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

by Marie Ferrarella

  “So much for staying dry,” Mona muttered under her breath as she moved aside after a large splotch of rain had hit her on her forehead.

  Rubbing his hands together to warm them, Joe gave her an amused look. “You just have to make sure you don’t stand under any of the holes in the roof.”

  “Brilliant as always.” Her voice dripped with sarcasm. “Did you figure that out all by yourself?”

  Joe’s expression remained stoic and gave nothing away. He deflected the sarcasm with a mild observation as he pointed out, “I’m not the one getting rained on.”

  Mona struggled with her temper. He wasn’t the reason she was in this mood. She’d planned on surprising Rick with her early arrival. He thought she was coming in a couple of weeks, just in time for his wedding. She had sped things up on her end, taking her license exam earlier rather than later, so that she could come and lend a hand in the preparations. Her almost-sister-in-law was six months pregnant and most likely not up to the rigors involved in preparing for a wedding.

  Mona knew that a lot of the town was probably willing to pitch in and help, especially Miss Joan who ran the diner and knew everyone’s business. But Rick was her only brother, her only family, and she wanted very much to be part of all this. Wanted, she supposed, to be assured that even after the wedding, she would still be a part of his life.

  It was all well and good for her to go gallivanting out of town for long spates of time as long as she knew that Rick would be there when she got back. But the thought that he might not be, that he could go off and have a life that didn’t directly include her, rattled Mona to her very core.

  Changing the subject in her attempt to get back on a more even keel, Mona frowned. She zigzagged across the small room and looked around at her surroundings in the limited light. There was hardly any furniture and what did exist was falling apart.

  “Can you imagine living here?” she asked Joe, marveling at the poor quality of life the last inhabitants of the cabin must have had.

  “I’ve seen worse,” Joe replied matter-of-factly.

  Mona bit her tongue. She could have kicked herself. For a moment, she’d forgotten that he’d spent his early years living on the reservation where poverty and deprivation had been a vivid part of everyday life, not just for Joe, but for everyone there. More than likely, she realized, he’d grown up in a place like this.

  She hadn’t meant to insult him.

  Mona pressed her lips together as she turned to look at him. An apology hovered on her tongue.

  “Joe, I didn’t mean—”

  He didn’t want to hear it. Didn’t want to glimpse the pity he was certain would come into her eyes, accompanying whatever words would ease her conscience. He wasn’t proud of his background, but he wasn’t ashamed if it, either. It was what it was. And what it was now was behind him.

  Joe waved his hand, dismissing what she was about to say. “Forget it.”

  Turning his back to her, he focused his attention on the fireplace. Specifically, on making it useful. Squatting down, he angled his head to try to look up the chimney.

  Curious, Mona came up behind him. “What are you doing?”

  “Trying to see if the chimney’s blocked. Last thing you want, if I get a fire going, is to have smoke filling this room.” He leaned in a little farther. “Damn,” he uttered sharply, pulling back.

  Mona moved quickly to get out of his way. “Is it blocked?” she guessed.

  “No,” he muttered almost grudgingly, “the chimney’s clear.”

  “Okay, I’ll bite,” she said gamely. “Why are you cursing?”

  Disgusted, he rose to his feet for a moment. “Because I wasn’t expecting to be hit with big fat raindrops.” The last one had been a direct hit into his eye.

  Mona laughed. “Especially dirty ones,” she observed. He looked at her quizzically. With a flourish, Mona pulled a handkerchief out of the back pocket of her jeans. “Hold still,” she ordered.

  “Why?” he asked suspiciously. Mona was nothing if not unpredictable. Added to that she had a wicked sense of humor.

  “Because I can’t hit a moving target,” she deadpanned, then said seriously, “Because I want to wipe the dirt off your face.” Doing so in gentle strokes, she shook her head. “God, but you’ve gotten to be really distrusting since I was last home.”

  “No, I haven’t,” he protested.

