A Cowboy's Homecoming

by Leigh Riker

  “You okay?” he asked Kate, who had flung out a hand against the dashboard and was now rubbing her wrist.

  She only nodded, biting her lower lip.

  “Well, we can’t stay here. We could get rear-ended or sideswiped,” he said. “Let’s get out of the car. I’ll have to call for a tow truck.”

  He hadn’t finished before someone tapped on his frosted window. Noah turned his head and saw an older man bundled in a heavy parka with its fur-trimmed hood pulled low over his face, his beard encrusted with ice. Noah rolled down the window. “Saw you hit this bank of snow,” the man said, then pointed off into the distance where Noah saw nothing but pearly white. “I live up that hill. Let me see if my truck winch can help.”

  “Bless you,” Kate murmured.

  And miracle of miracles, within minutes, the farmer had managed to free them from their prison of snow. They’d been his third rescue, he said. Noah thanked him profusely and, when the man refused payment, took his contact information. He’d send something nice to show his gratitude. He didn’t want to say so to Kate, but they’d been lucky not to be killed by some passing car or truck with poor visibility too.

  A few miles down the road, Noah revised his opinion. Their good fortune had run out. The road had gotten even more slippery, and as they neared a highway exit, an overhead sign flashed. Road Closed Ahead. Please exit here. Noah eased off the gas, then managed to coast to the bottom of the exit ramp, which they’d nearly passed. He hadn’t dared to slam on the brakes, or he would have lost control again. He began shaking inside.

  The interstate had been rough, and he could imagine what the narrower two-lane side roads would be like.

  “How are we going to get home?” Kate asked his own silent question.

  Noah hated to tell her but reaching both ranches by some alternate route would be impossible. Clearly, they weren’t going much farther.

  “Guess we’re not.” At the top of the ramp, having kept his speed steady on the slight incline to not get stuck, he made a creeping turn, but the lone gas station to his right had no lights on. The small convenience store across the road looked dark too. The only glimmer in the distance on his left was a flickering neon sign that Noah struggled to read. Several letters were missing. “Let’s try the Bluebird Motel over there.”

  Kate followed his gaze. “You mean stay the night?” she said, her tone taut. “Pull over. I’ll call the ranch again. Maybe someone there can come for us in one of the trucks.”

  He hated to point out that no one had shown up earlier, which she’d explained to him as they walked to his car in the agency’s parking lot, and no one would be using the highway now except for people like Noah and Kate still trying to get somewhere.

  To ease her mind, he tried the WB, too, just in case, but his call wouldn’t go through.

  Kate clicked off her phone. “I can’t get a signal. I was worried when no one met me at the airport, as we’d planned.”

  “Now we know why,” he said. “Looks like we’re snowbound.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  KATE WALKED INTO the room ahead of Noah, who’d held the door for her, seeming as careful as she not to touch. She hadn’t said a word while he negotiated in the office with the clerk, a bored twentysomething who’d kept one eye on the wall-mounted TV behind them, the other on the ancient computer at the check-in desk. With more stranded travelers expected, he’d been reluctant to rent them two rooms. He’d smirked when he handed Noah the keys as if he knew they were really...together.

  She checked out the sorry space in the first of the rooms that unfortunately were connected and, likely, identical. Kate shivered. Also, they were cold. She saw two double beds. A small desk with one broken drawer hanging askew. Several wire hangers in the open closet that had no door. A sagging armchair in the corner. She didn’t want to see the bathroom.

  “I can’t stay here,” she said, feeling more depressed by the second.

  Noah leaned against the closed door to the outside. “Do you have a better idea?”

  “No,” she admitted, then clamped her mouth shut.

  This wasn’t his fault. Other things were, but not this.

  “Be glad we got two rooms,” he pointed out. “Not that either one is the Ritz-Carlton.”

  Kate watched him slip his coat onto one of the hangers in the closet—obviously a man to whom travel and hotel stays were routine, making a home for himself wherever he landed. How were they going to get through the rest of the afternoon and night in such close quarters? This was worse than sharing his car when she could barely stand to come within ten feet of him. Which was his fault.

  For Teddie’s sake, she’d accepted the ride. And only for Teddie. Kate would do anything to safeguard him and protect her own broken heart.

  Now here she was, in this cheap motel. With Noah. Yes, he’d rescued her at the airport, like it or not... Through the front window, she watched the snow fall in ever-bigger flakes, soundless, from a thick sky the color of milk.

  “What else can we do?” he asked.

  She had to agree, this must be equally awkward for him. There was no way they could make it to either ranch. Even if they reached the town first, the old road out of Barren would be impassable.

  “Nothing,” she finally agreed, then went into her own room and locked the door.

  * * *

  NOAH LEANED BACK against the bed’s headboard. Night had fallen, and he could hear Kate still moving around next door. He’d seen several cars pull into the parking lot after theirs, then a few more that promptly left again. The sign outside the window now said No Rooms. Where could those other people have gone instead? He felt guilty for taking up these two rooms, yet Kate would never have shared one with him.

