Her Guardian Rancher

by Brenda Minton

  He stopped midsip, the cup poised in front of his mouth. His brows arched. “I hate to remind you, but I believe friendship was your idea.”

  Wide-eyed, Jamie was watching the adults from Emma’s arms, her gaze shooting from Daron to Emma and then to her granddad.

  “Why don’t you put that little mite down?” her granddad suggested. “I bought her a new cartoon the other day.”

  “Thanks, Gramps, I will. Daron, please. You don’t have to do this.”

  She walked away, leaving the two men staring after her. Their voices carried. She could hear their soft murmurs as she tucked Jamie in her bed, giving her the stuffed animal that was her favorite. It had been a birthday present from Daron.

  In three years he hadn’t missed a birthday or Christmas. There had been mysterious deposits in her bank account that he wouldn’t take credit for. Groceries had been delivered.

  Jamie snuggled up with the stuffed horse, holding it close to her face, brushing her cheek against the soft fur. She loved that horse. As Emma brushed a hand over her daughter’s soft blond curls, Jamie’s eyes grew heavy with sleep. Her little-girl lips turned in a slight smile that said her world was just as she wanted it.

  After a few more minutes, Jamie slipped into sleep, her eyelids fluttering only once, her arms tightening around the pink horse. Emma tiptoed from the room. When she got to the living room, Granddad was tending one of his famous pots of stew, cooked on the top of the woodstove.

  “Where is he?”

  He turned, looking sheepish and guilty as he tugged on his whiskered chin and stirred the concoction in the cast-iron pot. “He left.”

  She peered into the pot of meat and vegetables, the broth thick and savory. She’d make rolls later to go with the stew. It was perfect for a blustery day in December.

  “Gramps, why do you look so guilty?”

  “I reckon you’re going to tell me why.” He reached for salt and added a dash. “We’ve been making this stew together for nearly twenty years, haven’t we, kiddo?”

  The memory took her back, the two of them finding ways to be a family. “Yes, we have. And you’re avoiding the question.”

  He stopped stirring, and when he started to lick the spoon, she stopped him. He put the wood spoon on a plate and tugged at his beard again.

  “I’m not getting any younger,” he started. “I don’t like to admit there are things I can’t do. And things I wish you didn’t have to do. There are days I’m more than a little angry with Andy for not getting the paperwork done to make you his beneficiary. I’m more than a little angry with his family for taking the money and not thinking about their granddaughter. But there isn’t much I can do about that. We get by fine on my Social Security and what you make at the diner. And it won’t be long before you have your degree. I guess if we had stayed in town years ago instead of buying this place, we’d be doing even better. It is what it is. But the one thing I can do for you is teach you to accept help.”

  “He’s helped us enough.”

  “I don’t think this is about what he thinks he owes you. It’s about a man trying to be a friend. Or maybe a little more.”

  She’d been about to walk away, but the last statement stopped her. She looked up at her grandfather and shook her head. “You have clearly lost it. I’m the furthest thing from the type of woman Daron McKay would be interested in. He’s here because he feels obligated. He thinks he owes us something because of what happened.” And it still hurt. Andy had been her husband, her friend. He’d been everything she thought she wanted, and then he’d abused her trust.

  He’d cheated on her.

  He’d left her alone. As much as he had hurt her, she still missed him. She cried at night because he’d died too young.

  Granddad put an arm around her shoulders and kissed the top of her head. “I might be talking like a grandfather who is proud of his girl, but I think you are everything any man worth his salt would be interested in. You’re a strong woman of faith, a good mom and pretty as a speckled pup.”

  She nodded. “And you are still a little prejudiced when it comes to your only granddaughter. But this conversation is pointless.” She stood on tiptoe and pulled him down to kiss his scraggly, unshaved cheek. “What are you and Daron up to?”

  Then she heard the truck pull up out front, saving her the trouble of interrogating her grandfather. She walked out the front door, leaving him to tend to his stew. She would tend to sending Daron on his way.

