A Rancher's Love

by Vivian Arend

  “Get out,” Tucker protested. “It’s a full day’s drive, twice, and it’s going to take me at least a couple of days to help my old boss with some final tasks.”

  Jack answered this time, smile flashing as he grinned. “I’m on vacation, remember? Part of what I’d love to do is see more of Canada.”

  A snicker escaped Luke. “Nice try, but no one will believe that’s the selling feature for us to get away. We’ll be driving east through some of the flattest land God created.”

  “Good point,” Jack returned. Then he looked Tucker in the eye. “I’ve been foreman for my family stables for over fifteen years, and I love to talk. Consider me your own private question and answer service.”

  Which was a gold mine of an opportunity. Still…

  “You think your wife—your wives—won’t mind you leaving for a chunk of days in the middle of your visit?” He included Luke in the question.

  “They were already plotting some girls-only thing that we can’t be around for.” Luke shrugged. “They’ll be fine. Give us twenty minutes and we’ll be ready to go.”

  Tucker would be a fool to turn down time with his friend and time with a willing resource who could make his future life easier. “If you’re sure, I’d love the company,” he admitted.

  Jack hooted. Luke slapped him on the back, and the two of them took off running like they were teenagers with a free hall pass.

  Even Uncle Ashton was amused. “They’re good people,” he told Tucker. “I’m glad you didn’t ignore their offer and insist you could do it on your own.”

  He usually would have, Tucker realized, except that option hadn’t felt right. “There’s something about Silver Stone that makes me want to make it a group effort.”

  Ashton’s expression turned serious. “You know, that’s nearly word for word something Walter Stone used to say a lot. The group effort part. How it was everyone doing their part that made the job easier. That got the important things dealt with.”

  His uncle sent him off with a promise to look into a different living situation for when he got back. “I suppose if you have to, you can stay in the trailer, but that’s only temporary.”

  As far as Tucker was concerned, as long as Ginny came with the accommodations, he had zero problems with it.

  He drove his truck up to Luke’s house where it overlooked Little Sky Lake to grab his drive buddies. While he waited, he got out and stood in the cold, admiring the snow-covered landscape.

  Luke had built on a small rise, and while the main ranch buildings and Caleb’s house were close enough to the left, the actual house faced slightly more to the northwest, offering a pristine wilderness view over the smaller of the two lakes.

  This wintery picture wasn’t one that Tucker had gotten to enjoy often. He’d spent so many summers here, but the first time he’d come out to the ranch in the winter had been the February of the accident. He’d visited every year after that for some non-official memorial sharing. It had felt right to make sure he was around.

  It had been one of those non-official winter visits when Ginny had talked her way into his bed.

  Smiling now at that memory, he let his gaze wander, tracing trails into the bush, following them into the distance where Heart Falls would be ice-locked and beautiful. He looked to the south and spotted men already at work in the arena. There were trucks leaving the ranch hand parking area outside the bunkhouse as workers headed out to whatever tasks Ashton had assigned them.

  Something akin to terror filled his veins. He wanted this so bad. To be a part of Silver Stone. To have the right to be here, and not just the job. To be the man Ginny needed.

  Her Operation Prove It—he felt the urge to succeed all the way down to his soul.

  Luke poured out the door with Jack on his heels. “Whoohoo, let’s get this party bus on the road.”

  Kelli and Diane poked their heads out and waved farewell.

  Luke handed Tucker a travel mug. “I was ready to pour you a manly drink, but Kelli interfered.”

  “I love you, Kelli,” Tucker called toward the door. “Anytime you want to leave this loser, give me a shout.”

  “But I’ve got him half trained,” Kelli complained. “Have fun storming the castle, boys.”

  Feminine laughter followed as the ladies disappeared back inside the warm house.

  Tucker was still grinning as he turned onto the main highway and headed them on the shortest route cross country. “Thanks for the coffee.”

  “You need to stop flirting with my wife. Get yourself a woman of your own,” Luke said dryly.

