The Rancher Meets His Match

by Patricia McLinn

  Odd how she could see her ex-husband more clearly from here than she had even from North Carolina. Maybe the deep hurt and disappointment had clouded her vision of their past, even after the twins filled her life.

  “What’s he do?”

  “Advertising.”

  “Like you, huh?”

  She sat straighter. “No.”

  Her vehemence didn’t seem to bother Dax, but it surprised her. Everything inside her objected to his thinking she was like her ex-husband, someone she’d once been so sure she loved. How sad.

  On the other hand, as a sign that she was well and truly divorced emotionally from a marriage that had probably been over even before Richard had given her the ultimatum of caring for her brother and sister or staying married to him, it felt a lot more final than any legal papers.

  “I’m not like him at all,” she said firmly.

  “Guess advertising’s a pretty high-powered business.”

  “It can be, but it’s not all high-powered.”

  She saw his skepticism in the tilt of his head.

  “It’s not. Not what I did. Richard used to say I was to advertising what legal-aid lawyers are to the legal system. To his mind, we both dealt with the dregs.”

  “Richard.” He didn’t make it a question; in fact, he gave the word no inflection at all. Maybe he wanted to know about her ex-husband, maybe not. It didn’t matter. Such a beautiful a day shouldn’t include talk of Richard.

  “I liked representing the nonprofits. It was rewarding to sell a product I believed in. So what if the resources were thin and everything had to be done on the cheap? I liked the challenge. And when a campaign succeeded, I felt good, really good. No twinges to the conscience like I’d had when . . .”

  “When what?” He settled his hat brim low over his eyes.

  “I guess like when I started. When I worked for a big firm.” Where she’d met Richard. Where he continued to ascend the ladder. Why hadn’t she seen how uncomfortable the atmosphere where he thrived had made her from the start? She had been naive and blind to ever have thought she could change him.

  “It’s like judging all of Texas on that old TV show ‘Dallas.’ There’s a lot of Texas that’s not like that.”

  “Some is.”

  Lord, the man was stubborn. “But not me,” she said, answering his real question. “I don’t want to be on that jet, sipping scotch, wishing it would go faster so I could get to the next power lunch or client dinner. I’m happy to be right here.”

  She dropped back against the blanket with her hands crossed under her head. The earth held a summer’s worth of warmth to cradle her back, the sunshine rested on her skin like silk, the sky dazzled her eyes. She was completely happy.

  “This is the kind of day I’d like to bottle up and save,” she said.

  “If you bottled it up, it wouldn’t be the same. It has to be wide-open like this to be real.”

  She shifted and squinted against the sun, but she could see only his profile. “You’re right, Dax. You’re absolutely right.”

  “Happens like that by accident sometimes.”

  She laughed, and when he turned and looked down at her, with the shadow cast by his upper body and hat shielding her eyes from the sun, she knew he was grinning even though she couldn’t see his face. “I think it’s more than accident. I think it’s a matter of somebody paying very close attention to what’s around him.”

  “Could be something in that. There’re a lot of lessons nature can teach if we’re paying attention.”

  She was paying attention. Right this moment. To the part of nature that hummed through her nerve endings and pulsed in her blood. She became aware of her breasts rising and falling with each breath. A flash of an image heated her mind, of what it might feel like if he leaned down, his weight pressing against her breasts, his mouth—

  He twisted around, so he faced off to the distance, and the sun dazzled her eyes.

  “Some of the lessons are hard.” His voice rasped with a note that hadn’t been there before. “On a day like this you can forget the days when the land and the weather and the animals all seem like they’re out to bring you to your knees if they don’t kill you outright.”

  She sat up. It felt safer. “But you stay, anyway.”

  “Only thing I know how to do.”

  She peered into the shadow cast by his hat. “You’d really want to leave?”

  “Only in a pine box.”

  “That’s what I thought. That’s the feeling I get from Ted and Irene Weston, too. But if it’s such a hard life . . .?”

