The Rancher's Second Chance--A Clean Romance

by Leigh Riker

  “Make sure you never own this ranch with my sister, for one.”

  Cooper’s mouth set. “And I aim to make sure you never take it from her.”

  “Then I guess we have a standoff as if we’re in that old movie High Noon. Come on, Cooper,” Jesse said, trying a smile, “you know this marriage of yours is nothing but a three-act play. And don’t think letting your mother homestead on Ransom land again is going to last either. When PawPaw gets here—”

  “I imagine things will get interesting. But Ned will never turn over this place to you—even if you are the eldest and male—after what you’ve done.” Hearing Cooper’s words, Nell lifted a prayer to the heavens. There was no telling what her grandfather would do.

  “I expect he’ll take pity on me,” Jesse said. “Because I’m the one he favors anyway.”

  “Don’t be that sure. We’ll have to leave that to Ned. He may surprise us all—or I may surprise him.” Cooper didn’t elaborate. “If my marriage to Nell strikes you as some kind of play or movie, it’s nothing compared to your act as the would-be owner of this ranch.”

  Jesse shrugged. “Think what you will.”

  “What I think is you’d better not upset Nell any more than you have.”

  “She can take it, believe me.” Jesse’s gaze wandered toward Nell, who was fussing with Merry’s cartons, her pulse throbbing in her throat. “I’m here to stay.”

  He’d barely finished before Nell heard the sound of an engine. A white car that appeared to be a rental roared up the drive past the barn and straight to the foreman’s house. The driver must have seen the three of them gathered by the porch. And Nell’s heart raced so fast she feared she might faint.

  Things would definitely get interesting now.

  PawPaw was home.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “WELL, ISN’T THIS some fine kettle of fish?”

  “PawPaw, I can explain,” Nell said.

  After tearing down the drive, Ned had gotten out of his car and ordered Nell into his office. He now stood by the desk, studying the computer screen and shaking his head.

  Nell drank in the sight of him. He’d left the NLS looking pale and weaker than he should after months of indoor rehab from his stroke and then the injuries from his tragic accident last fall. But to her relief, he seemed better now, healthier, and the slight droop on one side of his mouth was barely noticeable.

  “I’m sorry I had to leave those messages on your phone, but I thought you needed to know. About Ferdinand,” she added, omitting the one about her wedding.

  He scanned the breeding register. “I raised that bull from birth. The best I’ve ever owned. To lose him to a bunch of coyotes—”

  “I’ll make it up to you, I swear. The little bull calf I want to show you can’t take his place, but he has a lot of promise.”

  “In a few years, maybe.” His jaw set. He closed the new program Nell had set up.

  “PawPaw, the coyotes didn’t just hit our place. The pack has been roaming through a number of local ranches, including Wilson Cattle and the Circle H. Even Finn Donovan, who has a few head of Angus now, drove some off the other night.”

  Ned waved a hand at the computer. “And what is this? I don’t recognize my own breeding register here. What have you done, Nell?”

  “Updated everything. If you’d let me demonstrate, you’ll see how much better this program is than the old one was, and I’ve already entered all the data. It was a learning process with some glitches for a while, I admit, but...” She didn’t go on. Nell had finally worked those out with the help of some online tech support. Mentioning that wouldn’t aid her cause.

  He shook his head again. “I leave here for less than a month. This is what I come home to—a crisis and everything I’ve managed for decades in chaos. You fire my foreman behind my back. Jesse breaks his arm falling off a horse. My bull goes down. This new program and the ranch accounts are like reading Sanskrit. And maybe worst of all—” he leveled a look at Nell “—I find you married to the Ransom boy. It wasn’t bad enough he took Hadley’s place? Why don’t you try to explain that?”

  For an instant, Nell wished Cooper hadn’t made himself scarce as soon as PawPaw’s car stopped at the foreman’s house. After defending her with Jesse, he’d fled to take his mother to their old ranch house. He wasn’t being a coward, he’d told her. He’d talk to Ned later, and maybe that was for the best. Jesse had disappeared too, grinning at her discomfort over the scene that was sure to follow. Meaning now.

