Second Chance Rancher

by Brenda Minton

  “Daddy, do you want to help?” Issy touched his arm. “We might plant watermelons.”

  “Really?” He looked to Lucy for confirmation. A garden was a commitment. If a person planted a garden, didn’t that mean they planned to stay and tend the plants, harvest them in the fall?

  “Yes, we are.” Lucy sat back on her heels and watched as he helped his daughter with the next couple of plants.

  “I got a call from the sheriff. Johnny is now their guest.” He said it in a way that he hoped wouldn’t worry his daughter.

  “That’s good. I’m sure he’ll enjoy the stay.” Lucy smiled down at his daughter. “That means it will be okay for Willa to grab a few things that are special to her before she moves. She’s decided to move in with an aunt.”

  “If you need help, let me know. We can always take a trailer to load up whatever she wants to keep.”

  “I’ll ask her.” Lucy started gathering up the garden tools. “I think I’ll take her Sunday afternoon. She wants to go to church here before she leaves.”

  “I’ll keep my schedule open.”

  “Thank you.”

  Dane reached for the green beans. “We might as well finish.”

  Lucy reached for a tray of plants. “I guess we can. Did you still need the bush hog?”

  “Yeah, I’m trying to reclaim fifty acres that has gone to weeds.”

  The sun beat down on them as they finished a row of beans. Issy tugged on his sleeve. “Daddy, I’m sleepy and thirsty.”

  “We’ve been out here awhile.” Lucy wiped dirt off her hands. “Issy is probably ready to go inside with Maria and Princess the rotten poodle.”

  “If you take her in, I’ll keep planting.” Dane never put in a garden but the idea might be growing on him because of Lucy. Yeah, because of Lucy.

  “Then I’ll take Issy inside to Maria.” Lucy lifted the little girl into her arms.

  He reached for another tray, but then he sat back and stretched. “Mind getting me a glass of water while you’re in there? I don’t quit, but I do like a break from time to time.”

  Lucy held Issy close. “Says the man who just got here five minutes ago.”

  He laughed. “I didn’t say I was working hard.”

  After they’d walked away he headed for the outside spigot attached to a garden hose. He pulled the handle and unwound the hose to drag it to the garden. The new plants needed watering. And so did he. He ran water in his hand and splashed his face, then rinsed his hands and arms before turning the hose on the garden.

  “Feel better?”

  Lucy appeared at his side, grinning as she slid her gaze over his wet hair and face.

  “Actually, yes.” He turned the hose on her and she ran, but not before he got her. “Do you feel better?”

  She swiped at the water dripping down her face. “That was unkind. And after I brought you a bottle of cold water.”

  “You’re right. Very unkind.” He dropped the hose and went after her but she ran, taking both bottles of water with her.

  Halfway across the yard he caught her, pulling her back against his chest as she fought to escape. “Caught you.”

  “Now what do you plan to do?”

  Water still dripped from her hair, down her cheek. That was about the most intriguing drop of water he’d ever seen. But then, she was the most intriguing female he’d ever known. He held her and she didn’t seem in a hurry to escape. Instead she was soft in his arms, leaning a little against his shoulder.

  She brought out the worst in him. Or maybe the best. It felt good to hold her and it felt good to laugh. For a few minutes he didn’t want to think about either of them leaving. For a few minutes he’d like to go back and just be kids from Bluebonnet on a summer day. Even if they were long past being kids.

  “Well?” she asked, her expression softening.

  “I’m going to do this.” He leaned, kissing that drop of water from her cheek. Then he moved to her mouth.

  “And this,” he said. He buried his hands in the soft waves of her brown hair and held her close to kiss her the way he’d wanted to for days. He wanted her to stay. He wanted to recapture perfect summer days, when she’d been his for just a few short weeks.

  But he wouldn’t say it out loud because once he did it would be hers to reject, to tell him why it wouldn’t work. If he said it, he’d have to take a closer look and he might find that what they’d had was gone and this was just another stolen moment. So he kissed her until she wiggled out of his arms and shot a cautious look in the direction of the field.

