A Ranch to Keep

by Claire McEwen

  “Thanks for the tip. Now, the sooner I get on the road the less dark I’ll be driving in.” She’d softened a little, but not much. Questioning this trip had been the wrong move. She was way too independent to listen to some guy she’d just met telling her to be careful. But he knew he’d be up all night thinking about her anyway, and he’d prefer it if that thinking didn’t include worrying if she was okay or not.

  She’d picked up her last few bags and was heading out to the porch. He rinsed out his glass, grabbed his boots and followed her. The car loaded, she came up onto the porch next to him to lock the front door.

  “Samantha.” She stopped and looked at him. In her heels, fancy jeans and leather blazer she looked beautiful and totally out of place. Like some exotic flower that had just sprung up somehow in the old ranch yard.

  “Yes?”

  “Out here on these mountain roads a lot can go wrong. The roads wind through a lot of wilderness areas. They get washed out and rough sometimes. Do me a favor. Take my phone number and send me a message when you get there? So I know you made it okay?”

  Her eyebrows drew together in a scowl and her chin tilted up defiantly. “Jack, obviously you’ve experienced some sort of trauma with a woman driver at some point in your life, and I’m sorry for that. But trust me, I’m fine! I don’t need someone worrying about me like this. I’ve made it this far through life without it. And I, for one, have great confidence in my driving abilities!” Her eyes were flashing an amazing emerald color, which he’d appreciate more if it didn’t mean she was furious with him. He stood wary, choosing silence as his best defense.

  “Thank you so much for everything you’ve helped me with this weekend.” The easy familiarity that had been between them at the creek earlier was gone. She was icily polite. “But I don’t need your help with this particular task. I’ll see you in a week or two.” She stepped into her car and closed the door firmly behind her. With a wave, she started the engine and drove the sleek, black machine down the driveway.

  Jack turned away, shaking his head in frustration. He admired her stubborn independence, but not when it had her ignoring a common-sense safety precaution like letting someone know when her long drive was over. And he was frustrated with himself. What was wrong with him? Samantha might be beautiful and funny and smart, but she clearly wasn’t going to stay around here long, and he needed to stop wanting her to.

  A whinny echoed faintly down the valley, reminding him that it was feeding time. Jack started up the rocky trail that separated the two ranch houses, deep in thought. Samantha was a complex woman who’d made him feel complicated things all weekend. And some of those complicated things felt a little too familiar. Like maybe history was repeating itself. What was that old saying? “Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it”? It seemed like he had some unpleasant memories to study up on. He thought he’d learned his lesson about getting involved with a city girl a long time ago, but apparently he needed a refresher to stop him from wanting Samantha.

  Jack covered the last yards of the trail with big strides and stepped with relief onto his own property. His old wooden barn, stripped of paint long ago by the harsh mountain weather, was a welcome sight. He was ready to get back to his own world. It might get kind of lonely at times, but it was far simpler and a whole lot more peaceful.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  MARK’S TEXT READ delayed—20 mints. Samantha smiled, despite the rising annoyance that he was keeping her waiting even longer. Life Savers? Peppermints? She thought it was kind of cute that despite being addicted to his smartphone, Mark had never really mastered texting shorthand.

  She looked around the coffee shop where she’d been sipping her cappuccino and sighed. Just one more hazard in the bumpy road of dating her boss.

  They always tried to leave work separately and meet up somewhere a safe distance from the office. Tonight he’d given her the thumbs-up about a half hour ago and she’d closed up the file she’d been working on, said good-night to a few colleagues who were working late, and headed nonchalantly out the door. She didn’t think anyone at work suspected, which was pretty miraculous considering that she and Mark had been dating for over a year now.

  As much as she cared for Mark, sometimes she wished she hadn’t fallen for her boss. All the required sneaking around lost its romantic mystery after the first few months, and now it just felt like extra work sometimes.