  “It’s hard all right. The land’s hard. But it’s mostly fair. It doesn’t make promises it won’t keep.” The bitter note echoed deep in his voice again, and she wondered what broken promises had spawned it. “And there’s something about it—it’s you and nobody else. You’re responsible. You carry the load. When you’re out here you can see what life’s really about, see how it all fits together. I can’t explain it.”

  She thought he explained it beautifully, but she feared if she said anything, if she moved, if she let the tears pooling in her eyes fall, maybe even if she breathed, he’d remember he had an audience beyond himself and he’d stop.

  “You’re producing something real, seeing it grow, knowing it will feed people out in the world, not just line your pocket. End of the day comes and you’re feeling like you haven’t got a bone that’s not weary or a muscle that’s not griping, but your body’s more tired than your spirit. Because your spirit filled up with the day, it didn’t get emptied.”

  * * * *

  He’d been running his mouth on like one of those fools on a TV talk show. Those people who told the world their problems and begged for sympathy. Might as well have called up Oprah and asked to spill his guts before God and everybody.

  It was Hannah’s doing. She kept asking those questions. Not pushy ones, like a talk-show host, but quiet ones. She’d told him things about herself, too. And she’d looked at him like she really was interested in his ramblings. Things he thought about when he was out alone except for the animals, the land and the sky.

  She hadn’t even gotten huffy when he’d finally shut his trap and said it was high time they got back.

  She’d smiled and got on her horse, aided by a boulder, sparing his body another blast of heat. Now she rode along beside him in silence. Not the kind of silence that could hide hard words, but the kind of silence that enjoyed the soft sounds of quiet. He could tell from the way her eyes sparkled as she watched a soaring hawk. He liked listening to the small sounds, too. The rustle of the grasses in the breeze, the steady, slow tread of the horses’ hooves, the sliding creak of the leather saddle, the quick call of a bird warning its brethren of their approach.

  He’d never have expected someone like Hannah to pay much heed to such simple things. Someone from back East. Someone who held a high position in a big company. Someone so pretty. Someone who probably had men falling all over themselves trying to get closer to her, trying to stir that sweet smile.

  “I’ll get the gate.”

  Hannah’s voice jerked him away from frowning contemplation of unknown men hovering around her as thick as flies. Lord, he’d lost track entirely of where they were. They’d reached the gate to cross the pasture nearest the house, and she’d nudged Spock ahead to deal with it, while his mind wandered.

  “Hannah, I can—”

  “No, it’s okay. I watched how you did it. I think if I—”

  She leaned sideways from the saddle trying to catch the wire loop that hooked over the gatepost and fence post. Like a driver learning to park, she’d left Spock a good two feet farther from the fence than necessary. Rubbing against it wouldn’t have hurt the animal any, but Hannah had been overly cautious. So now she had to stand in the stirrups and stretch for all she was worth.

  The movement tightened her jeans across her rump and pulled the fabric of her blouse snug against her breasts. His jeans developed a sudden tendency to fit snug
ger in a certain area. He swallowed.

  “I think I’ve got it. I— Yeah!”

  Her celebration of success ended abruptly as Spock pretended to be startled by her voice and backed away a second before Hannah could lift the loop clear.

  Half laughing, Hannah called out, “Whoa!” as she stretched dangerously from the saddle, barely grasping the loop between her fingertips.

  “Here, let me get in there.”

  He maneuvered Strider in next to Spock. Shifting the reins to his right hand, he reached between the two horses with his left for the wire loop. Now that backing up would have contributed, Spock moved closer. And Strider stubbornly wouldn’t give an inch.

  Hannah’s right leg rubbed against his left one as the horses shifted, then his slipped behind hers, snug and comfortable, as perfectly aligned as two spoons. Dax felt as if a line of fire had erupted all along his leg and spread into his groin.

  He dropped the wire, not bothering to see if it fell back in place on the upright or not.

  “What—?”

  Her question evaporated. Laughter still lit Hannah’s sun-blushed face. Her mouth curved with it, her eyes sparkled with it. Deeper in her eyes, though, he caught something else, a glitter of awareness, a haze of smoke from the fire churning in his gut.