  “Cooper and I...” have an agreement, she wanted to say, but that wouldn’t ease her grandfather’s mind. His dark eyes snapped with a barely repressed temper, as he dragged a hand through his brown hair streaked again with gray. Hating herself for evading the truth, she stumbled over the words. “We’ve spent a lot of time together this spring and I guess the old feelings we had for each other flared again, you might say.” Some of which was true. Most of which was true. “Anyway, we decided to get married.”

  “In a hurry,” he said as her father had. “Why?”

  “I, um, we...didn’t want to wait. With the spring calves nearly all born now, the first cut of hay ready to harvest before you know it, and then fall will get even busier than summer right up until the holidays...we chose to fit in a short ceremony—”

  “Nell, stop spinning tales. You’re well aware of what I think of Cooper—” he raised one bushy eyebrow “—probably the same he does of me. The last thing I expected from you was to come home and find you with that ring on your finger. Not even an engagement first,” he went on, “or a decent interval before the wedding.” The color rose in his face until Nell feared he’d have another stroke. “Now he’s foreman here and I hear Merry’s living in that house again, on my land! Don’t you see what’s happening?”

  “I do,” she said, but she didn’t get to elaborate. Or maybe she was no longer that sure herself. If what Cooper had said about them was really true, was it time to change her own attitude? Did she dare to trust him completely like she trusted him as her foreman?

  “It’s an invasion, if you ask me—which nobody did. The minute Will and I reached town again up there in Canada and I picked up my messages, I knew. Why didn’t your parents step in to prevent this? Or Jesse, for that matter?”

  “They tried.” Her chin went up. “But I’m an adult, capable of making my own choices.” Nell felt increasingly desperate. “You might be thankful for what I’ve done to improve things around here instead of running on as if I’m still ten years old!”

  “That’s not what I heard from Hadley. His messages were different. He claims the men don’t like to take orders from you.”

  “That was true at first, but since Ferdinand was...killed, they’ve seen I’m stronger, more capable than they thought. I didn’t fall apart that night, PawPaw, though I was certainly tempted to. The scene was so awful.”

  “Then why do you need Cooper’s help? In any way?”

  “He’s a good foreman. I’m more comfortable with him at the NLS than I ever was with Hadley.”

  “That’s one point,” PawPaw said. “Doesn’t explain taking him into this family—” He broke off. “I have to wonder though, why you might think that qualifies you to get this ranch when I’m gone.” He raked a hand through his hair again, leaving a few strands sticking up as if to show Nell how unsettled he felt.

  “I’m sorry you’re disappointed in me. And about my personal relationship with Cooper. You shouldn’t worry about us, PawPaw.” Ranch business, however, was a matter that wouldn’t wait. “When you sent Jesse here to keep tabs on me, I needed someone’s support. Cooper, not Hadley, has provided that, and if you’ll take a closer look at the ranch accounts, you’ll see. My improvements are already having an effect on our bottom line—in part because of the work he and I have done together. The two of us, not Jesse.”

  Having obsessed ove
r the matter, Nell didn’t mention her brother’s financial woes. She’d decided that would come out soon enough and, ideally, it should come from Jesse, not Nell.

  PawPaw headed out the door. “Right now, I’m going to talk turkey with Cooper. He’d better have some answers I want. You and I will speak again later.”

  As soon as his footsteps faded down the hall, Nell sank onto the desk chair and dropped her head in her hands. Her grandfather didn’t believe her.

  What had she gotten herself into?

  * * *

  COOPER WAS IN the hall, about to carry his mother’s suitcases upstairs when the same white rental car that had raised a cloud of dust at the foreman’s bungalow earlier slid to a stop out front. Ned had been away long enough that he hadn’t wanted to leave his truck, which Nell was using, in an expensive airport parking lot. Probably too, he’d hoped to surprise everyone when he returned. The driver’s door slammed and Ned charged up the steps.

