Reclaiming Nick

by Susan May Warren

Nick’s smile vanished. He swallowed and returned the wave. “Guess I’ll go get that fire going,” he said more to himself than to Piper.

  She watched him nearly run from CJ and the shapely redhead who were now opening their trailer to free their horses.

  Who was this woman and what power did she have over Nick? Another question to add to the collection. This one also ignited an annoying quiver of discomfort in Piper’s belly.

  The roundup continued over the noon hour and into the afternoon, calves bawling, fire spitting, the sounds of cowboys whooping as they separated the cattle or drove the calves into pens. They broke in early afternoon for dinner. Piper served the ribs and brown biscuits, keeping an eye on the redhead. She hoped for a moment to draw her aside, casually ask her name, maybe even her history with Nick that so clearly bristled him. He’d been pensive all day, frying up the . . . ah, oysters, helping Piper stoke the campfire, and avoiding the redhead as if she had the Ebola virus.

  Yes, Piper definitely needed to track down the history on these two.

  After dinner the cowboys resumed their terror on the cows. Long shadows filled the gullies and draws by the time they called it quits for the day and rode in for round two of the ribs—supper. Piper served the leftover ribs, beans, potato salad, and biscuits to the exhausted workers.

  Stefanie leaned against the retractable shelf at the end of the chuck wagon, balancing her plate while she ate a rib. “Nicely done, Piper. This is an awesome recipe, and you made enough for two meals. That’s the way to think ahead.”

  Piper felt a blush creeping into her cheeks, hating the twinge of guilt that hung on her like a burr. Hey, she’d done a decent job of tracking down a meal, and it had cost her that bonus she’d been saving for Cancun—for that she deserved an honest thank-you.

  “Delicious potato salad, Cookie,” Quint drawled from his spot nearby.

  Piper spied Nick at the other campfire, at the end of a short line of cowpokes dishing themselves up the gourmet range treat he’d prepared. Now and again he gave Piper a reassuring smile.

  For a second, she saw herself working here all summer, stoking the fire, actually baking the ribs, enjoying Nick’s attention.

  Enjoying Nick’s attention? Clearly her good sense had run off into the horizon, probably with her righteous vendetta at its side.

  Someone should remind her that she didn’t want or need a sweet-talking cowboy in her life. She had a career. A future uncovering injustice. A life that included chai and bok choy.

  Piper no more fit on the Silver Buckle than Nick fit in a gourmet kitchen, baking scones.

  The redhead and her son sat cross-legged on the other side of the fire, talking with Dutch, the big blond cow boss of the Silver Buckle. Piper and he hadn’t exchanged more than ten words, but he seemed nice, if quiet. He wore a white ten-gallon hat, and his shadow took up nearly an acre. He smiled at the boy like a proud uncle.

  Nearby the cows and calves, now reunited, grazed happily, the day’s terrors at an end. Horses tethered to their trailers ate a well-deserved meal.

  “I hope we have leftovers for tomorrow,” Stefanie said.

  Piper scraped the last of the potato salad into a container. “What do you mean?”

  “We didn’t get done today. There’s another small herd that needs to be rounded up. We’ll head down to that field first thing in the morning and finish up with this section.”

  “All of us?” Piper watched a big man, the owner of the Big K, rise and deposit his plate and tin cup in her dishwater. He nodded in her direction, showing a white smile on his tanned face.

  “No, just the Buckle crew.”

  “You mean, we’re going to spend the night out here?” Piper grimaced at the tremor in her voice. She’d been camping before plenty of times. But being out here, with the cows and wolves . . . and men . . .

  Stefanie laughed. “You can sleep in the chuck wagon if you want.”

  “How about I head back to the ranch?”

  Stefanie sopped up the last of her sauce with her biscuit. “I can ask Nick to take you back. But you’ll have to get up early in order to meet us out at the field.” She didn’t sound in the least like she might be pulling Piper’s leg.

  “How early?”

  “Fourish.” Stefanie deposited her plate in the dishwater. “That coffee done?”

