The Rancher's Redemption

by Melinda Curtis

  “I thought you knew. Wasn’t it in the documents Rachel provided?”

  “No.” Ben brushed past his twin, pausing when the untraditional ranch furnishings pummeled his senses once more.

  “Sorry about that.” Ethan crowded him out of the way to get inside. “How are you feeling about our chances?”

  “It’s...” clear-cut “...complicated.”

  “You’re not going to tell me the details, are you?” Ethan pressed his lips together, as if trying to hold back judgment.

  “No.” Ben clapped a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “The less you know, the better.” The easier for Ben to work all the angles without his brother second-guessing Ben’s decisions or criticizing his actions, especially the ones from the past.

  Ethan settled his ball cap more securely on his dark hair. “This conversation is beginning to sound like the ones I used to have with Big E.”

  Ben felt the blood drain from his face. “On that note, I’ll say good night.” He was nothing like his shortcutting, manipulative grandfather.

  Think again, boy.

  “Okay, but Jon invited us to his house for dinner Saturday night.” Ethan held Ben’s gaze. “He wants to talk about selling.” Ethan didn’t have to add that he wanted Ben on the side of keeping the ranch. The plea was there in his eyes.

  Ben went in search of that beer.

  What was the point of keeping the ranch if Big E held the reins? Maybe he and his brothers could vote their grandfather out of power, but that would mean someone would have to run the place. Jon was busy with his own ranch. Could Ethan be a good husband, a good father and establish a veterinary practice here on the ranch?

  And what about Ben’s sudden awareness of Rachel? She’d always been just a friend. At least, until they’d become frenemies. Why did he want to kiss her now?

  The house was quiet and offered no answers.

  Ben didn’t normally mind quiet. He lived alone in a high-rise apartment in Manhattan. But he thought about the noise and laughter at the Double T and Rachel’s smile, and the silence here felt as uncomfortable as being at a cocktail party where he didn’t know anyone.

  A thick brown file folder on the kitchen table caught his eye. There was a yellow sticky note on top with Ben’s name scribbled in bold letters. It was the water usage for the ranch for the past decade. Katie may have been a no-show regarding the safe, but she’d come through with this information.

  Ben sat down and began to sort things out.

  The more he knew for certain, the more certain he’d be about his interest in the Blackwell Ranch and the next steps in the fight for water with the Double T.

  But no amount of meter readings would help him figure out his feelings toward Rachel.

  * * *

  “WHAT WAS THAT all about?” Mom may have asked the question, but a second pair of Thompson eyes stared Rachel down. “I thought we didn’t like Ben Blackwell?”

  Rachel sighed and went to the kitchen sink to wash her hands. She’d closed up the barn and made the nightly rounds after Ben left. It was time to get the paperwork done. “He offered Nana a ride home from the salon. The judge says we have to try to come up with an agreement on water rights by next Friday.”

  “He wasn’t here for water rights.” Mom’s eyes sparkled with mischief.

  “He couldn’t keep his eyes off you.” Nana’s frown brimmed with displeasure.

  The pair of women had followed Rachel into the kitchen, flanking her at the sink as she washed her hands.

  “While I’m negotiating, there will be no shenanigans.” Rachel had best heed her own advice. “And don’t be fooled by Ben. He has a way of looking at people when they speak is all.”

  “Oh, honey.” Her mother smiled knowingly. “He looked at you even when I was speaking.”

  “Doesn’t matter how infatuated he is with you,” Nana said knowingly. “He’s a Blackwell. For all we know he could be trying to romance those water rights from you.”

  “I doubt that.” Mom finger-combed her short blond hair behind her ears, all the while giving Nana a challenging look. “Poppy likes him.”

  “Poppy likes everyone.” Rachel dried her hands. “Ben wants one thing and one thing only.”

  Her mother and grandmother exchanged glances but didn’t say anything.

  “He wants to block our water rights.” Rachel chopped out the words.

  “That wasn’t the one thing I was thinking of,” Mom murmured, calling Rachel’s bluff.

