No Ordinary Cowboy
Mary Sullivan
She'd rather be anywhere than here in Ordinary, Montana.Tackling the books for a failing ranch as a favor to a friend is not city girl Amy Graves's scene. And every time Hank Shelter stonewalls her search for the truth, she wants to be gone yesterday. Seriously. Still, something about the Sheltering Arms calls to her.Maybe it's the open spaces. Maybe it's the inner-city kids having the time of their lives here. Or maybe it's Hank, who is proving too good, too kind to be real. Despite herself, Amy's falling for his charm. But to put the ranch to rights she needs to know what he's hiding. Even if it destroys the sweet thing developing between them.
The loop settled over Amy, but also caught Hank
The rope tightened around them with the gentle persuasion of a mare nudging her colt home….
She’d raised her arms when he’d pulled her toward him and her hands rested high on his chest. They rose and fell with his quick breaths, branding him.
The sounds around him drifted away. He lost himself in Amy’s green eyes. His hands held the back of her waist, drifted down to her hips. He thought of ripe pears and his blond guitar.
She smelled warm, like the sun, like mango and papaya and coconut. Her skin looked soft enough to lick.
What if he did what he wanted and rested his head on her golden hair, felt the soft glide of it across his cheek? What if he leaned down to press his lips to her eyelids to close them, so she couldn’t see all of those handsome cowboys crowding around her? What if he kissed her until she was aware of only plain Hank?
Before he could act on the crazy impulse, she did the oddest thing. She closed her eyes and leaned forward, then smelled him with a delicate sniff.
She opened her eyes and smiled into his. “Soap. Nice.”
Dear Reader,
What is a born-and-bred city girl of Irish descent, who grew up in Toronto eating Greek pastries on the Danforth, noshing on grapes from her Italian neighbor’s vines and drinking Turkish coffee with her Macedonian friends, doing writing romance novels about cowboys and cowgirls?
They fascinate me! I admire the committed work ethic that compels them to raise cattle under the toughest conditions, to battle summer droughts and winter blizzards to maintain a way of life that has been bred into their bones.
I also love horses, love reading about them and watching them in movies. Sadly, I’ve never been on one. A hopelessly inept athlete, I never stop trying. Recently I went dogsledding for the first time and came home bruised and euphoric. Rock climbing is next. After that…horseback riding? Maybe it’s time to get up close and personal with a real live horse and even, gulp, ride one. Wouldn’t that be awesome?
I hope you enjoy my debut novel of a rugged cowboy who falls hard for a beautiful city girl.
Mary Sullivan
No Ordinary Cowboy
Mary Sullivan
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
When Mary Sullivan picked up her first Harlequin Superromance novel, she became hooked on romance. She wanted to write these heartfelt stories of love, family, perseverance and happy endings, about heroes and heroines graced with strength of character and hope. Mary believes that whether we live in the country, the city, or somewhere in between, home is where the heart is, with the people we choose to love.
To Kelly.
Home is where the heart is.
My heart is with you.
To Maureen, Michele, Molly, Sinead and Teresa.
I couldn’t have done this without you.
Thank you.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER ONE
“HANK SHELTER, if you’re there, pick up!”
Hank ignored his sister’s order and strode from the desk to the window, putting distance between him and the telephone.
“Leila,” he muttered to his empty office, “I don’t feel like tangling with you today. The answering machine can deal with you.”
He leaned against the wall beside the open window, his arms crossed, staring across his fields to the distant hills. June in Montana. Was there anything on this earth more beautiful than his ranch?
Correction. Not his ranch. Leila’s. Another of Dad’s crazy decisions, to leave the ranch to her. It should have been Hank’s. He pounded his fist on the windowsill.
“Hank,” Leila continued, “you can’t stick your head in the ground like an ostrich and ignore reality.”
What reality? Things on the ranch were rolling along just fine.
Leila’s sigh over the phone line held a world of frustration.
“Okay, this is the deal. My friend, Amy Graves, is on her way to go over the books. She’s an excellent accountant.”
An accountant? Hank straightened and uncrossed his arms. What the heck for? He turned to stare at the machine.
He could run this ranch fine on his own, and had been doing so since Dad died.
He’d stopped in at the bank only yesterday and no one had said a word about any problems.
“Wipe the scowl off your face, baby brother,” Leila continued, but her tone held a hint of worry under her usual brusqueness. “Cooperate. After the letter I received from the bank this morning, I’m deeply concerned. The situation might have reached the point of no return.”
Letter? What letter? Point of no return? His heart pounded. Had the bank somehow figured out—They couldn’t have. He’d been so careful.
“Someone needs to take control of the ranch’s finances before the whole enterprise goes down the toilet.”
The toilet? As in losing the ranch? His breakfast threatened a return journey up his throat and he swallowed hard.
Dad’s voice echoed through his memory. “You’ve screwed up again, boy. Keep it private. We don’t need the whole world to know our business.”
Shame rushed up from his chest, leaving his cheeks hot enough to melt bullets.
“Hank—” Leila hesitated before saying more. Hank cocked his head. Strange for her to be unsure of anything.
“Amy’s fragile these days.” Leila’s voice held an uncharacteristic softness. “Take care of her.”
The solid click of his sister hanging up followed her “goodbye.”
Hank clenched his hands and rested them on the windowsill, digging his knuckles into the wood, hoping the pain would eclipse his panic. Even the scents of dust kicked up by horses’ hooves and the damp humus of Hannah’s garden couldn’t calm him now.
Cripes almighty, Leila’s sending an accountant to the ranch.
He walked to the desk and shuffled the piles of paper, read the numbers, tried to make sense of Leila’s distress.
As far as he could tell, everything was fine. His system was working.
Why would the bank send a letter to Leila, anyway? All the statements came here.
He picked up the phone and dialed the bank, then asked for Donna. She had worked there since before Hank was born. She did Hank’s payroll taxes for him, would handle the year-end as she’d done for Dad. If Donna couldn’t straighten things out, no one could.
Five minutes later, he hung up. Nope. No problem. The accounts were fine. The bank had no record of a letter being sent to Leila.
Hank heaved a sigh.
Leila was overreacting to something sent to her by mistake. Or whatever. He should call her and tell her what the bank had said. Honest, though, he didn’t want to tangle with her today. Once Leila got her mind on something, she was worse than a terrier for not letting go. Next thing, she would come down here to cluck around him like a mother hen, then order him around.
The ranch hands, including Willie, hated taking orders from her. Best just to leave things as they were.
A small voice in the back of his mind warned that Leila was not the kind of woman to run off in a panic for no reason.
Well, he’d get the accountant to relay the message to Leila that all was well here.
He stared at the piles of paper on the desk, on the floor, on every horizontal surface. He might have a great routine that kept things up-to-date and all bills paid, but his filing system was abysmal.
“Keep it private, boy,” Dad whispered through his memory again.
“All right,” Hank murmured. “I got it the first twelve hundred times.”
Even without Dad’s harping in his memory, Hank was embarrassed to think of an accountant coming in to see this mess.
He shook his head and returned to the window.
Five of this month’s kids, the older ones, saddled horses in the yard for their overnight camping trip.
Wish I could go with them. Next time.
He’d tell the accountant Leila had made a mistake. There was nothing wrong at the bank.
What if she made a fuss, insisted on seeing his books anyway? Damned if he was going to let some city accountant go through his personal stuff, mess up his ranch and his life over nothing. He’d find a way out of this himself—whatever this was.
He slammed the window shut and strode to the desk. Dad used to keep a key in the top drawer.
He walked out of the office, turning to lock the door behind him. It hadn’t been locked since Dad died. He slipped the key into his pocket.
Down the hallway in the dining room, the younger five of this month’s kids, the six-to nine-year-olds, still lingered over breakfast, their chatter mingling with the scents of bacon, eggs and hot chocolate.
Hank peeked in on them. Their baseball caps hung from the backs of their chairs, leaving their delicate scalps exposed.
He clapped his hands. “Who wants to go see the horses?”
They jumped out of their seats and swarmed him, laughing and talking.
He ran a hand over Kyle’s soft head, fuzz like freshly seeded grass making a hesitant show.
“Hey, Hank,” Jamie yelled, “I can ride a horse good.” Some kids did everything full blast, even talking.
Hank grinned.
Quiet Cheryl patted his arm for attention and he picked her up. Her hair resisted regrowth, leaving her skull as bare as a newborn’s.
His heart swelled to bursting.
This was what mattered—these children, and keeping the ranch alive for them.
TOO SOON, Amy Graves’s twitchy stomach told her she’d arrived at the Sheltering Arms ranch. When she stepped out of her car into the dry heat, a breeze kicked up her bangs and sent them flying around her forehead. It ruffled the feathery branches of a weeping willow that beckoned from the front lawn. A shady refuge.
