Falling for the Rancher

by Roxanne Rustand

  “Thank you,” she said quietly. “This means a lot to me.”

  He glanced at his watch. “Let’s go inside and figure out the next project before I head back home.”

  He and Emma followed her into the kitchen, where he leaned a hip against the counter and surveyed the room. “Not sure how far you want to go with this. The material costs will add up. Do you have a budget in mind?”

  “Not really. I can’t afford a lot right now, though.”

  “Are you planning to take out any walls?”

  “No. I want a separation between the living room and kitchen. And the layout is fine.”

  “Do you want to replace the cabinets?”

  She laughed at that. “I’ve spent a lot of time pricing cabinets. No way.”

  “You could just install updated cabinet fronts at a fraction of the cost.” He ran a hand over a cabinet door and opened several of them. “You could add new veneer over the exposed sides and then add new doors. Or you paint or stain the ones you have. These are outdated, but they’re well made. You could add nicer hardware, too. Once you decide that, you could consider new countertops.”

  “They definitely need updating. These are nicked and faded—and that big burn mark by the stove drives me crazy.”

  “Granite would be nice.”

  “In my dreams,” she said ruefully.

  “Sometimes you can find nice pieces of granite that were ordered for a larger kitchen and didn’t work out but would fit in a small space, and that could save you a lot of money. You could call some suppliers to see if there’s anything you like. Then we’d measure carefully, and it would be cut and delivered. I could install a new sink and faucet.”

  Excitement over the possibilities started bubbling up in her chest. “Or should I do the lighting instead?

  He studied the ceiling. “You have an attic up there, so there should be good access into the ceiling for can lighting. If this were my place, I’d go ahead and do it myself, but I’m not a licensed electrician. That’s who you need to call. A wild guess is that it would cost between five hundred and a thousand, depending on how many lights you want and where you buy them. Then again, I have no idea what the going rates are around here.”

  “What about the floor?” she asked.

  “Are you sure there’s hardwood underneath the vinyl?”

  “I’ve pulled up some corners of the carpeting in all of the other rooms and also pried up a corner of the vinyl,” she said. “It’s all narrow-plank oak.”

  “It wouldn’t be hard to rip out the carpet and vinyl and refinish the floors. That needs to be a priority, given Emma’s asthma. But if you help, we could get that done and maybe do the counters and sink, as well.”

  Incredulous, she looked up at him. “Really? Wow. So many options.”

  She closed her eyes for a moment, envisioning what these changes would mean. How pretty the cottage could become, inside and out. She took another look around, and the possibilities nearly took her breath away.

  A smile twitched at his lips as he watched her consider. “No rush if you want to think it over. But if you can decide fairly soon, we can tackle the work before I start getting busy with clients.”

  “Okay—the floor. Definitely the floor.” She grinned up at him. “I think you’ve just made me the happiest woman in Aspen Creek, bar none. When do you want to start?”

  “Tomorrow is okay, or some night after work.”

  “We have church, and Sunday school for Emma tomorrow morning.” She gave him a tentative smile. “Aspen Creek Community Church, if you’re interested. The service is at nine.”

  “No.” He drew back a little. “Maybe another time.”

  “Of course,” she murmured. “We’ll be home all afternoon and evening if you want to stop by. Lunch is around noon if you want to join us.”

  * * *

  Logan spent Sunday morning finishing up his work on the small horse barn behind the vet clinic and regretting his surly response to Darcy’s invitation.

  He’d been raised in the church. His parents had made sure of that.

  And he was a believer, even if he and God had gone through a major falling-out a few years back when Dad passed away from a heart attack and Mom died shortly after. Two of the best people he’d ever known, gone in the blink of an eye. Logan had prayed night and day that they might survive, but God hadn’t seen fit to answer those prayers.

  Where was the justice in that, when truly evil people could spend their entire lives loose in society?

  His prayers sure hadn’t helped with the situation in Montana, either. Since God didn’t seem to find his prayers worth answering, Logan had simply...stopped praying.

  He stepped back and studied his handiwork. The barn had originally been divided into four fourteen-by-fourteen box stalls, with an exam area with stocks to restrain horses during certain procedures, and a space for hay, bedding and feed storage. He’d repaired and replaced boards, painted the interior white, and installed long banks of fluorescent lights over the stalls and exam area. In time he would add a surgical room with a hydraulic table and more stalls, but this would be a good start.

  He glanced at his watch. Grabbed his truck keys and headed out the door. His work commitment at Darcy’s place was just that—a business agreement and nothing more. Once he finished those eighteen hours, he would be back to concentrating on his career and the work he was doing on his place in the country. Back to enjoying his life alone.

  So why did he find himself whistling as he drove off toward Cranberry Lane? Or fidgeting with his keys like some nervous teenage boy after he knocked on her door?

  It made absolutely no sense at all.

  Chapter Six

  The last time he’d seen her, Darcy had proclaimed she was the happiest woman in Aspen Creek. On Sunday afternoon she looked a little worse for wear.

