Fugitive Fiancée (7 page)

She frowned at the old stone fireplace. The sooty hearth looked as if it hadn't been cleaned since the house was built. Which, according to Garrett, had been sometime in the early fifties.

After refilling her bucket with warm, soapy water, she tackled the job. It was much harder than it looked. The soot had formed layers on the old stone hearth, and it took more than a little elbow grease to scrub it off. It also blackened everything it touched, including her hands and arms. When her nose started to itch, she scratched without thinking, then made matters worse by brushing the hair off her forehead.

“Cinderella, I presume?”

Mimi started at the sound of the amused feminine voice, then turned to see Venna Schwab framed in the doorway. Her thick, dark brown hair was neatly parted into two long braids. But her bright red lips and the
too-tight blue jeans and low-cut red peasant blouse belied the girlish image she was trying to portray.

Venna shut the door behind her, then took off her cowboy hat, shaking the water off the brim before hanging it on the peg by the door. “I knocked, but you must not have heard me. That rain is really coming down.”

Mimi dropped the washrag in the bucket and hastily stood, wiping her dirty hands on the front of her jeans. “Garrett's not here.”

“I know,” Venna said, walking toward her. “His pickup truck isn't in the driveway. But I know he won't want to miss my fresh baked apple pie.” She held up the round plastic container in her hands.

Mimi took a step forward. “I can take it for you.”

Venna wrinkled her nose at the sight of Mimi's soot-stained fingers. “That's all right. I know my way around here.”

She sailed into the kitchen with the pie while Mimi followed, trying to finger comb her hair into obedience. Venna looked perfect, despite the rainstorm. But her ostrich-skin cowboy boots were trailing rainwater and mud all over Mimi's clean floor.

“Can I get you something?” Mimi asked politely. “A cup of coffee or a glass of iced tea?”

“No, thank you. I really can't stay.” Venna set the container on the counter and opened the lid. The spicy scent of cinnamon and apples filled the air.

“That smells delicious.”

Venna smiled as she pulled the pie out of the container. “Apple pie is Garrett's favorite.”

For some reason, the way Venna said Garrett's name rankled Mimi. It was so…proprietary.

“So,” Venna said, turning and leaning her back against the counter. She swept Mimi up and down with a quick, dismissive glance. “I take it you've given up ranch work to become Garrett's housekeeper.”

“No, I'm still his ranch hand,” Mimi said, walking to the sink to wash the sticky soot off her hands. She pumped a generous dollop of soap into her hands from the dispenser, then turned on the tap water. “In fact, we moved the herd out of the north pasture this morning.”

“You don't look much like a ranch hand,” Venna said amiably.

“I guess appearances can be deceiving.” Mimi turned off the tap, then reached for a towel.

Venna arched a finely winged brow. “Did he tell you about me?”

“He said you were a neighbor.”

She laughed. “He's not a man of many words, is he? We're much closer than neighbors.”

“Really?” Mimi knew she shouldn't pry. The man's personal life was none of her business. But she couldn't seem to help herself. “How close?”

“Garrett asked me to marry him.”

Mimi had her answer. An answer she didn't want to hear.

 

I
T WAS
almost dusk by the time Garrett arrived at the ranch. His trip into Austin had been an unqualified disaster. First, he'd arrived at the John Deere dealership to discover that the tractor part he'd ordered had been mistakenly shipped to Nebraska. Then he'd
stopped by his sister Shelby's diner, Austin Eats, for a quick bite.

Shelby was just as frustrated as Garrett that the search for their birth mother had stalled. She'd even wondered aloud if it was time to give up. But Garrett couldn't quit. Couldn't just forget the woman who had given birth to him, then given him up. He had to know why. He had to know what had driven her to leave her children on a stranger's doorstep.

All his life, he'd felt incomplete. Like something was missing. Something important. But he hadn't connected his emptiness with his birth mother until that teddy bear and those baby sweaters had shown up. He still sometimes wondered if Aunt Megan was telling them everything she knew. He respected her more than any other woman, but he also believed she'd keep a secret if she thought it would protect the people she cared about.

He walked through the front door of the house, wiping his boots on the braided rug. A strange, lemony scent invaded his nostrils. He smelled cinnamon, too, along with the strong odor of soap.