She took a breath of clean, pure air and tried to calm her nerves. She could do this. She could face this ranch and what it meant to her.
Dust settled on the stretch of dirt road she’d just driven in on from the highway. The driveway bisected golden fields of…what? No clue. Amber waves of grain. But what kind of grain? One of the things she’d have to find out. What was it and how much profit did they make on it? Or did they feed it to animals, an expense they could claim?
Meadows of green and gold stretched as far as she could see, changing into rolling hills on the horizon.
Above it all, white puffs of cotton candy dotted the huge bowl of brilliant blue that earned Montana the moniker Big Sky.
She sucked in a breath. “Beautiful.” She listened to the gentle breeze carrying the distant sounds of children’s laughter and her heartbeat slowed, her shoulders relaxed. Calmness crept through her.
A sigh slipped from her lips.
Not fifty yards away, a flock of birds waddled through the grass, older birds leading the flock and young furry chicks following behind. Ducks? Geese? She didn’t know the difference.
She was out of her element here. Once a city girl, always a city girl.
The ranch house stood wide, white and placid in the late morning sun. Blue shutters framed windows on the second floor, flower boxes brightened windowsills with yellow pansies. Wicker chairs on the veranda beckoned. Come and rest a spell, put up your feet, unburden your weary shoulders. Welcome.
Pretty. She’d expected something rugged, made with logs and adobe or whatever materials people used in the country.
She stepped onto the veranda and heard a cacophony of children’s voices approach from the side of the house. A big man with kids dangling from his back, arms and legs rounded the corner of the house. Muscles on top of muscles bulged in his denim shirt and jeans.
Amy smiled. This must be Hank Shelter. Leila said her brother always had children hanging on to him. Amy hadn’t known she’d been speaking literally. She counted five children clinging to the man.
Hank leaned down to talk to the two sitting on his feet. “You kids are comin’ in for lunch whether you want to or not.” His voice, as rough as cowboy boots shuffling on gravel, sent sexy shivers running through Amy.
She rubbed goose bumps from her arms.
The kids answered Hank in varied chirps, “No, Hank, not yet.”
“We want one more ride around the house.”
“Now kids, we’ve been around this veranda three times already this mornin’ and old Hank ain’t gettin’ any younger. I gotta wet my whistle and fill my grumblin’ belly.”
Amy rolled her eyes. Corny. A smile tugged at the corners of her lips.
The man looked up from under the brim of a dusty white cowboy hat. Eyes that shone with the warmth of aged scotch widened when he saw her.
His average-looking face—large nose and strong jaw—would never grace a magazine cover, but a face as bracketed by creases as Hank’s was spoke of character.
He snatched the hat from his head, exposing a thick mass of glorious brown hair. One streak of caramel ran across the top of his head from a widow’s peak.
Then he smiled and Amy’s breath caught. The world was suddenly a brighter place. Good thing he lived under the open Big Sky. He’d eclipse the sun in any other state.
Warmth and sincerity shone from his broad white smile and she felt an answering smile creep across her mouth.
His hazelnut and whiskey eyes sparkled. My, my. With only a handful of grins, this man could chase the devil out of a witch’s den and have the old crones eating out of his hand.
Crones? Where had that come from? It certainly wasn’t a word she ever used in the city. She’d been on the ranch less than five minutes and already she was relaxing into a different lingo.
Amy’s hands itched to trim Hank’s ragged mustache. Don’t hide a smile so beautiful. Flaunt it.
Hank Shelter, aren’t you a surprise?
One little girl let go of his biceps to wrap her arms around his waist. “I love you, Hank.” She gazed up at him with adoring blue eyes.
“Thank you, darlin’,” he answered. “A man needs to hear that every so often from a beautiful woman.” He rubbed his hand across the child’s neck with such tenderness that Amy felt a longing rise in her.
Do that to me.
The young girl giggled and hid her face against his shirt.
When Hank removed his big hand from the back of the child’s head, Amy gasped.
From beneath the girl’s baseball cap, a bare skull peeked out above a baby-chick neck. A cancer survivor.
Her brief moment of peace shattered. Amy rubbed her chest.
She’d known that the Sheltering Arms ranch took in poor, inner-city kids who were recovering from cancer, and she thought she’d prepared herself for them.
So wrong.
They all wore ball caps with no hair peeking out below. Nothing but more of those delicate bare necks.
The hands Amy wiped on her thighs shook.
The girl turned her face toward Amy. Sallow skin, dark circles under her eyes, thin to the point of pain.
Gulping deep breaths, Amy washed herself with icy aloofness. Rise above it. Come on, you can do it.
She turned away and stared hard at the fields, digging deep for strength.
Amy’s glance returned to the children against her will, like a tongue probing a sore tooth to see whether pain lingered.
It did.
A boy sitting on Hank’s foot pointed to her and asked, “Who is she, Hank?”
HANK’S TONGUE stuck to the roof of his mouth. What was this curvy female, the most beautiful one he’d ever seen, doing on his ranch?
Blond hair. Green eyes. Perfect body. Made a man want to…what? Where were his treasured words when he needed them?
“Exquisite,” he whispered. His favorite word. Damn. Hadn’t meant to say it out loud.
For a second, he thought she might be mother to one of the children, but he’d met them all in the city a few weeks ago.
“Can I help you, ma’am?” He tried to clear the battery acid out of his voice.
“Are you Hank Shelter?” she asked and her voice washed over him like a Chinook melting February snow. Awareness hummed along his nerve endings.
“Yes, ma’am, I am.” Nerves—or the kid clinging to his throat—made him sound rougher than usual.
“I’m Amy Graves, Leila’s friend. How do you do, Mr. Shelter?” She extended her right hand toward him.
Leila’s friend? “You’re the accountant?”
Leila was in her early fifties. Amy didn’t look a day over thirty. Didn’t that just knock the wind out of him?
He realized his mouth was hanging open and he clamped it shut.
His fingers tingled and his heart pounded. Slow down, he warned his treacherous libido.
His body wanted to jump a few fences, but his heart balked at the gates.
He set down the two girls hanging from his right arm, then wrapped his fingers around Amy’s hand. It nestled as soft as a calf’s ear in his big-galoot palm and started long-forgotten urges. He dropped it like a hot cow pie.
He cleared his throat. “Ma’am, if you’ll give me your keys, the kids and I will get your luggage.”
The woman nodded.
She’s fragile these days.
She looked fit, but he understood what Leila meant about the fragility. Emotional, maybe.
Take care of her.
Uh-uh. No can do. He set his jaw hard enough to hear his teeth grind.
He walked away from her to get her bags, the children following him like a line of baby ducks.
He opened the trunk of her car and pulled out a suitcase and an overnight bag. There was one more bag, supple brown leather with a brass closure. A laptop. Right, common sense reminded him. She’s here to work, on the books.
Too bad, his libido whispered.
Use every trick in the book to get rid of her, his common sense answered. He needed an attraction to the woman who was here to look at his books like he needed a root canal. Not.
He planned to have her hightailing it back to the city by tomorrow morning.
CHAPTER TWO
AMY ENTERED the house and let the screen door butt her back. Her lungs wouldn’t expand enough for the air she needed. Maybe coming here hadn’t been such a great idea. Sure, she needed to face her fears of illness and dying, but spending time with these children was definitely trial by fire.
She had to do this. Simply had to.
She ran a hand over her face, pulling herself under control. The darkness and cinnamon scent of the foyer helped.
Hank entered the house behind her.
“Kids,” he said to the children following on his heels, “go wash up. Hannah should have lunch on the table any minute.”
They ran down the hall to a room at the far end. Seconds later, someone had the water running.
“That bathroom is across the hall from your bedroom,” Hank said. “It’ll be your own early mornings and late evenings. The rest of the time, the kids have to use it.” He shrugged his apology.
The lemon and soap scent of him drifted by her. Too nice. Her nerves went on high alert. She was here to test herself with the children. Being attracted—okay, very attracted—to Leila’s brother was not in the plan.
Amy followed Hank down the hallway, past a wide staircase leading to the second floor on one side and a closed door on the other. Pastoral landscapes dotted the walls, with not a single abstract in sight. He entered a room at the back of the house, the last one opposite the bathroom the kids were using.
Hank set one of her suitcases onto the floor and the other onto its side on the bed.
“Ma’am, if you don’t mind, I’m going to get those kids settled down for lunch. Join us when you finish freshening up.”
No. She needed to take exposure to those kids in baby steps.
“I’d like to go straight to the office,” she replied. “I’m not hungry.”
Her traitorous stomach chose that moment to grumble.
Hank’s smile looked smug. “That door leads to the kitchen, where you’ll find our housekeeper, Hannah.” He pointed behind himself. “The one down the hall is the dining room.”
