Reuniting With the Rancher

by Rachel Lee

  “Nineteen.”

  “What was the rush?”

  “My dad was a control freak. I wanted to get away. I didn’t know I was marrying another one.”

  “You’ve had a rough time,” Holly remarked. The picture she was forming wasn’t a happy one for Lisa. She felt the first inklings of real sympathy for the woman. And while she didn’t know the exact pieces in play here, she was developing the definite impression that this woman-child had been arrested in her development in some ways. How or why she could only speculate. “So good things are waiting for you in Glenwood?”

  “I hope so. I’ve got a job at a salon there. I’ll be doing hair and teaching courses in makeup. I’m good at it.”

  Holly nodded. Looking at Lisa, she could well believe it. “But they can’t take you on right away?”

  “Someone is leaving. I’ll be taking over. But not until the end of the month.”

  “That really puts you in a bind.”

  “It sure does. Actually, I’m glad you said I could stay here. I don’t know if I could have handled even a few days in the same house with Jean. She really doesn’t like me. How well do you know Cliff?”

  “I met him ten years ago,” Holly said cautiously. “But this is the first time I’ve seen him since.”

  “Well, take it from me, all work and no play makes Cliff a very dull boy. Being stuck on that ranch was like being in prison. The only fun thing was riding. I miss riding.”

  But not Cliff, evidently. “Well, I’ll only be here a little longer,” Holly said briskly.

  “Yeah, I guess you’re safe. You have a life to go back to.”

  Which indicated that Lisa had not. She’d been fleeing her father and fell into exactly the wrong arms, at least for her.

  Holly glanced at her watch. “I need to get ready. Cliff will be here soon. There’s food in the fridge.”

  For once Lisa contented herself with a simple, “Thanks.”

  * * *

  Cliff picked her up a few minutes after five. He’d spiffed up a bit, wearing new jeans and a carefully pressed white shirt. She almost felt grungy in comparison. Her jeans were well-worn and her lightweight sweater had come from the rack at a Goodwill store. It showed some wear.

  But his smile was warm, and his eyes passed over her appreciatively, making her feel as if he’d drizzled hot honey over her. Her insides clenched in response.

  “You look great,” he said as he helped her into the truck.

  Holly half expected Lisa to poke her head out and say something, but the woman kept out of sight. Interesting. Maybe they’d found a bit of peaceful ground on which to meet.

  As they were driving away, Cliff asked, “How much hell did Lisa give you?”

  “Not much, actually. I think we came to at least a minor meeting of minds.”

  “Congratulations. What happened?”

  “Did she ever mention her father to you?”

  “Not much. I gathered she had a tense relationship with him. She didn’t like to talk to him.”

  “Well, from what she said, she married you to get away from him.”

  After a few seconds, he gave a low whistle. “That might explain a lot.”

  “It might. Anyway, she announced she’s angry and doesn’t intend to stop being angry until things get better, but she’ll make an effort to be polite with me.”

  “I can applaud that.” He flashed her a smile that quickly faded.

  “What’s wrong?” she finally asked when he remained silent.

  “I was just thinking. I spent a whole lot of time wondering where I went wrong with Lisa. It takes two to make a mess.”

  “It’s easier to make one when one person is in the relationship for all the wrong reasons. She picked you for an escape hatch. The problem was, it wasn’t really the kind of escape she wanted. Anyway, I wasn’t there, I’m not going to judge or even comment, except to say she still has some growing up to do. And you shouldn’t be too hard on yourself. I think it was doomed from the start.”

  “Maybe so. The hole just kept getting deeper.”

  She looked out the window at the passing countryside. The days were getting longer as the solstice approached, and she liked the fact that the late afternoon was still bright. She supposed that her return, and now Lisa’s, had given Cliff a lot to think about, and she suspected not all of it was good.

  After all, he’d ultimately been rejected by two women, and basically for the same reason, whether he realized it or not. She’d had bigger things to do than be a ranch wife, and Lisa had seen the ranch as a prison. If he put that together, he was apt to give up all hope of marriage and family.

  Yet here he was, only a few days after he’d initially greeted her with such dislike, taking her out for dinner and a movie. By any measure, that made him a truly big man.

  “How’d it go with the vet today?” she asked. High time she showed some interest in his life.

  “Pretty good. They all seem healthy. We have to do some eyedrops on some of the lambs and kids. We started vaccinations and should finish tomorrow, but all’s good.”

  “Okay, how do you get eyedrops in those animals?”

  He laughed. “With great difficulty. The mamas don’t like us handling the babies, and the babies don’t like the eyedrops. We get a whole lot of caterwauling, I can tell you. And sometimes it takes three of us to get it done.”

  “Do the moms attack you?”

  “They would if they could, but we separate them out. That’s when the trouble begins. But overall, it’s not too hard. Just sweaty. We get them into a holding pen one at a time and get it done as fast as we can.”

  “How do you tell who you’ve done?”

  “That’s why they invented washable spray paint. We just put a big X on them.”

  “Do you brand?”

  “Ear tags.”

