McCabe's Baby Bargain Read online

  Friend. Baby wrangler. Family man?

  A McCabe comes to the rescue!

  Ex-soldier turned rancher Matt McCabe wants to help his recently widowed friend and veterinarian, Sara Anderson. She would like him to join her in training service dogs for veterans—oddly, something Matt is averse to. Instead he volunteers to take care of her adorable eight-month-old son, Charley! This “favor” feels more like family every day...though their troubled pasts threaten a happy future. Are their growing love and shared experiences enough to keep them together?

  Something about being around her and Charley made Matt want to leave his self-imposed isolation, and be as gallant as he’d been brought up to be.

  “You want to help me socialize Champ?” she asked, appearing stunned.

  The thought of having to be in contact with the puppy sent a cold chill down his spine. “No. I still don’t want to get that close to any dog.” Never mind a sweet, adorable puppy who could easily steal his heart, if he allowed it. He squared his shoulders. “I want to take charge of Charley while you train Champ.”

  Sara slanted him a sideways look. “You understand that I would want us all to go out in public together? You’d have to leave your ranch and come over here to help me load them in my vehicle every day for one month, or until Alyssa Barnes is well enough to take over Champ’s training and care.”

  He figured he could handle that as long as he wasn’t in charge of the leash.

  * * *

  TEXAS LEGENDS: THE McCABES

  Three generations and counting!

  Dear Reader,

  We all have people we care about in our lives, and when they are in trouble, or just seem to be, it can be hard to figure out what to do. Intervene. Give them their space and hope for the best. Simply let them know we are there for them. Or some combination of all of the above.

  Sara Anderson is a widow who’s been through a pretty rough year. But she has good stuff happening in her life, too. She has a six-month-old son, Charley, whom she adores. And volunteer work as a veterinarian providing care for service dogs.

  Matt McCabe is an ex-soldier and a current Laramie County rancher who is spending more and more time alone. Sara needs his help temporarily caring for Champ, a puppy in service-dog training. When he refuses her, she begins to worry. This isn’t the Matt she knew in high school, who was fun loving and gallant to the core. The Matt she had always secretly lusted after but never dared to pursue.

  Matt thinks Sara has changed, too. She’s got a wall up around her heart that leads him to believe the rumors are true about there being trouble in her marriage before her husband’s death. He wants to help her, as much as she wants to help him, yet neither are willing to divulge their own secrets. And without honesty and trust, while there can be passion, there can be no real, long-lasting, heartfelt love. Will Matt and Sara find their happily-ever-after? There’s only one way to find out!

  Happy reading!

  Cathy Gillen Thacker

  CathyGillenThacker.com

  His Baby Bargain

  Cathy Gillen Thacker

  Cathy Gillen Thacker is married and a mother of three. She and her husband spent eighteen years in Texas and now reside in North Carolina. Her mysteries, romantic comedies and heartwarming family stories have made numerous appearances on bestseller lists, but her best reward, she says, is knowing one of her books made someone’s day a little brighter. A popular Harlequin author for many years, she loves telling passionate stories with happy endings and thinks nothing beats a good romance and a hot cup of tea! You can visit Cathy’s website, cathygillenthacker.com, for more information on her upcoming and previously published books, recipes and a list of her favorite things.

  Books by Cathy Gillen Thacker

  Harlequin Special Edition

  Texas Legends: The McCabes

  The Texas Cowboy’s Quadruplets

  Harlequin Western Romance

  Texas Legends: The McCabes

  The Texas Cowboy’s Triplets

  The Texas Cowboy’s Baby Rescue

  Texas Legacies: The Lockharts

  A Texas Soldier’s Family

  A Texas Cowboy’s Christmas

  The Texas Valentine Twins

  Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com for more titles.

  Join Harlequin My Rewards today and earn a FREE ebook!

  Click here to Join Harlequin My Rewards

  http://www.harlequin.com/myrewards.html?mt=loyalty&cmpid=EBOOBPBPA201602010002

  To Dylan, my favorite chocolate Labrador retriever and the newest member of the Thacker clan.

  Her puppy antics and gentle, intelligent nature were the inspiration for Champ, the black Lab puppy in this book.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Epilogue

  Excerpt from Guarding His Fortune by Stella Bagwell

  Excerpt from The Austen Playbook by Lucy Parker

  Chapter One

  “I told you. I’m not doing it.”

  Sara Anderson stared at the ex-soldier standing on the other side of the half-demolished pasture fence. Matt McCabe had come back from his tour in the Middle East eighteen months ago and, despite the efforts of family and friends to draw him out, had seemed to go deeper into his self-imposed solitude every day.

  This kind of moody isolation wasn’t good, even for a newly minted Laramie County rancher.

  Hadn’t she learned that the hard way?

  Heaven knew she wasn’t going to willingly allow another similar tragedy to happen again. And especially not to someone she’d once been close to, growing up. Not if she could possibly help it, anyway. And she was determined that she could.

