A Rancher's Pride

by Barbara White Daille

  “Listen,” he said, “I just came to tell you—” He stopped, looking past her. “What the hell is that?”

  She turned quickly, her thoughts flying to Becky.

  Her niece had just rounded the barn with Pirate prancing beside her.

  “Call her over here,” he demanded.

  She looked at him in surprise. “Why? She’s okay.”

  “Not with that mutt around her, she isn’t.”

  “Your puppy won’t hurt her. He and Becky have played together before this.”

  “He’s not my dog. Just call her,” he repeated.

  She could see his frustration mounting. At the sight of the dog or at his own inability to talk to Becky, she couldn’t tell. But she had to acknowledge that he’d know better than she would if there were something wrong with the dog.

  She motioned Becky to come to her.

  As Becky neared the porch, Pirate followed at her heels. When she started up the steps, Sam leaned over the railing to yell at the dog, waving him away. The confused pup bounded once after Becky, backed up a couple of paces, ran in a circle. At last, he stood still, his head cocked and his eyes trained adoringly on her. Sam yelled again. Pirate retreated a few feet, gave a low whine, turned to go. He paused once to glance back before finally loping away.

  Becky looked just as confused as her furry friend. Her eyes wide, she snapped her fingers, then tapped her fingertips twice on her cheek. “Dog? Home?”

  Kayla nodded.

  Sam had retreated into the kitchen, and she could see him punching the keypad of the cordless phone.

  Becky climbed onto the porch swing, where she had left her doll. Kayla gave the swing a push to start it moving.

  A minute later, she heard Sam’s voice on the phone.

  “This is Sam Robertson. Tell Porter to keep his animals off my land. Including that mangy dog of his. That mutt gets anywhere near my daughter again, and I’ll see Porter gets what he deserves…. Right. You do that. Word for word. He gives you any grief about delivering my message, you just let me know.” He dropped the phone back onto its base.

  After giving Becky another push on the swing, Kayla turned and went into the kitchen, closing the screen door softly behind her.

  Sam stood with his arms folded, his hips braced against the counter, his irritation still evident. He had overreacted to seeing the puppy. But no matter what he claimed for his reason, she knew he’d jumped so quickly at the sight of the dog in an effort to protect his daughter.

  And no matter how she felt about him, she had to give him credit for that. Which she did. The trouble was, how she felt about him had started to change.

  That knowledge roused more mixed emotions in her than she had time to think about right then.

  She walked toward him, thought better of it and sidestepped to prop her elbow on the adjacent counter. “I didn’t realize the puppy wasn’t yours. I thought he belonged on the ranch.”

  “No.”

  “Well, no harm done, is there? He seems like a nice dog, always gentle with Becky.”

  “That’s not the point. I don’t want my neighbor’s animals on my land.”

  She nodded. “That’s understandable.” She didn’t understand it, but that was the most soothing thing she could think of to say right now. Hoping to distract him, and to be honest, to satisfy her blatant curiosity, she said, “When you’d come to the door before, you had started to say something.”

  He stretched both hands out beside him, resting them on the edges of the countertop. He looked down, scuffed one boot against the floor, cleared his throat. But he said nothing.

  Her face began to flush again. “Sam, I hope you’ve accepted my apology for what I did. And for…” She faltered, then went on. “…for dragging the judge and Ellamae into it.”

  He looked up at her, his eyes narrowed. A shiver ran through her. She couldn’t have explained what her own response meant if she’d tried.

  “Hell of a thing we had to come to, wasn’t it,” he asked, “for me to prove what I’d already said?”

  “I know. Sam, I really am sorry.”

  “Yeah, well, listen,” he said, hurrying now, running his words together just as he’d done outside Town Hall. “You want to know what I’d come outside to tell you. It’s only…whatever else is going on around here, I know getting tripped up in Ronnie’s tall tales isn’t your fault.”

