A Rancher to Trust

by Laurel Blount

  Searching for forgiveness...and a future.

  Suddenly a husband...and a father?

  This bachelor is ready to claim his instant family.

  After learning his ex-wife isn’t so ex after all, rebel turned rancher Dan Whitlock is determined to prove he’s a changed man…but Bailey Quinn is just as set on finally ending their marriage. When tragedy makes Dan the guardian of little orphaned twins, he and Bailey are drawn back together. But can she forgive the past and open her heart to the family she’s always wanted?

  “I should have called. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s all right, Dan.” One corner of Bailey’s mouth tipped up in a smile. “At least you came back this time.”

  He drew in a slow breath. “I did. But I’ve brought along a good many responsibilities that I didn’t have when we talked before.”

  Bailey’s gaze drifted back to the slumbering baby in her arms. “You sure have. And they’re beautiful, Dan. Just beautiful.”

  True, but the twins were only part of what he’d been talking about—and honestly, not the part that worried him, at least not where Bailey was concerned. He’d known Bailey wouldn’t blink about taking on a pair of orphaned twins. She was that kind of woman—the best kind, strong and sure and good.

  “Everything’s different now except for one thing. I still care about you, Bailey. I still want to see if we can work things out.” He paused. “You say you were going to sign these papers because you thought that’s what I wanted. It isn’t, not by a long shot. But the question is, what do you want?”

  Laurel Blount lives on a small farm in Middle Georgia with her husband, David, their four children, a milk cow, dairy goats, assorted chickens, an enormous dog, three spoiled cats and one extremely bossy goose with boundary issues. She divides her time between farm chores, homeschooling and writing, and she’s happiest with a cup of steaming tea at her elbow and a good book in her hand.

  Books by Laurel Blount

  Love Inspired

  A Family for the Farmer

  A Baby for the Minister

  Hometown Hope

  A Rancher to Trust

  A RANCHER TO TRUST

  Laurel Blount

  Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

  —2 Corinthians 5:17

  For Leigh M. Hall, my wild and crazy sister—and my first and truest friend.

  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

  Epilogue

  Dear Reader

  Excerpt from Finding Her Amish Love by Rebecca Kertz

  Chapter One

  As Dan Whitlock pulled his pickup to a stop in the middle of the quiet Oklahoma cemetery, his cell phone buzzed against his chest for the third time. He fished it out of his shirt pocket and checked the screen. Sure enough, he had two missed calls and a text from rancher Colton McAllister.

  Call me.

  Dan looked out the truck window at the snowy cemetery and weighed his options. He’d planned to get this private errand over and done with before he touched base with Colt, but the new boss of the Bar M Ranch wasn’t known for his patience. Might as well go ahead and call him back. Then maybe Dan could tend to his personal business in peace.

  Colt answered the phone on the first ring. “About time.”

  “I was driving. Sorry, Colt, but my advice is pass on these heifers. They look a lot better on paper than they do in person. I know how bad you want to get in on the Shadow Lady bloodline, but trust me, these aren’t your girls.”

  Colt made an irritated noise. “I should have figured as much. Price was too good. I’ll start looking in a higher dollar range and see what I can find.”

  The Bar M didn’t have that kind of money to play around with right now. Dan started to argue but thought better of it.

  Not my call, he reminded himself, not anymore. As the elderly Gordon McAllister’s foreman, Dan had overseen the day-to-day ranch operations. But now that Colt’s grandfather had passed on, Colt had shifted from being Dan’s friend to being Dan’s boss. The younger McAllister preferred to handle things on his own.

  “Anyway,” Colt said, “I appreciate you taking a look. You about ready to head home?”

  Dan’s gaze drifted back to the scattered gravestones, sparkling icily in the brittle January sunlight. “Yeah, shortly. I have something I need to do first.”

  “No rush on this end. Take your time.”

  Dan could barely hear his friend’s muffled words over the whistle of the Wyoming wind and the sound of cattle lowing. Colt probably had his phone clenched between his chin and his shoulder, which meant his hands were busy with something else.

  “You out choring? I thought you were supposed to be helping Angie take care of those new twins of yours.”

  “I’m fixing that section of fence in the south pasture. I was going stir-crazy in the house, so Angie finally shooed me outside. Oh yeah. She said you had a phone call yesterday.”

  “Who from?”

  “Some girl, Angie said. She wanted to talk to you, wouldn’t say why. Angie thought it might be something important, though, because the number came up Pine Valley, Georgia. Isn’t that your hometown?”

  Dan tightened his grip on the phone. “This girl. She give Angie a name?”

  “Yeah. Bailey somebody, I think it was.”

  Bailey. Dan’s skin prickled in a way that had nothing to do with the sharp air finding its way into the truck cab. “Bailey Quinn?”

  “That sounds right.” Something in his tone must have alerted Colt, because his friend added, “You sound like you just took a punch in the gut. Who’s this Bailey girl to you?”

  Dan didn’t answer. He stared through the fogged windshield at a nearby tombstone, darkened with age, the name barely visible.