  “That would be Essie,” she whispered. She exhaled and looked up at him. “That was your plan?”

  “I didn’t really think it through.”

  “Maybe we should have given it more thought.”

  He shook his head, disagreeing. “No, because then we would have walked away and we wouldn’t have had that moment.”

  She stared up at him. “Moments don’t last.”

  “Sometimes they do.” He pushed damp hair back from her face. “Go to church with us tomorrow.”

  She blinked a few times and shook her head. “What? Why?”

  “It’s important to me. Just go with us?”

  Before she could respond, Essie was there, getting off her ATV, giving them a long look as she pulled off her helmet and hung it over the handlebars of the vehicle.

  “Well, well, well.” Essie looked from one of them to the other and Dane felt a lot like a teenager caught on a back road. “I called and Maria said you were gardening. That’s the most interesting form of gardening I think I’ve ever seen.”

  Lucy cleared her throat and stepped forward to hug her aunt. “Essie, what are up to today? Maria made lemonade if you’d care for some.”

  “Uh-huh, that’s how we’re going to play this?” Essie sat down on the seat of the ATV. “I came over to bring you a gift.”

  The older woman reached into the basket on the back of the ATV. She pulled out a little gray kitten and practically tossed it to Lucy.

  “A kitten?” Lucy held the squirming, hissing feline. “I don’t want a cat.”

  “Funny,” Essie said, her accent heavier than usual. “I didn’t want a cat, either. But Chet showed up this morning with a kitten for me. He was real sad that I’d lost my cat and he thought this little kitten would make me happy.”

  “What a sweet thing to do,” Lucy cooed, then she handed the kitten to Dane. He took it, but he definitely didn’t want it.

  Essie’s eyes narrowed as she stared her niece down. “I don’t like cats and you know that. But it seems that Chet was told a kitten might make me happy.”

  “And it didn’t?” Lucy asked, all innocence. Dane laughed, which earned him a stare down from Essie.

  “Not really.” A hint of a smile curved Essie’s lips. “I wasn’t upset about a cat.”

  “No?”

  Essie glared at the kitten in Dane’s arms. “No. But what woman wants to admit she’s attached to a stupid rooster. I’ve had that rooster for three years. He was on my porch every morning, crowing in the new day.”

  “Not Rooster Cogburn,” Lucy cried out, obviously distressed. Dane was lost.

  “A coyote got him.” Essie said it with a trace of the previous day’s sadness. “I really liked that rooster.”

  “Oh, Aunt Essie, I am so sorry.” Lucy leaned to hug her aunt and they awkwardly patted each other on the back. Over a rooster. Dane looked at the kitten that had curled up to sleep on his shoulder.

  “Looks like the kitten has a home.” Essie beamed, proud of herself. “Issy will love that kitten.”

  Great, a kitten. A phone rang before he could explain that the last thing they needed was a cat. Lucy reached into her pocket and walked away, phone to her ear. The conversation was serious but h
e couldn’t make out what was being said. Essie didn’t seem to be bothered by it. She kept talking about her rooster and how she’d bought some chicks at the feed store a couple of years ago and that rooster had been one of the chicks.

  Lucy returned and Essie stopped talking.

  “Problem?” Essie asked.

  “Not one I can’t handle.” Lucy slipped the phone back in her pocket. “My business partner, Boone Wilder, has to go into the hospital for a few days. They’ve got a job in Austin so they’re going to need me down there next week.”

  She glanced at Dane with a worried look that he didn’t understand. Was she wondering how he felt about her job or about her leaving?

  “What about Maria?” Essie asked.

  “Alex is here. Most of the time. And it’s just a few days.”

  Essie muttered to herself, and he thought he heard something about a few days this time, but what about later.

  As the two of them discussed Lucy’s job, Dane glanced at the garden. A person didn’t plant a garden if they weren’t committed to staying and seeing it through. Right?

