Convincing the Rancher

by Claire McEwen

  “I don’t regret that night together. Not at all. And I don’t judge you for it.”

  “Well, that’s very reassuring,” she said. “Except it’s obvious that you do judge me.”

  “Maybe I’m judging myself. I don’t do things like that. But I did and it was amazing, so I’m conflicted.”

  “You need to work out your inner conflicts on your own. It’s not fair to blame me for them.”

  “You’re right. It’s not.” He turned, walking backward so he could see her face. She refused to look at him. “Please accept my apology.”

  “Slaid—” She was weary now. “Maybe later I can accept it. Right now I just want to be alone.” Another tear threatened to escape. Why was she so upset? Why did his criticism hurt? Normally she’d just laugh and write him off as a judgmental prude.

  And then she realized. At the party she’d been an outsider with her coupled-up friends and with the residents of Benson. Slaid’s lecture on her behavior had driven that point home. Driven it right into the sore spot deep down inside.

  Growing up in foster homes, transferred from school to school, she’d always felt as if she was on the outside of normal life. Other people had families and friends—she didn’t. Other people knew how to behave and what to say—she’d never been taught any of that. Tonight had given her that same feeling and she hated it.

  With profound relief she unlatched the gate on her picket fence. “Good night, Slaid.” Her hand was shaking as she tried to get her house key into the lock. Suddenly he was behind her, gently taking it out of her hand and opening the door for her.

  “Good night,” he said softly, handing back her keys. “I am truly sorry.”

  She pushed through her door and into the warmth of her cottage, sliding the bolt behind her. Dropping her coat and kicking off her shoes, she went straight into the bedroom, where she flopped down on the bed and pulled the blankets over her. Tears made hot trails down her cheeks, but she fought the urge to break down entirely. If she’d learned anything from her rough past it was that crying got you nowhere. It only made you weak in a world where you needed to be so very tough and strong.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “I CAN’T BELIEVE you’ve never done this.” Samantha jabbed at the eyeball of her jack-o’-lantern. “How is it that you’ve never carved a pumpkin?”

  Tess cursed herself for letting that information slip out. “I don’t know. We had all kinds of other Halloween traditions. Just not this one.”

  “What kinds of traditions?” Jack asked. His brow was furrowed in concentration. He was determined to make his pumpkin look like a horse, but right now it just looked slightly maniacal.

  Years ago, Tess had told Samantha that she’d grown up in New England. She’d invented the perfect family in the perfect location, simply because she hadn’t wanted to talk about the childhood she’d really had. Frantically scanning her memory for what kinds of Halloween traditions her fictional New England family might have had, Tess remembered something from a book she’d read once. “Bobbing for apples!” she exclaimed.

  Her friends looked at her, probably surprised at the triumphant tone of her voice.

  “They were really, really into bobbing for apples,” she added lamely. “And decorations. They hung up a lot of stuff. You know, fake spiders, all that.”

  “Where in New England did you grow up?” Jack asked.

  “Connecticut,” Tess answered, and quickly changed the subject before she had to come up with more lies. “Okay, so I’ve got all this gook scraped out. What do you guys think? Happy face or mean face?”

  Despite the web of falsehood she’d just been spinning, it was fun sitting out here on her back patio with Samantha and Jack. They’d lit a fire in the fire pit, and the warmth of it compensated somewhat for the chill the setting sun had left behind. The smoke from the pine logs mingled with the scent of the sagebrush around the patio and created a smell in the crisp air that was pure fall. Perfect for Tess’s first real Halloween.

  She’d celebrated the holiday before, of course. There’d been the school parades, and a few years where the parents at a foster home had taken her and the other kids trick-or-treating. But mostly it had been a stressful holiday. She’d worried that she wouldn’t have a costume, or that some kid from school would tease her about whatever battered, hand-me-down outfit a teacher or foster parent could come up with.

