The Rancher Meets His Match

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The Rancher Meets His Match Page 9

by Patricia McLinn


  “Will, I won’t ever leave you. Not ever. Someday, you’ll be leaving me, but I’ll always be here for you. And if you need me, I’ll be wherever it is you need me. Like I’ve always been. You’ve got to know that.”

  With a relief that almost left him light-headed Dax saw that, beneath the anger, Will did know that. But the anger and confusion remained.

  They stared at each other for another tense moment. Dax swore a bit under his breath, then dropped his hold on Will’s arm. He gave a tired sigh. “I’m doing this for you, boy.”

  “That doesn’t make no sense.”

  “Any sense. But you’re probably right. Look, it seemed like you didn’t feel real comfortable with girls, so I thought if I could show you it wasn’t such a hard thing.”

  Hell of an idea that had been. It was a hard thing. Early or late, being with a woman meant pain. Just because it hadn’t been that way so far with Hannah didn’t mean anything. Or, most likely, it meant the pain would be sharper when it did come.

  Will’s eyes went wide. “You mean, she’s sort of a practice for you?”

  “I wouldn’t say that, because I’m not looking to do this for real. It’s more like . . .” Intensely uncomfortable with this conversation, he rustled around in his memory for something to liken this to. “Remember when I first taught you how to ride and I had Buster throw me to show you how to fall?”

  Will nodded.

  “It’s like that. I’m showing you a bit of how to go about it, ’case you want to, but I’m not saying you should, and I’m not saying I plan on getting thrown anytime soon, myself.”

  “So you’re not thinking about marrying her?”

  “Marrying? Good God, no.” Dax recoiled from the thought. “Where’d you get that idea?”

  “It’s not something I made up,” Will said, a little defensive.

  Dax narrowed his eyes. “Has your aunt said something?”

  “Aunt June? No. But Rita told the sheriff you two got along real good, and I heard Irene Weston tell Wanda at the library she hasn’t seen you take a shine to a woman like this since my mother.”

  Dax got a strange feeling up his back, the kind that June used to tell him as a kid meant someone had walked over his grave.

  “Well, now you know why. And now that you do, I can quit pestering Hannah. She didn’t want to have anything to do with me in the first place. And now I can leave her in peace to enjoy her vacation the way she wanted to from the first. Starting right now, I’ll quit.”

  Quit seeing her. Quit kissing her. Quit touching her. A burn lit in his gut that Dax translated into anger.

  “It was a damned far-fetched, lamebrained idea in the first place, and I have your Aunt June to thank for it. From now on you can figure out how to get along with females on your own, without me showing the way. And all this nonsense is forgotten. Now I’ve got irrigation pipe to move, and you’ve got that bus to catch.”

  Chapter Six

  “Uh, Dad...?” Will’s voice came from the doorway that led from the barn to the corral where Dax had nearly finished saddling Strider. Will already had Merc saddled and waiting to take him out to a pasture by the creek where they’d put some heifers they needed to check to see if they were pregnant.

  “Yeah?”

  “I’ve been thinkin’ ”

  Dax had been thinking, too. All day. He’d been thinking it was just as well this fool idea of June’s had blown up. He’d kept separate from women around here for good reasons, and those reasons hadn’t changed. Even if Hannah was a near stranger who’d be leaving in a week and a half, it was dangerous.

  He’d had to remind himself of that real hard on his way back from the Lewises’. The damned truck had almost turned in the Westons’ road by itself. He’d ended up stopped dead in the highway, talking himself out of stopping to say hello to Hannah. Good thing nobody had happened by. He’d have looked a damned fool.

  “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt. I mean, if you went around with, uh, Ms. Chalmers some more. I mean, she’s leaving and all in a couple weeks, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And you seem to like her, I mean being around her. You’ve been smiling and all.”

  “That so?” Dax asked, a frown tugging at his forehead.

  Will, clearly intent on his own thoughts, appeared at the open door of the stall, his eyes wide-open the way they used to get as a toddler when he wanted to pretend he hadn’t done some bit of mischief.

