Martha shook her head and stacked some more pancakes on a platter. “Well, I guess it isn’t my business anyway. You young people have your own ideas about marriage and such nowadays.”
Chaney was grateful when the door opened and the men started filing in effectively ending the conversation. Oh, she had her own idea of what marriage should be all right, and that’s not what she’d gotten. But, that was something else she wasn’t going to discuss with Martha.
By mid-morning, Chaney decided she’d stayed away from the barn long enough. She was fine. The doctor had given her a clean bill of health and it was time she took back control of her life and her ranch. As she walked toward the corral, the strength that she’d been praying would return seemed to flow into her. Sterling was alone at the far corner of the corral. The stallion never let anyone but her ride him. After two weeks of being cooped up the poor thing was probably going as insane as she felt. When he saw her, he whinnied and made a beeline to where she stood at the fence.
The reunion was bittersweet. As she rested her head against his and stroked his velvet muzzle Chaney wished Jed could love her as much as Sterling did.
It won’t happen now. You lied one too many times. Feeling sorry for yourself won’t help either.
Chaney lifted her head and scratched the horse’s ears. “I bet you’re itching for a run, aren’t you boy?” She laughed when he tossed his head and snorted loudly. The laughter felt good and sent another wave of strength flowing through her.
Then, in the sound of a hoof beat, the strength disappeared.
Chaney looked out across the corral to the land beyond. A lone rider, hell bent on speed, rode in her direction. Fear at the spectacle should have her running for the house. Fear wasn’t what coursed through her veins. It was longing. When the rider jumped the fence into the corral, the very breath left her body.
“You’re not thinking about getting on that beast.”
Chaney was still in awe from watching him take that jump. No man she’d ever known rode like Jed. For all his insistence that he hated ranching and everything to do with it, the man was born to ride.
“Chaney?”
“Hmm? No, no, I just came out for a visit,” she lied. Taking a ride had been exactly what she was planning a moment ago.
“Right,” Jed said dismounting. He handed the reins to the stable boy who emerged from the barn. “Could you cool him down for me?” he asked the hand and received a nod and a grin in answer.
She tried to ignore the jealousy she felt at Jed’s easy manner with her employees. Instead, she focused on his aversion to her horse. Jed and Sterling seemed to be facing off. Like two stallions challenging each other for a mare.
Now you are really reaching, Chaney. The last person Jed wants is you.
The standoff lasted at least a full minute and the ending sent Chaney for a loop. Sterling quietly turned and walked back to the far side of the corral.
“You are not to ride that horse,” Jed said pointing in the direction Sterling had walked.
As a rule, the quickest way to start a fight with her was to order her not to do something. The memory of losing her first baby, and the miracle that she hadn’t lost this one, helped control her tongue.
“I won’t.” She was pleased at the surprised look on Jed’s face when she agreed to his command. “I told you I would be careful. He needs a good run though. He shouldn’t be cooped up in the corral for so long.”
Jed climbed up on the fence and sat a foot or so away from her. It would have been nice to have him closer, but she was happy just to have him talking to her for now.
“I’ll take care of it.”
“He won’t let anyone else ride him, Jed. He never has.”
“I said I’ll take care of it.”
His stern tone told Chaney arguing would be futile. She decided Jed could find out for himself how true her words were.
“I figured it out.”
Chaney glanced at his profile as he looked out over her land. It took a moment before she realized what he was talking about. “The rustlers?”
“Not the rustlers, the pregnancy.” His gaze didn’t leave the horizon and his even tone of voice didn’t change.
Chaney swallowed hard and her hands that had rested in her lap gripped the fence now. “Figured it out? I don’t understand.” At least I hope I don’t understand.
“It’s part of your father’s will.”
If Chaney kept her nails long, they would have embedded themselves in the wood of the fence railing. “How did you come to a conclusion like that?”
He didn’t answer right away. Chaney started to worry he wouldn’t. If that were the case, she didn’t have a clue how she was going to defend herself. Guilty as she might be, she still had the right to a defense.
Do you?
“When my anger cooled enough for my brain to think, it wasn’t difficult.”
Well it was difficult for her. She hadn’t believed her hardhearted father could have thought up something so despicable. Why did the idea occur to a man of Jed’s character?
There you go again, Chaney, defending Jed. Remember, he walked out on you.
“Please enlighten me.”
“It isn’t a pretty story. When I figured it all out, it put our relationship back in perspective.”
Chaney didn’t want to hear his perspective on their relationship right now. She had a feeling she would like it less than the upcoming explanation.
“The will required you to marry before your thirtieth birthday and stay married for at least one year.” His posture straightened and his hands gripped the fence rail dangerously close to Chaney’s but still not touching. “Why one year I began to wonder. Why not two or five or even forever? Then it came to me . . . an heir. Your father wanted to make sure the ranch would remain in the family.”
Hope bloomed in Chaney’s heart. He’d just given her a way to disprove his theory. “Belle has always wanted children. I’m sure there would have been an heir through her marriage.” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him nod his agreement. She’d won!
