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

by Marie Ferrarella

  Joe maintained his stoic look. “No, no fight.”

  Larry moved so that he was directly in front of him, leaving only inches between their faces. “Then what?”

  “Then,” Joe continued in the same emotionless voice, “this is none of your business.”

  Beneath Larry’s perpetually tanned face hints of red brought on by frustrated anger appeared. “It is if it means suddenly having the team cut down by a quarter. If you two did have a fight, just go say you’re sorry. Women love to hear that.”

  Larry had been unattached for as long as Joe had known him. “And you’d be the expert on what women want, right?”

  Larry looked as if he was about to defend himself, but then he switched directions. “We’re not talking about me, we’re talking about you. If we were talking about me,” he couldn’t resist tacking on, “you’d know that I don’t brag about my interactions with the fairer sex.” The blond deputy reverted back to the main topic. “Now, whatever it is that’s going on between the two of you, it can be fixed. You just have to—”

  “There’s nothing going on,” Joe denied. “And nothing to fix.” He drew a fortifying breath. “I just realized that I was right.”

  Larry shrugged carelessly. “First time for everything.” He pinned his friend with a look, waiting. “What is it you were right about?”

  Ordinarily, Joe kept his own counsel. But Larry was his friend. If this was one of the last conversations they had, he might as well let the deputy know and appease his vociferous curiosity.

  “That Mona’s out of my league.” He tossed Larry a bone. “It was fun while it lasted, but now it’s time to get back to reality.”

  Larry eyed him, clearly annoyed at his reasoning. “And reality’s in another town?”

  Joe shrugged. “Maybe. Because it sure isn’t here.”

  “You’re making a big mistake.”

  “No,” Joe contradicted, “I already made one and now I’m trying to move on.” He was done explaining himself. Joe crossed back to his desk. “Now, leave me alone for a while. I’ve got a resignation letter to put together.”

  * * *

  RICK SENSED SOMETHING was wrong the minute he saw his sister. Despite the fact that Mona threw her arms around both him and Olivia when they stepped out of the hired car, the forced smile on her lips didn’t sit right with him.

  He was even further convinced that he was right when, several minutes later, as he shut the front door behind them, Mona suddenly told them that she intended to take his advice and go back to Dallas. She planned to set up an animal hospital there.

  His own advice was coming back to bite him, Rick thought, looking at Mona. When he realized that she wasn’t even faintly excited about the prospect she’d just outlined, he decided to try to get at the real reason for this sudden change of heart.

  “Just like that?” he asked. “Five weeks ago, you didn’t want to hear about it when I tried to talk to you about it.”

  “What can I say? I bow to your wisdom,” Mona said flippantly, then flashed a grin at her sister-in-law. “He’ll make you crazy being right,” she confided.

  “I already know that.” Olivia laughed, her hand resting protectively on her abdomen and the swell created by their unborn child.

  “Besides,” Mona continued, quickly glancing at Rick, then away in case he saw the doubt in her eyes, “a girl’s got to think of her future.”

  He exchanged looks with the woman who’d won his heart. Olivia appeared as mystified as he was. “Exactly what happened to change your mind?” Rick asked, trying to pin his sister down.

  “Nothing,” Mona insisted stubbornly. “Like I said, I just decided that you were right. There’s no future for me here.”

  Mona’s acknowledgment that he was right just aroused his suspicions further. Mona never admitted that he was right—about anything. She lived to argue and loved a good verbal sparring match more than anyone he knew. He needed to get to the bottom of this and it wasn’t going to be by asking Mona. First chance he got, he would talk to Miss Joan.

  * * *

  BUT TIME WAS IN SCARCE supply that first day. He and Olivia had only begun to unpack when Doc dropped by to tell them that he was holding a welcome-home party for them that evening. With a twinkle in his eye, the vet told them that he wasn’t about to take no for an answer.

  The party would be as good a place as any, Rick thought, to corner Miss Joan.

