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

by Marie Ferrarella

  “I don’t think she needs to make anything happen,” Joe told her quietly, his eyes on hers.

  Mona looked at him sharply. Was he saying that she was wrong in her supposition, or that something was already happening between them and they didn’t need Joan to stir the pot?

  Joe’s tone, as well as his reply, confused her, and for the life of her, Mona couldn’t sort out what he actually meant.

  Or maybe she was afraid to.

  So she answered him with as much evasiveness as possible. “I’m fairly sure that Miss Joan wouldn’t be of the same opinion as you if you asked her.”

  “Miss Joan marches to the beat of her own drum,” he agreed. There was a faint smile in his voice as he added, “But then, so do you.”

  She was about to ask him just what he meant by that when he turned his attention to the dog at her feet. Apache appeared oblivious to everything and everyone around him as he went wholeheartedly at the bone Miss Joan had placed before him.

  “How’re you doing, boy?” Joe asked, leaning down to scratch the animal behind the ears.

  Apache paused for less than half a second to look up at the intruding human before resuming his determined gnawing. Joe straightened up and faced Mona again.

  “He looks happier,” he told her. “Also wider.” He laughed, amused. “You did a good job with him.”

  Mona was about to point out the very obvious fact that she was supposed to be able to do a “good job” getting the dog healthy again considering that she was, after all, a vet, but somehow, that sounded pretty argumentative even to her own ears. So instead, she just rendered a careless, one-shoulder shrug and murmured a simple, “Thanks.”

  Miss Joan returned with Joe’s dinner, offering the temporary sheriff a wide smile, then shifting her keen gaze to include Mona.

  “Here you go. Sandwich, coffee and pie,” Miss Joan announced as she slide each plate and cup from the tray she’d brought onto the table. Finished, she tucked the tray under one arm. “All right, now get to it,” the woman instructed. Again she spared a glance in Mona’s direction. “Both of you.”

  And just like that, Mona could feel her cheeks heating, taking on a hue all their own. To her recollection, she’d never blushed before. Not even when she’d had what she now freely admitted was a stupid fling with Steven James during her second year in college. She’d known from the beginning that she wasn’t in love with the extremely good-looking senior, but it was college and she was away from home, free to test the waters of independence. So she had.

  Besides, like most of the girls around him, she’d found herself exceedingly attracted to Steven.

  Or so she’d thought at the time.

  But the attraction she’d felt back then was an empty one involving merely Steven’s looks and nothing of a deeper substance. Steven James, it turned out, didn’t have a deeper substance. What she saw was not only what she got, but it was apparently all there was to the pre-med student.

  It took coming home and running into Joe over and over again to make her see the difference. There was no denying that she was attracted to Joe, that she felt more than just a spark of electricity whenever she was around him. But that attraction encompassed not just his dark good looks, but the man, as well. Though she wasn’t about to voice it out loud, Joe Lone Wolf was a good, decent man with qualities that made him good-looking inside, as well as out.

  “Heard from Rick?” Joe asked her after several seconds of silence wrapped in the surrounding din had ticked by.

  Mona nodded. She had, earlier in the week. “Just a postcard that said, ‘No offense, but glad you’re not here.’” She nodded toward him. “You get anything?” she asked.

  He took a long sip of his bracing coffee. Resting his cup, he shook his head. “No, but then, I didn’t expect to. A man on his honeymoon doesn’t spend his time thinking about the job he left behind. Right now, he’s probably squeezing the last drop of pleasure out of the honeymoon. He’s due back in a couple of weeks,” he added matter-of-factly.

  “I know.”

  And once Rick and Olivia and the almost-baby were back, she was going to have to figure out where to go. Pronto, Mona thought.

  So far, the whole thing was up in the air. She’d shelved it and promptly forgot about looking into the matter. She hadn’t thought about having to move since the evening of the wedding.

  The evening Joe had brought Apache into her life, she remembered with a fond smile, glancing down at her dog. Apache was making short work of the bone.