The children ran down the hall away from the bathroom.
“You can’t miss it,” Hank continued. “Just follow the sound of those kids. They make enough noise to rouse the dead.”
Amy flinched away from that image.
She put on a smile but knew it didn’t reach her eyes. The psychic pain she’d been carrying for two years wouldn’t quit.
“Dolorous,” Hank whispered, then his gaze flew away from hers.
He backed out of the bedroom, bumping into a small table. He caught a vase of lilacs before it fell but not before water sloshed onto his hand. His shoulder bumped into the door frame when he stepped through it. With the vase still in his grasp, he disappeared into the hall.
Well, he couldn’t be more different from Leila than chocolate from vanilla. Hard to believe they were related. Hank must be fifteen, sixteen years younger than Leila. Funny. Was Hank a late baby? A midlife surprise for his mother?
No, wait. Leila had mentioned that her mother had died when she was young and her father had remarried. Maybe the second wife was a much younger woman.
Hank had whispered one word on the verandah—exquisite. A smile tugged at her lips, the first genuine one she’d felt in ages. She’d pretended not to hear, but it did her soul good that a man found her attractive. Especially these days.
The smile fell from her face.
It doesn’t matter, though. Nothing is going to happen here.
She stepped into the hallway and walked toward the dining room. The vase of flowers from her bedroom sat in a puddle on the hallway floor beside the open dining room door.
The suspicion that Hank was a bit of a bumbling gentle giant eased her low mood.
She entered a room swollen with sound. Hank sat at the far end of the table and an older gentleman, who matched Leila’s description of the foreman, Willie, sat at the near end. A couple of teenagers sat on one side of the table. Camp counselors? The young children filled in the remaining places, save one. Baseball caps hung from the backs of their chairs. She paused, arrested by the sight of all those bare heads lining the table, too vulnerable in their white roundness, like a nest full of goslings.
She bit her lip.
THERE OUGHT TO BE a law against a woman looking so sweet and beautiful, yet having the potential to be so much trouble. Hank shifted in his seat and watched the accountant walk to the chair beside Willie’s, worrying her pretty bottom lip with her teeth.
Hank watched Willie glance up at Amy, his water glass raised to his lips, then do a double take and choke. He slammed the glass back onto the table.
“Willie,” Hank said, “meet Amy Graves, Leila’s friend. The accountant.”
Willie coughed and sputtered into his napkin.
Hank knew how Willie felt. Amy Graves was a shocker. Beautiful. A generation younger than Leila. Smart.
Willie jumped to his feet, pulling Amy’s chair out for her. “How d’you do, ma’am? I’m Willie.”
Amy shook his hand.
“So, you’re stayin’ with us the whole summer?” Willie asked after he sat.
“No, only long enough for me to figure out the finances.”
Hank’s abs tightened.
“Uh-huh. What are you gonna do about the finances?” Willie asked.
Amy’s eyes darted to the children. “Well, I’m going to take a look at the books and make some recommendations for Leila.”
“Uh-huh? Like what?”
Hank knew that Willie was only making conversation, but this particular discussion didn’t belong here, now, in front of the children.
“We can discuss this after lunch,” he said and the accountant nodded, the tension around her mouth relaxing. Looked like she didn’t want to talk about this in front of the children any more than he did.
They finished Hannah’s excellent minestrone then Amy said “no” to dessert. Watching her weight? Lord, why? He stole a glance at as much of her body as he could see above the table. Her lovely chest rose and fell with her breathing. She wasn’t a large woman, nor was she too thin. She was just about right.
Hank finished two servings of Hannah’s apple cobbler. Then, while the children lingered over dessert with Willie and the counselors, he asked Amy if she would join him in the living room.
He led her across the hall to the far end of the room and gestured toward one of the two maroon sofas. He sat in an armchair across from her.
“Listen,” he started. “There’s been a mistake.”
She frowned. Quizzically. Great word.
“I don’t know what kind of letter Leila got from the bank,” he continued, “but there isn’t a problem here.”
“There must be something wrong or the bank wouldn’t have sent a letter.”
“Did you see it?” Hank asked. “Do you know what it said?”
“No, Leila called me from Seattle. Her boss sent her there this morning to handle a business emergency. She expressed grave concern about the state of the finances here.”
“I called the bank this morning,” he said, raising his arms and linking his fingers behind his head.
Her gaze dropped to his chest. “What did they say?” she asked.
“That nothing was wrong,” he answered. “They didn’t send Leila a letter.”
Amy’s gaze returned to his face. “But I know Leila received a letter.”
“I guess you’d better head back to the city and take it up with her.”
She looked at his chest again and he realized his shirt was stretched real tight across his pecs. She was staring. Made him feel warm. Self-conscious. He wasn’t used to women looking at him like that. She wasn’t thinking about money and banks. She was thinking about him and his chest. He lowered his hands to the arms of the chair.
She relaxed against the back of the sofa as if a string stretched tautly from him to her had let go. “I’ve told her I intend to check things out here, and I will,” she said.
“But there’s no need,” he insisted, his pulse picking up.
“In this situation, as the owner of the ranch, Leila is my boss, and I answer to her.” Her voice was quiet, but there was no denying her determination.
There it was, the bald truth he hated so much—that Leila could do whatever she wanted with his ranch, with or without his cooperation. He curled his fingers into his palms.
“What are you looking for?” he asked, unable to hide the belligerence in his tone. He’d been raised better than to treat a guest badly, but his heart rate was shooting through the stratosphere. Leila had been desperate enough to send a stranger here to look at the books. That could only presage bad news.
Presage. He liked that word.
Hank flexed his jaw and narrowed his eyes.
“I’ll look for evidence of neglect—” She hesitated, her manner cool now, then said, “Willful misuse of funds.”
She couldn’t possibly find out, could she?
Mice with sharp claws skittered up Hank’s spine, accompanied by foreboding.
Naw, he’d called the bank himself. Things were fine.
“Best-case scenario,” she said, “I’ll make recommendations on how to maximize your income and minimize your expenses.”
Hank’s throat burned. His pride ached. It had suffered when Dad had willed the ranch to Leila. Now here it was again, rearing its godforsaken head.
“Worst-case scenario?” Hank asked, his voice even rougher than earlier.
“We can discuss those options after I look at the books.”
Buzzing hummed in Hank’s ears. He shook his head, but it only grew louder.
He couldn’t stop. He needed to know. Now.
“Tell me,” he insisted, grinding it out between clenched teeth while panic rose like bile into his throat. This was what he’d always feared, wasn’t it? That he would screw up so badly he would lose everything that mattered to him.
“If we have to,” Amy whispered, “we would sell the ranch.”
The pronouncement bounced from the walls. It shot through the buzzing in his ears.
Hank sat in the eerie silence that followed and felt his heart fall through his body to the floor.
Sell the ranch.
The very worst the world could dish out.
But things weren’t that bad. Why would Leila and this woman think they could be?
Anger blazed through him, and the buzzing returned with a roar.
“Come again?” Hank yelled at the pale woman on the sofa.
The knuckles of Amy’s clenched hands turned white in her lap. “Leila is afraid that selling the ranch might be the only option.”
“You can’t—” His jaw tightened. “You wouldn’t—”
“I’m just preparing you for the worst.” Amy’s voice was gentle again, but it tore through Hank’s skin. Like thistle-down coating barbed wire, it did nothing to ease his pain.
“But things aren’t that bad. Donna at the bank would have warned me,” Hank insisted, his heart pounding his ribs.
“Because of the letter Leila received, she seems to think they are. We have to consider all options.”
Hank couldn’t figure out what was going on here. He’d been so careful.
Leila was making a mistake. This woman shouldn’t be here, talking about worst-case scenarios. He surged out of his chair.
No, he refused to accept this.
Hank pointed a finger Amy’s way and raised his voice. “Maybe where you come from, people consider all options, but in these parts, we don’t consider options we don’t believe in.” The pain of his unruly emotions, and his shame, and his fear of his own incompetence built in his chest. “We work hard to keep what’s ours.”
He towered over her and, for the briefest moment, she shrank against the back of the couch.
Then, her green eyes glittered with defiance, like she was building her own head of steam, and she sat up straight. One cheek turned pink, only one, fascinating him. It was the damnedest thing to watch that cheek turn even redder, while the other stayed pale. Peculiar. Another of those words he loved.
Forget the damn words you love!
She was casting a spell over him. Was this how she worked? Pulling men into some kind of obsession? Damned if he’d let her.
He felt the heat and anger of his own helplessness, at his own lack of control over the ranch he’d grown up on and loved, steamroll over this petite, dangerously beautiful woman.
“You’ll sell this ranch over my dead body,” he hollered.
