Love Inspired June 2015 - Box Set 1 of 2: The Cowboy's HomecomingThe Amish Widow's SecretSafe in the Fireman's Arms

by Carolyne Aarsen

  He turned to leave. He shouldn’t have put that on her, but just as he closed the door of the pen behind him, he thought he heard a faintly whispered “Me too.”

  Chapter Seven

  Abby squeezed her lips together, her heart pounding in her chest. She hoped, yes, even prayed, that Lee hadn’t heard her whispered confession.

  What had made her say that? Her own regrets at how things had turned out between them? But what did she have to regret and why was she still mulling that over all these years later?

  Abby stroked the calf, looking down at the poor, bedraggled creature. Seeing Lee working with him was shocking on one level and yet, at the same time, she saw a man deeply concerned with the life of this helpless creature.

  And that, in itself, was creating a quieting in her soul and opening up the doors she thought she had firmly shut on her memories of Lee.

  Silly girl, she thought. Still can’t outgrow that high school crush.

  On the other hand, she knew it was something more than a crush. Abby had never been the kind of girl who dated unintentionally. She had promised herself, as a young woman, that if she went out with someone, it would be with serious intent. Since high school she’d only dated one other man, and she was the one who ended that relationship because she was gone so much.

  “Kind of a sad situation, isn’t it?” she cooed to the calf, stroking it once more. Since they had fed it the poor creature hadn’t moved. Abby wondered, with a start, if it was even still alive. She heard a whine and gave the dog, sitting in the opening of the pen, a self-conscious smile. “Yes, I talk to animals,” she said.

  Sugar seemed to see that as an invitation and came to join her, dropping down with a sigh beside her, laying her head on her paws.

  Abby spared the dog a quick pet and was rewarded with a wet lick of her hand.

  Then Lee was back, pushing open the wooden door to the pen with a creak. And Abby’s foolish heart started thumping again. She wasn’t going to look up, but she couldn’t help a quick glance his way, only to find him looking at her, his expression serious.

  “Is he still alive?” he asked, crouching down on the opposite side of the calf.

  “He’s still warm, though barely moving.” She stroked it again, as if willing the animal to live.

  “Sugar, back,” he said to the dog.

  The canine looked up, glancing at Abby as if hoping she would intervene. But she didn’t think she should, so Sugar got up and trotted to the doorway.

  “I don’t want her disturbing the calf,” Lee explained. He moved to the calf’s head and slipped his fingers in its mouth. Then he smiled. “Its mouth is warmer than before, so its blood is circulating and warming it up. So far so good.”

  “When do you have to feed it again?” she asked, getting up to get her camera as he washed his hands in the other pail of water he had taken along. She wanted to document this part of the rescue operation.

  Lee dried his hands and then pulled his phone out of his pocket, glancing at the screen. “I think I’ll try again in about four hours.” He gave her a contrite smile. “Sorry for cutting the ride short.”

  “No...please don’t apologize,” she said, waving his comment off. “Of course you had to take care of this calf.” Releasing a pent-up breath, she took the lens cap off her camera and turned her attention back to her work. She sat down, framing the calf, looking for the right light. Sunlight slanted into the pen, illuminating the dust motes and casting interesting shadows. She shot off a couple of pictures before looking back at Lee. “Do you have to do this more often? Rescue orphan calves?”

  “Since Dad switched to Angus cows and calves on pasture, not nearly as often. When we ran Simmentals and calved in March, I can’t count how often we’d bring a calf and her mother back to these pens.” He grimaced. “We’d have calves born in a spring snowstorm, mothers calving in a puddle of water, calves we had to pull and then doctor up like this. It kept us way too busy and was tough on the babies.”

  “Not hard to see you know what you’re doing,” she said, shifting her position and snapping a few more photos. “And that you care about the animals. A real cattleman.”

  “I don’t know about that,” he muttered. “Like I mentioned earlier, when I was young, I could hardly wait to get away from here. I thought working on the ranch, living in Saddlebank, was the most boring thing in the world.”

