“It’s not that isolated. My ranch is down the road in one direction, the Bannister ranch in the other.”
“I know, but in Chicago and New York we live stacked on top of each other, side by side. It’s never quiet. Never.”
She stopped, listening again, a smile lingering on her lips. A gentle calm and a desire to stay right where she was suffused her.
“I don’t think I could handle that,” Vic said, pouring some more lemonade for himself. He held the jug out to Lauren, but she declined a refill.
“I don’t think you could, either,” Lauren said, glancing over at Vic. She tried to picture him strolling down a city sidewalk, past office towers, in that rolling gait of his. The walk of a cowboy. It didn’t jell.
“But you’re used to it?”
“Got used to it,” she admitted. “Don’t forget, I’ve been living in large towns and cities ever since we left here.”
A breeze started up just as she reached for the lemonade container to screw the lid down. Her hair was blown in her face, sticking to her lipstick, and she tried to shake it away but it wouldn’t move.
She felt rough fingers on her face, tucking the strands of hair behind her ear.
It was a light touch. An innocent gesture that probably meant nothing to Vic, but it sent a thrill of awareness sparking down her neck.
She couldn’t help how her head turned toward him as he lowered his hand. She felt a sense of waiting. Expectation.
Then his phone beeped an incoming text and Lauren pulled herself back to reality. Vic glanced at his phone but chose to ignore it. He set it down on the ground between them.
“Don’t forget to pick that up again,” she said, pleased that her voice didn’t sound as shaky as she felt.
“I won’t. I don’t go anywhere without my phone. My mom says it’s unhealthy.”
“It’s unhealthy for me if I forget it.”
“Why?”
“I get all jittery thinking I might miss some important call. Back in the city we call it FOMO—fear of missing out.”
He chuckled. “I’m guessing you have your phone with you now?”
“Back pocket.”
He smiled as he took another cookie, and she was thankful for the easy give-and-take between them. Just two people spending time together. Nothing more.
“You make these?” Vic asked.
“The only kind I know how to make, much to my grandmother’s disappointment. She always said oatmeal-raisin cookies were the reason she has trust issues.”
Vic’s frown told her he didn’t get the old family joke.
“She always thought they were chocolate chips and got disappointed. She never liked raisins. In anything.”
“And yet you continued to make cookies with raisins?”
“Because I like them and it was the only recipe that turned out well for me,” she returned, taking another drink of her own chilled lemonade. “Erin was the one who liked baking every kind of cookie and cake she found on the internet and in any cookbook my aunt had lying around.”
“Jodie much of a baker?”
“No. She was the entertainer of the family.”
“Youngest child,” he said, taking another cookie out of the bag.
“You know of what you speak?”
“Dean’s the same way. Or used to be.”
“How is he doing today?”
“Better. He’s helping Jan today, so that helps. Lets him feel useful.”
Her thoughts shifted to the conversation they had at his mother’s place. The abrupt way he had turned away from her when she brought up Dean’s accident. She knew she should leave it alone, but her curiosity got the better of her.
“So how exactly did he get hurt?”
“He got dumped off a saddle bronc.”
“And that’s how he broke his leg?”
“No. That happened when he got tangled up in the gate he fell on.”
Lauren winced. And couldn’t help notice the harshness in Vic’s voice. There was more to it than this.
“Has he been riding saddle broncs long?”
“Since he was a little kid.” Vic raised one leg and rested his forearm on his knee as he stared off, as if returning to that moment. “It wasn’t lack of experience that caused the accident. I should’ve paid attention.”
His comment puzzled her. “What do you mean you should’ve paid attention?”
Vic’s face grew hard and his eyes narrowed. In the silence that followed, she wondered if he was going to say anything at all.
“I was riding pickup that evening,” he said, his voice quiet. “I was supposed to be watching. I was supposed to grab him if he was in trouble. I didn’t notice—”
He stopped, abruptly finished off the last of his lemonade and set the cup aside.
“So you think it’s your fault that he got hurt?”
“I don’t think it is, I know it is.” Vic sounded angry.
Slowly things fell into place.
“You want the ranch for Dean because of what happened,” she said.
Vic’s eyes latched on to hers and Lauren wondered if she had pushed him too hard, said too much.
But as he held her gaze, his shoulders seem to slump and he leaned back against the tractor tire. He moved his hand over his chin, as if debating what to say next. “No secret I want the ranch for Dean. I told you that from the beginning.”
“No. But I didn’t know it was because you felt guilty. About what happened to Dean.”
“I don’t feel—” He stopped himself, blew out a breath and released a harsh laugh. “You’re the first person that seems to have put all that together.”
“Not the first. You have, too. And I wonder if Dean has.”
“Doesn’t matter. I have to do this. I have to try,” he amended. “And I know it won’t work for you if I find that agreement, but I still need to try.”
She understood completely, recognizing the burden of every firstborn child. The need to take care of everyone, to take on the responsibility of everyone. Once again doubts assailed her.
