Buch lesen: «The Texas Rancher's New Family»

Chapter One

“Just one—no, two.” Tess Buckton ogled the covered dish of Lolly’s Diner’s decadent blondies, fighting the urge to buy all of them. After flying halfway around the world in the last thirty hours, she could easily eat the whole plate without stopping. Not that she would, but she could. “Okay, three. But no more.”

“They that good?”

Tess’s jet-lagged brain struggled to distinguish the Texas surroundings she stood in now from the Australian settings she’d left behind. It took a few seconds to recognize that the Aussie accent she’d grown so used to hearing didn’t belong in her hometown of Martins Gap, Texas. She turned to see a tall, tanned cowboy, one eyebrow raised in question as a smirk turned up one corner of his mouth.

“Yeah,” she said, “they are. I just got back into town and I’ve been dreaming of these since I got on the plane thirty hours ago. I’ve been in Adelaide, actually.”

His eyes widened at the mention of the Australian city. “From near Alice Springs, up in Northern Territory, myself. Not that you could tell from the accent, I’m sure.” His smirk spread into a full-blown and rather disarming smile.

Her brother Luke had mentioned this guy in an email. There had been talk of the well-known Australian horse trainer looking at the property abutting her family’s ranch. According to Luke, some said he was renting it for the season, others speculated he was planning to buy the land at the end of the summer. “I’m guessing your last name is Pine,” she offered.

The man put one hand on his chest. “Guilty as charged.”

One of the famous Pine brothers. Only, which one? She looked at him, trying to draw the face of either of the TV celebrity siblings up from her sleep-deprived memory. It wasn’t like she’d ever really followed the show, but it was famous enough that ads for it were pretty much impossible to avoid.

“I’m the other one,” he said, tipping up his hat.

She laughed as she accepted the bag of three blondies from Lolly and immediately reached into the bag for one.

“That would make me Cooper,” he explained. She nodded as she bit into the confection, glad not to have to admit she could only remember Hunter Pine’s name in her present state. He cocked his head toward the other four blondies still remaining on the covered plate. “There’s a little lady at my house with a birthday tomorrow. Should I buy the rest?”

Luke hadn’t mentioned that the man had a wife in his last email. Only that the rumors had been true and one of the famous Pine brothers had indeed showed up and moved into the vacant ranch house—but for how long? Her brother was wondering about the answer to that question, and so was she. A tiny town like Martins Gap wasn’t really the kind of place she expected someone of Pine’s notoriety to put down roots.

“Yes,” she answered him, “I’d stick a candle in any one of these.” Tess sent an appreciative smile Lolly’s way. Lolly’s blondies were the ultimate comfort food for her, and she could use a whopping dose of comfort these days. “They’re as good as I remember.”

“Of course they are, Tess, honey,” Lolly replied.

“Tess? Tess Buckton?”

“That’s me.” Gran would scold her for forgetting to introduce herself, but Gran hadn’t been up for thirty hours and multiple time zones.

“We’re neighbors,” Cooper said as he pointed to the remaining blondies and then held up four fingers to Lolly. “I’m renting the Larkey place for the season. Beaut land.”

“Wish I could say as much for the previous owner,” Tess replied the moment her mouth wasn’t full of gooey white chocolate and caramel. The cowboy’s charming but clearly amused smile made her wonder just how much powdered sugar was all over her blondie-craving face. Tess wiped the last of the powdered sugar off her fingers against her jeans and shook Cooper’s huge tanned hand. “Pleased to meet you.”

“I keep hearing things that tell me this Larkey bloke wasn’t pleased to meet anyone. But I hear good things about Bucktons. I should have known you were part of the clan. The eyes and all.”

Most Martins Gap residents knew the Buckton family for the bright turquoise color of their eyes, but she didn’t really expect the reputation to extend to seasonal renters of foreclosed properties. “So you’re here for the summer?”

“Yeah. Layin’ low a bit.”

Tess looked at the delicious square in her hand and debated whether downing an entire blondie in front of a complete stranger would constitute the best first impression.