  Tucker wasn’t going to touch that. Not yet.

  Didn’t help that Jack stuck to the same tune. “Anyone you have to say goodbye to while we’re packing your stuff?” he asked from the backseat.

  “No one,” Tucker assured him. “Packing won’t take long, but my boss needs some help moving horses. Before we leave, I’ll grab my trailer so I can bring my ride with us on the return journey.”

  “Braggart is a sweet thing,” Luke informed Jack. “Ashton trained her, and I swear she can read Tucker’s mind sometimes.”

  “The best kind of woman,” Jack said with a grin. “Human or equine.”

  Tucker chuckled. “I’m pretty sure that’s the sort of talk that gets you kicked out of bed in the evening as well as the morning. You know, comparing her to a horse.”

  “Are you kidding?” Jack said. “Diane knows it’s a compliment of the highest order when I start talking horsey.”

  “That’s just wrong,” Luke complained. “You’re giving me so many openings for crude jokes, when I’m working to be polite and not shock Tucker.”

  “I think you were one step away from shocking my uncle,” Tucker said. He wasn’t about to share what Ashton had confessed, but he was curious how well his uncle had been keeping secrets.

  “With my little ‘why don’t you simply confess what you’ve been up to’ oops? Yeah, not my business, but damn is it tempting to poke the man at times.” Luke took a sip of coffee and eased back in his seat. “He didn’t take me apart too badly when I got involved with Kelli, so I like to give him a little slack when it comes to his love life.”

  “I hope my relationship situation is a whole lot less complicated when I’m in my sixties,” Jack said. “Good to get it established while we’re young.”

  “So your ladies can train you up right?” Tucker teased.

  “Definitely.” Jack laughed. “Let me know if you need help finding someone. I’ve got a couple skilled trainers I could send your way who are single.”

  Tucker glanced at Luke. “Is he pimping me out?”

  “Not my fault,” Luke insisted. “Maybe you should take him up on it. Get some new blood happening. There’s no one around town. Of course, I shouldn’t say that. You know the Fields sisters. And there’s a few others who—”

  “I’m not looking to get set up,” Tucker said quickly.

  Thirteen hours on the road. This would be one hell of a trip if he had to spend the entire time convincing his friends he wasn’t in need of female companionship.

  Tucker glanced beside him to discover Luke grinning from ear to ear.

  “We’ll stop now. You’re probably focused on the whole mentoring thing, and I get it. I’m pretty pumped myself,” Luke admitted. “And what a way to start. Road trip for the win. Although I should not be shotgun, but behind the wheel.”

  “Hell, no,” Tucker returned. “When your dad taught us to drive, he said I was a far better student than you. Safety-conscious and astute.”

  “Boring brownnoser. You’re lucky he didn’t see you doing doughnuts in the community hall parking lot a month later,” Luke snapped back.

  “You were too chicken.” Tucker said it dryly, then braced for the inevitable.

  Sure enough…

  His entire body rocked when Luke smacked his fist into Tucker’s biceps. “Jerk.”

  “Ass.”

  Laughter rolled from the backseat. “It’s like
a Canadian comedy show, with less eh’s than expected.”

  Tucker raised a hand and flashed his middle finger, snickering hard when he realized Luke had done the exact same thing beside him.

  “You guys crack me up.” Jack groaned then sighed heavily. “Wake me when we’re five minutes from our next pit stop, will you? I’m still not adjusted from the time zone difference.”

  “Will do,” Luke assured him. He dropped his voice a notch and spoke quietly to Tucker. “In the meantime, let’s get caught up. What have you been doing for the last while?”

  Tucker shared the everyday, ordinary events of his life since the last time they’d been together, and it was a bit of perfection.

  The only thing that would have made it better was to have had Ginny beside him as well.

  Ginny was halfway across the yard when Dustin came running up. “Hey, Gin. Wait up a sec.”

  He was so annoying.

