The Rancher's Request

by Stella Bagwell

  His free hand was reaching toward her cheek when the sound of Gracia’s returning footsteps sounded near the doorway.

  Clearing his throat, he moved away from her and over to open the door.

  “Here it is, Juliet,” Gracia announced as she rushed into the small atrium carrying a pecan-colored cowboy hat with a rolled brim. “It’s old, so don’t worry about getting it dirty or anything.”

  Juliet took the hat and self-consciously plopped the headpiece over her blond hair. “Hope I don’t scare the horses,” she said teasingly.

  Gracia laughed. “You look beautiful, Juliet. Just like a real cowgirl.”

  His expression guarded, Matt opened the door and gestured for the two of them to proceed in front of him.

  “Let’s go,” he said gruffly. “We need to get started if we’re going to have lunch.”

  The morning had turned out to be warm with only a slight breeze to ruffle the new leaves blossoming on the trees. Birds were chattering from every direction and the sun was beating down with the promise of hotter days to come. Juliet had always enjoyed being outdoors and she had to admit that today was one of those halcyon days that happened only on rare occasions.

  The horse Matt had chosen for her was a brown gelding with a blaze down his face and four white anklets. His name was Chigger and as Matt had promised he was far from a nag; he was beautiful and very obedient. She was having no problem controlling him or staying in the middle of the saddle as the three of them briskly clopped across the low rolling hills just west of the ranch yard.

  “I haven’t seen any cows,” Juliet commented as she glanced around at the mesquite-dotted land. “Where are they?”

  Matt was riding to the left of her and Gracia to the right. Juliet glanced over at him when he spoke.

  “You’ll see some soon. The grass is better west of here. More rain has fallen there near the river. Most of the herds are on the northern range where they’ve been all winter. We expect to be moving them soon.”

  “Guess that takes a lot of work,” Juliet replied.

  “Every wrangler on the ranch is mounted and riding.”

  “I hear some ranches down here use helicopters and four-wheelers to gather their cattle,” she commented. “What about the Sandbur?”

  “Daddy would never do that,” Gracia spoke up quickly. “He likes things done the traditional way—the cowboy way.”

  Matt smiled faintly at his daughter’s reasoning. “Gracia is right, but not necessarily because I’m old-fashioned. Loud machines terrorize the cattle and send them running wildly to hide in hedge rose thickets and dense chaparral. They’re so traumatized they usually have to be roped and dragged out. It makes for a lot of undue stress on the animal. And stress means loss of weight, which in turn means a loss of dollar. Men on horseback, gently prodding them along is the way it’s been done for hundreds of years and it’s still the best way.”

  “Makes sense to me,” Juliet said, then smiled at Gracia. “Sounds like you know your father pretty well.”

  The girl shrugged both shoulders. “He likes to talk cattle, so I know a lot about how he does things here on the ranch.”

  Dear Lord, Juliet thought. Gracia had just turned thirteen; she needed conversations about school and clothes and boys and girlie things in general, not how to rope or brand a calf.

  Ignoring Matt’s presence for the moment, she asked, “What about when you want to talk about dresses or something like that?”

  Gracia giggled loudly. “Daddy doesn’t know anything about a dress. But I have Aunt Geraldine and Nicci to talk to. And sometimes, Daddy’s sister, Lucita, comes to visit and I can talk to her. But that’s not important anyway, ’cause I don’t much like dresses—unless I’m going somewhere really fancy.”

  Surprised by the news that Matt had another sibling, Juliet looked over at him. His rugged profile was a smooth blank as he stared at the trail in front of them.

  “You have a sister? I didn’t know that. Was she at your cousin’s wedding?”

  Shaking his head, he said, “No. Unfortunately she couldn’t make it. Her ten-year-old son was ill and wasn’t able to make the trip up from Corpus Christi.”

  “Oh. That’s too bad. Is that where they live?”

  He turned his head slightly toward her then and Juliet could see faint lines of disappointment on his face.

  “Yeah. Lucita teaches there in a public school.”

  “And Marti wants to come home to the Sandbur, too,” Gracia interjected. “I wish he would. Then I’d at least have a young person to talk to.”

