The Wrangler's Last Chance (Red Dog Ranch Book 3)

by Jessica Keller

  By the time they got back to Red Dog Ranch, Shannon was so excited she could have hugged Carter. Again.

  But twice in two days of knowing each other was probably already far more than Carter had wanted. She definitely hadn’t minded, though. Carter had been really great when they were in town and he had encouraged her about the Cord situation in a way no one else ever had. Something about the new head wrangler put her at ease.

  She spotted Rhett, Macy, Wade, Cassidy and their daughter, Piper, gathered near the front enclosure that housed the ranch’s miniature pony and overly affectionate donkey.

  Carter tossed the truck into Park and picked up Wing Crosby’s carrier. Shannon exited the truck and rushed around the vehicle to meet up with him. He started to hand the carrier over to her when Rhett called to them.

  “Come on over here. I want to introduce Carter to everyone.”

  Carter shot out a long breath before heading in their direction. It was funny to see that he was nervous around her family. They were just her siblings and all of them were nice.

  Wade greeted them with a huge, lopsided grin. “Ah, good. I see you brought Thanksgiving Dinner home.” He pulled Shannon into a side hug.

  She elbowed her twin brother in the ribs. “Stop calling him that.”

  Piper, Wade’s spunky five-year-old daughter, skipped up to her dad’s side and took his hand. “Are we really going to eat Wing?” Her brow scrunched. “I really don’t want to.”

  Shannon hugged the pet carrier to her body. “Not ever.”

  “No, sweetheart. Daddy just thinks he’s funny.” Cassidy, Wade’s wife, hooked her arm through Wade’s free one. They made the picture of the ideal family—attractive, young and so in love with each other—no one would suspect how much they had gone through in order to be together. Only nine months ago, Cassidy had believed Wade to be dead, and then after a few bumps, they had faced his cancer diagnosis and treatment together.

  Once Wade had introduced his family to Carter, they headed out.

  “I’ve been told we’re headed to the Riverwalk for some ice cream.” Wade scooped up Piper as they walked away.

  Piper sent Shannon a wink over his shoulder. “It was my idea. I told him.”

  Cassidy laughed and joined her husband and daughter.

  Rhett had an arm around Macy when he introduced her to Carter. Macy was seven months pregnant, but she hadn’t let that slow her down around the ranch until lately. Shannon had enjoyed watching her “man’s man” brother turn into a family guy who fawned over his wife and their expected child. At heart, her big brother was a huge softy. Nearby, Kodiak, Rhett’s ever-faithful shadow of a dog, and Cloudstorm, Piper’s gray-and-white cat, lounged in the grass. The two pets had finally come to some sort of an understanding.

  That, or Kodiak had finally gotten it through her head that Cloudstorm was the boss around these parts.

  After Rhett finished introducing Carter to Macy, he turned to Shannon. “How did lessons go?”

  “Good. We worked on emergency dismounts today.”

  “No one got hurt, did they?” he asked.

  She took a breath before answering, calming her frustration. He would have asked the question to anyone, wouldn’t he? She hoped so.

  “I know the ranch’s protocol. I would have called you if someone got hurt.” She set Wing’s carrier down and opened the door, letting him waddle out. He honked and ducked through the opening, shaking his tail feathers in an indignant way. He probably would have appreciated being let out of the carrier the second they got back.

  Ever a birding dog, Kodiak’s ears perked up as her amber eyes followed Wing’s movements. But Shannon knew Rhett’s dog was incredibly well trained and wouldn’t lurch at her pet goose without Rhett’s blessing. Rhett had been a professional dog trainer before he had inherited Red Dog Ranch. Cloudstorm eyed Wing, but Wing had chased after Cloudstorm on occasion, so Shannon knew he could hold his own if the cat got any dumb ideas.

  Shannon patted Wing Crosby’s head one last time and then faced Rhett again. “There’s actually something I wanted to run past you. An event I want to plan.”

