She turned her gaze back to Reena. “For five years. But today is the last day for the clinic. A new owner is taking over on Monday.”
Reena’s gentle smile was filled with compassion, as though she understood, without even being told, that Laurel was feeling a little torn about all the changes taking place.
“When an old door closes, you have to believe that a new and better one will open,” Reena said gently. “You shouldn’t worry, honey. The Chaparral will be a good place for you.”
Laurel was beginning to think she must be walking around with the word worry written across her forehead. Everyone seemed to think she needed reassurance. If she was coming across as that weak and indecisive, then she needed to straighten her backbone. She might lack confidence in some aspects of her life, but not where her job was concerned. She’d made a commitment to work for the Chaparral, and she wasn’t turning back for any reason. Even Russ.
“I feel so, too. Especially with you here.” She leaned over far enough to wrap an affectionate arm around the cook’s slender shoulders. “I’ve not had a mother in a long time. I hope you don’t mind that I think of you in that way, Reena.”
Patting Laurel’s hand, she said in a husky voice, “It’s been a long time since I’ve had a daughter, too. We’ll be good for each other.”
* * *
Early the next morning, Russ drove the short distance to Laurel’s place. As he approached the house, he spotted her in the front yard playing with her two dogs, a gold shepherd mix and a black collie. With the sky completely clear, the sun was already bright. The light glinted off the patches of snow covering the ground and put a fiery glow on the loose hair flowing down her back.
Dressed in a pair of black jeans and a puffy red parka, she looked young and energetic as she taunted the dogs to race after her. It dawned on Russ that, even though he’d known Laurel for a long time, he’d never seen her outside work. Maybe that’s why she looked so beautiful to him this morning. Why she’d looked so lovely and desirable Thursday night when the fire in the fireplace had started to burn. Along with his desire.
Spotting his arrival, she walked quickly through the gate to join him. His spirits suddenly soaring, Russ left the truck running and climbed to the ground to greet her.
“Good morning. Ready to go?”
“All set,” she told him.
He glanced over her shoulder to where the dogs were still leaping and playing. “Aren’t you going to put the dogs in the backyard?” he asked. “They can climb under this board fence.”
“I’ve already turned them loose and let them run in the woods,” she told him. “They know where their home is now. If they do leave, they won’t go far. So I’ve let them have their freedom and they’re loving it.”
“No doubt,” he agreed. The fact that she wasn’t going to keep the pets locked behind a chain-link fence surprised him somewhat. Laurel had always been very protective when it came to her pets, almost overly so. But moving to the country could be changing her attitude, he thought.
He warned, “By nightfall their coats will be full of burrs and twigs.”
“Yes, but they’ll be happy dogs,” she said with a shrug. “That’s more important.”
She started around to the passenger door of the truck, and Russ followed. As he opened the door and reached to give her an elbow up, she glanced around, her brows arched with question.
“Do I look sickly this morning or something?” she asked wryly.
“No. Actually you look quite fresh and beautiful,” he said. “I just felt like being a gentleman this morning.”
He could see that his remark had taken her aback somewhat, and with one boot resting on the running board, she paused to study his face.
“Then I suppose I’m expected to act like a lady.”
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen her hair loose like this, and before he could stop himself, he reached out and snared a few of the shiny chestnut tendrils between his fingers. “You are a lady, Laurel.”
She didn’t smile, but her eyes softened enough to tell him that she appreciated his words.
Suddenly clearing her throat, she said, “I think we’d better head on to the ranch yard.”
His nearness was disturbing her, and though he wished she would move closer, just knowing that she wasn’t indifferent to him had to be enough for right now. Over the past couple of days, he’d been fighting with himself, trying to tell himself that to win Laurel he would have to slow down and convince her he was serious. But this attraction he felt for his assistant had hit him suddenly, and the jolt had been so hard it was still reverberating through him. He didn’t want to slow down. He wanted to grab her and show her what both of them had been missing.
