But the Double R ranch house wasn’t empty, even though David had hightailed off to look for gold in Colorado. Marguerita, chubby and amiable, cooked, cleaned, and tried to ride herd on every part of his life. Eight hired hands lived in the bunkhouse only a hundred feet from the house, and more often than not, they tromped through the Double R kitchen, begging an extra roll or piece of pie from Rita or stopping in the main room to talk about this cow or that horse or the rustlers who liked to heist a few beeves and then hop over the border to Mexico.

No, Josh didn’t lack for people in his life. He had plenty of people.

But not the right person, the annoying voice insisted. Josh did his best to ignore it.

He left the cow and her new son to themselves and led his horse the short distance to a tank just over the rise. The little manmade depression trapped rainwater for the cattle-when the weather blessed them with rain. Today the tank stood full. The storm two weeks ago that had trapped the Diamond T cows had been followed by smaller rains that filled the depression and turned the landscape spring green.

The green of Tess McCabe’s eyes.

Damn! He wasn’t going to think about her. Josh stripped off his filthy shirt and dunked himself into the water, head, shoulders, and chest. The cold, clean shock felt good. This was probably the same cold rainwater that had fallen from the sky two weeks ago when they had struggled to save those blockheaded beeves. Images crowded his mind. Tess with her hair drenched and hanging in her face. Tess plunging into the water, fearless of danger. Tess leaning over and kissing him, a wet, aromatic dog in between them.

Kissing him… What a kiss that had been. It had inspired him to throw away all gentlemanly instinct and take full advantage of her momentary weakness. What a kiss indeed. It had heated his blood all through the night and convinced him that he had to leave then, right then, or get so deeply entangled with that astonishing, surprising, engaging woman that he would never break free.

Had he truly broken free? Did he really want to break free?

Josh groaned and dunked himself again. Surely enough cold water would bring him back to his senses.

But later that night Tess crept back into his thoughts as he sat in front of the fireplace mending a shirt by the light of a kerosene lamp. Rita came in from the kitchen, where she had been washing the supper dishes. Even with his eyes on the torn seam of the shirt he felt her disapproving frown.

“If you would get yourself a wife like most men you wouldn’t have to do that, Señor Ransom.”

He had a wife. Sort of. But not really.

“What do I need with a wife when you’re the best cook north of the Mexican border, Rita?”

“Ha! Excuses! You are just like your father, may he rest in peace! The Ransom men don’t grow from boys to men. You, and Señor David, and your father. When a boy grows to a man, he takes a good wife, raises a family.”

Josh gave up and put the shirt aside. “Rita, my father had a wife, in case you didn’t notice. She’s living in Tucson with my sister.”

“You see!” She waved a chubby finger in his direction. “What woman did he choose? A boy’s dream, your mother is, not a man’s. Soft and beautiful, fit only for decorating some rich man’s arm. It is no wonder that she wilted like a flower here. A ranching man must choose wisely-a real woman, not a flower.”

“Marguerita…” He always called her by her full name when she annoyed him. Not that annoying him bothered her a bit. She seemed to think of it as her duty. “Why the lecture?”

She shrugged. “The place is very lonely right now. Señor David is gone.”

“He’ll be back when he gets tired of looking for gold.”

“But not to stay. And you, señor, have had your face dragging on the ground since you came home.”

“I have not.”

“You should be happy. You have the cattle back, don’t you? My man Carlos says the calving has started, and everything is well. So I think to myself, why does Señor Joshua frown all the time and bark at his people like an angry dog?”

“I do not frown all the time, and I only bark when barking is needed.”

She answered with an indignant “Hmph! You live an unnatural life, señor. Man was not meant by the Almighty to live without a wife.”

“Only women think that,” he shot back.

She dismissed that with a wave. “Boy, that’s what you are. A boy. You Ransoms never grow up.” On that sour observation, she donned her shawl, grabbed up the shirt he had been mending, and marched out to join her husband, Carlos, the foreman, in the little house they shared. “I will take care of the shirt,” she groused, “because you do not have a wife as you should. So the rest of us must suffer. Hmph.”

Josh had to smile as Rita banged the door behind her. The lecture rang familiar, because he got one at least once a month. Rita wanted children to fuss over. Hers were grown and gone, so now she wanted his.

