A Rancher to Trust

by Laurel Blount

  “Maybe there’s a reason for that. I don’t exactly have the best judgment where your brother is concerned. If I did, I wouldn’t be feeling so bad right now because I know good and well that I can’t afford to keep making the same mistakes. This isn’t about losing my store, Abel, or this house. There’s a lot more at stake than that. It’s about losing me, the person I became after Dan left. I’m a lot smarter now. I’m a lot stronger. I’ve built a good life here in Pine Valley, a life that I’m proud of. I belong here. If I throw all that away just because your brother asks me to... Well, then I go right back to square one, don’t I? I can’t risk that.”

  Abel shook his head. “I admire you, Bailey. Always have. And you’re right about one thing. You’re one of the strongest people I know. Strong enough to bend a little for the people you love without breaking, I’m thinking. Of course you belong here, but a woman like you can make a place for herself anywhere she chooses to go. That’s why I don’t think you should stick with a life you’ve outgrown just because you’re determined to play it safe.”

  Bailey made a wry face at her friend. “You’re a fine one to lecture me about playing it safe, Abel Whitlock! You’re still living a mile from the cabin you grew up in.”

  Abel didn’t hesitate. “That’s true enough. I never wandered far, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t taken more than my share of risks. I fell for my Emily the moment I laid eyes on her. You want to talk about losing yourself? It happened to me in a split second. I might as well have handed her my heart in a box with a bow on it, because it belonged to her just as sure as if I had. I had to wait years for her to feel the same way about me, but in God’s good time, she did, and I married her. There are days when I still can’t quite believe it really happened, when I wake up and think for a minute there it was all just a dream. There’s nothing safe about loving somebody like that. You take it from me, Bailey Quinn. Falling in love is the riskiest adventure there is.” He offered her a lopsided smile. “And the best.”

  Suddenly Bailey found herself blinking back tears. “You’re blessed to have found love so close to home, Abel.”

  Abel shook his head. “You’ve got it all inside out. I’d lived in Pine Valley all my life, but it was never truly my home, not until Emily came back with her two little ones in tow. Love’s what makes this town my home, Bailey. Without it—” he shrugged “—this place is nothing to me but another dot on the map.”

  Suddenly a loud clatter came from the kitchen followed by a sound of gushing water. “Abel! Bailey! I need a hand in here. And a bucket! These pipes are old as dirt. The whole plumbing system’s going to have to be replaced.”

  “Coming, Hoyt!” Abel ran toward the kitchen, but Bailey didn’t budge.

  She stood there quietly in the middle of the room, thinking hard about what Abel had said. Shouts, bangs and other frantic noises came from her kitchen, but she ignored them.

  She was lost in a swirl of memories so vivid it seemed as if Dan was standing right in front of her.

  Dan at nineteen, scarcely an hour after they’d gotten married, his face taut with hurt when she’d demanded he take her back home to her family. “But I’m your husband now, Bailey. We’re a family, just the two of us. Aren’t we? That means our home can be anywhere we want it to be. Just as long as we’re together.”

  That very same pain had glimmered in his eyes when she’d argued with him about moving to Wyoming. “I still want you to be my wife, Bailey. I want us to make a life together, be a family together, you and me and the twins. That’s what really matters, isn’t it? Where we live is just geography.”

  Just geography.

  And what was it that Abel had said? Something about love making a place a home.

  She looked around the living room. This house had thrilled her the first time she’d walked through it. She’d seen all its flaws; of course she had. But none of that had mattered. The run-down farmhouse had caught at her heart because she’d felt confident that with a little work, she could turn it into a real home.

  But it couldn’t, she realized. No matter how hard she worked here, this place would never be a home. Not for her, not now.

  Not without Dan and the twins.

  Without the three people she loved best in the world, this endearingly ramshackle farmhouse, her trendy, successful little store...in fact, the whole of Pine Valley, Georgia, were nothing but...what was that expression Abel had used?

  Nothing but dots on a map.

