The Rancher's Second Chance Page 3

  The irony cut deep. His family consisted of an old cowboy and a crippled dog.

  He took his hat off and slapped the dust from his jeans as he headed for the house. In spite of the poor livestock market and high fuel cost, and in spite of the loss of his eye and foot, one good thing had finally happened. The one thing he’d dreamed of on long cold nights in the treeless mountains of a distant land.

  Laura Bell had come home.

  * * *

  The first bed Laura had shopped for she hadn’t actually shopped for. She’d merely trailed Derek through an outrageously expensive furniture store. At the time, it didn’t matter what he chose. She was too enamored by her handsome, investment-banker fiancé, and if he had chosen a cot she would have agreed. But for him, appearances were everything, and men delivered a monstrous bed to the condominium the next day, with matching armoire, nightstands and a massive dresser.

  It took her only a week to loathe it.

  Seated on the front porch swing in cutoffs, she crossed her legs beneath her laptop and scrolled through a forest of Pinterest search results for brass beds. Hundreds of pictures popped up: ornate with frilly spreads and matching curtains, starkly plain with minimalist linen. Single, double, queen, king. Knobbed, railed, polished and aged. But she recognized it when she saw it—simple, sleek, with matching finials atop each of the four posts. A modest quilt and thick pillows softened its strong lines. She clicked on “double” and placed her order through the source site. She’d find a quilt in town.

  Closing her computer, she gazed down at the Hawthorne Ranch. The sprinklers vaulted over the paddocks, and cow-calf pairs grazed in the upper pastures. A red-tailed hawk soared across her view and drew her eyes with its effortless climb. As a child she’d watched the regal birds for hours, knew where they nested, learned how they rode the thermals.

  Why couldn’t she glide through life like that?

  Frustrated, she went inside and an answer trailed her to the shower. You’re not rising on the heat.

  Heat she understood.

  The burning shame and anger of finding Derek with another woman the week before their wedding.

  The scorching loss of her mother to cancer at the age of forty-seven.

  Yes, she understood heat. She just hadn’t figured out how to rise on it.

  What did that even mean?

  After her shower she stood dripping in the tub with the sudden realization that her overnight bag held all the essentials except a towel. She finger-squeegeed her arms and legs and finished with a clean T-shirt. As she dressed, she mentally ticked off a shopping list. Towels. Bathroom rugs. Dishes, pots and pans—she needed so much.

  When she left Derek, she’d left everything connected to him. The ring, the dress, wedding gifts, shower gifts, everything they had picked out together. Except the roadster. She’d picked that out.

  And when her mother died, she left everything else in the bungalow they had rented, other than her clothes and Daddy’s shotgun. Not much else would fit in her car.

  How could her life have fallen apart all at once?

  Refusing to sob through another day, she combed out her hair, scribbled her list and locked the door.

  On the way into town she let the wind toss her hair. She parked on Main Street and twisted the damp strands in a scrunchie. Determined to buy as much as she could afford from small business owners, she entered a narrow storefront offering “Linen, Luxuries and Life’s Essentials.”

  The proverbial bell above the door announced her entrance, and the spicy atmosphere promised possibilities. A slender middle-aged woman approached from the back. She wiped the corners of her mouth with a paper napkin, then tucked it in the pocket of her long broom-handle skirt.

  “Sorry about that.” She thumbed her mouth self-consciously. “My granddaughter baked snicker doodle bread for me this morning, and I can’t stop eating it.” She held out her hand. “I’m Mary Travers.”

  Laura did a quick once-over thinking the name sounded familiar.

  The woman noticed.

  “Like Mary Travers of Peter, Paul and Mary fame,” she said.

  Laura nodded, still uncertain.

  “You’re much too young to know who they were, but your grandparents might have.” She smiled. “I sing like a squeaky rocking chair, so I claim no connection to the folk group. Just my luck to marry a man with the name Travers.”

  Laura returned her smile. “I’m Laura Bell.”