  Why should it matter so much to him? He had more than one buyer interested in the ranch. And he’d complicated things by kissing Lucy a second time. The first time he could have written off as an accident.

  But today? Yeah, he had definitely meant that kiss.

  Chapter Thirteen

  When Sunday morning rolled around and Lucy walked out of her room dressed for church, she knew she’d cause a commotion. Maria was at the kitchen table with a bowl of cereal, but when she spotted Lucy in a dress and sandals, she choked a little. She covered it up by pretending to cough.

  “Are you going somewhere?” Maria asked as she dipped her spoon into the bowl for another bite of frosted something.

  “I’m going to church. So go ahead and say everything you need to say. I want to get it over with.”

  “Um, one, I’ve never seen you in a dress. Ever.” Maria started with that, actually ticking it off on her finger. “Two, you never go to church. Three, you really dislike church. Four, there is the whole antichurch thing.”

  “Stop.” Lucy stalked past her, intent on getting a bowl of cereal. “Is Alex back in from the barn?”

  “Yeah, he’s in the shower. And Willa is getting Seth ready for church. She’s still avoiding Alex. He makes her nervous.”

  Lucy poured cereal in her bowl. “Alex makes her nervous?”

  “Men are not on her ‘favorite things’ list right now.”

  Lucy poured milk over her cereal. “Gotcha. When do we need to leave?”

  “Fifteen minutes.” Maria put her bowl in the sink and kissed Lucy’s cheek. “I’m glad you’re going.”

  “Yeah, me too.”

  Her heart quaked at the idea. But she refused to let fear control her. She would face it now the same way she’d faced it at other times in her life. She would confront what frightened her. She’d confronted the room in the stable. Each day she walked past it; sometimes she walked in, to show herself that the room wouldn’t harm her. It couldn’t control her.

  Church couldn’t harm her. Church was not the enemy. It was a place of charity and compassion, not abuse.

  “Are we ready?”

  She jumped at the question but she finished her cereal and nodded before facing her brother. He stood at the doorway, his dark hair still damp and curly from the shower.

  “I’m ready.”

  “You okay?”

  “Yes, of course I’m okay.”

  Alex did the unthinkable. He crossed the room and gave her a big hug. “It’s okay, sis, we’ll be together.”

  She let him hug her, then she squirmed free. “Go away.”

  Ten minutes later they pulled into the parking lot of the Bluebonnet Community Church. The parking lot was full. People were talking out front and others were going in through the double doors. It had never been this way when her father pastored the church.

  There were seven signs of a cult, she’d read. Opposing critical thinking was at the top of the list. Isolating members came next.

  The people in her father’s church had either followed blindly or been afraid to speak. He had taken over their thoughts, their families, their lives. He’d been charismatic, as Bea had tried to communicate. They’d seen him as a smiling, engaging speaker who cared about them.

  She was slow to get out of the car. As she finally exited and followed Alex, Maria, Willa and Seth, she thought about her father. He hadn’t always been mean. He wouldn’t have had his following if that had been the case. He’d known how to draw people in.

  “Greetings, Palermo family.” Pastor Matthews stood at the door of the church. He grabbed Lucy by the hand and didn’t let go. He probably feared she would run.

  But she wasn’t running. Dane had asked her to be here, so here she was. It seemed important. To him. And to her.

  “Pastor. Good morning.” She made a real attempt at smiling and he released her hand. She walked inside, Alex next to her. Maria came in behind them, with Willa and Seth.

  Dane came over to her as she entered. Issy and him. She took a deep breath, finding peace. Because it wasn’t the same church her father had pastored. She saw that now. The people were different, save a few familiar faces. The place was lighter, less stern. The pastor wasn’t watching them with hawkish awareness, making sure no one transgressed.

  And Dane was there with Issy.

  “Will you sit with us?” Dane asked as he guided them toward a pew midway up the front of the church. Essie was already there. She waved, but then went back to a conversation with the woman sitting next to her.

