“I’ll be everything you need.” She stroked her belly and let herself feel the joy and peace her child brought to mind.
Baylor appeared holding a practical, warm-looking jacket. She hoped he hadn’t overheard her. He already had enough doubts.
The heavy work jacket he held suspended on the tip of one finger summed everything up. The jacket was nothing she would have ever given a second look at when she lived in California.
Her life was never going to be the same.
When Baylor smiled at her, even though it was a reluctant smile, she found herself wanting to leap up and run into his arms…but she was so not flinging herself into anyone’s arms. It wasn’t going to happen, wasn’t even a good idea. She and Chad had flung themselves at each other and look where that got her.
“Hey.” She pointed at the jacket and put on a cheery face. “That seems as if it will do the trick.”
He held the jacket for her and she slipped inside its warmth. “Hmmm. This feels nice.”
“’Bout the time you get used to the cold, the weather will change and you’ll be wishing to have it back.” He gave her a serious if-you-stick-around-long-enough look.
She’d get used to the weather, or at least, he’d never know about it if she didn’t. All he was going to see from now on was the upbeat side of her, the confident side of her she had used in her sales pitch. She hugged the jacket around her and spun in a slow circle, trying to affect comedy. “Ah, if they could see me now.”
Another reluctant smile. He was so trying to be nice to her. “You mean the people in California wouldn’t appreciate your…ah…style?” he asked.
“Style?”
“Because, for the backside of Montana you look purty trendy.”
Yep, she thought, repeating the affirmative she’d already heard more than once in this state. Baylor Doyle was going to give her a chance, a harsh but fair one. Now, if she could live up to his and everyone else’s expectations… She shook off doubt and melancholy before they got a foothold. Upbeat. Stay upbeat.
“Très chic and ready to work.” And she felt better than she’d felt in a long time about anything except her baby, who at that moment seemed to leap to block a soccer goal or something equally emphatic. “Whoa!”
“Are you all right?” Baylor took a step toward her.
She held up one hand up and rubbed her lower ribs with the other. “Nothing to worry about. Sometimes the little one gives me a poke and it takes me by surprise, but I’m great. Better than great. Lead the way.”
He handed her a knitted cap, one like her grandmother might have made for her, with a fluffy yarn ball on top, and then he slid on his hat—a Stetson, that’s what they wore in one of Chad’s movies anyway.
She put on the hat he had given her and tugged it down until it pressed her hair snugly against her ears. Then he led her outside, where she got a spectacular view of the lay of the ranch buildings. To her left and back at the edge of a stand of pine trees sat a pair of log houses. His brothers’ houses, she assumed. Straight in front of her, but farther away, sat a barn and several out-buildings. Beyond the barn she could see corrals where horses were eating from a trough. Farther out were open snow-patched areas of what she supposed were grasslands, and of course, mountain peaks glistened in the distance.
Doyle land spread out beyond fifty-seven hundred acres. After leaving the rich farmland of southwestern Wisconsin that sold by the expensive acre and the precious square footage measured out in inches in Southern California, she wasn’t even sure she could conceptualize that much land owned by one family.
The seven cabins she would build for the Doyles would dovetail nicely with the two already there. Though the new ones would have more glass and decking, the existing ones had the charm of being more weathered and rustic-looking.
A cabins-in-the-woods kind of thing.
When they filled the cabins for the three to four prime months out of the year, they should do well.
“Less than a quarter mile beyond two small houses is where the cabins will be built,” Baylor said after she had spent several minutes gaping. “Ready?”
“Yes, I am.”
Baylor held the passenger-side door and she climbed up into the warmth of the truck. Then he jogged around and jumped in the driver’s side, and when he did, the truck got even warmer inside. Hormones. Had to be hormones.
“Thanks for having the truck so cozy.”
“That would have been one of my brothers, most likely prodded by one wife or the other.”
“I knew I was going to like Amy and Holly.”
“They’re like sisters. It would be a shame for them to have to split up and go separate ways.”
“This project means a lot more than income to your family.”
“It does.”
He took a hard grip on the wheel as he steered away from the big ranch house. “Should I get in my car and run away before I get in to deeply?”
“I wish you wouldn’t.”
The brim of his hat shadowed his features and she realized she really knew little about Montana and less about the Doyle family. She might have done it again—rushed into something without enough thought.
I’ll make it work.
“Hey—” she poked him on the hard muscle of his upper arm “—your Sheriff Potts saw me at my worst and he sent me back here instead of running me out of town. Give me a peek at what’s going on, I can take it.”
He nudged his hat back on his forehead as if it would help him think better.
“Ranching doesn’t support families the way it used to. Income has gone down, but more importantly the cost of living has gone up. We’ve been able to keep going because the largest part of the income stays in the family. Mostly we’re our own ranch hands. We hire on during the heaviest part of calving and when it’s time to shift cattle around to different feeding grounds. We let out some logging to a small local company—controlled, environmentally friendly logging that brings in a bit of income.”
“And that’s not enough.” She had asked for the truth and just because it was starting to scare her, she wasn’t going to back away.
“It was as long as there weren’t any kids’ futures to worry about.”
“So you decided to try for the tourist population.”
“We started a few years ago and it’s been popular. We’ve had a waiting list every season. At the Shadow Range we provide several things not everyone else this far out does. Satellite TV and internet, granted both are intermittent depending on the reception, but it’s there enough of the time to satisfy all but some of the teenagers. The houses have electricity, gas and indoor—”
“Plumbing? One of my favorites.”
His grin warmed her, a lot more than it should have.
“Then we have features most people’s homes don’t—fireplaces with an endless supply of wood on the porch, daily wildlife viewing and, although you might hear a train whistle in the distance from time to time, there isn’t even a whisper of highway or freeway traffic. And if you want it, you can have maid service and meals included.”
“Roughing it the way city people like it. I have to tell you, I’m one of them. Give me a good old pillow-top mattress and a dishwasher any day.” But she was finding out in detail she didn’t have to have either of those.
“We add horseback riding, fishing, guided trail walks and trips down the river on pontoon boats.”