The Rancher's Second Chance Page 11

Disappointment flicked across her face. “I enjoy it,” she said. “It gives me something to do.”

  “Well, we enjoy it, too. I enjoy it.”

  She smiled then, as if finding what she was looking for.

  “So when do you want to go boot shopping?” she said.

  “I’d like to put a couple more hours in on your fence today, but we could take off about four. Hit the feed store before it closes.”

  “You want me to meet you there?”

  “No. I’ll come get you. But I might not have time to shower before we go, so I could be a little gamey.” A lot gamey was more like it.

  Grinning, she pocketed her hands. “Not a problem, cowboy.”

  He slid behind the wheel and noticed his cell phone on the console. “I nearly forgot, what’s your number?”

  He entered it in his phone and hit save. “You don’t have a landline, do you?”

  “No. I don’t really need one.”

  On a small notepad he kept in the glove compartment he wrote two phone numbers, tore out the paper and handed it to her.

  “The first one’s the ranch line, second one is my cell.”

  “Thanks.” She folded the paper and tucked it in her back pocket.

  He started the engine, rested his arm on the opened window.

  “Thanks again,” she said. “I was really about to lose it when you stopped.”

  He pulled his hat up, smoothed his hair back, tugged the brim down. “My pleasure, ma’am. See you about four.”

  * * *

  Laura entered Eli’s numbers in her cell phone and taped the paper to the freezer door with a pleased tap. Her first piece of refrigerator art. Then she went to her closet to decide what to wear to the feed store.

  She giggled. Feed store? Derek would puke in disgust.

  After a quick shower, she pulled on a pale blue peasant blouse with an embroidered yoke, jeans, thick socks and tennis shoes. She dried and curled her hair, applied blush, mascara and lip gloss, and for the first time in a long time, smiled at herself in the mirror.

  “I have a date.”

  She giggled again at the hilarity of the situation and sought out the kittens who were taking a midday nap in the living room beneath the ceiling fan. She compared their tiny bodies to Theodore and found it hard to believe they were remotely related. Mary must spend a fortune on cat food.

  She poured ginger ale over ice, sliced an apple and cheese and took the meal out to the porch with her laptop and checkbook. She set the glass and plate on her most recent find, a small square table next to the swing, and used her computer as a writing surface. Her first order of business: a thousand-dollar check to Eli Hawthorne. She tore it from the checkbook, folded it in half and slid it into a back pocket. After all her research about rustlers, that figure seemed more like what she should pay for a couple of calves, not five full-grown cows.

  She had no idea what he’d charge for the pipe and cable fencing, so that check would have to wait.

  Reaching for the ginger ale and plate, she gave the swing a little shove to set it rocking. Eli and Garcia worked in her pasture. Occasional sparks winked around Garcia’s Ironman-like mask, and the occasional clank of Eli’s shovel against steel announced the lengthening boundary. He was right. He’d be ripe after a day of hard labor beneath a hot summer sun. At least they had the auger to dig the post holes.

  Just after four she heard his diesel engine chug up her driveway. She grabbed her keys, locked the French doors and hurried down the porch steps. She didn’t want him to see her empty house. Like it mattered.

  Except it did.

  “Sorry I’m late.” He smiled and his teeth seemed whiter in the midst of a day-old beard.

  A whisper of shower soap lingered in the truck, and a clean shirt and jeans gave him away. So much for the rank cowboy. Laura wondered if he had more in mind than the feed store.

  “Late doesn’t count unless it’s church or school.” She buckled the seat belt and looked at her tennis shoes. “I wore thick socks, based on what I remember about my last boots.”

  “Good plan.” He kept his eye on the road that wound down her hill and once on the pavement, gave her an appreciative once-over. “You look great. But you always look great.”

  She inhaled slowly through her nose, determined not to blush. “Thanks.”

  “Were you sore this morning?”

  She huffed out the breath. “You’re kidding, right? I could hardly get out of bed.”

  Laughing, he shook his head. “I figured you would be, but you’re not limping or walking like a bowlegged cow puncher.”

  His smile infected her with a giddy fever and she rolled down her window. “I walked this morning to Mary’s, and she served hot tea that she promised would relieve sore muscles.”

  “She ought to know. I see her running down the road nearly every morning.”

  “We’re supposed to be running together, but I couldn’t today.”

  He turned right at the T, then left onto the main highway into Spring Valley. “You’ll get your riding legs back.”

  “I know. I just have to keep moving, keep from getting stiff.”

  As Eli increased his speed, her hair whirled around her face. She clasped it in her right hand and leaned her elbow on the doorframe.

  “We can run the AC if you want.”

  “No—I like this.”

  An odd expression pulled at his mouth and she couldn’t see his left eye as he watched the road. But the space between them filled with a familiar comfort, and she felt like she belonged there beside him.

  Only two vehicles sat in the feed store lot, one of them a flatbed truck backed up to the loading dock. A tall slender cowboy tossed several feed bags onto the bed and finished with a chunky, pink salt lick. The customer shoved the bags against the front frame and secured them with bungee cords.

  Eli glanced at the employee, frowned as he exited his pickup and tugged his cowboy hat down low on his brow.

