The Rancher's Second Chance Page 6

  Laura watched Garcia walk out of the kitchen, across the back porch and into the slanting afternoon sunlight.

  El corazon, he’d said. The heart.

  With each throb of her aching chest, a new tear slid down her face and dropped into the tepid water.

  * * *

  Eli clenched the penlight between his teeth. A thermal imaging scope topped the Remington .223 slung across his back, and a pocket in his camo pants bulged with extra ammunition. Other pockets held a night vision monocular, water bottle and Laura’s leftover cookie bread, or whatever she called it. He shuddered at the thought of her out here in the dark.

  He looked down, aimed the light and planted his left boot on the first of many slats that laddered up thirty feet to the barn’s peak. Watching the boot, he pushed himself up. One.

  Two.

  Darkness compounded the task. Three. He could have crawled up on top of his pickup. Four. Five. But he wanted the high ground, so to speak. Six, seven. And from what he’d seen on a trial run earlier in the day, the highest point other than Laura’s front porch was his barn roof.

  Ten. Eleven. Twelve.

  He’d played up there as a kid, though Granddad would have skinned him if he’d known. Eli had nailed two-by-fours in a rough square around the skylight opening so he wouldn’t roll off the slope. Fifteen. This was the one place he’d never taken Laura, though he doubted she would have balked at the risky climb and even riskier idea of a crow’s nest perspective. Twenty-one. He knew she wasn’t afraid, but he was. Twenty-four. Afraid she’d slip or get hurt somehow. After all, he was responsible for her. Or so he had thought.

  Twenty-six.

  The air grew dense and hot as he climbed, and on the twenty-eighth rung he stopped and aimed the light at the ceiling then back to the ladder. Two more steps and he bumped the skylight with his head. He killed the light, slid it into his shirt pocket and felt for the latch that would release the fiberglass pane.

  Fresh air rushed across his face as he pushed the hinged panel back. It fell against the corrugated steel roof and he stopped cold. Stopped breathing. Waited for the click of a safety, the clink of metal on metal. The smell of sweat on a hidden man.

  Nothing.

  He tightened his grip and shook his head. Not Afghanistan.

  Accustomed to the barn’s tomblike darkness, the starry brilliance surprised him. He filled his lungs with the sweet breath of nightfall on pastureland and pulled himself through the opening and into a sitting position. All around him quiet reigned.

  A knob on his watch illuminated the face with a green 22:00—10:00 p.m. Garcia would come on at two and watch until dawn. Not on the barn, but from a hill at the southern corner of the ranch. If all was quiet, Eli would sleep on the roof and climb down after daylight.

  He closed the hatch and set out his water, monocular and ammunition. Cinnamon wafted up as he unwrapped the bread and bit into the sweet softness. He could get used to this—sweet Laura Bell and her sweet homemade bread.

  He snorted in disgust.

  Sweet chance of that after snapping her head off at dinner.

  He crimped the foil around two remaining slices and laid it in the corner of his safety frame. Then he stretched out on his stomach, planted his elbows and raised the rifle scope to his eye.

  * * *

  Laura huddled on the porch swing. Wrapped in the quilt from her bed, she marveled at the starry blanket glittering above. No streetlights vied for attention. No neon, no artificial light at all. Even the Halogen at the ranch had been extinguished. Eli’s doing, no doubt. She hugged her knees and scanned the ranch, wondering where he hid. With his military background, Eli would not be seen or heard.

  She recalled his chilling gaze at the dinner table and pulled the quilt tighter.

  Garcia said Eli considered himself half a man, but she saw it differently. More like two sides of the same man. Two completely opposite personalities. One side she recognized from their childhood—fun-loving, sure of himself. Quick to tease and lord it over her, yet watchful. Caring. The grown-up Eli had a sharp, defensive edge. He was guarded. Cold. Angry.

  And if she’d heard Garcia right, Eli wanted nothing to do with God.

