How to Handle a Cowboy

by Joanne Kennedy

  She stepped up to stand toe to toe and eye to eye. “I can’t believe you did that. We decided together we’d let him watch.”

  “I know horses. And I think we’ve determined that I know kids pretty well too. The right moment came, so I just went with it. I told you, it would be cruel not to let those two help each other out.”

  She jabbed a finger in his chest. “You also told me you can’t guarantee he won’t get hurt.”

  He looked down at the finger then up at her face, his eyes steady and hard. She took back the finger, but other than that, she refused to back down one inch.

  “No, I can’t,” he said. “I can’t guarantee that you won’t crash that van on the way home, either. But if we waited around for guarantees, we wouldn’t have much of a life, would we?”

  “We’d be alive.”

  “I don’t know about you, but I want more out of life than survival.” He turned away and headed back to the group, leaving her seething, her anger barely diminished.

  She stood apart for a while, watching the aspens sway in the breeze and listening to the cries of the meadowlarks that perched on nearby fence posts. They’d light on a post, preen a little then flit up into the air with a burst of liquid song.

  She couldn’t stay mad with the meadowlarks around. She wasn’t through with Ridge, but he had a point. Besides, she wanted to go back to the group. She didn’t have siblings, and the bond between the brothers fascinated her. The whole atmosphere of the ranch made her happy. The place was all about family and animals and children. Not a bad place to be, even if Ridge was being a careless jerk.

  When she returned, a couple of Brady’s rodeo friends had arrived and were perched on the porch rail trading stories. Frankie was showing Brady a beetle he’d found in the garden.

  “Hey, look at that,” Brady said. “What kind of bug do you suppose that is?”

  Frankie shrugged. “I don’t know. Looks like some kind of biting, stinging son-of-a-bitch, doesn’t he?”

  Brady blanched and slid his gaze toward Sierra.

  “Sorry,” he mouthed.

  Sierra grinned and wandered over to the other side of the porch, where Shane was sitting and leaned on the porch rail beside him. “I think you’ve got a higher population here than the whole town of Wynott,” she said. “I always thought ranch life was lonesome.”

  “Not here,” Shane said. “With Ridge’s training business, the seasonal cattle work, and Brady hauling his troublemaking friends here, there’s never a dull moment.”

  She remembered the other night when she’d sat on the porch and wondered how Ridge could live a life so solitary. How he could stand the quiet.

  She had her answer now.

  “It was quiet the other night,” she said. “It was just me and Ridge here, and you could practically hear the earth turn.”

  “That’s rare, feeling the earth move,” Shane said. “I guess you really got lucky.”

  She laughed. She’d labeled him the serious brother too soon.

  “Seriously,” Shane said, as if reading her mind. “How are you guys doing?”

  “You mean me and Riley?” She did her best to stare at him blankly, but his dark gaze didn’t waver.

  “No. Although I ought to thank you for Riley. She’s a wonder with a power saw and a real nice girl. We all like her.”

  “You do?”

  He nodded. “The way Ridge described her, she sounded like a holy terror. But she’s a sweet girl under all those tattoos. Doesn’t take long to see that. But what I was asking about was you and Ridge.”

  “It’s nothing serious.” She nudged a rock with the toe of her boot, rolling it under her foot. “We’re just friends because of the boys.”

  She kept rolling the rock back and forth, back and forth. She hated lying, and this was a lie. Friends didn’t kiss. Friends didn’t feel all hot and squishy inside every time they looked at each other. And friends didn’t have knock-your-socks-off, caterwauling sex at every opportunity.

  “That’s too bad,” Shane said. “You make him happy.”

  She almost choked on her lemonade. “Me?”

  “You and those kids.” He nodded toward the porch steps, where Ridge sat surrounded by boys. They were listening intently to whatever he was saying, watching him gesture with his hands.

  Sierra remembered those gestures from the first time she’d met him, when he’d been describing cattle work. Jink left when they zig, right when they zag. She’d been worried that the gruff cowboy wouldn’t be able to handle the kids.

