by Lisa Jackson
She set the baby in a mechanical swing that gently rocked, then finished peeling potatoes, her thoughts centered on Chase. He’d been a godsend, more of a guardian angel than the one she’d seen or imagined while in the throes of labor. Whenever he came over, he fed the horses and checked on the buildings as well as expressed more than a little concern about the baby. He’d shored up a broken step, replaced several shattered windowpanes in the barn, exchanged worn-out washers in the faucets with new ones, sawed down a dead tree that was threatening to fall on the back porch and offered advice about the baby. In return she cooked for him, and after they ate and Angela had gone to bed, they watched television, listened to music, talked and made love.
But Chase never spent the night.
There was always a reason he’d left before dawn, throwing on his clothes in the darkness and stopping to look in on Angela before he crept down the stairs. Lesley had accepted whatever excuse he’d given her; now, in light of what Ray had said, she wondered if his explanations had been simple platitudes that never really touched the heart of the matter.
She heard his truck pull into the drive and watched as he parked, climbed out of the cab and, with a quick look at the house, walk to the barn. Rambo ran ahead, nose to the ground, flushing a robin from a bush near the garage. “I think it’s time for a showdown,” Lesley said to Angela as she found the baby’s snowsuit. While Angela gurgled, kicked and smiled, Lesley bundled her up and placed her in the front pack.
Outside, the wind was racing across the land, smelling fresh and wet, tangling in Lesley’s hair as she pushed through the gate and walked across the gravel-strewn parking area to the barn. The door gave way and the scents of warm horseflesh and aging leather greeted her. The light was dim, but she saw Chase, pitchfork in hand, tossing forkfuls of hay into the manger. Broodmares and foals peered at him with wide, liquid eyes.
He glanced at her and noticed the backpack. “Kind of cold out here for the baby, isn’t it?”
“She’s fine.”
“Little things are tender.” He slit the strings on another bale.
“Since when did you get to be such an expert?” she asked, and she noticed his eyes darken.
“I’ve brought a lot of calves and foals into the world.”
“I know, I know, just like you helped with Angela’s birth, and, trust me, I appreciate the advice, but she’s fine.”
“Whatever you say.” He didn’t seem convinced, but she let it go. Walking along the length of stalls, she patted one velvet-soft nose after another and watched as the horse’s ears flicked with the changes in the conversation. As if they felt the tension in the air, they were restless, tails switching, hooves shifting in the straw.
“Why didn’t you tell me you used to live here?” she asked.
He was shaking hay into one manger, but stopped, every muscle in his body coiling. For a second he seemed about to disagree with her, to deny that he’d ever set foot on these acres before meeting her, but instead he thrust his pitchfork into a bale and leaned his hips against the slats of a stall door. Dust motes swirled, and one of the horses let out a nervous whinny.
“I’ve been meaning to tell you.”
“Have you? When?”
His mouth tightened at the corners and his gray eyes, usually so warm, turned frigid. “Whenever the time was right. It just never seemed to be.”
“Zeke Fortune was your father.”
“Yep. Zeke, Jr.”
She let out her breath and glanced to the ceiling where the last rays of sunlight were burning through the circular window in the hayloft. “Some people around here think Aaron took advantage of him. Aaron didn’t seem to think so.”
“Dad was desperate to sell.”
“Why?”
“The gossip mill hasn’t given you the rest of the story?”
“I don’t listen to gossip.”
He inclined his head and proceeded to tell her about Chet’s death and how it had affected his parents. “When the bank threatened to foreclose on the ranch, Dad sold out to the highest bidder, which wasn’t all that high.”
“Aaron,” she said numbly.
“Bingo.”
“I...I didn’t know.” All the starch left her and she felt suddenly sad and somehow responsible for Chase’s pain as well as that of his family.
“Now you do.”
Tears of shame burned behind her eyes, and her soul wrenched at the pain this man had borne. “You should have told me.”
“Why?”