  “Is that why you hung out with Mitch and David?”

  “Probably,” he admitted. “Life was exciting around those two. Trouble was, it was the wrong kind of excitement.”

  “And now David’s dead and Mitch is being charged with fraud.” Again, the words came out before she could stop them. Why couldn’t she just leave this be?

  “I guess what goes around comes around,” Lee said. “My dad always warned me about them. Told me they were bad news. That they loved nothing more than disturbing the status quo, and letting people know exactly what they thought of them...”

  “I know that from personal experience,” she murmured, checking through the pictures she had just taken.

  “What do you mean?”

  Abby bit her lip, mentally kicking herself as she scrolled through the photos, most of her attention on Lee’s question. Could she not learn to keep her mouth shut?

  “Nothing,” she said.

  Sugar had come back again and dropped down beside Lee, who let him stay. Obviously having Sugar around was okay now.

  “Tell me,” he urged, absently stroking the dog’s head. “I know they seemed overly interested in you.”

  “What?” She couldn’t believe that. “They were horrible to me. They seemed only too eager to tell me the only reason you took me to the prom was that they made some silly bet with you.” She lifted up her camera, giving her something to do in the silence that followed. Something to hide behind.

  “Bet? What are you talking about?” His anger was a surprise.

  “They told me why you asked me to the prom. That you only did it because they bet you to.”

  Lee furrowed his brow, looking as confused as she felt. “They told you I asked you out because of a bet?” He released a humorless laugh, then looked her directly in the eye, his gaze steady, his eyes narrowed as if he was trying to imprint what he was telling her. “That is not true. At all. I asked you because I wanted to.”

  Now it was Abby’s turn to stare. “You wanted to? But...David and Mitch said that when they showed you the pictures I took of you, you laughed. And that was when they made a bet with you to ask me out. Like it was a joke.”

  Abby could still feel a flush of shame at the memory of taking those photographs. She was on the yearbook committee assigned to taking photos of the sports teams. She had been happy to take on the job because it gave her a legitimate reason to take pictures of Lee. She ended up with a number of great shots and had kept a couple for herself. It was those photos that David and Mitch had discovered and taunted her about. Then they had stolen them from her and told her they would show Lee.

  “I did laugh when they showed me the pictures. But mostly because I was happy. I figured this meant I had a chance with you.” There was a long pause. “Truth is, I’d always been attracted to you. So I certainly never asked you to the prom because Mitch or David made a bet with me.”

  She felt an unwelcome beat of anticipation mingled with confusion. “I don’t understand.”

  Lee paused again, blowing out his breath, as if thinking. “I liked you,” he said, squatting down to absently pat the dog again. “Had for a while. And, thanks to David and Mitch telling me about the pictures you took of me, I had guessed you liked me too. That’s when I dared to ask you out.”

  “Dared to ask me out? Lee Bannister, the guy who could get most any girl in school?”

  “That is not true,” Lee protested.

  “It is. I knew most of the girls in my class alone would have gone out with you in a heartbeat.”

  Lee shrugged off her comment as he sat in the straw, his back
against the wall. “Well, you were the only one I had my eye on.”

  “Why me?” Abby still couldn’t believe he was saying this. Lee had always been this elusive dream, and now he was saying he’d had his eye on her? Didn’t seem possible.

  “You sell yourself short. You were this amazing girl. Strong Christian. Self-confident. At least that’s how it looked to me.” The corner of his mouth quirked up as his gaze drifted over her. “And you were real pretty. I’d been interested in you for a while but honestly didn’t think you’d want to have anything to do with me.”

  “Why would you think that?” she asked, a bit breathlessly.

  “I knew who I was and my reputation. But I was getting sick of the life I was living and decided to just go for it when Mitch and David showed me those pictures.”

  It shouldn’t matter so long after the fact what he said, but it was as if the air around them seemed to amplify. “Now you’re just flattering me...”