  Laura followed him through the front door.

  The smell of hay and grain and leather jerked her back across the years, and she inhaled deeply. Nowhere but in a feed store would she find such sweet perfume.

  The wall to her left held an opened bay door, and the skinny cowboy ambled in from the loading dock. She wasn’t touching Eli, but she was close enough to feel his tension. He focused on the back of the store, and in a deep, quiet voice said, “This way.”

  The employee watched them with a smirk as he pulled a thin, round box from his shirt pocket, pinched out a dark wad and stuck it in his lip.

  Laura concentrated on looking elsewhere and exhaled in relief when Eli stopped before a boot display. Styles had certainly changed since she was a kid, and nearly every boot had a squared off toe and fancy stitching on a short, boxy top. But a tall red pair at the back with a high undercut heel caught her eye, and she thought how fun it would have been to make an appearance at one of Derek’s office parties in those boots and a short denim skirt.

  “What are you thinking?” Eli said quietly.

  “I’m thinking of a place I would like to have worn these.” She lifted one red boot and checked inside for the size.

  “I thought you wanted to be a cattlewoman.”

  She glanced at his worried expression and chuckled. “I didn’t say I wanted them now.”

  Returning the boot, she scanned the others for something more durable with a work feel to it.

  Eli handed her a brown bull-hide boot with a lower heel and an ornately stitched red leather top. “How ’bout a compromise?”

  “Oh, yes.” Pleased with his choice, she sat down on a low stool and untied her tennis shoes. “They’re too small,” she said, tugging on the straps.

  “What size do you wear?”

  Laura peer
ed inside the boot. “These are a five. Do they have a six?”

  Eli ran his hand down the stacked boxes under the display and pulled out the fourth one from the top. The picture on the end matched the boot.

  “Perfect.” Laura stood and rolled onto the ball of her foot to check for room at the heel. She remembered what her dad had told her about fitting boots.

  “Here, try them both.” Eli pulled out a cardboard form and handed her the other boot.

  She pulled it on and walked a few paces down the aisle and back again. From the corner of her eye she saw the cowboy nodding at her, and she thought she heard him say something about a filly to another guy at the cash register. They both snickered.

  The look on Eli’s face told her he’d heard the comment, too.

  She touched his arm, forced him to face her. “These are perfect.”

  He looked at her but didn’t see her. His attention fixated on the lanky guy at the counter.

  “Can I wear them out?”

  “Sure.” Eli stuck her tennis shoes in the box and closed the lid. Then he headed toward the front with slow, fluid steps. Like a cougar about to pounce.

  The other employee rang up the sale, and the smirking, tobacco-chewing fella brought himself and his fat lip around the end of the counter. As he did so, he scanned Laura’s body with an irreverent leer.

  “Now there’s a filly I’d like to try.”

  Eli’s body tensed and Laura saw his jaw clench. He returned his credit card to his wallet, his wallet to his back pocket and faced the mouthy man with a deadly glare.

  “Whoa, there, Hero Hawthorne,” the cowboy said, both hands raised in surrender, but no such sentiment in his eyes. “Can’t fault a guy for checking out the merchandise, now can you?”

  Laura touched Eli’s arm and felt steel beneath his sleeve.

  “You owe the lady an apology.”

  The smirk widened. “Really? And how do I know she’s a lady?”

  Eli’s right hand struck like a cobra. His grabbed the man’s shirt and yanked him up until only his booted toes scraped the floor.

  White-faced with panic, he clawed at Eli’s hand.

  “Now you owe her two.”

  The clerk behind the counter moved toward them and Eli stopped him with an icy glare. “Eli,” Laura whispered.

  He ignored her and bore into the defenseless man’s face with his cold, blue eye.

  “Sorry, ma’am,” the cowboy choked.

  “That’s one,” Eli said in a clear, tight voice.

  The man’s eyes darted to Laura and back to his captor. “No harm intended, ma’am.”

  “Two.” Eli uncurled his fingers and the man dropped like a feed sack. Tobacco juice oozed from one side of his mouth as he backed down the aisle toward the exit.

  Laura stood immobilized, staring.

  “That was uncalled for, Hawthorne.” The kid at the cash register stepped out of Eli’s reach.

  “Was it,” Eli said, no question in his tone. He cupped Laura’s elbow and gently turned her toward the door.

  Chapter 15

  Eli eased his truck out of the feed store parking lot and toward the main part of town.

  “I’m sorry.” He had to fully turn his head to see Laura sitting close to the passenger door. “But I couldn’t let him talk to you like that.”

  The boot box lay on the seat between them. It might as well have been a granite wall. She stared straight ahead, her hands folded tightly in her lap.

  His plans for dinner at the Burger Barn drained away, along with any thought of getting closer—until she spoke.

  “No one has ever come to my defense.”

  The quiver in her voice made him want to go back and hit the guy. Hope flared to a tiny ember.

  “If I hadn’t called him out, he would have mouthed off even worse.”

  “You’ve had a run-in with him before, haven’t you?” By the sound of her voice he knew she’d turned her head toward him.

