The Rancher's Christmas Promise. Allison Leigh
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knew from experience there was no point in checking her cell phone for a signal. There were about four points on the thirty-mile stretch where a signal reliably reached, and this spot wasn’t one of them. If a Good Samaritan didn’t happen to stop, she knew the schedules of both the Braden Police Department and the Weaver Sheriff’s Department. Even if her disabled vehicle wasn’t reported by someone passing by, officers from one or the other agency routinely traveled the roadway even on a hot August Saturday. She didn’t expect it would be too long before she had some help.
She popped the trunk a few inches so the heat wouldn’t build up any more than it already had and left the windows down. Then she walked along the shoulder until she reached an outcrop of rock that afforded a little shade from the sun and toed off her shoes, not even caring that she was probably ruining her silk blouse by leaning against the jagged stone.
Sorry, Ali.
* * *
Ryder saw the slender figure in white before he saw the car. It almost made him do a double take, the way sailors did when they spotted a mermaid sunning herself on a rock. A second look reassured him that lack of sleep hadn’t caused him to start hallucinating.
Not yet, anyway.
She was on the opposite side of the road, and there was no place for him to pull his rig around to get to her. So he kept on driving until he reached his original destination—the turnoff to the Diamond-L. As soon as he did, he turned around and pulled back out onto the highway to head back to her.
It was only a matter of fifteen minutes.
The disabled foreign car was still sitting there, like a strange out-of-place insect among the pickup trucks rumbling by every few minutes. He parked behind it, but let his engine idle and kept the air-conditioning on. He propped his arm over the steering column and thumbed back his hat as he studied the woman.
She’d noticed him and was picking her way through the rough weeds back toward her car.
He’d recognized her easily enough.
Greer Templeton. One of the identical triplets who’d turned his life upside down. Starting with the cop, Ali, who’d come to his door five months ago.
It wasn’t entirely their fault.
They weren’t responsible for abandoning Layla. That was his late wife.
Now Layla was going through nannies like there was a revolving door on the nursery. Currently, the role was filled by Tina Lewis. She’d lasted two weeks but was already making dissatisfied noises.
He blew out a breath and checked the road before pushing open his door and getting out of the truck. “Looks like you’ve got a problem.”
“Ryder?”
He spread his hands. “’Fraid so.” Any minute she’d ask about the baby and he wasn’t real sure what he would say.
For nearly five months—ever since Judge Stokes had officially made Layla his responsibility—the Templeton triplets had tiptoed around him. He’d quickly learned how attached they’d become to the baby, caring for her after Daisy dumped her on a “friend’s” porch.
Supposedly, his wife hadn’t been sleeping with that friend but Ryder still had his doubts. DNA might have ruled out Jaxon Swift as Layla’s father, but the man owned Magic Jax, the bar where Daisy had briefly worked as a cocktail waitress before they’d met. He would never understand why she hadn’t just come to him if she’d needed help. He had been her husband, for God’s sake. Not her onetime boss. Unless she’d been more involved with Jax than they all had admitted.
As for the identity of Layla’s real father, everyone had been happy as hell to stop wondering as soon as Ryder gave proof that he and Daisy had been married.
Didn’t mean Ryder hadn’t wondered, though.
But doing a DNA test at this point wouldn’t change anything where he was concerned. It would prove Layla was his by blood. Or it wouldn’t.
Either way, he believed she was his wife’s child.
Which made Layla his responsibility. Period.
The questions about Daisy, though? Every time he looked at Layla, they bubbled up inside him.
For now, though, he focused on Greer.
It was no particular hardship.
The Templeton triplets scored pretty high in the looks department. He could tell Greer apart from her twins because she always looked a little more sophisticated. Maddie—the social worker who’d been Layla’s foster mother—had long hair reaching halfway down her back. Ali—the cop who’d shown up on his doorstep—had blond streaks. And he’d never seen her dressed in anything besides her police uniform.
Greer, though?
Her dark hair barely reached her shoulders and not a single strand was ever out of place. She was a lawyer and dressed the part in skinny skirts with expensive-looking jackets and high heels that looked more big-city than Wyoming dirt. She’d been the one who’d ushered him through all the legalities with the baby. And she was the only one of her sisters who hadn’t been openly crying when they’d brought Layla and all of her stuff out to his ranch to turn her over to his care. But there’d been no denying the emotion in her eyes. She just hadn’t allowed herself the relief of tears.
For some reason, that had seemed worse.
Ryder had been uncomfortable as hell with so much female emotion. Greer’s most of all.
He’d rather have to deal with the general animosity Daisy’s brother clearly felt for him. That, at least, was straightforward and simple. Grant’s sister was dead. Whether he’d voiced it outright or not, he blamed Ryder.
Since Ryder was already shouldering the blame, it didn’t make any difference to him.
Now Greer was shading her eyes with one hand and holding her hair off her neck with the other. Instead of asking about Layla first thing, though, she stopped near the front bumper of her car. “It overheated. I saw steam coming out from the hood and pulled off as soon as I could.”
He joined her in front of the car. He knew the basics when it came to engines—enough to keep the machinery on his ranch running without too much outside help—but he was a lot more comfortable with the anatomy of horses and cows. “How long have you been sitting out here?”
“Too long.” She plucked the front of her blouse away from her throat and glanced at the watch circling her narrow wrist. “I thought someone would stop sooner than this. Ali’ll think I’m deliberately late.”
The only heat from the engine came from the sun glaring down on it. He checked a few of the hoses and looked underneath for signs of leaking coolant, but the ground beneath the car was dry. “Why’s that?”
“We’re throwing a surprise baby shower for Maddie today. I’m supposed to help set up.”
“Didn’t know she was pregnant.” He straightened. It was impossible to miss the sharpness in Greer’s brown eyes.
“Why would you, when you’ve been avoiding all of us since March?”
“Some law that says I needed to do otherwise?” He hadn’t been avoiding them entirely. Just...mostly.
It had been easy, considering he had a ranch to run.
She pursed her bow-shaped lips. “You know my family has a vested interest in Layla. At the very least, you could try accepting an invitation or two when they’re extended.”
“Maybe I’m too busy to accept invitations.” He waited a beat. “I am a single father, you know.”
If he wasn’t mistaken, her eye actually twitched.
She’d always struck him as the one most tightly wound.
It was too bad that he also couldn’t look at her