  But it was Doc who cornered him first, as well as Olivia, at the party. Acting more mysterious than Rick could remember the older man ever behaving, Doc took them both aside and informed them that, “Your mother’s in town, Rick, and she wants to meet with you and your lovely bride here.”

  Rick felt Olivia’s hand tighten comfortingly on his arm. But he wasn’t thinking about himself. This could be the reason for Mona’s sudden decision to leave. If it was, he wouldn’t allow it. Mona meant a lot more to him than an absentee mother.

  “Does Mona know?” he asked Doc.

  Doc nodded, his blue eyes crinkling kindly. “Mona knows.”

  He was right, Rick thought. “And?” he pressed, wanting to hear further details so he could decide whether or not he was actually right.

  Doc smiled. “She’s coming around. It took her a bit, but I think Joe convinced her.”

  “Joe?” Rick repeated uncertainly. “What does Joe have to do with it?”

  “Everything.” The smile had turned into a grin. A large, amused grin that instantly traveled up to Doc’s eyes and took over his whole countenance. “A lot of things’ve been happening since you two went on your honeymoon.”

  “Things,” Rick echoed. “What kind of things?” Then, before Doc could answer, he had another question for the man. “Did Mona tell you that she wants to leave Forever?”

  Doc nodded. “For Dallas. Yes, Mona told me this morning. If you ask me, her leaving has something to do with Joe leaving.”

  Rick stared at Doc in disbelief. He hadn’t been to the office yet and this was the first he’d heard about his deputy’s sudden plans. He would have bet that Joe intended to stay in Forever, well, forever.

  Confused, Rick held his hand up to stop Doc. “Hold it. Now Joe’s leaving? Since when?”

  “Since today, from what I hear. Miss Joan saw him this morning. First time he’d stopped by for breakfast in a couple of weeks, according to her,” he added subtly. “She said Joe seemed pretty set on going.”

  Rick sighed. In the short time they’d been gone, all hell had broken loose.

  He looked at Olivia. “That does it. I’m putting you on notice. We’re not going on another honeymoon. Too much happens when we’re away.”

  Olivia smiled. “That’s okay with me,” she said, then whispered in his ear. “We can create our own honeymoon wherever we are.”

  Rick felt his heart swelling and thought for the umpteenth time that he was one lucky man. He hadn’t realized this kind of happiness existed until Olivia had come into his life.

  “Now, what are you going to do about Mona and Joe?” she wanted to know, asking the question loud enough for Doc to hear, too.

  As much as he didn’t want either one of them to leave, Rick didn’t think there was anything he actually could do. Considering how independent Olivia was, he was surprised that she’d even ask.

  “Nothing. They’re both adults. I can’t tell them what to do. They can make their own decisions.”

  The answer didn’t please Olivia. She leaned her head into his.

  “Look at them,” she insisted, first indicating Mona, who was walking away from Miss Joan, and then Joe, who was apparently doing the same thing as he put distance between himself and Larry. “They look miserable,” Olivia pointed out—as if she needed to. “As miserable as you and I were when I went back to Dallas and you stayed here,” she reminded him.

  He had to agree that neither his sister nor his senior deputy seemed very happy. On the contrary, they both appeared angry and annoyed. He had a hunch Miss Joan and Larry had
urged each to stay in Forever and give love another chance.

  He knew his sister well enough to know that she instantly chafed whenever someone told her what to do. When she was a little girl, she would always do the exact opposite just to show that she was master of her own destiny. It led to a lot of clashes with Abuela.

  And as for Joe, the deputy was far more laid-back than Mona, but the man had worked for him for five years. Long enough for him to discover that in his own way, the full-blood Apache was every bit as stubborn as his sister. He displayed his mindset more quietly, but the “destination” was the same.

  A union between these two would be pretty damn interesting, Rick mused. Not to mention fiery.

  Olivia was right. He had to keep Mona and Joe from going off to the opposite ends of the earth, and find a way to get them back together again. And make them think it was their own idea. That part was crucial.

  That would also be the tricky part.

  “Enrique?”

