A Cowboy in Shepherd's Crossing Read online

  From bachelor to daddy...

  Shepherd’s Crossing is full of surprises

  Cowboy bachelor Jace Middleton was ready to leave Shepherd’s Crossing for good—until he learns his family’s unspoken secrets. Now Jace finds himself not only caring for his twin baby nieces, but working with beautiful, strong-willed designer Melonie Fitzgerald to renovate his grandmother’s run-down estate. Love wasn’t part of the plan...but Jace soon finds himself wishing Melonie could become part of his unexpected family.

  “If a man isn’t smart enough to love you for yourself, who needs him?”

  It sounded so right coming from Jace. “So we’re the walking wounded?” Melonie asked.

  “My scars are healed, but I am most assuredly gun-shy,” he said firmly. “Besides, we’ve been busy enough the past couple of years that it didn’t much matter.” He stood and rolled his shoulders, and she tried to pretend he didn’t look absolutely amazing when he did it. “Now with kids to raise, my focus needs to be on them.”

  “Agreed.” She stood, too.

  He stayed right there, looking at her.

  She looked right back.

  “So why is my focus longing to shift, Melonie?” Jace whispered the words, gazing at her. Into her eyes.

  Was his heart slow-tripping like hers? Were his palms growing damp?

  Stop this. You know better. You know your plans. You’re leaving as soon as you’ve secured your inheritance. His life is here. Yours isn’t. And there are two baby girls to consider...

  Multipublished bestselling author Ruth Logan Herne loves God, her country, her family, dogs, chocolate and coffee! Married to a very patient man, she lives in an old farmhouse in upstate New York and thinks possums should leave the cat food alone and snakes should always live outside. There are no exceptions to either rule! Visit Ruth at ruthloganherne.com.

  Books by Ruth Logan Herne

  Love Inspired

  Shepherd’s Crossing

  Her Cowboy Reunion

  A Cowboy in Shepherd’s Crossing

  Grace Haven

  An Unexpected Groom

  Her Unexpected Family

  Their Surprise Daddy

  The Lawman’s Yuletide Baby

  Her Secret Daughter

  Kirkwood Lake

  The Lawman’s Second Chance

  Falling for the Lawman

  The Lawman’s Holiday Wish

  Loving the Lawman

  Her Holiday Family

  Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com for more titles.

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  A COWBOY IN SHEPHERD’S CROSSING

  Ruth Logan Herne

  Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven.

  —Luke 6:37

  This book is dedicated to Christina,

  a wonderful young woman who won my heart

  from the very beginning... Thank you

  for becoming a true “overcomer.” Your story

  is the kind of thing that inspires others

  to do their best. To try harder. To never give up.

  I love you, kid.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Epilogue

  Dear Reader

  Excerpt from Her Cowboy’s Twin Blessings by Patricia Johns

  Chapter One

  The last thing Jace Middleton wanted was to leave the place he loved so well. The place he knew, the town he’d called home for nearly thirty years and the land that beckoned him like a cow calls a calf. But the town had fallen on hard times, and the choices he wanted no longer existed in Shepherd’s Crossing.

  He ran one hand across the nape of his neck as he studied the family farmhouse that had been passed down for three generations. Three generations that ended with him.

  He shoved emotions aside and studied the old house from a builder’s perspective. The faded gray house lacked...everything.

  Not the essentials. The modest one-and-a-half-story home was solidly built, and the mid-twentieth-century addition nearly doubled the first-floor living space, but there was nothing about this house that tempted folks to make an offer anywhere near his asking price. The way Jace saw things playing out, he would be left with two choices.

  Walk away, begin life anew in Sun Valley and let the Realtor handle it. Or fix the place up, except...

  He sighed.

  He couldn’t do it. He was good at tearing apart other folks’ things and putting them back together. The thought made him flex his arms. There was nothing Jace liked better than reconfiguring something old into something new, but every time he went to change something in his parents’ home, he ground to a stop. These were family walls. Family memories. They belonged to him and his younger sister, Justine.

  These walls held all he had left of his parents, Jason and Ivy Middleton. He’d lost one to cancer and the other one to heartbreak, and he couldn’t bring himself to demolish one stinking part of this house, even to increase the resale value. It felt wrong. Plain wrong. But he was slated to begin a new job in Sun Valley by Labor Day, which meant he had a couple of months to get things in order, sell the unsellable house, pay off his sister’s college loans and start fresh. With dwindling jobs, cash and population, there was little left in Shepherd’s Crossing, and things had grown worse over time.

  He needed a fresh start.

  He pretended he didn’t downright hate that thought as a stylish SUV pulled into the nearby intersection. The car started to turn left, then paused.

  It pulled back, onto the main road. Then the driver cranked the wheel in the opposite direction.

  She paused again, looking left, then right, then frowned down at something... A map? A GPS?