  “I really had no idea it wasn’t true,” she said, wincing even as she said the words, realizing they only helped make the uncomfortable situation worse. But she couldn’t live with knowing what she had done. She swallowed hard. “Will you forgive me?”

  He stared down at the toe of his boot for so long, she thought he wouldn’t respond. Finally, he said, “You were getting back at me.”

  “No—”

  “Yes. For my bad manners in not introducing you properly to folks in town.”

  No, she wanted to tell him. Well, all right, maybe in part. But mostly for trying to steal my niece from me. How could she say that, when his only reply could be, Like you’re trying to take my daughter from me?

  “Ronnie used to find ways to get back at me, too,” he said.

  “Sam, I—”

  “I got you the truth about one of Ronnie’s stories,” he continued, as if she hadn’t spoken. “Now let me tell you about the rest of them.” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, almost in a sigh. “I spent a lot of time a while back trying to shake off the dust of Flagman’s Folly. I met Ronnie at a rodeo in Abilene and—wham!—before I knew it, we’d gotten hitched.”

  Kayla wanted to interrupt. She didn’t need to hear this. But if it would give her a clearer picture of Sam, she couldn’t afford to stop him. Besides, in her heart she wanted—needed—to know the truth. About everything.

  “Sounded like a good idea at the time,” he continued, “but we started fighting from day two. I don’t blame her for all of it, but she didn’t give anything much of a try. From the minute we came back here, things got worse. She didn’t like the town, never liked living on the ranch.” The skin around his eyes tightened, as if he’d winced to avoid a blow. “Tell the truth, I think she never liked me much, either.”

  Kayla gasped. “I can’t believe that.”

  “Don’t I know it.” His voice hardened. “Seems like there’s a lot around here you can’t believe, until it gets shown to you. Well, I could bring you to the judge, and I did. I can’t bring you to Ronnie. Maybe when you see her, you ought to put that idea to her yourself.” Suddenly, he shoved against the counter, pushing himself upright. “And another thing. For the first six months of our marriage, I didn’t know she even had a family. She told me she was an only child and her parents were gone.”

  At that news, Kayla almost staggered. She reached out, grateful for the counter beside her.

  She had always admired cool, sophisticated Ronnie. Always. That image had started to crumble after their meeting with the judge earlier that day. And now, she didn’t know what to think.

  What Sam had said was ridiculous. “That’s not true about her family. Ronnie’s mom is gone. My mom is her stepmother. But Ronnie still has her dad—my dad. And two half sisters.”

  “Guess her memory’s pretty patchy about that. It wasn’t till she started threatening to leave that I learned about y’all.”

  “I can’t—”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know. You can’t believe it.” He moved forward, coming so close she had to raise her chin to look into his eyes. “Well, as we say around here, ‘can’t never could do nothing.’ Maybe it’s time you started figuring out just what you can believe.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Sam pulled the pickup into the yard and parked it near the barn. Over at the house, Sharleen sat on a wooden bench on the front porch with her foot propped up on a chair and a book in her hands.

  No sign of Kayla and Becky. Last he’d heard, at breakfast, they were planning on baking cookies.

  It had been a long three weeks since the d
ay he’d run off at the mouth about Ronnie. Spending most of his time in Kayla’s company since then had been hard enough. They had gone into town for the Fourth of July parade. Bringing Grandma Sharleen along gave their little group the touch of a real family—and had made an already awkward situation nearly unbearable.

  Leaving the supplies he’d bought in the pickup for later, he crossed the yard to the porch and leaned against the railing.

  Sharleen closed her book and smiled at him. “About time you came home. Becky’s been looking for you.”

  “She has?” For a second, his breathing hitched.

  In these past weeks, he’d made some progress with Becky. Tousled her hair. Sat with her in the evenings. Sometimes handed her one doll or another. It wasn’t much, but it was something. Wasn’t it?

  Maybe so, if she had noticed he’d gone missing that morning.

  “Well,” Sharleen said, “she’s been prowling around here ever since noontime as if she’s lost something.”

