The Rancher's Best Gift

by Stella Bagwell

  Damn it, he hadn’t fallen in love with Camille. A man like him didn’t have the ability to give that much of himself to anyone. Not when the only two things he’d ever really known in his life were hard work and surviving. And he would survive this, he mentally contended. He had no other choice.

  An hour and a half later, he drove into the Three Rivers ranch yard and parked his truck near the cattle barn where Blake’s office was located. The morning was still early and as he climbed down from the cab, he noticed the ranch hands were still tending to barn chores. A few yards away from the building, Chandler’s diesel truck and trailer rig was idling and ready to go.

  Maureen must have been watching from the window and had seen Matthew’s arrival. He didn’t have time to reach the office door before she burst out of the building and ran straight to him.

  Hugging him tight, she said, “Matthew, you can’t know how happy I am to see you!”

  Maureen had always treated him as a son and considering that he’d been here on Three Rivers since he was nineteen years old, she was more like a mother to him than an employer.

  He patted her shoulder, then eased her back far enough to look her in the face. “It’s good to see you, too, Maureen. But I haven’t been gone that long.”

  “It seems like ages to me,” she contradicted. “And without you here to hold things together, the men act like scattered chickens.”

  Maureen always did give him more credit than what was due. But what would she think if she knew he’d been spending his nights in Camille’s bed? Hate him? Fire him? Yes, the woman treated him like a son, Matthew thought, but Camille was her and Joel’s baby.

  It was too late to be thinking about that, Matthew chided himself. Besides, everything with Camille was over. He wouldn’t see her again until next fall. And by then she’d probably have a man in her life. One who would be more than willing to put a ring on her finger and give her as many babies as she wanted.

  Trying to shake away those dismal thoughts, he asked, “How’s Blake?”

  “Confined to his bed. We’re trying to keep everyone, especially the kids, away from him as much as possible. Thankfully this morning he appears to be a bit better. At least, he managed to get some juice down and a piece of toast.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry you had to cut the stay at Red Bluff short. Especially when we needed you to take a closer survey of the grazing situation.”

  “Well, when the skeleton crew gets down there they can give Blake a report.”

  “Ha! Do you honestly think he’s going to trust their judgment? You’re his eyes and ears, Matthew. You always will be.”

  He didn’t have the opportunity to make any kind of reply to that as Chandler walked up to join them.

  “Welcome home, partner,” the other man said, thrusting his hand out to Matthew as though they’d not seen each other in two months rather than a little more than two weeks.

  “Thanks, Doc. It’s good to be home.” Normally those words would have come straight from his heart, but this morning, he wasn’t even sure his heart was beating. Nothing felt the same. “Congratulations on the new baby boy. You and Roslyn must be thrilled.”

  Chandler’s grin was ear to ear. “Oh, we kinda like the little guy. Even if he does keep us up at night.”

  Even in his weary state of mind, it was easy for Matthew to see that Chandler was walking on a cloud over his new son. And why not? He had an adoring wife, two beautiful children and a job he loved. The man had everything that meant the most in life and suddenly Camille’s words whispered through his head.

  I see my siblings with spouses and children and I don’t have that. I’m not sure I’ll ever have it.

  Funny how clearly he could now understand why she didn’t want to live here. No matter how much she loved her family, the constant reminder would be too much for her to deal with. It was almost too much for Matthew to handle.

  “I’ll go by the house and see the baby when I get a chance,” Matthew told him.

  Maureen reached over and patted his cheek. “That’ll be tonight, Matthew. I’m telling Reeva to set an extra plate for you at the dinner table. I want to hear all about Red Bluff and Camille.”

  Oh God, how was he going to endure this?

  Maureen must have caught the uncomfortable look on his face because she suddenly leaned closer and studied him through squinted eyes. “Now that I’m seeing you up close, you look piqued. Are you coming down with the flu, too?”

