The Rancher's Return

by Kathy Douglass

  Donovan gritted his teeth. Despite what he’d told Raven, he hadn’t completely gotten over his anger at Karl Rivers. Just thinking about the man enraged him.

  “What’s wrong,” Raven asked.

  Donovan looked at her. “Nothing.”

  “Really? You’re mangling that sandwich. If you squeeze it any tighter, the turkey is going to come flying from between the buns.”

  “Sorry.” He loosened his grip on the destroyed sandwich and took a bite. “It still tastes good.”

  “I guess you don’t know your own strength.” Her eyes flicked over his body before meeting his. There was mischief in her expression. “You’ve filled out. Perhaps you’re still getting used to your new muscles.”

  He laughed and flexed his biceps. “I’ll have you know, I was born with this physique. Perhaps your memory is faulty.”

  “Faulty, my foot. I was stronger than you were.”

  “Please.” He reached out and placed the back of his hand against her forehead. “You’re not warm, so you don’t have a fever. You should have worn a hat. You’ve had too much sun.”

  “Ha. Very funny. You might not remember all of the times I beat you at wrestling but I do. I could pin you in under a minute.”

  “We were eight years old.” And she’d had the benefit of older brothers who’d showed her no mercy when they were roughhousing. They’d never treated her like a delicate little girl, so she hadn’t been one. She’d been one heck of an athlete, better at just about everything than all of the boys their age.

  “We were nine. Not that it matters. I still hold the record for beating you.” She laughed and raised her hands over her head in victory and began to sing. “I am the champion of the world.”

  He tossed a crust of bread at her and of course she caught it. Mercifully she stopped trying to sing. “I want a rematch.”

  “Not a chance.” She tried to scoot away, but he was too fast for her. He didn’t want to risk hurting her by grabbing her arm in case she tried to twist away so he wrapped his arms around her tiny waist and brought her closer to him. Her sweet scent encircled him and, just like that, he was nineteen years old again. It was as if the intervening ten years had only been ten minutes. The familiar longing for her was almost too much to control. He lowered her to the ground and leaned over her, gently pinning her shoulders to the blanket. “I win.”

  Their eyes met and held. Neither of them moved. Slowly he lowered his head, bringing his lips within an inch of hers.

  “Are you trying to kiss my mom?”

  Chapter Eleven

  Donovan momentarily froze then jerked into an upright position. He’d forgotten all about Elias; he must have come back while Donovan and Raven were distracted. “Uh. No. We were just playing.”

  “It doesn’t look like playing to me.”

  “Actually we were wrestling,” Raven said. She sat up smoothly and reached for her bottle of water. Donovan noticed that her hand trembled slightly. Apparently she wasn’t as unaffected as she pretended. “I used to beat Donovan at wrestling all the time and he was trying to beat me now. Of course he had to cheat in order to pin me.”

  “My mom can beat you wrestling?” Elias looked scandalized.

  “Of course not. This happened a long time ago when we were kids. We were only eight.”

  “Nine,” Raven corrected.

  Elias hooted. “You got beat by a girl.”

  “Your mom isn’t just any girl. She’s special.” Donovan glanced over at Raven again. Her smile widened at the compliment and she dipped her head slightly in acknowledgment. “She’s got superpowers. She can make even the strongest man weak as a baby.”

  Elias seemed unconvinced by the argument. He tugged on his ear. “Or maybe you were just weak when you were nine. Maybe your muscles hadn’t come in yet. I heard some boys don’t get strong until they’re ten.”

  “Not you, though.”

  “Nah. I’ve been strong since I was seven.”

  Donovan managed to keep a straight face. “You probably inherited your mother’s superpowers. That’s possible, you know.”

  Elias shrugged before looking at Donovan seriously. “Don’t be ashamed because my mom was stronger than you when you were a kid. That was a long time ago. Mom always says you can’t change the past, so just put it behind you and try to do better now.” He frowned as if uncertain his words applied in this situation. “But she usually says that after I do something wrong and say I’m sorry. Anyway, the important thing is that you’re strong now.”