Her expression must have been a dead giveaway, for Cooper nodded toward the blondie and said, “Go ’head. Don’t lemme stop ya.”

She did. She wanted to eat all three in rapid succession, even knowing that would make her nearly ill by the end of it. Lolly’s blondies. She’d been craving them every day since she’d booked her flight. Now she could eat them every day for as long as she was here—which might be a while. She took another bite as Lolly handed her the change from her purchase. As the woman lifted the lid on the cake plate to remove the remaining four, Cooper snatched one and took a healthy bite.

“Oh,” he said from behind a mouthful. “I see your point. These will definitely make her day.”

Lolly beamed but she didn’t exactly look surprised. And why should she? Tess couldn’t recall a single person who didn’t love Lolly’s blondies. If Martins Gap had an official dessert, this was it. Even Gran—who was famous for her own brownies—admitted that Lolly topped her efforts.

“So, you’re just staying for the summer?” Tess asked as she put her wallet back in her handbag. She wasn’t usually the type to fish for gossip but his comment had practically handed the opening to her. And she had to admit, she was curious.

Cooper smiled, pointing to his mouth now full of a second massive bite of blondie. Tess waited for him to finish but, even though he’d talked right through his last bite, he never offered an answer, just a dramatic “Mmm-mmm” as he paid Lolly. As if he’d never heard her question.

He finished the transaction, tipped his hat with a dashing wink at both Lolly and Tess, and headed out the door...

And practically headlong into Luke, who had gone to visit his fiancée’s physical therapy practice in town while Tess got her blondie fix. The frost between the two men could be felt even from this distance. No words passed between them as Cooper walked away.

“You ready to head to the ranch?” Luke asked, still staring at the doorway Cooper had exited. “Gran’ll be waiting.”

Gran. Tess swallowed the conflicting feelings that rose around the prospect of seeing her grandmother again. So much in her life had changed in the sixteen months since her last visit and she was crawling home in a defeat no one yet knew had come. On the one hand, Tess yearned to spend time with the wise, tenderhearted woman who had raised her after her mother’s death. Next to Luke, Tess had felt closest to Gran when their mother’s death had turned her eleven-year-old world upside down.

It was Gran and Luke who had been her anchors in the nine years her father had lived after that, nine years her father hadn’t made pleasant for any of the four Buckton children. Dad was the reason all of them had left the ranch and Gran was the reason each of her siblings had returned, one by one, in the past few years.

But Gran could always read her almost as well as Luke could. Which meant one of them was bound to figure out what had happened and why she was back. She could hope to keep the events of recent months from one of them for at least a little while, but both of them? She didn’t stand a chance.

You knew that when you chose to come home, she told herself. Not that there had been all that much choice to it. What was the saying? Something about how home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in. And she’d had nowhere else to turn.

“Tess?” Luke peered at her, thrusting his face into her vision, snapping her thoughts away from halfway around the world to another time and place. “You hungry or something? I mean, hungrier for more than blondies?” After a second, when she didn’t answer, he added, “You okay?”

“I’ve been up for thirty hours, that’s all. I didn’t conk out on the plane like I usually do.” As well traveled as she was for her job as a freelance photographer, Tess usually made excellent use of red-eye flights. Only these days Tess didn’t sleep well no matter where she lay her head—and that had nothing to do with jumping the international date line.

“All the more reason to get you home so Gran can fuss over you. Catch you later, Lolly.” Luke gave a wink—as much of a showman’s wink as the one Cooper Pine had given—to the woman behind the counter and plucked the bag from Tess’s hands as they headed for the door. “You got one for me, didn’t you?”

“Would it matter if I didn’t?”

He pulled open the bag. “Only two cleaned Lolly out?”

“No, I got three, but Cooper Pine cleaned her out of the other four.”

“Cooper Pine,” Luke muttered behind a mouthful of blondie. Her brother spoke the name with a distinct lack of Texan hospitality. Which was amusing, because from what she’d heard of the Pine brothers, Cooper and Luke had loads of attention-grabbing showmanship in common. “I hoped he was only vacationing, but I told you rumor has it he’s thinking about buying the place.”

