“Bet you don’t have to worry about knocking your head as often as I do.”
“True.”
“I’m glad you’re getting Felix,” he said as he pushed his cart along behind hers.
She glanced over her shoulder. “Really?”
“Yeah. The ones who’ve been through the wringer often get overlooked.”
Leah stared at him for a moment, as if she were trying to figure out if he meant more than he said.
Trying too hard, pal. Abort!
He pushed his cart to the other side of the aisle and grabbed a bag of puppy food. “Yeah, and once Felix heals, he and Baxter can play together.”
Did that sound too connected? Too long-term? He just needed to shut up before he dug his hole any deeper.
“Well, hello there.”
Oh, hell. As if he needed more fuel for the fire.
“Hey, Verona,” he said. “How are you today?”
“Great. How about you?” Verona patted him on the arm, then didn’t give him time to answer before turning toward Leah. “Your new living arrangements must be working out if you two are shopping together already.”
Leah looked like a startled deer caught in headlights.
“I got my niece a puppy today, and Leah was kind enough to help me pick out one.”
“That was nice of you,” she said to Leah. But then she glanced between the two carts. “How big is this puppy that it needs two beds?”
“While we were there, I spotted another puppy that had been abused. I just couldn’t leave without giving him a home,” Leah said.
“What a kind heart you have, dear.” Verona looked back at Tyler for a moment before going on. “You’ll make someone a wonderful wife someday. Don’t you think so, Tyler?”
Elissa Kayne, Verona’s niece, swooped in to the awkward scene, hooking her arm around her aunt’s and guiding her on down the aisle. “Sorry, guys,” she called back over her shoulder. “She’s normally better behaved.”
Tyler couldn’t help it. He snorted out a laugh.
“I see Verona’s upped her game,” Leah said.
“So you’re aware of her reputation.”
“Oh yeah. Conner is perfecting the art of avoiding her.”
“Smart man.”
When Leah glanced at him, he couldn’t read the expression on her face. He got the oddest impression that it was at least partly disappointment. He was still trying to figure it out when they paid for their purchases and left the store.
“You want to grab some lunch?” he asked, surprising himself. He shouldn’t be asking Leah to be seen with him in yet another public spot if he wanted to get Verona off their case, but he couldn’t seem to help it. The more time he spent with Leah, the more he liked her. She was the type of woman who reassured little girls and adopted injured puppies. And as if that weren’t enough, she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. How many times had he thought about running his fingers through her hair, kissing her pink lips, pulling her close and protecting her from whatever terror had truly been chasing her that night she’d fallen outside the barn?
“You’re not afraid of giving Verona more ammunition?”
“Verona will believe what she wants to, no matter what we do or say. Plus, we can always tell her that someone who really needs her skills as a matchmaker is Conner.”
Leah laughed so suddenly, she snorted. She covered her mouth, obviously embarrassed.
Tyler just smiled and opened the door to his truck. “Meet you at the Primrose.”
He began second-guessing his decision to ask her to lunch almost from the moment they sat down at a table in the café. It was as if the heads of all the locals swiveled their way, like lions sensing fresh meat. What if Leah didn’t want people thinking they were a couple or on their way to being one? Maybe she had good reasons for not wanting a relationship, with anyone. He had to act casual despite the fact that being with her made him want to grin like a fool.
“So, how did things go when you dropped off Maddie at school this morning?”
“She was quiet, as usual. She looked so tiny walking down the hall to her classroom. Her backpack was half as big as she was.”
“I remember that feeling. By the time I got to high school, I think my books weighed almost what I did.”
“I can’t imagine.”
Leah smiled. “Of course not. You’re as tall as a tree.”
They talked about her family and how her best friend was currently pregnant but wanted to come visit her as soon as she could after giving birth.
An image of Leah rounded with a child popped into his head, causing him to choke on an onion ring.
“You okay?” Leah asked.
Still coughing, he nodded. After he managed to down some water, he brought the choking under control. He motioned to his throat. “Went the wrong way.”
The same as his thoughts.
* * *
LEAH DIDN’T HAVE the heart to put Felix back in a cage as she drove home. So the little guy was lying on her lap. He’d been shaking so much that she began driving with one hand and rubbing his back with the other. The shaking had slowly stopped, but she kept her hand on his back, reassuring him that he was safe.
With Felix calmed, her thoughts drifted to how much time she’d spent with Tyler today, how easy it had been between them. Even when Verona had put them in a potentially awkward position. It made Leah wonder things that she probably shouldn’t.
But honestly, how was she supposed to prevent herself from wondering what it would be like to be with Tyler? He was handsome, kind, funny when he wanted to be, caring and had even seemed genuinely interested in how she’d started her jewelry business while in college and how she’d built it. Yes, his size still intimidated her some, but oddly she found it reassuring, as well.
By the time she got home, unloaded everything and got Felix settled, it was time to head down to the house. She’d told Tyler that she would check on Baxter and keep the puppy quiet until Tyler was ready to reveal him to Maddie. By the way Baxter barked when she stepped into the house, she had her work cut out for her.