  Donovan nodded at the pep talk. Elias was talking about one thing, but Donovan knew he’d have to apply that attitude to everything in his life. If not, he’d walk around angry, thinking about everything he’d missed. “I agree. And as you can see, I’m stronger than your mom now.”

  Elias grabbed a cookie and walked away. He turned, a wide grin on his face as he called back, “Unless she uses her superpowers on you.”

  Donovan watched until he was sure that Elias was too far away to hear him speak, even with super hearing. “Should I apologize?”

  “For what? Cheating?”

  Donovan grinned at her attempt to keep it light. He was tempted to do so, as well, but decided against it. Since time travel was out of the question, his superpower was going to be honesty. “No. For overstepping. If Elias hadn’t interrupted, I would have kissed you. I just want to know if, given your situation, that would have been wrong.”

  “What situation?”

  “Carson broke your engagement. That had to have hurt. I don’t want to be the jerk who swoops in trying to take advantage of your broken heart. Not that I’m trying to do that.”

  “I know. To be honest, my heart isn’t broken. Not in the way you think. I’m sad because of the way things ended, but if Carson hadn’t broken things off, I would have. And not because of what his father did. I loved Carson. I just wasn’t in love with him.”

  “Oh.”

  “Aren’t you going to ask me why I got engaged to someone I wasn’t in love with?”

  “No.” He reached out and touched her hand. “You made the best decision you could at the time. If anyone understands that, it’s me.”

  She pulled a few blades of grass, her eyes down. “Do you ever wonder what would have happened if you hadn’t left? Or if you had come home sooner?”

  “No. I have no doubt that Rivers would have killed me. He’d already killed someone. One more person wouldn’t have made a difference.” He blew out a breath. “As for coming home while he was still alive...he could have killed all of you. That’s a chance I wasn’t willing to take.”

  She nodded.

  “But as Elias wisely put it, we’ll have to leave the past behind us and make the best of the present.”

  A strong wind blew and the temperature dropped several degrees. Donovan looked up. The sunny, blue sky had been replaced with a gray one. While he’d been entranced by Raven, a storm had blown in. Judging by the darkening sky, it was clearly going to be a bad one. They scrambled to their feet and began gathering the remnants of their lunch.

  The wind blew again, carrying with it paper plates and plastic forks. “Leave it.”

  Raven nodded and balled up the quilt and shoved it into her saddlebag. “Elias. Let’s go.”

  He raced over. “This is some crazy storm. Will the horses be okay to ride?”

  “Yes.”

  Donovan looked at Raven. “Can Elias handle this? Maybe we should just wait it out.”

  “He’s good. Trust me. It shouldn’t take us long to get down from here.”

  Donovan nodded and swung onto his horse. “You lead. I’ll go last, just in case.”

  Raven directed her horse down the decline. Elias followed. After watching for several tense minutes, Donovan relaxed a bit. Elias was every bit as skilled as Raven claimed. But then, the Reynolds rais
ed horses. No doubt Elias had been on horseback from the time he could sit up.

  They reached the bottom of the hill just as the rain began to fall. It started slowly but, within a minute, big, fat drops were falling. The rain was steady, but fortunately not so heavy that it made it hard to see. They were at least an hour away from the house and Donovan hoped the weather wouldn’t get much worse. Luckily there wasn’t any lightning or thunder so there was less chance of the horses spooking.

  By the time they reached the stable, they were soaked. Donovan dismounted and opened the stable doors and Raven and Elias rode inside. Once they were in the grooming area, they removed the saddles and blankets. Donovan was pleased to see that Elias didn’t balk or complain about being wet. Instead he began to carefully yet quickly dry his horse. Once the horses were dried and brushed with their hooves cleaned, they gave them water and food and led them to open stalls.