  He nodded and signaled left at the Burger Barn. Parking in front, he killed the engine, punched his seat belt free and twisted around in the seat to face her. The maneuver increased his frustration over having just one eye.

  “You tensed when you saw him on the loading dock, and again inside,” she said.

  Her dark eyes searched his face with no rebuke.

  “Instinct. Backed up with a few facts.” He laid his right arm on the seat back, his fingers inches from her hair. “He’s a womanizer, a liar and a punk.”

  One corner of her mouth twitched and an eyebrow arched and quickly straightened. She’d never make a good poker player.

  “How do you know?”

  “He claims to have earned several commendations for valor in Afghanistan. I called him on it the first time I ran into him.”

  “What makes you doubt his word?”

  “Because I’ve seen guys like him before. All talk and no tank. All hat and no cattle.” He pulled his keys from the ignition. “And Garcia said the guy came back six months before me, full of brag. Didn’t get enough attention, I guess.”

  “And you got a newspaper story.”

  He stared through the windshield at the red-and-white checked curtains framing the Burger Barn door. He’d go somewhere else to eat if he could.

  She reached for his hand and turned it over.

  His heart shifted into high gear and sweat popped out above his hatband.

  “Just checking your fingers,” she said, stroking his palm. “I wouldn’t want you unable to finish the fence because you felt you had to defend my honor.”

  The tension in his shoulders drained away at her playful remark. “Gee, thanks,” he answered with mock offense.

  “Thank you.” She squeezed his hand.

  Her tenderness and genuine gratitude pushed him to the edge of a place he hadn’t been in years, and he grappled with his emotions, fighting for equilibrium. “Hungry?”

  Laughing outright, she let go and unfastened her seat belt. “You do have your priorities, don’t you?”

  “Of course. This place has the best burgers in the state. And their fries aren’t bad, either.”

  She leaned forward and tucked the bottom of her jeans into her boot tops. “But do they have root beer floats?”

  “You buying?”

  “Only cows. If the boots didn’t break you, I imagine you can afford dinner, too.”

  She slid out her side.

  He held the diner door for her, then motioned toward a booth in the far right corner. Taking the side against the wall, he sat in the center rather than inviting her to sit next to him. If Tobacco Breath followed them, he wanted to see the door before she did.

  Laura scooted onto the opposite seat and reached for the menus tucked behind a white enamel bucket holding mustard, ketchup and napkins.

  “What’ll it be, Hawthorne?”

  The cook’s abrupt holler startled her and she jerked around in her seat.

  “It’s Toby, the owner. He always does that,” Eli said, reaching across the table for her hand. He saw her visibly relax, and guessed she was still on edge from the feed store incident. “I’m going to yell our order back to him, okay?”

  Laura took a deep breath and eased it through her lips. “Sure. But you don’t know what I want yet.”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  Without releasing her hand he leaned away from her and raised his chin. “Two cows with a stack o’ hay. No cheese.”

  She giggled and whispered, “Don’t forget the root beer float.”

  “And two beers with cream.”

  “Comin’ up.”

  She was watching him with one of those mixed looks he remembered from their childhood. Questioning. Admiring. Challenging.

 
“This place too fancy for your blood?”

  Her mouth curved into a perfect smile. “This place is perfect for my blood.”

  She pulled her hand away, reached into a back pocket and pushed a folded paper across the table. “For the cows.”

  Without looking at the check he slipped it in his shirt pocket. “Thanks. Now I don’t have to charge you interest.”

  She wrinkled her nose at him.

  The owner delivered two glass mugs of foamy root beer with bobbing scoops of ice cream. “Two beers with cream,” he said, placing one on either side of the table.

  “Thanks, Toby.” Eli nodded at the aproned man. “Laura, this is Toby McClure. Toby, Laura Bell.”

  “Hello, Toby.” She offered her hand. “You have a great place.”

  Bald but amply mustached with a fine handlebar, Toby wiped his hands on his apron and took hers with a brief shake. “Thank you, ma’am. Gotta keep up appearances for famous people like Eli, here.”

  Eli cleared his throat and jerked his head to the side in a send-off. “Don’t burn our dinner with your yakkin’.”

  Toby grinned and thumbed over his shoulder toward the wall as he left.

  “What’s that all about?”

  “He likes to keep his customers entertained.” Eli pushed his ice cream down with a spoon and stirred, hoping she wouldn’t look too closely at the wall. “So how do the boots feel?”

  “Great.” She spooned off a bite of ice cream and a white smudge stuck to her lip. “Mmm, even greater.”

  He pulled a napkin from the bucket, and poised it halfway across the table. “May I?”

  She cocked her head to the side, a question bunching her brows.

  Leaning forward he dabbed her mouth.

  With a disgusted little grunt, she snatched the napkin and wiped it across her lips. Her dark eyes danced with laughter.

  “Good grief, Eli,” she teased. “You pick out my boots, pick out my food and now you’re picking at my face.”

  “Somebody’s got to take care of you.”

  “I can take care of myself, thank you very much. I’m a grown woman.”

  No kidding. That bit of information had not failed to imprint on his heart. “And a fine one at that, I might add.”