  “I hope so,” he said, playing with Sugar’s ear as the dog dropped his head on Lee’s lap. Then he looked up at her, his expression intent, his dark eyes seeming to hold a banked glow. “I had a lot of fun taking you to the prom. And when you agreed to go out with me again, I figured we were moving into a good place.”

  Why did her heart hitch like that? She wasn’t a teenager in high school anymore, yearning after one of the most sought-after guys in the valley. She was simply too aware of Lee, that was all.

  “Just for curiosity, when did Mitch and David tell you all this?”

  Abby thought back, surprised that she could still feel a beat of embarrassment—and sorrow—at the memory. “Just before the accident.”

  “Was that why you turned me down when I asked you to come to that party? Because you believed them?”

  “Yes.”

  “But I never gave you any reason to think otherwise,” he said in a low, rough voice. “Why did you think they were telling the truth?”

  Abby looked down at her camera, fiddling with the settings. “I couldn’t imagine that you wanted to date me,” she whispered. “I guess it was easier to think you only did it because of a bet than because you chose to.”

  “But I did want to. And, to my shame, one of the reasons I drank too much at that party was that I was feeling sorry for myself about you.”

  Abby lifted her eyes to his again as old events coalesced and solidified. And as she held his steady gaze, as his words found a home in her soul, for a heart-shattering moment she wondered what would have happened if she hadn’t believed Mitch and David.

  “What’s wrong?” Lee asked. “You look like someone just hit you.”

  Abby swallowed, her lips suddenly trembling, her thoughts a whirl of bewildering emotions. “I guess I’m thinking what might have happened if I attended that party with you.” She gave him a wry smile. “Maybe things would have been different. Maybe my dad...” To her embarrassment, her voice broke.

  Lee pushed Sugar aside, got up and came to sit beside her. He took her hands, squeezing them firmly. “Don’t you take this on,” he warned her, his tone surprisingly sharp. “You did nothing wrong. What happened had nothing to do with you. I made my own poor choices and they...they caused what happened.”

  Abby didn’t know what surprised her more. The intensity in his voice or how tightly he held her hands. Her heart raced with a mixture of happiness at what he said about the bet and, at the same time, a blend of guilt and pleasure at his touch.

  Then the calf twitched, rustling the straw, and Lee let go of Abby’s hands.

  She felt suddenly disconnected and untethered. Her feelings about Lee had been complex and layered—part anger with him over her father’s accident, part humiliation thinking he had only taken her out on a bet. They had become welded so tightly together that now, after his confession, she felt off-kilter and confused, unsure of how to find a new balance.

  He moved to the calf, checking it over. The dog stretched, gave the calf a sniff, and then curled up between its legs as if to keep it company.

  Abby snatched her camera and took refuge behind it once again. Dragging in a breath, she snapped off a few more shots of the calf with the dog, taking a couple with Lee as he put his fingers in the calf’s mouth again, and then she put the lens cap on and slowly stood. She needed to go. Needed some space to sort out her conflicting emotions.

  “Will he be okay?” Abby asked as she slid her camera back into her knapsack.

  “I think so. I might have to tube-feed it again, but he seems to want to suck, so I might get away with bottle-feeding.” Lee washed his hands in the pail of water and dried them on a towel he had taken along as well. “At least he now has Sugar to keep him company.”

  “So you’ll have to feed it all the time now?”

  He shrugged. “Yeah. But we’re set up for it and once we get it used to a bottle we can transition to pail-feeding, which is quicker and easier.”

  Abby brushed the loose straw off her pants and shirt and slung her knapsack over her shoulder. To her consternation Lee had come a few steps closer to her, his hands strung up in his back pocket, his broad shoulders hunched forward. “Thanks for your help,” he said, his voice quiet. “And thanks for listening.”

  Abby wasn’t going to look up at him, but it was as if an invisible cord pulled her head around to face him. Once again their eyes locked as old images melded with new.

  Tough Lee Bannister, wild and rebellious, kissing his mother goodbye. The man who had, she thought, hurt her in so many ways, rescuing a calf, playing with a dog, erasing shame from her past memories of him.

  And now, looking at her as though he was genuinely attracted to her.

