The Rancher's Second Chance

by Leigh Riker

  Jesse stood right behind her, and she nearly bumped into him. He peered into the open safe, his gaze intent. “Here,” she said, slapping the money into his hand. “Go have lunch. I hear Jack makes a mean coq au vin. Tell him I said hey.”

  “One of these days, you and I are really going to have it out,” Jesse said.

  “Not today. I have ranch duties.” She shut the safe door, reset the lock, then slipped past him. “I’ll enter your withdrawal from the account later.”

  His gaze bore through her but Jesse said nothing.

  Nell could feel his anger like a living thing all the way to the barn, where she needed to double-check the rest of the day’s schedule with Cooper (while blocking out any recall of their too-tempting kisses last night and her growing reliance on him). The back of her neck prickled as if Jesse was still watching her. Whatever was going on with him must be bad. Later, she’d change the computer password and the combination on the safe.

  Sadly, Nell didn’t trust her own brother.

  * * *

  NEITHER DID COOPER. To him, Jesse was trouble on the hoof. Cooper couldn’t figure out why his former friend was still on the NLS—why he hadn’t given up by now on taking part in the challenge Ned Sutherland had thrown down like a gauntlet before an old-fashioned duel. Nell could hold her own, but Jesse was no rancher and never would be. So what other motive was he hiding? Cooper was still mulling over the subject when Grey Wilson, an old friend who owned another ranch in the area, drove up to the barn.

  Scowling, Grey hopped out of his truck without so much as a greeting, then slammed the door. “Finn Donovan says you have coyotes on the NLS.”

  “Yeah.” Cooper leaned on the pitchfork he’d been using to move manure out of a nearby stall. “A pack of them killed one of Nell’s cows. She lost two calves as well. We’ve ridden out several times and possibly wounded one coyote, but he got away.”

  “I hate coyotes.” Grey shoved his black Stetson off his brow. “Last night, Dad and I lost three head. Slaughtered like lambs—and not far from the house. For a while, one of the ranch dogs was missing. He came home this morning with his tail between his legs. I swear he seemed guilty for not doing his job.”

  Grey’s spread was miles from the NLS with the town of Barren in between. “That’s some range if it’s the same pack.”

  “I stopped by the Circle H on my way over.” The Hunter ranch was next door to Wilson Cattle. “Logan says they had some trouble too the other day. His grandfather’s all fired up. He claims he saw ’em circling his herd in broad daylight.”

  “Sam’s bison are tough critters,” Cooper pointed out. “I’d imagine they can take care of themselves—one reason Sam switched from cattle years ago.”

  “He’s determined anyway to look for the coyotes tonight. It wasn’t enough for him that one of his bison sent him flying into a tree last year and broke his leg. He loves them as if they were children.” Grey’s frown deepened. “Frankly, I’m worried too. My nephew, Nick, lives more at the Circle H than he does in town, and now that Olivia’s set to marry Sawyer, she’s there too.” He drew a breath. Olivia was Grey’s sister, and although they’d been at odds for years, Cooper had heard they were now close again. “Just as bad, my Ava goes tearing around Wilson Cattle on her horse like she’s in some Wild West show. What if something happens to her? I don’t like this, Cooper.”

  “I’ll do anything I can to help,” he said. “You know coyotes rarely attack humans, but Nell doesn’t need to lose any more cattle either. As her foreman, I want to end this.”

  Grey resettled his hat. “On horseback. No sense letting those coyotes know we’re coming by using Gators or pickup trucks. The noise alone would scare them off. And the terrain’s better for horses.”

  Cooper straightened. “You’d think somewhere between here and the Circle H or your place there’d be more dead cows. This time of year, calves are even easier pickings, especially the smaller, weaker ones. I need to caution Nell to keep an injured calf she’s been caring for in this barn awhile longer.”

  He’d be wise to lock down his feelings for Nell too. After last night he didn’t want to ruffle her feathers right now about the ranch. He sure didn’t want to hurt her. But after the kisses they’d shared, he also had to keep a lid on those emotions.