  “She have fun making cookies?”

  She smiled. “Sure did. And Kayla made peach cobbler for supper, too.”

  He stared at her, his eyes narrowed. Peach, apple, cherry, it didn’t matter. Cobbler was his favorite. “Was that your idea?”

  “Not at all.”

  He wondered.

  Sharleen nodded in the direction of his pickup. “Did you get everything you needed at the hardware store?”

  “Yeah.”

  That morning, when Jack had brought up the list of supplies, Sam jumped at the chance for a trip alone. At the chance to get away from the ranch and clear his head. Too bad he hadn’t succeeded at that.

  Still, he’d accomplished more than just buying the supplies. “Stopped and saw the judge, too.”

  “That’s good,” she said.

  Kayla wouldn’t think so when she heard about it.

  Becky came around the corner of the house dragging her toy-filled wagon. When she saw Sam, she grinned and waved.

  He waved back.

  A minute later, she bounded onto the porch, a doll and a plastic bottle in her hands. He ruffled her baby-soft blond hair.

  When Sharleen patted the empty seat beside her, Becky climbed up onto the bench and settled herself with her toys. Once she’d caught the child’s attention again, Sharleen cupped her hand and ran her fingertips down her stomach. “Is the baby hungry?” Becky nodded.

  Sam looked at his mother in surprise. “How did you learn that?”

  “At first, just from watching. Kayla always tells me what she’s saying to Becky. Then I asked her a few other words. She was nice about showing me, too.”

  If only things could be that easy.

  Holding back a sigh of frustration, he recalled the day he’d met Kayla and Becky at the Double S for lunch. Before heading to the café, he’d stopped at the bookstore to pick up the dictionary he’d had to special-order. The book that showed the basics of sign language. The one he thumbed through night after night when everyone else in the house had gone to bed.

  He had bought that dictionary feeling confident he could solve his problem on his own. But he’d soon found that talking with his hands would be a lot harder than he’d thought.

  Again and again, he’d flipped through those pages, trying to figure things out, until he’d come one step away from throwing the book in the trash. Hell, like the crayoned drawings Becky had done at the Double S, he couldn’t even make sense of half the book’s pictures.

  Sharleen frowned, squinting up at him, uncertainty in her eyes. “Sam, I can’t say anything against her when it comes to Becky. She loves the child.”

  He couldn’t deny that. But when he tried to agree, the words stuck in his throat.

  “What are we going to do?” she asked. “The days are flying by.”

  He had told her about Judge Baylor’s decision to leave Becky in joint custody for six weeks. Sam couldn’t do a thing to get that changed until Ronnie surfaced. And so far, no one had seen or heard from her.

  “We can’t lose Becky.” Sharleen looked down again at her granddaughter—the only grandchild she’d ever have.

  The only child he’d ever have, too.

  “We won’t lose her, Mom.”

  “If Lloyd decides in Kayla’s favor, we will.”

  “Don’t worry, I’m working on that.”

  “Sam, Lloyd was a good friend to your daddy, and he’s always been good to us, but I’m afraid…”

  Afraid your history with the judge will hurt us.

  She didn’t need to say the words aloud.

  “Don’t worry, Mom,” he told her again. “Things will be just fine.”

  By the time he left the porch, he had succeeded in calming her fears. He’d made her believe everything would work out.

  He just wished he could believe it, too.

  A FEW MINUTES LATER, he stood inside the ranch house, willing his feet to move forward.

  Midafternoon sunlight stained the white walls of the entryway and the pine planks of the floor he’d laid himself. Putting down those planks had made him feel he’d added something solid to the land his family had owned for generations.

  Well, the floor might still stand firm, but the rest of his life had fallen out from under him, thanks to the woman he could see through the kitchen doorway. The one he tried not to ogle like he was a dumb seventeen-year-old who’d never seen a real lady before.

  Kayla was real, all right. No denying that, with the proof right there in—or he should say, flowing out of—a blue-checked sleeveless shirt that left her shoulders bare and a pair of denim shorts that showed a whole lot of leg.