  She glared at her little brother. “I’m pretty sure you have enough strength to get out the two syllables that make up my name. This is your final warning, or I will convince everyone to go back to calling you Dusty.”

  His cocky grin grew bigger than it should have. “Fine. I was only teasing. Real news of the day, Tamara and Caleb gave me a heads up about you moving into the cottage. I wanted to let you know, there’s no problem.”

  “Thanks.” Ginny was actually a little surprised he was that willing to give it up so easily. Maybe Tamara’s premonition about Dustin not hanging around for too much longer was true, which in that case, Ginny wanted to know now so she could make sure her little brother planned some smart moves. “You have plans?”

  He snickered. “I swear you sounded just like mom right then.”

  A wave of sadness rolled in and over her, gone in a flash. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  “There’s a lot I don’t remember, but I do have these scenes in my head. Sometimes I wonder if I’ve half made them up, based on pictures I found in photo albums or stories people told me.” Dustin gave her a wry smile. “I think she used to get people to admit stuff without ever actually coming out and asking directly.”

  “That was her.” Ginny laughed softly. “Mom would ask a direct question that was a hundred and eighty degrees from what you would actually end up confessing to. It was like magic,” she shared.

  Dustin nodded, thoughtful now, and Ginny was reminded all over again how young he’d been when their Mom and Dad had died. How few memories he really had of time with them.

  “Anyway, to answer the question you asked and the one that you didn’t,” Dustin teased, “I’m not a hundred percent sure I want to try my hand at rodeo. Not with all the possibilities around here. But in the meantime, Shim is sticking around for at least a couple of months. He is dying to live in crew quarters, so Ashton found us space in the bunkhouse.”

  “He’s…” Ginny wasn’t quite sure how to say this without it coming out sounding offensive. “He’s not from around here, is he?”

  Her kid brother wiped at his mouth, covering a laugh. “No. Very urban upbringing, very straightlaced, intellectual and non-outdoorsy parents. But he’s a good guy, so I figured, why the hell not? I’ve lived in crew quarters before.”

  “Plus, you don’t mind eating at the mess hall, do you?” Ginny said dryly.

  “We’ve got one of the best cooks in the county.” Dusty checked his watch. “I need to get going or Ashton will have my ass. Everything’s cleared out of the cottage, so you can move in any time you want.”

  That was unexpected. “Already?”

  Dustin shrugged, walking backwards. “Didn’t have much stuff in the first place.”

  He strode away, suddenly looking so grown up that Ginny could’ve mistaken him for one of her older brothers. She called after him, “Hey, Dustin. I’ll have you guys over for supper sometime, okay?”

  He offered a thumbs-up but kept walking.

  She knew the feeling. Being late for a meeting with Ashton was not something that a person did on a regular basis…

  The sudden realization hit her. Holy cow. That’s who Tucker would be. The man who, when he said jump, men would stop in the middle of their conversation and hurry back to work.

  Yeah, being careful starting a public relationship between her and Tucker was pretty damn important. That said, she really didn’t want to give him up. Not even temporarily.

  Time to give herself something else to think about rather than brooding. Ginny made her way past the main ranch house to the long, low greenhouse that had been her domain before she’d left.

  It was well below freezing outdoors, so stepping inside was like instantly changing seasons. The heaters were still on winter settings, barely enough to keep pipes and materials from freezing. Warm enough that when Ginny took a deep breath in through her nostrils, the rich scent of soil and growing things temporarily at rest filled her senses.

  The roof overhead and the walls were all made of a semi-clear polycarbonate material. It let in the light but was nowhere near as see-through as a regular glass, helping stop plants from burning in direct sun. It also retained heat better than clear glass, turning the inside of the building into a secret hideout that glowed with warmth and light.

  At this end of the greenhouse there were a number of raised beds covered with boards for now. The grow lights above them were turned off, but everything was prepared for the next go-round of planting seeds and getting a head start on spring.

  She walked slowly between the rows, past where the raised beds stopped and into the area with well-fertilized and screened soil where she could plant directly into the ground.

