“I’m aware of that, honey. I’m also aware that I can’t be the only one who’s found someone special. The trick,” Miss Joan told her, “is not to give up if you did happen to wind up with a lemon your first time out of the gate.” The woman winked at her. “If you know what I mean.” She smiled broadly at both of them. “Enjoy your apple pie. It’s on the house.”
“You can’t make any money if you keep giving things away, Miss Joan,” Jackson protested.
“Not just in it for the money these days. Don’t need to be,” she added. “Henry would turn me into a kept woman if I let him, but I like being here, watching the good people of Forever grow and evolve. Now, eat your pie and don’t argue with your betters, boy,” she said with a pseudo-stern expression on her face.
The next moment, Miss Joan had turned her attention to a couple seated at another table.
“Like I said earlier,” Jackson said, sinking his fork into the still-warm slice of pie, “Miss Joan means well. She does have this tendency to come on strong. But if you’ve got a problem, she’ll be right there to help. There’s nobody better to have in your corner than Miss Joan,” he assured her.
“Well, with any luck, I won’t be here long enough to actually have a corner,” Debi said. And then she realized how that had to sound to him. That she was putting him on notice as to the speed she expected him to use in bringing about her brother’s transformation. “No pressure,” she added.
“Didn’t feel any,” he replied casually.
And he didn’t feel pressure. For the moment, all he wanted to do was to enjoy the pie—and the company.
Chapter Eleven
He enjoyed watching the way Debi savored her dessert down to the last crumb. The look of sheer pleasure on her face made him think of total contentment.
Jackson couldn’t help wondering what that was like. He’d come close, but never managed to snag that particular brass ring. To him, there was always something more that could be done, the next teen to turn around and “fix.”
When Debi was done and retired her fork, Jackson looked around for Rhonda, their waitress. Spotting her, he beckoned the young woman over.
“Something else?” Rhonda asked, her glance taking in both of them.
“Just the check. For all of it,” Jackson specified, indicating both Debi’s order and his own by waving his index finger back and forth between them.
“But Miss Joan said not to charge you for any of it,” Rhonda protested.
“What would this have cost if I was paying for it?” he asked.
Looking at him a little warily, the waitress did a quick tally and told him the sum. “But—”
“I know,” he said, digging into his pocket and taking out his wallet. “Miss Joan said not to charge for the dinners.” He extracted the amount Rhonda had mentioned, plus a good-size tip on top of that. “I pay my own way,” he told the young woman.
Jackson left the waitress looking rather apprehensive as she took the hastily written-up bill and his money to the register at the front of the diner.
Jackson deliberately did not look in Miss Joan’s direction. Instead, he held the door opened for Debi, then slipped out himself.
The night was still warm, the silken air wrapping itself around her. Debi realized that for possibly the first time in a long time, the tension that had become part of her every waking moment was missing.
Enjoy it while it lasts. Because it never lasts, she warned herself.
Turning to Jackson as they walked to his truck, she asked, “How much do I owe you?”
He took a moment before he answered. “I’ll settle for a smile.”
Smiles didn’t pay the bills. She was fairly convinced that, based on what he was charging her for Ryan’s room and board at the ranch, Jackson wasn’t exactly rolling in excess cash.
She wanted to pay her fair share, even if this was an indulgence. With her temporary job at the clinic, she could breathe a little easier when it came to her available cash.
“No, really,” Debi insisted.
“Really,” he assured her. Coming to a stop by his vehicle, he made no move to open the door. “I’m waiting.”
It took her a second to remember what he was referring to. The smile she offered came from the very center of her being. Despite the doubts she’d harbored, she’d had a nice time. Jackson was an easy person to talk to.
“You make it very hard to argue.”
Her comment in turn coaxed a wide smile from him. “I’ve been told that.”
“Like you, I’m not comfortable with not paying my own way.” The man couldn’t fault her for that, she thought. “How about if I work it off?” she suggested. “Maybe this weekend. I can come to the ranch, do some work for you.”