“Mimi?”

No answer. He walked halfway down the hall, then heard the sound of the shower running. Along with an off-key version of “You Are My Sunshine.” He smiled as he headed to the living room. She must be tired of the rain, too.

A cheerful fire burned in the hearth, melting that cold, empty place inside him. For one brief moment, he savored the feeling of coming home to a warm house and a woman singing in his shower.

He imagined her all soft and wet and soapy. Her
sky-blue eyes sparkling and her hair slicked off her freshly washed face. Mimi hadn't worn any makeup since the day she'd shown up in his hayloft. Probably because she didn't have any. He preferred her natural color, anyway. Her soft, creamy complexion. Her rosy cheeks. Even her red, peeling, sunburned nose.

The water stopped running, and Garrett headed into the kitchen to put more distance between himself and his current fantasy. The worst thing he could do was act on these insane desires. Not when Mimi would most likely be gone tomorrow. He'd had his share of one-night stands when he was younger, and the idea didn't appeal to him anymore. It seemed to magnify the emptiness inside of him.

His good intentions were rewarded when he found the apple pie sitting on the counter. The flaky, golden-brown crust was etched with little hearts. Worry niggled at him.

Were the hearts a message? Had Mimi been having some fantasies of her own? His heart skipped a beat at the thought. Part of him liked the idea. Another part of him worried that her fiancé would show up with a shotgun and demand his woman back. Garrett had already been shot once this year because of a woman. That was more than enough for him.

“You're back.”

He turned to see Mimi framed in the kitchen door. She'd wrapped herself in his blue terry-cloth robe, and her face was flushed from her shower. Her blond hair hung in ringlets around her head, and her blue eyes looked all soft and dewy.

His body's instant response to her appearance took him off guard. He turned to the pie on the counter,
pulling out a knife from the drawer to cut himself a thick slab. “I see you've made yourself at home.”

“I borrowed your robe,” she said, moving closer to him. “I hope you don't mind.”

“No problem,” he said, envying a robe for the first time in his life.

She wrapped her hands around the collar and pulled it tighter. “It's chilly in here.”

“You'll be warmer when you get dressed.” He carried his pie to the kitchen table and sat down, making a concerted effort not to look at her.

“Is something wrong?” she asked softly.

“It's been a hell of a day,” he muttered, digging into his pie. No doubt his night was ruined, as well. He wouldn't get any sleep with images of her in his head.

She padded to the table and took a seat opposite him. “I had a visitor while you were gone.”

He let the sweet and spicy flavors of the apple pie linger on his tongue. “Who?”

“Your…neighbor. Venna. She's the one who made the pie.”

His fork froze in midair. Well, that explained the hearts. It also made him realize that his day could have been worse. He could have arrived home and found Venna Schwab encamped in his kitchen.

Mimi licked her lips. “Is there something you want to tell me?”

His brows drew together at the question. “No. I don't think so.”

She took a deep breath. “Something about Venna?”

He forked up another bite of pie. “No.”

Mimi fingered the collar of his robe, plucking at the tiny terry-cloth strands. His gaze lingered for a moment, mesmerized by the delicate, creamy skin outlined by the vee of the robe. She looked so soft. So warm.

“Garrett?”

He blinked and looked at her. A rare flush prickled his cheeks at the turn his thoughts had taken.
Damn.
He had to get out of here. He was losing control, and Garrett Lord never lost control. “What?”

Mimi leaned forward. A big mistake. The robe gapped slightly at the movement, and he could see the generous curve of one breast. His breath caught and his body grew unbearably tight.

“Venna told me you asked her to marry you.”

He barely registered her words, too entranced by the drop of water trickling down her neck, past her collarbone, into the vee of her breasts. Pushing his chair back, he hastily rose to his feet. “I need to go check the horses. Help yourself to the chicken.”

“But…”

He was out the door before she got another word out of her mouth. Rain pelted him, soaking through his clothes, but he didn't dare go back for his slicker. Not when he was so close to the edge of losing control. Not when he wanted to pull her against him and see if the sizzle of that first kiss could erupt into an inferno.