Stop overthinking this. For once put yourself first. It’s what you want, what you need.
The little mental lecture centered her. But at the same time she was sorry the topic of Dean had come up. For a few moments she’d felt a connection with Vic. For a few moments she’d shared ordinary conversation with an appealing man. It was nice.
Dangerous, but still nice.
Then her phone rang and all hope of any normal conversation with Vic fled.
It was Alex Rossiter.
* * *
Vic finished off the last of his cookie as he tried not to listen to Lauren’s phone conversation. He knew she was talking to her buyer.
“I know you told me you were coming tomorrow,” she said, her voice sounding strained. “But I forgot to make plans.” She nodded as Vic faintly heard the chatter of a male voice.
The buyer.
The man with all the money.
Then she said goodbye and slipped the phone into her back pocket again.
“So what does he want?” Vic asked, wiping the remnants of cookie crumbs off his pants.
“He asked me last week if he could come tomorrow.” She scratched her chin with her forefinger as if thinking. “He wants me to show him around the ranch, but...”
“You don’t know that much about it,” he finished for her, remembering the phone call she got when he brought her to town.
“I know something, but I haven’t been here for over ten years. And I thought—”
“You want me to show him around.”
She looked over at him, her eyes pleading. “I would feel better if someone who knew the ranch could talk to him about it.”
&nbs
p; He exhaled, shoving his hair back from his face in a gesture of frustration. What irony. Escorting the future buyer over the ranch he had counted on buying himself.
Though he hoped to go through more of the papers in Keith’s office tomorrow, he was starting to see the futility of it all. All they had found so far was an old lease agreement Keith had drawn up with Rusty Granger—frustrating that he had protected Rusty’s interests but not his—and a host of grocery lists and to-do lists, but that was about it.
He doubted that a further search of the office would yield anything more. And yet he knew he had to give it one more try.
“I know it’s a lot to ask and I’m sorry—”
“I’ll do it,” he said as he got to his feet.
She stood as well, looking sheepish. “Thanks. I appreciate it.”
“What time is he coming?”
“About noonish tomorrow. Does that work?”
“I’ll be done haying today, provided I don’t get any more distractions.” In spite of his irritation with the situation, he couldn’t help smiling at her. He appreciated the lemonade and cookies, and the fact that she had taken the time to think about him.
“I won’t bug you anymore,” she said, returning his smile.
“Bringing lemonade and homemade cookies hardly constitutes bugging.” He looked over at her and to his surprise she didn’t turn away. As their eyes locked, he felt an age-old emotion rise up in him. The beginnings of appeal and connection. The hesitant looks. The careful dance between a man and a woman signaling a shift toward attraction.
Be careful. This one isn’t for you. She’s not sticking around. She created a host of problems for you.
But in spite of the very wise and practical voice warning him, he kept his eyes on Lauren and she on him.
He wanted to touch her face, brush his fingers over her flushed cheek. The impulse was so strong, he felt his hand rising.
Then she turned away—the moment was gone—and he clenched his fist, frustrated with how she was insinuating herself into his life. Yesterday, after he came back from delivering her plants at the ranch, he’d found his thoughts returning to her again and again.
Reliving that moment when he had touched her.
He gave himself a shake, then bent to pick up his phone.
He frowned when he saw two identical black phones lying in the cut hay, neither of them with covers.
“Which one of these is yours?” he asked, picking them both up.
She looked as puzzled as he was, then took one. “I think it’s this one,” she said, hitting the home button.
A picture of his mother and Dean flashed on the screen and she handed it over to him. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to intrude.”
“That’s okay,” he said, handing her the other phone. “It was a perfectly innocuous picture.”
She shoved her phone in her back pocket and gave him a wistful smile. “It’s sweet.”
Somehow the compliment fell awkwardly between them.
Sweet.
“So I can tell Alex to come tomorrow?” she asked.
“Yeah. Sure.” Vic dropped his phone in his shirt pocket. “Tell him two is probably best. I should be done by then.” Then he climbed back in the tractor.
Lauren was already walking away, carrying the lemonade container in one hand and the bag with the cookies and the cups in the other. He started up the tractor, backed up and lined himself up with the swath of hay and moved ahead.
But before he started moving, he glanced over at Lauren again.
Only to see her looking at him. She lifted her hand holding the bag, waggled her fingers at him, turned and walked away.
What was that about?
You’re being all high school. Don’t read too much into that.
And yet, as he started working, that simple gesture stayed with him.
As did her smile.
Chapter Seven
“We generally put the cows out on these pastures first thing in the spring,” Vic was saying as he walked with Alex Rossiter past the fenced fields across the road from the ranch house. The cows in the pasture were just brown and black dots farther back, closer to the hills. “Then, as the snow retreats on the mountains and the grass starts growing farther up, we move them to the higher pastures.”
