by Leigh Riker
“Quite the day.”
Amy wasn’t sure what to make of that comment. With a slight frown, Hadley steered her from their parking spot at the curb into what had once been Doc Baxter’s clinic on Cottonwood Street. Now, Doc and his wife, Ida, spent much of their time visiting their two sons in different places. In their golden years, they’d finally gotten the chance to do as they pleased, and Doc was no longer the only physician in Barren. After a rocky start while the local people made it plain they preferred Doc, Sawyer McCord had gradually taken over the practice.
He met them just inside the door. “Come right in. My receptionist is out until this afternoon so I’m filling all the slots here for a while.” Amy sensed he was trying to put her at ease, which wasn’t really possible. They went straight into one of the exam rooms where Sawyer indicated the table covered in white paper, which rustled when she lay down.
Hadley stood near the door. “Are you all right?” Sawyer asked, with a glance in his direction.
“Sure. I’ve worked enough with livestock to know what this is all about.”
Amy blinked. Did he just compare her to a cow? She tried to read his expression but failed when she was normally an expert at reading people’s faces.
Sawyer, who would do the procedure without any other staff there, opened a tube of gel, then spread it over Amy’s abdomen. He fiddled with the monitor at her eye level. She glued her gaze to it, half afraid to glance at Hadley. She hadn’t forgotten his last visit to her apartment. “Now let’s get some pictures. See what we’ve got. Come closer, Hadley.”
“Never done this before.” He took a step into the room. “Will it hurt the baby?”
“No, perfectly harmless.” Sawyer perched on a stool. “You okay, Amy?”
“Fine,” she said, a hand over her heart. “Excited.” Fearful.
“Well, it’s an exciting time all around.”
“With Olivia expecting too,” Amy said, “you must both be thrilled.”
Sawyer waved a wand over her gel-slathered stomach. “Can’t wait. Olivia’s a pro, of course, because of Nick. I’ll be a first-time daddy.”
“This...baby doesn’t seem quite real,” Hadley said. Because of his rough childhood, Amy knew it must be hard for him to wrap his head around being a dad. At least, much to her surprise, he’d agreed to suspend their divorce until after she gave birth.
She could tell he wasn’t in the best mood to begin with, and yesterday Hadley had gone to the NLS again, practically begging for a job. He’d come away empty-handed, though he’d promised Amy he’d do whatever it took to support her and the baby. Which always made Amy feel guilty.
“Ah-ha. Here we are.” Sawyer had moved the wand again and a blurry image appeared on the monitor screen.
“Looks like a blob to me,” Hadley muttered, but he stepped closer to the table.
Sawyer laughed a little. “We don’t have the best equipment here, sorry to say.” He pointed a finger at the image. “This is the spine with all the vertebrae just as they should be, and here’s the head.”
“Big,” Hadley said.
Wishing she’d come in sooner for this ultrasound, Amy craned her neck for a better view. At first, she hadn’t wanted to believe she was pregnant when things between her and Hadley were bad. Then after she’d told him and money remained tight, she’d procrastinated again, afraid to rock the boat. Now, at the end of her first trimester, she said, “I can see its eyes and nose!”
“Is it a boy or a girl?” Hadley asked, as if interested in spite of himself.
The wand moved again. “You both want to know? Or be surprised?”
“I’d like to know.” Amy was a knitter; she had all sorts of patterns for cute baby sweaters and caps, and she’d make an even smaller one for right after she delivered to cover her baby’s head and keep it warm. “Do you, Hadley?”
He bounced on the balls of his feet. He shoved both hands in his pockets. “I guess, yeah. Which is it, Doc?”
“A boy.”
Amy pressed her hand even tighter over her heart. A wave of maternal love rushed through her body. This hadn’t been completely real to her either until now. She hoped Hadley could accept the fact, and he’d like having a son. Tears gathered in her eyes. At least they weren’t arguing now. “Oh, Hadley,” she said, her tone filled with wonder.
But he didn’t seem to be expressing the same excitement she was. Why be surprised? Or so disappointed? Maybe he needed more time to get used to the idea.
