The Texas Rancher's Marriage. Cathy Gillen Thacker

and kissed him back, melting against him.

      And that was when the polite throat-clearing sounded, followed by rapid footsteps. Breathlessly, Chase and Merri moved apart, only to see Jessalyn and Jeffrey skid to a halt on the shiny linoleum floor.

      Then came the confused, indignant demand, “Mommy! Why are you kissing that man!”

      * * *

      REMINDED THAT ALTHOUGH Chase might secretly be the kids’ biological father, they barely knew who he was—a fact that would quickly have to be rectified—Merri flushed. “We’ll talk about it at home.” She took the children’s hands and told Sally, “Thank you for watching over them.”

      “No problem,” the nursing student replied cheerfully. “And congratulations, you two! Everyone is saying this came out of left field, but the way the doc was kissing you just now? No way!” she proclaimed. She pointed to Merri and Chase before heading off to resume her duties. “That’s definitely the real deal.”

      “Mommy! You didn’t answer my question! Why were you kissing him? Again!” Jessalyn said in annoyance.

      “Because we’re married and married people kiss sometimes. Especially—” Merri elbowed Chase “—when they are trying to make a point.”

      He leaned down to whisper in her ear, “Hey, it worked, didn’t it?”

      To rev her up, maybe. And start more gossip.

      Jeffrey and Jessalyn looked at each other, perplexed. Clearly, they didn’t know what to make of this. “So what now?” Chase asked as he and Merri left the hospital, kids in tow.

      “I still want to go milk the cows,” Jessalyn insisted.

      “Me, too,” Jeffrey chimed in.

      Chase waited for Merri to decide. “Actually, we do have to get back to the ranch,” she said eventually.

      “Hurrah!” Jeffrey and Jessalyn cried in unison.

      “I thought you got rid of the beef cattle years ago.” Chase held open the car door for the kids.

      “I had to. Scott and Sasha went deep into debt to pay for their fertility treatments, and it was the only way to settle the estate so it could get through probate.”

      Chase didn’t look surprised to learn his brother and sister-in-law had gravely mismanaged the ranch. “And you’ve just leased the land since, for crops and grazing?”

      Nodding, Merri leaned in to help Jessalyn fasten her safety harness. “Initially, all I did was allow others to plant alfalfa, hay and corn on the farmable land, and rotate the cattle on other parts, for grazing.”

      Chase did the same for Jeffrey. “And that brought in more than enough to pay the mortgage and the taxes and the upkeep on the property?”

      “As well as a small salary for me.”

      “But…?” he prodded, sensing there was more.

      Merri climbed into the passenger seat. “Eventually, I realized I needed to build something of my own for me and the kids, and take a more active part in the running of the ranch.” She tugged her dress down over her knees. “Which is when I converted the barn on the south part of the property to a milking operation, hired one full-time hand to help me manage it and bought a dozen Jersey cows and a dozen Guernseys.”

      Chase did a double take. “You’re turning the Broken Arrow Ranch into a dairy farm?”

      “Uh, yeah.…I am.”

      His jaw tautened. “You never mentioned it in any of your letters.”

      That’s because I knew you wouldn’t approve. “Hmm. Didn’t I?”

      He made a face.

      “The cows are really cute,” Jessalyn interjected from her booster seat. “Some are brown and white and some are black and white....”

      “I like it when they moo,” Jeffrey declared.

      Chase continued gaping at Merri as if she were a complete and utter fool. She refused to let his skepticism get her down. “It’s a good thing,” she promised, sure about this decision even if she wasn’t so certain about others. Cheerfully, she predicted, “And it will be even better in a few years, when we get the dairy operation expanded to quadruple the size.”

      * * *

      MERRI HADN’T BEEN KIDDING, Chase noted thirty minutes later when all four of them had changed into “ranch clothes,” hopped in the pickup truck and headed for the south side of the Broken Arrow Ranch. Just as she had claimed, there were twenty-four cows pastured outside the big barn. All were big, robust, surprisingly handsome animals. Most were heading slowly for the barn door as the truck approached.

      “The cows like to come in all on their own!” Jessalyn announced.

      “But if they don’t, Mutt—the doggie—will help Slim get the cows inside the barn, so they can get hooked up,” Jeffrey added helpfully.

      “The cows know when it’s time to be milked, so they head for the barn,” Merri explained.

      Chase parked in the gravel area and everyone got out.

      A tall, thin cowboy in his mid-fifties came out of the barn, with a border collie at his heels. The gray-haired hired hand tipped his hat at Merri before glancing at Chase. “I expect you want to have a look around,” he drawled, with the respect due one of the original Armstrongs.

      Did he? Chase wondered.

      Finding out what Merri had been doing to the place was his worst nightmare. He was stunned no one had mentioned it. But maybe they’d figured—rightly so—that it was going to be a sore subject with him.

      Chase tipped his hat back to Slim, a cowboy he recalled meeting at the barbecue in his honor. “May as well,” he grumbled.

      Clasping the children’s hands, Merri led the way inside the sparkling, clean barn.

      Chase was stunned to see twenty-four stalls, and plenty of stainless-steel, state-of-the-art milking equipment with hoses running to a big steel vat.

      Merri murmured with pride, “I joined a co-op dairy that supplies organic milk to a big grocery store chain. Every day a truck comes in and takes it to the processing plant, for ultrahigh-temperature processing and packaging.”

      “I don’t like the truck,” Jessalyn complained, covering her ears. “It’s too noisy.”

      “But we like watching the cows get milked,” Jeffrey said.

      As the bovines were ushered into the stalls, they were hooked up to the milking machines. For all the activity, the barn was surprisingly quiet and peaceful.

      Chase’s cell phone rang.

      He stepped outside to take the call, then walked back in to let Merri know the latest. “That was Liz Cartwright Anderson. She got us on Judge Roy’s docket for tomorrow afternoon at four. We’re the last case the judge is going to hear before the Thanksgiving break.”

      A fact, Chase thought happily, that put them one step closer to his ultimate goal: to have this family officially his.

      Chapter Three

      “You know what I think?” Judge Priscilla Roy said after listening to Chase and Merri’s joint request for guardianship. In her black robe, glasses perched on the edge of her nose, the dark-haired justice cut an imposing figure as she glared at Chase. “None of what is going on here today, or what happened yesterday in the hospital chapel, has anything to do with the kind of unconditional love and commitment needed for a successful marriage, never mind a stable family unit.”

      She was right about that, Merri thought. Their union wasn’t about the feelings she and Chase had for each other.

      “I think you’re just doing this