  Her long hair was caught up into a straggly knot on the top of her head, with long tendrils dangling down her back. Her ragged T-shirt and torn jeans were covered with dust. There was a smudge on her nose. A mask hung from its elastic cord around her neck.

  He’d never seen her look so...so vulnerable and pretty and, well, so utterly appealing. But then he looked a little closer. A number of wounds on her hands were haphazardly covered with adhesive bandages.

  “What on earth happened to you?”

  “I followed your advice. Sort of.” She waved a hand toward the living room behind her.

  He took a closer look at her hands. “Whatever advice it was, I had to be wrong.”

  She stepped aside to let him in, and he nearly tripped over a heap of musty carpeting and shreds of carpet pad.

  “I figured you could get more of the technical stuff done if I did all of the demolition. So I looked up the process on YouTube, and I’ve been pulling up carpet. I figured that the sooner I got rid of that dusty, musty stuff, the better it would be for Emma.” She abruptly turned away to sneeze. “I had some run-ins with tack strips around the borders, though. The video didn’t give any warning about that. And it didn’t say that some people might take it upon themselves to fasten the padding down with an ocean of glue. That was an unpleasant surprise.”

  He glimpsed a pile of furniture in the kitchen. “I could have done this. You should have let me.”

  Speechless now, he moved farther into the room. She’d managed to pull up all of the carpet and most of the padding, but random patches of padding were still stuck to the floor, and she held a scraper in her hand as if ready to go back to war.

  “Someone—not my aunt—did a sloppy job of painting the walls before laying the carpet. There are big splotches all over the hardwood.” She gave him an impish smile, her eyes twinkling. “But I also learned about drum sanders and edging sanders on the video, and I got both rented last night just before the lu
mberyard closed.”

  His jaw dropped. “When did you do all of this?”

  “I took Emma to Hannah’s for an overnight because there was so much dust and mold in the air. Then I worked until around three this morning and after I got home from church.”

  “I’m impressed.”

  “I’ve got to finish all of the bits of padding stuck to the floor, but I shifted furniture around so I could at least get all of the carpeting out.” She blew at a strand of hair drooping over one eye. “So, what do you think?”

  He angled an amused smile at her. “If anyone ever doubted your work ethic, that thought would be laid to rest. Where do you want me to start?”

  “I can keep pulling carpet tacks and scraping the floors in here, but if you want to start on the vinyl flooring in the kitchen, that would be super. This house is so small that I think I can get all of the floors sanded and return the sanders tomorrow morning if I just keep at it.”

  “No problem.”

  “Are you sure you don’t mind? I feel kinda bad asking you to take on a job like that. I’m guessing the floor is nasty under the vinyl. Then again, maybe this will be a good coworker bonding experience. Right?”

  There’d been an invisible wall between them since he first arrived—mutual wariness, at the very least. How could there not be, when he’d initially planned to let her go, and she’d finagled another two months at her job? But working on her house together was slowly easing those tensions, and this was becoming almost...fun.

  He grabbed an armload of carpet and carried it out to the pile she’d started by the garage, then kept taking loads of it outside until it was gone.

  He started for the kitchen, then headed for the back hallway and bedrooms where Darcy was still pulling stray carpet tacks along the baseboards and prying off ancient bits of rubber carpet pad.

  In here, evidence of garish yellow and pink paint splotches trailed across the floor. “Must have been sort of psychedelic,” he observed. “But the woodwork is beautiful.”

  “My aunt moved here in 1978 and had it all redone in vintage wallpaper, as you can see. She loved flowers and calico. And lace. Lots and lots of lace.” Darcy sat back on her heels. “So I’ll be doing a lot of wallpaper stripping, which I hear is as much fun as this carpet.”

  He turned to head for the kitchen but spied a white cord dangling just a few inches above his head and looked up. “There must be access to the attic through that trap door. Have you ever been up there?”

  She shook her head. “Just once as a kid. I remember there were lots of trunks and boxes crammed in every corner. But I assumed there were lots of spiders and bats, so I didn’t linger.”

  “Want me to check to see how easy it would be to install the can lights for the kitchen?”

  Still crouched along the baseboards, she looked over her shoulder. “Be my guest. The bathroom is just to your left, and I’ve got a flashlight charging in the outlet near the sink. Be careful, though—I don’t know how long it’s been since anyone went up there. I hope the ladder is still safe.”

  He grabbed the flashlight, jammed it into his back pocket and studied the dangling cord. “This has got to be one of those folding staircases. Right?”

  “Yep.”

  He reached up and gently tugged the cord. Nothing moved. Reaching up with his other hand in case the ladder apparatus came down too quickly, he gave the cord another tug. Nothing.

  “It’s jammed. I need to get a stepladder and check this out—”

  A deceptively lazy swirl of dust drifted downward like the flakes in a snow globe.

  Metal squealed.

  The screech of twisting, splintering wood filled the air.

  Logan pivoted to get out of the way, but the mass of metal framework and heavy oak above him lurched downward, then crashed to the floor, knocking him flat.

  Stars exploded behind his eyelids, and then the room went black.

  * * *

  “This really wasn’t necessary,” Logan grumbled as Dr. McClaren left the room. “I told you he would let me go home.”