  Samantha stared out the floor-to-ceiling windows to the gray-green water of San Francisco Bay. The steel towers of the Bay Bridge rose beyond. At least they’d picked an espresso bar with an inspiring view for their rendezvous. And the cappuccino was fabulous. Organic, of course, with the “artisan, micro-roasted” beans ground just before the sleek barista made the coffee, and the milk was fresh from a farm just thirty miles north of the city. This was the Ferry Building in San Francisco after all; the old terminal had been converted to an enormous farmers market, and a mecca for politically correct diners.

  She might make fun of it a bit, but she loved the space, with the sky-high ceiling, the warehouse feel and the bay visible through every window. Plus, where else could you get your caffeine with a “coffee-compatible edible,” as the sign above her boasted?

  Glancing again at Mark’s message, she calculated the time until he got here. It took about five minutes from their office to the street below, if the elevator was its usual slow self. And it took another ten minutes to walk from there, which meant that Samantha had at least thirty-five minutes to kill. She could answer emails on her phone, but she hated the inefficiency of poking away at the microscopic keyboard when she knew she could get the same message written in a fraction of the time on her computer. Wishing she’d brought her laptop, though—she hadn’t thought she’d need it on a date—she decided to go for a walk.

  The damp wind hit her the moment she stepped out the door and onto the waterfront walkway. When she’d first moved to San Francisco she’d been so frustrated with the wind. The fog was always blowing in or out of the bay, and whenever she went out, she always arrived at her destination windblown and messy. After a year or two it occurred to her that this was a trademark of San Franciscans. They blew through doorways with coats pulled around them, hair flying over their faces, looking like they’d been somewhere exciting and perhaps a bit treacherous. It was part of the mystique of living there. At least this is how she consoled herself when she arrived somewhere and glanced in a mirror to find her hair standing on end and her cheeks and nose bright pink from the wind.

  Wrapping her wool coat tightly around her and tucking her purse carefully under her arm, Samantha headed south toward the Bay Bridge, savoring the scenery. Treasure Island and the East Bay hills beyond hadn’t yet been engulfed by the incoming fog and were lit up with the last bit of sunlight. Dodging joggers, cyclists and even a few salsa dancers with a boom box, Samantha took in the view and tried to keep her mind in the present—enjoying her adopted city that had come to feel like home, and looking forward to finally spending time with Mark. But her mind wouldn’t be still, her thoughts slipping back to the weekend, to the ranch and to the way she’d felt when she’d been near Jack Baron.

  Maybe it was his eyes, she mused. No one had a right to eyes that blue, or that compelling. There’d been a happiness about him, too, a contentment that radiated, as if he was exactly where he wanted to be in life. That was something she definitely wasn’t used to. Most people she knew were fairly happy, but they were always reaching for something more...a promotion, a relationship, a vacation, or the mastery of a new hobby. Jack didn’t seem to be reaching. Just enjoying.

  It occurred to her that Grandma Ruth had been content like that, and her grandfather as well. She suddenly remembered something Ruth had said a few years ago, on what had turned out to be her last visit to San Francisco. They’d been sitting in a Union Street café near Samantha’s apartment, taking a rest from window shopp
ing and watching the weekend crowds stroll by. Ruth had taken Samantha’s hand across the table, patting it gently. “You’ve chosen a beautiful city to live in, Sammy,” she’d told her. “But I look at these people going by, pushing their designer baby carriages, walking their beautiful dogs, with cups of fancy coffee in their hands, and I worry about you. All these people have so much, but no one looks very happy to me. No one ever seems satisfied here.”

  At the time Samantha had teased her grandmother. “Happiness is overrated, Grandma,” she’d replied. “In San Francisco it goes along with a lot more, with accomplishment and with living well and doing things the right way. You can see why my perfectionist self fits in so well!” They’d laughed at the truth in that and Ruth had said no more about it.

