Rescuing Harmony Ranch

by Jennie Marts

  Mack shrugged. “Better luck next time.”

  She pushed her shoulders back. “I still beat you at double strike this morning.”

  “That didn’t count. I was distracted.”

  I’ll bet. “Yeah, sorry I missed out on lunch.”

  “Sorry you weren’t feeling well. Although that did seem to come on rather sudden. You all right now?”

  “Oh, sure.” She kept her tone even and searched the ground as if looking for another rock to skip. “That was a pretty nice picnic Sophie set out for you.”

  “Yeah, she’s a great girl. And a good cook. Her fried chicken is amazing.”

  “And she’s pretty, too.”

  He turned his head and gave her a side-eye. “Do I detect a hint of jealousy?”

  She reared back. “What? Me? Jealous? No, I didn’t say that.”

  “You didn’t have to.” He nudged her with his elbow. “Your face says it all. You’re jealous.”

  First he’d beat her at skipping rocks, now this. She narrowed her eyes as her gaze went from the lake to his feet and back again. He was standing right on the edge of the water. All it would take was one little push. And it wouldn’t be the first time one of them had bumped the other into this pond. She raised her hands, but he caught them in his.

  “You weren’t thinking of pushing me into the lake, were you, Joss?”

  She batted her lashes at him. “Who, me?” she asked in her best innocent voice.

  “Yeah, you,” he said, chuckling as he pulled her toward him, then swept her legs out from under her and lifted her to his chest. “I think I still owe you a dunk in this lake from the last time you got me.” He took another step forward and moved as if to swing her into the water.

  “You wouldn’t dare.” She clung to his neck as she shrieked with laughter. “If you toss me in, I’m bringing you with me.”

  “That’s what you think.” He laughed with her as he swung her forward again. But this time, his boot slipped on the slick rocks, and he lost his footing.

  Jocelyn felt the momentum shift and held tighter as they pitched forward. They both yelled as they plunged forward and hit the water with a splash.

  She sputtered as she broke the surface. “Gah, it’s freezing.” She splashed water toward Mack as she swam to the edge. “I can’t believe you tossed me in.”

  He laughed as he shook the water from his hair. “I can’t believe I fell in. I swear I did not mean to do that.”

  “And I didn’t mean to do this,” she said, turning to splash more water at him as she tried to climb up the bank. Her sneakers slid in the muddy silt and she fell forward, her hands sinking into the mud. She couldn’t help but laugh as he playfully splashed her back. Turning back around, she slipped again and fell to her bottom as she shot another spray of water toward him. “Take that.”

  “How in tarnation did you two fools end up in the pond?”

  Jocelyn stopped splashing and looked up to see Hank Talbot standing at the edge of the water. “Your grandson threw me in.”

  “Not on purpose,” Mack said, sliding up to the bank next to her. “I slipped.”

  “Well, you two need to get out of there and get yourselves cleaned up. Loretta just called from the hospital and said you need to get over there right away.”

  Chapter Six

  Jocelyn asked Hank what the matter was, but he didn’t have any details. Dread settled in the pit of her stomach as she and Mack sloshed toward the house. Their wet shoes squished out water and gathered dirt with every step as they hurried across the driveway.

  “I can’t go like this,” Jocelyn said, wringing out her t-shirt as she strode. “I need two minutes to put on some dry clothes.”

  “Me too,” Mack said, veering toward the caretaker cottage. “I’ll meet you at the truck in five minutes.”

  “Make it four,” she called as she raced up the stairs and into the house. It only took her three to change into dry clothes and pull her hair into a ponytail. She took an extra few seconds to swipe the mascara from under her eyes, then slipped her feet into a pair of sandals, grabbed her purse, and ran for the truck. Yoga pants and a hoodie probably weren’t the nicest attire, but they were the best she could do.

  Mack was already in the truck when she wrenched open the door. He wore a dry pair of jeans and a clean t-shirt, and the cab of the pickup smelled like a mix of laundry detergent and pond water. He hadn’t combed his hair, and it stood up in damp tufts. “I left Savage with my grandpa. Just in case we have to stay for awhile.”

  She sucked in her breath as she slid onto the seat and sent up a silent prayer for her grandmother’s health as she snapped her seat belt into the buckle.

  “I’m sure she’s fine,” Mack assured her, as he put the truck in gear and headed toward the hospital.

  They found a parking spot and hurried inside. Jocelyn took another deep breath as they headed down the hallway to her grandmother’s room. Mack slipped his hand into hers and gave it a reassuring squeeze.

  Preparing herself for the worst, she knocked, then pushed open the door.

  She blew out a relieved sigh at the sight of her grandmother sitting up in bed, reading a paperback novel and looking no worse off than she had the day before.

  She slammed the book shut and planted a hand on her bony hip. “It’s about time you two got here.”

  “What’s happened? Are you okay?” Jocelyn dropped Mack’s hand and rushed to her grandmother’s bedside.

  “I’m fine. I keep telling the doctor that I don’t need to be here. My leg can heal just as fast at home as it does here.”

  “Is that why you called us over here?” Mack asked, leaning back against the wall. “To break you out of this place?”