Lauren followed a few steps behind, feeling useless but at the same time thankful Vic had agreed to this. She knew that her father moved the cows partway through the summer. She and her sisters had participated in a pasture move years ago.
It had been one of those idyllic days. Sunlight poured from blue sky devoid of clouds. A faint breeze kept bugs at bay and the rhythmic plod of the horses they rode had lulled the McCauley sisters and their father into a good mood.
The memory made her smile.
But it wasn’t the kind of information you could pass on to a prospective buyer.
“How many head can you run?” Alex was asking, punching something into his phone, which never left his hand.
“Two hundred in this pasture with proper pasture management.”
“Management as in?”
“Rotation. Moving them around more frequently.”
“Sure. Whatever,” Alex muttered as his fingers flew over the screen’s keyboard.
The conversation drifted past Lauren, again somewhat familiar but not information she knew.
She sensed an edge of tension to Vic’s voice. He most likely wasn’t the most objective guide, she realized, but he was the one who knew the place the best.
“How long has this ranch been operating?” Alex asked, turning to Lauren. “You’re the owner, after all—you should know that.”
He winked at her. The last time she met Alex Rossiter, it was at her office. He had worn an open-necked shirt, a gold chain, a blazer and blue jeans that were artfully faded and distressed. And expensive. As were his John Lobb tasseled loafers.
Today he had gone with the more down-home cowboy look. Plaid shirt, plain blue jeans, cowboy boots so new they still shone, and topping it all off, a straw cowboy hat, crisp and gleaming.
Then there was Vic, with his twill shirt rolled up at the sleeves, stained leather gloves shoved in the back pockets of blue jeans faded at the knees and ragged at the hem, worn over scuffed cowboy boots. His hat was weathered and sat easily on his head, almost an extension of himself. Authentic. Man of the land.
He looked rooted. Grounded.
Alex was a nice guy, a pleasant man, in fact, but compared to Vic he seemed insubstantial.
His money wasn’t. And she needed every penny of it.
“The ownership of this ranch goes back many generations,” Lauren said. She leaned against a fence post, dredging up the history lessons her father gave them whenever he thought they needed reminders of their past. “My father inherited it from his father, whose wife was related to the Bannister family of Refuge Ranch, which is farther up the valley. Before that it’s a tangle of Bannister and McCauley ownership. I think I ran across a family tree going through my father’s papers. I can show it to you if you’re interested.”
Alex waved off the offer. “No. I was just making conversation.”
His comment was throwaway, but she couldn’t shed it that easily as her gaze traveled over the fields she had ridden on as a young girl, the fields her father and his father and grandfather had owned.
She would be breaking that chain.
The thought affected her, and she felt the beginnings of regret and dangerous second thoughts.
“So what would you like to see next?” Vic asked as Lauren dragged herself back from her precarious thoughts.
“What do you recommend?” Alex addressed his question to her, seeming to ignore Vic.
“We can drive farther down the road to show you some of t
he other places and a few outbuildings,” Lauren suggested.
“I thought we could go farther up into the hills on horseback. Get a feel for what that would be like. I was hoping you could come along,” Alex said.
He slanted her an arch smile and added a touch on her arm that telegraphed his meaning.
He was flirting with her.
She was taken aback but recovered. She had to keep things professional.
Besides, his attention wasn’t welcome or appreciated. She looked past him to Vic, who stood with his thumbs hooked through his belt loops in a classic cowboy pose.
Only she knew it wasn’t fake. His hat was pulled low, shadowing his features. She couldn’t read his expression, but she guessed he wasn’t impressed with Alex.
“What do you think, Vic? Do you have time to saddle up some horses and go into the backcountry?” she asked.
“Sure. As long as Alex is up to an hour-long ride.”
“I’ll be okay,” Alex said, still looking at Lauren, his smile deepening. “Especially if you come along.”
Lauren tried not to roll her eyes. Instead she gave Alex a tight nod, then pushed herself away from the fence post. “Let’s go, then.”
Half an hour later, as she and Vic were saddling the horses, Alex wandered around the yard, looking at the house, the barns. But it seemed half his attention was on her.
As she slipped the cinch strap through the ring, she caught Vic looking at her over top of Roany’s saddle. “So what’s your take on the guy?” Vic asked.
“What do you mean?”
“I think he’s not interested in the Circle M as a ranch.”
She tugged on the strap and threaded it through a last time, pulling as she did, striving to find the right words to express her own uncertainties and yet not give Vic false hope. “I know. I think he sees it as an investment, though I don’t think he realized how large it was.”
“You told him how many acres it was.”
“When lots the size of your mother’s garden are considered huge, you can’t imagine how much land a ranch can encompass.” She sighed, glancing back at Alex, who now stood, hands on his hips, smiling up at the house as if it met with his approval.
She had talked to Amy yesterday to reassure her that she would, indeed, send her share of the investment to her in a couple of months, once the will was satisfied and Alex had transferred the money.
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