  About to attempt to approach Mona, Rick stopped dead when he heard the woman’s low voice coming from behind him. Only one person ever called him that.

  Turning around, he found himself looking into the face of the woman whose features he had tried so often to erase from his mind.

  He realized that he didn’t feel that same urgency anymore. He was married now, and somehow that state had expanded his range, made him see things that he’d been oblivious to before. Made the concept of family that much more important.

  The woman watching him anxiously looked thinner than he remembered. Also smaller in stature somehow. But she still had the flowing midnight-black hair, pinned back now. Hair that he and Mona shared. She also didn’t seem nearly as confident as he recalled.

  “I don’t want to bother you,” she said hesitantly. “I just wanted to say hello.” Wetting her lips, her eyes darted fleetingly to Olivia and then back to him. She looked as if she was ready to retreat quickly if he rejected her. “I can leave if you—”

  He didn’t let her finish. He didn’t want her to leave. The time for retaliation, for revenge and giving back as good as he felt he’d received, was behind him. So instead, he slipped his hand around the back of Olivia’s widening waist and said, “Olivia, I’d like you to meet my mother, Elena Ruiz.”

  Rick couldn’t recall ever seeing anyone’s smile as wide as the one gracing the woman his wife was meeting for the first time. It warmed his heart.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Hi, Mona, how’s it going?” Larry asked brightly when she reluctantly walked into the sheriff’s office the next morning.

  “Lousy,” Mona replied, saying the first thing that came to her mind. It aptly described the way she felt.

  She didn’t want to be here where she could easily run into Joe. But when her brother had called her less than half an hour ago, Rick had insisted that it was pretty much a matter of life or death that she get herself over to his office immediately.

  Ordinarily, she’d balk at having her brother order her to make an appearance, but the tone of his voice made her feel that something was wrong, something he assured her he couldn’t discuss over the phone. For leverage, he reminded her that within a matter of days, she’d be gone and they wouldn’t see one another for who knew how long.

  Guilt was always a sharp, handy tool because it worked.

  “Sorry to hear that,” Larry commented on her reply. He seemed sincere. “Sorry, too, to hear that you’ll be leaving us again so soon. Sure you want to go? You’ve only been back a little over a month,” he said as if she wasn’t aware of how long it had been since her arrival.

  “Rick told you I was leaving?” Mona asked, thoroughly surprised. Her brother had never been one of those talkative types who shared family business. But then, maybe her new sister-in-law had an effect on him, changing him for the better. Still, she would have preferred if she hadn’t been the topic he’d used to wet his feet after his transformation.

  Mona looked around, but Rick wasn’t in the outer room. Maybe he’d changed his mind about this life-or-death emergency after all. “Is my brother around?” she asked Larry.

  “Yes, that he is,” Larry told her with fanfare she found rather odd. “He said, when you got here, I should bring you right into his office.”

  As he spoke, Larry took her arm, slipping it through his as if they were going on a long stroll and he was to be her guide.

  “I know where the office is, Larry,” she told him. But as she tried to reclaim her arm by slipping it out again, she found that Larry had tightened his hold on her. Just what was going on here?

  “I know you know, but the sheriff was very clear. He told me to bring you right in, not ‘send’ you right in, so I’m doing just that. I’m bringing you in,” he declared with an easygoing grin. As if sensing her resistance, he explained. “Man signs my paychecks, I try to follow his instructions down to the letter. No sense in giving him an excuse to fire me. Times are tough,” he concluded with a deep sigh.

  Larry was acting strange, she thought, even for Larry. She glanced around, hoping to spot Alma and appeal to her. But the female deputy was nowhere around.

  They’d just reached Rick’s tiny inner office. Because of the glass enclosure, she could see right in. Rick wasn’t alone.

  Mona dug her feet in and stopped moving.

  “He’s got Joe in there,” she protested.

  Larry did a double take and appeared properly surprised. No one’s acting career would ever be threatened by Larry, she thought darkly.