  And the trouble was, she knew her old feelings for him were rekindling, changing and growing.

  “I need to leave,” she said, but didn’t move from the spot, unable to look away from him, unable to take that first step.

  “Of course,” he said. But he didn’t move either. Instead he brushed a remnant of straw out of her hair, his rough fingers lingering on her cheek. Abby felt as if the breath had been sucked out of her at his touch. She swallowed and fought the impulse to lean toward him.

  This can’t happen, she reminded herself, forcing herself to think of her mother. To think of the consequences of actions Lee had confessed to as she stepped back, then spun away.

  But as she strode back to her car, she chanced another glance behind her, surprised and, at the same time, pleased to see him standing in the doorway, hands on his hips, silently watching her.

  Too complicated, she thought, putting her knapsack in the car and getting in.

  This can never happen.

  * * *

  “You’ve got the toughest hooves of any horse I’ve ever trimmed,” Lee grumbled, pulling Rowdy’s other foot up between his legs. He crouched down, catching his balance as he stabilized the hoof and reached for the hoof clippers hooked on the stand beside him.

  “She’s probably the worst,” John agreed, leading another couple of horses out of the corral to where Lee was working. “These last two should be easier.”

  “I sure hope so,” Lee said as he forced the clippers together, working his way around the last hoof. His back ached and sweat was pouring down his face. He’d already trimmed and shoed two horses, and he was running out of steam. “Not going to lie, right about now I’m not impressed that Kane, our usual farrier, wasn’t able to come. Or that Nick decided he needed a holiday.”

  “Doesn’t matter. Nick’s no farrier and you are almost as good a farrier as Kane Hicks.”

  The compliment made him feel a bit better about his work.

  Lee finished the last bit, set the clippers aside and slowly lowered Rowdy’s foot to the ground. Then he pulled a hanky out of his back pocket and mopped the sweat off his face as he patted Rowdy on the withers. “You’ll be whistling a different tune about my farrier work when you get my bill.”

  “I don’t know how to whistle.”

  The sound of a car engine c
aught both their attention, and Lee felt a lift of his spirits when he recognized Abby’s car pull up beside his truck.

  “Though I think you could manage a whistle right about now,” John joked as he lifted Clyde’s hoof and began clipping.

  Ignoring him, Lee stretched out the huge kink in his back, watching as Abby got out of the car. A roving breeze caught her auburn hair, tossing it around her face. The sunlight burnished it to a copper hue, and Lee’s heart did a dangerous flip.

  “She’s beautiful, no doubt about it,” John said, looking up from his work.

  “I won’t tell Heather you said that,” Lee teased, trying to cover up his own reaction to Abby’s presence.

  “Stand still, you goof, or I’ll tie up a leg,” John warned as Clyde shifted his weight. Then he shrugged affably. “Heather told me herself she thought Abby was a looker.”

  “And Heather should know,” Lee said wryly. John glanced over at Lee. “You may as well know. Heather thinks you two should get back together.”

  Lee’s mind ticked back to what Abby had told him yesterday. About what Mitch and David had done to twist her perception of him and what it had done to their previous relationship. In a way it changed much, and yet the reality was, it changed nothing. Her father was still injured, her parents still divorced because of his irresponsibility.

  “I would think Heather has enough other things on her mind than me and Abby.”

  “And what are your plans for the lovely Miss Newton today?” John asked with an amused grin.

  “Haven’t made any,” he grunted as he grabbed the rasp, set Rowdy’s foot on the hoof stand and began shaping and filing it. “Abby’s here to interview Mom and Dad today. Get some history on the ranch and look over some of the old photos.”

  But at the same time, he had hoped to talk her into going out for a short ride and show her more of the ranch. At least that was his excuse.

  “I imagine she’ll be around for the anniversary roundup on Tuesday?”

  “Of course. That’s one of the reasons she’s here.”

  It was early to move the cows from one pasture to another, but John and Monty had organized it as part of the anniversary celebrations. One of the reasons John and Lee were getting some of the horses ready.