A Rancher to Remember--A Clean Romance

by Karen Rock

  Cassidy’s mother’s teeth worried her bottom lip. It’d be the height of selfishness to make them spend their meager nest egg while she waffled.

  “No. Go. I’ll call my editor again. I’m sure we’ll work something out,” she assured them. Tears burned the back of her throat as she stared into their concerned faces. They couldn’t help her; no one could. She’d never felt so utterly alone, not since the day she’d learned Daryl and Leanne had married.

  Her father heaved himself up and limped to her bed. “Promise me, bug.” His wiry eyebrows lowered as his blue eyes bored into hers.

  “I promise.”

  “I don’t want to leave without knowing you’ll be taken care of.” Her mother wrung her hands.

  “You don’t have to,” someone pronounced from the open doorway. A tall, handsome, deep-voiced cowboy.

  Daryl.

  “W-what are you doing here?” she demanded, hating the catch in her voice almost as much as the flicker of relief at the sight of his confident stride, the no-nonsense set of his firm chin. Deep down, did she want someone to rescue her for a change, that someone being the last person she’d ever trust?

  “I’m taking you home, Cassidy.”

  She opened her mouth to refuse, then stopped at the sight of her niece and nephew as they ducked under their father’s arms and flew to her side. Her heart melted when Noah buried his head in the crook of her arm while Emma grabbed her good hand.

  “I miss you, Aunt Cassidy!” Noah’s voice was muffled, lost in the folds of her shirt. “Mama’s gone to heaven and she can’t come back.”

  Cassidy laid her cheek atop his head. “I know, sweetheart. I’m so sorry.”

  “You’re hurting her.” Emma grabbed the back of Noah’s shirt and pulled.

  “Let go!” Noah’s out-flung arm smacked Cassidy square across her bruised chin as they grappled.

  “Kids! Off!” At their father’s roar, they scrambled away.

  “Now she’ll never come home with us,” Emma half yelled, half sobbed.

  Tears rolled down Noah’s red cheeks. “I’m sorry. Please don’t go away, Aunt Cassidy. We need you. Pa makes bad grilled cheese sandwiches. And his mac-n-cheese is the worst.”

  Emma nodded sagely. “Too much butter, not enough cheese.”

  “And Beuford ate my Flamin’ Cheetos and made a big mess.”

  Daryl squatted to face his son. “What’s the rule about feeding Beuford?”

  “Always stay downwind?” Noah’s little face scrunched.

  “The second one.” The faint glimmer of humor in Daryl’s eyes as they rose to meet hers had her biting back a tremulous smile. Keep your guard up, she reminded herself.

  Emma planted her fists on her waist. “No Flamin’ Cheetos, stupid!”

  “I’m not stupid,” Noah cried. “You’re stupid.”

  “Take it back!”

  “Behave yourselves.” At Daryl’s firm, authoritative tone, the kids quit squabbling. Eight pairs of expectant eyes, including her parents’, turned her way.

  “I’m sure this is mighty tempting...a dog with a hair-trigger colon, bickering children and a quest for the perfect mac-n-cheese,” Daryl said gravely, fatigue weighing down his handsome features. “But it’s the best we can offer. Will you accept?”

  “Please,” the kids pleaded.

  She opened her arms to the children who needed her, suspecting she needed them just as much or more. They flung themselves at her, probably refracturing her aching ribs. Still, she’d have time to heal, physically and emotionally, on Loveland Hills if she took care not to let Daryl too close.

  “Sounds irresistible.” She ruffled Noah’s hair, pressed a kiss to Emma’s damp cheek and met Daryl’s grave brown eyes, wondering if she was about to regret her next words. “I accept.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “REAL PIRATES?”

  Daryl followed his son’s excited voice, paused outside Noah’s room and glimpsed Cassidy perched on the edge of his bed, Emma beside her. Surprise rooted his boots to the floor. Noah’s sound soother gushed pattering rain and the soft scent of body wash lingered in the air. Noah’s damp head peeked above his Spider-Man cover, suggesting a shower, as did Emma’s. Both wore pajamas, ready and on time to go to sleep, Noah in his bed, a first since Leanne’s passing. The heaviness in his heart eased at this return to normalcy.