  Juliet didn’t miss the grimace on Matt’s face and she realized she was beginning to know the man. The first time she’d met him, she’d believed he was unfeeling. But now she was beginning to see that his family brought out all sorts of emotions in him.

  “It would be nice if Marti and Lucita would come back home to live, Gracia. But she—” He paused and shook his head. “This is something we shouldn’t be discussing in front of a guest, honey.”

  Throwing her shoulders back, Gracia frowned at him. “Juliet isn’t a guest! She’s a friend. And what would it hurt if she knew about Lucita? She won’t tell anybody.”

  With her literally being in the middle, Juliet could feel the tense undercurrents between daughter and father as they stared back and forth. She tried to lighten the moment.

  “Gracia, remember I’m a newspaper journalist,” she said in a teasing tone. “My job is to spread the word.”

  “Yeah,” Gracia replied. “But you wouldn’t do something like that to our family.”

  Gilbert’s menacing threat suddenly raced through Juliet’s mind and she stared at her horse’s ears rather than face Matt. “It’s all right, Gracia. Your family’s private lives are none of my business.”

  After that they rode along in silence for long moments. Juliet decided she needed to bring up another subject when Matt suddenly spoke.

  “If Gracia wants you to know, then I’ll tell you, Juliet. Lucita is divorced. She was—terribly wronged by her husband.”

  Gracia nudged Traveler closer to Juliet. “He was a cheater,” she added with enthusiastic scorn. “He had a mistress.”

  Matt looked at his daughter with outrage. “Gracia! What are you doing using such a word? You don’t even know what it means!” he scolded.

  “Oh yes I do,” Gracia informed him. “Aunt Geraldine explained it to me. And she says Marti’s dad needs to be strung up by his—”

  “That’s enough!” Matt blasted at her. “I can see right now that I’m going to have a talk with Geraldine or you’re going to have to stay away from the big house!”

  Gracia eased back down in the saddle and clamped her lips shut.

  Sighing, Matt looked at Juliet with dismay. “What is my aunt thinking, telling Gracia such stuff?”

  Juliet tried to keep her smile to one of understanding rather than amusement. “Believe me, Matt, Geraldine is a mother and she knows what she’s doing. Gracia is becoming a young woman. She has to hear things and learn things that you might not always approve of.”

  “Thank you, Juliet.” Gracia spoke up, then to her father, she said, “Tell her the rest, Daddy. About Lucita.”

  With a roll of his eyes, he said, “The bastar—the man stole all her money. When each of us siblings reached the age of twenty-five our parents gave us an allotment of money from their part of the ranch’s profit. It amounted to many thousands of dollars and was meant to give us security in case we had problems. The jerk took it all and left.”

  A frown of disbelief marred Juliet’s forehead as she looked at Matt. “How did he manage to get his hands on the money? Didn’t she have it in a secure place?”

  “Three banks. All in savings accounts. But her husband’s name was also on all the accounts, so it was within the law for him to withdraw the money. It happened before Lucita had any idea he had plans to leave her.”

  Amazed, Juliet shook her head. “But surely if she took him to court—in the divorce
—didn’t the judge make it right?”

  His jaw turned hard. “There was no divorce court or any kind of court. Vance couldn’t be found. His whereabouts are still unknown and we figure he disappeared to Mexico.”

  Juliet asked, “Did the cops try to track him?”

  “For a while. But the trail went cold and I suppose the law shoved the whole thing aside. Since there wasn’t a murder or rape involved, they probably didn’t consider the case a number one priority.”

  “But it was rape, Matt,” Juliet argued. “He robbed your sister of her inheritance and much more. He should have to pay.”

  Matt looked at her. “Lucita didn’t push for justice. She says her son is all that really matters to her. But now Lucita is having a tough time financially making ends meet. We want her to come home to live—we’ve tried to give her more money from the ranch, but she insists she doesn’t deserve our help or the money.”

  “I’m so sorry, Matt. You must worry very much about her.”

  “I do. We all do. Every day that I go see Dad, he asks about his daughter. I know it would help him if he knew she was back on the Sandbur.”

