A Baby Changes Everything

Savannah did her best to sound as cheerful as possible. Anything less and Rosita would be over in a flash, thinking the worst. It was Rosita’s belief that she had far too much happiness in her life, and she was always anticipating a reversal.

“Nothing’s wrong, Mama. I was just wondering if you’d mind taking your grandson for the night?”

“You know I’d love to have Luke over here anytime, but why tonight? Are you two going somewhere?”

To paradise, I hope. Savannah gauged her words carefully, not sure just how much Cruz would appreciate her telling her mother-in-law. He was very proud and this might offend his sense of independence. “Cruz has been working very hard lately—”

She could almost see Rosita nodding her dark head in agreement. “Takes a lot to run a ranch.”

“Yes, I know, he said the same thing.” Savannah suppressed the sigh that tried to rise to her lips. “But he’s forgotten how to unwind.”

“Unwind?”

The woman was probably unfamiliar with the term. “To relax. To enjoy himself.” Savannah paused. Then, because she liked the woman and because she had a feeling that Rosita would guess anyway, she added, “To be a husband again.”

Rosita caught on immediately, as Savannah knew she would. “Ah, I see. Of course. I can have Ruben come by and pick the boy up now if you’d like. It would give me extra time with my beautiful grandson—and you extra time to do whatever it is you need to do to help Cruz…unwind.”

Savannah didn’t want to seem as if she was eager to ship her son off, but in reality, Rosita had a good point. She’d get twice as much done without having Luke in tow. “Well…”

“Consider it done,” Rosita said, taking the decision out of her daughter-in-law’s hands. “Ruben will be there in less than half an hour. Have Luke and his favorite toys ready. And, Savannah?”

“Yes?”

“Good luck.”

“Thank you.” She didn’t bother commenting that if she had to rely on luck to make Cruz come around, then her marriage really was in serious trouble.

Cruz was well pleased.

The four quarter horses he’d arranged to buy looked even better walking off the back of the transport than they had when he had first seen them running free on Eric Tyler’s ranch. All four were fine specimens of their breed. And intelligent.

He could tell that the horses he’d picked were intelligent just by moving among them, the way he was now. He was getting a bead on them and they were getting one on him. He liked that.

Nothing worse than a dumb animal, he thought, at least for what he had in mind. He trained quarter horses to become cutting horses, animals specifically intended to herd cattle. A good horse could even prevent a stampede from getting under way, separating one frightened steer from the others before the mindless pounding of hooves and the surge of escape began.

Not that he couldn’t handle an animal blessed with less than the intelligence he saw on display today. Very slowly, he wound a lariat around his arm as he eyed the newest additions to his herd.

He had a way of communicating with horses that at times surprised even him. Had he been one of the Plains Indians, he might have said he was bonding with his brothers. But no such thought crossed Cruz’s mind when he walked into the small, tight corral to transform yet another horse from a skittish, rebellious animal to one that was willing to work for its master. To bring the fruit of its abilities to the man or woman who fed and cared for him or her.

However, something happened when Cruz was alone with a horse, something he could not explain. Something that almost allowed him to form a spiritual bond with the creature, to feel what the horse was feeling, to understand what caused its distrust or its pain.

When he had worked for the Double Crown, he had been given the toughest horses to break. Horses that had long since been given up on were brought to him in hopes that he could turn them around.

He’d never had a single failure. Sometime it took weeks, even months, but the object was not to rush, rather to succeed.

That was when he’d had the luxury of working for someone else, however. Now that he was his own master, now that what he accomplished put food on his table and clothes on the backs of his family, it was a slightly different matter. There was an urgency inside of him, an urgency to succeed, to build up the ranch, as well as his reputation. To have the kind of things he had always dreamed about having, not because he wanted them—he couldn’t care less about fancy cars or pricey clothing—but because those outer trappings meant that he, Cruz Perez, was a success.

A man to respect.

A man who could not only compete in a world populated by the likes of the Fortunes, but could also carve out a sizable place for himself.