“I’ll give you a copy of the sonogram to take home,” Sawyer said, smiling at her from his seat on the stool. He lifted the wand, then paused. “No, wait.” He applied more gel, glided over Amy’s abdomen again, and Sawyer let out a soft whistle. “Well, look at this. You two ready?” he asked, also taking Hadley in with a glance, Sawyer’s eyes warm and a tad moist, as Amy’s were. Hadley stood there, frozen, so close now she could hear him breathing. “Just like me and Logan,” Sawyer said. “Can’t tell if this one is a boy or girl. We’ll try again next time, but this much is certain.” He grinned at Hadley too. “You’re having twins.”
* * *
“WHAT DO YOU THINK, Mom?” The next morning Cooper fulfilled his promise to his mother. They had ridden over on one of the NLS’s Gators to see their former home. The white-clapboard structure had just appeared before them as they topped the ridge.
She clasped her hands together in front of her face like an excited schoolgirl who’d been asked to her first dance. “Cooper, it’s exactly the same! I remembered every detail. All the pictures I saved in our albums didn’t show it this well, but I had the images in my heart.” They neared the house, pulling to a stop at the porch, and Cooper had second thoughts—as he did about his marriage to Nell.
“Needs a coat of paint,” he said. “Probably inside too.” For a moment, as they climbed the front steps, he held her back. He’d had a structural engineer go through the house and it was sound, but the trash still had to be dealt with. “The interior was a lot different when you lived here, Mom.”
“I don’t care,” she said. “I’m just happy to be home.”
Cooper smiled. He could understand that; his visit with Nell had opened up all sorts of memories. He planted a kiss on his mother’s cheek. “I knew you would be. I am too.”
As they toured the house, his smile kept growing. His mother had always been a positive person. The only times he’d ever seen her cry were when the moving van doors slammed shut on her belongings and headed for Chicago and, years later, the day his father died. “We spent every minute of our marriage in this house—until we had to leave. Thanks to Ned Sutherland.” In the dining room, devoid of her own mother’s big mahogany table with matching chairs upholstered in a fleur-de-lis print and the enormous sideboard that had also belonged to his grandmother, she faced him. “Thank you for doing this, Cooper. But I can’t help wondering what price you’ve paid.”
He led the way back into the hall toward the stairs. “I don’t know what you mean.” Although he suspected he did, and her next words confirmed that. She always saw through him.
Trailing a hand over the railing with its rich patina from all the years of wear, she preceded him up the steps to the second floor. “I realize you once loved Nell. I remember what that did to you then. I remember the noisy quarrel you had with her grandfather, your vow to reclaim this land. And no wonder you said what you did. You’ve always loved this ranch, just as your father and I did. No one blamed Nell either for standing by Ned rather than you—as they say, blood is thicker than water—but if you married her now because of me—”
“I married Nell because...I care about her. That hasn’t changed.” He didn’t fool himself that she felt the same way. Temporary, she’d said.
“I suspect from the look on her face at the wedding she cares for you too,” his mother said anyway. “If she didn’t, I’d be even more concerned. And I
’d certainly say so. Yet, she didn’t even want a honeymoon, sweetheart. That shows me something I’d rather not see.”
Cooper shifted his weight. “Mom, we’ll handle this, okay?”
She glanced into each bedroom off the upstairs hall, and Cooper remembered being here with Nell in his old room. “Then you’re saying I’m right.”
“No, I’m saying it’s early days yet. We just got married. Don’t tell me you and Dad didn’t have a first year or so of learning to live with each other. Nell and I have been single for years. We’ll get there.” If he had his way.
Cooper thought of their first night as a real couple, and Nell with his ring on her finger, remembered the kisses they’d shared not only at the altar but before, and hoped his mother was right that Nell cared too. He only had to convince her to make their marriage a real one, to cement the bond between them, old and new. But then she suspected his motives as Cooper did Jesse’s. It wouldn’t be easy.