  “Uh . . . I dunno,” Piper answered. Nick had started the coffee brewing over the fire; she hadn’t the faintest idea when it might be ready. But 4 a.m.?

  She’d slept in a culvert, a cattle trailer, and even her Jeep a few times. But never next to manure . . . and in the same airspace as Nick Noble. Even if it was wide-open airspace.

  But with the stars scattered above, Nick might offer to take her for a walk or a ride. It wasn’t a good sign that the thought of being alone with him sent tingles through Piper that had nothing to do with fear.

  Nick had changed and not only in his appearance. That much Maggy could tell from observing him all day. He had stretched out, become a man. His laughter sounded deeper, his face more solemn when he listened. So much different from the renegade she knew in high school.

  The renegade who had stolen a huge chunk of her heart.

  And said outlaw knew she was here—by the way he practically ran circles around her, as if she wore an electric fence around her body.

  However, he had no problem high-fiving CJ and even showing him a few more roping pointers before supper. CJ simply glowed with the attention. Maggy’s dread burned inside her.

  She’d come to the roundup today prepared for all the old emotions to rise from the grave and ravage her, like they had the first time she saw Nick outside his barn. She didn’t exactly expect that she’d swoon at his feet, but she did worry that Nick would send her one smoldering look and she’d feel afresh the wounds he’d left her with.

  Instead, as she watched Nick dodge her, she felt a sense of satisfaction. Nick no longer had power over her. The strings that held his memory to her heart had finally, quietly been severed.

  In fact, Nick was the one who looked wounded. Instead of leading the teams, he’d stepped aside and let Stefanie take over—or rather, resume her place. She’d been leading roundup for the last three years, since Bishop had gotten too sick to work.

  Stefanie had given Maggy a hug, then assigned her to help with roping. Maggy worked as a heeler, then took her turn heating the irons.

  All the time, the new cookie watched her as if she might be Calamity Jane come back from the grave. Maggy gave her a small smile when she served her a plate of ribs and received a once-over, along with the obligatory smile.

  Maggy finished her supper, listening to Dutch spin a yarn to CJ about the outlaws who used to hide in these hills while watching Nick out of the corner of her eye.

  “Mom, Dutch says that their new hand Andy is gonna play his guitar. S’pose we can stay for a bit?”

  Maggy sighed, torn by the eagerness on CJ’s face and her desire to return to Cole. She’d come to the roundup against Cole’s wishes, even if he’d said the opposite. “Stay as long as you’d like.” Yeah, sure. He was probably sitting by the window with his binoculars, holding his breath for their return. She knew he’d refused to come because of Nick and not because of his broken leg. Cole didn’t exactly loaf around the house, even with his cast. Yesterday she’d caught him overhauling the carburetor in the truck.

  She wasn’t stupid. Something had changed after his doctor’s appointment. Something that put desperation in Cole’s eyes, and it frightened her.

  Lord, please, I can’t lose him.

  “Please, Mom?” CJ pleaded, bringing her thoughts back to his request.

  “For a while, I guess,” Maggy said. He ran off to join a circle of other cowpokes as she leaned back on the grass. The sun had dipped beyond the ragged Bighorns, leaving only splashes of reddish orange along the horizon. The scent of the campfire and the lull of contented Angus soothed her tired bones. This was her life. She never felt more whole and content than
when she spent a day on the range.

  “How’s Cole?” Dutch asked, gathering their plates.

  “Sore. But not complaining. He’ll pry off that cast in a week or two, I’ll bet.”

  Dutch gave a wry chuckle. “You call me if you need something.”

  Maggy nodded. “We hired a man. Quiet. Gets his work done. He went to check on the herd today. I expected him to show up here, but I guess he got tied up.”

  “That happens. We ’bout got ’em licked.”

  Maggy gestured toward the blonde, the one with barbeque sauce staining her apron. “Where did Stefanie find her?” She’d noticed how Nick had helped her stoke her fire, stir her food. And he’d been in charge of frying the oysters.

  “Some school in Kalispell. Going to cook for the city-slicker tourists this summer.”

  Maggy watched as the woman began to wash the dishes. Even as she did it, however, she seemed to study people, hear conversations. “Stef is going through with that idea, huh?”

