The Rancher's Surrender Read online

  A motive.

  And motives were usually selfish.

  "It is a lot of caring," Cade agreed. "And because of it, you're here."

  With a quiet oath, Ty dropped the hammer and turned to face them, hands low on his hips in a stance of great irritation. "If you're all done having a nice little break, then scatter, would ya? I've got work to do and you're distracting me." He stalked to the truck, but before he could hop into the driver's seat, Cade spoke to him.

  "I think they should know who that benefactor was, Ty."

  "Well, I don't. There's no reason to tell them."

  "You're wrong." Zoe stepped closer, quivering with the need for answers. "We have every right to know, and I want someone to tell us right now what's going on."

  Cade shot Ty a sympathetic glance, but he spoke regardless. "It was Ty."

  Stunned silence met this remark. Zoe felt the shock bounce through her, which only deepened when Ty looked at her, his eyes bleak and miserable.

  "You," she whispered softly.

  "Me," he agreed, just as softly.

  "Delia said you were considering making him a partner in the ranch," Cade said. "So I thought you should know how responsible and trustworthy he is."

  "We're not considering a partnership," Zoe said, turning away, her shoes crunching in the dirt. She stared blindly at the gentle green slope that led down to the raging river.

  "Well, I think you should consider one," Cade told her back. "Because, frankly, I don't see how you'll do it without him. Ty is the best at this, you couldn't get anyone better."

  "Oh, Ty," Maddie murmured. "How incredibly wonderful of you to take care of Constance that way."

  "And expensive," said the pragmatic Delia, but even as cynical as she was, she looked very touched. "I'm not sure I know how to thank you."

  "I don't want thanks." His jaw was set, and hostility rolled off him in waves.

  "What you did meant the world to Constance," Cade said to Ty quietly. "And you deserve the proper recognition for that."

  Ty clamped his mouth shut as if too much of a gentleman to say what he thought about that. "I didn't do it for any of you," he said finally.

  Okay, Zoe thought, maybe he wasn't too much of a gentlemen to express his thoughts after all. "Why did you do it, then?"

  Ty slid into the driver's seat and snapped on his seat belt. "Your ride is leaving. You walking back?"

  Being ignored made her testy, and just a tad bit pushy, though even a small child would have had the sense to leave this man alone right now. "Maybe it was more simple than that," she suggested. "You wanted to buy this place."

  "I already told you that," Ty said through clenched teeth.

  Cade looked confused at Zoe's hostility. "I don't think you understand. If Ty hadn't paid for me to continue the search for Constance's granddaughter, and if Constance hadn't been satisfied with what I'd found, Ty wouldn't have had to buy this place."

  Ty started the truck and rudely revved the engine.

  "But of course he would have bought this place," Zoe said loudly, glaring at Ty. "He already told us he wanted it."

  Cade shook his head. "Over the years Constance got very close to Ty." He had to yell over the noise of the truck. "She felt as though he were her family, and indeed for a long time, he was all she had. She thought the world of him."

  The engine revved again. Music filled the air now, loud pumping, ridiculously upbeat music that was at a direct conflict with the tense atmosphere.

  It was hard to reconcile the brooding, terse male sitting in the driver's seat with the kind, caring warm man Cade was describing.

  Harder still to let go of her years of innate suspicion and wariness to admit that maybe, just maybe, she was looking at a man who was not as she wanted to make him out to be.

  He wasn't selfish.

  He wasn't sneaky.

  He wasn't out to hurt anyone.

  And maybe, just maybe, he could indeed be trusted.

  Even if he was ornery as a prickly bear at times. "What does this have to do with the land?" she yelled to Cade, at the precise moment Ty reached over and flicked off the earsplitting, pulsing music.

  Her voice echoed unnaturally, and she glowered at the back of Ty's still head as everyone looked at her.

  "It has everything to do with the land," Cade told her. "If I hadn't found you three lovely ladies, Ty himself would have inherited the ranch."

  * * *

  Chapter 6

  « ^ »

  "You could have told me."

  This from Zoe, and as they were the first words she'd spoken since Cade's untimely announcement, Ty considered himself lucky.

  "I can't believe you didn't."

  He tightened his hands on the steering wheel as they bumped and rocked in the truck over the rough road on their way back to the house. "It never came up."

  She gaped at him, shook her head and turned away, staring out the window. "You're something, you know that?"

  "Oh, really? Well, you're not much different." Anger felt good since it erased any lingering guilt he might have been wrestling with. "Ever since you came to Triple M you've been staring at me as if I were some sort of bug. A total creep. As if you expect me to hurt you—"

  "I'm not afraid of you."

  "I didn't mean a physical hurt." Arguing with her was like arguing with Ben, who'd been nearly as stubborn as she. Ty had never been able to win a verbal war with him, either, and suddenly he ached so much he was exhausted with it, which made him all the more furious.

  He pulled up the long gravel drive to the house and braked. In the confines of the truck, the air sizzled, and he assured himself it was all temper and nothing more. Zoe had been shooting him with mental daggers the entire drive and he'd had enough. "Look at you," he said. "You're braced for battle like I'm the bad guy."

  "If the shoe fits…"

  "Tell me, Zoe, what's so bad about me helping Constance?"

  She stiffened and he was tired of her silent hostility. "A woman that could have been your own grandmother? Does helping her make me a criminal?"

  She remained tense against the door, as far from him as she could possibly get, but then suddenly it was as if his words deflated her. Her shoulders drooped. She rubbed her temples, her hair falling forward out of her makeshift ponytail. "God, I always do that. I don't know why," she admitted quietly.

  "Always are a pain, you mean?"

  A smile tugged at her mouth, and she dropped her hands from her face to her lap as if she were too tired to hold them up any longer. "That, too. I meant, I'm always looking for trouble. Delia says it's my middle name."

  "Gee, I don't know what she's talking about."

  "I'm sorry for that."

  "But not for thinking the worst of me at all times, I guess," he said wearily. She was one of the most irritating women he'd ever met. And the most fascinating. "Do you have any idea how much you tie me up in knots?"

  "Me?" Now she looked up, clearly startled at his unexpected bluntness. "What do you mean?"

  He threw up his hands. "I don't know what the hell I mean. You have all these thoughts running through your head that I can only imagine, but I'm pretty sure, given your expression, they're not exactly flattering."

  She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. A tactful silent agreement.

  Because he couldn't help himself, he shifted closer, lifting a hand to the back of her seat, fighting his sudden urge to touch her glorious hair. "Yet only a little while ago," he continued in a low, unintentionally husky voice, "you were kissing me as if your life depended on it."

  She let out a little puff of breath, a sound that became erotic in the close confines of the car. Of their own accord, his fingers touched her then, just lightly on her cheek, trailing to her ear and sinking into that hair he'd been dying to touch again. "How do you think that makes me feel, Zoe?"

  She swallowed hard, closed her eyes at his touch. "As confused as I am, I imagine."

  Tempting as it was to just drop