His mom went ahead of Cooper into the master bedroom. “I agree marriage can be a challenge. It’s love that makes all the difference.” Her face softened as she looked around. “I’ll never forget the years I spent here with your father, sleeping in this big front room—which I intend to occupy again—raising you in the house we shared, and I’ll surely never forget how losing all this destroyed him. He was never the same.”
“He wasn’t. But he still had your love, Mom.”
“I had his too,” she said. “I suppose that’s how we survived.”
Cooper put his arms around her. “I know you hate being without him. I wish I could have changed that.”
She laid her cheek on his shoulder. “You can’t. No, I had all the love I needed.”
“I’ll put this house right again though. I’ll make it good for you.”
“Cooper, I love you for this, but I hope you’ve done the best thing, not for me, but for yourself. There’s so much water under this bridge—and listen to me, using all these clichés—that making a marriage with Nell will be hard.”
“I’m a tough guy,” he said.
She lifted her head. “I know that. You were a handful as a boy too.” She eased from their embrace. “I adore you. I have from the first minute I found out I was pregnant.” Cooper thought that was too much information. “I want you to be as happy as you’ve made me today. I hope Nell will be too.” She went into the hall. “How long before I can move in here?”
“I’ll do my best to make it soon.”
“We’ll do it together,” she insisted, then stopped at the top of the stairs. “I have no idea what your relationship with Nell will become, but I can say this much with absolute certainty. She won’t let go of the Ransom ranch. Neither will Ned.”
“Then we have a hat trick, folks,” he said, trying to make light of things because she’d reached the same conclusion Jesse also had. “Ned, her brother, Nell herself... But I’m still going to try.”
* * *
NELL HUNCHED OVER the computer in the ranch office. She had a crook in her neck from the bad ergonomic posture, but she needed to finish this before she even thought about going to bed—at opposite ends of the hall from Cooper. First, Nell had to upgrade PawPaw’s breeding register, and she had to admit Ferdinand, his bull, had done a good job.
The new software had her buffaloed though. She couldn’t seem to get past a certain point before the program abruptly shut down for no apparent reason. And Nell feared she’d lost all of her grandfather’s data. He wasn’t known for backing things up. She reached for the USB stick she’d used, but a rap sounded at the door. “Miss Nell?”
She minimized the page, then glanced up. “What is it?” Clete and Dex edged into the room. Neither man usually asked for advice, especially after working hours, so she assumed they had another complaint.
“Cooper ordered us to clear out the feed room tonight, then disinfect it. He found mice in one of the bins,” Clete said, a sharp frown line carved into his forehead.
Dex avoided her gaze. “He wants a cleaning service, he can hire one. Thought you’d like to know. The boys aren’t happy either.”
Ah. They considered such chores to be women’s work. Nell stiffened. This wasn’t the first time she’d encountered resistance from PawPaw’s men.
“Cooper told you to do it because I asked him to. I saw the mouse this morning. Clean the room, then set some traps. I stand with Cooper, and he stands with me.” They had to make a united front with the hands, if not on a more personal basis.
The two men grumbled between themselves. Nell heard something about the wedding and Cooper becoming her lackey. Dex twirled his hat in his hands and glanced at Clete, whose frown deepened. “Never been asked to do something like that before. Not when Ned’s here.”
Clete had been with the NLS far longer than Dex, and he still saw her as a girl to be indulged, even pampered, not as the someday owner of the ranch and his boss. Nell pushed away from the desk. “My grandfather has nothing to do with this. If you both want to keep your jobs, then clean the feed room. I’ll check tomorrow morning if it was done.”
“Ned don’t look over our shoulders all the time,” Dex said.
Obviously shored up by his boldness, Clete chimed in again. “He leaves us to ourselves. He doesn’t assign chores we shouldn’t be doing in the first place.”
Nell used her usual mantra. “Whatever needs to be done, we all pitch in.”
Dex said under his breath, “Like some ladies’ group at a bake sale.”
“Dexter, who do you think you are? PawPaw hired you, but he’s not here now, and I can fire you in a heartbeat.”
“Same as Hadley,” he said, the hat spinning again. “Ever since he left, things have been different.”