  Jace had no idea but every now and again a stormy day messed up satellite signals so he started her way about the same time she banked a sharp left turn and spotted him. She pulled up in front of the house, climbed out and came his way, leaving her car running in the middle of the road. Not pulled off to the edge like normal folks do, but smack-dab in the middle of the road, hogging the northbound lane. Who did things like that?

  Tall, beautiful, well-dressed women who think they own the world, he decided as she crossed the driveway looking way too fine for their humble little town. He’d done a stint with a worldly woman a few years back, and one high-heeled heart-stomping had been more than enough.

  “Your car.” He pointed behind her as she approached. “You might want to move it off the road.”

  “I won’t be long.” Strong. Self-assured. And cucumber-cool. So already annoying. “You’re selling this place?”

  Was she a would-be buyer? If that was the case, she could leave her car wherever she wanted and he’d be crazy polite. “Yes.”

  “What’s the asking price?”

&nbs
p; He told her and she lifted an eyebrow. “How long has it been on the market?”

  Longer than it should have taken, but he wasn’t about to admit that to her. “A few weeks.”

  She waited, watching him, as if she knew he was downscaling the time frame.

  “Six weeks, actually.”

  Her look went from him to the house and back as two cars came down the road. She paid no attention to the cars, or the fact that they needed to get around her car to make it into the intersection. She moved forward, toward the house, then paused. “This is your place?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you want advice?”

  “Not if it requires me changing anything.” It was a stupid answer, and he knew it, but he couldn’t bring himself to pretend.

  “I see.” She gave him a smile that was half-polite and half something that wasn’t one bit polite. “Well, best of luck to you.”

  She crossed back to her car, waited at the road while another car buzzed by, then took her place behind the wheel. He thought she was going to put it in gear and go, but she paused. Looked back at him. “I’m going to Pine Ridge Ranch. Do you know where that is?”

  He shoved his cowboy hat back on his head and choked down a sigh.

  He knew all right. He’d spent the last dozen years working there with his friend Heath Caufield. This must be the middle Fitzgerald sister, come to stake a claim on the ranch. He knew that because her sister Lizzie told him she’d be along soon.

  This sister was different, though. Smoky gray eyes, dark curly hair and skin the color of biscuit-toned porcelain, a current popular choice in kitchens and baths. Lizzie failed to mention that her sister thought herself a cut above, so his work time on the ranch just got a little more tedious than it needed to be. “I’m heading there right now. I’ll take lead. You follow.”

  “Or just tell me how to get there,” she replied in a voice that suggested she wasn’t about to follow anyone anywhere.

  So be it. He did a slow count to five before he let her have it her way. “Two miles up the road, give or take, a left turn into a winding drive that heads deeper into the valley. There’s a mailbox that marks the spot.”

  “Great. Thanks.” She put the car into gear and drove off.

  He got into his worn pickup truck, turned it around and followed her, and when he parked the truck at the ranch about five minutes later, her stylish SUV was nowhere to be seen.

  “Jace, you want to run the baler now that the dew’s burned off? That first cutting of hay looks mighty nice this year.” Heath Caufield came his way and Jace nodded as he shut the truck door.

  “Glad to. Hey, buddy. What’s up?” Jace high-fived Heath’s son when the five-year-old raced over to him—the child seemed unhampered by the neon-green cast on his right forearm.

  “We’re having another baby horse, and a wedding!” shrieked Zeke. He barreled into Jace’s arms and gave him a big hug. “And you’re goin’ to be with Daddy when he gets married and then my Lizzie gets to be my mom like every...single...day.” He paused between words to magnify their importance, and Jace understood real well how nice it was to have a mom. And how much you missed them once they were gone.

  “Zeke.” Heath made a face at the boy. “I’m supposed to ask Jace to stand up with me at the wedding. Not boss him around.”

  Zeke put his little hands over his face and giggled. “Oops. Sorry! Hey, somebody’s coming, Dad!” He pointed up the hill as the white SUV made its way into the valley. Dust rose from the graveled drive, blanketing the car, and when it finally made its way into the barnyard, the sleek white paint wore a film of fine Idaho dirt.

  The door opened. The woman got out, and waited for the dust to clear. When it did, she spotted Jace right off. “You beat me here.”

  He may have smirked slightly. “The turnoff could be better marked, I suppose.”

  Her eyes narrowed, but then she spotted Heath.

  She smiled then, and Jace was pretty sure it was about the prettiest smile he’d ever seen. Fitzgerald eyes, about the only thing she had in common with her uncle Sean and her sister Lizzie.

  “Melonie?” Heath started forward. “Gosh, it’s great to see you. Lizzie will be over the moon that you’re here. And this big guy—” Heath set his hand on the five-year-old’s head “—is my son, Zeke.”

  “We’ve met over the computer.” Lizzie’s sister bent to the boy’s level and offered him a sweet smile. “But you’re even more handsome in real life, Zeke Caufield.”

