The Reluctant Rancher

by Leigh Riker

  * * *

  LOGAN WAS IN a corral on the far side of the barn, trying to keep from getting his head kicked in like Sam. He’d rather be mucking stalls because, oddly, that chore was his favorite—if he had one here. As a kid he’d sure spent enough time at it. Logan had lived on the Circle H from birth until he left to join the service. With a pitchfork in his hand, he still liked to let his mind drift, to pretend he was really where he wanted to be, back flying a jet. Sometimes he even whistled to himself as he worked. But if he couldn’t cut short the brief leave of absence he’d taken from his job, this unplanned stay on the ranch could threaten his pending promotion. He wasn’t whistling now. No pitchfork either.

  “Stand still,” Logan told the shaggy bison bull calf he’d been trying to doctor for an infection. The stubborn weanling had turned over a bucket of warm water, splashing Logan’s boots. He’d just bent over the bull’s hoof again, one foreleg trapped between his thighs to steady it, when Blossom suddenly appeared. The startled bison knocked Logan on his backside in the dirt.

  “Hey!” he yelled, when he knew better than to shout or move fast around the touchy bison. Struggling for breath, Logan picked himself up, dusted himself off and glared at Blossom over the corral fence. “You live on a ranch, you learn to be careful. Hear me?”

  Blossom froze like some ice sculpture. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

  Oh, no. There was that lowered head again, and her gaze had shifted away.

  “It’s okay,” he said in a softer tone. “No harm done.”

  Or would the new ache in his hip turn into something worse by nightfall? Getting hurt on a ranch with danger all around was par for the course.

  “These bison are ornery critters, easily spooked,” he said.

  Wide-eyed and white-faced, Blossom stood stock-still by the rail. He had started toward her, afraid she might faint, when from behind the bull rushed past him, almost flattening Logan again. For one second he thought it meant to crash through the fence and run right over her. Instead, it thrust its broad, runny nose at her through the boards with a lowing sound like a whiny toddler. It hadn’t liked being separated from its mother, and the cow was pacing back and forth along the side of the corral that edged the far pasture.

  To her credit, Blossom didn’t scream.

  She held one hand to the gap between the boards and let the bison sniff her.

  “What a cute boy you are,” she crooned, as if she were still singing that lullaby from last night.

  Logan was so surprised he was speechless. “I wouldn’t say ‘cute,’” he finally said. “He nearly stomped me into the ground. I don’t mean to criticize, Blossom, but these animals aren’t pets. And they don’t normally like people much.”

  He’d already rescued the tortoiseshell kitten from the bison’s hooves twice today. The fool cat followed him everywhere. Logan had been forced to shut her in the tack room. Maybe for Blossom’s own safety he should lock her in there, too.

  But he couldn’t seem to move. “I’ll be,” he said.

  That bison calf looked all moon-eyed.

  He sure seemed to like Blossom.

  Logan couldn’t take his eyes off her either. “I’d ease away from that fence before the calf takes a mind to hurt you. You never can tell what they’re going to do. And even this one is stronger than you might think. Ask my grandfather if you don’t believe me.”

  “He only wants a little affection,” she said.

  Did she mean the calf, or Sam?

  “Still, I wouldn’t—”

  He didn’t get the rest out. The bull calf shoved its huge shaggy head into the stout fence—and splintered several planks. Before Logan could react, the bison pushed his whole upper body toward Blossom.

  “Whoa, Nellie!” he yelled. “Blossom, head for the barn.” The much bigger bison cow was bawling her head off now. “I’ll open the gate to the pasture so he can rejoin his mama.”

  Logan didn’t wait to see whether Blossom followed his order. As soon as the far gate opened, the calf whirled around then thundered toward freedom.

  With a sigh of relief that no one had been killed, Logan went after Blossom. He found her standing in the barn aisle, talking to one of the horses in its stall. Cyclone, the big black colt Sam had bought months ago.

  “Watch it. He nips,” Logan told her, though bite was more appropriate.

