Regardless of whose turn it was to feed the horses, they still needed to eat. He’d have words with Steve about it in the morning. Fernando went into the grain room to prepare the mixture of grain for the horses. The horses in the barn had a special diet, and Ricky was particular about making sure that they were fed properly and on time.
While the grain was soaking, he went over to the hay to begin divvying it out to the animals that got hay. However, when he grabbed the bale, he realized he didn’t have a knife on him. When he turned to go back to the grain room to find one, he ran into Ricky.
“How’s it going?” Ricky asked. “I thought I’d check to see how you’re settling in.”
Fernando shrugged. “Good. I was just getting the animals their feed.”
Ricky glanced at his watch, and Fernando knew what he was thinking. It was late, and the horses should have been fed by now.
“I thought Steve would have done that already,” Ricky said.
Steve already clearly resented Fernando, and it didn’t seem fair to throw him under the bus, especially since it would only make the other man’s attitude worse.
Fernando shrugged. “Maybe we had a misunderstanding. But I’m here now, and as soon as I head into the other room and grab a knife, I’ll get it taken care of.”
Ricky nodded slowly but didn’t look pleased. “Isn’t there a schedule on the board?”
Fernando should have realized that Ricky had his finger on the pulse of everything that happened here at Double R Ranch. Each of the wranglers rotated who was in charge of feeding on a particular day so that they all knew who was responsible for what and when. Technically, it wasn’t Fernando’s job to feed, and obviously, Ricky knew that.
“I’m sure it is,” Fernando said. “But I’m not sure where Steve’s at, and someone’s got to do it.”
He started toward the feed room to get a knife, but Ricky reached into his pocket. “Here. You can use my knife. I’m surprised you don’t carry one yourself.”
Fernando shrugged. “I usually do, but I was using it earlier in my truck, and I accidentally left it there.”
He took the knife and cut the string on the hay. But as he handed the knife back to Ricky, he took a closer look. “This is a nice knife.”
The pocketknife was good quality, old and worn, clearly Ricky’s favorite tool. The wooden handle was inlaid with silver and turquoise with the Double R Ranch brand.
As Ricky took the knife, he grinned. “That knife has been in our family for as long as the ranch, passed down from father to son. I use it every day, and it reminds me of the responsibility to our family’s tradition.”
“It’s gorgeous,” Fernando said. “You’re very blessed to have such a wonderful treasure from your father. Mine died when I was young, and it was just my mom, raising my sister and me.”
“That must have been hard,” Ricky said.
“My mother did the best she could, given the circumstances. She’s a good woman, and even though things were strained between us for a while because of my conviction, I think we’re finding our way. It’s hard for her, having sacrificed so much, trying to keep my sister and me on a good path. I went to prison, and now my sister is dead. I know she thinks she’s a failure, but it wasn’t because of her choices, but ours.”
He wasn’t sure why he was saying all of this about his upbringing, since he usually didn’t talk about it, but something about Ricky made him think of the father he’d wished he’d had. By all accounts, his late father had been a good man, and he’d like to think he’d have been something like Ricky.
Ricky nodded slowly. “It’s hard for a parent not to blame themselves. After that Lane Frost fellow died in that famous bull riding accident, I told Cinco he shouldn’t ride the bulls. But the more I told him not to do it, the more he wanted to. I just wanted to keep him safe. Sometimes I wonder if I could have done things differently, but his wife, Luanne, told me nothing would have kept him from riding, because of how much he loved it.”
The grief in the old man’s voice was evident, and Fernando gave him a comforting smile. “It sounds like you’ve at least got her. Did they have any children?”
Ricky shook his head sadly. “We haven’t spoken since Cinco died. She didn’t want to continue dwelling in the sadness, so she moved on with her new life. Last I heard, she’d married and was living somewhere in Texas.”
“Was Cinco your only child?”
Ricky nodded slowly. “Rosie had a tough time getting pregnant and having Cinco was too hard on her body, so we agreed not to have more children. It never occurred to me that there wouldn’t be anyone left to carry on the Double R after I’m gone.”
The man sounded so morose that Fernando couldn’t help patting him on the shoulder lightly. “Hopefully you’ve still got a few more good years in you.”
Ricky shrugged. “Maybe. No one really knows how long we have. Who would’ve thought that I would outlive my son by thirty years?”
Then Ricky grinned. “But if you’re worried about your job, don’t. I put the ranch under a trust, with the idea of preserving it for future generations to understand ranching. Erin is helping work out the details with my lawyer.”
Nicole’s sister was smart, and Fernando had no doubt that the Double R was in good hands with her.
“Thanks for sharing with me,” Fernando said. “I don’t plan on having a family of my own, so it’s a real privilege to be part of something like this that’s preserving a family tradition.”
Ricky gave him a funny look. “What about Erin’s sister? Everyone says you’re sweet on Nicole.”
Fernando let out a long sigh. He should have expected this, considering everyone else seemed to be pushing him toward Nicole whether he liked it or not. He was grateful that at least she was respecting his wishes.
“Unfortunately,” Fernando said, “that isn’t going to go anywhere. She deserves more than I can give her, and we’ve both come to a place of accepting that.”
