The Rancher Meets His Match

by Patricia McLinn

  “Yes, I heard that. When he came out of the army, he joined the police in the city where I live. A lot of people there thought very highly of him. I hope he wins.”

  “Oh, I expect he will. On the surface he might not seem a real good fit, not being from this area and not having stuck long with his other jobs, but folks ’round here are pretty good at looking beneath the surface.” She squared off to stare at Hannah and added, “How’re you at doing that?”

  “Beg your pardon?’’

  “How’re you at looking beneath the surface? Say with my brother.”

  As Hannah recovered from her initial jolt at June’s demand, she put herself in the other woman’s shoes, and realized she might be as protective of Ethan in a similar situation, though—and she almost smiled at the thought—she hoped she would be more tactful.

  “June, I think you’ve misunderstood,” she said gently. “There’s nothing going on between your brother and me.”

  Not a lie, not exactly. Sure, those kisses on horseback had rocked her so badly that the rubber in her knees when she’d dismounted had not been the sole fault of Spock’s broad back. Dax’s touches had burned her skin nearly as much as the hunger in his eyes had heated something deep inside her.

  But that didn’t mean anything—couldn’t mean anything.

  “Why not?”

  With two words, June scattered Hannah’s assumptions like dust. “Why not?”

  “Sure. You’re both healthy, attractive, unattached and young enough. Unless—you’re not attached, are you?”

  “No, but—”

  “Then what’s the problem? Dax is no smooth Don Juan—”

  He didn’t need to be. He did just fine, Hannah thought.

  “But even a sister can see he’s got his points. And I can tell you he’d sooner cut off his arm and even more vital appendages before he treated a woman rough. He’s not swimming in money, but he owns his land and he’s a reliable kind of man. He’s not going to be running off to Vegas to gamble the grocery money. And—”

  “Whoa, whoa, June!” Hannah laughed with an effort. “You sound like you’re trying to marry him off. I’m only here for two weeks.”

  “Now you sound like Dax. Two weeks can be plenty long enough sometimes.”

  “But—”

  “Six days it took me to know my Henry was the one for me and vice versa. But I don’t expect Dax to be that smart. Not with his feelings about women.” She openly studied Hannah. “You know about that?”

  She considered hedging. For about a second and a half. Then she realized the futility of it. “I’ve heard how Will’s mother got Dax to marry her, then how she left them.”

  June nodded. “She was a bad one,” she said unemotionally. “The kind another woman would spot a mile off. A lot of men might have seen her for what she was, too. But Dax didn’t have a chance. He doesn’t know women and, after Elaine, he’s sure he doesn’t want to. Oh, he gets along fine with women like Irene and Cambria and Jessa, because he sees them as neighbors rather than women. But for a woman . . . well, Elaine confirmed his suspicions, but they started a long time before Elaine came slithering on the scene.”

  June paused and Hannah knew if the other woman didn’t keep talking on her own, she’d have to drag the information out of Dax’s sister. No way could she walk out of here without knowing what June meant.

  “It started when our parents separated. Guess it had been brewing for a long while. Pa wasn’t an easy man, not by anybody’s yardstick. Mama came to town and Pa stayed on the ranch. I was eighteen, working as a waitress over by 1-90. But Dax was a boy. He loved the ranch and had already made it stark clear that’s what he meant to do with his life. I can’t imagine him ever living in town.”

  Hannah remembered the disdain in Dax’s voice as he spoke of his grandfather giving up the ranch for an easier life in town and the peace in his eyes as he’d looked over the land, and she agreed with June. Dax Randall belonged nowhere but on his ranch.

  “I suppose that’s why Mama left him with Pa. Trouble is, from that time to this he’s kept Mama at arm’s length as much as he can manage. When Pa was alive it didn’t take much doing, because he wouldn’t let Mama see Dax. But Dax could’ve got around it the way he did to see me. He didn’t want to. As he got older, Dax did his own part in freezing her out. We argued about it ’round and ’round, how he wouldn’t let her get within arm’s length of him.”