  “How’s the job with Nell otherwise?”

  “Touch and go.” He hefted the pitchfork.

  Grey followed Cooper into the barn, where he laid the tool across a wheelbarrow. He’d finish the job later. Cooper steered the discussion away from him and Nell, and for a few minutes they talked about other topics.

  “Olivia?” Grey answered when Cooper asked about her. “Round as a beach ball. Sawyer is betting she’ll pop any day. But Nick came late, so I doubt Sawyer’s going to win that bet.” He grinned, the first since he’d arrived today. “In any case, I’m going to be an uncle again.” He added, clearly pleased, “Maybe a daddy too. Shadow and I are trying. Ava will be ten this year, a long gap between. And, of course, her pal Nick already has a baby half sister—so Ava wants one too.”

  For a second, Cooper experienced a twinge of envy. Once, he and Nell had planned to have half a dozen kids, three of each. She’d named them all. Now, he was afraid to even mention their embrace, let alone delve deeper into their relationship.

  But after all she’d kissed him back, so maybe he should test the waters with her again, find out if he was truly the only one who’d felt the old zing between them.

  What if they could reach some kind of détente? If he and Nell were together, his problem with the Ransom ranch might be solved... But for now he had to deal with the coyotes.

  “Count me in,” Cooper said, which made Grey laugh. “I meant about going after the pack, not about babies. I’ll trailer my horse over to your place later.”

  “Once we track them down, we’ll cover the NLS too. Sound good?”

  “Perfect.” Cooper couldn’t wait to get in the saddle, ride the range with his longtime friends and maybe resolve the coyote issue too. “Unless the coyotes hit our herd again first.” He still couldn’t believe it was the same pack. “Seems strange just our three ranches are involved. And I’d expect Fred Miller’s outfit to be part of this.”

  “He hasn’t filed a report with Finn. On my way home, I’ll stop at his place. He may be lying low after that rustling business.”

  Grey didn’t need to elaborate. Last summer, some of his cattle had been taken. His brother-in-law had turned out to be behind it, but he wasn’t the only perpetrator. According to Finn, Miller’s nephew had also been part of the gang, and Miller himself had sheltered the stolen herd for them. The third rustler had fled the state, but Finn had helped round up the others.

  Grey continued, “Maybe there’s been some kind of coyote population explosion this spring and they’ve spread out to feed themselves.”

  “If Miller’s been hit, I doubt he’d want to talk to Finn again.”

  “Or me,” Grey said. “But there are a few other outfits. I’ll ask around.”

  Cooper said goodbye to the other man, then squared his shoulders. Before he rode out with Grey and the others, he’d have to talk to Nell.

  * * *

  NELL WASN’T PLEASED with Cooper’s plan. He stood beside her at the kitchen sink, and she didn’t like how near he was either. His proximity only reminded her of their kisses.

  She shoved her hands into the soap-filled sink and attacked the pots and pans from dinner. “We should keep trying to locate the pack here. If you’re at the Circle H or Wilson Cattle all night, what good will that do the NLS?”

  Cooper explained that they’d cover every ranch in time.

  She dropped a pan into the water with a plop. “And before you say anything, I won’t stay home like a good girl making sandwiches for the vigilante group you’ve put together. Letting you men have all the fun.” Wiping her hands on a
dish towel, she spun toward him. Cooper merely gazed at her as Nell went on. “You know, in school, some of my friends like Olivia and Shadow wanted nothing more than to be cheerleaders. I wanted to play football.”

  “Did you make the team?” he asked mildly, his eyes the gray of the fog that often covered the hill this time of year. She’d never noticed before, but they had a darker rim around the irises. Way too attractive.

  Nell cleared her throat. “No, of course I didn’t get to play. It’s a rigged system.”

  He sighed. “You’re a strong person, Nell, but come on. You don’t have the bulk, the muscle a linebacker does.”

  “I could have been a quarterback. I’m smart too,” she said.

  “I know others have questioned your ability, and especially your authority, but this isn’t about who gets to play. It’s about finding those coyotes and stopping them from doing worse.”