  Horse or bison, they were tame only as long as they wanted to be. Strange, how unafraid she seemed of these animals when one look from Logan could make her shy away as if she were about to bolt.

  “I’m sorry about—out there,” she said. “You’re okay?”

  “Fine.” He hoped she hadn’t noticed him limping across the barnyard.

  “Nellie?” She quirked an eyebrow. “That’s his name?”

  Logan blinked. “No, this is Cyclone.”

  “I meant the little buffalo.”

  He did a double take. “Blossom, we don’t name these bison.” He suspected Sam sometimes did, and so had he during his 4-H years of raising beef calves for the summer fair, but Logan refused to personalize them now. By fall some of the herd would become pricey burgers—something he didn’t like to think about—on the menu at a fancy restaurant in Dallas, LA or Chicago.

  And Logan would be back in Wichita. Flying again. He wasn’t about to make any more personal connections to this place.

  “Maybe you should name them.” Her mouth tightened. “Instead, you shouted at him, scared him.”

  Logan shook his head. “He could’ve killed you—and you feel sorry for him?”

  “Yes. What did you do to him? It wasn’t just me. It must have been something to make him want to knock you over like that.”

  Her tone told him he’d only confirmed her worst opinion of him. The knowledge should keep him clear of any involvement he might be tempted into, but she was easy to look at, and in that moment the sweet smell of her shampoo teased his nose with the clean, fresh scent of outdoors.

  “He has a hoof abscess. I was treating it. He didn’t want me to.” That pretty much summed things up.

  “You’re wrong.”

  He rubbed his neck. “You have to show an animal like that who’s the boss. He’s wild, Blossom—dangerous.” He paused. “How do you think Sam wound up in bed with that busted leg and his head all mixed up?”

  “Not from a baby like him,” she insisted.

  “You’re wrong.” He repeated her accusation. “Sam got between that same calf and his mama. She flung him like a rag doll up against a tree. By the time he landed, he was in a world of hurt.” He paused. “The bruises were just the start. I don’t want you to end up the same.”

  Now it was Blossom who blinked. “Well. Thank you for your concern.”

  As if no one else had ever cared about her.

  Exasperated, Logan planted both hands on his hips. Heedless of his warning, she had slipped her hand through the bars to pet Cyclone’s neck. The colt all but purred like a cat. “He has a lot of promise but no common sense,” Logan said.

  “He’s like the bison baby. He’ll never learn to be gentle if he’s...”

  “Mistreated?” The word had just popped into his head.

  “Punished.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding. I’m the bad guy here?”

  He turned away. And nearly tripped over the tortoiseshell kitten. How had she gotten out of the tack room?

  He eyed Blossom. “You again?”

  “I was looking for you. I heard her crying. So I let her out.”

  Logan picked up the cat, who instantly nestled into the crook of his neck. “Just so you know. I didn’t touch that calf except to help him. I’d never touch this horse in anger.”

  “They won’t respond to threats either.”

  “Ah,” Logan mutter
ed. “I see. You decided to work on this ranch, so you stopped at some bookstore on the way and bought a copy of The Horse Whisperer. Or The Cat Whisperer. No, there’s probably a Bison Whisperer, too.” Putting the kitten down, he gave Blossom a pointed look. “I have news for you. Sometimes—like when you’re about to get kicked—that touchy-feely stuff doesn’t work, city girl.”

  Still shaken from his near brush with serious injury, he tried to stare her down. Finally, she glanced away, her gaze following the kitten as she meandered down the barn aisle. From the bend of Blossom’s slender neck, he realized she must consider herself akin to the bison calf. Mistreated. Was that the expression he kept seeing in her eyes?

  He knew little about her. He wanted it to stay that way.

  The kitten disappeared around the corner, probably headed for a hay bale and a nap. And Blossom was gazing past Logan, out the barn doors. She stared at the long driveway, as she often did.

  “You’re right,” she said. “I’m sorry I put you in danger. I am a city girl.”

  He tried to lighten the moment. “Let me guess. New York? Boston?”