“Can’t think of anything that needs nursing offhand.” Her work ethic was similar to his, Jackson thought. He found the thought oddly comforting.
“Then I’ll do whatever it is that people do on a ranch.”
Jackson cocked his head. Moonlight was beginning to tiptoe in all around them. Streaks of it wove itself through her hair, highlighting its blondness. Things began to stir within him that he had to struggle to shut down. Things he didn’t want to have stirred.
“So you’re offering to sit on the porch in a rocking chair and rock?” he asked teasingly.
She was prepared to work as hard as she had to. A rocking chair was not part of that plan. “Maybe after a full day’s work.”
Jackson looked at her knowingly. She probably hadn’t realized that he’d already caught on. “You know, you don’t have to go this roundabout route. You could just come straight out and ask me,” he told her.
Her eyes widened, like two cornflowers turning their faces up to the sun, their source of warmth. “Ask you what?”
He could almost buy into the aura of innocence she was projecting, but she was a city girl and surviving in the big city took a certain amount of savvy. “Ask if you can come to the ranch to see Ryan.”
She blew out a breath. She supposed, at bottom, that was the main reason for her being so adamant about “paying her own way.”
“Am I that transparent?”
Jackson laughed. She was utterly transparent, but he didn’t want to come out and say it so bluntly. He decided to soften the blow a little. “Well, let’s just say that I wouldn’t be volunteering for any spy missions if I were you.”
The smile his comment roused from her was shy and all the more charming for it, Jackson thought.
“Fine, I won’t.” She paused for a moment, then went full steam ahead. “So it’s all right? Coming to the ranch to see Ryan?”
“Sure. Go ahead. Any time.” He opened the passenger door for her and held it open. “I’m not running a prison camp in the middle of Siberia.” He waited as she slid in and then pulled her seat belt taut, offering it to her. “The only rule is if your brother’s in the middle of doing something, wait until he’s finished before taking him aside for a visit.”
“Sounds reasonable,” she replied.
He got in on his side, buckled up and started the engine. “That’s what I always try to be,” he told her. “Reasonable.”
She had no idea why, since she barely knew the man, but listening to him talk made her feel that everything was going to be all right with Ryan in the long run.
Now all she needed to do was survive the short run.
* * *
HER DAYS WERE filled to the point of nearly bursting. From the moment she set foot inside the clinic until the time that she closed the door after the last of the patients finally went home, Debi felt as if she was going ninety miles an hour. Sometimes more.
At the end of the week, after the last patient of the day had left, she looked wearily at Holly. The other woman still looked relatively fresh rather than wi
lted, the way Debi felt.
“How can you stand it?” Debi asked.
“‘It’?” Holly asked, not quite sure she understood what was being asked. She lowered the blinds, cutting off the clinic from any view of the outside world.
“The pace,” Debi clarified. “It feels like we’re always rushing around like crazy.”
“That’s probably because we are,” Holly said with amusement. Moving to the coffeemaker that was set up at the rear of her reception desk, she made sure that it was off. There were times when she and the doctors ran on nothing but coffee. “And I ‘stand’ it because I love it. Ever since I was a little girl, all I ever wanted to be was a nurse.”
She had become a surgical nurse almost by accident. It was intriguing to her to meet someone who had set their sights on the vocation right from the beginning. “A nurse, not a doctor?”
Holly shook her head. “Doctors have to be willing to leap out of bed at a moment’s notice, sharp as a tack and ready to go. I’m not much good half-asleep,” she confessed. “Regular hours are more my style. I get that here.”
Debi could understand that. “Having regular hours is great, but it’s the pace that’s really killing me.”
“You get used to it,” she promised.
Debi had her doubts, but she didn’t want to be impolite and argue the point with the other woman. “If you say so.”