  Mary fingered a faded brown strand behind her ear. “How can I help you?”

  Laura pivoted and took in her surroundings: a clutch of bright copper kettles, specialty tea boxes and herbs, a wine rack stuffed with skeins of yarn. She could spend a fortune—a fortune she didn’t have.

  “The sign said Linen. Do you have quilts and bedding? I just moved here and I need a few things.”

  “Oh—newly married?” Mary turned toward a back corner and revealed a long braid that hung nearly to her waist. She wove through displays and stopped before tall wicker shelves bulging with sheets, blankets, tablecloths and towels.

  “No. Suddenly single.”

  Mary sighed. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize, please. Starting over is still starting over. No one throws you a cancelled-wedding party.”

  Mary cringed. “I always pry when I shouldn’t.”

  Laura squeezed a plush terrycloth towel. Pricey, but maybe she’d splurge.

  “Are your quilts handmade?”

  “Yes, but they’re not antique.” Mary lifted the lid on a wicker trunk and pulled out several folded quilts in various patterns and colors. “What size are you looking for?”

  Laura spotted a simple multi-colored design and pulled it from the stack. “Double, if you have it. How big is this one?”

  Together they stretched it out in the cramped corner.

  “Looks like this should work,” Mary said. “If you want to try it and it doesn’t fit, you can always exchange it for something else.”

  Laura shook her head. “That’s what I love about small-town merchants. Personal service and unheard-of concessions. You just sold a quilt.”

  As well as new bedding, towels, matching throw rugs, a designer shower curtain and kitchen linen; a hand-thrown pottery set with place settings for four and matching mugs also caught Laura’s eye. Pots and pans would have to wait for the next trip, but she was certain she could fit the cute wicker animal bed with a red cushion on the passenger-side floorboard. And a handblown, glass orb hummingbird feeder.

  Lighter in heart and bank account, Laura pulled through a fast-food place for chicken strips and then stopped at a hardware store for mouse traps, poison and a broom. She’d have to come back for a toolbox, hammer, screwdrivers and other essentials, but first she’d look in the shed at the corrals. Her mother may have left some of her dad’s things behind—if they hadn’t been taken by renters over the years.

  The convertible drive was decidedly cooler once she left town and started the slow climb into the foothills. Before long, summer would wick the moisture from the hills and they’d fade to a tawny gold. She’d missed the spring wildflowers—purple and yellow and white—and blankets of copper poppies. But she could still plant annuals in the beds around the house.

  More shopping. She smiled.

  Turning left onto the county road, she geared up on the long straightaway, but changed her mind and slowed as she approached the ranch entrance. A long wooden sign with an oak tree silhouette hung above the gate, and deep-cut Western letters announced Hawthorne Ranch. Beyond it a rider circled in the round pen. Only the top of his hat showed over the high railing.

  She returned her attention to the road, threaded the S-curve like the eye of a needle and stopped at the mail boxes to find hers empty. Disappointment pushed against her earlier good mood. Nearly all
her communication she handled online. Efficient and impersonal. But for some odd reason she longed for a letter, handwritten words on real stationery, folded and sealed in a hand-addressed envelope. Something that said she was worth the extra time and effort.

  She’d seen her mother’s old love letters from Daddy. They seemed so much more personal than email and texts and instant messages.

  But people didn’t write letters anymore.

  And besides, who would write her?

  Chapter 4

  The colt jerked its head up and shied away from the fence. Nearly unseated, Eli reined it in, berating himself for letting his mind wander. The culprit waddled past the rails.

  “Little far from the pond, aren’t you?”

  The goose peered through the railing and honked, sending the colt hopping on all fours again.

  “Easy—easy.” Eli hushed his voice and pulled lightly, a steady hand on each rein, guiding the horse across the round pen to the other side. If Goldie wasn’t sleeping in the barn, that gander wouldn’t be squawking up a storm. That was all he needed—to get thrown with no one around to help. Garcia wouldn’t be back until Sunday, and Eli would never hear the end of it if the aging vaquero returned to find him busted up.