  “I guess we will.”

  They all slid into the pew. Willa, her little boy on her lap, Maria, Alex, Lucy, Dane and Issy. As they got situated, Issy moved to Lucy’s lap. She looked up with big blue eyes and blond ringlets, her expression sweetly innocent.

  “I got a kitten.”

  “Yes, I heard about that.” Lucy dropped a kiss on the child’s head. If she focused on Issy, the anxiety couldn’t come back for a counterattack. “Did you name it?”

  “Lucy.”

  “You named your kitty Lucy?”

  Issy nodded and rested her head on Lucy’s shoulder. The musicians moved to the front of the church. A guitarist, a pianist and a fiddle player. They started with a newer song, one that Lucy hadn’t heard before.

  The rest of the service was a blur. She focused on just being there and making it through that hour of music and a message about faith. She made it through an hour of sitting next to Dane, his arm sometimes drifting to rest across the back of the pew, his hand occasionally touching her arm, rubbing lightly.

  As the sermon ended she realized she had survived. There had been no condemnations, no finger-pointing, no beating people up for lack of faith. She had friends who lived their faith in quiet ways that made a difference. Those friends had helped her along the way, opening her eyes to the absolute wrongness of her father’s doctrine.

  But it had taken time for her to step back inside a church and reexamine her own faith. Because maybe it was still there, deep inside, scarred and beat up, but living.

  They slowly filed out of church, getting stuck in various pockets of people stopping to talk. There was an open, friendly atmosphere. Maria glanced back at her, a “see, I told you” smile on her face. Tight-lipped, Lucy smiled back.

  “Are you still taking Willa to her aunt’s?” Dane asked as they left the church.

  Once they were in a clearing where she could breathe, Lucy answered. “Yes. We’ve talked about it. She could stay here, but she wants to be as far from Johnny as she can get. She wants to start over and she knows she can’t do that if she stays in this area.”

  “I’ll help you move her,” he offered.

 
“You don’t have to do that.”

  “I don’t mind. The aunt lives near Austin, right?”

  “Yes, but then I’m staying for a few days. I have to work.”

  “I’ll drive back once we have her settled.”

  Why wasn’t he taking no for an answer? She was used to her business partners doing that, but even they knew when to back off. And there was also this trip to church. She was here because he’d asked.

  It was on the tip of her tongue to ask him when suddenly a car roared into the parking lot.

  “Who is that?” Maria asked, stepping close to Lucy.

  “That’s Johnny. Willa’s husband.” Lucy did a quick search for Willa and spotted her a good distance away. “Why didn’t County let us know he’d been released?”

  Dane handed Issy to Lucy and he hurried in the direction of the car. Lucy gave Issy to her sister. “Go inside. Take Issy and tell people to go back into the sanctuary.”

  Pastor Matthews appeared, his expression grim. He started moving people toward the church. Lucy sprinted across the parking lot, despite her high heels. Johnny was already out of the car and had hold of Willa. Dane was still a good distance away from them. But he might not have seen what Lucy saw. A knife.

  Lucy said a prayer as she kicked off her shoes and circled back behind Willa’s husband. She prayed Willa would remember what she’d been taught in the last few days. As Lucy circled them, she made eye contact with Dane, shaking her head and pointing to the knife that Johnny had at his side.

  Dane stopped moving and held out an arm to stop others from moving forward. “Hey, Johnny, good to see you.”

  Johnny didn’t seem amused. “Dude, I don’t even know you. Back off or I’ll cut her.”

  Willa had Seth by the hand but she let go and told him to run. The little boy obeyed, running for Lucy and hugging her tightly around the waist. She brushed a hand through his hair and told him he was safe and his mommy would be safe. Someone appeared at her side. Pastor Matthews. He lifted the little boy.

  “Willa, be calm. Remember.” Lucy said it quietly, hoping Johnny wouldn’t catch on. Dane kept talking.