  “Oh, that must be fun, too.”

  He laughed. “Oh, yeah. Before you leave, you need to come over and meet my kids.”

  She joined his laughter. “That’s a cute way to put it.”

  Holly had been to Maude’s diner only a few times that long-ago summer, with Cliff. Aunt Martha had preferred to do her own cooking and viewed dining out as frivolous. After meeting Maude, as crusty a curmudgeon as ever walked the planet, Holly had privately wondered if the two women just couldn’t get along, or if her aunt really was dead set against going to restaurants.

  Maude was still there, hardly changed by a decade, and joined by one of her daughters, Mavis, who could have been a younger clone in both appearance and demeanor. Menus got slapped down like a dueling challenge, glares accompanied the taking of orders and it was a wonder coffee mugs didn’t crack the way they got slammed down.

  Holly had trouble keeping a straight face. If she hadn’t known that this was typical service here, she could easily have been offended. Locals, however, were used to it, and Maude was a great cook.

  Conversation lagged, though. Holly wondered what was bothering Cliff, as he was usually a chatty enough companion. Was he thinking about his marriage to Lisa? Linking it, perhaps, to the reasons she had left him? God, she hoped not. People changed, and the changes she was going through might lead her right back here.

  But what made her think he would want her? Oh, she apparently still aroused his passions, just as he aroused hers. He’d made no secret of that. But what if he didn’t want her in any other way? She couldn’t blame him for that. They had a past, and in the end it hadn’t been good. Especially for him. He hadn’t spoken one cruel word to her, but she’d spat her share of them at him.

  She had cut the cords that bound them all those years ago, and she’d been merciless. Ranching was a dead end. Yes, she’d said that. She needed to do important stuff with her life. Right.

  She squirmed on the
bench seat and wondered who that woman had been who had spoken such cruel things. She remembered feeling desperate, but that was still no excuse. A man had asked her to marry him, had told her he loved her, and that was how she’d responded?

  God, she wished she could take an eraser to her brain and utterly wipe away all those harsh words. She was as guilty as Lisa of wounding him.

  He certainly didn’t deserve it. He’d been kind to her back then, and was being kind now, except for his initial reaction to her. He worked hard, he was building a future, he was performing an important job. Where would the world be if everyone felt they were too good to raise sheep and goats?

  She sighed and gave up on eating. The salad she had ordered was too big, too full of grilled chicken. She should have ordered the dressing on the side, because while it was delicious, Maude was as generous with it as she was with everything else she served. She could almost feel her arteries clogging.

  “Something wrong?” Cliff asked.

  “No. Yes. I don’t know. I was just thinking that you’ve had rotten luck with women. First me, then Lisa. You didn’t deserve any of it from either of us.”

  To her surprise, when she dared to raise her gaze, a smile hovered around his mouth. A devilish twinkle resided in his amazing eyes. “Who said I’ve been unlucky with all women?”

  She felt her eyes widen, then she burst into a laugh. “Score.”

  He laughed with her. But as his laughter died, he said, “Just forget it, Holly. You did what you needed to, and while I felt scalded, I survived. We were a lot younger then. Who’s to say you were wrong? What’s more, if you’d been kinder, I might have been harder to shake. At that point in time, you needed to shake me. I seem to remember I didn’t make it easy on you to say no.”

  “You’re being awfully kind.”

  “I’m being awfully realistic. I’ve been through a marriage with an unhappy wife. I’m glad I didn’t share one with you.”

  He had a point there, she admitted.

  “Anyway,” he went on, “we keep belaboring this. It was the wrong time, if nothing else. I wasn’t going to stop you from finishing college, not even if you’d said yes. I should have been smart enough to realize that it couldn’t work. Not then. You’d finish college, you’d take your master’s and then what? Throw all that work away to come back here? Not likely. I wasn’t using my brains and I know it. So let’s just let go of it, okay? You’ve got a future you’re trying to work out right now. That’s what matters. And me, I’m still firmly rooted right here to the land. I’ll help you if I can, whatever you decide, but I’m still going to be me, and you’re still going to be you.”

  Her heart plummeted a bit as his words hit home. She supposed she ought to be glad he’d found such a kind way to essentially tell her it wasn’t any more likely to work now than it had been a decade ago.

  So that’s what he’d been thinking about, she thought as they went to the movie. He’d been thinking about the fire they’d been so close to igniting that morning, and he had decided it probably wasn’t a good thing for a lot of reasons. Nothing could grow between them, nothing permanent, anyway.

  Amazing how bad that made her feel, especially when she remembered how unhappy and annoyed she’d been to see him when she arrived here. Worse to realize he was probably right. But that old tug was still there, the one that had drawn her to him in the first place and made it so hard to leave him.

  Maybe the smart thing would be to light that fire, get it out of their systems. There was a darn good chance it wouldn’t be as good as they remembered it, especially since they were older now and ruled less by hormones.

  Just have the sex for old times’ sake, clear the table of the constant yearning, get rid of the need for restraint, then see what happened. It might clear the air rather than making it murkier.