  He reached for her. His left hand spread on the side of her neck, the pressure of his fingers drawing her to him.

  In the first instant her lips were sun-warmed, laughter-molded. Then they softened, parted, meeting the demands and desires of his. He tested the seam of her lips with his tongue. They parted slightly, and he took that opening, stroking and exploring, with leisured thoroughness.

  She smelled soft, real. Her hand curved around his forearm. Holding on, not trying to draw him away, he realized with a rush of pleasure.

  Spock shifted his weight to his outside legs, rolling her saddle slightly away from Dax and his hold on her nearly dragged Hannah from the saddle. He had to end the kiss to let her right herself, but he didn’t release her.

  “Whoa, whoa,” he murmured, not sure if he meant the words for the horses or himself.

  Perhaps catching his uncertainty, Hannah slanted him a small, wry smile as she shifted more securely in the saddle. His eyes followed the movement, then came back to the smile. And he was lost.

  The reins slid across his open palm unheeded as his right hand trailed down the side of her neck, then under the collar of her blouse to grasp her shoulder. He took her mouth with urgent greed. His tongue sliding deep and slow. Letting her know. Letting her feel what he felt.

  She gasped, producing a sensation as hot and sharp as lightning inside him.

  Her tongue answered his. The pull of her blouse bound his wrist, then it gave as a button slid free of its hole. His hand cupped over the point of her bare, soft shoulder, his thumb delving deeper, stroking the smooth skin, absorbing the softness that swelled above a line of simple lace edging. Then dipping under the lace. His rough thumb sliding over a softness he’d never imagined.

  He wanted more. Heaven help him. He wanted more.

  He’d wanted it sitting on that blanket in the sun. And he’d wanted it lying alone in his bed last night. He wanted more than the taste of her this time. He wanted the feel and weight of her.

  Barely holding on to each other, on the backs of two shifting, twitching, tail-swatting horses, and he wanted to pull her fully into his arms, and know the sensation of her body pressed from shoulder to toes against his. He wanted—

  “Dad?”

  The shout floated across the air, faint, familiar and in this instance terrifying.

  Dax might have flinched. Or maybe Strider reacted to Will’s call on his own. Either way, the horse took a step forward. Dax felt the saddle moving under him, but still he didn’t let Hannah go. Didn’t even stop kissing her.

  Not until a second ‘ ‘Dad?’’ and a second step by Strider. Dax, stretched like a trick rider, could do nothing but let her go and mutter dark curses under his breath while he waited for his body’s demands to subside from a pagan roar.

  Hannah drew a deep breath and let it out slow. If that was all it took for her to settle herself back into calm she was a damned sight cooler than him, he thought sourly.

  “Dad!”

  Will’s call vibrated with impatience now.

  “Be right there!” Dax shouted back. Both horses shifted uneasily, putting a little more distance between them.

  He risked a glance at Hannah. She was fastening the top button below the V of her blouse, covering the smooth, pale flesh there. Another streak of lightning shot through him. He knew the feel of that flesh now. No matter how much she covered it, the imprint of it remained on his skin. And deeper.

  She finger-combed her hair. More than sun blushed her cheeks. Her lips were full, damp, swollen.

  “We gotta leave for town in twenty minutes.” Will had come around the comer of the barn and glared at them all the way across the pasture, hands on hips.

  “All right. We’re coming.” With an unfamiliar guilt, Dax wondered if Will had seen them. He hoped not. He didn’t want Will asking the kind of questions that might raise. But he also didn’t want that moment between him and Hannah to be anything but private.

  Hannah looked up, their eyes snagged.

  Damn.

  He jerked around to break the connection. He snatched the loop and backed up Strider with more authority than he needed, opening the gate for her and Spock.

  After closing the gate behind them, he trailed her across the open ground, making no move to come up alongside her.

  His thoughts were grim enough without getting another dose of those eyes.

  Damn.

