Their Little Cowgirl. Myrna Mackenzie

but she refused to allow herself to think. “All right, your ranch, but we go right away. I’m ready.”

      Steven gave her a long, lingering once-over—from the tip of her shiny sedate hairstyle, past her pale cream dress, to the bottom of her sensible pumps. She almost thought he was going to smile. “You don’t look like you’re ready for a ranch,” he mused.

      She wasn’t, not really. The thought of horses and cows and bulls and who knew what else scared her to death. “I’ll go wherever your child is,” she said firmly. “For two weeks I’ll be there and then I’ll return here where I belong. I’ll vanish like mist in the sunlight, and you won’t have to worry about me ever again.”

      He gave her a short, slow nod. “I’ll hold you to that,” he said, “and if you ever try to break our bargain, I will come after you with every weapon I possess. Anyone who tries to steal my daughter had better run, and run fast.”

      But Jackie was pretty sure that no one would ever be able to run fast enough if Steven Rollins wanted to catch them. She had a feeling that she had just bitten off a lot more than she could chew. Steven Rollins was more man than she had ever tackled.

      The very thought of tackling or tangling with him was…

      “Frightening,” she said out loud, later in her room. But in her mind, she heard another word.

      Exhilarating.

      She had never felt so alive as she had yesterday and today, arguing with this man who clearly wished she would disappear in a puff of blue smoke.

      And she had just agreed to go live on a ranch with that same, too-handsome man who hated her. How on earth was she going to survive for the next fourteen days? She’d done all right here in this environment where she felt at home, but what weapons would she possess once she was out of her element and alone with him?

      “What do you mean, you’re leaving me in charge?” Jackie’s sister, Parris, was clearly not happy about Jackie’s decision. “You can’t just pack up and go off to some ranch and leave me to do all the work.”

      Jackie tactfully refrained from mentioning that Parris had done very little of the work regarding the company thus far. Not that that was surprising. Parris had never had to work for anything. When Jackie’s father had divorced her mother and remarried Parris’s mom, Jackie had worked extra hard to secure her father’s attention. But it never seemed to make a bit of difference. He didn’t want to be with Jackie. He had found another daughter, and his oldest child’s efforts didn’t matter all that much. And three years ago, when Jackie had imagined herself in love with Garret Brickwater, she had done her best to make the relationship work, but Garret had taken one look at Parris’s beauty and had no use for her older sister anymore.

      That was just the way it was. Jackie had never fit with anyone. Even her own mother had resented her existence, claiming that having a baby had caused her to lose her figure and thus, her husband. Jackie had always been the outsider, the ugly duckling with no real place to call her own.

      She certainly didn’t belong on a ranch with Steven Rollins, but she was going anyway. And the truth was that, if she and Parris were ever going to make a go of this company, Parris was going to have to take part in the operation.

      “You’ll be just fine,” Jackie told her sister. “And I’ll only be a phone call away.”

      “Jackie, you’re going to a ranch, for heaven’s sake, with cows and cow-related things and…and manure. It may only be a phone call away, but it’s also the edge of the world. And what if something comes up that’s too complicated to handle? What do I do if another someone wants to take back a donation?”

      Jackie sighed. “Do your best to be gracious and charming, Parris. Remember that this business is all we have. It’s what we live on.”

      “So why are you leaving? You’ve never even met that baby.”

      She had explained the details to Parris already. “I want something this business can’t give me,” she told her sister.

      “What’s that?”

      “I don’t know. I just know I have to do this. And anyway, I’ll only be gone two weeks. How wrong can things go in that time?”

      She and Parris exchanged a look. Things were going wrong every day. The whole operation could collapse. She really wanted to bring Suzy here.

      But somehow she knew that even a court wouldn’t insist that Steven rip his child from her home on a forced visit to an egg donor. She wasn’t even sure the courts would give her any rights. Obviously this was shaky ground all the way around, or he wouldn’t have let her have her way at all. Neither of them wanted to risk the legal system.

      “I’ll check in all the time,” Jackie promised. “If someone is being especially difficult, I’ll call them or we’ll arrange a conference call or even a video connection. Somehow we’ll keep the business alive.”

      “All right, if there’s no other way.”

      There wasn’t. If there was any way she could avoid going to stay in Steven Rollins’s home—where he would be around every day watching her every move, making her remember how it had felt to have him touch her hand—she would have jumped at it. But there wasn’t.

      Somehow she was just going to have to learn how to stay out of the man’s way. What she needed was a plan.

      “Do you think this will work?” Merry asked Lissa.

      “Do I think they’re attracted? Of course they are. He’s a very masculine man and she’s very sweet with lovely eyes. They’re attracted, but do I think they’ll fall in love?” Lissa frowned.

      “You’re right. I’ve thoroughly checked into both of their pasts. Steven was forced to give up his dream of a football career and then his dream of a fulfilling marriage, so now he’s through with anything vaguely romantic. And he doesn’t want her, or any woman, on his ranch or near his child. As for Jackie, she doesn’t want to go near a man, and the ranch thing…”

      Merry suddenly looked at her godmother with stricken eyes. “It’s not going to work, is it?”

      “Well, they hardly seem suited,” Lissa began, “and they are moving off the resort, where you won’t have much control.”

      “And already days have passed,” Merry said. “I’ve wasted time on them, but I don’t have any new prospects at the moment. That’s it. I’m just going to have to do my best to work a miracle long-distance.” She pulled a cell phone with a screen for color pictures from the pocket of her dress.

      “What are you doing, Merry?”

      “You know what I’m doing. I’m using what little useful magic I have to watch them.” She could use the phone to watch what happened on Steven’s ranch. “I’m not sure what I can do when I’ll be here and they’re on a ranch, but if I see a promising circumstance, then I’ll…”

      “You’ll what?”

      “I’ll do something. Anything.”

      “Careful, Merry. You remember the first time you tried to force two people together who didn’t fit. Both of them vowed never to get involved with anyone again, and they haven’t to this day.”

      “I know. That was a mistake. I’m not going to make any mistakes with Jackie and Steven—I hope.”