  Saying that, he took the handkerchief from her and wiped his own face. He told himself it was in the interest of efficiency and that reacting to the way she stroked his face with the handkerchief had nothing to do with it. Some lies, he argued, were necessary, even if they were transparent.

  “I never trusted you in the first place.” He raised his chin a little, presenting his face for Mona’s scrutiny. “Did I get it all?”

  “Why ask me?” she asked innocently. “After all, I could be lying.”

  “True,” he agreed, “but seeing as how you’re the only one around this cabin besides me who talks, I have no choice. You’ll have to do.”

  “You look fine,” she told him, playfully running her index finger down his cheek. “You got it all, Deputy Lone Wolf.”

  He held out the handkerchief to her. “Thanks.” When she took it from him, Joe turned his attention back to the fireplace and getting a fire going. There was kindling beside the stone fireplace. It didn’t appear to be that old. Someone had obviously been here and used the fireplace since the last owner had vacated the premises. He shifted several pieces, positioning them in the hearth.

  Mona went over to the lone window that faced the front of the house and looked out. The rain seemed to be coming down even harder, if that was possible. She shivered slightly, not so much from the cold as from the feeling of isolation.

  “Think this’ll last all night?” she asked Joe, still staring out the window.

  He hefted another log, putting it on top of the others. “That’s what they say.”

  She didn’t like the sound of that. Turning away from the window, she addressed her words to his back. “You mean, we have to stay here until morning?”

  Joe fished a book of matches out of his front pocket. He didn’t smoke anymore, hadn’t for years now, but he still liked to have a book of matches in his possession. You never knew when they might come in handy—like now. He had no patience with the old ways when it came to making fire, even though, when push came to shove, he was good at it.

  “Unless you want to risk being caught in a flash flood the way we almost were back there.”

  She sighed, moving about restlessly. The cabin was sinking into darkness and although she’d grown up in Forever, this setup was disquieting.

  “Not exactly the way I pictured spending my first night back home,” she told him.

  “You mean, stranded and hungry?” he guessed.

  “For openers,” she agreed. Mona ran her hand along her extremely flat abdomen. It had been rumbling for a while now.

  He crossed to her. It might have been her imagination, but Joe seemed somehow taller to her in this cabin.

  “When did you eat last?” he wanted to know.

  “This morning. I skipped lunch to get an early start driving down to Forever.” It had seemed like a good idea at the time. She hadn’t bothered to listen to the weather forecast. She wished she had now. “I figured I’d be in time to grab a late lunch at Miss Joan’s,” she added. Miss Joan, the owner of the diner, had been a fixture around Forever for as long as she could remember.

  Arms wrapped around her to ward off the chill, Mona glanced around the cabin’s main room again. “Doesn’t look as if there’s been food around here for a good long while.”

  “Except for maybe the four-footed kind,” Joe interjected as the sound of something small and swift was heard rustling toward the rear of the room. A rat?

  “I’ll pass, thanks,” she muttered. She wasn’t that hungry yet, Mona thought. She preferred meals that didn’t deliver themselves.

  “You sure?” Joe aske
d, a hint of a grin on his lips. “I hear that squirrels and possums taste just like—”

  “Chicken, yes, I’ve heard the same myth,” she said, cutting him off. “I’ll let you know if I get that hungry. I’m not there yet.” And hopefully never would be, she added silently.

  He looked mildly amused. “Suit yourself.”

  “What, you’re willing to eat a squirrel?” she challenged. He couldn’t be serious, she thought. Joe knew better than that. “They’re full of diseases. You won’t have any idea what you’re swallowing,” she insisted.

  “Yeah, I will,” he said.

  Was he just trying to bait her? And then she realized that Joe was walking toward the door. He couldn’t be going out—or could he? “Where are you going?” she wanted to know.

  “To my Jeep to get the dinner I was bringing home from Miss Joan’s.”

  “You had food all this time and you let me go on about the rodents?” she demanded.

  “Never known anyone to be able to stop you once you got wound up,” he pointed out. “I figured I’d just wait it out, like the storm. Be right back,” he told her. He opened the door only as much as he had to in order to slip out.

