The Rancher's Redemption

by Melinda Curtis

  Ben was a good kisser. Better than Ted, who’d kissed her sloppily on her wedding day, having kissed a whiskey bottle first. Better than Andy, who’d given Rachel her first kiss on the Fourth of July and kissed her goodbye at prom.

  And just the fact that Rachel was thinking of other males she’d locked lips with instead of enjoying Ben’s kiss said something about the chemistry between them. As in, there was none.

  What a relief. Finally, something was going right.

  Ben released Rachel, tilted his head and peered into her eyes. With the subtlest of leg movements, he urged his horse’s hindquarters to swivel away from Utah’s. He hopped to the ground and pulled Rachel out of the saddle, almost before she knew what was happening.

  “What are you doing, Blackwell?” Oh, she knew what he was doing. She was just so very certain that whatever he was trying to prove wasn’t going to prove anything. “This is ridiculous. That kiss only goes to show we’re destined to remain frenemies.”

  “Now see...” Those blue eyes sparked. “That’s the problem with you. You’re too quick to judge.”

  “Ben, I—”

  “Obviously, this is the only way to win this argument.” And then Ben placed his hands on Rachel’s hips, drew her close and kissed her.

  This time, Rachel didn’t think about coffee or the seventh grade or another male.

  This time, Rachel was drawn into Ben’s kiss like a kid to a pillowcase full of Halloween candy.

  This time, Rachel didn’t think about being a mommy or a family caretaker or a ranch manager. She thought about nights that were too cold and beds that were too big and how none of that had to be her future.

  All too soon, Ben released her, grabbed his horse’s broken rein and led the stallion toward the gate that separated their properties.

  “What?” she said in a daze. Rachel’s boots didn’t budge. “Where are you going?” They’d kissed. They had to talk about it.

  He led his horse through the Double T’s gate, closed it and crossed the road. He opened the Blackwell gate on the other side and went through that one. All without a word. All without looking back.

  As if their kiss meant nothing.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  THAT KISS MEANT NOTHING.

  Ben had been trying to tell himself that all the way back to the ranch.

  It was like telling himself that keeping the bull-for-land trade a secret from Rachel was the right thing to do. He could say the words as often as he liked, but he couldn’t escape the nagging feeling that it wasn’t true.

  There was truth in their kiss.

  Well, at least the second kiss. The first had been more like a dress rehearsal of an opening argument that struck all the wrong notes. But the second kiss...the one where his feet had been firmly planted on the ground? His wide stance hadn’t stopped the emotional turf from shifting inside of him. He wanted to tuck Rachel under his arm and lift any burden she faced.

  Unfortunately, he and his family were part of her many problems.

  And yet, option four. They’d be fools not to partner together to face a powerful water corporation.

  Ben led Blackie to the barn. The stallion had a manner of walking that was more like an athlete’s strut after a spectacular score. He kept outpacing Ben and bumping him in the shoulder with his broad chest.

  “Dude,” Ben said the third time it happened. “I’m not sure you have anything to strut about.” Ben certainly had nothing to be proud of. What right did he have to kiss Rachel?

  Correction. What right did he have to kiss her twice? Because now that he’d kissed her, he felt the strongest urge to be by her side and to make life easier for her, which would be difficult given she didn’t trust him.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Katie and Hip ran up to Ben from the main barn with a white billy goat trotting behind them. “Nobody takes that devil of a horse out. If anything were to happen to him, Big E would kill me. He cost the ranch a fortune.”

  “Blackie was fine.” Ben handed over the broken rein, appreciative of Katie’s offer to brush the horse down and clean his hooves. He had another case to prepare for. The one against the Falcon Creek Water Company. “He needed a little airing out.”

  Hip sat on her haunches and stared off at the pasture, ears pitching toward a prairie dog poking his head above ground. The goat reached them and bleated, as if chastising Katie and Hip for leaving him behind.

  “Blackie?” Katie’s slender red brows lowered. “You don’t call a horse like this Blackie. Blackie is a swaybacked trail horse that’s so old he refuses to die. This—” she pointed at the stallion with both hands “—this horse is royalty. The monthly insurance on him alone is more than most house payments.”