“Yeah,” he agreed. “Let’s go.”
He helped her into the cab and, after he’d joined her, he turned the truck away from her house. Across the console from him, she fastened her seat belt and settled back in the plush leather seat.
“How did things go at the clinic yesterday?” she asked. “Get everything wrapped up?”
“Yes. The last of the animals were picked up by their owners.”
“Even Daisy, the German shepherd?” she wanted to know.
He smiled to himself. If there was one thing he truly knew about Laurel, she was totally devoted to the animals she treated. Nursing and nurturing were second nature to her. “Yes. Even Daisy. She’s mending nicely, and her owners are going to bring her back to Dr. Brennan for follow-up treatments.”
“So the new vet is moving in today,” she mused aloud. “How does that make you feel?”
“Frankly, I feel good about it. Sometimes a person just knows when it’s the right time to move on. And it was right for me.” He glanced over to see her studying him closely. “What about you? Did you get everything unpacked yesterday?”
“Yes. Thank you for the day off. That was thoughtful of you.”
He shot her a crooked grin. “I’m not an ogre all the time.”
From the corner of his eye, he could see the palms of her hands moving up and down her thighs. She was nervous, and all he could think about was her and the way she’d made him feel when they’d kissed. Maybe she’d been right; maybe his overtures toward her had ruined their ability to work together. How was he going to be able to perform a delicate surgery with her standing next to him, reminding him how much he wanted to make love to her?
Russ wasn’t going to think about the answer to that question. The fact that he was able to feel at all, to want a woman again, was too precious to resist or push away.
She said, “I’ve never thought of you as an ogre. A taskmaster, maybe, but not a monster.”
A few yards ahead, the mountain lane connected to the primary dirt road that led to the main ranch house. Russ geared down the truck for the right turn.
“You don’t have to tell me that I’ve pushed you at times, Laurel. But until we got away from the clinic, I guess I never realized just how hard I pushed,” he said with a bit of regret. “If I ever hurt you because of it, I’m sorry.”
The glance she shot him was so brief he didn’t have the chance to read the expression on her face.
“Forget it,” she murmured. “I’m sure there will be times you’ll push me again. But there’s no need for you to worry that you’ll hurt me. I’m like an old piece of leather—too hard to tear.”
And why would she ever think of herself as hard? Russ wondered. The Laurel he knew was soft inside and out. But he didn’t know the whole Laurel, he reminded himself. He only knew the caring animal nurse who showed up to work beside him every day. He didn’t know about her hopes and dreams or any of the things that made her the person that she was today.
When he’d married Brooke, he’d believed he’d known her completely. Now he looked back on his failed marriage and wondered if he’d been blind or simply a fool. Had he overlooked his ex-wife’s flaws and weaknesses because he’d been so lonely and eager to start a family? Dear God, he could
n’t make that mistake again, he told himself. He couldn’t let himself be wrong about Laurel. He was drawn to her for many reasons, and this time he had to make sure those reasons were right.
“So you’re tough, are you?” he asked with wry disbelief.
“As tough as I have to be.”
Her voice was low, almost gritty, and Russ realized she was serious. Very serious.
Frowning, he glanced at her. “And what has turned you into a piece of old leather? Or is that question too personal to ask?”
Shaking her head, she said, “I’m sorry, Russ. I didn’t mean to sound so bitter. But, well, as a child I went through some things that would have torn the heart out of a strong adult.”
After a moment, he guessed, “Your sister?”
Bending her head, she nodded. “Yes. I’ll tell you all about it someday—when I’m able.”
It was hard for Russ to imagine what losing her twin must have done to her, and though he wanted to know more about her personal life, he wasn’t going to push her to relate it. She’d never pressed him for intimate details about himself; he had to do the same for her and respect her privacy. And hope that someday she would feel close enough to want to share those dark times and all the rest of it with him.