  “He’s so good for them,” she muttered. She’d lost her rock somehow, so she found another one.

  “And they’re good for him.” Shane downed the last of his lemonade in a long gulp and set the cup down on the floor. “I don’t know if you know about his—situation.”

  “His hand?”

  Shane nodded. “He told you?”

  “Yeah. It’s a shame.”

  “Not really. It got him off the rodeo road, and he needed that.”

  She swung her head around, surprised. “He did?”

  “It’s a rough life,” Shane said. “I did it myself for a while, and then I took a job managing a ranch up north of here.” He straightened the brim of his hat. “Rodeo’s one injury after another, and the older you get, the worse the injuries are. It was bound to happen sooner or later, and it’s better now, when he’s young enough to turn it around.”

  “I never thought of it that way. It seemed so tragic. He loved rodeo.”

  “He thinks he did because it’s all he knows,” Shane said. “But like I said, it’s a hard life. You do it long enough, and you get to thinking there’s nothing else to life but the next bull, the next bronc.”

  “And the next buckle bunny?”

  Shane grinned then sobered. “He wasn’t into that. Got involved with a woman who wanted to tie him up and brand him for good so she could spend his money. Goddamn Shelley.” He kicked at the air as if booting the unfortunate Shelley out of Ridge’s life. “She was bad for him. Really bad. Figured out where the scars were and cut every one of ’em a little deeper.” He gave Sierra an appraising look, as if he was trying to decide whether to confide in her. “I won’t lie to you. Ridge is messed up. We all are.” He nodded toward the boys. “They will be too, but they’re getting a better time of it than we had at that age. You love those boys, and that helps.”

  She knew he was right. The Decker cowboys’ childhoods had molded their adult selves, and the same would be true of her boys. They’d always miss the steady, unquestioning love that came with good parenting.

  Dear God. How was she ever going to leave here?

  Shane continued, unaware of the storm he’d started in her heart.

  “When Ridge came here, he didn’t talk.”

  “Brady mentioned that,” Sierra said. “It surprised me.”

  “That just shows how different he is around you. It wouldn’t surprise anybody else. He still doesn’t talk any more than he has to. Not to most people, anyway.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “You’ve changed him, and for the better.” He grinned. “Maybe he just needed the right person to help him see the world a little different.”

  She had to smile. “Point taken.”

  Shane stood and picked up his cup. “I hope you stick around. He doesn’t need another heartbreak.”

  “Like with Shelley?”

  He laughed then shook his head. “No, like with rodeo. He never gave a rat’s ass about Shelley. But he loves you and those boys like he loved bronc riding.”

  He walked into the house without another word, letting the screen door swing shut behind him. Sierra sat in the shadowed corner of the porch for a while, watching Ridge with the kids and thinking about what Shane had said.

  She’d seen Ridge’s eyes when he talked about rodeo. She’d seen the hurt, the disappointment, the feeling of failure. Was Shane right? Was she going to hurt him like that all over again?

  All
along, she’d been worried about her own heart, her own feelings. She’d just assumed that Ridge was like most men—just looking for some caterwauling sex. It hadn’t occurred to her that he could be hurt too.

  It should have. He was a Phoenix House boy grown tall, with a past as full of loss and sorrow as any of her boys. She should have been more careful.

  She needed to explain things to him before it was too late. She needed to explain that there were things she needed to do in the world, that Wynott simply wasn’t her last stop.

  Once she was gone, some other Shelley would come along and steal his heart. Break it, probably. The thought made her gut twist, but really, she was no better than Shelley herself. Because she was going to break his heart too.

  Chapter 42

  The ranch seemed strangely quiet to Ridge after Sierra and the boys left, even though the other two Decker Ranch cowboys were still on hand. Once the three of them had had all the energy of those boys, Ridge thought, and there’d been enough riding and roping and fighting and game playing that the place was never quiet. But now there was no sound but the chattering of the birds and the singing of the crickets.