  “Losing Elsie and those calves was worse.” Almost like losing her resolve the other night and letting Cooper kiss her, then kissing him back. They hadn’t been friendly, let’s-be-pals kisses; they’d ignited a slow fire inside her that wouldn’t seem to burn itself out. A small spat about his determination to ride with Grey Wilson and Logan Hunter and the others after the coyotes, leaving her behind, seemed wiser than letting her awareness of him go any further. “A reminder. I don’t work for you, Cooper.” She rushed on before he could speak. “You work for me—and either you stay home to do whatever I need you to do here or I ride with you.” When he merely continued to stare at her, she said, “I’m as good a rider as any man there. Better, even, than some. Finn Donovan’s a beginner and he’s going, isn’t he?”

  “Yes. Finn has horses to safeguard—a new one for Annabelle, plus the two Grey gave him—and he’s planning to buy a few head of cattle. With his new acreage, his farm is turning into a ranch, which no one ever expected.”

  “The NLS is vastly bigger, as you know. I’m a landowner too through PawPaw for now,” she admitted. “If you don’t get my point, I can fire you this minute.”

  He propped both hands on his hips. The color in his face had changed from the tan acquired working outdoors to a dull red. “You keep threatening to do that. So do it. Right now, or don’t say it again.”

  Moving fast toward him, she forced him to back up against the table behind him. “I’m the boss here.” Even to her own ears, she sounded breathless. For a second, she couldn’t remember what they were fighting about, or why. Nell was a tall woman, but her gaze fixed on the Adam’s apple in his throat. She could see his pulse pounding in his neck.

  “Nell.”

  His low tone of voice nearly undid her. First, she’d had PawPaw to deal with, and Hadley, then Jesse and now Cooper. Nell took another step, angling her head up to his.

  “I dare you,” he said in that same throaty tone. His eyes were steady on hers, and his mouth seemed ever closer... Too close now.

  Nell tried to catch her breath, their quarrel forgotten in another swirl of memory. Long ago, Cooper had charmed her, wooed her, taken her down into this same slow spiral of attraction. She could no more resist it now than she could then.

  “Nell,” he said again. “If you’d let me finish what I was trying to say, I would have told you no one is cutting you out. I want you to come along. I’ll load Bear on the trailer too.”

  His words surprised Nell, but all thought was lost when his strong arms came around her and they shared another kiss that seemed to never end.

  She didn’t want it to, even when he murmured against her lips, “You didn’t fire me. That’s the end of it.”

  Nell couldn’t agree, but standing in the kitchen wrapped around each other, with the rest of the world far away, for these few moments, she didn’t care. This didn’t feel like an ending; it felt like a new beginning.

  Nell might have to fight everyone else, but Cooper saw her as an equal. Yet, the danger he presented was that very feeling of being understood—and ultimately losing herself to him.

  Cooper was dangerous. And after tonight, he was more of a threat to Nell’s heart than she’d ever imagined.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  IN THE PITCH-BLACK DARKNESS, the newly formed posse rode across the Circle H, then spilled like a ghostly specter onto the adjoining Wilson Cattle ranch. So far, they hadn’t seen or heard the coyotes. The night remained silent, the sky full of stars. Yet, the back of Cooper’s neck kept prickling. The predators were somewhere nearby. He could almost smell them.

  “Wild-goose chase.” Jesse’s saddle groaned as he shifted his weight again. He’d insisted on coming along, even riding next to Nell as if he wouldn’t let her out of his sight, let her win this part of their competition. He’d been complaining since they loaded the big four-horse trailer at the NLS. “I say we go back and get some sleep. Nothing’s happening tonight.”

  Cooper rode on, keeping pace with Grey, Sawyer, Logan and Finn. Fred Miller had stayed home. Nell came up beside them, and Cooper’s mind flashed on an image of her in his arms earlier. He was in a heap of trouble now that had nothing to do with the murdering coyotes.

