The Rancher's Legacy (Red Dog Ranch Book 1)

by Jessica Keller

  No matter how much he wanted to.

  “I’m sure.”

  She could keep her old secrets as long as Rhett had the hope of her future.

  Chapter Eight

  With no time to change or freshen up once Macy got back to Red Dog Ranch, she headed straight to the lakeshore. It was long past the time Cassidy served supper at the mess hall so she knew Rhett would be at the lake by now. Cassidy had texted earlier, asking if Macy had been able to stop for food while she’d been out. Macy had let her know that she was probably going to skip dinner and dive into a pint of mint swirl ice cream waiting back in her small fridge later tonight instead.

  Romeo brayed as she passed his enclosure.

  “Sorry, buddy, I got nothing. I didn’t even get a chance to grab myself food.” She reached over the fence and scratched between his ears. He brayed again. “Oh, you impatient little guy, good thing you’re so cute. I see you already forgot about the pear chunks I brought you yesterday.” Her stomach rumbled.

  She left Romeo and continued in the direction of the lake. She hiked up the last hill and paused at the top. Rhett’s back was to her as he stood at the end of the long wooden pier with a bundle or some sort of basket by his feet. Kodiak swam after her red ball in the water. A trail of candles burning inside glass jars led the way down the pier to him. The sight caused Macy’s pulse to kick up.

  Was this...was this a date?

  She brushed the thought away. After all, she had been the one to ask him to meet up to talk, not the other way around. Although it was hardly as if Rhett would have set out the candles if he was going to be here alone.

  She would not read too much into the gesture.

  She would not.

  Hopefully, she would believe the statement the more she repeated it to herself.

  Kodiak, who had been dropping the ball onto the pier for Rhett to toss out again, swam past the pier to the shore. The dog leapt from the water, gave one great shake and then charged in Macy’s direction.

  Rhett followed his dog’s progress but stayed on the pier. A wide, handsome smile spread across his features as he slipped his hands into his pockets. “See. What did I tell you? She likes you more than me already.”

  “Hardly,” Macy called back with a laugh.

  The dog happily head butted Macy’s knee and Macy gave her a welcoming pat only to discover that Kodiak felt dry. “How is this dog not wet?” She touched her coarse fur again.

  “Double coated,” Rhett answered. “Thick underlayer keeps her skin from ever getting wet. The top layer is considered a harsh coat. You know how a duck can go in the water and comes out without being waterlogged?”

  Kodiak trailed along beside Macy as she made her way to the pier. “Don’t ducks have some special oil though?”

  “Chessies have oil trapped between the two layers of their coat. Works the same way.”

  Closer to the shore Macy accepted the red ball and threw it out into the lake for Kodiak to go after. Rhett’s dog had the endurance of a triathlete.

  Rhett came to where the planks connected with the shore and offered his hand. “I have something for you,” he said almost shyly.

  Macy unsuccessfully fought a wary grin as she slipped her hand into his. “What is all this?”

  Rhett led her to the end of the pier. “Cassidy told me you were planning to skip supper tonight. She gave me the candles.” He gave a nervous shrug.

  Cassidy. Of course. Always trying to set them up. It was too bad the romantic ambiance hadn’t been Rhett’s idea, but Macy would enjoy it nonetheless.

  The pier creaked and swayed with their steps. Macy noticed each jar had been filled a third of the way with sand before a votive was placed inside. Flames flickered as they passed by, giving the pier a dreamlike quality. Fireflies drawn to the lights whizzed around their legs. Croaking frogs, the lake lapping the underside of the boards, their steps and the slight crunch of the tethered canoe against the side of the pier were the only sounds.

  Well, besides Kodiak’s feverish paddling.

  When they reached the end Rhett let go of her hand so he could tug a blanket from the large tote bucket he must have stowed there. He spread the blanket out then looked over at her, turned and looked out at the lake, cleared his throat, scratched the back of his neck.