  His stomach growled. He needed food. He hadn’t eaten before his flight, or on the plane, but the Bluebird had no on-site restaurant, and the nearby convenience store was no longer open. Obviously, he wasn’t going to eat now. Plus, nothing in this place seemed to work. At first his room had been freezing, but he’d fiddled with the knobs on the ancient heating unit until, finally, he’d felt a slightly warmer blast of air. Now it rattled and banged and clicked through each cycle. He’d hoped to at least find hot coffee in what passed for the lobby, but right after Noah checked in, the clerk had closed up and gone home before five o’clock. The whole world seemed to have shut down.

  Noah rose from the bed to rap on the connecting door. “You awake?”

  “Of course.” He could almost hear her teeth chatter. “It’s frigid in here, and I can’t seem to get any heat.”

  Noah offered to work his questionable magic on her unit, and Kate, looking reluctant, let him in. Her eyes never met his. When he finally managed to produce the same feeble flow of warmth into her room, too, he headed back to the adjoining door, but to his surprise Kate stopped him with a single word. “Hungry?”

  “Starving but there’s no—”

  She held up two packs of crackers stuffed with orange cheese. Another pair were in her other hand. “This is me saying thank you with the only things I had in my bag. I’m afraid you’ll have to wash these down with water, though. The only vending machine I saw—”

  “Was in the front office, which is locked. We’re on our own.”

  She hovered near the open doorway, clearly waiting for him to go back to his room.

  Noah said, “I heard a plow a little while ago.” But who was he kidding? “Getting to Barren tonight after all might be possible—or not.” But then he’d have to navigate the likely more slippery, narrower road out of town to the WB. The gates to Kate’s place, where he’d have to drop her off first, were a mile farther than that, and if he remembered right, the driveway to Sweetheart Ranch was more of a rutted track. His rental car would never make it up even that small slope. If he did get in, he might not get out. When she didn’t respond, having probably reached the same conclusion,
he said, “Dumb idea, huh?” Noah paused. “Do you think you can sleep yet?” It was still early.

  In answer, Kate rolled her eyes.

  “Neither can I,” he said. “Mind if I, uh, hang here with you for a while?”

  “Would I seem rude if I said yes—I do mind?” She gestured at the bed, then sighed. “Have a seat.”

  She went into the bathroom and came out with water in two plastic cups. Keeping her distance, she settled onto the sagging armchair to open her crackers, still looking uneasy. Yet he’d sensed that, like him, she didn’t want to be alone. Noah couldn’t blame her. Their surroundings were nothing to crow about, the utter quiet of the falling snow isolated them like two survivors and he knew she must be worried about her little boy. Enough that even Noah’s company had become tolerable. She turned on the TV, but the small screen was snowy like the weather outside, and Kate shut it off. Neither of them said much until he could no longer stand the silence. This wouldn’t work. He waved a cracker in the air. “Thanks for dinner. Hard to believe places like this still exist.”

  “At least we’re sort of warm and dry,” she pointed out. “I mean, what if the car broke down? Or ran off the road again? I should have tried to get a room near the airport. Then there’d be people around and an open restaurant, even a Wi-Fi signal.”

  “By then the hotels would have been filled. Didn’t you see all those people with their cell phones out? Calling ahead soon after we touched down?”

  “This weekend was the first time I’d been on a plane in years. I don’t know the drill.” She paused. “I really am thankful for your help—at the airport too.”

  To Noah, her tone sounded grudging. “Not sure how much help,” he said. “Look where we are now.”

  “We could have still been in that snowdrift. Frozen.”

  “True.” He tilted his head, recalling her positive outlook years ago—before Noah had enticed Rob Lancaster to join J&B in New York. Before she’d learned to hate him. “You always look at the glass half-full?”

  “I try—with more success some days than others. Anyway, we gave it a shot.” He could hear the frown in her voice, see it on her face. Not as brave as she must want him to think. “My real concern tonight is Teddie. He’s home with my aunt who lives with us now, but he’ll wonder why I didn’t read him a story as I promised to do when I got home. They’ll be worried.”

  Noah knew about Teddie only from Rob, who, for those six months together on Noah’s home turf, had often bragged about his über-smart kid, showing him pictures every time Kate texted new ones from the ranch. Teddie riding his bike with the training wheels or trying to throw a lasso at a makeshift “steer” the cowhands had devised for him. Teddie, his face smeared with birthday cake, grinning above the candles. “How old is he now?”

  “Four,” she said with a quick smile that seemed to light the dim room, which had only a lone lamp on the nightstand, before she sobered.

  “He must really miss you.”

  “Yes, and I miss him. He’s my...heart.” The word was almost a whisper.

  Noah tried to imagine being a parent but couldn’t. He didn’t even have nieces or nephews to spoil, though he soon might. Willow and her guy wanted a family, she’d told him during one of their rare phone conversations not long before the wedding. After that call, how could he have forgotten the event was on Christmas Day? Well, not forgotten. He’d had his tickets, a limo scheduled to LaGuardia. He’d sent the gift ahead. But then, there’d been the latest of a series of crises with the new branch office in London, and to deal with that mess, he’d had to fly east instead of west.