“I tried to ask him about that, but he didn’t answer. Deliberately dodged the question, I’d say.”

Luke grunted. “Why’d the bank rent to him anyway? Don’t foreclosures usually sit empty? The last thing we need is to look down our drive and see a line of Pineys camped out in front of his gate.”

Fans of the horse training program known as the Pine Method—“Pineys,” they liked to call themselves—existed in Australia and Texas, and probably every other city the brothers visited on their popular, televised training tours. Their methods often achieved amazing results, but that was only half the reason for their celebrity. The way Tess saw it, the brothers’ stunning good looks, their dynamic personalities and the sheer relentlessness of their marketing had done the rest. Pineys were mostly female and it wasn’t hard to see why.

Having grown up on a ranch, Tess had as much appreciation of an attractive man who looked at home on horseback as the next girl. But that didn’t mean she was ready to get caught up in the hype. Tess didn’t own a horse, and even if she did, she wasn’t sure she would count herself among the Piney ranks. Their expensive videos, weekly television series, multiple books and vast selection of Pine Method merchandising struck her as a bit over the top.

“Did you tell him you’d just come from Australia?” Luke asked, driving with one hand while he polished off the blondie with the other.

“I did.”

“Did he go all ‘G’day’ and ‘Down Under’ on you, dialing up that fake charm? Honestly, he acts like he thinks we’ve never seen an Aussie before.”

Luke was a fine one to talk about being an overbearing flirt. Before the rodeo accident that ended his bull-riding career, Tess would have clocked Luke in as possessing more ego than both Pine brothers combined. “I think he’s married. Did you know that?”

That seemed to surprise her brother. “I didn’t. Wouldn’t surprise me, though—the ladies seem to go for him, and he must pull in a pretty paycheck. I haven’t seen her. Now that I think of it, I barely see him.”

“And yet you’re sure he goes all Aussie on everyone.” This was a case of the pot calling the kettle black. Or at least, it would have been before—for the old Luke. She was rather impressed with the person her twin brother was becoming lately. Luke—formerly a confirmed and rowdy bachelor who couldn’t imagine any life outside of the razzle-dazzle of the rodeo circuit—had settled comfortably back in their hometown and was getting married to his high school sweetheart. This was not only good news, but offered Tess a convenient excuse to come home from halfway around the world.

“Have you ever met an Aussie before Cooper Pine?”

Luke grunted. “’Course I have. A few were on the bull riders tour. Dated a few sheilas, too.”

Tess knew enough Aussie slang to find the term for females ridiculous in Luke’s Texan drawl. “More than a few, I imagine. All of that being over now, of course.”

“Of course.”

“Because Ruby knows how to make you pay if you get too friendly with any of those Pineys who might be lining up near home.”

“Ugh, what an awful thought. Not Ruby—but a bunch of screaming fan girls scaring the herd. No one wants him and his crazy brother to put up a Buy Your Show Tickets Here billboard.” Luke pulled onto the road that led up toward the Blue Thorn Ranch. The familiar scenery began the slow, peaceful seep into Tess’s soul. The house with its sprawling front porch. The barn. The green of the pastures with the ever-growing herd of bison silhouetted against the blue of the sky. Home. For now or for good? I’m still too hurt to know that yet.

“Still, anyone’s got to be an improvement over Larkey, right?” The ranch’s former owner had caused serious trouble for their oldest brother, Gunner Jr., as the Bucktons had fought to keep the Blue Thorn Ranch from the clutches of a shady land developer awhile back.

“You’d think,” Luke replied. “Can’t say as I’m sure yet. For a brother act like the Pines, we’ve only seen Cooper. Hunter hasn’t shown up yet—so I’m taking that as a good sign.” Hunter was the dominant brother of the pair, if the advertising was to be believed.

Of course, the advertising also made both brothers look very single and available. They presented themselves as rugged bachelors, which made the information about Cooper’s “little lady” a surprise. Was the omission privacy or just careful marketing?

“He seems nice enough.”

Luke glared. “You been here, what—all of an hour? And you’ve decided our closemouthed new neighbor is ‘nice enough’?”

