A Baby on the Ranch: A Baby on the RanchRamona and the Renegade

by Marie Ferrarella

  “Very sure,” she answered.

  He wanted to reach out to her, to hold her and assure her that he’d always be there for her. But, considering this step she was taking, he didn’t want her to feel crowded or stalked in even the vaguest sort of way.

  “All right, then,” he told her. “Let me just take care of a few basic things with the horses and then I’m all yours.” Finished with breakfast, he was already on his feet and heading for the back door.

  As she turned away to clear the table, Kasey smiled sadly to herself.

  If only.

  But she knew that she had no one to blame but herself for that. And wishing for a do-over was more than useless. It was a waste of time.

  * * *

  A FEW HOURS LATER, Olivia Santiago, Forever’s legal Jill of all trades, ushered in her first client of the morning. Eli, Kasey and Kasey’s son were welcomed into the office before the lawyer asked them just what it was that had brought them to her.

  “How can I help you?” Olivia asked, looking from Kasey to Eli. And then her gaze came to rest on the cooing baby.

  “My daughter used to drool something awful at about his age,” Olivia confided. “I couldn’t wait until she outgrew it. Now I wish those days were back.” And then she laughed. “It’s true what they say, you know,” she told Kasey. “They do grow up much too fast. Cherish every moment you get.”

  Kasey nodded her agreement, but when she spoke, it wasn’t in reference to Olivia’s last observation. It was to answer her initial question.

  “I need to know if I can file for divorce if my—” Unable to refer to Hollis either by his name, or by what he was supposed to have been to her, she fell back on a euphemism. “If the other party isn’t around.”

  She paused for half a second to pull herself together, searching for inner strength. The encouraging smile Eli flashed at her seemed to do the trick.

  “He walked out on me. On us,” Kasey amended, looking at Wayne.

  The infant was obligingly drifting off to sleep, but fighting it as best he could. His eyes had popped open twice, as if he was aware that once they really closed, he’d be sound asleep and missing out on whatever was going on here. But within moments he’d given up the fight and the sound of soft, regular breathing noises could be heard coming from his small mouth.

  Olivia appeared extremely sympathetic to what Kasey had just told her.

  “You have grounds for a divorce,” she assured the other woman. Then she put it into a single word. “Abandonment. I can also get the paperwork going to sue him for child support and make sure that he never gets joint custody—”

  The laugh that emerged from Kasey’s lips echoed of sadness. “You don’t have to go through the trouble of that,” she told Olivia. “The last thing in the world Hollis wants is to be responsible for Wayne. That was why he left to begin with.”

  Olivia raised an eyebrow. “Oh?” She looked to Eli for confirmation and he gave her a very discrete nod.

  Steeling herself as best she could, Kasey went over the events of the past. “He said he couldn’t take the idea of being a father. And I don’t want to sue him for child support.” She didn’t want a single thing from Hollis, other than to be left alone. “I’ll take care of Wayne myself. I just don’t want Hollis coming back into our lives, thinking that he could just pick up where he left off.”

  “I understand how you feel,” Olivia assured her new client. “You do know, however, that he is responsible for at least half of your son’s care and feeding. More if he can afford it.”

  But Kasey was already shaking her head. It was a lovely scenario that Olivia painted, but it just wasn’t about to happen.

  “I know Hollis. He won’t pay it.”

  “In that case, he can be a guest of my husband’s jail,” Olivia told her in a no-nonsense voice.

  Even so, Kasey remained adamant. She wanted to have nothing further to do with Hollis. Dealing with him was just a reminder of the kind of fool she’d been.

  “If it’s all the same to you,” she said to Olivia, “just file the divorce papers, please.”

  Olivia seemed eager to talk her out of this pacifistic stance, but Kasey remained firm on this issue.

  With a sigh, Olivia said, “You’re in the driver’s seat. I’ll draw up the necessary papers and bring them on over when they’re ready. That should be in a few days.”