“And I’ll listen,” he said, “whenever you’re able.”
He felt her look at him and glanced over to see a faint smile curving her lips.
“I’ll remember that, Russ.”
Shadows darkened her gray eyes, yet there was a glint of gratefulness shining through to him, and the sight touched something deep in the middle of his chest.
It was often said that a man’s treasure was hidden in plain sight. Russ was beginning to see that he’d found his, and he wasn’t about to let himself lose sight of her.
Chapter Six
A few minutes later, the huge, two-story ranch house, with its walls of cedar and native rock, appeared on the far horizon.
As it did, Laurel spoke. “I drove down here to the big house yesterday—to return the food containers to Reena and thank her for the meal.”
“That was thoughtful of you.”
“I’ve known Reena for a long time,” she explained. “Ever since Alexa and I became friends in elementary school. When we were teenagers she was almost like my mother.”
All this time, when Russ had been making plans to accept the job post here on the Chaparral, he’d never guessed that Laurel had such deep ties to the place. Quint had mentioned, almost in passing, that Russ’s assistant was an old friend of his sister’s, but that had been the extent of their conversation on the matter. Now Russ was getting the feeling that she’d spent lots of time in the Cantrell home.
“I didn’t realize you were so familiar with folks here on the ranch.”
She shrugged. “I’m ashamed to admit that I’ve let months go by without keeping in contact with Reena.” She cast him a curious glance. “Did you know Lewis? Quint and Alexa’s father?”
Russ nodded. “Yes. I used to see Lewis and Frankie at the racetrack in Ruidoso.”
“That’s surprising. I didn’t know you ever took the time to visit the track,” she said with faint disbelief.
“That was when I first started the clinic and didn’t have the facilities built for horses to occupy, so I frequently took calls at the track,” he explained, then shook his head at the recollection. “Damn, but that was a long time ago. Years, in fact.”
“You’ve come a long way since then,” she said. “And so many changes have occurred here on the Chaparral, too. Lewis died, and then Alexa and Quint learned that their mother had been married earlier in her life to a man in Texas, and that they had half brothers they’d never met.”
“Yes, I remember,” he said. “That got the gossip mills in town turning at full speed. But instead of tearing the family apart, the scandal seemed to pull them even tighter together. There are plenty of folks who could take lessons from the Cantrells,” he said.
The Stantons certainly could have learned a lot from them, Laurel thought. But it was too late for her family now. As for Russ’s, she knew hardly anything about his relatives. He’d mentioned his mother to her once and that had come unexpectedly, after he’d been forced to end a mare’s suffering from being caught and stranded in barbed wire for several days.
The loss had hit him harder than usual, and as the two of them had been traveling back to the clinic, he’d brought up his mother and the fact that he’d lost her to cancer, and how helpless he’d felt because there was nothing he could do to save her. At the time, she’d remembered thinking how she’d felt the same way when Lainey had died, but she’d not shared those bleak memories with him. The two of them never talked about their families or private lives. Along with that, Laurel had never felt comfortable talking about her late twin, but on that occasion she’d been tempted to. Weeks later, it had dawned on Laurel that the day Russ had mentioned his mother had been Mother’s Day, and the realization that he’d been remembering and grieving had brought a sting of tears to her eyes. It had also reminded her that he was more than a rock-hard man with a fanatical work ethic. He was human, fully capable of hurting. Just like her.
Shaking away the emotional memories, Laurel noticed they had reached the ranch-yard proper and Russ had steered the truck onto a roadway that ran between two enormous barns. At the end of the building on the left, he parked next to a white four-wheel-drive truck with The Chaparral and its brand printed on the driver’s door. A few feet to the right stood the building and its large door with a window at the top. Above the window swung a shingle with the name Dr. Russ Hollister branded into the wood.
“I was here a couple of weeks ago to see how the construction work was progressing, but the workers still had everything in a mess,” he told her. “Let’s go see how things are looking now.”