  She shook her head. “No, but that’s not a bad idea.”

  “We’re not breaking you out,” Jocelyn said. “And you only have to stay here for one more night. It can’t be that bad.”

  “It isn’t that good,” her grandmother said, pushing her bottom lip out in a pout. “I know I’ll sleep a lot better in my own bed without fifteen nurses coming in at all hours of the night poking at me and checking to make sure I’m still alive.”

  Mack arched an eyebrow. “This is the Harmony Creek Hospital. I’d be surprised if they even have fifteen nurses on their whole staff.”

  “Well, it feels like fifteen.” She wrinkled her nose and sniffed at Jocelyn’s hair. “Why do you stink like pond water?”

  “We fell in,” Mack said at the same time Jocelyn spoke. “Mack tossed me into the pond.”

  He shrugged at the glare the older woman shot his way. “It was an accident.”

  “The only accident was that he didn’t mean to fall in with me,” Jocelyn said wryly, but her words didn’t hold any malice. “And why are we even talking about our ill-fated fall into the pond? What’s the big emergency that we had to race down here for?”

  “Oh yeah. It’s about the festival.”

  “Don’t worry about the festival. Mack and I have it under control.”

  “You might think you do, but I just got a call from Agnes Bates, over in Woodland Hills,” her grandmother said, referring to the next town up the mountain. “We play bridge together twice a month. You remember her grandson is the one who supposedly got bit in the leg by a rattlesnake and still managed to hike two hours out of the mountains.”

  “What does that have to do with the festival?”

  “Nothing. I just thought that was real interesting. Don’t you think that’s interesting, Mack?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Although I heard that he hiked for three hours. Which would be close to ten miles. And that sure seems unlikely with a rattlesnake bite and a full backpack. That story always sounded a little fishy to me.”

  “People,” Jocelyn said. “Can we stay on track here?”

  Her grandmother sni
ffed. “No need to get snippy.”

  “Sorry. You were telling us what Agnes called you about…”

  “Oh yeah. She called to tell me their big chili cook-off they had scheduled a few weeks ago got snowed out, and they rescheduled it for this weekend.”

  “So?”

  Mack groaned. “So that means all the people from Woodland Hills we were expecting to show up at the festival will now be going to the cook-off.”

  Jocelyn heaved a frustrated sigh. “Oh. That is bad.”

  “It’s terrible. Woodland Hills is our next closest town, and we usually get several hundred attendees from there.”

  Jocelyn slumped into the chair. “Why don’t we just invite more of the people from the next town up the pass, then?”

  “I’m sure most of them will be going to the cook-off too,” her grandmother countered. “Woodland Hills takes their chili very seriously.”

  “We’ll just have to put our heads together and come up with an idea that will make them choose our event over theirs,” Mack said.

  Jocelyn sat up. “But what if they didn’t have to choose? Why don’t we invite Woodland Hills to have their chili cook-off at Harmony Ranch? We could schedule it between the tug-of-war and the dance.”

  “That sounds like a fine idea, except for the fact you’d have to convince them to switch the event to our town instead of theirs. Which I can’t imagine they would ever do.”

  “Why not?”

  Her grandmother sighed. “Because Emmet Scott, the patriarch of the family that puts on the cook-off every year, and I have a bit of a history.”

  “What kind of history?” How had she never heard of this before?

  Her grandmother’s gaze dropped to the blanket in front of her, and she picked at a loose thread. “We may have been high school sweethearts. And there is a possibility that I broke his heart when I left for college and then came back the next summer engaged to your grandfather.”

  Jocelyn huffed. “You never told me about this.”

  “I don’t tell you everything.” She flicked a quick look at Mack then stared pointedly back at Jocelyn. “We don’t always share the secret desires of our hearts.”

  Hmmph. That was not a conversation she wanted to start right now. Especially not in front of the man who might be possibly her heart’s most secret desire. Best to get the focus back on her grandmother. “But that was such a long time ago.”

  A small expression of sadness crossed Gram’s face. “It doesn’t matter how many years have passed. The heart remembers.”

  Jocelyn snuck a glance at Mack, who still leaned against the wall. He held her gaze just long enough for her stomach to flip and her hands to start to sweat. She wiped them on her yoga pants. “Well, desperate times call for desperate measures. Sounds like we need to pay a visit to this Emmet guy.”

  Her grandmother wrinkled her nose. “You might consider a shower first. And I think you may have a piece of algae in your hair.”

  Two hours later, Mack was back in the truck as he sat in front of Molly’s house and waited for Jocelyn. They’d hashed it out with Molly and come up with a plan to persuade Emmet to join forces, but had agreed they both needed a shower and a fresh set of clothes.

  He tried not to think about what would happen if the festival failed and they all lost their livelihoods. Well, not Jocelyn. She would just head back to the city and carry on with her life. He huffed out a breath.

  He couldn’t believe they were all hinging their futures on the help of the one person who had already proved she didn’t care about Harmony Ranch. She’d deserted it—and him—once before, and he couldn’t let himself trust she wouldn’t do it again.

  The front door opened and Jocelyn appeared, no longer dressed in workout pants and flip flops, but in jeans, black flats, and another one of her fancy tops. Her hair was loose and curled around her shoulders.