  Stability.

  It spoke to the level of comfort the children felt, and safety, from having Cassidy around.

  Concern quickly replaced his relief. Why was Cassidy putting them to bed? She should be resting, recuperating. Bandages bulged beneath her yellow T-shirt, a splint covered her broken pinkie and a white gauze pad concealed her upper arm’s gunshot wound. When he’d left this morning to drive cattle, Joy had been in the kitchen cooking breakfast. She’d promised to watch the kids until he returned. Granted, a pinkeye outbreak requiring medical attention to the herd made him late, but Joy was dependable, and Cassidy shouldn’t be up and around.

  The ranch demanded extra work during harvest season. It was on more stable financial ground recently since the Cades—their former rivals and now extended family—reinstated the land easement allowing them to drive their Brahmans to the Crystal River. Yet Loveland Hills still had a way to go before it operated at maximum capacity, the threat of foreclosure not fully behind them. Commanding top prices at this fall’s cattle auction, as well as bringing in a large grain harvest for winter feed, was all-important. Worse, some stranger claiming to be his father’s older half brother insisted the ranch partially belonged to him and demanded half the land and his share in the crucial profits.

  “I’ll take it from here.”

  Cassidy twisted around and winced at the move. Her green eyes were enormous in her heart-shaped face, her honey-brown hair framing it in a tumble of waves. She looked vulnerable, young without makeup, and pale. It reminded him of the day she’d learned of his and Leanne’s marriage. His betrayal.

  Emma flung herself at him and he staggered backward when he caught her. She wrapped her arms and legs around him like a spider monkey.

  “Pa! Cassidy made us arrows con...!” Emma paused, and her brow furrowed.

  “Arroz con pollo,” Cassidy supplied with an indulgent smile that faded when her eyes rose to meet his.

  “Sounds fancy.”

  “It is!” Emma answered him. “The rice was yellow, and the chicken was better than KFC.”

  “High praise indeed.” Cassidy’s gaze clicked with his again and the glimmer of humor lightening her eyes tugged up the corners of his lips. “Where’s Grandma Joy?” He placed Emma back on her feet.

  “She got tired and Grandpa took her home. Aunt Sierra was going to leave work, but Aunt Cassidy said we’d take care of each other and we did!” Emma pointed to the bandages on Cassidy’s hand. “I put those back on after dinner.”

  “And I took a bath and cleaned behind my ears,” Noah said.

  “You were a big help.” Daryl crossed the room and ruffled Noah’s damp hair, marveling at this unknown, maternal side of Cassidy. She’d never wanted a traditional life or family, yet she seemed a natural with the kids, their faces more relaxed and less pale than they’d been in the past couple of weeks. The ice encasing his heart since Leanne’s passing melted slightly around the edges. “What about Beuford?” At his name, their geriatric beagle mix dragged his muzzle from the floor and peered blearily in Daryl’s direction.

  “He didn’t throw up on anything.” Noah shrugged his shoulders beneath the covers.

  “Yes, he did!” Emma flipped her damp, blond hair over one shoulder. “Pa’s slippers.”

  Daryl bit back a groan.

  “I meant nothing of mine.” Noah sat up and the covers dropped to his waist. “Plus, he ate the rice I dropped on the floor, so we didn’t have to sweep.”

  “How about home
work?” Daryl leaned in to hug Noah.

  “I finished mine and I didn’t cheat.” Emma gnawed her cuticle. “Mostly. But it’s not for a grade so that’s okay, right?”

  “You checked your answers and changed the ones you got wrong... What’s your father say?” Cassidy’s eyes slid from his. Since she’d come home with him yesterday she’d mostly avoided talking or looking directly at him and he’d done the same, the two of them circling each other like boxers in the final round, sure the other one might deliver the knockout with one blow.

  “Sounds fair to me.” Daryl released Noah. “Now let’s say good-night to Aunt Cassidy. She needs her rest.”

  “She was telling us a pirate’s story!” Noah dropped back to the pillow and for the first time since losing his mother, his face broke into a smile. “A real one!”