The question hung between them, seeming to echo against the dusty rafters and bounce against the walls of her heart. “I don’t know,” she admitted, feeling Angela snuggled against her. “But I think—I think I should have known.”
He stepped closer, and she smelled his own particular scent, that of leather and a musky aftershave. “Would it have made a difference?”
“In how I feel about you?”
“In anything.”
“I don’t know,” she admitted, and wished he would fold her into the safety and security of his arms.
“Well, don’t worry about it,” he said, standing close enough to touch. “There’s something else I should have told you.”
She braced herself. His tone convinced her that it wasn’t good news. “What is it?” she asked, and noticed a tic beneath the corner of one of his eyes. “It’s about the water rights, Lesley.” Her heart sank, and she couldn’t believe her ears. “If I want to make sure the place is profitable, I can’t allow any of the water from the spring to be diverted. Not even for you.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
“So, I think, under the circumstances, it would be best if we...if we—” Lesley’s voice broke, and she felt like an utter fool as she stared into Chase’s eyes. They’d come to an impasse over the water rights.
“Better if we didn’t see each other anymore,” Chase finished for her. He was seated in the cab of his truck, ready to make tracks, the engine idling. Their usual routine had fallen apart after last week’s announcement that he couldn’t provide her with the water she needed. The tension between them had been unbearable, the strain and worry keeping Lesley awake at night. It was more than a simple issue of water, really: Lesley had begun to depend upon him and their relationship had become tense because of it.
“Yes,” she said, dying inside. She was holding Angela who, as if sensing the drama unfolding around her, had begun to fuss.
Rambo, seated in the truck beside Chase, let out a low, unhappy whine.
“What ever you want, Lesley.”
It’s not what I want. What I want is you, Chase Fortune. Can’t you see that? But I need to know that you want me, too. “Good.” She forced a smile and prayed that the tears stinging her eyes weren’t visible. “But we can still be—”
“Neighbors,” he said, cutting her off.
“Right. Neighbors.” She blushed. Of course they couldn’t be friends. Not now. Not ever. They’d shared too much.
He reached out the open window as if to pat Angela’s head, and then with a tightening of his jaw, withdrew his hand before the tips of his fingers twined in the soft, dark curls. As if he’d thought better of the intimate gesture. Lesley’s heart cracked, and she realized as he rammed the truck into gear and stepped on the gas, how much she loved him and how foolish it was.
* * *
“I told you I’d buy the whole lot,” Ray Mellon offered. Lesley stood with one arm folded over the top rail of her fence as she watched the foals frolic, racing from one end of the paddock to the other only to wheel and dash back, tails aloft, nostrils flared, eyes bright and wild.
“I know.” The summer sun was warm against her back, a bit of a breeze toying with the wisps of hair that had escaped her ponytail. Angela was balanced on her one hip and showing interest in her earring.
Lesley had worked her fingers to the bone these past few months. The rewards of her labor—a garden that promised full bounty, students who were managing to graduate, a baby who was lively,
healthy and bright, and a ranch that was running on a shoestring—should have given her some peace of mind, a reason to pat herself on the back, but she couldn’t. Because August was looming on the horizon, and already there were signs of depleting water.
“So Fortune won’t grant you water rights?” Ray asked, as if reading her mind.
“There’s a problem,” she admitted, and wished she’d never set eyes on Chase Fortune. Since the day she’d broken off her love affair with him, she’d seen much less of him. He had still dropped by, still somehow figured it was his duty to look in on her and Angela time and again, but their conversations were always stilted, and the joy she felt at seeing him was tempered by the realization that he was self-centered and single-minded and could never be more than an acquaintance who had once been her lover. The hard part was the way he stared at Angela when he thought Lesley wasn’t looking. Her heart broke into a billion pieces when she recognized his pain, felt his anguish.
“Well, maybe we could work something out,” Ray offered, bringing her crashing back to the present. “You know, Lesley, I always felt you and me, we had something special. I don’t hang around just because you’re Aaron’s widow.”
“I, um, appreciate that,” she said, but cringed inside. She thought of Ray as a friend. Nothing more.
