A Chance for the Rancher

by Brenda Harlen

  “I’m pregnant,” she said bluntly.

  “But...” he sputtered, clearly taken aback by her announcement. “You didn’t say anything about being pregnant when you offered to take the job.”

  “Because being pregnant won’t interfere with my ability to do the job.”

  “Of course it will,” he said. “Because a pregnancy leads to a baby.”

  She opened her eyes wide, feigning surprise. “Is that how it works?”

  He scowled, clearly not appreciating her sarcasm. “And a baby is a big responsibility.”

  It was his tone more than his words that made her understand the cause of his panic. “You don’t have to worry, Patrick. My baby won’t be your responsibility.”

  “Except that you and your baby will be living here, won’t you?” And then his gaze narrowed as another thought occurred to him. “That’s why you were so eager to get away from Seattle.”

  “One of the reasons,” she acknowledged. But she refused to feel guilty about her deception and she wasn’t going to apologize for doing what she needed to do.

  “Does the father know about the baby?” he asked.

  “Of course,” she said.

  “Your parents?”

  “Not yet.” And maybe she did feel a little guilty about that, but Melissa needed some time to decide what she wanted to do before she shared the news.

  “So I’m harboring a fugitive,” he concluded.

  “They know I’m here,” she said. “They just don’t know that they’re going to be grandparents in less than seven months.”

  “You have to tell them, Melissa.”

  “I know. I just need to figure some things out first.” Such as how to convince her parents that she was capable of raising a child on her own without their support or interference, and that wouldn’t happen until she’d managed to convince herself.

  “Anything I can help with?” he asked.

  She smiled at that and gave him a quick hug. “You already have. You gave me a job and a place to live.”

  “I’m still going to have to hire someone else,” he realized.

  “What? No,” she protested.

  “I don’t mean to replace you, but to help you,” he hastened to clarify.

  “Maybe just for a few weeks, before and after the baby is born,” she said.

  “Whatever you need,” he told her.

  And her eyes filled with grateful tears.

  * * *

  By the time Brooke finished at the clinic, she was exhausted. It hadn’t just been a long day but a difficult one, as she’d had to break the news that Marmalade, Peggy Bartlett’s beloved feline companion of seventeen years, had tested positive for lymphoma—again.

  Two years earlier, the orange tabby had successfully undergone chemotherapy treatments and gained a new lease on life. When the cat was first diagnosed, only six months after Peggy had buried her husband, the woman was determined to do everything she could to keep the cat alive—so that she wouldn’t lose someone else she loved. Brooke had completely understood and supported her choice, though Peggy was still making monthly payments to the clinic for those treatments.

  This time, the woman made the difficult decision to end Marmalade’s suffering. As Brooke administered the injection—every vet’s least favorite part of the job—she cried right along with Peggy. Thankfully, Marmalade was her last patient of the day, so she was able to take some time to sit with the older woman and offer condolences that she knew didn’t make anyone feel any better.

  When she finally left the clinic, she wanted only to go home, put her feet up and watch something mindless on TV. But of course she couldn’t, because she’d promised Brendan that she’d take him to the Silver Star to see Princess and her puppies.

  “Have you named the puppies yet?”

  It was the first question Brendan asked Patrick upon their arrival at the ranch.

  “No,” he said. “I thought I should let their new owners give them names.”

  “You’ve found homes for them already?” Brooke asked.

  “I’ve had a couple phone calls, thanks to the notice you put up at the clinic, but I haven’t met any prospective owners yet or made any promises.”

  “You should at least keep one,” Brendan said. “Princess might be sad and lonely if she has to give up all her babies.”

  “I wasn’t even planning to keep Princess,” Patrick reminded him.

  Brooke smiled at that. “And now she’s wearing a collar with her name and your phone number on it.”

  “A collar you bought for her,” he reminded her.

  “You put it on her.”

  “You should keep Leia,” Brendan suggested.

  “Who’s Leia?” Patrick asked warily.

  “The one that looks most like Princess.”

  He sighed. “You’ve come up with names for all the puppies, haven’t you?”

  Brendan nodded. “The other girls are Rey and Rose,” he said, pointing to each one in turn. “And the boys are Luke, Han and Finn.”

  “It’s possible the new owners won’t be Star Wars fans, you know,” Patrick told him.

  The boy frowned, as if he couldn’t imagine such a possibility. “But they might let them keep the names anyway.”

  “They might,” he agreed, before turning his attention to Brooke. “Everything okay? You got quiet all of a sudden.”

  “Just a really long day,” she said.

  “Anything you want to talk about?”

  She glanced in Brendan’s direction. Though her son seemed preoccupied with the puppies, he had an uncanny knack for absorbing every word of a conversation not intended for his ears. So while it might have been nice to share the details of her crappy day with Patrick and lean into the strength of his embrace, she only shook her head.

  Understanding, he didn’t push for details. Instead he asked, “Anything I can do to help?”

  Though she appreciated the offer, she shook her head again.

