Cowboy on the Run

by Anne McAllister

  "I've never been given it," Rance said drily.

  "Well, he's pulling out all the stops for Josh. It sounds like Trey is showing him a wonderful time."

  "It's in his best interests," Rance replied. And for once, he thought, it might be in mine.

  Then Ellie moved her hand down his chest and across his abdomen, and her fingers quickened his interest in other things than Josh and Trey. He groaned. "I can't get enough of you."

  "Love me," she whispered.

  And he whispered back, "I do," and moved to fit his body to hers.

  Together they shared five days of paradise.

  And then on Wednesday the serpents came back.

  Trey was jubilant. "We had a fantastic time." He beamed at his grandson, who was unloading Spirit from the trailer with Caleb and Daniel's help, while Trey started in regaling Ellie and Rance with a report of their five days at the J Bar R. "Didn't we, Josh?"

  Josh turned. "Huh? Oh … yeah." He sounded distracted almost, as if he wasn't really there, Rance thought.

  "Smartest kid I ever met," Trey went on, once Josh and the twins were out of hearing. "J.D. and I took him out to gather some cattle and do a little doctorin', and I didn't have to tell him a thing. He knew instinctively what to do. Born in him, obviously." Trey's chest seemed to puff out a little. "In the genes. Got a cup of coffee, Ellie?" he asked, already starting toward the kitchen. "I could do with one. Perk me right up. I ain't as young as I used to be."

  "Of course," Ellie said. "Supper's almost ready."

  "Good enough. I'm starvin'. You put my gear back in the barn," he said over his shoulder to Rance. "Brought me a cot. You can have the straw back."

  "I thought you were going home."

  "Been home," Trey said. "Now I'm back."

  With a vengeance, Rance thought.

  For the rest of the evening the old man went on and on about how pleased he was and what a great time they'd had. Josh sat quietly through the whole recitation, then ducked out to the tree house. Probably embarrassed by the fuss the old man was making, Rance thought. He felt a stirring of sympathy for the boy.

  Trey barely noticed. He was still talking when Rance thought he'd harangued Ellie long enough and steered him back down to the barn.

  "That boy is a peach," Trey said, sitting down on his cot and taking off his boots. "I can't wait till you sell this place and I can have him there full-time."

  Rance, who'd been unbuttoning his shirt, stopped dead. "Do what?"

  Trey looked up. "Sell this place. You could get pretty good money for it, you know. Like I told Josh, the land's not as good for beef as ours, but it's got some pretty decent recreational potential. Lot of those Californians would give their eyeteeth for a chunk of it. You put it on the market now, and you'll have a damn good nest egg for those children when they go to college." He set his boots beside the cot and wiggled his toes, then looked up at Rance with a smile.

  Rance stared at him, poleaxed. "You said that? To Josh?"

  Trey nodded. "No point in keepin' it, is there? Caleb and Daniel aren't going to ranch. Josh is the only one interested in ranching, and he'll be running our place. Only makes sense to sell it now."

  "Like hell."

  Trey blinked. "What?"

  Rance was suddenly furious. "I said, like hell! We're not selling this ranch. No one is selling this ranch! It's his ranch. His legacy."

  "The Phillips Ranch is his legacy," Trey said. "He's a Phillips."

  "Only by blood." Rance glared down at his father. "What Josh knows has nothing to do with genes. It has nothing to do with heredity or blood or any crap like that. He knows what he knows not because Phillips blood runs through his veins. He knows it because Spike O'Connor taught him!"

  For a moment Trey looked astonished at Rance's outburst. Then he cleared his throat. "I'm sure Spike O'Connor was a fine man," he began.

  "A finer man than I'll ever be," Rance cut in. "A better father, that's for certain. Josh might not have had the material advantages as an O'Connor that he would have had as a Phillips, but he had something better. He had a father who believed in him, who cared about him as a person, not as an 'heir,' and who made Josh proud to be his son." Rance shook his head. "And you're not taking that away from him. I'm not taking it away from him!"

