The Rancher's Second Chance

by Leigh Riker

  Cooper took up the slack in his reins, then spurred his horse into a canter before Nell could gather her determination even closer. He’d noticed that one cow before she did, and the oversight didn’t sit well. Neither did his attempt to bring up their past, the closeness they’d shared, a love that had died. Could she really trust that he was on her side now?

  Nudging Bear from his slow trot, she caught up to Cooper, who’d already slowed and raised a hand as she reined in her horse. “Easy,” he said. “No rush.”

  Nell briefly pressed her lips tight. “I give the orders here.”

  Cooper returned her glare. “And I carry them out. You really want to spook the herd—and any predators closing in?”

  “No, and I wasn’t, but the next time you go over my head will be the last.”

  “Chill out, Nell. We work together or we don’t work at all.”

  Nell needed his support, but for generations there had been a war between their families over the land. “And you don’t own a single acre of this ranch anymore. Remember that—”

  Nell was still talking when Cooper rode on, up and over the small ridge, leaving her behind again. As she topped the slight hill, the herd, black hides gleaming in the lowering sun, milled around, eyes rolling so the whites showed.

  Cooper scanned the area once, then twice. “No coyotes that I can see. Let’s ride into the herd. Maybe one of the cows is sick and has gone down somewhere.”

  Nell found herself in a dilemma. Cooper was right, but she didn’t care for his taking the lead. Born cowboy or not, he hadn’t ridden probably since the day he left Kansas, and he also hadn’t herded cattle, fixed fences or even ordered grain. Like his boots, his saddle was brand-new. Rather than use NLS tack, Cooper had bought his own gear. While she admired his independence, even his take-charge attitude, she wouldn’t play second fiddle in this band. He hadn’t proven himself yet.

  Nell rode ahead of him, weaving her way through the cattle, soothing them here and there with a soft word or two. “It’s okay, girls. No worries, Babe,” she said when she recognized an individual cow. “Nothing here to—” She was almost at the far edge of the shifting mass of cows and calves when she recognized the problem. “Cooper! Over here!”

  In danger of being trampled, a calf lay on its side, thrashing, and Nell bit back a curse. The calf, with its mother hovering nearby as if to shield it, had plunged through the fence and caught one leg in the shredded wire.

  Cooper slid off his horse and so did she. He knelt down, ran a hand over the calf’s side, then looked up at Nell. “No telling how long he’s been here like this.”

  “Any amount of time is bad, but the calf’s beginning to go into shock.” Its leg was bleeding badly and the poor thing was clearly terrified.

  “You bring wire cutters?” Cooper asked. “If we don’t do something, he’ll die.”

  Their gazes met over the calf that couldn’t be more than a few days old. Losing a valuable animal wouldn’t please PawPaw either, but at the moment all Nell cared about was the calf’s survival. Nell and Cooper were its only chance.

  Cooper was on his feet again, searching through a saddlebag, while Nell tried to calm the injured calf with gentle strokes on its head and body. “We don’t have much time. He’s giving up, Cooper.” Nell had watched more than one cow do just that, lie down in a field with an expression that said, I’m done, then simply die on the spot.

  Cooper laid a hand on her shoulder. The rest of the herd had clustered nearby as if to lend support, but she barely heard their mournful calls or the stamping of hooves. “Move aside.” He held up a pair of wire cutters. “Hadley must have forgotten them. He didn’t stick around long after you fired him.”

  “Thank God.” Nell meant for the wire cutters.

  She rose to her feet, wiping her bloody hands on her jeans. She stood back to let Cooper cut the calf free of the fence, but it didn’t even try to get up. Nell’s lip quivered. The calf’s leg was in bad shape. She doubted he would last the night.

  “Hey,” Cooper murmured, noting her expression as he looked over his shoulder.

  Nell shuddered. “I hate this! I should have sent Clete out to survey the herd this morning. We usually keep a close watch this time of year. Maybe he could have found this baby and brought him to the barn then.”

  Cooper rose and drew her into his arms before Nell could resist. She was shaking. “And maybe this accident didn’t occur until just before we found him. It happens.”