  “Philly,” she admitted. “City of Brotherly Love.”

  Logan nearly missed her subtle change of tone. She’d seemed so cheerful earlier, yesterday, too, and even at dinner last night. He didn’t want to see that other look in her eyes or hear the trembling words that spoke of some deep hurt. He had enough troubles of his own and all the responsibility he could handle.

  She took a breath. “The farther west I travel, the more...open I feel. Less closed in somehow.”

  He couldn’t help but smile. “That’s how I feel when I’m flying.”

  “You’re a pilot?”

  “Private jets. Experimental sometimes—but mostly redesigns.” Until he got his promotion. Then his assignments would become way more interesting.

  “A test pilot,” she said. “No wonder you don’t seem that happy to be here.”

  He looked outside the barn at that big blue sky. “Got me,” he said.

  “I think I know how you feel. Flying high must seem like being a bird. I suppose if I reached California, I’d feel positively free.” She didn’t sound that convinced. “Or maybe,” she added with that look again, “I’ll just run out of road.”

  He didn’t want to care, but still he had to ask.

  “Blossom, what are you running from?”

  CHAPTER THREE

  ON HER WAY back to the house, Blossom shook so hard her teeth clacked together. But she forced herself not to run. She could sense Logan staring at her from the barn doorway, but she wouldn’t let him see that he’d frightened her. Reminded her of why she was running.

  She hated feeling afraid.

  There was no need to be scared. She’d finally found a place where she wouldn’t startle awake each night to find herself in yet another cheap motel room. Lying in the dark, listening to the rush of traffic on the road, clutching a musty blanket to her throat, her other hand on her stomach, waiting for that sharp pounding at the flimsy door.

  Mornings had rarely been better. Over breakfast whenever she could afford a meal, Blossom planned the next leg of what she liked to think of as her journey to freedom. In the past month she’d changed cars three times, paying cash so Ken couldn’t track the transaction. Each “bargain” buy had cost less than the last, and she’d bought from people who didn’t worry about such minor things as a title transfer, but she’d kept moving even when she was cold, hungry, out of hope, out of money...and always afraid.

  Shivering in her loose chinos and big shirt, she climbed the back steps to the house. She’d changed her style, too, thrown away the bright clothes she preferred and all the designer labels Ken had bought her. She didn’t want to be noticed anymore like some shiny trophy, didn’t want to be “seen.”

  Then why this heart-pounding sense of alarm now, this leaden feel to her limbs?

  In the kitchen she dropped onto a chair, still cold and shaking and in darkness even though the room was bathed in sunlight. She should be thankful. Today she wasn’t on some back road to avoid the highways, praying her old sedan would make it to the next stop.

  She propped her elbows on the kitchen table, buried her face in her hands. Yet she was afraid and Logan had seen through her.

  And with that, she was back in Philly again in Ken’s condo with the bathroom door lock that didn’t work when she needed it most...remembering all the things she couldn’t seem to do right, no matter how she tried to forget.

  The memories shrieked through her mind like tires on wet pavement, like her life was then, skidding out of control...

  * * *

  “YOU WOULDN’T LAST a day without me.”

  Looming over her, Ken shook a paper in Blossom’s face. Through a tangle of curls she stared up at him, wondering what she’d done this time. Every night before he came home from work, she hurried around the condo, changing the king-size sheets, taking care to make crisp hospital corners that were folded and tucked in just so, as her father and Ken had taught her to do, then checking the pots on his fancy stove to make sure she didn’t let their meal burn or boil over and create another mess.

  “I haven’t done anything!” she insisted.

  “You can’t even remember to pay a parking ticket. This citation was written a month ago—and you hid it in my glove compartment!”

  Oh, God. She’d forgotten. She’d borrowed Ken’s car while hers was at the Lexus dealer’s to be washed and waxed. She’d gone to a doctor’s appointment, which he didn’t know about. Ever since she’d used the home pregnancy-test kit, Blossom couldn’t seem to find the right time to tell him.