He turned and stormed from the room, only to draw up short. Willie was herding the children out of the dining room into the hall and toward the front door. They stared at Hank with wide eyes.
His gut churned. He’d never raised his voice in front of any child before.
He rushed from the house and raced across the yard to the stable.
CHAPTER THREE
AMY STARED at his retreating back. The man wasn’t as mild-mannered as he looked.
The counselors began to herd the children through the front door.
“Take them to the field and start a game,” Willie said. The counselors nodded.
Willie walked to where she sat on the sofa.
“He has a temper,” she said, glancing at him for confirmation, but the ranch foreman looked at her as if she’d crawled out from under a rock.
“That there,” he said, leaning toward her, “is the first time I’ve seen that boy lose his temper since he was sixteen.”
He smacked his dirty hat onto his gray hair and pinned Amy with shrewd eyes. He got close enough for her to smell coffee on his breath. “You couldn’ a picked a better way to make an enemy of the sweetest boy on the face of this earth.”
He left the room, the heels of his cowboy boots banging reproach on the floor of the hall.
Amy sat dazed.
She’d seen the censure of every child and teenager standing in the hall when Hank had stormed out. Rather than blame him for his bad behavior, they’d looked at her as if she were the one at fault.
She raised her hand to her hot cheek, thinking of the way Hank had looked at her a few moments ago, not with the heat of anger, but with something almost like hunger. Then rage had taken its place, all of it directed at her.
The commingled heat of anger and chagrin burned through her.
How dare Hank make her look bad in front of these children?
Two years ago, she would have found a way to handle the situation better, but she was so far off her stride these days. Why hadn’t Leila warned Hank about this option? Perhaps she’d been wary of Hank’s reaction and had left it for Amy to deal with. So odd for take-charge Leila.
Amy stood and walked to her room, where she sat on her bed and fumed. How dare he treat her as if she was the villain here? He’d gotten himself into financial trouble, not her.
She had a good mind to march right back home to Billings and leave the ornery man to deal with his own problems.
Him and his useless pride. Over the past ten years, she’d often run into foolish pride in mismanaged corporations. Boards and managers who called on her for help routinely ignored her hard-won reputation and refused to consider her solutions.
Stubborn, stubborn man. Did Hank think she would be here if the situation wasn’t dire? Did he think übercapable Leila panicked at the drop of a hat?
And Willie. Did he have to look at her as if she was the cause of their problems?
She knew what would come next on Hank’s part—resistance, sly questions about her competence, the insistence on a second opinion. All in all, a noxious brew that wouldn’t let up until she either saved the ranch for them, or sold it.
She rubbed her temples. She was so darn tired of fighting, and she wasn’t sure she had the patience left to help people who wouldn’t help themselves.
The hell with it.
She was leaving.
She picked up her purse and dragged her suitcase from the bed.
As she reached the door, an image of Leila’s worried face popped into her mind. Leila had been her rock for the past two years. Amy owed her big-time and didn’t resent the debt one iota.
She sighed. Of course she wouldn’t leave. One more image of Leila’s normally indomitable face creased with worry was enough to make Amy stay put.
More importantly, if Amy went home, she would be back to square one. Living like a hermit. Ignoring decisions that needed to be made about her business. Wallowing in self-pity.
Leila hadn’t asked Amy to come. Amy had volunteered, both for her friend and for herself.
It was time to get over her problems and get on with life. These children could help her.
She set down her bags, walked to the window and stared at the massive fields of waving grain, at the neat-as-a-pin grounds, and at the large solid buildings—stables, barns, garages—all white and red in the blazing sun. Not one sign of neglect.
Admittedly Hank took care of the place.
In one of the fenced corrals, a mother horse and her baby nuzzled noses. Colt? Calf? No, calves were cows. Weren’t they?
This ranch could help her.
She’d stay.
For one week.
Not one day longer.
If an accountant with her skills couldn’t set this place right in a week, then it was time to change careers.
Amy took a deep, sustaining breath and turned from the window. She needed to call her mother, who would fret until she heard from Amy.
She pulled her cell phone from her purse and dialed the number in Billings.
“Hello?” Mother’s voice quavered more with each passing week.
“Hi, it’s me.”
“I was expecting you to call a long time ago, you know?” Rarely did her mother make a statement that didn’t end with a question mark. Maybe the habit came from watching Jeopardy! every night for twenty years.
“Yes, I know, but it was a long drive then I had lunch.”
“When are you coming home, dear?”
Amy sighed. She’d already told Mother a number of times she’d be here until she solved the problem. If Mother had Alzheimer’s or dementia, Amy could understand her behavior. But Amy knew this was an attempt to make her feel guilty about leaving Billings.
She also knew how lonely Mother was.
Caught in a bind between impatience and love, she asked, “Have you gone to any of those socials your church organizes?”
“No. I don’t know anyone there, do I?”
“That is the point of the socials. To get to know other people.”
“But I don’t know anyone now, do I? So I would have to make new friends. That’s hard for me, you know?”
Amy counted to ten. Oh, Mother, darling, get a life.
The silence stretched until her mother broke it. “When are you coming home?”
“I’ll come back on the weekend for a visit. I’ll stay with you on Saturday night. How does that sound?”
“Today is only Monday,” Mother said, a thread of desperation running through her tone. “Saturday is a long way away. Can you come on Friday night?”
Amy squeezed the top of her nose to ease a building headache.
“Yes. I’ll see you at dinnertime.”
She closed her phone with a click and sat with her eyes closed. When had the child become the parent and her mother, the child?
She opened her purse and took out the small jade cat she carried everywhere. Her dad had given it to her after her pet, Princie, had been hit by a car. It sat in her hand, cool and green.
“She’s the exact shade of your pretty green eyes,” he’d said. “This little cat will never die. She’ll be your friend forever.”
That day, she’d felt nothing could harm her while Dad was around.
She set the cat on the bedside table and pushed away those memories.
Enough. No dwelling on pain or death.
Instead, figure out what you plan to do about this ranch.
And what you plan to do about Hank Shelter. She had a bone to pick with him.
He owed her for embarrassing her in front of everyone. She’d wait until the time was right then let him have it, full blast, both barrels blazing.
Images of his sweet smile and the sensitive way he played with the children flashed through her mind, and she hesitated, but the memory of him towering over her and yelling at her won out.
Hank Shelter deserved a set down, and she was just the person to administer it.
HANK PACED the length of the stable’s center aisle from front to back and back to front again.
Time to be honest with himself. This whole situation rattled him. She rattled him. He remembered the way he’d stood over Amy, trying to make her take back what she’d said about selling the ranch. He never used his size to intimidate people, ’specially not women or children.
Whether or not the bank said there was nothing wrong, she and Leila could sell the ranch out from under him and he wouldn’t have a speck of power to prevent it.
He pounded his fist against the wall.
“Damn you, Dad. It should have been mine.”
Hank knew the truth, though, knew exactly why Dad hadn’t left the ranch to him, and he hung his head, choked by shame. Once that woman got to the books, she would know, too. In a matter of time, the whole world would.
He leaned his forehead on the rough wood and breathed heavily, hot air hitting the wall and bouncing back to bathe his face. He’d lived with his problem all his life. He would live with it for the rest, but Lord help him, he needed to do it here, on this ranch, where he felt strong and capable. And of value.
The sound of his fist hitting the wall again reverberated in the cavernous room.
Stop, he warned himself. Pull yourself together.
No. He wasn’t losing this land that was more precious to him than his own life. He was not abandoning those kids, who needed this place with every breath they took.
He threw back his head and yelled, “I’m not leaving this ranch!”
“That’s the spirit.”
Hank spun around at the sound of Willie’s voice. The older man stood silhouetted in the open doorway of the building. Was it a trick of the sun that made him look shorter? Willie stepped into the cool interior and Hank noticed for the first time how stooped his foreman was becoming.
“Feel any better after that outburst?” Willie’s tone held reproach. He walked closer and stood with arms akimbo.
Hank ran his fingers through his hair and his anger abated. “Can’t believe I got mad enough to yell where the children would hear me.”
“I think the next county heard you,” Willie said. “Haven’t seen that since you started bringing the children here.” Willie’s voice wavered, thinner than it used to be. A lot of things were thinner about Willie these days. He was getting old. Hank would have to lay him off if he lost the ranch. Where on earth would Willie go at his age?
Hank would lose the best friend he’d ever had. He’d had a stronger connection with the foreman than he’d ever had with his own father.
Nope. Wasn’t about to happen. He was losing neither the ranch nor Willie.
“If things got really bad, we might have to sell.”
Willie dropped his arms to his sides. “It’s that close?”
“I don’t know.” Hank scuffed a boot in the dirt. “I kind of forced her to tell me the worst that could happen.”
Dust motes drifted in a sunbeam that shone through a high window.