  And somehow Dan Whitlock, the guy who’d grown up with the worst home situation she’d ever seen up close, had figured all that out before she had.

  She’d been so worried about losing herself by reuniting with Dan and so determined not to surrender her hard won independence that she’d missed something big. She’d missed out on the fact that her feelings for Dan and the twins had become a huge part of who she was now—and of who she wanted to be. By letting them go to Wyoming without her, she’d lost not just them, but a lot of herself, as well.

  That’s why she was feeling so miserable and unsettled. Because most of her wasn’t even here anymore. The heart she’d been so afraid to risk had simply packed up and moved to Wyoming without her.

  Playing it safe had turned out to be the riskiest plan of all.

  Oh, Lord, Bailey prayed sadly. Please help me. I think I’ve made a really big mistake.

  Ten minutes later, a drenched Abel and Hoyt walked into her living room and told her sheepishly that they’d had to shut off all the water to the house and had no idea when it could be turned back on.

  Bailey looked at the dripping men. “You know what? Leave it off.” She reached for the hook on the wall and took down her key chain. “Hoyt, here’s a key. Do whatever repairs need doing, okay?”

  Hoyt took the key and nodded, looking relieved. “You got it. I’m going to start off by cleaning up the mess we just made in your kitchen. I’ll be right back.”

  “Abel,” Bailey said as soon as the contractor had squelched out onto her porch, “I need to buy a livestock trailer fast. Can you help me with that?”

  “No need to buy one. I’ve got one you can use.”

  “I appreciate the offer, but I don’t know when I’ll be able to get it back to you.” She met his eyes squarely. “Could be quite a while.”

  “I see.” There was a short beat of silence as Abel studied her. “Going somewhere, are you?”

  “You know what? I think maybe I am.”

  For a second, she thought she saw tears glimmering in the tall man’s eyes, but he only shook his head and grinned. “Then you’re welcome to the trailer and anything else I’ve got. After all—” he flung one wet arm over her shoulders, pulling her close and soaking her in the process “—you’re family, Bailey Quinn. Or—” He leaned closer and muttered in her ear, “Is it Bailey Whitlock now?”

  “I’m not sure,” she answered honestly. “But I’m ready to find out.”

  * * *

  “Shh, buddy. It’s okay!” In the ranch house nursery, Dan flexed his knees, bouncing a wailing Finn against his shoulder while he tried to change Josie’s diaper one-handed. “Just let me get your sister fixed up, and we’ll go downstairs and have breakfast.”

  Finn’s fussing only got louder, and Dan winced. It was like the kid knew that once they all managed to get downstairs, there was still going to be some lag time as Dan heated up bottles and traded off feeding the twins.

  Finn had an appetite like a horse, and he didn’t like to wait for his food. And the problem was, the two little ones seemed to be connected. If Finn screamed, it always freaked out Josie, too.

  “I can handle all things through Christ Who gives me strength,” Dan muttered as he struggled to get the sticky tapes on Josie’s disposable diaper in the appropriate spots. He hoped this one actually stayed on. He had about a fifty-fifty track record in that area lately, and there were a lot of tiny pink bl
oomers waiting in the laundry hamper.

  He shot a quick glance at his scratched wristwatch. The vet was going to be here any minute to do those pregnancy checks, and Dan hadn’t even started with the bottles yet. Finn was going to lose his mind.

  What a day for the new sitter to cancel on him. Although he hadn’t been all that surprised, really. The look on the older woman’s face when he’d said “twins” had been a pretty clear warning.

  He’d start a new babysitter search this afternoon, but for right now he’d just have to find a way to manage on his own.

  “Come on, munchkins. Let’s go downstairs and get some grub.” He gently picked up both twins and started picking his way down the wide wooden stairs toward the kitchen. Sometimes movement calmed the twins down—Dan had spent half of last night pacing the floor with one twin or the other. But right now, nothing seemed to do the trick. Finn’s crying had stirred Josie up, and both babies howled the whole way down the steps.