  “Why, I do believe you’re right. But he’s just finishing up, so you can go on in,” Larry coaxed, tugging on her arm to get her to cross the last few feet. He opened the door to the sheriff’s office and announced, “Brought her right in just like you wanted, Sheriff.”

  Mona absolutely refused to budge. With a mumbled, “Sorry,” Larry placed the flat of his hand against her back and gave her just enough of a push to get her across the threshold.

  The moment she was in, he quickly closed the door behind her.

  For a split second, as she was being propelled into the room, she noticed that Joe looked as surprised as she did that they were in the small enclosed space together.

  Rick had called him in five minutes ago to ask why he was so hell-bent on leaving Forever after all this time. And so suddenly, too.

  “No reason,” Joe had answered, determined not to say anything about getting together with Mona while the sheriff was on his honeymoon. The less Rick knew about that, the better. He didn’t believe in completely burning his bridges behind him. “Just thought it was time for me to move on.”

  “Got a job lined up?” Rick had asked, giving him one of his penetrating looks.

  Joe knew that it would be better all around if he just pretended that he had landed a job in another town. He debated even saying that he’d been offered a position as a state trooper.

  But being Joe, lies did not rest easily on his tongue, so what he’d wound up saying was, “Something’s in the works,” letting it go at that. It was sufficiently vague to assuage his conscience and yet sounded viable. There was no reason for Rick to know the truth.

  He’d just mumbled his answer when the door to Rick’s office had opened and Larry had all but shoved Mona in. She’d stopped a couple of inches away from him.

  For once, he managed to recover before Mona did. “Well, I see you’re going to be busy, Sheriff, so I’ll just go—”

  Rick rounded his desk and presented his body before the door, guarding it with his back. “No, you won’t,” he cut his deputy off sternly.

  “All right, then I’ll go,” Mona informed him haughtily. She was nothing if not angry at being ambushed like this. It just proved that she really couldn’t trust Rick anymore.

  “Stay!” Rick ordered, freezing her in her tracks.

  Mona turned from the door, anger flaring in her eyes like twin green flames. Just who the hell did he think he was?

  “I’m not a dog, Rick,” she said be
tween clenched teeth.

  “Damn straight you’re not,” Rick fired back. “Dogs are a hell of a lot more obedient.” His stern gaze swept over Joe, as well as his sister. “Look, I just have something to say to both of you and then you can go running off your separate ways,” he tagged on in barely controlled disdain. “I figure after all this time, I’ve earned five minutes from each of you.”

  Mona glared at her brother, hating that he was making her feel this awkward, this uncomfortable. “Get on with it,” she snapped, far from happy about having to listen to anything while standing so close to Joe.

  “Go ahead, Sheriff,” Joe said in a far more genial voice. “I’m listening.”

  There wasn’t even the slightest hint of a smile on Rick’s face, nothing to give away the true nature of his thoughts. “I just wanted to tell you that I think both of you are doing the right thing, leaving Forever.”

  “What?” Mona asked, stunned.

  She’d expected just the opposite from Rick after the scene last night. Despite the fact that he’d been the one to try to convince her to pursue her future in the big city, he’d been very upset when she’d told him that she’d made up her mind to leave Forever as soon as possible.

  “You heard me,” Rick said, the first glimmer of a smile surfacing. “I thought it over and it’s the best thing. I mean, whatever it is you two thought you had together, well, that’s clearly not going to work out,” he pronounced with a laugh. “If you think you’re in love, you’re just deluding yourselves. I never met two people who were so wrong for each other.

  “She’ll drive you crazy in less than six months,” he told Joe, “and you’ll wind up strangling her just to get some peace and quiet, and I’ll have to arrest you. Trust me. I’ll miss you both, but I for one am really glad you came to your senses before it was too late.” He looked from one to the other, as if assuring himself that his words had sunk in. “Okay, that’s all.” He moved back behind his desk again and sat down, ready to get to work. “You can go now,” he said, gesturing for them both to leave.

  If he thought she could be dismissed like some errant schoolgirl, Rick was sadly mistaken, Mona thought, working herself up.