Wrangling the Rancher

by Jeannie Watt

Taylor gave a small shriek as the voice came out of nowhere, then pressed a hand to her chest as she recognized Cole’s voice. Beneath her palm, her heart hammered.

  “You scared the crap out of me.” She took a couple of deep breaths, willing her heart to slow down. “I thought Chucky was back.”

  “Sorry about that. I startled the calves when I came out of the machine shop, so I thought I’d hang until they settled.”

  She let out one last breath, then reached down to zip her sweatshirt, doing her best to regain her equilibrium during the simple act. Once zipped, she asked, “How was poker?”

  “I lost.” It was a simple statement of fact. “Thanks for taking care of my sister. Feeding her, I mean.”

  “She’s cute,” Taylor said, taking a few steps closer. “And she seemed upset. I didn’t want to leave her alone.”

  “I appreciate that.” He fell silent as Taylor came to a stop a few feet away from him. The wind gently lifted her hair, and she pulled a hand out of her pocket to brush it away from her face.

  “Do you want to be alone?” There had to be a reason he was out here when his little sister was in the house.

  He breathed deeply, then raised his gaze to the dark horizon past the house. “No,” he said simply.

  Amazing how one small word could mean so much.

  “Me either.”

  He turned his head. “Why’s that?”

  “I got three rejection emails tonight. What happened to you?”

  “A bully messed with my sister.”

  “You’re kidding.” She felt a sudden welling of protectiveness toward a girl she didn’t even know. Jancey seemed like an okay kid. “Who?”

  “Our step-aunt. The one who has control of our ranch.”

  “The handshake deal.”

  “Followed by a lot of paperwork.”

  Taylor looked down at the clumped-up dirt in the dimly lit pen. The calves had settled, and the night was quiet. She focused on Cole, who was still staring out across the dark fields. “What did she do?”

  Cole shook his head.

  Taylor moved forward to rest her forearms on the rail next to him, keeping her gaze on him. “Do you know why I’m the perfect person to talk to?”

  He glanced over at her. “Why?”

  “Sometimes an outsider sees things in a different way. And I don’t know anyone to gossip to. Win.”

  He let out a short breath. “There’s pretty much only one way to see this.” He dropped his gaze and shook his head. When he looked up again, he met her eyes in a way that made her insides tumble. “But I will confess to having thought about getting your take on this.”

  “Why didn’t you?” Neither had moved, but it felt as if he were closer.

  “Just wasn’t there yet.”

  “You know,” she said softly, “I’m pretty sure I’d rather have three job rejections than find out someone had messed with my sister. The rejections are about me. The bullying...”

  “Makes me want to punch Miranda’s face in.”

  “That’s your step-aunt?”

  “That’s her. She messed with Jancey’s college application. Did her some damage credibility-wise.”

  Taylor’s mouth fell open. “Will you be able to straighten out the matter?”

  “We hope.”

  Taylor thought about how devastated she would have been had someone messed with her applications. The journey to success started in high school and segued into college. That had been hammered into her for so long that, even now, it shocked her to think of someone messing with another person’s educational future. “What exactly did she do to Jancey?”

  “Suggested that her entry essay was written by someone else.”

  Taylor shook her head. “That’s low. Very low.”

  “Welcome to Miranda World.”

  “Which college?”

  “Danner.”

  Taylor was familiar with the school. Small but prestigious. Located near Boise. She’d worked with at least one person who’d graduated from there. “If there’s anything I can do—”

  Cole reached out and covered her hand with his. Shock at the unexpected contact was quickly followed by warmth, and Taylor found that she no longer had a whole lot to say. Cole squeezed her fingers, then slid his hand away. A silent bit of communication from a guy who didn’t share easily. He hadn’t exactly spilled his secrets, but he was opening up to her, little by little. And even if things proved to be complicated, she wouldn’t give back this moment.

  He jerked his head toward his house. “Jancey’s still up. Want to watch a Rodney movie?”

  She blinked at him, surprised by the question, then smiled. “Yes. I would.”

  “I thought so.” He pushed off the fence, and even though he didn’t offer his hand again, they walked to the house, close enough that every now and again their shoulders bumped, and Taylor realized that she felt more at peace, more centered than she’d felt in a long, long time.

  The only problem was that it was happening in a place where she didn’t belong.

  * * *

  JANCEY WAS NOT much of a chaperone. They’d barely gotten twenty minutes into the movie when she fell asleep curled up in Karl’s big chair with her fist tucked under her chin. She looked so vulnerable and emotionally spent that Cole’s anger welled.

  He must have been telegraphing because Taylor leaned into him during a particularly raucous part of the movie. “I know it’s tough,” she murmured. “Better to hurt yourself than see someone you love hurting.”

  He was so damned glad she didn’t say something along the lines of “it’ll be all right.” It may well be, but they didn’t know for sure.

  “This is how Miranda works. She gets people so stirred up that they make stupid mistakes while she stays cool and collected. She feeds off this stuff.”

  “Lovely woman.”