  Dan’s eye snagged on a photograph of Colt and Angie, and he sighed. He felt so strange living in the McAllisters’ huge, echoing house. He knew it belonged to him now, at least until the twins were grown. He’d stowed away the McAllisters’ personal belongings, rearranged the bedroom he’d picked out, trying to make it feel more like his own. It hadn’t helped much. He still felt like a trespasser, like he’d overstepped his bounds somehow. If it wasn’t for the babies, he’d have bunked out with the hands, but he’d figured the twins needed to be in their familiar nursery.

  He’d hoped that once they were back on their home turf, the babies would settle down, but that hadn’t happened. They were miserable, and so was he.

  He was missing Bailey like crazy.

  Even though he’d known that was coming, he hadn’t been prepared for how the pain of leaving her had ramped up mile after mile. It had taken every bit of determination he’d had not to turn that truck around and head back to Georgia, take Bailey in his arms and promise her anything he could think of if she’d just throw out those stupid divorce papers.

  But he’d driven on, bleary-eyed and exhausted, until he’d made it to the Bar M. The hope that his mood would improve once he was back on the ranch had flopped. If anything, he felt worse. It was like being away from Bailey was cutting off his air supply—he was slowly suffocating without her.

  But the ranch needed him. He hadn’t been back five minutes before he’d found out one of the prize bulls was limping, two of the ranch hands were in Broken Bow’s county lockup, the tractor had a flat tire and the pregnancy checks were two weeks overdue.

  It was a no-win situation, all right. The ranch needed him. And he needed Bailey.

  He fumbled through the bottle routine in record time. At least he was getting a little better with the mechanical side of this childcare gig. Settling into a wide armchair, he tried his hand at feeding both twins at the same time. He had to steady Josie’s bottle with his chin, but it worked, sort of. And that was a good thing, because just as he managed to get Josie to finish the last of her formula, he heard a truck pulling up outside.

  The vet was here. Dan carefully laid Josie down next to Finn, who was already stretching and kicking on the quilt Dan had folded up on the floor.

  On to the next problem—how to manage two babies while he briefed the vet about the bull and the pregnancy checks. In a situation like this, a man had to do whatever it took.

  No matter how stupid it made him look.

  Dan snatched up the pink flowered sling thing that he’d found stashed in the nursery, still in its plastic wrapper. Going by the picture on the front, you fastened this around your middle and you could carry one baby swaddled up in it. If he could do that, then he could carry the other twin in his arms while he walked the vet out to the barn.

  Unfortunately, fastening the thing wasn’t as straightforward as he’d thought. Dan buckled the belt of the gizmo around his middle and started trying to sort out its folds. Meanwhile the twins scrunched up their faces and began to fuss.

  “Just give me a minute here, guys. I’ve almost got this.” He looped the thing over his arm. This couldn’t be right. The baby-holding part was on his back now. Frustrated, Dan pulled his arm back out and snatched the crumpled directions back off the couch for another look.

  A brisk knock sounded on the door. He’d better go answer it. Doc Andrews was the only vet in the county, and he was overworked and not particularly patient. If somebody didn’t make it to the door fast enough, the vet would be backing up his truck in a split second, heading off to his next call.

  “Hold on! I’m coming!” Dan shouted over the twins’ fussy cries. He scooped them up and headed toward the door.

  Then he stared at the doorknob, stymied. He had no free hand. “It’s open!” he called finally. “Come on in!”

  The door edged open. Dan found himself looking straight into Bailey Quinn’s dark eyes, and the bottom fell right out of his heart.

  In the back of his mind, he knew he should be saying something—probably a whole lot of very important stuff. But he couldn’t manage a single word. All he could do was stare at her, like a starving man would stare at a buffet table.

  She looked tired, but she had that determined, you-can’t-tell-me-what-to-do look on her face. She tilted her head as the babies increased their wails.