  Shivering a little in the cool March air, Sara stepped around the heaps of old metal posts and rusting barbed wire strewn across the empty pasture. She plastered an engaging smile on her face while taking in his handsome profile and tall, muscular physique. With his square jaw and gorgeously chiseled features, Matt had always been mesmerizing. Even when, like now, he did not put much effort into his appearance. His clothes were old, clean and rumpled. Boots scuffed and coated with mud.

  The dark brown hair peeking out from under the brim of his black Resistol was a little on the long side, curling across his brow and over his ears, down the nape of his neck. And though he had clearly showered that morning, he hadn’t shaved in days. All of which, combined, gave him a hopelessly rugged, masculine look.

  The kind that set her heart racing.

  And shouldn’t have.

  Given the fact she had definitely not come here to flirt or see where the age-old attraction between them would lead. An attraction they hadn’t ever dared to explore, even in their reckless high school days.

  Sara drew a breath. Tried again. Picking up the conversation where they’d left off.

  “And I told you—” with effort, she held his stormy gray-blue eyes “—I’m not giving up.” She was determined to enlist his help...and save him along the way.

  With a scoff, Matt swaggered away from her, his strides long and lazy. He bent to pick up the pieces of a wood fence post scattered across the field,
then tossed them into the bed of his battered Silver Creek Ranch pickup truck. “Well, you should retreat,” he advised over one broad, chambray-clad shoulder. His dark brow lifted in a warning that set her pulse racing all the more. “’Cause I’m not changing my mind.”

  Like heck he wasn’t!

  Sara put on her most persuasive smile and stalked through the knee-high grass and the Texas wildflowers getting ready to bloom. “Never say never,” she warned cheerfully. Especially when she had set her mind to something this important.

  Matt pushed back the brim of his hat with his index finger. Brazenly looked her up and down in a way that heated her flesh, head to toe. “And why is that?” he challenged softly.

  Sara focused on the nonprofit organization and the ex-soldiers she was helping. Her actions every bit as deliberate as his, she moved closer still. “Because if you ever deign to meet him, you just might fall in love with Champ, the remaining black Lab puppy from the latest West Texas Warriors Association’s litter.” She certainly had. Not that she was signing up to train a service dog. Not when she would soon be going back to work as a large-animal veterinarian and had a six-month-old son to raise.

  Matt folded his arms across his muscular chest and let out a sigh that reverberated through his entire six-foot-three-inch frame. “Good thing I’m not planning on visiting the puppy, then.”

  Time to play the guilt card, and appeal to the legendary McCabe chivalry. “You’re seriously opposed to helping out other returning military veterans in need of a therapy dog?”

  Irritation darkened his eyes and he pressed his sensual lips into a thin, hard line. “Of course not.” He gestured offhandedly. “Just tell me where to send the check and...”

  She held up a staying palm. “We’ve got money, Matt.” At least for the needs of the current litters. “What we need are more hands-on trainers to help socialize the puppies.”

  His expression grew even more impatient. “Well, that’s not me,” he countered curtly. “Haven’t you heard? I’m not exactly a dog person these days.”

  Actually, she had learned he’d become mysteriously averse to pets. Which was strange. When they’d grown up together, there hadn’t been an animal who didn’t automatically gravitate to the personable cowboy with the exquisitely gentle touch.

  Deciding to call him out on this—and anything else that needed to be challenged—she scoffed, “Oh yeah. Since when?” What had happened to him in the time he’d been away from Laramie County? That had made him decide to clear a two thousand acre ranch, all on his own?

  Their eyes met, held. For a moment, the years of near estrangement faded and she thought he might answer, but the opportunity passed, with nary a word.

  Matt squinted right back at her. Shrugged. “I’ve got a question, too, darlin’.” Deliberately, he stepped into her personal space. “When did you get so darned pesky?”

  * * *

  The endearment, coupled with the insult, worked just as Matt hoped.

  Sara’s slender shoulders stiffened and she drew herself up to her full five feet, nine inches. She glared at him resentfully. “I’ve always been extremely helpful and forthright!”

  He grunted and reached for the metal cutters. Walking along the fence, he snipped through the lengths of rusting barbed wire. Irritated to find she was still fast on his heels.

  “Is that what they’re calling your do-gooding these days?” He slanted a glance at her, and noted the way the breeze was plastering the soft knit of her sweater against her delectable breasts. Ignoring the hardening of his body, he turned his gaze back to her face. “And here I was thinking you were just bossy and interfering.”

  She dug her boots into the hard ground beneath them and propped both her hands on her denim-clad hips. “I go where I’m needed, Matt.”

  The fact she, like so many others close to him, apparently saw him as a charity case rankled. Gathering up the wire, he walked back to toss it into the bed of his pickup truck alongside the stack of weathered metal posts. “I don’t remember calling for a large-animal vet.”

  She continued shadowing him, getting close enough he could inhale the lilac of her perfume. “Then I guess it’s your lucky day,” she announced. “Me, showing up here—”

  “Uninvited,” he turned to point out.

