The Rancher’s City Girl: Wells Brothers Book One

by North, Leslie

  “You should head down, Joey.” She patted the girl’s shoulder, feeling the bones underneath her skin. If there was one person who would stay with her from her time here, it would be Joey. She would never forget this girl.

  Joey nodded and folded the note carefully into the pocket of her jeans. She ran for the door, light on her feet, but whipped around at the last second. “Are you coming to dinner?”

  Becca’s stomach felt empty and aching and upset. The thought of putting even one bite into her mouth made her throat go tight. “No, I’m going to get some sleep. I’ll see you in the morning, okay?”

  Joey considered this, her eyes narrowing. “Okay.” Then she was gone.

  Becca stripped off her clothes and wrapped a towel tightly around her, like armor. She forced herself into the shower and back out again, then into a pair of sweatpants and a long-sleeved T-shirt. Her eyes burned, and her entire chest ached. You didn’t do anything wrong, she thought as she climbed into bed and pulled the covers up tight. You took a risk, and it didn’t work out. This isn’t the end of you. Her thoughts became a voice in a dream, and she spun headlong into the night.

  Part of her slept, her eyes heavy and her body heavier. But part of her was painfully aware. All the sounds of the farmhouse at night came to her—the creaks of Joey and Cade coming up to Joey’s bedroom. The low rumble of his voice as he read to her—The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. His footsteps coming down the hall afterward. Becca braced for her doorknob to turn and the door to swing open. If it did, she would haul herself out of this dream and sit up in bed and tell him exactly how she felt. But there was only the soft click of his own door closing.

  Early in the morning, before the sun was up, her door did open. Small footsteps padded across the rug. Becca was instantly awake, her eyes still swollen and the skin around them sore.

  “Hi,” Joey whispered. She smelled like shampoo and soap. How had Becca missed the sound of the shower? She must’ve finally fallen into a real sleep. “I’m…gonna do my chores, and then I have to go to school. Can I have a hug?”

  “Sure,” she murmured, and Joey threw her arms around Becca’s neck. Her wet hair against Becca’s skin shocked her into more awareness. The two of them held tight to each other. Then Joey stood, barely visible in the dim light from the hallway. “Have a good day at school,” she told Joey.

  “I will.” Joey paused, pressing her lips together. “Bye, Becca.” Then she was gone.

  Becca wished she could go back to sleep, but that would never happen now. It was time to pack her things.

  There wasn’t much, aside from her suitcase and the new clothes she’d gotten at the Farm & Home store. They didn’t look so new now. She’d worn them every day out on the ranch, and they had the stains and rough hems to prove it. She took a heavy breath and smoothed out each piece. There was no room for clothing like this back in the city. She’d have to get rid of it. Keeping it would be too painful. It was painful now.

  Dawn peeked above the trees, mist rising off the grass, when Becca pulled her suitcase out onto the front porch and took one last look down the hill. The other night, she’d marveled at how that driveway had come to look like home. Now it looked like the road that would take her out of Eden.

  “Stop being dramatic,” she murmured to herself. She’d find somewhere else to call paradise. Whether she’d find another Cade…well, that was another story. And Joey was irreplaceable.

  A door slammed, and Becca turned her head toward the sound. Cade stood by his truck, watching her.

  She lifted a hand in a wave.

  He lifted a hand back.

  Cade took one step toward her, but she shook her head, then looked down at the floor of the porch. Thank god she’d pulled the car up around the drive. Now she didn’t have to go over there. There would be no big production. Then again, knowing Cade, it was likely to be a clipped goodbye that would hurt more than a big production ever could.

  She shoved her suitcase into the trunk and climbed into the driver’s seat. Becca turned the radio up loud—she really needed some top 40 hits right about now—and drove away from Wells Ranch. She didn’t let herself look back in the mirror.

  For the next two hours, she coasted along the highways, foothills and ranches zooming past on either side, the mountains rising in the distance. She sang along with the radio. A few new songs had come out, but she belted them despite not knowing all the words. Sadness filled her, starting at her chest and seeping into the rest of her.