  Mona supposed that she had better start thinking about it, about finding a new place to stay, and soon. The Murphy place might be an option, but only after it was fixed up.

  Maybe she could crash at Doc’s for a while, she thought. He had that big old house and lived in only the kitchen and one bedroom. She could easily rent one of the free bedrooms.

  Most likely, she’d have to threaten him to take the money. Doc was like that, charitable to a fault. He’d probably say that at his age, he didn’t have a whole lot of use for money. She’d have to remind him that the clinic could always use more expansion, or a new MRI machine. He couldn’t turn down the money then, she thought confidently.

  Joe broke into her thoughts by asking her out of the blue, “What are we doing here, Mona?”

  She blinked, confused by the question. Wasn’t it obvious? “What?”

  He didn’t say anything to enlighten her about his meaning. Instead, he just repeated his question. “I said, what are we doing here?”

  “Eating?” she guessed, her voice going up a little the way it did when she felt herself on unsafe ground. “Talking a little,” she added. She cocked her head, looking at him and waiting for him to elaborate.

  What he meant was what were they doing, sitting around playing games, pretending that this “something” shimmering between them didn’t exist. But instead of saying as much, he got to the heart of the matter because it was time to get things moving and there would never be a better time.

  Setting down his fork on the near-empty plate, he dove in.

  “Mona, I’d like to ask you out for a date.”

  “A date,” she repeated incredulously. Her pulse suddenly accelerated into triple time. She tried to tell herself that it was because the soup was hot and she’d just almost burned her tongue. But even she realized just how lame that really sounded.

  “Yes, a date,” Joe underscored. He wondered if he’d just made a stupid mistake he would live to regret, or if the regret would come because he hadn’t taken this chance.

  “You mean, like when a man and a woman go someplace to eat and talk?” Mona asked innocently, deliberately shifting her gaze to the food between them and then back up to his face.

  “Yes,” he answered tersely, refusing to back away. You never knew what you were missing if you didn’t try. His mother had said that to him the day before she’d died. “The only difference is that they go in together and leave together. And the guy pays,” he added as an afterthought.

  “Not always,” Mona contradicted, clinging to her perverseness as if it was a protective shield. “In this day and age—”

  Exasperated, Joe rose in his seat, leaning into her. Taking her startled face in his hands, he kissed her. Long and hard.

  When he drew back again an eternity later, the diner had tilted a little. But he wasn’t paying attention to the diner. He was paying attention to the woman who had begun to haunt his dreams. Again.

  Stunned, a little shocked, Mona waited for the electricity to stop shooting through her veins. It didn’t seem to want to.

  “What did you do that for?”

  “The primary reason was to shut you up—it worked beautifully,” he pointed out needlessly. “The other reason, well, I think you know what the other reason is. And if you don’t,” he added, settling back in his seat, “then I did it wrong.”

  This was where a flippant answer would fit in nicely, she thought. All she had to do was say it and things would go back to the way
they’d been.

  Not a single flippant statement occurred to her.

  “No, you didn’t do it wrong,” she told him quietly, her eyes on his. “You did it exactly right.”

  Mona realized that she said what she had, messing up her chances for a successful retreat, because she didn’t want things to go back to the way they’d been.

  At least, not yet.

  Chapter Twelve

  She had a date.

  A date with Joe.

  The thought still mystified Mona the next day. Joe would swing by after work and pick her up at the house. And they were going to Miss Joan’s—because it was the only available place to go—to have dinner.

  Nothing they hadn’t done before. Singularly. The difference this time was that they would do it together. On purpose, not because Miss Joan had suddenly taken it upon herself to seat one of them with the other for lack of space. Or because she’d suddenly decided that they would make a good couple.

  Joe wanted to take her out.

  Mona caught herself humming more than once during the course of the day. When her stomach wasn’t tied up in knots.