  The Hollister matriarch was right. He was coming down with something, all right. But it wasn’t the influenza. There was something broken inside of him and he had the uneasy feeling it was his heart.

  “Mom, Matthew has just driven more than two hundred and sixty miles. He’s tired. Quit pestering him. You and I need to get on the road and see if we can get that bull home before it comes a blizzard up there.”

  Matthew frowned. “Blizzard? What are you talking about? It rarely snows up that way.”

  “Right. But the weatherman is predicting a chance of heavy snow. And we don’t want to leave old blue boy up there with a bunged up leg and no shelter,” Maureen told him, then motioned to the building behind them. “Go on in the office. Flo’s already at work. She’ll tell you all about the cattle buyers.”

  Taking his mother by the arm, Chandler led her off to the waiting truck, and Matthew walked into the office building.

  At the end of the room, his secretary, Flo, a red-headed divorcée in her sixties, was sitting at a large desk. She looked up. Then, seeing it was Matthew who had entered her domain, she left her chair and walked over to greet him.

  Not only did she give him a hug, she gave him a kiss on the cheek. Something he’d never seen her do with anyone else.

  He did his best to give her a smile. “This is some kind of welcome. What did I do to deserve this?”

  “You’re the only man around here with enough cow sense to fill Blake’s boots. Besides that,” she added cheekily, “I’ve missed you.”

  “I’ve missed you, too, Flo.”

  She laughed at that, then pinched his arm for good measure. “Come on over here and sit down at my desk. You can have some coffee and pastries while I give you all the information about the cattle buyers. They should be showing up in the next hour or so.”

  After filling a cup with coffee and a paper plate with a bismarck and a chocolate-covered donut, she carried the lot over to where he’d taken a seat. He wasn’t hungry, but the coffee was welcomed.

  Matthew thanked her, then asked, “Have these men purchased cattle from Blake before?”

  “No. They’re two brothers from somewhere around Modesto, California, so they’ve traveled a far distance to buy Three Rivers’ cattle. And from what Blake says, they have plenty of money to back it up. So do your best not to blow this sale, Matthew.”

  She returned to her seat behind the desk and he shot her a dry look. “Well, thanks Flo, for taking off all the pressure.”

  “You can handle it,” she said, then frowned as she ran a speculative glance over his face. “By the way, you look like hell. What have you been doing down there at Red Bluff?”

  Making a big mistake? The taunting question instantly rolled through Matthew’s head, but he quickly dismissed it. No matter what happened in the future, getting close to Camille wasn’t a mistake. He had a mind full of precious memories now. That was more than he had before.

  “The same thing I do up here,” he told her.

  She pursed her lips with disapproval. “Then you’re doing too much of it.”

  She pulled a manila folder from a drawer and handed it across the desktop. “Here’s most of the specifics of the pending sale. If you run into any trouble, I can get Blake on the phone. But I’d rather not unless it’s an emergency.”

  “Don’t worry, Flo. There won’t be any trouble.”

  * * *

  “Cam
ille, this order for table nine was supposed to have fried eggs, not scrambled,” Peggy told her as she carried the plate of breakfast food back into the kitchen. “Did I not write the order down right?”

  Turning away from the grill, Camille searched rapidly through the stack of orders until she found the correct one. “You wrote it down right, Peg. I’m the one who messed up. For the second time this morning. I’m sorry. You probably won’t get a tip out of this one, either.”

  “I’m not worried about a tip,” Peggy assured her. “I’m more concerned about you.”

  Camille shook her head as she cracked three eggs onto the grill. “Don’t be. I’m just having a little trouble staying focused today, that’s all.”

  “Well, I know you’ve come down with a cold, but you seem really off today. Has something happened at the ranch? Or with your family?”

  On the opposite side of the grill, she flipped three pancakes. “The only thing that’s happened is something good. Chandler and Roslyn have their new baby now. It was a boy. William Chandler Hollister. Seven pounds and four ounces and very little hair. When we get an extra minute, I’ll show you a picture on my phone.”