  She raised her eyes to Eli, who had been quiet throughout the conversation.

  Kasey nodded, relieved that it would finally be over. And yet, at the same time, there was a bit of residual sadness, as well.

  “I’ll have to pay you in installments.”

  It killed her to admit, but there was no getting around the fact that she had very little in the way of money right now. She might as well let the attorney know that up front. Paying her in installments would be the case no matter what the charge. And, no matter what the cost, she was determined to pay her own way.

  It occurred to Kasey at that point that she was still missing one crucial piece of information. “You haven’t told me your fee.”

  Olivia waved a hand at the question as she accompanied the young couple and the infant to the door of her office.

  “Don’t worry about it, we’ll work something out,” she promised. And then, curious, she asked Eli, “Will I see you at the wedding?” A second later, she laughed at her own question. The answer was perforce a no-brainer. “Of course I will. I forgot for a minute that Alma is your sister, isn’t she?”

  Eli smiled as he nodded. “That she is.” A dozen memories came crowding back to him. He wondered if he should send Cash a condolence card. Poor guy didn’t know what he was getting himself into.

  “Rick thinks the world of her,” Olivia confided. “And my closedmouthed husband doesn’t often speak highly of people. I can’t say I know much about your sister’s future husband, though.”

  “Actually, Cash is originally from around here,” Eli told Kasey’s new lawyer. “He and I and Gabriel were best friends back in elementary and high school. We lost touch when he went off to college to become a lawyer.” That had been Cash’s doing, but it was all in the past now. Cash would be part of the family. Eli pretended to lower his voice as he said, “You know what they say about lawyers.”

  “That they’re the salt of the earth?” Olivia interjected, tongue-in-cheek.

  Eli smiled, going with her description. “I don’t know about any other place, but they are around here.”

  Olivia smiled her appreciation at the kind words.

  Extending her hand, she first shook Kasey’s, then his. “I think we’re going to get along fine. And don’t worry,” she told Kasey. “I’ll be sure to handle everything. All you’ll have to do is sign on the dotted line.”

  “Just like that,” Kasey murmured a few minutes later as they were walking back to Eli’s Jeep. Eli looked at her quizzically, not really following her train of thought. “Just like that,” she repeated. “I sign on the dotted line and the marriage is dissolved, almost like it never happened.”

  Was that regret he heard in her voice? What kind of regret was it? Was it regret over the end of her marriage, or that she had married Hollis in the first place? And if it was the first, what did he do? Did he try to change her mind, or did he let her sort it out by herself, without any interference—praying that he would come out the victor?

  “Having second thoughts?” he asked, watching her expression in case she chose to lie to him.

  She didn’t. “No, just amazed at how quickly something can be erased, that’s all.”

  “Not everything,” he assured her, slipping his arm through hers and lending her a hand.

  She smiled at that, taking enormous comfort in just the sound of his voice as well as in what he was subtly telling her. That his presence in her life was steadfast.

  “Nice to know,” she murmured.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Miguel Rodriguez was not a man who gave in to sentiment easily.

&n
bsp; Except for the time when he held his dying wife in his arms, feeling the weak flicker of life slowly ebbing away from her, he kept his emotions tightly under wraps. It was important to him to remain on an even keel no matter whether it was an occasion for anger or for joy. The father of six always met both in the same manner. With thoughtful reserve.

  But today was different.

  Today his youngest born, his baby, his Alma, was getting married. The first of his children to do so. And, he realized as emotions vied for space within him, all but choking him, she looked absolutely beautiful in her mother’s wedding gown.

  He’d known Alma was going to be wearing it. He was the one who had offered to take it down for her from the attic.

  But he hadn’t seen her in it.

  Until now.

  He hadn’t expected her to look so much like his young bride had all those many years ago.

  Long-ago yesterday, he thought now, because that was what it felt like. As if he and Dolores had just exchanged their vows yesterday.