  In spite of his earlier reluctance, Matt had let her into another part of his life, his family, and she could feel herself being drawn closer and closer to the man, to his problems, his sorrows, his joys. She realized with a start that she wanted to be a part of them and him. The notion was more than troubling and she tried her best to push it away.

  “Well, there’s one thing for sure,” she said with a chuckle to lighten the moment. “No man will ever be guilty of marrying me for my money because I don’t have any.”

  Across from her, Gracia smiled impishly. “You don’t need any money, Juliet. Daddy has plenty.”

  “Gracia! So help me—”

  Matt’s yelled threat was lost on his laughing daughter as the girl spurred Traveler’s sides and the horse shot forward in a gallop.

  He stared after his daughter for a few seconds, then turned a hopeless look on Juliet.

  “Sorry about that, Juliet. I don’t know what’s come over her.”

  Wanting to reassure him, Juliet reached over and touched his arm. “She was only teasing, Matt. I think she—understands that you don’t want a wife.”

  “Yeah. Only teasing,” he said grimly, then kicked his horse into a lope.

  Juliet watched him chase after his daughter and wondered why neither of them was laughing.

  Chapter Seven

  Juliet urged Chigger into a short lope and found Matt and Gracia waiting for her over the next hill. Once she reached them, they continued west for another half hour or more through an area where the land was dotted thick with mesquite and shaded here and there with large live oaks. The grass grew taller and herds of Brahman could be seen grazing around huge clumps of prickly pear and wesatch.

  Gracia had been quieter on this leg of the journey, but from Juliet’s observations, she didn’t appear to be sad or pouting. Apparently Matt hadn’t given his daughter much of a scolding and Juliet was relieved. In fact, the girl seemed bubbly and Juliet figured just having her father out with her like this was enough to make her happy.

  A half hour later, they reached the San Antonio. The sandy banks were steep, the water below deep and clipping along with a steady current. Since Gracia wanted to wade, Matt decided the three of them would have to ride north to a spot where sand deposits kept the water at a shallower depth.

  It took another fifteen minutes before they arrived at a deep bend in the river where a sandbar narrowed the waterway. The bank was shaded with tall willows, wispy salt cedar and thorny mesquite. They chose a spot beneath one of the willows to spread their lunch and Matt tied their mounts nearby.

  From their saddlebags, Juliet and Gracia pulled out the lunch fixings and a thin tablecloth to stretch across the sparse clumps of grass. While they worked to ready the meal, the teenager chattered nonstop and from where Matt stood a few steps away, he didn’t miss the happiness on his daughter’s face. When she was around Juliet, she was like a different girl. But then he had to admit that being around the woman made him a different man.

  Seeing her again this morning had been like a rock lifting from his heart. He wanted to hum. He wanted to lift his face toward the blue sky and smile. It was a crazy reaction, he realized. But the feelings she induced in him were too pleasant to want to squash.

  For their lunch, Juan had made huge sandwiches of smoked pork jammed between slices of homemade German bread. Along with the sandwiches, there were potato chips, baked beans and all sorts of condiments. To follow up with dessert, the old man had packed individual containers of dewberry cobbler. The crust was dusted with coarse ground sugar and though Juliet was certain she couldn’t hold another bite, she couldn’t resist the sweet concoction.

  “Mmm. This is absolutely delicious,” she mouthed between bites of the cobbler. “Do you have a cook that made this at your house or does the woman up at the Saddler house cook for you, too?”

  “Cook strictly works for Aunt Geraldine, although lots of times she makes enough things to spread around the ranch,” Matt explained. “We have a personal cook at our house, too. His name is Juan.”

  “And Juan knows how to make everything good,” Gracia added. “But he always says he’s not a cook, he’s just a cowboy.”

  “Well, when we get back to the ranch, I’ll make a point of telling him how delicious everything was,” Juliet remarked, then glanced at Matt, who was lounging on the ground a short space away from her. “Did the man work as a cowboy? Or has he always been your cook?”