  He tugged at his eye patch, grateful the colt hadn’t tossed him. Blind on one side, he might have missed a high-flying hoof. Garcia was right—he needed to work smarter, not harder. And a one-eyed cowboy with a missing foot on a green-broke colt with no one around wasn’t exactly smart.

  He circled the colt again, dismounted and led it through the gate. After unsaddling and a good rubdown, he turned the colt out in a small paddock where it bolted away, twisting and kicking its back legs like a yearling rather than a three-year-old.

  As he watched, a glint of sunlight on glass caught his eye. Laura’s bullet car poised on her hill’s western slope again. He hadn’t heard her return.

  He pulled his hat off, rubbed his sleeve across his brow and headed for the golf cart. He loaded Goldie in the back, grabbed his tackle and took the lane over the irrigation canal, along the apple orchard and around to the pond. He parked under the oak and Goldie stood, wagging her tail and barking. Cradling her in both arms, he set her on the ground, and she limped along the water’s edge yapping at the indulgent mallards.

  Content in his old haunt, Eli baited a hook, plunked in the line and leaned back in the cool grass. Not so long ago Goldie would have been in the water with those ducks. He snorted. Time had done a number on them both. They’d never be what they once were, and they’d both learned to compensate.

  He hated that word and everything it stood for, but it ruled his life. Compensation had become second nature when he lost his eye. And he compensated for his left leg, though a prosthesis kept him on both feet. One foot, technically. He could ride, had learned to balance himself by watching his boot in the stirrup. The same way he’d learned to walk again, by watching the ground where he stepped. But nothing could substitute for the eye and peripheral vision on the right side. An artificial orb gave him a normal appearance to other people, but not to himself, and that bothered him. He preferred the patch, though most of the time he felt as if he was about to be blindsided. Like he’d been blindsided in Afghanistan.

  His pole dipped and he worked the line. A snag or a smart fish, for he reeled in a shiny hook with nothing on the end. Laura would have laughed.

  Surprised at the trail his thought had taken, his gaze settled on the long gray house. He’d been truly sorry to hear about her mom. Lauraine Bell was a good woman, even though Eli had long resented her for moving away.

  The day Laura had run to the pond with tears striping her flushed cheeks, she’d sobbed out the news. Her father was dead and they were leaving.

  At fourteen, gangly and pimpled, Eli hadn’t had the guts to tell a twelve-year-old that he didn’t want her to go.

  An old hunger clawed in his stomach. For years he’d carried the unlikely hope that Laura would return so he’d never gotten to know the renters who moved in and out and in. Later, he’d wanted to buy the place, and knew Ken Pennington did, too, the rancher east of Laura’s twenty acres. But until Eli figured out who was stealing his calves, he wouldn’t be buying anything.

  Anger bubbled to the surface and his fists clenched. God help the man or men he found rustling his livestock.

  He gathered his tackle and called Goldie to the cart. He needed to forget about the Bell place, at least for a year. If Laura settled in and stayed, she wouldn’t be selling anyway.

  And he’d rather have her as a neighbor again than have her land.

  * * *

  Laura stashed her new purchases and walked through the house, looking in closets and checking window latches. It felt so empty without furniture, but she’d already spent a bundle on the bed, linens and dishes, and she needed a vacuum cleaner. She closed the vents in the other two bedrooms at the opposite end of the house, shut the doors and turned on the air-conditioning. No sense cooling rooms she didn’t use.

  Grabbing the leftover chicken from the counter, she opened the refrigerator and gagged. She didn’t even have baking soda. Realizing again how much she needed, she plopped down on the sofa with the last cold chicken strip to make another list. The bed should be delivered within the week and—

  A knock at the French doors startled her. She hadn’t heard a car drive up.