  “Oh, that’s exciting. You have a new little nephew! So why is your face so glum?”

  Glum? She wasn’t just glum, Camille thought. She was dead. At least, dead on the inside.

  Matthew was gone.

  This morning at five she’d woken to find her bed empty and a simple little note left on the kitchen table.

  It’s been nice. Matthew.

  Nice! Was that how he’d thought about all the time they’d spent together? The sweet intimacy they’d shared? It had just been—nice? And couldn’t he have woken her and told her goodbye? Or had she not deserved that much from him?

  Oh, Lord help her, she prayed. She wasn’t sure she was going to make it through the day, much less the rest of her life.

  “I’m not glum. Just trying to deal with these sniffles. And the ranch is quiet now. The whole crew is gone, including Matthew,” she forced herself to say.

  As Camille scooped up the eggs and slid them onto the plate, Peggy cast her a shrewd look. “I thought he was staying until the weekend. That’s a bummer. He was going to come by the diner.”

  “Couldn’t be helped. My brother, Blake, has come down with the flu and Matthew was needed back at Three Rivers,” she explained, then thrust the plate of food at Peggy. “Here. Maybe this will make the customer happy. I gave them an extra egg—at no charge.”

  “I’ll make sure to tell the woman,” Peggy said, then hurried away with the food.

  As soon as she disappeared from the kitchen, Edie stuck her head through the swinging doors. “What about my pancakes, Camille?”

  “They’re ready.” She dumped crisp bacon atop the pancakes and handed it to the second waitress. “What time is it, anyway, Edie? It feels like I’ve been cooking breakfast food for hours.”

  The young blonde woman glanced at the watch on her wrist. “Nine thirty-five,” she announced. “We ought to be getting close to the end of the breakfast run.”

  Edie hurried away with the pancakes, and seeing she was caught up for the moment, Camille sat down on the wooden stool and pressed a tissue to her running nose.

  Nine thirty-five. She had no way of knowing when Matthew had left the house, but by now he’d had plenty of time to make the four-hour trip to Three Rivers. No doubt he was already back in the swing of giving orders to the men and dealing with whatever Blake needed to have done around the ranch.

  He loved his job. It was his life. Just as this diner had become her life. She couldn’t expect things to be any other way. So why was she having to fight like hell just to keep tears from rolling down her face?

  Because she understood that this was nothing like being jilted by Graham Danby. The only thing she’d suffered over that incident was squashed pride. Her feelings for Matthew were deep and real. The kind that lived on in spite of time or distance.

  Perhaps she’d made a mistake in not telling him that she loved him. But she didn’t think so. Matthew had no desire to be a husband or father. He’d not been raised to embrace such roles in his life. And Renee’s desertion had only reinforced his doubts about being a married man. No. He didn’t want to hear about love. Not from her or any woman.

  When Peggy returned to the kitchen, Camille was dabbing her seeping eyes with a napkin. The waitress shook her head with dismay and wrapped a comforting arm around Camille’s shoulders.

  “Oh honey, don’t tell me you’re crying because Matthew has gone home! Before he came you were dreading having to put up with the man!”

  She sniffed and lowered the napkin from her eyes. “I’m not crying about Matthew,” she said stubbornly.

  “Sure you aren’t. Just like Thanksgiving never falls on a Thursday,” she said dryly. “Who are you trying to fool? Yourself?”

  Camille dropped her head and mumbled, “No. I’m just teary-eyed because—well, things can’t be the way I want them to be, that’s all. I have my life here with the diner. And he has his on Three Rivers. It’s as simple as that.”

  Peggy went over to the huge coffee urn and filled a cup. When she handed it to Camille, she said, “Doesn’t sound simple at all to me. Unless you’ve come to the conclusion that the man is worth more than this place.”

  She waved her arm around the kitchen, and Camille shot her a droll look. “There’s no question about it, Peggy. Matthew is worth a hundred diners. But it wouldn’t do me any good to give up this place. That wouldn’t make him fall in love with me.”