  Crickets trilled from the pond, and a bullfrog bellowed in the rushes along the banks. From somewhere to her right an owl offered a throaty call, answered moments later by another. No coyotes whined, no dogs barked, no cars traveled the road that bordered the ranch. All the world slept.

  Relaxing, she burrowed deeper into the quilt folds and the movement caused the swing to sway. She could sleep like this, cuddled beneath the stars, in the shelter of her porch.

  And then a woman screamed.

  Chapter 8

  Laura’s own cry strangled in her throat. She clamped a hand over her mouth and every fine hair on her arms stood erect. Staring into the dark hills above her house, she waited for the next outburst.

  Again the scream sliced through the night and through her nerves, and her muscles flexed with the instinctive urge to run. She held her position, strained to see movement in the darkness and willed herself to breathe.

  The chilling fear ebbed as reason flowed in on her father’s dear voice. She’s far away, Laury, girl. Don’t be afraid.

  The cry must have come from above Slick Rock, for it would have been louder had the cougar been anywhere close by. Laura thought of the lair above the falls that tumbled over the rock in the spring runoff. Beyond Pennington’s land, a half mile east of her fence line. Close enough.

  Her pulse hammered in her ears and pounded in her neck. She took long, slow breaths and scanned the ranch, listening for restlessness among the livestock. All lay still, as much as she could tell, and again she wished for binoculars. Better yet, night vision goggles like Eli and Garcia used. Could Eli see her from his lookout?

  Slowly the crickets picked up their chorus, the bullfrog thrummed and the night whispered through the grass.

  Rising from the swing, she gathered the quilt against her body and at the screen door stooped to peer through the bottom for the kittens. They tumbled in the kitchen, and she slipped in, softly closing the door behind her and turning the lock. Pete and Re-Pete bounded across the room and sank their claws in the dangling quilt corners. Chuckling, she dragged them to the bedroom and dropped them on the bed where they skittered to the floor and dashed beneath the dust ruffle.

  Holding the quilt wide, she snapped it in the air and it floated to the bed in a silent flutter.

  Just as the first shot rang out.

  * * *

  The riderless horse reared at the ping of steel on steel and a hunched figure scrambled through the pipe fencing and grabbed at the reins. One more kiss of steel on an upright post, and the horse spun and bolted up the draw behind the pasture, its rider in stumbling pursuit.

  Eli smiled to himself, chambered another round and scoped the cattle bedded down nearby. Startled by the sudden noise, cows raised their hind quarters first and then stood facing the outer fence. Calves hugged close to their mothers’ legs and bawled.

  Eli trailed the fleeing man until he disappeared over the draw, his horse long gone ahead of him.

  The thief wouldn’t return tonight. He’d not turned his face toward Eli, so he wouldn’t have seen the rifle’s flash. He wouldn’t know where the shot came from—only that he’d been found out. And from the way he moved, Eli doubted it was Pennington. A hired hand, maybe. Or someone else altogether. Who knew, these days?

  He laid the rifle next to him, unwrapped Laura’s bread, then rolled onto his back and gazed at the stars as he ate. Tomorrow he’d drive into town, have breakfast at the coffee shop and stop by the feed store. Chances were he’d hear some chatter. He wasn’t the only rancher losing livestock in this economy.

  * * *

  Pin pricks needled Laura’
s abdomen and rhythmically pushed through her sleep shirt.

  “Ow!” Bolting upright, she scattered the kittens kneading her stomach. She fell back against the pillow to get her bearings. Had she been dreaming? Leaning over the bed she reached under the dust ruffle and met with a teasing paw, claws sheathed.

  “Come here, you rascals. What do you think I am—your mother?” She could hear their tiny motors running and scooped them up one at a time to lie against her. Sunlight streamed through the windows, much brighter than dawn, and she glanced at the alarm clock across the room on the floor.

  “I slept in, boys. No wonder you were working me over. You must be starved.”