  “Yeah, and I suppose it couldn’t hurt, I mean, if you don’t think she’d mind too much if you kept seeing her and I sort of see how you, you know—’’ he gave a wave of his hand, as if plucking an idea out of the air “—asked her out or something like that.”

  Dax put the stirrup on his shoulder to keep its strap out of the way and tightened the cinch on Strider and wondered how long Will had been thinking about asking Theresa out.

  “And then I could watch how you, uh, do things, I mean on a date and such. So—” Will drew in a long breath and finished in a rush “—if you want to keep being around, uh, Ms. Chalmers, and bringing her around here, I won’t raise any more fuss.”

  Dax studied his son’s face, but apparently he meant exactly what he said. Dax didn’t want Will to be thinking about the sort of things Dax and Hannah had been doing out by the pasture gate and especially not about the sorts of things Dax had wanted to do. Will had a lot of growing up to do before he tried wrestling with those sorts of impulses. Hell, Dax was a man and he hadn’t come close to winning against those impulses.

  In fact, the memory of Hannah’s smooth, warm skin under his hand and of her pliant, sweet lips under his mouth sent a surge of heat through his body.

  “I suppose it couldn’t hurt,” he agreed at last.

  That was a lie. It already hurt.

  * * * *

  “Oh, Hannah, it’s so good to hear your voice.”

  The uneasiness that bloomed in Hannah the instant Irene had told her she had a call from her sister calmed when she heard Mandy’s tone. Whatever Mandy had called about wasn’t catastrophic.

  “It’s good to hear yours, too, Mandy. What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing’s the matter. I was thinking about you.”

  “You’re okay? Ethan’s okay?”

  “Yes, yes, we’re both fine. And having a wonderful time. I told you, I was just thinking about you.”

  Hannah perched on the arm of the easy chair in the family room and looked out the window. A breeze ruffled the pages of the professional journal she’d left on the porch swing when Irene called her. “You’re not supposed to be thinking about your old fuddy-duddy sister, you’re supposed to be staying up all night talking over the problems of the world. Didn’t anybody tell you that’s what college is for?”

  Mandy brushed aside the old joke between them. “Yes, you did. But I’ve been thinking about you, Hannah.”

  A dusty midnight blue pickup with the Circle CR brand painted on the door pulled to a stop in the yard outside. The pulse in Hannah’s throat jumped. When a broad-shouldered, lean-hipped figure in worn jeans and a faded denim shirt got out, she felt the muscles clench south of her stomach.

  “Hannah? Are you listening? You’re not an old fuddy-duddy. At least you wouldn’t be if you gave yourself half a chance. Promise me you’ll do that—promise me you’ll give yourself a chance.”

  Dax’s survey of the area honed in on the picture window. There was no way their eyes could have actually met. Not at this distance. Not with him looking from the sunshine outside into the shadow of the house. But tell that to her pulse.

  Dax settled back against the truck, his arms crossed comfortably across his chest, one booted ankle over the other. A man who’d found what he sought and had settled in to wait.

  “Give myself a chance at what?”

  “At love.”

  “Love? What on earth brought this on, Mandy?” Hannah turned away from the picture window.

  “An assignment for that class I told you about�
�on understanding the history of North Carolina through writings of ordinary people. I read this journal by a woman who lost her fiancé during the Civil War—so sad. He was a Yankee—they met when she visited up north before the war, and they fell in love. When the war came he asked her to come north, but she said no. He joined the Union Army and she nursed Confederates. But he kept writing to her and she still loved him, you felt it reading her journal. The war had nearly ended and he wrote that they’d be together again. But—” A sniffle came over the long-distance line. “He was killed. Oh, Hannah, it was so sad. It broke her heart. And she never gave herself another chance to love. She closed off her heart. The rest of her life was a waste. It was tragic!”