  Matt shook his head. “No, Juan has been a cowboy all his life. But he hurt his hip last year and had to have the joint replaced. Thankfully, when I offered him the cooking job, he honestly did know how to throw a meal together.”

  Juliet laughed with disbelief. “You mean you hired him as cook and didn’t know whether he could actually do the job?”

  He shrugged. “I thought it would be easier on him.”

  So the man had more of a heart than she’d expected. The idea tugged on her like an invisible string, pulling her closer and closer to him.

  Glancing over at him, she caught his gaze with hers. “That was very generous of you.”

  A semblance of a smile curved his lips, but he didn’t say anything.

  At the opposite end of the blanket, Gracia tossed her father a proud smile. “Daddy likes to help people. He treats everybody on the ranch like family. Unless they don’t follow his orders. Then he yells.”

  Juliet laughed and Matt’s faint smile deepened for a brief moment. The relaxed change in his expression caused Juliet’s gaze to linger and the sight of him reclined upon the grassy ground, his muscled torso propped upon one elbow was sexy enough to send a ribbon of heat curling through her stomach.

  Clearing her throat, she swallowed the last of the cobbler and placed the container out of the way. “Speaking of helping people,” she commented, “your cousin Nicci has really helped me.”

  His brows peaked with curiosity. “Nicci? You know her?”

  “I met her at Gracia’s birthday party and I’ve talked to her since—about a friend of mine who works as a waitress at the Cattle Call. She’s a single mother and can’t afford medical care for her little girl. Nicci has agreed to be their doctor for only what my friend can afford.”

  “Are they poor?” Gracia asked with the frankness of a young person.

  “Gracia! That’s not a nice question,” Matt corrected the teenager.

  “Being poor isn’t a nice situation, either,” Juliet told him. “But I have a feeling that Angie won’t always be down like this. She’s going to college at night and working hard to do better.”

  “Well, Nicci’s heart is as big as this ranch,” Matt said. “If the clinic where she worked would allow it, she’d work for nothing. In fact, several times in the past she’s traveled to third world countries and doctored needy people. I can tell you that she’ll take good care of your friend and he
r child and they won’t have to worry about paying for medicine. She has a way of doling out samples to the neediest.”

  Juliet knew he was speaking the truth of his cousin and from what she could gather, when it came to people needing help, Matt was just as generous. Yet Gilbert wanted her to do a malicious story about lust and greed regarding these people. The man was sadistic and if Matt knew what the newspaper editor had in mind, he’d probably want to choke the man, then turn on Juliet. But she wasn’t going to tell him about Gilbert’s plans. At least, not until she could decide how to best handle the situation.

  After rubbing her palms uneasily against her thighs, Juliet reached for a stack of dirty napkins while trying to push the problem with Gilbert out of her mind. “Well, I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to show your cousin my gratitude. I realize she’s probably bombarded with sad luck stories all the time. I’m just grateful she listened to mine.”

  At the opposite end of the makeshift table, Gracia popped the last of her sandwich into her mouth and jumped to her feet.

  “I’m finished eating so I’m going wading. Want to come with me, Juliet?”

  Juliet glanced up at the girl. “You go on. I’ll be along in a few minutes after I put away the lunch things.”

  Gracia frowned with uncertainty. “Are you sure? I can help you.”

  Waving her on, Juliet said, “No. There are only a few things. I’m going to sip a bit of your father’s coffee, then I’ll come down to the water.”

  The girl glanced from Juliet to her father and back again as though she liked the image of the two of them sitting fairly close together.

  “Okay,” she said breezily. “I’ll be down below.”

  “Don’t wander into the deep water,” Matt spoke up. “And watch for rattlers.”

  “I will, Daddy. You just have a nice conversation with Juliet.”

  Before the teenager turned to climb down the riverbank, Juliet was certain she’d seen a calculating glint in her brown eyes. But that wasn’t surprising. The very first time she’d seen Gracia sitting out on the lawn at the big ranch house, she’d expressed her wishes for a mother. Juliet supposed she should point out to the teenager that she was wasting her time in trying to be a matchmaker for her father. But the girl was too happy for Juliet to spoil her day in such a way.