Renegade Father. RaeAnne Thayne

      “I’m sorry, Annie. I didn’t think the kids would take it this hard.”

      “They love you,” she said simply. “You’ve always been decent and kind to them. Lord knows, they got little enough of that from their…from Charlie.”

      “I hate like hell that I’m putting them through this.”

      “They’ll live. People get over all kinds of things.”

      Have you? He wanted to ask, but didn’t. He carried a pile of plates to the sink, wishing things were different. That he didn’t have to leave. That these were his dishes, that this was his kitchen.

      That she was his woman.

      Renegade Father

      RaeAnne Thayne

      

www.millsandboon.co.uk

      RAEANNE THAYNE

      lives in a crumbling old Victorian in northern Utah with her husband and two young children. She loves being able to write surrounded by rugged mountains and real cowboys.

      Contents

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

      Chapter 4

      Chapter 5

      Chapter 6

      Chapter 7

      Chapter 8

      Chapter 9

      Chapter 10

      Chapter 11

      Chapter 12

      Chapter 13

      Chapter 14

      Chapter 15

      Chapter 16

      Chapter 17

      Chapter 18

      Chapter 1

      Elbow-deep in blood and muck, Annie Calhoun Redhawk jerked her attention from the heifer she was helping through its first labor and stared at her foreman. Her insides suddenly felt as if the little Hereford had just shoved all four hooves hard into her gut.

      “What do you mean, you’re taking a job in Wyoming? You can’t do that!”

      Hay rustled under his boots as Joe Redhawk—her ex-husband’s brother, and once her closest friend in the world—shifted his weight. He refused to meet her gaze. Instead, those hard black eyes focused on some distant point above her head in the barn rafters. “I’ve already done it. I just accepted Norm Waterson’s offer. Told him I could start April first.”

      Less than two months! How could she possibly find somebody to replace Joe in just two months?

      She couldn’t, she realized with grim certainty, even if she had a year or more to look. He was the best cattleman in Montana—the best she’d ever known. He had unerring instincts when it came to the stock, knew just which animals to breed for the best genes, knew exactly the right feed ratios for the highest yield, knew when the weather was going to change days before it happened.

      In the last eighteen months, he had singlehandedly yanked the Double C almost completely back into the black after the mess she had made of things.

      “But…I don’t understand. You didn’t say a word about this yesterday when we went to Ennis!”

      Still, he refused to meet her gaze. “I just made the decision this morning.”

      How would she possibly survive without him? Greasy fear churned in her stomach at just the idea. He had been more than her foreman. He had been her rock for as long as she could remember, the one safe, constant shelter in an ugly world.

      “You can’t leave, Joe. I—I need you.” Before she could yank them back, the words she had vowed never to say to him scurried out between them like beady-eyed little barn mice.

      If anything, his rough-hewn features became even more remote, his dark eyes more shuttered. “You don’t need me, Annie. Not anymore. The ranch is prospering, the kids are okay. You’re doing well. I told you I’d stay until you were back on your feet and I have. You’re all fine now and it’s time for me to move on.”

      As if to echo Annie’s own turmoil, the heifer bawled suddenly—a high, frightened sound—and her eyes rolled back into their sockets as she strained and pushed.

      “She still having a tough time?” Joe asked.

      Annie turned her attention back to the animal, swallowing down the familiar feelings of betrayal and fear. Later she would have time to give in to them, but right now she had a calf to deliver.

      “Yes,” she answered, her voice clipped. “She’s been at it most of the day but doesn’t seem to be making much progress. The calf’s twisted around in there pretty good. Think I’m going to have to pull it.”

      “Mind if I have a look?”

      Without waiting for an answer, he removed the black Stetson he always wore and shrugged out of the thickly lined denim coat protecting him against the bitter weather outside. He hung both on a nail outside the stall and entered the small enclosure, rolling up the sleeves of his soft tan chamois work shirt.

      As soon as he stepped inside, the bare wooden half walls seemed to close in around her. For an instant, she had a churlish urge to refuse his help. If he had his mind set on leaving, she’d have to get used to doing things on her own. Might as well start now, right?

      But the heifer was in misery and needed help immediately or the calf would likely die. She couldn’t let her suffer, not when Joe might be able to help. Knowing she had no choice, Annie stepped aside.

      “Looks like you’re right,” he said after a few moments, his arm up to the shoulder inside the heifer. “I can feel the back legs right here. Let me try to turn it.”

      Muscles bulged under the fabric of his shirt as he worked one-handed to try maneuvering what she knew from past experience would be a slick and uncooperative calf.

      “Damn. Can’t do it,” he muttered after several moments of trying.

      The heifer bawled again, a long, pained cry, and Joe sat back on his heels in frustration. “You have the rope?”

      “Right here.” She held up a length of new, clean cord purchased just for this purpose. “My hands are smaller than yours. I might have an easier time tying it.”

      While she tied a loop, Joe moved aside to make room. He easily held the heifer in place while Annie reached into the birth canal and worked one-handed to slip the loop around the calf’s tiny hind legs.

      They made a good team, she thought, not for the first time. Since he’d come to work for her, they’d had plenty of chances to work together. There was never a shortage of chores on a ranch the size of the Double C—repairing fence line, going on roundup, putting up hay. She loved every aspect of it and never missed an opportunity to help where she could.

      But the rhythm the two of them developed whenever they worked together on a ranch chore went back far longer than just the last eighteen months since he’d come to work for her, back to the time she always thought of as Before.

      Before that nightmare day Joe killed his father and changed the course of all their lives forever.

      “Got it,” she said when the rope was secured, then her hand slipped free with a loud sucking noise.

      They switched places again and this time she held the heifer in place while he worked the rope. As always, he went out of his way to avoid touching her, careful to keep that discreet distance