“Come here, little guy,” she said as she picked up Baxter and cuddled him against her. She laughed when he licked her cheek.
With the puppy in her arms, she wandered over to the fireplace on the opposite side of the living room to examine the framed photos along the mantel. It struck her that none of them seemed recent. The older couple had to be Tyler’s parents, and then there were photos of Tyler and a girl who was most likely Kendra at various ages.
She lifted a finger and ran it across Tyler’s face in what appeared to be the most recent shot of him and Kendra. While he was smiling, she saw the beginning of the heartache in his eyes caused by his sister’s addiction. If she looked closely, she could see the change in Kendra in the picture, too. Even at such a young age, she was already on the road that had led her to abandoning her daughter.
The sound of Tyler’s truck sent her hurrying for the laundry room. She closed the door most of the way, leaving a crack so she could hear her cue to let Baxter loose.
Baxter wiggled, trying to get out of her arms.
“Shh,” she said close to his floppy little ear.
The front door opened, and Leah listened to the sound of Tyler’s boots against the wooden floor in the living room.
“I’m glad you had a good first day of school,” Tyler said. “Before you go upstairs, I have a surprise for you.”
Leah peeked through the door in time to see Maddie turn toward her uncle and look up at him. “A surprise?”
When Tyler whistled, Leah opened the door and let Baxter go. His toenails clicked against the floor and slid as he tried to find purchase. As if he knew his intended target, he raced straight for Maddie.
�
�A puppy!” Maddie crouched and Baxter ran right into her, knocking her over and proceeding to lick her face.
Maddie’s giggling was one of the happiest sounds Leah had ever heard.
“Is he really mine?” Maddie asked, so much tentative hope in her voice.
“He is. His name is Baxter.”
“Baxter.” Maddie said his name with awe and hugged his wiggly little body close.
When Baxter broke free to run around the room as if chasing invisible rabbits, Maddie got to her feet and looked at her uncle for a long moment. Then, seeming to make a decision, she ran straight toward him and hugged his jeans-clad legs.
“Thank you, Uncle Tyler. I’ve always wanted a puppy.”
Leah pushed away a burst of anger that this was something else Kendra had denied her child. For this moment, she wanted to focus on the incredible scene in front of her.
Tyler looked so stunned that he didn’t immediately move, but then he bent over and picked Maddie up in his arms.
“You’re welcome, sweetheart.”
When Maddie leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek, he pulled her close for a hug that was a long time coming. As he looked toward Leah, she thought she saw tears in his eyes. Not wanting to distract either of them from this huge breakthrough in their relationship, Leah gave Tyler a smile then slipped out the exterior door on the other side of the laundry room.
* * *
TYLER LEANED OVER and turned off Maddie’s bedside lamp. His niece was finally asleep after three bedtime stories. He’d not wanted the evening to end, afraid something would drag her back to the silent child she’d mostly been since her arrival. But when her eyes could no longer stay open, he had reluctantly told her that she had to go to sleep so she wouldn’t fall asleep in school tomorrow.
Baxter stirred in his bed right next to Maddie’s. Tyler leaned down and rubbed the puppy’s head.
“Time for you to sleep, too, little guy.” Baxter gave Tyler’s hand a halfhearted lick that said the puppy was just as tired as his new best friend.
Tyler paused at the door as he left the room, marveling at what a difference a day could make. After gifting her with a puppy, Maddie had said more at dinner, telling him all about her day at school and her new friend Olivia, than she’d said during all the time since Kendra had left her with him.
He eased down the stairs but then didn’t know what to do with himself. He had financial records to update, but that held about as much appeal as being bucked off a horse. Instead, he walked out onto the porch and took a breath of fresh evening air. As was typical now, his gaze drifted to the bunkhouse.
Leah had left before he’d had an opportunity to thank her again for all her help. No time like the present.
When he knocked on her door, at first he didn’t think she would answer. Could she be asleep already? The slight creak of what he thought might be a floorboard met his ear right before he saw Leah peek out the window. A moment later, she opened the door.
“Hey, is something wrong?”
He shook his head. “No. I just wanted to thank you for your help earlier.”
“No need. Things still going well?”
“Yes. Maddie and Baxter are both asleep, worn out from playing with each other.”
Leah smiled, filling his heart with a lightness that pulled at him like gravity.
“I’m glad to hear it. When Maddie ran into your arms, I darn near cried right on the spot.”
“You’re not the only one. And then...” He paused and swallowed against the catch in his throat. “She asked me to tell her bedtime stories. I haven’t been able to do that since she was really little.”
It hit him that none of the other family members who’d been a part of his life then were around any longer. His parents, gone. Kendra...he worried every day that he’d get a call from some unknown person, informing him as her next of kin that she was gone, as well. The knot in his throat grew larger, and he spun away from Leah and put a little more distance between them. The enormity of the fact that the person who’d done the most for him lately was someone he’d known less than a month hit him square in his middle, stealing his breath. Staring out into the darkness, he sank onto the edge of the porch.