“I thought of that,” he said in the even tone that was starting to grate on her nerves. “But Belle was marrying Steve. I’m still not sure how that came about with your father’s hate for the Sampson family, but that’s beside the point. Then again, it is part of the reasoning. Your father wouldn’t want a Sampson for an heir. Add to that the fact that both Belle and Steve couldn’t care less about ranching and it throws your hope that I’m wrong out the window. All of this wouldn’t be so bad but for one factor.” He turned and looked at her. “You want to know what that is, Chaney?”
Chaney remained silent and stared straight ahead.
“You chose me.”
The air around them stilled. There wasn’t the slightest chirp from a far off bird, or buzz from an insect. For Chaney the entire world had braked to a full stop. Jed suddenly hopped off the fence and stood directly in front of her. He planted a hand beside each of her hips.
“Whether you chose me as revenge against your father, or against me, or both doesn’t matter anymore. Either way it proves how you truly feel about me.”
“Jed, I--”
“No,” he interrupted her. His voice had changed now and had an edge of pain to it. “I figured it out when I was thinking about Ashley the other day. Then I remembered you saying if you had known I was fighting for custody of a child it might have made a difference in marrying me.
“At first I hadn’t understood, but now . . . You believed I wouldn’t want the child. I would walk away without a thought.” His eyes burned into Chaney and she could take it no more.
“Fine, you want the truth? Yes, you’re right,” Chaney yelled. She wanted to jump off the fence and poke him in the chest to emphasize each point but he was standing too close. “It was part of my father’s will. I hadn’t planned on getting married, or having children, let alone choosing you for my husband. Being married to someone who abandoned me once was not a very
attractive thought. Then, I realized the irony in it. My father would have done anything to keep me away from you if you had stayed around. When you came back . . .
“At first, I’ll admit, I may have felt a slight twinge of revenge, but later, after getting to know you again . . .” Chaney’s throat was jamming with emotion making it hard to speak. The anger that had fueled her response to his accusations was evaporating. “Jed, I’m sorry. I--”
“Never mind,” Jed interrupted. “It’s clear you’ll never forgive me for the past, or your perception of it. Know this, Chaney McBride. I will not be shut out--”
“Jed, telephone,” Martha called from the house. “It’s someone about Ashley.”
“We’re not done,” he said.
Chaney watched him vault the fence and sprint for the house. His last words echoed in her head because she knew the truth. With his use of her maiden name, and the pain-filled anger in his eyes, the truth of the matter was they were done.
***
Jed’s eyes burned as he listened to the man on the other end of the phone line. It wasn’t tears causing the sensation; it was having the life sucked out of him every time he turned around. Chaney walked through the door at the same moment he hung up the phone.
“That was my lawyer. A hearing date for custody has been set.” Though he knew Chaney was his best hope for winning the custody battle for Ashley, he could not hold back the anger that spilled into his next words. “I will not go through this again.”
Chaney’s only response was to shake her head. Jed prayed that meant she understood and not that she had some other kind of plan to keep him away from their child.
“I’ve got to go back to Dale’s, but I’ll be back for dinner,” he told Martha as he strode across the kitchen floor. When he reached Chaney, who still stood in front of the door Jed stopped. He placed a crooked finger under her chin and lifted her face until her eyes met his. “I mean it, Chaney. Don’t cross me on this.” Then, against all sane reason, he pressed a hard kiss to her lips before walking out the door.
***
“We’ve got trouble.”
Burton cringed at the raspy voice on the line. “I don’t like the sound of that.”
“She’s pregnant.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yep, I just heard ’em talking. He accused her of gettin’ pregnant to keep her ranch and she didn’t deny it. We’re gonna have to come up with another way to get the ranch. You promised me you would get me this ranch.”
“Calm down, old man,” Burton said, refusing to call the man uncle. He wasn’t really his uncle, but he had conned the man in to believing it. “I’ll think of something. You just keep your eyes open and that phone with you.”
***
When Jed reached the barn, he called to Sterling, saddled him, mounted the horse easily, and rode out. He took no comfort in the fact that he was riding the horse Chaney insisted would let no one but her ride. He was too busy whipping himself for what he’d done before walking out of the house.
There wasn’t a single derogatory name he didn’t call himself. What had he been thinking to threaten Chaney and then kiss her? How was it possible that he still wanted, no, still loved a woman who thought so little of him?
He shook his head to rid it of the depressing thoughts. There was more than enough going on right now. Between rustlers, a custody case, his uncle’s health, Chaney’s health, and the baby’s health, his emotional well-being was at the bottom of the list.
Jed checked on his uncle, grabbed a quick sandwich, then decided to ride the fence line and see if there were any new breaks. He had ordered the men to keep an eye out so it was probably an exercise in futility, but it would give him time to think.
Chaney had been right about one thing. The horse definitely needed more exercise than the corral allowed. Jed now understood why she loved riding Sterling. She’d always loved speed. This horse in a full out run was the smoothest he had ever ridden. He would have to talk to her about buying him. There was no way he was letting her ride him again.