  But something about being in this tiny town, experiencing real fall weather, had her excited about Halloween for the first time. Jack had helped her put spiderwebs and orange lights around the front door of the cottage earlier today. She’d bought enough treats for every kid in Benson ten times over and had even made hot apple cider from a recipe off a website. As she went inside to get the candles for their jack-o’-lanterns, Tess realized she was happy and content, moods she wasn’t very familiar with. It was nice to let go of her worries and frustrations about work and just focus on a silly holiday.

  She rummaged in the paper bag on the kitchen counter and pulled out the candles. A knock at the door surprised her. It wasn’t even five o’clock yet—a little early for trick-or-treaters. She grabbed the bowl of candy off the counter anyway.

  “Coming!” she called, and ran to answer it, jumping back in surprise when she saw Slaid on her doorstep, smiling tentatively at her from beneath the felt brim of his tan cowboy hat. He had a pumpkin in one hand and a bottle of Scotch in the other.

  “Trick or treat.”

  “Why are you here?”

  “Ouch. I guess I deserved that. Well, I’ve been hoping to talk with you, to make things right, but it seems as though you’ve been avoiding me.”

  “I haven’t been avoiding you!” Tess protested. What was another lie in an evening of so many?

  “Tess, I saw you duck down in the aisle when you noticed me at the market on Tuesday night. And on Wednesday as you were coming out of the library I called your name from across the street and you ran.”

  “I was late for something. And I didn’t hear you call.”

  He raised an eyebrow and her face flushed.

  “Should I even mention Thursday?”

  She’d been out running in the early morning and unfortunately, so had he. In the dim dawn light she hadn’t realized the approaching runner was Slaid until he was about five yards away. She’d darted across the street, and when he’d shouted her name, she’d just run faster. “No, you don’t need to mention Thursday.”

  “So when Jack said you were carving pumpkins this evening and invited me to stop by, I figured I’d better take him up on it. It might be my only chance to make up for the way I behaved at the party.”

  Tess mentally kicked herself for telling Jack to invite any friends he wanted to. It should have occurred to her that he might choose Slaid. She wanted to take Jack’s spooky horse pumpkin and plop it right on his head for not warning her.

  “I saw you order a Scotch at the party. I hope this is good enough to at least get me in the door.” He put the bottle in her hands and what she read on the label had her gasping.

  “An eighteen-year-old Talisker?”

  “It’s good, right?”

  “It’s way more than good. It’s rare, expensive and divine.” Just staring at the label and anticipating the smoky, sweet flavor had some of her anger fading. “But you’re still only getting in the door if you agree to refrain from all sermons, lectures, barbs and judgments.”

  “I swear I will do my level best to stop acting like an idiot.”

  “Well, come on in, then.” She sighed. The spookiest thing about this Halloween so far was that she was actually happy to see him, which made absolutely no sense. She stepped back, opening the door wider.

  “Hang on,” he said. He reached forward and pulled a pumpkin seed with some orange goo on it out of her hair. “One of the many Halloween hazards,” he said, giving her a smile that melted another layer of her anger.

  She led him through the cottage, conscious of him walking behind her, knowin
g that if she was walking behind him, she’d be checking out his ass, so she put a little swing in hers, just in case.

  “Slaid!” Samantha said in surprise, then looked at Tess with a raised eyebrow.

  “Don’t look at me,” she murmured, and pointed to Jack while he and Slaid were busy shaking hands and smacking each other on the shoulder, man-style.

  Samantha looked at her husband, shaking her head. “No wonder you haven’t wanted to hang out with us. I’m pregnant and boring and my husband is turning into a meddling matchmaker.” She picked up her finished pumpkin and waddled off with it toward the front yard.

  Tess turned back to her own jack-o’-lantern to finish carving it, hoping the project would calm her inexplicable turmoil at seeing Slaid again. Samantha returned, flopping down in one of the Adirondack chairs and putting her feet up on the rim of the fire pit. She stared at the flames dreamily while Jack sat on the flagstones nearby, chipping away at his pumpkin again. Slaid sat down across the patio from them to start working on his own creation.