  “She’s got a full schedule of folks heading here for the ‘ultimate family adventure.’” He inflected a British accent into his words.

  Maggy laughed.

  Dutch’s voice fell. “You know, Nick’s kicking around trouble about Bishop’s will. He’s been asking questions, hunting up reasons why Bishop mighta left that land to Cole.”

  Maggy said nothing. She knew little of estate law, but it seemed to her that if Bishop wanted to give them his land, Nick couldn’t stop him.

  “He thinks he can find a reason to get the will set aside.”

  Maggy turned to Dutch. He’d been a good friend to Cole and his mother, Irene, over the years, helping them out with their motley crew of cattle. The years wore hard on Dutch’s face, turning his skin leathery, his pale eyes wizened. She always wondered why he’d never married.

  She used to think that Dutch and Irene would have made a wonderful couple. But then again, some things just weren’t meant to be, regardless of how good they looked in dreams. And now, of course, she knew why.

  “What kind of reasons?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. Like something Cole might have had over Bishop’s head. Or someone coercing Bishop. He asked me if Cole was around when the will was signed.”

  Maggy glanced at him. “Why would that matter?”

  “Well, because Cole got the land. And Nick says if any of the beneficiaries are in the room when a will is signed, then it can be contested.”

  A coldness started in Maggy’s belly and spread through her. “He wasn’t there.”

  “’Course not. But just so as you know. Nick’s a’huntin’ trouble.”

  “Thanks, Dutch.”

  While he carried their plates to the dish bin, Maggy’s eyes settled on Nick. So that’s why he returned. To make sure Cole didn’t get a blade of Noble range. And she had a sinking feeling she knew why.

  Perhaps the old emotions weren’t as dormant as she thought. In fact, she found herself crossing the fire pit before she could stop herself. She stood above Nick as he crouched by the fire, cooking.

  He glanced up at her. Good. He actually looked a little pale.

  “I want to talk to you.”

  “Hi, Maggy.” Nick stood, but she didn’t care that he towered over her. “How are you?”

  “Don’t ‘how are you’ me! I can’t believe that you came back to take away Cole’s land.”

  He gaped and glanced past her.

  Maggy followed his line of vision and saw Stefanie freeze, her mouth drawn in a dark line.

  “It’s Noble land. But, Maggy, this isn’t about you.”

  Not about her? “This is completely about me, Nick. I know that! I’m not an idiot.”

  His voice dropped. “Of course you’re not. It’s just that . . . this is between me and Cole.”

  She wanted to pull back her fist and sink it squarely in his arrogant jaw. “You think I don’t know why you left? why you haven’t come back for ten years?”

  He stared at her, at a loss for words.

  “You’re really a piece of work, Noble. Well, for your information, Cole is twice the man you are. He’s kind and honorable and patient, and he keeps his promises. He deserves that land your father gave him. And you, of all people, should know that.” She turned and realized that the entire camp had stopped speaking. Motioning to CJ, she stalked toward her pickup.

  She didn’t make it. A hand caught her, spun her around, and in a second, she saw the old Nick, the one she’d loved, the passionate boy she’d given herself to thinking it would last forever. He wore hurt and not a little anger in his piercing dark eyes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Maggy, but you got this all wrong.”

  She couldn’t hold back any longer. She slapped him—hard.

  As if he were made of stone, he didn’t even blink.

  “You turned out exactly as my mother predicted,” she said in a lethal voice. “I’m so sorry I didn’t listen to her sooner.”

  What had Nick done to her?

  After not seeing Maggy for nearly a decade, and most importantly, after the way he left, he didn’t expect her to leap into his arms. But slap him?

  He stared at her, feeling her eyes needle him, not sure how to respond. First of all, he thought her mother had always liked him. But secondly, what was this business about Cole being twice the man he was?

  “Mags, calm down.”

  “I’m Mrs. St. John to you. And I’ll have you know we’ve done just fine for the last ten years without you. We didn’t need you then, and we don’t need you now.” Her eyes flashed, and he braced himself for another slap. She snorted in disgust. “It’s a good thing you didn’t return before Bishop died. He would have been devastated.”