  “Calm down. Blackie is fine.” Ben gave the horse a pat and received a nose nudge in return.

  “Fine?” Katie latched on to the bridle and examined Blackie’s head, gasping when she noticed the rein had snapped off. She stared at Ben harder than any opposing attorney ever had. “He broke free?”

  “No. Ferdinand startled him.” At her confused look, Ben added, “Maybe you should gather some hands and escort that bull across the river to higher ground with the herd.”

  “I would if I had the extra help. Hiring new hands isn’t that easy.” Katie checked over Blackie’s legs for injuries. “You know, this bridle is for show. The guests get a kick out of seeing something so fancy hanging on a wall. I didn’t take you for a showboater, Ben, but I guess I should revise that impression.”

  “That bridle was my mom’s,” Ben said in a husky voice that probably revealed he still missed her, if his taking the bridle did not.

  Katie stopped examining Blackie and straightened, searching Ben’s face. “I’m sorry. I’d...I’d forgotten.”

  He didn’t want to think about Mom, or worse, Mom and the ranch. “I hope the other tack is in better shape than that bridle. I don’t suppose I need to warn you about liability.”

  “Please don’t.” She went back to examining the horse, looking uncomfortable.

  “The horse is fine, by the way.” Ben reached up to tug his hat brim down and was suddenly surprised he didn’t have a Stetson on. The ride had been a mistake. Just like those kisses. He needed to shut himself in the study and be a heartless lawyer.

  “I know that tone.” Katie confiscated Blackie’s reins. “You’re thinking you’re going to take him out again. Don’t do it.” She led the stallion toward the barn, followed by the dog and the goat.

  Don’t do it.

  Good advice. Especially when applied to kissing Rachel.

  But when was the last time Ben had heeded good advice?

  * * *

  “YOU’RE JUST IN TIME,” Mom called from the kitchen when Rachel walked in the door still reeling from Ben’s kisses. Poppy sat at Mom’s feet banging on pots with a wooden spoon. “We’re making hash for breakfast and we need a tiebreaker. Who is sexier in Bridget Jones’s Diary? Colin Firth or Hugh Grant?”

  All Rachel could think of to say was Ben Blackwell, despite him not being one of the choices offered.

  “Choose Colin and I’ll crotchet Poppy a flowery headband.” Nana Nancy sat at the kitchen table dicing potatoes. Her coveted beauty salon curls were squashed over her ears, making her hair look like a white mushroom. “A pink one would look real cute with that flowery dress she’s wearing.”

  “Ma-ma-ma-mahh.” Poppy banged the pots harder.

  It was only seven thirty and a Saturday, but Mom already had on a pretty lime-green sundress, delicate white sandals and makeup. Just went to prove you could take the girl out of the city but not the city out of the girl.

  Rachel realized she’d gone looking for the rogue heifer this morning without makeup. And she’d been kissed. The world worked in mysterious ways.

  “Oh, Nancy.” Mom sliced tomatoes on the cutting boar
d and slid them into a bowl next to the skillet. “Why do you always try to bribe Rachel to your side?”

  Nana harrumphed.

  Poppy stopped banging on the pots and pans and crawled toward Rachel. “Ma-ma-ma-mahhh.”

  Fanny emerged from her dog bed in the corner, stretched and then checked the baby for crumbs.

  “If you insist upon playing dirty...” Mom fixed Rachel with a hard look. “Rachel, you’ll be doing the dishes this week if you don’t vote for Hugh.”

  The little white poodle noticed Rachel and gave an obligatory growl before sniffing her boots.

  “Shush, Fanny.” Rachel picked Poppy up, relishing the familiar comforting weight of her little girl in her arms. Nothing about her morning had been familiar or comforting.

  Except...maybe...that second kiss.

  Poppy’s eyes drooped, her head dropped to Rachel’s shoulder and she yawned.

  “Why the sudden fascination with movies and heroes?” Rachel asked.