  Finally she had to pull over at a rest area and cry. She felt waterlogged, weighed down, and before she drove another mile, she needed to search for available ranches in the area. If the Wells Ranch wasn’t going to work out, something else would. She wasn’t sure she’d love another one as much as the Wells Ranch, but she did want to live that life. And driving back to the city with her tail between her legs wasn’t going to help anything.

  “It’s gonna be good.” She sniffed, pulling up the search on her phone and crying the last of her cry. “It’s going to be great.”

  “Yeah. It’s going to be great.” A hand shot forward from the back of the car, a tissue dangling from small fingers. Becca gasped, cold rushing down over her spine and her breath freezing in her throat.

  She turned slowly to the back. “Joey?”

  The ten-year-old sat grinning in the backseat, a blanket from the farmhouse’s living room around her shoulders. She pulled the tissue back at the last moment. “Don’t cry, Becca. You’re right. It’s all going to be awesome.”

  Becca gripped the wheel. “I can’t believe you’ve been here the whole time.”

  Joey’s face brightened with pride. “I got in the car while you were in the kitchen with Jayne, saying goodbye.” That had been hard, too—Jayne had pressed an insulated bag into Becca’s hands. It was still perched on the passenger seat, untouched. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”

  Becca cursed silently. Joey hadn’t even had a seatbelt on. How could she not have noticed? She stared ahead at the low brick rest stop. “Okay. I’m going to get out and use the bathroom. You should come with me.”

  “Then where are we going?” Joey hopped out next to her, dancing in the sun.

  “I’m taking you home.”

  “Good,” Joey chirped. “We can both stay. It’ll be so much better if you stay, too.”

  13

  “You’re not going to regret this, boss.” Danny stood across from Cade at the open door to the Jeep. He held a box of new RFID tags in his hands. The cows milled around them, new calves and moms nearby and breeding bulls in the next pasture. “All we have to do is tag ’em and we’re on our way.”

  “We already tagged ’em,” Cade grumbled.

  Danny ignored this and scanned one of the tags with his RFID reader. It beeped, and he grinned at Cade. “Did it work?”

  Cade held the tablet awkwardly in his hands. The sleek metal casing felt strange and almost…wrong. It was too smooth, too perfect. His hands felt too big for it. Like he could snap it in half at any moment. But sure enough, the tag ID number had popped up in the spreadsheet on the screen. He tapped over to the next cell. “It worked.”

  “See? This isn’t so bad. A few hours today and tomorrow and we’ll be up and running.” Danny stuck the RFID reader in the crook of his elbow and rubbed his hands together. “Wells Ranch is on the up-and-up.”

  “We were always on the up-and-up,” Cade said, but the automatic bristling faded almost immediately. “But you’re right.” It was going to take some time to get all this together, but he could already see how it would help them in the long run. He would be able to sit in the farmhouse at night and make plans for the next day based on actual data from the animals themselves. He wished Becca were here to see this. He’d be forced to tell her how right she was and how wrong he was…about more than one thing.

  He stared down at the spreadsheet. Was she even okay? She’d looked so red-eyed and upset that he could see it even from his truck as she stood on the
porch. She’d been gone a couple of hours now. Where was she? What was she doing? Was she thinking about—

  “Earth to Cade. Lead Ranch Hand Danny, trying to reach Cade.”

  Danny’s voice snapped him out of his thoughts. “Yeah, yeah, I’m on it.”

  “I haven’t scanned another tag yet.” He could feel Danny watching him. “You ready?”

  “I’m ready.”

  They scanned a few more tags, but Cade’s mind kept wandering, down the driveway and then…where had she gone? Was she still upset, or had she driven ten minutes and realized she was free as a bird?

  Danny stepped to the Jeep and put the RFID reader down on the passenger seat. He whistled to the other ranch hands, who were tagging the cows with them. They all perked up. “Break time,” said Danny. “Head on out.”

  Cade opened his mouth to argue, but why? He was the one who needed a break.

  The other men jumped in the truck and drove toward the farmhouse.