  “Well, you seem to have your hands full, don’t you? Here. Gimme.” She reached forward and scooped Finn out of his arms.

  Her fingers barely brushed Dan’s chest, but the touch felt like an electric shock. His brain stuttered back into action.

  “What are you doing here?” Then he shook his head. “You know what? Don’t answer that—not yet, anyway. Come in.”

  Bailey walked into the sprawling living room, and Dan used one boot to kick the door shut behind her.

  She turned, and her eyes met his, searching them over the top of Finn’s head. They were bouncing the squirming babies in perfect rhythm, which would have been funny if Dan hadn’t known that everything that really mattered in his world was hanging on what happened in the next few minutes.

  Dan tried to read Bailey’s expression, but before he could make much headway, Bailey pulled her gaze away. She scanned the disheveled room, and when she looked back at him, she lifted an eyebrow. “It looks like a baby store exploded in here.” She nodded at the frilly pink strap dangling off his shoulder. “And what’s that about? Getting in touch with your feminine side?”

  “I love you, Bailey.” He hadn’t meant to blurt that out, but he couldn’t help it. “Before you tell me why you’re here, I need to say my piece. I’ve been dying here without you. No,” he added, as her eyes dipped to the twins. “This has nothing to do with the babies. Well, okay, yeah, they’re helping kill me, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I can figure out how to be a single dad if I need to. But I can’t figure out how to live without you.”

  “Dan—”

  He cut in. He had to say this. “I’ll do whatever it takes to make this work for you, Bailey. I’ve never begged anybody for anything in my life, but I’m begging you right now.” He reached out with his free hand and traced her cheek. Her eyes went misty at his touch, and a tear skimmed down and puddled above his thumb. He leaned close and kissed it away, whispering against her skin, “Stay with me, Bailey. Please. Marry me. Or I guess I should say—marry me all over again. Make a family with me. And I give you my word that I’ll spend the rest of my life making sure you never regret it.”

  * * *

  When Dan’s lips brushed her cheek, a waterfall of feelings cascaded over Bailey, and she felt her knees trembling. “Dan,” she began huskily, looking up into his eyes.

  Before she could get any farther, the squirming baby in her arms went stiff and produced an impressively loud burp. Bailey and Dan locked eyes. All the crazy emotions clogging Bailey’s throat got tangled up with her laugh and came out her nose in a snort.

/>   Dan made a face at Finn, who was wide-eyed with surprise at the noise he’d just created. “Real romantic. You’re not exactly helping me out here, buddy. Although—” Dan looked back at Bailey “—you might as well be clear on what you’re getting yourself into, I guess.”

  “Danny Whitlock, you know perfectly well that I loved these babies from the first minute I laid eyes on them, so you can knock that off. Besides,” she added, “Lucy Ball’s outside in a trailer along with a bunch of really annoyed chickens. I think that evens up the score pretty well.”

  “What?” Dan leaned over and flicked a curtain aside to peer out the window. Sure enough Bailey’s truck was attached to a livestock trailer, and he could see Lucy Ball’s pink tongue flicking through, licking the rails. “You brought your animals with you?”

  “Of course I did. I wasn’t leaving them behind.”

  “But, then...you’re staying?” The unabashed joy that broke over his face made her grin right back at him.

  “That’s the plan. If you’ll have me.”

  “What about your store?”

  “Well, I’ve been doing some thinking while you’ve been gone. I built that store from the ground up. What’s to stop me from doing that again? People in Wyoming need to eat, too, don’t they?”

  “Yeah.” A pained look crossed his face. “But then there’s your house. You’ll be giving that up, too.”

  “That doesn’t matter. Turns out what I really want is a home, and no place feels like home to me without you. This one will suit me just fine.” She glanced around at the expansive, wood-paneled room littered liberally with twin debris, and smiled. “It’s got a lot of space. I like that—plenty of room for a nice, big family.”

  Dan shifted Josie in his arms and bent his head so he could search Bailey’s eyes. “You really mean that, Bailey?”