The Cowboy's Lesson in Love

by Marie Ferrarella

He was more than able to raise his own son without having that woman coming to the ranch to “share her wisdom” with him. Who the hell did she think she was anyway?

  “Did I do something wrong, Dad?”

  The small, hesitant voice broke through Clint’s thoughts, forcing him to push them aside. Replaying Ryan’s words, Clint looked down to see that his son was looking at him with wide, fearful eyes.

  “Why would you think that?” he asked.

  “’Cause you have on your mad face,” Ryan answered nervously.

  Looking over toward him, Jake nodded. “You do, you know,” the ranch hand said.

  What the hell was going on today? “What are you talking about?” Clint asked. “Has everyone gone crazy today?”

  “If I had a mirror with me, I’d hold it up and show you,” Jake told him. “But I don’t, so you’re just going to have to take it from me. You’re scary. Nobody can scowl the way you do, boss. Very effective,” Jake commented. “Guaranteed to put the fear of God into all of us when you look like that.”

  Clint started to say that they were both imagining things but then he stopped. To be honest, he could feel the muscles in his jaw tightening. They only did that when he was scowling.

  He took a long breath, then forced himself to relax. It wasn’t easy. He’d been so intense for so long that the expression he was being accused of wearing came naturally to him and it wasn’t easy just to banish it.

  But Clint had no intention of allowing Ryan’s teacher to feel that she had somehow bested him, making him do something he hadn’t wanted to. Concentrating, he pulled his lips back until they appeared to approximate a smile. His eyes met Jake’s.

  The latter held up his hands, pretending to take a step back. “That’s even worse,” he retorted. “Maybe you should go back to scowling.”

  “No, he shouldn’t,” Ryan cried, speaking up. He turned toward his father. “You look nice when you smile, Dad. Like you’re happy.”

  “Like a rattler just before he strikes,” Jake murmured.

  “Rattlesnakes don’t smile,” Ryan protested, distressed. “Do they, Dad?” he asked the next minute, turning his attention back to the highest authority in his life.

  “Not that I know of,” Clint said. “Why don’t you focus on getting this job done so we can call it a day and finally get something to eat?” he suggested to his ranch hand.

  Jake inclined his head as he wrapped his hands around the shaft of the sledgehammer. “Sounds good to me,” he agreed.

  “And me!” Ryan spoke up, his eyes shining as he added his voice to Jake’s.

  Clint merely nodded, applying himself to the job at hand. “Less talking, more doing,” he told his crew of one and a half.

  In his mind, he was already thinking himself past the next few hours, to a time when this meddlesome schoolteacher was finally back in her car and driving back to town.

  Chapter Seven

  She had a feeling she was going to regret this little venture come tomorrow, Wynona thought. She had used more muscles in the past couple of hours than she had in the last year. Maybe two. Teaching had never really required much from her physically.

  She tightened her grip on the hammer that she had been wielding after she had retired the sledgehammer. Her hands were really beginning to ache now, even though she was doing her best not to pay any attention to them as she went on working.

  There were times, Wynona had to admit, although only to herself, that she was too stubborn for her own good. But at least in this case, it had all been for a good cause.

  She wouldn’t have traded the way Ryan looked at her when they finally knocked off for the day for anything in the world. Up until now, she had thought that “literally beaming” was just an expression. But Ryan really was beaming.

  “You know,” Roy said to her as he leaned against the newly fixed section of fence, “they certainly didn’t have teachers like you back when I was in school. If they had, I would have been really tempted to stay back in the second grade for at least an extra year—or two.”

  “Temptation wouldn’t have had anything to do with it. You would have been kept back because kids are brighter these days than they were back when you went to school,” Clint said as he walked up behind his brother and his son’s teacher.

  Although he’d addressed his brother, Clint hadn’t come over to engage Roy. He was looking over the work that his son’s teacher had completed. The truth of it was, he was looking for shoddy work and oversights, something to point out and criticize.