  He wrapped his arms around her anyway and held her close for a long moment, and it helped a lot.

  * * *

  Friday night, Patrick picked up takeout from Diggers’ and took it to Brooke’s apartment to share with her and Brendan. He’d wanted to take them out to the restaurant, but Brooke preferred to dine in. She claimed she was wiped out after a long week at work, and while that was probably true, he suspected it was more true that she wasn’t ready to make a public statement about their relationship. Or even a private statement, as evidenced by her determination to keep Brendan in the dark.

  “Melissa told me her news,” she said, after Brendan had gone to bed and they could talk more freely.

  “So you know I wasn’t wrong when I suspected that she was holding something back,” he said.

  “She’s still qualified for the job.”

  “Overqualified,” he admitted. “And she deliberately manipulated me into giving her the job.”

  “You wanted a cook. She wanted a job. That sounds more like a mutually beneficial arrangement than manipulation to me,” Brooke remarked.

  “She wanted out of Seattle and jumped at the first opportunity that presented itself.”

  “Maybe she did need a place to go and some distance from the father of her child,” she allowed.

  He frowned at that. “What do you know that I don’t? Did the father threaten her in some way? Did he—”

  She held up a hand to halt his tirade. “I don’t know the details of her situation, but I know he made it clear that if she insisted on having the baby, she was on her own.”

  “Apparently I need to go to Seattle and kick someone’s worthless—”

  “No, you don’t,” she said, cutting him off again. “What you need to do is trust Melissa to make her own choices.”

  “Because clearly that’s worked o
ut for her so far,” he said dryly.

  “Maybe a pregnancy isn’t something she would have chosen at this time in her life,” Brooke acknowledged coolly. “But it might turn out that this baby is the best thing that could have happened to her.”

  “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking about the fact that...” He trailed off, as if uncertain how to finish the thought.

  “That eight years ago, I was in the same position your cousin is in right now?” she finished for him.

  “Yeah,” he admitted.

  “But I had my parents to support me. Melissa came here because she doesn’t believe hers will. And because she trusts you.” She pinned him with her gaze. “Don’t disappoint her.”

  “Is that what you’re waiting for?” he wondered. “Me to disappoint you?”

  “I thought we were talking about your cousin.”

  “And now we’re talking about us,” he said. “Or maybe about the fact that you don’t want anyone to know that there even is an ‘us.’”

  “That’s not true,” she denied. “There are plenty of people who know.”

  “If ‘plenty’ translates to ‘a select few who won’t slip up and say something in front of Brendan,’” he remarked dryly.

  “I’m not going to apologize for wanting to protect my son from gossip.”

  “Is that all you’re protecting him from?” Patrick challenged.

  “History teaches a hard lesson,” she said. “And I don’t want to be the fool who didn’t learn from her mistakes.”

  “I hope you’re not comparing me to your ex, because I would never have let a woman I’d been involved with raise our child alone.”

  “Let me guess... You would have offered to marry her.”

  “Of course,” he immediately replied.

  “Well, for your information, Xander did offer to marry me. And I said yes, because I was twenty-two years old and terrified by the idea of having a baby on my own.”

  He was clearly taken aback by this revelation. “You were married to Brendan’s father?”

  “No. I wasn’t foolish enough to go through with it after I found him in bed with my roommate,” she confided reluctantly. Because eight years later, she was still embarrassed to admit that she’d fallen for a guy who’d obviously thought so little of her.

  “He didn’t even apologize,” she continued. “That’s when I realized he’d wanted to get caught. That he probably chose her so he would get caught, so I wouldn’t marry him.”

  “He was an asshole.” Patrick’s blunt response soothed some of the residual sting from Xander’s cruel actions.

  “He was,” she agreed readily.

  He frowned. “And you think I’m like him?”

  “No, I don’t think you’re anything like him,” she said.

  “Then what’s the problem?” he asked.

  “The problem is that I don’t really trust my own judgment anymore,” she admitted. “And it’s not only my heart I have to worry about this time.”

  * * *

  Now that he knew a little bit more about Brooke’s situation with her ex, in addition to the previous history she’d shared, Patrick wasn’t surprised that she had trust issues. And while he wished she would show a little more faith in him, he wasn’t entirely sure he deserved it.

  He would never cheat on her—or any woman, but he’d never been able to make a commitment to a woman, either. The closest he’d ever come was shopping for an engagement ring. But he’d held off buying one in favor of taking Kari to the store so that she could pick out what she wanted. It turned out to be a good call, because she hadn’t wanted to plan a future with him.

  Unhappy with the trek down memory lane, Patrick was grateful to be distracted by his grandfather’s arrival at the ranch.

  “You’re a long way from Crooked Creek,” he remarked, greeting him with a hug.

  “I’m on my way to Helen’s for dinner,” Gramps said, referring to the woman that he’d been dating for more than two years now.

  It had been a surprise to the whole family to discover that Jesse Blake had opened up his heart again after mourning the loss of his wife so deeply and for so long. But in one of those odd twists of fate, Gramps had met his lady friend at a birthday party for Spencer’s daughter, Dani.