  “I’m not sure my sister’s missing me now,” he said as if to continue their talk in the car. “Or that she’ll be glad to see me. I know my brother won’t.”

  “I don’t see much of Willow or Zach these days,” she said. “I kind of stick to myself, but she and I used to do things with the same group of girls now and then. She’s a great person.”

  “So is Zach, just not with me. Especially about the wedding.”

  “And you’ll apologize,” she said as if to prompt him.

  “Yeah, like that will cover it.” He had some serious explaining to do but not to Kate. No matter how pretty her brief smile had been.

  She must have decided not to pursue that subject. She told him about the wedding she’d attended in New York, then said, “I’m curious. Years ago, before you were in business, why didn’t you stay in Kansas? Your dad wanted you to run the WB, didn’t he?”

  “You have to ask? You knew him.” Noah’s father had passed away a year ago, shortly before her husband died. “We didn’t see eye to eye on a lot of things, particularly that.” And after years of watching their relationship grow increasingly contentious, Noah had finally bailed, unable to make headway with his domineering father. The darkened room, the stillness, the heavy snow drifting past outside, seemed to shut him behind a curtain with Kate in which confidences seemed natural. Even between two people who were far from being friends. “He groomed me from the time I could walk, but I’m no cowboy. In fact, horses and I have never been friends.”

  “I love to ride,” she said. “I love everything about my ranch.”

  Another bone of contention between them, then.

  “I punch keys on a computer all day, not cows. I don’t much like cows either.”

  Silence again. That didn’t impress her. Not that he was trying to.

  Noah sure wouldn’t tell her that, after her husband’s death, the company’s IPO had been one of the best in tech history. In his awkward angle against the headboard, his neck burned, and his shoulder hurt. His right hand had fallen asleep. He changed position, shook out his fingers to get the blood moving. His stomach rumbled again. He told himself he was only making idle small talk with Kate because she’d shared her crackers with him, but the snack hadn’t been enough to satisfy his hunger.

  “It’s hard,” she admitted, “running the ranch by myself, but I do have cowhands to help, and I love that Sweetheart Ranch is still mine.” He could hear the pride in her voice, tinged with sorrow because Rob was no longer part of that. “One day I’ll turn it over to Teddie. He can’t wait,” she said. “I got him a pony for his fourth birthday, and I have to pry him out of the saddle. You should see him r—”

  She broke off. For a long moment, she studied her hands in her lap. Rob would never see his son ride or graduate from college or get married. Noah felt guilty all over again for bringing Rob on board with him at J&B. The unforeseen consequences had proven dire.

  “I know it’s not easy, Kate. I know how much you loved Rob, how he loved you and Teddie. In New York he talked about you all the time.” He wouldn’t have brought up the painful subject, but it was Kate who had, by inference, and so it needed to be addressed.

  “He never should have been there,” she said.

  Kate had jumped up from her chair and was standing by the connecting door. He didn’t know how to make her understand about the attack that had taken Rob’s life, wasn’t sure about it himself. Instead, he simply said, “Listen. About what happened—I’m sorry,” before his throat tightened, and he couldn’t go on. The words seemed inadequate. “Kate...”

  When she didn’t respond, Noah got up, then walked past her into his room. They were like proverbial ships passing in the night. For this one night. In the morning, he’d get her home and, considering his short stay, he might not see her again.

  He wished that didn’t matter. Yet it still did.

  Rob had been his friend. And he’d married Kate—the only woman Noah had ever loved.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “MOMMY!” TEDDIE FLEW into Kate’s arms the next day as soon as she got through the door, nearly knocking her over, and she gathered him in, her heart bursting with relief to be home. Bandit, their dog, leaped and jumped around their legs, barking his own welcome.

  “Arf!
” The Australian shepherd, as active as Teddie was, all but shattered her eardrum with his joyous greeting. He pawed at Kate’s jeans.

  “Get down,” she said with a pat on Bandit’s head, but found it hard to speak.

  Kate held her son closer. Teddie was a bundle of love wrapped in that small, warm body, his blond hair so like his father’s sweeping against her cheek, his eyes dancing. The best gift she’d ever gotten. How unfair that he, like Kate, would never have a sister or brother, as Noah Bodine did—even if Noah wasn’t getting along with his family at the moment.

  Honestly, she felt almost sorry for him having to face his brother’s wrath and Willow’s disappointment. She’d had the impression that, in contrast to her eagerness to get home, Noah didn’t feel the same way. He’d seemed to be stalling that morning, insisting they stay at the motel until check-out time. Why not play it safe, he’d said, until the roads were cleared? Having slept late, they’d eaten a breakfast of microwaved egg sandwiches at the little convenience store, where Noah had ordered a third cup of coffee, perusing the local newspaper (First Blizzard Shuts Down State) at the only table while he ate his second doughnut. She couldn’t blame him for not wanting to rush to the WB, and the drive along snowy roads from the Bluebird Motel hadn’t been easy, but at least the storm had ended.

  Teddie tipped his head to gaze up at her with his father’s blue eyes made larger by the thick, black-framed glasses he’d worn since he was eighteen months old. “Where did you go?” Then, without a pause, he asked, “Did you see my daddy?”