Tess put the snarky remark down to soon-to-be-groom stress and hauled herself out of the pickup to take in the glorious sunshine that only the Blue Thorn Ranch could offer. For better or worse, she was home.

* * *

Cooper placed the bakery bag down on the kitchen counter. “Glenno,” he called to the longtime employee who had managed his house no matter where he lived, “what time is it in Alice Springs?”

“Seven tomorrow morning,” came Glenno’s voice from inside the pantry. The kitchen of this place was large but outdated. Cooper made a mental note to himself that he was going to have to push out the back wall to make a dining room big enough for his plans.

Plans he’d have to reveal sooner or later. He could do it now, while his brother Hunter was back home taping a special Outback segment before their next set of Pine Method tour dates. Sure, it’d be the coward’s way out to tell Hunter his plans while the man was halfway around the world, but he’d chickened out all the other times Hunter had been close by. He knew he needed to get it over with...but Sophie’s birthday was tomorrow and he had no desire to spoil the celebration by igniting that particular bomb today. Or was he just making excuses for himself again?

“Hunter’s up,” Glenno said as he came out of the pantry with a bag of onions, “if that’s what you’re thinking.” The man had always been so much more than just a cook or house manager—he was a wise part of the family. He was also the only other person who knew Cooper’s plan. For the hundredth time since renting the ranch, Cooper wondered how long it should stay that way.

“He called half an hour ago,” Glenno added. He smiled as if that were a trivial detail, as if the strain between Hunter and Cooper was simply a ripple on a much larger pond. For a man continually dragged around the world in the wake of his famous employer, Glenno was the happiest man Cooper knew. “At home in his own skin everywhere,” Hunter used to say.

The call wasn’t a trivial detail, because his brother was never known to be an early riser. The early hour either meant Hunter was losing his famous immunity to jet lag, or he was itching to share some new business plan for the Pine Brothers’ franchise. Given Hunter’s nonstop drive, it wasn’t hard to guess which.

Cooper shared neither his brother’s drive, nor his travel immunity. He’d skipped this latest jaunt back Down Under on the half-truthful premise of wanting a between-season break, but it was really more than that. He needed time to think about how to dismount the constant media carousel that had been his life for the past few years.

How do you tell your brother you still want to be brothers but not part of the Pine Brothers?

You don’t. Or, at least, you drag your feet on doing so. Heaps. “Why didn’t Hunter call my cell?”

“He did,” Glenno answered wearily. “Only, since it was sitting on your desk, it wasn’t much help.”

Despite owing much of his success to the technology that allowed the media to promote him around the clock, Cooper hated cell phones. If he had his way, he’d never carry one. He hated how the thing took up all the space in his pocket and assumed he’d pay it nonstop attention. There was a time a man could be alone with his thoughts in the world, not feel compelled to type them continuously into cyberspace with itty-bitty keys or even just pictures of keys.

Hunter, of course, owned a smartphone, two tablets and one of those new watch gizmos to boot. The man had been known to post videos of his lunch to social media. Even if Hunter was in the remotest quarter of the Outback, he was never off the grid and never off the stage.

Cooper ignored Glenno’s long-suffering look, pointing instead to the white paper bag. “A new recipe for you to figure out. But save one for Sophie to have tomorrow—those things are delicious.” Glenno, aside from being a great cook, was also somewhat of a gastronomic sleuth, forever attempting to recreate sauces, dishes and foods he found in restaurants or shops. If Glenno’s track record could be trusted, Cooper and Sophie could have an unending supply of Lolly-like blondies whenever they wanted them by the end of the week, if not for tomorrow’s birthday.

Then, casually, Cooper added, “I met another of our neighbors today.”

Glenno began inspecting one of the blondies with a scientific squint. “More Bucktons?”

“Yes. At least this one’s pretty.”

Glenno smirked. “So not Luke or Gunner.” He broke off a corner of the treat and tasted it. After a moment’s savoring, he gave an approving nod. “Very good. Who’d you meet?”

“Tess. I’d heard Luke had a twin, but I always assumed it was another bloke. This sister just blew into town—from Adelaide, believe it or not. Why didn’t anyone tell me one of the Bucktons was there lately?”