  "Now, Rance—" Trey held out a placating hand.

  But Rance didn't stop. "Josh told me when I tried to tell him that I wanted to marry his mother, that I'd had my chance. He was right. I did have my chance. I wasn't ready to make the commitment. Now I am. But just because I'm ready, I don't have the right to push everybody around to get what I want. Josh is right to want to be his father's son—Spike's son! I don't want to be my father's son!"

  Chapter 12

  « ^ »

  Ellie was hugging her pillow and wishing it was Rance in bed beside her, when she heard the back door open and the sound of soft footsteps come across the kitchen and down the hall.

  She sat up abruptly, clutching the pillow to her chest.

  She hadn't thought he would come.

  Even though he had stayed with her the past five nights, there had been little risk then. Only Caleb, Daniel and Carrie had been home. It was a different story now that Trey and Josh were back.

  But perhaps Trey had already fallen asleep. Rance had complained that his father snored like a chainsaw the minute his head hit the straw.

  "Much nicer sleepin' with you," he'd murmured against her hair just last night as their bodies spooned together in her bed.

  It was much nicer sleeping with Rance than being alone, too, Ellie thought. But she didn't expect he would come tonight.

  Still he and Trey had gone down to the barn an hour ago. There would have been time by now, she guessed, for Trey to fall asleep and not notice when Rance left.

  There was the little matter of Josh, though. She didn't know how Rance could be sure about that.

  Josh was in the tree house. He'd gone there right after dinner. Ellie thought he'd been quiet ever since he'd got home. Then, after dinner, he'd said he was going to spend the night there.

  "Us, too!" Caleb and Daniel had chimed.

  But Josh had said, "No!" in a harsh voice.

  Ellie understood. "Maybe tomorrow," she'd said to the twins. "Let Josh have his night alone." She had seen turmoil in his face from the moment he'd come back. Undoubtedly Josh had things to deal with now that Trey had taken him to the J Bar R. Though Trey had never come right out and said that he expected Josh to take over there someday, she understood that that was his plan. Rance understood it as well.

  She imagined that Josh understood it now, too.

  It was a burden—and an opportunity. She wished he would let Rance help him deal with it.

  But he hadn't wanted anyone. He'd gone off to the tree house to deal with it alone.

  Maybe Rance had wandered out below it to see if he could hear Josh's quiet breathing. He must have. Otherwise she didn't think he would risk coming in.

  She was glad he had. She wanted to feel his arms around her again, wanted to put her arms around him. When she'd gone to bed tonight, she'd immediately missed the feel of Rance's hard, warm length stretched out alongside hers.

  The first time she'd brought him into her bedroom, she'd been apprehensive—worried that because it had been Spike's bedroom, too, she would feel constrained and self-conscious. But it hadn't been like that.

  She hadn't been betraying her love for Spike by loving Rance now, any more than she had betrayed her love for Rance by turning to Spike in her need all those years ago. She loved them both. She always would.

  She just felt doubly blessed for having shared her love with two such wonderful men.

  Now, as Rance stepped into the doorway, silhouetted in the moonlight, she held out her arms to him.

  He stopped, and his breath seemed to catch in his throat.

  "Rance?"

  "I came to say goodbye."

  "What?" She scrambled out of bed. "What are you talking about? Wh
at's wrong?" She almost tripped over the covers as she flung them aside and hurried to him.

  "I have to go. Dad and I both have to go."

  "Why? What's going on?" She gripped his arms and looked up into his face. It was too dark to read his expression, but she didn't need to see his face to feel the tension throbbing through him.

  "Because I can't let happen to Josh what happened to me." He raked his fingers through his hair. A harsh breath shuddered through him and he seemed almost to force himself to be calm. "My dad told Josh we were selling the ranch."

  Ellie frowned. "The J Bar R?"

  "No. This one."

  "What? He can't do that!"

  "I know he can't do that. But you could do it. I could do it," he added, "if we got married—which he thinks is a foregone conclusion."

  "But we won't," Ellie said practically. "Will we?" she added, a sudden fear catching her off guard.