  Part of the problem was that the three of them were sitting around in the family room like a bunch of old ladies. Shane was working on his leather braiding, Brady was stretching his calves in his bronc riding saddle, and Ridge was staring into the fireplace, thinking about Sierra. His brothers kept glancing at him, smiling. It was obvious they’d figured out how he felt about her. Staring into the fireplace wouldn’t have been such a dead giveaway if there’d been a fire to look at.

  “Nice woman,” Shane said.

  Ridge nodded. “Saw you talking to her.”

  “Yup.”

  Ridge shifted in his chair, irritated. Shane had to know he wanted to know what they’d said, but he was going to make Ridge beg for it.

  “What did she say?”

  “Not much.”

  Ridge clutched the arms of the chair with both hands. It was probably a better choice than putting them around his brother’s neck, which was what he wanted to do.

  Sensing the tension, Dee got up and trotted over to Ridge, laying her head in his lap. Stroking her silky ears, he shot his brother a hard look. “Well, what did you say?”

  “Oh,” Shane said, as if he’d just noticed Ridge was there. “I told her you were in love with her.”

  “You what?”

  “Somebody had to do it,” Shane said, unperturbed. “And it didn’t seem real likely you were going to get around to it.” He set aside the braiding board. “She’s leaving in a few weeks, right?”

  Ridge nodded.

  “Then you’d better get moving. Tell her yourself, man. And then find a way to get her to stay.”

  “What makes you think I feel that way?” Ridge buried his hands in the heavy fur over the dog’s shoulders to steady them.

  “I just do. Everybody does. You talk to her. You don’t talk to her enough, and you probably don’t say any of the right things, but you talk to her more than I’ve ever seen you talk to anybody. You two love those kids, and you love each other. If you don’t do something about it, you’re going to lose her.”

  “She’s got a big job waiting for her,” Ridge said, “one where she can really make a difference.”

  “She can make a difference here,” Shane said. “Bill did.”

  “I know,” Ridge said.

  “Tell her that. And tell her how you feel,” Shane urged. “Promise her it’ll last.”

  Ridge nodded, remembering how Sierra wanted everything guaranteed. Maybe his brother was right, but he couldn’t help grumbling a little. “I can’t believe you told her. You should have talked to me first.”

  “Can you tell Suze for me?” Brady asked. “’Cause every time I try to do it, I mess it up somehow.” He kicked at the floor, frustrated. “She just can’t seem to understand that we belong together.”

  Ridge and Shane looked at each other and laughed, the tension between them broken.

  “You might want to try staying away from other women for a week or two first,” Shane said. “Just a thought.”

  ***

  Sierra spent a sleepless night thinking about what Shane had said. She lay on her back and stared up at the ceiling, picturing her boys growing up, struggling through the hardships ahead, and then being derailed by some woman’s careless cruelty. She felt like she wanted to lunge into the future and kill anybody who might break their hearts.

  She thought about Ridge, alone out there on the ranch. She’d thought he was a loner when she’d first met him, but he wasn’t. Quiet as he was, he still reached out. He wanted the boys there. And he wanted her.

  But she was leaving. She wished she could stay. She loved the boys, and she knew they’d grown to love her. It didn’t take long for kids so starved for love to latch on to anyone who seemed to care. If she was honest with herself, she loved Ridge too. She’d never met a man so decent, kind, and caring.

  Hearts would be broken all around, and one of them would be hers.

  She didn’t know how to fix it, but she knew she had to start with Ridge. She’d be honest, and they’d talk it out. Maybe, if she could make him understand why she had to go, they could still have some kind of long-distance relationship. Denver wasn’t all that far, really. And although she’d be busy with her job, and he couldn’t really leave the ranch…

  She sighed. It would take a miracle for this relationship to survive, and she couldn’t imagine a happy ending. But she wanted to try.

  ***

  Ridge grabbed two rope halters and headed for the corral to catch a couple of horses he had in training. They’d arrived green as grass in springtime, but they were coming along well and just needed some finishing.

  As he exited the barn, a car pulled into the drive. He squinted, shading his eyes with one hand.