  “I watch TV, you know.” Nana nodded at Rachel. “This lawyering thing involves presentation of the facts and manipulation of the emotions.”

  Rachel agreed with Nana. “Ben is really good at both.” Hence Darnell’s villainous swan dive.

  “So you have to be better.” Nana took Rachel’s hands and squeezed. “For all our sakes.”

  “You want her to string him along?” Mom sounded aghast.

  Nana smiled. “Of course. Don’t you?”

  “It sounds like you’ve been watching too much television.” Rachel pulled her hands free.

  “That boy may be hot stuff in New York City, but he’s got a soft spot for you and Poppy.” Nana kicked her voice up a notch and shuffled toward the living room. “He’d exploit that if your situations were reversed. That’s all I’m saying.”

  “Nonsense.” Mom hugged Rachel. “Stick to your plan, sweetie.”

  Plan? Rachel didn’t have a plan other than to hope Judge Edwards saw things her way.

  CHAPTER NINE

  SOMEONE WAS IN the house.

  Ben rolled out of bed and tripped over the mountain of pink pillows in the dark, trying to place the sound that had woken him.

  The click of a door latching? Footsteps downstairs?

  Ben switched on the bedside lamp and squinted against all that pink.

  Outside, in the gray light of dawn, a heifer mooed as if in pain. Or maybe it was a cat in heat. Or...

  No one was in the house. Someone was outside yodeling. At four o’clock in the morning. On a Saturday, no less.

  Ben groaned.

  They should have charged the Ziglers double to hold their family reunion on Blackwell property.

  One floor below him, something bumped into a wall.

  Ben waded through the sea of pillows and came out of his bedroom onto the landing, peering below. A light was on in the foyer. Ben hadn’t left it on last night.

  “Come out with your hands up,” Ben called, grimacing. He didn’t have a gun.

  And then Ben recognized a slender redhead and a blue-gray dog.

  “Oh, sorry.” Katie called back. “I thought I could sneak in and out without waking you. I wanted to get the accounts balanced. I need the check register Ethan’s been using.”

  The yodeling continued.

  “Can you open the safe?”

  “I can. I brought the combination.”

  “I’ll be right down.” There’d be no going back to sleep, not with that yowling. Ben retreated to his bedroom to exchange his T-shirt and sleep pants for a fresh shirt and pants, before hurrying downstairs. “Who’s making all that racket?” he asked Katie when he caught up with her in the study. “He’s up earlier than the roosters.”

  “The guests had a bet and Arthur lost.” Katie waited for him, wearing faded blue jeans and a red T-shirt with the Blackwell brand on it.

  Her dog sat at her booted feet, staring at the door. Growing up, she’d always had a dog. Katie, whatever dog she had, and her sister, Maura, were as thick as Ben and Ethan or Chance and Tyler. At least they had been until Maura had married Chance, and the couple had left Falcon Creek to pursue Chance’s singing career.

  Katie noticed Ben staring at her dog. “This is Hip, short for Hippolyta.”

  “Hippolyta?” Ben rubbed his forehead, trying to place the reference. “Gr
eek?”

  “Hippolyta was an Amazon warrior.”

  Of course, she was. Katie would never name her dog something simple like Trout or Spot. Words carried weight with her just as they did with Chance, a skilled songwriter.

  “Why can’t you just say he loves the color of her eyes?” Ben had asked Chance once, after hearing him sing two lines about the sparkling green of a girl’s eyes a dozen different ways while Ben had been working on his geometry homework.

  Chance was supposed to be writing a history paper. Instead, he’d been strumming his guitar on the front porch and writing a song. “Anybody can say a girl has beautiful eyes. The words a guy chooses to describe them tells a girl a lot about how he feels.”

  Fifteen-year-old Ben had laughed. “I think Zoe knows I’m saying I love her when I say I love her eyes, or I love her in that dress.”

  Chance had given Ben a private smile, one that seemed older than his thirteen years. “But if I tell a girl her green eyes take me back to shamrocks—”

  “She better be Irish,” Ben said.

  “—or reflect the depths of the ocean—”

  “Which you haven’t seen,” Ben pointed out.