  Still, his fingers itched to touch her long, tanned limbs. To find out for sure if he could trust her existence. Maybe he’d get lucky and discover she’d been just a figment of his imagination.

  He finally managed to tear his gaze from her. After he’d reached her ankles.

  When he glanced up, he found she’d been watching him. Her appraising eyes and pink-blushed cheeks made him look away again in a hurry, searching for something else to focus on. But he couldn’t seem to look past her altogether.

  Hands. He kept his eyes on her hands. She held a striped dish towel and the drinking cup Becky had been using for her breakfasts. The bunny-covered plastic tumbler put a cold dose of reality into what could easily have turned into one hot fantasy.

  Wouldn’t take but a couple dozen strides, and he could have himself across both rooms and right up next to Kayla.

  He stopped at the kitchen archway.

  Kayla set the towel and Becky’s cup on the counter. Living up to its name, the tumbler tumbled off the edge.

  They lunged forward at the same time to catch it and a second later backed up just as quickly, as if they’d gotten hit with a few volts from an electric fence just from getting close. The cup bounced several times on the tile floor before rolling to a stop against the refrigerator.

  Kayla didn’t move.

  It took an effort not to touch her as he bent down to pick up the tumbler. It took another effort not to crush the colorful plastic in his tight grip. Carefully, he placed the tumbler on the counter beside her.

  “Th-thanks. Did you get everything you needed at the store?” she asked, just as Sharleen had.

  He nodded. “Took care of the whole list,” he confirmed.

  “You were gone longer than I expected.”

  “I ate at the Double S at noon, then helped Manny with a couple of things.”

  She nodded.

  Silence fell again.

  He stood staring at the woman who seemed to fill all his waking moments lately—and more than a few of his sleeping ones, too. Of course, the waking ones were his own fault. Or the judge’s, to tell the truth.

  Thanks to Judge Baylor, all the trips to town with Becky and Kayla put Sam closer than he liked to the woman. Yet he knew he had to follow through. And not just to satisfy the judge.

  To convince Kayla.

  Once she learned what Sam was rea
lly like, she would accept that his daughter should stay in his care.

  But this undercurrent between them—this electric-fence rush of energy he felt every time he got near her—told the truth. He should stay away from her. Far away.

  Even knowing this, he couldn’t seem to get his feet to move far enough to get himself out of the room. Or his mouth to stay shut long enough to stop himself from talking to her. His words ought to take care of her talking to him, though.

  “Saw the judge on the way back through town, too,” he said, forcing a light tone. “Told him we’d be having that barbecue he keeps asking about. Sunday.”

  “Sunday?” Her brows rose. “You mean this Sunday? Three days from now?”

  “Yeah? Something wrong with that?”

  “No.”

  But she didn’t look like she meant it.

  “Don’t go worrying yourself over the cooking,” he said in the same relaxed tone. It got easier with practice. “Jack and the boys and I will take care of barbecuing the roasts. We do it every year. Dori always handles the desserts. And the townsfolk will bring the rest.”

  She frowned. “You don’t need me to do anything?”

  Oh, hell, yeah, I do.

  Clamping his jaw shut, he swallowed the words that felt all too ready to spill out. So much for relaxed and easy. “No,” he said, his voice hoarse but his words final. “I don’t need you to do anything at all.”

  On that note, he left the room.

  Tried to leave Kayla behind.

  He couldn’t think about what he needed and wanted from the woman. Or about how regretful she’d sounded with her question. He had a lot of regrets himself, but no sense giving in to them now. He had to remember the threat she meant to him. The danger she represented. The damage she could still do to his life.

  The abuse charge she’d laid against him ought to have been warning enough. Though to give her credit, she’d never said another word about it after he’d proven the ridiculous story Ronnie had fed her wasn’t true.

  She seemed to believe what the judge and Ellamae had said about Ronnie’s car accident.