That took dedication and work, tireless work. Not an easy matter when he was far from tireless. Especially when he walked into the house and heard recriminations thrown his way. Or when he saw the disappointment in Savannah’s eyes.

She never seemed happy anymore when he did have a moment to spend with her. That meant he was failing her somehow. More than anything else, he didn’t like failing.

A fifth horse was being led off the transport. The hand was having a difficult time bringing him over to the corral. This was the horse that Tyler had thrown in for a song.

“You’ll be doing me a favor taking it off my hands,” Eric Tyler had told him. Tugging off his hat, the older man had scratched his thinning hair and shaken his head. “I purely don’t know what to do with him.”

Even though he’d seen the other four as a sound investment of his time and money, Cruz had been drawn to the last animal immediately.

There was something about the black horse, an air that separated him from the others. There was the same amount of intelligence in its eyes as the other four—more, really—but also something else. A wariness coupled with fire.

He seemed almost human.

This one, Cruz had thought, watching as several of Tyler’s hands scattered after trying to herd the horse into a smaller corral, was a prize. A warrior.

Turning him into a working cutting horse wouldn’t be easy.

But Cruz loved a challenge.

“What’s his name?” he had asked, approaching the corral.

“Diablo,” Tyler had told him.

Diablo. The devil. It fit.

Inside the corral now, Diablo shook his proud head, his deep brown eyes locking with Cruz’s across the length of the field. Cruz found himself smiling.

“You think you’ll come out on top, don’t you?” he murmured almost to himself. “You’re in for a surprise, my friend.”

But taming and training Diablo was going to take time, and right now he needed to get busy with the four he’d purchased. He had a contract with the Flying W to turn over four fully trained cutting horses by the end of the month. That meant focusing his day a little differently, but it could be done.

The July sun beat down mercilessly.

Cruz could feel the line of sweat forming around the rim of his worn Stetson. Taking it off, he wiped his brow, then set the hat back on his head as his eyes swept over the field. One of his hands was still in the stables, mucking the stalls out before spreading a fresh layer of straw. The other two were caring for the horses that had been led into the corral. Horses needed to be washed down, especially in this heat.

Two of his mares were expecting. One had given birth to a dead colt last year. He hoped that her luck would be better this time around. There wasn’t anything to do but wait and see.

A thousand details to keep tabs on.

He thought about what Savannah had said about Hank. That he should consider making the wrangler a foreman. That he should give serious thought to entrusting others with more responsibility rather than shouldering it all himself. It would make life easier, he thought. But it was just that he did everything better than anyone.

It wasn’t vanity that prompted his feelings, it was training and ability. He’d been a cowboy all of his life, and he knew exactly what it took to run a ranch. He’d waited all his life for the chance.

And here it was.

Still, he knew damn well that he couldn’t be everywhere at once. When it came to the daily chores, he figured he’d be safe enough assigning those to the others without having to stand over them to make sure everything was taken care of. Feeding, bathing, exercising the horses and cleaning out their stalls took time. Cruz made up his mind to allow the others to take care of those details.

But training the horses, putting them through their paces until he was satisfied that they were the best they could be, was another matter entirely. Training horses was careful, almost artistic work. That was his domain.

Still, he had to start letting go somewhere, he thought. Going into Red Rock was on his agenda today, but he couldn’t do that and get the horses comfortable around him at the same time. He looked toward where a tall, rail-thin cowboy with bright red hair stood talking to another hand. Catching the redhead’s eye, he waved the man over.

“Hank, we need some more horse liniment and I’m going to have to buy saddles for these four. Why don’t you take one of the boys and go into Red Rock and pick them up for me?” He took the ranch credit card out of his wallet and handed it to Hank. “And while you’re at it, we’re running low on feed.”

“Yes, I know.” Taking off his hat, Hank ran a hand through his hair. He looked at his boss a little uncertainly, as if he wasn’t sure he’d heard him correctly. It was a known fact that Cruz, although a fair man, was a control freak. “You want me to pick out the saddles?”