  * * *

  It was still raining when Daron left his place and headed back to Emma’s. It had taken him less than fifteen minutes to find a tarp in the storage room of his barn. It would probably take longer to convince Emma to let him put it on her roof.

  He pulled up to the old farmhouse. It was a decent place, just in need of some work. He jumped out of his truck and there she was, standing in the rain, the hood of her jacket covering her head and hanging down over her brow. She looked up at him with dark eyes and a mighty big frown.

  “Go home, Daron. When it stops raining I’ll fix the roof.”

  He took her by the arm and moved her toward the covered front porch with the lawn chairs and a small grill. She jerked her arm free and stomped up the stairs, as much as a hundred-pound woman could stomp. When she turned around to face him, he managed to keep a straight face.

  She was the most kissable female he had ever met, with those rosy lips and that big frown, raindrops trickling down her cheek. He took a closer look to make sure they weren’t tears. Nope. Just rain.

  He’d been in Emma’s life for a few years now. When had he started noticing her lips? Or the darkness of her eyes, like coffee on a cold winter day?

  He grinned, just a little. Enough to earn himself another narrow-eyed glare. Back to business.

  “I’m not going home. You have a sick little girl in there. The last thing she needs is a leaking roof. The last thing you need is for Andy’s parents to use that roof and her stay in the hospital against you.”

  She paled at the mention of Andy’s parents.

  “Emma, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

  She glanced away but not before he saw the moisture in her eyes. “I’ll get to the roof.”

  “You’re wearing yourself out. Let me do this.” As they stood there, the rain slacked off a bit. “I checked the forecast. It’s going to rain all week and this looks like the best time. I’m not going to stand here and argue with you.”

  “Of course you aren’t. But if you’re going up, so am I. You can’t do this alone.”

  She walked off in the direction of the shed. He guessed she was going to get a ladder. He hurried to the truck and pulled out the supplies he’d brought from his place.

  He was gathering everything up when Emma returned. Without the ladder.

  “It’s gone,” she explained. “I know it was in the barn. I used it for the last tarp.”

  “Let’s have a look. Maybe Art put it somewhere?”

  She shook her head, but she walked past him into the house. When she returned, she didn’t look too happy. “Art hasn’t seen it.”

  “So someone stole the ladder?”

  She shivered and pushed her hands deep into the pockets of her jacket. “Yes. It isn’t the first thing that’s been taken. Things have been disappearing for a year or so. Not much. Tools. An old saddle. Now the ladder.”

  “Pete?”

  She shrugged. “Maybe.”

  “I’ll head back to my place for a ladder. Emma, he has to be stopped. I’m worried that he isn’t in his right mind.”

  “Because he isn’t. I knew Pete before. He was a good guy. Always a little wild, but decent.”

  Daron opened the door. “Go inside, where it’s warm. I’ll be back in fifteen minutes.”

  This time she didn’t argue. In
stead she headed back inside and he went back to his place. It gave him time to think. Gave him time to clear his head.

  When he got back she met him on the front porch, tiny in her big jacket with brown work gloves covering her hands. He wanted to talk her out of going onto the roof with him. He knew she wouldn’t listen.

  He moved his ladder into position and headed up to the roof with the tarp, tools and nails in the pockets of the tool belt buckled around his waist. She joined him up there. The rain had let up. It was easy to find the leak.

  They stretched the tarp and pounded tacks to keep it in place.

  He gave a quick look at Emma on the opposite end of the tarp, holding it as he tacked it to the aging, broken shingles.

  “I’m going to need a pot of coffee after we’re done,” he called out against the wind.

  She nodded but didn’t answer. Her shoulders shuddered and she had to be freezing. He worked a little faster, getting the tarp down in record time.

  “Let’s go,” he said. He motioned her toward the ladder. “You go first.”