  She was quite sure she had never had a stupider idea.

  * * *

  “Wanna go dancing?” Cliff asked after the movie.

  Holly was tempted, but she also knew she was walking a fine line between giving in to her desire for Cliff and trying to keep them both unscathed. Have a fling? Look how well that had worked ten years ago.

  “I don’t think so,” she answered, even though it would have been fun to do some line dancing, especially with him. “I’ve still got so much to do at Martha’s.”

  “Yours now,” he reminded her. “If you need any help, you’ll let me know?”

  “Sure. Thanks.”

  The closer they got to their houses, the darker and emptier the road grew, until several miles passed without sign of another vehicle. Of course, this was ranch country, full of early risers, most of whom were probably tucked into bed or about ready to land there.

  The sky was full of stars, and Holly commented on them. “You don’t see stars like this in town. In Chicago, I can only see a few. I’ve practically forgotten what the Milky Way looks like.”

  “Well, we can remedy that,” he answered.

  A short way down the road, he turned onto what looked like a wagon track, and jolted them down it a ways. When he stopped and parked, Holly suddenly felt very young again, much as she had the first time they had parked like this. Anticipation began to fill her, but she stepped down on it, trying to ignore the way her body wanted to wake up.

  “Come on,” he said.

  They both climbed out and he spread a blanket in the bed of his truck. He opened the tailgate and gave her a quick boost. Soon they were lying side by side, looking up at a sky so full of stars that it was hard for her to believe it was the same sky she saw every night at home in the city.

  “It’s breathtaking,” she said. “So many, many stars. And the Milky Way is so clear and obvious.”

  “When you see it out here, you can understand why so many ancients, and even some modern people, believe the dark spot is the womb of creation.”

  Indeed she could. It took little imagination to see that it resembled female genitalia. In fact, the resemblance was quite striking.

  She sighed. “I’ve heard the legends and stories. But you have to see it like this to understand it. Didn’t the Egyptians think the Nile was a reflection of it?”

  “I’ve heard that, but don’t ask me what an ancient Egyptian believed. You’re the one with the education.”

  That stung her, and for a moment she forgot the stars. “Does that bother you?”

  “I know enough to do what I do. I read a little more out of interest. But I sure as hell don’t have any degrees.”

  “So?” At that she pushed up on her elbow. “Tell me that’s not bothering you. Why should it? You’re successful at what you do. What brought this on?”

  “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I don’t usually think about it.”

  “Well, stop it, then. I happen to think you’re a pretty smart guy.”

  He laughed and just as she dropped onto her back to resume her study of the sky, he rolled up and leaned over her.

  Everything inside her seemed to still in a hush of breathless expectation.

  “Holly?”

  She could barely make a questioning sound.

  “I can’t stand it. We either get you home now or I’m going to make love to you, consequences be damned. I’m going to light that match.”

  She caught her breath, then reached up and cupped his cheek, feeling as if her muscles had become spaghetti. “Is that why you’ve been so quiet?”

  “It’s getting to be all I’m thinking about. I want you and I want you every bit as much as I ever did.”

  “A one-night stand?”

  “If that’s what you want.”

  She wasn’t sure that was what she wanted, but hadn’t she been thinking that this might clear the table? Who the hell cared, anyway? There was nothing, absolutely nothing, she wanted as much as she wanted Clif
f right then.

  Seeing him leaning over her, a shadow framed by the infinity of sparkling stars, drove away all reason. She couldn’t be sensible for another minute.

  She slipped her hand from his cheek to his neck and pulled him toward her in an answer as ancient as the stars above.

  * * *

  Cliff had wanted to be sensible. Hell, he’d been trying since he’d gotten past his first irritation at seeing her again. In fact, he suspected that most of his irritation had arisen from realizing he was far from over her.

  But his memories were memories, and the present was the present, and he knew how foolhardy it would be to believe that anything of the past still survived. They were different people now.

  But the desire had survived. Oh, it had survived, and no rational argument or thought had been able to squash it. One-night stand? If that’s what she wanted. Maybe it would set him free of her spell.

  Because never, not once, in his life had he felt a desire as deep and wild as the one Holly awoke in him.

  He’d known the instant that he’d pulled off the road that he was going to make love to her. He had to. It was either that or go insane. He was giving short shrift to everything at the ranch because he couldn’t stop this pounding need from dominating his thoughts. Even Jean had finally said, “If you want the girl, go for her.” How often did Jean offer comments on his love life? Once that he could remember, and that had been her threat to leave.

  He must have been stomping around like a bull who smelled a cow in heat in the next pasture.

  Then all attempt at thought vanished as his mouth met Holly’s. As warm and sweet as ever, tasting slightly of the popcorn they’d eaten at the movie, but still recognizably the taste of Holly. He had never forgotten her taste, her scents, and now he knew he had never forgotten the way her lips moved beneath his, the little sigh that escaped her as she parted them and granted him entry.

  Familiar, so familiar, yet as exhilarating as the first time. His heartbeat thundered in his ears, his body tensed and clenched in time with it, his groin grew heavy and ached.