Willie set his foot on a bale of straw and rested his elbow on his knee. “Sounds like you aren’t gonna take this sitting down.”
“I plan to fight back,” Hank answered.
Willie’s white mustache curled up at the corners. He looked at Hank with gray eyes. “Glad to hear you say that.”
“I shouldn’t have made a scene in front of the kids.”
“Nope. But you did, so move on. Should have a little talk with them. Reassure them everything’s all right.”
Hank nodded. “Yeah. I’ll do that.” He straightened. “Now.”
Funny how the sound of those kids chattering across the yard gave him hope. When they’d gotten here two weeks ago, they’d been the saddest, quietest bunch of tots he’d seen in an age.
“Can you help Haley and Rich watch the children for a while?” Hank asked.
“Sure can. Whatcha have in mind to do?”
“I’m going to keep her out of that office,” Hank said.
“You sure that’s wise? Why not let her in and get it over with?”
Hank shrugged. “Just can’t let her in there.”
“Don’t forget, you catch more flies with honey.” Willie laughed. “Sweeten her up.”
Hank smiled and it felt strained. He knew kids. He didn’t much know women.
Time to learn.
Fast.
He stepped into the sun-drenched yard and spotted the children in the field on the other side of the corral. He joined them there.
“Kids,” he said as they swarmed him, clutching his arms, sitting on his feet, wrapping arms around his waist. “I got to give y’all an apology. I shouldn’t have yelled at that lady like that.”
Cheryl’s solemn gaze disconcerted him. She was the most fragile of the group and the wisest—an old woman in a child’s body. She raised her arms to be lifted.
He picked her up and settled her against his chest.
“Don’t be mad,” she whispered.
“I’m not mad, darlin’, not anymore,” he said.
Nope, not mad. Determined.
AS AMY WALKED across the yard, she watched Hank talk to the girl with the haunting eyes. Looked like there was some kind of bond between them.
She wouldn’t let sentiment overcome her resolve, though.
“We need to talk,” she said as she approached. She nodded her head toward the children, who watched her warily. “Privately.”
Hank put down the girl. She and the other children ran to the counselors in the field.
“I’d like to see the office,” Amy said.
Hank cracked the knuckles of his left hand. He frowned intensely, like he was thinking hard about something, then his face lit up.
“Hungry Hollow!” he shouted, then lowered his voice. “You need to see the neighboring ranch.”
“Later. I really think—”
“It’s the working part of this property.”
That stopped her even more than the cunning look in his eye. The working part would be important. She had to get to those books, though.
“But—”
“It brings in a good income,” he said.
Okay, she would need to know how Hank supported this whole operation. She nodded. “I should check it out.”
“Yeah, we can ride over.”
“Ride? On a horse?” She placed a hand against her chest, then dropped it the second she realized it drew his eyes to her body.
“I’ll drive over,” she said, “and meet you there.”
“No need. We can take the pickup truck if you don’t want to ride.”
“No,” she said, her voice shaky. “I’d rather not ride.” Not on your life.
Half an hour later, Amy sat in Hank’s dusty black pickup, checking out the details of this man’s life. A crack in the upholstery had been repaired with duct tape, gray against the black. In contrast, a top-of-the-line CD player shone through a coat of dust on the dashboard.
Amy noticed the cover of an audio book on the dashboard: Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time. Wow, heavy reading. Amy had tried it once and hadn’t had the patience for it.
A rancher listening to Hawking? Hank?
Okay, Amy, back off on the prejudices.
As the truck bumped along, Amy felt like a sack of turnips, tossed around by the ruts of Hungry Hollow’s driveway.
Hank’s hand on the gearshift brushed her knee. The man radiated heat like an oven. Her fingers hurt from gripping the door handle to stay on her side of the truck, and still she could feel his heat.
It felt too good.
“I need to apologize to you for yelling,” Hank said above the noise of the truck as he geared down. “I don’t normally do that.”
“So Willie led me to believe.” Amy knew she sounded cool but didn’t care. The man had been unreasonable.
Hank nodded.
A bag of candy in the cup holder caught her eye and she picked it up. “Humbugs,” she cried.
“Yep. They’re my favorite.” Hank looked her way. “You like them?”
“I love them, but I don’t see them very often.”
“Help yourself. I get them in Ordinary, in a shop called Sweet Talk.” Hank steered the truck onto a dirt road with a house in the distance.
“You should take a drive into Ordinary,” he said. “It’s a real sweet little town, the lifeline for all of us ranchers in the district.”
Amy doubted she’d make it into town during this short visit. It had nothing to do with her job here.
After circling into the yard of a big old brick farmhouse, they pulled up in front of a corral teeming with men, horses and dust.
Amy felt the truck dip and lift as Hank stepped out, yelling, “Hey, Angus. What’s up?”
Angus, a dark-haired, fortysomething man with enough character in his face to make it more than handsome, shook Hank’s hand and swatted him on the arm loudly enough for Amy to hear from the open passenger window. Hank didn’t budge an inch. He tapped Angus on the shoulder, raising a cloud of dust from his shirt.
“The boys are practicing for the rodeo,” Angus said. “You here to do some bronc-bustin’?”
“Naw, not today. I’m just showing my guest around.”
Amy stepped out of the truck with her notebook in hand.
“Amy,” Hank said, “this is my neighbor, Angus Kinsey, from the Circle K on the other side of the Sheltering Arms. Angus, this is Amy Graves.”
Angus had a good, strong handshake, and a set of admiring eyes. They felt good on her. Amy smiled.
She wandered with the two men to the corral fence.
Hank leaned his arms across the top as more men congregated outside the corral, leaving a couple of men inside standing beside a small horse. None of them seemed to notice Amy, which was fine with her. She was here to observe them and the way things were done around here.
“So,” she asked, “you raise horses at Hungry Hollow?”
Hank turned her way. “Everyone around here owns and raises horses.” He shrugged. “They’re part of the ranching life.”
“Are they like cows? You raise them for their meat?”
Both Angus and Hank looked at her strangely. Amy wondered about the crafty gleam in Hank’s eye.
“No, we don’t sell horses for meat—” Angus would have said more, but Hank cut him off.
“We raise them for glue.”
Glue, my rear end, she thought. You’re making fun of the city slicker. Two can play that game. She flipped open her notebook and retrieved a pen from her pocket.
“How much do you get per horse? Do you sell them by the pound? What part produces glue?” She shivered—it was a gory subject—but if Hank wanted to make a mockery of this visit, she’d accommodate him.
It was Hank’s turn to stare at her with his jaw gaping. His dark brown eyes widened.
She grinned, meanly, and said, “Gotcha.”
Angus laughed and slapped Hank’s back.
“Seriously,” she said, glad to have rattled him, “do you raise the horses to sell?”
“The truth is,” Hank said in a chagrined voice, “we raise most of our horses to work, but we also keep a special set for rodeo.”
The horse in the center of the corral whickered and tried to pull away from the cowboy who was restraining him, but the man held on tight.
Hank nodded toward the horse. “That looks like the Circle K’s Rusty.”
“It is,” Angus said.
“He’s a mean one.” Hank sounded anything but stern. He sounded proud. “Who’s getting up on him first?”
“Heel.”
“That the new guy?”
“Yup.”
“Let’s see what he can do.” Hank leaned forward, his body straining toward the action on the other side of the fence.
When the rider mounted the horse, Amy watched a flash of excitement light Hank’s face. The men started to cheer. The rider held on to the reins with one hand as the horse bucked and reared, trying to unseat him.
“That’s a chiropractor’s worst nightmare,” Amy shouted above the roar of the men, shaking her head.
Hank looked at her, his sparkling eyes alight with fun, like a kid’s.
Amy noticed all the men looked like a bunch of overgrown, overexcited boys.
Heel flew from the horse, slamming to the ground in a cloud of dust, and all the men groaned. In a split second, he was on his feet, cursing, then laughing, retrieving his hat and setting it back onto his head. Tough guy.
“Exhilarating,” Hank murmured.
“We should look at the rest of the ranch now,” Amy said, leaning close to Hank.
He nodded but didn’t answer, keeping his gaze on the horse.
One of the cowboys got the bronc back under control. “You want to try him next?” Angus asked Hank.
Hank set one hand on top of the chest-high fence, one foot on the second rail, and vaulted over it, looking like a six-year-old who’d gotten his first pair of skates for Christmas.
“Hey, we’re supposed to be here on business,” Amy called, but he either didn’t hear her or chose to ignore her.
The bronco stood with his legs locked while Hank mounted him. As the horse reared, Hank held on to the reins with one hand, and let the other arm fly straight and high above his head.
The horse bucked.
Amy expected him to fall off. He didn’t. She held her breath.
“Hoooooeeeee,” one of the cowboys sang.
