The Rancher's City Girl

by Patricia Johns

  “We aren’t all like that,” he said, his voice low. “There are guys out there who can be faithful—who can do the right thing.”

  “I know.” Eloise smiled apologetically. “I’m just no good at picking them.”

  Cory stopped the truck and pushed open the door. She followed his lead.

  “Let’s go find Carl,” he said, hauling open the heavy barn door and gesturing her through first. Eloise narrowly missed a clod of manure and slipped into the barn ahead of him. The confiding tone between them seemed to have evaporated. It was just as well. She made him want to talk more than he should anyway.

  * * *

  When they arrived back at the house after treating Carl’s wounded hand, Zack met Eloise at the door and headed out to the truck where Cory waited. The men had work to do, and as Cory told her, the ranch waited for no one, especially when they were shorthanded. The afternoon slipped by, Mr. Bessler woke from his nap, ate some dinner, then went to bed early for the night, exhausted by the day’s travel.

  The sun was hanging low in the sky when Cory arrived. His face was streaked with dust, and he greeted Eloise with a tired smile.

  “Hi,” she said, looking up from a cup of tea. “Wow, you look tired. Can I get you something?”

  Cory smiled. “You forget that I’m a bachelor.”

  “Bachelors don’t eat?” she joked.

  “We’re just prepared,” he replied, chuckling. He went to the sink and washed his hands, then to the fridge and pulled out a large bowl covered in plastic wrap. He put it in the microwave and turned it on.

  “You think ahead,” she noticed.

  “Always. That’s beef stew. Have you eaten?”

  “I have, actually.” She smiled apologetically. “I wasn’t sure when you’d get back.”

  Cory ran a hand through his hair and eyed her thoughtfully for a moment. “Is my dad around?”

  “He’s already asleep.”

  “Oh.” He nodded. “I was hoping I might get a chance to talk to him again. I guess there is always tomorrow.”

  “I’m sorry about that.”

  He shrugged. “I’ve been thinking about you today.”

  “Oh?” Did he know how he sounded when he said these things?

  “You know how we were talking about your ex-husband, and all that stuff earlier?” he asked.

  Eloise nodded, eyeing him curiously. “Sure.”

  “Come here,” he said, turning toward the doorway that led out of the kitchen. “I want to show you something.”

  Cory sauntered out, not even looking back to see if she was going to follow.

  “This way.” His deep voice reverberated through the hall, and she blinked, then walked after him.

  He headed down the hallway that led away from the bedroom she’d be sleeping in that night. After they passed through the dim corridor, Cory pushed open a door at the end to a light-filled room, the last of the day’s sunlight bathing it in a golden pool. Eloise stopped in the doorway, entranced by the large windows on two sides of the room, spilling long rays onto leather couches, dust motes dancing in the air. The room glowed in oranges and yellows from the tan couches to the oak floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, stocked with countless volumes. The far corner sported a small stone fireplace, swept clean. The room had the feel of a space not often used.

  “What a gorgeous room,” she murmured, stepping inside.

  “My mother used it when she came to visit. I escape on horseback. She escaped in books.”

  Eloise’s gaze flowed over the titles closest to her, recognizing several books by C. S. Lewis and some classic novels. The spines were old, bent, faded by the sunlight. This didn’t seem like a decorative collection—these were tomes that were well loved, well read and saved for future reference.

  “A girl could get lost in here for hours,” Eloise whispered. Finally, on this ranch filled with land and space, livestock, rough ranch hands and a life she didn’t understand, was a room that made her feel cocooned and safe.

  “I had a feeling you might be a little more comfortable in here.”

  Cory stood in front of one of the broad windows, and when Eloise joined him, he leaned toward her, pointing along the fence line nestled in emerald-green grass to a sagging building in the distance, wind-blasted down to gray boards. The roof swooped down in a dangerous dip, one side already collapsed.

  “Do you see that old barn?” he asked.

  She nodded.