  They all looked so peaceful, and Tess wondered if they were really that content inside. Or was everyone like her...housing a dormant volcano of emotion with only a smile plastered on top to hide the chaos?

  Slaid looked up and caught her watching him. “You doing all right with that pissed-off pumpkin?”

  Tess giggled. It did look angry. “Hey, it’s art!”

  Slaid’s laugh was low and rich. “Uh-oh. Doesn’t art reflect the artist’s inner feelings?”

  Jack looked over. “Man, if that’s true, don’t mess with Tess tonight. That thing is scary.”

  “It’s Halloween. I thought that was the idea.” She picked up her pumpkin and walked around the side of the house, placing it near the front door, lighting its candle. It glared at her with a contorted expression that really was unsettling.

  “If that’s how I made you feel the other night, then I should’ve shown up with a lot more than a bottle of Scotch.” Slaid placed his simple smiling pumpkin next to hers and reached into the bag on the porch railing for a candle.

  “Let’s just say it didn’t help much.”

  “I know it’s not a great time to talk, and I’ll leave right now if you’d rather I go, but I’d like to stay and show you that I can be a good guy, a nonjudgmental guy. If that’s okay.”

  “It’s fine.” And it was. She couldn’t explain it, but she was looking forward to spending Halloween with him.

  A child’s high-pitched laughter trilled, and Tess ran to the front gate to peer up the street. A small group was making its way toward her cottage—four small kids in costumes wielding pumpkin baskets, and three sets of parents trailing behind.

  “Trick-or-treaters!” Tess squealed. “Come on!” She darted past a surprised Slaid, reaching out to grab his hand and pull him into the house. “Hurry! We have to get the candy bowl!”

  He burst out laughing. “Man, you have got to get out of the city more often.”

  * * *

  THE STREAM OF WITCHES, princesses, monsters and other assorted ghouls had slowed to a trickle by the time Samantha and Jack took their leave. Slaid pulled on his coat, but he didn’t want to go without making sure things were all right with Tess. He’d been kicking himself all week, wishing he could take back the words he’d said at the party. But they were out there, and they’d caused a huge rift between him and the woman he couldn’t stop thinking about.

  He watched as Tess closed the door behind her friends. She was so beautiful, with her hair down in messy waves past her shoulders, dressed in jeans and a sweater. He loved this relaxed version of her, the one she didn’t willingly show the world.

  “What did you think of your first Halloween in Benson?” he asked.

  “Pretty different than any I’ve had,” she answered.

  “What kind have you had?” He wanted to know all about her. He knew so little.

  “Well, I live on the thirtieth floor, so I don’t get any trick-or-treaters up there. And I—”

  “Trick or treat!” The voices of the kids outside the door sounded older, almost Devin’s age, and Slaid had a moment of worry thinking that maybe it was Devin. But then he remembered that Devin was at his aunt’s for a slumber party, probably having a blast with his cousins—all of them hyper and crazed from way too much sugar. Still, he stepped out of view when Tess opened the door.

  Tess handed out candy and lavishly complimented the kids on their costumes. She closed the door and set down the bowl. “That has to be the last of them.”

  “You might get a few older kids, but you can always leave the bowl of candy by the door if you want to call it a night, or go sit on the back patio with me and build up that fire again.”

  “You’re just trying to get your hands on some of that amazing single malt you brought over.”

  “You caught me.”

  She opened the door again to set the bowl on her front stoop. Then she pulled on her parka and hat, and led the way back through her little kitchen, grabbing the bottle and two glasses.

  Out on the patio, Slaid threw some wood into the fire pit. Then he accepted the glass Tess offered and took a sip, relishing the smoky flavor. “I can feel all my Scottish genes stand up and cheer,” he said.

  She laughed and sat on a bench. “It’s my absolute favorite drink. I’d take it over a cocktail any day.”

  “Not the most common drink of choice.”

  “I’m happy not to have the word common associated with me.”

  He sat down next to her. “Definitely not a word I’d use. Confusing, confounding and commotion causing, yes. Common, no.”