  She could have picked anything else in the world to say, and it wouldn’t have phased him. But the way she stood there, smug and sneering, speaking the truth, Nick felt as if she’d blown a hole clear through him with a deer rifle.

  “C’mon, CJ.”

  He watched as she loaded Suds—yes, he recognized Cole’s horse—into the trailer and drove off.

  He couldn’t meet Stefanie’s angry expression as he turned back to camp.

  What did Maggy have to do with this? He stalked away from the prying eyes toward the campfire. He remembered that explosive night too well, in vivid dime-store-novel detail, and according to that recollection Maggy had only been around for the tragic ending. Why would she think his anger at Cole had anything to do with her?

  Unless, of course, he’d been right that night when he’d accused them of having an affair.

  He crouched beside the fire and stirred the coals, hating the fact that after ten years Maggy still hadn’t forgiven him, still despised him. Hating that once upon a time she’d been someone who understood him without his having to speak words.

  Maggy alone knew how his mother’s cancer had turned him inside out. She’d been by his side as his mother’s disease slowly took her. Had comforted him with more than her words that first Christmas without his mother. He’d held her, knowing he’d broken every rule his mother had instilled in him and didn’t care. Maggy had been his best girl, and at the time he thought he loved her. Told her that, convinced her.

  But even a grieving kid knew that love didn’t manipulate, it didn’t connive, and it didn’t use emotions to seduce a person who trusted him.

  He deserved that slap and more.

  He got up, walked away from the glow of the flames into the coming darkness, where no one could see his grief.

  He owed Maggy an apology and had been trying to form one ever since that fateful spring break when he’d returned home, a proposal on his mind. But as he watched her truck lights disappear into the horizon, he knew he didn’t deserve her—not now, not then.

  But neither did Cole. At least not if he was anything like his mother.

  “Nick, are you okay?”

  The voice—soft, sweet, gentle, and consoling—behind him made him breathe out, uncoiling the knot in his ch
est. He felt Piper’s hand on his arm and looked down at her. “Yeah.”

  “That was quite a show back there. She hit you hard?”

  He gave a wry grin. “She could probably match that roundhouse kick you’re so proud of.”

  Piper didn’t smile. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what happened between you two, but it seemed that you were trying to apologize—”

  “I should have apologized years ago.” He looked toward the setting sun and Cole’s ranch. “There’s a lot I have to apologize for.”

  “It can’t possibly be that awful.” She sat on a boulder, her fingers laced on her lap. The sun set her gold hair on fire, and she smelled like barbeque sauce. He could trace the outline of her smile, and it made him want to let go, to confess it all regardless of the pain, much like the lancing of a wound.

  After checking around for prickly pear cactus, Nick sat on the ground near her feet, facing her. “I don’t know. Ten years is a long time to go without apologizing.”

  She reached out and touched his shoulder. The contact felt warm and reassuring. “I agree.”

  He glanced up at her, again touched by how well she seemed to understand.

  Her smile was kind, unaccusing.

  “Did you like your first roundup?”

  She wrinkled her nose, shook her head slightly. “Sorry. I was happier living in ignorance.”

  That made him smile. “My first roundup I was five years old. My mother had just given birth to my sister and brother, and she didn’t want me underfoot, so she sent me out with my dad. I cried the first time I saw them brand the calves. But by the end of the day, I was helping them, pulling the lassos off the steers, keeping the branding irons hot. I loved the chaos, the smells, the men treating me like I was one of them. Old Pete gave me a chaw of chewing tobacco, and I threw up all over the grass. My dad nearly killed him.”

  Piper laughed.

  Nick looked at her, grinning, his chest expanding. “My dad used to tell me that one day I’d run the ranch. I used to ride this land watching my own shadow, seeing myself tall and bold and strong. The king of the Silver Buckle.”

  He picked a nearby yellow bell, turning it between his fingers. “I really thought I was something. Then my mom got sick. She had cancer my senior year of high school. Died in the spring, right before graduation.”