  He wanted this woman. Wanted her in his bed, beneath him, holding his body, taking him inside and slaking his hunger.

  This wasn’t supposed to happen.

  Chapter Five

  Hannah’s knock brought a gray-haired woman with lines etched deep around her eyes and mouth to the front door of the tiny house on the east side of Bardville.

  “Hello, I’m Hannah Chalmers. Irene Weston asked me to drop some things by for June. June Reamer?” she added after a moment, because the woman’s continued silence made her wonder if she had the right house. Irene had given precise directions, Bardville didn’t provide many possible wrong turns and the dark green house with the fading marigolds out front matched her description.

  “Yes, she’s my daughter. Come in. I’m Sally Randall.”

  Hannah followed Dax’s mother down a narrow hall. The woman paused at the doorway to the living room, then continued on to the kitchen. Her slow and cautious walk favored her left leg. She gestured for Hannah to take a seat on the bench by the table and she took the chair opposite, a slight sigh escaping as she settled into the seat.

  “You’re staying at the Westons’?”

  “Yes. I work for Boone in North Carolina, and he had me come out here. I’ve gotten to know June through them and Dax—” Hannah’s attempt at breeziness evaporated as Sally Randall’s face changed. Such a small movement. Not even a wince. But it made Hannah realize the lines of pain in the older woman’s face did not all arise from physical causes. She cast about for something more to say. “And I’ve met Will and—”

  “Will’s a good boy.” A faint smile curved Sally’s mouth. “Now that he’s in high school he comes by nearly every week. Not often a boy that age takes the time.” Sally stood slowly, resting one hand on the table for support. “Would you like some coffee?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  Hannah’s mind was whirling, trying to piece together scraps of conversation and half seconds of looks. A rift between Dax and his mother, that’s what she came up with. But why? And how could she avoid saying anything that might hurt the older woman when she didn’t know the details?

  “Will seems like a very nice boy,” Hannah agreed. Even if he does freeze me with every look. Then again, maybe that was only fair since his father’s looks were on the opposite en
d of the thermometer. “Uh, mature for his age. And it sounds like he knows so much about ranching and horses, especially for someone so young.”

  “Born to it,” Sally said with pride. The pride remained, but her voice added more complicated notes as she added, “Just like his father.”

  The back door opened, saving Hannah from having to try to formulate an answer.

  “Mama! What are you doing?” June Reamer demanded. “You’re supposed to be in bed, resting your back and leg.”

  “I’m making coffee for our guest.” The coffeemaker made hissing and rumbling sounds.

  June peered around the door. “Hi, Hannah. Nice to see you. But I’ll make the coffee. Mama. You get to bed.”

  With minimal fuss, June herded her mother out of the kitchen, barely allowing her to exchange nice-to-meet-yous with Hannah. From down the hallway, Hannah heard Sally’s fond grumble. “You’re a tyrant, Juney.”

  “Benevolent despot,” her daughter replied.

  June returned in minutes, talking as she entered the room. “Now, I’ll get that coffee and we can have a nice talk.”

  “Thank you, June, but there’s no need. I’m dropping off these dishes—” Hannah gestured to the shopping bag at her feet as she stood “—for Irene, and I’ll be on my way.”

  “Nonsense. No need to run off. The coffee’s finished. You’re having a cup.”

  And with that, June turned to the coffeemaker, clearly expecting Hannah to fall in with her plans. At the moment, Hannah could see a strong family resemblance between brother and sister. No wishy-washiness in the Randall family genes.

  “June, really, I—”

  “I can use a cup myself after running around all morning handing out leaflets. Campaigning for Cully Grainger.” June brought filled cups to the table, then retrieved a plate of sugar cookies from the counter. “You know Cully?’’

  “A little. I understand he stayed with the Westons last spring.”

  “Yeah, but now he’s renting a house just outside town. It’s closer to Jessa’s place and easy for Travis—his nephew—to get to school. I figure before long, he and Jessa will be looking for a new place for the three of them. You knew Cully’s running for sheriff of Shakespeare County?”