  She held her ground. “—and all.”

  This ornery woman had no idea who she was playing with. “Uh-huh.” Matt moved closer, drinking in her fair skin and sun-blushed cheeks. Damn, she was pretty, standing there in the spring sunlight. Her cloud of golden-blond hair drifting across her shoulders and framing the delicate features of her face.

  In an effort to further repel her, he let his gaze move lower, to the lithe build of her body. From her dainty feet and long sexy legs, to her slender waist and the lush fullness of her breasts, she was all woman.

  Still enjoying the view immensely, he returned his focus to the elegance of her lips, cheeks and nose. The jade depths of her eyes. “Sure you’re in the right place? Talking to the right ex-soldier?”

  “Definitely.” She trod even closer and tilted her chin up to his. “And believe it or not, I’m strong enough to handle you, cowboy.”

  “Sure about that?” Matt asked gruffly, wishing he hadn’t noticed how feminine and perfect she was. All over.

  “Yes,” she repeated.

  Funny. She hadn’t seemed strong when she’d lost her husband a little over a year before. She’d seemed vulnerable. Achingly so.

  To the point, every time he’d run into her, he’d been tempted to take her in his arms and hold her close. Not as the platonic friends they’d once been in their high school days. But as an ex-soldier comforting another ex-soldier’s wife.

  There were several problems with that. First, he’d already gone down that route before—and learned the hard way that any relationship based on rebound emotions was a huge mistake.

  And second, she was so damn pretty and accomplished these days, he knew he’d never be able to leave it at that. Holding Sara close would make him want things he couldn’t have and had no business wanting.

  Because, thanks to the mistakes he’d made and the guilt he still harbored, having a wife or a family of his own was no longer in the cards for him.

  Clearly misunderstanding the reason behind his long pause, Sara pleated her brow. She looked at him more closely, then queried cautiously, “Really, Matt? You seriously doubt my inner strength?”

  “No,” he conceded honestly. “You’re as feisty as they come.”

  “Feisty,” she said, repeating the term distastefully. “Really.”

  He grinned, thrilled to be getting under her skin.

  It was that friction that would help keep them apart.

  Watching the color come into her high, sculpted cheeks, he removed his hat and let it fall idly against his thigh. “Don’t like the term?”

  Her pretty green eyes narrowing, she watched him run his fingers through his hair. “It’s condescending!”

  He settled his Resistol squarely back on his head. “Yeah?” he retorted sardonically. “In what way?” Because she was feisty and then some. Always had been.

  Oblivious to how much he liked her spirit, Sara let out a lengthy sigh. “In the sense that feisty is an adjective usually attached to a female or small animal one would not expect to defend itself.”

  He rolled his eyes at her deliberately haughty tone. “Spoken like a veterinarian,” he said. Then seeing a way to needle her further, added, “A woman veterinarian.”

  Now she was spitting mad. She planted her hands on her hips again. “You just keep digging yourself in deeper, don’t you, cowboy?”

  He shrugged in a way designed to rankle her even more. “Hey. If it annoys you, maybe you should leave.” He went back to pull up some more aging fence posts.

  “Not until you at least agree to come to my ranch and see t
he puppy.”

  He turned so suddenly she nearly slammed into him. He inhaled another whiff of her lilac perfume. “Why me?” he asked as his gaze drifted over her fitted suede jacket and dark, figure-hugging jeans. “Instead of someone else a hell of a lot more amenable?”

  Sara sighed and folded her arms beneath her breasts, her action plumping them up all the more. “Because we need more veterans actively involved in helping other returning military personnel,” she stated softly, her breasts rising and falling with each agitated breath.

  He rocked back on the heels of his worn leather work boots. “Isn’t that the mission of the West Texas Warriors Association?” Of which, he knew, there were hundreds of members.

  Her expression turned even more serious. “We need everyone, Matt.”

  He rejected her attempt to make him feel guilty for not wanting to dive back into the world of his nightmares. “I don’t think so.”

  She glowered at him. “Why not?”

  “I like my solitude.”

  She made a face and then, to his mounting frustration, tried again. “Listen to me, Matt,” she beseeched, hands outstretched. Her gentle eyes filled with compassion. “I know how hard it was for Anthony to really reconnect after he came back to civilian life...”

  So, the rumors about her late husband’s unhappiness...and maybe hers, too...were true.

  He scowled, not sure why the comparison bothered him so much. “I’m not your late husband, Sara.”

  She acknowledged that with a nod, then pushed on despite his gruff, unwelcoming tone. “Working with dogs can help alleviate PTSD-related depression and anxiety.”

  Now what is she trying to infer? “Do tell,” he prodded.

  She tilted her head to one side and offered a tantalizing smile. “Who knows?” Another shrug. “It might help right your temperamental attitude, too.”

  Not sure whether he wanted to haul her close and kiss her, or demand she leave now, he sent her a censuring look. “Thanks, but I’ve got my bad moods covered, Sara.”