  Rhett and Macy stepped a little closer.

  “I’d love to hear about it,” Macy said. She reached up to entwine her fingers with the hand of the arm Rhett had draped over her shoulders.

  Shannon motioned for Carter to join them. He lifted his eyebrows but stepped into their little family huddle. “It was actually Carter’s idea.”

  Carter’s head jerked back. “Wait. What was my idea?” His gaze sought hers.

  Shannon plowed ahead. “What if we hosted a fun spring horse show as a fund-raiser?” She held up a hand when Rhett opened his mouth. “Hear me out. People would have to pay an entrance fee and we could have a horse-and-rider costume contest and maybe run some other events like they do at any normal horse show. We can advertise it as something to celebrate the one-year mark from the tornado—show how we have rebuilt and moved forward.” She was thinking and speaking on the fly, so she tossed out ideas as they came. “If we have it a week or two before Easter we can invite vendors to set up shops at the event. There would be a small vendor fee.” She added quickly, “And all the money raised can go into a fund to finally build the riding arena.”

  Macy’s smile widened. “I think that sounds like a great idea. We had to scale back the egg hunt this year, so I know the community would appreciate an event to replace it.” Macy had always helped to plan the annual egg hunt, which had spawned into a grand affair that had cost a lot of money to run. Funds that were better spent helping foster children in more tangible ways. The ranch was still going to host a small egg hunt for local foster children who already utilized its other programs, but this year’s event wouldn’t be open to the public like it had been in the past.

  Rhett rubbed his chin. “I don’t know. You’d have three or four weeks tops to plan, organize and promote the event. Gathering vendors and participants in that time... I’m not sure that’s doable.”

  Macy swatted her husband’s chest. “This man of mine is forgetting that he and I threw together the egg hunt last year in even less time.”

  Rhett captured his wife’s hand and pressed a kiss to her palm before tucking her close against him again. “My lovely wife is leaving out the fact that the egg hunt had been a longstanding annual tradition we already had all the information on file for. We weren’t building something brand-new on a short deadline.”

  “Just let her try,” Macy gently urged.

  Rhett sighed. “We’ll do everything we can to help you.”

  Shannon hesitated. As much as she loved her siblings and their wives, if she let them get involved they would take over without even meaning to. And she didn’t want that. The whole point was to show them what she could do without them. To prove she could do something that was valuable to the ranch.

  To make them proud, for once.

  “Well, the thing is I’m going to plan this alone.”

  Macy’s mouth went slack. “That’s just not possible. You need at least another hand. Let me—”

  “Not alone, alone,” Shannon quickly added. She hooked her arm with Carter’s. “Carter’s going to plan the event with me. It was his idea, after all.”

  Carter’s mouth opened, closed, opened again. “It really wasn’t my idea.”

  “It was. He joked about decorating the horses and that’s where the idea started.”

  Rhett looked at the new head wrangler. “Are you willing to help my sister with this? It will be a lot of extra work.”

  Carter looked to Shannon and she tried to use her eyes to plead with him. He took off his hat and ran his hand over his hair. “Do you want me to, sir?”

  “Well, she’s definitely not doing it on her own,” Rhett said.

  Shannon swallowed the hot wave of emotions Rhett’s heavy-handed words caused. She knew
he loved her. Knew he never meant to hurt her. But sometimes his matter-of-fact way of stating things did just that. She didn’t want to plan the event on her own, either, but Rhett could have handled the conversation better.

  Carter dipped his head once, acknowledging what Rhett had said. “Then it looks like I’m going to help plan a spring horse show.”

  Shannon could have hugged him.

  She didn’t.

  But she definitely could have.

  Chapter Four

  Carter was mucking out his fifth stall the next morning when the barn door creaked. He glanced up, expecting it to be another one of the ranch hands stopping in to pick up their mount for the day.