“And keep in mind that I’d buy your herd in an instant, especially that sturdy little sorrel mare.” His eyes narrowed a bit. “She’s a feisty one, she is, the way I like all my women.” With a laugh that ended in a cough he slapped the top rail of the fence. “I’ll see ya, honey,” he said, and touched the top of Angela’s head, though his eyes never left Lesley’s face. “Think about what I’ve said. I’m serious. I think you’re as pretty as anything I’ve ever seen and—” his eyes shifted away for a second before he looked at her again; when he did she saw a flicker of lust in his gaze and her insides withered “—I could use a good woman.”
“I don’t think I have to think about it, Ray,” she said hastily. She wasn’t interested in any man—any man but Chase. “I’ll sell you the mare and maybe a couple of other horses, but that’s it.” She met his gaze directly, just so that he wouldn’t get the wrong idea. “Angela and I are doing fine. Just fine. With or without Chase Fortune’s damned water.” That was a lie, of course, but she pasted on a brave smile.
Ray’s mouth twisted into an odd, knowing frown. “You don’t have to make excuses, Lesley. Aaron and me, we go back a lot of years. I know how much money this place makes or should I say, doesn’t make. I thought maybe you and me, well, we could work things out between us, become sort of a team, but—” he lifted a tired shoulder “—if that ain’t the case, then I might be interested in buying you out. I know how much the mortgage is, and I’d give you enough above that so as you’d have yourself a tidy little profit. You could rent the house back from me or buy a place in town.”
Lesley was stunned at his offer. “I—I’m not interested in selling.”
“I know, honey, I know,” he said, and reached into his shirt pocket for his cigarettes. “But there are times in a man’s life—well, a woman’s, too, I suppose—where he has to do something he doesn’t like much.” His gaze fell onto Angela’s dark crown. “Sometimes we have to think about what’s best for those who depend on us.”
Lesley felt a lump clog her throat.
“When Aaron died, I told myself I’d look after you, and even though it didn’t turn out quite the way I thought, I’ll make good on my offer.” His smile was benign. “Maybe it’s time you faced the fact that this place is too much for you.”
Never, she thought foolishly, her pride wounded as he lit his cigarette and headed to his truck. Though his offer seemed to come from his heart, she couldn’t just give up her home, Angela’s home. Or could she? Wouldn’t financial security be worth something? A house in town, paid for, with no worries about water rights, the fluctuating price of oats, harsh weather or complicated foaling. She could get a teaching job, have a steady income, and even if she wasn’t home all day, she’d have security and summer vacations at home with Angela. She bit her lip and considered Ray’s offer. Though she felt an ocean of relief when he climbed into his truck and rolled out the drive, she couldn’t dismiss his opinion.
She didn’t really trust Ray, especially when he’d hinted that she and he could get together. She shuddered at the thought. He was the kind of man who thought he was doing a woman a favor by raining attention her way. Some women ate it up, Lesley supposed, but not she. She wasn’t that desperate. At least not yet. She’d tutor more kids, take in a boarder, rent out part of her land, do just about anything rather than become some man’s paid trinket.
Or she could sell the ranch. Her gaze swept the outbuildings and rolling acres, the small yard and garden, the sagging fences and sturdy horses, to finally land on the pump house that was absolutely useless when the water table lowered in late summer. This place had once been Chase’s home, his safe little corner of the world, until everything he’d trusted fell apart. He’d had to give it up once, she supposed she could, as well, though she’d come to love it here. She’d grown up moving from town to town until she settled here with Aaron. Despite her loveless marriage, she loved the land.
She held on to her baby more firmly, and Angela cooed softly. Lesley had to think of her child first. Before anything else. This wouldn’t beat her down. She wouldn’t let it. Stiffening her spine, she looked to the horizon and noticed the way the fields sloped ever upward into the forested foothills of the mountains.
Maybe she should sell out.
Maybe she had no choice.
