CHAPTER FOUR

      IN SPITE OF the chilly wind that was swirling dead leaves around his boots, Ben stood jacketless and bareheaded by the pasture fence and stared out at his mustangs. He had enough land to support a herd twice this size, but right now this was as much as he could handle.

      He was waiting for Zach, Jason Littletrees’s cousin, who would teach Ben about the horses and manage the herd.

      Jason had suggested Ben should learn all he could while Zach was on the Riverbend. Zach never stayed in one place too long, so when Zach moved on, Ben would know what to look for in a new ranch manager. Ben hadn’t planned to hire another one. He’d hoped Zach would be a permanent fixture. However he’d called around and learned that Zach was the best at what he did, and that was what Ben wanted. He would deal with a new hire when the time came.

      In the meantime he was brooding about the bombshell Lisa had dropped on him the day before. He’d had twenty-four hours to get used to the idea of being a dad, and he still couldn’t wrap his mind around it. He hunched his shoulders against the cutting breeze and thought back over the conversation they’d had the day before.

      Everything he’d told Lisa was true. He’d never intended to be a father or thought it would be forced on him. On the other hand, Lisa probably hadn’t intended to be a mother, either, at least not right now. He knew he felt reluctant about his impending fatherhood, but he didn’t know how Lisa felt about motherhood. She was adamant about keeping the baby, but he didn’t know how she actually felt about it. He didn’t really know her.

      They’d been friends when they were kids, at least until the infamous jailbreak, after which his parents had refused to let him have anything to do with her. It still made him chuckle to remember that her plan had been for them to make their way to where the Canadian River ran through Oklahoma and follow it to Canada. The Canadian River would have taken them nowhere near Canada, but they’d had no chance to find out because his dad and Sheriff Jepson had tracked them down only a few blocks from the jail.

      His punishment had been to apologize to Mrs. Crabtree, weed her garden all summer and burn the slingshot that had landed him in jail in the first place. He’d been so busy, there’d been no chance of getting into any trouble, or even seeing much of his friends until fall. He obeyed his parents’ orders to avoid Lisa and it had become a habit over the years. Until last December in Chicago.

      He walked along the fence line, favoring his right knee, an old football injury that stiffened up on him in the cold. What did he actually know about Lisa, the woman who was going to be the mother of his child? They had graduated from high school together and he’d gone straight to play for the Sooners. Oh, and got a business degree while he was at it.

      Lisa was smart, near the top of their class, but she’d gone to the community college, taken care of her grandparents on that landfill they’d called a ranch and had become a whiz at real estate, even had her own business. He felt a spark of pride in all she’d done for herself. It was good to know their child wouldn’t lack for ambition.

      What would the kid lack, though? What did a baby need beyond the tangible items like food, clothing, a crib, diapers? He had no idea.

      At the sound of someone pulling into his lane, he turned around to see an older pickup with shining silver paint pulling an ancient Airstream. It was coming his way.

      It must be Zach.

      Ben had offered to let him live in the house, but the horseman had said he would bring his own house with him. Ben knew that itinerant ranch and rodeo workers often had their own motor homes or mobile homes, but he’d never before seen one like this. It was old, but its top-of-the-line pedigree showed in the Airstream’s clean lines and shining silver skin. It had either been well cared for or beautifully restored, and so had the pickup, which he could now see was a 1950s-era Ford F-1 painted silver to match the Airstream.

      Ben knew the rig must get a lot of attention as it rolled down the road.

      Zach deftly pulled his truck to a stop, reversed, and maneuvered his home into place beside the rambling ranch house. The shining truck and trailer only served to make Ben’s place look even worse. Before he could walk over to greet his new employee, he heard another vehicle on the road and glanced back to see three more cars following Zach onto Riverbend Ranch.

      Amazed, Ben saw that all three of them were classic cars, built in the days when Detroit really knew what it was doing—a 1955 turquoise-and-white Chevrolet Bel Air, a 1959 Chevrolet Impala with sparkling black paint and distinctive tail fins, and a root beer–colored 1966 Ford Mustang convertible that made Ben’s heart pound. All three cars were driven by women who stepped out and walked toward Ben, hands outstretched in greeting.

      They were dressed in tight jeans and snug tops that showed off their figures. Ben had been carefully taught by his mother to never ask a woman’s age, but he guessed these three to be well past fifty.

      “Hello. Ben, isn’t it?” the petite, blonds driver of the Mustang said as she took his hand. “I’m Denise Clark, a friend of Zach’s.” She removed the scarf that had been protecting her hair from the wind and turned to wiggle her fingers at Zach, who was walking over to join them.

      “Um, hello. I’m, uh, happy to meet you, Ms. Clark.” Before Ben could say any more, Denise was elbowed aside by the other two women, who Ben could now see were twins. Denise stumbled back and gave them a dark look.

      “Hi,” one of them said. “I’m Ginger Afton, and this is my sister, Cinnamon Vale.”

      Ben nodded. Ginger and Cinnamon? Really? “Uh, welcome to Riverbend Ranch.”

      Zach joined them right then and introduced himself, giving Ben’s hand a bone-shattering shake that reverberated up his arm and rattled his teeth.

      “Glad to meet you, Ben, and glad to be back in the area where I can work with some Choctaw ponies.”

      “He’s been in Arkansas,” Denise breathed, a wistful tone in her voice. “That’s where we met him. In Fayetteville. At a classic car show.”

      That explained the vehicles, if nothing else, Ben thought. “That’s wonderful, ladies.”

      The three sighed in unison as Cinnamon—or was it Ginger?—said, “Happiest day of our lives.”