  Still groggy from a late night of watching and worrying, Laura trudged to the laundry room, poured cat food into the double dish and gave the kittens fresh water. In the living room she combed her fingers through her tangled hair and stood at the window. Life at the ranch was right on schedule. Sprinklers stretched silvery arms across the pastures, geese squatted sunning by the pond, cattle grazed. The golf cart tooled down a dusty lane, and Eli came to mind.

  She recalled the gun shots.

  Had he really fired at rustlers last night? Or the cougar? A marauding coyote? A skunk? Garcia said he wouldn’t actually shoot someone, but would merely shoot near them. She scanned the pastures below. No dead bodies, as far as she could tell.

  Keeping a promise to herself she pulled on shorts, a tank top and her running shoes and headed out the French doors. The hill awaited—a steep half-mile descent of chewed-up asphalt and potholes.

  At the bottom she turned south, toward the narrow S-curve and long straightaway bordering the ranch. A covey of quail flushed across the road and into the underbrush. Doves coo-aahed from cottonwood trees, and the sprinklers swished out a steady background beat. Laura raised her face to the sun, relished its warm caress and started out at a slow jog. Oh, how she’d missed the country.

  She jogged past the ranch and along a sheltering row of ash trees. In the pasture a dwarfed oak spread an umbrella-like canopy, evenly trimmed where cows had stretched their thick necks and nibbled the edges.

  Coming toward her, another runner hugged the same side. She slowed to a walk and stepped into deeper shade for the runner to pass. And then she recognized her.

  “Mary?”

  The woman stopped and leaned against her knees. “Hi.” She heaved a deep breath. “Do I know you?”

  “Laura Bell. I met you last week at your store.”

  Mary straightened and smiled. “You have a good memory.” She stepped off the road and into the shade and bent to wipe her brow on her shirttail. “So you live out here, on Campbell Creek?”

  “Up on the hill there.” Laura pointed back to the first ridge that overlooked Hawthorne Ranch.

  “Wow. You must have a great view.”

  “I do.”

  “So you run, too.”

  Comparing her dry skin to Mary’s sweat-drenched body, Laura couldn’t exactly call what she did running. “Sort of. I jog, really. But I’m hoping to work up to it. It’s been a long time.”

  “I remember you said you were starting over.”

  “In a lot of ways.”

  Mary stooped to tighten a shoelace and Laura thought back to their first meeting. “I found a snicker doodle bread recipe and it turned out pretty good.”

  Mary nodded and addressed the other shoe. “I’m not surprised. After you left that day I finished off that mini loaf all by myself.”

  “You live very far up the road?”

  The woman stood and flapped her shirttail like a fan. “A half mile past the mailboxes, first drive on the right. Would you like to run—or jog—with me some morning?”

  Encouragement seeped into a hidden corner. “I wouldn’t want to slow you down.”

  Mary pulled her ropelike braid over her shoulder and wrapped her hand in it. “Don’t worry about that. I’d enjoy the company. Though I usually leave a little earlier. Got a late start this morning.”

  “What time?”

  Mary flipped her braid back. “That’s your lane across from the mailboxes, right? What if I meet you there tomorrow at six? Before it gets too hot.”

  Mary obviously didn’t sleep in. “Sounds great.”

  “Good. See you then.”

  The woman smiled and jogged away, her braid bouncing against her back as she picked up her pace.

  Laura walked on beneath the sentinel ash trees, a spark of anticipation growing into hope. A possible friend. And a healthy one at that. Mary was closer to her mother’s age, but the woman could outrun her with little to no effort. Exactly what Laura needed. A friend and motivation.

  After a quarter mile she turned toward home with a new sense of direction—and on impulse cut through the fence onto the ranch. She wouldn’t have to run all the way back to the road to get home. She could slip through the back pasture. Like she had as a kid.

  For a moment she was twelve again, running down the road searching for Eli and a new adventure. She stopped, smoothed her shirt, tucked her hair behind her ears and took a deep breath. She was not a child. Some decorum was in order. At a more leisurely pace, she strolled into the central yard bordered on three sides by outbuildings and spotted Eli hooking a spray rig to a four-wheeler.

