards.
Susie, the wife who left Ash McKee widowed.
Without a coat or hat, he waited by a back door sheltered in a small alcove next to the pantry. On his feet, his work boots remained unlaced.
He held open the door as Rachel and Charlie stepped into the cold morning. The wind stung their faces while they followed Ash down a wooden walkway toward a tiny cottage looming thirty yards ahead amidst a snowy stand of pine and birch.
Opening the guesthouse door, Ash waited for her and Charlie to step inside.
It was a dollhouse. Three miniature rooms with lace curtains pulled back with bows, a tiny state-of-the-art kitchen. Cozy living room with a round rug and cushiony furniture in earthy tones. Santa Fe prints on the walls. Dried hydrangeas in a tall vase on the coffee table. Above the stone fireplace hung a wooden, hand-painted sign: Welcome to Flying Bar T Ranch.
No portraits of red-haired women.
Ash wiped his boots on the welcome mat, then walked toward the kitchen situated in the far right corner. “The stove is gas.” He slanted her a look. “Ever cooked with gas?”
“Yes. The place is lovely, Ash. Thank you.” She meant it.
“Not me you should thank, it’s Tom.”
She understood. It was Tom’s ranch, after all. If Ash had his way, she wouldn’t be here. “I will. And thank you for not mentioning the series I’m writing.”
“How do you know I haven’t?”
“Because I doubt he would’ve let us in the door, and he wouldn’t have invited me to see this house.”
“You’re right. He wouldn’t.”
Ruefully, she turned away, surveyed the room again. No matter that the McKees lived solitary lives. They were good people. She did not want to hurt them, if she could help it in any way. Her father was wrong when he’d told her to “do anything to get a story.”
Ash said, “Upstairs are a couple bedrooms and the bathroom. If you want to use the fireplace I’ll haul in a few logs from the main house.”
“Thanks. This is…fine. We won’t need the fireplace.” She didn’t want him doing anything extra, not when his cold eyes and implacable jaw said he would rather she lived someplace else. Like the North Pole. Still, she couldn’t help wondering, “Do you usually rent out the guesthouse in the winter months?”
In town, she’d heard about his wife’s trail riding business—the one he’d packed away after she died.
Suddenly, his eyes changed, gentled, and she wondered how it would feel to see them soften because of her. Then the emotion retreated and the dark, icy stare settled back in place. “This is a working ranch. We don’t have time for tourists and the like during our busy months.”
And the like. City folk, out for a quick joyride on a ranch. Curiosity seekers. People of her ilk.
She tried blunt honesty. “Ash…I know you wish I hadn’t come into your life, but—”
“You know nothing of what I wish, lady.”
“Rachel,” she said quietly. “My name is Rachel. Can we call a truce? At least until I talk to Tom again about the interviews?”
“When do you plan on telling him? Or are you hoping to move in here first?”
In other words, execute a con job.
She lifted her chin. She may be a newswoman but, whether he believed it or not, she had a smidgen of propriety, of decency. She was not entirely her father’s daughter, but her mother’s child. “I’ll explain the minute we return to the main house.”
“It’s cold in here, Mom,” Charlie whispered, swinging her attention away from the man across the room. “Is it gonna be freezing when we live here?”
“No, baby.” She righted his eyewear perched at the end of his pug nose. “There’s a heating system same as in the other places we’ve lived.”
Ash strode to a gauge on the wall beside the coat closet. A flick of his finger and she heard the furnace kick in. A couple more adjustments and