  “When Deirdre left me at the altar, I left everyone at the church and headed straight there. I sat under that sagging roof and wondered why she didn’t love me enough to stick around, try to work things out.”

  He turned slightly and pointed again, over the swell of a green hill. “Just over there, beyond the hill, is a copse of poplars. When I was eight and my dog died, that’s where I went to cry it out. My grandfather found me about three hours later. He didn’t say a word. He just dug a hole and we buried him, right there under the trees.”

  Cory put his hands gently on Eloise’s shoulders and turned her to face the horse barn—so modern and solid compared to the dilapidated building in the field. “And that’s where I had my first kiss at the age of thirteen. The girl ended up moving away with her family, and I thought I’d never love again.” He chuckled. “Young love. What can I say?”

  Eloise looked up at him quizzically. She sensed that he was sharing deeply personal things with her, but she couldn’t understand what point he was making.

  “You have a lot of memories here,” she said.

  “I’ve got more than memories here,” he replied. “I’ve got something big enough to hold me up. This is a place to dig down my roots and get my balance. Rain and snow can’t break this land. Scorching sun can’t drain it. It’s bigger than me.”

  “Big enough to make you feel less lonely?” she asked.

  “Yeah, maybe.” He nodded. “It’s something to rely on.”

  “What about God?” she asked quietly.

  “Yeah, definitely. God’s here, too. My faith is just as much a part of this place as my heart and my feet. When you go where God wants you, the comfort is there. Do you know what I mean?”

  Eloise nodded. She’d felt God tugging her toward giving palliative care the year before, and while her work friends and family urged her to change her mind, saying she was just depressed and shouldn’t add to it with a depressing job, she couldn’t deny that she felt called to this job with Robert Bessler. She’d been rediscovering peace out there in Haggerston with a grumpy old man. She’d heard it said that the safest place was in the center of God’s will, and she couldn’t agree more.

  “Deirdre didn’t understand that, did she?”

  “She thought I could be enough for her, but her heart wasn’t in the land. At the end of the day, a person isn’t enough after all.”

  Eloise nodded slowly. If she could have been enough for Philip through sheer effort, they’d still be married.

  “What I’m getting at is, I think you need something bigger than the guy who left you. And it has to be yours—no one else’s. You need some dirt under your feet, so to speak. For me, it’s the land. For you—” He shrugged. “You’ll find it. It’s how I moved on.”

  “Dirt,” she murmured.

  “Something to remind you of who you are.”

  Eloise let her eyes flow over the room. She stopped at a photo on the mantel—a sun-faded color picture of a woman in her sixties with a gray streak in her hair, lines around her eyes. A pair of sunglasses was nestled on the top of her head. Her arms were crossed over her chest and her fingers, which were just visible in the frame, sported dirt under the nails.

  “This is my favorite picture of my mom,” Cory said.

  “Why’s that?”

  “She was always so sad when I was a kid. Bu
t this is a picture from the year before she died. She finally found her balance.”

  There was something in that direct stare that dared whoever saw it to cross her. It reminded her of Cory—he’d inherited his mother’s eyes. Eloise had to admit that she liked this picture, too. His mom exuded the kind of confidence that young women admired but couldn’t quite obtain until they’d put in the years. The fingers, dirt under the nails, drew Eloise’s gaze.

  “Her hands...” She ran her finger over the glass.

  “She’d been gardening. She was always gardening when she got out here.”

  Eloise’s practiced eye moved over the hands, slightly veined, the long fingers, the unmanicured nails.

  “Would you mind if I painted your mother’s hands from this photo?”

  Cory shrugged. “Not at all. If you want to. In fact, use this room anytime you want.”

  Eloise smiled her thanks, her gaze dropping back down to the portrait.

  Cory glanced at a clock perched on the mantel. “I’ve got to eat. The stew will be done by now. Feel free to hang out here, if you want. Make yourself at home.”

  “I’ll be just fine.” She grinned.

  Cory ambled toward the door. He gave her a wink; then the door banged shut behind him. Cory had a reverence for the land that she’d never encountered before. He intrigued her, but deeper than her curiosity was a certainty that while his answers were in the rich soil, hers weren’t.

