In A Cowboy's Embrace. Charlotte Maclay

an instinctively mothering gesture, Tasha smoothed her daughter’s flyaway curls. “Thanks, but I’m not sure I trust anything that outweighs me by eight hundred pounds.”

      Though she was tall, Tasha probably weighed little more than a hundred pounds. Not any more than a decent bale of hay. She had fine bones without an extra ounce of fat on her, long, slender fingers accented by the polish she wore and graceful hands she used to advantage whenever she wanted to make a point.

      Cliff swallowed hard as he considered what else her hands would be capable of doing. “I’ve got a gentle mare that wouldn’t give you any trouble.” Not nearly as much trouble as his own imagination was giving him tonight. “She’s about eighteen years old and as placid as a horse can be. Used to be able to cut a calf away from its mama slick as glass, but she’s too old to work now. She could use some exercise, though.”

      “I’ll think about it.” With a noncommittal smile, she turned her attention to her cup of chicken noodle soup.

      From the looks of things, Tasha didn’t eat enough to keep a sparrow going—a skimpy cup of soup and a quarter sandwich. Meanwhile, Cliff devoured everything on the plate and finished Melissa’s uneaten sandwich. Finally he rummaged in the refrigerator for some leftover roast beef slices and gravy Ella had sent home with him after last Sunday’s supper and zapped a plateful in the microwave. If Tasha stuck around for as long as a week as his housekeeper, he’d be nothing but skin and bones, too weak to chase down a jaywalker, forget an ornery steer.

      The kids finished their supper, such as it was. With a warning that it was almost bedtime, they charged off to Stevie’s room to investigate his toys.

      Cliff carried his plate to the kitchen counter. “Tell me, how is it a woman like you, I mean, a cover model and all, agreed to fill in as my housekeeper?”

      Stacking the kids’ soup bowls and plates, Tasha rose from her chair and brought them to the sink, moving so gracefully she appeared to exert no effort at all.

      “Ella said I’d mostly be playing nanny while you’re at work, and I love kids. Stevie’s adorable, by the way.”

      “Thanks.” Running water over the dishes, he wondered how he could tactfully phrase his question. “I understand why you’d want to come visit your sister on a vacation. Heck, you haven’t even seen her baby yet. But take a job? That, well, kind of surprises me.”

      She slid the dishes he’d rinsed into the dishwasher, already full from a couple of days’ worth of meals. “To tell you the truth, I recently broke up with my fiancé and I need to catch my breath.”

      “Hey, that’s rough, but wouldn’t just hanging out for a few days with your sister be better instead of trying to—”

      “Unfortunately, my fiancé—who I literally caught in bed with a younger woman—was also my agent and business manager. It doesn’t look like he did anything illegal, if you don’t count two-timing me and sleeping with a bimbo, but he spent practically every dime I earned.” She shoved the dish rack into place and looked under the sink for the detergent, then poured some into the cup. “I’m very close to being broke.”

      “Broke,” he echoed.

      She lifted her slender shoulders in a self-deprecating shrug. “I guess I’m the real bimbo for having been so trusting. Anyway, I subleased my apartment for a few weeks to a friend from Paris and came here to lick my wounds and thought I’d earn a few dollars in the process.”

      On a sudden surge of anger on her behalf, Cliff gritted his teeth and his hands folded into fists. “I’d say any man who’d even look at another woman when he had you has got to be crazy or totally stupid.”

      “Why, thank you.”

      Her grateful smile warmed him in ways he hadn’t felt in years, sending heat coiling through his chest and to his lower regions as well.

      Ah, hell! He couldn’t throw her out of the house, not when she was short on money and suffering from a broken heart. If she wanted to be his housekeeper for a couple of weeks, he’d have to grin and bear it. And take a helluva lot of cold showers.

      “We’d better get the kids to bed and hit the sack ourselves,” he said more gruffly than he’d intended. “The Double S is in the middle of a roundup. Days start early around here.”

      Her eyes brightened with wary interest. “A roundup? Can Melissa and I come along to watch? She’d love it.”

      Wonderful! The hired hands would probably be watching Tasha instead of keeping their minds on their own business. He could only hope no one got killed stumbling all over themselves to impress Ms. Goldilocks and her little girl.

      Including himself.

      Chapter Two

      “He’s beautiful.” Inhaling the scent of baby powder, Tasha forced away a sharp stab of envy as she held three-month-old Jason Bryant Swain in her arms for the first time. Never again would she hold a baby of her own. And that knowledge formed an ever present ache in her chest she knew would always be there.

      Cliff had dropped off Tasha and the children at the Swain ranch house early that morning. She and her sister had visited, waiting until Jason was awake and fed and ready for his day. Meanwhile, Melissa and Stevie had turned the front porch into a makeshift jungle gym, climbing on the railing and leaping off the steps to entertain themselves.

      Stroking the baby’s soft cheek, Tasha swallowed the raw sense of disappointment at fate’s cruel trick. “You did good, big sister.”

      Ella fussed with Jason’s knit cap, motherly pride radiating from her like a lighthouse beacon. “It wasn’t all my doing. Bryant contributed a few good genes, too.”

      “From your glow, I’d guess he’s contributing more to your health and welfare than just a few baby genes.”

      Ella’s healthy complexion took on the rosy hue of a woman in love and her eyes filled with mirth behind her big round glasses. “Let’s say marriage and motherhood agree with me.”

      A couple of inches shorter than Tasha, her hair a shade or two darker, Ella had always been the smart one in the family. Tasha had spent her adolescence envying her sister’s good grades and the respect she’d received from being smart instead of simply pretty. But Ella’s hasty marriage last summer to Bryant Swain had startled everyone in the family. Tasha was glad the relationship was working out. A claim she couldn’t make about either her too young marriage to Robert Reynolds when she’d learned she was pregnant with Melissa, or her recent botched engagement.

      Definitely time for her to swear off men. Her judgment regarding the opposite sex left a lot to be desired.

      “We’d better go,” Ella said, picking up a light jacket from the back of the couch and slipping it on. “The kids are itching to get out to where they’re branding the calves. If we aren’t careful, those two are likely to head off on their own.”

      “All the way from New York, Melissa’s been asking when she’d get to see real cowboys.”

      Ella laughed. “We’ll take the truck.”

      “Thank goodness we don’t have to ride a horse.”

      “I’m not quite ready for that yet.”

      They went out the back way—leaving the door unlocked, Tasha noted—and called the children around to the side of the house where the truck was parked. Well-kept barns and outbuildings suggested the ranch was a prosperous enterprise, though Ella had said raising cattle was always a risky business financially.

      “Learning to ride is one of my goals for this summer,” Ella said. “When I get good enough, I may even take up barrel racing.”

      “Ella! You wouldn’t!” Tasha choked on a surprised laugh, but was unable to suppress a ripple of fear that sped through her. “You’ll get yourself killed.”

      Her