  Wing Crosby honked softly from his perch on top of a hay bale in the hallway. The goose had been sitting outside his bunkhouse when he left in the morning and had waddled behind him the whole way to the barn. Wing had been dozing on and off for the past hour while Carter worked, though if Carter disappeared outside for too long the little gander came looking for him.

  Carter had already saddled and passed out three horses that morning, but this time it wasn’t a ranch hand walking toward him. Instead, Shannon sauntered in with a large thermos in one hand and brown bag in the other.

  He leaned on the pitchfork and watched her approach. She had jeans, boots and a pink flannel button-up on. With her blond curls and the ever-present quirk of a smile, she was a beautiful woman.

  What was she doing there?

  After the run-in with her ex-boyfriend, it had been difficult to shake thoughts of Shannon from his mind last night. How long had she dated Cord? Had she loved him? Carter kept thinking about how she had felt in his arms when they had hugged and how nice it had been to have someone need him—believe him capable of protecting them, for once.

  But his thoughts had cleared by morning. Thinking about Shannon in any capacity beyond that of his boss’s sister was dangerous. After their interactions yesterday, he had hoped to put some space between them for a few days. He knew he couldn’t get attached. They could never be friends.

  If she knew him she wouldn’t have clung to him.

  Probably wouldn’t even want him at the ranch.

  Shannon cocked her head as she made her way down the walkway between stables. “We missed you at breakfast.” She stopped a few feet away from him. A warm, sweet smell wafted from the bag she carried, making his stomach tighten. While Rhett had informed Carter meals were often served in the mess hall during the week, he had failed to tell him what times those meals took place. Carter hadn’t wanted to wander in too early or too late and risk looking foolish.

  Over the weekend he had eaten through his meager stash of granola bars and canned soup, but this morning he had just gone without.

  Later, he would head into town and pick up some groceries. It made sense to have a few odds and ends at his house. He shouldn’t be solely dependent on the Jarretts to feed him, even if that was part of his job perks. Besides, in the thirteen years he had lived on his own he had learned enough about cooking to scrape together respectable meals when he needed to.

  Her eyes narrowed. “Rhett forgot to tell you when to be there, didn’t he?”

  Carter shifted his weight off the pitchfork. “I’ve gone without food before. It hasn’t killed me yet.”

  “Only because you haven’t tasted Cassidy’s homemade buttermilk waffles. If you had, then you would know what a crime it was to miss out on these treasures.” She lofted the brown bag. “Thankfully, since I was looking out for you, you won’t have to face that sort of breakfast doom.”

  “Breakfast doom?” Despite warning himself to stay aloof, he fought a grin. Quickly he was discovering it was difficult to act detached when Shannon was around. She possessed the dangerous ability to put him at ease. He thawed around her, more than he cared to admit. “You have a funny way of saying things.”

  “Grow up with three older brothers and you’d talk like this, too.” She shook the bag. “Wash up and then follow me.” She jerked her chin and headed toward the office. Her tone invited no argument.

  Carter stowed the pitchfork and headed to the washroom to scrub his hands and forearms. He wasn’t sure why Shannon had stopped by, but he couldn’t exactly tell her to leave so he could go back to work. Not that he minded the interruption, but he did have twenty-eight horses to deworm and had wanted to get that done before lunch. He knew the old practice of deworming horses every six months was considered out-of-date, but he had been over all the horses’ records last night and hadn’t found any indication they had been dewormed in the past two years. He planned to work on half of the herd today and the other tomorrow. He would start with the younger horses.

  As he headed into the office, his stomach grumbled.

  Shannon had gathered all the papers from the desk into a neat pile and had laid out a plate and silverware in their place. She pulled various containers from the brown bag and went to work filling the plate.

  Carter paused in the doorway. “What’s going on here?”

  “Remember I said I saved you from breakfast doom?” She arranged a waffle, bacon and slices of cantaloupe on the plate. “Don’t pretend you’re not hungry. I heard your stomach grumble.”