  “I’ll clean up here,” Donovan said, heading back to the grooming area.

  “It’ll be faster if we work together,” Elias said.

  Donovan was so proud of his son he could only nod. A good rancher always finished the job.

  When they were done, they went inside the house, took off their wet boots and stepped barefoot into the kitchen. A note was taped to the refrigerator. Donovan’s parents had accepted a dinner invitation from a neighbor. He nearly cheered. His parents were starting to live again.

  “It looks like it’s just us. Mom and Dad are out for the evening.”

  “That’s good,” Raven said softly. “They need to start getting out again. I don’t think they left the house together more than ten times while you were away. I always thought they wanted someone to be here in case you called or came home.”

  “This is the first time they’ve left since I’ve been back. It’s as if they expect me to disappear again.” He sighed heavily as it hit him once more what his disappearance had done to his parents. The unending terror of not knowing where he was and what he might be enduring. There was no way he could change any of that so he made sure to be extra patient with them now. Hopefully having him around would help them to recover because although he loved them, he wanted to build his own home where Elias could visit him. Not only that, he wanted to fall in love again and get married.

  When he was younger, Donovan and his parents had talked about him finding a spot on the ranch where he could build his own house. Since he’d been back, he’d been giving the idea a lot of consideration.

  Elias sneezed. They all needed dry clothes. Raven was about the same size as his mother, but Donovan didn’t feel comfortable offering his mother’s belongings. “Come on. Let’s get something for you to wear.”

  Raven and Elias followed Donovan through the house and to his room.

  “Wow,” Elias and Raven said at the same time. But while Elias’s voice was filled with awe, Raven’s voice sounded shocked.

  “This is so cool,” Elias said, racing to a shelf where Donovan’s old superhero memorabilia was stored. He picked up a Black Panther comic and started to read it. Apparently having drenched clothing plastered to his body didn’t bother the kid a bit.

  “Your parents didn’t change a thing.”

  “No. They wanted me to feel comfortable when I got back.”

  “Do you?”

  “Not even a little bit. It felt familiar that first night, in a weird sort of way. Now it’s a reminder of how tightly my parents were holding on to whatever piece of me they could. But I’m not nineteen anymore. I’m doing my best to help them see that.” He winced. “My mother keeps trying to make my bed for me.”

  “Well, they did go out tonight. That’s progress.”

  “Yeah. Hopefully they won’t regress.”

  He grabbed three T-shirts from his drawer, tossing one to Elias and handing one to Raven, then dug out three pairs of basketball shorts, as well. The clothes would be too big for them, but they would do while their jeans were in the dryer. Elias continued reading until Raven prodded him to take off his wet shirt. Sighing, the boy put the book on the desk and tried to keep reading while grabbing the bottom of his wet shirt and pulling it over his head.

  Donovan pulled off his shirt and used it to dry his chest before putting on the dry one. When he looked up, Raven was staring at him. There was definitely some heat in her eyes. But then she blinked and it was gone so fast he was sure any desire he thought he’d seen was a figment of his imagination. Perhaps he was just seeing in her eyes a reflection of the longing he felt for her.

  “I need a little more privacy than you two.”

  “I don’t mind.” Donovan winked.

  “Yeah, well I do. I’ll be in the bathroom.”

  Donovan watched as she walked away then turned his attention to his son.

  Raven closed the bathroom door and leaned against it. Whew. What was she doing staring at Donovan like that? True, his chest was perfectly sculpted from years of hard work and his abs were incredibly well defined, but even so, it wasn’t as if she’d never seen a man’s body before. In fact, she’d actually seen his body on more than one occasion. Of course the last time she’d seen it, he’d been nineteen. He’d been well-built back then, but his body had not looked remotely like it did now. He’d definitely put on some weight, all of it lean muscles.