  Clint frowned.

  There wasn’t anything to find fault with. He’d had a feeling that there probably wouldn’t be.

  Still, he examined the work long and hard, going over it slowly.

  He found nothing wrong with it. Because, at bottom, he was a fair man, Clint resigned himself to giving the woman her due.

  But glowing words were not his long suit. “Not bad for a teacher,” he finally pronounced.

  Wynona drew the back of her wrist against her forehead, wiping away the sweat. “Not bad for anyone,” she corrected with a toss of her head.

  Clint started to comment that she certainly thought a lot of herself, but then he changed his mind. She was right. It was a good job for anyone.

  After a moment he nodded. “I guess you’re right,” Clint agreed.

  About to walk away, he noticed that Wynona was rubbing her thumbs against her fingers. She probably didn’t even realize it, he thought. He was acquainted with that movement. Unlike the rest of them, the teacher hadn’t worn gloves while she’d worked.

  The palms of her hands had to hurt like hell, he thought.

  Roy nodded toward the house. “We’d better get a move on and wash up for supper before Lucia decides that she’s being ignored and makes life really hard for us,” he advised, changing the subject.

  Wynona looked at the younger Washburn. Roy had to be pulling her leg, she thought. She couldn’t visualize the housekeeper making any sort of a fuss, much less pitting herself against Ryan’s father. The man didn’t strike her as someone who had a sense of humor. Moreover, she had a feeling that the milk of human kindness just curdled in his veins.

  But she was the outsider here and she wasn’t about to say anything that would contradict Roy in any way, so she pretended to go along with the possible “threat” he’d just voiced.

  “Then I guess we’d better get moving, right, Ryan?” she asked, smiling down at the boy.

  It was obvious that Ryan was surprised to be included in the conversation. Surprised and pleased.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he responded quickly, “we sure better.”

  As Ryan shyly slipped his small hand into hers, the pain she felt surprised her. Caught off guard, Wynona winced slightly, but she made no move to break the link between them.

  Her palm was throbbing. She was actually getting calluses already, she realized. How did that happen so fast?

  “Something wrong, Miss Chee?” Ryan asked, concerned.

  “Nope, nothing at all,” she assured the boy cheerfully. “I’m just looking forward to eating Lucia’s dinner.”

  The answer satisfied Ryan and he moved faster, leading her into the house and then the small dining area where they took meals in the evening.

  Wynona saw Washburn watching her. The man was undoubtedly waiting for her next wrong move, she thought, determined not to make one.

  “So, you survived,” Lucia declared with an approving nod as she walked in from the kitchen carrying a tureen filled with the stew she had just finished making. “Glad to see that.”

  She really wanted to run some cold water over her hands, Wynona thought. They were really beginning to sting.

  “Where can I wash up, please?” she asked the housekeeper.

  “The bathroom is right past the kitchen,” Lucia answered. Setting the tureen do
wn, she pointed toward the passageway.

  “I’ll show you,” Clint offered gruffly. The surprised look on Roy’s face didn’t go unnoticed, but Clint made no comment as he led the way to the bathroom.

  “Thanks,” Wynona murmured when they reached what amounted to a powder room. When Clint gave no indication that he was leaving, she told him, “I can take it from here.”

  Clint ignored the obvious hint. Instead, he moved her to one side. With her out of the way, he opened the medicine cabinet. Taking out a small jar from the bottom shelf, he placed it on the rim of the sink.

  “Here, this might help,” he told her.

  “Help?” Wynona questioned. She had no idea what he was talking about.

  “Yeah.” Since she didn’t seem to understand what he was saying, he explained further. “Rub a little into your hands, especially on your palms. It’s something my mother came up with for my father. Back when he used to work the ranch, he’d come home at the end of the day and the calluses on his hands would be bleeding.”