  Carter laid a self-conscious hand on his abdomen. “You heard that, huh?”

  “Oh, I’m pretty sure they heard in Louisiana.” She opened the thermos and poured a dark pink liquid into a glass jar. “Cassidy’s blueberry lemonade. It’s beyond words, trust me.” She thrust the glass into his hand.

  Carter took a tentative sip and then went back for a large gulp of the drink. It was a refreshing mix of tang and sweetness. He finally set the cup down. “Is that honey?”

  Shannon nodded. “Cassidy would be impressed you were able to pick that out with all the flavors.”

  Carter rubbed at the back of his neck. While he was touched that Shannon had thought about him again, the attention made him uncomfortable. In his experience, people weren’t kind just to be kind—there was always a string attached or a catch involved. He had learned the hard way that it was better to be direct and up-front from the get-go, even if the approach rarely won him friends.

  After all, he wasn’t here to make friends.

  Shannon motioned for him to take a seat.

  Carter folded his arms over his chest. “I enjoy your company, so don’t take this the wrong way.” He gestured toward the food. “But what is all this?”

  Shannon’s mouth opened then closed. She dropped into the chair on the other side of the desk. “It’s food, Carter. You know, the stuff we need for our bodies to have energy to live and move and work. Scientific types call it calories.” She laid her hand against her breastbone. “I call it delicious.”

  He had to give it to her: she wasn’t ruffled by his straightforward manner at all. Most people were. “I track with that part fine, but not the part about you going out of your way to bring it to me.” He knew his manner still had the possibility of pushing her away, but maybe it would be better if she did turn and run. She would eventually.

  Everyone did.

  She shook her head. “You’re weird. You know that? Most guys would be thrilled if a girl brought them food. Most guys would dig right in.”

  Carter stayed rooted to his spot. “I’m not most guys.”

  “Noted.” Shannon leaned back in the chair. “For what it’s worth, I did not go out of my way—” she mimicked his voice with impressive accuracy “—to bring you anything.” She tugged a pad of paper from the brown bag. “I had to stop here to meet with you so we could start planning the horse show. I came from the dining hall and Cassidy packed that food, not me. She went on some tangent about you being only the second person to ever avoid her meals. So there, your mystery is solved.”

  “Sorry,” Carter mumbled. He scrubbed the back of his neck, feeling a bit like a chided dog. Shannon hadn’t been put of
f by his blunt approach; instead she had flipped the conversation on its head and put him in his place. He had to respect a person who could do that with a smile and a laugh in their voice.

  He relaxed his stance and headed to the empty chair. After all, he was hungry and the food was getting cold. It had been thoughtful of Cassidy and Shannon to help out a new staff member. Given his curt response, Carter felt as if he owed Shannon more of an explanation. “Where I come from, people don’t just do nice things for others.”

  She tucked her pencil behind her ear. “Did you ever stop to consider maybe that’s weird, not me?”

  Carter shook his head and dropped down into the seat. “You’re not weird.”

  She cocked her head. “You’re sure acting like I am.”

  “I find you intriguing.” Far more dangerous than weird would have been.

  Her eyes widened.

  Why had he said that? He needed to steer the conversation back toward neutral ground. He focused on cutting the waffle. “You were serious about the horse show?”

  She had ambushed him yesterday in front of Rhett and he hadn’t been about to turn his boss down. But later on, Carter had hoped that Shannon would abandon that idea as too much work and he would be off the hook.

  Then again, when had his life ever taken the easiest route?

  She dropped the notepad and her cell phone onto his desk, jabbing her pencil against the paper. “Oh, we’re doing this and we’re going to make it amazing. Nothing short of that, okay? I want people to say this was the best event they have ever attended at Red Dog Ranch. Got it?”

  Apparently, Shannon wasn’t the give-up type.

  Carter winked at her. “No pressure.”