Ricky snorted. “What exactly does she need you to give her? The Taj Mahal? All a woman really needs is the love of a good man. She’ll have that with you. It’s easy for us to think that we owe our loved ones something more. I think about all of the things that I wish I could’ve done with Cinco and Rosie, and it’s always about the time I could’ve spent with them and the love I could’ve given them.”
A sad look crossed Ricky’s face. “The truth is, Cinco and I had stopped talking about a year before he died. His mother had just died, and I was pressuring him to come back to the ranch. He just wanted to ride the bulls. He told me that if I really loved him, I’d come out and watch. But I never once saw my son riding a bull. Sure, I saw pictures. But it’s not the same.”
The regret in the older man’s voice was evident, and though Fernando appreciated the advice to spend time with your children, he wouldn’t be having any to spend time with.
Ricky shook his head slowly. “If you love Nicole, don’t feed yourself any of that garbage about needing things to be perfect to make your relationship work. What you really need is love. I didn’t understand that with Cinco.
“I’ve never told anyone this,” Ricky said. “But when Cinco died, Luanne was pregnant. She told me the best way I could honor his memory would be to leave her and the baby alone. My biggest regret in life was that I never tried harder to have a relationship with them.”
Though Fernando appreciated the old man sharing his wisdom, he wasn’t sure how any of it applied to him. Fernando was deliberately making choices that would prevent him from having anyone to drive away.
“I figured I already messed up my own son’s life,” Ricky continued. “So maybe the best thing would be to let Luanne take her child and do a better job.”
A sad look crossed the old man’s face, and Fernando wondered what it was like to live with such deep regret.
“People used to ask me
why I hadn’t remarried after Rosie died. I was young. Some might have even called me good-looking. And with a ranch like mine, I don’t think it’s a brag to say I was a catch. But I’d messed things up so badly the first time, I didn’t want to ruin anyone else’s life. People thought that I’d been too in love with Rosie after she died to remarry. But the truth is, I knew what a lousy husband and father I’d been the first time, and I didn’t want to hurt anyone else.”
Then Ricky grinned. “I like to flirt, but I’ve never led any woman to believe I’m available for anything else. Sometimes I think I should have thrown my hat in the ring again just in case there was someone willing to take a chance on an old fool like me. And now it’s too late.”
He looked Fernando up and down. “I never told anyone any of this. It’s none of their business. But I hate to see you waste your life on being alone, because it’s a lonely life. You have a good woman willing to love you, if you’ll only let her.
“Sometimes I dream about Rosie, about Cinco and about that baby I never did get the chance to know. I didn’t fight for any of them. If you care about Nicole, then fight for her. Maybe you can’t give her the life you think she deserves, but maybe that’s not the life she wants. At least give it a shot. My grandchild is grown now. I don’t even know if it was a boy or girl. I tried looking for Luanne once, but I never did find her. Like I said, she remarried and moved away. I assume the kid has that guy’s name.”
Ricky shook his head slowly, tears in his eyes. “Who would have thought that the Double R as a family tradition would end, not because there wasn’t another Ruiz to take over, but because the last one was too much of a fool to go after him.”
“It doesn’t have to be that way,” Fernando said. “You could always look for the child now. With the advances in technology, it’s easier to find people. You regret not taking that chance then, so why not now?”
Ricky gave him a look that cut him to the core. “Are you in any position to talk to me about taking risks? I know Shane had to blackmail you into applying for this job. Son, that’s not a way to live your life. I can’t tell you what to do, and I’m sure not going to let you tell me what to do. But if you had any brains at all, you’d figure out what you wanted in life, and even if you had a snowball’s chance in Death Valley of getting it, you’d do whatever it took to get there. I’ve had a good life, but none of it matters because I don’t have love.”
Fernando would have to admit that it was a lonely life. And he pictured his life, if he lived to be as old as Ricky, and what it would look like, being so alone. Sure, Ricky had a lot of friends, and people in the community respected him. But Fernando wasn’t so naive as to think that it replaced those deep personal connections of having a family.
Still, how could he risk putting Nicole through the ups and downs that his record inevitably led to? He could handle the life he had left to live, knowing that he’d protected the woman he loved from getting hurt.
He looked over at Ricky. “How old are you, anyway?”
Ricky chuckled. “Eighty-three years young, and don’t you forget it. I’m a lot smarter than you whippersnappers, so don’t think you can pull one over on me.”
“I wasn’t going to try.” Fernando grinned, knowing that Ricky’s warning had nothing to do with Fernando’s record.
“We’ll see about that,” Ricky said, turning to leave the barn. “You’d be surprised at the shenanigans people think they can get away with.”
He paused at the door and looked back at Fernando. “Just remember that you can lie to yourself all you want, but don’t give up on a good woman like Nicole because of those lies. None of us believe them, so maybe you should start taking a hard look at the truth.”
The truth.
The truth was, Fernando wasn’t as happy as he liked to tell people. Some nights, he lay awake in bed, thinking of the kiss he and Nicole had shared. He’d liked the feeling of having Nicole in his arms, and seeing the look of love in Nicole’s eyes.