Cruz took Hank’s hesitant look to mean that he wasn’t up to the task. But since he’d asked him to handle it, he couldn’t very well back off. “Why? Don’t you feel you can?”

“Well, hell, yeah, they’re only saddles.” He looked at Cruz curiously. “But you always wanted to do it before.”

Cruz blew out a breath. This letting go wasn’t going to be easy, no matter what Savannah thought. She was clearly the smarter one, he’d give her that, but he was the one who knew what it took to operate a ranch. Still, he supposed he owed it to her to give this some kind of trial run.

“I’m delegating.” The word felt like hardened peanut brittle in his mouth. “Something my wife keeps telling me I should do.”

Hank nodded his head, no doubt pleased with the idea. A grin curved his mouth. “Well, seeing as how you’re ‘delegating’ stuff, I could help you with the training.” He nodded toward the corral, where all five horses stood, four in relatively close proximity and Diablo over to the side.

It was no secret that Hank had set his cap on becoming a trainer, that he’d spent hours of his free time watching Cruz as he put horses through their paces.

But Cruz knew watching and feeling an instinct were two different things. You couldn’t learn instinct. Even the thought of sharing the responsibility of training the horses didn’t sit well with him.

“I’ll keep it in mind,” he replied, in the same tone of voice that parents used to make children believe they had a ghost of a chance of something coming true, when in reality the exact opposite was more likely.

Hank ran his hand along his neck, nodding. The look in his eyes when they met Cruz’s said he knew that what he’d just suggested wasn’t about to happen anytime soon.

Hank blew out a breath as he set his hat far back on his head. “Yeah, well, it was just a thought.” Putting the credit card into his shirt pocket, he stuck his hands into his back pockets. “Want me to take the Mustang?”

“No, take the truck,” Cruz told him. He dug the keys out of his jeans and tossed them to the other man. “You’re going to need the space,” he added.

“Yeah, right.”

Hank closed his hand around the keys. Walking off toward the parking area, he called one of the other hands over to join him in his trip to Red Rock.

Watching him go, Cruz frowned.

The man hadn’t even asked to take the proper vehicle. How was Cruz going to make him a foreman if he didn’t have enough sense to take a truck instead of a small, vintage Mustang when he went to get four saddles and fresh feed for the horses?

And this was the man Savannah wanted him to put in charge directly under him? No way. Cruz was going to have to stay on top of everything—unless he wanted La Esperanza to quickly become the property of the bank that held its mortgage.

He knew he had to get started, but he took a second to walk over to Diablo. The stallion was at the far end of the corral, separating himself from the other quarter horses as if he knew he was special.

No failure of ego here, Cruz thought, amused.

He climbed up to the top rung of the fence, holding on to it as he leaned over the railing. Eyeing him, the horse took a few steps back, but not enough to display fear. The horse, Cruz sensed, had a will every bit as strong as his own.

That made them both fighters.

“This is your new home, Diablo. You’d better get used to it.”

As if to show that he understood and that he was displeased, the stallion pawed the ground, tossing his mane in a gesture that could only be called defiant.

In a way, Cruz knew how he felt. As a young man, he’d refused to allow himself to be sublimated into the Fortunes’ world, even though for the most part he both liked and respected the members of the family.

Sublimation was for his parents, but not for him.

“You’d better know now,” he told Diablo, “that kind of behavior doesn’t put me off. You might have been top dog at the last ranch, but you’ve met your match here. We’re going to get together, you and me, and be friends. That’s a promise.”

He made no attempt to reach out to touch the horse, or even to enter the corral. The horse required his space. For now Cruz would respect that. But the animal did need to get accustomed to his presence in his world.

Training would begin early tomorrow morning, before he even started working with the others. Half an hour, twice a day. He didn’t have the time, but he’d find it. Even if it meant doing some more delegating.

An excitement pulsed through Cruz. He hadn’t felt this alive in a long time.