  Chance’s little smile turned into a big frown and he’d raised his voice to drown out Ben. “She’ll remember me and not some boring schmuck, okay? She’ll remember me and buy my album and stare at the ceiling every night wondering why she didn’t say yes when I’d asked her to the promotion dance.” His fingers closed around the frets of the guitar and he stomped off the porch, heading toward the backyard.

  “Not that he’s writing a song about anyone in particular,” Ben had murmured, chuckling to himself. Nope. There was nothing like coming out on top against his brothers.

  The caterwauling at the guest ranch stopped. Shouted jibes and laughter echoed across the plain.

  Hip’s ears swiveled, but the dog was otherwise still, staring at Katie with loving eyes.

  “Well, Hip, doggy warrior...” Ben leaned down to scratch her ears. “The joke’s on us, up too early on a Saturday.”

  “You used to get up early every day and be in jeans and boots in no time.” Katie slanted a gaze toward his trousers. “My dad used to call you the horse whisperer. Why don’t you change and go for a ride?”

  “I didn’t bring jeans or boots.” And his trail horse had been turned out to pasture long ago. Rodrigo was probably an old swayback by now, if he was still alive.

  “Some of Ethan’s clothes are in the laundry room.” Katie disappeared into Big E’s study, followed closely by Hip. “I only know this because I’ve had to take on the role of housekeeper the past few weeks as well.”

  Ben didn’t care about ranch clothes. He cared about what was inside the safe. He followed Katie down the hall, barefoot. “I don’t remember the ranch ever being strapped for cash.”

  “Luxury guest ranches don’t come cheap, I suppose.” Katie stood at Big E’s desk, flipping through a check register. “What are you looking for in the safe?”

  “Big E put the court documents from the last Double T go-round in there. I want to review them.” Ben lingered in the doorway, trying not to seem overly eager.

  Katie moved to the fireplace and pulled the leather chair on the right side away from the hearth. Just as Ben was about to tell her she was on the wrong side, she lifted a board out of the floor and revealed a safe.

  That wily old coot.

  There were two floor safes?

  Katie opened the safe and removed two passports, a small pearl-handled gun and a sheaf of papers with blue backing, the kind lawyers prepared for wills and trusts. “Was this what you were expecting to see?”

  “No.” Ben walked in a tight circle around Katie. He was cautious by nature and if Katie didn’t know about the safe to the left, he didn’t want to clue her in. “Can you write down that combination in case I need it?” In case it was the same sequence that would open the other safe.

  “Sure.” Katie set the items on the floor, scribbled the numbers on a scrap of paper from the desk, and then picked up the check register. “If you change your mind about a ride, you know where the barn is. We’ve got a lot of good stock.”

  “Tame nags, you mean?”

  “Not all of them.” Katie smiled conspiratorially. She’d always loved working with the horses. “Speaking of nags, it’s been kind of nice to have you boys back.”

  “Don’t get used to it. I’ve got to leave in a week.” But he said this with less conviction, seeing Rachel’s smiling face in his mind’s eye.

  Katie backed out of the room. “It’s kind of nice to have you visiting then.” When she left, the house was quiet once more.

  The legal document she’d handed to him was the Elias Blackwell Family Trust that outlined the shares and management of the ranch, both before and after Big E’s death. It had been signed by Big E and witnessed by Jon. The boys and Big E each owned a similar share in the ranch. Ethan wouldn’t just need Ben’s vote to keep the ranch. He’d need Tyler or Chance’s vote as well.

  Assuming Big E’s was a vote to keep the place, which was hard to believe, considering he’d left the ranch in financial trouble and wasn’t answering his phone.

  Ben returned the items to the safe, replaced the boards and then uncovered the second safe to the left of the fireplace. “What are you hiding, old man?” Not much, it seemed. The combination worked. The yellowed sheet of paper documenting the land trade was the only thing inside.

  Ben sat and stared at the words.

  I, Mathias Blackwell, hereby trade the land in the northeastern parcel currently used by the Blackwells and the Thompsons to reach the river for Seth Thompson’s prize bull. September 7, 1919.

