Lassoed by the Would-Be Rancher--A Clean Romance

by Melinda Curtis

  She’d loved Kyle. She’d needed to feel safe while she was pregnant. She’d needed to feel her babies were protected. But now she needed a different kind of love. Shane’s love. If only until Bradley Holliday showed up. She’d lean on Shane and love him, and then she’d accept that he would go back to his life of loafers and expensive cars.

  “Thank you.” She pressed a kiss to Shane’s lips and clung to him while her heart and knees returned to business as usual. “Thank you to Emily. But we’ve got to get out of here now.”

  “What you’ve got to do is put that bull down.” Shane released her and grabbed the shotgun, handing it to her without a moment’s hesitation. “I don’t know how to shoot, or I’d do it.”

  “No.” She took the gun from him and shoved it into the cargo cage, loving that Shane knew action needed to be taken, but was wise enough to admit he lacked the skill to do so.

  “No?” Shane looked like he wanted to argue. His eyes were a stormy brown. The wind ruffled his hair the way the bull had ruffled his calm.

  “We can talk about this when we get back to the house.” Because she needed to talk, to plan, to be smart. She got on the ATV, which was scraped up but still running. “Follow me.”

  She gunned it all the way back home, over the cattle guard and into the ranch yard.

  “Do you want me to put the ATV away?” Shane asked when he parked.

  “Not yet.” She cupped his cheek, needing to touch him while she explained about the Clark way of letting bulls in and her theory about the fire and Big Daddy Buttercup’s reduced range.

  Scowling, Shane turned protective. “Fact—a bull that size can go wherever he wants, whenever he wants. Shoring up fence posts with rocks won’t stop him.”

  “Fixing the fence line is a short-term solution, a gamble to make him stay in the area until I can organize help to pen him up.” Her hand drifted to Shane’s chest. She was comforted by his strong heartbeat and his lack of argument. “I need to train that bull for the circuit. Once folks see him, they’ll see his value as a breeder. Old Buttercup isn’t going to last another winter. That bull will keep us going long after Old Buttercup is gone.”

  Shane’s scowl faded. He stared into her eyes. “You need my help.”

  “Yes.”

  “Fact—ranching has an element of physical risk.” He covered her hand with one of his. “I can’t protect you.”

  “I’m not asking you to.” Her voice was steady, even if inside she wasn’t. “I’m asking you to help me while you can. To be with me while you can. No strings. No expectations.”

  “Franny.” Her name was gruff on his lips. He lowered his forehead to hers. “I’m not sure how to take on this responsibility.”

  She’d lived in fear of wild bulls for two years. But this... “But you do want to...”

  “Yes. Franny, yes.” He kissed her forehead, and then turned to look back the way they’d come. “There are cattle guards at the highway entrance and one up here. Where can he go besides where the heifers are? Here?”

  “No. There are fences that would keep him away from the barn.”

  “Are you sure?” Shane’s gaze traveled over the ranch yard. “The other night when I was stuck here, I thought I saw him by the barn.”

  My babies.

  The ball of fear she’d had when the bull had charged her ATV returned. “That’s not possible,” she said weakly, knowing instantly it wasn’t true. “He’d have to have knocked over fences in multiple places. The federal road, for one, or he wouldn’t be able to get in. The secondary fence behind the barn, too.”

  “Not to mention he’d have to be smart enough not to be seen.” Worry lined Shane’s eyes. “Until today. Something bothered him today.”

  “Heifers don’t usually come into heat this early, but it’s not unheard of.” She dragged Shane up the porch steps, perusing the yard, listening to birdsong. “We have to be careful.”

  “You need to move your family into town. We can come back with reinforcements when things are safe.”

  She shook her head. “That’s not how I was raised.”

  “Mom? What are you doing with the gun?” Charlie opened the front door and scratched his unruly brown locks. “Did you have to put something down?”

  Normalcy intruded. “No, honey. I didn’t shoot a thing.”

  “Darn it.” Charlie made a silly face. “I love steak and Granny Gertie says there’s not a lot left in the freezer.”

  “Charlie, there’s a bull roaming in the yard.” Franny checked to make sure the shotgun was loaded properly. “Tell everyone to stay inside.”

  “Okay.” Shrugging, he shut the door.

  “I can’t leave.” Franny faced Shane. “There’s stock to care for.”

  “And train,” he said absently. “But the kids—”

  “They’re ranch kids. They know the rules to keep them safe.”

  He was worried.

  She touched his cheek again. “If I don’t catch that bull in a day or two, I’ll send the boys to my dad’s ranch.” She left him on the porch to retrieve her tranquilizer gun, stopping to reiterate to the family that there was a bull on the loose and they were to stay inside.

  She didn’t get any arguments, possibly because she told them they could play video games for another hour.

  When she returned to the porch, Shane was loading fence-mending supplies from the ATV into his vehicle.

  “What are you doing?” She loaded the tranquilizer gun with a dart.

  “We’re checking fence line on a road.” His smile was grim. “And it just so happens that my Hummer is made for driving on roads.”