  You didn’t fire me, he’d said, but it was their kisses that had stayed with him. Those and the surprised look on her face when he’d reassured her she was part of the group tonight. He shouldn’t have let her go on so long believing he would try to ride without her. But, as he’d liked to tease her in the past, Cooper had been unable to resist. Besides, he couldn’t get a word in edgewise. Watching Nell bristle had been entertaining...until it had turned into something else.

  “Let’s fan out,” she said. “No sense staying bunched together—unless you boys are just having a fraternity meeting here.”

  “We are,” Grey agreed. “Better fun than your Girls’ Night Outs.”

  “I’m not a member.” Nell was quick to correct him. “Besides, how would you know what kind of fun they have? You stay home with Ava.”

  “Quiet,” Cooper said, standing in his stirrups to scan the horizon with a pair of powerful binoculars. “Let’s not broadcast our presence.” He swept the area again. “Ah. Here we go.” He pointed. “Two coyotes slinking through those bushes over there.” He spurred his horse into a canter, crossing the field closest to Grey’s house. The others followed, a soundless flow of cowboys and their mounts. And one determined cowgirl.

  Jesse rode behind. No surprise there. Cooper had only let him come along because he remembered Nell’s brother was a fair shot. Years ago, they’d gone hunting together, and it was always Jesse who bagged the most quail, or a rabbit or two. He carried his shotgun now, a birthday gift from Ned Sutherland. The weapon was a piece of art with a hand-tooled wooden stock that had cost Ned plenty, but Cooper doubted it had been fired in a long while.

  As he neared the brush on the other side of the field, the two coyotes burst out of the darkness, rustling the foliage, and raced for cover fifty yards away, yipping and barking as they ran. Cooper raised his shotgun to sight them in, but before he could fire he heard a shot ring out. “More!” Jesse shouted and took off after them. Cooper admired his quickness but wondered if Nell’s brother would stay on his horse.

  “Jesse!” he called, but he didn’t respond.

  All at once, the whole scene became something from a Western movie, the silhouettes of riders streaming over the land on the sleek shapes of horses, their hides gleaming in the night, hooves pounding the ground like drumbeats. The smell of wild animals in the air, and fear.

  Nell kicked Bear into a gallop and surged ahead of the posse. As she streaked past, Grey’s horse startled, but with a quick check of the reins, Grey held Big Red to a rocking canter. Logan and Sawyer merely gaped at her, then spread out with Finn in an attempt to flank the coyote pack and surround them.

  Cooper could scarcely believe his eyes. Jesse was still in the lead. His next shot hit its target and one of the coyotes fell with an audible thud. Cooper r
aised his gun, fired—and watched another of the predators stumble off into the darkness, clearly wounded. Then he almost rode right over the carcass of a dead cow.

  Cooper heard Grey swear. But shaking his head, he went on with an even more determined look in his eyes, managing to wing another coyote. More shots followed, turning the scene into one of battle. There were many more coyotes than the two he’d first spotted.

  Then, to his horror, a human cry split the night.

  His heart in his throat, Cooper looked around for Nell. She was suddenly nowhere to be seen. “Nell!”

  To his relief, he heard a small voice not far away and spun his horse on its haunches. Cooper covered the distance between them at a gallop, as if his horse was a barrel racer. At the edge of the brush where he’d spied the first two coyotes, Nell was already off her horse and on her knees.

  “You hurt?” His blood pounding through his veins, he hoped she’d say the simple words I’m okay.

  Nell shook her head. Not hurt, but she gestured and Cooper saw Jesse lying on the ground. Her horse, Bear, had been blocking his view of her brother sprawled in a heap, with one arm at a weird angle and blood streaming from his head. He was out cold. Jesse’s horse stood a few yards away, head down in the grass, ripping blades with his teeth, his sides heaving. Cooper dismounted quickly.

  “That horse’ll colic if he keeps eating. Grab him, Nell. I’ll see to Jesse.”

  “No,” she said in a tone that brooked no opposition. “He’s my brother.”

  Cooper tried again to gently pull her to her feet, but Nell dug in her boot heels. Jesse lay so still that for an instant Cooper wondered if he were dead. “Come on, let me help, Nell.”