  She went down as he held the ladder. The wind caught her jacket and she swayed a bit, but held tight. He waited until she was firmly on the ground and holding the ladder from there before he started down. Close to the bottom, the wind gusted. The ladder wobbled. He felt it going and jumped.

  “Emma, get back,” he yelled as he fell sideways, the ladder going in the other direction.

  His body hit hers and he twisted to keep her from falling. Pain shot through his spine, making him see stars. The ladder clattered to the ground, and Emma’s arms were around him.

  “Are you okay?” she asked, her arms still surrounding him, her body close.

  Daron took a deep breath and let his arms ease around her. Just for support, he told himself. But she felt good in his arms. She smelled good, like spring flowers and rain. He wanted to hold her a little closer, a little longer, but he knew better. “Yeah, I’m good. Every now and then I get hit with a spasm. Jumping off a ladder probably didn’t help.”

  Still in the circle of his arms, he thought she leaned in close and sniffed. Soon after, she seemed to realize where she was and what she’d done. She pulled back abruptly. “Let’s get you that coffee.”

  He started to reach for the ladder, but her hand on his arm stopped him.

  “We’re both soaked,” she said. “Forget the ladder. Coffee and a bowl of stew are more important.”

  He followed her inside, where they both shed their coats and shoes. She moved immediately to the woodstove. He followed, holding his hands out to the warmth. The aroma of the stew filled the room. His mouth watered.

  “Is that your stomach growling?” she asked, humor lacing her tone.

  “Might have been yours,” he answered.

  Art called out from the kitchen that the coffee was ready. And he asked if they noticed that the roof wasn’t leaking anymore. Emma laughed a little and the sound made him want to pull her back into his arms.

  “Coffee sounds good,” he said too quickly. But he needed to move away from her, away from temptation.

  If he’d had any sense at all, he would have gone on home. Instead he stayed. For coffee. For a bowl of stew. For time spent with this family. Because they had entered his life as an obligation but in the past few years they’d become a little bit more.

  He never really allowed himself to think about what that meant. To him, they were just more.

  Chapter Six

  Sunday dawned cold and blustery but without rain. Emma bundled Jamie up for church while Granddad went out to warm up the truck. They were going to the Martin’s Crossing Community Church for the potluck. After all, she’d promised Lily. It would be good to go to the small community church. Their own church in Braswell had grown over the past few years. Growth was good, but Emma had missed the smaller congregation that had once felt a lot like family.

  Now she felt a bit lost in the crowd. She might have spent her first years in Houston, but she was a small-town girl at heart.

  “Ready to go?” Granddad, dressed today in starched jeans and a button-up shirt, stepped into the living room. He carried the pie she’d baked.

  “All ready,” she responded. She reached for Jamie’s gloved hand and the three of them walked out the door.

  By the time they reached the church at the end of Martin’s Crossing’s Main Street, the sun had come out and was warming the air. Somehow it still smelled of winter, of snow, of Christmas. It helped that the nativity was up on the church lawn and the town was decorated.

  Three weeks till Christmas. She sighed at the thought. She was nowhere near ready for the holidays. Worry assaulted her as she walked next to her grandfather, carrying her daughter in her arms.

  Darker thoughts were dispelled as they entered the church and were greeted by Duke and Oregon, their daughter Lily at their side with one of the little ones they’d recently adopted. A little girl named Sally.

  “Good to see you all this morning.” Duke shook Granddad’s hand and handed him a program. “You all can join the Martins. We’re midway up on the left. There’s plenty of room.”

  It was a good plan. To sit with Jake and Breezy Martin, Samantha and Remington, Brody and Grace. With the Martins they would feel as if they belonged in this congregation.

  As they walked up the carpeted aisle, Jamie spotted Daron. He was sitting with Boone Wilder and his large family, all of them taking up two pews. Jamie pulled away from Emma and headed for the man sitting at the end of a pew, his cowboy hat in his lap and a hand brushing nervously through his hair.