  She was so pretty it made his chest hurt. She carried herself with a different kind of confidence and looked every inch the successful, fashionable woman from the city. And yet, since she’d been here, he’d also caught glimpses of the sassy, fun teenage girl he’d grown up with. And fallen in love with.

  He cleared his throat, and cleared the memories of that girl from his mind, as she jogged down the stairs and clambered into the truck with him. The scent of her shampoo and her perfume and her soap—the scent of her—filled the cab, and he fought not to bury his face in her neck and inhale the clean, sweet, slightly floral scent. “You look nice,” he told her, his voice faltering on the last word. Ugh. He wanted to slam his palm into his forehead. Had his voice really just cracked? And why were his palms suddenly sweaty? He gripped the steering wheel tighter.

  On the ranch he felt confident. He knew his job, and he did it well. But two minutes in the company of Jocelyn, and he felt like that dorky teenage boy who’d been in the math club and would have done anything to impress her.

  “Thanks. You look nice too.” She reached to smooth down a tuft of his still-damp hair, and he held back the shiver that threatened to run through him. “You clean up real good.” Her eyes sparked with mischief as she teased him. “And you don’t smell like fishy lake water at all.”

  A grin tugged at his lips as he put the truck in gear and headed toward the highway. He’d better not still smell like lake water. Not after that extra squirt of aftershave he’d impulsively hit his neck with after his shower.

  The town of Woodland Hills was only six miles up the highway, and the two communities often attended each other’s events. If only they hadn’t had that crazy spring snow a few weeks back, then both events would have been well-attended.

  “Do you know this Emmet guy?” Jocelyn asked, as they pulled up in front of a small farmhouse fifteen minutes later.

  Mack nodded. “I’ve met him a couple times. Not sure he’d remember me. But these small towns are so close to each other, we know just about everyone. And the Scotts are a big family around these parts. We went to school with several of the grandkids.” His mouth twisted into a grimace. “And one of them brought me a picnic lunch earlier today.”

  Jocelyn eyes widened as she gasped. “Sophie is this guy’s granddaughter?”

  He nodded.

  “Does he know that she works for his nemesis?”

  Mack shrugged. “I have no idea. That’s her business, not mine.”

  A sly grin stole across her face. “The plot thickens,” she said, rubbing her hands together before opening the truck door. “You know how I love a challenge.”

  He laughed as he shook his head. “Yes, I know.” A border collie ran to the truck, and Mack held out his hand for the dog to sniff as he got out. “Good dog,” he said. It circled Jocelyn’s legs as she came around to stand with him.

  A man about Molly’s age, wearing faded coveralls and a straw cowboy hat, came around the corner of the house and eyed them warily. “You look too old to be selling Girl Scout cookies, which is about the only thing I’m willing to buy from strangers that show up at my door these days.”

  “We’re not selling anything, Mr. Scott,” Mack told him, extending his hand. “You might remember me. I’m Mack Talbot, went to school with a few of your grandkids. And this is Jocelyn.” He hesitated to bring up Molly’s name just yet.

  Emmet squinted at Jocelyn. “You look familiar. It’s the eyes, I think.”

  She stepped forward and thrust out her hand. “I’m Jocelyn Stone. Molly is my grandmother.”

  His slight frown deepened. “That’s it. I heard she got into a car accident. She okay?”

  “She is. She broke her leg and has a slight concussion, so they’ve been keeping her in the hospital, but she should be coming home tomorrow.”

  “Just in time for the spring festival at Harmony Ranch,” Mack said. “Which is what we came to talk to you about.”

  “Oh yeah? Is that this weekend?” A sly gr
in pulled at the corner of his mouth, leading Mack to believe he knew exactly when the festival was.

  “It is,” Jocelyn told him. “And we know you all had to postpone your annual chili cook-off until this weekend, and we were hoping to convince you to combine your event with ours.”

  Leave it to Joss to dive right in. Mack would have tried for at least a little small talk first.

  “Why would I want to do that?” Emmet asked.

  “For one thing, it would be the neighborly thing to do,” Jocelyn told him.

  The older man grunted. “That’s something I’ve never been accused of.”

  “Okay, how about it’s the more profitable choice. If we hold our events separately, we’ll each only get half the attendance. But if we combine forces, we can have more people at both events, and we’ll both make a higher profit.”

  He shrugged. “That makes sense. And I’d be inclined to do it, if Molly Stone weren’t the one asking me.”

  “Actually, she’s not asking you—I am. But what would it matter if it were my grandmother?”

  “I’m not doing anything to make that woman’s life easier.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because she broke my heart.” He stared off into the distance as if he were actually looking into a window of the past. “Made me fall in love with her, then left me behind.”

  His words hit Mack like a punch to the gut.

  But Jocelyn just barreled forward, as if she weren’t even making the correlation to their own story. “But that was a long time ago.”

  Emmet’s shoulders lifted in a shrug. “Feels like yesterday to me.”

  “But how can you move forward if you’re still clinging to the hurts of the past?”

  He returned his gaze to meet her eye. “That’s the age-old question, isn’t it?”