  “I love the way you think.” She helped him load, and then they were off.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  “YOU LOOK GOOD in blue jeans and boots.”

  Shane spared Franny a look of disbelief, not that she noticed. She was too busy staring out the window at the fence and any possible breaks. She hadn’t been too busy earlier to give him a kiss or to touch him tenderly.

  After the morning he’d had—fired once again—he cherished a little tenderness.

  “You’re just complimenting me because I’m helping you.” Shane was exactly where he wanted to be right now—on the federal road leading to the Clark cemetery. And yet, he’d do anything not to be there under these circumstances. “I’m having second thoughts about the timing. We shouldn’t be doing this now.”

  “Now is the perfect time, trust me.” Clutching the door handle, Franny remained stoic and with her eyes on the fence line. “He got some of his anger out of his system.”

  “The bull?”

  “Yep.” She nodded. “Big Daddy Buttercup.”

  “You named him?” Jonah would be thrilled. “You know what they say about animals.”

  “I do.” She spared Shane a quick grin. “Never name them unless you plan to keep them. He’s perfect.”

  “He nearly killed you!”

  “That’s why he’s perfect.”

  “But...” Shane didn’t want to ask the obvious question, but he couldn’t stop myself. “If this was the bull that killed Kyle, how can you not want to put a bullet in his head?”

  She kept her face averted, but her fingers curled tighter around the door handle. “A bull like that—Kyle would see the justice in catching him.” She sat up. “Stop.”

  Two fence posts had been pushed over.

  Neither one of them said anything as they scanned the undergrowth and the shadows between the trees, which stood so close together it was hard to imagine the big bull charging through and trampling them.

  “We’ll be fine,” Franny pronounced, hopping out of the SUV and heading for the downed fence. “Big Daddy Buttercup might be hurting from bashing the ATV. He’ll have second thoughts about engaging us so soon.”

  “He doesn’t look like the k
ind of animal to have regrets.” Shane got out and joined Franny at the rear bumper. “A dog who chews your slippers shows remorse. He hides in the corner and hangs his head. This thing...” He opened the back of the Hummer and tried to ignore the way dread raked his insides. If Franny needed him to be strong, he’d be strong, even if he recognized the veneer of courage for what it was—a thin coat.

  Franny handed him the shovel. “If he’s got a hangover, he’ll most likely be mooning after my heifers.”

  “You’re too cavalier.”

  “And you’re too cautious. Listen to those birds singing.” She slid down into the ditch. “Shoot. He snapped the wire. Even if I strung seven wires instead of four, he’d come through.”

  Shane strained his eyes looking for movement in the brush. “I don’t suppose there’s room in the barn for your heifers. If he couldn’t reach them, he might wander off.” He could only hope.

  “Nope. Even if there was room for my female stock, bulls have been known to come through wood walls for a chance at love.” Franny sounded happy, chipper even.

  Shane joined her, examining the soil around the fence post. It was more compact than the other downed poles they’d come across the other day. He supposed the snapped wire was a mixed blessing. “Can anything hold him back?”

  “Metal fencing like we’ve got around the arena. A couple ropes around his neck from some sturdy cowboys.” She clipped a broken wire near the fence post and set it aside. “That’s how we’ll catch him. Either drive him into the arena or get a few ropes around him.”

  Both options sounded risky to Shane. “Suddenly, the problems of hosting a fifty-thousand-member convention in Las Vegas seem very small. We should rethink the benefits and rewards of this endeavor.”

  “Gertie was making cookies when I left.” Franny gave him that sweet-as-molasses smile again and touched his cheek.

  “Cookies don’t seem like proper combat pay.” And they were definitely in a war zone. But he was honored to be the one she wanted by her side.

  “Play your cards right, cowboy, and you might get a cookie and a kiss.” Her fingers drifted to his chin. “Where did you get that scar?”

  He hesitated too long, then admitted, “I fell.”

  She hesitated too long before she said, “I don’t think you’ve ever lied to me before.”

  Shane captured her hand and gave it a squeeze. “I was pushed.” By Cousin Holden at a campground in Tennessee. “Some might say I asked for it.” He’d always had a smart mouth and Holden made him itch to let off steam. “Others might say I was bullied.” Not the Monroes, but someone like Franny.

  “And?” She arched her eyebrows.

  “Are you asking if I got up swinging?” Shane decided shoring up the fence post was safer than looking in her eyes. “I did not. That’s not the Monroe way.”

  “But you did seek retribution?” Oh, she was on to him, all right.

  “Continuously.” By choosing the best Christmas gifts for his grandparents. By running the more profitable arm of the Monroe Holding Company. By figuring out Grandpa Harlan’s connections to Second Chance and then leading the charge to protect and grow the small town. “Although that was made a little harder today when I was dismissed from the town council.”

  A branch snapped in the brush.

  Franny immediately raised the shotgun.

  A coyote poked his head between leaves, and then disappeared.

  Franny lowered her weapon. “Why did they fire you?”

  “I’m not sure.” He returned his attention to the pole. “But I suspect it had something to do with Ivy and Mack not wanting competition. And the idea of change scares Roy.”