  It won’t be dirt under my nails—it’ll be paint.

  Chapter Five

  The next morning, sunlight peeked up over the horizon and spilled down over the rolling fields toward the barn. Birds twittered softly, their song slipping in with a grass-scented breeze through the cracked window where Eloise sat in a rocking chair, her Bible on her lap.

  Her prayer wasn’t one with words attached, but a simple lifting of her spirit toward her Maker. She needed this time to recharge and bask in the presence of God. One of the things she liked most about being away from the bustling city was the chance to simply be still. Mornings like this one, when she had time to discern the subtle ingredients in that morning breeze—grass, dew, the softest hint of lilac—were a luxury.

  Her cell phone rang and Eloise sighed, pulling herself out of the moment and reaching for her handset.

  “Hello?” she said softly, keeping her voice low so as not to wake her patient next door.

  “Eloise? Are you up?”

  It was Cory, and she felt a smile tug at the corners of her lips. “Of course. Where are you?”

  “I’ve been working for an hour already,” he said. “Look, we have a sick ranch hand. Could you come by and take a look at him?”

  “Sure.” She pulled a hand through her curls and rose to her feet. “I need someone to stay with your father, though. He’s still sleeping, but he’ll be up soon.”

  “I’m sending Zack back with the truck. He can check on my dad while you drive out here.”

  “Where exactly are you?” Uncertainty rose inside her. Medically, she wasn’t easily daunted, but she hadn’t considered navigating the ranch on her own.

  “Just take the main drive. It’ll go past the cow barn where you gave Carl stitches yesterday, and beyond that, when there is a fork in the road, go right. The barrack is beyond. I’ll meet you outside.”

  “Okay.”

  “Zack should be there any minute.”

  Eloise put her Bible on the bedside table and rummaged through her bag for an elastic to pull back her hair. She glanced out the window to see the pickup truck bouncing down the road toward the house.

  She peeked in her patient’s bedroom and he was still asleep, breathing deeply. By the time she got to the kitchen, the door in the mudroom banged open and Zack clomped inside.

  “Hi,” he called. “Cory said you’d be ready.”

  “I am.” She slipped her feet into a pair of beaded sandals and held out her hand for the keys.

  “You might want to wear a pair of boots,” Zack said, dropping the keys into her hand. “And you drive a stick shift, right?”

  It would have been wiser to admit the truth. Perhaps it was the fresh ranch air or the cautious way Zack looked at her, but she wanted to prove that she wasn’t a wimp. “I’ll be fine. Mr. Bessler is still asleep. When he wakes up—” she grabbed a notepad from the counter and scratched down her cell phone number “—call me here.”

  “Sure.” Zach grinned. “Cory’s waiting.”

  Eloise headed outside and trotted down the steps. She pulled open the heavy door and hopped up into the cab. This was a big vehicle, and she looked over the dash uncertainly. She hadn’t driven a stick shift since her father taught her at the age of sixteen. She pushed in the clutch and turned the key, and the truck rumbled to life.

  “Easy peasy,” she said to herself, more confidence in her words than her tone, and she put the truck into Reverse and eased backward. She wasn’t used to such a big vehicle, and she silently thanked God that there was nothing behind her to steer around. As she pulled onto the road, she lurched a few times when she didn’t shift properly, but she was getting the hang of it as she bounced over a pothole and the rising sun slanted its beams straight into her eyes.

  Eloise squinted and shaded her eyes as she passed the cow barn. A few curious cows looked up at her, chewing their cuds as they ambled out of the barn, a ranch hand behind them, slapping their hindquarters to keep them moving.

  The fork in the road came up quicker than she had expected, and she slammed on the brakes, forgot to clutch and the engine died. She grumbled to herself, started it again and eased around the corner. The barrack was visible at the top of a gentle incline, and she drove the rest of the way without incident. As she eased up to the low building and parked, the front door opened and Cory stepped out.