  “But Will . . . ?”

  “Oh, Dax doesn’t stand in the way of the boy seeing his grandmother—he wouldn’t deprive Will of a grandmother. But himself, that’s a different story. As if he doesn’t think he—”

  June broke off, almost as if she’d come near betraying a confidence. But how could that be when she’d been so willingly telling the family history?

  When June went on, Hannah forgot that question. “Even now that Mama’s living with me and her health’s not the best, when Dax comes by to do repairs and such around the house, he keeps his distance from her. She doesn’t say much, but I can see it breaks her heart. Lord, he’s one stubborn man. He’s holding on to a grudge he started nursing when he was seven.”

  Seven. Sympathy welled in Hannah both for a boy separated from his mother at that age and for a woman who had suffered the consequences of a decision made thirty years ago.

  From the outside, she might find the decision hard to understand, but looking from the outside didn’t always give a clear picture. From the outside, Richard had seemed a perfect husband. She would need a calculator to total up the times their acquaintances had said how lucky she was to have Richard and then how foolish she was to give him up.

  Only from the inside could anyone know how hollow a marriage could be. Or how an imperfect decision could be the best of a bad set of choices.

  “That’s a shame,” Hannah said at last, wincing at the words’ inadequacy.

  June nodded. “That’s what it is, all right. And it set the tune for Dax’s thinking about women. What the lughead needs is someone to set him straight. Gentle, but firm. The way a good trainer can turn a rogue horse.”

  The older woman looked at Hannah so expectantly that she had to fight the urge to say she knew nothing about training horses—or setting men straight. Much better to pretend she didn’t know what June hinted at.

  “I hear Cambria’s worked miracles with Midnight,” she offered brightly, then pursued her turn of conversation with such doggedness that June couldn’t get in a word. From Cambria’s training of the difficult horse, to the house she and Boone were building, to Hannah’s own work with Boone, to June’s work. Until Hannah could excuse herself politely—and safely—without another mention of Dax.

  But as she drove back to the Westons’, Hannah’s thoughts returned to the painful split in the Randall family.

  What a shame that someone couldn’t help bring Dax and his mother together. She didn’t doubt for a second that June told the absolute truth about his stubbornness. But he wasn’t a mean man. If he spent enough time with his mother, he would see her pain at their estrangement and that might be the first step.

  Maybe she could change his mind about—

  “Oh, no!” Hannah whispered to herself in the solitude of the car. “Not again.”

  She had sworn, during that painful period after breaking up with Richard and before totally accepting it, that she would never again try to change a man. Never.

  She had wanted to change Richard to a man who would match her ideal, to someone who would be the kind of husband she’d hope for. A man who would share with her so much more than things. She recognized the selfishness in that now. Her motivation with Dax was more altruistic—wanting to change him so he’d be happier—but that was surely equally foolhardy and probably more dangerous.

  * * * *

  “I hear you took Hannah riding.”

  Dax eyed June. “Yeah. This window needs replacing.”

  He’d come by his sister’s house to put up the storm windows. As always he timed it
for a day his mother would be having physical therapy.

  “Order a new one from Al at the hardware store, then.”

  He grunted an acknowledgment.

  “That’s good,” June added. “I mean, you taking Hannah riding, not the window needing replacing.”

  “It’s just part of what we talked about—showing Will it’s okay to be interested in a female.”

  “That’s why it’s good.” She sounded real smooth and sincere. His suspicion didn’t buy it. “And how’s it working?”

  Dax shrugged, the question reminding him of the testy exchange he’d had with Will on their way into town yesterday, followed by twenty-four hours of mostly bleak silence.

  “Is he back to being part of that crowd of friends he always had?”

  “I wouldn’t know. He’s not talkin’ to me like he used to. And when he does, it’s mostly to sharpen his horns on me.”

  “That’s natural for a boy that age. He should’ve been doing it before. That’s part of the problem.”

  Dax expelled a disbelieving huh.