  The right thing to do was to initiate a title search. Property transfers weren’t legal until recorded with the county. A title search would protect the Blackwells from being blindsided if Rachel had indeed found out about the bull-for-land trade.

  Ben wanted to believe that he’d do the right thing if it turned out the land over the aquifer belonged to Rachel. But there was Ethan to consider. And Ben’s own financial interest... With money from the sale, Ben could start his own practice, be choosey about his clients, afford to have principles.

  Ben hung his head. When had he gotten so far off track? He’d had honor when he lived here, hadn’t he?

  “Why would you tell Tyler that I said he couldn’t ride Butterscotch?” Dad had crouched in front of Ben, who sat in the corner of Rodrigo’s stall, hands clasping his knees. “Why would you tell him you were Ethan?” His twin.

  “Tyler loves Ethan,” ten-year-old Ben had said mulishly.

  “Maybe that’s because Ben used Tyler’s army men for BB gun practice,” Dad said gently, talking about Ben in the third person. “Or because Ben told Tyler he’d play hide-and-seek if Tyler hid first, and then didn’t go to find him.”

  “I’d say that shows the initiative of a true leader,” Big E said, leaning on the stall door.

  Back then, there had been something appealing about his grandfather’s clever comments and comebacks. Big E had a killer instinct and seemed to respect those who also had it.

  Dad had ignored Big E. “I’d say it shows a lack of honor. You want to make me and your mother proud, don’t you?”

  Ben had nodded, perhaps not as quickly as Dad might have liked.

  “It’s easy to take advantage of the weak, Ben.” Dad ran a hand over the top of Ben’s hair, letting his palm come to rest on Ben’s shoulder. “It shows honor and strength of character to protect them, even when it’s not popular, even when it’s a sacrifice to do so.”

  Laughter drifted from the guest ranch once more, pulling Ben back to the present.

  He ran a hand over his hair, a gesture Dad had often used to show his boys forgiveness, to express his love. Ben’s head hurt. He didn’t feel absolved. He didn’t feel rede
emed or loved.

  He needed fresh air. Maybe Katie was right. Maybe he needed a ride.

  Ben went into the laundry room. He grabbed a folded pair of his twin’s blue jeans and a red sweatshirt from the top of the dryer and a pair of scuffed boots from the corner. He changed and made himself a cup of coffee.

  Only after he’d had his morning caffeine did he set off for the barn. The sun was not yet up. The sky was in that long lingering gray before dawn.

  The first few stalls were occupied by plump trail horses who paid Ben no mind. A couple of ponies shared the next stall, eyeing him warily. Two stalls were occupied by mares and their foals, the ones he’d seen on display in the enclosure built near the guest ranch’s backyard. One of the mares was Butterscotch, his mother’s tan-and-white paint. Ben paused to greet her, rubbing a hand beneath the fall of her white mane the way Mom used to. Her foal watched Ben from the corner.

  “Do you have a recommendation as to who I should take for a ride?” Ben figured he’d choose one of the aged trail horses. It wasn’t like he was going to run hell-for-leather toward the hills.

  Instead of answering, Butterscotch tried to nibble Ben’s hair, her long white whiskers tickling his face.

  “I’m sure Katie will be by to feed you soon,” Ben reassured her with a final pat. He moved down the line.

  In the last stall near the tack room, a big, proud black stallion gave Ben a regal once-over. He wasn’t a horse built for a casual trail ride or rounding up cattle. He had the form of a racehorse or a jumper.

  Ben went in the tack room and after poking around, he found his old saddle. It was in the back and hung from a post set in the wall. He scooped it onto his arm and turned, looking for a bridle. A tan leather bridle with silver trimmings hung high on the wall.

  An unexpected wave of sadness struck.

  “It’s beautiful,” Mom had said on the morning of her birthday. She’d held the blond leather headstall up with her thumb and forefinger where a horse’s ears would go. The silver buckles and trim had glinted in the sunlight streaming through the windows. “Much too fancy for Clara Bell.” The old mare she’d been riding for as long as Ben could remember.