While watching her reflection in the wardrobe mirror, Savannah realized that her hands were shaking ever so slightly as she smoothed the sides of her dress.

She stared down at her hands. They were also tingling. And damp.

She shook her head and silently laughed at herself. You’d think she was going out on her first date. There had to be a hundred butterflies all vying for airspace inside her stomach.

For once, she didn’t feel like collapsing or throwing up. The newest Perez-in-the-making had decided, for now, to cooperate with its mother.

Thank God for small favors, she thought.

The moment her father-in-law had come for Luke, she’d dashed off to Red Rock to buy things for the dinner she wanted to make for Cruz.

But before going to the supermarket, she’d stopped by the mall. Not to buy a new dress, but a new nightgown. Something just sheer enough to get his blood pumping in double time.

She’d picked out a full-length one that had a network of lace across her breasts and two layers of sheer, light blue nylon swirling around her hips down to the floor.

She couldn’t wait to see the expression on Cruz’s face when she wore it.

Returning home, she’d cleaned the house and started dinner going before finally going upstairs to change out of her jeans and into her dress for the evening.

Right now she had both dinner and herself warming, waiting for Cruz to make his appearance. She glanced at the clock. It was a little after seven.

She’d already called him on the cell phone she’d insisted he carry with him when he was on the range. It had taken eight rings before he’d finally answered. The second he came on, she’d launched her assault.

“Cruz, I need you to come home.”

The preoccupied note immediately left his voice, replaced by concern. “Why? What’s wrong? Did something happen to Luke?”

“No, nothing happened to Luke—”

“You? Did something happen to you? Is it the baby?”

“No, honey,” she interjected before his imagination took him to terrible places. “It’s not the baby, or me. Luke and I are fine.”

“Then why are you calling?”

She never used the telephone to get in touch with him. They had agreed that it was strictly for emergencies. As far as she was concerned, saving a marriage that was about to break apart came under that heading.

“Because I do have kind of an emergency here and I need you to come home.”

Suspicion and concern vied in his voice. “What kind of an emergency?”

“It’s too hard to explain, Cruz. You’ll understand when you get here. Please just hurry.”

She’d heard him sigh. “Okay, I’m on my way.”

That had been over half an hour ago.

Obviously the man was a lot farther away that she’d thought. Savannah reached for the cell phone again, then stopped. She heard the sound of the Mustang pulling up to the front of the house.

He was here.

Butterflies launched another attack as she took a deep breath and waited.

Within a moment, Cruz was opening the front door. “Okay, so what’s the big emergency?”

The question faded into the air as Savannah moved out of the shadows to greet him. She was wearing the same drop-dead gorgeous dress she’d had on the night he’d met her at the party at the Double Crown.

The night he’d lost his heart to her.

Four

F eeling a little like a man who had just stepped through some kind of time warp, Cruz closed the door slowly behind him. There was music wafting from somewhere on the first floor. Something soft and romantic, setting the mood.

Nodding a greeting, he continued staring at the deep green clingy dress. Memories came crowding back, bringing with them feelings he hadn’t entertained in a long time.

Fear that she was ill melted into anger at being taken away from his work under false pretenses, then finally ebbed into confusion. “What’s this all about?”

She couldn’t gauge his reaction by his tone. It gave nothing away.

Savannah forced herself to erase five years of marriage from her conscious behavior. Tonight she was not the frustrated wife and harried mother she’d been for so long she couldn’t easily remember what it was like otherwise. Tonight she was attending a party at her friend Vanessa’s house and had just seen the most beautiful man she’d ever laid eyes on.

A man who radiated sheer animal magnetism with every move he made, every smoldering look he sent her way. From the first moment she’d seen him, Cruz Perez had made her blood rush through her veins just by being near. She desperately needed to recapture that sensation.

Needed to recapture, too, that essence within herself that had made him want her so much he was willing to forsake all the others who had come before her. And those who wanted to come after her.