  Daryl glanced at Cassidy’s ashen complexion, then back to his pleading children. Bedtime had been a struggle since Leanne began going out and keeping odd hours, throwing the kids off their routine. After her death, Emma refused to sleep alone, and Noah resisted sleeping at all, both afraid of the dark, suddenly.

  “It’s a short one,” Cassidy assured him, her eyes on Noah.

  “Okay. Mind if I stay?” He was dead tired but the hot shower he’d been looking forward to no longer appealed as much as the warmth filling this cozy room. A projector displayed twinkling stars on the ceiling and through the dim he gleaned Legos, trains and Lincoln Logs littering the small room’s floor. Noah hadn’t taken them out in weeks.

  “As long as you don’t scare easily... This isn’t some kiddie tale,” Cassidy cautioned. Her left eyebrow lifted.

  “I think I can handle it.”

  Cassidy launched into her tale and his children lost themselves in the story, Emma slipping in beside Noah, their wide eyes riveted to Cassidy’s animated face.

  “I was asleep on the Albedo, a cargo ship on the Indian Ocean,” she began, “when an announcement came over the loudspeaker—pirates are approaching.”

  “Where’s the Indian Ocean?” Noah scratched his nose.

  Emma rolled her eyes “In India, stupid.”

  “Don’t call me stupid.” Noah shoved Emma’s shoulder. “Mama said...”

  Horrified silence descended, so painful breathing felt like a stab to the lungs.

  “Your mother said you were the brightest children and she loved you both.” Daryl clamped his back teeth together to keep his mouth from wobbling. An image of a beaming Leanne holding a newborn Emma flashed in his mind’s eye followed by one of her cooing over Noah when they’d brought him home from the hospital.

  How had everything changed?

  Why, Leanne?

  What did I do?

  “I miss Mama,” Noah sniffled. Emma buried her face into the pillow. When Daryl rubbed her shoulder, she flung off his hand.

  “I don’t miss her,” Emma cried, her face red when she turned. “And she didn’t love us. She didn’t!”

  “Yes, she did,” Daryl said tightly.

  “You’re just saying that!” Emma stormed. She threw off the covers and swung her legs over the side of the bed.

  “What about the pirate story?”

  Emma froze at Cassidy’s question and her shoulders lowered. “Did anyone die?”

  “Nope.”

  “Okay.” Emma eased back down to the bed. “Sorry, Pa.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “Did anyone get their arm chopped off?” Noah wiped his red eyes on the comforter.

  “No. Though some teeth got knocked out.”

  “Well...all right,” Noah grumped. “If that’s the best you can do.”

  Cassidy’s twitching mouth snared Daryl’s attention, and he released a breath when the children snuggled together again.

  “We were a thousand miles from the eastern coast of Africa...west of the Maldives, closer to India.” Cassidy resumed her story. “I rushed up to the bridge, where most of the ship’s crew had already gathered. The captain pointed to port.”

  “What’s port?” Noah twisted around, planted his elbow into the mattress and dropped the side of his face into his palm.

  “Left side,” Daryl answered.

  “I could just make out a distant silhouette on top of the waves, an open-bow skiff.” When Noah opened his mouth, Cassidy added, “A skiff is like a speedboat. The captain sent out distress messages, then he directed the steersman to maneuver the ship in a zigzag pattern. He called the engine room and ordered full steam, but the Albedo was old and sluggish.”

  “Liked Beuford!”

  Cassidy nodded. “Though not as smelly.”

  Beuford’s lips vibrated as he snored, the dog oblivious to the censure raining down on him. He rolled onto his back and his rounded belly rose and fell.

  “The crew had ringed the deck with barbed wire and affixed an electric wire to the gunwale, hoping to prevent anyone from boarding the ship uninvited,” Cassidy continued.

  Noah pulled up the covers so only his rounded eyes showed.

  “The crew plugged in the electric wire. By then, the skiff was just a few hundred yards away. On board were four men wearing T-shirts and sarongs and carrying rifles. We watched, helpless, as the skiff pulled alongside the ship.”

  Daryl frowned, imagining the danger Cassidy described with such relish. Why put herself into risky situations?

  Because she cared only about her career, the story, came the answer...not anything or anyone else, not even herself.

  Or him, once.

  Not that it mattered anymore.