  He heard her muttering a few choice words aimed in his direction before the wind carried them away.

  Making his way to the Jeep, Joe smiled to himself. Yup, same old Mona. There was a comfort in that.

  Chapter Three

  Wind and rain accompanied Joe’s reentry into the cabin several minutes later. Mona was quick to throw her weight against the door in order to shut it again.

  “Took you long enough,” she commented, hoping to divert his attention from the fact that she had been right next to the door, waiting for his return. Her concern had nothing to do with hunger. But there was no way she was about to admit that.

  “I’ll move faster next time.” Opening his jacket, he took out the prize and placed it on the rickety kitchen table. The next moment, he shed the jacket and spread it out in front of the fireplace. With any luck, it would be dry by morning.

  “Any sign of the storm breaking up?” she asked hopefully. She really wanted to be in town before nightfall.

  Joe shook his head. “If anything, it’s getting worse,” he told her.

  Frowning, Mona glanced at the food he’d braved the elements to bring in.

  “This is all that you eat?” she asked incredulously. The only thing on the table was a roast-beef sandwich, perched on a bed of wax paper.

  “I wasn’t planning on having to share it with anyone,” Joe said a little defensively.

  “Share?” she repeated. “It’s not big enough for one person, let alone two.” The man was six-two with a far better than average build. Didn’t that take some kind of decent fuel to maintain? “Don’t you get hungry?”

  Wide, strong shoulders rose and then fell carelessly beneath his deputy’s shirt. The material strained against his biceps.

  “Not really,” he answered. “Eating’s never been a big deal for me.”

  It wasn’t exactly a new revelation. Thinking back, she knew that no one could ever accuse Joe of consuming too much. He’s always had the build of a rock-hard athlete without so much as an ounce of fat to spare. It was the reason that so many girls drooled over him. Or at least one of the reasons, she amended. The fact that he had brooding good looks didn’t exactly hurt.

  Joe didn’t sit down at the table. Instead, he pushed the sandwich toward her. “You can have most of it if you like. I’m not really hungry.”

  Well, she was. While tempted to take him at his word, Mona didn’t really believe him. He was just being Joe and that entailed being quietly noble. She wasn’t about to take advantage of that. Hungry or not, it didn’t seem fair.

  “When did you last eat?” she asked him, repeating the question that Joe had put to her less than a few minutes ago.

  He didn’t even bother trying to remember, shrugging off the question. “I don’t know.” He made a vague gesture with his hand. “I don’t live by a clock when it comes to food. I eat when I’m hungry, I don’t when I’m not.”

  “We’ll split it,” she declared, her tone saying that she wasn’t about to take no for an answer and she was done discussing it. Gingerly sitting down on one of the two chairs, Mona picked up the half closest to her.

  Joe ignored the finality in her tone. “You just said that there wasn’t even enough for one person,” he reminded her.

  Was he trying to pick a fight? Mona forced a fake smile to her lips. “And now I’m saying that we’re splitting it. Seems to me if you can listen to me say one thing, you can listen to me say the other.”

  He laughed shortly and picked up the half closest to him. “It’s been dull without you here.”

  She took a bite and savored it before commenting on his statement. Miss Joan’s food was plain, but it could always be counted on to be delicious. “I don’t think my brother would agree, what with finding first a baby, then the baby’s aunt on his doorstep.”

  “Technically, the baby’s aunt turned up on the diner’s doorstep,” Joe corrected just before he took his first bite of the sandwich.

  Mona looked at him. She’d known that. Rick had given her all the details—after she’d pressed him for them—when he called to tell her he was getting married. For the purpose of narrative, she’d exaggerated. She should have known better around Joe.

  “I forgot what a real stickler for details you could be.”

  “Gotta pay attention to the facts,” he pointed out mildly. “Without the facts, your story can turn into someone else’s.”

  Too tired to unscramble his remark, she took another healthy bite of her half, but needed something to wash it down with.