He ran the last few steps to the barn, diving through the door and spooking the horses and the barn swallows already settled in for the night. Raindrops battered against the tin roof, making it sound as if stones
fell from the sky instead of the sorely needed moisture.

He brushed the water off his clothes, then moved quietly to Brutus's stall to give him his nightly ration of oats. While the gelding stood contentedly chewing, Garrett picked up the currycomb hanging on a hook and began brushing him.

Brutus gave a whinny of delight. The easy rhythm of the familiar chore slowed Garrett's heartbeat and eased his taut nerves. This situation was getting out of hand. When he'd agreed to Mimi's deal, he'd expected her to turn tail and run back to Austin before the sun had set. But she had surprised him. She'd also turned out to be much more determined and stubborn than he'd ever imagined.

One thing was certain. He couldn't go on like this. Wanting her every minute of every day was driving him to distraction. And he couldn't have her, he reminded himself. Not when she belonged to another man.

The only way to end this torture was to win their wager so he could send her back to Austin.

It was time to take more drastic measures.

T
HE NEXT MORNING
,
Mimi pulled the pillow over her head when she heard the dreaded knock on the bedroom door. The warmth of the bed quickly lured her back to sleep. Then the knock sounded again, only louder.

She groaned into the mattress, then raised her head up far enough to squint at the glowing red numbers on the digital clock beside the bed. Two o'clock. She blinked and looked again. She knew Garrett didn't believe in wasting daylight, but this was ridiculous.

“Let's go, Mimi,” he shouted, pounding on the door once more. “You don't want me to have to come in there to get you.”

Something about his tone more than the words themselves made her stumble out of bed and reach for her clothes. “I'm up,” she called, stepping clumsily into her blue jeans.

“Meet me at the corral,” he ordered through the door.

Her heavy eyelids drifted shut as her fingers fumbled with the buttons on her shirt. Didn't the man ever sleep? Mimi had stayed up past eleven o'clock waiting for him to come in from the barn. But the long day had finally caught up with her, and she'd dragged
herself off to bed, her mind still full of unanswered questions.

It was obvious the subject of Venna was off-limits. She'd been surprised at his odd reaction. Garrett was one of the most honest and forthright men she'd ever met, yet he'd practically run out the door just to avoid talking to her.

Sore subject, perhaps. Or, more likely, none of her business. She was his ranch hand, not his confidante. What Garrett did after hours was none of her concern.

But the thought of him spending those hours with Venna pricked at her like a sandbur. She couldn't blame him for finding the woman attractive. And he obviously liked her cooking. No doubt Venna Schwab would make the perfect ranch wife.

So why did the idea bother Mimi so much?

The rain had stopped, so she grabbed a pair of insulated coveralls instead of a slicker. She stepped into them, then zipped them up the front. What they lacked in style they made up for in warmth and durability. She took a moment to cuff the long pant legs around her ankles, then stepped outside. A coyote serenade met her, sending a tiny shiver up her spine.

The ranch seemed so different at night, almost foreign. Glancing over her shoulder at the house, she thought longingly of her warm bed. Then she turned, squared her shoulders and strode toward the corral.

“I didn't want you to miss all the fun,” Garrett said as she walked up to the split-rail fence.

“What fun?”

He nodded toward the south end of the corral. “The first calf of the season.”

Mimi's breath caught in her throat at the sight of
the lone cow standing there with the thin trail of mucous hanging from her back end. Her belly was so distended, Mimi wondered how the cow could stand upright. “You mean she's going to have her calf here? Now?”

“It might take a little while,” he replied. “But it's definitely going to happen tonight.”

She stared in wonder at the straining cow. Excitement and anticipation erased the last remnants of sleepiness from her body.

Garrett glanced at her. “Good thing you wore those old coveralls.”

“Why?”

“There's going to be a lot of blood.”

Her anticipation turned to apprehension, and her mouth suddenly went very dry. She swallowed hard. “Blood?”

“Birthing is a very messy business,” he said matter-of-factly.

She closed her eyes, wondering how she could have been so dense. Garrett had hired her for calving season. It should have been obvious that she'd have to witness some births before she was through.

And as she knew very well, births meant blood.

Why hadn't she realized this might be a problem when she made that stupid deal? She might be naive, but she wasn't dumb.

