A Rancher's Vow

Pa needed him.

Reed wondered if the old man had figured that out, at last.

HEARING ANOTHER VEHICLE pull up beyond the ranch house, Alcina Dale turned away from Chance and Pru’s daughter only for a moment. Chance’s twelve-year-old niece, Lainey, had insisted on taking posed photographs of the happy couple before the party began in earnest, and Alcina had volunteered to watch the bride and groom’s little redheaded daughter.

And now she was watching for the man who hadn’t shown for his own brother’s wedding, she realized, chastising her foolish self and quickly returning her attention where it belonged.

Unfortunately, those few seconds of inattention had been more than enough time for the two-year-old to get herself into mischief. The toddler had headed straight to the nearby table that groaned with food for the wedding supper. She was now rocking on tiptoe and reaching both hands high over her head.

“Hope, honey, no!” Alcina cried as the toddler got her fingers on a platter piled with barbecued ribs.

She made a dive for the child as the platter wobbled and a couple of ribs slid off the mound and onto Hope. One slab zapped straight down the front of Alcina’s yellow dress that she’d bought to wear as Pru’s bridesmaid. Unhurt, Hope shrieked with laughter and lunged for her honorary aunt.

Alcina made her second mistake when she hauled the saucy little girl up into her arms.

“What am I going to do with you?” she asked, even as Hope laughed again, touching Alcina’s face and hair with sticky fingers.

“Maybe we should dunk the little hoyden in the horse trough and be done with it.”

This came from a laughing Felice Cuma. The housekeeper set another platter on the table—homemade enchiladas with green sauce. Felice had cooked her heart out for the wedding supper—fried chicken, pork tamales, posole, mashed potatoes, beans and more. She’d been the one to insist it be held here on the ranch so she could do for Chance, who was as much a son to her as if she’d given birth to him. Alcina knew Chance felt the same sort of love for Felice, who’d raised him after his biological mother had abandoned him.

Felice shook her head as she retrieved the fallen ribs. “Well, the dogs will get a treat,” she muttered, carrying the dust-covered meat away from the table and toward the stables where they’d been locked out of the way.

The wedding celebration was being held in the freshly mowed pasture directly behind the sprawling ranch house. A band was setting up by the portable dance floor across the way—once the music got going, everyone would no doubt dance until dark. Not much in the way of entertainment in these parts, Alcina thought, so she was certain the good citizens of Silver Springs would take advantage where they could.

Tables and chairs had been laid out, many under the cottonwoods, but at the moment, most of the hundred or so guests were milling about, getting drinks and talking up a storm. Luckily, the weather was with them. Though it was late November, the sky was a brilliant blue and the afternoon had warmed nearly to seventy.

Alcina was thinking that Chance and Pru couldn’t have asked for a more perfect wedding day, when she glanced up into a familiar set of brown eyes that warmed her from the inside.

“Reed,” she choked out, the breath catching in her throat, and she realized the vehicle she’d heard had been his.

She took a good long look at him. He was wearing creased tan trousers, polished snakeskin boots and a dress shirt buttoned to the throat and held there by a string tie with a jasper catch. He’d filled out some, but he wasn’t an imposing man, not like Bart or Chance. Still, he had his own brand of appeal.

“Alcina Dale. It’s been a long time,” Reed said, the quiet certainty of his voice that she remembered so well thrilling her after all these years.

He removed his pale gray Stetson to reveal neatly combed brown hair. Alcina’s mouth went dry. He still reminded her of a young Robert Redford—maybe not as pretty, but modestly handsome in his own right. He had that same dignity as Redford. That same quiet self-assurance.

But as he gave her situation with Hope a once-over, his dignity cracked and he ineffectually tried to smother his laughter with a cough.

Putting an embarrassed Alcina immediately on the defensive.

She’d thought about this moment for a long, long time, ever since she’d returned to Silver Springs. She’d imagined the moment she would come face-to-face with her first infatuation, a man who, as history had proved, would only see her as his older brother’s high-school friend.

She hadn’t imagined that she would be holding twenty-some pounds of wiggling trouble in her arms, that her dress would be streaked with sauce, that her hair and face would be as sticky as a mischievous little girl’s hands.

Chagrined, she stiffly said, “It has been a while.” More than a dozen years. “Obviously, there was nothing here for you before.”

Reed’s smile evaporated and Alcina realized he might have taken her wrong. She’d meant herself—that he wouldn’t have come back because of her. Instead, she feared, her words had come out sounding like a criticism of his motives, his father being near death’s door and all.

Reed set his hat back in place. “I think I’d better tend to my family…and let you tend to yours.”

“Family?” she echoed, even as Hope wrenched around in her arms and squealed to be let down. “You mean Hope…oh, no, she’s not mine. This is your brother’s child, Reed. Chance and Pru’s. She’s your niece. Hope, honey, say hello to your uncle Reed.”

Alcina couldn’t help herself. The devil made her do it. She offered the sticky child to the middle Quarrels brother. Reed hesitated only a second before taking her. He certainly didn’t seem squeamish about having a child in his arms, Alcina realized.

The two studied each other for a moment. Hope’s expression became as intent as her uncle’s, and Alcina was struck by a resemblance she hadn’t expected to see.

And for a moment, her stomach fluttered as she imagined Reed holding his own child. Their child.

Nonsense!

She was a little old to have kids. At thirty-seven, her biological clock had almost run out of time. Besides, she had her status as the town spinster to uphold…even if the designation wasn’t exactly accurate.

“So you’re Hope,” Reed said. “I’ve heard about you.”

The little girl seemed as mesmerized by his smooth-whiskey voice as she was, Alcina thought. She clenched her jaw and told herself to stop salivating.

Reed Quarrels had never been attracted to her. He’d preferred spunky little tomboys who sat a horse well and knew all about beeves.

Suddenly shy, Hope turned her face away from Reed’s and shrieked, “M’ma!”

“Mama’s coming, sweetheart!”

Alcina noted that Pru and Chance were headed straight for them, other members of the Quarrels family following—Emmett, and Bart and his kids, Lainey and Daniel. A regular family reunion.

One to which she didn’t belong.

Knowing when she wasn’t needed, Alcina backed off unnoticed as Reed was surrounded. She headed for the house and a bathroom where she could clean up. Josie Walker, the Curly-Q wrangler and Bart’s woman, was coming outside, carrying a big basket of corn bread.

Eyes widening, she asked, “What happened to you?”

“Hope.”

“Ah-h.” Josie nodded in understanding and looked past her. “So what’s the big commotion? Is that who I think it is?”

“It’s Reed.”

“I’m so glad. Bart said he’d show.”

Alcina didn’t miss the inflection in Josie’s voice at Bart’s name—the woman was love struck. They would already be married if it weren’t for his kids, who were still getting over their mother’s tragic death the year before. Alcina admired the couple’s patience. Josie and Bart were doing the right thing, giving the kids time to get used to the relationship.

Josie gave her a pointed look. “So, Reed’s back—why are you hightailing it in the opposite direction?”

Pru had a big mouth, Alcina thought. It was one thing when her best friend teased her about her schoolgirl infatuation. Another when she got other people into the act…though to be fair, Josie was the only one Pru had told. As far as Alcina knew, anyway.

“I said hello,” Alcina said, voice stiff.

“Uh-oh. Doesn’t sound like it went well.”