  “Ken, I’ll pay it tomorrow.”

  “Do you know how important I am in this burg? You’ll pay it now! Before word gets around that I’m engaged to a scatterbrain.”

  Blossom frowned. Who would tell anyone about the ticket but him? But then, as he’d said often enough, Ken did have a reputation to safeguard. He was a successful real estate developer. He knew everyone—and everyone knew him. It was Blossom who’d become invisible without quite knowing how it happened.

  As if he’d fired a starting gun for a race, she streaked for the living room, her entire being focused on the checkbook in his desk drawer. She needed to fix this, to make Ken smile again. He was right. She’d been careless, and not for the first time. She was stupid, useless, worthless...

  She was halfway across the room when he jerked her around.

  “In person. You get down to the police station. Now.” His hands tightened on her upper arms, his face red.

  She didn’t dare to meet his gaze. He’d also taught her not to look directly at him, which he saw as some kind of challenge to his authority. “Ken, I’d have to go to the courthouse instead. I had ten days to pay by mail but that’s already passed.”

  “Then do it. Now,” he repeated. “Didn’t you hear me?”

  He would have shaken her, but Blossom managed to free herself from his painful grasp. Keeping pace with her, he pushed her toward the front door. “How long do you think you’d survive on your own without me to fix your messes? Huh?”

  Her shoulders slumped. What had she done to make their relationship so miserable? She wanted to curl inside herself, to disappear. How could she feel this bad when, as he often reminded her, she was lucky to live in this luxury high-rise with a wraparound terrace and a view of the whole city? All of Philadelphia at her feet, he liked to say. But she could no longer remember even a simple dinner or special occasion that didn’t end up spoiled—Christmas, her birthday, the anniversary of the day they’d met, their engagement—she couldn’t remember a kind word or a loving touch, only her relentless wrongdoing, his sudden outbursts, the screaming nerves inside her. And now she had another life to worry about. Above all, to protect. No, she couldn’t tell him.


  For her baby’s sake, she needed to escape.

  * * *

  PUSHING THE PAINFUL memories aside, Blossom brushed stray curls off her cheeks. She hugged herself tight and stared out the kitchen window. Logan’s voice had been harsh for an instant just like Ken’s. Hear me? they’d both said. Why be surprised? She knew men—her father, too—and what they were capable of, how easily they could cause hurt.

  She wasn’t about to let that happen now, not with her baby to consider. The day after Ken had gone crazy about the parking ticket, Blossom had run. Such a simple thing shouldn’t have mattered, but for her it had been the last straw.

  She straightened, remembering it was time for lunch. She’d meant to ask Logan what to fix and tell him about Sam’s confusion. Again, she’d done the wrong thing with the bull calf. But he’d also said, I don’t want you to end up the same. To be hurt.

  A brief sense of calm settled over her. Yes, the Circle H provided a good place to hide, and for a moment today Logan had seemed to care about her, which might just be the most frightening thing of all. She wouldn’t trust him. Yet his very strength, that hard edge that let him shout at a bison baby—he’d corrected her about the proper term—might ironically protect her, if it came to that.

  If Ken found her here before she could run.

  * * *

  BLOSSOM WAS CLEARING the breakfast dishes from the table the next morning when she glanced out the window and felt her heart stop. A sleek silver pickup was pulling up near the back door. It didn’t look familiar, which shouldn’t surprise her. She didn’t know anyone here, and the only vehicles she recognized belonged to Logan or the half-dozen ranch hands the Circle H employed. But could it be a rental?

  Her legs went weak. Her pulse thudded. Had Ken found her already? A door slammed. A second later she heard footsteps coming up onto the porch. It couldn’t be, yet...

  She hadn’t seen Logan since breakfast. They’d said only a few words to each other since yesterday. Except for Sam upstairs in bed now, she was alone in the house. Helpless. Her sedan was parked out front. Where were her keys? Blossom fumbled through her pockets—and with a cry of relief found them. Could she reach her car in time?