When the two of them stepped inside, Laurel was totally stunned. Even though Reena had told her that Quint was sparing no expense, she’d never expected him to supply Russ with such a modern and spacious office.
As she stepped farther into the room, she practically gasped. “Wow! This looks like Italian tile on the floor. And the furniture—it’s so beautiful.”
Scurrying over to a long couch, she ran a hand over the soft, wine-red leather. There were two matching armchairs flanking it, and across the room, facing each other, sat two separate cherrywood desks, each manned with a computer, telephone, Rolodex and other amenities needed to run a business. At the opposite end of the room, a countertop ran the length of one wall and behind the waist-high partition, Maccoy was busy placing manila files on built-in wooden shelves.
Laurel waved a greeting to the older man, then turned her attention to another part of the office, where a tall cowboy wearing a black hat and jingle-bell spurs was pouring himself a cup of coffee from an up-to-the-minute coffee machine.
As soon as the man spotted Laurel and Russ, he set the coffee aside and strode quickly over to greet them.
“I thought you’d be here soon,” he said as he reached to shake Russ’s hand.
The two men exchanged greetings and then Russ motioned to her. “Laramie, this is my assistant, Laurel Stanton. I hate to admit it,” he said with a teasing grin, “but I can’t work without her, so I was forced to bring her along.”
“I’m sure you didn’t have to have your arm twisted to hold on to her,” the foreman said to Russ. Then, giving Laurel a quiet but charming smile, he reached to shake her hand.
“It was more like I had to twist hers,” Russ admitted to the other man, then turned his gaze on Laurel. “This is Laramie Jones, and just in case you don’t know, he’s the foreman of the Chaparral. What he says, goes.”
Laramie chuckled at Russ’s remark. “Quint might argue with you there.”
The ranch foreman was somewhere near thirty, Laurel guessed, and very attractive in a dark and rugged way. Yet meeting him wasn’t making her heart skip a beat. No man did that to her, except Russ, she thought helplessly.
“It’s very nice to meet you, Laramie,” she told the foreman. “Alexa is always praising you, so you must be very good at your job.”
The faint grin on his face deepened as he finally dropped her hand. “From the way Quint talks about you and Russ, I’m expecting you two to be able to walk on water.”
Chuckling, Russ exchanged a pointed look with her. “He’s in for a disappointment, isn’t he?”
“I’m afraid so,” Laurel joked along with the two men.
Laramie gestured toward the room surrounding them. “So what do you think about the office?” he asked. “Quint’s made an endless number of trips out here to make sure the contractors would have it all finished in time.”
“The last time I looked, the walls were still bare Sheetrock. I never expected it to turn out like this,” Russ told him. “I’m not sure I’m going to know how to work in this luxury. My office in town was a dusty little cubbyhole with a metal desk, one file cabinet and a couple of folding chairs for my customers.”
“And a closet we turned into a snack room. Don’t forget to mention that,” Laurel chimed in.
“Shhh, Laurel! You’re making me sound cheap,” Russ joked.
“Not cheap. Just practical,” she corrected, then smiled at Laramie. “He spent all his extra money on his patients. Trust me.”
Laramie smiled back at her. “A dedicated man. Glad to hear it.” Turning his gaze back to Russ, he gestured to a door leading out of the office and into another part of the building. “Let’s go look at the rest of your work area. And you can let me know if anything won’t work or what else you might need.”
She and Russ followed the ranch foreman through the door and into a huge room with a scrupulously clean concrete floor, two squeeze chutes for cattle, a pair of small pens to hold recovering animals, a horse-examining gate, a long row of cabinets lining one wall and two treatment tables, along with a huge double sink.
Fascinated by the up-to-date facilities, Laurel quickly strode over to the cabinets and began to inspect all the equipment hidden behind the metal doors. “Russ, come look at this! There’s everything we need and more,” she exclaimed.
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