  Zeke grinned, clearly charmed in less time than a foolish man takes to ride a rodeo bull. Heath clapped the boy on the back and laughed. “Lizzie’s at the horse stables, but she’ll be right along. How are you?” he asked as the woman stepped forward and gave him a hug.

  “Ask me in twelve months when I can take my career off hold,” she told him. She lifted her eyebrows toward the beautiful horse stables just west of the graveled parking area. “If I live that long. You know me and horses—we learned the hard way to stay clear of one another and that’s not about to change. Sakes alive, Heath.” She gazed around and her eyes softened with appreciation. Her voice drawled now, a nod to the woman’s Southern roots. Funny there was no trace of that drawl when she’d stopped at Jace’s place. “This has got to be the back door to nowhere, isn’t it? And yet... It’s real pretty in its own Western way.”

  Back door to nowhere?

  Jace hung back, purposely.

  He knew her kind, all right. The sort that kept themselves separate, disparaging the dawn-to-dusk hard work on a spread like this. The kind of woman that found down-home ranching beneath them. His family had helped settle this town. They’d built homes, dug wells and arranged for schooling and libraries, and they’d done it all expecting nothing in return except a chance to grow a town worth living in, so he not only respected the work that went into this town. He admired it.

  “Jace.” Heath motioned him over and it would be rude to stand still. Rude...but tempting, nonetheless. He rebuffed the temptation and crossed between the vehicles. “Jace, this is Lizzie’s sister, Melonie. Mel, this is my friend and right-hand man, Jace Middleton.”

  “Mr. Middleton.” She drawled his name out with all the pomp of a modern day Scarlett O’Hara and if that didn’t spell trouble with a capital T, then nothing did. “It is a pleasure to make your official acquaintance.”

  “Mine, too, ma’am.” He extended his hand. She met his gaze, straight on, then took his hand. The strength of her grip surprised him but he refused to show it. “Glad you found your way. Eventually.”

  “As am I.” He was pretty sure the Southern drawl was all for his benefit because it disappeared when Lizzie came running across the grass from the stables.

  “Melonie!”

  “Lizzie!” They hugged and laughed and at that moment he couldn’t resent her because he knew what it was like to have family love.

  You knew it, you mean.

  He choked down a sigh. He started for the baler, wishing things were different. He wished the town’s economy hadn’t started to nose-dive two decades back when no one bothered looking. Wished he wasn’t the last Middleton in a town built by Middletons.

  But he was, and there were no two ways about it. Jace was going to do the one thing he hated to do. He was going to leave Shepherd’s Crossing and all his family had built over the years. Built...and lost.

  He yanked his cowboy hat onto his head and fired up the baler. He’d longed for a chance to set things right, to make a name for himself in his hometown, but that wasn’t about to happen now.

  So be it.

  He’d do whatever it took to help his kid sister, Justine, get the start she deserved, and to make his way in the world. Even if it meant changing up the old house. He pushed the thoughts aside as he maneuvered the big machine out of the equipment barn to gas it up.

  Lizzie’s sister looked
up. Not at him, but beyond him. Something marked her gaze. Something shadowed and maybe even sad as her eyes swept over the beautiful ranch with a long, slow look. A look that indicated she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. She righted her features before she turned back toward Lizzie, but then she saw him looking her way.

  Her gaze narrowed. Her mouth did, too. But the face she showed Lizzie two seconds later was warm and genuine.

  Only it wasn’t, and right now Jace Middleton was pretty sure only he and Melonie Fitzgerald knew that.

  * * *

  Sparse population, drastically cold winters and a herd of horses probably waiting to trample her senseless.

  What on earth was Melonie Fitzgerald doing in western Idaho, when she’d been on the verge of contracting her own home-design TV show?

  She knew the answer. Her father. He was a major publishing owner/executive who’d brought down his company, his home and his three daughters when he diverted millions in cold, hard cash into overseas accounts...then followed it there.

  She didn’t do ranches. She steered clear of horses for good reason. And when her long-term boyfriend realized she was not only broke, but also in a mountain of debt, he’d dumped her like a hot potato fresh out of the coals.

  Yet here she was, fulfilling the terms of a bequest on her late uncle’s ranch when she should have been on camera, filming the pilot episode of Shoestring Southern Charm.

  Girl, you make the best of every situation. If it gets dark, you light a candle. If it gets cold, start a fire, or warm a room with your smile. A smile goes a lot further than a frown.

  Corrie’s words. Succinct and true, always dependable. She turned to ask Lizzie about their nanny/surrogate mother, but caught the cowboy’s gaze instead.

  He was hot. Not big-city hot, either. Country hot, with his long-sleeved blue thermal shirt, dark blue jeans and a to-die-for real cowboy hat. The black hat showed off his bronze skin and made him look even more rugged, if such a thing was possible.

  He’d duped her over the directions.