  Neither reaction made any sense to her. This was Joe she was going out with. Joe, whom she’d known since she was a teenager. Going out with him, date or not, should be a piece of cake. Old hat. Nothing to get excited about. Certainly nothing to get nervous about.

  And yet she was both.

  Because this was also Joe, the guy she’d had a crush on all those years ago.

  Work had always helped her cope with mental unrest. Today was one of those days where being busy would have been a blessing. But unfortunately, no blessings in the offing today. There had been only two appointments that morning and only one walk-in.

  As a result, the minutes dripped away slowly. That afternoon, Simon Taggert had called Doc about his quarter horse, Wildfire. The animal had gotten tangled in some barbed wire, panicked and cut up two of his legs trying to get free. Doc had left for Taggert’s ranch immediately.

  “Hold down the fort, Mona” were Doc’s parting words to her, thrown over his shoulder, as he hurried out to his truck.

  The problem with that was that there was nothing to hold down. The “fort” was almost painfully empty. There was only one animal, a cat, in the hospital area. The pet was staying overnight. Mittens was recovering from yesterday’s emergency surgery. The willful feline had apparently decided to snack on a long section of wool that was originally intended to become part of a sweater Mittens’s mistress was knitting. The wool had gotten entangled around her intestines. The surgery had been exceedingly challenging and, thankfully, successful.

  But that had been yesterday. Today involved periodic checking to see how the cat was doing. Mittens was doing fine, which was more than Mona could say for herself. Attacks of antsiness had her all but climbing the walls.

  There was no reason to feel this way, she kept arguing. This was the same Joe she’d always known. The only thing that had changed since she’d gone away to college was that he had grown handsomer and just possibly more silent.

  The only actual “business” that had transpired at the animal clinic today occurred when Greta Wilson had come in to buy Alec, her border collie, his six-month supply of heart medicine.

  Mona hated being at loose ends and not accomplishing anything. She knew she had to act fast or wind up going crazy before her date even started. So, with Apache following her around like an extension of her shadow, Mona set about straightening the clinic and washing and cleaning everything in sight—whether it needed it or not.

  The frenzy took her a little over two hours. Finished, Mona sat back, waiting for Doc to return. Since there was only the cat in the back to occasionally monitor, she decided that she’d go home early and get ready. Maybe take a hot bath in an attempt to take the edge off her nerves.

  She glanced at her watch. Doc had been gone for some time now. Since he hadn’t called her, she felt that the injured quarter horse must be in good shape. And that in turn meant that Doc should be back pretty soon.

  Just then, the floorboard directly overhead creaked. Mona looked up and stared at the ceiling. The floor didn’t creak unless someone was walking on it. Had he gotten back earlier and gone directly upstairs for some reason? Was he sick?

  Ordinarily, when Doc returned from a call, he walked into the clinic. Maybe he’d taken the side stairs and gone up to take care of something. She was pretty certain that if he wasn’t feeling well, he would have called by now.

  If he was here, that meant she could go home. But Mona didn’t want to leave without telling him that she was going.

  She gave it a few minutes. But when the time passed and Doc still hadn’t come down into the clinic, she decided it was time that Mohammed went up the stairs to see the mountain.

  She picked up her purse and checked to make sure she had her keys.

  There was a staircase in the back just to the side of the operating area that led to the second floor. Rather than hang back behind her as she made her way up, Apache crowded her on each step, reaching the landing at the same time she did.

  “Doc? Are you up here?” Mona called out when she didn’t see him. He didn’t answer. Curious, she ventured forth a little farther. She didn’t like the idea of invading his privacy, especially if he wasn’t there, but she was sure she’d heard footsteps overhead. “I thought I heard you walking around and I wanted to let you know that I was leaving early today. Doc?” she called again, raising her voice when he still didn’t answer.

  The house was old and sections of boards beneath the neutral-colored carpet creaked. If Apache hadn’t stayed at her side all day, she would have blamed the noise on him. The dog had gone exploring around the building a couple of times and he’d managed to wander into the living quarters twice. Doc had brought him down, chuckling and telling her that she had an explorer on her hands.

