A Family for the Rugged Rancher

A tower of a man came around the corner. He topped Luke by a good three inches, and Luke had to be close to six feet. Instead of Luke’s uniform of jeans and T-shirts, this man wore dress trousers and a shirt and tie, and he carried a box cradled under one arm. Short-cropped walnut-brown hair and warm brown eyes assessed her. “You must be the new housekeeper,” he said, but he smiled, making the to-the-point introduction friendly rather than brusque. “I’m Joe. Luke’s brother-in-law.”

This was Cait’s husband, Emily remembered. The one who worked at the equipment dealership. “The new dad,” she replied, holding out her hand. “Congratulations. I’m Emily Northcott.”

His dark eyes were warm and friendly as he took her hand. “My wife is very glad you’re here at last. She was worried about her big brother managing everything.” He inclined his chin for a moment. “It smells good in here.”

She withdrew her hand from his, feeling unease center in her belly. When she’d met Luke and shaken his hand, there’d been a queer fluttering and the heat of his skin against hers. With Joe there was none of that. It shouldn’t have been different. Luke wasn’t any different. He was just a guy.

If that were true, why had she felt the curl of anticipation when the screen door had slammed?

Now his brother-in-law was here and she was feeling that she should play host. “There’s coffee and warm cookies, if you’d like some,” she invited.

“I wouldn’t say no.” He put the box on the floor by the door. “Cait in the hospital means cooking for myself right now. If you think Luke’s bad in the kitchen…I think I can burn water. Cait got her mother’s cooking skills, thank God.”

Joe followed her into the kitchen and stopped at the sight of Sam at the table. “Your son?” he asked.

“Yes, this is Sam. Sam, this is Mr. Evans’s brother-in-law, Joe.”

“You’re not a cowboy like Luke,” Sam stated, taking the last half of his cookie and dunking it in his milk. Crumbs floated on the top of the creamy surface.

Joe looked down at himself and back up. “No, I guess you’re right! I work at the tractor dealership in town.”

“I could tell by your clothes.”

Joe laughed while Emily resisted the compulsion to curb Sam’s matter-of-fact observations.

“Believe it or not, Sam, I’ve done a fair share of farm jobs. Not like Luke, of course.” Joe looked at Emily and winked. It was clear that Luke had already made a solid impression on her son. “But I’ve been known to lend a hand now and again.”

“Luke has a four-wheeler and a tractor and horses. I haven’t seen them yet, though. Not up close.”

Sam’s dark eyes were wide with honest disappointment. Emily hadn’t realized that Sam had noticed all those things in addition to the horses. She wondered if she could convince Luke to take him for a ride on the quad or tractor one of these days.

She handed Joe a mug of coffee and put the cream and sugar in front of him as he sat at the table. “Is your wife coming home from the hospital soon?” She offered him a cookie.

“Maybe this afternoon.”

“You must be excited.”

His eyes gleamed. “We are. We’ve been waiting a long time for Janna to arrive. Cait has been worried about Luke, though. The ad for the housekeeper didn’t get results and Cait is a mother hen. It’s one less thing for her to worry about. And then I won’t have to worry about her.”

It was clear to Emily by the way Joe spoke, from the gleam in his eyes, that he loved his wife very much. It was beautiful but caused a sad pang inside her. She’d thought she had that once. Had Rob ever looked at her that way? She’d thought so. Now she wondered if her radar had been flawed all along. She wasn’t sure she could ever trust her judgment again.

“Look what the cat dragged in.”

Luke stood in the doorway of the kitchen, his hat in his hands and a smile of pure pleasure on his face. “How’s the new father?”

“Anxious to get my family home.”

“Mom and baby?” Luke stepped inside the kitchen and Emily felt the disconcerting swoop again, the one that felt like riding the roller coaster at Calaway Park. Trouble.

“Home this afternoon, I hope. I brought your parts out that you asked for. Have a cookie, Luke. They’re mighty good. I get the feeling you lucked out with your housekeeper.”

“I could have come in and picked them up.” Luke angled Joe a telling look. “Unless Cait sent you out here to do a little recon.”

Joe didn’t even look away, just smiled crookedly at Luke. “I’m not in a position to say no to that woman at the moment,” he replied. “And even if I tried, she’d remind me about the twelve hours of labor she just had to endure.”

Luke took a cookie from the plate and met Emily’s eyes across the kitchen. It was as if an electric wire sizzled between them, and she held her breath. Last night he’d come close to kissing her. At the time she’d put it down to her own fanciful thinking in the moonlight, but she was sure of it now. With his blue gaze flashing at her, she knew she’d been right.

He bit into the cookie and a few crumbs fluttered to the floor. She watched, fascinated, as his lips closed around the sweet and his tongue snuck out to lick away the bits that clung to his bottom lip.