  In his jeans and a hospital gown that barely stretched across his chest, he seemed to overwhelm the cramped ER cubicle. Darcy had been prepared to stop him if he tried to leave before the doctor showed up. She’d already tucked his boots under her chair and out of sight.

  “But you were knocked out.”

  “For just a minute. No big deal.”

  “Except that you do have a mild concussion, and that is a big deal. And then there’s that arm.”

  “It’s fine.” He started to stretch but suddenly winced and grabbed for his injured right shoulder.

  “I can see it’s perfectly fine,” she retorted dryly. “No pain at all.”

  He glowered at her. “It’ll be good by tomorrow. It has to be.”

  After a physical exam, an X-ray and a range-of-motion evaluation, Dr. McClaren had said there were no fractures, but he suspected a partially torn rotator cuff. He’d recommended a sling and minimal use of the arm, and if the shoulder pain wasn’t alleviated by NSAIDs or a prescription pain med, an MRI and surgical repair might be next on the list.

  “You know the doc is right about taking it easy for a while. And if you think you’ll be seeing equine patients tomorrow, that’s a no.”

  When he eased off the gurney, she helped him shove his feet into his boots. He turned away and awkwardly attempted to put on his T-shirt, but the complexity of doing it with one good arm and a painful shoulder on the other side clearly confounded him. For just a moment, he seemed to sway on his feet.

  “Here, let me.” Darcy briskly stepped forward and helped him get it on, trying to ignore the intimacy of this moment as she smoothed it down over his broad shoulders. “Are you going to be all right at home?”

  He snorted. “Of course.”

  “Too bad it’s your right shoulder. Do you have anyone to stay with you tonight? And what about your horse chores?”

  “No problem,” he said wearily, rubbing a hand down his face. “I can manage.”

  “Right. Can you even drive?”

  “He’d better not.” One of the nurses bustled in, a clipboard in hand. “And yes, he should have someone with him tonight because he had a pretty good rap on the head.”

  She demonstrated the use of a sling, but he waved it away. Then she ran through his going-home instructions and handed over the printed copy along with a script for a prescription pain med. “No refills on this one. It has to be filled with a physical prescription in hand. I can’t call it in to the pharmacy. Do you need a wheelchair to the ER entrance?”

  Logan gave her an appalled look. “No, ma’am.”

  “I can drive you home,” Darcy offered when the nurse gave him a last disgruntled look and left the room. “We can run out to do your chores and pick up Emma on the way back to my house.” Darcy frowned, thinking about the disaster that was now her home, with furniture still piled in corners. “It’ll take me just a few minutes to set up the bedrooms again. Emma can sleep in my room, and you can have hers for the night.”

  He shook his head. “That’s too much trouble. In fact, I could take a taxi home and save you the trip.”

  “There are no taxis here. And the doctor said—”

  “Patients do have rights, and it’s my decision. I’m going home.”

  “You know, my friend Keeley’s fiancé had a similar head injury once, and I remember him being a lot more agreeable.” Darcy rolled her eyes. “But it’s your brain, so go ahead and ignore my offer and my greater wisdom. Good luck.”

  Out at Logan’s place in the country an hour later, Darcy brought his two horses into the barn, grained them and waited in the cool, dark aisle while they ate.

  Logan leaned a hip against a stall door and breathed in the clean, familiar scents of alfalf
a, leather and horse, his gaze on Darcy. “Thanks for helping me out.”

  “There was no question at all. I owe you this and more.” She turned to look at him. “I’m so sorry that you got hurt. You were only being kind by helping me, and the accident was my fault. I expect you to file a claim with my homeowner’s insurance for bills, by the way. I’ll call them first thing tomorrow morning.”

  “You couldn’t have known about that ladder apparatus. If it had fallen on you, you might have been killed.”

  “Because you have a harder head?” she teased.

  “I’m a lot taller, and I was already reaching upward. I was able to deflect some of the impact.”

  “I’m just praying that you heal quickly so your shoulder doesn’t hold you back for very long. I...called Marilyn, by the way.”

  He felt himself tense. “And?”

  “You have some appointments tomorrow morning. Two families with 4-H kids needing health papers for their horses, so they can attend a horse project workshop next weekend. Both horses already have current, negative Coggins test results and vaccination records, So now they just need the exams.”

  “I can handle that.”

  “As can I, if your shoulder is even more painful tomorrow. It probably will be. And you have a presale soundness exam in the afternoon.”

  He smiled wryly. “Not exactly land office business.”

  “For your first day? It’s a good start. I’m impressed. I understand there’s been a strong response on the website, too. What else are you doing?”

  “Two of the local saddle clubs have asked me to speak at their monthly meetings, and I’ll be writing an article for the state quarter horse association newsletter next month. I also started a Twitter account as Aspen Creek Equine Clinic, so I figure word will start spreading.”

  Even in the shady gloom of the barn, he saw her stiffen. “Have you already changed the name?”

  “Not yet. I think I found the right vet box to put on my truck for farm calls. Guess I’ll need to decide on the name so it can be painted on the side.”