“Anything wrong?”

She looked into his face, illuminated by the overhead mercury lamp. “No, of course not. What could be wrong?”

He shrugged and turned to the corral. “I don't know. You look a little pale.”

Her hands gripped the rough wooden rail. She'd probably faint at the first sign of blood. Then he'd have the perfect excuse to ship her back to Austin as soon as the sun came up.

She wasn't ready to go.

When Garrett turned toward the calf, she studied him in the moonlight. For some reason, she couldn't put that kiss they'd shared the other night out of her mind. More than once she'd wondered what would have happened if Garrett hadn't stopped. What did she want to happen?

Mimi knew what she didn't want. She didn't want to go back to Austin yet. The thought of facing her father and Paul made her feel ill. She knew it was cowardly to hide out from them like this, but she just needed more time. Time to heal. Time to figure out what to do with the rest of her life.

“Looks like it will be any time now,” Garrett mused, still watching the cow. “I brought the calf pullers in case she has any trouble.”

Mimi didn't like the sound of that. “Calf pullers?”

He pointed to an odd metal contraption in the back of his pickup truck. “Sometimes the calf is too big for the cow to push through the birth canal. That's when we hook the chain onto one of the calf's legs and turn the crank.”

She winced in sympathy for the cow. Just the thought of such a procedure made her feel woozy. How could she ever witness it, much less participate in it?

“I need to sit down.”

He hitched one boot up on the fence. “Plenty of ground here to do it on.”

Her knees gave out, and she plopped onto the grass, taking deep, gulping breaths. Fortunately, Garrett seemed oblivious to her distress. But if she passed out or threw up, he'd soon be aware of it.

“Of course, the calf pullers don't always work,” Garrett continued. “Then I have to call the vet out to do an emergency C-section. If we're lucky, both the cow and the calf survive. But it does leave the cow with a big scar on her belly.”

Mimi's hand drifted toward her stomach. She knew all about scars.

“I remember one time,” Garrett said, gazing into the corral, “we had six cows calving at the same time, and they were all in distress. I spent the entire night running from cow to cow with my calf pullers. It was a real mess.”

Her head spun. She closed her eyes and tried to regain her equilibrium.
I can do this,
she mouthed to herself over and over again like a mantra.

“I doubt that will happen tonight,” he said, seemingly oblivious to her state. “But you never know. That's one calving season I'll never forget.”

She tried not to listen, but the man wouldn't stop talking. For a brief moment, she wondered if he'd been drinking. She hadn't realized Garrett Lord had this many words in him. Unfortunately, he told her much more than she wanted to know about calving complications, retained placentas and udder infections.

Her stomach twisted and her head reeled and she hadn't even seen any blood yet. She wondered if she should just admit defeat now while she still had a little
pride left. Even if it meant going back to Austin. Even if it meant never seeing Garrett Lord again.

“Mimi?” he whispered.

He stood with his hand out to her. She reached up and grabbed it almost without thinking and let him pull her to her feet.

He nudged her in front of him, his breath warm on her cheek. “It's time.”

She moved closer to the fence, her knees rubbery and her eyes unfocused. Despite her trepidation, she couldn't help but look at the cow. Among the mucus and the blood was something she'd completely forgotten. Something that made her stare in wonder and amazement. Something that made her breath catch in her throat.

A baby calf struggling to find its way into the world.

The head had emerged, slick and wet. After several strained pushes from the cow, the bony shoulders followed. Then, amazingly, the rest of the calf slipped free. It lay on the ground, the tiny, wet body quivering.

Mimi looked at Garrett, her throat too tight with emotion to speak. At some time during the ordeal, she'd clutched his arm. She stared at her fingers, wrapped around his biceps. She could feel the bulge of his muscle and the warmth of his skin through his sleeve.

She looked into his eyes, her voice as shaky as her body. “Isn't that the most beautiful thing you've ever seen?”

“Almost,” he said huskily, his gaze not on the calf anymore, but on her.

Her knees went weak again. This time for an entirely different reason. For the space of one heartbeat she wondered if he was going to kiss her again. In the next heartbeat, she realized she wanted him to kiss her.

But instead of moving closer to her, Garrett backed away, then turned his attention to the corral once again. “Looks like we're done here for tonight.”