  Hannah cast her eyes to the heavens. Her sister’s flare for the dramatic had earned her the family nickname of Bernie—short for Bernhardt, as in Sarah—so this didn’t surprise her. “It does sound sad, but what does this have to do with your course?”

  “The professor’s using it to talk about how women coped during the war and after—this Mary Albert started schools in a coastal area and improved sanitation there.”

  “Doesn’t sound as if her life was a waste, then,” Hannah said dryly.

  “Well, maybe not in a practical sense, but her personal life . . . That’s what made me think of you.”

  “Thanks a lot, Mandy.”

  “I didn’t mean it that way. It’s just . . . it’s just you gave up so much to take care of Ethan and me, and—”

  “Mandy Chalmers, stop right there. I never gave up anything I didn’t regain a thousandfold. In fact, this talk of giving up something and repayment is nonsense. We’re family. It’s as simple as that. And if I had given anything up, it certainly wasn’t my life’s love. I am not pining for Richard in any way, shape or form. In fact . . .”

  “In fact what?” Mandy said with an eagerness that stopped Hannah’s impulse to tell her anything about Dax Randall. Mandy would blow it out of proportion.

  “In fact, I’ve realized what a good thing it is that I finally saw his true character when I did. If that hadn’t happened, I might still be stuck in that marriage, not knowing why I was growing more and more miserable every day.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “Okay. But still, could you promise me something?”

  “What?”

  “Promise you won’t give up on love. Promise you’ll get out there and meet men and give them a chance to fall in love with you now that you don’t have Ethan and me underfoot all the time. Promise me that, okay?”

  Hannah’s gaze flicked to the figure outside the picture window. “Okay. I promise.”

  After they hung up, Hannah added another promise to herself. She would be careful with this love business, because it could be as explosive and devastating as nitro-glycerin.

  She didn’t pine for Richard the way Mary Albert had for her love, but that didn’t mean that sort of heartbreak couldn’t happen to her.

  * * * *

  “A movie Saturday?” Hannah repeated.

  “And dinner,” Dax added.

  Dinner and a movie. About as innocuous as a date could get, Hannah thought. She’d been on hundreds of dates that included dinner and a movie. She knew how to handle that.

  Unlike a horseback riding outing.

  Surely that’s why the kisses they’d shared on horseback had shaken her so badly—she’d been out of her element. But dinner and a movie—that she knew how to handle.

  The sort of date she needed to help ease back into the social whirl.

  “Thank you, Dax. I’d like that.”

  * * * *

  Hannah ignored the tingle of nerves between her shoulders—surely, nerves were causing that sensation—when she opened the cabin door to Dax on Saturday night and let him in with a smile.

  She had prepared for this date the way she prepared for business meetings.

  Talking to Theresa Wendlow this afternoon about advertising for the high school girl’s paper on the profession had helped get Hannah in the right frame of mind. She had mentally prepared a list of topics to cover, considered several approaches to each, then visualized how the whole encounter might go and finally willed herself into a state of serenity. She had dressed for the part, too. She wore a straight-line denim jumper that buttoned from the hem to its deep V neck over a collarless white blouse of washed silk, flats and nylons, and plain hoop earrings.

  She’d found a balance between too casual and too dressed up, and that boosted her confidence. She could do this. She could definitely do this.

  “I’ll get my purse and sweater, and we can go.”

  He mumbled something she didn’t catch, it might have been his saying she looked nice. When she turned to face him after gathering her things, however, she couldn’t mistake the expression in his eyes. She’d seen it when he’d kissed her on horseback. The tingle between her shoulders spread down her arms, then pulsed with a new heat when he touched the small of her back to guide her to the passenger door of his newly washed truck.

  It took several minutes of silent self-lecturing to drag her serenity out of its hiding spot. But by the time Dax cleared his throat and spoke, she felt back in control.

  “Thought we’d get some dinner first, then go see a movie.”

  “That would be nice. Which one?”

  “We can decide when we get there, if that’s okay with you.”

  “Of course.”