  “Not on my watch.” Briefly, she thought of pulling away but didn’t move. She wanted to lean against his solid chest and press her cheek against his strongly beating heart, and Nell only gave a shaky sigh. “Sorry, I’m not helping.”

  “We have to get this little guy home,” he agreed, easing her from their short embrace. “I wish working together this first time had gone better.”

  Reaching Bear, she mounted up. But what if she’d gone looking for coyotes by herself? And come upon this very calf far from the barn? Alone, she couldn’t lift its limp weight onto her saddle, but Cooper easily picked it up, then laid it across Nell’s lap. “I’m still the boss,” she told him, but her voice trembled.

  “Got it,” he said after he’d swung onto the bay’s saddle. “We used to be a pretty good pair though. I’d like to think we still are.”

  They started toward the barn, the calf silent, its mother following close behind, making sounds of distress. Nell was in danger of liking Cooper too much for her own good. She’d certainly been grateful he was here today. “As long as you don’t start another range war between the Ransoms and the Sutherlands,” she said.

  * * *

  THE NEXT MORNING, another range war was the last thing on Nell’s mind. She had another looming battle at the foot of the front porch steps. She gritted her teeth as her brother got out of his car, tipped his obviously new straw cowboy hat, then sauntered toward her.

  “What are you doing here?” she couldn’t keep from asking.

  “That’s some greeting,” Jesse said, glancing around the yard, then toward the barn. She hadn’t seen him since last Christmas when, as holiday gatherings often do, the family tensions escalated until he finally left in a huff.

  “PawPaw’s away. I don’t know when he’ll be home. You should have called before you came.” She and Jesse didn’t have much in common.

  “I already talked to him.” He grinned like a hungry wolf—or a coyote. “Didn’t realize I had to make an appointment with my own family. I came to see you.” He winked. “I’ve missed my baby sister.”

  Her pulse thumped. “Jesse, I haven’t heard from you since New Year’s.” When he’d called to apologize for Christmas. “Why show up now?”

  He took off his hat, turning it in both hands. His hair, a darker brown than Nell’s, looked mussed. “I’ve got a proposition for you.”

  Nell rolled her eyes. She’d heard his offers before. Like Cooper’s, she could bet she knew what this one was. It felt as if the NLS was under siege.

  “And I have this ranch to run.” She started down the steps, intent upon checking again on the injured calf’s condition and its mother in an adjoining stall. As far as its injuries were concerned, to Nell’s relief the calf had survived the night. “Breakfast is over but you’re welcome to fix your own. Today, I’m vaccinating calves.”

  “Let me unload my bags. Then I’ll help.”

  Nell propped her hands on her hips. How long did he intend to stay? She didn’t want his help. “No,” she said, “you won’t. An inexperienced hand would only get in the way.”

  “Inexperienced? I was on this ranch before you were a gleam in Dad’s eye.”

  “Too bad you’ve never done a thing to keep the NLS going. If I remember right, cattle and horses aren’t your thing.” Jesse was a city boy and proud of it. He was also a serial entrepreneur who’d recently sold his latest company, some kin
d of tech or software operation. He was the family success. “I’m wondering what changed your mind.”

  “You.”

  “Ah. PawPaw phoned you, didn’t he?” More than once her grandfather had sung Jesse’s praises, as he did Hadley’s, not so subtly suggesting to Nell it might be better for her to let her brother take over the NLS. “Well, doesn’t that beat all? I’m working myself half to death while he’s gone, you’re clear across the state amusing yourself while making gobs of money and now I’m supposed to let you inherit this ranch? I’ve told you, Jesse. This is where I belong—you don’t, and that was your choice.”

  “PawPaw doesn’t agree.”

  Apparently so, and Nell wanted badly to talk to him, but she had no way of reaching her grandfather until he chose to come back to civilization.

  She said, “You spent your first fourteen years telling everybody who would listen that you couldn’t stand this place. Couldn’t wait to get off this land.” Unlike Cooper, who’d wanted to stay but couldn’t. “You always said you never wanted to see another cow or horse again.”