  Cooper expected him to start shouting, What do you think you’re doing with my granddaughter? He’d always been as protective of Nell as Cooper wanted to be in a more enlightened way, and he’d warned her about this very thing. But when Cooper answered the knocks, Ned didn’t say a word. Fire all but shooting from his eyes, he raised one fist, then smashed it into Cooper’s face.

  He reeled back, rubbing his jaw. “What was that for, you old coot?”

  “I’m not finished,” he said, then hit Cooper with a second blow before he could react, this time to his midsection. He narrowly missed Cooper’s scar. “Take that. There’s plenty more where it came from, you miserable son of a—” Apparently hearing a commotion from the second floor, he broke off the oath.

  “What’s happening, Cooper? Who is it?” His mother rushed down the steps. At the bottom, for a second she froze, then seemed to recover. “How dare you assault my son? Get out of my house,” she said, her tone deadly quiet. “You did enough damage fourteen years ago.”

  Cooper wanted to groan. The words could only make things worse, but he held a hand to his stomach. With the wind knocked out of him, he wheezed, “Mom, let us settle this.”

  “No. I will not.” She actually shook a finger in Ned’s equally shocked face. If the situation hadn’t been dire, and his jaw wasn’t throbbing, Cooper might have laughed. In full battle mode, his mom was something to behold. “You can just turn around, get in that car and hightail it down this drive to the NLS. Don’t you even think about driving across my land to get there.”

  “I am on the NLS. This is not your ranch any longer, woman,” Ned insisted.

  “Don’t call me woman.”

  He ignored that. “It’s sure as blazes not your house. I suppose your son is to blame for this, but you don’t have squatter’s rights.”

  Cooper tried to explain. “Nell agreed to let my mother stay in the house. Ever since I got shot in Chicago, Mom’s wanted to live closer to me.”

  Ned’s face got even redder. “My granddaughter is not the head of the NLS, no matter what she might think or want. I’m home now.”

  “Yes, we can certainly see that,” Merry said. She had arched her brow—a sign that had always told Cooper he was in trouble. Thank goodness, she’d leveled it on Nell’s grandfather instead. Not that Cooper wasn’t guilty too. He’d known this would happen. “Go ahead,” his mother went on, “throw me out of this house again, off your land. You always were a bully, Ned Sutherland.”

  To his utter surprise, Cooper watched the man practically deflate like an old tire that had blown. One second he’d been ready to kill Cooper, the next he was holding up both hands and looking shamefaced. “Now, Merry. Let’s be reasonable.”

  “Why should I? You were never reasonable, not one day in your life.”

  “Well, I guess you know me well,” he said, as if trying to make her smile, but her face remained set, her mouth in a straight line that said, Don’t mess with me. Cooper would have advised Ned to heed the warning.

  Her index finger wagged in the air again. “You hit my boy again and I promise I’ll knock you right down those stairs—” she pointed at the porch “—into next Sunday. Do as I said. Get off this property right now and don’t come back.” She circled to face Cooper. “Do we have a shotgun here?”

  “In my truck,” he said, the new one he’d bought weeks ago, “but no one’s doing any shooting unless it’s at that pack of coyotes.”

  “I’m not afraid of them either,” she said. “I’m sure not afraid of him.”

  “Maybe you ought to be,” Ned muttered.

  But Cooper’s mom didn’t flinch. “Don’t threaten me. Now go.”

  Ned held his ground. He glanced at Cooper, who had the definite impression he was searching for a safer topic. “Coyotes. That’s the other reason I stopped by.”

  “Stopped by?” his mother echoed. “This was no social call.”

  With one shoulder to her, Ned’s gaze fixed on Cooper. “Before your mother beats me senseless or puts a bunch of shotgun pellets in me, we should discuss the coyotes. I’m on my way next to talk to Logan and Sawyer, then Grey. And I understand his dad is living at their ranch again. He’ll help. Might call on Fred Miller too. You and Nell have any plan?”