  It was hard to believe that a lifetime had passed since then.

  He hadn’t been prepared for the kick to his gut that he’d received when he first saw Alma in the wedding dress. Popping his head into the room where Alma and some of her bridesmaids were getting ready—after first knocking to make sure he wouldn’t be surprising anyone—Miguel was the one who found himself on the receiving end of a big surprise.

  It took him a second to remember to breathe and far longer to tear his eyes away.

  He felt moisture forming along his eyelashes.

  Miguel cleared his throat, trying to sound as if nothing was out of the ordinary, but it so obviously was. “For just a moment, I thought your mother was back. That I was looking at her, not you, on our wedding day. She was a beautiful, beautiful bride,” he told her. “As are you,” he added reverently, patting her hand.

  Moved, Alma had to take a moment before she could say anything to her father. And that was when she saw it, the glisten of unshed tears in his eyes.

  “Dad, you’re not going to cry, are you?” she asked in a disbelieving whisper. She didn’t know whether to be horrified—or touched. What she was without thinking, was stunned.

  Miguel shook his head, tilting it backward a bit, as if relying on gravity to hold his tears in abeyance.

  “Of course not. A man does not cry,” he told her. “I just wanted to see if you were ready yet, that is all.”

  She nodded, letting him have his white lie. “It must be the lighting in here,” she said after a moment’s speculation.

  Still, as she gave his hamlike hand a squeeze, Kasey tucked a handkerchief into it—just in case.

  Miguel glanced down at his hand and then back at her, a glimmer of surprise in his eyes. She merely winked at him, as if to tell him that this would be their little secret.

  “I will be waiting for you outside the church doors,” he told her. Then, after a sweeping glance that took in all of the other bridesmaids, all women who had grown up in Forever—except for Olivia Santiago, the sheriff’s wife—he put his hand on the doorknob, ready to leave. “Ladies,” he said politely, bowing his head as a sign of respect, “I will see you all inside.”

  “Your father looks very happy about you marrying Cash,” Kasey commented.

  Although not a bridesmaid, Kasey had offered to be a last-minute gofer for Eli’s sister. Not encumbered by the flowing gray-blue bridesmaid’s dress, she pointed out that she could move around far more easily than the members of the bridal party.

  Having witnessed the exchange between Alma and Miguel, Kasey couldn’t help wondering what that felt like, having a father, much less one who so visibly approved of her and what she was doing. One who was so completely invested in her happiness.

  Her own father had been nothing like that. If anything, he’d seemed resentful of her, of the attention she’d received from her mother when she was very young. Attention that he felt had been taken away from him. Some men were just not cut out to be fathers and he was one of them.

  Like Hollis, she thought, although at the time, when she’d happily accepted his proposal that night and fled her father’s house, she hadn’t even been thinking about that possibility.

  Her father was dead now, but she found herself wondering if, like the sheriff’s mother, he would have attempted to make amends for his obvious shortcomings. Would he have professed to regret his actions the way she had?

  The sheriff and his sister, Ramona, the town veterinarian now that her mentor had retired, had both gone through a very rocky period when their mother suddenly returned to Forever asking for their forgiveness. It had been harder on Mona than on Rick, but in the end, they had come around and softened, forgiving the repentant woman. Their mother had since become a very important person in their lives, watching their children grow the way she hadn’t when they had been that age.

  It was the sheriff’s mother who had volunteered to watch over all the children today so that their parents could have a few hours of enjoyment at the wedding.

  Some stories did have happy endings, Kasey thought. Would hers?

  “Your father looked really very moved to see you in that wedding dress,” she commented to Alma as she helped her with the full-length veil, spreading it out so that it didn’t get tangled underfoot.

  Alma was silent for a moment, solemnly scrutinizing her reflection in the mirror. The young woman looking back was her—and it wasn’t.