  Jeep Liberty. Sierra.

  When he felt how high his heart leaped at the sight of her, he knew his brother was right. He was crazy in love with her, and he had to do something about it. He knew she had ambitions that were all about the boy he’d been, and the boys she cared for now. Those ambitions were one of the reasons he loved her, but somehow he had to make her stay.

  There was only one way to do that. He needed to look her in the eye, rip out his heart, and hand it over. He had to admit that all his dreams, hopes, and plans depended on her. It was the truth, and he needed to say it out loud.

  If he had to do it, he was going to do it his way. When he was a kid watching how Bill and Irene cared for each other, he’d dreamed of finding a woman of his own one day. And in his teenaged foolishness, he’d figured out just how and where he’d tell her he loved her. He knew a place that represented everything that mattered about love—about how it made you feel and how it lasted to the grave and beyond.

  It was stupid. It was the crazy dream of a kid who knew nothing about love. But he was going to make it happen, because maybe, just maybe, it would work—and the life that had been denied him, the life he’d thought was a total impossibility, could actually be his.

  ***

  Sierra followed Ridge through the barn and out its back door, leaving the cool, hay-scented shade behind for a sudden splash of sunshine. She blinked and tried to see the ranch through his eyes—the crisp gold spears of autumn grass, the worn gray wood of the corral fences, the half-dozen horses dozing in the sunshine by the rail.

  She wondered what this life was like, day after day. It seemed like a rancher cobbled together a living any way he could. Bill had taught riding lessons, run cattle—who even knew what that involved?—and trained horses, all while raising three spirited boys.

  He sure had a nice place to do it in, though. This sheltered valley, ringed with craggy rock formations and trees on one side and sloping gracefully toward a faraway mountain range on the other, was the most peaceful place she’d ever seen. It was a place where time seemed to stop, where everything was done just as it had been fifty, even a hun
dred years ago.

  She envied Ridge, really. Anytime he wanted, he could just get on a horse and ride. She imagined racing a horse up over that rise, heading for the distant mountains. Here, a woman could live a life shielded from the ugliness of the outside world. Instead, Sierra had chosen to dive right into the ugliness in the hopes that she could pretty it up a little.

  “Come on,” Ridge said, waking her from her reverie. He waved her over to a nearby corral, where he was lifting the latch on a crooked wooden gate. “I was planning on riding today. Now you can come too.”

  A swirl of fear spun in her chest, taking her breath away. Daydreaming about horses was one thing. Actually climbing on top of one was another matter entirely. Secretly, she was a little afraid of perching so high up and trying to control an animal that outweighed her by hundreds of pounds.

  “I don’t really ride.” She took a step back toward the safe haven of the barn.

  “You’ll learn.” He opened the gate to a sun-drenched corral. It was a warm day, and the horses were a sleepy lot, standing in relaxed poses, some with their eyes closed.

  Ridge put her on Dusty, the lesson horse he used for the boys, and once she figured out how to relax and enjoy the rhythm of the horse’s gently swaying walk, she felt like the world and all her troubles faded away. There was just her, the horses, and Ridge, who rode beside her on a handsome bay named Spiff. Riding meant they both watched where they were going rather than looking at each other, and that made it a little easier to talk.

  It also made it easier for her to fall even harder for Ridge. She’d seen him handle horses during the boys’ lessons, and admired his ease with the animals and his instinctive understanding of their needs. But she’d never seen him on horseback. It transformed him.

  She should have known. She’d seen how the boys changed when they rode, how they straightened their shoulders and looked so much more capable, so much more in control.

  Ridge looked capable all the time. On horseback, he looked like he could rule the world.

  It reminded her of that first day when he’d walked into Phoenix House looking like he’d just come off the Chisholm Trail. His face, with all its hard planes and angles, was the face of a sheriff or a lawman. But his eyes, pale and hard, were the eyes of an outlaw. It was that strange dichotomy, of the good man and the tough guy, that had grabbed her right from the start.