  Who was Bailey to him?

  At one point in his life—everything.

  Now? She was a memory so full of regret that the pain could reach across more than a decade of time and stop his heart cold. And she definitely wasn’t somebody he wanted to talk about. Not with Colt.

  Not with anyone.

  After a second or two of silence, Colt went on, “Angie told her you weren’t here, and she left a number. Said she needed to talk to you, please, as soon as possible. Nice-sounding girl, Angie said.”

  “Text me the number.” He tried not to ask, but he couldn’t help it. “Did Bailey say anything else?”

  “Not that Angie mentioned. Is this girl one of your folks, Dan? Because if you want to go back to Georgia and see about her, you go ahead. You’re not needed here, so there’s no reason for you to hurry back.”

  “Well, that’s never a good thing to hear from an employer.”

  Colt made a frustrated noise. “You know what I mean. And you also know I don’t think of you as an employee. You’re family to me and Angie, just like you were to Grandpa. Maybe your last name isn’t McAllister, but you’re one of us, just the same.”

  You’re one of us. High praise from one of the most clannish families in all of Wyoming. “You going mushy on me, Colt?”

  “If I am, it’s not my fault. It’s the twins. Nobody’s sleeping around here, and there�
�s way too much crying.”

  “They’re cute little stinkers, though.” That was an understatement. Dan’s honorary niece and nephew were so adorable they could make any man hungry to have a couple kids of his own.

  “Yeah, they’re cute, all right. That’s how they suck you in. Trust me, Dan. This parenting-twins stuff is harder than ranching any day. No wonder I’m going soft. It’s enough to send any man around the bend. I’ll get Angie to text you that number. And listen, if you’ve got some kind of trouble brewing back home, you head there without a second thought, okay? We can manage until you get back.”

  “Thanks, Colt.” Dan disconnected the phone and shoved it back into his pocket. He sat in the chilling truck cab, thinking hard.

  So after all these years, Bailey Quinn had called him.

  Her face came into his mind as clearly as if he’d seen her yesterday. Eyes such a rich, dark shade of brown that you could only make out her pupils if you were close enough to kiss her. He recalled the soft curve of her cheek and the sassy way she’d tilt her head when she was teasing you—which, Bailey being Bailey, was most of the time.

  Years back, not long after hiring on at the Bar M, Dan had been out checking a fence line on a June morning. A pretty, dark-feathered bird perched on a strand of barbed wire had cocked its head at him in just the same way. Pain had ricocheted out of nowhere with such force that his knees had almost buckled under him.

  And that was just a dumb bird.

  Even though the phone hadn’t vibrated, he took it back out of his pocket and squinted at the screen. Nothing. Likely it would take Angie McAllister a while to get around to texting him Bailey’s number. Colt’s wife had her hands full wrangling their three-week-old babies, Josie and Finn.

  In the meantime, Dan might as well do what he’d come here to do.

  He turned the sound up on his phone so he wouldn’t miss the text, got out of the truck and threaded his way through the graveyard, his boots crunching in the snow. It didn’t take him long to find what he was looking for.

  “Hey, there, Gordon.” Dan removed his brown Stetson and then reached down and brushed the mounded snow from the top of his old boss’s tombstone.

  Gordon Finnley McAllister. The name was engraved deeply into solid gray granite Colt had chosen for his grandfather’s memorial stone. It was one of the few decisions the new rancher had made that Dan hadn’t privately second-guessed. Granite was a good fit for the stubborn old man he’d known.

  Gordon McAllister’s mind and body had been toughened by the wild land he loved, but the old rancher’s heart had been shaped by the Lord he’d followed faithfully—and gentled by the wife who lay slumbering beside him now. Josephine Andrews McAllister had always missed her Oklahoma home, so Gordon had buried her here, among her people. And when his time came, he’d asked to be laid beside her instead of in his beloved Wyoming. That request had shocked a lot of people back in Broken Bow, given how passionately the old man had loved the family ranch.

  It hadn’t shocked Dan at all. He knew Gordon had loved his Josephine more.

  Dan cleared his throat. “Colt wanted me to take a look at some heifers a couple towns over, so I thought...while I was in the neighborhood.” This felt awkward. But he forced himself to keep on going. “Colt’s doing you proud, Gordon. He’s got the makings of a solid rancher. Not as good as you, not yet. But one day he will be. I’ve stayed on to help get him started, like I promised you I would. But he’s just about got his feet under him now, and I’m thinking...” Dan fought the lump that had risen up in his throat. This was hard. “I’m thinking maybe it’s getting time for me to up stakes and move along. That’s why I came by. To let you know. And to bring you something.”

  He fished a brass token from his coat pocket. It gleamed dully in the palm of his hand. “This is the chip I got from my support group when I was one year sober. You came to see me get it, eleven years ago this March. Getting through that first year without a drink was the first thing I’d done right in a long time, and one of the toughest. I’d never have managed it without you and that church you kept dragging me to. I’ve carried this thing with me ever since, but now I’m leaving it here with you.” Dan gently placed the token on top of the grave marker. “I came here to thank you, Gordon McAllister, for taking me in and forgiving me when I didn’t deserve it. I’ll owe you a debt for the rest of my life, and me leaving the Bar M won’t change that any. If Colt or Angie or those great-grandkids of yours ever need my help, I’ll be there for them. No matter what. You’ve got my word on that.”