  “Daron,” Jamie said, immediately crawling into his lap.

  “Hey, there’s my favorite girl.” Daron shifted her, then glanced back over his shoulder. “And her very serious mommy.”

  Jamie giggled.

  Boone Wilder stood, holding out a hand to Emma and then to Art. “Good to have you all. Join us?”

  Emma glanced longingly in the direction of the Martins. It would be easier, less complicated, to sit with the Martins. She could sit behind Samantha. She could sing and not be distracted.

  But Art was already accepting the offer. There was a shifting of bodies to make room for a few more. It was no problem, Boone Wilder’s younger brother, Jase, assured them. So somehow Emma landed in the pew next to Daron, her daughter sitting on both of their laps.

  “You don’t get to look more nervous than me,” Daron whispered.

  “What do you mean?” she responded.

  “I don’t go to church often. So I have the market cornered on nervousness. I can’t believe sitting next to me is more nerve-racking than coming to church for the first time in, well, months.”

  “I think it might be.”

  He chuckled and leaned in, his head touching Jamie’s. Emma’s daughter laughed and snuggled against him. It was too much. It hurt deep down, where she’d placed her hopes and dreams for a future with a man who hadn’t shared those dreams.

  But she didn’t want to think about Andy. Not today. She didn’t want to think about how she’d lost him twice. Once when he cheated on her and then divorced her. Next when an IED detonated in Afghanistan.

  She closed her eyes against the onslaught of pain.

  Daron seemed to notice, because his attention refocused on her face and he shifted Jamie. His hand touched Emma’s arm.

  “I can’t do this. It’s too much.” She held her arms out to Jamie to go.

  “Don’t leave on my account. I’ll go.”

  “No. It isn’t you. Stay and give Art a ride home, if you don’t mind. I just can’t breathe in here.”

  She took Jamie and left, knowing people were staring, whispering and wondering about her unusual departure. When she got to the truck she put Jamie in the seat, and then she climbed behind the wheel and waited until th
e world righted itself.

  It didn’t. Not for a long time. Her chest ached and it hurt to breathe. Jamie started to cry.

  “So that’s what a panic attack looks like,” someone said from the open passenger-side door.

  She jumped a little. “Oregon. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have run out like that.”

  “We do what we have to. But I didn’t want to leave you out here alone. You’re okay now?”

  “I think so. Embarrassed but okay.”

  Duke Martin’s wife, Oregon, climbed in with her. Jamie was happy, nibbling on a cookie and playing with a book. Oregon must have given those things to her without Emma even realizing.

  “Don’t be embarrassed. We all have stuff we work through, deal with. Sometimes it helps to talk to a friend.”

  Emma nodded, accepting the offer. They had become friends in the past year. “It was just leftover emotion. I have days when I think I’m over it, that I’ve moved past Andy’s death, the divorce, the pain. And then it sneaks up on me.”

  “When you see your daughter sitting on the lap of a man who is decent and kind.”

  “He’s in our lives because he feels guilty. He isn’t her daddy, Oregon. Lately he feels like a friend. But we aren’t his problem and I don’t want to count on anyone else the way I counted on Andy.”

  “Oh, how well I understand. But will you do me a favor, Christian woman to Christian woman?” Her smile was amused and knowing.

  “Okay, you know I can’t say no to that.”

  “I do. Give God a chance. Let Him heal your heart and trust that there are good men out there, men who cherish and who are faithful. Men who won’t let you down.”

  “I’ll try to do that.” She glanced at the clock on her phone. “You should go back inside. No need for us both to miss church.”

  “Why don’t we both go back inside? The message was going to be short today and I’d say they’re already moving on to the potluck. Or getting close to it.”

  Go back inside. She glanced over her shoulder at the pretty little church, the scene of her crisis. It wasn’t as if she could avoid these people indefinitely, Daron included. “Okay.”