  "No. No, of course not. It's Josh's legacy. I told Dad that. Which he doesn't understand. But that's not the point." His voice was ragged.

  Ellie tried to follow what he was saying, but he didn't seem to be making sense. "Trey can't run his life, Rance," she said with all the calm she could muster, "if we don't let him."

  "Trey can't. But I can! I am! Don't you see, El? I'm doing to him exactly what my old man has done to me all my life! My dad has had his agenda ever since I was born. He was bound and determined to get his way—and I was just supposed to go along for the ride. I've fought with him for years to make him quit ordering my life to suit his goals. And now I'm doing the same damn thing to Josh!"

  "You're not making him give up the ranch."

  "No, I'm not doing that. But I am in love with his mother, and I'm trying to make him accept me in his life."

  "That's not the same thing."

  "Not to you. Not to me. But it is to Josh. If I stay—if I push him—I'm doing to him exactly what my dad did to me. And that's wrong."

  Ellie knew what he was going to say. She wanted to cover her ears, wanted to shake her head and deny it. But she couldn't. So she just stood there as he slid his arms around her and rested his chin on her bent head, and she listened as he said the words.

  "I'm going to leave."

  She didn't respond right away. Not in words. Her heart responded. It twisted in anguish deep inside her, the pain so sharp it seemed to wring the breath from her. She started to tremble and, with everything she had, she willed herself to stop.

  Tears threatened, and she blinked them back. She didn't want to cry. Wouldn't let herself cry! Crying would hurt him more than he was hurting now. And she couldn't do anything that would make this harder.

  Still her fingers dug fiercely into his back, holding him, refusing to let him go. Not now. Not yet!

  And she felt him tremble, too. "I love you, El." His voice cracked. He cleared his throat. "You know that, don't you?"

  She choked on her answer, and had to wait a second to get a breath to form the words. "I know."

  "I would marry you in an instant, if this was just about us. But it's not. You knew it wasn't just about you and me anymore, the minute you found out you were pregnant. You knew it wasn't about you and me when I wanted to marry you this time."

  "I wasn't telling you no forever," Ellie said desperately. "I only wanted to wait until he was comfortable with the idea."

  "But he's not going to get comfortable with the idea. I thought I could change his mind. I thought I could be enough, do enough—push enough—to make him go along with it. And maybe I could," he added grimly, "but it wouldn't be right. You've been acting like a grown-up for eleven years now. It's about time I started."

  She lifted her eyes then and looked at him. The moonlight cut harsh shadows in his face. She uncurled her fingers, loosened her grip on his shirt and touched his cheek.

  It was wet.

  "Oh, Rance."

  He shook his head, then pressed his face into her hair. His arms tightened around her, and she felt his lips move against her ear. "I wish I could stay. I wish I could marry you and be here for you—and for the kids. I love them. Even Josh. Hell—" his voice broke "—especially Josh. That's why—" He stopped, couldn't finish.

  He didn't need to. "I know," she whispered. "I know."

  They stood there. They held each other, clung together. And Ellie knew that Rance was hanging on to the moments just as she was, savoring them, memorizing them. They would need them to remember through a long, lonely future.

  And then he pulled back just enough to kiss her. The passion they'd shared was still there, but banked, contained, surpassed by something greater. This kiss was tender. It ached with longing.

  "I love you, El. I'll always love you."

  And then he was gone.

  It seemed like a bad dream.

  It was her life.

  She tried to tell herself, as the days passed, that things weren't that much different. On the surface, perhaps, they weren't. They were "back to normal," she told Sandra with contrived cheer. "Just us again."

  Sandra raised her brows, but fortunately didn't ask any questions.

  Daniel and Caleb and Carrie did. So did Josh, surprisingly. The morning after Rance and Trey had left in the middle of the night, he'd said, "Where's Rance? I want to talk to him."

  Ellie had shaken her head. "He's gone," she'd said. Just that. No more.

  Josh had looked straight at her. "Gone?" As if he didn't believe it.