  “Didn’t he have any gloves?” she asked, thinking of what Washburn had said earlier to her about needing a pair of gloves.

  “Kept losing them” was all he said as he left the bathroom.

  “Thank you,” Wynona called after Clint. His unexpected act of kindness had thrown her off for a moment.

  She thought she heard Washburn grunt in response but she wasn’t sure.

  Gingerly opening the jar—right now even the slightest movement was beginning to really hurt—she took just the smallest bit of what looked like off-white salve on her fingertips and gingerly spread it over one palm.

  It stung immediately and she sucked in her breath. The pain began to dissipate. Within a minute her calluses were only mildly sore. Encouraged, Wynona repeated the process, spreading the salve onto the calluses on her other palm.

  She waited a minute just to make sure that there wasn’t some delayed reaction that would cause tears to spring to her eyes, but there wasn’t. What she did feel was relief.

  Washburn had actually done something kind, she thought in amazement as she walked back into the dining room.

  She saw Washburn watching her, a mildly curious expression on his face.

  “It worked,” she told him.

  Immediately curious, Ryan asked, “What worked?”

  She took the vacant seat next to the boy. “Your dad gave me this jar of salve to use on my calluses,” she told him. “I haven’t done that kind of work for a long time and I got calluses almost right away.”

  Ryan took his teacher’s hand closest to him and he gently turned it over to examine. He looked genuinely concerned.

  “Oh.” He raised his eyes to her face. “Does it hurt a lot?”

  “It did,” Wynona answered solemnly. “But not anymore, thanks to your dad. My hands look a lot worse than they are,” she assured Ryan. She’d heard the sympathy in his voice and she didn’t want him to feel bad about her hands. “Besides, a little hard work never killed anyone, right?” she asked.

  “Right,” Ryan echoed.

  Aware that Washburn was studying her—did he expect her to complain? she wondered—she tactfully redirected attention to the dinner in the middle of the table.

  “That smells wonderful,” she said with enthusiasm, then looking at Ryan’s father, she asked, “Can we get started?”

  Rather than say anything, he merely gestured at the tureen, indicating that she take the first serving. Instead, she took Ryan’s plate and dished out some of the stew onto it before taking some for herself.

  It was obvious that Ryan appreciated her attention. Smiling from ear to ear he cried, “Thank you.” And then he surprised her by politely waiting until she had served herself before he started to eat.

  She couldn’t let that pass unnoticed. Raising her eyes to Clint’s, she said, “Your son has wonderful manners. You should be very proud of him.”

  “I am.” Clint’s staccato tone indicated that he didn’t need her to tell him that he should be proud of his son.

  Can’t win for losing, Wynona thought.

  The old adage ricocheted through her head and it was never truer, in her opinion, than it was right now.

  Still, all in all, she had been somewhat successful this afternoon. At least she had shown Washburn that she wasn’t just some helpless woman who was all talk. She’d done something to back up her words as well as pitch in. That had to mean something.

  Wynona took her leave shortly after dinner was over. She said her goodbyes to the housekeeper, thanking Lucia for a delicious dinner.

  Lucia took the words as her due, but then smiled warmly and squeezed her hand. “I hope to see you again.”

  Wynona merely smiled rather than say anything in response because whether or not she returned wasn’t up to her. At least not a third time.

  It came as no surprise to her that Clint had made himself scarce as she began to leave. It was Roy who walked her to her car.

  “I hope you weren’t too uncomfortable at dinner,” he told her. “Clint’s not exactly at his best when it comes to company.”

  Wanting to spare Roy, Wynona said, “You don’t have to apologize for him.”

  After all, it wasn’t Roy’s fault that his brother was difficult, to say the least.

  “I kind of feel that I do,” Roy told her. When she looked at him, puzzled, he told her, “He wasn’t always like this.”

  Wynona nodded. “So you said.”

  Reaching her car, she thought that would be the end of it. She opened her car door and got in. But when she went to close the door, Roy put his hand on it, stopping her.