  “I hadn’t realized how much I looked like my mother,” Alma said in a quiet voice. It had taken her father’s shaken observation to make her see that. “Funny, growing up, I didn’t think I looked a thing like her.”

  “That’s because, growing up, you were always covered with dirt, running after all of us and trying so hard to compete,” Eli said.

  After running into his father just now and hearing what he’d said about Alma, Eli wanted to see the resemblance to his mother for himself. Standing in the doorway now, he could see both sides of his sister, thanks to the position of the full length, wood-framed mirror in the room.

  Although he had obviously only seen photographs from that day, he could see an eerie similarity between his one-time tomboy sister and the genteel, dark-eyed woman who had been their mother.

  Alma turned from the mirror. “What do you mean, ‘trying’ to compete?” she challenged, pretending to rise to the bait. “I usually beat all of you boys—especially you.”

  “You didn’t beat me,” he corrected. “I just felt sorry for you and didn’t want to be the one who delivered a final death blow to that ‘fragile’ ego of yours,” he informed her with a laugh. Walking into the room, Eli paused for a second, taking in the full effect of the vision his sister cast. “Dad’s right. You do look beautiful, Alma,” he acknowledged, becoming serious for just a moment. “Cash is a lucky guy.”

  Alma could feel herself growing emotional, just as her father had earlier. She’d promised herself to keep a tight rein on her more sensitive feelings. Tears just ruined makeup.

  “Don’t be nice to me, Eli,” she chided. “You know I don’t know what to do when you’re nice to me.” Alma blinked several times, warding away the tears that threatened to betray her.

  He took her words in stride and nodded. “Okay, I’ll go get a switch and beat you with it. Be right back,” he promised, backing away.

  Watching the exchange between Eli and his sister, Kasey realized all over again what a very special man he really was. And how very lucky she was to have him in her life, however briefly that turned out to be.

  Don’t go there now, she chastised herself. Nothing good’ll come of it. Just enjoy the moment and pray it continues.

  On his way out, Eli paused by her. Raising his voice, he said to his sister, “If you’re through with Kasey, I’d like to steal her back for a while.”

  “I’m all set,” Alma announced. “She’s free to do whatever she wants.” Glancing in her direction, Alma said, “Thanks for your help, Kasey.”
/>   “I did next to nothing,” Kasey protested.

  “Nothing’s good,” Eli quipped, only to have his shoulder hit. “Hey, careful,” he chided. “I bruise easily.”

  But curiosity kept Kasey from verbally sparring with him. Turning toward Eli so that she blocked anyone’s visual access to him, she asked in a lowered voice, “What’s wrong?” There was uneasy anticipation in her eyes as she waited for him to say something.

  “Nothing,” he whispered in her ear. “I just want you to myself, that’s all.”

  A warm glow, initiated by the feel of his breath against her ear and neck and fed by his words, spread rapidly through her.

  Her heart swelling despite all her logical reasoning, Kasey grinned. “Careful what you wish for,” she whispered back.

  That might be true, at times, in other cases, Eli thought, but not in this one. Because right at this precious moment, he was happier than he could ever remember. The girl he’d been in love with since forever was right next to him when he woke up each morning and when he went to bed each night.

  And he was absolutely crazy about her son. When things settled down a little after Alma’s wedding and after Kasey’s divorce was finalized, he was going to ask her to marry him. And if she said yes—he didn’t want to think about how he would feel if she turned him down—he would ask her if she had any objections to his adopting Wayne and making the boy his son in the eyes of the law.

  He couldn’t think of anything he wanted more, the perfect woman and the perfect family. That would be all he’d need.

  Ever.

  But for now, Eli kept his thoughts to himself, not wanting to make Kasey feel as if he was rushing her. Even without words, he was fairly certain that she knew how he felt about her. He knew it was certainly there, in his eyes, every time they made love, or laughed together, or just shared a quiet moment together. He couldn’t hide his love for her, not even if his very life depended on it.

  She had become very important to his world.

  Hell, she was his world.