  Danny leaned against the Jeep. “You want to talk about it, Cade?”

  “Talk about what?”

  Danny stood up straight and put his hands in his pockets, giving Cade as skeptical a look as he’d ever seen on the man’s face. “Well, I’d ask you why you’re moping around like a lovesick puppy, but the reason is obvious. Are you going after her?

  “I’m not lovesick.” He looked back down at the screen. “Let’s keep working on this.”

  Danny plucked the tablet out of his hands. “I beg to differ, boss. Can’t work like this. For one thing, it’s pathetic.” The breeze picked up around them, and Cade scowled at Danny. “For another, it’s not what you want to be doing. And I have to tell you—it’s a nightmare being out here with you when you’d rather be somewhere else.”

  “I don’t want to be anywhere else. I want to be right here. That’s why—” He shook his head. “That’s why Becca left, anyway. I wanted to keep the ranch, she wanted to take it, so it’s over. Not that—” Hot shame flew over his cheeks. “Not that there was anything there to begin with.”

  Danny scoffed. “That’s the most blatant lie I’ve ever heard. So I’ll just ignore it. My question still stands. Are you going after her?”

  “Even if I went after her, what do you think I’m gonna tell her?”

  Danny swept his hat from his head and tucked the tablet under his arm, considering Cade across the gap between them. “Well, I’m not one for flowery speeches, but when I screw up with my wife, I find that admitting I made a mistake and doing some sort of grand gesture usually goes a long way toward getting her to forgive me.”

  “A grand gesture.” The words tasted bitter in his mouth. “What am I supposed to do? That’s all well and good for you, but Becca’s gone. What kind of gesture is going to get her attention now? No. It’s a lost cause.”

  His phone rang in his pocket, and Cade slapped a hand down on it. “Hello?” He turned slightly away from Danny, but it didn’t matter. The man was going to hear everything anyway.

  “It’s me,” said Jayne, her voice thin with worry. “Have you seen Joey?”

  His heart sank like a rock, right down to his boots. “She’s at school.”

  “No, she’s not. The school secretary just called the landline.”

  Cade cursed. “I told them not to do that.”

  “I know,” Jayne said. “But she’s not at school. Do you think she’s somewhere here? She’s not anywhere in the house. I’ve checked all the bedrooms and the basement. I’m in the barn now. No sign of her.”

  “Maybe she’s in the cabin. I’ve got the Jeep here. I’ll go look. Call me if she turns up.” He shoved the phone back into his pocket and met Danny’s eyes. “Joey didn’t go to school. We’ve gotta find her. Put that stupid thing down and let’s go.”

  * * *

  Joey wasn’t at the cabin. They’d driven across the ridgeline, visiting all her favorite haunts with Danny leaning out of the passenger window and calling her name. She wasn’t there. Where was she? Cade’s heartbeat was the loudest sound, a bass drum in his ears. How could he have lost her again? She’d known Becca was set to head out. He’d been honest with her about it. And last night, she’d seemed all right. Disappointed, sure, but not to the point of running away.

  Where was she?

  His phone rang again and he pulled it woodenly from his pocket. “This is Cade.” Where is she, where is she, where is she?

  “Hey, Cade. It’s me.”

  The voice on the other end of the line stole his breath from his lungs and wrapped him in warmth. “Becca,” he said, his voice rough. How was he going to explain to her that he’d lost Joey? What possible excuse could he have?

  “I’ve got a stowaway,” she said. At first, the meaning didn’t register in his mind. “Joey got into the back of my car when I was packing up to go this morning. She’s here with me now, and perfectly safe. I’m bringing her back.”

  If Cade hadn’t already been sitting, his knees would have gone out from under him. He felt the relief in every muscle in his body, clear and hot. “Oh, thank god. Thank god, Becca.” He put a hand to his chest to press against the pain there. “I didn’t know where she was. I couldn’t find her.”

  “We’ll be back in about an hour and a half.”