  A man stood with his back to the doors. He turned at the click of the knob and she recognized an older version of her neighbor to the east—Ken Pennington. No wonder the hillside beyond her fence was so barren. He still lived there.

  Pennington took off his hat and nodded.

  “I live on top there.” He jerked his head toward the road that continued back into the hills. “I was out riding and noticed your car. Are you interested in buying this place?”

  She looked beyond him to the saddled buckskin nipping at the remains of her dead lawn. Pennington followed her gaze.

  “Oh, don’t mind him. The grass has been dead here for about a year, ever since the last renter moved out.” He fingered the brim of his dirty felt hat. “But I keep an eye on the place for the property manager, now that the owner’s passed on and all.”

  “Really.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He held out a meaty hand. “Name’s Pennington.”

  Her fingers tightened on the doorknob. “I’m Laura Bell.”

  An open-handed slap would have drawn the same reaction, and he stepped back. His eyes raked her from top to bottom before he closed his mouth and cleared his throat. “I didn’t recognize you, Laura.” He fumbled with his hat. “You’re all grown up. And mighty pretty, too.”

  “Thanks for stopping by.” She started to close the door and he stuck a boot over the threshold.

  A greasy smile stretched his lips. “Will you be staying? I mean, isn’t this place for sale? I was thinking about buying the land myself, you know. Make you a good offer.”

  She stared at his boot until he pulled his foot back.

  “No, thank you. It’s no longer on the market. Goodbye, Mr. Pennington.”

  She closed the door and turned the lock while he stood on the porch running a hand around the inside of his hatband. She retreated to the living room where she could still watch him without being seen. After a long moment he lumbered down the porch steps, untied his horse and hefted himself into the saddle. She pitied the horse.

  As he turned the buckskin toward her driveway, she moved to the kitchen window over the sink and watched them amble down her drive and out to the lane. He headed up the hill that folded into several more rising a couple hundred feet above her to the east. She shivered.

  Her mother hadn’t liked Pennington and neither did she. God forgive her for being rude, but her instincts told her not to trust him. A childhood memory drew her eyes to the kitchen corner where
the barrel of Daddy’s shotgun had rubbed a gray spot on the wall. She’d forgotten a lot about country life over the years, but she hadn’t forgotten how to shoot.

  Mama insisted the gun was for snakes. The “two-legged kind.”

  She understood now better than she ever had and was glad she’d held on to the old gun. Returning to the sofa she added to her list. Shotgun shells.

  * * *

  Saturday morning a van stopped in front of the house and the driver unloaded a large, flat box. Laura signed for the delivery, locked the door and watched him drive away.

  One of her shiny new kitchen knives slit the box’s taped edges, and she dragged out the padded bulk of a brass footboard. The headboard came next, followed by the frame, cross supports and a bag of screws.

  Her newly adopted black-and-white kittens chased each other in and out of the empty box, and wrestled with the Bubble Wrap.

  Within an hour, the bed stood against the outside wall of her bedroom. Its smooth patina gleamed like a family heirloom—minus a mattress and box spring.

  “Where is my brain?”

  She dropped to the floor in defeat and Pete and Re-Pete galloped from the living room through the bedroom door and into her lap. Their rolling ball-of-fur antics dashed her frustration and soon she was laughing at their clownish commotion. Of all the other animal shelter offerings, they had been the most aggressive, and she expected them to become good mousers. Their entertainment value proved to be a bonus.

  In the kitchen she thumbed through an old phone book for a furniture store she’d seen in town. Hopefully, they had mattresses and would deliver. Otherwise she’d have to resort to the internet again.

  After talking to a helpful employee who assured her the double mattress and box spring would be delivered by early afternoon, she flipped through the yellow pages under “Churches” and found the number for Spring Valley Chapel. A recorded message provided the service time—Sunday morning at ten-thirty. No evening or midweek services.

  Pete and Re-Pete bounded into the kitchen and paddled across the slick floor like cartoon characters.