  Was he...goodness, the man was all nerves.

  She, of all people, had flustered Rhett Jarrett. Her logical, straight-talking friend couldn’t find words. The realization warmed Macy’s heart.

  “Rhett,” she said his name tenderly. “What is all this?”

  He cleared his throat again. “Food.” He pulled the top off of the tote bucket. “You weren’t at the mess hall so I assumed you hadn’t eaten. And Cassidy said she didn’t think you had and helped me gather some things. I shouldn’t just assume that if you’re not with us you’re not anywhere though, right? You could have been out on a date instead for all I know.” He looked right at her, his blue eyes wider than usual. “Were you on a date? Wait.” He held up a hand. “Not my business. You don’t have to tell me. Unless you want to, that is. If you do, you can.”

  Macy pressed her hand over his mouth to stop his rambling. Nervous Rhett was by far the most adorable version of Rhett she had ever encountered.

  “Cassidy was right. I have not eaten.” And at past eight at night she was definitely hungry now. Macy slowly removed her fingers from his lips. Blood thrummed through her veins at a turbulent pace, making her skin feel tingly. “And I wasn’t on a date.”

  She caught the grin he attempted to hide when he ducked back toward the tote to pull out food. “We had a bad start when I came back. I want to start over like two old friends should have.” He handed her a small bundle. “Blue-cheese steak wrap.”

  “My favorite. You remembered?” Macy took a seat on the blanket facing the lake. She unrolled the parchment paper so she could take a bite of the wrap. The bold notes of blue cheese, spinach and freshly grilled steak made her taste buds dance.

  “Of course.” Rhett produced a glass bowl full of frozen blueberries—a favorite childhood treat. His mom used to sprinkle them over ice cream or hand out bowls of frozen blueberries on hot summer nights while everyone gathered on the back porch to watch the sunset. Next came a thermos and two cups.

  “Just Cassidy’s sparkling watermelon lemonade.”

  “Just is not the right word.” Macy unscrewed the lid and inhaled the sweet scent emanating from the thermos. “She hasn’t made this stuff since last summer and I love it. How did you talk her into it?”

  Rhett winked. “I have my ways.” His bravado fell to sudden nervousness again. “Okay, and these might not be great, but...” He pulled a small tin from the basket.

  When he opened the lid, Macy gasped. “S’mores stuffed cookies. You convinced someone to make them? I haven’t had these since...” She snagged one from the tin and sank her teeth into it, letting her eyes flutter closed as the perfect balance of chocolate, marshmallow, graham-cracker crumbs and cookie melted on her tongue. “I think it’s been at least ten years since I’ve had one and they’re just as good as I remember.”

  “Oh, good.” Rhett rubbed the back of his neck. “Because I made them and I wasn’t sure how they would turn out.”

  Macy’s eyes filled with irrational tears. She had to rapid-fire blink to keep them from falling. “You made these? You got the ingredients and mixed them and cooked them...for me?”

  His head dipped with acknowledgment. “Your mom’s recipe.”

  “Thank you,” she whispered. She wanted to hug him, to kiss him and to cry too. The last time Macy had tasted these cookies her mom had made them. Each time she had unearthed her mom’s spiral notebook full of recipes she had started crying, never able to actually make any of the recipes inside. Besides, she wasn’t much of a cook or baker to begin with.

  Rhett’s gesture was
an act of love. Plain and simple.

  This was the man she had lost her heart to so many years ago.

  * * *

  Rhett hung his legs over the edge of the pier while Macy finished eating. He scuffed his palms along the thighs of his jeans, trying to will them to stop sweating. A lot of good that did.

  Macy gently set the tin of cookies down and scooted to sit beside him at the end of the pier. “Tonight... This is...this is so beautiful, Rhett. What you did for me.”

  I did it because I love you. I’d do this every day if it made you happy. I should have done this a long time ago.

  His throat burned with words he had to swallow.