  “Is that what you believe? That he doesn’t love you?”

  “I don’t just believe it, Peg, I know it. So the only choice I have is to stiffen my spine and get over him.”

  Peggy rolled her eyes. “Oh boy, now that might be easier said than done. From what I saw the other day, Matthew is one hunk of a man. Quiet. But sexy as heck. He’d make any woman’s heart flutter.”

  And no doubt there were plenty of women back in Yavapai County who’d be more than happy to get a few hours of his company from time to time. The thought stirred nausea through the pit of Camille’s stomach.

  “There’s a foolproof medicine to cure that kind of heart problem,” Camille told her firmly.

  Peggy’s brows arched in question. “What’s that? A double shot of Scotch?”

  Camille put her tissue away and returned to the grill. “No. Hard work. And that’s what I plan for all of us to be doing here at The Lost Antelope. The holidays are coming and I have all kinds of ideas to make them special for our customers.”

  “Holidays? Did someone mention the holidays?” Edie asked as she bounced into the room and handed Camille another breakfast order.

  “I did,” Camille answered as she slapped several thick slabs of bacon on the grill. “Why?”

  “Because I think we should have a traditional turkey dinner with all the trimmings and give the meals away to anyone who wants one—uh, until the food runs out, that is.”

  Peggy was flabbergasted. “Give the dinners away! Camille just bought this place. She can’t make money like that!”

  Camille glanced over her shoulder at the two waitresses. “Edie, I think you have a great idea. It would be the perfect way to show the customers how much we appreciate them.”

  Grinning smugly, Edie patted the blue bandana tied over her head. “See, sometimes I’m more than a ditzy blonde.”

  Peggy let out a good-natured groan while Edie giggled, but Camille couldn’t summon up anything more than a wan smile. Would she ever be able to laugh again? she wondered.

  “Okay, genius,” Peggy teased. “Better go warm up the customers’ coffee or you’re going to hear some loud grumbling out there.”

  Humming a happy tune, Edie grabbed up the coffee carafe and headed back to the dining room. Peggy walked over to Camille and gave he
r shoulder an encouraging squeeze.

  “I understand you’re feeling down right now. But aren’t you the woman who told me she believes in miracles?” she asked.

  Camille sighed. “Yes. But—”

  “No buts,” Peggy interrupted. “You either believe in miracles or you don’t.”

  With that bit of advice, Peggy left the kitchen, and as Camille continued to cook the rest of the breakfast order, she realized that she had to believe a miracle would bring Matthew back to her. Otherwise, her hopes for a happy future were over.

  Chapter Twelve

  Thanksgiving turned out to be an exhausting work day for everyone at the diner, but it was a huge success with the customers. Camille decided she was on the right track with the idea of the blue plate special, and the following week she worked tirelessly to implement all the changes the diner needed before they could actually begin offering it on the menu.

  By the middle of the following week, Camille could hardly put one foot in front of the other and she was struggling just to keep a few bites of food in her queasy stomach.

  “I think you’re coming down with that nasty flu bug, Camille,” Gideon said as he placed a tub full of dirty coffee cups into the sudsy water. “And it’s only going to get worse if you don’t get yourself to the doctor.”

  “I don’t have time for a doctor’s appointment, Gideon. Peggy can’t cook and waitress at the same time. And Edie had to take off today to take her mom to the doctor. Seems the woman has the flu or something like it.”

  “See, that’s what I’m telling you.” Gideon pointed a dirty fork at her to emphasize his words. “Edie has probably carried the germs here to you. So go get your coat and head over to Benson to the doctor.”

  Camille glanced at the clock hanging on the wall above the double sink where Gideon was washing dishes. “It’s two o’clock. The lunch customers have let up.” She pondered for a moment. “Now might be a good time to go.”

  “That’s right. If anyone shows up, I’ll cook. It won’t be as good as your stuff, but it’ll be edible.”