“And they will continue to be different.” Nell’s eyes must be burning with anger. Clete stared at the wall behind her. Dex nudged him in the side, but the older man stayed silent, torn, she supposed, by his loyalty to her grandfather, his affection for her and the choice he was being forced to make. “If you all have a problem with my being in charge of the NLS—with me as a woman—maybe this isn’t the place for you.” She shook her head. “I grew up knowing this is a man’s world. My mother’s only too quick to point that out, and other people agree.” Nell didn’t mention her dad’s recent change of heart. “But that attitude will have to change—starting now.”
“Maybe you’ll end up with a bunch of cowgirls working for you instead,” Dex muttered.
“With all due respect, ma’am, we all like Cooper too,” Clete put in, “but if he’s just going to do your bidding now that you two are hitched, then we have a real problem. The NLS has run fine for a long time without—”
A shadow loomed in the doorway behind the two cowboys. Cooper stepped into the room, forcing Clete and Dex to move. “That feed room’s still a mess. Why isn’t it fixed by now?”
“We’re having a difference of opinion,” Nell admitted, grateful to him for supporting her. He had a natural way with these two and the others, made easier perhaps because he was one of them, male and automatically viewed as being in command. Stronger, more capable, even authoritative. Which made Nell’s teeth clench. For her entire life, she’d been pushed aside, relieved of any duty that required more muscle, in their opinion, sheltered by her grandfather. Ever since he’d left the ranch, she’d been fighting for control. She didn’t intend to lose the battle now. “Either do as I said or clear out. Both of you.”
Clete blinked. “You don’t mean that, Miss Nell.”
“Yes. I do.” She looked at Cooper. “Was there something you needed?”
Heads down, Clete and Dex shuffled past him to the open door like dogs with their tails between their legs. At her question, they both stopped. And Cooper’s hard gaze met hers. “Something you need,” he answered. “Fred Miller just called. He’s lost a cow to those coyotes. Spotted them heading toward the NLS.�
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“Then we’d better ride,” Nell said, rising from her chair. Miller’s ranch was the closest to her place. “Who’s with me?”
She didn’t stop to see whether the two cowhands followed her from the office. To their credit—and perhaps to please Cooper—Clete and Dex were in their saddles right after Nell mounted Bear, then clattered from the barnyard.
The night was jet-black, moonless, with not a star or planet in view. Before the four of them reached the ridge, she heard the familiar howls of the pack. If only she, Cooper and the wranglers could cut them off before another tragedy happened... But Nell drew a sudden sharp breath.
Beside her, Cooper laid a hand on her shoulder. “They’ve already been here.”
He was right. She realized the coyotes’ cries were coming from farther off, not closer in, and she was too late. Seeing where Cooper had pointed, she swayed in her saddle. PawPaw pastured Ferdinand here, but the massive animal, his prize bull, hadn’t been safe. Apart from the rest of the herd, he’d had no protection in numbers. In the distance, the coyotes had panicked the others, and the cows’ gentle lowing had become a generalized bawling amid the sound of rushing hooves as they scattered. She stopped Bear, then dismounted.
“Better not look, Nell,” Cooper said, trying to protect her as he had when Jesse was hurt. Clete and Dex had gone silent, their muttering and grumbling halted in the time it had taken to reach the latest scene of bloody slaughter. Cooper swung down from his horse but not in time to keep Nell from ignoring his suggestion.
She couldn’t keep from gagging. “I’ve taken cattle to market with PawPaw. To an...abattoir. I’ve seen what happens there, but this...”
The bull had been torn apart as a feast for the predators. The two cowboys leaned on their saddle horns, eyes downcast. “Sorry, Miss Nell,” Clete murmured. Dex merely nodded.
Tempted to give in to the nausea rolling through her, then to step away and let Cooper take over with the men, she squared her shoulders and took another breath instead. There’d been enough damage done earlier to her position as head of the NLS. If she folded now, she’d never earn their respect. Nell swallowed. “Clete. Dex. Ride over to the barn. Bring the backhoe,” she said. “You know what to do.”