  Speaking of putting on weight. As she pulled off her wet shirt, she looked at herself in the mirror. She’d put on a few pounds in the past ten years. She was curvier than she’d been when he’d last seen her. Having a baby changed a woman’s body. Not that she felt bad about hers. Being pregnant with their son was worth the extra seven pounds she now carried.

  She pulled on Donovan’s shirt and shorts and was struck by the intimacy of wearing clothes that belonged to him. She inhaled deeply in an attempt to surround herself with his personal scent. Instead she only smelled laundry detergent and fabric softener. That was probably for the best. Breathing in his scent every second would make it hard to maintain her balance around him. Not only that, it would make it harder for her to keep their relationship in the present and not drift back into the past when they were in love. That time had been wonderful, but she needed to stay grounded in the here and now.

  The rain had really done a number on her hair. She didn’t have a comb with her, so she dragged her fingers through it in an attempt to get the tangles out. When she’d done the best she could, she grabbed her shirt and went back to Donovan’s room.

  He’d taken out a box of his old comics and he and Elias were sprawled on the floor, sorting through them. As far back as Raven could remember, Donovan had loved comics and always spent his allowance on the latest. He’s also added secondhand books to his collection, which had to number in the thousands. She’d never understood the attraction, but to each his own.

  Elias had discovered superheroes when he was five and he’d been a fan ever since. Could a love of a hobby be inherited? She didn’t know, but looking at the two of them together, it was clear that they shared more than a hobby.

  Elias looked like Donovan had at the same age. Donovan had been tall and skinny at nine, the same as their son. They had the same almond-shaped, light gray eyes and the same stubborn chin. And that one dimple that flashed when they smiled. It was easy to project what Elias would look like in twenty years.

  Donovan and Elias were enjoying themselves and, rather than disturb them, she leaned against the wall and soaked in the moment. She’d always known Elias needed a man in his life. Her father did his best, but he wasn’t able to keep up with an energetic boy. That was part of the reason she’d agreed to marry Carson. He was good to her son and was a positive influence. Carson and Elias had gotten along well, but when she’d told Elias that she and Carson weren’t going to get married, he’d only shrugged and said okay. If he missed Carson, he kept it to himself. But then Donovan had come on the scene at the same time and he’d filled any void that Carson left.
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  Or maybe it was actually the other way around. Perhaps Carson had been a stand-in for Donovan. Now that Donovan had returned, there was no longer a place for Carson in her and Elias’s life. She sighed. That sounded terrible and she felt guilty for entertaining the idea. Carson deserved better than that.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. I was just thinking.”

  Donovan stacked up the comics and returned them to the cardboard box. Elias had a three-inch pile beside him. He gathered them in his arms and stood.

  “Thanks for letting me borrow these. I’ll bring them back as soon as I finish reading them.”

  “Take as much time as you need. When you finish with those, I have plenty more for you to read.”

  Donovan returned the box to the closet. Raven saw several more identical boxes that she knew held the rest of his collection. In that moment she was so glad Lena and Mario hadn’t tossed out any of Donovan’s belongings.

  Donovan closed the door and looked at her. “Do you have time or do you need to get back right away?”

  Raven thought of the work she’d left undone. She’d already put herself behind with the horseback ride and the extended lunch. She’d be working through the night at this rate. “We’ve got time.”

  “Great.”

  They tossed their wet clothes into the dryer on the way to the family room. Elias immediately hopped into a chair by the windows and opened a comic book. Donovan and Raven sat together on the couch. Despite telling herself that she shouldn’t get caught up in a fantasy and suddenly pretend they were a happy family spending a rainy afternoon together, she couldn’t deny that the idea held appeal. But she knew that if they got together, and that was a big if, it would have to happen later. He needed to get his feet back under him and she needed to be certain of how she felt. That could take months.

  Neither she nor Donovan spoke. Instead they sat and watched the rain fall and listened to the pitter-patter of drops hitting the windows. Eventually the rain slowed and finally stopped. The sky lightened and the sun began to peek through the dissipating clouds. A rainbow appeared in the distance.