  “Boy’s got his nose out of joint, that’s all,” June went on. “He’s used to having you to himself. This is good for him, too.”

  Dax narrowed his eyes at his sister. “What do you mean, too? This is all for him.”

  “What I mean is besides showing him it’s okay to be interested in a girl, this is also weaning him from being so tied to you.”

  “You make him sound like a calf,” Dax grumbled.

  “And you made him sound like cattle—sharpening his horns. Now, he’s bullheaded enough to be your son, but he’s not full grown yet. Sometimes I think you forget that, Dax. Just because you turned into an old man before you’d ever been a kid doesn’t mean he’s doing the same.”

  He ignored the jibe. “Will’s got a good head on his shoulders. He’s mature.”

  “In some ways. In others he’s—well, I wouldn’t say a calf. More like a yearling colt. He needs to break away from you more, Dax. That’s not an easy thing—ask the parents of any teenagers.”

  “I don’t like to see the boy unhappy.”

  “I know you don’t, Dax. That’s one of the things that makes up for you otherwise being as cuddly as prickly pear.” June patted his hand. He grumbled, but didn’t move away from the touch and she didn’t stop. “Of course, you could always decide not to see any more of Hannah. That would make him happy—at least short-term. Is that what you want to do?”

  “No.” The word hung in the air for a full second before he realized he’d said it. “It’s just what you said—that’s the short-term. And it would defeat the whole idea. We started this, might as well see it out.”

  “We might have started it, but, my dear brother, you’re the one who’s going to be seeing it out to the finish. All by yourself.”

  * * * *

  With the fire alarm bell shrilling behind him, Will filed out of the high school with his classmates and stepped into the sunshine. Any doubt that this was a drill ended when he saw the principal talking so calmly to a man wearing a windbreaker with Fire Marshall emblazoned across the back.

  Jerry Poolter and some of the other guys stood over by the fence, way off to the right, along with three girls. But not Theresa Wendlow. Jerry waved, but Will pretended he didn’t see. Jerry hung around Theresa’s friend Ashley all the time these days and acted like a total idiot.

  Will found a spot alone, sitting on the concrete base of the Bardville High School sign. Facing away from the school. Then Theresa started past him, probably on her way over to Jerry and Ashley and that group. She paused.

  “Hi, Will.”

  “Hi.”

  “Guess this is just a drill, don’t you think?”

  “Yeah.”

  Theresa glanced at the building, then studied the toes of her tooled leather boots for a while. He didn’t mind. It gave him a chance to look at her from the comer of his eye without getting caught. But when she glanced over to the group she hung out with, he stopped watching her. Why didn’t she just go with those fools if she wanted to so bad? He hadn’t asked her to come over here.

  She drew in a breath, and he expected a quick goodbye. Instead, she said in a rush, “I saw your dad with that new woman, that Hannah Chalmers who’s staying out at Westons’.”

  “When?”

  “Driving back from Sheridan to the meeting at the fairgrounds about Shakespeare Days. We came the back way and saw them riding. Looked like they were headed toward the barn.”

  “Oh. That’s okay, then.”

  “Aren’t you glad your dad’s seeing her? She seems real nice.”

  “She’s okay, I guess.”

  Theresa sat beside him, and for a moment he couldn’t breathe, much less move. Only a couple inches separated them.

  “She was great to me. You know, for that paper on professions for Mrs. Grabhern’s class? I’m doing advertising, and I called Hannah Chalmers out at Westons’ and she said she’d let me interview her this weekend. And just over the phone she gave me all this great information, and the names of books to check and people I can write to in New York. It’s going to be great.”

  “You don’t need all that New York stuff.”

  “It’ll make the paper better than having only local stuff.”

  Will mumbled something. Maybe he could find something at the Bardville Library about ranching in other parts of the world to supplement what he’d found out about ranching in Wyoming.

  “Anyway, everyone’s been talking about Hannah and your dad.’’