With slow, measured steps, taken in strappy high heels that were, if she wore them at all, usually shed the second she walked in the front door, Savannah moved toward him. She looked every bit the huntress who had staked out her next prey and was confident of its capture.

Never mind that she was nervous, that she was afraid he’d laugh at her efforts, that she feared that what they’d had was now behind them. She masked those worries and did her best to look like a determined woman.

A determined, sexy woman.

“It’s about getting to know each other,” she told him in a sultry voice.

Well, this was new. Cruz looked at her a little uncertainly. “You feeling all right, Savannah?”

“I’m fine.”

She trailed the back of her hand along his face, then slid her fingertips down his throat, lingering where it dipped in. Savannah became aware of his pulse. It felt as if it had accelerated.

Good!

Before she could press it against his chest, Cruz caught her hand and held it for a moment. Savannah was stirring things up and he wanted to be able to think clearly.

“Then what’s this talk about getting to know each other?” he asked her. “We already know each other. I know everything about you and you damn well know everything about me.”

He had no secrets from her. She was the other half of his soul, and filled his thoughts. Didn’t she know that?

“Everything?” Savannah teased, her breath dancing along his cheek.

She moved her head nearer, bringing her lips achingly close to his. At the last possible second she drew back, just when she judged Cruz was going to kiss her. A little effort, a little pursuit helped to spice things up. She didn’t want this to be too easy, even though part of her wanted to throw herself into his arms and make love right here and now until there wasn’t a breath left within her body.

The look in her eyes challenged him as she took him up on his claim. “If you know me inside and out, what color underwear am I wearing?”

What had come over her? He spread his hands wide, trying to harness his confusion. “I don’t know.” And then, because she looked as if she was waiting for some kind of an answer, he gave one. “White?”

She moved her head from side to side slowly, her eyes never leaving his. “No.”

He made another stab, picking her favorite color. “Blue?”

That was the color of the nightgown she was going to wear for him tonight. If clouds could be called blue. “No.”

Exasperated, he held back his temper. “Okay, then, what color?”

Instead of answering, she took his hand and lightly placed it against her hip. With her eyes on his, her hand covering his, she slowly rotated his palm toward her buttocks.

Savannah watched with pleasure as a light came into her husband’s eyes. He lifted his brow as a surprised, sensual smile came to his lips.

“You’re not wearing any.”

“The man gets a prize.” She moved her body against his, silently indicating that she was the prize he had won.

Tired though he was, Cruz could feel himself responding to her. After all, until life and its myriad details had caught up to them and dragged them both down, burying them beneath a ton of responsibilities that only insisted on multiplying, they’d had an incredible sex life.

For all her innocence, Savannah had turned out to be the best natural lover he’d ever had. Considering the fact that he was far from a novice, this was saying a great deal.

Yearning seized him the way it hadn’t for a long time. But even as he lowered his mouth to hers, Cruz suddenly stopped himself and looked around uneasily.

“What’s wrong?” Didn’t he want her anymore? The question feverishly throbbed in her head, ushering fear in its wake.

“Honey, what if Luke walks in on us?”

She offered up a silent prayer of thanks. He did want her, he was just being a good father. Her mouth softened into a smile. “Then I’d ask him what a five-year-old was doing walking all the way over from the other side of Red Rock.”

Cruz’s brows knitted together in a confused line. “I don’t—”

Poor darling, he really was tired, not to immediately make the connection.

But not so tired that she hadn’t gotten to him, Savannah congratulated herself. She could feel his body hardening. Wanting her. At least she still appealed to him, she thought with not a little relief. She’d begun to have her doubts.

“Our son is staying at your parents’ house tonight, bless them. Your dad came by earlier today to pick him up.”

Cruz stiffened slightly. “You told them you were doing this?”

She knew what a private man her husband had turned out to be, even about something as natural as this. She framed her words carefully. “I told them we needed some time alone together. Maybe they think we’re painting the baby’s room.”

Cruz laughed and shook his head, relaxing. “My parents are not dumb people.”