  Tonight wasn’t the time to declare anything. Tonight was an olive branch, letting her know he was serious about them being friends again.

  A candle flickered in the breeze beside him. Cassidy had forced him to bring those along and had even sent a kitchen hand to set it all up. He thought the candles were a bit much for renewing friendship, but he knew better than to argue with Cassidy when her mind was made up.

  He braced his hands at an angle so one was behind her, bringing them even closer. Raven strands of her hair danced in the breeze, the long ends traced across his shoulder.

  “That day, when I left the ranch...” The words were out before he could consider them.

  She scooped her hair to the side and turned toward him so their faces were less than a foot apart. Waning sunlight backlit her and his breath caught for a moment. She was the most beautiful person he had ever seen. She licked her lips, drawing his attention to how much he wanted to kiss her.

  He sat up, pulling away from her a bit in the process. She mirrored his posture, leaning forward now so her shoulder bumped his arm.

  “You stopped me, on my way out.” An image of Macy with tears streaking down her cheeks played in his mind, unbidden. It tore at his heart.

  “I was afraid you were going to leave without saying goodbye.”

  On that day he had planned to leave the ranch without saying goodbye to anyone. He had been so angry after his father’s ultimatum—stay and stop questioning Brock’s methods or leave for good.

  He rubbed his hands together slowly. If only it was so easy to dust off mistakes. “You told me I was wrong. You said I had to see my dad’s side,” he said. “All I heard was you choosing him, choosing this place over me like he’d done so many times.”

  “When you said it was you or the ranch, I didn’t know how to answer,” Macy admitted. “I loved your dad as if he was my father. Your family had become mine. I didn’t just want to leave everything. My home. When you offered me the job on the spot, it came out of nowhere.”

  He turned his head her way again. Had to see her eyes. “There was more to it than that. I...I wanted you to pick me. I wanted someone—wanted you—to choose me.” For his entire life, his dad had never picked him. Rhett had never felt as if he was first place in anyone’s heart. He had wanted to be the top person in Macy’s life that day, but he knew it had been wrong to demand she choose him over everything else. He couldn’t hold the eye contact—not after that admission—so he gazed out at the lake. “You had been dating that guy.”

  “Jim.” She scooted closer.

  “Yeah, him.”

  She surprised Rhett by laying her head on his shoulder. “I’m tired. Do you mind?”

  Rhett fought the urge to turn his nose into her hair and breathe in her scent. “Not at all.”

  “Jim didn’t like you.” She adjusted where her head was, nestling even closer. She sighed. “He told me to stop spending so much time with you and I did.”

  “I noticed.” Rhett slipped off his hat and set it beside him. Then he leaned his head to rest it on hers. They had never been like this before, so easy with their physical contact, but it felt right. It made Rhett wonder why he had never put his arm around her or reached out for her before now. “And I didn’t like it.”

  “You were jealous?”

  “Practically bursting with it,” he said. He swallowed hard. “Then after you showed up and turned down the job...” He omitted the kiss after how the conversation had gone last night. “Then you wouldn’t return my calls. It seemed I had successfully run off the one person who had always been in my corner, so I figured I was meant to be alone. Later, when you called—” he heaved a sigh “—I convinced myself you were better off without me.”

  Macy sat up suddenly and scooted so she was half facing him. She dropped her hand to his knee. “We may be the two stupidest people on the planet.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “That kiss? I wanted to be with you, Rhett.” She looked away. “I had wanted that for a long time. When things didn’t go well...I was horrified, to say the least.”

  “Mace.” He couldn’t let her continue to believe he hadn’t wanted her. Hadn’t imagined that kiss differently a million times over the last three years. “I was surprised. But it was a good surprised,” he rushed on. “And I muddled it completely.”

  “You kept saying, ‘Why did you do that?’”

  He had only meant to start the conversation.

  “It all happened so fast.” But it had definitely been the wrong thing to say. However, he had pushed back his feelings for Macy for so long and hadn’t allowed himself to entertain the idea that maybe she cared deeply for him, as well.