Glenno broke off another piece. “Because they don’t talk to you. Because you don’t talk to them. Because they’re afraid this ranch is about to become another stop on the tour and you don’t tell them otherwise.” He set the confection down. “You can’t start if you don’t start.”

Another Glenno-ism. The man had an unending collection of wise sayings that didn’t quite make sense. Hunter called him the Aussie Yogi Berra—something Glenno took as a compliment. “I just have to find a way to tell Hunter first. Word might spread, and I don’t want him to hear it from anyone but me.”

Glenno took a piece of the blondie, sniffed it then squished it between his fingers, testing the texture. “You keep waiting for the perfect time to tell your brother unwelcome news. The longer you wait, the worse the news gets.”

“Not if I tell him the right way.” But Cooper knew his voice lacked conviction. They’d had this conversation a dozen times already.

Glenno shook his head. “Even if you tell him the perfect way.” He looked at Cooper. “You want to do this thing, dontcha?”

From the moment his plan arrived in his head, seemingly straight from God Himself, Cooper had never wanted to do anything more than the plan he was waiting to launch right now. “Of course.”

“And you know Hunter won’t approve.”

“I think that’s pretty much certain, don’t you?”

Glenno nodded once. “Two facts that won’t change no matter how much time you let them sit. But the sooner you tell him, the sooner you two can start working past this. He is your brother, mate. Give him some credit for wanting you to be happy—once he has a chance to get used to the idea.”

Cooper poured himself a cup of coffee. “Credit? Remember what’s going on here. I’m breaking up the act. Hunter’s going to take that like a stab in the heart. He won’t just say ‘goodonya’ and move on like it’s just a minor ding. I’m denting—maybe even sinking—the Pine Brothers’ brand. The unforgivable sin. I doubt he’ll ever speak to me again after I tell him.”

“And yet you keep saying you’re tired of Hunter deciding your future.”

“Daddy! You’re back!” Cooper heard the welcome sound of his very nearly six-year-old daughter coming down the hallway toward the kitchen. “I need your help.” He turned to see Sophie’s face scrunched up beneath two wild peaks of strawberry-blond curls. “I can’t do it. You hafta.” She leaned her crutches up against the kitchen counter and slid onto the seat next to him, catching sight of the white bag as she did. “What’s in there?”

Break out early birthday blondies? Or make another sad attempt at Daddy pigtails? It wasn’t a hard decision. “Special six-year-old birthday goodies that were supposed to be for tomorrow. But they can arrive a day early for anyone having pigtail troubles.”

She grinned up at her father. “That’s me.”

“They’re called blondies, and a lady in town said they were her absolute favorite. I knew right then I needed some for my little lady on her birthday.” Glenno produced a plate, and Cooper slid one of the goodies onto it and in front of Sophie. “I’ve barely mastered the ponytail, sunshine, and now you want two?”

“And braids.”

Cooper laughed. “I’m pretty sure braids are beyond me.”

“Oh, Daddy,” Sophie said after a hearty “Mmm” to go with her first bite of the confection, “nothin’s too hard for you. Not even French braids.”

Cooper looked at Glenno. “What’s a French braid?”

Glenno smirked. “Harder than a regular braid, I expect.”

Sophie unleashed her hair from the uneven tangles and placed the glittery holders on the counter in front of Cooper. “I want to wear pigtails on my birthday tomorrow. Can’t you try? Please?”

Cooper had watched his fair share of how-to videos just to master the ponytail—an irony not lost on a horse trainer. Still, all those curls atop a wiggly five-year-old, combined with the challenge of maneuvering those impossibly tiny elastics, made two pigtails feel nearly impossible. Still, this was Sophie. How could he say no?

“I’ll look it up tonight and we’ll give it a whirl tomorrow.” He thought about Tess Buckton, the pretty neighbor he’d just met. She had long hair. Maybe he could override his “keep to yourself” rule in the name of birthday hair.

Then he remembered Luke Buckton’s none-too-neighborly glare as he’d left the bakery.

Maybe not.