  She'd nodded. She'd made herself smile. "Looks like you're going to have to start doing more than your share again."

  Josh had done more than his share. He'd worked long hours every day. He'd never complained once. The other kids talked about Rance and Trey. Josh never said a word. He looked at her, though, whenever Rance's name came up.

  Ellie thought she was a very good actress. She managed to smile every time.

  Financially things were better, too. Every week Rance sent a check. No message, just a check. It was more than enough to cover any support she might be expected to need for Josh. It was more than enough to take care of all of them. She blinked back tears.

  In material ways then, life was better than after Spike had died and before Rance had come.

  But it was empty.

  Ellie was empty.

  She missed Rance day and night. She loved him. She wanted him. She needed him. Yet she couldn't deny he was right.

  It wasn't what either of them wanted—but still she knew he was right.

  If they had married without Josh's blessing they would have been as selfish as they'd been when they conceived him. Then they'd been young and self-centered—thinking only of their own needs and their own pleasure. The world had been simple in those days. It had revolved around them.

  The day Ellie had learned she was pregnant, the scope of the world suddenly changed. It wasn't just about her anymore. It wasn't just about the moment. It was a bigger world with long-term consequences for other people—for Rance, who didn't want to be a father.

  For the embryonic Josh, who was already her son.

  She'd made her decisions back then based on what she thought was best for all of them. For Rance, for Josh, for Spike, for herself. Not just on what she wanted—not on what would have made her gloriously happy—but on what was best. She had, at last, acted like an adult.

  Rance, faced with the same realization, had just done the same thing.

  It didn't make him happy. It didn't make her happy.

  But the world, as they both knew now, wasn't about just the two of them.

  No, Ellie couldn't argue with what he'd done. He was right.

  But somehow it didn't make her hurt any less.

  Someday, Rance told himself, it would hurt less.

  Some morning he would wake up, and the first thought in his head wouldn't be that Ellie wasn't there. Some night when he went to sleep, the last thought he had before sleeping wouldn't be how badly he wanted to be holding Ellie in his arms.

  Some night he would actually sleep
again for more than an hour or two at a time without waking up and reaching for her. And someday he would go fifteen minutes or maybe even longer without seeing her face smiling at him in his mind.

  Someday.

  Not now.

  Now he had Ellie on the brain. He asked himself a hundred times a day if he'd done the right thing, and when the honest answer always came back yes, he asked himself why it mattered so much to do the right thing if it made him miserable.

  And the answer was, he didn't know. But it did.

  "Are you all right?" Lydia asked him—once a day at least.

  "Sure. Fine. Just … thinking." He didn't want to talk about it. He knew Lydia would listen. Lydia would comfort. But he didn't love Lydia—and Lydia didn't love him.

  "This is the damnedest fool thing you've ever pulled," Trey told him over and over. "What the hell good is leavin' going to do?"

  "It's going to give Josh what I never had," Rance told him. "His own life—without anybody else tryin' to run it for him."

  "We won't sell the damn ranch, then," Trey said.

  "No," Rance agreed. "We won't."

  Trey was furious with him. He didn't care.

  Trey said, "I'll go back. There's nothing stopping me from going back!"

  "There's me," Rance said, curling his fingers into fists. "And there's your conscience—if you have one."

  It was, perhaps, an overreaction. He knew in his heart that Trey wasn't a bad man. He wasn't even a bad father, most of the time. He was just determined that the world be run according to his wishes.

  And even more than in his own life, when it came to Josh, Rance wasn't putting up with it. Not from his father.

  Not from himself.

  What he needed, he decided, was a really demanding case. Something so compelling that he wouldn't sit around, daydreaming about Ellie, when he was supposed to be doing research instead.

  Water rights were compelling. They meant the survival of any given ranch at any given time. Rance understood that. That was why, he told himself as he tried once more to focus on the casebook he'd been staring at for the past hour, he should be able to put Ellie and the kids right out of his mind. The battle between Thomas v. Richards which he was due to start fighting in court this coming Monday, was important. It should be able to hold his attention.