  He must have heard her for he spun quickly, challenge written on his face in the split second before recognition. His shoulders relaxed and a slow grin lifted one side of his mouth. He adjusted the eye patch and leaned against the quad, arms folded on his chest.

  “Hey, Laura Bell—”

  She stopped. Jammed her fists on her hips. Glared.

  Raising his hands in surrender, he laughed. “All right, all right. No ding-a-ling.” His full-blown grin told her his concession came at a high price. She thanked him by unballing her fingers and assuming a respectable demeanor.

  “Looks like you’re in attack mode.” She nodded at the white tank attached to the quad.

  He pushed away from the fender. “Yeah. Should have done this earlier, but other things came up.”

  “Like rustlers?”

  The grin vanished, replaced by defensiveness.

  She noted his clenched jaw, the tightening of his bare forearms. A soldier, she thought. Ready to fight. She glanced at his left leg. No different than the other.

  “I heard gunshots last night,” she said.

  At her abrupt confession, his gaze slid to the upper pasture. He lifted his hat, ran a hand over his hair. “So you did.” He jammed the hat on and his features hardened. “I missed.”

  A chill swept through her. She stepped closer and softened her voice. “I thought you were supposed to miss.” He met her eyes and held them long enough for her to see pain etched in the beautiful blue-gray.

  “Man or beast?” she ventured.

  His lips curled in that new unsettling way. “Both.” He regarded her briefly, then climbed onto the quad and reached for the ignition.

  She moved closer and touched his shoulder. “Eli.”

  He flinched, whether at her fingers or her voice she didn’t know, but she desperately wanted to reach the other Eli. A bold idea flashed through her mind. “I’ll bring dinner tonight.”

  He turned his spotlight gaze on her, probing her intentions.

  “You got any more sweet bread?”

  A small sigh escaped her lips. “Absolutely.” Mentally she scoured her cupboards for the ingredients. “I thought I’d make enchiladas.” She hadn’t thought about it at all. “And rice.”

  “I’ve got a can of beans in the cupboard.”

  Relieved, she parried with him. “That’s probably all you have in your cupboard. You certainly don’t have anything in your refrigerator. What have you been living on?”

  He tugged on his hat brim, started the quad and
threw one word at her.

  “Fish.”

  Laura watched him drive down the central lane and slow at the first paddock. He reached back for the spray wand attached to a hose and spread a fine mist into the ditch along the fence line. The distinctive odor of weed killer drifted her way and she turned for the upper pasture.

  Traipsing through tall grass in tennis shoes and shorts invited a snake bite this time of year. Keeping an eye on the ground ahead, she crossed the pasture, slipped through the red pipe fencing and stopped by the Miracle Tree. Garcia was right. Both she and Eli needed a healing touch. Something had burned a hole in Eli as surely as the fire that gouged this tree.

  “Can You use me, Lord?” She stooped to peer inside the hollow shell, and wondered if her own healing would come when she reached out to another wounded heart.

  Chapter 9

  Eli released the spray lever, crossed the intersecting lane, slowed and aimed the nozzle at the next ditch line. He twisted around to see if Laura still stood by the tractor shed.

  Gone.

  An awkward jolt tipped him to the right as the front wheel ran into the ditch. Jerking the handlebars, he corrected and resumed a straight path paralleling the fence line.

  That’s what he got for letting distractions pull him away from the task at hand.

  A beautiful distraction.

  One that planned to show up tonight with dinner. His mouth watered at the suggested menu. Had she remembered enchiladas were his favorite, or was that merely a coincidence? And what was her motivation? Friendship? Morbid curiosity? Evangelism?

  He could use a friend, but he didn’t need a preacher. So far she hadn’t pressed the prayer issue, but if she ganged up with Garcia, things could get ugly. And he didn’t know if he could just be a friend. Something about her pulled at him, filled him with longing for more than what they’d had as children. Taunted him with possibilities of what they could share as adults.

  What if she didn’t want the same? What if his scars repulsed her? What if she played the God card?