  He stood there for a long moment, his hand covering the token, the cold of the stone seeping into his fingers. Finally he lifted his hand and cleared his throat.

  “That’s all I needed to say, I guess. I’d best be getting along. Rest good, Gordon, here with your Josephine. You’ve earned it.”

  Then Dan settled his Stetson back on his head and started back toward the truck.

  His phone chirped loudly just as he was settling into the seat. Angie had sent him a number, followed by, Colt says you go on to Georgia if you need to. Don’t worry about us.

  He wasn’t worried about the McAllisters. Colt could run the Bar M just fine without Dan’s help, even with a pair of brand-new babies thrown into the bargain.

  But Dan had never planned to go back to Pine Valley, Georgia. He had his reasons for that, reasons that still tore him up when he allowed himself to think about them.

  Which was why he didn’t allow it.

  Then again, if Bailey Quinn had reached out to him after what he’d done, after all these years...she must need something.

  Something big.

  He recalled something Gordon used to say when they’d hit a snag in their work. “Sometimes you gotta go back a few fence posts, son, and fix a crooked one before you can go forward. Ain’t no fun, but it’s the right thing to do. Every man makes his share of mistakes, but they ain’t nothing to be ashamed of unless you leave ’em standing.”

  Dan had left some pretty busted-up fence posts standing back in Pine Valley. He should have done what he could to fix them a long time ago, but he’d kept putting it off. It was no easy thing, going back to the place where you’d behaved the worst, facing up to what you’d done before you found your feet and your faith.

  He was at a turning point right now. He was about to strike out on his own again, away from the shelter of the Bar M and the McAllisters. He needed all his fence posts as straight as he could get them, and it looked like God had just handed Dan an opportunity to get that done.

  Whether he liked it or not.

  Lord, what do You want me to do here?

  Dan knew the answer almost before he’d finished the question. The things he’d done and the people he’d hurt—like Bailey Quinn—deserved a lot more from him than a phone call. It was long past time for him to face up to them and make whatever amends he could.

  Dan looked back down at his phone and slowly typed out a reply.

  Headed to Georgia. Tell Colt to text me if he needs anything.

  Then he hit Send, dropped the phone on the seat and shoved the truck into first gear.

  * * *

  “Lucy Ball, drop that right now!” Bailey Quinn jogged around the corner of her old clapboard farmhouse, trying to keep the mischievous Jersey calf in sight. “You’ll choke!”

  The long-legged red calf tossed her head and flexed her jaw, crackling the plastic of the stolen water bottle she held clenched in her teeth. She was having fun, and she was in no hurry for this game to be over.

  The calf loped by the chicken coop, making the young Barred Rock pullets flutter and cluck, before slowing to a stop by the open barn door. Bailey halted, too, just at the corner of the back porch, her heart pounding.

  “That’s right,” she murmured coaxingly. “Go in there, where I might have a shot at cornering you!”

  The valuable calf had
been a farm-warming present from her friends Abel and Emily Whitlock.

  Abel had shaken his head ruefully when Bailey thanked him. “Let’s see how you feel in a year or so. I know you’ve been wanting a milk cow, but they’re a sight more work than most people realize. They’ve got to be milked rain or shine, whether you’re sick or not, Christmas Day same as any other. Then there’s the milk you’ll have to deal with. A good milker will give you gallons a day. That’s a lot for one person to deal with. And you can’t sell raw milk at that store of yours, not unless you get state certified, and that’s near about more trouble and expense than it’s worth.”

  Bailey had only laughed. She didn’t care if owning a milk cow was going to be a lot of work. In fact, she was counting on it.

  Now that her organic grocery store was well established, she’d been hungry for a new challenge. She missed the invigorating struggle of building up a fledgling business. Working hard was what made her feel alive. And the tougher the work, the more Bailey liked it.

  Given how this was going, that was a good thing. The minute she’d seen the calf’s fluffy red topknot, Bailey had christened her Lucille Ball after the iconic redheaded television star, and Lucy seemed determined to live up to her name. A day didn’t go by that the animal didn’t find some kind of trouble to get into. She was cute as could be, but right now Bailey almost wished Emily and Abel had given her a toaster.

  Lucy blinked her long-lashed brown eyes at the barn doorway for a second or two. She gave her head another sassy shake, making the water slosh noisily inside the bottle. Then to Bailey’s dismay, the calf kicked her heels and started off again, heading back toward the front yard.

  Bailey blew out a sigh. “I do not have time for this today,” she informed her squawking chickens as she stalked past them.

  She really didn’t, but she fought a smile as she spoke. Yes, she had a lot to do, but she wasn’t complaining. This crazy overload was exactly the tonic she’d needed.