  “Jancey’s tough,” he said. His little sister stirred in her sleep at the sound of her name, then settled again. “But...”

  His voice trailed off as Taylor took his hand, very much as he’d taken hers earlier, and laced her fingers with his. It could have been the gesture of a good friend...or something else.

  He was too wound up to properly evaluate, so instead he went with his gut, shifted on the sofa and brought his hand up to touch her face, lightly cupping her cheek. She held his gaze, raised her eyebrows, her lips curving into a soft I’m-game-if-you-are smile.

  Hell, why not?

  His lips met hers in a butterfly kiss. Barely a touch, but electric all the same. Her mouth opened, inviting him in. He accepted as he pushed his hand into her silky hair, twisting the strands gently as the kiss deepened.

  Had his sister not been there, he would have pressed Taylor back onto the sofa and gotten serious about this. An explosion on the television screen yanked them back to the here and now, and he shot a look over at Jancey to see if she was still asleep. Thankfully she was. Taylor pulled back a little.

  “You’re distracting me from Rodney,” she whispered.

  “Who?”

  She let out a soft laugh, her warm breath feathering over his lips. Her fingers splayed wide over the side of his face, the connection between them feeling so real. So good.

  “I hate to miss the end of the movie, but perhaps I should go?”

  Cole let out a breath. He didn’t want her to go. And wasn’t that just nuts?

  “Yeah. Maybe so.” He took her lips again in a kiss that promised more. Much more. Later.

  Surely there’d be a later?

  With Taylor, with their odd situation, there was no telling.

  * * *

  WHEN TAYLOR HEADED out to feed the calves the following morning, Jancey was already there, cooing and loving the little animals as she fed them.
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br />   “I take it these were your babies?” Taylor said as she approached.

  “They are.” There were still signs of stress in the girl’s face, but she looked better than she had the night before, making Taylor wonder how Cole looked this morning. He’d been smoldering while they’d watched the movie. Before she’d distracted him, that is. Distracted him, distracted herself.

  It was crazy how right it had felt.

  Jancey finished the last calf and dropped the bottle in the bucket. “The heifer that tried to take out my brother is mine, too. I’m selling her, and he was supposed to deliver.”

  “Yeah. That didn’t work out so well.”

  “Got to check your ground before working. He knows that.” She climbed out of the pen. “I have to clean up. Job hunting today.”

  “Good luck.” Taylor did her best to keep the irony out of her voice.

  “Thanks. I guess I should be grateful that Miranda made me wait tables last summer.”

  Taylor smiled as if she didn’t know who Miranda was, then headed back to the bunkhouse to do the networking she didn’t feel like doing. Seattle seemed very far away today.

  An hour later, a movement outside the window caught Taylor’s attention, and she looked up in time to catch sight of Jancey getting into her car. Cole followed, leaning down to say a few words through the open window, then he headed for the machine shop after his sister drove away.

  Taylor grabbed her jacket and let herself out of the bunkhouse. When she walked into the machine shed, Cole was standing in front of the long workbench staring at nothing in particular. He turned, scowling.

  “Nice stay-away face.” Taylor leaned a shoulder against the door.

  “Not intended for you.” He rubbed his hands over his cheeks and then dropped them again. “Still working through stuff.”

  She couldn’t help but wonder if some of that stuff involved her...and how she felt about that. But for now, she wasn’t thinking, plotting or planning. She was doing.

  “How would you feel about taking a drive with me today?”

  “To...?”

  “The ranch.”

  Taylor pushed off from the door and moved a couple of steps closer. Jancey had been bullied by their step-aunt, and now Cole was going to the ranch. How could she say no? She wanted to see this ranch and meet Miranda. She wanted to make certain Cole didn’t do anything he’d be sorry for later. The guy was starting to matter to her in ways she’d never dreamed of.

  She gave an overly casual shrug. “When do you want to leave?”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  COLE’S FAMILY RANCH was something out of a picture book. Set at the edge of a wide meadow where a herd of Angus grazed, it wasn’t much bigger than Karl’s farm but had so much more visual appeal. The house and barn were both sided with rustic boards, which had weathered to a beautiful golden brown. A jackleg fence stretched along one side of the meadow, and the corrals and pens were constructed of poles instead of wire. The place looked rustic yet manicured.

  “The siding is fake,” Cole said before she could utter a word. “Well, the barn’s real, but Miranda wanted the house to have more impact, so she paid to have the vinyl siding taken off and replaced with the cedar boards. Then she wanted us to pay for it, but I fought her on it.” He stopped at the gate. “That was our first rift after my uncle died.”

  He got out to open the gate, even though Taylor had volunteered, hooking it back against the fence with a chain before driving through.

  Cole had gone over the situation with his ranch as he drove, keeping his gaze locked on the road. He’d explained how Miranda had married his uncle several years ago and initially charmed everyone. The Bryan brothers—Cole’s father and uncle—had been steadily losing money on their ranches and had agreed that a guest ranch was worth a shot, especially since Miranda had offered to take the helm. Things went well in the beginning, but once his uncle died, the situation had changed. Miranda had changed. True colors began to show.