But what happened when something bad happened, and the convicted felon got the blame? What if he couldn’t keep a job and provide for her?
Everyone kept telling him to take a risk, but no one understood just what Fernando was risking.
He finished feeding the horses, and as he was leaving the barn, he noticed Steve’s truck parked nearby. Fernando felt the hood and noted that it was cool. Which meant Steve had been back long enough to realize that Fernando was doing the feeding for him. At some point, Fernando was going to have to have words with Steve, but he’d save it for later. He was tired, and his heart hurt.
Tonight he was going to his lonely cabin when the woman he loved would be sitting at home, thinking he didn’t love her, and there wasn’t a thing he could do about it.
* * *
Nicole knew she was being an idiot, but when Erin invited the family out to a barbecue at Ricky’s, she couldn’t bring herself to go. Yes, the entire community was invited, and usually Nicole liked going to the Double R. But even though she and Fernando had found a way to work together without all their stuff coming up between them, she wasn’t sure she could find a way to leave it alone hanging out on a social level.
As much as she would have liked to have said she was over him, in the past month since Fernando had gone to work for Ricky, part of her was still as in love with him as ever. She’d never felt like this after Brandon’s death. The deep longing. The ache.
Her phone beeped with a text. Erin had forgotten the dressing for the salad their family was bringing and needed Nicole to run it over.
Probably a deliberate ploy to get her there, but maybe Nicole would arrive, Fernando would be flirting with a pretty girl and she’d be able to say that he was a pig and move on.
Not likely, since that wasn’t the kind of man Fernando was, but she could hope. Anything to get her heart to stop hurting. At least Janie and some of the other women from the Bible study would be there. She’d been joining them the past few Sundays for lunch after church, and even though she wouldn’t say she’d found new besties, she was happy with how her friendships were growing.
When Nicole arrived at Ricky’s, the barbecue was in full swing.
“Nicole!” Ricky gave her a big hug. “Have you thought about going out with me yet?”
She knew he was teasing, since he said that to her every time. But then he nudged her. “Okay, since you won’t date me, why don’t you go put Fernando out of his misery? I don’t know why you two are being such fools, but you’d better hurry up and marry him while you’re still young enough to enjoy it.”
Nicole shook her head. “It takes two to make a relationship work. And the other party has made it clear that’s not happening. I’m not chasing after someone who isn’t going to give me his all. I’m worth more than that.”
Ricky grinned. “Are you sure you don’t want to marry me instead? I’m quite the catch, and I need a strong woman like you to keep me in line.”
“There’s no keeping you in line,” Nicole said, laughing. “And if you really love someone, you don’t want to keep them in line. Instead, you want to love and support them in being fully who they are.”
Ricky burst out laughing, but before he could answer, a man came up to him and whispered something in his ear.
Immediately, the laughter turned to a look of deep concern. “Are you sure?”
The other man nodded.
“Let’s go talk to him,” Ricky said. Then he turned to Nicole. “You’ll have to excuse me for a minute. I’ve got some business to take care of.”
As Nicole nodded, Ricky turned and walked across the area where the barbecue was set up. She watched as he and the other man approached Fernando.
What was going on?
None of her business, and yet, as she watched the exchange between the three men, she couldn’t help wanting to go over and defend Fernando. Whatever was going on, he was obvio
usly in trouble.
She started walking in that direction, and Shane stepped in front of her.
“Hey, Nicole. Glad you changed your mind about coming. We’ve got a spot over here, if you want to join us.”
“That’s okay, thanks. I think Fernando is in some kind of trouble.” She gestured to where he was standing, talking with Ricky and the other man.
“That’s Jesse, the ranch foreman. And you’re right. He doesn’t look happy. I wonder what’s going on.”
Nicole only half listened as she brushed past Shane to find out, but Shane grabbed her arm.
“He won’t like it if you interfere. In fact, I really need to talk to you both about my interference, but I’d hoped to do it with both of you present. Let’s wait until they finish their discussion, and we can all talk.”
She shrugged off his grasp and continued on her way.
“I didn’t do it,” Fernando was saying as Nicole arrived.
“I’m willing to hear your explanation,” Ricky said. “I just want to know how my missing knife ended up in your cabin.”
Nicole took a deep breath. The expression on Fernando’s face was heartbreaking. She didn’t need to hear his answer to believe there had to be some mistake. Fernando wouldn’t have taken it.
Footsteps behind her told her that Shane had followed her. Probably to keep her from saying or doing anything stupid. But at least he could also be a witness to Fernando’s character and that he’d never take anything from someone else, least of all Ricky.
Maybe Fernando couldn’t love her the way she wanted, but that didn’t mean she could turn off the way she cared about him. She could tell by the way he looked at her that he’d rather her go away and not witness whatever was going down.
But she gave him a firm look to let him know that no matter what, she was here to stay.
Chapter Fifteen
Fernando should have known something like this was coming. Other than dealing with Steve’s attitude, things here had been going well. Too well. Like he’d finally found a place where he could be comfortable and breathe easily.
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