“Ride him, Hank,” another yelled.
Amy watched his muscular body get tossed around like a feather on the horse’s back, and she felt a stirring of fear in her belly.
Hank anticipated the horse’s every move, his big thighs gripping the animal’s sides. The horse dipped, he dipped. The horse reared, he followed, his expression fierce.
In spite of herself, Amy watched in fascination. Excitement replaced her fear.
As the crowd cheered and the bronco’s hooves pounded, Hank jumped from the animal’s back. The bronc ran to the opposite side of the corral, then stood with sides heaving like leathery bellows.
Amy stared at Hank. He seemed barely winded. Picking up his dirty white Stetson from the dry ground, he rapped it against his thigh and set it on his head, a broad grin creasing his face.
Her knees got weak. There he went again with that magical smile.
Hank crossed the corral toward Amy, his stride long and confident—in his element, like a cowboy of old, taming beasts and all obstacles.
When he looked at her, Hank’s step faltered. He stared at her with a heat that might, just might, match her own.
When he reached her, he leaned close and whispered, “You okay?”
The men in the corral and lining the fence turned as one to watch her. Amy stared back. Young and old, tall and short, handsome and homely, every one of them had one thing in common with Hank—a lean, stringy strength earned through hard labor.
They surrounded her, nudging Hank out of the way, all speaking at once.
“Well, look here.”
“You new to these parts?”
“Hey, ma’am, I’m Ash.”
“Aren’t you a beauty?”
Did people really say those things in the twenty-first century? Still, in spite of their testosterone-driven competition and manly posturing to get her attention, these men charmed her.
Then Hank gripped her elbow hard and pulled her toward the truck.
“But, I—” She peered over her shoulder at the men who smiled and waved to her.
“We have to get back to those kids,” he grumbled.
She resisted his pull. “But I—”
“We’re out of time. Need to get home.”
Amy dug in her heels. “We’re here to check out the business. I’m not leaving until we do.”
CHAPTER FOUR
“WHOA, HANK,” Angus called. “Not so fast. If Ms. Graves wants to hang out for a while, we’d be happy to entertain her.” He approached, took Amy’s elbow and led her toward the corral.
Angus’s eyes sparkled when he looked down at Amy. She smiled up at him.
Hank choked. For a peace-loving man, which he most certainly was, he was strongly tempted to rearrange Angus’s charming face.
“I’m about ready to practice my rope tricks,” young Ty Walker yelled from across the yard, his smile wide and hokey. “Amy can watch.”
Someone should tell him he looks goofy when he smiles like that, Hank thought. Like a lovesick moose.
“I can drive her home later if you want, Hank,” Hip said.
Over my dead body, Hank thought, and stood beside Amy.
Ty picked up a rope and tied a honda, then passed the plain end through the honda to make a loop. He started to spin it nice and slow. Like any cowboy worth his salt, he spun and worked the rope to an impressive four-foot loop, which he tossed over his head and down his body until it spun around his waist.
Ty smiled his goofy grin while he watched Amy. She clapped and laughed, her pretty smile sparkling in the sun.
Angus put a hand on her shoulder, a hand that would be broken in about two seconds if he wasn’t careful. Hank’s mind was turning to violence at every turn.
“That’s called a body spin, but the prettier term is wedding ring,” Angus said.
Amy nodded and smiled at him.
Hip ran forward with a rope of his own.
“Watch this, Amy.” Hip started spinning a flat loop in front of his body. When he’d worked the rope to a good-size loop he passed it to his right hand and around his back, picking it up with his other hand and bringing it around front again on the other side.
“That’s a merry-go-round,” Angus said.
Hip threw the loop high over his head and kept spinning it. “Look, Amy,” he shouted.
Hip was a good twenty years older than Amy. Disgusting way for a middle-aged man to behave in front of a young woman.
Show off. Braggart. Good word.
A split second before Hip threw the loop toward Amy, Hank realized his intention and spun Amy around out of the way, then pulled her flush against his chest, but Hip was too fast and his aim too accurate.
The loop settled over Amy, but also caught Hank, the rope tightening around them with the gentle persuasion of a mare nudging her colt home.
Hank heard shouts and whoops of laughter from the men, and heard Angus say, “Nice hoolihan, Hip,” but all Hank saw was Amy.
She’d raised her arms when he’d pulled her toward him and her hands rested high on his chest. They rose and fell with his quick breaths, branding him.
The sounds around him drifted away. He lost himself in Amy’s green eyes.
His hands held the back of her waist, drifted down to her hips. He thought of ripe pears and his blond guitar.
She smelled warm, like the sun, like mango and papaya and coconut.
Her skin looked soft enough to lick.
What if he did what he wanted and rested his head on her golden hair, felt the glide of it across his cheek?
What if he pressed his lips to her eyelids to close them, so she couldn’t see all those handsome cowboys crowding around her? What if he kissed her until she was aware of only plain Hank?
Before he could act on the crazy impulse, she did the oddest thing. She closed her eyes and leaned forward, then smelled him with a delicate sniff.
She opened her eyes and smiled into his. “Soap. Nice.”
When she raised her hands to his shoulders, his arms automatically drew her closer, until her chest was flush against his.
She stiffened. Then, as if he’d doused a roaring fire, she grew icy. Her skin paled. Her lips thinned. The light in her emerald eyes died.
She dropped her gaze to his chest and one cheek burned red, and he could swear she was more than just turning cold on him. She was ashamed about something.
What the heck?
He felt a tug on the rope and realized Hip was gathering it up, forming loops over the fingers of one hand. Hank shook himself out of his stupor and turned to the old ranch hand.
“Hip,” he said, “you could have hurt Amy.”
Hip slowed his approach, his expression sheepish. “Aw, Hank, you know I’d never hurt a woman. Been doing these tricks since I was eight years old.”
He lifted the loop above Hank’s and Amy’s heads as carefully as if she were a skittish horse. Hank felt reluctant contrition about his behavior toward Hip—contrition, great word—but then Amy smiled, rose on tiptoes and kissed Hip’s cheek.
Hank had the urge to rub a little dirt in the guy’s face, even if Hip was an older man.
Hank stalked to the truck, ashamed of his nasty urges. What the heck was wrong with him? He wasn’t a violent man.
“Amy,” he called, his tone brooking no opposition. “We need to go.”
She didn’t reply.
“Now,” he said.
Nothing was going to happen with this woman.
Amy ran to the truck and jumped in, but she didn’t look happy about it. She didn’t say a word about checking out the business.
He steered the truck toward the Sheltering Arms, heading out across fields instead of down the driveway to the road.
AMY WAS STILL having trouble catching her breath after being crowded against Hank’s big body. His very hard, muscular body.
He’d felt so good she’d wanted to stay there for days, staring into his laughing brown eyes, feeling his heat spread through her.
Then her traitorous arms had slid a path up to his shoulders and he’d pulled her close until her chest hit his. Oh, that horrible moment when she’d wondered if he knew, if he could feel how she differed from a normal woman.
Could the day possibly get any more rocky?
Maybe tomorrow, after a good night’s sleep, would be a better time to deal with business.
The truck lurched as Hank swung it around in the yard. Amy fell hard against him. He pushed her upright with a gentle hand. “You should put your seat belt on.”
“Sorry, I forgot,” she mumbled as she slid over to lean against the passenger door, then pulled the harness across her body.
She bumped against the handle as the truck bounced over a rut, and her mind finally registered that they were driving over fields instead of to the small highway leading back to the ranch.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
Hank pushed his hat back and wiped his forehead. “I want to see if we can catch sight of the campers.”
“Campers?” Amy asked, curious in spite of herself.
“The little kids you met aren’t the only ones we have at the ranch right now. The five older ones headed out this morning for a camping trip on Hungry Hollow land.”
“Who went with them? More counselors?”
“A bunch of my ranch hands.”
“Why would they camp over here? Why not on Sheltering Arms land?”
“I want them to see what goes on at a real working ranch. Most of these kids have never seen a steer in their lives.”
Suddenly he pointed to a cloud of dust on the horizon and gunned the engine. “There.”
When they flew over a hill and landed in a small gully on the far side of it, Amy’s jaw snapped shut. She braced one hand against the door and one against the dashboard. Her butt hurt from bouncing on the firm seat.
She glanced at Hank. He was barely aware of the bumps. His mustache curved up at the ends, echoing a smile on his lips. Damp hair stuck out under the brim of his hat, punctuated by the caramel streak at his widow’s peak.
As they approached the cloud, his grin broadened.
Amy watched dust swirl around a small herd of cows, or steers, or whatever they were, thirty yards away. Cowboys on nimble horses raced around the edges, controlling where the cows went. Mooing and yelling and rumbling hooves drowned out everything else. The pickup got close before she realized the ranch hands had children on their saddles in front of them while they herded cattle.