Getting her purse out of the bottom drawer, Holly slung it over her shoulder. “Got any plans?” she asked Debi.
Debi had just retrieved her own purse. The clinic felt oddly quiet and still. She attributed it to the fact that Holly had just shut off the main lights. “Plans?” she questioned.
“For your first weekend in Forever,” Holly explained. “Ray wants to have a barbecue tomorrow, invite a few friends, that kind of thing. It’ll be mostly his family, but we’d love to have you.” Holly’s smile was warm and inviting. “A new face is always welcome.”
It sounded tempting, but she had already committed herself. “Thank you for the invitation, but I’m going to have to pass on it. I already made arrangements with Jackson to come to The Healing Ranch, visit with Ryan and see how he’s getting along.” She realized that even as she said it, she felt her stomach tying itself up in a knot. Why? Was she afraid that Ryan wasn’t doing as well as she’d hoped? Or was it something else that pricked at her nerves and caused a tingling sensation to zip right through her?
“Your brother’s been on the ranch how long now?” Holly asked, trying to remember what Debi had said to her when she first came to the clinic.
“Ryan’s been there a whole week. I’m not hoping for a miracle,” she added quickly so Holly didn’t think she was being unrealistic. “To be honest, I think it’s a miracle that he hasn’t taken off by now—or at least tried to.”
She assumed that if that had occurred, Jackson would have notified her. But there hadn’t been any communication between her and the cowboy since he’d taken her to dinner that evening. She had no idea why she kept looking over her shoulder, expecting him to just pop up. The Healing Ranch wasn’t located at the end of the earth, but it wasn’t exactly right on the outskirts of town, either.
“Well, I don’t doubt that your brother’s figured out pretty quick that there really isn’t anything to run off to outside of Forever.” Holly smiled to herself. “There’s nothing but miles and miles of miles and miles.”
Her brother could be pigheaded when he wanted to be. “Ryan’s stubborn. If he gets it in his head to take off, he will, surrounding area be damned.”
Holly frowned slightly. “Well, the area might not be, but he will if he’s not careful. The weather can get downright brutally hot this time of year. Best not to go wandering off without a destination.”
“Thanks for caring,” she told Holly, flashing a grateful smile. “With any luck, Ryan’ll come to his senses and realize that it’s in his best interest to stay put, behave and do what Jackson tells him.” She didn’t want to think about what the alternative would mean to him—or her for that matter.
“I hope you’re right,” Holly said, locking the front door. “For both your sakes.”
* * *
“YOU GOTTA GET me outta here,” Ryan cried the moment he saw his sister coming toward him. It was ten o’clock Saturday morning and the weather was already too hot to bear. Back home he and his friends would be sneaking into an air-conditioned movie theater. Instead, he was here, sweltering in the heat. “This is nothing more than a stinking labor camp. I hope you’re not paying these guys anything. They’re working my tail off.”
She noted that her brother wasn’t cursing up a blue streak as had become his habit in the past year. She wondered if that was due to one too many encounters with the “swear jar.”
Pretending to crane her neck to glimpse his rear, she said, “Your tail looks pretty intact to me.”
He might not be spouting profanity, but the look in his eyes was saying censorable things. “I knew you’d take their side.”
She tried to put her hand on his shoulder but he shrugged her off as if she’d just burned him. “The only side I’m on is yours.”
Ryan’s scowl deepened. “You sure got a hell of a way of showing it.”
Okay, so maybe he hadn’t been completely cured of cursing. “You’re not supposed to swear, are you?” she reminded him.
If possible, he looked even more sullen than he had a moment ago. Sullen and angry. “Oh, great, now you’re going to be a snitch, too?”
She was tired of tiptoeing around Ryan in order not to set him off. “Ryan, I only want what’s best for you.”
Ryan raised his voice, then quickly lowered it. It was obvious that he didn’t want to attract any attention since it looked to him as if his sister wasn’t going to rescue him the way she should. “What’s best for me is getting the hell out of here and going back to Indianapolis.” He looked at her plaintively. “You gotta take me!”
