Roping the Rancher. Julie Benson

missy.”

      Three more months were all he had before he started greeting boys at the door with a shotgun and giving them his own version of the Spanish Inquisition before he let them out the door with his daughter. He now understood why man invented the chastity belt.

      “All my friends have been dating since they were fifteen. What difference will a few months make?”

      “What difference will it make to wait?”

      She crossed her arms over her chest, shifted her weight onto one foot and glared at him. Such determination and strength, and yet so much hurt behind those beautiful brown eyes. How could a mother walk out on such a wonderful child?

      Leaving him, he got. He and Lynn had troubles from the moment the ink dried on their marriage license. She wanted so much that he couldn’t give her. Bright lights, the big city, adventure. Being a military wife and later a rancher’s wife weren’t what she had in mind.

      If only he’d known that earlier, but they’d been high-school sweethearts who swore the love they felt would last forever. They were too young and foolish to know what they didn’t know. He wondered now if their relationship would’ve run its course sooner if Lynn hadn’t gotten pregnant.

      But then he wouldn’t have Jess, and he wouldn’t trade being her father for anything. She was the only good thing that came out of his marriage.

      “You don’t understand what it’s like being the only one who can’t date. I’ll become a social outcast.”

      He bit his lip to keep from laughing at her woeful my-life-is-over look and drama queen voice. To a teenage girl everything turned into a Greek tragedy. Life with her was like walking a tightrope. One misstep, either with being too strict or too permissive, could lead to a big fall.

      “In a couple of days everyone will forget that your hard-ass dad won’t let you date.”

      “If I say no, Cody will probably ask another girl to go with him.”

      Good. All the better.

      Instead, Colt said, “If he really likes you, he’ll wait until you turn sixteen.”

      “Guys have needs—”

      “What the hell do you know about that?”

      His blood pressure approaching stroke levels, he prayed his daughter wasn’t talking about the kind of needs he knew about all too well. His ate him up so bad sometimes he couldn’t sleep at night. Hell, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d gotten laid. Sure he’d taken the edge off, but that wasn’t the same as being with a woman. Sometimes holding one, losing himself in her warm curves and pretending they cared about each other was the only thing that would ease the ache.

      For about five minutes when he’d first returned from Afghanistan, he considered dating. Then he remembered what it was like living in the small town he grew up in where gossiping was a town sport. The last thing he wanted was people talking about his love life and his teenage daughter hearing the stories.

      On top of that, a casual relationship, in a lot of ways, sounded worse to him than no relationship at all, but he refused to have any other kind. One disastrous marriage was enough.

      “Guys have fragile egos,” Jess said, easing his panic somewhat. “Getting turned down for a date is hard on their self-esteem. He’ll find someone who can go out with him.”

      “She’s not my concern.”

      “I know. I am.”

      “That’s right.”

      “Just because you don’t have a life, doesn’t mean I can’t have one.”

      Ouch. He’d died and gone to hell, and this conversation was his punishment. “I’ve got a life.”

      But her words got him thinking. What did he have other than Jess? A brother and sister-in-law. The ranch he grew up on. His therapy program, Healing Horses. Was that enough? It had to be right now. He couldn’t handle anything else. Definitely not dating and the emotional pitfalls that went along with trying to maintain a romantic relationship. Life with a teenager was exhausting enough.

      “A monk has a more exciting life than you do,” his daughter said. “You’ve got work. That’s not the same. What’re you going to do when I go to college in two years? I don’t want you to end up being one of those weird old men who lives alone and talks to himself all day long.”

      Apparently he hadn’t been the only one wondering what his life would be like when Jess went off to college. Part of him dreaded her leaving, while a piece of him looked forward to the freedom he’d have. For as long as he could remember responsibilities ruled his life. From the time he and Reed were strong enough to lift a saddle his father had worked his sons harder than any ranch hand. As the big brother, he’d watched out for Reed. Colt had stepped in to defuse things once their mother, the family peacemaker and punching bag, died. Then at eighteen he’d found himself in the military responsible for a wife with a baby on the way.

      An empty nest and the chance to figure out what he wanted to do with the rest of his life sounded pretty good right now.

      “Your life shouldn’t stop because you’ve got me to raise.”

      “It hasn’t.” He picked up the top bill and scanned the paper, hoping his daughter would take the hint that he was done discussing her dating and his.

      “Why don’t you trust me?” Jess accused. “I thought you’d forgiven me for running away.”

      Jess’s quiet words and the clear pain in her expressive brown eyes hit Colt hard like a kick from an angry mule. He replaced the bill on the stack. “I have. I know if you’re ever that upset again, you’ll come to me, and we’ll work things out. I don’t want you to ever be afraid to tell me anything.”

      Unlike how he and Reed had been with their father, who they tried every trick to avoid. The old man was as likely to greet a simple good morning from his sons with a slap upside the head as a smile, and there was never a way to predict which they’d get or change the outcome. “I trust you. It’s the boys that scare the hell out of me.”

      “We’d just being going to a movie.”

      He’d told himself he wouldn’t be the hard liner his father had been. He wouldn’t drive his daughter away. The last thing he wanted her thinking was that he didn’t trust her. He sighed. Time to cowboy up and prove the fact. “I’ll compromise. Make it a double date, and you can go.”

      His daughter charged around his desk, flung her arms around him and squeezed him tight. “I won’t let you down,” she whispered in his ear and kissed him on the cheek. Then with one last grin, she headed for the door as Nannette McAlister, his assistant at Healing Horses, strolled in. “You’ll never guess what happened. Dad said I could go out on a double date this Friday.”

      “You finally wore him down, huh?” Nannette was the kind of mother every child should have. She loved and encouraged her three children, and their friends were always welcome in the McAlister home. All she wanted was for them to be happy. His brother had found that out firsthand.

      Since Reed married Avery, Nannette’s youngest and only daughter, he and Jess had been enveloped in the family fold, as well.

      “I’m putting my full trust in my daughter,” Colt said to Nannette to emphasize his point with Jess. “She promised she won’t let me down.”

      Jess shook her head. “I’m leaving before he changes his mind.”

      “Smart girl.”

      “I take after my father,” Jess said before she dashed off.

      “How’s the morning going?” Nannette asked once she’d settled at her desk, and started booting up her computer.

      “Better now that Jess is gone. This dating stuff is going to kill me.”

      The older