  And while it was strange for Patrick to see his grandfather flirting and cuddling with a woman who wasn’t his grandmother—or really, any woman at his age—Sarah was right. There was a definite spring in the old guy’s step since he’d started spending time with Helen.

  “And since I was passing by, I thought I’d stop by to see the pups Dani’s been talking about.” Gramps continued his explanation.

  “They’re pretty darn adorable,” Patrick told him, leading the way to the barn.

  “Are you planning on keeping any?” his grandfather asked.

  “I wasn’t even planning on keeping Princess,” Patrick confided. “But somehow she’s wearing a pink collar with my contact information on the tag.”

  “Princess?” Gramps echoed, sounding amused.

  He shrugged, unwilling to admit it was the vet’s son who’d named the dog—or that Brendan’s attachment to the animal had undoubtedly been a factor in Patrick’s decision to keep her.

  “Well, every ranch should have a dog,” his grandfather said, surveying the area where the canine mama was in residence with her pups. “So maybe it’s lucky that she found you.”

  “I would have preferred to be found by a shepherd or Lab mix.”

  “A labradoodle is part Lab,” Gramps pointed out.

  “And part fluff ball.”

  “Which might explain why the puppies are so darn adorable.” His grandfather’s usually stern expression softened as he watched the little ones snuggle close to their mama.

  “If you believe every ranch should have a dog, is that why you’re here?” Patrick asked, picking up the thread of their earlier conversation. “Do you want to take one of the pups home to Crooked Creek?”

  “I’m thinking about it,” Gramps said.

  “Have you talked to Spencer and Kenzie about this?”

  “Why would I? I don’t need their permission to get a dog just because we all live at Crooked Creek.”

  “You do if you plan on giving that dog to Dani,” Patrick said.

  “I thought you’d be anxious to get rid of the pups, not try to talk potential adopters out of taking one off your hands.”

  “I want to see them go to good homes,” he acknowledged. “I don’t want them to be the cause of friction in a good home, and Spencer and Kenzie have their hands full enough right now with an almost seven-year-old and a new baby.”

  “Sounds like you might know something about the demands of a seven-year-old,” his grandfather mused thoughtfully. “Makes me think there might be some truth to the rumors I’ve heard about you hanging out with the pretty vet and her son.”

  “It sounds to me like you didn’t come here to see the puppies as much as to go on a fishing expedition.”

  As if to prove him wrong, Gramps shifted his attention back to the puppies. “Do they have names?”

  “Apparently they do,” Patrick said.

  “Who’s that one, with the lighter-colored fur?”

  “Luke.”

  “Strange name for a dog,” Gramps said.

  Patrick just shrugged.

  “Has anyone else asked about him?”

  “Not specifically.”

  “Then you can reserve him for me.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Five minutes,” Brooke said, giving her son the usual warning so that he’d be ready and waiting when the school bus pulled up at the end of their driveway. “Did you brush your teeth?”

  Brendan nodded and tugged his knit cap onto his head.

  She slid his lunch box into the front pouch of
his backpack and zipped it up.

  He shoved his feet into his boots. “Can we go to the Silver Star after school today?”

  Brooke shook her head. “Not today. I’ve got a full day at the clinic and then I’ve got to go check on Mr. Wallace’s goats.”

  “You could drop me off at the Silver Star on your way,” he said, as he fumbled with the zipper on his coat.

  “No, I can’t.” She shook her head again as she helped him zip up. “But you can either come with me to see the goats or you can stay with Grandma.”

  Her son pouted. “Why can’t I go to the Silver Star?”

  “Because it’s not on my way, and because you weren’t invited.” She put on her own coat and boots to wait outside with him.

  “Patrick said I could visit the ranch anytime,” he pointed out.

  “Any time when you’re with me,” she acknowledged, wondering when her son had dropped the Mister and how that detail had escaped her notice until now. “He didn’t offer to babysit you.”

  “I’m not a baby,” Brendan said, slinging his backpack over his shoulder.

  “No, you’re not,” she agreed. “But you’re also not old enough to be left on your own, and Mr. Patrick might have other plans.”

  “But I want to help with the puppies.”

  “And that’s a nice idea,” Brooke said, as she steered him out the door. “But you wanting to help with the puppies would require me to drive fifteen miles out of my way and I don’t have time for that today.”

  “I want to help with the puppies,” he insisted, adopting the mutinous tone she knew only too well.

  “And I told you not today,” she reminded him, maintaining a level tone.

  He folded his arms across his chest. “You’re not the boss of me.”

  “Actually, being your mom pretty much means that I am the boss of you,” she said, giving up on any effort to de-escalate the situation.

  “I wish I had a dad,” Brendan shot back. “I bet a dad would let me go to the ranch.”

  She might have been less shocked if he’d slapped her, because his words stung more than a physical blow. And while her mind understood that he was lashing out because he wasn’t getting his way, the heart that had only ever wanted what was best for her little boy was bruised and aching.