  The “explorer” was still right here, next to her.

  Feeling unaccountably uneasy, Mona went from room to room. Since Doc hadn’t answered her, she decided that he wasn’t in his rooms. But what—or who—was?

  When she tried to open the door to the third and last bedroom, she discovered that it was locked. From the inside. Something cold and icy slid down her spine. Unless raccoons had suddenly learned how to lock doors, someone had broken into Doc’s house. And whoever it was was hiding in the bedroom.

  Thank God she was the one who’d discovered this. She couldn’t bear the thought of Doc stumbling onto the intruder and possibly getting hurt or shot by him. Knowing Doc, he’d be tempted to feed the thief and give him a place to sleep. Kindness wasn’t always repaid with kindness. Doc was entirely too trusting.

  Angry at this intrusion, Mona raised her voice. “I’ve got the sheriff downstairs,” she informed the person she was certain was on the other side of the locked door. “All I have to do is call out and he’ll be up here in a second. With his gun. Why don’t you just unlock the door and tell me what you’re doing here?”

  After a moment, she heard the lock being turned. And then, ever so slowly, the door opened. The person in the room answered her question as she walked out. “Waiting for Doc to come back.”

  The world around Mona went in and out of focus twice, alternating between just blurred edges and a complete blur. She tried to tell herself she was seeing things.

  Except that she wasn’t.

  “Why are you here?” she heard herself asking the dark, petite woman with the large brown eyes. She struggled to keep her voice low.

  Mona felt as if the other woman’s eyes were all but devouring her. “I just told you, I’m waiting for—”

  Mona cut her off impatiently. “No, why are you here? Here in Forever? You were supposed to leave. At the wedding, you said you were leaving.”

  “No,” Elena Ruiz corrected softly. “You said I was leaving. I just walked away because I didn’t want to cause a scene at Enrique’s wedding.”

  As if her showing up hadn’t already l
ain the groundwork for that, Mona thought angrily. “He goes by Rick,” Mona informed her curtly. Anger melded with contempt as she said, “You don’t even know that.”

  “How could I?” Elena cried, frustrated. “He won’t talk to me. You won’t talk to me.”

  And she didn’t want to be talking to her now. “All the more reason for you to go,” Mona pointed out in exasperation.

  Elena almost pleaded as she said, “But I can’t make amends if I go.”

  “There’s nothing you can do to make amends so you might as well go,” Mona told her coldly.

  She hated this, hated confrontations, hated being in the same room with a woman who hadn’t cared for anyone but herself for so long. And now she was back, expecting to be forgiven and embraced? Just like that?

  “Doc thinks I can make amends,” Elena told her. It was evident that hope was all she had to cling to. “He thinks that you and Enr—Rick will come around.”

  “Not for at least a hundred years—” And then she stopped as Elena’s words replayed themselves in her head. “What’s Doc got to do with it?” she asked. “And what are you doing in his house?” The strays Doc dealt with were the four-legged kind, not two-legged. Why was this woman in his house? In one of his bedrooms?

  “Doc’s letting me stay here until I can find a way to prove to you and your brother how deeply, deeply I regret walking away from you.” She reached out to place her hand on Mona’s arm, but Mona jerked back, putting herself out of reach.

  “Rick said you didn’t walk away, you ran,” Mona corrected. Her eyes narrowed as she got down to what was bothering her about all this. “Doc’s a good man, he knows how I feel about the situation. About you.” He wouldn’t hurt her like this, sheltering Elena when he knew how much the woman’s rejection had hurt her. “What did you threaten him with to make him let you stay in his house?” Mona demanded.

  Elena pressed her lips together. For a moment, it appeared as if her thoughts were elsewhere. “Yes, I know he’s a good man. A very good man.” She let out a shaky breath. “I should have realized that a long time ago, too. And no matter what you think of me, I didn’t threaten him. I couldn’t. Staying in his house was Doc’s idea.”