  The barrack was a low, long building with windows along the side, dormitory-style. There was no embellishment, no veranda, just brown siding and a gently sloping roof. Cory stood in the doorway, one thumb hooked in a belt loop.

  “Good morning,” Eloise said, hopping out. “Where is the sick man?”

  “Inside.” He nodded toward the building. “I forgot to ask if you drove a stick.”

  “I do now.” She shot him a grin.

  “Cute sandals.”

  She noted the wry tone, and Eloise eyed him curiously as he looked down at the delicate copper-and-orange beading. It was her favorite pair, pretty and feminine. “What’s wrong with them?”

  “Nothing. They’ll last about a day and a half, though. Hope you don’t mind ruining them.”

  Eloise smiled and shook her head. “I’m fine. What’s the worst that can happen?”

  Everyone seemed just a little too concerned with her footwear this morning. They really should be more concerned about that truck’s transmission when she was through with it. She followed Cory inside and looked around. There were two hallways lined with doors, with one open at the end of the hallway.

  Cory raised his voice to say, “Lady in the house, boys!” and the door at the end slammed shut.

  “That’s the shower and one of the bathrooms,” Cory said. “Chad is in the room over here.”

  Cory knocked on a door, then opened it without waiting for response. When Eloise stepped inside, she could see why. A man lay in bed, his face ashen, a white ice-cream bucket beside him. He moaned and leaned over, spitting into the bucket. He sported a black eye and one finger was bruised and swollen.

  “Oh my,” Eloise murmured, moving to his side. The room was stuffy and smelled of alcohol. “Big night drinking?” she asked, putting a cool hand on the man’s sweaty head.

  Chad didn’t answer but spat again into the bucket. Eloise looked up at Cory, but Cory’s expression was impassive.

  “What happened to your hand?” she asked.

/>   Chad shook his head slowly, then stopped the motion and moaned. “Took a swing at a guy and missed. They said I hit a wall instead.”

  She examined the knuckles and the swollen finger. It was broken. She bandaged his hand with the materials from the first aid kit and laid it gently across his chest.

  “Other than his hand, I think it’s just a hangover,” Eloise said. “But people can get alcohol poisoning this way.”

  “Yeah, I know. I just want to make sure he’s okay,” Cory said.

  “I’m sorry, boss,” Chad said. “Won’t happen again.”

  “Just do as the lady says,” Cory replied and leaned back against the doorframe, crossing his arms over his chest. He looked annoyed, and Eloise turned back to Chad.

  She took a minute to administer an antinausea medication from the medicine chest but held back on a painkiller. She knew Chad would still have a good amount of alcohol in his bloodstream, and she didn’t want to mix the two.

  “You’re going to feel pretty miserable,” Eloise told him. “Stay in bed. I want you to drink as much water as you can keep down, and I’ll bring you some weak tea. That seems to help settle a stomach. You can’t take a painkiller for your finger until the alcohol is out of your system.”

  Chad nodded, his eyes shut and his lips white. “Thanks, ma’am.”

  “I’ll bring you the tea in a while,” Cory said. “Get some rest.”

  Eloise rose and went to the sink to wash her hands. Before exiting the room, she heaved open the window for some fresh air.

  “Do you get this often?” Eloise asked as Cory closed the door behind them.

  “I don’t allow drinking on my ranch,” Cory replied quietly. “Once Chad is able to stand upright, I’ll fire him.”

  Cory’s voice was low but firm. Tension rippled along his jaw line, and he glanced down at her when he noticed her scrutiny.

  “I’ve got to have standards,” he said.

  Eloise nodded. “I’m not arguing.”

  They walked outside and Cory pulled the door shut behind him. As they walked toward the truck, a root sticking up from the ground caught Eloise’s sandal. She tugged, hopping to stop her forward momentum, but it wasn’t soon enough. She felt the snap as her sandal flopped away from her foot and tiny beads bounced and scattered over the gravel. Her sandal hung off her foot, one strap broken.