  “We’ve all ridden after them before, Ned. They always slip past us.” Cooper broke his stare to look out over the land between the house and where the bull had been slaughtered. He hadn’t told his mother, but he worried about her being here alone. “Once I get Mom settled, I’m going to take a night watch out here like Grey did last year when his cattle were being rustled, see if on my own I can turn up those coyotes.”

  “That’s a start, I guess.” Ned’s agreement sounded grudging.

  Like any devoted husband, Cooper said, “I’ll call Nell.” He reached for his phone. “I probably won’t be home all night.”

  Which solved one problem anyway.

  Yet, his jaw aching, Cooper supposed he hadn’t done Nell much good.

  * * *

  “NO SIGN OF THEM,” Cooper said to Nell and her grandfather the next morning. Nell had led the way on horseback from the barn to the spot where Ferdinand had died, but she and PawPaw hadn’t ridden alone to meet Cooper. To her surprise, Hadley Smith came with them. As soon as Cooper rode up, sporting a large bruise on his jaw, his gaze settled on the ex-foreman. She could all but see him thinking, What is he doing here?

  Nell wondered that too, but her grandfather said he’d explain later. PawPaw’s mood wasn’t good and she couldn’t blame him. Whatever her chances had been to inherit the NLS, they seemed to be slipping lower. At least Jesse hadn’t joined them; he was in the stables trying to mend a bridle one-handed.

  For a few long moments now, no one spoke. She heard the familiar creak of saddle leather, smelled the scents of cattle and grass on the air. PawPaw’s head was bowed, one still-strong forearm laid across his horse’s neck.

  “Well,” he finally said, “no use turning a good piece of pasture into a memorial. What’s done is done, sad to say.” He glanced at Nell. Did he know she’d buried Elsie and marked the place? PawPaw reined his big roan around toward the barn below, and her spirits fell even deeper down a hole. It was as if the last weeks of her managing the ranch had never happened. He didn’t seem to approve of anything she’d done.

  Cooper touched the purple bruise on his face. “What’s going on here, Ned?” He’d asked the words she had imagined, his horse blocking PawPaw’s path. “I know we didn’t exactly get on together yesterday but—” He indicated Hadley, who was keeping close to her grandfather. Hadley stared at Cooper as if daring him to say the wrong thing and get fired.

  PawPaw said, “I’ve hired him on again,” as if that ended the discussion. It was the most explanation anyone would get. Cooper had a different opinion.

  His grip tightened on his reins. “I thought—as foreman—I had the say over staff. With Nell’s agreement.”
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  “Not when I’m on this ranch.” PawPaw nudged the roan’s sides, angling Beauty around Cooper. “Don’t assume because you’ve married my granddaughter that gives you the right to take over.”

  For an instant, Nell expected Cooper to make his offer for the land; she’d been dreading that confrontation even more since PawPaw’s rented car had come up the drive. Cooper glanced at her, then away. “I didn’t marry Nell to make an end run around you. Are you planning to make Hadley your foreman again?”

  PawPaw didn’t answer. “Keep that mother of yours away from me” was all he said, then with Hadley riding close behind, they cantered toward the barn.

  Nell watched them go. She sent Cooper a distressed look. “He couldn’t have made things any clearer. I knew as soon as I led Bear out of the barn this morning and saw Hadley. Taking him on again sends the message, doesn’t it?”

  “Ned’s in charge,” he agreed. “Nell, maybe it’s time we made things clear too.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “When you fired Hadley and hired me, that only gave Ned another reason to leave this ranch to someone else. The dead bull is one factor but not the chief means for him to make his decision, and you knew how Ned felt about me. I sure gave him reason years ago to hate me. Our marriage was likely the last straw. Obviously, you haven’t swayed him.”

  “I’d hoped he would come around. What does he want most? To see me married,” she said.

  “Even to me?”

  “Then what are you saying? I should give up? Leave the ranch to Jesse?”