  Her mother and grandmother went suspiciously silent. Nana ducked her head, as if the potatoes she was dicing required all her attention, and Mom moved to the refrigerator.

  This wasn’t good. “Have you been sneaking off to the bargain matinee in Livingston every afternoon?”

  “No,” Mom said too quickly, practically burying her head in the vegetable crisper. “Don’t dillydally. Colin or Hugh. Choose.”

  Sadly, Rachel’s vote would still be cast for Ben Blackwell. If only she knew if his interest in her went beyond a few kisses.

  Not that it mattered at the moment. She had other loose ends to tie up. Two to be exact. “I’m going to put Poppy down for her morning nap. Better come clean when I get back.” Rachel was in no mood for secrets... At least, not ones Mom and Nana kept from her. “If they know what’s good for them, your grandmas will confess,” she said to Poppy on their way down the hall.

  When she returned to the kitchen, the pair of Thompson matriarchs stood side by side.

  “It was her idea,” Nana blurted, pointing at her daughter-in-law.

  “Tattletale.” Mom huffed and put her nose in the air. “If you must know, we were bored one day, and I called the cable company to complain about how few channels we had.”

  “You were bored?” Rachel wanted to be sick. “There are so many other things you could be doing besides watching TV.” Any of the little things that Dad used to do, like sort Nana’s prescriptions into the little box so she knew what to take and when or pay the ranch bills and balance the accounts every month.

  “And they told me—” Mom raised her voice to drown out Rachel’s upset “—about all these other channels we could watch.” She spoke in an accusatory voice.

  “You didn’t,” Rachel squeaked out.

  “Four hundred channels.” Nana nodded, a grin working through the wrinkles on her thin face. “We’ve been having a field day.” Her expression turned dreamy. “Movies without commercials and we’re not even at the theater. Can you imagine?”

  “Call them back.” Rachel jabbed her finger toward the living room and the offending cable box. The one she hadn’t noticed was new.

  “Why?” Mom wouldn’t meet Rachel’s gaze.

  “Because we can’t afford luxuries like that.” Rachel gripped a chair to steady herself. “I don’t have luxuries like that.”

  “Luxuries?” With a wave of her hand, Mom brought Rachel’s attention to the dilapidated state of the kitchen. “What luxuries? We have no luxuries.”

  “She means like going out to dinner every week,” Nana said softly, not quite on Rachel’s side and not quite on her daughter-in-law’s either. “Or buying a new pair of shoes that isn’t on sale.”

  “Or signing up for four hundred channels.” Rachel flexed her hands on the wooden kitchen chair. “Call them back and cancel.”

  “No.” Mom crossed her arms over her chest. “We’ve scrimped long enough. We can’t scrimp forever.”

  When had Rachel become the parent in the house? Tears pressed at the back of her eyes. “You can have those channels if you give up something else.”

  “Like what?” Mom’s high-pitched challenge bounced off the ceiling. “The electric oven? Seeds for your grandmother’s vegetable garden?” Mom had momentum and wasn’t backing down. “Tell me how else we can cut back.”

  Sell the ranch. Ben’s words echoed in Rachel’s head.

  Don’t say it. Don’t say it. Don’t—

  “We could sell the ranch,” Rachel blurted.

  “No.” Nana’s head shook faster than a bobblehead on a dashboard on a bumpy road. “Never.”

  Mom sputtered, “And where would we live?”

  Again, Rachel tried to keep her mouth shut. It was important to keep the peace, to bite her lip, to make new cable boxes from a sow’s ear. But she couldn’t be like her father. She couldn’t carry everyone’s load by working herself into the grave. “Nana could move into one of those fancy retirement homes and, Mom, you could move in with Stephanie, although you might have to get a job.” They were nasty words and Rachel regretted them the moment she gave them voice.

  “You’d lock me up in one of those old folks prisons?” Nana demanded in a strangled voice.

  “I am not getting a job outside the house!” Mom looked horrified. “Being a housewife is what I do. Can’t you move home? That would save us some money.”