  Outside, to the west and south, lay the rest of the expanse of gardens. They were covered now with a blanket of white, but as she peered through the one clear glass window at the far end of the greenhouse, it looked as if everything waited.

  Waited for her to make a decision about what to do next.

  Too bad she didn’t know what the answer was yet.

  Was it right to change course and veer away from the path she’d walked for years? She might not have spent the past three growing seasons at Silver Stone, but she’d spent them at operations that were very similar. Farms, and vineyards, and in one case, a community that had banded together to make a garden for everyone. Work at all of them had followed the seasons, and Ginny would have to here as well. Which meant deciding soon—this wasn’t something she could sit on for weeks or months.

  Which was why she needed inspiration.

  For the next hour, she wandered from one end of the greenhouse to the other. She dug her fingers into pots of dirt, sniffed buckets, poked under the sinks, and basically got herself dirty. This, even more than the house where Caleb and Tamara lived, had become her home after her mom and dad died.

  The greenhouse had been Ginny’s domain. She’d liked having something to be in charge of.

  Oh.

  She stopped dead in her tracks, sitting in the middle of the path and tracing her fingers over the rough pressed concrete under her butt.

  “I feel as if I’m not in charge of my life anymore.” She said it out loud, quietly, but in the stillness, it was a profound statement. It also wasn’t true, because she absolutely got to decide.

  But what?

  Do the next thing, sweetie.

  Ginny sighed even as she answered back to the voice in her head. Great advice, Mom, but there’s no current to-do list anymore.

  And until she made one, there was no use in starting anything.

  She scrambled to her feet, brushed off her hands, and headed back to her truck. Right now she needed something more to listen to than dirt. She needed her friends.

  Half an hour and one text message later, Ginny pushed through the door at Buns and Roses.

  “Incoming.”

  It was the only warning Ginny got before being wrapped up in a huge hug and squeezed tight. Tansy Fields gave her one more fierce squeeze before pulling back far enough to grasp Ginny by the head and gi
ve her an exaggerated set of kisses on her cheeks, one side, then the other, then the other.

  “Stop manhandling her,” Tansy’s sister Rose demanded before taking over and hugging Ginny just as tightly. “About time you got here.”

  Ginny went warm to the base of her toes. “Didn’t know for sure if I should stop at your place of work. I don’t want to interrupt.”

  Tansy tugged her to the side of the room where they obviously had a table. “Sunday is our day off. Well, after I finish the morning baking.”

  “Not Monday anymore?” Ginny should’ve figured that out during her visits over the last six months, but most of those brief excursions had been straight to the ranch to take advantage of every minute she could spend with her nieces and nephew.

  “Sunday and Monday,” Rose said happily before gesturing toward the counter. Their youngest sister Fern waved back, her shiny prosthetic made up today like an android arm. “Fern is helping during the holidays, but we’ve got a couple of other people hired on so that we can take more time off.”

  “Good for you,” Ginny said, impressed and happy for them.

  Tansy sat, keeping an arm wrapped around Ginny’s shoulders. “Did you get all the travelling out of your system?”

  “And then some,” Ginny admitted quietly. She leaned her head against Tansy and glanced at Rose. Took in these two friends who had been in her life for as long as she could remember. “I want to get caught up. I want to know about all the changes, especially the good things, like that you’re doing well enough you can hire extra staff. But I also just want to spend time with you.”

  “Same,” Tansy agreed. She slipped away far enough to lean her elbows on the table and meet Ginny’s gaze straight on. “Everyone feels like that, so gird your loins. We’re having a girls’ night out this week, and you are the main event.”

  Ginny didn’t need to be the center of attention. “I just want to see everybody.”

  Fern brought over a tray with drinks and brownies and pieces of pie that were big enough to make even Tucker blink. “Hi, Ginny. Nice to have you back. Your brothers were so excited. Dustin must’ve told me ten times that you’d be home in a few days.”