  “When I finally worked up the nerve to call back and you never responded, I assumed it was because you didn’t want me. Your messages had just said that we needed to talk so I had no clue if it was a good talk or a bad talk. This whole time I’ve been telling myself something was missing, something was—” her voice caught “—wrong with me. First my dad, then you.” She swiped at her eyes.

  Heaviness settled on Rhett’s chest and lungs as she spoke. He’d had a hand in causing these insecurities. Aware of them now, he would fight them alongside of her for the rest of their lives in whatever capacity she would allow him to.

  “Mace.” He caught her face between his hands. “There has never been, nor will there ever be, anything you can do or say that will make me not want you in my life. My pride kept me away—that’s on me and only me. You are perfect the way you are and I’d never want you to change. That was a lot of words, but I mean it. You have been my closest friend—my best friend—for most of my life. I’d like to erase everything that happened between us ever since I left and just go back to how we were for so many years.”

  Macy shrugged from his touch.

  “Go back to how we were,” she said robotically. “Of course. Friends.” Her smile didn’t reach her eyes.

  “It’s getting late. Is it okay if I share the thing I wanted to talk about now?”

  His hands dropped away from her. During his spur-of-the-moment conversation he had lost track of the fact that she had been the one who wanted to talk about something. “I bulldozed this whole night, didn’t I?”

  “I didn’t mind. We needed to hash this stuff out.”

  His hat still off, Rhett ran his hand through his hair. “Please, what was it you wanted to talk about?”

  Macy grimaced. “It’s business stuff—but I’m really excited.”

  He grabbed his hat and set it back on his head. “Bring it on.”

  “Let’s clean as we talk.” She motioned toward the basket. Macy started gathering plates and other items and handing them his way to stow in the bucket he had brought. Rhett got up and started gathering the candles.

  The sun had finished its dip to the other side of the world and the fields had turned dark. Kodiak lay a few feet away, catching a small nap. If the three of them could have stayed like this then life would have been perfect. Too bad reality knocked hard enough to wake the heaviest dreamer.

  They had made their peace, but Rhett still had to make amends with Shannon and chart the best path for the ranch going forward. Running Camp Fir
efly was a full-time job on its own, and summer was the busiest time with the cattle. On top of that he still had to replace some essential staff members who had left after his father passed. Soon enough Rhett would have to start putting in fourteen-hour workdays just to keep up.

  Maybe things would settle down by the time autumn rolled around.

  Macy handed him the blanket. “I might have messaged someone about the egg hunt and not told you about it.”

  He chuckled. The worry in her voice was evident and he wanted to put her at ease.

  “So now you have to tell me, huh?”

  She rose and grabbed both his hands, giving them one quick pump as she said, “It’s Clint Oakfield.”

  “The Clint Oakfield?” Rhett knew he was bound to be gaping but he couldn’t help it. The man had recently been inducted into the Grand Ole Opry.

  “The one and only. He wants to come to our event and he’s bringing all kinds of signed merch to raffle off. He’s also made a donation that covers more than half of our expenses. If it’s okay with you, of course. He wants to do a few songs and—”

  Rhett caught her up in a hug, lifting her clear off the ground. “You’re amazing! You know that, right?”

  Kodiak bounded to her feet and came over to them, tail wagging, as she picked up on their excitement. When Rhett set Macy down she turned to lavish attention on Kodiak, and he found he was glad for the distraction.

  Because without Kodiak’s interruption he very well might have kissed Macy and ruined all the steps they had taken toward mending their friendship tonight.

  Chapter Nine

  The day of the egg hunt had dawned with an overwhelming cloak of muggy air descending onto the ranch. Macy pulled her hair into a ponytail and fanned her face. With all the running around involved for setup and directing others, she was already on her second shirt of the day and was considering changing again or at least freshening up before the candy drop occurred.

  She glanced at her watch. There wouldn’t be enough time.