  She laughed, low and husky, and he listened to the sound fade into the darkness around them. He could sit here all night just listening to her laugh. And then it hit him. He hadn’t come here just to apologize. He’d come here tonight to try one more time to convince her to go out with him. It made no sense, they made no sense, but when it came to his feelings for Tess, making sense just didn’t seem to matter.

  * * *

  TESS SIPPED HER Scotch and stared at the fire. She could feel Slaid’s muscular arm against hers on the bench and she resisted the urge to lean her head on his shoulder. They weren’t like that. Couldn’t be. It had all been discussed and resolved on their ride and made so painfully obvious at the party. They weren’t meant to be involved.

  “Tess, I have a real dilemma on my hands,” Slaid said quietly. “I know you don’t date, but I want very much to take you out.”

  “That would be a mistake.” She felt the strangest sensation—her heart was rising in something like hope while her stomach was sinking in dread.

  “We like being together. Let’s just give that a chance to grow.”

  She wanted to. Part of her really wanted to. But another part was terrified, and that was the part that spoke. “What’s the point of giving it a chance? We’re such different people. When this project is over, I’ll go back to San Francisco and then on to wherever my company sends me next. I don’t plan on coming back to Benson too often.”

  “You might change your mind,” he said softly.

  “You think I might do what Samantha did.” Her laugh came out harsh in the dark mountain stillness. “You really don’t know me.”

  “So give me a chance to know you better.”

  A cynical response was on the tip of her tongue, but he sounded so earnest. Instead she looked over at him and, seeing the questions in his eyes—the wanting—she realized that he was torn about all this, as well. For the first time it truly occurred to her that there were two people in this equation—it wasn’t only about her and her fears. It was also about Slaid. He was caught in the night they’d shared, in the chemistry that still sizzled between them, and she needed to find a way to help him get free. But how, when it all haunted her, too?

  “Look, I know it’s hard for someone like you to understand,” she told him. “You grew up here, in this one town, surrounded by people who know you and like you and care. I didn’t
have that kind of life, and maybe I never learned how to live quite like a regular person.”

  “Will you let me show you how? I mean, I can’t speak for all regular people, but I can show you how I live, how I’d like it to be between us.”

  “But what if it’s not how I want it to be?”

  “Then you just go back to your life in the city. No harm done.”

  Tess didn’t know what to say, so she sat in silence, sipping their Scotch.

  “Look up,” Slaid said softly, and she did. Out beyond the patio was the dark night sky. It looked like someone had scattered millions of tiny rhinestones on black velvet. It was a completely different sky from the occasional glimpses of stars she got through the San Francisco fog and constant city glow. And with Slaid by her side and the fire crackling nearby, the vast expanse of sky didn’t seem so lonely as she’d feared. In fact, it was beautiful.

  “Gorgeous,” she breathed. She was starstruck. Held in her seat by the enormity of it all.

  “This is the kind of thing I want to share with you, Tess.”

  “I admit, it’s nice. But I don’t get it. You’re a guy. Aren’t you supposed to want a no-strings-attached, no-dates-required kind of relationship?”

  He smiled at that and the firelight lit his profile with a golden glow. “Guess I’m not like most guys, then.”

  “Oh, come on, Slaid,” Tess chided. “Men want women to be sexy. Sexy first and foremost, and also successful and a domestic goddess in the home. I’ve seen it over and over with my friends.”

  “Don’t get me wrong, I think you’re sexy. Incredibly so. And successful... Well, we both know you’re kicking my butt with this windmill project. I don’t know about the domestic-goddess part. Although—” he winked at her “—as a single dad, it does sound kind of nice.”

  “But I’m never going to be the domestic goddess of your fantasies, so why not just enjoy the smart and sexy aspects? Why not just keep it simple?”

  “Your offer is pretty damn tempting. But there’s so much more to you than that. Somehow, Tess, you’ve missed out on the fact that you are a smart, funny, warm and fascinating person. And I want to spend time with all of those parts of you...”