  “Then it’s their loss.” Franny said it with such conviction that Shane stopped messing with his shovel, leaned forward and kissed her.

  Much as Shane wanted the kiss to last, there were pressing matters at hand. He straightened and gave her a smile. “I’d like to kiss you without feeling the need to listen to your early warning system.” He’d like to kiss her long and leisurely in front of a roaring fire.

  Who was he kidding? He’d like to kiss her whenever he felt like it. Franny Clark was high on his scale of kissability.

  But she was more than kissable. He enjoyed being in her company, discussing facts and options, calming her down and having her do the same for him. It wasn’t that she was a cowgirl, the likes of which he’d never dated before. Franny would be successful at anything she set her mind to. And she didn’t need a man by her side to do it.

  The exception being fence repair and bull training.

  The point was she wasn’t his responsibility, although he’d promised to watch out for her. She’d been managing on her own before he came to town and she’d most likely do just fine after he left. He actually loved that about her. Because...

  I love her.

  Shane nearly took off his toe with a wayward slice of the shovel into the earth. He paused, ostensibly to take a breather. Reality was, he needed a moment to take in Franny. She knelt at the next post, wrangling wire patiently. Her jeans were dirty and torn. Her boots as scuffed as the secondhand pair he’d purchased. Her hat tilted back, framing her light brown hair.

  He tested the words once more: I love Franny.

  She glanced up at him, rubbing her nose with her forearm. “What?”

  “I was just thinking about what you said earlier. About being together.”

  Her gray eyes widened. “I’ve scared you away.”

  “No. It’s... It’s refreshing. I’m not sure I told you I agree. With it all. Your terms. Us together.”

  Franny chuckled.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Terms? It’s not like we’re dating.” Her eyes sparkled beneath the brim of her hat. “And I’m not going to stalk you when you leave. My life is here.”

  Shane was filled with regret that his life wasn’t here, too.

  “I’m going to roll out the wire now.” She stood, still smiling. “My offer of cookies and kisses later still stands.”

  “Sounds like a plan.” And the sad part was they didn’t have plans beyond those cookies and kisses.

  * * *

  SHANE AND FRANNY mended the fence in two spots and drove to the top of the ridge to make sure there weren’t any other breaches.

  Shane shut off the SUV in front of the lookout station. “I want to search around, if that’s all right.”

  “I’m hoping Big Daddy is trapped on Bucking Bull property right now, so have at it.” Franny exited the vehicle with him and brought the shotgun.

  “I hear birds.” Shane never thought he’d say those words with the same confidence, as if he’d seen highly armed security guards nearby. He searched the trees in the vicinity for Grandpa Harlan’s bread crumbs. He found one at the rear of the cemetery, which was located at the bottom of a rise and surrounded by several large boulders. “Didn’t the legend mention Merciless Mike was crushed by a boulder?”

  “Yes.” Franny stared at her husband’s gravestone.

  “Don’t a lot of Westerns feature bandit hideouts in caves?” Shane bent and peered into a slim crevasse between two pieces of rock that looked like praying hands.

  “Shane.” Franny rested the gun barrel in her arms. “It could never be that easy. Besides, there’s no way a grown man could fit between those rocks.”

  “The earth moves.” Shane shrugged.

  “And birds stop singing.” Franny immediately went on alert. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Shane didn’t need to be told twice. He followed her back to his SUV. “Do you think Big Daddy pushed his way through another section of fence?”

  “Maybe.” Franny stood on the Hummer’s running board, looking for horns, no doubt. “Or he might have a brother out here somewhere.”

  Shane started the SUV’s engine. “Relatives are an annoya
nce.”

  * * *

  “ZEKE IS BACK in town,” Emily announced when she arrived home after a day spent working in the trading post. “He and Sophie are staying in her cabin, but he said he’d be out here first thing in the morning to work the bulls with me.”

  “We’ll all work the bulls,” Franny called back from what sounded like the kitchen.

  “Me, too,” Davey said.

  “No,” Franny said firmly.

  “I’m going to miss working in town.” Emily rounded the corner of the living room to find Shane there. “I didn’t achieve anything I set out to do.”

  Shane was eating a chocolate-chip cookie. “Like what?”

  “Um...” Emily wasn’t going to admit her man search to a Monroe.

  “She’s looking for a husband.” Adam set down his milk. He had a milk mustache and swiped at it with the back of his hand.

  “Napkin.” Gertie handed him a paper one and then glanced up at Emily. “What’s wrong with your hair?”

  Emily’s cheeks heated. She finger-combed her hair over her shoulders away from her left side. “I had the window down on the way home.” A lie. It was that dratted lock of hair she couldn’t straighten this morning. She’d talked to Bo for a good fifteen minutes before opening the trading post. No wonder he’d looked at her funny.

  “Shane was telling us about Merciless Mike’s cave.” Davey crumpled his napkin. “Up at the lookout. He’s supersmart and figured out where the gold is.”

  “I never said anything about there actually being a cave.” Shane held up his hands. “Only that there was a pile of boulders and there might be a cave.”