  And drive Rachel crazy. “No.” Thankfully, that hadn’t been on the list of Ben’s options. “You could...you could...get married again.”

  Her mother clutched her throat. “Your father is barely cold in his grave.”

  Rachel somehow managed not to point out that Dad had passed nearly two years ago.

  Nana’s gaze turned speculative. “Married to who?”

  “I hear Hugh Bellacobble is available.” The ninety-year-old rancher down the road.

  “That old timer.” Nana cackled. “He hasn’t got all his teeth and he snores like the dickens.”

  Rachel held up a hand. “I don’t want to know how you know he snores.”

  “What’s happened to you, Rachel?” Mom had tears in her eyes. “We used to shop together and have lunch in town. We used to laugh.”

  Rachel remembered those moments, but they seemed a long, long time ago. “I had to fill Dad’s shoes to keep a roof over your heads.” It had to be said. Rachel had babied her mother long enough. She couldn’t do it anymore. Not if what Ben said about their water was true.

  Down the hall, Poppy began to wail, winding out the sound like a fire truck being called to put out the flames of this argument.

  “You want to stay here?” Rachel started to leave. “Then don’t spend money we don’t have.”

  “We’re going to have plenty when you win our water back from that Blackwell boy,” Nana said, making Rachel stop in her tracks.

  “That’s right.” Mom wiped away a tear. “More water. More cattle. You promised. Your father always kept his promises.”

  “Yes, he did,” Nana added, rubbing Mom’s back. “He never let us worry about a thing. And Rachel, you were so confident that everything would go back to normal that we were confident, too.”

  Poppy wailed louder. Rachel wanted to wail along with her.

  “I’m sorry.” Rachel walked out of the kitchen and down the hall. “But I’m not Dad. I can’t shoulder this alone.”

  Ben Blackwell had kissed her. The Double T’s water dreams were slipping away. She wasn’t confident about anything anymore.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  IF THE DOUBLE T looked in need of love, the JB Bar Ranch, Jonathon’s spread, looked well loved.

  The fencing and outbuildings were straight and tall. Not a gate listed. Not a plank of siding was warped or out of place. The sprawling pale gray white-trimmed home had been built in the last decade and it had bright red and yellow blooms lining the
front porch.

  “Those flowers look cheerful,” Grace, Ethan’s fiancée, said, as she led Ethan and Ben up the walk. She had blond hair, gentle hazel eyes and the ability to negotiate the tightrope that spanned the distance between Ethan and Ben. She’d carried the conversation on the car ride over from the Blackwell Ranch.

  “You can have as many flowers as you want at our place,” Ethan said magnanimously, if with a fair dose of mush.

  Ben supposed Ethan was entitled to being mushy since Grace was carrying his child, not that she was showing much of a baby bump.

  “Flowers? Easy for you to say.” Grace reached the porch with Ethan just a few steps behind her. Once he was next to her, she slipped an arm around his waist. “We haven’t even decided where we’re going to live. A small apartment over an office isn’t the best location to raise a baby.”

  “I’ll build you a house wherever you want one.” Ethan hooked his arm around Grace’s waist and swept her in the front door. “Someday.”

  Someday would come a lot sooner if Ethan voted to sell the ranch. Ben shook his head. Sometimes his twin didn’t know what was good for him.

  Ben followed the couple inside the house and found himself in the kitchen. The space was grand, modern and sophisticated. Granite counters, stainless steel appliances, a big island and a formal dining room beyond that.

  Jon’s twin girls, who looked to be five or six, were shouting, “Uncle Ethan!” and hugging him as if they hadn’t seen him in years.

  Jon and a woman Ben assumed was his brother’s fiancée were talking to Grace and hugging her.

  Jon’s dog, Trout, came to sit in front of Ben. They exchanged glances. It was the second time he’d seen the black-and-white shaggy dog. After a moment or two of inspection, Trout wagged his tail. It wasn’t exactly the greeting Ethan had received from the rest of the family, but at least some poor soul was offering Ben welcome. He gave the dog a pat and came forward to be introduced to Jon’s fiancée.