If Marguerita knew he was legally hitched, she would dance with glee-until she met Tess, that is. Tess McCabe sure as hell wouldn’t be caught dead mending any man’s shirt. Josh would be willing to bet on it. And he doubted Tess could bake a pie or make fluffy biscuits.

But she could ride as if she were born on a horse. She could throw a rope over a set of horns or snag a steer’s foot in a single toss. Flooding rivers didn’t faze her. Cold and wet didn’t stop her. She feared nothing-except losing her home and her way of life, and maybe being laughed at by people who didn’t understand her worth.

No one who really knew Tess McCabe would laugh at her, Josh reflected. She marched to a different drum, perhaps, but along that march she had become a special sort of woman. Strong, proud, undaunted by things that sent most women into a tizzy. But when she took off those work clothes and got dressed up like a woman, run for cover, because Tess could knock a man’s socks right off his feet.

Or kiss his lips right off his face. Tess McCabe kissed like an angel. No, not an angel, she kissed like a woman. A hell of a woman.

A woman who would likely shoot him if she saw him again, considering the way he had left. By now she would have remembered why she didn’t want a man messing up her life. And she sure as hell wouldn’t want to leave her precious Diamond T to be his wife for real, even if he asked her.

But then, there had been that kiss…

MIGUEL scraped the mud from his boots before he came into the house, where Tess was helping Rosie put dinner on the table. The aroma of Rosie’s beef stew mingled with the warm scent of freshly baked bread, and Miguel inhaled appreciatively.

“You look like a drowned rat,” Tess commented.

“You didn’t look much better an hour ago,” Rosie reminded Tess.

Tess, Miguel, and Luis had spent most of the day beating the brush looking for mired cattle. Tess had come in early to look over the accounts. Her freshly braided hair still dripped water down the back of her shirt.

“Can’t complain about the rain,” Miguel said. “The way the cows are dropping calves, we’ll need the good pasture this summer.”

“You’ll never hear me complain about rain,” Tess agreed. “Not in this country. Even if it does make more work.” She smiled. “Even if it does make you-and me too-look like something that the high water swept in.”

She put a tureen of stew on the table as Miguel sat in his accustomed spot. “Where’s the others?”

“In the bunkhouse, cleaning up. Henry’s been cleaning the barn all day, and he smells worse than a cow. And you can’t see Luis for the mud. Compared to those hombres, I look dressed for company. And speaking of company, Don Sebastian de Moros will be along any day now, I’m thinking. I heard in town yesterday that he’s bringing another herd of those longlegged Spanish horses he breeds. I was thinking we could pick up a few from him this year. Improve the mustang blood in what we’re turning out.”

“He always wants a lot of money,” Tess said, tucking into her plate of stew.

“Worth it,” Miguel replied.

“Maybe. We can think about it when he shows up.” Normally, Tess loved an evening of talk about horseflesh, cattle, and plans for the future of the Diamond T, but lately she couldn’t maintain much interest. She still loved the land, loved the ranch, but her former singleminded concentration had disappeared. Her mood had been gloomy as the gray spring skies.

A week later, the sun shone brightly from a clear blue sky and wildflowers perfumed the warm spring air, but Tess’s mood hadn’t improved. It dropped yet another notch as the familiar figure of her brother, Sean, rode down the road toward the house.

“Just what I need,” she muttered to Rosie. They were busy hanging wash on a line strung between the main house and the little house on the other side of the courtyard.

“Have patience, Tessie girl. He is family.”

“Which means we’re stuck with him for life,” Tess grumbled. “Joy.”

Sean rode up to the courtyard wall and grinned at Tess. “Howdy, Sis. How’s life treating you?”

“Thought you’d be headed back to California by now,” Tess grumbled. “Heard that old Maisie at the hotel threatened to take a broom to you unless you paid your bill.”

“A minor misunderstanding,” Sean said. “We worked it out.”

Tess knew that Sean had been hanging around town talking to lawyer Bartlett. She’d had reports from the men that her brother spied on the ranch as well, probably trying to see if her socalled husband was still here. Tess had grown so weary of this deception she could spit, preferably hitting both Sean and lawyer Bartlett with the same effort.

“You’re looking good, Tess. Marriage must agree with you.”

“Right,” Tess snapped. “I’m sure you mean that.”

“Mind if I stay and chat awhile?”