  “Is there something else?” she asked Clint’s brother.

  “Yeah. Ryan wanted me to give you this,” Roy said, handing her something. “You’ll probably need to put some more on tomorrow.”

  He was talking about the salve. Apparently, Clint had put some in a smaller jar for her. The thoughtful gesture doubly surprised her. Looking at the salve, she smiled. “Tell him thank you.”

  She waited for Roy to withdraw his hand, but he didn’t. He continued to hold on to the door. “There’s something else, isn’t there?”

  For a moment Roy looked as if he was going to say no, there wasn’t, and just close her door for her. But then he apparently had a change of heart.

  “Yeah, there is,” he admitted.

  “What is it?” she asked when he continued to wrestle with his thoughts.

  Looking at her, Roy made his decision.

  “Ryan’s mother walked out on Clint when Ryan was less than nine months old,” he told her.

  Whatever she thought Roy was going to say, it certainly wasn’t this. The revelation appalled her. “She just abandoned her baby?” she cried, stunned.

  Roy nodded. “Yeah. We came home after putting in one of those grueling twelve-hour days and found Ryan in his crib, howling and wet. Susan was nowhere to be found. I can still hear Clint calling her name as he went from room to room. When he picked Ryan up, that was when he saw the note. She’d left it in Ryan’s crib.”

  Roy’s face clouded over as he recalled the incident. “The note was brutally short. Susan told my brother that she didn’t want to be a rancher’s wife anymore. That she wasn’t cut out for it, or for being a mother, either.” Roy shook his head. “I’m not even sure if she said that she was sorry. What I do know is that she cut out my brother’s heart with that note. I saw him change right before my eyes from the fun-loving, hardworking brother I grew up with to this hardened, angry man I barely recognized.”

  Recalling that day, Roy’s face hardened. “Because she had hurt him so badly, Clint just separated himself from everyone. It was like he just couldn’t feel anything anymore. There’s no other way to say it. I know he loves Ryan,” Roy said quickly, not wanting Wynona to misunderstand. “But the risk of being hurt
again is just something he can’t face. So he doesn’t.” Letting out a long breath, Roy searched her face as if to see if she understood. “I just thought you should know.”

  It was a lot to take in. Wynona slowly nodded her head. “Thank you. I appreciate you sharing that with me.” Her eyes held his. “For your own sake, I think you shouldn’t tell him that you told me. Most men don’t appreciate being regarded as vulnerable by other people, especially someone they think of as an outsider.”

  Roy laughed softly. “You’re pretty smart, you know.”

  She accepted the compliment while making light of it. “That’s what it says on my teaching degree,” she told the man.

  “Ryan’s a lucky kid to have you for his teacher,” Roy said as he finally closed her car door for her.

  “Just doing my job,” she replied just before she started her vehicle.

  And the rest of my job, Wynona thought as she drove away from the ranch, is to find a way to get Clint Washburn to come back among the living.

  For both Ryan’s sake and his own, she decided.

  * * *

  “You’ll be happy to know that I didn’t starve even though you didn’t come home to make dinner,” Shania informed her cousin playfully when Wynona walked in the door. “When you didn’t show up at five, I went to Miss Joan’s. She asked after you, by the way and...”

  Shania’s voice trailed off as she took a closer look at Wynona. There was some dirt on her cousin’s clothes that she was certain hadn’t been there this morning and Wynona looked worn out in general. “I told her you were fine but I think I was lying.”

  Her body was really starting to ache now. When she’d crossed the threshold, all Wynona wanted to do was reach the sofa.

  Now that she had, she all but collapsed onto it.

  “What are you talking about?” Wynona asked, shifting as she tried to find a comfortable position. There really wasn’t one.

  “Well, for one thing you look like someone rode you hard and put you away wet.” Shania was standing directly in front of her now, assessing her condition. “What did you do today?”