  “You wouldn’t happen to have brought along a beverage with your ‘dinner,’ would you?” she asked.

  “I’ve got beer at home,” he told her.

  “Doesn’t exactly do us any good here, now does it?”

  Setting what was left of her half down on the wax paper, Mona eased herself off the chair, taking care not to make any sudden movements that might cause the legs to separate from the seat.

  Meanwhile Joe had made his way over to the sink and slowly turned the faucet. It squealed in protest just before the water emerged. The smell alone was terrible. The color was a close second.

  He turned off the faucet. “Well, water’s out unless rust is your favorite flavor.”

  Since he was conducting the search, she sank back down on her chair. Her half of the sandwich was disappearing much too quickly, she thought, silently lamenting that he hadn’t brought two.

  “I’ll pass.” She watched Joe as he opened and then closed the overhead cabinets. “Anything?”

  He was about to say “No,” but the last cabinet he opened contained an old, half-empty bottle of whiskey. Judging from the dust, it had been left behind a long time ago.

  Turning back to face her, he held the bottle aloft. “Does this count?”

  “Rotgut,” Mona cried, using the word that had defined crudely made alcohol a couple of centuries ago. That wouldn’t have been her first choice, but any port in a storm, she reasoned. “It’ll do in a pinch.”

  “We’re going to have to drink straight out of the bottle,” he told her, crossing back to Mona and placing the bottle in the middle of the table. “Seems like the last owner didn’t believe in glasses.” His eyes briefly met hers. “I can’t find any.”

  Mona scrutinized the bottle. The light from the fireplace bathed it with gentle strokes, making it gleam amber. But there was no missing the thick dust. She hesitated. “Think it’s safe to drink?” she asked him.

  “Only one way to find out,” Joe answered gamely. Before Mona could say anything further, he tilted the bottle back and took a small swig. Even that little bit jolted him. It took him a couple of seconds to find his breath. “Hell of a kick,” he told her.

  Suddenly, Joe grabbed his chest and began making strangling noises. His eyes rolled back in his head. Horrifi
ed, Mona was instantly on her feet. Throwing her arms around him, she struggled to lower him to the floor. She needed to get him to a flat surface before she could start CPR.

  Mona did her best to fight back panic. “Joe, talk to me, what do you feel? Can you breathe? Damn it, you shouldn’t have—”

  The words dried up on her tongue when she caught a glimpse of Joe’s face. He wasn’t choking, he was laughing.

  Furious, she opened her arms and his upper torso dropped, hitting the floor with a thud.

  “Idiot!” she bit off. “I thought you were poisoned.” She crossed her arms before her angrily. “I should have known the poison hadn’t been invented that could do away with you.”

  Getting up off the floor, Joe dusted himself off. “A second ago, you were worried that I was dying. Now you’re mad that I’m not. You sure do blow hot and cold, don’t you?” he asked with a laugh.

  Mona frowned as she sat down at the table again. For a moment, she said nothing, just ate the rest of her sandwich in silence.

  He supposed it was a dirty trick. Sitting down opposite her, he apologized. Sort of. It would have carried more weight if he wasn’t grinning. “Sorry, I just couldn’t resist.”

  She raised her eyes to his face, glaring at him. “That was a rotten trick.”

  “Yes, it was,” he responded solemnly. She knew he was just humoring her.

  “So? How is it?” she pressed, changing the subject. When he looked at her quizzically, she nodded at the bottle on the table. “The whiskey.”

  “Pretty smooth for rotgut,” he told her. When he saw her reaching for the bottle, he advised, “Go slow if you’re going to try it.”

  He realized his mistake the moment the words were out of his mouth.

  “The day I can’t hold my liquor as well as you can is the day I’ll admit myself into a nursing home and spend the rest of my days sitting in a rocking chair in a corner—rocking.”

  He didn’t crack a smile. “There is middle ground, you know.”

  “Not for people like you and me,” she told him just before she took a swig from the bottle, determined to match him.