Behind him, Leah stepped out of the bunkhouse and shut the door. She came to sit beside him.
“Want to talk about it?” she asked.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I should be happy as a clam right now.”
“Sometimes things just build up over time, especially ones we can’t control. I know guys are all macho and stuff, don’t want to show their feelings, and I respect that to a certain extent. But it’s just common sense that keeping everything bottled up isn’t the best way to deal with problems. It’s like an infection, needs air to heal.”
He glanced over at her, how she’d pulled back her hair in a ponytail. “You sure you weren’t a counselor in a previous life?”
“That would be ironic.”
“How so?”
She waved away his question. “Tell me about Kendra when she was a kid. I saw some pictures on your mantel earlier of you two when you were younger. You looked happy.”
He sighed. He tried not to think too much of those days now. They just made him sad and feel like more of a failure.
“We were. Kendra was actually a lot like Maddie when she was little, at least how Maddie was when she was a toddler. She was curious, ran all over this ranch, but she was also fearless, willing to try anything. Dad encouraged that, but Mom was always afraid one day Kendra would go too far. And she did.”
“How old was she when she started using?”
“Seventeen, I think. She might have experimented sooner. But that’s when she acquired her first in a string of loser boyfriends. Suddenly she went from a pretty good kid to acting out, smarting off to my parents, telling me to stop trying to tell her what to do. She ran away once, but I managed to track her down and bring her home. She still hasn’t forgiven me for that. At least not on the days she can even remember her own name.”
“I’m so sorry, Tyler. I know it’s hard. Watching Reina’s family deal with her brother’s abuse was heartbreaking.” She paused and clasped her hands together between her knees. “Do you think there’s any hope of her agreeing to rehab?”
“About as much as my cows turning into unicorns.”
“I take it your parents have passed?”
He nodded. “When Maddie was about one. Dad had a stroke, and Mom died a couple of months later. Doctors said it was probably her heart. I agreed, though my diagnosis was a broken heart. Both because of losing Dad and how Kendra would disappear for months at a time, leaving us all wondering if we’d ever see her or Maddie again. I wish I’d done more to try to get through to Kendra, or at least protect Maddie.”
He hung his head, fighting the need to cry and yell at the top of his lungs at the same time.
“You’re too hard on yourself,” Leah said.
“You don’t know that.”
“I do.”
He looked up at her and saw the absolute certainty in her expression.
“Everything I’ve seen of you since we met tells me you’re someone who cares for others, that you want to make things right. A guy like that isn’t one who wouldn’t have done everything in his power to help his sister and niece.”
She couldn’t possibly know how much those words meant to him. Her belief in him gave him the courage to voice something he’d been thinking about for several days, honestly since Kendra had left Maddie with him.
“I’m not letting Kendra take Maddie back, not unless she’s clean and gets her life on track. And stays away from all pitiful excuses for men. I’ll do whatever I have to.” Even if it put him on the wrong side of the law. If he lost the ranch, everything he’d worked for, he’d do it to protect
Maddie.
“Good.”
“Good? You realize courts almost always side with the mother.”
“I can’t see any judge leaving a five-year-old with an addict with Kendra’s history, not when there is a solid, loving, safe alternative with another family member.”
Tyler let Leah’s words soak into him like a balm. They were exactly what he needed to hear without realizing it.
“I’m glad you moved here,” he said.
“You are?” Her eyes widened, as if she could sense the direction his thoughts had turned.
He moved slowly as he lifted his hand, aware of how skittish she often was around him. When he placed his palm against her cheek, he felt her stiffen and a shudder race through her body. “I won’t hurt you, Leah.”
He leaned toward her, expecting her to bolt at any moment. When she didn’t, he lowered his lips to hers.
* * *
LEAH’S HEART BEAT so fast that she felt it throughout her entire body. One part of her mind was yelling, “Danger! Danger! Danger!” But another part wanted to sink in to Tyler’s kiss, to fully enjoy this moment that she’d thought about so many times in recent days. She wanted to trust his words, that he wouldn’t hurt her. He’d given her no reason not to.
Her desire overrode her caution and she responded to the kiss. Flames licked her skin as she felt Tyler’s body heat move closer. This was nice, really nice. His woodsy male scent tickled her nose, and her hands somehow found his broad shoulders. A flutter of panic threatened to ruin the moment, but she pushed it away. At least until she felt his hand on the side of her neck. His big, powerful hand.
Leah broke the kiss and leaped to her feet in the same motion.
Tyler started to stand as well but seemed to catch himself, realizing it was a bad idea. “Did I hurt you?”
Leah desperately tried to rein in her panic because there was no threat. It was some prehistoric part of her brain sending flight signals that weren’t needed. Still, she couldn’t seem to calm her racing heart.
“No, I’m fine. Just...surprised, maybe.”
Surprised she’d been able to respond so quickly to him, of how much a part of her wished she hadn’t broken the kiss and was in his arms.
A Rancher to Love Page 11