  “Bunch of busybodies.” Even with his head turned away from her he sensed her attention zeroed in on him. And as much as he didn’t want to, he had to ask the question—his dad had taught him to try to know everything he could about a problem before tackling it. “What’re they saying?”

  “Well, I heard Rita Campbell telling Sheriff Milano how she heard from Jessa Tarrant that your daddy and Hannah Chalmers seemed to hit it right off and how well they’re getting along.”

  He faced her then, and said with more confidence than he felt, “That doesn’t mean anything.”

  “Don’t you want them to like each other? I don’t understand. You and your dad always seem to get along so well, not like most of my friends and their parents. It’s one of the things I, um, thought we had in common. Because my parents are usually pretty good, too. And it seemed like you and your dad had the same thing. You know, liking each other.”

  “We used to.”

  Her eyes, wide and sad, seemed to swallow him up, making his insides feel like they did the moment after a horse had thrown him and before he came to the hard earth.

  “Oh, Will.”

  So what could he do then, but blurt out a question about if she’d like to walk over to the library after school to work on their papers? And when she said yes, his head buzzed so loud he hardly knew when they started ringing the bell to signal everyone should return to the building.

  * * * *

  Dax was scraping mud from the bottom of his boots on the metal rectangle set by the back porch for that purpose when Will came out the back door in his stocking feet with the backpack holding his schoolbooks dangling from one hand and the morning paper folded back to the sports section in the other.

  “I’m heading to Lewises’ to do their shoeing this morning,” Dax said. “I can take you by school if you’d like.”

  Will hesitated, coloring up at the same time. “No, thanks. The bus is fine.”

  Dax dropped his head as if concentrating on his task. He suspected what was fine about the bus these days was that Theresa Wendlow rode it. But a grin now could make a mess of everything. It almost had last night at supper.

  First, he’d been so pleased that Will had been almost his old self, answering Dax’s questions about his day and his schoolwork with more than grunts. Then Dax had nearly blown it when Will let it slip that he’d gone to the library after school with a girl—Theresa. He’d almost grinned. Just in time, he’d noticed his so
n’s challenging look, and he’d hidden any sign of amusement behind a long, long drink of water.

  So maybe his being around Hannah had produced the effect he’d hoped for. The only fly in the ointment, with Will acting more normal, was he’d have to tell June she was right.

  Will cleared his throat, and went on. “There’s a football game in Sheridan on Saturday night we could go to, Dad.”

  Dax’s bubble of well-being didn’t burst, but it developed a dent. This was awkward. “I, uh, thought I’d take Hannah to a movie Saturday night.”

  Without a word, Will dropped the paper and backpack to the porch floor, grabbed his boots from beside the door and started jerking them on.

  “Look, Will, I know it’s been the two of us for a long time. But it’s not always going to be that way.” Not as you grow up, and go off and find your own life and. God willing, a woman to love. Not that he’d be saying that out loud—no sense scaring the boy to death with a future that right now he couldn’t imagine wanting. “But that doesn’t mean things have really changed between us.”

  His boots on and the backpack retrieved, Will spun around to face his father. “Yes, they have. You’re spending all your time with her.”

  “Her name’s not her. You either call her Ms. Chalmers like you’ve been taught or you call her Hannah like she says.”

  “I don’t want to call her anything.”

  Will started to walk away, but Dax snagged his arm sharply enough to pull the boy around.

  “You don’t walk away when I’m talking to you, boy.”

  “Why not? That’s what you’re doing. Your own kind of walking away. Just like my mother, deserting me. Only you’ve worked it so you don’t have to leave the state to do it.”

  “Will!”

  The claw of pain in Dax’s gut was worse than any he could remember. Because it was more than the pain inflicted by Will’s words. It was the pain he knew his son must be feeling to say such words.

  And Will’s feelings went a whole lot deeper than confusion and jealousy over his father spending time with a woman. Dax knew what it was like to grow up knowing your mother had walked away from you. You didn’t shake that at fifteen. Not at thirty-six, either.