“Eventually,” Debi agreed. “But not now—”
Frustrated anger all but radiated from every pore as Ryan accused, “He’s brainwashed you. That damn cowboy brainwashed you.”
She wasn’t going to allow her brother to talk that way about Jackson. The man didn’t deserve it. “That ‘cowboy’ has given me hope for the first time in a very long time.”
A look of hurt betrayal passed over Ryan’s face.
The next moment, he shrugged as if what his sister felt didn’t matter to him. “If you’re into him, fine. But don’t offer me up like some kind of sacrifice just so you have something to talk about with him.”
His words stung, and she struggled to convince herself that Ryan didn’t mean any of it. That his low self-esteem had triggered the outburst and hurtful words.
“Ryan, I’m only going to say this once. You are here for one reason and one reason only—to turn your life around before it’s too late. Now, I know you didn’t steal that car, but you’re a bright guy. You had to know that Wexler stole it.”
Ryan’s thin shoulders rose and fell in a careless, dismissive shrug. “He said it belonged to his cousin.”
Ryan had to be smarter than that, she silently argued. “If it did, there was no way a relative would trust him to drive it. I wouldn’t trust Wexler to drive a grocery cart down the produce aisle.”
Her brother avoided her eyes, a clear sign to her that he knew she was right. “At the time it seemed okay.”
“Until it wasn’t,” she said forcefully. “Ryan, you’ve got a brain in there. Please, use it.”
He threw up his hands. “Fine. Great. I’ll use it. I’ll do anything you say—just get me out of here! Now!” he insisted.
Their voices were both raised so loud, neither one of them heard Jackson approach until he said, “Shouldn’t you be getting back to work, Ryan?”
Ryan swung
around, glaring at the man who was in charge. After a beat, he bent down to pick up the pitchfork he’d tossed down.
“I didn’t hear you come up,” Debi said, unconsciously trying to draw his attention away from her brother until Ryan got back to work.
“It’s the hay, mostly,” Jackson explained. “It muffles sounds.”
“Yeah, so when the bodies start dropping, you can’t hear them,” Ryan muttered belligerently under his breath as he went back to spreading out the hay.
Hearing him, Jackson looked far more amused than annoyed. “You found me out,” he quipped. “When you finish mucking out the stalls, you get another fifteen-minute break.”
Ryan merely glared at him and said nothing as he got back to work. “Yeah, right. Fine.” It was hard to figure out if he was answering Jackson or just venting.
“See that?” Jackson asked her as he guided her away from where her brother was working. Ryan continued to animatedly mutter under his breath.
“See what? A surly teenager? I’m afraid I’ve seen way too much of that in the past couple of years or so.” Ryan hadn’t been like that right after the car accident, she recalled. His current behavior had evolved slowly, growing worse as time went on rather than the other way around.
“No,” Jackson corrected, “what you’re seeing is progress.”
“Progress,” she repeated. She shook her head, rather mystified. “Just how do you see that as progress?” she asked.
“The first day Ryan got here, he wouldn’t budge from his bunk bed until he was told that if he didn’t work, he didn’t eat. He thought I was bluffing and he held out for a number of hours before he realized that I wasn’t. It’s amazing what a growling stomach will compel a teenager to do. Hasn’t missed any work since,” Jackson informed her.
“Well, that’s heartening—but I think you should know, he asked me to get him out of here.”
The news didn’t surprise him. “I would have been suspicious if he hadn’t,” Jackson told her. “I’ve found that teenagers are a lot more prone to do something they don’t talk about than something they keep threatening to do. It’s been my experience that the ones who threaten to get involved in some sort of retaliation, for instance, generally don’t do anything. They just like to talk. It’s their way of knocking off steam.”
The Cowboy and the Lady Page 12