Dear God, were they crazy? Her heart pounded.
“Those children will fall off,” Amy cried.
She unsnapped her seat belt and threw her door open.
“Hey!” Hank yelled. “You can’t go out there.”
She was half out of the truck when Hank wrapped his fingers around her arm and hauled her back in.
“Are you nuts?”
She sucked in a breath and ran a shaky hand over her face.
“I’m sorry,” she said. Her voice trembled.
Hank reached across her, his big chest crushing her against the back of the seat and closed her door.
His dark eyes sparked fire.
“What the hell were you thinking?” His voice boomed in the close interior of the truck. “What were you going to do? Run into a herd of cattle?”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered again, wondering at the strength of his reaction.
She touched his arm with one damp palm. “I’m afraid the children will fall. They’ll get hurt.”
His expression eased. His lips softened. “They’re fine,” he said.
Tears welled in Amy’s eyes and she turned away so he wouldn’t see. “They’ll get hurt. Stop them. Please.”
“Hey, it’s okay.” When she turned to him to object, he raised his hand to stall her. “Those kids are safe with the ranch hands. Most of my workers have been on horses since they were two years old.” He smiled. “Some of them ride better than they walk.”
“But—”
“This isn’t a real roundup, anyway. It’s just a little one staged for the kids.”
“Even so—”
When she reached for the door handle, still foolishly tempted to get out and rescue those children, Hank touched her shoulder to press her back against the seat.
“Sit and watch for a minute.” His quiet tone eased some of her fear.
Hank pointed to the nearest man. “See?”
Sure enough, the cowboy had a forearm as lean and strong as one of Hank’s wrapped around a boy’s waist. As Amy watched, he controlled the horse with his strong thighs and with the reins he held in his other hand.
The boy’s face practically glowed with excitement. He yelled at the horses, at the other cowboys, at the cattle. Directing them. As one of the animals broke out of the pack, he shouted, “Get him!” to the cowboy.
The cowboy laughed and yelled, “Sure, boss.”
The vibration of the herd’s frenetic motion rumbled through the truck. Leaning forward, Amy peered through the dust, trying to spot more children. Each one reflected that same joyous expression.
With her hands pressing hard on her thighs, Amy forced herself to calm down.
She turned to Hank to apologize, but the words froze on her tongue. He was resting his forearms on the steering wheel, his body straining forward. His eyes followed every bit of the action.
He wants to be out there in the thick of it all.
“Do you ever do this with the kids?” she asked.
He fell back against the seat and straightened his hat on his head.
“Yeah. We take turns going on the overnight trips. I’ll do the next batch of kids who come to the ranch. Just the older ones.”
He pinned her with a piercing look. “When you first got here this morning, I thought you didn’t like the kids.”
She didn’t answer. How could she ever make him understand how deeply her fears ran? How hard it was for her to care for people she might lose?
“Now I’m thinking maybe you’re afraid of them,” he continued. “Or afraid for them.”
The man saw too much. He leaned against his door and studied her. The cab of the truck became a cocoon, enveloping Amy in a potent blend of fright, compassion and a desire to confess.
Her pulse pounded in her ears. “My father died when I was fourteen. In front of me. Heart attack. I couldn’t save him.”
She stared out the window and swallowed hard. “It left me terrified of bad things happening to people.” She’d never discussed this phobia with anyone before.
“All right,” Hank said. “I can understand that.”
She had no doubt that he could.
The cowboy with the excited boy on his lap rode up to the truck, on Amy’s side. He leaned down from his horse and pressed his hand into Amy’s.
“Hi,” he said. “I’m Matt.” He had a smile that could dazzle, and he knew it.
“I’m Amy,” she said.
Hank said, “Matt,” and his dry tone had Matt looking at him then laughing, as if he knew a secret about Hank.
Matt said, “This here’s Davey.”
Amy smiled at the boy. They smelled like hay and horses and a touch of manure. Matt’s horse whinnied, clearly wanting to get back to work, but Matt held him steady.
“You here for the day?” Matt asked.
“No,” Amy said. “I’m here for the rest of the week. At the Sheltering Arms.”
“Well, then, I’ll be seeing you in a couple of days.” He doffed his hat and nodded. “How ’bout we get to know each other better then?”
He turned his horse and rode away.
Matt wasn’t her type at all, but she gave him points for trying.
Putting the truck into gear, Hank headed in a direction Amy guessed would take them to the Sheltering Arms.
The practical accountant in her broke the silence. “You know you’re just asking for a lawsuit if one of those kids gets hurt.”
“They won’t.”
“What if one of them does? Any of those children could get sick again. Are you qualified to deal with that?”
“Uh-huh. We all have first-aid training.”
“I think it should go further than that. Some of those children must still be taking medications. I would almost want to see a nurse living at the ranch.”
“There is a full-time nurse at the ranch,” Hank said, a sly glimmer of humor in his eyes.
“Who?”
“Hannah.” Hank grinned.
“The housekeeper?” Amy spluttered.
“Yup. She offered to train when I decided to bring children to the ranch fifteen years ago.”
Okay, that surprised her. Hannah probably already had a heavy load to carry running that house, yet she cared enough to become a nurse.
Amy had to stop underestimating these people.
“You got to understand what’s important here.” He pulled his gaze away from the field in front of them. “The kids are what’s important, and giving them the fullest experience here they can possibly have.”
He faced forward again. “Because they deserve it after all they’ve lived through.”
With those words, a heaviness hung in the air between them.
“Why did you turn the ranch into a place for cancer survivors?” she asked.
“I—” Hank’s face was suddenly neutral, as unresponsive as Amy had seen it.
She held her breath.
“I had a son. He died of leukemia when he was two.”
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. Dear God, his son. His son. “So sorry.”
He whispered one word, little more than a sigh, but she was pretty sure it was “Jamie.”
She hitched a breath. Knowing his name made the child too real to her.
Swallowing her cowardice, she asked, “Do you want to talk about him?” And prayed that he wouldn’t.
He shook his head.
Her relief stunned her. She couldn’t imagine his pain, didn’t know what to say. She remained silent for the rest of the ride home.
As they neared the house, she stole a glimpse at him. His jaw was hard, his mouth thin. Then he saw the children on the veranda. The sight smoothed the worry lines from his brow, softened his full lips, turned up the corners of his mouth.
When they parked, the younger children ran across the lawn to greet him. Four of them crowded his door.
“Hey, back up, hooligans,” Hank said, back to his cheerful self, as if the children gave him a deeper perspective on life. It was clear they set everything into place in Hank’s world.
Amy stared at him, amazed by the change.
“How’s a cowboy supposed ta get out of his truck?” he asked, using the fake cowboy accent she’d noticed he put on for the kids.
When Amy stepped out on the passenger side, the solemn young girl stood waiting for her, her eyes big. She placed her hand into one of Amy’s and held on.
As though Amy’s fingers had a mind of their own, they curled around the tiny hand. Amy stared down at her and swallowed hard, forcing herself to stay put. Such honest trust, given so freely.
As they walked around the front of the pickup, Amy wondered what on earth the child saw in her that made her want to get close. Amy had so little to offer others these days.
She wanted to tell the girl not to depend on her, that Amy didn’t get close to people.
She looked away, unable to withstand the child’s intense gaze. And yet she still held her hand.
Hank lifted a small girl and threw her above his head into the air. Amy gasped, but Hank caught the giggling child on the way down.
“Do me, Hank. Do me,” begged a young boy with skin the color of coffee with cream. Hank tossed the boy into the air and his biceps bulged against the plaid cotton of his shirtsleeves.
He threw every child into the air who asked for it, as many times as they asked. Even when the underarms of his shirt showed big damp circles and a sheen of sweat coated his brow, he didn’t stop until the last kid had wheedled for a toss.
Amy wondered at the resiliency of this man and realized that he drew it directly from these children.
“Hey,” he said, sounding only barely winded, “what did the horse say when the kid from the next ranch came to visit?”
“What, Hank?” they chimed.
“Howdy, nei-ei-ei-ei-gh-gh-gh-gh-bor.”
Amy rolled her eyes. He had to be kidding. Did he really think that was funny?
The kids laughed. Apparently it didn’t take much to entertain a child.
“You people plumb wear me out,” Hank said.
Watching the children’s faces, Amy noticed they fell for his shtick hook, line and sinker. They loved it. They loved Hank.
He collapsed onto the grass in front of the house, with kids falling all over him. The solemn girl let go of Amy’s hand and joined the others.
Amy stared at her empty hand, suddenly cool after losing the child’s warmth. Then she looked at Hank, covered by miniature candles of hope lighting the darkness of a harsh world, and she knew why he did this. He needed those children as much as they needed him.