  She smiled straight ahead and brought up Topic Number One, the history of the area that Zeke, the one-time ranch hand at the Westons’, had told her about at the cookout. Dax didn’t chatter, by any means, but he contributed a couple anecdotes, and she started to relax.

  When he got on 1-90 and headed north, she quelled momentary uneasiness. The only movie theater she’d seen in Bardville had been boarded up, so they must be going to Sheridan. That meant a little more time in the truck alone with him than she’d initially figured on, but that didn’t pose any great problem. She could adjust. She often had to do that in meetings. No big deal.

  Then they passed the last exit to Sheridan.

  “Uh, Dax, where are we going?”

  He looked over at her, a faint cast of surprise showing under the brim of his hat. “Billings.”

  “Billings! But that’s . . . that’s in Montana.”

  “Uh-huh,” he agreed politely.

  “It’s got to be—what?—an hour away?”

  “Closer to two.”

  “And it’s in another state for heaven’s sake.”

  “It’s got the best choice of movies. And there’re nice restaurants. Not fancy. I said dinner and a movie. What did you think?”

  “I thought, Bardville or maybe Sheridan.”

  He eased his foot off the gas pedal and pulled the truck onto the shoulder of the highway. When they stopped, he glanced at her, then returned his attention to the view through the windshield. “We don’t think anything of going to Billings, so I didn’t think to spell it out, Hannah. Do you want to go back?”

  Her list of topics wouldn’t last until dinner, much less getting to a movie and the return trip. This wouldn’t be like any other dinner-and-a-movie date she’d been on, because none of them had included a four-hour round-trip commute. They would be in uncharted territory, beyond her preparations and planning.

  “I’ll take you home if you want, Hannah,” he added gruffly, still speaking to the windshield.

  “No,” she said slowly. “It’s all right. We’ll go to Billings. I was, uh, surprised. I overreacted.”

  He’d glanced over at her first few words, and the lines around his mouth eased. “Interstate dating can do that to you.”

  He said it solemnly enough, but she caught the glimmer of amusement in his eyes. Settling back into the seat as he pulled onto the road, she felt an answering grin tugging at her mouth.

  “Interstate dating, huh? Pretty fancy description for dinner and a movie.”

  * * * *

  They never mad
e it to the movie.

  In a booth along the side of the narrow, storefront restaurant that she finally got Dax to say was his favorite for its generous portions and plain cooking, they talked. Mostly about Will, the twins and the pitfalls of teenagers, but also about ranching, advertising, horses, dogs, mountains, small towns and a little about her childhood. Though she would never describe Dax as a talkative man, he mostly held up his end—except when it came to childhood. On his, Dax remained silent.

  With Dax, conversation was almost leisurely. As unhurried as the frizzy-haired blond waitress who cheerfully refilled the coffee cups they sipped to emptiness several times after she cleared away their plates. When they looked up, it was too late to make the last show of any of the three movies they’d discussed—to Dax’s obvious chagrin.

  “We could go get a drink,” he offered. “Or I could take you dancing.”

  She shook her head.

  “Or . . . or bowling.”

  He sounded so desperate she laughed a little. “No, Dax. There’s no need, really. I’ve had a very nice evening.”

  “We’ll go someplace else for a nice dessert, then. Anywhere you want. You choose.”

  She chose an ice cream stand, and he grumbled that he would bet she’d never gone on a date in New York City that included ice cream cones. But he didn’t scoff at her choice, he didn’t try to change her mind and he didn’t blink when she ordered two scoops. In fact, he ordered three himself.

  As they sat on a bench eating their ice cream, a teenage couple parked nearby, pausing to neck briefly but passionately before getting out to order their ice cream.

  An intent expression settled onto Dax’s strong features as he stared at them, following their progress to the window, with the boy’s arm hooked around the girl’s neck.

  “Thinking that will be Will in a few years?” Hannah asked before she took a long lick of her dwindling cone.

  “What?” He sounded slightly dazed.

  “Or maybe I should say are you worried that will be Will in a few years?”

 

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