  “I’m a new person now,” he said, propping one foot on the bottom step. “Whether you like it or not, I’m here. With PawPaw’s blessing.”

  “I can’t believe this.” Or was he lying? She wouldn’t put that past him. With their grandfather out of cell phone range for now, she couldn’t question Ned, complain or defend herself. Jesse must have known it would be open season on Nell until PawPaw came home. He could tell her anything he liked. Despite her best effort to steady herself, her voice shook. “My heart belongs to the NLS.”

  “It’s a business, Nell.”

  “More than that,” she insisted. “Yesterday, Cooper and I rescued a newborn calf. Seeing that baby injured hurt me—as it ought to. I won’t have this ranch in the hands of a man who never showed any interest, who doesn’t even like the animals I care so much for—”

  “Assets,” he said. “That’s what they are.” He paused. “You and Cooper?”

  Nell nodded, trying to swallow around the growing lump in her throat. “Yes. I fired Hadley. Cooper’s his replacement.”

  “Does PawPaw know?”

  “He doesn’t, but he will. I’ll tell him as soon as I can.”

  Jesse laughed. “Wait till he hears this. Weren’t you around when Cooper Ransom threatened to show up some day and take back his family’s land? Now he’s your foreman? He pulled the wool over your eyes once, Nell. I’m surprised you’d fall for that again.”

  “I haven’t, and I won’t. He’s been plain about wanting the old Ransom ranch, and he’s a good manager so far. That works for me.” As did his being on the NLS so Nell could pick up on any implementation of his plans.

  “He’ll take over—if he can. I don’t mean to let that happen either.” He climbed the steps, brushing past Nell. On his way by, he ruffled her hair, a lifelong habit that seemed to tell Nell she was still his baby sister but also his inferior, and Jesse meant to manage things properly. When pigs fly, she thought. He opened the screen door. Over his shoulder, he said, “You lost your head over Cooper years ago. With the NLS at stake, I’m on the job now.”

  * * *

  “REALLY, NELL?” her mother said by phone later that day. “When Jesse told me you’d hired Cooper, I wondered what you were thinking.”

  “About the NLS. Nothing more.” Nell studied her boots, ankles crossed on her grandfather’s desk. “Jesse’s only concern is a balance sheet.”

  “You’re thirty-one, Nell.” Mom gentled her tone. “Maybe it’s time to stop playing cowgirl. Being a grown-up can be fun too.”

  Playing cowgirl? She bristled. “What are you saying? I am an adult. I happen to love working this ranch. You sound worse than Jesse.” In contrast, Nell’s father had always wanted her to do whatever made her happy, but he mostly kept that opinion to himself to avoid setting off her mom or Jesse.

  Her mother took a different tack. “Good grief. And why did you fire Hadley?”

  Nell briefly explained. “He’ll find something on another spread and the NLS was overdue for a change. I can be more effective for PawPaw if I don’t have Hadley breathing down my neck. With Cooper here—”

  “Nell. Jesse’s right—you’re not only risking the ranch by hiring Cooper, you’re risking more heartache.”

  Nell took her legs off the desk. “I thought you liked him.”

  “I did until that wrangle he had with your grandfather. Be careful, sweetheart. I worry about you.”

  “I know, I know, but Cooper and I are both fourteen years older, not teenagers anymore. This is a business arrangement, which Jesse should understand.” Nell didn’t mention keeping Cooper close for another reason. That would only harden her mother’s heart against him now as foreman. “I wish you’d have more faith that I can take care of myself.”

  “You’re still my baby,” her mom said, sounding teary. “I only want the best for you, and if you try to tell me the men on that ranch are fine with you as their boss, I know better.”

  “I’m working on that, Mom. Trust me.”

  “I do trust you,” she agreed. “Cooper is another matter.”

  When Nell hung up, she sat there, her gaze on the top of her grandfather’s desk, her mind in a whirl. Had she made the right decision?

  It seemed she’d put the whole family in an uproar.

  CHAPTER SIX

  COOPER WAS WORKING in the barn when Jesse Sutherland strolled in. “Huh,” he said, glancing in through the bars where Cooper had been mucking an empty stall. “This place looks the same. It’s like a time warp.”