Two hours later Jed stopped and stared at the spot where he’d found Chaney two weeks ago. The memory of his fear and anger the moment he’d seen her tensed his body again. He doubted he would ever rid himself of that memory; the images were so vivid they blinded him to anything else. After a few minutes, he continued to ride closer to the fence. He was still distracted with the image of Chaney on the ground when he stopped to look at a patch of fencing that looked odd. It took a few seconds for what he was really seeing to register.
He had ridden the opposite fence line first thinking if the rustlers were dumb enough to strike again they wouldn’t do it in the same spot. When his eyes refocused in the present, he realized how wrong he’d been.
After leaving Chaney the night of her accident, Jed had contacted the sheriff’s office and reported Chaney’s comment about rustlers. They had come out together to look the area over. The sheriff had done plaster casts of the tire tracks, picked up shell casings, and had someone come out every day and check on things for the past week or so. When no new sightings were reported, no more cattle lost, no accidents, the close scrutiny had eased off.
Slowly Jed made his way to the place where the rustlers had cut the fence before. There were fresh tire tracks on Chaney’s side of the fence. He must have been too lost in thought when he rode that side to notice. Now, he dismounted and studied them as closely as he could from his side. They stopped before reaching the fence-line. On his side of the fence were deep grooves as if someone had dropped a ramp. Which is exactly what someone would do if they were loading cattle onto a truck. The problem was the fence was still in place.
As Jed examined the fence more thoroughly, he found it rigged so someone could easily take it down and put it back up. Rigged in such a way that a simple ride by would not show the fence as being defective.
Not from this side anyway.
The thought came to him from out of nowhere, but once it took hold, he couldn’t shake it loose. Someone at Chaney’s ranch, or with access to it, was stealing from both her and his uncle.
Jed jumped back on his horse. He had to contact the sheriff’s office with the new information. No, first he had to call Martha and make sure she kept Chaney busy at the house until he could get there. Then he would call the sheriff’s office. Next, he would get someone to help him repair the fence and make plans to stake out the area. He wasn’t sure how fresh the tracks were, a day or three or four, so there was a possibility they would be back.
The hope that he could figure his personal life out on his afternoon ride died miserably as he made his way back to the house. Now, not only were there rustlers to be concerned about, in all likelihood, they had contacts on Chaney’s payroll. She wasn’t going to like it when he told her.
***
Chapter Ten
“What?” Chaney screeched.
Jed stood across the room from her. When he’d first come up to her bedroom Chaney had hoped they would find a way to work out their complex personal relationship. The second he opened his mouth she saw the futility of that hope.
“I said--”
“I heard what you said,” she told him. “How dare you accuse my hired hands of such a thing?”
“Evidence?”
“Don’t you patronize me, Jed Sampson. There is no evidence that you could provide to convince me someone on my payroll is on the take.”
“So if someone else provided the evidence, it would be acceptable?”
Damn him, Chaney fumed inside as she wondered why it seemed he always caught every slip of her tongue. “I didn’t mean it that way.”
“I think you did.”
“Then why were you the one I called when I needed someone I could trust? Why have I trusted you to run the ranch these past weeks without interfering if I don’t trust you?”
Jed was leaning against the wall beside the closed door to her... their bedroom. He looked relaxed and nonplussed. The fact irritated
Chaney, but didn’t fool her. The fact that he was talking to her at all about the ranch had to be aggravating him. He had made it clear she wasn’t to lift a finger and there would be hell to pay if she did. Chaney still hadn’t figured out why she’d gone along. Jed grinned and suddenly she understood. She went along in hopes of winning him back.
You are so pitiful. The man regrets ever having laid eyes on you again, and you’re still dreaming of lifelong love. Give it a rest, Chaney. Face reality.
“Do you honestly think I didn’t know you were going in the office and checking out every entry I’ve made? That you grill Smitty on a daily basis as soon as I leave? Believe me; he takes great pride in letting me know how little you trust my judgment. Let’s not leave out the only reason you’re not out in the thick of things right now is because without that baby you carry you could lose your precious ranch.”
He really believed it, Chaney thought in amazement. Jed believes the ranch is more important to me than the life of my child. From the look in his eyes, she doubted she could change his mind.
“That’s not true,” was all she could say in her defense.
“Really?” Sarcasm dripped from the single word.
Chaney’s hands unconsciously covered her abdomen as she nodded. “Nothing is more important to me than this baby.” Once she’d spoken the words, Chaney knew they were true. She would give up everything she had to keep Jed’s baby.
“Good, because if you won’t listen to me, there’s a good chance you won’t have anything but that baby. Remember, she’s my baby, too. I won’t let you take her away from me.”
The way he’d given the baby a gender already, reminded Chaney just how important this was to Jed. The baby wasn’t an it to Jed, she was a part of him. The only way I’ll ever have a part of Jed now, she thought.
“Okay, I’ll listen,” she said and sat on the foot of the bed.
It didn’t take Jed long to explain his findings and actions to Chaney. Keeping her mouth shut for twenty minutes hadn’t been easy. Every time he told her what needed doing and who should do it, she wanted to scream, “It isn’t for you to say,” but she kept her comment to herself.
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