  Now it occurred to her that maybe Ruth had left her the ranch in an attempt to give her the type of happiness she’d enjoyed throughout her own life. But if the core of that happiness was contentment, then how could Samantha Rylant, vice president at Taylor Advertising, ever achieve that on a ranch in Benson? How could she possibly be satisfied living out in the middle of the mountains?

  Samantha felt a stab of guilt at the realization that she wasn’t going to be able to fulfill Ruth’s dream for her, that she was very likely going to have to sell Ruth’s beloved ranch.

  But Ruth must have also understood that Samantha had a different dream, one with a different type of happiness—more ephemeral maybe, more based on career and accomplishment. With that came a little less contentment perhaps, but wasn’t it a lack of contentment that drove people to keep striving and achieving more?

  Her phone jangled and she grabbed at it, startled out of her thoughts.

  Mark’s voice sounded annoyed. “Samantha, where are you?”

  Surprised, she immediately turned around and started back. “Mark! I’m so sorry. I went for a walk while I was waiting. I guess I lost track of time!” Lost track of time? That wasn’t normal for her. She mentally kicked herself, and Jack Baron, for proving to be such a distraction, even from so many miles away. “I’m on my way back now.”

  “Well, it’s getting really late,” Mark complained. “We’re going to miss the movie at this rate.”

  His accusing tone grated but she tried to keep her voice pleasant. “Mark, I apologize for not being there when you arrived, but I’m also not the only reason we’re running behind. How about we just get dinner and we can see the film another time?”

  With a sigh he agreed and hung up. Samantha shook her head. The male ego astounded her. True, she wasn’t at their meeting place, but he’d kept her waiting an hour. She dialed the restaurant to change their reservation for the second time that evening and was relieved when the host said that it wasn’t a problem. It was hard to even get into the popular waterfront eatery, with its divine Vietnamese-Californian cuisine.

  Breathless, she pushed through the doors of the café. Mark pulled her into his side with a one-armed hug and kissed the top of her head. “Hey, Kiddo, been doing some jogging?”

  Kiddo? He finally gave her a nickname and it was Kiddo? “Hi, Mark.” She reached up and kissed his cheek. “It’s so nice to see you in real life again.”

  “You mean as opposed to office life?” He led her through the double doors and back out into the street, now lit by the glow of streetlights, steering them alongside the docks to the restaurant.

  “Yes. Office life doesn’t count, really,” she joked.

  His voice was suddenly serious. “I think it counts a lot, actually.”

  It always took a while to warm Mark up; though once he shed his professional skin he could be quite sweet and funny. “You know what I mean,” she chided him teasingly. “Of course it counts. But it doesn’t compare to time spent like this, with just us, together.”

  His mouth relaxed back into a smile as he glanced down at her. “You’re right, of course. Sorry about that. It’s just been a challenging few days, with you gone for the funeral and then running out on me to go to some ranch. And then going to L.A., where, by the way, you made a pretty great impression on the boss. So you can see, I’ve had nothing but work on my mind for a while now.”

  “You poor guy. But I didn’t run out on you, you know. I did invite you to come along.”

  “Well, you know, I’ve never much enjoyed funerals, particularly of people I’ve never met.” He stopped them for a moment and took her gently by the shoulders, his brown eyes serious beneath his shock of light brown hair. “But I am sorry I made you go alone, Samantha. I realize it was selfish of me.” He leaned down and kissed her mouth gently, his lips soft and undemanding. “Forgive me?”

  It was hard to resist his apology. “Don’t worry about it. It wasn’t a very enjoyable event. I didn’t actually stay until the end. Plus—” she lightened the moment “—someone had to stay home and pick up all the slack!”

  He pulled her toward him for another lopsided hug. “And speaking of all that slack, there’s still a bunch of things I need to run by you since we’re gearing up for the big pitch next week.”

  “Now?” Samantha asked.

  “Why not?”

  Samantha tried to focus as he went through the talking points he was considering for tomorrow’s planning meeting, but her mind kept wandering away.