Mimi reluctantly turned from him and saw the cow licking her new calf with long, gentle strokes of her tongue. “It's amazing, isn't it?”

Garrett didn't say anything for a long moment. “No matter how many times I witness it, birth is always a miracle.”

She nodded, hot tears stinging her eyes.

The calf wobbled as it tried to rise on its spindly legs. It didn't make it the first time. Or the second. The calf hit the ground numerous times before it finally succeeded in standing. Despite its efforts, the mama cow kept up her ministrations, licking her calf clean.

Mimi smiled. “You can tell she loves it already.”

“Sometimes they don't,” Garrett said, his voice sounding a littler gruffer. A little more like normal. “Some cows reject their calves the moment they're born. They won't clean them or let them milk. They'd just leave them to die if I didn't intervene.”

“But why?”

He shrugged his broad shoulders. “No maternal instinct, I guess. Not all females have one. Including the human kind.”

Mimi recoiled as if she'd been slapped. But Garrett had already turned and begun walking toward his
truck. There was enough light for her to see the pain etched on his face.
He'd been referring to his birth mother.
After all these years, it was obvious her abandonment still bothered him. Maybe that was why he was so desperate to find her.

Maybe Mimi could help him.

“You can go on back to the house,” he said, opening the driver's door of the truck. He didn't look upset anymore, just very tired.

“What are you going to do?”

He nodded toward the calf pullers and the other paraphernalia in the back of the pickup. “I'll just unload this stuff in the tack room, then I'll be in, too.”

“Let me do it,” she said, moving toward him. “That's the reason I'm here, after all.”

He hesitated, then shrugged and opened the driver's door of the pickup for her.”

She climbed behind the steering wheel. “Where do you want me to put all this stuff?”

“Normally, I wash and sterilize the equipment, but since we didn't use anything, that won't be necessary tonight. Just hang it up on the hooks in the tack room.”

“Anything else I should do?” Mimi asked as she switched on the ignition.

“Get a good night's sleep,” Garrett replied. “We've got a long day ahead of us tomorrow.” He closed the driver's door, then turned toward the house.

She watched him for a long moment, then shifted the truck into gear. Hubert, who had disappeared during the calving to chase jackrabbits, reappeared and escorted her to the barn, trotting beside the pickup.

“Quiet down,” Mimi whispered to him after she
cut the engine and climbed out of the pickup. “You'll spook the horses.”

Hubert followed cheerfully as she walked to the back of the truck and opened the tailgate. “You're awfully chipper for three o'clock in the morning,” she said, unloading the calf pullers, a spray bottle of iodine and a bag full of vet supplies.

Hubert barked once, then waited while she pulled open the barn door. A horse whinnied inside, alerting the rest of the barn's occupants to her presence. Moist warmth and the strong scent of hay enveloped her as she carried the calving equipment inside the barn. Hubert chose to stay by the open barn door, walking back and forth to guard against intruders.

Mimi opened the door to the tack room, then switched on the light. She blinked at the brightness of the bare bulb hanging on a wire from the ceiling, then carried the calf pullers to the new pine shelves on the south wall.

Garrett had been expanding the tack room, making it big enough to hold the small refrigerator he needed for penicillin and other veterinary medications. The north wall was only half-done. He'd torn down the plywood walls, revealing the original studs and the old lath slats.

Mimi reached up to hang the bag of supplies on a bent nail above her, but the frayed strap slipped off her fingers and the bag fell to the floor. Syringes rolled onto the plank floor, along with a spool of black suture thread. Muttering an oath under her breath, she kneeled to gather everything into the bag.

She'd just reached for the last syringe when she saw something unusual. A dusty, worn red leather
book, tucked between a floorboard and one of the studs on the north wall. After placing the bag on the hook, she daintily pulled the book from its hiding place, grimacing at the cobwebs clinging to it. She blew the dust off the cover, then gently opened it. The pages were aged and brittle, the gilt edges worn almost bare. But the gently flowing script was still legible.

The inside front cover read,
Private Property of Miss Katherine MacGuire,
with the word
private
underlined three times. Fascinated by the discovery of this unexpected treasure, Mimi sank to the floor and began reading.