  * * *

  Jayne and Danny stood on the front porch with Cade, watching the driveway. It had been the longest ninety minutes of his life. We’ll be back. Those words echoed in his mind. He’d watched her pull away this morning, thinking that he might never see her again. Now she was bringing back his runaway daughter.

  The little rental car pulled onto the driveway, and the three of them let out a sigh of relief. Cade couldn’t take his eyes off the car. Becca steered it up the drive and parked in front of the house. The doors opened, and Joey hopped out first, her backpack slung over her shoulder. “Hey, Dad,” she called across the drive. Becca was next, standing slowly from the car. She came around and walked Joey to the porch steps, and up.

  Cade looked down at his daughter. She was so like his brothers in attitude. So like them. “You can’t do that,” he said. “You can’t just run away. We were worried sick.”

  Joey looked down at her feet. “I just missed her, Dad.”

  “She hadn’t even left yet.”

  “I know. But I didn’t want her to go.”

  “You can’t run away.” He bent down to look her in the eye. “You just can’t, Joey.”

  His daughter looked back at him, steel in her eyes. “I want you to marry Becca.”

  He heard Becca’s sharp intake of breath, and on either side of him, Jayne and Danny shifted. Danny let out a cough. Cade straightened. “Head on up to your room. We’ll talk soon.”

  14

  Jayne ushered Joey into the house, and Danny gave her a fleeting grin, then jogged off the front porch, leaving her alone with Cade.

  Becca had never been so tired in her life.

  Six hours of driving, only to end up exactly where she’d started. She pushed her hair back from her face. She’d been crying, she’d been driving—there was no way she looked her best. Her balance tilted out from under her and she wobbled on her feet.

  Cade was with her in a heartbeat, slipping his arm around her waist to steady her. She looked up into his green eyes, shot through with sunflower yellow, and immediately regretted it. How was she going to live with the memory of those eyes? She swallowed hard, hoping he wouldn’t see how heartbroken she was. Becca put a hand on his arm and steadied herself. “Now that Joey’s safe, I’m headed out. I gave her my number. Tell her she can call me whenever—she just can’t hitch a ride in my car. Not today.” She lifted her hand from Cade’s muscled biceps and turned away.

  “Don’t go.” The words burst from Cade’s lips and she looked back, her head feeling too large and heavy for her body. Was he joking? He had to be joking. “You’re exhausted,” he said quickly. “Anybody can see that. Spend the night and get a good night’s sleep. Have you eaten anything today?”

 
; She shook her head. “Jayne gave me food to take with me, but I’ve been driving. And when I found Joey, I was too anxious to get her back to stop and eat.”

  Cade pointed inside. “Go freshen up. I’ll heat up some of Jayne’s leftovers. It’ll only take a minute.”

  Becca wasn’t sure she could speak to him without crying again, or breaking down in some other mortifying way. She didn’t have the energy to argue. So she went in the front door of the farmhouse and trudged up the wooden steps. In her old room—the guest room—she kicked off her shoes and gathered the energy to go down to the bathroom.

  Cade popped his head in the door. “Brought you this.” He pushed her suitcase gently inside after her. “Thought you might want to change into something less…road traveled.” He went back down the hall, and she heard his footsteps on the stairs.

  She stared at the suitcase. She should leave. Right now. Never come back. But exhaustion dug its hands into her shoulders and pressed in on her eyes. There was no way it was safe to get behind the wheel. And her stomach let out a long, loud growl. So she was hungry, too. Fine. She’d stay…for a minute.

  Fifteen minutes later, in fresh clothes that felt like ranch life, she headed down to the kitchen. Cade set a plate in front of one of the chairs at the table. “A meatloaf sandwich,” he said.

  Becca sat heavily in front of the place setting. Could she even eat? But then she breathed in the delicious aroma of it, and…yes. She could. She picked it up and took a bite, then another.

  “Got a batch of RFID tags in with the scanners and the tablet,” Cade said. He took the seat next to her. “We’re tagging the calves and the mothers first, and the breeding bulls next. Should only take a few days. I don’t quite have the hang of it yet, but I’ll get it.” He frowned.