  Maybe it was grief over losing Ruth, but one moment she was listening to Mark’s discussion of their next brainstorming session, and the next she was noticing how graceful the lines of the old shipping warehouses were. How had she never seen that before? And there was the familiar shape of Coit Tower, all lit up on top of Telegraph Hill, but tonight, wrapped in fog, its lights were blurry, almost mysterious.

  Her mind wandered even further away, back to the intense look on Jack Baron’s face as he’d placed the Band-Aid on her skin. The memory scorched her. The resulting guilt shook her out of her reverie. What had gotten into her? How could she be picturing him at all when she was on a date with Mark?

  Luckily Mark had a lot to say, and with a few well-placed yeses and I-sees they made it to the restaurant without him noticing her distracted state. Soon they were seated at their table right by the water, just as she’d requested, and were ordering exotic cocktails from the menu the waitress placed in front of them.

  Noticing the waitress glancing and smiling at Mark, Samantha mentally kicked herself. San Francisco had many wonderful attributes, but a large supply of handsome, single, career-oriented straight men was not one of them. She needed to stop thinking about some random hick cowboy she’d known for a couple of days and start appreciating the good-looking, sweet and successful boyfriend in front of her.

  As they ate their meal, she asked him questions about what else had transpired in the office while she was gone, and offered to take on some extra work to ease the burden he was feeling. It would mean that if she went back to the ranch this weekend she’d have to do some work, but there wasn’t much to do out there in the evenings anyway.

  It wasn’t until Mark paid their bill and they were picking up their coats to leave that he finally asked, “So tell me about this ranch you inherited? Did you have fun playing cowgirl over the weekend?”

  Samantha started for the door. “I wouldn’t exactly call it playing cowgirl. More like playing housecleaner, except unfortunately I wasn’t playing.”

  Pushing the door open for her, Mark looked at her, surprised. “You stayed away the whole weekend so you could clean? You never really did know how to take things easy, hey, Kiddo?”

  She winced again at the nickname. Kiddo? Not Beautiful? Or Sexy? Or pretty much anything else that didn’t make her sound like his little sister? “Probably one of the reasons you hired me, right, boss?”

  “Well, that and the fact that you’re gorgeous, of course.” He stopped suddenly and swept her into a hug. “Missed you!”

  Samantha wrapped her arms around his broad back and returne
d Mark’s embrace. It felt good to be with him again. Sure, maybe they talked about work too much, but she was glad to feel his strong, reliable arms around her. She turned her face up toward his expectantly, but he just planted a playful kiss on her nose then turned and continued walking, pulling her with him.

  “I guess you’ll need to get a real estate agent, then?” he asked. “I know some good ones. I’ll email you their information.”

  Tension coiled through her, and Samantha sighed, leaning her head against Mark’s shoulder. “I don’t really want to think about it, but yes, I guess I’ll need to sell it at some point.”

  “I guess? You’re not thinking of keeping it, are you, Samantha?”

  “Not forever, no. But, Mark, this has all happened pretty fast and I don’t think I’m ready to let it go just yet. Not this week, anyway. I’m still wrapping my mind around the fact that she left me her ranch!”

  “Look, I understand why you’re feeling sentimental, Samantha, but remember, while you’re getting used to the idea, the tax bills are adding up.”

  “I’m thinking of going there again this weekend, actually.” Samantha hadn’t really been sure until she said it aloud.

  “What? You just got back from L.A. yesterday!”

  “I know. But it’s like you just said. The tax bills are adding up and if I’m going to go through Grandma’s things, I should do it soon. Plus, I can’t really explain it, but I feel like I need to spend a little time there before I can let it go.”

  “You’re sounding really groovy, there, Samantha. ‘Let it go’? Maybe your buddy Jenna’s rubbing off on you.”

  Her temper flared. “Mark, if it was your childhood home, wouldn’t it be hard for you to sell it? Wouldn’t you need to go through it, pack things up and say goodbye?”