* * *
“There’s more than one way to skin a cat,” Kate said as she sat behind her large, neat-as-a-proverbialpin desk. “I know it’s a hideous old expression but it’s true, Chase.”
He was seated in a chair in her office, one booted foot resting on his opposing knee. He’d come to Minnesota at his great-aunt’s request and left her a printed update on his ranch’s profitability.
“You don’t like my idea.”
“No matter how noble it is for you to give Lesley and her child your interest in the Waterman place, to sign over water rights, I think it’s premature. Don’t you want a place of your own?”
He glowered at his great-aunt. She knew what his own ranch meant to him. “Of course I do. But some things are more important than owning a scrap of land.”
Instead of being furious with him for throwing in the towel on the operation, Kate smiled, almost smugly, as if she’d expected his visit. “This is sudden, isn’t it?”
“Yes. But it has to be done.”
“Well, we have a deal, Chase, and you have nearly six more months to make it work. I think, if you explore all the angles here, you’ll come up with a better solution.”
He eyed the elderly woman, whose mind was as quick as that of a woman—or a man for that matter—half her age. “You know what I think, Kate,” he drawled, watching her attention sharpen on him. “I think you deliberately set me up on the place because it was next to Dad’s old ranch,” he said, watching her reaction. “Next to Lesley Bastian.”
Her eyes twinkled mischievously. “You’re giving me far too much credit for being clever.”
“Don’t think so.” He rubbed his jaw. “I got a call from my cousin Kyle the other day.”
She sighed and glanced out the window. “I didn’t know you were close.”
“Not really, but he’d heard about me ranching the spread in Montana and told me about the deal you set him up with years ago. Sounds kind of familiar.”
“There are similarities, yes.”
Chase had made his point. Kyle, the playboy, had been offered the ranch in Clear Springs, Wyoming, if he stayed there for six months. What he hadn’t counted on was that his neighbor was none other than his old girlfriend, a woman who had borne his daughter out of wedlock.
“Kyle settled down. Did better than I expected.”
“And now you’re playing with my life
and, if the rumor’s true, a couple of my other cousins.”
“Don’t forget, Chase, you wanted your life played with,” she reminded him, and ignored his dig about the other deals she’d offered his cousins.
“You’re not God, you know.”
She chuckled. “Of course not. No one is. I prefer to think of myself as a kind of...well, for lack of a better word, a guardian angel.”
“What?” he asked, thunderstruck at her particular choice of words.
“Well, that’s a little lofty, perhaps, but you get my drift. I believe everyone makes their own decisions, no matter what he’s given or offered in life. Others, like me, are there to help.”
Chase wasn’t certain of the details of Kate’s other ventures, only that she was involved in some deals with Ryder and Hunter, his first cousins, and had set them up in similar situations as this bargain she and he had agreed upon. Not that it mattered.
Kate trained her attention on Chase. “I think you’ll be able to handle anything that comes along, even the problems you’re having with Lesley Bastian.” She winked at her great-nephew. “Just search your heart.”
“That’s your advice?” he asked, clucking his tongue at the cliche´. “‘Search your heart’?”
“It’s always worked for me.”
* * *
Chase wasn’t so sure that his heart could be trusted where his wallet, or more precisely, the ranch was concerned, but he left Kate and the high-rises of Minneapolis to return to his new home in the foothills of the Bitterroot Mountains. If nothing else, flying away from the bustle and congestion of the city convinced him that he belonged in Montana.
With Lesley. You belong with Lesley, a voice nagged him, as the nose of the airplane broke through the clouds and the jet cruised toward the setting sun. You belong with her because you love her. It’s that simple, Chase. As Kate advised, all you have to do is ‘search your heart.’ You can’t keep running from the past forever. Emily and Ryan are gone. Lesley and Angela are alive.
He ordered a drink from the waitress and told himself he was being foolish. Kate’s advice was far from simple. Or was it? As the jet banked slowly, the germ of an idea began to take hold in his mind. It was an idea he’d discarded long ago, but it was an answer, and the only one that made any sense.