  “What did you expect?” Cooper resumed tossing soiled bedding into the wheelbarrow in the aisle. He wasn’t surprised to see Jesse. Clete had given him a heads-up earlier, and Nell’s brother appeared much the same as Cooper remembered, only older. A spray of fine laugh lines around his keen eyes, and he’d gained a few pounds, filled out just as Cooper had, but the similarity ended there. He and Jesse had once been friends but, as with Ned Sutherland and even Nell at the moment, that was over. “The ranches in this area have been working spreads for at least a hundred and fifty years. I imagine Ned’s made a few renovations to the place over the years, but otherwise...”

  “I meant you. Being here. Hanging around Nell again.”

  Cooper straightened, the pitchfork in his hand. The still-healing scar on his stomach sent a slow rolling ache through him, and Cooper guessed his muscles would hurt later from the work he’d been doing. “Don’t start, Jesse.” Although, he had expected the subject to come up. His shoulders had stiffened the instant he’d seen Nell’s brother. “I’m her foreman. That’s all.” Jesse didn’t have to know how good it had felt to have Nell so briefly in his arms yesterday. Cooper needed to process that reaction himself, but his relationship with Nell, whatever it might be, should be none of Jesse’s concern. “What’s the occasion?” he asked instead. “Seems odd you decided to pay a rare visit to the NLS.”

  “Nell’s not thrilled but she’s also wrong. She isn’t the person to run this ranch,” Jesse went on. “Which makes me all the more glad I came, but I didn’t realize the full extent of the situation. As for you...”

  Cooper simply raised his eyebrows. There’d been a time during their teens when Jesse could size him up with uncanny accuracy where Nell was concerned. “You know she has her heart set on this place.” Which Cooper certainly understood. He didn’t want Jesse to see that in him though. “Aren’t you still living in KC?”

  His chest puffed out with apparent pride. “Yeah, I’ve founded and sold half a dozen companies since I graduated from KU. Business degree,” he informed Cooper.

  Six businesses in, what, eleven or so years? He and Jesse were the same age. That wasn’t much time to develop whatever enterprises he chose to set up. “So the NLS is to be your next project?”

  Jesse leaned against the frame
of the open stall door. “Just claiming my rightful heritage. I’m the oldest, not Nell, and the only son. Our mother worries about her, so—”

  “You’re stepping up to the plate at last. I don’t buy that, Jesse.” Cooper paused. He’d spent a lot of time with Nell’s brother as kids, and he’d never seen Jesse display any devotion to his family’s spread. He wondered if he felt any more allegiance to the businesses he’d sold in such short order. “After selling all those companies, you must be loaded now. Or is the ranch some kind of early retirement plan?”

  Jesse smiled but it didn’t reach his eyes. “I don’t have to explain. If you want to keep your job as foreman, finish cleaning that stall.”

  Cooper dropped the pitchfork and got right in Jesse’s face. “We were friends once so I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and forget I heard what you just said. But to make things clear, I work for Nell—not you. And as her foreman, I do what has to be done on my own schedule unless she says otherwise.”

  Jesse’s gaze wandered over him. Another pain went through Cooper’s abdomen and Jesse saw him flinch. “You sure you’re up to the job? I mean, after getting shot in Chicago? Right now, you look like a horse just kicked you. Or are you really here for some other reason? And being her foreman is only an excuse?”

  Cooper fought another twinge of discomfort, his weakened muscles protesting work he hadn’t done in a while, but Jesse’s question hit even harder than the pain. Cooper picked up the pitchfork again. “I’m up to this job. Not sure you are—or why. Maybe you should go back to Kansas City, buy up another business, since you’re such an almighty success.”

  Jesse scoffed. “The ex-cop does Barren, Kansas. Might make a good movie.” He straightened from the doorway. “Watch yourself. You think you work for Nell, but the NLS will be mine—and I’m only going to tell you this once.” Jesse sauntered along the barn aisle to the doors. “Keep your nose out of my business. And except for work, keep away from my sister.”