  “The pirates retrieved a long ladder with hooks on one end, hung it over the deck wall and climbed it without getting shocked from the wire.”

  Emma pressed her fingers to her mouth. “Did they have eye patches?”

  “Were they zombies?” Noah’s eyes bulged. “If you’re dead you don’t feel anything.”

  “No—to both.”

  Noah heaved another disgruntled sigh.

  “Did the electric fence malfunction?” Daryl asked, caught up in the tale and invested in knowing how Cassidy had survived. She crossed the globe in the most treacherous circumstances, yet a visit home had nearly killed her.

  Leanne hadn’t been so fortunate.

  With that question out, three pairs of eyes fell on him. He jerked his mouth into an approximation of a smile. “I was just imagining those rifles.”

  “They were scary, and yes.” Cassidy’s concerned gaze lingered on his face. “The electric fences failed.”

  “But you still had the barbed wire,” Emma interjected.

  “It didn’t stop them. The first pirate charged through it, the metal cutting into his flesh.” An artificial thunder roll rumbled from the sound soother, punctuating Cassidy’s statement.

  “He was a zombie!” Noah pounded his fist on the cover.

  “No.” Cassidy’s honey-brown hair swished over her shoulders as she shook her head. “Just desperate.”

  “He wanted your booty.” Emma giggled through her raised fingers.

  Cassidy grinned. “They wanted to capture and ransom us.”

  Emma dropped her hand and stared, openmouthed. “Kidnap you?”

  “Like a princess?” asked an aggrieved-sounding Noah.

  “Not that glamorous,” Cassidy answered, wryly, her offhandedness at this life-and-death anecdote hard to comprehend. What drew her to danger? Chaos? Not the part he’d loved once...or had it been exactly that part, so unlike him, which had drawn him when he’d been young...foolish...full of dreams instead of responsibilities? “Cargo ships don’t have much in the way of cash, but people can command a price.”

  “When does someone get their teeth knocked out?” Noah demanded.

  “Soon, my bloodthirsty pirate.” Cassidy tweaked Noah’s nose. “The captain ordered everyone off the bridge,
and down to the engine room. We heard gunfire and shattering glass above. After a few minutes, a heavily accented voice came over the loudspeaker. ‘Come on bridge, Captain,’ it said, in English. ‘Come on bridge with crew, otherwise we kill.’”

  “But no one dies, right?” Emma interjected.

  Cassidy stroked her face. “No, sweetie. We went upstairs. One pirate yelled and jabbed at us with the butt of his rifle, and we all fell to our knees. Our captain had a hand to his mouth and when he dropped it, his front teeth were gone.”

  “Ewwwwwwww...” Emma shuddered.

  “Awesome,” Noah breathed.

  “Then another pirate took over,” Cassidy said. “He introduced himself as Ali Jabin. ‘We want only company money,’ he said. ‘If company pay money, no problem.’ He ordered us to collect everything valuable from our cabins—cell phones, cash, jewelry—and pile it on the bridge. ‘Crew problem, Somalia problem,’ he said. ‘Crew no problem, Somalia no problem.’”

  “What’s that mean?” Noah’s nose scrunched.

  “We had to cooperate or there’d be trouble,” Cassidy explained.

  “Like getting your arm chopped off?” Noah snuggled closer to Emma.

  “Something like that... The pirates ordered the captain to head to Somalia and they held us there for almost two weeks.”

  “Did they chain you to a wall?” Emma pushed Noah’s drooping head from her shoulder.

  “No. But I was in a room without windows, so I couldn’t see anything.” A distant expression crossed Cassidy’s face and Daryl wondered at her thoughts, her memories, her experiences of traveling the world as they’d once planned to do together.

  Emma shuddered. “I don’t like the dark.”

  Since Leanne’s death, Emma had demanded Daryl keep the lights on after she and Noah piled into bed beside him. With Cassidy in his bedroom and him on the couch, she’d started bunking in with Noah. “How did you get through it?” Daryl asked, hoping Cassidy’s answer might help the children.

  “I memorized poems from a special book someone gave me once,” she said softly, and Daryl’s chest tightened, recalling the poetry collection he’d given her as a Christmas present one year...their last holiday together. “I recited them over and over until I was freed. It helped me get through.”