  Cole’s expression had grown increasingly tight as they’d neared the ranch, and now, as he parked next to the house, she was wondering if he was in danger of cracking a tooth. She touched his arm.

  His gaze jerked over to her, and then he made an effort to relax his features. “Sorry. Lots of crazy emotions tied up in this place.”

  Taylor was beginning to toy with the idea of kissing him before his blood pressure redlined. Instead she got out of the truck. A kid in his late teens came out of the barn as Taylor closed her door, and Cole motioned for her to join him. They walked over to meet the boy at the ATV he’d left near the pasture fence.

  “How’s it going, Matt?”

  “Jancey’s staying with you, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I tried to text her, but she didn’t answer.”

  “She’s fine.”

  The kid nodded, looking relieved. He glanced behind him as if expecting someone to be there listening, then said, “The queen is pissed that she just took off without telling anyone.”

  “She’s going to have to get over it.”

  Matt threw a leg over the ATV. “Tell Jancey hi and that it wouldn’t kill her to text back.”

  “She’s off her game right now, but I’ll tell her.”

  The kid started the engine, then with a wave, headed back across the pasture.

  “Miranda sends him to do the chores. Since she uses the place, she wants it public ready at all times.”

  “She uses the entire place?”

  “Not the house. The house is ours. Well, the entire place is ours, but she has the rights to use it tied up.”

  “Renegotiate.”

  “It’s a fifty-fifty ownership deal. She won’t budge and neither will we.”

  “Unless you have something she wants and can bargain.”

  Cole turned to her, his expression serious. “I have nothing that Miranda wants other than this property. That leaves us in a bad place.”

  “So it seems.”

  “Come on. I’ll show you the house and you can see why it isn’t used for guests.”

  The house was totally old-fashioned inside, with small rooms. The kitchen was large, though. There were heat grates in the floors of the upstairs rooms to allow the heat from the kitchen to permeate the rest of the house.

  “They made the rooms small so that they could close off the ones not in use during the winter and not heat them.”

  “I can understand that, but wow, if you knocked out some walls—”

  Cole shot her a look that stopped her dead. “Then Miranda would probably come up with a loophole to use the house.”

  “Could she?”

  “Probably not, but she’d drive me crazy in the process.”

  “You need out of this agreement.”

  He turned toward her. “You think?”

  “Have you consulted an attorney?” A question she’d put off asking until she had more facts.

  He put a gentle palm on each side of Taylor’s face, making her nerves start doing a crazy dance, and instead of answering, focused on her as if she were the answer. Things were heating up between them, and she wasn’t doing one damned thing to stop them.

  “Cole?”

  “Miranda has an attorney on retainer.”

  “That doesn’t mean...”

  “The land is mine and Jancey’s. It’s not going anywhere. When I get ahead, I’ll hire a lawyer.”

  “But what if she finds a loophole to gain possession,” Taylor asked. “Eminent domain, or pedis possessio?”

  He gave a short laugh. “I think she would have already done that if she could, because that’s exactly how my cousin got his ranch out of her clutches.”

  “Bottom line, you can’t make a living on your own property?”


  “I can, but I can’t. Jancey and I get a percentage of the take from the guest ranch, but it’s not as much as you might think. If there’s an open position on the ranch, Jancey or I could choose to take the job and draw a paycheck in addition to the percentage—which is what we did in the past. I worked there for...hell, since I was sixteen. Went back to work after college, thinking that it was my job to help the family business. Then my uncle died and it all went to hell.

  “I can live here on my ranch. However, if I work the ranch, the money I make goes into the general coffers and I pull a percentage of that, as does Miranda.”

  “Her finger’s in every pie.”

  “The result of an agreement between brothers—one of whom was madly in love with her.”

  Cole gestured toward the door with his chin. “I’ll show you the rest.”

  He toured her through the barns, which had been expertly staged. He shook his head at the gleaming leather harnesses hung on one wall.

  “Looks good,” Taylor murmured.

  “Want to know how long it’s been since there’s been a draft horse on the place?” He stopped at the wide door at the far end of the barn and stared out over the fields. Everything about him was stiff and defensive. Taylor was familiar with the posture, having held it a few times herself as she dealt with problems at work...but those problems had never been personal.

  She shifted her weight, and he slowly turned toward her, tearing his gaze away from his land. One corner of his mouth tightened. “You know why I brought you with me, right?”

  “To keep you from doing something that might get you arrested?”

  The corners of his mouth quirked into a faint smile. “Just so we’re on the same page.” He settled his hands on her shoulders, staring down at her seriously. “But I never asked if you were on board for a meeting with the queen.”

  “Totally.” She couldn’t wait to meet the woman.

  “I thought about bringing my cousin Jordan, but he and Miranda...well, let’s just say that until recently, I was able to play the game with her. He never was.”

  “Blood on the walls?”

  “It’d be close to that.”

  She set her hands on his biceps, felt them tighten under her palms, but neither of them moved closer.