It didn’t seem to take much to make him happy—horses, cows, dust and kids.
Watching him, Amy felt a pang of envy. What would it take to make her happy? Peace on earth? Certainly. No such thing as death? Yes many times over. To be happy and excited about her work again? Yes. Her husband back in her arms? Maybe not.
That answer surprised her. A month ago, she would have answered with a resounding “yes.”
Bemused, she headed for the house.
AFTER LEAVING the children in the kitchen with Hannah, Hank walked toward the three-car garage across from the largest stable. Thinking about his son always left him melancholy, in spite of the fun he’d just had with the children. Lord, he missed Jamie.
Willie lived in an apartment on the second floor, with blue window boxes that the man himself had filled with red geraniums and white alyssum.
Hank needed to talk to Willie, to make sense of his conflicting feelings about that woman.
He climbed the stairs, knocked, then walked into a home as spotless as a Betty Crocker test kitchen. Willie’s fastidiousness always took Hank by surprise.
“Willie,” he called. “You here?”
Willie stepped out of his bedroom buttoning up a clean denim shirt, covering the fuzz of gray hair on his chest.
“How’d the trip to the ranch go?” he asked, tucking the shirt into his pants.
“Good,” Hank said. “You got any coffee on?”
Willie poured him a cup and handed it to him black.
Hank took a sip. “She…ah…she’s a good person.”
Willie’s face registered surprise. “So you feel better about her now?”
“More sympathetic, I guess.” Hank wandered to a window that faced the yard. “She’s got a lot going on inside.”
Maybe her vulnerability around the kids would work in his favor. Given her own shortcomings, she might be compassionate and forgiving once she saw the office. Was he willing to take that chance?
Aw hell, he needed her to see that there was no problem with the ranch. If he scooted her in there in the next day or two, maybe she could be finished by the end of the week, relieving him of this lump of dread in his stomach.
So what if she gave him a hard time about the state of his files? Embarrassment was a small price to pay for peace of mind.
Hank turned from the window and rubbed the back of his neck. “Listen, I’m going to let her see the books.”
“Why?” Willie sipped his own coffee from a mug that read Bronc Riders Like To Buck.
“I need Amy to see that everything’s okay with the finances, so she can go home and get Leila off my back.”
Hank sat in a big armchair and balanced his cup on the arm.
“What if it turns out there really is something wrong with the ranch’s finances? Something real bad?” The possibility made Hank shudder. “She’d have to find it ’cause I sure as heck couldn’t.”
“Makes sense, I guess,” Willie said.
“Yeah. I’ll get her to fix it then she can head home.” He wanted her off the ranch before he cared for her even more than he did now.
“When?” Willie asked.
“When’s she going home?”
“No. When are you unlocking the office for her?”
Hank stood, crossed to the kitchen and set his cup on the counter. “Tomorrow or the day after.”
He turned to Willie, seeking approval of his plan. “Amy’s gotta get emotionally invested in this place. I think I know how to do that.”
“How?” Willie asked.
“I’m going to show her around the ranch before I open up the office to her. Let her see how much it means to the children.” He drummed his fingers against his thigh. “I saw something in her today. She really likes kids. She cares about what happens to them.”
“That’s good.” Willie nodded. “If she does find a problem, she’ll be more likely to try to save the ranch than to sell it.”
Hank filled with hope. “Exactly my thinking.”
He rubbed his twitchy belly. He was banking a lot on being able to get the city woman to care about his ranch.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE FOLLOWING morning, Amy entered the dining room late for breakfast, head pounding from too little sleep, confused and groggy from yesterday’s roller-coaster ride of emotions. Maybe she’d bitten off more than she could chew by coming here.
She rubbed her temples. She needed to get into the office to see what kind of challenges she faced there.
The dining room was empty. The children and Hank must already be outside working on the chores someone mentioned they did every day.
She stepped through a swinging door that led into the kitchen.
Light poured through numerous windows. Every spotless white cupboard, drawer, countertop and appliance contrasted against blue walls. The focal point was a huge, glossy oak plank table in the center of the room, where a small woman stood rolling out pastry.
Amy recognized Hannah, the housekeeper, by Leila’s description. So this little bird-boned woman was a nurse. More power to her.
Hannah looked up and smiled when she saw Amy.
“Morning,” she said, then scuttled to the sink, as delicate as a sparrow and twice as quick.
She rinsed her hands and dried them, then turned back to Amy.
The wrinkles on Hannah’s face created a network of enough complexity to put a map of New York City to shame. Her skin was not as darkly tanned as Hank’s, but close. Amy bit her tongue to keep from telling her she should have used sunscreen over the years. Amy guessed her to be in her sixties, but the lines added years, as did the soft white hair.
Hannah smiled, sending a few rivers to crisscross with a couple of mountain ranges, and waved Amy closer, then wrapped her arms around her. “Leila’s friend Amy, so glad to meet you.”
Amy strained against the contact, but found the woman’s grip surprisingly strong, the meager bosom warm and her scent reminiscent of home in years long gone—of a vanilla and cinnamon essence that seemed to have taken root in the woman’s pores. Amy stiffened against her own sentimentality.
Pulling out of the housekeeper’s embrace, she said, “Hello, Hannah.”
Hannah peered into Amy’s eyes, then nodded. “We’ll see what we can do for you here. This ranch, you know, it holds a lot of magic.”
What had Hannah seen on Amy’s face? What information was Amy unwittingly giving away about herself, making her too vulnerable?
Hannah bustled to the stove. “Hank, he keeps bringing the children here, and mostly they go home happy. You feel so good to help them. They laugh so much here.”
Hannah spun around and handed Amy a bowl of oatmeal, then retrieved a carton of milk from the fridge. “Go into the dining room and eat.”
Amy thanked her and left the kitchen. In the dining room, she fell into a chair to recover from the whirlwind that was Hannah. She sprinkled sugar on the glutinous gruel in her bowl and shrugged. Oatmeal was best served fresh. Her own fault for sleeping in.
After breakfast, she headed for the office but found the door locked.
She walked down the hall to search for Hank. Stepping onto the veranda, she saw no sign of him in the corrals or yard. Where was everyone? The heels of her sandals clicked on the gray wooden floor. She descended the steps.
A light June breeze carried the faint sounds of children’s voices from the barn. It also held an elusive hint of fragrance from the garden. Funny that she hadn’t noticed all these flowers yesterday.
She walked the length of the garden slowly, savoring the colors and scents.
“I can’t do these up,” a child’s voice said from behind her.
Amy spun around.
The thin girl with the sallow skin stood behind her wearing a pair of overalls, but holding them up at the waist. Two straps trailed on the grass behind her.
Amy bent and picked up the straps, trying not to touch the narrow shoulders while buckling the straps to the bib. The child stared into her face, her eyes enormous.
“You’re not doing chores,” she accused.
Amy squirmed under the girl’s steady gaze.
“We all got to do chores,” the girl continued, her voice ripe with reproach.
Amy fought the guilt flooding her. She was here to do her own job. Wasn’t that a chore?
Amy’s braid fell over her shoulder and the child touched the end of it.
“Pretty,” she murmured. “Can I get one of those when my hair grows back?”
Amy inhaled sharply. “Yes.” The word whispered out of her.
“When?”
“Soon.” Amy choked on the lie. It would take a couple of years to grow her hair back as long as Amy’s, but staring into the child’s solemn blue eyes, she didn’t have the heart to tell her so.
She stepped back from the girl. She couldn’t do this.
Just as she turned away, the girl slipped her hand into Amy’s. Amy curled her fingers around the tiny hand, then stared at it lying in her fist with a trust that humbled her.
Don’t, she wanted to plead. Don’t rely on me. I don’t know if I have anything to give you.
But this was what she thought she’d wanted when she came here, wasn’t it? Time to get on with life, she’d thought. What better way than trial by fire among these children? What a naive fool she’d been. The reality of this girl and her problems at such an early age broke Amy’s heart.
“How old are you?” she asked.
The child turned her head on her scrawny neck to peer up at Amy.
“Six. How old are you?”
Old enough to be able to handle this, Amy thought, but she said aloud, “Thirty-one.”
“What’s your name?” the child asked.
“Amy.”
“I’m Cheryl. That was Grandma’s name.”
Amy fought a fierce battle—to stay and learn more about this child who might die someday soon, or to run for the hills to bury herself in a cave. Alone.
Cheryl raised her arms to be picked up. Amy lifted the child, her actions unnatural, as though someone else held the strings that controlled her limbs. The girl was as light as a milkweed pod. Amy settled her onto her hip and tried to control the shaking in her knees.
Cheryl pointed to something under one of the plants. “What’s that?”
Amy squatted, setting Cheryl on the grass beside her. Someone had tucked a clay toad house toward the back of the flower bed in the moist shade.
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